Suchergebnisse

Political religion is a concept that gained prominence around the middle of the twentieth century, being associated for many with the idea of a totalitarian regime. Political religion was seen as a secular ideology whose followers took it up with the enthusiasm and commitment normally associated with adherence to religion. Comprising liturgy, ritual and the sacralization of politics, it created a community of believers, and usually had a transcendental leadership and a millennial vision of a promised future. This paper will explore the utility of this concept for understanding leader cults in authoritarian regimes. Such cults have been prominent features of authoritarian regimes but there is little agreement at the conceptual level about how they should be understood. One of the most powerful of such cults was that of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953. This paper analyses this cult in terms of liturgy and ritual and concludes that despite some aspects that are common between the cult and religion, most ritualistic aspects of religion find no direct counterpart in the cult.

Until recently, scholars of the Cold War had devoted little attention to the role of religion in the East-West standoff -- its impact on events, institutions, and strategies. In recent years, however, this lacuna has begun to be filled by a burgeoning literature on different aspects of religion and the Cold War. The outpouring of scholarship has given a much more nuanced picture of how religion influenced U.S. foreign policy after 1945 both domestically and internationally. This article evaluates four recent books about the topic, distilling from them some of the key questions to be answered about the religious dimension of the Cold War. Adapted from the source document.

"Unter Religion verstehen wir Ausdruck und Erscheinung des Bewusst-seins radikaler Endlichkeit der menschlichen Existenz und deren reale Überwindung." (Hermann Schrödter) - So unspektakulär diese Definition zunächst wirkt, sie hat es in sich. Sie trifft alle bekannten Formen der Religion und erfüllt die Mindestbedingung einer sinnvollen Definition - sie ist negierbar. Irgendwie scheint Religion zum Wesen des Menschen zu gehören, manche sehen in ihr ein anthropologisches Proprium - aber auch Atheisten sind Menschen. Hermann Schrödters analytisches Instrumentarium hat eine beachtliche Wirkungsgeschichte, aus der die interessantesten Beispiele in diesem Band versammelt sind.

This book brings together historians, political scientists, social anthropologists and legal scholars from Turkey and the EU. The authors address questions such as the role of religion in EU membership debates, religious parties in Turkey and Europe, religion and European security, freedom of religion and minority rights in Turkey and the EU

In this article, I will analyse how Nordic political parties refer to religion in party platforms from the late 1980s until 2008 in light of increased religious diversity and changed relations between church and state in the Nordic countries. Four questions are asked: (1) Does the number of issue-areas related to religion increase or decrease over time in the party platforms? (2) Does the connection between religion and other political issues, such as national identity, foreign policy, and human rights, change during this period? (3) How do the political parties view the positions of the majority churches and do they change over time? (4) What differences can be observed between the political parties in their approach to religion? The data consist of 136 party platforms from all the five Nordic countries in 1988, 1998, and 2008. The analysis shows that issues-areas related to religion increase in Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Sweden, but decrease slightly in Norway. Religion is often mentioned in connection to religious diversity and globalization. The position of the majority churches in party platforms is fairly strong over time, although to decreasing degree, particularly in Sweden and Norway. Finally, the traditional religious cleavage (Lipset and Rokkan 1967) is still evident in Nordic politics, although the right-wing populist parties complicates this picture as they tend to use religion to defend national values against consequences of religious diversity. ; Impact of Religion ; NOREL

AbstractAmericans' perceptions of science are structured by overlapping cultural fields of politics and religion, and those cultural fields vary over time in how they influence opinion about science. This paper provides a historical narrative for understanding how religious and political factors influence public perceptions of science over the last four decades. Using data from the 1974–2012 General Social Survey, the impact of religious and political factors are examined and compared across decades using heterogeneous ordinal logistic regression models and ordinal structural equation models. Estimates show that the impact of sectarian Protestant identification and fundamentalist beliefs in the Bible are increasingly linked to lower levels of confidence in science, and that these religious factors also influence the impact of political conservatism and Republican Party identification. Political conservatism has become more oppositional towards science, and Republicans have become less enthusiastic compared to periods when science was primarily linked to militaristic endeavors.

Islam und Freiheit werden häufig als sich widersprechende Begriffe verstanden. Allerdings verhindert die produzierte Dichotomie zwischen christlichem, progressivem Okzident und islamischem, stagnierendem Orient, dass das Verhältnis beider Begriffe in ihrer Komplexität und Dynamik erfasst wird. In diesem Sinne beleuchtet der Beitrag in einem ersten Schritt das islamische Menschenbild. Vorgestellt werden die Vorstellungen zeitgenössischer Denker und ihre islamisch-theologische Herleitung von Freiheitsrechten. Als besonders konfliktreiche Frage wird die Religionsfreiheit am Beispiel der Debatte über Apostasie thematisiert. Da Islam und Freiheitsrechte nicht nur in einem theologischen Zusammenhang gesehen werden, sondern auch in politische und gesellschaftliche Zusammenhänge übersetzt werden, wird anhand konkreter Länderbeispiele (Ägypten, Iran und Deutschland) die Vielfältigkeit aufgezeigt, mit der Islam und Freiheit miteinander in ein Verhältnis treten können. Die Beispiele und Bandbreite der Situationen belegt, dass der Islam ein religiöses System darstellt, das Pluralismus zulässt bzw. zu einer vielgestaltigen Auslegung einlädt. (ICH)

Gegenüber einem antithetischen Verständnis von Religion und Moderne (die Moderne wird Religion allmählich beseitigen) ist festzustellen: Religion verschwindet nicht, sie ist in vielen kulturellen, individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Bezügen vital präsent. Religion reicht zwangsläufig weiter als die Religion der Kirchen. Anstatt sich als Säkularisierungsopfer zu verstehen, liegt die Herausforderung der Zeit für die Kirche darin, ob und wie sie sich auf die veränderte Religionspräsenz einlassen will. Die Kirche, so die Hauptthese dieses Buches, hat etwas zu bieten angesichts der religiösen Suche, die in der Moderne nicht nachläßt.

"Party Politics and Religion in Northern Ireland" published on by Oxford University Press.