Articles

This chapter is focused on political discourses about religious diversity and secularism in the Canadian province of Quebec. Asking questions about how experiences of modernity bear on constructions of national identity, it demonstrates that secularization has itself turned into a powerful myth centered on the notion of modernity as liberation from religious bondage. The chapter shows how in the post-migration context native populations evoke different cultural memories of modernity against newcomers. It argues that these debates function as a context which shapes indifference, both in scope and meaning.

Burchardt, Marian. “Is Religious Indifference Bad for Secularism? Lessons from Canada.” In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion. Edited by Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 83–99. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017.

While a generation of theorists assumed that secularization was a necessary outcome of modernization, a newer group of scholars have argued that Western Christendom constructed a normative binary opposition between the “religious” and the “secular,” which it then attempted to impose globally. This putative binary has been interrogated in a number of ways. This paper articulates a productive recent line of approach, Josephson-Storm initially proposed in The Invention of Religion in Japan, 2012, which was to introduce a third term—“superstition”—into the model. Succinctly put, “superstition” was often seen as both the false double of “religion” and a crucial enemy of scientific truth and the secular state. Thus, Josephson-Storm argues focusing on the excluded term in this trinary can provide insights into the way in which all three categories are mutually constituted. It also opens the door for the re-theorization of “secularism” and its historic ideological features.

Josephson-Storm, Jason Ānanda. “The Superstition, Secularism, and Religion Trinary: Or Re-Theorizing Secularism.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 16, no. 1 (2017): 1–20. 

In this article, Burchardt explores the connections between neoliberal capitalism and religion. He does so by tracing the roots of these connections as they evolved during the second part of the 20th century into the present. His main argument is that in contemporary Western societies the most important connections between neoliberal capitalism and religion emerge through the ways in which regimes of religious diversity have become a central form of power that can be fruitfully explored through the Foucauldian notion of governmentality.

Burchardt, Marian. “Diversity as Neoliberal Governmentality: Towards a New Sociological Genealogy of Religion.” Social Compass 64, no. 2 (2017): 180–93.

This article applies Max Weber’s concept of »charisma« to the historic development of the Japanese Buddhist order from its introduction in the sixth century through the thirteenth century. Establishing that from its beginning the transmission of the original charisma of Śākyamuni Buddha continually served as the foundation of hierocratic authority, and that under the influence of the Chinese ordering principle of »familism«, the Japanese Buddhist order adopted the social form of a clan consisting of different lineages and family branches, it argues that the »genealogical succession« of the »charisma of the office« transmitted within a succession of authorized lineage holders was the only valid basis for legitimate authority. However, this continuity was disrupted during the thirteenth century by religious figures, such as the monk Hōnen (1133–1212), who were believed to possess a genuine personal charisma and thus partially correspond with Max Weber’s ideal type »prophet«. They were believed to possess genuine personal charisma, propagated new systematic doctrines, and imposed a specific religious habitus upon their followers. The heated disputes between the Buddhist establishment and these »prophets« (or »heretics« from the perspective of the establishment) as to whether »charisma« could only be legitimately transmitted within the established succession of authorized lineage holders offer insights into earlier Buddhist concepts of »charismatic authority« and its legitimation through the genealogical succession of bearers of charisma.

Kleine, Christoph. “Charismatische Legitimation Durch Genealogische Sukzession: Zur Begründung Legitimer Hierokratischer Herrschaft Im Buddhistischen Orden.” In Sukzession in Religionen. Edited by Almut-Barbara Renger et al., 465–89. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.

This chapter examines the fate of Shinto during the Occupation period (1945–1952). The principles and policies enacted by SCAP’s Religions Division sought to remove state support for Shinto shrines and eliminate their role in the public sphere. This top-down removal of religion from public institutions was essentially a process of “imperialist secularization.” Shinto survived the Occupation by embracing a nonpolitical “religious” identity and by exercising self-censorship. The principle of religion–state separation was applied strictly to Shinto, but Christianity received quasi-official support during this period due to General MacArthur’s conviction that it was indispensable for the “democratization” of Japan. While the Occupation brought about a new level of religious freedom for the Japanese people and many different religious groups, the record shows that religion–state separation was not so easily achieved.

Mullins, Mark R. “Religion in Occupied Japan: The Impact of SCAP’S Policies on Shinto.” In Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea. Edited by Emily Anderson, 229–48. Religion and Society in Asia Pacific. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

In this essay, André Laliberté presents the concepts of religious resistance and contentious politics, in which religions represent a source of inspiration, before moving to the issue of how these concepts apply to China. He notes that there is little literature on this particular subject, which is always politically sensitive. As the Communist Party of China has increasingly recognized the relevance of religion in contemporary society, it has tried to keep it in check and thereby ensure that independent associations with a religious background will not become involved in contentious politics. This article then briefly introduces the four case studies in this special issue on the theme of religion and contentious politics in China: two cases of persecution of Christians and Catholics during the period of Mao, and two articles about Buddhism, which has a more complex relationship with the state.

Laliberté, André. “Religion, Resistance, and Contentious Politics in China (中国的宗教、抵抗与抗争政治).” Review of Religion and Chinese Society 4, no. 2 (2017): 151–66.

A translation and synopsis of eighteen Indian massage techniques in Sun Simiao's seventh-century medical comepndium, the Essential Recipes worth a Thousand Gold Qianjin yaofang 千金要方.

In medieval China, massage, or anmo (literally, “pressing and rubbing”), was cata-logued among a kind of stretching exercises called daoyin (literally, “guiding and pull-ing”), which is sometimes referred to in modern times as Chinese yoga. Guiding and pulling was a broad term, referring to a host of stretching exercises which  were some-times quite vigorous and dynamic in tempo, or sometimes  simple meditative breathing practices to circulate qi around the body. Chinese sources from this period predomi-nantly do not refer to massaging other  people, but to self- massage and stretching exer-cises contiguous with breathing and visualization practices.

Stanley-Baker, Michael. “"Indian Massage" From Sun Simiao's Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold.” In Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources. Edited by C. P. Salguero, 533–37. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.

Iconoclasm is manifold. As an intentional act, iconoclasm (the breaking of icons) aims at symbolically damaging institutions or individuals, often staged as a public event. However, when a candle decorated with the image of a saint is burned in Catholic churches, or when a carefully strewn Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala is swept up at the end of the ritual, these acts also result in destroying icons. Moreover, practices dealing with the safe disposal of ritual waste can also be regarded as benign acts of obliteration. Acts of destruction of objects that are explicitly sacred to those who destroy or damage them are in the focus of this article.

Triplett, Katja. “The Making and Unmaking of Religious Objects: Sacred Waste Management in Comparative Perspective.” In Materiality in Religion and Culture. Edited by Saburo S. Morishita, 143–54. Zürich: LIT, 2017.

With this research Gert Pickel proposes an updated version of secularization’s narrative, contrasting it with the growing phenomena of religious pluralism, secular-religious polarization, and religiosity’s politicization in Europe. This article focuses especially on the European religious landscape of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, analyzing the empirical developments in its indices of secularization, namely at the individual level. For this purpose, the author calls upon several statistical data that consider individuals’ attitudes towards religion, bearing in mind the different levels of modernization, as well as the political, religious and historical-cultural vicissitudes of the different countries. Despite religious affair’s proliferation in public debate, this article concludes that secularization remains empirically more convincing than the narrative of the return of religions. However, we are still far from speaking of a secular Europe.

Pickel, Gert. “Secularization – an empirically consolidated narrative in the face of an increasing influence of religion on politics.” Politica & Sociedate. Revista de Sociologica Politica 16, no. 36 (2017): 259–94.

In recent decades religious development in Europe has taken three paths: Secularisation, religious pluralisation and individualisation. The article gives an empirical overview of these developments and draws the following conclusions: There is a dominant process of path-dependent secularisation in Germany and Western Europe. Secularisation is an integral part of a broader process of religious pluralisation, which is predominantly triggered by integration. The central driving force behind this process is the ongoing socio-economic modernisation, but also political, social and cultural conditions. Central questions for the future of religion in Europe are How will it be possible to deal with greater religious diversity and what are the consequences of reviving collective identities with regard to (other) religious groups?

Pickel, Gert. “Religiosität in Deutschland und Europa: Religiöse Pluralisierung und Säkularisierung auf soziokulturell variierenden Pfaden.” Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik, no. 1 (2017): 37–74.

The concept of religious indifference has gained relevance in recent years both in the sociology of religion and in theology. Nevertheless, the term is very fuzzy and is used differently. While adherents of the secularisation theory use it to describe the result of secularisation processes, others use it to refer to an assumed, currently invisible (and only remote from the institution church) unspecific "remnant" of religiosity, which somehow is slumbering in everyone and only had to be addressed properly by religious offers and providers. After all, the designation of a person as religiously indifferent allows the option that this person is not non-religious. Such a perspective does not exclude a return to religiousness and is also common in Protestant theology, since it leaves open the question whether a state such as non-religiousness can exist at all.

Pickel, Gert. "Religiöse Indifferenz." In Die soziale Reichweite von Religion und Kirche. Beiträge zu einer Debatte in Theologie und Soziologie. Edited by Detlef Pollack and Gerhard Wegner, 165–182. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2017. 

The agency of women in Islamicate societies is largely anchored in ideas over pious circles and gender-specific rituals. Recent studies attest religious modes of women’s presence in the public space a high significance. Taking the case of Iran, the urging question is how and to which extent religious agency within female pious circles – which were formed before the 1978/9 Revolution and fashioned after it – has been able to attain broader civil significance beyond these circles. This study explores the inner dynamics of female pious circles among women as related to structural power relations. It spells out the process of “self-spiritualization” to characterize interactions within the circles that act as a tool for self-elevation and self-authorization and as a mode of spiritually legitimated construction of hierarchies within the circles’ spiritual empowerment. It is argued that a type of pious competition between the women unfolds leading to an affirmation of gender segregation and concomitantly, of submission to institutionalized structures of masculine hierarchy and power. Finally, it pursues the effects of unfolding “self-spiritualization” through elevation, authenticity and self-authorization that might achieve a considerable degree of self-empowerment for negotiating gender roles and political life attitudes.

Chavoshian, Sana. “Challenges for gender equality: Women’s religious circles in post-revolutionary Iran.” GENDER 9, no. 3 (2017): 117–32. doi:10.3224/gender.v9i3.09.

A keen understanding of the intricacies of the procedural aspect of personal law and internal hierarchies/fi ssures within the community in question need to guide our vision of judicial reforms. Considering the bias that exists in terms of class, caste, gender and religion in the implementation of law, one wonders what would be the real gains of bringing personal law more and more within the purview of the policing system. This article looks at cases brought by Muslim women to the Kanpur darul qaza seeking maintenance and/or divorce and fi nds that these women do not lack agency. They also approach different legal forums to resolve their personal and domestic issues.

Chakrabarti, Anindita, and Suchandra Ghosh (2017). “Judicial Reform vs Adjudication of Personal Law: View from a Muslim Ghetto in Kanpur.” Economic & Political Weekly LII, no. 49: 12–14.

Scholarly debates about secularization and secularism have reached an unproductive impasse. Orthodox and neo-orthodox secularization theorists insist on the epistemological universality and global applicability of more or less uniform concepts of secularization. Postcolonial critics, by contrast, sought to provincialize the notion of the secular emphasizing its Western origin, its coimplication with the nation-state, violence, and colonialism. In this article, we critically engage with both of these approaches and suggest the concept of “multiple  secularities” as an alternative approach. Whereas both universalist and postcolonial approaches tend to reify and essentialize the secular we aim to historicize and culturalize secularity. We do so by arguing that secularity are culturally and symbolically anchored forms of distinguishing religious and non-religious social spheres and practices and that institutionalizations of such distinctions have served as ways of grappling with different kind of problems. Significantly, while recognizing the situated historicities of secularity our conceptualization frees secularity from its singular associations with the West and with modernity.

Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Marian Burchardt (2017). “Revisitando o secular: Secularidades múltiplas e trajetórias para a modernidade.” Política & Sociedade 16/36: 174-173.