Abstract
Secularization theory, as developed by the leading social thinkers of the nineteenth century—Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud—argued that religion would gradually fade in importance with the gradual advance of science and industrial society. This view generally held sway in the twentieth century. A wide-ranging consensus in the social sciences postulated that metaphysical beliefs, liturgical rituals, and sacred practices would gradually give way to a secular ethic that would rank with bureaucratization, rationalization, and urbanization as a defining feature of modernity.1 The global resurgence of religion in the last several decades has called this consensus into question and has led a number of authors to reexamine the relationship of religion to modernity and to international relations more generally.2
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Notes
For contemporary exponents of the thesis, see Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976)
Karel Dobbelare, “Secularization: A Multidimensional Concept,” Current Sociology 29(2) (1981): 1–21
Bryan R. Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
For a reassessment of the debate, see Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3–32
Steve Bruce, Religion and Modernization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 170–94
Alan Aldridge, Religion in the Contemporary World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), ch. 4.
See Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
Though a number of studies had already appeared prior to the events of September 11—see, for example, Bruce Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989)
Martin Riesebrodt, Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)
Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)
—the steady stream has become a torrent in the last ten years: Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)
Ralph W. Hood Jr., Peter C. Hill, and W. Paul Williamson, The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism (New York: Guilford Press, 2005)
Gilles Kepel, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: Bellknap/Harvard University Press, 2008)
Richard T. Antoun, Understanding Fundamentalism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008)
Peter Herriot, Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local, Personal (New York: Routledge, 2009).
See Fabio Petito and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, eds., Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
Eric O. Hanson, Religion and Politics in the International System Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Michalis S. Michael and Fabio Petito, eds., Civilizational Dialogue and World Order: The Other Politics of Cultures, Religions and Civilizations in International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009)
Fred Dallmayr and Abbas Manoocherri, eds., Civilizational Dialogue and Political Thought: Tehran Papers (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2007).
Martin Riesebrodt, “Secularization and the Global Resurgence of Religion,” Paper presented at the Comparative Social Analysis Workshop, University of California, Los Angeles, March 9, 2000, 2, http://www.svabhinava.org/friends/MartinRiesebrodt/SecularismReligion.htm (accessed March 15, 2010).
Luc Reychler, “Religion and Conflict,” International Journal of Peace Studies 2(1) (January 1997), http://www.gmu.edu/academic/ijps/vol2_1/Reyschler.htm (accessed May 2, 2007)
David Smock, “Religion in World Affairs: Its Role in Conflict and Peace,” U.S. Institute of Peace Special Report 201, February 2008 http://www.usip.org/files/resources/sr201.pdf (accessed March 15, 2008)
Robert Jackson, “Doctrinal War: Religion and Ideology in International Conflict,” The Monist 89(2) (April 2006), 274–300.
See Majid Tehranian, Rethinking Civilization: Resolving Conflict in the Human Family (London: Routledge, 2007), 153–63.
Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World, trans. Alan Braley (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 192.
Talip Küçükcan, “Multidimensional Approach to Religion: A Way of Looking at Religious Phenomena,”, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, no. 10 (Spring 2005), http://www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/index/no_10/talipk-articol.htm (accessed April 15, 2010).
G. Lenski, The Religious Factor, A Sociological Study of Religion’s Impact on Politics, Economics, and Family Life (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1961), 21–24.
P. C. Hill and R. W. Hood Jr., Measures of Religiosity (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1999), 269.
A. T. Ariyaratne, “Spiritual Awakening, Religious Co-operation and Human Progress—A Living Experience,” The Vision Project, http://www.thevisionproject.org/Essays/ariyaratne_at.html (accessed March 12, 2010).
See Eric Brahm, “Religion and Conflict,” November 2005, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/religion_and_conflict/?nid=6725 (accessed March 12, 2010).
See John Howard Yoder, Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009)
Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-Evaluation (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960).
See Robert W. Crapps, An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), 10–14.
See Jonathan Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 12–31.
For an analysis of the role of religion when it is placed at the service of the state, see Gerhard Besier, Religion, State and Society in the Transformations of the Twentieth Century: Modernization, Innovation and Decline (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2008).
Some of these failings are canvassed in Helen James, ed., Civil Society, Religion and Global Governance Paradigms of Power and Persuasion (London: Routledge, 2010) (one of the first attempts to explore the nexus between civil society, religion, and global governance and its significance for current debates in international politics).
Scott Thomas, “Religion and International Conflict,” in K. R. Dark, ed., Religion and International Relations (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2000), 13.
Adamantia Pollis, “A New Universalism,” in Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab, eds., Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 24.
Chandra Muzaffar, “From Human Rights to Human Dignity,” in Peter Van Ness, ed., Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays on the United States and Asia (London: Routledge, 1999), 25–31; Pollis, “A New Universalism,” 23.
D. Pratt, “Christian Muslim Encounter: From Diatribe to Dialogue, Australian Religious Studies 7 (1) (1994), 8–11
J. Baldock, “Responses to Religious Pluralism in Australia,” Australian Religion Studies Review 7 (1) (1994), 21–22
Scott Phillips, “Inter-Faith Dialogue, Inter-Cultural Dialogue: A Basis for Developing Global Security,” unpublished paper, 2003. Of particular interest in the Asia-Pacific context of MuslimChristian dialogue was the First Asian Gathering of Muslim Ulama and Christian Bishops in Asia, Manila, Phillippines, August 18–20, 2003 (see Info on Human Development 2003).
Hans Koechler, ‘After September 11, 2001: Clash of Civilizations or Dialogue?’, lecture delivered to the Asian Center, University of the Philippines, Manila, March 14, 2002.
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, “The Muslim World and the West: The Roots of Conflict,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 27(3) (Summer 2005), 1–20.
Figures citied in Timothy M. Savage, “Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing,” Washington Quarterly (Summer 2004), 25.
John L. Esposito, “Benedict XVI and Islam,” Common Ground News Service, September 26, 2006, http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=2802 (accessed March 13, 2010).
Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Rethinking World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 118–121.
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© 2011 Luca Anceschi, Joseph A. Camilleri, Ruwan Palapathwala, and Andrew Wicking
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Camilleri, J.A. (2011). Introduction: Religion: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?. In: Anceschi, L., Camilleri, J.A., Palapathwala, R., Wicking, A. (eds) Religion and Ethics in a Globalizing World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117686_1
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