Search

There is growing recognition of the prevalence of paranormal beliefs in Western countries. However, most of this interest has been focused on the United States and robust, comparative data remain limited. This study extends this literature to report findings from a national survey of the United Kingdom designed to assess the prevalence and patterns of paranormal beliefs. Although there are many similarities to previous research, the results also suggest that there are significant differences in the scope, clustering, and patterns of paranormalism across contexts. The study makes four contributions to research on the paranormal by a) reiterating the continuing popularity of paranormal beliefs, even in highly secularized locations, with over 70% of people in the United Kingdom believing in something paranormal; b) demonstrating that these beliefs are differentiated across contexts where they might otherwise be assumed to be similar; c) demonstrating the applicability of social control and bounded affinity theories for explaining belief in the paranormal; and, d) documenting how conventional religiosity relates to paranormalism in a relatively secular cultural context. These findings highlight the need for further research on diffuse forms of supernaturalism and the potential for such studies to contribute to important questions about theory and research in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what are often described as modern Western school systems, the supervision of elementary schools generally shifted from the hands of clerical administrators to genuine state officials during the nineteenth century. The Prussian state, like other predominantly Protestant states, relied on clerical personnel and church supervision structures to establish its school supervision administration. Yet, this was also true for the more Catholic parts of the Prussian monarchy, where integration of church structures into state administration caused friction between state and church authorities. Hence, this contribution focuses on appointments of school inspectors in early nineteenth-century Prussian Silesia, when friction arose between the state and the prince-bishop concerning appointment rights. These frictions are reflected in the process of newly introduced mid-level state school administrations taking over episcopal appointment rights, which has been described as a nationalisation or secularisation of Silesian school administration. The article proposes a more nuanced approach to the restructuring of Silesian school administration, driven by consecutive administration reforms resulting in a fusion of church and state administration, rather than a traditional secularisation narrative. It traces the subtle ties between the Prussian state, episcopal administration, and clerical inspection personnel that led to the gradual assertion of state over ecclesiastical structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last years, a theological turn had a pervasive influence in the reception of Carl Schmitt's writings. According to this view, his thought has a strong, substantial religious foundation. With regards to understanding not only Schmitt's position but also his current influence in authoritarian countries, this essay argues that this interpretation is misleading and proposes a different and comprehensive analysis of Schmitt's concept of political theology that replaces it in a political-legal framework. Against the theological reading, it argues that Schmitt's concept of "political theology" refers to his own conception of legal theory as an attempt to relegitimize authority in a secular context. As "political theology," this legal theory is designed to overcome normativism and parliamentarism by "substantializing" the legal form. Using Schmitt's post-1933 works as an example, the essay shows that, as theology translates faith into a written doctrine, legal theory must, according to Schmitt, substantialize the legal form by translating the political idea into jurisprudence. Hence, this article concludes that Schmitt's theory might be described as "political theology" but only in a formal, ideological sense. It is part of an authoritarian theory that is not religious but uses theology to revive an appearance of absolute legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By changing the definition of 'religion', the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has posed serious challenges not only to Iran's role in the Middle East and its relations with the 'West', but also to many social theories, such as differentiation, modernization and secularization. Indeed, there is no shortage of work on how post-revolutionary Iran has 'Islamized' its constitution and institutions. However, there is little work on the impact of the 'Islamization' process on people's 'religiosity'. This article is a response to this vacuum and takes as its central question: What has been the impact of the Iranian revolution on aspects of students' 'religiosity' under the rule of an Islamist state? This question is tackled by drawing on the theoretical approach of 'social constructionism' towards 'religion', adopting Glock and Stark's multi-dimensional model of 'religious commitment' and using quantitative research methods to examine the styles of 'religion' in 2001–02 among the students of a major national, research university: The University of Tabriz. A careful analysis of 'religious commitment' among a sample of 365 students provides evidence of the 'individualization of religion', 'spirituality' and 'secularization' rather than collectivism, 'shari'a'-orientation and the rendition of 'Islam' as a political ideology or 'Islamism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn the post-Darwinian approach, the ‘blank slate’ is synonymous with the modern denial of human nature. This article is a call for the restoration of the first layer in the portrait of the blank slate through Quentin Skinner’s contextual-intentionality method to challenge this approach. Rather than denying human nature, John Locke shifted the Platonic inquiry from ‘What is the nature of knowledge?’ to ‘How the mind acquires knowledge?’—offering a modern understanding of human nature to modern Exodus of perceptual prisoners from the Platonic cave. Thus, the blank slate was a response to the doctrine of Plato’s anamnesis (recollection a priori knowledge) to transform ignorance from divine to secular. In this early pentimento, I identify a ‘secular ignorance’ within the blank slate—a distortion painted broadly by post-Darwinian thinkers. Consequently, the ‘blank slate’ as an apparatus for secularizing ignorance can revise the Latin root of the curriculum—Currere, the running of the course—from a traditional hurdle race, where each learner competes to reach predetermined and common ends (a divine vision), into a modern relay race, where each learner passes the torch of ignorance onto the next (a secular vision). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to present a chronological overview of the political reception of Tacitus' works in the northern Low Countries from the early sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century. Most of the types of Tacitism proposed in the introduction are represented in the Dutch context in one way or another. A characteristic of the Dutch Tacitism(s) as discussed here is that they appear to be at the heart of the connections between academia and government in the Republic, and especially in the province of Holland. Together with a fascination for reason of state (whether accepting or rejecting it), Tacitism often carries aspects of style and taste which give it a 'risky' fascination that is part of the explanation of its success and influence among selected (predominantly elite) readerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the twin challenges of globalization and de-globalization, do religions exercise agency in these trends? In other words, do they give shape to them, or are they rather shaped by them? If the influence is reciprocal, how should the process behind this be described? This article sets itself two tasks. Firstly, it endeavors to develop a theoretical framework by which to conceptualize the question just posed. Secondly, it applies this framework to the case of China and, more cursorily, to the East Asian context in general. I start my analysis by approaching "globalization" as a shared vision of the world, referred to, in this article, as the "global imaginary". The recent erosion of the latter has led to "deglobalization", a set of narratives that remain correlated to the globalist storyline they confront. Central to the topic is that fact that the crisis experienced by the global imaginary affects the interplay between its secular and religious dimensions. The secular imaginary had fostered a homogenous narrative that has caused both ontological and epistemological crises. The resurgence of religious discourse within the narratives of deglobalization is to be understood as part and parcel of competing interpretations of the global modernization process, since the latter obeys both secular and religious forces. Focusing in the second part of this article on trends and representations proper to China in its regional context enables us to better assess how the globalization and deglobalization narratives intermingle in religious and secular dimensions in a way that reshapes each of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the securitisation of Hungarian purchases of cultural built heritage in Slovakia in 2021–2023. It demonstrates that, while the material existence of this heritage had not been in any way endangered, it nevertheless became intimately intertwined with the broader anxieties and fears of irredentism and territorial revisionism, stemming from persisting conflicts in memory politics and from the Hungarian government's controversial and non-transparent approach to its neighbours. It demonstrates how the conflicting national(ist) narratives are reinforced by a lack of basic transparency, resulting from the political economy and power techniques of the 'illiberal' political regimes which some political scientists dub 'the mafia state'. The article draws on insights from critical security studies, critical heritage studies and the ontological security theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the trajectories of psilocybin and ayahuasca in the context of the psychedelic renaissance. The bibliometric analysis reveals that academic publications on psilocybin fall primarily into the medical and scientific areas, whereas those devoted to ayahuasca derive mainly from humanities and social sciences. Second, the article argues that psilocybin and ayahuasca use is undergoing a process of secularization, leading to psychedelic use that is increasingly removed from its traditional cultural roots. This secularization manifests itself differently in the two cases: Psilocybin exhibits a higher degree of secularization than ayahuasca. Ayahuasca maintains strong ties to religious institutions and indigenous organizations deeply involved in its global spread, and it has undergone less medicalization than psilocybin. While the careful attention to setting in psilocybin clinical trials is noteworthy, this doesn't necessarily imply an emphasis on traditional mushroom use settings. On the other hand, a form of 'ayahuasca guardianship' persists, manifested in individuals and groups actively maintaining and asserting their cultural authority over the plant's significance and associated practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of the school values macro-survey, applied in 2019 to 11,322 students from Latin America, 1,041 Cubans and 2,476 Spaniards. These data are compared with other identical questions that were asked in 1993 to 36,515 Latin American schoolchildren (761 from Paraguay) and 5,168 Spaniards. The topics covered are prejudice and racism, the assessment of the Spanish conquest and colonization, the ties that most unite us according to the young people surveyed, and the change in values in America from 1993 to 2019, regarding machismo, sexual morality, religiosity, secularization process and subjective degree of happiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study asserts that the secularization theory has the potential to offer insights into the processes of social change experienced by faith groups outside the modern West. The study focuses on the transformation undergone by Alevi groups in Turkey, who are now experiencing a more modern way of life compared to their past. In this qualitative study, data collection was conducted through semistructured interviews during field studies in the cities of Çorum (Turk Alevis) and Tunceli/Dersim (Zaza/Kurd Alevis). Based on the interview findings, the study concludes that the new Alevi generation leads a more modern and at the same time more secular daily life compared to their parents. Therefore, the main assertion of this research is that the classical secularization theory has the potential to provide valuable insights not only for modern societies where Christianity is dominant but also for understanding the transformations occurring within Alevi communities in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In western societies, secularization in the sense of declining individual religiosity is mainly caused by cohort replacement. Every cohort is somewhat less religious than its predecessor, indicating that religious transmission is incomplete. The puzzle is just what causes this incomplete transmission and whether there is one or a restricted number of factors that mainly explain the process. Our aim in this article is to establish, describe, and explain this lack of religious transmission in West Germany, comparing parents' and children's level of church attendance and their determinants over time. We use a data set of more than 8,000 parent‐child pairs across four cohorts from the German Socio‐Economic Panel (SOEP) and test whether indicators measuring parent attributes, family relations, or parental context influence the attendance gap. As expected, we find a substantial parent‐child attendance gap. However, we do not find factors that mainly explain the process. Only family disruption and the percentage of nones in the state slightly increase the attendance gap, but effect sizes are small. Our surprising result is that secularization happens largely independently of attributes of the parents and their immediate surroundings. We discuss how this finding may give credibility to new theories of secular transition and present an agenda for future research on religious transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some versions of secularization theory propose that existential security, education, and urbanicity exert directly measurable negative effects on religiosity cross‐culturally. However, few studies have tested this using longitudinal data. Nor have researchers adequately examined how much the relationship between these modern social conditions (MSCs) and religiosity varies society‐to‐society. This study addresses these limitations in a series of new analyses, using 1989–2020 World/European Values Survey data from approximately 100 countries. Results suggest that the three MSCs do not exert independent, negative effects on religiosity in general, at least not in the short or medium term. Indeed, national‐average increases in these MSCs were not found to predict decreased religiosity. And, interestingly and unexpectedly, the direction of individual‐level relationships between each MSC and religiosity varied greatly between countries and world regions. These findings suggest scholars should probably look elsewhere to explain why average religiosity has decreased in some world locations over recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout Chile's history, the Catholic Church has had a great influence on governmental and regulatory issues in the country. An example of this occurs in the educational field, where school religious education aims to promote the encounter with Jesus Christ and inculcate Christian values to solve the crisis of meaning experienced by young people. However, the question arises as to whether it is capable of fulfilling this role in the face of the new spiritual demands of students as a result of the socio-cultural transformations of society. In this context, the aim of this article is to analyze the impact of religious pluralism on the change of paradigm of Catholic school religious education (1975-2023). For this purpose, variables such as the historical permanence of the subject of religion in the Chilean educational system; the tensions and expressions of religious pluralism at present; and the influence of this phenomenon on the contents and methodologies developed in religious education were studied. Therefore, we worked with primary and secondary sources related to the subject, in addition to conducting a case study, through semi-structured interviews and focus groups at the Liceo Politécnico Sara Blinder Dargoltz in the commune of Santiago Centro, which belongs to the Red Educacional Santo Tomás de Aquino, whose foundation has been providing Catholic religious education in our country since 1870. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of secularisation has long been a subject of considerable interest among sociologists of religion. This process is intricately linked with modernization, which represents a fundamental dynamic driving societal change and reshaping various social institutions. According to some sociologists, religion, once a central institution, has begun to lose its influence and prominence as societies modernize. Numerous scholars, particularly sociologists have articulated this observation. Western sociologists have approached the study of secularisation through different paradigms, including “the old secularisation paradigm,” “the new secularisation paradigm,” and “the alternative (eclectic) secularisation paradigm,” the latter of which often focuses on non-Western contexts. For instance, Bryan Ronald Wilson (1926-2004), a prominent representative of the classical paradigm, has authored several influential works on new religious movements, such as Sects and Society: Magic and the Millennium (1973) and The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism (1990). From a different perspective, Rodney Stark (1934-2022), a key figure in the new paradigm, has contributed extensively to the discourse on religion and secularisation through publications such as The Triumph of Faith (2015), A Theory of Religion (1987), The Future of Religion (1985), and various articles including “Secularization, R.I.P.” (1987) and “Must All Religions Be Supernatural?” (2015). Our study aims to examine, evaluate, and compare the perspectives of Bryan Wilson and Rodney Stark on secularisation using qualitative analysis and literature review methodologies. For the sake of comparison, we will focus on Stark's and Wilson's views on secularization and religion. In addition, the study aims to illuminate the evolution of secularization paradigms over time and show that although secularization is associated with modernity, it is perceived differently within the new paradigm. Furthermore, focusing on the perspectives of these two sociologists, we will analyse what role new religious movements and pluralistic understandings play in this context. On the other hand, Wilson argues that subjective religiosity remains high in Europe, suggesting that secularisation has significantly impacted traditional religious groups and contributed to the formation of new cults. Specifically, we will examine Wilson’s assertion that, in modern society, churches have become “a post office,” visited only as needed, and that the rise of new religious movements reflects the diminished importance of religion in society. For Wilson, these movements are considered a secularized form of religion. According to Stark, secularisation has notably impacted traditional, low-intensity religious groups, it has not precluded the emergence of fervent cults and sects. Stark argues that although the influence of traditional religious institutions has diminished due to secularization, religious practices persist. We will explore Stark's views on religion and secularisation, including the evidence for secularisation and the proliferation of new religious movements in the modern world. In the final analysis, this paper claims that despite the decline in the influence of traditional religious institutions due to secularisation, religious practices have persisted in different forms or structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research on some aspects of youth religiosity among Catholic Confirmation candidates in the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Split–Makarska, Croatia, as part of a broader 2020 study aimed at assessing confirmands' satisfaction with Confirmation preparation. However, this paper specifically focuses on selected variables related to youth religiosity. Conducted on a sample of 473 confirmands using a non-probabilistic sampling method, this study employed a survey to measure some aspects of personal and actual religiosity, including indicators such as religious self-identification, the importance of faith, the frequency of Mass attendance, and the frequency of personal and family prayer. Findings reveal that confirmands with a strong religious self-identification are more engaged in religious practices, with frequent Mass attendance and the practice of both personal and family prayer. Sociodemographic variables, including gender and parental education, did not show a significant effect on these aspects of youth religiosity, while settlement size correlated with religious self-identification and the frequency of Mass attendance. Confirmands from smaller, but not from the smallest settlements, demonstrated higher religiosity, consistent with modernization theory, which suggests that urban settings may encourage secularization trends. These findings highlight the importance of pastoral strategies that support both communal and personalized expressions of faith, emphasizing the need for further research to understand evolving patterns of youth religiosity within the Croatian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research suggests three distinct major trends regarding the links of religion with well-being. First, religious faith contributes to well-being, with believers showing higher well-being than nonbelievers. Alternatively, it is certainty about one's own worldviews, be they religious or irreligious, that predicts well-being. Finally, secularization moderates the above, making nonbelief normative. We investigated these trends by focusing on agnostics, who, compared to believers and atheists, combine a lack of faith and uncertainty about worldviews and should, thus, be the lowest in well-being. By analyzing European Values Study 2017 data from 29 countries and controlling for personal variables, we found that in countries of Western Christian heritage, be they religious or secularized, agnostics were the least happy compared to believers and atheists. Religionists, compared to atheists, were happier (countries of Protestant heritage) or equally happy (countries of Catholic heritage). In countries of Eastern Orthodox tradition, believers were happier than nonbelievers, agnostics, and atheists alike—but again, agnostics were the lowest in the less religious countries. In sum, uncertainty makes agnostics, consistently across religious cultures, to be the lowest in well-being, whereas the effect of religious faith on well-being varies across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion appears to have taken a nosedive during the pandemic, including previously persistent forms of intense religion such as strong affiliation and biblical literalism. However, this apparent secularization is the result of mode effects. The gold standard General Social Survey (GSS) switched to online rather than face-to-face interviews and the response rate plunged to 17%. Parallel analyses of GSS panel data demonstrate that this mode switch introduced substantial nonresponse bias. Illustratively, biblical literalism was almost 50% higher among those who declined to participate (36%) than those who participated in the online survey (25%). Rather than declining, intense religion persisted if not rose over time among those willing to participate in a push-to-web survey. The apparent decline was simply a result of disillusioned, distrusting, disinformed, disadvantaged, and disconnected people being much less likely to agree to participate. Intense religion and other social phenomena are underrepresented and thereby underestimated in online surveys with substantial nonresponse, including those using population sampling methods. The trend in survey research toward these types of surveys could be expected to give a false impression of secularization and other social change going forward—including making society look less disillusioned, distrusting, disinformed, disadvantaged, and disconnected than it is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colombia is a paradoxically complex country – remarkably violent, democratic, and religious all at once. This article presents three claims regarding the responsibility of the Catholic Church hierarchy and civic society in this paradox. First, the Church shifted from partisanship during "La Violencia" (1948 to 1957) to legitimizing the political order proposed by the National Front (1958 to 1974). Second, while the 1886 Constitution recognized Catholicism as the state religion, this collapsed in the 1950s amid increasing pluralization and secularization. Third, Colombian religious practices tend to be formalistic, ritualistic, and driven by a social inertia rather than of personal convictions. This prevented the Catholic spirit from fostering an irenic civic culture that could have discouraged violent attitudes and perhaps curbed the rise of a widespread banality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses a controversy in early 1930s Estonia concerning the Germanlanguage Private Theological-Philosophical Luther Academy. The article discusses this case as an example of the nationalist instrumentalization of religion in secularizing societies, which interwar Estonia was turning into. An analysis of the press coverage concerning the Luther Academy shows that the case received a disproportionate amount of attention considering the marginality of this small educational institution, yet the reactions were ambiguous. On the one hand, the academy was presented as a nationalist project by Germans to restore their power and as an existential threat to the survival of Estonians as an ethnic group, inasmuch as it allegedly facilitated the Germanization of Estonians. On the other hand, it was claimed that the whole controversy was artificially inflated and the academy was not posing a particular threat to Estonians. This article argues that the quarrel stemmed from the instrumentalization of the case by some Estonian nationalist circles, whereas extensive public attention was ensured by associating the academy with the issue of Germanization which had been a significant subject of press interest for many years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ULUM Journal of Religious Inquiries is the property of ULUM Journal of Religious Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This special issue of Review of Religious Research, titled "The Catholic Priesthood in Times of Change," is dedicated primarily to social-scientific inquiry into the Roman Catholic presbyterate in the United States. The issue's main focus is to analyze and discuss data from a new and original nationally representative study, The National Study of Catholic Priests. The rationale for dedicating a special issue to this topic stems from the considerable new quantitative and qualitative data made available through this study, which presents a unique opportunity for scholars and practitioners interested in Catholicism to examine contemporary issues facing the priesthood. The issue also aims to place this study within its broader context by including recent research on lay American Catholics, as well as reviewing new books on Catholicism in Europe and Asia. The issue thus comprises three original research articles, two research notes, and four book reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious revival during the reform and opening-up period in the Chinese mainland has long been a prominent and contentious issue. This study utilized repeated cross-sectional datasets from the Chinese General Social Survey from 2006 to 2021 to assess cohort changes in religious affiliation. It employed a temporal framework that considered both the religious and rural–urban differences. Results from age-period-cohort models indicated that cohorts born in the 1960s experienced a religious revival in the Chinese mainland, with younger cohorts did not when evaluating long-term trends. Christian affiliation exhibited more pronounced cohort variations compared to Buddhist affiliation, while a consistent cohort pattern of religious change was observed between rural and urban areas. These findings unraveled the complex trends of religious change as the Chinese family is an important setting for the transmission of religion, shedding new light on the applicability of secularization theory in socialist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores ceremonial design of independent celebrant-led wedding ceremonies in England and Wales. It draws on a qualitative study which involved focus groups with celebrants and interviews with individuals who have had an independent celebrant-led wedding ceremony. Six factors are described which influenced how couples translated and tweaked traditions or innovated ceremonial elements: faith, heritage, values, kin, informality, and temporality. In line with a bricolage process, it is suggested that the keeping of and minor adaption of traditions through the personalisation offered by independent celebrant-led wedding ceremonies may support inclusion of relationship practices such as interfaith couplings and blended families. Examples of kinship display-work and self-display-work were found throughout participant accounts of their wedding ceremonies. It is proposed that both may act as an important means by which the needs of individuals for whom a religious or belief framework is not prioritised over other contexts of identification can be met in a wedding ceremony. Further research is needed to explore the transferability of these findings to larger samples, as well as specific sub-populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how modern Western psychology has distanced itself from metaphysical and spiritual dimensions, focusing instead on a purely empirical approach. It argues that this shift, influenced by secularization since the European Renaissance, has led psychology to lose its connection to the concept of the soul and spirituality.

Copyright of Amme Idaresi Dergisi is the property of Public Administration Institute for Turkey & the Middle East (TODAIE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article deals with the construct of cosmic Christianity in Mircea Eliade's project of the history of religion. Links are established with other concepts of the author, such as creative hermeneutics, homo religiosus, the horror of history, etc. Parallels are also drawn with German Idealism, Protestantism, traditionalism, Jungian psychoanalysis, and conservative-revolutionary thought. The criticism of A. Lenel-Lavastin and D. Dubuisson is drawn upon, arguing that the construct of cosmic Christianity can work within a national-conservative synthesis, so that the nation becomes the guarantor of the purity of church tradition. Eliade's method by which he contrasts cosmic Christianity with Judeo-Christian messianism is discussed. As part of the concept of cosmic Christianity the implicit use of the author's original concept of tradition as a virtual chain of initiations is found. Eliade's assembly is viewed through the lens of P. Berger's social constructivism. It is argued that Berger bases his theory of secularization on Eliade's working definition of religion and concept of cosmization. The metaphysical opposition of Eliade's vital immanentism to Berger's transcendentalism is stated. Immanentism is correlated with the traditional and archetypal folk re-evaluation within cosmic Christianity, transcendentalism with the radical and historical interpretation of the Gospel in Lutheran theology. Eliade's history of religion is characterized as a modernist theory, with inherent qualities of M. such as: a desire for a totalizing worldview, an interest in building a synthetic ideology on the border of archaic myth and scientific knowledge, a sense of the removal of the divine and an acceleration of the end of history. A connection is established between Eliade's theory of religion and the metaphysical framework of the "natural" in Modern science and culture. The reality of the sacred is characterized as a living self-organizing system, and its manifestation as a hierophany of the natural. The conclusion is made that the essentialism and naturalism of such metaphysics do not allow the history of religion to transcend the categories of Modern science and culture, which, according to the author of the article, was the goal of Eliade's project.

The requalification and reorganization of places of worship implemented during the early years of the Meiji Restoration (1868–1871) by the government can be interpreted through the framework of secularization. While many scholars specializing in modern and contemporary Shintō view the kokutai policy as the foundation of a state religion, the measures applied to local temples and shrines suggest a process of secularization. This study aims to achieve two primary objectives: first, to highlight the secular and non-religious character of the state’s religious policies during this period; and second, to contextualize their impact by examining the established religious practices within former villages and hamlets on a local level.

Denmark is the sole member state of the European Union with a dominant Church. It is the only Nordic state that has not renounced this form of relationship with the Church, which does not necessarily align anymore with the needs and preferences of an increasingly secularized population. The causes of Danish exceptionalism can be attributed to the complexity of amending the Danish Constitution and the country’s historical context. The Danish Kingdom was established as a Christian state, a fact that is currently being utilized discursively by populists who equate Lutheranism with Danish national identity. However, this model of the relationship between the state and the Church is currently facing significant challenges due to the growth of religious diversity, particularly the relatively rapid increase in the number of Muslim immigrants.

We distinguish two streams of theory that dominate explanations of religious change: cohort-based cumulative decline theory, which emphasizes small and ongoing declines in individual religiosity accruing across generations; and political backlash theory, which emphasizes period- and identity-based changes due to the politicized meaning of religion. Notably, Muslim countries have largely been excluded from a recent wave of quantitative research on individual-level religious change, implicitly continuing an assumption that Islamic societies require different theoretical concepts. We deploy both theories to examine religious identity and behavior over multiple decades in Turkey, a Muslim-majority country with recent social conflict over religion. Utilizing age-period-cohort interaction models, our results suggest minimal evidence for a cohort-based process in Turkey, in contrast to that observed in Western countries. Rather, a political transformation—the politicization of religion through the rise of Turkey's AKP (Justice and Development Party) and President Erdogan—is most salient to Turkish religious change. We introduce two concepts to backlash theory—identity updating and performance signaling—to show how different dimensions of individual religiosity respond to different politicized contexts. These findings extend our understanding of religious change beyond the Western context, with further implications for theorizing political backlash and cohort-based processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. At the very beginning, the problematic field of the article is outlined: we will not talk about the problem of the gift, but about why the gift becomes a problem. To do this, it is necessary to consider several contexts in which this problem arises. We propose to dwell on two of them: theological and ontological. Theoretical analysis. In a theological context, two currents of twentieth-century thought are examined in connection with their influence on the problem of the gift. Firstly, this is political theology, which agreed that in the era of secularization we inherit Christian meanings, and one of them is the phenomenon of a gift. Secondly, this is theoesthetics, which proposes to consider the position of the secularization of our era as a private and, in fact, already closed project. In the ontological context, it is pointed out that the gift becomes a problem where violence and exchange assert themselves as the norm for understanding being. Conclusion. As a result, the article draws conclusions and poses key questions for further research on the problem of the gift.

In the context of traditionalist tendencies in the Russian religious space in 2000–2010, Salafism became the object of intense discursive production. Interpretations range from explicit criticism to the identification of its modernizing potential. The article analyzes various approaches at both federal and local levels, using the regions of Dagestan and Tatarstan as examples. Despite the politically polarized character of the discussion, these actors share important fundamental assumptions. These trends are compared with the French debate by Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel and are analyzed in relation to secularization theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious historiography of Britain during the 1950s remains underdeveloped. Such scholarship as there is has drawn disproportionately upon national church statistics and opinion polls. In this article, the findings of three contemporaneous studies of religion in northern industrial towns are presented: Rawmarsh and Scunthorpe (1954–6), Billingham (1957–9), and Bolton (1960). Sundry indicators are illuminated, including churchgoing and rites of passage. No support is found for the claim that the 1950s were a decade of 'religious revival'. Mainstream Protestantism was at an increasingly low ebb, and Catholicism was soon to feel the chill winds of secularization also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the perception of monastics from Larung Gar Buddhist Academy of Western China concerning the intertwining relationship between Buddhism and science, along with the impact of this perception on their worldview and life trajectory. Many monastics at Larung Gar Buddhist Academy initially held a high regard for science, dismissing Buddhism as superstition. However, upon gaining a comprehensive understanding of Buddhism through various opportunities, they came to believe that certain tenets of Buddhism are compatible with science, even suggesting that Buddhism could address some of the methodological and epistemological limitations of science and offer solutions to some issues that science is unable to resolve. This ultimately led them to embrace Buddhism and renounce worldly life. This study employs a case study to investigate the understanding of the relationship between Buddhism and science amongst the general public in contemporary China, an area underexplored by previous scholarship that predominantly concentrated on the philosophical scrutiny of the apologetic discourses towards the reconciliation between Buddhism and science of influential Buddhist ascetics and lay practitioners. Also, this study endeavors to demonstrate that despite the ongoing secularization of contemporary Chinese Buddhism in the "public sphere", within the "private sphere" of Chinese Buddhism, there remain individuals who are pursuing the religious, sacred, and transcendental dimensions of Buddhism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious education is a standard in European schools, but it is implemented according to different models. Against this background, Poland, with its confessional religious education for which churches and religious associations are responsible, appears as a certain model. However, is this kind of religious education able to meet the needs of today's children and young people? This article begins with a brief description of religious education in Poland and then focuses on the characteristics of contemporary changes that affect all areas of human life, including religiousness. The hypothesis of the authors, which has found its justification in the proposed text, is the conviction that confessional religious education is able to respond to the needs of its contemporary addressees, but it must also have the ability to change and adapt, especially from the perspective of didactics. It is also important to be able to function in the reality of pluralism and complexity, as well as in the increasingly widespread computerization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to understand neo-Pentecostalism in Latin America as a religious and political movement within the framework of multiple modernities, based on an ethnographic study in evangelical churches in Chile and Mexico. The study focuses on two main axes: the discourse of the "Kingdom of God" and the experience of the Holy Spirit. The former explores the conception of public space, while the latter examines the experiential dimensions, both individual and collective, that confer meaning and legitimacy to this religious movement. Neo-Pentecostalism emerges as a complex phenomenon where religion and politics intertwine in novel ways, responding to the intricacies of the region. Contrary to the notion of a monolithic and reactionary movement, this article demonstrates how neo-Pentecostalism is a movement that navigates the interstices between the religious and the secular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Republic of Ireland has undergone a seismic religious and social transformation in recent decades. Through the processes of secularization and detraditionalization, as well as several major scandals within the Irish Catholic Church, irreligiosity has become an increasing reality in terms of the hitherto overwhelmingly Catholic population. At a time of spiritual climate change in this post-Catholic Ireland, the contemporary phenomenon of mindfulness has exploded in popularity across various elements of society. Against this backdrop, three distinctive modes or strands of mindfulness are proposed as being operative in the Irish context, each catering to the needs of different practitioners. The proposed modes include psychological and clinical mindfulness and commodified and post-secular spirituality. Within the lacuna created by the receding of Catholic belief and practice, the emergence of mindfulness in the Irish context is explored, mapping how this originally Buddhist practice has gained such a foothold in contemporary spiritual discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic evaluations of the relationship between religion, secularization, and far-right collective actors have grown increasingly complicated. New religious immigrants, seen as invaders importing contradictory values imposed on the populous by EU elites, may threaten Christian and irreligious Europeans. Europe has been secularizing for decades, concurrent with a resurgence in far-right collective action, but this far-right resurgence has also accompanied an increase in religious discourse in politics. In this study, I investigate the relationship between religion, secularization, and far-right collective action utilizing three case studies. I find, with some caveats, that in Hungary, Fidesz motivates Christian voters with religious nationalist appeals, while assertive secularization motivates irreligious voters in the Netherlands. Italy is more complex, where far-right collective actors are less able to monopolize social issues. These findings speak to the critical role religious values and institutions play in shaping voter preferences and present competing options for secularist politics moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to show how the theoretical transformation of the Caliphate into an Islamic Empire took place in the context of a network of intra – and inter-religious conflicts. By focusing on a founding text of Islamic political thought, it argues for the paradigmatic role played by the pre-Islamic Persian Empire in the genesis of the idea of an Islamic Empire. On the other hand, it identifies the Persian Empire as playing the same paradigmatic role in the formation of monotheistic theology in late antiquity, one that Islam inherited. By reconsidering the theological and political genealogy of the idea of an Islamic empire, the point is to grasp how such an empire would distinguish itself as a monotheistic empire from a Christian empire. To achieve this goal, the paper analyses the way the Islamic Empire sought to give structure to Islamic conceptions of sovereignty, divine law, and messianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is mindfulness a secular practice, or is it Buddhist? The answer depends on who you ask—and what kind of person they want to be. As mindfulness has spread globally, extracted from Buddhist contexts that have influenced its rise, certain mental associations with it become lost, while others are mapped onto the psychological spaces left open. For Buddhists in Southeast Asia, and for others around the world, the stakes are high: when certain meanings in mindfulness are celebrated, and others are downplayed or excluded, the potential for re-crafting minds and changing the course of health outcomes can be enormous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]