Fagenblat, review of The Mixed Multitude by Pawel Maciejko (original) (raw)
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Secularity, Religious Identity, and Plural Modernities
International Conference Faith, Community and Culture Date: 9-12 Septembe University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus Kelowna BC, Canada, 2019
Religious identities have been developed at the crossroads of history and myths, facts and legends, ideologies and symbols, values and ethics, laws and customs, political and religious power structures, and layers of transforming cultural identities built up throughout the history of societies. Past and present are continuously interacting through new analysis and reasoning, combining static and dynamic elements, changing narratives of present actions by alternative interpretations of past events. A complex legacy often stereotyped, and frequently capable of fuel narratives of fear and violence upholding clashes of ideologies and frictions of cultural identities. A legacy that requires a transdisciplinary brainstorming approach to comprehend the role of religion in today´s world and its political complexities, more globalized, yet confronting multiple identities rooted in diverse religious legacies and nationalist ideologies. In this presentation, I will follow this approach. It is a complex path that requires a meta disciplinary integrative approach searching for patterns and cycles, opening up new possibilities to understand facts and interpretations from different angles. In which the role of collective resentment cannot be ignored or underestimated. Resentment is a powerful emotion capable to unleash extremism and violence when the victim becomes the offender. Westernization and its paradoxes have been displaced by the challenge of globalism as a new paradigm of the 21 st century1. For this reason, this presentation surpasses the 20 th century dominant narrative of the western world´s vision of us and the rest to be focused on the contemporary global and multipolar world´s framework. The knowledge of global History facilitates interpretative and interactive wisdom that human historical experience can provide to us, like a sensitive compass in the dynamics and challenges of our contemporary world. The European history and its legacy, as the main initial stream in the development of Modernity and its impact worldwide, offers one of the best paradoxical examples of a political and religious identities building process. Religious identity was a major political force in Europe until the 18 th century when religion was a monopoly of the state. Let me briefly review this paradigm, to be able to understand better its global consequences.
Many of the key features of the contemporary era of global modernity bear powerful connections to religion and secularity. Worldwide migration brings with it the movement of religious identities and practices. Emergent forms of religious diversity challenge societies, especially those who have been marked by close connections between state, national identity and organized religion. More than before, migratory movements and questions regarding the rights of 'newcomers' are today at the centre of struggles over citizenship and maintain intimate links to struggles over the expansion of native resi-dents' citizenship rights as in the case of gay and lesbian mobilizations. In this context, the question of whether the religious tradition migrants belong to, and which presumably shapes migrants' ethics, conforms to the values of host societies has drawn great attention in public debate. The demands of religious minorities to freely and equitably practice their religion and the practices of states to accommodate them are assessed in light of the values of democracy and human rights, and states, religious communities as well as 'secular' movements usually claim these values for themselves when justifying their lines of action in front of increasingly globalized audiences. Likewise, terrorism just as the so-called 'war on terror' responding to it and the forms of religious profiling of victims and potential suspects they engender, are fuelling contestations over religion and secularity. This suggests that secularity is often implied in social conflicts or processes of change that have other issues as their primary object. At the same time, however, the way secularity figures within configurations of modernity is fundamentally shaped by the long durée of civilizational history, by the way religion affects local cosmologies and
Multiple Secularities: Religion and Modernity in the Global Age' - Introduction
International Sociology, 2013
Many of the key features of the contemporary era of global modernity bear powerful connections to religion and secularity. Worldwide migration brings with it the movement of religious identities and practices. Emergent forms of religious diversity challenge societies, especially those who have been marked by close connections between state, national identity and organized religion. More than before, migratory movements and questions regarding the rights of 'newcomers' are today at the centre of struggles over citizenship and maintain intimate links to struggles over the expansion of native residents' citizenship rights as in the case of gay and lesbian mobilizations. In this context, the question of whether the religious tradition migrants belong to, and which presumably shapes migrants' ethics, conforms to the values of host societies has drawn great attention in public debate. The demands of religious minorities to freely and equitably practice their religion and the practices of states to accommodate them are assessed in light of the values of democracy and human rights, and states, religious communities as well as 'secular' movements usually claim these values for themselves when justifying their lines of action in front of increasingly globalized audiences. Likewise, terrorism just as the so-called 'war on terror' responding to it and the forms of religious profiling of victims and potential suspects they engender, are fuelling contestations over religion and secularity. This suggests that secularity is often implied in social conflicts or processes of change that have other issues as their primary object. At the same time, however, the way secularity figures within configurations of modernity is fundamentally shaped by the long durée of civilizational history, by the way religion affects local cosmologies and
Religion Meets Modernity: Changes and Challenges
2014
This article aims to delve into the mediatory role of<br> religion in our contemporary world in that it investigates how<br> religion is shaped by and shapes human beings in their encoun<br> ter with modernity, its evolving characteristics, institutional ar<br> rangements, multi-locational interests and ideological compul<br> sions. To achieve this goal, it begins its inquiry by focusing on<br> the genealogy of political secularism and demonstrates the pit<br> falls of the 'wall of separation between state and religion' and the <br> implications it bears upon the treatment, space and situatedness<br> religion obtains in different nation states at different historical <br> times. It further discusses the relationship between European<br> colonial powers and the notion of religion by highlighting how<br> the modern sense o f religion emanating from Europe was <br> proselytised, historicised and r...
Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations (Paperback) - Taylor & Francis
2001
The third edition of this comprehensive edited volume contains important chapters on the role of religions in the modern world. Framed on either end by detailed analyses of the phenomena known as modernity on the one hand, and secularism on the other, the book's structure in fact cleverly symbolises the common assumption that many Westerners have regarded the role of religion as 'compartmentalised' within the framework of modern secular states. This book demonstrates, quite impressively, that things are not so black and white. The introduction by two of the editors, Linda Woodhead and Christopher Patridge, defines key topics that are essential to understanding the engagement of religions with the modern world, including the topic of modernity, under which are addressed the subcategories of 'the nation state, ' 'colonialism, ' 'capitalism and rationalization, ' 'subjectivization and consumerism, ' 'secularism and secularization, ' to name a few (to these are added definitions pertaining to late modernity, such as 'globalization' and 'post-secularism' etc.). This volume can be described as interdisciplinary, since the more ancient religions addressed herein are, firstly, analysed on their own terms (their respective histories and theologies), and, secondly, addressed in regards to their relationship with modernity. In relation to contemporary religions, such as the New Age and New Religious Movements, the disparity between their pasts and modernity is not so evident since many of them are recent in origin. Thematic chapters include: 'Religion, globalization, and migration, ' 'Religion and politics, ' 'Religion and violence, ' 'Religion and gender, ' and 'Religion and popular culture, ' all of which are topics that are immediately relevant cross-culturally today. The second chapter on 'How to Study Religion, ' by Kim Knott, is particularly important since it sets-though in a very general way-the methodological 'tone' of the volume. It outlines the manner in which religion is studied as an academic discipline, including more traditional approaches such as the theological, textual, historical, and phenomenological ones that dominated in the past. New approaches, focusing "on the way in which class, gender, and power operate to reify certain traditions" (p. 24), as well as feminist and postcolonialist Book Reviews
Working Paper Series of the HCAS "Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities", 2017
For the last few decades, sociological debates about religion and secularisation have been characterised by confrontation between (often American) critics and (mostly European) defenders of secularisation theories. There has also been a remarkable rise in academic and public debates about the role of secularism in political regimes and in national as well as civilisational frameworks. These debates are shaped by the context of the changing position of the West in world politics, Islamist terror and the war on terror, struggles of religious minorities for recognition and influence, and the concomitant negotiations over the place of religion in the public sphere, as well as the emergence of post-national citizenship. Contributions from political theory, social anthropology and religious studies that emerged from this context have enriched the debate, but also contributed to fragmenting existing theories on the relationship between religion and modernity. Whereas scholars previously aimed to develop ‘general theories’ of secularisation that included deviations from the general model, newer approaches tend to highlight the specificity of Western European developments as opposed to those in the rest of the world, and sometimes even highlight their incomparability.
Religion Today: ‘Public Decline’ in an ‘Anthropological Refuge’?
The Experience of Faith in Slavic Cultures and Literatures in the Context of Postsecular Thought, 2018
Slavic 'piece' to the mosaic of modern religiosity just as a 'piece', not only as Polish, Czech, Slovak or Bulgarian 'cases'. This collective book includes articles by well-known professors whose achievements are appreciated in their home countries, as well as young researchers just starting their professional careers. We hope that this mixture of generations can positively contribute to extending our perspective because a personal point of view on how religions and the status of religiosity are changing today is an important factor in perceiving religiosity as such. Apparently, one's position on the 'generation ladder' determines forms of spirituality as well as the status and character of the religious institution with which one might be familiar. As far as religiosity is concerned, such subjectivity which is formed by personal experience, which itself was shaped by a 'strategic moment' of observation, can be valuable because it might open a field of vision where religiosity is a non-theoretical, non-abstract phenomenona real thing. This subjective approach contrasts with the secular theory which generalized the concept of 'a secular age'-to quote the title of the groundbreaking book by Charles Taylor. 4 Considering various aspects of religiosity today-not only the forms observed in Slavic countries but also outside of them-we are at the point where we are trying to redefine the meaning of secularization and desecularization. The secular theory which has been used for decades strictly separated believers from unbelievers, the latter of which were supposed to be atheists. The insufficiency of this theory is obvious today, as has been shown by Charles Taylor and many others. Researchers emphasize that too many religious phenomena are marginalized when secular theory, treated in a dogmatic way, is applied to modern religiosity. It might be useful to illustrate this insufficiency by referring to the example of the current religious situation in Czechia. Figures show that the number of people in that country who are adherent of official, traditional Churches is falling year by year, but simultaneously the number of people is rising who are interested in exotic cults and who believe in such things as amulets, horoscopes, magic forces, etc. Belief in horoscopes, amulets, etc. is attractive for half the adult population of Czechs. One third use the services of healers and various representatives of alternative medicine; 46.5% have a positive attitude to so-called paranormal phenomena. 5 Thus, on one hand Czechia confirms the stereotype of being one of the most secularized countries, but on the other hand this is a country of believers, even if one 9 This declaration seems to be too idealistic therefore one can have one's doubts as to whether it will succeed. Obviously, it is unlikely to accomplish the mission in near-term. On the other hand, the idea how religion could commit to the peaceful coexistence of differing religion was developed by other scholars and examined by them in different way. See e.g.:
From Secular Modernity to "Multiple": Social Theory on the Relations between Religion and Modernity
Gosudarstvo, religija, Cerkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom, 2012
This article was originally published in Russian as: Uzlaner D. From secular modernity to 'multiple': Social theory on the relations between religion and modernity [Ot sekuljarnoj sovremennosti k «mnozhestvennym»: social'naja teorija o sootnoshenii religii i sovremennosti] // Gosudarstvo, religija, Cerkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom. 2012. № 1. S. 8-32.