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Between the Melting Pot and the Patchwork Quilt in Religious America. Two Case Studies (Shiloh Baptist Church, Washington DC and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, New York City)

Author(s): Nicoleta Stanca / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

In a complex context of huge differences between traditional churches and contemporary megachurches, religious mixing, matching and switching, in an ethno-racial diversity environment, in a society characterized by class inequality and political awareness, the article will attempt to show how religion brings individuals and communities together in the US in a patchwork quilt model.

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Beyond Expulsion. The Emergence of “Unwanted Elements” in the Postwar Czech Borderlands, 1945–1950

Author(s): David Gerlach / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2010

This article examines how the complexities of the Sudeten German expulsion and resettlement of the former Sudetenland spawned the notion that certain groups of people were unreliable or suspicious and, therefore, unwanted inhabitants. The intolerance and suspicion that setters, local and central officials, and others voiced toward different groups and actions directly related to the expulsion of Germans. The rapid influx of new settlers in search of German property and social mobility had a destabilizing effect on the region as well. The category of unwanted elements changed over time and reflected not necessarily the arrival of particular people but the problems unleashed by expulsion and settlement. The emergence of this category demonstrates how ethnic cleansing affected not only the targeted ethnic group but also how that process transformed people and places. This article offers new insights into the increasing body of literature on this topic in Central and Eastern European history by expanding the focus beyond Czechs and Germans. By examining a range of different sources, it also demonstrates that local actors as much as central ones created and sustained repressive attitudes in the borderlands.

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Bireysel Özgürlükten Toplumsal Düzene: Toplum Kuramında Din Sorunu

Author(s): Aydoğan Kutlu / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 1/2020

This study deals with the question of religion, which constitutes a basic discussion of political and social theory with the birth of the modern state. The autonomization of politics from religion, with various scientific developments has led to the secularization of other scopes of society and the public functions of religion have become increasingly debatable. Two moments and their synthesis can be mentioned here. After the French Revolution, the Enlightenment's critical debate on an individual basis turned into a supportive debate focusing on the social function of religion. A critical synthesis of these individual and social approaches was developed by Marx and the inadequacy of considering religion as a purely epistemological problem was ignored.

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Book Review

Author(s): Solveiga Krūmiņa-Koņkova / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2019

Review of: Solveiga Krumina-Konkova - Robert F. Goeckel. Soviet Religious Policy in Estonia and Latvia. Playing Harmony in the Singing Revolution. Indiana University Press, 2018.

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Book Review: Xavier Bougarel (2018). Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Hercegovina: Surviving Empires.

Author(s): Maciej Falski / Language(s): English / Issue: 8/2019

Review of: Maciej Falski - Xavier Bougarel (2018). Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Hercegovina: Surviving Empires. London-New York: Bloomsbury Academic

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BOŠNJAČKO ISELJAVANJE PODIJELJENO OBAVEZOM HIDŽRE I SVJETOVNIM RAZLOZIMA EMIGRIRANJA (ODLAZAK IZ DOMOVINE ROĐENJA U DOMOVINU VLASTITOG IZBORA I TUĐEG NAGOVORA)

Author(s): Muhidin Pelesić / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 1/2019

Since the beginning of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniak people had a suspicion and developed distrust which derived from the occupation. The emigration of Bosniaks started due to the cruel rule, especially during the first military administration, to Rumelia, Anatolia and theArab countries of the Ottoman Empire. The moderate policies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire towards Bosniaks resulted in the calmer situation in the country. However, several deeper internal political crises ended with the annexation as an international crisis and triggered major waves of displacement of Bosniaks in the Ottoman Empire. They migrated because of the Muslim obligation of the hidzra (hiğrä) which meant an eviction for religious reasons. Bosniaks believed that they could not live as Muslims under the Christian occupational power. They didn't follow instructions (fètva), messages (risála) or the appeals of Muslim religious authorities that they do not need to obtain hidzra. However, the organized activities of Bosniaks, Muslims and religious scholars (ulema) affected the reduction of the number of Bosniaks interested in moving to the Ottoman Empire. On another side, some Bosniaks had more practical reasons to move out - a hope for a better life and plans for a new beginning.

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Bulgaristan’da Yılmaz Bir Jön Türk: Edhem Ruhi Balkan ve Balkan Gazetesi (1907-1908)

Author(s): Mustafa Kemal Sincer / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 66/2020

The life of Edhem Ruhi Balkan, who was one of the unknown figures of the Young Turks, the opponents of Sultan Abdulhamit II’s absolute power, in the empire and abroad, and his continuous political opposition to either Sultan Abdulhamit II or the Bulgarian governments for the rights of Muslim Turkish minority, are going to be discussed in this paper. His main instrument for this political opposition was his Balkan newspaper. Balkan, which was published by Edhem Ruhi in Plovdiv, was struggling for a constitutional regime in the Ottoman Empire on one hand and for the rights of the Muslim Turkish minority in Bulgaria on the other hand. His efforts against the absolute regime of the Sultan and the pressures of the Bulgarians on the Muslim Turkish minority in Bulgaria put him in a different position in the Young Turk movement. In this paper, first, the characteristics of Balkan newspaper and the articles of Edhem Ruhi in this newspaper was analyzed in detail.

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Can Self-organized Criticality Theory help identify Political Mobilization on Social Media?

Author(s): Natalia BARABASH,Dmitry ZHUKOV / Language(s): English / Issue: 25/2020

One of the challenges of monitoring political mobilization on social media is the setting of formalized mobilization criteria to identify early symptoms of political mobilization across different groups. We propose and test a tool for identifying groups that display a high level of political mobilization. This tool is based on the hypothesis that strong engagement of users in group activities and discussions is common to groups in a state of self-organized criticality (SOC). An attribute of SOC, known as pink noise, can be observed in time series. To test this hypothesis, we sourced data on activity in 200 Facebook groups in France and Germany.

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Capetownski iskaz o predanju – graditi Kristov mir u podijeljenom i slomljenom svijetu – biblijski pogled na pitanje naroda s posebnim osvrtom na hrvatski kontekst

Author(s): David Kovačević / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 1/2020

This article looks at the notion of the nation from a biblical perspective by analyzing those emphases highlighted by The Cape Town Commitment, especially in its chapter “Building Christ’s Peace in a Divided and Broken World.” Special attention will be given to the topic of nation in the Croatian context. The first chapter gives an introduction to the three fundamental theories of nationalism, the second analyzes the biblical understanding of nations. In the third chapter attention is drawn to The Cape Town Commitment and theme of peacebuilding and justice among nations. In the last chapter the author brings interpretations of the nation and nationalisms in the Croatian context from a Roman Catholic and Evangelical perspective. The purpose of the article is to analyze the biblical and theological emphases of the document concerning the nation, to interact with other documents and theological voices, and to understand their application within the Croatian context in order to contribute to the evangelical movement in Croatia in its mission of proclaiming the gospel in the Croatian context. The article concludes that there are biblical foundations that positively value the existence of nations. They should be viewed positively from the perspective of God’s work of creation, negatively through the acceptance of the reality of the fall that affected the existence of nations, and again positively from the perspective of God’s eschatological future, where nations have their place.

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Caritas across the Iron Curtain? Polish-German Reconciliation and the Bishops’ Letter of 1965

Author(s): Piotr H. Kosicki / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2009

This article takes the November 1965 letter of Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops to their German counterparts as a starting point for historical inquiry into the nature and consequences of Catholic engagement in Polish-German reconciliation. The article begins with a close reading of the letter’s text and its philosophical-theological underpinnings; then, it discusses the letter’s reception history and its political consequences. The letter and its reception have a double significance: first, as an event in post-World War II European political, intellectual, and ecclesiastical history; second, as an ethical commentary on the spirit of dialogue promulgated in the constitutions of the Second Vatican Council. Although the letter helped to facilitate a process of Polish-German reconciliation that remains ongoing, this process has failed to assimilate the letter’s ethics of forgiveness. That failure has reinforced the roadblocks that hamper Polish-German reconciliation almost two decades after the fall of communism in Europe.

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Catholic Responses to Poland’s “New Reality,” 1945–1953. The Case of Tygodnik Powszechny

Author(s): Christina Manetti / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2012

During the years 1945–1953, the Kraków weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, approved by both Church and state, occupied a unique position. Its apolitical stance, inspired to a large extent by the Catholic philosophy of personalism, meant that within certain limits it enjoyed remarkable freedom. This article considers Tygodnik’s place in the early postwar Polish landscape, including its avowedly apolitical approach (dubbed “minimalism”) as it compared with that of other Catholic groups, how it dealt with increasing communist pressure, and what it managed to achieve before its closure. Among Tygodnik’s primary concerns were the defence of Polish society and culture against the war’s lingering psychological aftereffects, for example by encouraging discussions of what now would be called society’s “post-traumatic shock,” and reconciliation with the Germans. The newspaper also sought to defend Polish culture against communisation, in part by providing a forum for unconventional writers (who were at least nominally Catholic), resisting socialist realism and publishing information on nonsocialist-realist art and music, and addressing the changes being implemented by the communists in terms of secularisation. With mounting pressure, however, Tygodnik found it increasingly difficult to make acceptable compromises, until finally in 1953 its editorial board deemed it impossible to continue its coexistence with the communist regime. As a result, it was closed by authorities until a change in the political climate enabled Tygodnik to renew publication in 1956.

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Cesty božstev: Otázky interpretace náboženství a nacionalismu v moderním Japonsku

Author(s): Jakub Havlíček / Language(s): Czech / Publication Year: 2011

The monograph “Gods’ Ways. Interpreting Religions and Nationalism in Modern Japan” deals with the role of religious phenomena in the process of forming the national identity in modern Japan, with the problem to identify and interpret these phenomena. The introductory chapter is concerned with the issue of defining the theoretical and methodological frame of the thesis. It characterizes the study of religions as a critical social science. Referring to Jonathan Z. Smith, the author deals with the concept of religion as with an analytical category and treats this concept as a social construction originating in the context of Western, Euro-American culture. The thesis is also occupied with the questionof identifying religious phenomena in the context of Japan. It deals with the theories of secularization, with the process of defining religious and secular domains, as well as with the concepts of nation in social sciences. It concerns the subject of implicit religions, finding the theories of implicit religions to be rather vague and inadequate for analyzing religious phenomena in modern Japan. In the conclusion to the chapter, the author proposes the definition of “religion” based on Benson Saler’s concept of tracing “family resemblances” of the phenomena classified as religious. Second chapter deals with the topic of interpreting and systematizing religious phenomena in Japan. It concentrates on the concepts of Shinto and Japanese religion in the works of H. Byron Earhart, Karel Werner, Thomas P. Kasulis, Joseph M. Kitagawa, and Isaiah Ben-Dasan.

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Charting A Distinctive Course: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Religious Pluralism, and Church-State Relations

Author(s): Lincoln E. Flake / Language(s): English / Issue: 7/2020

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has a chance to be an outlier in a region otherwise inhospitable to religious diversity. Less than two years after gaining autonomy in the Orthodox community, signs are promising that church elites are neither frightened by religious choice or inclined toward state sponsorship. Such a posture would contrast glaringly with the ethos of its once overseer, the Russian Orthodox Church. I argue that, although the church’s development is still embryonic, several factors suggest a more tolerant attitude toward the operations of other nontraditional may prove durable. Hopefully, the approach is not simply a matter of the church conforming to pro-democracy sentiments in Kyiv, but rather is rooted in experience and deep-seeded beliefs. If this proves to be the case, religious pluralism and constructive church-state relations has the chance to be irrevocably engrained in the country. Such a development would dispel the notion that Eastern Orthodoxy and authoritarianism are somehow inextricably connected. Even more importantly for Ukraine’s future, a modern and transparent national church may help anchor Kyiv to its current democratizing orientation, preventing a cyclical return to autocracy.

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COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF SOUTH SUDAN CONFLICT: DETERMINANTS AND REPERCUSSIONS

Author(s): Frederick Appiah Afriyie,Jian Jisong,Kenneth Yaw Appiah / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

South Sudan, which separated from Sudan in 2011 after nearly 40 years of civil war, was embroiled in a new devastating conflict at the end of 2013. This happened when political disputes coupled with preexisting ethnic and political fault lines became brutal. This conflict has mostly targeted civilians and most often, ethnic groups, and warring parties have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The conflict has resulted in a major humanitarian crisis, mass displacement and mass atrocities against South Sudanese citizens. Notwithstanding, instability in South Sudan has made the country one of the most dangerous countries for humanitarian aid workers in the world, especially as majority of them have lost their lives during their operation. In view of this, the article seeks to interrogate the main driving forces that triggered the deadly conflict and also the ramifications brought upon the population as well as the country.

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Concept of Ecumenism in the Eccleziology of the Kyiv Church of Byzantine Rite

Author(s): Oksana Volynets / Language(s): English / Issue: 56/2019

The article reviewed the biblical principles of the unity of the Church of Christ. The ecumenical conception of the Kyiv Church of the Byzantine tradition, based on the writings of the hierarchs of the UGCC Andrei Sheptytsky, Joseph Slipy, Myroslav Ivan (Lubachivsky), Lubomyr Husar, and Svyatoslav Shevchuk, is analysed. In the context of the status of the Local Government in the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the prospects of ecumenical dialogue between the two Ukrainian Churches are analysed, the purpose of which is to restore the identity inherent in the Kyiv Church. The dialogue between the Ukrainian Churches is being considered as part of the ecumenical movement towards the universal unity of the Church of Christ.

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Creating Solidarity: The Religious Foundations of the Polish Social Movement

Author(s): Maryjane Osa / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/1997

Recent scholarship on the origins of the Solidarity movement has centered on the question of attribution: "Who done it: workers, intellectuals, or someone else?" The temperature of the debate is rising and the battle lines are drawn. On one side , there are those who argue that the workers were the "prime motivators" of the remarkable social opposition in Poland in 1980-81. On the other side of the barricade, there are those contending either that intellectuals played a key role, or that mobilization was a result of the activities of civil society. Class terms have dominated the discourse and intellectual affiliations have colored analyses as well. Is this debate a manifestation of academic internecine conflict, or is it driven by a theoretically important research question? [...]

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CULTURE FACTOR IN THE POLICY OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Author(s): Marina Kameneva,Elena Paymakova / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The article notes that the theme of culture and cultural policy for modern Iran is not a marginal issue. Culture is seen by the country’s leadership as an important component of its state political and ideological doctrine. There is analyzed the role of the Islamic factor and cultural heritage in the cultural policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran over four decades of its existence. In this context, particular attention is paid to the role of the theory of the dialogue of civilizations proposed by M. Khatami as well as to the changing attitude towards it in the public consciousness of Iranian society, depending on the situation that is developing both inside Iran and around it in the international arena. It is emphasized that the theme of “Iran and the West”, which has a long tradition in the cultural discourse and attracts the attention of both government officials and the general public, is becoming particularly acute in the country today, contributing to its politicization. An attempt is being made to show that Iranian culture is increasingly becoming an important factor in the foreign policy activities of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, contributing to the strengthening of the country’s position in the world arena as a whole and the country’s leading role in the region, the realization of the idea of exporting the Islamic Revolution and implementing Iranian cultural expansion outside the country.

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Das Fleisch der Zeichen. Ein Versuch über Katholizismus, Gretchenfragen und die postmodernen Zeiten

Author(s): Andrea Roedig / Language(s): German / Issue: 31/2006

The Christian logic of difference, especially that of the sacrifice, is a drama with its own pleasure economy. This has often been described, but has never been satisfactorily explained in its logic. Slavoj Zizek calls Christ the "excess of life", the "undead more", and his exuberant Lacanisms are characterized by bringing a new jouissance to postmodernity - be it through the implementation of Christian motifs. Could it be that when comparing postmodernism / catholicism, sensuality would clearly stand on the side of faith? The postmodern era lacks the passionate lust, the full drama, the pathos that only arises if there is hope for redemption and fear of damnation. Perhaps there is a lost feeling for the difference in pathetic Christianity and perhaps Catholicism would even be good for postmodern Eros - not for postmodern agape. Of course, the "Eros" does not mean the purple-clad old gentlemen's ceremonies of the curia, not the „Kirchentags“-euphoria in guitar sounds, not the sermons on fire and not the grass-roots organized Cursillo services. What is meant is the pathos of Catholic aesthetics, is the sacred kitsch. It is a serious game or a playful seriousness, which lies in addressing, with better knowledge, a transcendence that we can hardly represent in a known way.

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Das Zisterzienserkloster Kerz. Neue Betrachtungen zu Gründung, dynastischen Verbindungen und Zisterzienserideal

Author(s): Ünige Bencze / Language(s): German / Issue: 2/2012

Die bisherige Literatur über das Zisterzienserkloster Kerz lässt erkennen, dass Wissenschaftler oft normative Muster des idealen Zisterzienserlebens und des architektonischen Grundrisses übernommen haben, um seine Architektur und Geschichte zu rekonstruieren, ohne eigene Untersuchungen anzustrengen. Kaum erforscht oder gar diskutiert wurde die Fähigkeit der Zisterzienser, sich an örtliche Gegebenheiten anzupassen.

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Detecting the Ideological Position of Political Islam towards Liberal Democracy in Muslim Countries

Author(s): Nikola Gjorshoski,Goran Ilik / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2020

The question of the correlation between Islam, political Islam and liberal democracy has so far been the most exposed topic in exploring the democratic capacity of political Islam and Islamic societies in general. What is particularly intriguing about the relationship between political Islam and liberal democracy is the fact of its westernized triviality that has received a pejorative tone in Islamic political circles. Simplified, the triviality of liberal democracy for the Islamic political campus implies imposing a model of democracy that cannot be fully compatible with the original Muslim notion of society and government. Hence, the following paper analyzes exactly the relations of political Islam to specific inherent categories of liberal democracy such as the rule of law, representative government, the separation of powers and secularism as diferenta specifica of liberal western democratic discourse. Through the methods of induction and deduction, the author will illustrate how appropriate tangent or divergence is illustrated and how this is reflected in the general ideological positioning of political Islam towards liberal democracy in Muslim countries through an axiological and praxeological perspective.

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