Anchoring Religion in the World: A Southern African History of Comparative Religion

This essay focuses upon a single object, a shipwrecked anchor that was washed ashore on the eastern Cape coast of southern Africa. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, European travellers, missionaries, and magistrates cited this anchor as evidence of religion among indigenous people in the region. By the end of the century, however, this same anchor was being used by metropolitan theorists as a classic piece of evidence for the origin of religion. By recounting the strange story of this anchor, I hope to recover a history (or prehistory) of the study of religion in three phases—frontier, imperial and apartheid—that have defined the practice of comparative religion from a southern African perspective.     

宗教与全球治理:一个跨宗教的比较视角

宗教与全球治理的关系是当今国际政治的一个重要命题。从宗教观念自身来看,宗教在和平与冲突中的角色是矛盾的。具体说来,每种宗教都包含和平的因素,同时却又常常成为冲突的动力。然而,这一矛盾的角色却促成了宗教与全球治理的关键机制。这其中的核心在于全球公民社会的建构,公民宗教是具体的表现形式。其具体的步骤包括:全球民主的机制、国家与社会关系的重构、宗教人权、宗教对话等。治理概念的引入标志着与孔汉思的全球伦理不同的路径以及理解当今宗教与全球秩序之间关系的新视角。     

Religion and Esotericism among Students: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

Analysing the results of a study on religious and esoteric beliefs and practice among university students from five European and five American countries, we found that the level of religiousness of students depends very much on their cultural environment: the level of religiosity and esoteric beliefs is significantly higher among North- and South-American students than among European students. On the other hand, Asian spiritual techniques and esoteric methods of healing are practised more frequently by students in North-Western European countries. In the second part of the paper, we examine the relationship between academic discipline and religious worldviews. According to our data, students in the social sciences and the arts are more distanced from religion than students of other areas of science, but they, like students of medicine and languages, are closer to esotericism than students of the 'exact sciences'. Several hypotheses are proposed to explain these results.     

Relationships Between Religion and Intolerance Towards Muslims and Immigrants in Europe: A Multilevel Analysis

This paper examines relationships between religiosity and intolerance towards Muslims and immigrants among Europeans living in non-Muslim majority countries by applying multilevel modeling to European Values Study data (wave four, 2010). Thus relationships across 44 national contexts are analyzed. The analysis found large between-country differences in the overall levels of intolerance towards immigrants and Muslims. Eastern Europeans tend to be more intolerant than Western Europeans. In most countries Muslims are less accepted than immigrants,—a finding which reflects that in post-9/11 Europe Islamophobia is prevalent and many still see Muslims with suspicion. A key result is that believing matters for the citizen’s attitudes towards Muslims and immigrants. Across Europe, traditional and modern fuzzy beliefs in a Higher Being are strongly negatively related to intolerance towards immigrants and Muslims, while fundamentalism is positively related to both targets of intolerance. Religious practice and denominational belonging on the other hand matter far less for the citizen’s propensity to dislike the two out-groups. With the only exception of non-devout Protestants who do not practice their religion, members of religious denominations are not more intolerant than non-members. The findings are valid for the vast majority of countries although countries differ in the magnitude of the effects.     

Religion and local politics in Southern Europe: a research agenda

This article brings to a conclusion the series of three special sections published in 2015 and 2016 by Religion, State and Society on ‘Religion and local politics in southern Europe’. We set up a research agenda on the interactions between religion and local politics in Southern Europe. In doing so, we focus on the localisation of religion, including religious debates, and on the impact of the recent economic crisis. More specifically, we address the local as a contested concept, the multilevel governance of religion as a scalar opportunity structure – in relation to the transnational dimension of religious actors – the effects of such changes in the welfare landscape and the impact of the economic crisis on the activities and strategies of religious actors in Southern Europe. Our research agenda focuses on the interactions between two main dimensions: the territorial impact of political and economic changes, and the multiscalar schemes of territorial governance.     

数据中的美欧宗教

美国的宗教状况一直是宗教学界极为关注的问题。而世界上颇多著名的调查机构都对此问题有所涉及。本文就结合盖洛普咨询公司（The Gallup Organization）、美国哈里斯互动调研公司（Harris Interactive Inc．）、加拿大安格斯列特策略（Angus Reid Strategies）、法国益普索市场研究集团公共事务部（Ipsos Public Affairs）的调查数据．对美国的宗教信仰状况、宗教在日常生活中的地位以及宗教与社会的关系进行一初步的分析。