Agama Hindu Dharma Indonesia as a New Religious Movement: Hinduism Recreated in the Image of Islam

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
June McDaniel
Keyword(s):  
Civil Religion ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
Definition Of Religion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Universal Ethic

This article describes the role of Hinduism in modern Indonesia and the ways in which it has been adapted to fit the government's definition of religion as a prophetic monotheism with revealed texts and a universal ethic. It gives a brief background on Indonesian history and analyzes the structure and theology of Agama Hindu Dharma Indonesia. It discusses whether a governmental reorganization of an ancient religion can be considered a new religious movement, and some approaches that might be useful from the field of religious studies. It suggests that the definition of new religious movement be changed to fit the case in which a modern religion considered to be a revealed religion also acts as a civil religion.

scholarly journals The Past, Present, and Religious Studies Future of Civic Engagement in American Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ronis ◽  
Travis Proctor
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Community Based ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The University

We argue that Civic Engagement is fundamental to the stated work of the university, the humanities, and the project of religious studies. We trace the historical connections between Civic Engagement and higher education in the American context to the present, highlighting a consistency of focus on Civic Engagement across diverse university contexts even as educational priorities and instantiations shift. We then explore the particular role of Civic Engagement in Religious Studies pedagogy. We contend that being explicit about integrating Civic Engagement in the religion classroom enhances our students’ ability to understand complex concepts in late antique religion and underscores for them how relevant the study of late ancient religion is to students’ lives today. We offer three ways that instructors in Religious Studies can incorporate Civic Engagement into their classes: cultivating naming practices, focusing pedagogical exercises on honing students’ Civic Engagement skills, and, where practicable, engaging in community-based learning.

Paul and Religion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Wasserman
Keyword(s):  
Historical Study ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Definition Of Religion ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Definition Of

This essay develops a definition of religion and uses this definition to clarify the role of comparison in the historical study of Paul’s letters. Critical comparisons are especially important for understanding Paul’s rhetoric about God, Christ, and other gods in light of both Jewish and non-Jewish myths and traditions. Focusing on 1 Cor 8:1–11:1, 15:23–28, Gal 4:3–10, and Rom 1:18–32, the author finds that Paul’s texts fit with traditions of Jewish polemic that ungenerously misrepresent the gods of other peoples in order to assert their non-existence, relative powerlessness, and subordination. Rather than revealing deities of exceptional power and unrivalled political status, such polemics adapt certain widely shared assumptions about the nature of the gods, especially their human-like attributes and political arrangements.

The Performative Landscape of Going-To-Work: On the Edge of a Jewish Ultraorthodox Neighborhood

10.1068/d76j ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 803-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orna Blumen
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Orthodox Jews ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Spatial Performance ◽  
Human Use ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Modern Population

Following recent insights into performativity and space, I explore the widespread routine of going-to-work as a capitalist ritual. Going-to-work produces a powerful yet ordinary, unspectacular landscape, whose performativity is fourfold: the compatibility of the material form and human use of it; the movements of people and the clothes they wear; the variety of individual practices of going-to-work; and the timing and spacing of this collective ritual. Generally, going-to-work is performative, because it transforms people into employees, defining productivity in terms of paid work. Hence, the prime quality of this landscape is to enhance economically productive bodies. In the second part of this paper, I examine this productive—nonproductive distinction in a unique setting on the edge of an Israeli neighborhood of ultraorthodox Jews, whose definition of men's work—unpaid religious studies—contrasts with that of the majority of the modern population. The distinctive ultraorthodox appearance, originally designed to mark a particular Jewish identity, signifies their nonproductivity as a spatial performance of Otherness. This provides an opportunity to probe going-to-work in this specific place as an arena where the ultraorthodox identity as Other intersects with their capitalist identity as Other. Short street interviews with modern and ultra-orthodox Jews show that they recognize work as the main theme of this landscape. They are also aware that work is socially defined and can be criticized on both capitalist and ultraorthodox—religious grounds, and they illustrate how the controversy over the definition of work lies within the struggle over Jewish identity. I conclude by illuminating the performative role of space in displaying identity and social ideas.

scholarly journals Reception of the future as a kind of religious experience and a way of transforming the consciousness of believers

2009 ◽  
pp. 78-84
Author(s):  
K.K. Nedzelsky
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Struggle ◽  
The Future ◽  
Definition Of Religion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Scientific Atheism ◽  
Scientific Worldview

Not so long ago the definition of religion as "a reflection of reality in illusory-fantasy images, ideas, concepts" was perceived as one of the most important arguments of scientific atheism in its anti-religious struggle in the national religious studies. The closeness to the notion of "fantasy" and "fanaticism" (though completely incompatible with semantics) made this argument seem irresistible in the fight against religion, as any believer could fall under the murderous characterization of the category of "religious bigotry" it is in some way irreparably backward in comparison to a person with a developed scientific worldview.

scholarly journals Reception and interpretation of the educational and educational function of religion in modern religious studies

2016 ◽  
pp. 97-100
Author(s):  
Dmytro Bazyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Spiritual Education ◽  
Freedom Of Conscience ◽  
Secular Education ◽  
Functional Orientation ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Definition Of

One of the most important discourses in contemporary religious studies is the definition of the essence and role of religious education and the problem of its coexistence with the secular. On this occasion in the circle of researchers there are diverse, sometimes opposite, points of view. The following headings of the reception of expediency of the implementation of religious education are as follows: 1) the emphasis on the current legislation on the separation of church from the state, in particular the laws of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" and "On Education"; 2) comparison of foreign experience in implementation of the implementation of religious education in the practice of social life, comparative analysis of the positions of supporters and opponents of religious education; 3) outline the problems of religious and spiritual education in the context of the formation of state-church relations, the complexity of incorporation of the religious component into the system of secular education, their demarcation; 4) the relevance of the distinction and delineation of religious and religious studies, the specificity of their functional orientation.

scholarly journals Charles J. Adams Antara Reduksionisme dan Anti-Reduksionisme dalam Kajian Agama

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Abdul Kadir Riyadi
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Definition Of Religion ◽  
Definition Of

This paper is about a critical survey of Charles J. Adams’ insights concerning the definition and nature of religion. We are particularly interested in digging up the logic and methodological inconsistency of Charles Adams as far as his offer on religious studies is concerned. Initially we were impressed by the power of his allusions. But the deeper we go the more we found out that his thought is replete with methodological incongruence. First, he is not certain about the definition of religion; an uncertainty that leads to a lot of fundamental errors in the description of religion as a whole. Second, he is not sure what line of argument he follows, the fact that leads to confusion whether he is reductionist or anti-reductionist. It is about this confusion that this paper is concerned with. Although a major part of this paper deals with religions in general, its theme and problems are of particular importance to the study of Islam.

Reinventing Religious Studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-44
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of Religion ◽  
Definition Of

I interviewed Scott S. Elliott in December 2013, where we discussed his recent book (as editor) Reinventing Religious Studies: Key Writings in the History of a Discipline (Acumen 2013). Our conversation ranged from the history of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion to how articles appearing in its journal, the CSSR Bulletin, over some 40-odd years have been at the leading edge of advancing debates in the study of religion, from problems in theory and method and the definition of religion, to issues of identity politics and the study of Islam.

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