Can Muslims Befriend Non-Muslims? Debating al-walāʾ wa-al-barāʾ (Loyalty and Disavowal) in Theory and Practice

This article analyzes the polemic on the concept of al-walā? wa-al-barā? (commonly translated as “loyalty and disavowal”). While existing academic literature focuses on the usages of this concept by jihad activists, the article centers on the role “loyalty and disavowal” plays in debates between contemporary salafī and wasa?ī jurists and theologians, specifically in their conflicting agendas for Muslims living as minorities. Salafīs, relying on several qur'anic verses and Prophetic traditions, promote an understanding of “loyalty and disavowal” that requires Muslims to refrain from befriending or loving non-Muslims, or imitating their beliefs and customs. Relying on counter-verses and traditions, in particular Q 60.8, wasa?īs have interpreted the concept of “loyalty and disavowal” more narrowly, arguing that it applies only to non-Muslims who fight against Muslims; as part of their integration-oriented doctrine for Muslims in the West, they have in recent years dedicated considerable efforts to refuting the salafī interpretation of al-walā? wa-al-barā?. The article examines the juristic methodologies utilized in the debate, and how it has affected religious decisions (fatwās) on Islamic life in Western societies.     

Reading and reflecting sacred texts in the presence of the other. An empirical study on the use of ‘scriptural reasoning’ in teacher education

In this article the method of Scriptural Reasoning (SR), a text-based approach to interreligious dialogue between participants of the three Abrahamic religions, was implemented for a teacher education setting at a German university. Not only students with an outspoken religious conviction but also agnostic and atheist students, preparing themselves to become teachers in public schools, were invited into the conversation. The article documents and discusses the qualitative-empirical research in which the SR meetings were embedded. The aim of the article is not to create a hermeneutical theory for SR but rather to explore how SR as a method, with its specific learning tool of text-work, can be turned into a broader didactical model which can be transferred to other learning environments and which can in the long run provide empirical evidence on successful teacher education in multi-religious and multi-worldview societies and schools.     

What kind of tensions are involved in the pedagogical use of religious narratives? Perspectives from Finnish Evangelic Lutheran and Islamic religious education

Abstract

In this article, we examine how narratives of religious traditions are used as resources in religious education (RE) and compare practices from Evangelic Lutheran religious education (LRE) and Islamic religious education (IRE) in Finnish public schools. The sacredness of narratives from holy books entails that there can be contestations over their pedagogical use, and teachers need to negotiate the possible tensions between the pedagogical aims of liberal RE and the integrity of the holy narratives. The research data consists of interviews with teachers of LRE (n = 4) and IRE (n = 5) as well as classroom observations. The results of qualitative content analysis show that teachers use narratives as pedagogical resources when teaching about and from religion. However, tensions occurred between the ideals of student-centred, experiential and creative learning, on one hand, and respecting the sacredness of the narratives, on the other. We also present teachers’ ways of negotiating the tensions as well as some differences between LRE and IRE in the pedagogical use of narratives.     

Multiple Religious Belonging among visitors of Dominican spiritual centers in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

In the religiously pluralized Western world, a trend called ‘Multiple Religious Belonging’ (MRB) has been identified. Although it is a much theologically debated concept, empirical research on the practice of MRB is limited. The present research project therefore explores the phenomenon of MRB among visitors of Dominican spiritual centers in the Netherlands (n=472). It investigates to what extent and in which ways such visitors combine elements from more than one religious tradition in their lives and what they perceive to be the benefits of combining elements. It links this information to their views on religion, the resources they draw from, their (religiously diverse) networks, and their motivations for attending spiritual activities. The results indicate that respondents who combine elements from more than one religious tradition (‘combiners’) are more likely than ‘non-combiners’ to: a) see religion as something that is constantly changing during the life course; b) have networks which are religiously diverse; c) place importance on nature, in-depth conversations, personal rituals or practices, and theological, philosophical, and spiritual texts as resources; d) be motivated to attend spiritual centers because of a focus on self-exploration.     

Religious polarization: contesting religion in secularized Western European countries

In light of recent claims about increasing religious polarization in secularized countries, we study the extent to which the non-religious contest religion in Western European countries and whether and how the Protestant and Catholic heritage of these countries plays a role in this. Analyzing data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP 1998 and 2008) data by means of multilevel analysis, we demonstrate that religious polarization is stronger in the most secularized countries and in countries with a Catholic religious heritage. Moreover, in secular countries, polarization stems from religious fervency, whereas in countries with a Catholic heritage, it stems from anti-religious fervency.     

Alternative death rituals in Switzerland: building a community of shared emotions and practices

New alternative death rituals are gaining significance in Switzerland, like in other contemporary Western societies. This article discusses how celebrants who are independent of any religious community shape alternative funerals and why such rituals may be able to function as a coping resource for a certain kind of participants. I argue that these rituals, co-produced by celebrants and the bereaved and including actively involved participants, can be seen as a re-conquest of ritual agency for lay people. By encouraging physical and mental contact with the deceased, the celebrants try to enable emotional arousal and create a temporary community of shared experiences and emotions and of the living and the dead. Elements of an individually crafted spirituality and a kind of nature religion represent both separation and continuing bonds between the living and the dead. As a consequence, such funerals serve as a resource in the face of death by integrating a singular death with the wider context.     

The naked truth: mindfulness and the purification of religion

To arrive at an understanding of what drives the much debated spiritual turn in Western Europe, we study the spiritual trajectories and identifications of mindfulness practitioners in the formerly predominantly Roman Catholic context of Flanders in Belgium. Fifteen semi-structured interviews addressed their religious and spiritual biographical trajectories as well as the symbolic boundaries they draw with adjacent religious and spiritual groups. We find marked evidence of a process of ‘religious purification’, which unfolds as a critique of the formal and external aspects of both religion (organisations, dogmas, ritual) and spirituality (woolly and frivolous New Age word games). To validate and justify, alternatively, the ‘pure’ and ‘grounded’ spirituality that results, those concerned consistently invoke the authority of science.     

Teaching worldviews through creative drama for religious education in Turkey

Abstract

Over the last two decades, Worldview Approach has been mentioned in the field of religious education and spirituality. This article aims to determine the effects of creative drama on teaching worldviews and religions. The main purpose of Worldview Education is to assist individuals to have a broader and deeper understanding on self-identity, worldviews of others, and on the meaning and purpose of life. It also helps individuals to think on ontological, epistemological and ultimate questions about life, values and beliefs. The spiritual development of individuals has a need for several guidelines from the fields of philosophy, theology, and education. As an educational tool, creative drama increases imagination, creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking skills and assists students’ personal and emotional development. Combining Worldview Education with creative drama creates a multidimensional educational environment for a meaningful learning on religions, worldviews, and spirituality.     

Madhouse and the whole thing there

This article presents an autoethnography in the form of a short story of the experiences of a mental breakdown, and subsequent involuntary detainment, alongside the experiences of conducting PhD research outside the mainstream of the discipline of psychology. In response to criticisms of narrative approaches that they are methodologically solipsistic and present a socially atomised self, this narrative combines patient medical records with narrative recollections and reflections on the research process from a contemporary perspective. In doing so, the narrative explores and interrogates themes relevant to creative practice in psychological research, including the notion of authenticity, methodological issues of researching personal experience, the problem of subjectivity and, ultimately, the nature of madness and psychological distress, including its nonlinearity and otherness.     

Becoming Eastern Orthodox in diaspora: materializing Orthodox Russia and Holy Rus’

In this article, I draw on interviews and participant observation data from a two-year-long ethnographic study in a Russian Orthodox parish in the United States. I argue that both the Russian Orthodox immigrants and the Protestant converts to Orthodoxy attending this parish may be usefully thought of as diasporic groups. Seeking to construct their particular Orthodox identity, both groups deal with their own physical and symbolic displacements, and attempt to find their place of belonging. I demonstrate how in the process, through reliance on religious narratives, prayer, and Russian Orthodox icons, parishioners construct two overlapping, yet distinctive places of their origin: Holy Rus’ and Orthodox Russia. Finally, attending to how some Orthodox Christians were able to position themselves in two groups simultaneously, I suggest that we think of religious practitioners as able to inhabit two diasporas at once.