Suchergebnisse

Does religious behavior always promote hostility toward members of other faiths? This article suggests that the relationship between personal religious behavior and religious tolerance is not so simple. Even in the Arab World, frequently cited as a center of religious piety and intolerance, different forms of religious behavior have markedly different effects on attitudes toward minority sects. Using both observational and experimental data from across the Arab World as well as an original nationally representative survey conducted in Lebanon in 2013 and 2014, I argue that while communal religious practice does indeed tend to promote intolerant attitudes, personal prayer has precisely the opposite effect. These findings indicate that the traditional assumption that piety invariably leads to intolerance should be rethought. Even in one of the most sectarian environments in the world, private religious behavior can have a substantial pro-tolerance effect.

Das Europa der Frühen Neuzeit war geradezu ein Laboratorium des politischen und religiösen Pluralismus. In der Forschung wurde bisher vor allem der Prozess der wechselseitigen äußeren Abgrenzung und inneren Homogenisierung der KonfessionsĆkirchen beschrieben, der mit der terriĆtorialen Staatsbildung einherging. DemgegenĆüber werden in jüngster Zeit eher Widerstände, Bruchstellen und Grenzen der Konfessionalisierung betont, Zustände inter- und transkonfessioneller "Osmose" hervorgehoben. Inzwischen erscheint die homogene Konfession zunehmend als Konstrukt; Konfessionalität wird als - oftmals durchaus schwankende und instabile - kulturelle Praxis beschrieben. Der Band macht sich zur Aufgabe, einen Teilbereich dieser kulturellen Praxis näher in den Blick zu nehmen: Uneindeutigkeit und Verstellung.

The study of religion and international religions has witnessed an exponential growth in recent decades. Courses and programs exploring the complex entanglements between faith and global politics have likewise mushroomed around the world. Despite this ferment, reflections on teaching religion and international relations have so far lagged behind. This forum seeks to remedy this general silence. It brings together a diverse range of scholars from a multiplicity of national, religious, methodological, and theoretical backgrounds who teach across a variety of different geographical settings including North America, Europe, and East Asia. Contributors reflect on three broad themes. First, how do we engage with the contested character of religion as a category of analysis and practice, and with the multidisciplinary nature of its study? Second, how does the context within which we operate—be it geographical, cultural, institutional, or historical—influence and shape who, what, and how we teach? Third, how do we address the important and, at times, contentious personal and ethical challenges that our research and teaching on religion and politics inevitably raises in the classroom?

Why are humans obsessed with divine minds? What do gods know and what do they care about? What happens to us and our relationships when gods are involved? Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary, cultural, and applied anthropology, social psychology, religious studies, philosophy, technology, and cognitive and political sciences, The Minds of Gods probes these questions from a multitude of naturalistic perspectives. Each chapter offers brief intellectual histories of their topics, summarizes current cutting-edge questions in the field, and points to areas in need of attention from future researchers. Through an innovative theoretical framework that combines evolutionary and cognitive approaches to religion, this book brings together otherwise disparate literatures to focus on a topic that has comprised a lasting, central obsession of our species

Professeur à l'Université libre de Bruxelles et éminent dix-huitièmiste, fondateur en 1974, avec Roland Mortier, du Groupe d'Étude du XVIIIe siècle et de la présente collection, Hervé Hasquin a marqué de son empreinte près de quatre décennies d'étude du XVIIIe siècle belge et européen.À l'occasion de son départ à la retraite, le Groupe d'Etude du XVIIIe siècle lui rend ici hommage, en republiant ses principaux articles relatifs au siècle des Lumières – actualisés par l'auteur et accompagnés d'une bibliographie mise à jour – ainsi qu'un inédit, consacré au combat de quelques auteurs jésuites contre les Lumières et la Révolution. Au siècle des Lumières, de vifs débats opposèrent penseurs et « économistes », notamment physiocrates, sur la réalité d'un déclin démographique souvent présenté comme un fait acquis. Quelques esprits audacieux, comme Voltaire ou l'abbé Jean-Joseph Expilly, ont cependant mis en doute cette vulgate et cherché, dans le cadre du despotisme éclairé, les moyens d'assurer une croissance régulière et maîtrisée de la population. Ces débats, et leurs développements, notamment la promotion de la « moyenne culture », font l'objet de la première partie de ce volume. Le XVIIIe siècle a vu la naissance de la pensée libérale en économie. À travers les quatre chapitres suivants, Hervé Hasquin s'attache à mesurer le poids de structures traditionnelles encore bien présentes – interventionnisme, dîme ecclésiastique – dans le contexte économique parfois difficile qu'ont connu les Pays-Bas autrichiens. Il analyse également – à travers le cas du journaliste français Jacques Accarias de Serionne, qui mit sa plume au service du gouvernement – le pragmatisme des autorités bruxelloises, qui rejetaient mercantilisme comme physiocratie, leur préférant une politique de « libéralisme éclectique ». La question religieuse fut également au cœur de toutes les réflexions du siècle, et Hervé Hasquin y a naturellement consacré de nombreux écrits. Ceux republiés ici traitent notamment de la question centrale de la tolérance, et de celle du mariage des protestants – institué en contrat civil par l'édit de Joseph II du 28 septembre 1784, lequel prévoyait également le divorce –, des réalités de la religion populaire – à travers un cas d'exorcisme à Saint-Hubert – ou encore de cette « passion de l'universel » qui rapprocha certains savants des idéaux de la Révolution française. Une biographie intellectuelle d'Hervé Hasquin, composée par deux de ses anciens élèves et collaborateurs, introduit l'ouvrage, tandis qu'une bibliographie exhaustive de ses travaux scientifiques témoigne pleinement de l'étendue de ses divers centres d'intérêt.

The wars of postcolonial Asia, although often viewed by U.S. officials as struggles between Communist and non-Communist forces or between colonial powers and independence movements, were in fact far more complex and ambiguous in nature. The conflicts displayed some of the characteristics of civil war, brigandage, and ethnic, regional, and religious warfare. This article exams the experience of Phat Diem, a predominantly Catholic enclave in northern Vietnam, during the First Indochina War, to highlight the dynamics of these cross-currents of regionalism, nationalism, and religion. Ultimately Phat Diem's attempts to steer a middle course between Communism and French colonialism ended disastrously, but its story highlights several important but little recognized aspects of the war in Indochina and the nature of Asia's wars in the first decade after the end of World War II. Adapted from the source document.

This volume brings emerging research on religion and development into conversation with politics. Deploying innovative conceptual frameworks, and drawing on empirical research from across contemporary Asia, this collection makes an incisive contribution to the analysis of aid and development processes

Even in our world of redefined life partnerships and living arrangements, most marriages begin through sacred ritual connected to a religious tradition. But if marriage rituals affirm deeply held religious and secular values in the presence of clergy, family, and community, where does divorce, which severs so many of these sacred bonds, fit in? Sociologist Kathleen Jenkins takes up this question in a work that offers both a broad, analytical perspective and a uniquely intimate view of the role of religion in ending marriages. For more than five years, Jenkins observed religious support groups and workshops for the divorced and interviewed religious practitioners in the midst of divorces, along with clergy members who advised them. Her findings appear here in the form of eloquent and revealing stories about individuals managing emotions in ways that make divorce a meaningful, even sacred process. Clergy from mainline Protestant denominations to Baptist churches, Jewish congregations, Unitarian fellowships, and Catholic parishes talk about the concealed nature of divorce in their congregations. Sacred Divorce describes their cautious attempts to overcome such barriers, and to assemble meaningful symbols and practices for members by becoming compassionate listeners, delivering careful sermons, refitting existing practices like Catholic annulments and Jewish divorce documents (gets), and constructing new rituals. With attention to religious, ethnic, and class variations, covering age groups from early thirties to mid-sixties and separations of only a few months to up to twenty years, Sacred Divorce offers remarkable insight into individual and cultural responses to divorce and the social emotions and spiritual strategies that the clergy and the faithful employ to find meaning in the breach. At once a sociological document, an ethnographic analysis, and testament of personal experience, Sacred Divorce provides guidance, strategies and answers to readers looking for answers and those looking to heal

Many countries in the Arab world have incorporated Islam into their state- and nation-building projects, naming it the 'religion of the state'. Regulating Islam offers an empirically rich account of how and why two contemporary Arab states, Morocco and Tunisia, have sought to regulate religious institutions and discourse. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources, Sarah J. Feuer traces and analyzes the efforts of Moroccan and Tunisian policymakers to regulate Islamic education as part of the respective regimes' broader survival strategies since their independence from French rule in 1956. Out of the comparative case study emerges a compelling theory to account for the complexities of religion-state dynamics across the Arab world today, highlighting the combined effect of ideological, political, and institutional factors on religious regulation in North Africa and the Middle East. The book makes an important and timely contribution to the on-going scholarly and policy debates concerning religion, politics, and authoritarian governance in the post-uprisings Arab landscape