Political Involvement and Religious Compromises

Abstract

The risks of modern politics are significant enough that religious believers ought to be making greater efforts than many of them are currently doing to think soberly about the effects of their political participation. In this article I argue that Stanley Hauerwas’s most recent approach to political participation is a promising one but that there are further measures that are equally profitable as ways of facilitating the public witness of the faithful. I develop out of my discussion of Hauerwas some participatory guidelines for religious believers. First I suggest that they ought to be abiding by a worldview integrity condition, and then I argue that they ought also to be subjecting themselves to the assessments of a critical community.     

灵验与感恩——汉民族宗教体验的互动模式

本文通过对问卷调查数据分析证实,在闽侯县农村居民的宗教信仰中,"灵验"是人们对神明的最主要的期望,即"有求必应",而"感恩"则是信众对神明灵验的回报,即"有应必酬"。信众得到"神助"的前提是信仰必须虔诚,"心诚则灵"。作为回报,信众除了信仰更加虔诚之外,还需要以物质或服务回报神明,即"还愿"。这种回报神明的方式不是一种交易,而是一种沟通仪式,这也是宗教事业发展的物质基础,回报神明实际上也是回报社会。     

Church, Space and Conflict: Religious Co-Existence and Political Communication in Seventeenth-Century Switzerland

This article sets out to explore how a local quarrel in theGrafschaft of Baden, a bi-confessional Swiss county, occasionedby efforts to install a separate font for Protestant parishioners,activated larger constitutional and confessional tensions betweenthe Catholic and Protestant cantons of the Swiss Confederation.The article reconstructs the lengthy political negotiationscaused by the rearrangement of church space since the Landfriedenof 1531: this treaty had enshrined bi-confessionalism in theSwiss Confederation and had established the duties and rightsof both confessions, although to the disadvantage of the ReformedProtestants. It had also transformed the consecrated space ofthe church into a stage for political action by the cantons.From 1531 onwards, changes in religious belief and observancewere subject to the will of the supreme governing authority.The article shows that local conflicts over the arrangementand furnishing of certain church spaces can give us fascinatinginsights into political practice, the establishment of socialorder and the handling of denominational differences withinthe Swiss Confederation. It attempts to contribute to our understandingof early modern political history by using concepts from culturalhistory and communication theory in which politics is closelylinked to social and confessional processes generating meaningand order.     

Muslims in Melanesia: putting security issues in perspective

The hype about the potential for terrorism in Melanesia due to the region's weak and failing states has obscured some of the less newsworthy but equally important developments. One of these is the slow but steady growth in the popularity of Islam in Melanesia. This article reviews the limited literature on terrorism in the Pacific. It provides a brief historical overview of the growth of Islam in Melanesia on a country-by-country basis, and draws on a comparative case study and theories of culture and public goods to explore possible reasons for Islam's appeal. It argues that although Islam is likely to continue to grow, its growth is neither a necessary or sufficient basis for declaring terrorist threats to exist. The article emphasises the need to analyse the broader social factors behind Islam's growth as a basis for understanding the conditions through which potential threats to regional security might develop.     

Hall of mirrors: Ritualized homosexuality in Melanesia

Herdt, Gilbert H. Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. xviii + 409 pp. including maps, bibliography, and index. $24.95 cloth.     

Mixing Religious Rituals and Mystical Experience with Modern Democracy: Indonesia's Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX

Abstract

Religion is the most divisive, even violent, issue dividing Indonesians both in the past and today. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the Western-educated Sultan's mystical experiences and religious rituals were used as tools for creating democratic traditions, preserving peace and religious tolerance in religiously diverse Yogyakarta province, the national educational center. As the Muslim King who ruled the Mataram kingdom from 1940–1988, Sultan Hamengku Buwono (HB) IX strived to combine elements of rationality with both his Muslim faith and Javanese mysticism. He primarily invoked traditional Javanese ethics and mysticism, rather than Islamic orthodoxy, to appeal to the cultural legacy of the indigenous citizenry, and invoked western democratic values to reassure the Indonesians from other provinces and foreigners engaged in Yogyakarta's colleges and universities. Research findings explain how the Sultan shared with many educated/uneducated persons this particular worldview in which there is no conflict between modern scientific education and a traditional religious worldview and practice     

Bridewealth1 and the Autonomy of Women in Melanesia

Considering bridewealth in Melanesia from the angle of women's autonomy, in this introduction we review and analyse the various elements of this marriage practice that reveal its place in the symbolic, social and economic worlds of women. With an accent on social transformation, we discuss women's autonomy and agency in relation to the constraints that bridewealth puts on their lives, and on how they engage with it. Knowing what bridewealth is, and how the rules of reciprocity that it indexes obligate married women, the focus is on women's ability to act within these constraints or to redefine their contours, particularly with regards to economic and reproductive agency. The article, which serves also as the introduction for the special issue on bridewealth in the journal Oceania, discusses themes analysed in the collection, such as the moral prospects of bridewealth today, its relation to ‘capital’ in twenty-first century Oceania, the triad value/valuables/valuers, and the empowerment of women. It concludes with thoughts on gender inequality.     

伊朗现代化进程中的世俗政治与宗教政治

世俗政治与宗教政治的此消彼长,是20世纪伊朗历史的突出现象。巴列维时代世俗政治的膨胀无疑是伊朗现代化进程的重要环节,霍梅尼时代现代宗教政治的滥觞则是巴列维时代世俗政治日趋膨胀的逻辑结果。世俗政治与宗教政治的矛盾运动,即巴列维时代什叶派传统宗教势力的衰落、世俗政治的强化与霍梅尼时代现代宗教政治的广泛发展以及后霍梅尼时代非伊斯兰化的初步政治倾向,构成伊朗政治现代化进程的历史模式。巴列维王朝的覆灭,为伊朗现代政治模式的走向成熟和民众广泛的政治参与开辟了道路。所谓的“头巾取代王冠“,标志着伊朗的政治现代化进入崭新的阶段。