Latin America 1520–1600: a page in the history of the study of religion

This article examines the texts written by the first generation of missionaries on the beliefs and mores of the indigenous people of what came to be called Mexico and Peru, supplemented by some accounts written by travelers in Brazil. These works claimed to put forward knowledge about ‘the others’. It is argued that they were important precursors for the study of religion and should receive more attention as such. The issue of location is shown to be always present in this early material, along with the biological notion of hybridization. The conclusion asks whether the contemporary pursuit of knowledge can move from the biological unity of the human race to a view of the race as a social whole with common interests.     

Just Win the Game: The Reception of Arab Minorities on Israel’s National Football Team

ABSTRACT

The presence of minorities and immigrants in national sports settings specifically in football, is well documented in many places around the world. The growing presence of Arab ethnic minorities on Israel’s national football team reflects this trend, and, as I will argue, it shows how sports in Israeli society is a gateway for the integration of minorities into Israeli society, yet at the same time, it also exposes the unique and complex tensions between diverse identity groups in Israeli society. The current study examined Jewish-Israeli football fans’ attitudes to the significant presence of Arab-Muslim players on the national team (whose starting eleven includes 4–6 Arab-Muslim players, including its captain since 2018). Based upon an analysis of fan comments posted to social media, related to the 2018–2019 UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Nations League campaign, this study reveals Jewish hegemonic attitudes toward Arab footballers, as well as Arab footballers’ relative autonomy. Admiration and empathy toward minority members are expressed after victories, but in the absence of these well-defined conditions for empathy, as in the cases of team defeats or manifestations of minority pride, Jewish football fans shifted immediately to blatant, derogatory, and patronizing comments that focused on Arab players’ loyalty and expressed patronizing superiority over the Arab players.     

THE “RELATION” BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE PLURALISTIC LANDSCAPE OF TODAY'S WORLD

The attempt to expand the discourse of science and religion by considering the pluralistic landscape of today's world requires not only adding new voices from more religious traditions but a rethinking of the basic categories of the discourse, that is, “science,” “religion,” and the notion that the main issue to be investigated is the relationship between the two. Making use of historical studies of science and religion discourse and a case study from Indonesia, this article suggests a rethinking of the categories, including giving more attention to indigenous religions.     

深入研究马克思主义宗教观

当今世界,宗教在国际国内社会的影响力日益上升,正确认识和对待宗教问题,比以往任何时候都更加重要和紧迫。马克思主义宗教观是建立在现代自然科学、社会科学和思维科学基础之上的科学宗教观,是我们观察宗教问题的锐利思想武器、开展宗教工作的根本指导思想、搞好宗教研究的基本科学方法。当前,我们必须全面、深刻地理解马克思主义宗教观的精神实质,把握其历史唯物的基本原则、科学辩证的基本方法和与时俱进的理论品质,积极推进马克思主义宗教观中国化、时代化、大众化。     

对中国宗教及其积极社会功能的正面认识

本文为2011年度中国宗教研究五十人论坛的命题文章,仅对中国宗教及其积极的社会功能作正面探讨。限于篇幅,简要探讨了什么是中国宗教,中国宗教三元并存的格局,中国宗教的包容风格,中国宗教的组织原则,中国宗教扮演的经济角色,中国宗教是多神教,中国人宗教信仰的功利性等问题。     

以科学发展观研究新兴宗教

19世纪末、特别是自进入20世纪以来涌现出一些不同于传统宗教的新兴宗教之涌现。这种异军突起的新兴宗教现象立意不同、形态各异、变化多样、影响复杂,为宗教研究者提供了一个重要且必要的全新研究课题。笔者认为,应以科学发展观为指导思想来研究新兴宗教,这主要表现为,第一,应该从社会、时代的发展来看新兴宗教的产生及其展示的新特色。第二,应该从人们精神生活的普遍性及其神圣或神秘表达的独特性来观察、区分不同宗教的共性和特性。第三,应该从人类丰富多元的精神及社会生活来看待新兴宗教反应、适应、回应这种生活的形式及效果,论及其张力与和谐、正面与负面、消极与积极。     

理雅各宗教思想中的中西融合倾向

伦敦会传教士、汉学家理雅各(1815-1897)受其家乡苏格兰的神学思想和非国教家庭背景的影响而产生了独立、开放的宗教意识。尽管他以自身的信仰为本位,但在对中国文化的诠释和评价上表现出了明显的中西宗教融合的倾向,这使他在西方传教士中处于颇为孤立的境地。     

Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

ABSTRACT

Building on entries written for Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, this article explores Christian–Muslim relations in China and Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The first half of the article considers Christian–Muslim relations amongst the Japanese in and outside Japan. Direct, indirect and potential interactions and contemporaneous commentaries are explored in order to build a picture of the sort of Christian–Muslim interactions that took place. However, due to the sparsity of sources, this section seeks more to develop and open potential avenues of enquiry than to provide definitive answers. The second section focuses on Christian–Muslim interactions in the work of Matteo Ricci and suggests that Christian–Muslim interactions in East Asia generally, and in China more specifically, were significant not only to the Jesuit mission itself, but also to the shaping of European knowledge of the East.     

Extra ecclesiam nulla revelatio?: God’s self-disclosure to non-Christian religions in contemporary Catholic theology

The author explores the conciliar and post-conciliar documents of the Catholic Church in order to draw out the tensions and ambiguities of its position regarding the nature and role of revelation in the origin of non-Christian religions. Within the framework of this position, moderate Catholic theologians have argued that, as other religions have their origins in God’s specific self-disclosure, they differ only in degree from Christianity. Their arguments combined with an in-depth analysis of Church documents yields the conclusion that the position of the Catholic Church is logically amenable to an affirmation of religious pluralism de iure. If the Catholic Church desires to officially reject this conclusion, it must explicitly address the apparent inconsistencies that its own theologians find in this rejection.     

The study of American religion: looming through the glim

The study of American religion has been expanding to include new perspectives, previously neglected characters, and new geographic insights, driven by critical reflection on the assumptions and ideologies that historically have shaped the field, such as its focus on institutions, doctrines, and texts, its nationalistic westward-expansion historical narrative, and its Protestant biases. The past two decades have seen illuminating work emerge on race and gender, popular culture, class, and the marketplace. But we need to push beyond filling in gaps in the historical record to engage methodological and theoretical concerns in the academic study of religion. Exploring the development of theories of religion in the context of global networks of exchange shaped by 19^th-century seafarers is one example of how Tom Tweed's recent call in this journal for a geographic and temporal expansion of the study of religion in America might raise new questions and perspectives for the field.     

Information-Hierarchical Organization of Natural Systems II: Futures of Man–Biosphere Interactions and Climate Control

The informational influence of both the vegetation and human society on climate dynamics in moderate and arid zones is revealed. The stability of the Eurasia climate during the last 2,000 years was determined by the specific structure of the Christianity-Judaism sociobiosystem. The study has also revealed the potential information-hierarchical organization of human society with a 71,874-year existence. This organization includes three world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam) as subsystems and provides both the global stability of climate processes and the conservation of evolutionary developed information-hierarchical organization of the biosphere.     

Rewriting German and Japanese primeval history: a comparative historical analysis of the Takeuchi monjo and ‘Himmler's Bible'

This study is concerned with two examples of religious re-interpretation of the origins of a ‘nation' legitimated by a text, respectively a ‘corpus' of material of allegedly ancient origin. The first examples are the Japanese Takeuchi monjo (‘Takeuchi texts'), which propose an extended and amended variant of the official ‘State Shintō' and its version of history and became the centre of a small ultra-nationalistic religious movement at the beginning of the 20th century. The second example is a text which was once labelled ‘Himmler's bible', the so-called Oera Linda Boek or Ura Linda Chronik, as it was introduced by its main German interpreter and exegete Herman Wirth in the 1930s. In both cases the texts overturn the view of history and mankind through insights into a so-far undetected prehistory.     

Three Paths to Legal Legitimacy: African Diaspora Religions and the State

What are the routes by which African diaspora religious groups gain legal legitimacy in modern nation-states of the Americas? African diaspora religions, once prohibited under slave laws, remain predisposed to conflict with the ‘culture of legality’ that is constitutive of the contemporary modern world-system. In negotiating this conflict, different legitimating tactics are called upon in different nation-states, depending on the type of national mythology and level of legal-rational development present. Two legitimating tactics exercised by African diaspora religions are described here: ‘simulation’ in the United States, and ‘sedition’ in Honduras. A third path toward legitimacy, which I call the strategy of ‘seduction’, occurs when states appropriate African diaspora religions as a form of symbolic capital communicating depth and authenticity. Examples of this path are drawn from Brazil and Haiti.     

Introducing the Astley–Francis Theology of Religions Index: construct validity among 13- to 15-year-old students

The ‘theology of religions’ is concerned with the interpretation and evaluation of the divergent truth-claims and views of salvation that are asserted or implied by different religious traditions. This study proposes a new multi-choice index that distinguishes between six current positions within the theology of religions, characterised as Atheism, Agnosticism, Exclusionism, Inclusivism, Pluralism, and Interreligious perspective, with a further subdivision between two expressions of the pluralism perspective. The construct validity of this new measure is supported by the performance of the instrument in respect of a network of theories (regarding how these different positions may relate to the factors of sex, age, personal religiosity and attitude toward religious diversity) among a sample of 10,754 13- to 15-year-old students from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.     

The study of American religions: critical reflections on a specialization

This essay introduces a special forum on the study of American religions. The essays in the forum consider what role, if any, the discipline of religious studies plays in shaping work within one area of specialization. This introduction attempts to place the issues raised by the contributors within the context of debates about the status of religious studies in the wake of critiques of sui generis approaches to the study of religion. In different ways, the essays argue that some kind of critical theoretical reflection is necessary for religious studies to make sense as a discipline.