制度性宗教VS分散性宗教——关于杨庆堃《中国社会中的宗教》的讨论

<正>杨庆堃的《中国社会中的宗教》中译本问世后,产生了很大的影响。人们在阅读之后,有所消化和吸收,有些学者在学术上深入"反刍",提出了许多值得进一步思考的问题。《世界宗教文化》编辑部特邀《中国社会中的宗教》的主译者、上海复旦大学的范丽珠教授,上海复旦大学     

论杨庆堃先生的分散性宗教

杨庆堃先生通过"分散性宗教"这一概念准确地分析出了中国人的宗教信仰状态和性质,并有力地回应了一部分西方学者的"中国人无宗教信仰"的错误观点.本文重点分析杨庆堃先生"分散性宗教"这一核心概念,并通过对其特性和社会作用的探讨来加深对这一概念的认知.     

Magic,Religion, and Science: Secularization Trends and Continued Coexistence

While multiple studies have applied cultural evolutionary perspectives to the study of religion, few studies have examined the cultural evolutionary dynamics of a more secretive but equally ubiquitous form of supernatural belief: magic. We conducted two studies, an American nationally representative survey and a comparative phylogenetic analysis of religious traditions, to test three hypothesized cultural evolutionary drivers for beliefs in magic. We find the greatest support for the hypothesis that magic is employed when it provides its users benefits that are distinct from those provided by either science or religion, some support for secularization (broadly conceived) trends applying to magic, and no evidence that innate and unavoidable features of human cognition are primary drivers of the cultural evolution of magical beliefs. We conclude by suggesting specific hypothesized benefits for magic that may account for the evolution of humanity's facultative (i.e., context-dependent) use of magical beliefs.     

Confucianism between Tradition and Modernity, Religion, and Secularization: Questions to Tu Weiming

The article discusses central assumptions of Tu Weiming’s program of overcoming the “enlightenment mentality” and throws a critical light on his conceptions of religious or spiritual Confucianism, of a Confucian modernity, and of the “multiple modernities” theory in general. It defends a unitary rather than multiple concept of modernity in terms of the realization of a morally controlled “principle of free subjectivity” and tries to show how Confucianism, understood as a secular ethics, could contribute to this goal.     

Beyond Establishment and Separation: Political Liberalism, Religion and Democracy

Does John Rawls??s political liberalism require the institutional separation between state and religion or does it allow space for moderate forms of religious establishment? In this paper I address this question by presenting and critically evaluating Cécile Laborde??s recent claim that political liberalism is ??inconclusive about the public place of religion?? and ??indeterminate about the symbolic dimensions of the public place of religion??. In response to Cécile Laborde, I argue that neither moderate separation nor moderate establishment, intended as regimes of religious governance that fix specific interpretations of principles of social and economic justice, are compatible with Rawls??s political liberalism. Furthermore, I claim that a state can ensure that both its religious and non-religious citizens enjoy a sense of self-respect and identification with their polity by leaving issues of symbolic establishment and separation open to democratic debate. I conclude that Rawls??s political liberalism transcends the standard distinction between moderate establishment and moderate separation and leaves the public place of religion open to the democratic contestation of ordinary legislative politics.     

Beyond the Conflict: Religion in the Public Sphere and Deliberative Democracy

Traditionally, liberals have confined religion to the sphere of the ‘private’ or ‘non-political’. However, recent debates over the place of religious symbols in public spaces, state financing of faith schools, and tax relief for religious organisations suggest that this distinction is not particularly useful in easing the tension between liberal commitments to equality on the one hand, and freedom of religion on the other. This article deals with one aspect of this debate, which concerns whether members of religious communities should receive exemptions from regulations that place a distinctively heavy burden on them. Drawing on Habermas’ understanding of churches as ‘communities of interpretation’, we explore possible alternatives to both the ‘rule-and-exemption’ approach and the ‘neutralist’ approach. Our proposal rests on the idea of mutual learning between secular and religious perspectives. On this interpretation, what is required is (i) the generation and maintenance of public spaces in which there could be discussion and dialogue about particular cases, and (ii) evaluation of whether the basic conditions of moral discourse are present in these spaces. Thus deliberation becomes a touchstone for the building of a shared democratic ethos.     

Religion, Denomination, and Education in The Netherlands: Cognitive and Noncognitive Outcomes After an Era of Secularization

After 1850, The Netherlands developed into a strongly pillarized or denominational society. Starting in 1965, however, a process of secularization and depillarization emerged and the influence of the institutionalized denominations declined greatly. Today, there are indications that the process of secularization has reached its peak. Remarkably enough, such secularization and depillarization has had little influence on the educational system in The Netherlands. In this article, the relations between the religious affiliations of parents, the denominations of the schools attended by their children, and both the cognitive and noncognitive educational achievement of their children are examined. A representative sample of nearly 8,400 kindergarten students from 432 elementary schools is studied. The results show that the denomination of the school does not appear to affect educational results. Effects of the religious affiliation of the parents on the cognitive achievement but not the self-confidence or well-being of their children were found. When the socioethnic background of the students was taken into consideration, however, the observed effects disappeared.     

Beyond Co-Existence to Mutual Influence: An Interdisciplinary Method for Psychoanalysis and Religion

As the disciplines of psychoanalysis and religion find themselves in a heightened cross-disciplinary context, issues of methodology remain at the forefront. This article constructs an interdisciplinary method based on the image of psychoanalysis and religion as neighbors who border along an “intimate edge”—a space of simultaneously overlapping, yet distinct concern. Using what is termed a “hermeneutic of mischievousness,” this method maintains an interpretive location for that which preserves, transgresses, and transcends the disciplinary boundaries. The article concludes with a brief application of the method to the relationship between the “analytic third” and Christian trinitarian theology.

Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan: Religion and Politics in United States War‐Culture

Abstract : This article digs beneath the surface of American assumptions regarding war to explore the ethical interconnections between national identity, war, and religion. Striking differences emerge between the dynamics of religion and politics with regard to war and peace in presidential speeches regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the analysis of war from an earlier generation, encapsulated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “Beyond Vietnam: A Call to Conscience,” from 1967. Study of this political discourse helps us better understand our own reality in the United States, and the moral consequences of our beliefs about war, sacrifice, the human character, and the identity of the nation.     

Spiritual Change Outside Institutional Religion as Inner Work on the Self: Deep Within and Beyond

The present study employed a qualitative phenomenological method to explore how processes of spiritual change were experienced outside institutional religion. In-depth interviews were conducted with 27 Israeli adults (13 men, 14 women; age range 25–66; M = 45.3) who experienced such a change. The findings underscored the pervasiveness of the concept of work, which was extensively discussed by all the participants and which reflected the meaning they ascribed to their experience of the change process. Spiritual work was experienced as effortful, demanding, and involving a gradual non-linear process without a clear end-point. Spiritual work on the self was perceived as involving two complementary processes: uncovering and cleansing the self—the Spiritual-Psychological facet—and expanding it and rising above—the Spiritual-Transpersonal facet. The discussion suggests that the interplay of psychological and transpersonal spiritual work makes up an alternative narrative of human personal development where modern values of work sustain a postmodern change process.