Judaism and the Contingency of Religious Law in Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

For Kant’s moral universalism, contingent religious law is legitimate only when it serves as a means of fulfilling the moral law. Though Kant uses traditional theological resources to account for the possibility of “statutory ecclesiastical law” in historical religions, he denies this possibility to Jewish law. Something like Kant’s logic appears in the work of some of his intellectual successors who continue to define Christianity in terms of its moral superiority to Judaism while attempting to excise remaining “Jewish” elements from it. A more adequate account of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and the origins of Christianity exposes deficiencies in Kant’s universalizing logic which seems to deny any intrinsic value to historical religions. A possible alternative may lie in a modified account of the relationship between the moral law and religious law, perhaps nourished by Jewish thought, including the rabbinic tradition of the Noachide commandments.     

The Role of Religious Values in Decisions About Genetics and the Public’s Health

The latest health care legislation, which promotes prevention and health screening, ultimately depends for its success on recognition of people’s values concerning the technologies being employed, not just the interventions’ technical virtues. Values concerning the deterministic nature of a condition and what groups should be targeted rest on a sense of what is morally, often religiously right in a given health circumstance. This paper looks at a number of leading-edge case examples—breast cancer genetic screening and family decision-making, and newborn screening and biobanks—in examining how the choices made at the individual, family, and societal levels rest on faith in a higher source of efficacy and moral perspectives on the measures that can be taken. Qualitative responses expressing people’s attitudes toward these technologies underscore the importance of considering faith-based values in individual decisions and collective policies on their use. These examples are considered in the context of the historic interplay between science and religion and recent definitions and models of health which incorporate physical, emotional, and social elements, and most importantly, are expanding to incorporate the religious and spiritual values domains.     

Merton’s Melancholia: Margie,Monasticism, and the Religion of Hope

In this second successive essay on Merton’s melancholia, the author argues that the period of Merton’s romantic involvement with Margie Smith reflects a desire on Merton’s part to adopt the religion of hope. The author argues that this period of romantic involvement was especially taxing on Merton. In this period, the author argues that Merton developed a conflicted understanding of the Christian God, which manifested itself in confusion over sexual matters and vocational matters among others. Finally, the author points to numerous instances in which the Roman Catholic Church exacerbated Merton’s existing problems.     

Merton’s Melancholia: Mother,Monasticism, and the Religion of Honor

In this first of several successive articles on Thomas Merton, the author interprets Merton’s vocational call, identity conflicts, and radical asceticism in light of the psychoanalytic study of Donald Capps, Erik Erikson, and Sigmund Freud. The author argues that Merton’s early identity and religious development formed deep conflicts in his psyche. These conflicts remained unconscious and unresolved, leading to disastrous consequences. This article examines Merton’s life until his affair with Margie Smith in 1966.     

Can Capability Approach Pave the Way for Religion? A Study in the Context of Rorty’s Private/Public Sphere’s Debate

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - Rorty has been criticized for his pragmatic rationality by different thinkers like Stout, Steven carter. Here in this article our main focus is...     

Thing, Value, Time, and Freedom: A Consideration of Some Key Concepts in Marx’s Philosophical System

Criticizing the misunderstanding and wrong explanation of Marx’s philosophical system made by recent Chinese textbooks on Marxist philosophy, the author argues that Marx’s philosophy has practical, economical-philosophical, and ontological dimensions and stresses on reconstructing Marx’s philosophical system through synthesizing the above three dimensions. This paper intends to set up a new outline of Marx’s philosophical system, in terms of the following four concepts—thing, value, time, and freedom. Translated by Tang Jie from Zhexue Yanjiu, 2004:11     

The Contemporary Study of Religion,Society and Politics in Russia: A Scholar’s Reflections1

Over the past decade, religious issues in France have come to the fore in the public debate. The 1905 law on the separation of church and state structures the concept of ‘laïcité’ as a configuration for the treatment of religions in France. This political and media debate has highlighted the representative institutions of mainstream religions in France, including the Orthodox Church. Obliged to take a position, both collectively with other religious actors and individually, Orthodoxy in France seems to be only marginally affected by this controversy. However, through press releases, memos, articles in the national press and online resources, the Orthodox Church has appropriated the issue of ‘laïcité à la française’. Behind these different messages lie the issues of the place of Orthodoxy in the French religious landscape and the (suspected) resistance of Orthodoxy against secularising forces in the minority context of the diaspora in Western Europe. Orthodoxy in France constitutes a key element of identity for the national Orthodox communities of the diaspora. Laïcité shapes and to a large extent justifies the anticanonical compromise of the ecclesiological treatment of the Orthodox communities in the diaspora, which are grouped by ethnicity. In this context, I assess how the legal and societal contexts of laïcité influence the main configurations of Orthodoxy in France, in terms of relations with the public authorities, relations with other religions and confessions, and the inter-Orthodox situation.     

‘Minimal Religion’ and Mikhail Epstein’s Interpretation of Religion in Late-Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

This is an examination of two essays on minimal religion by Mikhail Epstein (1982 and 1999), assessing the usefulness of the term ‘minimal religion’ for the analysis of religion in contemporary Russia. An adapted version of a paper delivered at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University of London, on 8 December, 2003. Note regarding Mikhail Epstein’s use of the words ‘religion’, ‘religiosity’ and ‘spirituality’: Epstein uses the word ‘religion’ to signify ‘mainstream’, church-based manifestations of religion and also the institutional, hierarchical structures related to those. Although in English usage the word ‘religiosity’ has negative connotations – signifying either a superficially felt religious sentiment or a somehow false and insincere expression of religious feeling, intended for outward show – Epstein appears to use the term entirely neutrally. For him it simply serves as a synonym for the word ‘spirituality’. In the two essays examined in the present article the word ‘spirituality’ signifies the whole inner spiritual life and aspirations of the individual and her/his reflection on an ethical way of living, whether the person concerned is a committed, church-going believer, or someone engaged in a personal spiritual or philosophical quest for meaning, or else someone who has experienced what Epstein refers to as ‘the wilderness’ of the Soviet years and has learnt of a spiritual dimension to life through that formative experience.     

Reason and Religion in Rawls: Voegelin’s Challenge

This article argues that we must abandon the still predominant view of modernity as based upon a separation between the secular and the religious - a “separation” which is allegedly now brought into question again in “postsecularity”. It is more meaningful to start from the premise that religion and politics have always co-existed in various fields of tension and will continue to do so. The question then concerns the natures and modalities of this tension, and how one can articulate a publically grounded reason with reference to it. It will first be argued that this question cannot be articulated, let alone fully answered, from the position developed by John Rawls. A different approach will then be developed, building on the writings of Eric Voegelin. This involves a much more serious engagement with the classical tradition in thought and philosophy than found in Rawls. It also implies much more than a “pragmatic” recognition of religion as a possible source for overlapping consensus, since for Voegelin a true, balanced rationality can only depart from an experientially grounded encounter with the transcendent.     

Whither the Psychology of Religion: A Spirituality-Focused Discussion of Paloutzian and Park’s (2005)

Presuming Rayburn’s (2006: Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 28, 86–92) review of (Paloutzian and Park, 2005, Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality. New York: The Guilford Press) and sketching an alternative paradigm, this review focuses on the Handbook’s virtual conflation of religion and spirituality; relates this conflation to the hegemony of Protestant theology in North American psychology of religion; highlights the Handbook’s neglect of spirituality per se, which, if not inseparably linked with theism, is, nevertheless, related to the self-transcending, meaning-making dimension of the human mind, could provide an explanatory breakthrough in the field of the psychology of religion and of the social sciences overall; and sees Handbook’s advocacy for a “multilevel interdisciplinary paradigm” as a regrettable acceptance of the failed, long-term strategy of the field of psychology in general.     

A Gospel of Prosperity? An Analysis of the Relationship Between Religion and Earned Income in Ghana,the Most Religious Country in the World*

This study tests for a relationship between religious affiliation and earned income in Ghana. While microeconomic analyses have studied the relationship between religion and several socioeconomic outcomes in the United States, remarkably few have done so in developing countries, and none has explored the religion‐earnings relationship. Using the fifth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey from 2005 to 2006, we find that, among women, religious denomination correlates with earned income. Specifically, Spiritualists, Pentecostals, and Methodists earn higher income than the Presbyterian base group, while Traditionalists earn less. This article investigates the relationship and posits some of its causes, including the influence of a trend in neo‐Pentecostal religious groups that emphasizes wealth accumulation and self‐confidence.     

Does Religion Breed Trust? A Cross‐National Study of the Effects of Religious Involvement,Religious Faith,and Religious Context on Social Trust

Many previous studies have linked religiosity to social trust. Yet much of this relation remains insufficiently understood, which is partly due to the fact that religiosity is a multidimensional phenomenon. In this article, we identify several of those dimensions, including the integration in religious communities, the importance of God in people's lives, and the religious context. These dimensions give rise to different mechanisms that produce both trust‐enhancing and trust‐reducing effects. Data from the European Values Survey (2008) were used to test the resulting hypotheses, using multilevel logistic regression models. We conclude that the micro effects are ambivalent: integration in religious communities furthers trust, whereas religious socialization and the importance of God lower trust. On the macro level, we find a strong effect of Protestantism, which is in line with previous studies, but that remains puzzling since the individual‐level difference between Protestants and the other religious traditions was found to be very small. In addition, in contrast to other studies, we found that religious diversity increases social trust.     

“A Singular Contribution to the Field of Religion and Aging”: Aging,Spirituality, and Religion: A Handbook

This study investigated the relative effects of structured group reminiscence on 34 seniors who were more or less religious. While similar in age, education, and self reported health, the more religious group (n = 21) reported a significantly higher level of intrinsically motivated religion (t(32) = 4.18, p < .001)     

A ‘WalMartization’ of Religion? The Ecological Impact of Megachurches on the Local and Extra-Local Religious Economy

This study explores the impact megachurches have on local and extra-local congregations. Arguing that the two commonly held theories concerning the effect of megachurches on local congregations—that they are either harmful because they undercut local competition, or are beneficial because they increase local competition—are under-specified, we add the concept of religious niches to an organizational ecology model to predict how megachurches will differentially impact local congregations of various affiliation. Following new methodological directions charted by Blanchard et al. (Soc Forces 86(4):1591–1620, 2008), we test how the presence of megachurches differentially impacts congregational change rates among Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Conservative Protestants and three disaggregated Conservative Protestant sub-groups—Evangelical, Pentecostal and Fundamentalists, using county-level data from the 1990 and 2000 Churches and Church Membership datasets and megachurch data from the Database of Megachurches in the US. We find support for the variable impact of megachurches on local congregations in differing niches. For local congregations in dissimilar niches the presence of megachurches seems to be beneficial, whereas for local congregations inhabiting similar niches the presence of megachurches seems to be harmful. In addition to the local impact of megachurches, we find that they also have an impact upon the vitality of congregations in neighboring counties.