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"Religion and nationalism are two of the most potent and enduring forces that have shaped the modern world. Yet, there has been little systematic study of how these two forces have interacted to provide powerful impetus for mobilization in Southeast Asia, a region where religious identities are as strong as nationalist impulses. At the heart of many religious conflicts in Southeast Asia lies competing conceptions of nation and nationhood, identity and belonging, and loyalty and legitimacy. In this accessible and timely study, Joseph Liow examines the ways in which religious identity nourishes collective consciousness of a people who see themselves as a nation, perhaps even as a constituent part of a nation, but anchored in shared faith. Drawing on case studies from across the region, Liow argues that this serves both as a vital element of identity and a means through which issues of rights and legitimacy are understood"--

American foreign policy will more effectively counter Islamist terrorism if it more effectively counters the terrorists' invocation of Islam. The indirect promotion of religious tolerance in the Muslim world, rather than direct promotion of Western-style democracy, is the key. To that end, the United States must cultivate Muslim human-rights activists and intellectuals as assiduously as it did their Soviet counterparts during the Cold War. First, however, it must reassert the constitutional separation of church and State that some Americans seem eager to blur. No velvet revolution impends in any case: the Muslim political future will probably look more like Yugoslavia than Czechoslovakia. But long-running internecine conflicts may have left the umma in a state of exhaustion analogous to Europe's at the end of the Thirty Years War. Ihere is, in short, a moment to be seized if American diplomacy can muster the cultural sophistication to seize it. (Survival / SWP)

This article contrasts three broad traditions that organize competing patterns of authority, community, and cooperation in contemporary Africa: the Axial religions (Christianity and Islam); indigenous chieftaincy systems based around chief, lineage, and clan; and globalized modernity, represented primarily by NGOs and the global human rights agenda. The article argues that in many respects it is the Axial religions that are the most modernizing, as they directly counter the power of traditional kin obligations (and the overwhelming dangers of witchcraft), while the purportedly modern and secular NGOs practice a ritualized version of modernity, even as they are penetrated by the norms and practices of the kin-based chieftaincy system and its related system of patron–client ties.

Godwired offers an engaging exploration of religious practice in the digital age. It considers how virtual experiences, like stories, games and rituals, are forms of world-building or "cosmos construction" that serve as a means of making sense of our own world. Such creative and interactive activity is, arguably, patently religious. This book examines: the nature of sacred space in virtual contexts; technology as a vehicle for sacred texts; who we are when we go online; what rituals have in common with games and how they work online; what happens to community when people worship online; how religious "worlds" and virtual "worlds" nurture similar desires. Rachel Wagner suggests that whilst our engagement with virtual reality can be viewed as a form of religious activity, today's virtual religion marks a radical departure from traditional religious practice -- it is ephemeral, transient, rapid, disposable, hyper-individualized, hybrid, and in an ongoing state of flux. - Publisher

OUT OF THE POST WAR 1950S, A LONE REBELLION EMERGED IN THE UNITED STATES. THE BEAT MOVEMENT, AS IT WAS KNOWN, BEGAN IN NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO. THE BEATS WERE BOMBARDED WITH NEGATIVE PUBLICITY, BECAUSE THEY TURNED THE NORMS OF NORTH AMERICAN SOCIETY SIDEWAYS TO REFORMULATE THE RULES THEY WANTED TO LIVE BY. THE BEATS WERE CURIOUS ABOUT RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITIES THAT WERE FOREIGN TO THE GENERAL POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE 1950S. THIS SEARCH FOR A SPIRITUALITY EVENTUALLY LED THEM TO BUDDHISM. BUDDHIST PRACTICE GAVE THEM A NEW OUTLET FOR THEIR NEGATIVE ENERGY, WHILE SHARPENING THEIR VIEW OF WHAT THEY WANTED IN A GOOD SOCIETY. WHILE AMERICANS RESPONDED UNFAVORABLY TO THE BEATS, THEY NEVERTHELESS HELPED TO BREAK DOWN MANY CULTURAL BARRIERS.

Includes indexes of biblical passages cited, names and subjects. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Ausgehend von der Beobachtung einer religiösen Resakralisierung beschäftigt sich der Beitrag mit der vermeintlichen Sonderrolle Europas. Europa gilt manchen als (letzte) Bastion der Säkularisierung - mithin eine Ausnahme auf globaler Ebene. Dagegen will der Aufsatz zeigen, dass die Entwicklung in Europa sehr große Ähnlichkeiten mit den religiösen Phänomenen hat, die auf weltweiter Ebene zunehmen. Es handelt sich um pfingstlerische, charismatische Bewegungen, die sich durch einen Antiinstitutionalismus und eine starke Erfahrungsorientierung auszeichnen. Diese Erfahrungsorientierung ist auch in der alternativen Religiosität ausgeprägt, die in Europa eine starke Verbreitung gefunden hat. Sowohl innerhalb als auch außerhalb Europas finden sich also Bewegungen, die das pflegen, was man im Anschluss an Schütz und Luckmann als Erfahrungen großer Transzendenz bezeichnen kann. Sie sind Teil eines Prozesses der Subjektivierung und Betonung der Ganzheitlichkeit, die strukturell zu einer Entdifferenzierung von Kultur und Religion führen.