Is Mindfulness Religion?

Mind Cure ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 137-170
Author(s):  
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Therapeutic Method ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
The Military ◽  
Metaphysical Religion

This chapter considers whether Mindfulness can reasonably be considered a kind of religion, despite proponents’ claims to the contrary. If so, what kind? Is it Buddhist? If so, what kind of Buddhism? The rhetoric of Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the modern Mindfulness movement, is tested against several different theories of religion, as well as critiques by specialists in both Theravāda and Māhāyana forms of Buddhism. While Mindfulness is positioned as a strictly secular therapeutic method, it has all the characteristics of American metaphysical religion, as well as of modernist Buddhism and neo-Vedanta. Kabat-Zinn claims his teachings are “universal,” yet they actually reflect his own eclectic blend of elements from various religious traditions with roots in Asia, the United States, and Europe. As Mindfulness is increasingly promoted in public schools, government agencies, and the military, this raises legitimate questions about the separation of church and state.

Church and State in America: Toward a Biblically Derived Reformulation of Their Relationship

1988 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-581
Author(s):  
H. Mark Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Church And State ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
The Political ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Religious Traditions

This article begins with a critique of the orthodox American doctrine calling for the separation of church and state, especially as this doctrine has been formulated by the United States Supreme Court. This doctrine is simplistic, dualistic, and merely jurisdictional; it is also much too narrowly tied to Hobbesian-Lockean liberal prejudices and their asocial vocabularies. The predominant American religious traditions (Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish) are all, at core, biblical, and a biblically derived reformulation of American thinking on church-state relationships would differ from the orthodox tradition in three fundamental respects: (1) far from a “separation” of church and state, these would be seen as partners in a shared world of national moral experience; (2) the religious element in this combination, as much as the political, would be understood in broad, social terms, not merely those of “private conscience”; (3) in their shared world, the specific relationships between church and state would be seen in ongoing, dialectical terms rooted in their necessarily conflicting visions of the nation's past, its problems, and its promises.

6. The institutional Revolution

2016 ◽  
pp. 75-103
Author(s):  
Alan Knight
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Military ◽  
Mexican Politics ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Revolution

‘The institutional Revolution: The Sonoran dynasty’ concentrates on the evolution of the Revolution—the Revolution in power—during the 1920s under the leadership of Obregón and then his fellow-Sonoran Calles. After a decade of armed revolution, political stability was painfully achieved, but there were still serious military revolts, a bitter war between Church and State, and then the Great Depression of the early 1930s, which had a powerful impact on the course of the then institutionalized Revolution. The Sonoran dynasty faced serious challenges, as well as potential opportunities, in six areas of Mexican politics: the military; the peasantry; organized labour; the middle class; the Church; and the United States.

scholarly journals On Creationism in the Astronomy Classroom

1990 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 243-246
Author(s):  
Philip J. Sakimoto
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
Scientific Creationism ◽  
The Universe

Recently in the United States, a small but vocal group of citizens has been promoting a view known as “creationism,” the assertion that the universe and everything in it was created in six days by divine fiat as suggested by a literalist interpretation of the Christian Bible. In a now common variant, “scientific creationism” or “creation-science,” they assert further that this version of creation is proven true on “scientific” evidence alone, independent of any religious underpinnings. Legislation requiring the teaching of creation-science alongside of evolution in the public schools has been proposed in over twenty states; in Louisiana and Arkansas such legislation was passed, although it was later struck down by federal courts as a violation of the separation of church and state.

Common School, Common Religion? A Case Study in Church-State Relations, Cincinnati, 1869–70

1969 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Michaelsen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common School ◽  
Church State Relations ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Religious Nature

The history of the public school affords one significant means of discerning the pattern of evolving church-state relations in the United States. This is true because there have been frequent overlappings of the institutions of the church and the state in the public schools. However, the story deals with more than institutional encounter. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not refer to church and state; it speaks of “an establishment of religion“ and of “the free exercise thereof.” In recent years it has become quite clear that under this language the public schools are on shaky grounds constitutionally whenever they engage in any activity of a religious nature. But the public school has always been looked to as the primary institution for instilling what is common and public in national life and thought—the shared memories and aspirations, loyalties and beliefs. Hence the public school has been confronted with the difficult responsibility of passing on the common traditions and even instilling “a common faith” (Dewey), while not engaging in “an establishment of religion.”

The Washington Consensus, liberal ideas and terms of the military-technological policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 2103-2123
Author(s):  
V.L. Gladyshevskii ◽  
E.V. Gorgola ◽  
D.V. Khudyakov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Industrial Complexes ◽  
The Military

Subject. In the twentieth century, the most developed countries formed a permanent military economy represented by military-industrial complexes, which began to perform almost a system-forming role in national economies, acting as the basis for ensuring national security, and being an independent military and political force. The United States is pursuing a pronounced militaristic policy, has almost begun to unleash a new "cold war" against Russia and to unwind the arms race, on the one hand, trying to exhaust the enemy's economy, on the other hand, to reindustrialize its own economy, relying on the military-industrial complex. Objectives. We examine the evolution, main features and operational distinctions of the military-industrial complex of the United States and that of the Russian Federation, revealing sources of their military-technological and military-economic advancement in comparison with other countries. Methods. The study uses military-economic analysis, scientific and methodological apparatus of modern institutionalism. Results. Regulating the national economy and constant monitoring of budget financing contribute to the rise of military production, especially in the context of austerity and crisis phenomena, which, in particular, justifies the irrelevance of institutionalists' conclusions about increasing transaction costs and intensifying centralization in the industrial production management with respect to to the military-industrial complex. Conclusions. Proving to be much more efficient, the domestic military-industrial complex, without having such access to finance as the U.S. military monopolies, should certainly evolve and progress, strengthening the coordination, manageability, planning, maximum cost reduction, increasing labor productivity, and implementing an internal quality system with the active involvement of the State and its resources.

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