Suchergebnisse

"Democratic Norms and Religion" published on by Oxford University Press.

A review essay on books by: John M. Kirk, Politics and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1992; Daniel H. Levine, Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1992); & Rowan Ireland, Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil (Pittsburgh, PA: U of Pittsburgh Press, 1991 [see listings in IRPS No. 76]). Kirk takes a traditional institutional approach to the study of religion & politics in Nicaragua. Emphasis is placed on the dynamics of church structures & their impact on the political sphere through church membership. The church in Nicaragua is largely portrayed as a political actor interested in accommodation & maintaining the status quo. Levine takes an individualized approach to the church in Latin America by emphasizing the faith & religious motivation of church members to take personal, social, & political action to better their lives. The rise & significance of liberation theology & the Christian community movement are discussed. Ireland utilizes a qualitative, ethnographic approach to study religion & politics in the northeastern Brazilian community of Campo Alegre. Politics is portrayed as a contrast between different ways of living & is exemplified through analysis of the community's three major religious groupings: evangelical Protestants, Afro-Brazilian spiritists, & the Roman Catholic church. D. Generoli

This paper examines the intersection of religion and politics and its consequences on religious minorities in Indonesia. This paper is based on a case study of the current position of the Ahmadiyya minority group in the Indonesian Islamic majority. The tension arises from a specific circumstance: This large Muslim country uses democracy as a political system, but the involvement of religious politics is evident. This situation directly endangers the presence of the Ahmadiyya group.

This book analyses the relation between state and religion in Indonesia, considering both the philosophical underpinning of government intervention on religious life but also cases and regulations related to religious affairs in Indonesia. Examining state regulation of religious affairs, it focuses on understanding its origin, history and consequences on citizens' religious life in modern Indonesia, arguing that while Indonesian constitutions have preserved religious freedom, they have also tended to construct wide-ranging discretionary powers in the government to control religious life and oversee religious freedom. Over more than four decades, Indonesian governments have constructed a variety of policies on religion based on constitutional legacies interpreted in the light of the norms and values of the existing religious majority group. A cutting edge examination of the tension between religious order and harmony on one hand, and protecting religious freedom for all on the other, this book offers a cutting edge study of how the history of regulating religion has been about the constant negotiation for the boundaries of authority between the state and the religious majority group