Religiousness and Religious Coping in a Secular Society: The Gender Perspective

Women are found to be more religious than men and more likely to use religious coping. Only few studies have explored religious gender differences in more secular societies. This population-based study comprised 3,000 Danish men and women (response rate 45 %) between 20 and 40 years of age. Information about demographics, religiousness and religious coping was obtained through a web-based questionnaire. We organized religiousness in the three dimensions: Cognition, Practice and Importance, and we assessed religious coping using the brief RCOPE questionnaire. We found substantial gender differences in both religiousness and religious coping. Nearly, 60 % of the women believed in some sort of spirit or in God compared to 40 % of the men. Generally, both men and women scored low on the RCOPE scale. However, for respondents reporting high levels of religiousness, the proportion of men who scored high in the RCOPE exceeded the proportion of women in using positive and especially negative coping strategies. Also, in a secular society, women are found to be more religious than men, but in a subset of the most religious respondents, men were more inclined to use religious coping. Further studies on religious coping in secular societies are required.     

Generations of Decline: Religious Change in 20th-Century Britain

This article analyzes the best available evidence from the major British social surveys to describe and explain the continuous decline of religion throughout the 20th century. This decline is overwhelmingly generational in nature rather than a product of particular periods such as World War II or the 1960s. Measures of religious affiliation, regular attendance at worship, and religious belief show nearly identical rates of intergenerational decline. Decline has not been offset by any positive age effects in an aging society: Britons do not get more religious as they get older. The intergenerational decline follows clear patterns of transmission of parental religious characteristics to children. Two potential modulators of decline are identified and investigated: immigration of people who are more religious than the existing population and higher fertility rates among the religiously active population. Of these only the former appears of importance. The nonwhite ethnic minority immigrant population is far more religious than the white population; however, the rates of intergenerational decline (between immigrant parents and native-born children) are almost as high as for the white population, leading to an intergenerational convergence of levels of religiosity. Although ethnic minority populations tend to be more religious and have higher fertility rates, there is no differential fertility by religiosity among the population as a whole.     

Muslim Women and the Politics of Religious Identity in a (Post) Secular Society

Women’s bodies, states Benhabib (Dignity in adversity: human rights in troubled times, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011: 168), have become the site of symbolic confrontations between a re-essentialized understanding of religious and cultural differences and the forces of state power, whether in their civic-republican, liberal-democratic or multicultural form. One of the main reasons for the emergence of these confrontations or public debates, says Benhabib (2011: 169), is because of the actual location of ‘political theology’. She asserts that within the context of globalization, the concept of ‘political theology’ is complicated by its unstable location between religion and the public square; between the private and official; and between individual rights to freedom of religion versus state security and public well-being. Ultimately, therefore, the nature of the tension between religion as a political theology and the forces of state power can at best be described as a clash between identities of a collective nature (as envisaged by the nation-state) and identities of an individual nature (as manifested in different religions and cultures). Ongoing attempts to counter the ascendancy of religion, and as will be discussed in this article, specifically the ascendancy and visibility of Islamic identity as practiced by Muslim women, has brought into serious debate the notion of a (post) secular society and its implications for religious rights. What emerges from the state’s insistence that individuals not be allowed to enter the public discourse as religious beings, are, on the one hand, the constraints imposed on Muslim women by liberal democracies, and on the other hand, that Islam, as represented by Muslim women, is not constitutive of democratic citizenship. Will the inclusion and recognition of Muslim women, therefore, necessarily augment a democratic citizenship agenda, and will it lead to an alleviation of the conflict? Then, in exploring a re-articulation of an inclusive citizenship—one which is held accountable by its minimization of social inequality—what ought to be the parameters of inclusion and how should it unfold differently to what is already happening in liberal democracies?     

Generations of Catholics in Eastern Africa: A Practice‐Centered Analysis of Religious Change

This article considers how well Martin Riesebrodt's practice‐centered theory of religion addresses religious change among Catholics in eastern Africa. Two arguments are advanced using a generational change scheme. First, Riesebrodt's focus on religious practices assists in understanding many changes that African Catholics and their communities have experienced over time. It acknowledges believers’ perspectives and the impact of missionaries, and it generates comparative insights across different cases. However, Riesebrodt's approach has limitations when developing a comparative perspective on historical transformation in these communities. Therefore, his focus on the objective meaning of interventionist religious practices needs supplementing: (1) capturing religious change within a given religion requires attention both to practices and their subjective appropriation by believers, and (2) in the forging of collective identities, theological reflection by elites helped connect Catholic practices to preexisting worldviews and Catholic practices marked generational change by distinguishing Catholics from other African Christians.     

Religious Coping and Quality of Life Among Severely Ill Lung Patients in a Secular Society

This survey study investigated the prevalence of religious beliefs and religious coping and possible associations between religious factors and quality of life (QoL) among a group of severely ill lung patients (lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in Denmark (N = 111). Almost two thirds (64.8%) reported having some belief in God and/or a spiritual power. Patients who reported believing in God and patients who believed in God and a spiritual power reported better QoL than patients who reported that they believed in a spiritual power only. Religious coping was prevalent; for positive religious coping strategies, those used from least to most often, respectively, were invoked 15% to 37% of the time; for negative religious coping strategies the percentages were 3% to 16%. Negative religious coping was associated with lower QoL (β = ?0.320, p < .006), whereas no associations were found between positive religious coping and QoL. Results are discussed in relation to the cultural context of secularized societies like the Scandinavian countries.     

The Politics of Judicial Public Reason: Secular Interests and Religious Rights

This paper seeks a better understanding of the role of public reason in alimenting or defusing religious conflicts by looking at how courts apply it in deciding cases arising out of them. Recent scholarship and judicial decisions suggest, paradoxically, that courts can be biased towards either the secular or the religious. This risks alienating both religious majorities and religious and secular minorities. Judicial public reason is uniquely equipped to protect minorities, and its costs to religious majorities may be mitigated by accepting religious morality and identity claims in the political and legislative realm. Despite the political fragilities of judicial public reason, it is not intrinsically hostile to religious claims. It ought in fact to be fully equipped to recognize the equality and religious freedom rights that religious groups and individuals might assert in pursuing exemptions from general secular laws. Judicial public reason does have the potential to defuse religious conflicts, however much it falls short in practice.     

Religious Service Attendance and Religious and Secular Organizational Engagement in the United Kingdom

The study uses nationally representative data to examine whether the moral freighting Putnam and Campbell (2010) propose, based on American experiences, may apply to overall British society. Specifically, it tests whether religious service attendance increases religious or secular organizational activities, possibly due to moral freighting that encourages religious congregants to practice their faith, transcending ego boundaries and self-interest. It is also necessary to determine if engagement in religious or secular organizational activities elevates the degree of religious service attendance, thus forming a bidirectional association. The study employs the maximum likelihood-structural equation modeling (ML-SEM) method to verify the proposed reciprocity. The empirical tests confirm that a synergistic reciprocal relationship is established between religious service attendance and religious organizational engagement, and that religious service attendance increases secular organizational engagement. However, secular organizational engagement does not make a bidirectional contribution to religious service attendance.     

The Challenge of Christian Schooling in a Secular Society

This article evaluates the position of Christian schooling within a liberal democracy and the rights of Christians within a secular state. I challenge the fundamental liberal tenet of individual autonomy as the supreme goal of education and put the case that Christian schools are a vital part of a diverse, tolerant and inclusive society. Although intended as a theoretical resource, current developments in faith-based education in the United Kingdom are used to exemplify important political and philosophical arguments that will be of value to Christian educators in the United States and elsewhere.     

Mindfulness and Contemplation: Secular and Religious Traditions in Western Context

This article considers the growth of mindfulness as a secular practice embedded in a culture that is pluralistic but still primed by Western religion and spirituality. Eastern and Western meditational practices are compared and contrasted for greater understanding of the strengths of each. Western contemplative practices are described as an attentional training process with common factors related to mindfulness. Even as Eastern and Western meditational forms are distinguished, the shared concerns of those who value a religious–spiritual perspective in counseling are raised. Ethical implications are discussed related to informed consent, competence, and multicultural awareness.     

论宗教个人主义的世俗意义--分析16世纪宗教改革的起源和影响的一个视角

本文认为发生于 16世纪欧洲西北部的宗教改革 ,首先发端于对罗马教廷的专制和腐败的批判 ,随着宗教改革的深入和原罗马天主教统一局面及宗教权威的打破 ,形成了众多教派和教派之间的纷争。宗教改革的年代是欧洲资产阶级力量上升时期 ,是社会资源在封建贵族、教会势力和新兴资产阶级之间重新分配时期。世俗势力与宗教纷争的汇合 ,使得宗教改革最终带着血腥味从宗教冲突走向宗教宽容。宗教改革之后的宽容观是这场宗教改革留给历史的最宝贵财富 ,因为这种宽容观使信仰自由和宗教个人主义增加了世俗的意义。信仰自由和宗教个人主义 ,在随后的基督教世界的历史进程中 ,对早期世俗自由和个人主义的政治哲学观形成有着深刻的影响。     

Varieties of Religious Experience:Continuity and Change in Religious Involvement

ABSTRACT The intent of the present study was to determine whether the selective aggregation of background data subgroups could be used to identify and control for differences across persons in the meaning of religious involvement. After background data subgroups had been clustered based on similarity in the variables related to religious involvement, two clusters were identified. One cluster contained individuals whose religious involvement was characterized by a functional, instrumental orientation, while the other was composed of individuals whose religious involvement was characterized by an affective, expressive orientation. Subsequently, causal models intended to describe continuity and change in religious involvement were constructed using individuals assigned to each cluster. It was found that different models were required to describe continuity and change in religious involvement in the instrumental and expressive clusters.     

Good and Well: The Case for Secular Buddhist Ethics

This paper examines the viability, in principle, of a secular Buddhist ethics, aimed at Buddhists, in the absence of the traditional, non-secular motivators of the laws of karma and the doctrine of rebirth. I argue that Buddhist ethics can be construed either as a consequentialist or virtue ethics, with anattā or suññatā as grounding metaphysical ideas, neither of which presupposes a belief in either the cosmic-retribution idea of karma or any multiple-life (or in fact any afterlife) view of human existence. Additionally, consequentialism is primarily concerned with compassion, which is very much a within-world action tendency, and virtue ethics can be construed such that both the end goal (enlightened, compassionate, mindful flourishing) as well as the relevant virtues (the sīla part of the Eightfold Path and the brahmavihāras) are perfectly circumscribed within a single lifetime.     

Religious Life Under Theocracy: The Case of Iran

The occurrence of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, followed by a large‐scale “Islamization” of society, resulted in some unique developments with regard to religious life in this country. Over the past two decades, there has been a lively debate among social scientists about the nature of such developments, and over their implications for other Middle Eastern and Islamic societies. Most of the contributions to this debate so far have been limited to the examination of different theoretical possibilities, without strong references to empirical evidence. In the present study, we attempt to address this shortcoming in the existing literature on religious developments in Iran by relying on a rich set of empirical data recently gathered through a large‐scale national survey of values and attitudes in Iran. Through a composite index of religious sentiments, we explored the magnitude and the nature of religious sentiments among groups of different age and gender. Also, we examined changes with regard to religiosity in the period between 1975 and 2001. The outstanding finding is that the establishment of a theocratic regime in Iran has led to the transformation of the nature of faith, marked by a noticeable shift from “organized” to a more “personalized” religion, in which the emphasis is placed on beliefs rather than on practices. Also, among both beliefs and practices, more emphasis is placed on those with a purely individual nature, or with a social nature but organized through civic and nongovernmental bodies, as opposed to those commanded by the government. The article ends with a brief discussion of the implications of such developments for the existing debate among sociologists of religion on secularization and “de‐secularization.” Our findings indicate that any linear perspective on the demise or survival of religion in society will unreasonably brush aside the fact that religion is not merely a social institution, but also a “cultural resource” that individuals may draw upon, depending on their surrounding sociopolitical circumstances and their reading of those circumstances.     

Spirituality: The Emergence of a New Cultural Category and its Challenge to the Religious and the Secular

The present article examines spirituality as an emergent new cultural category that challenges the binary opposition of the religious and secular realms of life. The article probes the cultural significance of the popular phrase ‘spiritual, but not religious’ and examines the emergence of New Age spirituality within the framework of late capitalism and postmodern culture. It offers a new perspective on the debate of the secularization theory and re-examines the notions upon which this debate hinges. The article also examines the assessment of New Age spirituality as disguised neo-liberal ideology and proposes that the disparaging condemnations of contemporary spirituality can be seen as a response to its challenge to the entrenched notion that the religious and the secular are universal distinct categories.     

Including the Religious Viewpoints and Experiences of Muslim Students in an Environment that is Both Plural and Secular

This paper sets out the context and some main lines of argument about the education of Muslim children in England, including concern over low attainment, over segregation and violent extremism. Three approaches to inclusion of Muslims in mainstream educational settings are identified. The paper describes and assesses the identity-based approach to inclusion common to many English schools using a distinction between permissive and affirmative stances to analyse practice. It proceeds to argue for an epistemology-based approach that makes room for students’ experiential and theological perspectives on the content of their learning.     

Catholic Women Religious Vocations in the Twentieth Century: The Slovenian Case

In the twentieth century, female monasticism in Slovenia enjoyed a dynamic period. In this paper, I present changes in numerical trends for the whole century and explore the broader social circumstances and conditions that influenced the dynamics of this phenomenon. The basic thesis is that the numbers of members of religious orders change depending on the manner in which monasticism is structured in the economic, political and cultural life of a certain society. The major part of the discussion focuses on the first half of the century, which saw the greatest growth. In comparing the Slovenian statistical regions, I found that the majority of women members came from regions in which the demographic imbalance favoring women over men and the influence of the Catholic Church on everyday life were the greatest. In Slovenia, the decline in female religious vocations started after WWII and, especially until the second Vatican Council, was part of a manifest secularization process rooted in political change. The numerical trend in Slovenian female monasticism differs from West European and USA trends; therefore, a different approach and explanation was needed. This enabled me to re-think the social circumstances and position of Catholic orders in Slovenian society.