scholarly journals Religious Exclusivity, Harmony and Moderatism amid Populism: A Study of Interreligious Communication in West Sumatra

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Roma Ulinnuha
Keyword(s):  
Symbolic Interaction ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
Religious People ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Communicative Actions

The religious moderatism is one of the constructive efforts in a diverse religious society. Plurality of beliefs as a whole part of the social landscape of Indonesian society is not yet fully understood and believed by the religious community. In the era of Populism, moreover in the dimension of religious practice, the case in West Sumatra shows horizontal disagreement or disharmony related to symbols and material aspects of religion such as the establishment of religious ritual places and supporting resource. This article confirms that communication serves vitally in addressing religious exclusivity. Resistance to religious entities is always found, as one of the markers of Populism, so that the symbolic interaction of religious leaders in undermining conflict and violence is indispensable. Religion pays particular attention to a social construct and practice with the main purpose of harmony and moderatism of religion. It serves effectively as a contribution of communicative actions, as conveyed by Jurgen Habermas, through reconciliation among religious people. The values of interaction between religious people are emphazised with the principle of agreement and respect as fellow citizens and human beings.

Repressive Religious Regulation and Political Mobilization in Central Asia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Gamza ◽  
Pauline Jones
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Perceived Harm

What is the relationship between state repression of religion and political mobilization in Muslim-majority states? Does religious repression increase the likelihood that Muslims will support acts of rebellion against the state? This chapter contends that the effect of repression on attitudes toward political mobilization is conditional on both the degree of enforcement and the type of religious practice that is being targeted. When enforcement is high and the repressive regulation being enforced targets communal (rather than individualistic) religious practices, Muslims expect state persecution of their religious community to increase, and that this persecution will extract a much greater toll. They are thus more willing to support taking political action against the state in order to protect their community from this perceived harm. The chapter tests this argument with two novel survey experiments conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2019. It finds that the degree of enforcement has a significant effect on attitudes toward political mobilization, but this effect is negative (reducing support) rather than positive (increasing support). The chapter also finds that repression targeting communal practices has a stronger effect on attitudes toward political mobilization than repression targeting individualistic practices, but again, these effects are negative. The chapter’s findings suggest that the fear of collective punishment increases as the degree of enforcement increases, particularly when it comes to repression targeting communal practices. Thus, while Muslims are motivated to protect their community from harm, it may be that the certainty of financial and physical harm outweighs the expectation of increasing religious persecution.

scholarly journals Humans created God in their image? An anthropomorphic projectionism in the Old Testament

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ndikho Mtshiselwa ◽  
Lerato Mokoena
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The World ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
History Of ◽  
Old Testament Studies

The Old Testament projects not only a Deity that created the world and human beings but also one that is violent and male. The debate on the depiction of the God of Israel that is violent and male is far from being exhausted in Old Testament studies. Thus, the main question posed in this article is: If re-read as ‘Humans created God in their image’, would Genesis 1:27 account for the portrayal of a Deity that is male and violent? Feuerbach’s idea of anthropomorphic projectionism and Guthrie’s view of religion as anthropomorphism come to mind here. This article therefore examines, firstly, human conceptualisation of a divine being within the framework of the theory of anthropomorphic projectionism. Because many a theologian and philosopher would deny that God is a being at all, we further investigate whether the God of Israel was a theological and social construction during the history of ancient Israel. In the end, we conclude, based on the theory of anthropomorphic projectionism, that the idea that the God of Israel was a theological and social construct accounts for the depiction of a Deity that is male and violent in the Old Testament.

POLA KOMUNIKASI ANTAR UMAT BERAGAMA MASYARAKAT DESA SINDANG JAYA, REJANG LEBONG, BENGKULU

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 283
Author(s):  
Idi Warsah ◽  
Amelia Avisa ◽  
Anrial Anrial
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Communication Pattern ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Religious People ◽  
The People ◽  
Kinship Relations

This study aimed at finding out a depiction of the communication pattern among religious people in the Sindang Jaya community, Rejang Lebong Regency, Bengkulu Province. This study used a qualitative approach, and the data collection techniques were observation and interviews. After the data were collected, the analysis was carried out with the stages of reduction, presentation, and drawing conclusion. This study drew the conclusion that First, the pattern of communication set by the people of Sindang Jaya Village was based on mutual respect among religions. Second, there were three forms of tolerance given by the people of Sindang Jaya Village, namely cooperation, religious freedom, and appreciation for the religious activities of other religions. Third, the strategy carried out to avoid conflicts was that both religious leaders, village officials, and the community in general always became fair, respected each other, had kinship relations, discussed every problem, helped each other, and cooperated with one another.

scholarly journals The “sanctity” of marriage – an archaeology of a socio-religious construct: Mythological origins, forms and models

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Human Sexuality ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of the article is to argue that the sexual difference between female and male should be regarded as soteriologically indifferent. Though a biological reality of being human, sexuality is profoundly influenced by social constructs and the institution of marriage itself is a social construct. In this article the biological and social aspects are taken into account in a theological approach which on the one hand is interested in the relationship between God and human beings, and on the other in the way in which the Bible elucidates sexuality and marriage. The article indicates that the idea of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman as being equal to Godgiven “holy matrimony” has mythological origins. It focuses on these origins and on the multifarious forms of marital arrangements and models.

scholarly journals The Role of Values in Social Change: An Analysis from The Qur’ānic Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anis Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Set Up ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Means Of Production

In the post-industrial revolution world, social change is often studied and understood in the context of change in means of production, mobility, urbanization and change in the constitution of workforce. Role of ethical values is generally confined to personal conduct and manners. Industrial society is supposed to have its own work ethics which may or may not agree with personal ethics and morality. Ethics and morality are generally considered, in the Western thought, as a social construct. Therefore, with the change in means of production or political system, values and morality are also expected to be re-adjusted in order to cope with the changed environment. Sometimes a totally new set of values emerges as a consequence of the change in economic, political, or legal set up. The present research tries to understand the meaning and place of these values in a global socio-cultural framework. Relying essentially on the divine principles of the Qur'ān it makes an effort to understand relevance of these universal and ultimate principles with human conduct and behavior in society.  It indicates that essentially it is the core values, principles, or norms which guide human beings in their interpersonal, social, economic and political matters. Islam being a major civilizing force, culture, and the way of life, provides values which guide both in individual and social matters. The values given by the Qur’ān and the Sunnah are not monopoly of the Muslim. These values are universal and are relevant in a technological society.

scholarly journals Cultural and Religious Belief Approaches of a Tuberculosis Program for Hard-to-Reach Populations in Mentawai and Solok West Sumatera, Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizanda Machmud ◽  
Irvan Medison ◽  
Finny Fitry Yani
Keyword(s):  
Communication Channel ◽  
Traditional Music ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Detection Rates ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Informal Leaders ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Related Stigma ◽  
Hard To Reach Populations

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading public health concern in Indonesia. It ranks second on the list of high-burden TB countries. In West Sumatra, 47% of TB cases are undetected, late diagnosed, and received incomplete treatment because of low-level awareness and knowledge and stigma, especially among the hardest to reach populations. The study aims to identify the best communication channel to reach those who live in vulnerable and remote areas. This study was a qualitative study applying in-depth interviews to the informal leaders, health officers, cultural artists, and religious leaders across districts in Mentawai and Solok Districts, which are remote and had the lowest case detection rates compared with other districts. The questionnaire was prepared with the perception of the channel to identify TB cases. The data were analyzed using the content analysis technique. Involving religious and informal leaders and using traditional music as a communication channel improved the population's awareness of TB symptoms and access to TB testing and treatment, as well as reduced TB-related stigma. This study found that the cultural and religious contexts play a major role in health communication on TB control for hard-to-reach populations in West Sumatera, Indonesia.

scholarly journals Religion in the structures and forms of manifestation of everyday life

2016 ◽  
pp. 6-10
Author(s):  
Yuri Boreyko
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Community Patterns ◽  
Ordinary Consciousness

The article analyzes the structure and manifestations of everyday life as the sphere of the empirical life of the individual believer and the religious community. Patterns of everyday life are not confined to certain  universal conceptual or value systems, as there is no ready-made standards and rules of their formation. Everyday life is intersubjective space of social relations in which religious individuals, communities, institutions self-identified based on form of reproduction of sociality. Religious everyday life determined by ordinary consciousness, practices, social aspects of life in the religious community, which are constituted by communication. The main religious structures of everyday life is mental cut ordinary religious consciousness, religious practice, religious experience, religious communication, religious stereotypes. Everyday life is the sphere of interaction between the social and the transcendental worlds, in which religious practices are an integral social relationships and the objectification of religious experience through the prism of individual membership to a specific religion, a means of inclusion of transcendence in the context of everyday life. Religious practices reflect understanding of a religious individual objects of the supernatural world, which is achieved through social experience, intersubjective interaction, experience of transcendental reality. The everyday life of the believing personality is formed in the dynamics of tradition and innovation, the mechanism of interaction of which affects the space of social existence. It exists within the private and public space and time, differing openness within the life-world. Continuous modification of everyday life, change its fundamental structures is determined by the process of modern social and technical transformation of society

Turning ‘Water Babies’ (Zaza Rano) into ‘Real Human Beings’ (Vrai Humains)

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-256
Author(s):  
Erin Nourse
Keyword(s):  
Religious Community ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
New Mothers ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
The Family ◽  
Pregnancy And Birth

Abstract This article examines the protective measures and rites of blessing that residents of Diégo Suarez use to keep their babies safe from harm and incorporate them into their respective religious and ethnic communities. I argue that new mothers, and their ‘water babies,’ are ‘acquiring bones’ (establishing themselves within the community) in ways that challenge the widely held perception that Malagasy practices around ancestors are primarily remembrance-oriented. By shifting our gaze away from death, and towards the family-specific ancestral practices around pregnancy and birth, we see that the process of ‘acquiring bones’ is as aspirational as it is retrospective. Moreover, securing one’s worth in society is not exclusively tied to adulthood activities or paternal ancestral lineages; instead it is a flexible process that begins in childhood when parents first instill in their children a sense of what it means to be a member of a particular family or religious community.

‘They Do It Like This in Romania’

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-208
Author(s):  
James Morton
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
A Value ◽  
Church Hierarchy

Chapter 10 explores the changing uses of Byzantine canon law among the Italo-Greeks in the thirteenth century. The Greek churches and monasteries of southern Italy became increasingly integrated into the administration of the Roman church following the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Nonetheless, as the Salentine Group shows, some Italo-Greeks continued to copy nomocanons as late as the fourteenth century. Chapter 10 argues that the manuscripts retained a value as sources of cultural authority, explaining and justifying Greek religious ritual, even as they lost their value as sources of legal authority. To illustrate this point, the chapter begins with a discussion of Nektarios of Otranto’s Three Chapters, a polemical work of c. 1220–1225 that relies heavily on citations of Byzantine canon law to refute Latin attacks on Greek rites and customs. It then considers who these refutations were aimed at, looking in particular at the abortive attempt of Archbishop Marinus of Bari to outlaw Greek baptism in 1232 as a specific example of Latin criticism. It notes, however, that criticism like this from the official church hierarchy was rare and that controversy was probably more restricted to an unofficial, local level. The chapter concludes by examining evidence that canon-law based defences of Greek religious practice were not just aimed at Latins but also at other Greeks. As many Italo-Greeks began to adopt (consciously or otherwise) Latin rites into their worship, more conservative sections of the community attempted to resist such cultural change by mobilising canon law as polemic.

scholarly journals Re-envisioning Tangintebu Theological College in the context of climate change: An emerging model of coconut theological education and ministerial formation

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tioti Timon ◽  
Chammah J. Kaunda ◽  
Roderick R. Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Theological Education ◽  
Symbolic Interaction ◽  
World View ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Teaching Methodology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Coconut Tree

This article engages through an interdisciplinary approach to re-envision Tangintebu Theological College’s (TTC) model of theological education in the context of climate change in Kiribati. It utilises the anthropological theory of symbolic interactionism within missiological, cultural and, theological studies of climate change. It argues for the coconut tree as an appropriate cultural conceptual metaphorical idiom for translating and understanding Christian faith and shaping a theological pedagogy within the Kiribati context of climate change. The coconut image is an indigenous, holistic way of knowing and learning informed by Kiribati cosmology embedded within people’s experiences and understanding of the coconut tree. Its life-centeredness has the potential to contextualise the theological curriculum and teaching methodology to assist in equipping theological students with climate change-sensitive approaches. The qualitative method was utilised to allow participants to reflect on their experiences of climate change in relation to the mission of the church. The data that informs this article was generated through unstructured interviews and focus group discussions with members of the Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC). The data was analysed using symbolic interactionism. The results suggest that the Kiribati people symbolically interact with God through their understanding of the coconut tree, which is conceived as the embodiment of God’s presence. It became clear that while this world view informs the faith of members of the KUC, the TTC curriculum has sidelined it, resulting in miseducation of pastors because this omission means they are not equipped to engage with the challenge of climate change. The participants argued that there is an urgent need to understand theological education and ministerial formation within the indigenous framework of Kiribati coconut imagination that is embedded in the promotion of justice and equitable society not only for human beings but for all of God’s creation through symbolic interaction with the presence of God in the coconut.

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