和谐社会中的中国天主教及其走向

没有远离社会的宗教,也没有一个没有宗教信仰的社会。一种宗教游离社会边缘或离开社会,好比植物离开土壤,成为无根之木、无水之源。社会是个大集合,宗教就是大集合一分子,是社会一个子系统。人是在社会活动中认识宗教的或有宗教信仰的,宗教也是在社会实践发展中逐步自我调整、逐渐完善的。人类自有历史以来就有了宗教信仰,宗教信仰是人类精神生活的一个组成部分,一个国家或民族如没有宗教信仰,精神生活将会苍白许多。宗教是一种文化,在人类进步与文明和发展中都起不可估量的作用,如对宇宙的探秘、对生命价值探讨、对生活意义的诠释等等多方…     

略论宗教世俗化对其社会功能的影响

社会政治生活、文化生活,尤其是经济生活的现代化发展不断改变着人们传统的宗教观念,导致宗教神圣性逐渐衰退,亦即世俗化.这使得传统的宗教价值体系正日益减弱,并进而对宗教的社会功能演化产生影响.     

“世俗化”进程中我国宗教旅游经济的二元特征与异化分析

<正>一、导论(一)问题的提出:基于发展和研究层面1.宗教旅游发展现状宗教旅游是人类社会出现最早的旅游活动之一。在现代社会,人们在经济高速发展和多元文化的冲击中,在高频率的生活节奏和沉重的工作压力下,人们的物质生活越来越富足,精神生活却日渐荒芜,生存环境也日趋恶化。在这种社会大背景下,超脱出世、启迪安慰、慈悲宽容的宗教式情感,以及不偷盗、买卖公平、提倡生态发展等宗教理念,吸引了许多人对宗教信仰与文化的     

杜尔凯姆论社会实体象征的宗教

法国社会学家艾弥尔·杜尔凯姆对宗教的研究,着眼于宗教的本质以及宗教在社会中的功能。他认为,一个社会完全有必要在人们心中唤起神圣的观念和情感,就象神对于崇拜者一样。“社会要求忘记个人的利益,要求我们成为它的仆人,它使我们受到各种限制、艰辛和牺牲,没有这些社会生活就成为不可能的了”。的确,人是无法离开社会的。人生活于其中的世界不但有欢乐,而且更有罪恶与苦难。卢梭的“如果你需要坟墓的话,     

关于宗教的社会功能与构建和谐社会

宗教对人类的政治生活、精神生活和社会生活具有重要影响,这是宗教的社会功能。宗教的社会功能具有两重性,对社会的发展既有积极的作用又有消极的影响。宗教社会功能与社会政治、经济、文化紧密相连。我们要充分发挥宗教的社会控制、社会整合、心理调节、文化交往功能的积极因素,为构建社会主义和谐社会服务。     

走出“科学与宗教关系”研究的误区

有人认为,既然无知产生宗教,愚昧导致盲从,那么,随着科学的发展和社会的进步,宗教就应该越来越“淡出”人们的社会生活,越来越走向没落。但事实却是,在科学技术迅猛发展的今天,宗教依然以自己独特的方式证明着自己的存在,并形成了当代的一道奇观:科学的昌明与“宗教热”现象同生共存。那么,在科学技术发展的今天,宗教热何以成为可能?或者说,科学为什么至今还不能最终战胜宗教?笔者认为,除其他原因之外,不能说对二者研究的某些误区没有关系。看电视机用计算机     

佛学研究与中国佛教的未来

人类社会已经进入21世纪,随着科学技术和经济的高速发展,人们的生活方式、社会习俗以及价值取向等也不断发生相应的变化,对包括宗教在内的文化意识形态也产生深刻的影响,推动它们不断进行自我调适和变革。作为古老的世界性宗教之一的佛教,在新的世纪必须与时俱进才能继续生存并     

略论南北朝政府从经济上对宗教规模的控制

引言 宗教是意识形态,又是种特殊的社会组织和社会政治力量。围绕某种宗教信仰建构成的宗教团体在社会上扮演角色,发挥其特定功能,而要发挥功能,开展社会活动,就必须有经济支撑,否则难以维持生存。世界各种宗教莫不如此。宗教经济是活生生存在于社会经济生活中的,以宗教财产关系为纽带的宗教经济是宗教组织生存发展与宗教活动展开的基础。南     

教内冲突管理初探(一)

[前言]宗教是社会结构中的一个重要子系统,是社会的一支巨大力量。"宗教和谐"是多年来党和政府十分关切的一件大事,也是与宗教本身健康相关的大问题。宗教和谐包括宗教与社会、宗教与不同宗教之间的和谐以及同一宗教内不同教派或不同群体之间的和谐。"全球伦理"和"宗教对话"的倡导者孔汉思(Hans K(u|")ng)曾说:"没有宗教间的和平,就没有国家间的和平。"同理,没有宗教内部的和谐就不太可能会有真正的社会和谐。     

数字吉凶纵横谈

人类进化到识数阶段,可能就对不同数字赋予了吉凶、善恶的含义,可是对远古人们的这种认识缺乏记录和研究,不甚了解。自从有史以来,由于不同族群的经济社会发展,不同宗教和生活习俗的影响,不同族群的人们就形成对不同数字的偏爱、憎恶与忌讳,至今仍为相当多的人们所相信和因循。人们认为某些数字可以影响事物的发展、生活     

God and Governance: Development,State Capacity,and the Regulation of Religion

In this article, we propose a new approach to an old question: How does development affect religion‐state relations? We argue that because development increases states’ ability to effectively formulate and implement policy, it will be associated with greater state regulation of religion. This stands in contrast to predominant theories that examine development's negative impact on individual religiosity while largely overlooking the impact that development may have on state institutions. We test our theory using data drawn from over 160 countries, and demonstrate that the effect of economic development on state regulation of religion is consistently positive, substantively significant, and robust to alternative measurements and the inclusion of a broad range of controls. Statistical analysis also demonstrates that the correlation between development and state regulation of religion is primarily a result of economic development's impact on state capacity, rather than social dislocation or improved coordination by religious communities. Incorporating state capacity recasts the study of religious regulation—and suggests that economic growth is unlikely to take religion off the political agenda.     

Complex Processes of Religion and Spirituality Among Midwestern LGBTQ Homeless Young Adults

The role of religion and spirituality in young people’s lives is diverse and multifaceted. Little research has examined how religion shapes the experiences of socially marginalized groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) homeless young adults. This study illustrates how Midwestern LGBTQ homeless young people interpret the role of religion and spirituality in their lives. Drawing from a sample of 22 LGBTQ homeless young people between the ages of 19 and 26 years, we qualitatively explore how they distinctively frame religion, spirituality and religious identity through an intersectional lens of their life experiences. Our findings demonstrate the complex ways that young adults from multiple marginalized social groups can interpret religion in the unique context of their social environments. Many young people highlighted the positive impact of religion and spirituality in their lives by constructing them as sources of resilience. Other LGBTQ young adults also discussed how religion was often a source of stigma that interacted with participants’ highly vulnerable social environments and backgrounds. Implications for service providers and policy improvements are discussed.     

Religion in the Nordic Countries: Between Private and Public

A new visibility of religion in public life can be observed in the Nordic countries. This visibility is not due to a popular claim for a return of religion in the public sphere. As research conducted at Uppsala University in Sweden indicates, the visibility of religion in the Nordic countries reflects several concurring factors: the state’s continued relationship with churches and other religions; the growth of new forms of social exclusion drawing religion into public discussions on ethical and social issues; growing religious pluralism prompting political and legal regulation; a spirituality relating to existential issues and issues related to quality of life. The results raise important questions about Nordic modernity. They suggest that religion becomes public in several ways and emerges as an arena that connects the private and the public beyond conventional distinctions.     

Does Economic Development Affect Life Satisfaction? A Spatial–Temporal Contextual Analysis in China

Social context affects people’s life satisfaction because it provides a natural reference for evaluating their own socioeconomic standing. Given their reference role, social contexts operationalized by space versus time may have very different implications. Our hypothesis is that spatial variation in economic development has little impact on life satisfaction as individuals living in different locales are unlikely to experience this variation personally, but that short-term temporal changes in economic development, on the other hand, do have an impact, as individuals in a given locale experience these changes directly. These two very different implications of spatial versus temporal social contexts are tested with an analysis of repeated survey data in 60 counties of China from 2005 to 2010. The results show that life satisfaction does not vary much with regional differences in economic development but responds positively to the local level of economic development over time. That is, the contextual effects of economic development vary greatly depending on how social context is operationalized. Temporal context matters far more than regional context where individuals’ life satisfaction is concerned.     

Religious cultures and gender cultures: tracing gender differences across religious cultures

This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion focuses on varying empirical connections and theoretical relations between ‘religion’ and ‘gender’. The introduction to this special issue suggests a theoretical approach which is sensitive to culture by drawing on a phenomenological understanding of culture that is based on knowledge and meaning production and sense making. At first sight, this may not sound convincing because ‘culture’ is a category that is most notably used in combination with religion and gender in culturalist ways. In the migration societies of contemporary Europe, religion has become a metaphor for cultural difference and symbolic boundary-making. The core element of this approach is the conceptualisation of culture as a social web consisting of symbolic forms based on signs of meaning that shape social action, orientation, and experience in the world, including the religious sphere. This entails an understanding of religion as a distinct province of meaning that is structured by processes of social symbolisation just like any other sphere of life. This approach reveals that culturalist conceptions of both religion and gender have specific social meanings as meaningful signs in the symbolic order of secular modernity.     

Spirituality,the opiate of scholars of religion?

This review discusses Craig Martin’s approach to religious individualism and more widely the ways in which social scientists can make sense of individuals’ identities, beliefs and practice, as these seem more volatile and eclectic than ever. In particular, it is interested in the ‘critical’ study of religion developed in Capitalizing Religion. This review underscores the convergence between this book and other recent works regarding epistemological weaknesses affecting the contemporary study of religion (and in particular the ‘paradigm of spirituality’). It discusses Martin’s original contributions – in particular, a critical analysis of the ideological origins and biases underlying the categorisation of freely chosen spirituality vs. coercive religion. Finally, this review tries to further Capitalizing Religion’s argument by drawing on my own empirical work on the popularisation of meditation, yoga and kabbalah, sharing Martin’s critical approach and interest for the ways in which social structure and cultural norms affect individuals’ religious life.     

Adolescent Sexual Risk-Taking in the Informal Settlements of Nairobi, Kenya: Understanding the Contributions of Religion

Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are at the centre of the global HIV epidemic as they account for a disproportionate share of new infections. Their vulnerability to HIV has been attributed to a myriad of factors, in particular, risky sexual behaviours. While economic factors are important, increasing attention has been devoted to religion on the discourse on sexual decision-making because religious values provide a perspective on life that often conflicts with risky sexual behaviours. Given the centrality of religion in the African social fabric, this study assesses the relationship between adolescent religiousness and involvement in risky sexual behaviours using data from the informal settlements of Nairobi. Guided by social control theory, the paper explores if and how religion and religiosity affect sexual risk-taking among adolescents.     

The Enduring Influence of Religion on Senators’ Legislative Behavior

Does a senator's personal religion influence their legislative behavior in the Senate? To date, empirical research has answered this question only using senators’ religious traditions, while more concurrent work implies that religion should be measured as a multifaceted phenomenon. This study tests this proposition by compiling a unique data set of senators’ religion, conceptualized and measured by three different elements—belonging, beliefs, and behavior. The study estimates the association between these three religious facets and senators’ legislative behavior on economic, social, and foreign policy issues, while controlling for their constituencies’ political and religious preferences. It finds that religious beliefs are a strong predictor of senators’ legislative behavior, while religious tradition and behavior are mostly not. Furthermore, it finds that religious beliefs are associated with legislative behavior across a wide array of policy areas and are not confined to sociocultural issues.     

Protestant Spirituality and Well-Being of People in Hong Kong: The Mediating Role of Sense of Community

While literature demonstrates that the relationship between religion and well-being is generally positive, information about the mechanisms is still far from clear. Two hundred and sixty-eight Chinese were recruited to examine how Protestant spirituality is related to well-being in Hong Kong. Path analysis demonstrated the complex relationship between various spirituality dimensions (religious belief, experience, and practice) and well-being variables, manifested in life satisfaction, social trust and sense of community. While spirituality may directly predict life satisfaction, the relationship between spirituality and social trust are fully mediated through sense of community. Furthermore, the well-being at the community level (feeling sense of community and social trust) appears to affect the well-being on the personal level (life satisfaction). These findings not only show that the influence of religion on people’s well-being can be richly diverse, but also match with the emerging literature on the positive effects of social capital on health and well-being.     

Habermas,Religion, and Public Life

Abstract

Although many scholars view Jürgen Habermas as the most important philosopher and social theorist since Weber, his account of religion has been relatively neglected. This may be a reflection of the fact that he appears to offer quite distinct views of religion, but it may also reflect the strong secularist assumptions of his early work. In this paper, Habermas’s early and later views of religion are outlined and the change in his understanding of religion is mapped—from being one of the sources of modernity’s inner problems to being a principal source of the passions and motivations underpinning cultural life today. I argue that the relative neglect of Habermas’s work on religion is unfortunate, as it offers a creative and important attempt to move beyond the secular assumptions that have characterised much modern study of religion, providing it with a central role in the mediation of the costs and benefits of modernity.