POLITIČKE RELIGIJE I PAMĆENJE ZLA

Author(s): Jakov Jukić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 23+24/1996

There is no doubt that we have witnessed in our time the awakening of fundamentalist forms of religiousness in the world. Violence, intolerance, cruelty, war and death have flourished under the holy banners and blessings of the Church. Therefore, sociology has every right to reconsider the causes of such phenomena, although history is well-acquainted with them and indisputably confirms them. of all sociological schools of thought, the functionalist theory was most convincing, for it deemed that the effectiveness of politics is all the greater if it is covered by religious interpretation. However, that particular school overlooked the equalization of politics and religion, i.e. the loss of their specific identities. Thus the emergence of the biological theory of holiness - according to the works of E.O. Wilson and 5.5. Acquaviva - which defines religion as the most successful strategy for surviving and outliving the human race. In this theory, the main role of conveyor is played by religious memory, as a result of which the abuse of such memory by politics often looms in the background of current political intolerance.

ФОРМИ ВИРІШЕННЯ КОНФЛІКТУ ПРАВОВОЇ І РЕЛІГІЙНОЇ СВІДОМОСТІ В СУЧАСНОСТІ

Author(s): Kachurova Svitlana Volodymyrivna / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 3/2021

The main types of conflicts between modern forms of religion and law have been identified. One of them is headed by representatives of traditional churches. The other is the bearers of a new, non-traditional religious consciousness – “New Religious Movements”. The third – representatives of the secular legal worldview. Religious expertise is determined as the most adequate form of resolving conflicts between them. The key problems arising in the process of applying this expertise are analyzed.

O implikacjach sformułowania art. 196 Kodeksu karnego w kategorii uczuć religijnych

Author(s): Julia Wesołowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2020

Article 196 of the Polish penal code penalizes the offence of ‘religious feelings’. This may be seen as an attempt to protect religion without making it an official state matter, positing it as injuries to individual citizen’s psyche. This article investigates the negative consequences of framing art. 196 in terms of religious feelings, both in the doctrine, and for the theory of law and wider social functioning of legal provisions. I attempt to show how this regulation is faulty and does not satisfy the hopes which motivated passing it. The phrase ‘religious feelings’ results in many interpretative difficulties as well as conflicts which defy the conciliatory intent behind it. The article notes the broader impact of the regulation and attempts to situate this impact in the context of the theory of law. It looks into how the psychological dimension of the regulation brings confusion and defies knowledge about emotions. Finally, it analyzes the broad social consequences of the usage of this phrase in law, using the perspective of the law’s expressive function to diagnose its influence on society. The article’s central focus is on the categories that law uses and its implications both in strictly legal sphere and in public life. This allows for a new approach to the dangers of careless legal phrasing, as well as to the problems of using references to emotions in law. The texts offers tentative suggestions of reform of the law in question.

Institutional Arrangements for Religion in Kosovo

Author(s): Jeton Mehmeti / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

Given the experience of war, the major challenge for post-war Kosovo has been to create an environment where different religious and ethnic groups can re-negotiate their differences and live in harmony with each other. Religion has been central to public discussion and contestation over the past decade. To minimize the role of religion and so fend off potential incidents, the international community put in place a strong secular system. This secular model has not been satisfied with the separation of state and religion, however, seeking rather a separation of society from religion to the point of marginalizing the latter and relegating it to purely private matters.

Državna podrška isticanju religijskih simbola u javnom prostoru

Author(s): Silvio Ferrari / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 1/2015

Brojanje ljudskih žrtava: kvantitativni pregled političkog nasilja po svjetskim civilizacijama

Author(s): Naveed S. Sheikh / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 1/2015

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM IN INDIA: NEGOTIATING SECULARISM AND RELIGION

Author(s): Milica Bakić-Hayden / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

In post-independence India secularism was almost taken for granted as a defining feature of the women’s movement with its rejection of the public expression of religious and caste identities. However, already by the 1980s, the assumption that gender could be used as a unifying factor was challenged, revealing that women from different social (class/caste) and religious backgrounds understand and sometime use their identities in ways that are not driven necessarily by some ideology (such as feminism or human rights), but by more immediate concerns and even opportunism. This realization opened up a debate about new strategies to tackle women’s activism, especially in light of aggressive political activism of some women associated with right-wing parties in India, which has clearly shattered the perception, held by some, of women as inherently peace-loving, whose gender identity would override their caste and religious belonging.

Clandestine Transmission: Rosenzweig and Arendt

Author(s): Rafał Zawisza / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2020

The text deals with the question whether Hannah Arendt was influenced by Franz Rosenzweig’s Der Stern der Erlösung (1921) before writing Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (1929). Instead of building general analogies, I studied two very specific topics – the world and birth – to demonstrate that Arendt repeated almost verbatim Rosenzweig’s entire peculiar argumentation which played the notions of God and nature against each other to combat their overwhelming power and to make room for the contingency of the world and the novelty of each birth. Facing the helplessness of a philosophy which ignored mortality, Rosenzweig cried out the lament of the finite being. Philosophy, with its predilection for totality, lost adequate proportions to reflect on life. Arendt revived this paradigmatic reorientation, but with a significant twist: for her, birth and the world meant more than God for Rosenzweig. Both thinkers projected a language between philosophy and theology, inciting the two idioms to a fruitful debate.

Kirikud ja ühiskondlik kord: baptistlik vaatenurk

Author(s): Nigel Wright / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 1 (79)/2021

The article explores a Baptist approach to the relationship of ‘free’churches to society and in particular to the state. It describes ‘monopoly religion’ as the attempt to establish one approach as the uniform religion of a society. In the West this took the form of ‘Christendom’. A divergent understanding arose with the Anabaptist and Baptist movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This denied the right of rulers to override the religious conscience in its duties to God. From 1644 his instinctive approach found intellectual expression through figures such as Roger Williams and John Milton laying the foundations for a political ideology of religious freedom. Although this took root only slowly it has eventually achieved dominance in a range of liberal democracies.

Stosunek władzy i opinii publicznej do chrześcijan w Cesarstwie Rzymskim w I–II wieku

Author(s): Maciej Sadowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2020

This study is an attempt at presenting the evolution of the successive sovereigns of the Roman Empire and their administration’s outlook on Christians. The paper’s aim is also to show public opinion of Christians – both the reaction of pagan crowds and the contemporary social and scientific elites to the new religion. The chronological range of the study is marked by two of the great persecutions: the persecution provoked by Nero, the Emperor in 64 and the massacre in Gaul at the time of Marcus Aurelius’ rule. The spatial range relates to the Roman Empire’s territory at that time. Source books and the basic subject’s literature were used in the article.

DEMOKRAT PARTİ DÖNEMİ DİN SİYASET İLİŞKİLERİ

Author(s): Hatice Ünal / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 51/2021

The relationship between religion and politics has been two cases that changed the fate of societies. These two concepts supported each other throughout history. This situation continued after the declaration of the Republic and after the transition to multi-party life. In this study, the relationship between religion and politics in the period of 1950-1960, when DP is in power, is examined. The study takes the period in which DP is ruled. Taking a large period will provide information about many different subjects. The politics of religion, the relation between religion and politics and the transition to multi - party political life were examined. In addition, information is provided by the religious education policies of Dp. As a result, the relationship between DP and religion and politics was examined in the transition from single-party period to multi-party life.

Šíření salafismu v Africe: mechanismy, strategie a nástroje zahraniční politiky Saúdské Arábie

Author(s): Daniel Svoboda / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2021

The role and importance of religion in many countriesʼ foreign policy seem to be rising again. Many scholars have shown that Saudi Arabia uses the spread of religion, specifically Salafi Islam, as a tool for its foreign policy and to strengthen its influence. Saudi Arabia is a crucial player in the MENA region and the entire Islamic world, and its regional and international importance is constantly increasing. The author considers understanding Saudi Arabia’s activities and its foreign policy strategies, mechanisms, and tools in Africa as very important, as Africa is becoming an arena for new powers once again. The article aims to identify how Saudi Arabia penetrates African states and spreads Salafism. It focuses on analyzing Saudi foreign policy, emphasizing the role of religion and its export. The author analyzes Saudi Arabia’s relations with five selected African states, where Salafism is spreading, in the period from 2015 to the present.

The Secularization of the Church: Causes and Theological Remedies

Author(s): Daniel G. Oprean / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The aim of this paper is to explore a few factors that contribute to the tendency towards secularization in the evangelical churches in Central and Eastern Europe. It further suggests theological remedies to address the causes of secularization. The thesis of this paper is that there are three causes for the tendency towards secularization. First is the secularization of theological education, second is the crisis of ecclesial identity, and third is the secularization of leaders hip. The first proposal of this paper is that the remedy for the secularization of theological education is redefining theology as communion, theological education as transformation, and theological formation as discipleship. Second, the remedy for the crisis of ecclesial identity that leads to negative identity markers is the replacement of the external conformation model of Christian life (which leads to social isolation, subculturality, and spiritual abuse) with the internal transformation model, which leads to a healthy spirituality and a meaningful theology of mission. Third and finally, the remedy for the secularization of leadership is the rediscovery of the kenotic model of Christian life and ministry.

INSTITUCIONALNO UPRAVLJANJE SREDSTVIMA ZEKATA U SAVREMENIM MUSLIMANSKIM DRŽAVAMA

Author(s): Emir Demir / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 85/2021

Giving a portion of one’s property as a zakah is regarded as fard al-Ayn, that is to say strict mandatory obligation for each individual Muslim who fulfill the requirements. Mechanisms of implementation of this imperative duty are clearly given in the practice of the Messenger s.w.s. and in practice of the first generations of Muslims and are also considered an obligatory duty of Muslim government. Consequently, all the Muslim states and governments since the very first century of Islam, striving to develop and improve these methods, have considered collection and distribution of zakah as their responsibility. Contemporary Muslim states have, since the middle of the last century, brought a number of laws and decrees that regulate the issue of zakah, hence some states treat the handing over zekah to state institutions as an obligation, whereas some state consider it to be a voluntary act of each individual. In this article, the author presents the status of institutionalised collection of zakah in the Islamic world in accordance to the positive legislation and laws of individual Muslim states. Generally, there are six states that consider institutionalised collection of zakah and its distribution as a legal obligation, however their laws and regulations differ in regards to defining the kind and amount of assets that individuals are liable to deliver to state institutions as zekah. However, there are some states that have institutionally regulated this issue, but the actual compliance with these laws is regarded as voluntary act. There is also a small number of states that have not institutionally regulated this segment of the faith. Here the author presents methods presently existing in Islamic world in belief that one of these, or a combination of some presented solutions could be applicable in regulating this issue for the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MACIEJ POTZ (2020): POLITICAL SCIENCE OF RELIGION: THEORISING THE POLITICAL ROLE OF RELIGION

Author(s): Alma Džehverović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 14/2021

Review of: Maciej Potz (2020): „POLITICAL SCIENCE OF RELIGION: THEORISING THE POLITICAL ROLE OF RELIGION“ (Palgrave Macmillan, 192 p.). Review by: Alma Džehverović

Međureligijska vijeća i izazovi vjerskih konsocijacija na Bliskom istoku: što razlikuje Libanon od Iraka i Irana?

Author(s): Vedran Obućina / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 18/2021

After the Second World War, consociational democracy became a frequent way of overcoming deep political divisions associated with violent or protracted conflicts in a society. Religious identities were often at the center of consociational mechanisms, and functional political orders were sought to be formed by consociational mechanisms dividing power between different religious groups. In the Middle East, religious identities are particularly significant, and in the post-secular era their importance is further strengthened. The division of power based on religious affiliation can become a form of standardization of state or regional power and lead to the perpetuation of division and blockade of society. Following this idea, the article criticizes the effects of religious consociation in Lebanon. After a very brief comparison with the cases of Iraq and Iran, the author in the article, which in addition to its political science perspective also has a political theological dimension, advocates interfaith councils as a possible constructive channel for building peace in religiously divided societies in the Middle East.

Босна и Херцеговина и потписивање Конвенције 1880. године

Author(s): Boško M. Branković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2021

The author briefly gives an overview of events in the occupied provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina related to the position of the Orthodox Church from the Austro-Hungarian occupation to the signing of the Convention in 1880. The state-legal situation in the occupied provinces required changes in the structure and activity of the Orthodox Church. The Occupation authorities were particularly disturbed by the right of the patriarch of Constantinople to appoint metropolitans and the right of Turkish sultan to invest in berats. The cooperation between Vienna and the Patriarchate of Constantinople was not conditioned solely by the fear of strengthening the influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church, but also by the common interest in suppressing Russian post-Slavist politics. The conclusions of the Convention were the biggest blow to the religious self-rule of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which caused severe protests among Serbian church and school districts. The convention did not solve the problems with the Serbian Orthodox Church, as they thought it would happen in Vienna and Sarajevo, but it hardened relations with Serbian church-school municipalities that would later turn into a movement for church-school autonomy.

WYKORZYSTANIE POSTACI JANA PAWŁA II W WOJNIE KULTUROWEJ

Author(s): Zbigniew Długosz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 35/2021

Efektywne sprawowanie władzy w epoce wojny informacyjnej wymaga stosowania specjalnych technik służących manipulacji społeczeństwem. Dzięki internetowi i portalom społecznościowym możliwość wpływania na stan świadomości społeczeństwa mają już nie tylko władze państwowe, ale także zagraniczne ośrodki dywersyjne. Celem ich działalności jest osłabienie spójności atakowanego społeczeństwa przez skierowanie jego uwagi na tzw. tematy zastępcze i angażowanie emocji w celu wywołania podziałów. Obecna sytuacja w Polsce, gdzie społeczeństwo podzieliło się na dwa wrogie, wzajemnie nie słuchające się „plemiona”, jest klinicznym przypadkiem skuteczności takich działań. Jednym ze środków służących do zniszczenia społecznej spójności jest sączenie informacji podkopujących uczucia patriotyczne.

Laicitatea în Fața Provocărilor Globalizării. Stat și Culte în Franța

Author(s): Ana-Maria Iancu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 4/2021

This study deals with the issue of the French State – Church relations, an issue that cannot be understood without taking into account France's historical evolution. French secularism (la laïcité) means a clear separation between the state and religious institutions and involves considering religion as belonging to the strictly private sphere. Although legally codified by the 1905, Separation of Church and State Act and the Constitution of the French Republic, French secularism remains a difficult concept to define, with many developments and variations in its application. The attitude of the French State towards the Churches has changed in time, from a combative, anti-religious secularism (at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century), to an appeased, positive secularism, in the 20th century. This secularism became militant again nowadays, under the pressure of the rapid development of Islamic fundamentalism on French soil. Another challenge brought about by globalization, which France has to face, is determined by the competition of French universalism with American multiculturalism which tends to become predominant in the Western world, a competition which manifests itself also in the field of State-Church relations.

Dziedzictwo Al-Azhar i Braci Muzułmanów w koncepcji w a sa tijja Jusufa al-Karadawiego

Author(s): Anna Zasuń / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2021

The figure of Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the concept of wasatiyya he promotes is the subject of an important contemporary debate on political Islam. The originality of his views and the vision of liberal Islam were influenced by two main sources: Al-Azhar University and the Society of Muslim Brothers. The context of the Egyptian political scene, and at the same time the debate of Muslim scholars on the problems of umma and the reform program during the activity of Al-Qaradawi, constituted a significant basis for criticism of both extremism and secularism in the Islamic world. Wasatiyya, as it was presented by Al-Qaradawi, was to be an alternative, a compromise and a new vision for many contemporary problems of Muslim societies. The aim of the article is, on the one hand, to present the context for the shaping of Al-Qaradawi’s views, and, on the other, to attempt to discuss the basic assumptions of wasatiyya.