Suchergebnisse

Bennett reviews 'Surviving Diversity: Religion and Democratic Citizenship' by Jeff Spinner-Halev.

Religion and State: The Muslim Approach by L. Carl Brown is reviewed.

Heilke reviews 'Religion in Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives' by Michael J. Perry.

Pour discuter la double problématique de citoyenneté et religion, l'auteur pose un regard rétrospectif sur son trajet de vie depuis les années 1930 ; il indique les événements qui lui semblent personnellement pertinents, en évoquant des phénomènes britanniques, culturels et historiques. Il identifie deux phases : d'abord le mouvement lent de dilution de l'hégémonie chrétienne qui, à partir de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, a fait place à la modernisation industrielle, aux nouvelles politiques des droits humains et aux mouvements socio-culturels comme l'anti-sexisme, l'antiracisme et le féminisme ; ils donnent naissance à une nouvelle citoyenneté modernisante qui s'étend au-delà des frontières des États-nations et embrasse l'Union européenne. Deuxièmement, l'irruption de l'affaire Salman Rushdie a annoncé le retour des religions fondamentalistes et agressives au centre des tensions socio-politico-culturelles au niveau global. Les religions ont leur place dans l'espace public, mais dans un cadre étatique laïque.

The author delineates four basic models of church and state relations in the democratic world and applies them to both Europe and Israel: the established church model (England, Greece, Sweden); the strict separation model (France, the Netherlands, Russia); the recognized communities model, or the "German" model (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Belgium); the endorsed church model (Italy, Spain, Poland, Armenia, Ireland). Relations between religion and state in Israel are in some ways close to the recognized communities and the established church models. Israeli democracy is not different from the European democracies in terms of freedom "of" religion, but in terms of freedom "from" religion. Conclusion: "In Europe, the trend is away from less democratic, less liberal and less egalitarian separationist and established church models. Increased religious legislation and the increased political strength of the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox in Israel seem to suggest that Israel is moving in a different direction." (DÜI-Hns)

Friedman reviews 'Religion and Justice in the War over Bosnia' edited by G. Scott Davis.

'Religion and American Culture: A Reader' edited by David G. Hackett is reviewed.

This paper looks at South Indian rationalist and anti-caste leader Periyar EV Ramasamy&rsquo ; s approach to religion. Periyar saw Hinduism as a fundamental degradation of the non-Brahmin community in general, the Dalits in particular. Here, I draw parallels between Periyar and Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, especially with regards to their radical readings of religion and social power. Similar to Bakunin who inverts Christianity to look at Satan as the original free thinker, Periyar inverts Ramayana to consider the asura Ravana as a Dravidian hero and a victim of Brahminical supremacy. A militant atheist and an avowed enemy of God, Periyar was nevertheless aware of the importance of religion in social life, and I briefly explore his qualified support for Islam and Buddhism and his rationale for urging the lower castes to convert to these religions. I conclude that reading Periyar in the anarchist tradition might open up new ways of understanding his political thought.

What is freedom of religion? What is its relation to other values in society? How do we respect religious heritage in democracies - particularly in multi-cultural democracies that contain many potentially conflicting - values? How far can one express one's religious heritage? In what follows, I want to discuss these issues with a view to determining whether some kind of secularism is the best public policy to pursue in order to respect and promote freedom of religion and one's religious heritage, particularly in contemporary liberal democracies.

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.

This article examines the regulation of religion in China, in the context of changing social expectations and resulting dilemmas of regime legitimacy. The post-Mao government has permitted limited freedom of religious belief, subject to legal and regulatory restrictions on religious behaviour. However, this distinction between belief and behaviour poses challenges for the regime's efforts to maintain political control while preserving an image of tolerance aimed at building legitimacy. By examining the regulation of religion in the context of patterns of compliance and resistance in religious conduct, the article attempts to explain how efforts to control religion raise challenges for regime legitimacy.