Download or read book Politics and the Sacred written by Harald Wydra and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that practices of the sacred have shaped the frames of modern secular politics.
Download or read book The Sacred Is the Profane written by William Arnal and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2013 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sacred is the Profane collects nine essays by William Arnal and Russell McCutcheon that advance current scholarly debates on secularism-debates. The essays return, again and again, to the question of what "religion"—word and concept—accomplishes, now, for those who employ it, whether at the popular, political, or scholarly level. The focus here is on the efficacy, costs, and the tactical work carried out by dividing the world between religious and political, church and state, sacred and profane.
Download or read book Sovereignty and the Sacred written by Robert A. Yelle and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-11-26 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sovereignty and the Sacred challenges contemporary models of polity and economy through a two-step engagement with the history of religions. Beginning with the recognition of the convergence in the history of European political theology between the sacred and the sovereign as creating “states of exception”—that is, moments of rupture in the normative order that, by transcending this order, are capable of re-founding or remaking it—Robert A. Yelle identifies our secular, capitalist system as an attempt to exclude such moments by subordinating them to the calculability of laws and markets. The second step marshals evidence from history and anthropology that helps us to recognize the contribution of such states of exception to ethical life, as a means of release from the legal or economic order. Yelle draws on evidence from the Hebrew Bible to English deism, and from the Aztecs to ancient India, to develop a theory of polity that finds a place and a purpose for those aspects of religion that are often marginalized and dismissed as irrational by Enlightenment liberalism and utilitarianism. Developing this close analogy between two elemental domains of society, Sovereignty and the Sacred offers a new theory of religion while suggesting alternative ways of organizing our political and economic life. By rethinking the transcendent foundations and liberating potential of both religion and politics, Yelle points to more hopeful and ethical modes of collective life based on egalitarianism and popular sovereignty. Deliberately countering the narrowness of currently dominant economic, political, and legal theories, he demonstrates the potential of a revived history of religions to contribute to a rethinking of the foundations of our political and social order.
Download or read book The Sacred Centre as the Focus of Political Interest written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-07 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central theme of the symposium was elaborated upon according to various religions, periods and areas, such as North India (historical) by H. Kulke, A. Wink, J. C. Heesterman and H. T. Bakker; South India (historical) by D. Shulman, B. Stein and G. Berkemer; contemporary India by C.J. Fuller, L.P. van den Bosch and J. P. Parry; Sri Lanka by G. Obeyesekere; the Byzantine Empire by A. N. Palmer; the Moroccan Sultanate by H. Beck, and the European Middle Ages by M. Gosman. This systematic approach focusing on a well-defined theme in a widely differentiated context appears to be fruitful. An often little recognized, though essential, universal aspect of important places of pilgrimage is their embedment in political ramifications. Analysis of religious structures and representations which are concentrated and reified in sacred centres, shows remarkable agreement and linkage with political institutions and ideology through a common symbolism. The contributions to the symposium establish that sacred centres are the places par excellence where political authority is legitimized; they help to articulate these systematic aspects by making them the focus of scholarly discourse starting from different disciplines.
Download or read book From Politics to the Pews written by Michele F. Margolis and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most substantial divides in American politics is the “God gap.” Religious voters tend to identify with and support the Republican Party, while secular voters generally support the Democratic Party. Conventional wisdom suggests that religious differences between Republicans and Democrats have produced this gap, with voters sorting themselves into the party that best represents their religious views. Michele F. Margolis offers a bold challenge to the conventional wisdom, arguing that the relationship between religion and politics is far from a one-way street that starts in the church and ends at the ballot box. Margolis contends that political identity has a profound effect on social identity, including religion. Whether a person chooses to identify as religious and the extent of their involvement in a religious community are, in part, a response to political surroundings. In today’s climate of political polarization, partisan actors also help reinforce the relationship between religion and politics, as Democratic and Republican elites stake out divergent positions on moral issues and use religious faith to varying degrees when reaching out to voters.
Download or read book The Sacred and the Political written by Elisabetta Brighi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relationship between the sacred and the political, transcendence and immanence, religion and violence? And how has this complex relation affected the history of Western political reason? In this volume an international group of scholars explore these questions in light of mimetic theory as formulated by René Girard (1923-2015), one of the most original thinkers of our time. From Aristotle and his idea of tragedy, passing through Machiavelli and political modernity, up to contemporary biopolitics, this work provides an indispensable guide to those who want to assess the thorny interconnections of sacrality and politics in Western political thought and follow an unexplored yet critical path from ancient Greece to our post-secular condition. While looking at the past, this volume also seeks to illuminate the future relevance of the sacred/secular divide in the so-called 'age of globalization'.
Download or read book Sacred and Secular written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-17 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations.
Download or read book Sacred Kingship in World History written by A. Azfar Moin and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred kingship has been the core political form, in small-scale societies and in vast empires, for much of world history. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book recasts the relationship between religion and politics by exploring this institution in long-term and global comparative perspective. Editors A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern present a theoretical framework for understanding sacred kingship, which leading scholars reflect on and respond to in a series of essays. They distinguish between two separate but complementary religious tendencies, immanentism and transcendentalism, which mold kings into divinized or righteous rulers, respectively. Whereas immanence demands priestly and cosmic rites from kings to sustain the flourishing of life, transcendence turns the focus to salvation and subordinates rulers to higher ethical objectives. Secular modernity does not end the struggle between immanence and transcendence—flourishing and righteousness—but only displaces it from kings onto nations and individuals. After an essay by Marshall Sahlins that ranges from the Pacific to the Arctic, the book contains chapters on religion and kingship in settings as far-flung as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS. Sacred Kingship in World History sheds new light on how religion has constructed rulership, with implications spanning global history, religious studies, political theory, and anthropology.
Download or read book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth written by Eric Kaufmann and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-12-09 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dawkins and Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don't read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secularists. And what no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population: in fact, the more religious people are, the more children they have. The cumulative effect of immigration from religious countries, and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularisation process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families. Within Judaism, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, and their success provides a glimpse of what awaits the Christian West and Israel. Based on a wealth of demographic research, considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises - and what this means for the future of western modernity.
Download or read book Politics and the Sacred written by Harald Wydra and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Twin Powers written by Thomas Steven Molnar and published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. This book was released on 1988 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sacred and Secular written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-20 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminal thinkers of the nineteenth century - Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud - all predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the emergence of industrial society. The belief that religion was dying became the conventional wisdom in the social sciences during most of the twentieth century. During the last decade, however, the secularization thesis has experienced the most sustained challenge in its long history. The traditional secularization thesis needs updating. Religion has not disappeared and is unlikely to do so. Nevertheless, the concept of secularization captures an important part of what is going on. This book develops a theory of secularization and existential security. Sacred and Secular is essential reading for anyone interested in comparative religion, sociology, public opinion, political behavior, political development, social psychology, international relations, and cultural change.
Download or read book The Secular and the Sacred written by William Safran and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the place of religion in modern political systems? This volume addresses that question by focusing on ten countries across several geographic areas: Western and East-Central Europe, North America, the Middle East and South Asia. These countries are comparable in the sense that they are committed to constitutional rule, have embraced a more or less secular culture, and have formal guarantees of freedom of religion. Yet in all the cases examined here religion impinges on the political system in the form of legal establishment, semi-legitimation, subvention, and/or selective institutional arrangements and its role is reflected in cultural norms, electoral behaviour and public policies. The relationship between religion and politics comes in many varieties in differing countries, yet all are faced with three major challenges: modernity, democracy and the increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of their societies.
Download or read book Rethinking the Political written by Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2011-12-19 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking the Political demonstrates that the Collège de Sociologie's quest to create a new place for the sacred in modern collective life ostensibly entailed avoiding the theorization of both aesthetics and politics. While the Collège condemned manipulation by totalitarian regimes, its understanding of community also led to a rejection of democratic and communist forms of political organization, leaving the group open to accusations of flirting with fascism. Acknowledging these political ambiguities, the author goes beyond a narrow ideological reading to reveal the Collège's important contribution to our thinking about the relationships between community formation, politics, aesthetics, and the sacred in the modern world. She expands her historical account of the members' thought, including their relationship to Surrealism, beyond the group's dissolution, and shows how the work of Claude Lefort extends, but also resolves, many of the Collège's key theoretical insights. A fascinating study of some of the twentieth-century's most daring thinkers, Rethinking the Political offers crucial insights into the contradictions at play in modern notions of community that still resonate today.
Download or read book Transforming the Personal Political Historical and Sacred in Theory and Practice written by Manfred Halpern and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eminent political scientist Manfred Halpern (1924-2001) viewed politics as belonging to each of us, as part of the nature of being human. In A Comprehensive Philosophy of Transformation, his magnum opus, Halpern elucidates the interconnected "four faces of our being" the political, personal, historical, and sacred. This momentous volume identifies several modes of political activity, warns against the dangers of leaving politics to professional politicians, and urges us to build networks of compassion that include everyone in a just society. Overall, Halpern calls for a transformative politics achieved through enhanced participation and understanding.
Download or read book Ritual and the Sacred written by Massimo Rosati and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual and the Sacred discusses some of the most important issues of modern socio-political life through the lens of a neo-Durkheimian perspective. Building on the main lesson of Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life, this book articulates values and practices common to non-Western and religious traditions that have the capacity to shape our modern way of living. Central to this volume is the question of modernity and scepticism with regard to mainstream Western wisdom; Rosati focuses on the notion of societal self-reassessment and self-revision, illustrating a willingness to learn from ’primitive’ societies. This reassessment necessitates us to rethink the central roles played by ritual and the sacred as building blocks of social and individual life, both of which remain salient features within the modern world. This title will be of key interest to sociologists of religion, philosophy politics and social theorists.
Download or read book Sacred Pleasure written by Riane Eisler and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Riane Eisler shows us how history has consistently promoted the link between sex and violence—and how we can sever this link and move to a politics of partnership rather than domination in all our relations.
