Religion and Nationalism

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2018) | Viewed by 44163

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Sociology, Boston University, #608, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Interests: nationalism; modernity; mind (soul); mental illness

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is now clear that the conventional understanding of secularization as the despiritualization of, and, specifically, the disappearance of religion from everyday experience is wrong. This conventional view has been a central element in the studies of nationalism, proposing that nationalism emerges in the place vacated by religion. In opposition to this conventional view,within religious studies, in contrast, nationalism has been on the whole considered irrelevant. The purpose of this issue is to examine the close and complex relationship between religion and nationalism in modern experience, so clearly evident today everywhere around the world. Thereby it hopes to contribute to the correction of the dominant understanding of modernity as irreligious and dominant understanding of religion as "traditional" in the sense of "backward" and out-of-step with modern society, and revisit the nature of the secular itself.

Prof. Dr. Liah Greenfeld
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • modernity
  • nationalism
  • political ideology
  • religion
  • secular world
  • secularization
  • spirituality

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

8 pages, 195 KiB  
Article
Religious Nationalism in a Global World
by Mark Juergensmeyer
Religions 2019, 10(2), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10020097 - 4 Feb 2019
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 23637
Abstract
The rise of new forms of religious nationalism at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries is to a large extent a by-product of globalization. As nation-states are permeated by transnational economics and trends and secular nationalism is challenged [...] Read more.
The rise of new forms of religious nationalism at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries is to a large extent a by-product of globalization. As nation-states are permeated by transnational economics and trends and secular nationalism is challenged by the global diaspora of peoples and cultures, new ethno-religious movements have arisen to shore up a sense of national community and purpose. One can project at least three different futures for religious and ethnic nationalism in a global world: one where religious and ethnic politics ignore globalization, where they rail against it, and where they envision their own transnational futures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Nationalism)
20 pages, 1023 KiB  
Article
Nation as a Neo-Idol: Muslim Political Theology and the Critique of Secular Nationalism in Modern South Asia
by Mohammad Adnan Rehman
Religions 2018, 9(11), 355; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110355 - 13 Nov 2018
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4972
Abstract
Modern perspectives on nationalism tend to privilege structuralist readings which approach nationalism as entailing economic and political restructuring, thereby overlooking the necessary role of human factors in the functioning of nationalism. Religious opposition to secular nationalism is then condemned as backward, reactionary, fundamentalist, [...] Read more.
Modern perspectives on nationalism tend to privilege structuralist readings which approach nationalism as entailing economic and political restructuring, thereby overlooking the necessary role of human factors in the functioning of nationalism. Religious opposition to secular nationalism is then condemned as backward, reactionary, fundamentalist, or ideological. However, a different understanding of nationalism is uncovered when the role of human factors in nationalism are scrutinized. Toward discerning the role of human factors in nationalism and its relation to religion in general, I turn to Liah Greenfeld’s analysis of social psychology of nationalism as a secular ideology. In exploring the effects of nationalist ideology on religion, I return to the earliest Muslim debates on nationalism in South Asia between two critics of nationalism, Muhammad Iqbal and Abu’l A’laa Mawdudi, and their opponents, Abul Kalam Azad and Husayn Ahmad Madani. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Nationalism)
20 pages, 264 KiB  
Article
Unexpected Convergences: Religious Nationalism in Israel and Turkey
by Jocelyne Cesari
Religions 2018, 9(11), 334; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110334 - 30 Oct 2018
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 8902
Abstract
This article compares Israel and Turkey to demonstrate how religious nationalism can be analyzed by a combination of historical institutionalism and conceptual history of religious ideas and doctrines. Both cases exemplify how the building of the nation-state was associated with the exportation of [...] Read more.
This article compares Israel and Turkey to demonstrate how religious nationalism can be analyzed by a combination of historical institutionalism and conceptual history of religious ideas and doctrines. Both cases exemplify how the building of the nation-state was associated with the exportation of the western concept of religion. The resulting association between national territory, state and religion can explain the existing politicization of religion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Nationalism)
14 pages, 213 KiB  
Article
Nation, Race, and Religious Identity in the Early Nazi Movement
by Derek Hastings
Religions 2018, 9(10), 303; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100303 - 7 Oct 2018
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 5542
Abstract
This paper examines the dissemination of radical nationalist and racist ideas among Catholics within the early Nazi movement in Munich. While the relationship between the Nazi regime and the Catholic faith was often antagonistic after 1933, a close examination of the earliest years [...] Read more.
This paper examines the dissemination of radical nationalist and racist ideas among Catholics within the early Nazi movement in Munich. While the relationship between the Nazi regime and the Catholic faith was often antagonistic after 1933, a close examination of the earliest years of the Nazi movement reveals a different picture. In the immediate aftermath of the First World War and within the specific context of Munich and its overwhelmingly Catholic environs, early Nazi activists attempted to resacralize political life, synthesizing radical völkisch nationalism with reformist, “modern” conceptions of Catholic faith and identity. In so doing, they often built on ideas that circulated in Catholic circles before the First World War, particularly within the Reform Catholic movement in Munich. By examining depictions of nation and race among three important Catholic groups—reform-oriented priests, publicists, and university students—this paper strives not only to shed light on the conditions under which the Nazi movement was able to survive its tumultuous infancy, but also to offer brief broader reflections on the interplay between nationalism, racism, and religious identity. The article ultimately suggests it was specifically the malleability and conceptual imprecision of those terms that often enhanced their ability to penetrate and circulate effectively within religious communities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Nationalism)
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