Faith in a Secular Humanism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Shared Spaces ◽  
Secular Theology ◽  
Care And Justice

This chapter presents the concept of a “secular theology of compassion.” Through a discussion of the ways in which Moscow’s religious communities cooperate to forge common cross-denominational interests through social justice projects, the chapter considers how clergy, staff, and volunteers in religiously affiliated welfare programs separate their personally held religious beliefs and theological philosophies from the larger ethical values that guide their work. Of particular concern are the political, spiritual, and ethical negotiations that take place between Russia’s Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian communities as they strive to pursue shared goals of social justice while maintaining their respective histories and communities. Their collective efforts demonstrate how ethical values of empathy, care, and justice traverse, confuse, and even transcend religious/secular distinctions and provide opportunities for new shared spaces and practices of religiosity and compassion.

scholarly journals Orthodox Christian Bulgarians Coping with Natural Disasters in the Pre-Modern Ottoman Balkans

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
Raymond Detrez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
World View ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Ottoman Balkans

Premodern Ottoman society consisted of four major religious communities—Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and Jews; the Muslim and Christian communities also included various ethnic groups, as did Muslim Arabs and Turks, Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs who identified, in the first place, with their religious community and considered ethnic identity of secondary importance. Having lived together, albeit segregated within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for centuries, Bulgarians and Turks to a large extent shared the same world view and moral value system and tended to react in a like manner to various events. The Bulgarian attitudes to natural disasters, on which this contribution focuses, apparently did not differ essentially from that of their Turkish neighbors. Both proceeded from the basic idea of God’s providence lying behind these disasters. In spite of the (overwhelmingly Western) perception of Muslims being passive and fatalistic, the problem whether it was permitted to attempt to escape “God’s wrath” was coped with in a similar way as well. However, in addition to a comparable religious mental make-up, social circumstances and administrative measures determining equally the life conditions of both religious communities seem to provide a more plausible explanation for these similarities than cross-cultural influences.

Compassion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Affective Labor ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Unique Position

This chapter introduces themes of care, kindness, compassion, civic action, social justice, and faith-based assistance within the context of contemporary Russian society. The chapter presents the ethnographic field site of Moscow’s faith-based assistance community and sets the stage for the book’s larger discussion about the ways in which members of this community link their acts of assistance with performances of civic action and possibilities for understanding faith as a form of affective labor that produces future-oriented results. The discussion is contextualized within details about Russia’s contemporary political and economic situation, including the unique position of non-Orthodox Christian communities within the country’s religious and social justice spheres.

scholarly journals A Third Sector-Led Economic Model: Scopes of Islamic Entrepreneurship

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Mahmudul Alam ◽  
Rafiqul Islam Molla
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Wealth Concentration ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
Market State

Private (first sector) and public (second sector) sector economics, both individually and jointly, have failed to ensure the wellbeing of human societies on the national and global levels. In response, social enterprise (third sector) economics, which features cooperatives and not-for-profit social enterprises, foundations (awqāf), and similar undertakings, has emerged as a make-up strategy in an attempt to counter the deficiencies of the market-state economic model. However, there is a strongly felt belief that the third sector needs to be broadened and mainstreamed in order to include both not-for-profit and for-profit businesses blended with social justice (via provision of such social welfare programs as corporate social responsibility) so that they can play a major role in poverty alleviation and economic growth. Islamic entrepreneurship, which is basically a community-centric mode of business initiative, is an antidote to the problem of intolerable economic and social dualism, a natural strategy against all forms of capitalist exploitation and attempts to control a nation’s resources. Moreover, it is the natural model for solving economic inequity, wealth concentration, and social divides. Based on its potential and using examples from Bangladesh and Malaysia, we present the Islamic style of entrepreneurship. We contend that this particular style is the most efficient and desirable one for effectively widening and mainstreaming community-centric third sector economics so that it can ensure development with equity and social justice especially in developing countries.

scholarly journals Redesign of Constitutional Ethics For State Administrator Based on The Value of Pancasila

FIAT JUSTISIA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Muhtadi Muhtadi ◽  
Indra Perwira
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
The State ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
New Model ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
Interpretation Method

A constitution is a collective agreement as the foundation and goal to be achieved in the state. Therefore, the constitution not only regulates the fundamental rules of the state but also contains the ethical values that serve as the guiding of the state administrator. However, the spreading of violations of law such as corruption, abuse of authority that ends in the imposition of sanctions justifies the occurrence of incompatibility between the values of the constitutional principle as a reflection of the soul of the nation with the moral obligation of state administrator to implement the values. Using a doctrinal approach, data will be analyzed through the original intent of interpretation, grammatical and systematic law is expected to formulate a new model of constitutional ethics for state administrator based on the value of “Pancasila.” Based on the study of moral and constitutional philosophy with the law interpretation method can be concluded that the ethical values in the 1945 Constitution requires that state administrator base their deeds on the moral deity who respects the values of human civilization as Indonesian citizens, and humans in general with the priority of Indonesian unity above all interests and classes in order to achieve the ideals of social justice based on a deliberate-oriented on the great goal of Indonesian independence. To achieve this intention, the formation of ethical standards of the administrator in the constitutional norms through the amendment of the 1945 Constitution which then set a further law which is general and contains normative sanctions. Keywords: Redesign, Constitutional Ethics, State Administrator

How Moral Talk Connects Faith and Social Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Nicholas Fuist
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Community Model ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Moral Talk ◽  
Teacher Model

Todd Nicholas Fuist’s chapter examines the complicated ways in which participants in progressive religious communities use religious language to talk about politics. The chapter shows that the communities Fuist studies use three models for understanding the connection between faith and politics: the Teacher Model, where religious exemplars are understood as promoting progressive action; the Community Model, where groups promote specific, progressive understandings of what it means to be a community; and the Theological Model, where existing beliefs are creatively applied to contemporary politics. Through the combination of these three models, these communities create pathways to understanding and action by sacralizing progressive ideologies and practices about social justice.

Living a Life of Service

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Federal Policies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Worship Service ◽  
Civic Service

This chapter analyzes Russian cultural values and practices of service, with particular emphasis on the role of religiously inspired service in support of state goals of equality and justice. Over the past several centuries, Russia’s religiously affiliated assistance groups have consistently focused on redressing inequalities, whether those are social, cultural, economic, or political. Working both in cooperation with official projects and governmental bodies and in opposition to regional and federal policies, religious communities have addressed issues and operated in arenas that have in turn complicated and expanded what counts as worship, service, action, and even the intended beneficiaries of their work. As the examples documented here show, through activities of civic service and engagement, religious communities and their followers have challenged distinctions between religious and secular and cultivated new ethics of voluntarism and political activism.

North India

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
Leonard Fernando SJ
Keyword(s):  
North India ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Nicobar Islands ◽  
Missionary Societies ◽  
Christian Population ◽  
The Church

The Christian population in North India is varied, from less than 1% (in most North Indian states) to 22% in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Many fix its emergence in the 16th century, when Jesuits were invited by the Muslim Emperor Akbar the Great. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, many Protestant missionary societies were established in India. Six churches in India united in 1970, forming the Church of North India (CNI). Recently, Christians have been attacked as a threat to the hierarchical social system and threatened by radical Hindu fundamentalism. Amidst the persecutions, Christianity has continued in unique paradigms: whether in the adoption ashram life to promote the mystical traditions of Christianity as well as Hinduism, in translations of the Bible into tribal languages; or in the faculties of philosophy and theology in North India preparing men and women for ministry. Religious communities and NGOs in North India have served those at the peripheries. Lack of growth of Christian communities can be attributed to hostility against Dalit Christians who risk losing constitutional protection given to other Dalits. In fact, the collaboration of lay Christians is on the increase through different associations, basic Christian communities and Charismatic movements.

Writing African Christianity

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 275-312
Author(s):  
Elias Kifon Bongmba
Keyword(s):  
Religious Communities ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Disciplinary Practices ◽  
African Identity ◽  
African Christianity ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Movements ◽  
Material Conditions

In this overview of the historiography of Christianity in Africa a number of desiderata and considerations for future research are reviewed. The first issue considered relates to the practice of historiography. The second issue relates to African identity/-ies and its relationship to global cultural movements. The third desideratum is the pursuit of new disciplinary practices in the study of African Christianity, especially interdisciplinarity as scholarly ethos. Finally, a number of themes that should become foci in historiography of African Christianity are explored, among these are: concentration on local and regional narratives, the gendered character of Christianity in Africa, attention to the material conditions and needs of African religious communities and the various cultural innovations adopted to cope with these conditions, as well as the role of Christian communities in development in Africa and the wider encompassing question of ethics and morality.

Christians, Muslims and the State in Twentieth-Century Egypt and Indonesia

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 412-434
Author(s):  
Brian Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Communal Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Historical Relationship

Surveys of the historical relationship between Christianity and other faiths often suggest that through a process of theological enlightenment the churches have moved from crusade to cooperation and from diatribe to dialogue. This trajectory is most marked in studies of Christian-Muslim relations, overshadowed as they are by the legacy of the Crusades. Hugh Goddard’sA History of Christian-Muslim Relationsproceeds from a focus on the frequently confrontational inter-communal relations of earlier periods to attempts by Western theologians over the last two centuries to define a more irenic stance towards Islam.1 For liberal-minded Western Christians this is an attractive thesis: who would not wish to assert that we have left bigotry and antagonism behind, and moved on to stances of mutual respect and tolerance? However laudable the concern to promote harmonious intercommunal relations today, dangers arise from trawling the oceans of history in order to catch in our nets only those episodes that will be most morally edifying for the present. What Herbert Butterfield famously labelled ‘the Whig interpretation of history’ is not irrelevant to the history of interreligious relations. In this essay I shall use the experience of Christian communities in twentieth-century Egypt and Indonesia to argue that the determinative influences on Christian-Muslim relations in the modern world have not been the progressive liberalization of stances among academic theologians but rather the changing views taken by governments in Muslim majority states towards both their majority and minority religious communities. Questions of the balance of power, and of the territorial integrity of the state, have affected Christian Muslim relations more deeply than questions of religious truth and concerns for interreligious dialogue.

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