Wibren Van der Burg (Erasmus University Rotterdam) has posted a short piece, “Inclusive Neutrality in the Classroom.”  It will not come as a surprise that theories of neutrality as applied to religious liberty issues are popular today, both for academics and courts.  Van der Burg has an interesting discussion of “exclusive” as compared with “inclusive” neutrality, the latter of which breaks down into “proportional” and “compensatory” subdivisions.  His is also a seemingly highly conextual approach to neutrality.  The abstract is below.  — MOD

Both in law and in political philosophy, the idea of a neutral state is an important principle. It is rarely noticed, however, that there are important differences in how the principle is interpreted in each of the two disciplines. I argue that legal doctrines on neutrality can be clarified and improved with the help of philosophical insights (and vice versa). I make three interrelated points, first about the domain of application of neutrality, second about the various versions of neutrality and finally about the implications for public education. First, state neutrality should be broadly interpreted to refer not only to religion and belief, but to views of the good life, which also includes culture- and identity-connected lifestyles. Second, there are two basic versions of state neutrality: inclusive and exclusive. Inclusive neutrality can be subdivided into proportional and compensatory neutrality. Third, there are good reasons why, in general, public education should be inclusive. Public education should only be based on exclusive neutrality for issues where inclusive neutrality is not possible, for example with regard to religious symbols in the classroom. The Dutch ideal of active pluralism for public education should be interpreted broadly, including religion, belief, cultural diversity and diversity with regard to sexual orientation. It is a public duty as well as a right of children to be educated in light of this broad interpretation of neutrality; the ideal of active pluralism should be guiding in education about different religions, cultures and life styles in a neutral way. This ideal also holds for publicly funded private schools.

Geoffrey Evans and Ksenia Mankowska have posted an interesting empirical paper on the resurgence of Russian Orthodox Christianity.  I was not aware of this phenomenon, and wonder whether there are Orthodox “revivals” in other parts of the world.  The authors are skeptical that the resurgence in Russia evidences any deep shift in religiosity — as they put it, they believe it to be more “nominal” than “genuine.”  The piece is interesting for, inter alia, its discussion of communism’s effect on the “secularization thesis” of early 20th century intellectuals.  The abstract is below.  — MOD

With increasing numbers of people identifying themselves as Russian Orthodox, post-Soviet Russia appears to be an exception to secularization trends in Europe. But is this resurgence of Orthodox self-identification a genuine surge in religiosity and are divisions over religious issues gaining strength and political relevance as a result? A longitudinal examination of seven waves of national stratified random surveys covering the period from 1993 to 2007, indicates that there has been a resurgence of Orthodox self-identification, an increase in church attendance and a shift toward conservative morality that seeks to restrict various aspects of freedom of choice. We show however that most growth in church attendance is among sporadic churchgoers, and the modest observed increase in conservative values appears to have little basis in increased religiosity, which has little impact on presidential or party support. The resurgence of Orthodoxy in Russia represents a “lukewarm religiosity”, following the lifting restrictions on espousing religious affiliations under communism, rather than a dramatic strengthening of religious involvement with pronounced implications for social and political divisions.