Pub Date : 2017-08-11DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1351169
Nathan Bond, J. Timmer
Abstract Contemporary anthropological debates over the political implications of the global explosion of Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of Christianity frequently center on a ‘break with the past’ and reliance on the working of divine power. In this article, we intervene in this debate by exploring people’s wonder about new global geography and historicity and the ways in which this wonder is opening up a space for local state building by an Evangelical/Pentecostal movement on the island of Malaita, Solomon Islands. We present and discuss the origins of a particular theocratic impulse of this movement to show how the movement’s theology evokes and supports the institution of a form of governance. This challenges the widespread observation that Evangelical/Pentecostal believers are politically quiet.
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Pub Date : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1286750
Sherali Tareen
Abstract This essay examines the Urdu Qur’an commentary of an important but less studied Indian Muslim scholar ‘Ubaydullah Sindhī (d.1944) titled The Qur’an’s Conscience of Revolution (Qur’ānī Shu’ūr-i Inqilāb) published between1939 and 1944. An anti-colonial activist turned revolutionary, in this commentary Sindhī sought to present and translate the Qur’an as a manifesto for a revolution that promised socio-economic emancipation for the underprivileged. In this essay I explore the discursive mechanisms through which Sindhī undertook such a task of epistemic translation, with a view to highlight ways in which the conditions of modernity and specifically, the global revolutionary currents of the early twentieth century generated novel approaches to Islam and the study of the Qur’an.
本文考察了一位重要但较少被研究的印度穆斯林学者Ubaydullah sindhi (d.1944)的乌尔都语《古兰经》注释，题为《古兰经的革命良心》(Qur ' ānī Shu ' ūr-i Inqilāb)，出版于1939年至1944年。一个反殖民主义的激进分子变成了革命者，在这篇评论中，sindhi试图将《古兰经》呈现和翻译为一场革命的宣言，这场革命承诺为弱势群体提供社会经济解放。在这篇文章中，我探讨了信德承担这种认识论翻译任务的话语机制，以期强调现代性的条件，特别是20世纪初的全球革命潮流产生了对伊斯兰教和古兰经研究的新方法。
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Pub Date : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1292170
Amélie Barras
Politics of Religious Freedom brings together some of the most prominent scholars working on the intersection of religion, politics and law. The result is a very well crafted collection that unsettles many preconceived ideas around religious freedom. It is an essential read for anyone seeking to better understand recent debates on religion, secularism and politics. Not unlike secularism a decade ago, religious freedom is increasingly understood by policy makers as the new remedy to fight religious violence, and an essential ingredient to ensure that democracy and peace prevail globally. This has resulted in the multiplications of laws, programs, reports and policies both at the national and international levels promoting religious freedom. Religious freedom is often portrayed in those discussions as a stable, inclusive, easily defined and “universally valid” concept (Introduction, 9). The central objective of Politics of Religious Freedom is to disturb this precise understanding and to ask a series of important questions, including: “What exactly is being promoted through the discourse of religious freedom, and what is not? ... How might we describe the cultural and epistemological assumptions that underlie this frenzy, and what is its longer history?” (Introduction, 1). To embark on this ambitious task all the contributions to the collection participate in tracing the genealogies of the right to religious freedom. Many authors draw on case studies beyond Western Europe or North America, which adds to the richness and complexity of the discussion. Contributors underline the importance of situating religious freedom historically, politically and socially. Indeed, its meaning is far from being stable. It changes in relation to historical, national and international political contexts (Introduction, 9), as well as in function of who uses it and who has the power to “decide what counts” as religious freedom (Hurd, 51). While most contributions share the common assumption that religious freedom is a “shape-shifter” (Hurd, 103) and therefore refrain from providing a universal definition of the term, most also work with the conceptual premise that religious freedom is a technique of governance. To be precise, they understand it as a project that is the result of particular power-configurations deeply enmeshed in realpolitik concerns (Mahmood, 145), and that aims to locate, delimit and define the boundaries of religious freedom (including what it should and should not protect) in function of these power relations.
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Pub Date : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1292172
S. Coleman
There is a striking moment that is described late on in Nathaniel Roberts’ illuminating ethnography of conversion in a Dalit slum, situated a little way out from Chennai’s city center. Roberts is sitting in the house of his informant Celvi, one of many local women who have converted to Christianity, and she tells him, with some passion: “There are no good pastors—only Jesus is good!” (2016: 202). Celvi’s sentiment is revealing in a number of ways, not all of them obvious. To be sure, her proclamation of Jesus’ power makes her sound like Pentecostals the world over, and her mistrust of all-too-human pastors is not so unusual. But Celvi does not use her religion to insulate herself from non-Christian others, or to view them as morally compromised. In fact, religion in the slum seems to have very little to do with questions of identity or boundary-making, whether personal or collective. It does not lead to violent communal conflicts between Christians and Hindus, or to heated theological arguments. Nor does it pose unsettling questions about free will, autonomy, or cultural authenticity, as one might expect from other contexts where Pentecostal churches attempt to attract followers. Rather, in Roberts’ analysis, it helps to “suture” some of the moral fault lines that might otherwise divide slum dwellers, so that “The conversion of some residents to a different religion, instead of dividing the slum community, in fact serve[s] to unite it” (11). To Be Cared For is a book that uses closely observed ethnography to argue for what often appear to be counter-intuitive ways of thinking about religion, moral commitment, and belonging. The focus is ostensibly on conversion, but this theme is not highlighted until Chapter 5, and even then we do not read accounts of aggressive proselytizing or missionizing. By the time conversion comes to the fore, we have learned much about what it means to belong to Anbu Nagar, the slum neighborhood, as well as about how slum dwellers, including Hindus, reject caste ideologies in favor of twin ideals of deserving and giving care, and “being human.” To act and be recognized as human, indeed, is a powerful form of belonging: not merely to the slum, but also to an imagined and overarching humanity that exists in foreign realms beyond the national framework that surrounds, and oppresses, Dalit life. Of course, despite such ideals, practice is more complicated, as cooperation and sharing are threatened by tensions over spendthrift husbands, competitive pastors, and
{"title":"“Bringing conversion down to earth”","authors":"S. Coleman","doi":"10.1080/20566093.2017.1292172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20566093.2017.1292172","url":null,"abstract":"There is a striking moment that is described late on in Nathaniel Roberts’ illuminating ethnography of conversion in a Dalit slum, situated a little way out from Chennai’s city center. Roberts is sitting in the house of his informant Celvi, one of many local women who have converted to Christianity, and she tells him, with some passion: “There are no good pastors—only Jesus is good!” (2016: 202). Celvi’s sentiment is revealing in a number of ways, not all of them obvious. To be sure, her proclamation of Jesus’ power makes her sound like Pentecostals the world over, and her mistrust of all-too-human pastors is not so unusual. But Celvi does not use her religion to insulate herself from non-Christian others, or to view them as morally compromised. In fact, religion in the slum seems to have very little to do with questions of identity or boundary-making, whether personal or collective. It does not lead to violent communal conflicts between Christians and Hindus, or to heated theological arguments. Nor does it pose unsettling questions about free will, autonomy, or cultural authenticity, as one might expect from other contexts where Pentecostal churches attempt to attract followers. Rather, in Roberts’ analysis, it helps to “suture” some of the moral fault lines that might otherwise divide slum dwellers, so that “The conversion of some residents to a different religion, instead of dividing the slum community, in fact serve[s] to unite it” (11). To Be Cared For is a book that uses closely observed ethnography to argue for what often appear to be counter-intuitive ways of thinking about religion, moral commitment, and belonging. The focus is ostensibly on conversion, but this theme is not highlighted until Chapter 5, and even then we do not read accounts of aggressive proselytizing or missionizing. By the time conversion comes to the fore, we have learned much about what it means to belong to Anbu Nagar, the slum neighborhood, as well as about how slum dwellers, including Hindus, reject caste ideologies in favor of twin ideals of deserving and giving care, and “being human.” To act and be recognized as human, indeed, is a powerful form of belonging: not merely to the slum, but also to an imagined and overarching humanity that exists in foreign realms beyond the national framework that surrounds, and oppresses, Dalit life. Of course, despite such ideals, practice is more complicated, as cooperation and sharing are threatened by tensions over spendthrift husbands, competitive pastors, and","PeriodicalId":252085,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religious and Political Practice","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131181022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-03-28DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1292173
Yasuyuki Matsunaga
What sort of state does the “religious secularity” paradigm entail in the context of the history and theory of the formation and practice of the modern state in Europe and elsewhere? Which constitu...
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Pub Date : 2017-03-28DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1286788
W. Goldstein
abstract Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, there has been a resurgence of religion in China. Mainstream sociologists of religion have used this as evidence to refute the theory of secularization. Rather than having a longer historical overview, their refutation of the theory of secularization is based on a linear conception of it and they use 1979 as their baseline. While secularization has occurred in China, the pattern that it has followed has not been linear. To see this, this article goes back further and examines the historical reference points: the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese Revolution/Civil War of 1911–1949 and the Cultural Revolution. In China, when secularization occurred, it was forced; it resulted not only in religious revival (the House Church Movement and Falun Gong) but also in the establishment of a secular religion (the Cult of Mao). This pattern of secularization is dialectical; it resembles a spiral and is the consequence of an ongoing conflict between secular movement and religious countermovement.
{"title":"The Mandate of Heaven on earth: religious and secular conflict in China","authors":"W. Goldstein","doi":"10.1080/20566093.2017.1286788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20566093.2017.1286788","url":null,"abstract":"abstract Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, there has been a resurgence of religion in China. Mainstream sociologists of religion have used this as evidence to refute the theory of secularization. Rather than having a longer historical overview, their refutation of the theory of secularization is based on a linear conception of it and they use 1979 as their baseline. While secularization has occurred in China, the pattern that it has followed has not been linear. To see this, this article goes back further and examines the historical reference points: the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese Revolution/Civil War of 1911–1949 and the Cultural Revolution. In China, when secularization occurred, it was forced; it resulted not only in religious revival (the House Church Movement and Falun Gong) but also in the establishment of a secular religion (the Cult of Mao). This pattern of secularization is dialectical; it resembles a spiral and is the consequence of an ongoing conflict between secular movement and religious countermovement.","PeriodicalId":252085,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religious and Political Practice","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127144016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-03-28DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1292171
Nicholas Morieson
Populism has emerged over the past 15 years as perhaps the fastest growing political force in Europe and as a major influence throughout the Western world. From its beginnings in the late 1970s, right-wing populist parties have been able to capture the votes of people negatively affected by deindustrialisation and immigration, and who felt angry and disillusioned with their national governments (Betz 1993, 413–427). Because populism is linked to feelings of anger and disillusionment—to employment security, and to a feeling that one’s culture and lifestyle is threatened by immigration and social change—as long as the vast majority of citizens felt secure in their societies and positive about their future prosperity, populist parties would remain on the fringes of Western politics. Today, however, it is clear that many Europeans and Americans do not feel secure in their own societies or positive about their own—or indeed their nations’—future. The causes of this present-day disillusionment are not difficult to identify. Increasing income inequality, technological and cultural change, and employment insecurity have undoubtedly played an important role in the rise of populist movements. Yet perhaps just as important is the growing presence of Islam in Europe—a presence which seems threatening to many Europeans—and the series of Islamist terror attacks on civilian targets in France, Germany, and Belgium. It is perhaps not surprising then that since 2008 populist—especially right-wing populist—parties have experienced a period of extraordinary growth. After all, parties such as the Danish People’s Party, the French Front National, the UK Independence Party, and the Dutch Party for Freedom—all which have experienced electoral success at a national and European level—have denounced failed centrist neoliberal politics and the parties which uphold them. The great bulk of “the people,” they claim, have been ill served by globalisation, and by the centre-right and centre-left consensus which has de-industrialised much of Europe, encouraged mass immigration, and supported multiculturalism. Right-wing populists have vowed to govern on behalf of “the people,” to stop Muslim immigration, to protect manufacturing industries, and promote Judeo-Christian or Christian values
民粹主义在过去15年里崛起，可能是欧洲增长最快的政治力量，对整个西方世界产生了重大影响。从20世纪70年代末开始，右翼民粹主义政党就能够赢得那些受到去工业化和移民负面影响的人的选票，这些人对本国政府感到愤怒和失望(Betz 1993,413 - 427)。因为民粹主义与愤怒和幻灭感有关，与就业保障有关，与移民和社会变革威胁到自己的文化和生活方式有关，只要绝大多数公民在他们的社会中感到安全，对未来的繁荣持积极态度，民粹主义政党就会一直处于西方政治的边缘。然而，今天很明显，许多欧洲人和美国人在他们自己的社会中感到不安全，对他们自己——或者实际上是他们国家——的未来感到不乐观。当今这种幻灭的原因并不难确定。收入不平等加剧、技术和文化变革以及就业不安全无疑在民粹主义运动的兴起中发挥了重要作用。然而，也许同样重要的是伊斯兰教在欧洲的日益壮大——这对许多欧洲人来说似乎是一种威胁——以及在法国、德国和比利时发生的一系列针对平民目标的伊斯兰恐怖袭击。因此，自2008年以来，民粹主义政党——尤其是右翼民粹主义政党——经历了一段异常增长的时期，这或许并不奇怪。毕竟，丹麦人民党(Danish People’s Party)、法国国民阵线(Front National)、英国独立党(Independence Party)和荷兰自由党(Dutch Party for freedom)等政党——它们都在国家和欧洲层面的选举中取得了成功——都谴责了失败的中间派新自由主义政治和支持它们的政党。他们声称，绝大多数“人民”没有得到全球化的服务，也没有得到中右翼和中左翼共识的服务，后者让欧洲大部分地区去工业化，鼓励大规模移民，并支持多元文化主义。右翼民粹主义者发誓要代表“人民”执政，阻止穆斯林移民，保护制造业，推广犹太教-基督教或基督教价值观
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Pub Date : 2017-03-28DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1292169
Banu Senay
Abstract The focus of this paper is a significant Islamic skilled practice, hat (calligraphy), the art of beautiful writing with the reed pen. In Islam shaping God’s very words through calligraphic writing is both an act of worship as well as an art form. In this paper I briefly explore how the act of writing the Qur’an is a means through which the performative power of the text is reproduced. To clarify what is meant here by the performative power of the Qur’an, the paper first sketches out some of the key propositions made by Muslim scholars who claim that the Qur’an loses its perfect status when translated into another language. Secondly, based on fieldwork observations at a Muslim arts studio in Istanbul, I discuss how calligraphy enables its skilled practitioners ways of engaging with the Qur’an that involves a continuous re-interpreting, re-composing, and re-performing of the Divine Word.
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Pub Date : 2017-03-28DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2017.1292168
I. Ahmad
This conversation between a private security guard, Dharmendra Panchal, and Irfan Ahmad serves as a window to understand contemporary India from the perspective of an “ordinary” or “common” man, an ardent and articulate supporter of the current ruling party and its worldview. At the centre of this conversation is the salience of Hinduism in politics, not only at the national level but also internationally. Addressing such issues as the visibility and assertion of Dalits (ex-untouchables) in the public realms, inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, prostitution, development, technology, corruption, terrorism, the notions and practices of war, the United Nations and the current world order, in this conversation Panchal describes his worldview according to which the current dark time of Kaliyuga marked as it is by untruth (adharma) is about to end. The advent of Kalkī, future avatar of god Vishnu, will end the present Kaliyuga and herald the age of truth (Satya Yuga) which Panchal saw actualized well in his own lifetime. The new age of truth led by Hindus will establish a righteous and prosperous order at domestic as well as at the world level. Panchal skilfully connects the Hindu metaphysical postulates to the empirical world of politics to present a description and narrative that invite analytical attention. In the previous two issues of Journal of Religious and Political Practice (JRPP), we published conversations with academic intellectuals such as John Keane (volume 1, issue 1) and Richard Jackson (volume 2, issue 3). This conversation, in contrast, is with a non-academic and a commoner.1 An explanation for the choice of conversation for this issue of JRPP is in order. The key idea behind having a regular section in the journal titled “In Conversation With” was to go past the conventional wisdom that only salaried intellectuals well-versed in European languages qualify as “proper” intellectuals. As demonstrated by Paul Radin (1957[1927] in Primitive Man as Philosopher, the so-called primitive and aboriginal races too had philosophers of their own. In Foreword to Radin’s book, philosopher John Dewey (1927, xviii) described it as a “pioneering” work that “introduces new perspectives
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Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1232509
Prema A. Kurien
Abstract This paper examines the logic underlying three different patterns of Indian American political mobilization and presents a theoretical examination of how race and religion interact to shape the political incorporation of contemporary immigrants. Indian Americans are becoming politically active around homeland and domestic issues. What is particularly striking about this group is that they have mobilized around a variety of identities in an attempt to influence United States policy. Some identify as Indian Americans, others as South Asian Americans, and yet others on the basis of their religious background as Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and Christians. There is also an adult, second-generation population that is getting involved in civic and political activism in very different ways from their parents’ generation. My research focused on a variety of Indian American advocacy organizations and found that differing understandings of race, as well as majority/minority religious status in the United States and in India, played important roles in producing variations in their patterns of civic and political activism. I argue that these activism patterns can be explained by the ways in which race and religion intertwine with the characteristics of groups and political opportunity structures in the United States.
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