‘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.     

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.     

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.     

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...     

Hick’s Theory of Religion and the Traditional Islamic Narrative

This article considers the traditional Islamic narrative in the light of the theory of religion espoused by John Hick (1922–2012). We see how the Islamic narrative changes on a Hickean understanding of religion, particularly in the light of the ‘bottom-up’ approach and trans-personal conception of the religious ultimate that it espouses. Where the two readings of Islam appear to conflict, I suggest how they can be reconciled. I argue that if Hick’s theory is incompatible with Islamic belief, then this incompatibility does not manifest itself at the level of belief in the narrative.     

WTO,Public Reason and Food Public Reasoning in the ‘Trade Conflict’ on GM-Food

Food trade is of economic importance for both developed and developing countries. Food, however, is a special commodity. Firstly, the lack of food – hunger, under-nourishment, and starvation – is one of the worlds pressing moral problems. But food is not only special because it is necessary for our survival; food is also special because it is strongly related to our social and cultural identity. Two recent transatlantic trade conflicts over food – over the use of artificial growth hormones in beef production and over the use of (modern) biotechnology in food production – show that food is a specific commodity. In these trade-conflicts, the obligations flowing from free-trade treaties collide with the cultural and social meanings of food. Current international trade agreements neglect this point and force countries to fight their case in the field of food safety science. This causes a bias in the discussion. Europes resistance towards artificial growth hormones and GM-food is not strictly science based; it is also culture based. For a fair resolution of trade-conflicts, this needs to be accommodated in international trade legislation. With the help of the notion of public reason I defend that (i) precaution with regard to scientific uncertainty, and (ii) the possibility for compulsory labelling with regard to sensitive non-nutritional properties of foodstuffs, need to be incorporated in international food trade regulations.     

Why ‘punk’? Religion,anarchism and feminism in Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer

Pussy Riot became world famous after their Punk Prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. This paper looks at the religious and political statements of some Pussy Riot members against the background of their Russian context and explains why the politically radical left-wing, anarchist and feminist group used the form of a punk prayer to express protest. Elaborating the connection of punk, religion and politics, I argue that punk is a sub-culturally established medium to express leftist, anarchist and feminist political convictions and to offend the religious and political hierarchy, especially when performed in the country’s most prominent cathedral; and also that the religiosity of at least some of the Pussy Riot members is not an obstacle to using a punk performance as their form to express protest; by contrast, punk is an adequate medium for ‘liminoid’ anti-authoritarian forms of religion like that of Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. In Russia, a punk prayer is not only a way for young anarchistically orientated feminists to celebrate their lifestyle, but also one of the very few ways to get attention for their concerns.     

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.     

Historical Legacies,Social Capital,and Women’s Decision-Making Power: Religion and Child Nutrition in Mozambique

Journal of Religion and Health - In sub-Saharan settings, parental religion may have important implications for children’s health and well-being. Using survey data from rural Mozambique, we...     

Religion,Democracy and the ‘Dawla Madaniyya’ of the Arab Spring

The object of this article is to review and evaluate a debate that has been taking place among Muslim and Arab writers for some time now about the concept of ‘dawla madaniyya’ (‘civil state/government’), and the place of religion in democratic politics. More precisely, it will be suggested that the current popularity of the term ‘dawla madaniyya’ signifies only a partial meeting of minds between Islamists and their liberal and secular opponents. By and large, the concept seems to have an instrumental value as part of an on-going discursive struggle between various political orientations about the place of Islam in the social–political order. On the basis of our discussion of the terms of the debate, a new approach to conceptualizing the disagreement will be suggested. The goal of this is not to resolve the disagreement, but rather to sharpen it in a way that shows what is required to achieve significant progress. The final resolution of the disagreement must await a more radical convergence of ideas than currently exists – a convergence that touches not only on standards of reasonableness but also on substantive beliefs and values.     

Nelson Pike’s Contribution to the Philosophy of Religion

In this paper I attempt to capture the essence of Nelson Pike’s contribution to the philosophy of religion. My summary of his insights will revolve around three general topics: omniscience (and in particular its relation to human freedom), omnipotence (and in particular its relation to the existence of human suffering), and mysticism (with a focus on the question of whether and in what sense mystic visions can be sources of knowledge). Although the details vary in interesting ways, his work on these topics largely consists of recognizing an important challenge to the viability of the relevant doctrine or framework, sharpening that challenge by presenting it in a more forceful way, and then offering and assessing potential responses. Pike’s writings are characterized by exemplary rigor and relentless clarity, and together they constitute a rich (and under-appreciated) source of insight.     

Women’s Right to Autonomy and Identity in European Human Rights Law: Manifesting One’s Religion

Freedom of religious expression is to many a fundamental element of their identity. Yet the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on the Islamic headscarf issue does not refer to autonomy and identity rights of the individual women claimants. The case law focuses on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides a legal human right to freedom of religious expression. The way that provision is interpreted is critically contrasted here with the right to personal autonomy and identity now developed by that court in interpreting Article 8 which contains a right to respect one’s private life.

True religion in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Many think that the aim of Hume’s Dialogues is simply to discredit the design argument for the existence of an intelligent designer. We think instead that the Dialogues provides a model of true religion. We argue that, for Hume, the truly religious person: (1) believes that an intelligent designer created and imposed order on the universe; (2) grounds this belief in an irregular argument rooted in a certain kind of experience, for example, in the experience of anatomizing complex natural systems such as the eye; and (3) retains this belief, on the basis of these reasons, even after careful scrutiny. We argue that two of the Dialogues’s characters, Philo and Cleanthes, exhibit true religion. A third character, Demea, exhibits false religion and a persistent impiety. Taken as a whole, we see the Dialogues as an educational performance for the benefit of Pamphilus, Cleanthes’s ward, as well as for the benefit of readers of the Dialogues. Specifically, we think, given that its lessons concern theology and the principles of religion, the dynamics of the Dialogues’s discussion and the interplay between its characters can be seen as a demonstration of a method for becoming truly religious.     

Testimony and Kant’s Idea of Public Reason

It is common to interpret Kant’s idea of public reason and the Enlightenment motto to ‘think for oneself’ as incompatible with the view that testimony and judgement of credibility is essential to rational public deliberation. Such interpretations have led to criticism of contemporary Kantian approaches to deliberative democracy for being intellectualistic, and for not considering our epistemic dependence on other people adequately. In this article, I argue that such criticism is insufficiently substantiated, and that Kant’s idea of public reason is neither at odds with deference to a certain kind of authority, nor with making judgements of character in rational deliberation. This view is corroborated by recent work on Kant’s epistemology of testimony.     

Work and Women’s Well-being: Religion and Age as Moderators

Religion has been found to moderate the stress–strain relationship. This moderator role, however, may be dependent on age. The present study tested for the three-way interaction between work experience, age, and religiosity in the prediction of women’s well-being, and predicted that work experience and religiosity will combine additively in older women, while in younger women religiosity is predicted to moderate the relationship between work experience and well-being. In a sample of 389 married Malay Muslim women, results of the regression analyses showed significant three-way interactions between work experience, age, and religiosity in the prediction of well-being (measured by distress symptoms and life satisfaction). While in younger women the results were in line with the predictions made, in the older women, both additive and moderator effects of religiosity were observed, depending on the well-being measures used. These results are discussed in relation to the literature on work and family, with specific reference to women’s age, religion, as well as the issue of stress–strain specificity.     

Saccades in Neal’s “Square o f Three”

A contact-lens optical lever was used to measure saccades during maintained fixation of an “op art” painting that produces striking perceptual effects. Saccade frequency was not affected, but saccade vector magnitude was slightly, but reliably, larger with the painting than with a control stimulus. The perceptual effects, however, do not depend on saccades because saccades could be suppressed and the perceptual effects remained.     

Nonconceptualism,Hume’s Problem,and the Deduction

Lucy Allais seeks to provide a reading of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories which is compatible with a nonconceptualist account of Kant’s theory of intuition. According to her interpretation, the aim of the Deduction is to show that a priori concept application is required for empirical concept application. I argue that once we distinguish the application of the categories from the instantiation of the categories, we see that Allais’s reconstruction of the Deduction cannot provide an answer to Hume’s problem about our entitlement to use a priori concepts when thinking about the objects of empirical intuition. If the Deduction is to provide a response to Hume, Allais’s interpretation must be rejected.     

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.     

Less Religion,Better Society? On Religion,Secularity, and Prosperity in Scandinavia

Abstract : Phil Zuckerman argues in his book Society without God that Scandinavian secularity is strongly correlated to Scandinavian prosperity. In this article, we argue that such usage is premature. First, there are methodological issues that are not properly dealt with. Second, providing a causal narrative in addition to mere correlation is needed. Third, we argue that the causes of Scandinavian prosperity are found in close connection to Scandinavian Lutheranism.