THE DIALECTICS OF RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL LIBERALISM IN THE TRANSCULTURAL ERA

Trans culture is a cross-cultural condition which can develop or survive within the life of a community. Religion and culture as the pillars for unity in the cross-cultural era can potentially develop into liberalism. This study aims to reveal the process of religious and cultural liberalism along with the solutions. It uses a qualitative-analysis method with hermeneutic approach based on the thoughts of the figures of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in East Java. To collect the data, the researchers conduct in-depth interviews and data analysis of the works and news on religious and cultural liberalism. The study discovers the dialectic model of religious liberalism by making human rights the main source of law, which is called theological-capitalism. Besides, it finds cultural liberalism in the form of an identity crisis, which is called enculturation-liberalism. To overcome the religious liberalism, we can use clarification techniques and logical-systematic thinking. Meanwhile, the solution to deal with cultural liberalism is through cultural realism and socio-cultural learning. Transkultural adalah kondisi lintas kebudayaan yang dapat berkembang atau bertahan di kehidupan masyarakat. Agama dan budaya sebagai pilar persatuan yang dalam era lintas kebudayaan berpotensi berkembang pada paham liberal. Tujuan penelitian ini mengungkap proses liberalisme agama dan budaya yang disertai solusi dalam menangkalnya. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kualitatif-analisis dengan pendekatan hermeneutik berdasarkan pemikiran tokoh Ulama’ NU Jawa Timur. Dalam menggali data, dilakukan interviu mendalam serta analisis data dokumentatif karya dan berita liberalisme agama dan budaya. Hasil penelitian ditemukan model dialektika liberalisme agama dengan menjadikan Hak Asasi Manusia sebagai sumber hukum utama disebut teologis-kapitalistik, sedangkan dialektika liberalisme budaya dalam bentuk krisis identitas disebut enkulturasi-liberalistik. Solusi dalam menaggulangi liberalisme agama dengan menggunakan teknik klarifikasi dan berfikir logis-sistematis. Sedangkan solusi menghadapi liberalisme budaya melalui realisme culture dan socio-culture learning.

GLOBALISASI DAN DAKWAH ISLAM KONTEMPORER

Globalization is recognized as consciously carrying two sides of values ​​for human life, namely good values ​​and bad values. These two sides of value penetrate into all aspects of the order of life. Consequently, globalization raises many problems that plague the inhabitants of planet earth today. Among the impacts of globalization are the emergence of contemporary issues related to religion as well as challenges for Islamic da'wah, such as: religious pluralism, liberal Islam (religious liberalism), radicalism-terrorism and so on. Islam and its people who are in a global vortex and are related to several contemporary issues should come to the surface with contemporary Islamic ideas or thoughts to answer the challenge of da'wah while positioning Islam as a universal religion. Contemporary Islamic thought is thought that is able to bridge between the two poles, namely between tradition and modernity (al-turats wa al-hadatsah), so that it raises new awareness in giving birth to ideas that can respond to contemporary problems. Preaching contemporary Islamic thought like this is essentially continuing the missionary task that Allah and His Messenger ordered. Keywords: Globalization, Da'wah, Contemporary Islam

The Transformation of Religion

This chapter examines religious disaffiliation as itself a potentially religious act. It argues that “nothing in particular,” a religious option commonly presented to respondents on social scientific surveys, often entails an affirmation of religious cosmopolitanism rather than simple secularization or the rejection of religion altogether. This kind of religious cosmopolitanism—this preference for religion “in general” rather than “in particular”—has a long history in the United States, which this chapter tracks across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It attends especially to liberal Protestantism and other forms of religious liberalism as the source of modern religious cosmopolitanism and argues that the development of religious cosmopolitanism made religious disaffiliation easier for many Americans and even necessary for some. Understanding the religious nature of some religious disaffiliation is essential to understanding the broader phenomenon of religious disaffiliation in the twenty-first century.

Niebuhr’s Background: Family, Church, and Society

This chapter explores the first four decades of Reinhold Niebuhr’s life, a period that offers many clues as to why his work has remained relevant up to the present day. Whereas many scholars tend to divide Niebuhr’s development into stages—a Social Gospel phase, a Marxist or Christian socialist phase, and a final period of liberal realism—this chapter identifies several lines of continuity from Niebuhr’s early life onwards that help to explain the distinctive contours and continued appeal of his best-known work, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932). It focuses especially on three themes that carried through from the 1920s to the 1950s: the centrality of power and group conflict; the explanatory insufficiency of religious liberalism and the social sciences; and the capacity of religion to provide genuine knowledge about human nature.

Reconciling Homosexuality and Spirituality in Africa as a Heresy and Survival Strategy

The fight against homophobia in Africa has motivated the emergence of various advocacy initiatives including pro-gay religious forces. One of such initiatives – which have audaciously Christianized homosexuality – has been the Nigerian based, House of Rainbow (LGBT church). Using observations and a critical exploitation of secondary sources, this book chapter critically appraises this church in the light of four socio-religious theories namely, secular humanism, postmodernism, religious liberalism and African conservatism. The chapter is divided into four main parts. The first part provides a theoretical framework composed of four movements namely postmodernism, secular humanism, religious liberalism and African conservatism. The second part explores the origin, mission and structure of House of Rainbow. The third part examines House of Rainbow as postmodernist and religious humanist Christianity; while the last part examines the extent to which the gay-only church is more a survival strategy for Nigerian LGBT people than it is a heresy.

PELAKSANAAN PENDIDIKAN ASWAJA UNTUK MENANGKAL PAHAM RADIKALISME DI UNIVERSITAS KH. A. WAHAB HASBULLAH JOMBANG

Since its inception, Islam which has been growing and developing in Nusantara is Islam Ahlussunnah wal Jama'ah (Aswaja). Islam Aswaja which is believed and practiced by Muslims in Nusantara is taught from generation to generation. The establishment of Jam'iyyah Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is the institutionalization of Islam Aswaja as an effort to protect and teach it to the Muslims in Nusantara from time to time. Islam Aswaja combines three dimensions at once in Islam, namely aqidah, fiqh and Sufism, and principled on the values ​​of tawassuth (moderate), tawazun (balanced), tasammuh (tolerant) and ta'dil (fair). People who believe in and practice Aswaja will have moderate, tolerant and upright views and actions in social life. This paper analyzed the implementation of Aswaja education at KH University. A. Wahab Hasbullah Jombang (Unwaha), a tertiary educational institution affiliated with Jami‘iyah Nahdlatul Ulama. The problem discussed is how Aswaja's education in Unwaha. The results of this study are: First, Aswaja education aims to provide understanding and belief of Aswaja Islam to students, and counteract the understanding of extremism, radicalism and religious liberalism. Second, Aswaja education in Unwaha is carried out with two approaches, namely the learning approach in the form of lectures on Aswaja Thought courses for one semester that must be followed by students of all study programs, and the habituation approach of Aswaja al-Nahdliyah in daily life in the campus environment

Reconciling Homosexuality and Spirituality in Africa as a Heresy and Survival Strategy

The fight against homophobia in Africa has motivated the emergence of various advocacy initiatives including pro-gay religious forces. One of such initiatives – which have audaciously Christianized homosexuality – has been the Nigerian based, House of Rainbow (LGBT church). Using observations and a critical exploitation of secondary sources, this book chapter critically appraises this church in the light of four socio-religious theories namely, secular humanism, postmodernism, religious liberalism and African conservatism. The chapter is divided into four main parts. The first part provides a theoretical framework composed of four movements namely postmodernism, secular humanism, religious liberalism and African conservatism. The second part explores the origin, mission and structure of House of Rainbow. The third part examines House of Rainbow as postmodernist and religious humanist Christianity; while the last part examines the extent to which the gay-only church is more a survival strategy for Nigerian LGBT people than it is a heresy.

“Deplorable Exegesis”: Dick Gregory's Irreverent Scriptural Authority in the 1960s and 1970s

ABSTRACTThis article examines comedian Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory's comical articulation of religious belief and belonging through his speeches and religious writings during the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that, during his most visible public presence as an activist and comedic entertainer, Gregory bore an irreverent scriptural authority for his readers and comedy audiences who sought a prominent, public affirmation of their suspicion and criticism of religious authorities and conventional religious teachings. This suspicion would allow them to grapple with the oppressive presence of religion in the long history of Western colonialism, in the U.S. context of slavery, and in the violence and segregation of Jim Crow America. Following this religious suspicion, however, Gregory's consistent goal was to implement just social teachings stemming from socially and theologically progressive readings of the Hebrew Bible and of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Gregory's irreverence modeled, and reflected, the maintenance of belief in both the divine and in the justness of remaking an oppressive, violent, unequal world through nonviolent activism in accordance with his understanding of the teachings of the King James scriptures that he read throughout his life. This study of comedy uses one African American male's production of irreverent, authoritative religious rhetoric to display a noteworthy mode of mid-century African American religious liberalism. It is also a case study highlighting the complexity of religious belief and affiliation. Despite acknowledged ambivalences about his commitments to religion, Gregory also modeled ways for audiences to reframe religious commitments to produce social change.

Whither Religious Moderation? The State and Management of Religious Affairs in Contemporary Indonesia

The extent of religious values and symbols in encompassing the direction of Indonesian nation-state from the beginning of modern Indonesian history was the most popular determinant contestation in Indonesian political activism along with the emergence of the new sentiments of nationalism and anti-colonialism. Following the embracement Pancasila, Indonesia would be neither a secular state in which religion was absolutely separated from the state nor a religious one where the state was organized on one particular faith. Bearing in mind that religion is very important in the state system, the state normatively defines its role in the religious affair, as clearly outlines in the Constitution, paving the way for the government to take religious affairs as part of its service. For many decades, the government is very active in promoting religious toleration among the communities given to the heterogeneities of religious groups in Indonesia. Following the Reformation era, Indonesia has witnessed new waves of religious revivalism, putting religious symbols into the center of the stage. To some extends, this such revivalism tends to undermine differences within particular religious groups glorifying the supremacy of a particular religious outlook and practices and opposing a more tolerant and inclusive understanding of religion. In turn, it also leads to rejecting the notion of a peaceful co-existence between different faith-based communities. At the same time, Indonesia also witnesses the emergence of religious liberalism undermining the meaning of religious symbolism, ignoring the basic norms that have been preserved in religious texts. It seems imperative, therefore, for the government to promote the middle way in understanding and practicing religious life in Indonesia. This is the essence of religious moderation in contemporary Indonesia.