Religions

While new religious movements are increasingly widespread worldwide, a recent case emerged in Türkiye. Based on the allegations about the rise of Tengrism—the religion of ancient Turks—among the Turkish society and the increasing visibility of Turkish Tengrist accounts on various social media platforms, the question of whether there is a new challenge to the dominance of Islam in Türkiye or not arose. While there is little information about the presence of a Tengrist movement in Türkiye, social media, as the only ground of their public visibility, stands as the sole source of information about this phenomenon. In this sense, with the aim of analyzing the Tengrist movement in Türkiye, 21 social media accounts that frequently post about Tengrism have been studied with respect to the discourses used in their posts. To this aim, the critical discourse analysis technique has been applied, and the discourses of these Tengrist accounts have been categorized and analyzed under three main discursive themes. Reading the findings in these discursive themes in accordance with the political developments in Türkiye, it has been concluded that the Tengrist movement in Türkiye is an outcome of political and cultural responses by certain segments of Turkish society and that it yet lacks the necessary grounds to turn into a new religious movement while possessing potential in this sense.

One of the most prominent defenders of religious pluralism is John Hick, who developed a theoretical pluralist model on the foundation of a hypothesized the Real an sich. This paper argues that although Hick is right in noticing the importance of the metaphysical meaning of religious pluralism, his model is epistemically unstable because of the circularity problem caused by his persistence on pre-existing religious truth, which itself is meaningless. Drawing on pragmatist insights, especially from William James, this paper proposes a pragmatist alternative that abandons religious realism and instead grounds pluralist normativity in the practical, melioristic functions of religious belief.

From its esteemed place as the queen of the sciences in the medieval period, theology has suffered in the public eye in comparison to philosophy. While philosophy came to be more esteemed, especially in early modernity, theology was relegated to private, secondary status. In the modernist paradigm, theology was seen as too biased to be objective and fully rational. While theology and philosophy had worked hand in hand in the medieval period, in the modern period, they essentially went through a divorce. They became separated in terms of disciplines, methods, ethos, and even schools. The relationship often became hostile. The cracking of the modern framework in the last century, however, has reshaped both. New possibilities have emerged, yet not without continued strain, not unlike fractured families who continue to have ties that draw them together. Given that these two disciplines are foremost in the quest for truth and meaning, these new possibilities of an amicable relationship are what I would like to explore.