Religion and Constitutionalism: Oscillations Along a Continuum

This review article analyses three books published between 2010 and 2013 and explores the ways in which a nation, secular or otherwise, can deal with religion within its borders, both legally and socially. For many nations, this means employing a foundational document or text, usually a constitution, to exclude religion from, neutrally to structure its participation in, or actively to promote a particular type of it in the public arena. The article develops two primary themes. First, using Ran Hirschl's work, it reveals a continuum of approaches to the constitutional treatment of religion; yet, in plotting those points along the continuum, what one finds is far from precision placement; rather, there is oscillation around several points. Second, in considering specific constitutions, it becomes apparent that the more difficult or ambiguous it is to modify or amend a formal text, the greater the importance assumed by judicially developed interpretative techniques.     

Anatomy of a Social Virtue

Abstract

Humanity is radically and pervasively interdependent. Catholic social teaching uses solidarity as the lens through which to critically examine our interdependence. Solidarity is multifaceted, at once a feeling, an attitude, and a duty, with each of these building to culminate in the virtue. How is solidarity a virtue? What are the habits and practices by which it is cultivated? To whom does it apply? And what, if any, are corresponding vices? This article proposes that solidarity is both an individual virtue and a social virtue. By offering an examination of the anatomy of this social virtue, this article will propose the scope and boundaries of solidarity, corresponding sets of vices for this virtue, and the cultivation of this virtue by communities through practicing respect for human rights.     

Civil Religion Reconsidered: The Saliency of a Venerable Concept

This essay reexamines civil theology, a venerable concept in the field of political science and how it is symbolized in contemporary political practice. Civil theology provides the foundation of politics for a community and is reflected in its myths and how the community interpretes itself within the greater structure of reality. It is during periods of crises, however, when this myth structure and society's understanding of itself come into question that civil theology presents itself as a salient topic for theoretical analysis and speculation. This article considers a contemporary response to the crisis of our time, one associated with the breakdown of the “traditional” American civil theology and the impact this has had on political thought and policy debates. From an understanding of this response may come a broader knowledge of the problems confronting the policy process as well as potential resolutions.     

Power and Religion in a Modern State: Desecularisation in Australian History

Secularisation is a concept with many meanings making it difficult to analyse historically. Yet it is the default master narrative in much Australian historiography. Secular historians typically criticise the role of religion in history as being either too unengaged or, if engaged, too intrusive and negative in its impact. This article challenges both assumptions, taking five “nodal points” in Australian history and arguing that they are better given a “Christian” than a secular interpretation. Australia's first European settlement was a high‐minded reform experiment, based partly on a humanitarian Christian vision. The Church Acts gave the population ready access to Christian influence, resulting in a highly “Christianised” nation. When federated, that nation refused to give ascendancy to any one Christian denomination, but largely assumed that its polity was that of a “Christian commonwealth.” Out of its Christian commitment, in the middle of the twentieth century, it withstood control by atheistic communists of its industrial and political life. In the first decade of the present century, a surprising number of politicians have sought to define its national identity largely in terms of its Christian heritage rooted in the Classical/Christian tradition.     

Ritualism as a Disease of Religion

GODIVA OF COVENTRY. By JOAN C. LANCASTER. With a Chapter of the Folk Tradition of the Story by H. R. Ellis Davidson. Coventry Corporation, 1967. Pp. 114. Plates XVII and end papers. Obtainable from the Public Relations Officer, Council House, Coventry. 12s. 6d. Reviewed by Theo Brown.

FORMEN DER ‘VOLKSPOESIE’. By HERMANN BAUSINGER. Grundlagen der Germanistik vol. 6. Berlin (Erich Schmidt Verlag), 1968. Pp. 291. Reviewed by Ellen Ettlinger.

VOLKSÜBERLIEFERUNG. Festschrift für Kurt Ranke zur Vollendung des 60. Lebensjahres. Edited by F. Harkort, K. C. Peeters and R. Wildhaber. Göttingen (Verlag Otto Schwartz &; Co.) 1968. Pp. xiv, 607; plates 15, text ills. 4, and 3 maps. Reviewed by Ellen Ettlinger.

PSYCHE AND DEATH. By EDGAR HERZOG. Translated by David Cox and Eugene Rolfe. Hodder and Stoughton, 1966. Pp. 224.30s. Reviewed by Theo Brown.

CECIL SHARP. HIS LIFE AND WORK. By MAUD KARPELES. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1967.40s. Reviewed by Christina Hole.

SCOTTISH STUDIES Vol. 11, Parts 1 and 2; 1967. Vol. 12, Part 1. 1968. Edinburgh University. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

PIGS FOR THE ANCESTORS. Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People. By ROY A. RAPPAPORT. (With a Foreword by A.P. Vayda.) Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1967. Pp. xx 311; one map + 16 pages of photo plates. Reviewed by J. S. Ryan.

CONTES CHOISIS. By BIRAGO DIOP. Edited by JOYCE A. HUTCHINSON. Cambridge University Press, 1967. Pp. 176. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.     

Confronting Political Religion with Divine Religion: Christian Strategies of Re-Evangelization in the 1930s

Abstract

Western Christianity is currently engaged in a debate on religious pluralism, postmodernity and re-evangelization. This paper argues that the contours of this debate were already visible between the two world wars when Nazism (the ‘new Mohammedism’ as some Christian observers termed it) tried to take over the place Christianity was vacating. The defeat of this ‘political religion’ does not mean the victory of Christianity.     

宗教对抗国家——埃及现代化的难题

最近由于接触了埃及的现代化 ,发现在这个过程中 ,国家与宗教的冲突十分明显。冲突的最高潮表现为萨达特总统遇刺事件 ,在众目睽睽之下 ,萨达特在盛大的阅兵式上被伊斯兰激进分子刺杀。国家与宗教的冲突是埃及现代化的困境之一 ,本文即试图对这一问题做初步探讨。一、世俗主义与国家振兴埃及现代化过程中存在着两条平行的线 ,一条是显线 ,一条是隐线。显线是世俗主义——民族主义的线 ,隐线是伊斯兰现代主义——原教旨主义的线。埃及出现这种情况 ,是因为现代化从本质上说是世俗的运动 ,但埃及社会又浸透着宗教传统。在埃及现代化过程中 ,两…     

Folk Religion in a Calvinist Context: Hungarian Models and Scottish Examples

GEORGES DUMÉZIL. Mythes et Dieux des Germains. Essai d'interprétation comparative. Librairie Ernest Leroux. Paris, 1939. Reviewed by R. A. Williams

HISTORY OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH, PETERSHAM, SURREY. By CHARLES D. WARREN. Pp. 168 + xii. Sidgwick &; Jackson. 1938. 7s. 6d. Reviewed by M. M. Banks.

MORE WEST HIGHLAND TALES. Vol. I. Transcribed and translated by John G. Mackay. Pp. xxxix + 540. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh and London. 1940. 25s. Reviewed by Mary Macleod Banks.

ESSAYS IN POLYNESIAN ETHNOLOGY. By ROBERT W. WILLIAMSON. Edited by Ralph Piddington, with an analysis of recent studies in Polynesian History by the Editor. Cambridge University Press, 1939. 25s. net. Reviewed by Beatrice Blackwood.

LA VIE DE L'ENFANT EN CHINE, Etude de Folklore, par M. et Mme. Yang Kun. No. 4, Petite Collection “Chine-France” de l'Ami, Revue Mensuelle, Yenching, Pékin, 1939. Reviewed by E. D. Edwards.

FOLK-SONGS OF ROANOKE AND THE ALBEMARLE. By Louis W. CHAPPELL. The Ballad Press, Morgantown, W. Va. 1939. Reviewed by A. G. Gilchrist.     

Toward a Geography of American Civil Religion

The concept of civil religion has been of considerable interest to students of American culture during recent decades. Little attention has been given, however, to regional variations in the practice of American civil religion. The purpose of this study is to explore basic patterns in the popular observance of the Bicentennial, as one possible approach to understanding the geography of American civil religion. The study is based on the register of Bicentennial events compiled by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration during 1975 and 1976. Findings indicate that the strongest commitment to public celebration of the Bicentennial occurred in a large region reaching from the western prairie states across the Great Plains into the northern Rocky Mountains. This commitment was expressed both in the region's large number of Bicentennial events and in the distinctively celebrative quality of many of those events. Civil religion's prominence in this region probably reflects several factors: the importance of religion generally in providing a sense of community in a region characterized by cultural isolation; the effect of rural and small-town conformity and the influence of a regional culture that is closely tied to the traditional mainstream of American culture.     

Sociology,Religion, and Historians Revisited: Towards an Historical Sociology of Religion

Abstract

Two great movie directors were both born in 1930. One of them, Jean-Luc Godard, revolutionized filmmaking during his 30s and declined in creativity thereafter. In contrast, Clint Eastwood did not direct his first movie until he had passed the age of 40 and did not emerge as an important director until after he was 60. This dramatic difference in life cycles was not accidental, but was a characteristic example of a pattern that has been identified across the arts: Godard was a conceptual innovator who peaked early, whereas Eastwood was an experimental innovator who improved with experience. This article examines the goals, methods, and creative life cycles of Godard, Eastwood, and eight other directors who were the most important filmmakers of the second half of the twentieth century. Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Spielberg, and François Truffaut join Godard in the category of conceptual young geniuses, while Woody Allen, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, and Martin Scorsese are classed with Eastwood as experimental old masters. In an era in which conceptual innovators have dominated a number of artistic activities, the strong representation of experimental innovators among the greatest film directors is an interesting phenomenon.