Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Yildirim on Turkey’s Draft Constitution

The Forum 18 Blog has an interesting article by Mine Yildirim (Åbo Akademi University) on the freedom of religion provisions in a draft constitution currently under consideration in Turkey. The ruling Islamist AKP party and the opposition secularist CHP party have agreed on some provisions, but not all, and Yildirim describes the result as a mixed bag. For example, for the first time, the constitution will contain a clause conferring a right to change one’s religion. As Yildirim points out, many majority-Muslim countries reject such a right, and the AKP deserves some credit for accepting the language (though Islamists sometimes interpret such language to confer only a right to convert to Islam). On the other hand, the AKP has refused to discontinue compulsory religion classes in public schools. Minorities, especially Alevis, claim these classes amount to proselytism, and the ECtHR has agreed on at least one occasion (Zengin v. Turkey). Also, the AKP rejected the CHP’s proposal for a clause stating that “the state is impartial toward all religions and beliefs in all its proceedings and actions and will respect social pluralism based on the diversity of religions, beliefs and opinions.” The AKP argued that such a provision would invalidate the state’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, which has a major role in promoting Sunni Islam in Turkey. Here’s Yildirim’s closing paragraph:

The challenge for the AKP – as the current ruling party – remains to devise policies which genuinely respect the religious freedom of Turkey’s increasingly pluralistic society. This starts with the Constitution and also includes other legislative changes to protect religious freedom in line with the country’s existing human rights commitments. The AKP’s non-recognition of Alevi cem houses (places of worship), insistence on the compulsory [religious education] lessons, strengthening the Diyanet’s position as a publicly-funded religious institution, and the comments of AKP politicians, indicate that the party fails to devise policies that respect Turkey’s pluralistic reality and observe the principle of impartiality on the part of the state.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Christianity and the Problem of Deep Retribution and Rehabilitation

Prompted by an inquiry from Rick Garnett, I took a look again at Jeffrie Murphy’s wonderful book, Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits (2003), about which I’ve written a little before.  Chapter Nine, entitled “Christianity and Criminal Punishment,” contains the following interesting passage about the relationship of Christianity and retribution.  But I think it also says something useful about rehabilitation.

But what about retribution?  Is it a legitimate objective on a Christian view of punishment? . . . . This depends, I think, on just what one means by “retribution.”  In the philosophical literature on punishment, retributive punishment is usually understood as giving the criminal what he, in justice, deserves.  There are, however, at least six different accounts of what might be meant by “desert” and thus at least six different versions of retributivism: desert as legal guilt; desert as involving mens rea (e.g., intention, knowledge); desert as involving responsibility (capacity to conform one’s conduct to the rules); desert as a debt owed to annul wrongful gains from unfair free riding (a view developed by Herbert Morris); desert as what the wrongdoer owes to vindicate the social worth of the victim (a view developed by Jean Hampton); and, finally, desert as involving ultimate character — evil or wickedness in some deep sense (a view that Kant calls “inner viciousness”) . . . .

It seems to me that there is no inconsistency between the essentials of Christianity and the first five forms of retribution noted.  With respect to the sixth, however — what I will call “deep character retributivism” — there does seem to me to be an inconsistency . . . .

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Depkat & Martschukat, “Religion and Politics in Europe and the United States”

This December, The John Hopkins University Press will publish Religion and Politics in Europe and the United States: Transnational Historical Approaches edited by Volker Depkat (University of Regensburg) and Jurgen Martschukat (University of Erfurt). The publisher’s description follows. 

Religion and Politics in Europe and the United States compares the dynamic relationships between religion and public life in the U.S. and Europe from the early modern era to today by examining a series of public issues for which religious arguments have often been crucial. Recognizing the discrete roles religion plays in American and European politics, the project presents a portrait of its historical influences on the development of law, technology, ethnicity, war, and perceptions of democracy.

Religion and Politics in Europe and the United States explores how discourses on both side of the Atlantic have diverged due to the varying roles of religion. The book traces the influences of religion and politics from early modern religiously based legitimization of European monarchy and American democracy, to today’s historical perspectives on the problem of religion and terrorism. The contributors—political scientists, historians, and sociologists from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria—shed a uniquely transnational light on the debates that have shaped the world we currently live in, from capital punishment to concepts of ethnicity to religions in conflict.

“The essays in this volume present the results of excellent scholarship and offer new insights on the basis of original research. Furthermore, the authors contributing to this volume come from both sides of the Atlantic. As a result, the readers receive a comprehensive account both of recent American as well as European research.”—Harmut Lehmann, Director Emeritus, Max Planck Institute of History, Göttingen.

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Pankhurst, “The Inevitable Caliphate?”

This October, Columbia University Press will publish The Inevitable Caliphate?:  A History of the Struggle for Global Islamic Union, 1924 to the Present by Reza Pankhurst. The publisher’s description follows.

Throughout Islamic history, the term Caliphate has evoked an ideal Islamic polity that mainstream Islamic scholars unilaterally support. Though the recent “Arab Spring” has toppled long-standing dictators across the Middle East, the region’s dominant discussions continue to support the compatibility of Islam and democracy, reviving the issue of the Caliphate with opponents and advocates alike.

The Inevitable Caliphate? is a unique analysis of Islam and the Muslim polity that refuses to use liberal democracy as a universal yardstick to measure the modern state. It also avoids categorizing Muslims as “Islamists” or other reductive groups, instead encouraging a normative understanding of the politics influencing today’s Muslims. Instead of artificial paradigms that shed little light on Islamic movements, this book situates the Caliphate’s proponents within the political context they address while also considering their political positions and religious understanding. Beginning with the period of the Caliphate’s formal abolition, the volume examines the ideas and discourse of Rashid Reda, Ali Abdul Raziq, Hasan al Banna, Taqiudeen an-Nabahani, Syed Qutb, Abul Ala Maududi, Osama bin Laden, and Abdullah Azzam, among other intellectuals, and includes the position of such groups as Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and al-Murabitun. The study highlights the Caliphate’s core commonalities and differences, its status in Islamic theology, and its application to contemporary reality, and it follows how, as groups struggle to reestablish a polity embodying the unity of the umma (global Islamic community), the Caliphate has been either ignored, minimized, reclaimed, or promoted as theory, symbol, and political ideal.

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Arnal & McCutcheon, “The Sacred is the Profane”

This October, Oxford University Press will publish The Sacred is the Profane: The Political Nature of “Religion” by William Arnal (University of Regina) and Russell T. McCutcheon (University of Alabama). The publisher’s description follows.

The Sacred Is the Profane collects nine essays written over several years by William Arnal and Russell McCutcheon, specialists in two very different areas of the field (one, a scholar of Christian origins and the other working on the history of the modern study of religion). They share a convergent perspective: not simply that both the category and concept “religion” is a construct, something that we cannot assume to be “natural” or universal, but also that the ability to think and act “religiously” is, quite specifically, a modern, political category in its origins and effects, the mere by-product of modern secularism.

These collected essays, substantially rewritten for this volume, advance current scholarly debates on secularism-debates which, the authors argue, insufficiently theorize the sacred/secular, church/state, and private/public binaries by presupposing religion (often under the guise of such terms as “religiosity,” “faith,” or “spirituality”) to historically precede the nation-state. 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 for two writers from seemingly different fields 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.

As the essays make clear, this is no simple matter. Part of the reason for the incoherence and at the same time the stubborn persistence of both the word and idea of “religion” is precisely its multi-faceted nature, its plurality, its amenability to multiple and often self-contradictory uses. Offering an argument that builds as they are read, these papers explore these uses, including the work done by positing a human orientation to “religion,” the political investment in both the idea of religion and the academic study of religion, and the ways in which the field of religious studies works to shape, and stumbles against, its animating conception.

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Schmidt & Promey (eds.), “American Religious Liberalism”

Last month, Indiana University Press published American Religious Liberalism edited by Leigh E. Schmidt (Washington University in St. Louis) and Sally M. Promey (Yale University). The publisher’s description follows.

Religious liberalism in America has often been equated with an ecumenical Protestant establishment. By contrast, American Religious Liberalism draws attention to the broad diversity of liberal cultures that shapes America’s religious movements. The essays gathered here push beyond familiar tropes and boundaries to interrogate religious liberalism’s dense cultural leanings by looking at spirituality in the arts, the politics and piety of religious cosmopolitanism, and the interaction between liberal religion and liberal secularism. Readers will find a kaleidoscopic view of many of the progressive strands of America’s religious past and present in this richly provocative volume.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

ACLU to South Carolina Public Schools: We’re Watching

The Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog reports today that, as the new school year begins, the ACLU of South Carolina has sent a letter to public schools in the state reminding them of their constitutional duty to avoid promoting religion:

“It’s important that all students know that they’re going back to school to a place where they will be welcome no matter what they believe,” said Victoria Middleton, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, in a statement Monday. The group claims to have received numerous reports of religious freedom violations, including complaints that many South Carolina schools impose religion on students.

In response, South Carolina’s education superintendent accused the ACLU of trying to intimidate students from engaging in legitimate religious expression in public places. Sounds like litigation ahead.

 

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

John O’Sullivan’s Defense of Pussy Riot

We try to give both sides of the story at CLR Forum, so here’s a link to thoughtful defense of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot by National Review‘s John O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan writes that he initially had no sympathy for the members of the band, but that he has changed his mind on reading their in-court statements. In his view, the Pussy Riot protest has been misunderstood by critics as an anti-Christian act. (It’s a misunderstanding the band’s supporters apparently share: activists cut down a memorial cross in Kiev, and Madonna stomped on a cross at a recent concert, to express their solidarity). If you read the statements, O’Sullivan argues, Pussy Riot comes across as a group of sincere and thoughtful Christians who are protesting the corruption of the Orthodox Church and its subservience to Putin.

O’Sullivan’s defense is interesting, but I don’t really buy it. The members of Pussy Riot, who have been known to stage public orgies in museums, haven’t shown a lot of interest in Christianity before. The translations of the statements I’ve seen on Rod Dreher’s site throw in a lot of stuff besides Christianity and seem, well, adolescent in their insistence on the speakers’ authenticity and intellectual importance. (Anytime speakers compare themselves to Socrates drinking the hemlock, you’ve got to be a little skeptical).  Being juvenile is no reason to be in prison, of course; the authorities should have fined the members of Pussy Riot and let them go. It’s a stretch to see them as Christian martyrs, though.