Towards Christian National Identity in Africa: A Historical Perspective to the Challenge of Ethnicity to the Church in Kenya

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunice Kamaara
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
The Church

Ethnic conflicts characterise much of Africa today. While Christian values are expected to foster national cohesion and identity, more often than not, Christianity has provided a convenient and effective rallying point around which ethnic conflicts are mobilised. This writer adopts a historical perspective to interrogate negative ethnicity and the Church in Africa using illustrations from Kenya. She challenges the Church to ‘re-route’ its mission for ‘love, justice and real humanity lived by Christ and based on him’ (Okolo).

Greek National Identity and the Greek Education System in the Age of Austerity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Maria Chalari ◽  
Thomas Georgas
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Education System ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Current Climate

This paper critically reviews discourses of Greek national identity and the role of the Greek education system first in a historical perspective and then in the current climate of economic crisis in Greece. It also discusses the reason why teachers and schools are key to tackling growing discriminatory social attitudes. The preceding nationalistic discourse and the historical forms of nationhood and education in Greece might help us unravel the difficulties Greek national identity faces in the current era of economic and humanitarian crisis and uncertainty with regard to the European Union project, its evolution, its struggles, the nature of its challenges and tensions, and the empowerment of its ethnocentric and racist sentiment.

scholarly journals LEBANESE NATIONAL RECONCILIATION AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MARONITE CHURCH THROUGH THE PURIFICATION OF MEMORY

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
Ziad Fahed
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Active Participant ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
National Reconciliation ◽  
The Church

The post-war period in Lebanon brought to the open all sensitive subjects that have marked the history of Lebanon: how to avoid falling into such a crisis? How not repeating such war? How can the Lebanese society eradicate the reasons that may lead to any other war? The Lebanese crisis had challenged the Church inviting her to move from being a passive witness to an active participant in the peaceful struggle for the liberation of the Lebanese society and help the country to complete its incorrect reading of history. Can the Maronite Patriarchate have a positive role in this regard? Can the Maronite Patriarchate bring about the purifi cation of the memory in a multiconfessional country? In this paper, and after defi ning the meaning of the purifi cation of memory in the Lebanese context, we will consider the important challenges that must precede any serious and defi nitive solution to the crisis in Lebanon and how can the Lebanese Church contribute in the development of a national identity and in the building of a new state free from any kind of domination. The purpose of this paper is not to justify what has happened in the past 34 years, i.e. since the beginning of the Lebanese war, but to contribute in searching for a sustainable peace.

The Influence of the Process of Changing National Identity on the Aggravation of Relations Between the Church and the State in Montenegro

2020 ◽  
pp. 264-268
Author(s):  
Николай Сапсай
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

В данном обзоре будет представлен труд, в котором анализируется развитие тенденции черногорских властей к сепаратизму совместно с формированием своей идентичности и церкви. В книге особенно прослеживается радикализация позиции черногорских властей по отношению к сербской идентичности и культуре, в том числе и канонической Сербской Православной Церкви. Также читатeли получат более полную картину о событиях, которые способствовали усложнению взаимоотношений между Церковью и государством в Черногории. Книга будет полезна всем тем, кто интересуется новейшей историей и положением дел в Черногории. This review will present a book that analyzes the development of the Montenegrin authorities’ tendency towards separatism together with the formation of their own identity and church. The book especially traces the radicalization of the position of the Montenegrin authorities in relation to Serbian identity and culture, including the canonical Serbian Orthodox Church. Also, the readers will receive a more complete picture of the events that contributed to the complication of the relationship between the Church and the state in Montenegro. The book will be useful to all those who are interested in the latest history and the state of affairs in Montenegro.

How Civic is Russia's New Civil Religion and How Religious is the Church?

2017 ◽  
pp. 125-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Teper
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Religious Elements ◽  
The Church

This chapter demonstrates how and why a shift in the balance between civic and religious elements of a civil religion can take place, using Russia as an illuminating case study. Post-Soviet Russia is used to demonstrate how religion can be utilized to reinforce national identity and the legitimacy of the political system in the face of their civic weaknesses. The chapter demonstrates how, eventually, the civic-democratic political model officially designated during Yeltsin's presidency gradually changed to a more religiously grounded one, albeit a model that is not fully recognized, during Putin's rule. Moreover, the Russian case allows us to differentiate between two possible levels of civil religion: an official and openly communicated secularism, and an established church religion, promoted by the establishment in more subtle but not necessarily less aggressive ways. It further shows that just as the state has to adopt religious features in order to be deified, religious institutions have themselves to become more secular to be suitable for adoption as the state's civil religion.

The Reformation in Anglicanism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec Ryrie
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The State ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
English National Identity ◽  
Prayer Books ◽  
The Church

The outline of the English Reformation under Henry VIII and the later Tudors is no longer heavily contested. While politically led and slow to take root, it eventually took shape as a decisively Reformed Protestant, even Calvinist, Reformation with a stress on the doctrine of predestination, even though Cranmer retained some traditional trappings in his Prayer Books. Terms such as ‘Anglican’ and ‘via media’ ought not to be applied to the Church of England before 1662. However, that church’s subjugation to the state and the central position it acquired in English national identity helped to sow the seeds of later Anglican distinctiveness. The Reformation’s legacy for modern Anglicans is divisive, and it is used dishonestly, as a weapon, by all sides. This is in part because the true extent of its popularity in its own time remains open to dispute.

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