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Journal articles on the topic 'Atheist communism'
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1
Sameer, Ali Kareem, and Hasan Hadi Ali. "BLACK ATHEIST: ASPECTS OF COMMUNISM IN LANGSTON HUGHES'S SELECTED POEMS." International Journal of Humanities, Philosophy and Language 4, no. 13 (March 1, 2021): 01–08. http://dx.doi.org/10.35631/ijhpl.413001.
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This paper aims to study the perspectives of communism as a dogma in Langston Hughes's selected poems. Hughes was an African American poet who observed communism as an outlet for his problems and suffering under the social prejudice of whites. He reflected the impact of discrimination in part of the race and social segregation in most of his poems. Hughes embedded communist aspects in some of his poems like Good-Bye Christ, as an outcome of the recurrence of the daily conducts of discrimination and racism against Afro-Americans. Thus, this paper is conducted in the light of “Speaking out for Justice” to denote the injustice situations of the dark-skinned people via adopting atheism in an idealized society, America. Some questions will be articulated to uncover the ideology of Hughes in discussing his issue as such how did Hughes reflect communist trends and religious tensions in his poetry?
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Dobson, Miriam. "The Social Scientist Meets the “Believer”: Discussions of God, the Afterlife, and Communism in the Mid-1960s." Slavic Review 74, no. 1 (2015): 79–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.5612/slavicreview.74.1.79.
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In this article, I use the transcripts of interviews carried out under the auspices of the Institute of Scientific Atheism in the mid-sixties. Informants were asked about diverse aspects of their religious practice and belief, allowing scholars—both then and now—to consider the nature of Soviet “secularization.” Following Charles Taylor, I suggest that this was not simply “a story of loss, of subtraction”; instead, informants’ rather heterodox conceptions of the afterlife indicate moments of individual creativity. In particular, I find that among the poor and marginalized, visions of the afterlife sometimes articulated a desire for social equality considered missing from Soviet society. I also probe the Soviet state’s problematic dependency on atheism. The regime’s legitimacy rested on its claim to ensure progress and modernity, and religion— the epitome of backwardness—was a useful antithesis. The interview was a ritual that enacted the superiority of Soviet values (reason, rationality, and enlightenment). And yet the encounter between atheist-interviewer and “believer” could often prove unpredictable, suggesting that the religion-atheism binary was in practice rather more brittle than the authorities might have hoped.
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Gupta, Charu. "‘Hindu Communism’: Satyabhakta, apocalypses and utopian Ram Rajya." Indian Economic & Social History Review 58, no. 2 (April 2021): 213–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0019464621997877.
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In the north India of 1920s–30s, many first-generation anticolonial communists and Left intellectuals did not see any contradiction in reliance upon religion, ethical traditions and morality in a search for vocabularies of dignity, equality, just polity and social liberation. Through select writings in Hindi of Satyabhakta (1897–85), an almost forgotten figure in histories of communism in India, this article focuses on the entanglement between religion and communism as a way of thinking about the Left in India, and the problems and possibilities of such imaginings. Steeped in a north Indian Hindi literary print public sphere, such figures illuminated a distinctly Hindu and Indian path towards communism, making it more relatable to a Hindi–Hindu audience. The article draws attention to Satyabhakta’s layered engagements with utopian political desires, which, in envisaging an egalitarian future, wove Hindu faith-based ethical morality, apocalyptic predictions and notions of a romantic Ram Rajya, with decolonisation, anti-capitalism and aesthetic communist visions of equality. Even while precarious and problematic, such imaginations underline hidden plural histories of communism and, at the same time, trouble atheist, secular communists as well as the proponents of Hindutva.
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Froese, P. ""I Am an Atheist and a Muslim": Islam, Communism, and Ideological Competition." Journal of Church and State 47, no. 3 (June 1, 2005): 473–501. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcs/47.3.473.
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Borowska, Paula. "Atheist Secularism and its Discontents. A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia." Europe-Asia Studies 69, no. 6 (July 3, 2017): 992–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2017.1347391.
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Dashkovskiy, Petr K., and Natalya S. Dvoryanchikova. "Atheistic Propaganda in the Altai Region as an Element of the State-Сonfessional Policy in 1964–1982." Study of Religion, no. 2 (2019): 47–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.22250/2072-8662.2019.2.47-55.
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The article deals with atheist propaganda in the Altai region during the rule of L.I. Brezhnev. The use of archival material, resolutions of the Central committee of the Communist party of USSR, as well as brochures propagandists allows revealing the main methods and directions of scientific-atheist education in 1964–1982. The main forms of atheistic work in the Altai territory the soviets were atheists; moving groups of atheists; individual form of work. In addition, along with them, mass forms of propaganda of scientific atheism, such as radio, print, and film screenings on atheistic themes, continued to develop and improve. In the Altai region a great influence on the dissemination of scientific atheism led the “Knowledge” society, the Commission is facilitating control over the observance of legislation on religious cults, the regional department of health, medical and educational institutions. Based on archival materials we can talk about some reduction of the role of atheistic propaganda during the period under review, which largely has become abstract in nature. Most of the lectures and discussions held on atheistic problems in the Altai Territory, as a rule, were aimed at covering issues of the history of religion, the emergence of religious holidays, and the description of religious rites. Similar trends in the features of atheistic work were observed in other regions of the countr
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Polianski, Igor J. "Pathologia religiosa: Medicine and the Anti-religious Movement in the Early Soviet Union." Journal of Contemporary History 53, no. 3 (December 30, 2016): 524–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009416669421.
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The interwar secularist-religious clashes across Europe were often perceived as a conflict between religious and scientific worldviews. The interactions and tensions between religion and science are analysed in this article through an examination of the impact of medicine on the secularist project of Russian communism. According to Marx, the religious consciousness was tantamount to the ‘sigh of the oppressed creature’. Soviet physicians diagnosed the believer as a sufferer, as someone plagued by chronic ‘religious feelings’. Small wonder then that a fixed association between religiosity and morbidity could arise. Under these premises Soviet physicians felt predestined to do direct battle with every form of ecclesiastically determined phenomenon as a health risk factor or manifestation of disease. By using various sources of specialist medical and atheist discourse, this contribution seeks to conceptually understand this confluence of health and atheist propaganda, secularization, and healing in terms of a ‘medicalization of religious faith’ in the early Soviet Union. It will address the various fields of discourse within the Soviet pathologia religiosa, that is, constructions of religion and religiosity as pathological phenomena particularly within psychiatry.
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Louw, Maria. "Atheism 2.0: Searching for Spaces for Atheism in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan." Central Asian Affairs 6, no. 2-3 (May 13, 2019): 206–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22142290-00602007.
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Recent studies have convincingly demonstrated that Soviet state atheism continues to influence how religion is understood and practiced in present-day Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, however, a new generation of atheists is emerging whose ideas about atheism—and about religion—are informed more by globally circulating neo-atheist ideas and images. This paper explores their efforts to live atheist lives and be true to their atheist convictions, and the images of religion that play into the process. Focusing on the role of social media in particular, I will argue that while many, at least initially, embrace these platforms as ways to encounter like-minded individuals and experience moral community, what they encounter there are often images of atheism and its religious “others” with which they cannot identify and which often seem irrelevant to the challenges of everyday life, in which coexistence with (and caring for) religious others are central concerns for many.
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Simmons, Jonathan Scott. "Atheism Plus What? Social Justice and Lifestyle Politics Among Edmonton Atheists." Canadian Journal of Sociology 42, no. 4 (December 31, 2017): 425–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.29173/cjs27297.
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This article addresses Edmonton secularists’ responses to the emergence of a social justice faction known as Atheism Plus (A+) within the broader secularist movement. I show that some atheist activists express a libertarian rationalism consistent with Enlightenment values to maintain a lifestyle free from collectivist ideologies that promote social justice. The data for this article comes from interviews and participant observation, focusing on three atheist organizations in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I draw from literature focused on everyday lifestyle choices as a form of protest to argue that for some atheist activists, their individual intellectual development takes priority over building a strong collective identity. Given that some scholars claim that atheism perpetuates gender inequality (Amarasingam and Brewster 2016; Miller 2013; Schnabel 2015), this work additionally contributes to our understanding of how atheists conceptualize their activism as sub- and micro-political activities free from community constraints.
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Apfalter, Wilfried. "Is an Atheist Religion in Austria Legally Possible?" Journal of Law, Religion and State 8, no. 1 (August 21, 2020): 93–123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22124810-00801005.
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Abstract In the face of widespread opinion holding that atheism is somehow necessarily separated from religion and opposed to it, the question “Is an atheist religion in Austria legally possible?” is both intriguing and challenging, leading to the cutting edge of contemporary studies on law, religion, and state. By providing a close, focused view on the legal framework concerning an example case in the Republic of Austria, the present article revisits this widespread opinion. It argues that this opinion can be challenged from a legal point of view in at least one concrete case, namely that of a growing group of atheists who try to establish an officially accepted, state-registered religious denominational community of atheists: Atheistische Religionsgesellschaft in Österreich (Atheist Religious Society in Austria), or arg for short. The article discusses this case and concludes that an atheist religion is legally possible in Austria.
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Lundmark, Evelina, and Stephen LeDrew. "Unorganized atheism and the secular movement: reddit as a site for studying ‘lived atheism’." Social Compass 66, no. 1 (January 21, 2019): 112–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0037768618816096.
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This article examines discussions on the reddit.com forum r/atheism in comparison with rhetoric found in contemporary atheist organizations and among leading figures within the atheist movement. We demonstrate how the culture of r/atheism converges with that of formal atheist cultures, most importantly regarding understandings of rationality and how religious people deviate from it, while highlighting areas of tension regarding how to relate to religion and religious people. We conclude that the social experience of community and belonging appears to be as important as other more instrumental goals commonly adopted by secular activists, and that tensions regarding the practice of atheism and the purpose of the forum correspond to tensions found in formal institutional contexts. We thus argue that while r/atheism is not directly or explicitly affiliated with atheist activism, overlap in the nature of discussion and debates is sufficient to consider the forum another window into the development of a general atheist culture practiced in institutional contexts and at the everyday level of ‘lived’ atheism.
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LI, LAN. "The Changing Role of the Popular Religion ofNuo(傩) in Modern Chinese Politics." Modern Asian Studies 45, no. 5 (August 12, 2010): 1289–311. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x10000090.
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AbstractSince the early 1980s, China's rapid economic growth and profound social transformation have greatly changed the role of popular religion in modern Chinese politics. In the case ofnuo, these changes have been directly responsible for the incorporation of this popular religion into the implementation of Party-state's policy on ethnic minority and the provision of evidence to support the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party's regime. Through manipulation and reinterpretation by local governments, the popular religion ofnuohas not only become the target of local socio-economic development, a common phenomenon in contemporary China, but has also played a key role in ethnic identification, which is an important step for a post-Mao's CCP to maintain political stability in ethnic minority areas. In addition,nuohas through the research of Marxism-influenced schools fundamentally altered its position from an officially unrecognized religion opposed to both socialist political order and atheist ideology to a politically favoured ‘living fossil’1of primitive culture. This proves the Marxist evolutionary theory in which socialism and communism are thought to be inescapable consequences of social development. The positive role played bynuoin modern Chinese politics has brought the popular religion much open support and endorsement from party-state officials at all levels, including top-ranking officials within the Central Committee of the CCP. Like any popular religion,nuohas over the centuries undergone significant changes, but never before has it experienced such dramatic changes in its relationship with an anti-religious and pragmatic central government, something which has significantly altered the course of its development.
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Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer. "Atheist Secularism and Its Discontents: A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia. Ed. Tam T. T. Ngo and Justine B. Quijada . London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2015. xii, 293 pp. Notes. Bibliography. $100.00, hard bound." Slavic Review 76, no. 2 (2017): 505–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/slr.2017.94.
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Nikolić, Kosta. "Komunizam i religija: istoriografsko-antropološki ogled." Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 12, no. 1 (March 31, 2017): 51. http://dx.doi.org/10.21301/eap.v12i1.2.
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Marxism was not merely a teaching of historical or economic materialism; it was also a teaching about the rescue, a “Messianic mission”, of the proletariat, about a perfect society due in the future, a teaching of the man’s power and defeat of the irrational forces of nature and society. The features of the selected “People of God” have been transferred onto the proletariat. A logically contradictory blend of materialist, scientific-deterministic and non-moralist elements with the idealistic, moralistic and religious mythmaking elements has existed in the Marxist system. Marx created the proletariat myth and his mission was object of faith. Marxism was not merely a science and politics, but also a religion. His power was based on this.Communist atheism represented a type of “apophatic theology”, the next step of development that should lead to deletion of the theological component. The most significant features of this process were violence and totalitarianism. The energy of negation of the previous religious concept was transferred into affirmation of the new, terrestrial hierarchy. That is how the god-type leaders appeared quite rapidly as the state forms of the service and worshipping of God, which represented more than good conditions for the formation of personality cults. Just like all religions, communism is irrational, dogmatic and based on faith, rather than on science. Just like Christianity and Islam, communism had its own scriptures, the works of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Just like most other religions, required irrational faith; the people living in communist countries had to cherish absolute faith in the order and its leaders, whereas the others were treated as classic heretics.Like in the Soviet Union, the totalitarian political power in Yugoslavia was imposed through sacralization of the Communist party and its leader. The most important elements in this process were the level of party Manichaeism, viewing of the party as the center of “holiness” surrounded by the sinister “mass of enemies”. A new faith was developed over time, which replaced the original tendency to have things improved. Communists were unforgiving in treating their political opponents as deadly enemies. Any connivance was experienced by the representatives of “new religion” as “intolerable weakness”.In the overly religious world at the turn of 20th century one of the instantly obvious characteristics of communism as ideology was the apparently clear lack of religiousness. When it turned out that “the plagues of communism had brought nothing more than death and poverty, totalitarian regimes and tyrants”, offending of atheists, especially after the world wars, by labeling them communists was widespread very much. And indeed, communism did not appear to have any gods, churches or holy books. Nevertheless a logical question came up why an apparently godless ideology has caused a catastrophe of such scale. The answer is more than simple: that ideology was far from atheistic, communism contains all the most specific features of religion, so it is no wonder it has brought so much pain, suffering and death.
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Delisle, Philippe. "Flemish Comics versus Communist Atheism." European Comic Art 10, no. 2 (September 1, 2017): 66–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/eca.2017.100205.
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It is well known that from 1920 to 1950, Belgian comics, embedded in a Catholic milieu, sometimes promoted anti-Communism. Au pays de la grande angoisse, drawn by Renaat Demoen and published from 1950 to 1951 in Zonneland and Petits Belges, fits into this category. Nonetheless, its ideological stance can be differentiated from that of series appearing in major Franco-Belgian magazines. Au pays de la grande angoisse is Flemish, intended only for the Belgian market, and therefore not subject to the control of the French Control Commission set up by the July 1949 law. Its critique of Eastern bloc countries is more explicit and more violent. Moreover, the story appeared in comics with a religious affiliation. It sets out to denounce the atheism of the Communists and to glorify the resistance of the believers. Ultimately, Au pays de la grande angoisse is as much a Christian comic as an adventure comic.
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Perovšek, Jurij. "Russian Refugees and Posthumous Evaluation of Lenin in Slovenian Politics." Monitor ISH 18, no. 1 (November 3, 2016): 7–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.33700/1580-7118.18.1.7-31(2016).
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Throughout the Slovenian political arena, Lenin was seen as an extraordinary world-historical figure. This was emphasised most frequently on the occasion of his death (21 January 1924), which prompted the most comprehensive Slovenian statements about the leader of the Russian Bolshevik revolution. Lenin’s revolutionary work was analysed by all three Slovenian political camps: Catholic, Liberal, and Marxist. The revolutionary part of the Marxist camp welcomed it, while its non-revolutionary part perceived Lenin as an embodiment of schism and hatred, a man of great deeds and terrifying destruction, standing outside all accepted moral laws. The opinion of the Liberals was similar: for them, Lenin represented a world born from revolution, fatally threatening the existing balance of social and political power. The Catholic camp, on the other hand, harboured for him a peculiar admiration. To be sure, he was seen as a dictator, a demonic genius ethically inclining towards a social justice which was based on the denial of individualism and on a ruthless, atheist, ‘Genghis Khan-like’, bloody Marxist revolution. However, he was also perceived as a man of action and energy, unmatched by either Peter the Great or Napoleon, and counted among the greatest Slavic personages. This was taking place at a time when the Slovenian political Catholicism still credited communism with an ability to provide certain social and economic solutions for other social movements as well.
The Slovenian politics of the mid-1920s emphasised both the extraordinary nature of the Lenin phenomenon and his radical revolutionary acts, which sprang from a monumental political ability and relentless pursuit of the envisioned goal. This emphasis was accompanied by an understanding of the historical forces underlying the past events. The developments in Russia were accepted as facts, and this was what the Russian refugees had to come to terms with as they looked for a new home on the western edge of the Slavic world.
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Tokrri, Renata, Ismail Tafani, and Aldo Shkembi. "The Impact of the Communist Regime in Albania on Freedom of Religion for Albanians." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 12, no. 1 (January 17, 2021): 43. http://dx.doi.org/10.36941/mjss-2021-0004.
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The multi religions Albania passed last century from a country where atheism was the constitutional principle in a country where the basic card guarantees not only the freedom of religion but also the freedom from religion. Today, in order of guaranteeing the freedom of belief, the Constitution of Republic of Albania expresses principles which protect the religious freedom, starting from its preamble. Indeed, the preamble has no legal force but stated goals and assists in the interpretation of provisions. The spirit, with which the preamble stated, is that of tolerance and religious coexistence, in a vision where the people are responsible for the future with faith in God or other universal values. This statement reinforces the principle of secularism of the state where the latter appears as the guarantor of religious freedom by knowing in this perspective the beliefs that "sovereign" could have and can develop. In this context, the real guarantee is given to us by Article 24 of the Constitution which expressly guarantees the freedom of conscience and religion, in a perspective where any person has the right to choose if changing or not his religion or belief, so that this article appears not only as a guarantor of freedom of religion but also as a guarantor of freedom from religion. In a context like that of Albania, where for 40 years the religious freedom has been denied, and because of religious beliefs was conducted genocide, cannot be missing in its Constitution this freedom. Today it appears more consolidated than ever, from a vision that guarantees such as the freedom to choose and change religion by manifesting them freely in public or in private life, into a vision that guarantees also negative freedom or atheism. The purpose of this paper is to point out that otherwise than the socialist Constitution of 1976- which provided anti-religious atheism forms in a context where the faith was determined by the state, based in a "monotheistic" ideology and realized through policy, which denied any type of faith beyond what the material world of communist ideology had in foundation- the current one appears, secular and neutral in matters of religious faith by guaranteeing a as consequence the atheist beliefs as well.
Received: 21 November 2020 / Accepted: 11 January 2021 / Published: 17 January 2021
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Taira, Teemu. "More visible but limited in its popularity: atheism (and atheists) in Finland." Approaching Religion 2, no. 1 (June 8, 2012): 21–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.30664/ar.67489.
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This paper argues that atheism has become more visible in Finland, but it is a relatively unpopular identity position. The relatively low popularity of atheism is partly explained by the connection between Lutheranism and Finnishness. In public discourse atheism has been historically connected to communism and the Soviet Union (and, therefore, anti-Finnishness). However, atheism has slowly changed from being the other of Finnishness to one alternative identity among many, although it has not become extremely popular. Recently, with the rise of the so-called ‘New Atheism’, atheism has become more visible in Finnish society and this development has led to a polarised debate between defenders and critics of religion. Despite being a study on locality, the aim is to develop a methodological approach that can be applied to other contexts.
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Rychlak, Ronald J. "Communist Disinformation." Catholic Social Science Review 24 (2019): 91–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/cssr20192438.
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The Cold War was an intelligence war, waged by the Soviets with a powerful weapon called disinformation. Soviets used this weapon to strike against Western values, heroes, and institutions. They aggressively used it to spread atheism into the highly Catholic nations over which they had gained control in World War II. Catholic prelates, including Cardinals Wyszyński of Poland, Mindszenty of Hungary, and Stepinac of Croatia, were among the earliest targets. Eventually, even the wartime pontiff, Pius XII, was falsely portrayed. Whereas the false depictions, created for political reasons, do harm to truth, the Church, and mankind, faith in the Church’s teachings has been a source of great strength for many who have been subjected to disinformation. In a world where Christianity is often under assault, those who can distinguish between truth and falsehoods told for political advantage must serve as beacons of light and reflections of the good that can come from pursuing the truth while remaining faithful to the Church.
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Kolodnyi, Anatolii M. "Considerations about the nature of the figure of Jesus Christ for Magazine "Worldview" with an analysis of the article by Academician Biletskyi OI "Some Notes on the Atheistic Literature of the Last Days (1960) "." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 79 (August 30, 2016): 118–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2016.79.687.
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These "Remarks" by a well-known academician were written somewhere in 1960 on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Why did he write them exactly (because not in his specialty as a philologist and even in Russian), that is unknown to me. Proceeding from O. Biletsky's conclusion that the authors of the atheistic editions common in Ukraine until 1960 are non-Ukrainian scholars, that is, in their masses, there are translated atheistic works (even the brochure by E. Duluman "Was Jesus Christ" originally printed in Moscow after leaving him from the Orthodoxy), in the party's Central Committee came to the conclusion that in Ukraine, somehow, in the ideological sphere, the provisions of the CPSU Central Committee of 1954 and 1960 on the task of atheistic and the early work, including in the field of study and study of individual religions, were ignored here. their phenomena. In Ukraine, only from 1961-1962, the opening of the universities of the chairs of scientific atheism began, and writing and editing of somewhat primitive in the content of atheistic works was established. Thus, the "Remarks" of the academician worked on the contrary from the fact that he (or the Central Committee) was definitely hoping.
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Gog, Sorin. "After the atheism. Romania between religious revival and secularism." Erdélyi Társadalom 5, no. 1 (2007): 51–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.17177/77171.75.
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Some of the post-socialist countries of Europe experienced after the fall of communism what some called a religious revival. Both anthropologists and sociologists agreed that they discovered serious evidence against the case of secularization theory. What unfortunately most of them failed to notice was the particular shape and form of this religious growth and the structural changes of religious representations triggered by the post-communist period
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LUNG, Mădălin-Sebastian. "ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS DISPARITIES IN THE APUSENII SĂLAJULUI FROM COMMUNISM TO CAPITALISM." Revista Română de Geografie Politică 23, no. 1 (June 30, 2021): 10–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.30892/rrgp.231102-345.
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The aim of this study was to achieve an evolutionary-temporal analysis of demographic evolution, ethnic and confessional structure in Apusenii Sălajului. The period subjected to the study begins with the abdication of King Mihai I and the establishment of communism in Romania in the year 1948. The two demographic structures have undergone significant influences from the regime, contributing decisively to their modification. Unfortunately, the confessional structure had the most to suffer because of the atheism promoted by the communists. In Apusenii Sălajului there is an important confessional diversity due to several ethnicities that populate the mountain space. The most destructive confessional community in the Apusenii Sălajului was the Greek Catholic. In the year 1948, the regime banned this confession, with the population constrained to convert to the Orthodox confessional. Priests who did not obey, were arrested and convicted, many dying in prisons, as was the case of bishops. Because of these repression, the population passed to the Orthodox confession. All confessions were compelled to pass to the Orthodox cult, being the only cult accepted by the regime. Five censuses were used to carry out the study, from 1941, 1956, 1977, 1992 and 2011. The census of 1956 and 1977 are those of the Communist period that did not record the confession. Thus, in order to be able to analyze and observe the significant changes we used the data from the census in the year 1941.
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LUNG, Mădălin-Sebastian. "ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS DISPARITIES IN THE APUSENII SĂLAJULUI FROM COMMUNISM TO CAPITALISM." Revista Română de Geografie Politică 23, no. 1 (June 30, 2021): 10–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.30892/rrgp.231102-345.
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The aim of this study was to achieve an evolutionary-temporal analysis of demographic evolution, ethnic and confessional structure in Apusenii Sălajului. The period subjected to the study begins with the abdication of King Mihai I and the establishment of communism in Romania in the year 1948. The two demographic structures have undergone significant influences from the regime, contributing decisively to their modification. Unfortunately, the confessional structure had the most to suffer because of the atheism promoted by the communists. In Apusenii Sălajului there is an important confessional diversity due to several ethnicities that populate the mountain space. The most destructive confessional community in the Apusenii Sălajului was the Greek Catholic. In the year 1948, the regime banned this confession, with the population constrained to convert to the Orthodox confessional. Priests who did not obey, were arrested and convicted, many dying in prisons, as was the case of bishops. Because of these repression, the population passed to the Orthodox confession. All confessions were compelled to pass to the Orthodox cult, being the only cult accepted by the regime. Five censuses were used to carry out the study, from 1941, 1956, 1977, 1992 and 2011. The census of 1956 and 1977 are those of the Communist period that did not record the confession. Thus, in order to be able to analyze and observe the significant changes we used the data from the census in the year 1941.
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Froese, Paul. "After Atheism: An Analysis of Religious Monopolies in the Post-Communist World." Sociology of Religion 65, no. 1 (2004): 57. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3712507.
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Laitila, Teuvo. "The Russian Orthodox Church and atheism." Approaching Religion 2, no. 1 (June 8, 2012): 52–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.30664/ar.67491.
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After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the religious tide in Russia has been quick to rise. During the Soviet era, religion – particularly Orthodox Christianity and Islam – was considered to be one of the ‘enemies of the people’. Since the late 1990s however, Russian politicians at all levels of the power structure have associated themselves either with the Orthodox, or on some occasions with the Muslim, clergy. The present state of affairs in the relations between religion and the state are well illustrated by the cordial liaison of the late Patriarch Aleksii II with President Vladimir Putin and the equally warm involvement of President Dmitry Medvedev, and his wife Svetlana Medvedeva, with the new Patriarch Kirill, who was elected in January 2009. Some have even argued that ‘today’ (in 2004) the Church and state are so extensively intertwined that one can no longer consider Russia to be a secular state. Polls seem to support the claim. While in 1990 only 24 per cent of Russians identified themselves as Orthodox, in the sense that they felt themselves to be Russians as well, in 2008 the number was 73 per cent. However, less than 10 per cent, and in Moscow perhaps only 2 per cent do actually live out their religiosity.Why did Russia turn towards religion? Is religion chosen in an attempt to legitimise power, or in order to consolidate political rule after atheist-communist failure? My guess is that the answer to both is affirmative. Moreover, whatever the personal convictions of individual Russians, including politicians, religious, mainly Orthodox Christian, rhetoric and rituals are used to make a definitive break with the communist past and to create, or re-create, a Greater Russia (see Simons 2009). In such an ideological climate, atheism has little chance of thriving, whereas there is a sort of ‘social demand’ for its critique.I therefore focus on what the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has had to say about atheism and how her statements can be related to a break with the past and the construction of a new Russia. Or, in my opinion, actually deleting the Soviet period from the history of Russia as an error and seeing present-day Russia as a direct continuation of the pre-Soviet imperial state.
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Nguyen, Phi-Vân. "A Secular State for a Religious Nation: The Republic of Vietnam and Religious Nationalism, 1946–1963." Journal of Asian Studies 77, no. 3 (June 14, 2018): 741–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021911818000505.
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Most studies of the Republic of Vietnam's nation-building programs have focused on its security and land reforms. Yet spirituality was a fundamental element of Ngô Đình Diệm's Personalist Revolution. This article analyzes how the Republic of Vietnam attempted to channel the religious nationalism emerging from the First Indochina War. The spiritual dimension of the Republic's Personalist Revolution did not involve state interference in all religious activities. Instead, it promoted religious freedom and diversity, provided that the spiritual values they propagated opposed communism's atheism. In practice, this framework did not succeed in creating a religious alliance against communism. In fact, it strengthened a religious consciousness that would increasingly challenge the state, its assumption that religions opposed communism, and the very principle of religious diversity.
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Panych, Olena I. "Scientific Atheism as a Cultural System." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 76 (December 1, 2015): 21–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2015.76.594.
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Olena Panych’s article «Scientific Atheism as a Cultural System» explores scientific atheism as a worldview and cultural system that were artificially constructed in the USSR in 1960s-80s. Panych argues that scientific atheism had its peculiar specific ethics, practices and discourse. Being essentially a propagandist paradigm aimed at negation of religion, scientific atheism also developed a positive program of the formation of integral worldview. The discourse of scientific atheism was focused on the construction of community that would be alternative to the religious one. In its peculiar way, scientific atheism asserted general collectivist values of the Soviet epoch.
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Kołczyńska, Marta. "On the Asphalt Path to Divinity." Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 22, no. 2 (September 1, 2013): 53–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/ajec.2013.220204.
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This article presents one of the many faces of contemporary Islam in the Balkans, that of the Bektashi community in Albania, and specifically the Sari Saltik teqe (sanctuary) on Kruja mountain. In so doing, it sheds light on the role of religion in 'post-atheist' Albania, while taking into account major changes to the religious landscape in the post-communist, and arguably post-transformation context. The essay ethnographically examines the challenges posed by societal changes for the Kruja teqe, which is undergoing its own micro-scale technological revolution in the form of a newly constructed asphalt road to the top of the mountain, which will likely have far-reaching consequences for the shrine and the whole local community. The essay thus illustrates how Albanian society has become entangled with the turbulent processes of modernisation, increased mobility and the globalising world.
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Goron, Alin. "Promotion of Atheism as a Principle of the Communist Ideology - Case Study: Romania." ATHENS JOURNAL OF HISTORY 7, no. 2 (February 18, 2021): 117–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.30958/ajhis.7-2-2.
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The Communist ideology called for the denial of Christianity as a form of "mysticism" filled with "superstitions", but particularly as one of the factors that impeded social, economic and cultural progress. Scientific socialism, however, was meant to awaken class consciousness, setting Romanian society on a path towards true modernity. Thus a real battle ensued on the ideological front between two entities, the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, arising from the divide between traditional religious beliefs and atheist Marxism. The actions of the authorities against religious propaganda included both practical measures, which involved activities that filled the free time of the villagers, but also coercive measures consisting in political pressure or arrests. In spite of the communist regime's efforts to impose its own cultural agenda, the effects were long overdue, with rather modest results. Romania's forced development was faced with some inherent problems of the process of modernization and industrialization. The forced imposition of a foreign ideology to a conservative Eastern European area relying on obsolete mindsets, a society where 80% of the population lived in rural areas as of the end of the Second World War, required a longer period of time than the regime had originally planned.
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Zrinščak, Sinišsa. "Generations and Atheism: Patterns of Response to Communist Rule among Different Generations and Countries." Social Compass 51, no. 2 (June 2004): 221–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0037768604043008.
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Taufiqurrohman, Muhammad. "Challenging the New Order’s Communist Figures: A New Historicism Study on Penjagal Itu Telah Mati." Jurnal Humaniora 31, no. 3 (December 2, 2019): 293. http://dx.doi.org/10.22146/jh.26774.
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This paper discusses about the images of communist figures in “post-suharto 1965 fictions”. Images of communist figures have been acknowledged by Indonesian people through many books and films produced under Suharto regime as evil people and atheist. In other words, they are antagonists of the nation who deserve to be jailed and killed. This paper unpacks the stereotypical infamous images of communist or alleged-communist figures by showing opposite images of the figures portrayed in “Post-Suharto 1965 fictions”. The end of Suharto regime which brings freedom of speech enables some victims of post-1965 tragedy (mostly ex-political prisoners) and their descendants to do such a counter-culture. They write books to provide other version of historiography. One of the authors is Gunawan Budi Susanto who wrote “1965 short story” collection entitled “Penjagal Itu Telah Mati” (The Slaughterer Has Died) (2015). From these current publications, we find other images of communist or alleged-communist figures; most of them are depicted as good citizens. The findings show that the images of communist figures are not as stable and absolute as what Suharto regime had constructed, yet the images remain contested in the unfinished and unstable historiography.
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Chenaux, Philippe. "Father Włodzimierz Ledóchowski (1866–1942): Driving Force behind Papal Anti-Communism during the Interwar Period." Journal of Jesuit Studies 5, no. 1 (December 21, 2018): 54–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00501004.
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Włodzimierz Ledóchowski, superior general of the Society of Jesus, wielded great influence in the battle against Communism. His belief that there was a link of some degree between Jews and Communism, his work to establish a secretariat in Rome to counter atheistic Communism, and his influence in the development of the papal encyclical, Divini redemptoris, are explored in this article. Convinced that the Russian Revolution was a satanic force out to eradicate Christian society, Ledóchowski made it his life’s work to expose the lies and threats of Bolshevism, culminating in his penultimate Congregation (in 1938) where the superior general discussed techniques that could be used to combat the spread of Communism.
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Atanasova, Ivanka Nedeva. "Lyudmila Zhivkova and the Paradox of Ideology and Identity in Communist Bulgaria." East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures 18, no. 2 (May 2004): 278–315. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0888325404263413.
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This article argues that Lyudmila Zhivkova is the most controversial political figure in Communist Bulgaria. Zhivkova’s ideas and initiatives that have been overlooked so far are used as a background for exploring a significant conflict between ideology and national identity in modern Bulgarian history. After outlining briefly Zhivkova’s early and unexpected death, the author analyzes the Communist paradoxes of utopia, modernization, and return to feudalism that produced the idiosyncratic phenomenon of Zhivkova as “the uncrowned princess” of Communist Bulgaria. The author explains Zhivkova’s cultural politics as a rational approach worked out with the help of some of the most outstanding Bulgarian intellectuals at that time. Because of its heavy emphasis on national identity, Zhivkova’s cultural politics reveal clearly several sets of contradictory components of the Bulgarian national character and in some cases challenge the conventional wisdoms about Bulgarians. These sets are the quest for cultural achievements versus limited state resources; excessive national pride versus “shameful national identity”; Russophobes versus Russophiles; East versus West or how to escape the geopolitical trap; and mysticism versus atheism.
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Gallagher, Charles R. "Decentering American Jesuit Anti-Communism: John LaFarge’s United Front Strategy, 1934–39." Journal of Jesuit Studies 5, no. 1 (December 21, 2018): 97–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00501006.
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In 1934, the Society of Jesus was asked to respond at global and regional levels to the increasing threat of world Communism. In North America, the Jesuits initiated plans to meet the twin threats of Communism and atheism. Between 1934 and 1939, two separate streams of Jesuit anti-Communism began to emerge. The first was a macro-style vision grounded in social reconstruction, which the Jesuits called “Establishing a Christian Social Order,” known colloquially as the “xo” program. The other plan was put forward as early as 1934, and elaborated in July 1936 at the Jesuit meeting in West Baden, Indiana, by the writer and editor John LaFarge. LaFarge’s plan, known as the United Front, has never been evaluated by historians. It was a localized program of reactive initiatives meant to meet the gains of the cpusa with effective Catholic counter-Communist public attacks. LaFarge aimed to recruit students, pastors, and fellow Jesuits to see to it that cpusa gains in labor, culture, education, government, and churches were met with equal and effective public counterattacks. In 1937, the publication of the papal encyclical Divini redemptoris signaled that social reconstruction could become a part of authentic Catholic anti-Communism, indicating the eclipse of LaFarge’s United Front. After 1939, when the Jesuit general Włodzimierz Ledóchowski called for an adoption of the “positive message” of social reconstruction as the dominant means of Jesuit anti-Communism, LaFarge’s more bumptious and militaristic plan began to fade for good. This article chronicles the heretofore unknown struggle between these two antipodes.
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Trần, Văn Toàn. "A Breath of Atheism in Religious Vietnam." Social Compass 57, no. 3 (September 2010): 311–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0037768610375515.
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Atheism is not a fundamental notion. This negative concept is relative to the object of its negation, which pre-exists: the gods, God, or rather our ideas of him. In monotheistic regimes, such as in the West, atheism is radical and often aggressive. Since its first contacts with the West, Vietnam has experienced both extremes of this situation, through Christianity and communism. In a polytheistic regime, as in traditional Vietnam, atheism is less exclusive, more tolerant and more nuanced. Appealing to certain gods implies ignorance of, indifference to or the rejection of others; it often betrays a desire to use gods as a means to serve man, who thus believes himself to be the last link in the chain. As monotheism rejects the power of the divinity of nature and of humans, its negation can inversely result in subjecting man to nature and society to the State.
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Xiao, Hongyan. "Falun Gong and the ideological crisis of the Chinese Communist Party: Marxist atheism vs. vulgar theism." East Asia 19, no. 1-2 (March 2001): 123–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12140-001-0004-2.
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Wuwr, Wuwr, and Francesco Berti. "Augusto Del Noce and the problem of totalitarianism." Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem 40, no. 3 (December 28, 2018): 35–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/2300-7249.40.3.5.
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AUGUSTO DEL NOCE AND THE PROBLEM OF TOTALITARIANISMThe aim of this paper is to present the refl ections of the Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce 1910–1989 on totalitarianism and highlight some of the problems that this perspective can lead to in the analysis of the totalitarian phenomenon. Del Noce originally developed a philosophical and transpolitical interpretation of modernity, secularization and totalitarianism, pre-empting, in the early 1960s many of the arguments developed later by “revisionist” scholars: Fascism was an imperfect form of totalitarianism; Nazism was a reaction to Communism; Communism was the most perfect example of the totalitarian State. The philosophical reconstruction of Del Noce is focused on the dichotomy between theism and atheism. Modernity is identifi ed tout court with the rationalist rejection of the concept of original sin, from which atheism and totalitarianism necessarily follow, the latter being as an essential and necessary moment in the process of atheization of society. The assumption on which this interpretation is founded, however, is questionable, in that it is reductive.
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Hall, Edith. "American Communist Idealism in George Cram Cook’s The Athenian Women (1918)." Keria: Studia Latina et Graeca 20, no. 3 (November 22, 2018): 7–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/keria.20.3.7-25.
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The Athenian Women, written by the American George Cram Cook with input from Susan Glaspell, is a serious, substantial play drawing chiefly on Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae. It premiered on March 1st 1918 with the Provincetown Players. Cook was convinced of parallels between the Peloponnesian War and World War I. He believed there had been communists in Periclean Athens comparable to those who were making strides in Russia (in 1922 to become the USSR) and the socialists in America, amongst whom he and Glaspell counted themselves. The paper examines the text and production contexts of The Athenian Women, traces its relationships with several different ancient Greek authors including Thucydides as well as Aristophanes, and identifies the emphatically stated socialist and feminist politics articulated by the two main ‘proto-communist’ characters, Lysicles and Aspasia. Although the play was not particularly successful, its production had a considerable indirect impact on the future directions taken by left-wing theatre in the USA, through the subsequent dramas of Glaspell and Eugene O’Neill for the Provincetown Players.
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Sazonov, Dmitry I. "Renegation in the Russian Orthodox Church: Undermining Foundations or Purification? To the Question of Church-State Relations in the 1960es." Observatory of Culture, no. 3 (June 28, 2014): 114–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.25281/2072-3156-2014-0-3-114-119.
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Addresses the times of the Khrushchev thaw as a period of the Russian Orthodox Church persecution. The public rejections of faith by some priests or Renegation were among its instruments. Their “revelations of religion” were used for propaganda of atheist worldview by the Communist Party representatives. However, the Renegation has not undermined the Church foundations; the author argues that it has only expelled Vicars of Bray and disappeared as a phenomenon when new relationship between the State and the Church was established
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Bria, Gianfranco. "The Case of Albanian as an Islamic Language between Muslim Literary Tradition and National Culture." Eurasian Studies 18, no. 1 (September 23, 2020): 57–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24685623-12340084.
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Abstract This paper aims to apply Bausani’s notion of “Islamic language” to the case of the Albanian language, analysing the cultural and linguistic evolution of its literature according to the various stages of the nation-building process, which concerned also the creation (re-invention) of a standard alphabet. To do so, this work firstly examines the literary production of Albanian Muslim writers during the Ottoman period and then analyses the gradual literary de-Islamisation that invested Albanian culture from the period of Rilindja (Rebirth) until the cultural revolution of the Communist atheist regime.
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Zyablikov, Alexey V. "Kostroma anti-religious campaigns of the 1920–1930s." Vestnik of Kostroma State University 27, no. 1 (March 31, 2021): 65–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2021-27-1-65-73.
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The article analyses the reasons, methods and forms of anti-religious struggle in Kostroma land in the 1920s – 1930s. The article focuses on the activity of Kostroma branch of the League of Militant Atheists, whose efforts, in the author’s opinion, were aimed at building the ideological basis for the coming anti-church and anti-religious terror. The author of the article argues that fight against god was one of the meaning-forming ideologies of the emerging Soviet system, though aggressive atheistic propaganda in Kostroma turned out to be ineffective as Orthodox traditions allegedly were particularly strong here. The conclusion is made about the planned and purposeful destruction of the religious shrines of Kostroma and its historical appearance. After the attempts of a polemical dialogue with the Church in the first post-revolutionary years in the 1920s the Bolshevik government used the tactics of satirical ridicule of religion and religiosity, using all propaganda arsenals at the disposal of the state. It is claimed in the article that having being defeated at the front of anti-religious propaganda and agitation in the 1920s, the authorities did not hesitate to switch to repressive and punitive measures in the 1930s. Soviet and Communist Party leaders are depicted in the article as those who considered physical destruction of churches and the most active and influential part of the clergy to be the only effective means of fighting religion in Russian cities.
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Wynot, Jennifer. "Monasteries without Walls: Secret Monasticism in the Soviet Union, 1928–39." Church History 71, no. 1 (March 2002): 63–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640700095159.
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When discussing the state of religion during the Soviet period, those following the traditional historical interpretation have held that the Communist Party successfully eradicated religion, particularly Russian Orthodoxy. While vestiges may have remained in rural areas, the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution was destroyed. Churches and monasteries stood in ruins as testaments to the victory of atheism over religion.
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Kuyak, Svyatoslav. "Problems of state-confessional relations, religious freedom and human dignity in the context of the Second Vatican Council." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 66 (February 26, 2013): 46–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2013.66.249.
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Two decades of independence of Ukraine and the free development of Ukrainian Christianity in Kyiv traditions indicate that the time of the underground life of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the communist past of Ukrainian Christians in general left deep marks in their souls and mentality and throughout Ukrainian society. New social problems, especially of a social and economic nature, have generated in this society a number of new spiritual and social negative phenomena and challenges that the Church is looking for explanations and answers: a significant dominance of people in the material purpose and its negative impact on their spiritual freedom; the inner spiritual conflict in the souls of people between religious and secular consciousness (double faith as at the time of the baptism of Rus-Ukraine - faith in God and, so to speak, worship of the earthly divine "mammon" - earthly blessings); the need for spiritual and social equilibrium and interconfessional understanding; the latest practical atheism; the phenomenon of the so-called "man of the Soviet" - "homo sovietikus", which manifests itself in the distortion of the representatives of this group of people historically established and traditional for the pre-Soviet period and restored rudiments during the independence of Ukraine of the Ukrainian social-spiritual worldview and religious mentality. Therefore, Ukrainian Christianity, in particular Ukrainian Catholicism, faces the task of realizing Christian "reinclusion" and the new evangelization of Ukrainian society to overcome the consequences of the atheistic Soviet past, which should be based on the experience of the Universal Church.
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Kapaló, James A. "Performing Clandestinity: The Religious Underground, the Secret Police and the Media in Communist Eastern Europe." Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion (JBASR) 22 (December 15, 2020): 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.18792/jbasr.v22i0.45.
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The Cold War was frequently cast in the West as a religious war, a conflict between Christianity and atheism of the Marxist-materialist kind. Propaganda narratives produced by the opposing sides pitted faith against godlessness or science and progress against superstition and exploitation. The religious underground, which was at the centre of much of this propaganda activity, had both a metaphorical and literal meaning. With the opening of the secret police archives in the region, scholars of religions have been presented with important new sources to understand the relationship between anti-religious propaganda, western projections of religious life under communism and the actual clandestine practices of underground religious groups. Whilst the textual materials found in the archives have been the primary focus of attention for both historians and transitional justice projects, the search for ‘truths’ about the past has largely overlooked the visual and material traces of religion produced by and about religious groups. In this article, I explore the complex intersection of the religious underground and the secret police and how this was reflected in the public media and film during communism. Through an exploration of photographic and filmic representations of religious clandestinity produced by or with the help of the secret police, this article illustrates how such imagery, despite its complicity in the construction of a certain image of the religious underground, nevertheless also reveals aspects of the lived reality, creativity and agency of underground communities. This research is based on the findings of the European Research Council Project, Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe (project no. 677355).
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Fylypovych, Liudmyla O. "Ukrainian Religious Studies in the Context of World Religion Science." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 40 (October 24, 2006): 69–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2006.40.1773.
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Ukrainian religious studies has recently entered the world scientific community. Acquaintance with Western science, which has proven to be heterogeneous, often based on different methodological approaches and methodological means, has coincided with difficult internal transformations that have undergone all humanitarian knowledge in Ukraine after worldviews and political changes in society. In pursuit of its identity, domestic religious studies went, on the one hand, by contrasting itself with theology, and on the other, by distinguishing itself from scientific atheism. At first, the emergence of religious studies from the bosom of ideologized social science was more relevant. In the form of a critical study of religion, Soviet-era religious studies were included in scientific atheism. Therefore, religious studies came not as knowledge of religion, but as its critique.
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Rogowska, Barbara. "Attitude of the Vatican towards the Authoritarian and Totalitarian State as Seen in the Church Social Teaching." Polish Political Science Review 8, no. 1 (June 1, 2020): 116–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ppsr-2020-0008.
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AbstractThe attitude of the Church towards the authoritarian and totalitarian state was originally determined by the fact of existence of the Ecclesiastical State. Its downfall contributed to the change in the optics of the papist policy. Leo XIII initiated open realistic policy. He declared the Church’s readiness to co-exist (co-operate) with any form of government or social system which would not disturb the essential ecclesiastical tasks. The opinion which won was that the objectives to be attained by the Church were beyond systems and politics. This approach allowed to develop a concept, that evangelization activity should be pursued in any socio-political reality, with adapted methods. Acceptance was granted to those state systems which declared that they would defend of the Church’s position, as evidenced by establishment of political relationships between the Holy See and III Reich, fascist Italy, Spain of gen. Franco. On the other hand, the communist (totalitarian) countries were accused of rejecting “the moral norms of co-existence defined by the Church”. One can state that the Vatican offered support to those governments or totalitarian and authoritarian states whose internal and foreign policy agreed with the interests of the Church.During the pontificate of John XXIII, the Church started to express not only willingness to co-operate with each form of government, but also the need to have respect for other philosophies of life, including the leftist ones. As regards economic and political questions, the communist doctrine was not deprecated, unless in its extreme version. However, the doctrinal principles of materialism and programmatic atheism were consistently condemned and negated. Also, the Vatican decided to enter into dialogue with the extreme Left. Certainly, the papacy realised that the communist doctrine and totalitarian state in their very essence were enemies of the Church and religion. True evolution in the attitude towards different forms of governments and states was triggered by the II Vatican Oecumenical Council. While political struggle and discussion were avoided, disputes pertaining to philosophical views on life were undertaken. Agreement of any form was refused when atheism was “administratively succoured”.During the pontificate of Paul VI specific guidelines, principles and rules of procedure were introduced to regulate co-operation with totalitarian communist states. In order to ensure functioning of the Church in totalitarian systems, the Vatican resigned from any polemics as related to capitalism and communism. In turn, the Church demanded from totalitarian regimes to cease imposing the totalitarian world-view on the society. And thus, the Church’s fight for the Christian outlook on life was not given up.Depending on internal and external socio-political situation, and also on the form of the State and government concerned, the Church defined different conditions indispensable to be satisfied for its successful functioning. The evangelization mission was given superiority.
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Anczyk, Adam. "Three decades of the Polish psychology of religion (1989–2020)." Archive for the Psychology of Religion 43, no. 2 (March 5, 2021): 182–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0084672421994199.
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Poland, being a post-Communist European country with a tradition of Marxists religious studies in operation till 1989, developed during the Communist Era an original way of connecting psychology of religion with the value-neutral study of religion. It is also a Catholic a country, in which psychology of religion was practiced in a bipolar milieu: religion as a “sensitive” topic was approached from either Marxist-atheist or Catholic religious perspective. Such dualistic divisions should end with the breaking of the Iron Curtain, and opening to the West, but was it so in this country of contrasts? The article forms a bird’s eye look on the last three decades of the Polish psychology of religion (1989–2020), concentrating on the “concrete products of scientific inquiry” therefore main works of scholars in the field are presented, discussed and context-wise interpreted in order to provide some answers for that query.
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Cohen, Erik. "Spirit mediumship and the state in mainland Southeast Asia: A comparative perspective." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 51, no. 1-2 (June 2020): 72–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022463420000223.
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This comparative study examines the complex, changing configurations of the relationships between the state and mediumship cults, under different regimes and histories in three Southeast Asian states and China. Spirit mediums are endowed with charismatic authority, owing to their access to the supernatural sphere, which stands in implicit tension with the authority of the state. This tension underlies state–mediumship relationships in Southeast Asia, but leads to diverse dynamics, according to the place of religion in each state. In the atheist, communist/post-communist states (China and Vietnam) mediumship is primarily approached as a political issue; in Buddhist Thailand as a religious issue, and in multicultural Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion, as a legal issue. Tensions prevail particularly in the communist/post-communist states, where there has been a resurgence of mediumship cults, even as these are officially proscribed as ‘superstitions’. In Thailand tensions have been ameliorated by a gradual amalgamation of the cults and popular Buddhism, while in Malaysia tensions are prevented by controls over religious practices. Further research on the relatively neglected issue of the relationship between the state and mediumship cults in the emergent regions of the world is suggested.
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Willis, Andre C. "The Potential Use-Value of Hume's ‘True Religion’." Journal of Scottish Philosophy 13, no. 1 (March 2015): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/jsp.2015.0078.
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Many hold that Hume was an atheist, that he despised the church, and that he was a devastating critic of religion. One cannot deny, however, the references to ‘true religion’ in his work, his sometimes seemingly favorable references to Deity, his call for religion in ‘every civilized community’, and his sense of (what has come to be known as) ‘natural belief’. The following essay describes a speculative Humean ‘true religion’ and discusses its potential use-value for contemporary philosophy of religion. It begins, anecdotally, with a description of Hume's happiness in France, which I attribute to the fact that Hume was not taken to be an atheist by the French reading public. The main argument is that while Hume was critical of ‘vulgar’ and ‘popular’ religion, his philosophical position did not deny our habit to accept a genuine theism that could, if informed by the calm passions, serve to ‘purify our hearts’ and bond us more closely together. Reconceiving Hume's ‘true religion’ in this way allows his insights to be used to support constructive efforts in the philosophy of religion. I conclude with a description of how this might work in light of three debates in religious studies and the philosophy of religion.
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Blits, Jan H. "Philosophy (and Athens) in Decay: Timon of Athens." Review of Politics 78, no. 4 (2016): 539–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034670516000541.
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AbstractPericles famously described the Athenians as “lovers of the beautiful with thrift, and lovers of wisdom without softness.” Yet he cautioned that Athens's pursuit of boundless empire and glory could corrupt the citizens and destroy Athenian brilliance. Timon of Athens, the counterpart of A Midsummer Night's Dream, depicts what Pericles had warned against. The Athenians' love of the noble has given way to a voracious love of gold. With artists looking upon their work as merchandise to be sold at the highest price, the only thing considered beautiful is a line of salacious chorus-girls. Flattery and utility prevail throughout. The lowest form of friendship is thought to be the highest. Athens has disintegrated as a community of citizens sharing a common heritage. And philosophy, no longer a speculative inquiry, has become a shameless way of life, based on a fixed doctrine and virtually indistinguishable from misanthropy.