scholarly journals Religious processes as intercultural interaction: Contours of a sociological discourse

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-48
Author(s):  
Sergej Lebedev
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Socialization Process ◽  
Intercultural Interaction ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Religious Cultures ◽  
Primary Socialization ◽  
Sociological Discourse ◽  
Historical Periods

During 'cyclic' historical periods it would be correct to interpret religious processes in terms of interaction of two essentially different, but substantially, structurally and functionally comparative types of integrating cultural complexes that, in historical perspective, compete with each other on the effect on individuals and society in general. Such complexes represent secular and religious culture. Contemporary socio-cultural situation can be defined as an asymmetric representativeness of both secular and religious cultures. In a modern secular society, dominance of a secular culture over a religious one can be manifested in three basic dimensions: substantial, regulative and subjective ones. Secular culture is adopted during the primary socialization process. However, religious culture is still adopted through conscious, voluntary selection in younger or more mature age. It may be possible to determine two basic attitudes of the contemporary ('secularized') man towards religion. The first attitude may be called 'reversive' and the other one 'conversive'.

Theravada Traditions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Clifford Holt
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Religious Cultures

This is a study of very popular ritual celebrations observed by Buddhist monks and laity in each of the predominantly Theravada Buddhist cultures in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.) The theoretical approach deployed and guides the reader through the distinctiveness of each culture is comparative in nature, and the basic premise that angles the inquiry is that widely observed public rites common to each religious culture reflect the nature of social, economic and political change occurring more broadly in society. Instead of ascertaining how religious ideas have impacted the ideals of government or ethical practice, this study focuses on how important changes, or shifts in the trajectories of society impact the character of religious cultures. In each of the five chapters that focus specifically on a given rite of great public importance, an historical, political or social context is provided in some detail. As such, this volume can be read effectively as one volume introduction to the practice of Theravada Buddhism and the nature of social change in contemporary Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

Pearls From Bones: Relics, Chortens, Tertons and the Signs of Saintly Death in Tibet

Numen ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Martin
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Devotional Practice ◽  
Cultural Pattern ◽  
Other Substances ◽  
Critical Links ◽  
Point Of Departure

AbstractAlthough there has been much work, in recent years, on the sacrum of Christianity, and some important studies have appeared on Buddhist relic cults and related facets of Buddhism, so far very little has been written on Tibetan Buddhist relics. This paper, while offering some material for a historical perspective, mainly seeks to find a larger cultural pattern for understanding the interrelationships of a complex of factors active in Tibetan religious culture. Beginning with problems of relic-related terms and classifications, we then suggest a new assessment of the role of the Terton ('treasure revealer'). Then we discuss 'miracles' in Tibet, and the intersection of categories of 'signs of saintly death' and relics. Much of the remaining pages are devoted to those items that fall within both categories, specifically the 'pearls' that emerge miraculously from saintly remains and images that appear in bodily or other substances connected with cremations. After looking at a number of testimonials on these miraculous relics, we examine the possibility that these items might be 'deceitfully manufactured', looking at a few Tibetan polemical writings which raise this possibility. In the conclusion, we suggest that there are some critical links between three spheres of Tibetan religiosity: 1. sacrum which are not relics, 2. relics, and 3. signs of sainthood. Finally, we recommend an approach to religious studies that takes its point of departure in actual practices, and particularly the objects associated with popular devotional practice.

scholarly journals “A Lady with a Lapdog”: A Breakdown of Orthodoxy

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-25
Author(s):  
Vera K. Zubareva
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Historical Climate ◽  
Wedding Ceremony ◽  
Secular Society

This article provides a historical perspective on the famous Chekhovian story that has been previously viewed only as a story of love with the main focus on characters’ psychology. The new approach refers to a historical climate in Russian in the end of 19 century when religion lost its primary value. The conflict between the main characters is interpreted as a conflict between religious and secular mentality. Chekhov talks about a tendency of changing values in society, when the natural man’s mentality dominates the sacramental sphere, declares its morality false, ridiculous and even harmful. Gurov cannot understand Anna Sergeevna’s repentance, because he gravitates towards the progressive pole. The institution of marriage is not sacred for him, and, like for many of his contemporaries, a church wedding ceremony is no more than just a beautiful ritual. Just as another Chekhovian character, Voinitsky, Gurov doesn’t consider cheating on a spouse a great sin. He is a man of modern tendencies. For him, God is an abstract, mythical, speculative, philosophical concept not applicable to his own life that he lives in accordance with the tendencies of a secular society. Critics often associate the image of the dog with Anna Sergeevna, but in reality it is connected rather to Gurov. First of all, the sex of the dog is male, not female (Spitz is a male). Also, in the story, the dog loves his owner, Anna Sergeevna, but he could never understand the reason for her sadness. In the same way, Gurov, though being in love with Anna Sergeevna, would never understand fully what makes her so upset.

scholarly journals Religiosity and Health-Related Risk Behaviours in a Secular Culture—Is there a Correlation?

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 2381-2396
Author(s):  
Nanna Herning Svensson ◽  
Niels Christian Hvidt ◽  
Susanne Pagh Nissen ◽  
Maria Munch Storsveen ◽  
Elisabeth Assing Hvidt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Behaviours ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Risk Behaviours ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
Related Risk ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Religious Cultures

Abstract In the present study, we examine the correlation between religiosity and health-related risk behaviours among citizens aged 29–60 based on a cross-sectional survey in Denmark, known for its more secular culture. Health-related risk behaviours such as smoking and alcohol intake are known to increase the risk of developing one or more chronic or life-threatening diseases. In this study religiosity, in a random sample of Danes, seems to be associated with healthier lifestyle, such as a healthier dietary pattern and less smoking, as is found in more religious cultures. Our study suggests that religious practice among Danish citizens seems to be correlated with health behaviours and that healthcare professionals should pay more attention to the connection between religiosity and health.

Redeeming Time

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Mirola
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Labor Conditions ◽  
Civic Duty ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Protestant Clergy ◽  
Religious Cultures ◽  
Civilized World

During the struggle for the eight-hour workday and a shorter workweek, Chicago emerged as an important battleground for workers in “the entire civilized world” to redeem time from the workplace in order to devote it to education, civic duty, health, family, and leisure. This book explores how the city's eight-hour movement intersected with a Protestant religious culture that supported long hours to keep workers from idleness, intemperance, and secular leisure activities. Analyzing how both workers and clergy rewove working-class religious cultures and ideologies into strategic and rhetorical frames, the book shows how every faith-based appeal contested whose religious meanings would define labor conditions and conflicts. As it notes, the ongoing worker–employer tension transformed both how clergy spoke about the eight-hour movement and what they were willing to do, until intensified worker protest and employer intransigence spurred Protestant clergy to support the eight-hour movement even as political and economic arguments eclipsed religious framing. A revealing study of an era and a cause, this book illustrates the potential—and the limitations—of religious culture and religious leaders as forces in industrial reform.

scholarly journals The dynamics of secularization as a process of mutual learning of philosophy and religion

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Kateryna Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
Social Progress ◽  
Educational Activity ◽  
Complete Disappearance ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Central Meaning

The article deals with the current stage of development of society, associated with the formation of a new type of relationship between the secular and the religious consciousness. If in the secular society of the recent past, these relations were based on the domination of secular ideology, and religious consciousness was interpreted as the evolutionary past of society, the significance of which decreases with social progress until the complete disappearance of religion, then post-secular culture is associated with the formation of a new constructive attitude towards the religious consciousness as an immanent component of social consciousness, which does not disappear with the development of society, but only changes the forms of expression, as well as with the formation of an equal dialogue between secular and religious. Post-secularism does not mean a return to the dominant position of religion and does not cancel the achievement of the secular paradigm. Secularism has transcoding the cultural matrix, therefore, it is no longer possible to take a central meaning and value-forming place in the culture of religion and confessional traditions that once gave birth to this culture. In addition, globalization creates a situation of interaction of religious traditions, unprecedented in the history of mankind, within the framework of one cultural and legal field. We are no longer talking about oppression by more progressive traditions of spiritually primitive traditions (Christianity or Islam in relation to paganism) - traditions with highly developed spiritual, intellectual and missionary potential have to interact with each other. Post-secularity means not only a critical revision of the stage consciousness, but also openness, receptivity, and at least interest in all the various forms of human religiosity. Secularization must be understood, according to J. Habermas, as the dual and complementary learning. Modernization embraces religious and secular consciousness, modifying them. This process of learning, change and enrichment is the essence of the post-secular era. The main characteristic of post-secular society is the "two-way learning process" of faith and reason, or their correlation. In the field of education, the necessary result of the formation of a post-secular society is the introduction of dialogue and tolerance as necessary principles of educational activity and the absence of discrimination on religious grounds.

scholarly journals FEATURES AND CONTENT OF COMMUNICATIVE MEMORY OF KENTAU’S AND ASHYSAY’S RESIDENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Т.Т. Dalayeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Emotional State ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Primary Socialization ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Speech Situation

The article is devoted to the study of the features of the manifestation of communicative memory based on the analysis of the content and implementation of the speech situation in historical narratives in the interviews of residents of Kentau and Ashysai in 2015-2019. Through the cognitive-communicative concept of mnemonic activity by Doctor of Filology Science Tivyaeva I.V. the author examines the features of the verbal coding of memory processes in the natural language of the respondents of three generations (conditionally divided by the author according to different historical periods in which the respondents' primary socialization took place): 1) those born in the 1920s-1930s; 2) those born in the 1940-1950s; 3) born in the 1960s. The purpose of the publication is to identify the discursive content of the memories of the residents of a monotown about their lives in the context of general historical events of the 20th century and the cultural code in the informational narrative of their interviews, the difference or similarity of the perception of their past by different generations. The character of identity in the memories of the Kentau-Ashhysai population is determined through such markers as the language of communication, cultural codes, and the emotional state of the respondents.

scholarly journals Strong Religion in a Secular Society: The Case of Orthodox Reformed Schools in The Netherlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Exalto ◽  
Gerdien Bertram-Troost
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Religious Schools ◽  
Complex Relation ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
The Government ◽  
Huge Variety

In the Netherlands, state and religious schools are equally financed by the government. Parents are free to choose a school that optimally fits their moral values as well as their idea of a good education. As a result, there is a huge variety of schools, which include those orthodox Reformed schools that form part of the so-called Bible Belt culture. We elaborate on the complex relation between this religious culture and liberal, secular society by focusing on education. Occasionally, there is severe criticism of schools based on a strong religious identity (so-called strong religious schools), especially when it comes to their allegedly inadequate contribution to citizenship education. In order to add a historical perspective and a reflection on the arguments to the debate, our central research question is: ‘How can the founding and existence of orthodox Reformed schools in the Dutch liberal and secular society be explained and justified?’ Starting with a historical explanation of why the orthodox Reformed founded their own schools in the 1920s, we elaborate on philosophical arguments that can justify the existence of orthodox Reformed schools in a liberal, secular society.

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