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Shankar, “Who Shall Enter Paradise?”

This October, Ohio University Press will release “Who Shall Enter Paradise? Christian Origins in Muslim Northern Nigeria, c. 1890-1975” by Shobana Shankar (Stony Brook University).  The publisher’s description follows:

Who Shall Enter Paradise?Who Shall Enter Paradise? recounts in detail the history of Christian-Muslim engagement in a core area of sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous nation, home to roughly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims. It is a region today beset by religious violence, in the course of which history has often been told in overly simplified or highly partisan terms. This book reexamines conversion and religious identification not as fixed phenomena, but as experiences shaped through cross-cultural encounters, experimentation, collaboration, protest, and sympathy.

Shobana Shankar relates how Christian missions and African converts transformed religious practices and politics in Muslim Northern Nigeria during the colonial and early postcolonial periods. Although the British colonial authorities prohibited Christian evangelism in Muslim areas and circumscribed missionary activities, a combination of factors—including Mahdist insurrection, the abolition of slavery, migrant labor, and women’s evangelism—brought new converts to the faith. By the 1930s, however, this organic growth of Christianity in the north had given way to an institutionalized culture based around medical facilities established in the Hausa emirates. The end of World War II brought an influx of demobilized soldiers, who integrated themselves into the local Christian communities and reinvigorated the practice of lay evangelism.

In the era of independence, Muslim politicians consolidated their power by adopting many of the methods of missionaries and evangelists. In the process, many Christian men and formerly non-Muslim communities converted to Islam. A vital part of Northern Nigerian Christianity all but vanished, becoming a religion of “outsiders.”

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Craig, “Health Care as a Social Good”

In September Georgetown University Press will release “Health Care as a Social Good: Religious Values and American Democracy” by David M. Craig (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis).  The publisher’s description follows:

#1A CraigDavid M. Craig traveled across the United States to assess health care access, delivery and finance in this country. He interviewed religious hospital administrators and interfaith activists, learning how they balance the values of economic efficiency and community accountability. He met with conservatives, liberals, and moderates, reviewing their ideas for market reform or support for the Affordable Care Act. He discovered that health care in the US is not a private good or a public good. Decades of public policy and philanthropic service have made health care a shared social good.

Health Care as a Social Good: Religious Values and American Democracy argues that as escalating health costs absorb more and more of family income and government budgets, we need to take stock of the full range of health care values to create a different and more affordable community-based health care system. Transformation of that system is a national priority but Americans have failed to find a way to work together that bypasses our differences. Craig insists that community engagement around the common religious conviction that healing is a shared responsibility can help us achieve this transformation—one that will not only help us realize a new and better system, but one that reflects the ideals of American democracy and the common good.

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Fernando, “The Republic Unsettled”

This September, Duke University Press will release “The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism” by Mayanthi L. Fernando (University of California).  The publisher’s description follows:

The Republic UnsettledIn 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France’s Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Satanists Claim Hobby Lobby Exemption from Abortion Informed-Consent Laws (via Huffington Post)

The Huffington Post reports that The Satanic Temple believes that its religious rights are infringed when its members receive anti-abortion pamphlets and information in those states that require informed consent before proceeding with an abortion. The Satanists seem to believe that they can use the Hobby Lobby decision to press their claim. You can see some of the other beliefs of the Satanists at the link.

But the informed-consent laws that the Satanists object to are state laws. This is the document that the Huffington Post pastes onto its story purporting to evidence the claim. Although it does tend to be forgotten and get lost in the nonsense (even by some Supreme Court Justices who took part in the decision), it’s important to remember that Hobby Lobby was a decision under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA applies only against the federal government. Perhaps there are some federal abortion informed-consent laws that the Satanists object to as well (though the Huffington Post did not list any of those). At any rate, RFRA won’t be of much help to the Satanists if they are objecting to state informed-consent laws.

That’s of course all before getting to the test that RFRA actually sets out, even if RFRA applied (which it doesn’t). The Satanists would need to show that the mere reception of information about abortion intended to render their consent to an abortion informed imposed a substantial burden on their religious exercise. That seems rather different to me than the threats of financial penalty imposed by the contraceptives mandate on Hobby Lobby. The Satanists would also need to counter the government’s compelling interest in ensuring that a person’s consent was indeed informed before proceeding with an abortion, as well as satisfy the least restrictive means analysis. That would be a challenging standard to meet as well.

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“Islam and Development: Exploring the Invisible Aid Economy,” (Clarke, et al., eds.)

This month Ashgate Publishing releases “Islam and Development: Exploring the Invisible Aid Economy,” edited by Matthew Clarke (Deakin University, Australia) and David Tittensor (Deakin University, Australia). The publisher’s description follows:

The study of Islam since the advent of 9/11 has made a significant resurgence. However, much of the work produced since then has tended to focus on the movements that not only provide aid to their fellow Muslims, but also have political and at times violent agendas. This tendency has led to a dearth of research on the wider Muslim aid and development scene.

Focusing on the role and impact of Islam and Islamic FBOs, an arena that has come to be regarded by some as the ‘invisible aid economy’, Islam and Development considers Islamic theology and its application to development and how Islamic teaching is actualized in case studies of Muslim FBOs. It brings together contributions from the disciplines of theology, sociology, politics and economics, aiming both to raise awareness and to function as a corrective step within the development studies literature.

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Cleminson, “Catholicism, Race, and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950”

In June, the Central European University Press released “Catholicism, Race, and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950” by Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds). The publisher’s description follows:

cleminson

This monograph places the science and ideology of eugenics in early twentieth century Portugal in the context of manifestations in other countries in the same period. The author argues that three factors limited the impact of eugenics in Portugal: a low level of institutionalization, opposition from Catholics and the conservative nature of the Salazar regime. In Portugal the eugenic science and movement were confined to three expressions: individualized studies on mental health, often from a ‘biotypological’ perspective; a particular stance on racial miscegenation in the context of the substantial Portuguese colonial empire; and a diffuse model of social hygiene, maternity care and puericulture.

This book not only brings to light an eugenics movement hitherto unstudied; it also invites the reader to re-think the relations between northern and southern forms of eugenics, the role of religion, the dynamic capacity of eugenics for finding a home for its theories and the nature of colonialism.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Iraq’s Christians Still Need Our Help

For people seeking to understand the crisis facing the Christians of Iraq, there’s an interesting panel discussion on the website of France 24, an English-language news station based in Paris: “Iraq’s Christians: Nowhere to Run?” The discussion is in two segments, here and here. It features a French senator, Nathalie Goulet; the New York Times Paris Bureau chief, Alissa Rubin; lawyer Ardavan Amir Aslani; and Christelle Yalap of the Committee for the Support of Iraqi Christians, a French NGO.

The panel is worth watching in full, if only to learn about the discussion taking place in another Western country. The panelists disagree about the responsibility America bears for the situation. Although the invasion of Iraq destabilized the country and exposed Christians and other minorities to grave danger, Islamism is not simply a response to American actions. It results from factors internal to the Muslim world. America has been only a peripheral actor in the Arab Spring. And yet, as one of the panelists says, the Arab Spring always seems to become an Islamist autumn.

One thing stood out for me in particular. Ms. Yalap, who offers a succinct description of the Christian community of Mosul, makes the very important point that the ordeal of this community did not end with expulsion from its home. Her NGO has been in touch with these Christians, who have taken refuge in Erbil, in Kurdistan. Apparently, ISIS has continued to pursue them there, and has succeeded in cutting off  their water and electricity. It’s summer in Erbil, and the temperature is around 113°. The Christians of Mosul continue to face a humanitarian crisis. Will the international community do something to help?

This weekend, rallies in support of Iraq’s Christians are planned around the world, including here in New York, at the UN. For information, please click here.

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Around the Web This Week

Some law and religion stories from around the web this week:

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Dalton, “Litigating Religious Land Use Cases”

In July, ABA Book Publishing released Litigating Religious Land Use Cases, by Daniel Dalton (Dalton & Tomich, PLC). The publisher’s description follows:

This book discusses how to litigate such a religious land use case on behalf of a religious entity pursuant to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”)  and the First Amendment.  While the First Amendment dates to the founding days of the United States, RLUIPA is a much more recent federal law that can serve as an effective tool in protecting the property interests of religious organizations.

Litigating Religious Land Use Cases is intended to provide practical advice from the author’s personal litigation experiences. Generally, a religious entity will use all available means of resolving a dispute prior to entering into litigation. In the instance that a case results in litigation, this book discusses how to litigate such a religious land use case on behalf of a religious entity pursuant to the RLUIPA and the First Amendment.

Chapter topics include:

  • The history of religious land use
  • Constitutionality of RLUIPA
  • Related religious land use claims

This book should serve as a useful guide for religious entities and the lawyers who represent them in navigating the challenges and uncertainties that inevitably surround a religious land use claim.