Regressive Religious Practices; A Threat to the Fundamental Rights of Women

The paper aims to provide an insight into the famous and revolutionary Sabarimala Judgement - Indian Young Lawyers Association and Ors. v. The State of Kerala and Ors.2 The paper throws light on the background of the case and closely analyses the judgement so pronounced and its consequences. Since the practices of the temple were seen as exclusionary in nature, the implications of a judgement so grave have serious consequences on the immediate category of people directly affected and the society at large. The primary issues addressed in the case; whether or not the said practice is discriminatory and so a violation of Article 17, and whether or not the practice violates the right to equality by lacking an intelligible differential and a reasonable nexus (pertaining to Article 14) have been further deconstructed to paint a better understanding of the interpretation of the Constitution of India.Furthermore, an attempt has been made to establish the judiciary’s primary objective, whether it is to strike a balance between the conflict of liberty, equality, public interest and affected groups of people has been fulfilled in this judgement or not. The main task of the judgement was to figure out whether the exclusionary practice is essential for the religion so as to deem it to be violative of the fundamental right to religion, as granted to the citizens of the country by the Constitution. One of the striking features of this judgement is the dissenting opinion of Justice Indu Malhotra, who, reasoning through constitutional morality: the harmonisation of fundamental rights of every individual citizen, religious denomination to practise their faith in accordance with the tenets of their religion irrespective of it being rational or logical has concluded that the practice is neither exclusionary, nor discriminatory in nature. The paper delves into this dissenting opinion, and proposes a possible approach to balancing public interests and rights of the affected categories.

Dynastic Legitimacy

In this essay Wight clarified the importance of dynastic legitimacy—that is, hereditary monarchy—in European history. In the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries, rulers were mainly princes who inherited their crowns. The principal exceptions were the leaders of republics, including Venice, Ragusa, Genoa, and Lucca in Italy; the Swiss confederation; and the United Provinces of the Low Countries. Dynastic principles included the theory that the ruler was chosen by God through hereditary succession, and that the monarch represented his or her subjects, notably with regard to the official religious denomination of the country. Such principles made dynastic marriages valuable means to provide heirs to the crown, to clarify succession to the throne, to consolidate alliances, to gain influence and wealth, and to legitimize territorial gains. Despite imprudent and egocentric behaviour by some royal leaders, monarchs were increasingly expected to pursue national rather than personal dynastic interests. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna reaffirmed dynastic principles of legitimacy, including in Venice and the Netherlands; the Swiss confederation was a conspicuous exception. Dynastic rulers have, however, tended to become symbols and instruments of national unity and self-determination. Popular support for dynastic houses has in many cases led to popular legitimacy for constitutional monarchies.

Religion and episodic volunteering

Connections between religion and volunteering have been widely documented. Religion is a key motivating factor for volunteering in religious settings and elsewhere. Episodic volunteering is one of the fastest-growing forms of volunteering, but literature on episodic volunteering and religion is scarce. In this article, we analyse connections between religion and religiosity, and episodic volunteering. First, we identify types of episodic volunteers at religious events. Second, we use a set of three independent variables (declared religious denomination, importance of religion and spiritual motivation) to understand episodic volunteering participation. Third, we examine whether those who volunteer both episodically and regularly are more religious. Finally, we identify differences across religious affiliations. Using data from a cross-national survey, we apply different data segments in each area of our study. Our findings suggest that episodic volunteers are influenced by religion and religiosity, with especially strong connections among Protestants. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

“God’s Not My Type”

The recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is intended to “offer a new and complementary lens with which to glean new insights into religion and public life”. The technique of cluster analysis was used on measures of religious and spiritual beliefs, yielding seven groups, two consisting primarily of nonreligious or secular individuals. There are “breadth-versus-depth” tradeoffs involved in this approach. A belief-based typology is an improvement upon a grouping that uses religious denomination, which undercounts secular individuals. But the theoretical implications of this typology for understanding secular individuals necessitate scrutiny, including how the use of meaning in life as a marker of well-being may be misleading in the case of the nonreligious.

Nazwy czarnoskórych mieszkańców Afryki w dawnych przekładach Nowego Testamentu.

The author analyses translation equivalents of the names referring to black people (Gr. Αἰθίοψ, Νίγερ, Lat. Aethiops, Niger) in old Polish translations of the New Testament. He has excerpted translations based on Greek sources as well as on the Latin Vulgate, diversifi ed according to the translation method and religious denomination. The number of the excerpted Polish equivalents (transferred words: ‘Niger’, adopted words: ‘Murzyn’ (Negro), and its derivatives, ethnonyms: ‘Etiopczyk’, ‘Etyjopianin’ (Ethiopian), native words: ‘Czarny’ (Black)) have been confronted with the terms accepted in etymological dictionaries and history books. The author concludes that the translators from the Middle Polish period used the translation equivalents referring to black inhabitants of Africa quite freely. The reason for that was that the names ‘Murzyn’ and ‘Czarny’ were not burdened with such a stylistic and pragmatic load in the Old Polish language as they are in Modern Polish.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN THE PSALMS OF KING DAVID

In this article, the Psalter of King David, a famous religious and cultural monument, which is considered by us not so much as a collection of prayers presented in an artistic and poetic form, as legal texts depicting a formal trial carried out in the presence of a Judge God, a righteous defender, an accuser, in the role of the psalmist himself, and the accused (sinners violating God's Law To realize the main communicative goal – to attract the Judge's attention, to make him listen and perceive what is said, to motivate Him to carry out the desired action – the author uses communication strategies and tactics used in the judicial process. These include strategies of emotional influence, defence and prosecution, tactics of simulated dialogue, marking, drawing attention to the injured party, raising a rhetorical question, etc. The author's attention is also directed to the analysis of language means, which contribute to verbal expression and form an important part of the linguistic arsenal, as well as on the main ways of their implementation. The material presented in the psalms gives us the opportunity to show the language techniques used to protect and accuse opponents in the pragmasemantic aspect, that is, the established meaning and implementation of language means is carried out in a direct situational context. The analysis was conducted as part of a discourse analysis using a comparative study method, which showed that these rhetorical means have a convincing effect, and the information transmitted through them receives a high truth status. To carry out analytical work, in addition to discourse analysis, theological, sociocultural approaches were also used, allowing us to consider psalms in the context of a certain religious denomination, Orthodox.