Search

The article surveys the recent scholarly study of religion and international relations/International Relations (ir/IR). The focus of the article is on two discrete periods: pre-11 September 2001 ('9/11') and post-9/11. During the first time period, Iran's Islamic revolution (1979), the civil war in former Yugoslavia and Huntington's 'clash of civilisations' (1993) were major foci of attention. The second period saw a large number of scholarly accounts following the 9/11 attacks on the USA, with a sustained focus on the international securitisation of Islam. The article concludes that following the recent diminution of the threat to the West of Islamist terrorism—subsequent to the apparent demise of Islamic State and the fragmentation and dissipation of al Qaeda—the study of religion in IR theory needs to take better account of changing circumstances to arrive at an improved understanding of how religion impacts on international relations/International Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I affirm the univocity thesis while discussing some alternative positions that avoid the problem of evil by rejecting the univocity thesis. I reject Sterba's assumption that God's governance of creation is adequately understood as an analogy to good governance of a politically liberal democracy. I suggest that Sterba's commitment to the Pauline principle forces a dilemma between significant human freedom and meticulous divine intervention. Finally, I argue that the existence of horrendous evils is logically compatible with the existence of a good God, given a compensatory response to the problem of evil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the existing literature on the relationship between religion and populism, and is intended as a starting point for further examination of the relationships between populism, religion, and emotions. This paper systematically reviews the various aspects of the populist phenomenon. After a discussion on different definitions of populism, this paper looks at how the literature discusses the causes of populism, mainly socio-economic factors and emotive factors. Then it discusses how religion and populism interact and can be divided in two broad categories of religious populism and identitarian populism. While, on the surface, the two share similarities, this paper reviews populist manifestations across the world to draw the distinct features between the two forms. Lastly, while pointing out the salient features of religious populism and identitarian populism, this study points out gaps in the research on the relationship between religious populism and other phenomena such as transnational populism, the psychology of populism, the role of emotions in creating support for populism, and populism in Western and non-Western contexts for future areas of research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both theism and atheism assume that God permits evil. But neither theism nor atheism make this assumption with due attention to what I call, following Wittgenstein, the grammar of the term 'permission'. When this grammar is examined, it becomes clear that this assumption cannot avoid the atheistic force of the argument from evil. To rescue belief in God, I propose the adoption of a position I call compassionate deism. This position is a combination of Christian theism and traditional deism. The combination is produced by making a slight deistic modification of Christian theism in the direction of non-intervention, and a slight modification of deism in the direction of compassion. Such a compassionate deism denies the common assumption made by both Christian theism and atheism, namely, that God permits evil, and thus avoids the theistic denial of the reality of evil and the atheist's denial of God's goodness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to analyze cultural diversity and its relationship with the personal belief in an Immigrant Parish. The discussion is framed within the topic of intercultural churches and parishes, although in a setting that has not been researched (Santiago, Chile). The research was carried out in the Latin-American Parish placed in Providencia, Santiago, and a qualitative framework was used to obtain and analyze the data. Cultural diversity is understood concerning religious reflexivity and under the idea that pluralism leads to a weakening of religious conviction, as Peter Berger argued. The theoretical framework makes the difference between the vision of Berger on cultural pluralism (pluralism inter-religion) and the viewpoint by Charles Taylor (pluralism intra-religion). On the contrary to Berger, the findings of this research showed that cultural diversity and pluralism are elements that produce a strengthening of individual beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hong Kong, the efficacy of ritualized protest has become an issue of hot debate in recent years. Whereas ritualized protest is a long-term political practice in the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement that has considerable influence, skepticism about it has grown remarkably within the radical faction of the movement. Against this background, this paper aims to offer a theoretical reflection on the role of ritualized protest in the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. It will take an auto-ethnographic approach to reflect on the material culture of Hong Kong public protests and engage in the recent controversy over ritualized protest. This study shows that although ritualized protest can hardly achieve actual political changes in the short run, ritual sensibility is essential to the promulgation and the passing-on of social and political values. This applies not only to ritualized protests that are largely peaceful, rational, and non-violent but also to militant protests that are open to the use of violence. This emphasis on the underlying importance of ritual sensibility invites both the liberal democratic and the radical factions to introspect whether their own political praxes have portents of formalization and ossification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]