LA DIMENSIONE METAFISICA DEL SUFISMO:UNO SGUARDO SULL’OPERA DI ALBERTO VENTURA

Riassunto: L’analisi dello sviluppo del Il Sufismo ha svolto un ruolo di prim’ordine all’interno delle società islamiche sia da un punto di vista della religiosità popolare sia da un punto di vista sociale. Esiste tuttavia un aspetto più strettamente dottrinale del Sufismo che possiamo definire come metafisica sufi. In particolare, in Ibn ‘Arabī e nei maggiori esponenti della sua scuola si possono rintracciare alcune delle tematiche che hanno universalmente influenzato la dottrina sufi (waḥdat al-wuǧūd, al-insān al-kāmil, al-ḥaqīqa al-muḥammadiyya) e che hanno rivestono un’importanza centrale anche nell’elaborazione dottrinale di Aḥmad Sirhindi e della ṭarīqa Naqšbandiyya. Abstract: The analysis of the development of Sufism has played a leading role within Islamic societies both from the point of view of popular religiosity and from a social point of view. However, there is a more strictly doctrinal aspect of Sufism that we can define as Sufi metaphysics. In particular, in Ibn ‘Arabī and in the major exponents of his school we can trace some of the themes that have universally influenced the Sufi doctrine (waḥdat al-wuǧūd, al-insān al-kāmil, al-ḥaqīqa al-muḥammadiyya) and which have they are also of central importance in the doctrinal elaboration of Aḥmad Sirhindi and of the ṭarīqa Naqšbandiyya.

НЕСКОЛЬКО СЛОВ О М. М. ГРОМЫКО КАК ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЕ СЛАВЯНОФИЛЬСКОГО НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ РУССКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ

Статья посвящена роли славянофильской проблематики в становлении отечественной исторической науки 1990 х – 2010-х годов. Апробированная почти двумя столетиями историософско-богословской дискуссии, эта проблематика явила себя на исходе ХХ столетия как преимущественно экклезиологическая – как насущные вопросы личностного и общественного воцерковления. Существенное значение в этом процессе имеет воссоздание адекватного научного языка и понятийного аппарата для описания роли Церкви и народной религиозности в формировании национального самосознания и религиозно-культурной общности. Подчеркивается, что в данной концепции история Церкви и народа как ее носителя – «народа-богоносца» – предстает не в качестве локальной темы, но как основной сюжет и сущностный смысл мирового исторического процесса. The article is devoted to the role of Slavophil problems in the formation of Russian historical science in the 1990s – 2010s. Approved by almost two centuries of historiosophical and theological discussion, this problematic showed itself at the end of the twentieth century as primarily ecclesiological – as pressing issues of personal and social churching. Recreation of an adequate scientific language and conceptual apparatus for describing the role of the Church and popular religiosity in the formation of national identity and religious and cultural community is essential in this process. It is emphasized that in this concept the history of the Church and the people as its bearer – the «God-bearing people» – appears not as a local theme, but as the main plot and essential meaning of the world historical process.

THE “UNSATISFACTORY” ELEMENTS OF POPULAR RELIGIOSITY: PARTIAL NOTES FROM JOSÉ COMBLIN, 1960S

José Comblin, a Roman Catholic theologian, in his huge intellectual production, disposes of some reflections about Catholicism and its typologies. In some moments of his writings, he treated about Catholicism as a popular religiosity whose integrity to the Christian message was not satisfactory. In this sense, the present text is intended to present some of the elements that sustain this argumentation done by Comblin about popular religiosity. This will be done from the rereading of two works of this theologian: the book Os sinais dos tempos e a evangelização; and the article Para uma tipologia do catolicismo no Brasil, both published in 1968. By end, the found reflections favor the understanding that, for some clergymen of the Church, even those aligned with the progressive slope, it is hard to advance in direction to new ways and perspectives in Catholicism.

Jeremy Bentham on Organised Religion

Bentham’s attack on organised religion was principally an attack on the ‘Church-of-Englandist’ ruling few, and, in particular, the ecclesiastical establishment. This article will examine Bentham’s argument that the ecclesiastical establishment fostered and exploited religious belief, as well as the hopes and fears associated with popular religiosity, in the pursuit of ‘sinister interest’. Bentham recognised a senior clergy that extorted enormous sums of money from the population, instituted a fraudulent education system that subjugated the children committed to its charge, and took advantage of the corrupt alliance of Church and state in order to advance and protect its worldly power and riches. This article will discuss Bentham’s proposals to sweep away the mischiefs done by organised religion, both to morality and to good government, and will argue that Bentham’s hostility towards the ecclesiastical establishment did not prevent him from recommending that priests be stripped of their power, place and exorbitant wealth as gradually and as painlessly as possible. It will also explain why Bentham thought that liberating religious belief from the coercive control of a self-serving class of men would be more conducive to personal happiness than prohibiting religion altogether.

A ESPIRITUALIDADE TRANSRELIGIOSA NAS ROMARIAS E PEREGRINAÇÕES: O caso do Juazeiro do padre Cícero Romão

RESUMODestaca a importância da pluralidade das expressões de fé no bojo do catolicismo popular. Saber que os diferentes sistemas religiosos particulares são complementares, e não excludentes. A romaria a Juazeiro do Norte/CE é um desses sistemas e constitui-se em um dos maiores eventos religiosos do Brasil e, por seu caráter de resistência popular, tem atraído a atenção de pesquisadores e pesquisadoras em diversas áreas do conhecimento, que buscam explicar suas origens e motivos, bem como os seus processos e transformações. Analisar as transformações na experiência religiosa dos romeiros do Juazeiro do padre Cícero Romão, no contexto de mudanças culturais mais amplas, buscando compreender as estratégias de hibridação como mecanismos de preservação e ressignificação da romaria. Esta pesquisa em Ciências da Religião situa-se dentro do marco teórico e metodológico transdisciplinar, que destaca o conhecimento brotado entre e além das diversas áreas e sujeitos. Oferecer elementos para uma compreensão abrangente do diálogo interreligioso, entendido como uma atitude positiva e construtiva de abertura e escuta da tradição religiosa do outro, o que possibilita um enriquecimento recíproco através do compartilhar das riquezas éticas e espirituais que está cada vez mais presente no mundo moderno, plural e secularizado. Para entender a dinâmica de uma espiritualidade transreligiosa o estudo aprofunda a tipologia das romarias que constitui estudar as várias expressões de fé do povo. A pesquisa mostrou que a pastoral ecumênica deve ser entendida como uma abertura espiritual na qual cada pessoa assume profundamente a sua tradição de origem e a abre a outra.Palavras-chave: Religiosidade popular. Romaria e espiritualidade. Diálogo intereligioso. Ecumenismo e diálogo.ABSTRACTIt highlights the importance of the plurality of expressions of faith in the heart of popular Catholicism. To know that the different particular religious systems are complementary, not exclusive. The pilgrimage to Juazeiro do Norte / CE is one of these systems and constitutes one of the biggest religious events in Brazil and due to its character of popular resistance has attracted the attention of researchers in several areas of knowledge which seek to explain its origins and motives as well as processes and transformations. Analyze the changes in the religious experience of the pilgrims of Father Cícero Romão in Juazeiro within the context of broader cultural changes seeking to understand hybridization strategies as mechanisms for the preservation and redefinition of the pilgrimage. This research in Sciences of Religion is located within a transdisciplinary theoretical framework and methodology which highlights the knowledge that emerged between and beyond the different areas and subjects. Offer elements for a comprehensive understanding of interfaith dialogue understood as a positive and constructive attitude of opening up and listening to the religious tradition of the other, which makes possible a mutual enrichment through the sharing of the ethical and spiritual riches that is increasingly present in the modern world, plural and secularized. To understand the dynamics of a trans-religious spirituality, the study deepens into the typology of pilgrimages which constitutes studying various expressions of faith of the people. The research has shown that ecumenical pastoral must be understood as a spiritual opening in which each person deeply assumes his or her original tradition and opens up to another.Keywords: Popular religiosity. Pilgrimage and spirituality. Inter-religious dialogue. Ecumenism and dialogue.

Introduction

The Second World War was a period of “religious revolution” in the Soviet Union. The Introduction describes how this book, focusing on Soviet Muslims, approaches pivotal developments related to this revolution: the way religion was mobilized as a new tool of state propaganda; the way religious repression receded, and then changed shape; and the way Soviet Muslim communities responded to the dawn of unprecedented religious freedoms, some of which were shepherded by the state and some of which were achieved thanks to its incompetence or indifference. The Introduction then addresses debates on the biggest questions of all: Why did the revolution in religious life take place? What role did “popular” religiosity and public religious devotion play? Why did the Soviet state, just a few years after slaughtering religious elites by the tens of thousands during the Great Terror of 1937–38, shift dramatically toward religious tolerance?

Turning to the Dark Side

Chapter 3 deals with the dark side of Spiritual Warfare by examining the noncanonical popular saints and witches whose supernatural powers some Mexicans seek out for illegal activities or for the kinds of transactions that they believe fall on the other side of the Manichaean divide between good and evil—a repost to contemporary challenges that both draws from and innovates from traditional popular religiosity. It is only natural that we include both here, since they regularly meet on the battlefield of spiritual contestation, as Pentecostal practices such as Spiritual Warfare resignify social problems, conflict, and often “traditional” cultural as literally demonic in origin.

The Opium of God’s People: Latin American/Hispanic Theology, Popular Religiosity, and the Challenge of Narcotrafficking

The manipulation of popular religiosity by drug trafficking at the epicenter of the world drug market represents a challenge for Latin American theology. How might it reflect on popular religiosity in areas replete with cartels? How might it help popular religiosity to become the fruit of true justice without imposing the judgmental worldview of enlightened elites? This article will attempt to answer both questions over the course of four sections. First, it will describe the history of Latin American revaluations of popular religiosity as a theological starting point. Second, it will demonstrate the conceptualization of popular religion by Latin American and Hispanic scholars and theologians in the United States. Third, it will analyze how drug trafficking permeates popular religiosity in Latin America. Finally, it will propose an appropriate pastoral and theological approach to popular religiosity in areas affected by drug trafficking.