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Network identity and religious harmony: theoretical and methodological reflections.
No full textIn western tradition, identity has long been conceived of as something closed in itself, like a sphere or a globe. Samuel Huntington, for example, sees civilizations – or collective cultural identities – as closed units that are bound to clash as they meet. On the contrary, we conceive of identities as open networks of cognitive, emotional and corporal dispositions, acquired by individuals and collectives through socialization. Such dispositions enable people to perceive the world, to judge and to act. They are – in words of Pierre Bourdieu – operators of a practical logic and are based in the habitus of persons, groups or even whole civilizations. Such networks are constructed as open and dynamic, but also provide continuity; they have “thick” and “thin” areas, according to the significance of the area to the actor; they comprise any social field relevant to the actor. Moreover, this theory provides a method to empirically analyze dispositional networks of actors. Finally, the network model of cultural identity allows us to conceive of different cultures as distinct from one another and, at the same time, as having overlapping similarities. – The result: no clash of spheres, but similarities between networks. (Though circumstances prevented attendance, this paper was originally prepared for the IAHR regional conference on Religious harmony: Problems, Practice, Education Yogyakarta and Semarang, Java, Indonesia (27.9. to 3.10.2004)
The history and legal position of Confucianism in postindependence
No full textThe article traces the mixed fortunes of Confucianism in post-Independence Indonesia. The main problem lay in the question whether Confucianism should be regarded as “a religion” or not, and in this regard higher and lower laws conflicted. Faced with these dificulties, many Chinese declared themselves to be Buddhists, for the Buddhist religion was unambiguously recognised. Details are provided of an interesting case in which the registration of an apparently valid Confucian marriage was refused. However, it is argued, the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and this is the higher law. The fundamental legal position is therefore not problematic in itself, but the application of the law leaves much to be desired. (This paper is one of several which were presented at the regional IAHR conference in Indonesia -Yogyakarta and Semarang - in September/October 2004, but which were not published in the selected proceedings.
Thien Do: Vietnamese Supernaturalism. Views from the Southern Region
No full textThis is a fascinatingly valuable book on recent and contemporary religion in Vietnam, focused above all on the concept of linh (supernatural power) and seeking to locate the vitality of a range of religious practices and orientations in the paradoxes of postcolonial (and unified) Vietnam. It emerges that leaders and participants in religious activities wish to influence daily life to their various advantage while cultivating an independent "spiritual" position which is able to resist the threat of domination from elsewhere. Considering that the title is unavoidably reminiscent of Melford Spiro\u27s Burmese Supernaturalism (1967, 1978), which however, strangely, is not in the bibliography, it is interesting to see how far academic styles of writing have changed since then
David L. Gosling: Religion and Ecology in India and Southeast Asia
No full textReview: The relation between religion and ecology has become a big subject nowadays, but this extremely mature work represents the well-considered gist of studies which have taken place over many years. The author combines the training of a natural scientist with experience of socially engaged work with the World Council of Churches and, thirdly, a trained perspective in the comparative study of religions which has been enriched by social-scientific field study in Thailand and frequent interactions with Southeast Asia, India and adjacent countries such as Ladakh and Bhutan. All of this comes together in an immensely readable book, full of factual information and anecdotal illustration. There is even an appendix on medicinal plants identified in Thailand and an another with an impressively long list of Indian NGO\u27s concerned with environmental questions. Much care is taken to make sure that those unsure of particular political developments in particularly relevant periods or of basic reference points in the major religous traditions considered, Hinduism and Buddhism, are not left floundering. This is an extremely useful and manageable textbook for use in a wide variety of university and college courses. Yet it is so much more than a textbook. The work is based throughout on factual material which is not otherwise easily accessible, though more may be found in David Gosling\u27s own publications as listed in the bibliography
Jeffrey Chipps Smith: Sensuous Worship. Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany
No full textDue to the efforts of Jesuit archivists and historians, the literature on the Jesuit order and its founder St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) is abundant. This holds true for the vast body of scholarly works on the period under study, the Catholic Reformation. By using the term Catholic Reformation, which was introduced by Hubert Jedin in 1946 in order to replace the one-sided term Counter-Reformation, Smith accentuates the autonomous force of the Catholic reform. This goes along with recent attempts by historians to portray the social-historical process of ‘reCatholicization’ within “The World of Catholic Renewal” (Ronnie Po-Hsia, Cambridge 1999) or as “The Refashioning of Catholicism” (Robert Bireley, Washington 1999)
Religion im Dienste einer ethnisch-nationalen Identitätskonstruktion: Erörtert am Beispiel der „Deutschen Christen“ und des japanischen Shinto
No full textThe title of this contribution may be translated as: "Thinking about identity construction with special reference to the \u27German Christians\u27 and Japanese Shintō as examples." After a brief introduction the main facts concerning the two examples are presented with appropriate quotations. In both cases religion was mobilized in the service of a nationalist and even a militarist identity. However in the conclusion the author points out that in one sense apples and pears are being compared here. Would the comparison not be stronger if two universal religions such as Christianity and Buddhism were compared in connection with their use in the support of national hybris? And Shinto, as a questionable reconstruction of an allegedly autochthonous religion, would conceivably find a better correspondance in Germanic Neo-Paganism. However the point of the lecture was to show that religions which are structurally quite different from each other can have very similar effects under certain historical circumstances. The "German Christians" (an expression which of course does not include all and any German Christians, but only those who specifically sought to combine Germanness with Christianity during the Nazi period) succeeded in turning a universal, monotheistic religion into a racist, national-socialist ideology including an antisemitism based in part on late statements of Martin Luther. State Shinto was a quite different phenomenon. Based on a localised, ethnically defined polytheism, and syncretistically interwoven with Buddhism, it was reconstructed from the 18th century onwards as a pure Japanese religion. The Emperor thus became the centre of a national cult, and resistance against the political power of the Emperor Meiji (Meiji Tennō) and the associated instrumentalization of Shinto in the nineteenth century became well-nigh impossible. Thus, in spite of the fundamental typological difference between these two religions, both served the construction of a national and ethnic identity, which made a decisive contribution to national fanaticism in times of war. Thus it may be concluded that the type of a religion, and its specific teaching, only have a limited connection with the way in which it may be used in the political arena. The main danger lies simply in the supernatural legitimation of political actions, whatever the religion. This leads to irrationality and the inability to confer with those who hold different beliefs or convictions
Diabolical Authority: Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible and the Satanist "Tradition"
No full textThe status of The Satanic Bible as an authoritative scripture-or, perhaps more accurately, as a kind of quasi-scripture-within the Satanic subculture was initially brought to my attention during my first face-to-face encounter with Satanists in the Spring of 2000. Via the internet, I had found a small Satanist group in Portage, Wisconsin, which was about an hour south of where I resided at the time. This group, the Temple of Lylyth, distinguishes itself from Anton LaVey\u27s brand of Satanism chiefly by its emphasis on feminine nature of the Dark Power. I arranged to meet with them in Portage on a Friday evening in connection with a research project on which I was working at the time. Over the course of our conversation, the founder and then leader of the group mentioned that on Friday evenings he was usually downtown where a small group of fervent Christians regularly set up what might be called a "preaching station" to spread the Gospel. This young fellow (he was nineteen at the time) would confront them as a practicing Satanist. He always carried a copy of The Satanic Bible with him, not just so he could quote some of accusations LaVey leveled against Christianity, but also so he could correct anything these evangelists might say about Satanism by citing an authoritative source. I\u27m sure this is something of a caricature, but I was left with the impression of dueling religionists, Christians hurling Bible verses at my informant as he matched blow for blow with quotes from The Satanic Bible. This experience led me to pay attention whenever other Satanists mentioned The Satanic Bible
K. E. Trainor (ed.): Buddhism - The Illustrated Guide
No full textDer hier vorgestellte "Buddhismus-Führer" stellt einen Kompromiß zwischen einerseits sehenswertem Bildband, und andererseits einer religionswissenschaftlich fundierten Einführung in die Grundlagen des Buddhismus dar: in seine Entstehung, die Hauptlehren, die Schriften und heutigen Erscheinungsformen. Er entstammt der Zusammenarbeit verschiedener Asienkundler, Buddhologen und Religionswissenschaftler, die in Großbritannien (John Peacock, University of Bristol; Michael Willis, SOAS) und den USA (Kevin Trainor, University of Vermont; Mark L. Blum, SUNY; David. W. Chappell, Soka University of America; Todd Lewis, Holy Cross College) lehren. Kevin Trainor, selbst Kenner des Theravada (siehe seine Arbeit Relics, Ritual and Representation in the Theravada Tradition of Sri Lanka. Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition, Rezension in MJR 3, 1/März 1998) hat mit "The Illustrated Guide" ein Buch herausgegeben, das versucht, der Vielfalt der buddhistischen Traditionen möglichst ausgewogen und im Bewußtsein der Schwierigkeit, "den Buddhismus" dennoch als Einheit zu porträtieren, gerecht zu werden
K. Suolinna, C. a. Hällström and T. Lahtinen: Portraying Morocco. Edward Westermarck\u27s Fieldwork and Photographs 1898-1913
No full textThe library of Åbo Akademi (the Swedish language university of Åbo, Finland) holds a collection of over a thousand photographs taken by the pioneer sociologist or anthropologist Edward (Edvard) Westermarck who repeatedly visited Morocco, spending several years there in total. The photographs have been restored, copied and digitalized for research and are here presented in selection in the context of interpretative essays by the editors of the volume. Many fascinating insights are revealed into the style of Westermarck\u27s researches in the field and into the Moroccan culture of the time. For the specialist in the study of religions there are two points of particular interest
EL MISTICISMO DE LOS ESPÍRITUS MARGINALES
No full textThis is the Spanish original of an article which is due to appear shortly in English in the proceedings of the 16th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions held in Mexico in 1995, where it will bear the title "The mystic of the marginal spirits". It offers a panoramic view of various features of religious life in Latin America, emphasizing variety and creative spiritual innovation. Special reference is given to Brazil, where the author resides and works, and which he describes as "a great laboratory of creative and intense religious movements"