RESPONSE TO ‘SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE, CONTEXT AND TRADITION, IN CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN WEST AFRICA’ BY J. D. Y. PEEL

Africa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 640-645
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Obadare
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Mutual Antagonism ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Differences ◽  
Similarity And Difference

In the immediate aftermath of ‘9/11’, it took very little for the axiom that adherents of evangelical Christianity and reformist Islam inhabit discrepant, permanently warring publics to solidify. With the very air laden with ‘the clash of civilizations’, the dominant narrative quickly became one of mutual antagonism, in which both religions were positioned as irreconcilably foundational in major global conflicts. As is often the case in such moments of heated contention, it was easy to overlook the counterintuitive fact that, in various parts of the world, especially in those communities where adherents of both faiths have lived in close proximity, there has always been a direct sharing and transfer of experiences in religious practices and evangelizing stratagems. Such ‘spiritual economies’ (cf. Rudnyckyj 2010) do not imply that theological differences are erased; they suggest, rather, that competing faiths, in their attempts to expand and preserve themselves, frequently cross boundaries to appropriate the other's devotional and conversionary strategies.

scholarly journals TOWARDS A JOINT FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS IN AFRICA: RESPONSE TO J. D. Y. PEEL

Africa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 628-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Meyer
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
The One ◽  
Critical Intervention

The main point of John Peel's intriguing critical intervention is to warn against what he sees as an overemphasis on similarities between Christianity and Islam. Making these religions look all too similar, he argues, may come at the expense of paying due attention to the distinctiveness of each of these religious traditions and hence to their intrinsic differences. He suggests an analogy between the stance taken by ‘somewhat left-wing and anti-establishment discourse’ to equalize Islam and Christianity under the label of fundamentalism on the one hand, and a strand of Africanist work on West Africa that pleads for the close similarities between these two religions to be acknowledged on the other. For the latter, he takes the article ‘Pentecostalism, Islam and culture: new religious movements in West Africa’ by Brian Larkin and myself (2006) as paradigmatic. For my part, it is difficult to see how the use of the notion of fundamentalism in current debates and the position ventured by us converge. I would certainly refrain from using the notion of fundamentalism (even if invoked to balance Huntington's equally problematic notion of the clash of civilizations) as a category that serves to draw out similarities between certain radical movements in Christianity and Islam both past and present – a use I view as highly problematic. The fact that Peel converges the levels of general public debate about political Islam and research regarding Christianity and Islam in African studies makes it quite difficult for me to grasp what his main concern is. Is it a worry about a – in his view – problematic, broader trend of denying actual intrinsic differences between Christianity and Islam, a trend that spills over from critical opinion into current Africanist scholarship, or vice versa? Is it the problem that foregrounding certain formal – and to him ultimately superficial – similarities favours an ahistorical stance with regard to these traditions? Or is it a concern – albeit not explicitly articulated – that the insistence on similarities with regard to Christianity might draw a too positive picture of Islam, pre-empting it from the critique that he considers necessary?

The Draw of Religion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolette D. Manglos-Weber
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Religious Membership ◽  
Charismatic Christianity ◽  
Southern Ghana

Since the 1960s, a certain variety of Charismatic Evangelical Christianity has rapidly been assuming the religious mainstream in Ghana, as in other countries of West Africa and, indeed, around the world. This chapter is based on research in southern Ghana into the appeal of these new groups. I examine them as part of a youth-oriented religious movement, specifically adapted to the lifestyles and concerns of Ghana’s young, upwardly mobile, educated populations, who disproportionately end up migrating abroad. I focus in particular on the accessibility and portability of Evangelical Charismatic Christianity as a form of religious membership they can take with them wherever they travel, and on the ways in which the environment within these new Evangelical organizations gives young people a sense of aspirational promise for their own futures.

SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE, CONTEXT AND TRADITION, IN CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN WEST AFRICA

Africa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 620-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Y. Peel
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious Extremism ◽  
The World ◽  
Similarity And Difference

The position I critique in this paper is really a complex of closely overlapping positions, some more theoretically sophisticated or better grounded empirically than others.1 Their central thrust is to emphasize the similarities rather than the differences between current movements in the world religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, but also to a lesser extent in Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. It appeals more to social scientists than to those working in religious studies, particularly scholars of specific religious traditions. It also taps into a common lay attitude to what might be called a ‘secular common sense’, which feels impatience or distaste for all forms of what it considers religious extremism, while at the same time shying away from regarding any one religion as more prone to extremism than others. This is the kind of interlocutor who will counter an observation about violent militancy in contemporary Islam – in the context, let us say, of a discussion about Boko Haram – with ‘But what about the Crusades’?

The Boko Haram Reader

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cook
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The World

Since it erupted onto the world stage in 2009, people have asked, what is Boko Haram, and what does it stand for? Is there a coherent vision or set of beliefs behind it? Despite the growing literature about the group, few if any attempts have been made to answer these questions, even though Boko Haram is but the latest in a long line of millenarian Muslim reform groups to emerge in Northern Nigeria over the last two centuries. The Boko Haram Reader offers an unprecedented collection of essential texts, documents, videos, audio, and nashids (martial hymns), translated into English from Hausa, Arabic and Kanuri, tracing the group's origins, history, and evolution. Its editors, two Nigerian scholars, reveal how Boko Haram's leaders manipulate Islamic theology for the legitimization, radicalization, indoctrination and dissemination of their ideas across West Africa. Mandatory reading for anyone wishing to grasp the underpinnings of Boko Haram's insurgency, particularly how the group strives to delegitimize its rivals and establish its beliefs as a dominant strand of Islamic thought in West Africa's religious marketplace.

New Religious Movements in Brazil

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Selka
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Late Modern

This article provides an overview of the Brazilian religious landscape and an introduction to this special issue on new religious movements in Brazil. I stress how the Brazilian religious landscape, although often imagined as a place of religious syncretism and cultural mixture, is crosscut by an array of boundaries, tensions and antagonisms, including ones grounded in race and class. The article outlines the major topics and problems taken up by the contributors to this issue, including appropriation across lines of race, ethnicity and class; the growing influence of evangelical Christianity in Latin America and beyond; esoteric religious practice in the late modern era; and questions of purity and authenticity, syncretism and anti-syncretism. Through their engagement with these themes, the articles in this issue contribute to a number of important discussions that relate not only to the study of religion in Brazil but to the study of new religious movements in general.

The Study of Hindu New Religious Movements

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Gene R. Thursby
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Meditation ◽  
Social World ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Arya Samaj

The category of Hindu new religious movements is conventional and useful, but has imprecise boundaries. Scholars tend to include within it some groups that have claimed they are not Hindu (Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission) or not religious (Transcendental Meditation). Within its wide range are world-affirming groups dedicated to transforming the physical and social world as well as world-transcending groups that find the status of the world doubtful and their purpose at another level or in another realm. The four articles in this special issue of Nova Religio on Hindu new religious movements represent several aspects of this category, and the potential for accommodation of basic differences, social harmony, and even world-transcendence.

Analisis literatur sistematik: impak elemen spiritual terhadap kejayaan usahawan Muslim

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-443
Author(s):  
Syarul Azman Shaharuddin ◽  
Mariam Abd Majid ◽  
Muhammad Yusof Marlon Abdullah ◽  
Abur Hamdi Usman ◽  
Siti Nor Atiqah Amran
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Business Management ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Best Effort ◽  
Internal Development ◽  
The World

The world of entrepreneurs in Malaysia has been led by Muslims. This has contributed to the growth of the Muslim economy. There are issues of failure in business management based on Islamic spiritual values. Spirituality is the process of the internal development of the soul. In Islam, it is based on faith in life, believing and trust in Allah Almighty, while application of the tauhid paradigm in both in this world and hereafter are related affairs. The purpose of the study is to analyze the potential of spiritual elements in the success of Muslim entrepreneurs. In this article, the researchers applied the Systematic Literature Review methodology, which focuses on research objectives. This article uses three (3) steps to analyze selected articles, i.e., by identification, screening, and eligibility. The outcome of this study had established five (5) journal articles that discussed spiritual elements that played an important role in the success of Muslim entrepreneurs, based on religious practices and values that were applied in entrepreneurship. The analysis found that the belief in Allah and the practice of religious values helped to enhance confidence and build the strong personality and traits of successful entrepreneurs. This is contributed by the elements of gratitude (Shukr), approval (riḍā), and reliance (tawakkal) after the best effort. Therefore, this study is expected to contribute to the research on entrepreneurship in Malaysia, especially for the Muslim community.

Formalizing Secularism as a Regime of Restrictions and Protections: The Case of Quebec (Canada) and Geneva (Switzerland)

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-302
Author(s):  
Amélie Barras
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Minority Religions ◽  
The World ◽  
Regulatory Regimes ◽  
Context Specific

AbstractIn 2019, the province of Quebec and the canton of Geneva passed bills establishing their states as “secular.” While each law is, to a certain extent, context specific, both present noteworthy similarities. First, neutrality (the cornerstone of laïcité) is articulated around two elements: (1) restrictions that affect the religious practices of public servants belonging to minority religions and (2) protections for Christian symbols constructed as “cultural.” The article questions the implications for inclusive citizenship of formalizing regulatory regimes that differentiate between “religion” and “culture.” Second, a comparative lens enables an analysis of how, through whom, and why similar regimes of regulation travel from one area of the world to another. The article argues for the importance of considering transnational influences when analyzing the regulation of religion to better (1) understand why particular models of secularism gain traction and (2) capture power dynamics structuring these processes of traction.

Cultural and communicative formulae as a reflection of the concepts of culture as an expression of the spiritual content of civilizations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataliya Alekseevna Zavyalova
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Educational Institution ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Standards ◽  
Human World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Similarity And Difference ◽  
And Behavior

The analysis of civilizational pictures of the world through the prism of linguistic universals allows one to reveal the general and the particular in the «human — world» system, which contributes to a more complete understanding of their cultural semantics. Cultural standards vary across civilizations. Their description on the material of multi-structural, genetically heterogeneous languages, civilizations and cultures makes it possible to reveal the common foundations of people's social life despite the fact that their cultural codes are different, often creating the impression of a complete incompatibility of the thinking and behavior of their representatives. Therefore, studies based on the description of fundamentally dissimilar civilizations and cultures, demonstrating the groundlessness of such impressions, are relevant. The article examines cultural and communicative formulae as a reflection of the civilizational pictures of the world. Cultural and communicative formulae (CCF) are defined by the author as the simplest, stable, high-frequency units of culture used at all levels of social and cultural life, which, being a combination of signs, compactly represent the culture in its similarity and difference with other cultures and make it possible to establish a dialogue of cultures in minimum of data involved. CCF provide communication through verbal forms of language, gestures, styles, etc., i.e. through all cultural forms that can be translated into signs of a given culture and are sufficient to have a minimal idea of it. The article examines the CCF using the example of concise verbal forms belonging to folk speech, which include proverbs and sayings, «winged words», precedent phrases that are a component of the civilizational picture of the world. The materials of the article may be of interest for preparation at the higher educational institution in the framework of the fields of «Linguistics», «International relations» and «Culturology».

The Baltic Countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 586-600
Author(s):  
Sebastian Rimestad
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
The Baltic

The three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) have a varied religious history. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they were the last region of Europe to be Christianized. Today, they—and especially Estonia—are among the most secularized societies in the world. This is not only due to the Soviet past but also to Baltic German dominance at key moments in their history. While Lutheranism has dominated in the north (in Estonia and Latvia), the Roman Catholic Church is still the main religious player in the south (in Lithuania and parts of Latvia). Primarily due to Russian migration, the Orthodox Church also plays a significant role in Baltic affairs. There is, finally, a small but vibrant cluster of new religious movements, notably neo-pagan groups.

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