East Germany

Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta

The case of East Germany raises the question of why religion and church, which had fallen to an unprecedentedly low level after four decades of suppression, have not recovered since 1989. The repressive church politics of the SED were undoubtedly the decisive factor in the unique process of minoritizing churches in the GDR. However, other external factors such as increasing prosperity, socio-structural transformation, and the expansion of the leisure and entertainment sector played an important role, too. In addition, church activity itself probably also helped to weaken the social position of churches. The absence of a church renaissance after 1990 can be explained by several factors, such as the long-term effects of the break with tradition caused by the GDR system, the political and moral discrediting of the church by the state security service, and people’s dwindling confidence in the church, which was suddenly seen as a non-representative Western institution.

Author(s):  
Ruqaya Saeed Khalkhal

The darkness that Europe lived in the shadow of the Church obscured the light that was radiating in other parts, and even put forward the idea of democracy by birth, especially that it emerged from the tent of Greek civilization did not mature in later centuries, especially after the clergy and ideological orientation for Protestants and Catholics at the crossroads Political life, but when the Renaissance emerged and the intellectual movement began to interact both at the level of science and politics, the Europeans in democracy found refuge to get rid of the tyranny of the church, and the fruits of the application of democracy began to appear on the surface of most Western societies, which were at the forefront to be doubtful forms of governece.        Democracy, both in theory and in practice, did not always reflect Western political realities, and even since the Greek proposition, it has not lived up to the idealism that was expected to ensure continuity. Even if there is a perception of the success of the democratic process in Western societies, but it was repulsed unable to apply in Islamic societies, because of the social contradiction added to the nature of the ruling regimes, and it is neither scientific nor realistic to convey perceptions or applications that do not conflict only with our civilized reality The political realization created by certain historical circumstances, and then disguises the different reality that produced them for the purpose of resonance in the ideal application.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 342
Author(s):  
Tine Vekemans

In early 2020, Jain diaspora communities and organizations that had been painstakingly built over the past decades were faced with the far-reaching consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and its concomitant restrictions. With the possibility of regular face-to-face contact and participation in recurring events—praying, eating, learning, and meditating together—severely limited in most places, organizations were compelled to make a choice. They either had to suspend their activities, leaving members to organize their religious activities on an individual or household basis, or pursue the continuation of some of their habitual activities in an online format, relying on their members’ motivation and technical skills. This study will explore how many Jain organizations in London took to digital media in its different forms to continue to engage with their members throughout 2020. Looking at a selection of websites and social media channels, it will examine online discourses that reveal the social and mental impact of the pandemic on Jains and the broader community, explore the relocation of activities to the digital realm, and assess participation in these activities. In doing so, this article will open a discussion on the long-term effects of this crisis-induced digital turn in Jain religious praxis, and in socio-cultural life in general.


2021 ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Sandro Galea

This chapter examines the foundational forces that shape health. Even without a pandemic, the United States is faced with public health threats that are shaped by foundational forces. From the political and economic roots of the obesity epidemic, to the social stigma that informs the opioid crisis, to the many structural drivers of climate change, the social, economic, political, and demographic foundations of health are central to the challenges that must be addressed, nationally and globally, in the years to come. Engaging with these forces helped inform the response to COVID-19; they can help in addressing these other challenges as well. And just as a virus can have long-term effects on the body, the pandemic reshaped the societal foundations, with lasting implications for the economy, culture, attitudes towards core issues like race, politics, and more. Whether the experience of the pandemic leads to significant long-term benefits will depend on whether Americans retain the hard lessons of that moment and apply them to foundational forces.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5451
Author(s):  
Derk Jan Stobbelaar

The aim of this study is to determine the contribution of student interventions to urban greening processes. In two Dutch cities action research was conducted, including reflexive interviews a year after the first intervention, to assess factors causing change in the socio-ecological system. Results show that students and network actors were mutually learning, causing the empowerment of actors in that network by adding contextualized knowledge, enlarging the social network, expanding the amount of interactions in the socio-ecological system and speeding up the process. Students brought unique qualities to the process: time, access to stakeholders who tend to distrust the municipality and a certain open-mindedness. Their mere presence made a difference and started a process of change. However, university staff needed to keep the focus on long-term effects and empowerment, because students did not oversee that. After a year, many new green elements had been developed or were in the planning phase. In Enschede, the municipality district managers were part of the learning network, which made it easier to cause changes in the main ecological network. In Haarlem however, no change took place in the main ecological network managed by the municipality, because no political empowerment of the civil society group had developed yet.


Author(s):  
Barbara Eigenschenk ◽  
Andreas Thomann ◽  
Mike McClure ◽  
Larissa Davies ◽  
Maxine Gregory ◽  
...  

The combination of physical activity and being in nature is recognized as providing a range of significant benefits. The objective of this literature review was to compile an overview of the social benefits and costs associated with outdoor sports within the academic literature and to reflect on the quality of underlying evidence that supports the relationship. A systematic review was carried out with seven partners from different European countries, including Bulgaria, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. From a total of 17,560 studies identified, 133 studies were selected with relevant data extracted to standardized forms. The selected studies have been analyzed with qualitative research methods. A meta-analysis could not be conducted due to the heterogeneity of the study designs and outcome measures. As a result, the review gives an overview of the social impacts associated with outdoor sports which have been clustered to six broad categories: physical health, mental health and wellbeing, education and lifelong learning, active citizenship, crime reduction, and anti-social behavior, as well as additional benefits. The review furthermore revealed gaps in the evidence base which are especially notable in the long-term effects that outdoor sports can have on personal and social development.


2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
Patrick McGuinn

Three years after the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Patrick McGuinn reviews how the U.S. Department of Education has managed the approval process for state accountability plans, how state plans are shaping up as a result of their newfound flexibility, and what implementation challenges have emerged. States have required multiple iterations to submit plans that the Department of Education would approve, and state plans have met with criticism from multiple quarters and across the political spectrum. Some states have adopted new practices related to testing and which measures to use to assess schools. However, it is not yet clear what the long-term effects that the giving of greater flexibility to the states will have.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elfriede Kalcher-Sommersguter ◽  
Signe Preuschoft ◽  
Cornelia Franz-Schaider ◽  
Charlotte K. Hemelrijk ◽  
Karl Crailsheim ◽  
...  

Abstract The long-term effects of early adverse experiences on later psychosocial functioning are well described in humans, but sparsely documented for chimpanzees. In our earlier studies, we investigated the effects of maternal and social deprivation on three groups of ex-laboratory chimpanzees who experienced either an early or later onset of long-term deprivation. Here we expand our research by adding data on subjects that came from two stable zoo groups. The groups comprised of early maternally deprived wild-caught chimpanzees and non-deprived zoo-born chimpanzees. We found that compared to zoo chimpanzees, ex-laboratory chimpanzees were more restricted regarding their association partners in the newly formed groups, but not during their second year of group-life, indicating that social stability has an important influence on the toleration of association partners close-by. Social grooming activity, however, was impaired in early long-term deprived ex-laboratory chimpanzees as well as in early maternally deprived zoo chimpanzees compared to non-deprived zoo chimpanzees. Thus, we conclude that early maternal loss has lifelong effects on the social integration of chimpanzees which becomes evident in their grooming networks. Although the retrospective nature of our study prevents a clear causal explanation, our results are of importance for understanding the development of social competence in chimpanzees.


1998 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kieckhefer

Ernst Troeltsch is known to church historians largely for his classic threefold distinction of church, sect, and mysticism. In The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch describes the church as an institution enmeshed with society and making accommodations to the world's imperfections; the sects, driven by a quest for purity, refuse to make accommodations or compromises, while the mystics stand aside from this conflict and concern themselves with “a purely personal and inward experience” in which “the isolated individual, and psychological abstraction and analysis become everything.” Troeltsch sees mysticism not as a phenomenon naturally at home within the church but rather as one that leads away from the establishment, and it is perhaps this perception in particular that gives his work lasting relevance. The assumption that mysticism veers naturally in an antiecclesial direction, and that its more orthodox manifestations are anomalies requiring explanation, remains very much alive in the literature. Indeed, from the perspective of cultural materialism, it is the political, antiecclesial, subversive bite of mysticism that is its most interesting feature. On this point liberal Protestantism and postmodernism have come together, theology and cultural studies have embraced. Troeltsch's schema thus retains relevance well beyond the sphere of historiography.


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