October 17, 2014 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on October 17, 2014July 27, 2016 by

Around the Web this Week

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

Leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church urged Christians around the world to remember and reflect on the 1915 genocide of Armenians and Syriac Christians in Turkey, where up to 2 million people were killed or disappeared without a trace.
The President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasized that the report issued Monday during the Pope’s two-week Synod on the Family is a working draft and encouraged both liberals and conservatives to temper their responses.
- An overview of the issues addressed in the draft report can be found here.
Houston officials subpoenaed sermons given by five local pastors who oppose an equal rights ordinance that contains provisions concerning the LGBT community.
- See here for Professor Movsesian’s discussion of the issue.
Egypt’s Court of Urgent Matters is expected to issue a verdict this week in a lawsuit that demands the disbanding of all political parties with a religious platform.
Germany’s Roman Catholics are launching a campaign to reinstate references to God in the preamble to the newly drafted constitution of the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
About a dozen imams from mosques in all five of New York City’s boroughs gathered outside City Hall to denounce violent extremist acts around the world.
The Canadian Supreme Court heard arguments on whether prayers before city council meetings discriminate against non-believers.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has been receiving threats, including that of violence against the clergy, as radical nationalist movements try to take over churches and force them under the Kiev Patriarchate.
On Tuesday, Seventh-day Adventists delayed decision on the divisive issue of women’s ordination until next year.
A new bus ad campaign promoting the right of girls to celebrate their bat mitzvah at the Western Wall, which only boys can do currently, is the latest push by the feminist group Women of the Wall to prod Israel’s Orthodox religious establishment to expand opportunities for women at one of Judaism’s most sacred sites.
A California atheist has won a settlement of nearly $2 million after being sent to jail on a parole violation for objections he made to participating in a faith-based rehab program after his 2007 conviction of methamphetamine possession.

Posted on October 17, 2014 by

Hertel, “The Crescent Remembered”

This December, Sussex Academic Press will release “The Crescent Remembered: Islam and Nationalism on the Iberian Peninsula” by Patricia Hertel (University of Basel). The publisher’s description follows:

Contemporary Spain and Portugal share a historical experience as Iberian states which emerged within the context of al-Andalus. These centuries of Muslim presence in the Middle Ages became a contested heritage during the process of modern nation-building with its varied concepts and constructs of national identities. Politicians, historians and intellectuals debated vigorously the question how the Muslim past could be reconciled with the idea of the Catholic nation.

The Crescent Remembered investigates the processes of exclusion and integration of the Islamic past within the national narratives. It analyzes discourses of historiography, Arabic studies, mythology, popular culture and colonial policies towards Muslim populations from the 19th century to the dictatorships of Franco and Salazar in the 20th century. In particular, it explores why, despite apparent historical similarities, in Spain and Portugal entirely different strategies and discourses concerning the Islamic past emerged. In the process, it seeks to shed light on the role of the Iberian Peninsula as a crucial European historical “contact zone” with Islam.

Posted on October 17, 2014 by

“Politics of Religion and Nationalism” (Requejo & Nagel, eds.)

This December, Routledge Press will release “Politics of Religion and Nationalism: Federalism, Consociationalism and Secession” edited by Ferran Requejo and Klaus-Jürgen Nagel (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona). The publisher’s description follows:

There are numerous examples of how religion and nationalism intertwine. In some cases, a common religion is the fundamental marker of a nation’s identity, whereas in others secular nationalism tries to hold together people of different religious beliefs.

This book examines the link between religion and nationalism in contemporary polities. By exploring case studies on India, Russia, Israel, Canada, Chechnya, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgium, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Sri Lanka, Catalonia and the Basque Country, it seeks to understand the relationship between these two key societal forms of diversity and assess the interaction between religious and nationalist perspectives. Expert contributors examine a variety of phenomena, including secular nationalism, secessionism, and polities in which religious pluralism is evolving.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, religion and politics, nationalism, federalism, secession, political philosophy, racial and ethnic politics and comparative politics.