Suchergebnisse

Roney reviews Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe edited by James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley.

The question of whether the Left's rejection of religion in favor of art & philosophy is valid, or whether religion also provides a basis for human emancipation, is explored. Statements obtained from 21 Rs are presented: Russell A. Berman, Casey Blake, Laura Boella, Paul Breines, Halina Charwat, John A. Coleman, Harvey Cox, Charles Davis, David Gross, John Hellman, Joel Kovel, Jackson Lears, Patrick Murray, James A. Ogilvy, Robert A. Pois, Rudolf J. Siebert, Dorthee Soelle, Amedeo Vigorelli, Joel Whitebook, & Kurt H. Wolff. W. H. Stoddard.

To understand modern Punjab, it is essential to understand the milieu in which devotional religion, bhakti, blossomed in India about 1000 years ago, and how this transformed society. The development of the Sikh religion is best understood against this background of the bhakti movement, in particular its Sant tradition. (SJK)

Anthropological studies of religion have been largely concerned with belief, with ritual, and with the general integrative significance of religious institutions for society. But many issues in the power relations of religious affiliation are still not clear. The political implications of religion involve grave practical as well as theoretical problems. Abstractly, religion and politics are often conceived as opposed; concretely, they interact. While religion can be a powerful political instrument, it can also adapt to political ends and generate its own political structures. In contrast to the broadly affirmative role assigned by anthropologists to religion in society is Karl Marx's thesis of religion as political ideology. Reasons for granting some validity to this position but also for questioning its basic assumptions are given. The whole analysis is illustrated by a wide range of examples, from Polynesian ethnography to the history of Christianity and of Islam, and the situation of religion in modem socialist states.