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18 pages, 343 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Love Thy Neighbor: Exploring Religious and Social Openness among Prospective Theologians in Germany and Turkey

by Sarah Demmrich, Zuhal Ağılkaya-Şahin and Abdulkerim Şenel

Religions 2024, 15(3), 260; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030260 - 21 Feb 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3487

Amidst increasing globalization and religious diversity, acknowledging and embracing openness towards religious and/or cultural others has become crucial for societal cohesion and international relations. Theological scholars, holding significant potential in mitigating inter-religious and intercultural prejudices, can play a pivotal role in addressing this challenge. However, it is acknowledged that theologians themselves may harbor such biases. This study, conducted within the framework of the Religious Openness Hypothesis, employed an online questionnaire among theology students, seen as future multipliers of religiosity, in Germany and Turkey (N = 513) using convenience sampling. The results reveal the consistent relation of religiosity to all forms of prejudice among German Christians, with a linked defense against secularism potentially leading to self-isolation and the protection of their own worldview against religious or cultural outgroups. In contrast, the (generally high) prejudice among Turkish Muslims appears to be rooted not primarily in religiosity or defense against secularism but in fundamentalism and, most likely, in other socio-cultural factors such as politics and education. For both subsamples, religiosity was positively linked with xenosophia, particularly when accounting for fundamentalism. The article concludes by proposing curriculum implications for universities and schools in both cultural contexts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Inter-religious Relations: Prejudices and Conflicts—Dialogue and Integration)

15 pages, 1089 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Relevance of the Centrality and Content of Religiosity for Explaining Islamophobia in Switzerland

by Alexander Yendell and Stefan Huber

Religions 2020, 11(3), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11030129 - 14 Mar 2020

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 5400

Abstract

Research on Islamophobia in Switzerland, and on the role of religiosity in relation to Islamophobia, is in its infancy. Against this background, we analyzed data from an online survey conducted in Switzerland on “Xenosophia and Xenophobia in and between Abrahamic religions”. The results of a multivariate analysis revealed that, besides right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and political orientation, indicators related to religion play a crucial role. We found that the greater the role of religion, and the more central it is for the individual, the more likely it is that the individual has a positive view of Islam. We claim that a person’s level of religiosity is accompanied by her adoption of religious values, such as neighbourliness and tolerance, and that the more religious individuals are, the more likely they are occupied with different religions, which leads to tolerance as long as it is not accompanied by a fundamentalist religious orientation. Also relevant is that the preference for the state to have a secularized relationship with religion is accompanied by a fear of Islam. We propose that studies on Islamophobia, as well as on other prejudices, should use differentiated measures for religiosity; the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) turned out to be a reliable instrument of measurement in this regard. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research with the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS))

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