Politics

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‘Christianity Showed Its Face’: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Exiting and Formation as a Religious None

Tess Starman, Howard University

Keywords: secularization, politicized religion, deconstruction, deconversion

U.S. Christianity has seen a sharp decline in affiliation over the last 20 years. Scholars have often associated this decline with the growing secularization of society and other forces including industrialization, rationalization, and urbanization.[i] However, one alternative explanation for religious decline is the concept of political backlash, positing that Christianity’s growing conservativeness has led moderates and liberals to reject religion.[ii] Given the increasing association of Christianity with republicanism in the public square and growing nationalism, I aimed to see how political backlash might be at play in Christianity’s accelerating decline in the United States.  

My work aims to test how Christianity’s maintenance and support of larger societal systems of inequality have contributed to disaffiliation and deconversion. My larger dissertation study answers several research questions: (1) What is the process of leaving Christianity, and how does Christianity’s maintenance of power systems impact this process? and (2) How do ex-Christians form their social and political identity after leaving religion? Here I present three key findings from preliminary analysis of interviews with 58 ex-Christians.

Building Discontentment

Participants were overwhelmingly committed Christians who had robust knowledge of tradition and scripture. This commitment to their religion led most to explore inconsistencies from a young age. For many, their questions date back to learning about the biblical creation story. A biblically literal seven-day creation story conflicted with what they learned about in library books and science classes. When Matt (a 30-something Black male ex-Evangelical) learned about the creation story, he recalls asking his pastor, “but what about the dinosaurs?” Matt felt disappointed in the reductionistic answer from his pastor: “well they just must not have made it onto the arc.” He also felt this answer did not match with an image of God as master and creator of all things. Why create dinosaurs, only to have them die in the flood?

Other commonly discussed sources of discontent amongst participants were a lack of women in leadership and anti-LGBTQ sentiment. Jules (a 30-something white female ex-Mainline protestant) noted her discontentment with the role of women in her church:

“There were no women in “real” leadership roles, like the only woman ‘leader’ was the worship pastor who was also the lead pastor’s wife… But they never let women preach. It always bothered me, but not enough to say something about it, like I get you using the bible and this tradition of patriarchy to justify these gender roles.”

These topics were early and ongoing sources of discomfort with religion. Questions or inconsistencies themselves were just one side of the discontentment coin; the other side was that religious authorities lacked in-depth critical engagement with these issues. Nearly all participants attempted to reconcile these feelings of tension on their own, engaging in a deeper study of scripture and church history. In other words, their initial response was not to pull away, but to lean in.

Pivotal Movement  

While attempts to reconcile inconsistencies and discontentment varied, all participants came to a pivotal moment where they felt they could no longer be part of Christianity. Oftentimes, this moment was neither large nor devastating, but simply one final straw that broke the camel’s back. Rose (a 30-something white female ex-Evangelical) shared her pivotal moment:

“I was invited to dinner at this church family’s house. I had been to dinner there several times and they were so inclusive of me as a single person in the church. I had known them for maybe 4-5 years at this point. When we’re getting ready to sit down for dinner, [the son] looked at me and said, ’I am missing a $20 from my wallet… did you take it? No, [he laughed] you didn’t take my money, you’re not Black.’ and I was appalled…It was willful ignorance, and that, coupled with everything else, was the turning point for me.”

Like Rose, many participants’ pivotal moments revolved around maintenance of systems of power, or more specifically, Christianity’s support of sexism, heteronormativity, racism, and conservative-bent nationalism. Sometimes moments came in direct response to an event, but other moments were smaller, internal dialogues. Amber’s (a 30-something white female Ex-Mainline) pivotal moment occurred when reading an article about Christian support of Trump before the 2020 election and thinking, “this is not my religion.” Avery (a 20-something Black gender queer ex-Evangelical) described a similar moment before the 2016 election: “Evangelical Christianity showed its face, and I couldn’t be a part of it anymore.” A seemingly decisive moment came after years of trying to see love and goodness in what they described as a “toxic religion.” Carlos (a 30-something Latino) eloquently described this process as an avalanche. All of the questions, problems, and tensions were not individually enough to walk away. But eventually one more light snowfall creates an avalanche, thus dismantling a mountain of faith.

Political and Social Formation as a None

Since leaving Christianity, participants shared that they feel more free to express progressive and liberal social attitudes. Many participants noted their direct support for abortion access, the Black Lives Matter movement, belief in gender equity, support for LGBTQIA+ rights, and many more progressive and contrarian attitudes. Most describe these attitudes as a direct response to their religious socialization, be it an internal response as a coping mechanism or a social response as a form of activism.

Even when Christian, many participants believed in these stances as fundamentally just, but they were not able to express that in their religious context. Others note that they supported and even participated in the pro-life movement and patriarchal and white supremacist structures, but after leaving their religion, they reassessed and changed their stances on these topics. Many are taking intentional efforts to engage in the political process or social movements to try and undo some of the wrong they believed they did while Christian. Some attended women’s marches and free Palestine rallies, while others found smaller forms of resistance, like assessing their household’s gendered division of labor.

Each participant’s social and political formation as a non-religious person is complex, with many seeking mental health services and communities of other ex-Christians for support. Leaving religion is greater than leaving a community. It involves leaving a worldview, belief systems, support network, and sometimes, family.  

These preliminary findings lend support to the proposed political backlash concept. The unique politicization and growing ideological conservatism of Christianity in the United States has been a direct catalyst for many to opt out of religion. While each story is unique and nuanced, many formerly devoted Christians recognize recent politicization as an example of Christianity’s use of power to maintain the status quo. Unwilling to be complicit and unable to reconcile this with their lived experiences and surrounding social realities, they feel like they have no option but to leave.

Tess Starman (she/they) is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Howard University. Her research specializes on intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and power at the nexus of religion and politics. She studies progressive Christian attitudes, religious exiting, and religion’s impact on political attitudes and engagement. Her dissertation, entitled, “A Corrupted Faith: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Disaffiliation and Rise of the Religious Nones,” examines the religious exiting process and non-religious identity formation of ex-Christians. She serves as the Research Assistant for Howard University’s Initiative on Public Opinion. Tess is the co-chair of the American Sociological Association’s Student Advisory Board and serves on the Pedagogy Committee of Sociological Forum. 

References

[i] See for example Calhoun, Juergensmeyer, and VanAntwerpen 2011; Kasselstrand, Zuckerman, and Cragun 2023; Voas and Chaves 2016

[ii] See for example Chaves 2017; Fischer and Hout 2008

Calhoun, Craig, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, eds. 2011. Rethinking Secularism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chaves, Mark A. 2017. American Religion: Contemporary Trends. Second. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Fischer, Claude S., and Michael Hout. 2008. “How Americans Prayed: Religious Diversity and Change.” in Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years (The Russell Sage Foundation Census Series), edited by C. S. Fischer and M. Hout. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Kasselstrand, Isabella, Phil Zuckerman, and Ryan T. Cragun. 2023. Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society. New York: NYU Press.

Voas, David, and Mark Chaves. 2016. “Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularization Thesis?” American Journal of Sociology 121(5):1517–56. doi: 10.1086/684202.

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[Research] Post-Secular as an Alternative Tool

 

In this post, Samantha May challenges the tendency in the disciplines of Politics and International Relations of drawing a sharp line between religion and the secular. May makes a case for scholars in the field to acknowledge much more nuanced reality between the boundaries between religion/secular and public/private. By doing so, she re-introduces the significance of post-secularism as a way of responding properly to the reality that we live in.img_0277

Religious rhetoric appears on the rise yet the divide between the secular and the religious in Western scholarship has left us bereft of useful tools of analysis. From the Archbishop of Canterbury’s meetings with Prime Minister David Cameron (Mendick, 2015) to the Republican candidate Donald Trump calling on a ban of all Muslims travelling to the United States (Pilkington, 2015), religious actors and religious categorisations are repeatedly in the public domain. Thus I call for consideration of the post-secular paradigm which can accommodate and speak to the variety of religious and non-religious positions. Without doubt, this line of inquiry has been apparent in disciplines such as Anthropology and Sociology for decades and more, yet the disciplines of Politics and International Relations (PIR) have remained resistant to the reality of public religion specifically because it challenges the public/private divide which rests at the center of dominant PIR theories.

Post-secularism is an important theoretical position to engage with in PIR precisely because it allows a space for the religious and non-religious to create a dialogue where both positions are respected and neither relegated to archaic practices or private, marginalised domains. It essentially speaks to the empirical reality of our times where both the religious and the non-religious coexist and are mutually dependent even simply in terms of the dichotomy of ‘secular’ makes no sense without its oppositional other ‘religion.’ Additionally it can help us to understand the fluid nature of religion and religious practice which can no longer be contained coherently in the ‘traditional’ boxes of recognised world religions but blur the boundary between the spiritual and the profane. Post-secularism not only adds to the established critiques of secularisation theories but offers an alternative position which allows us all to take seriously religious sentiments and grants the possibility of increased understanding of our contemporary political world. Methodologically post-secularism invites a mutli-disciplinary approach to understanding global political events broadly that can combine existing work from a variety of the social sciences in additional to theological and religious debates. Post-secularism thus opens the gateway for PIR studies to re-engage with religion in the public sphere.

The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, stated that Muslim refugees threaten Europe’s Christian identity (Traynor, 2015). I do agree with the Hungarian PM that remembrance of our Christian history – the good, the bad and the ugly- is imperative, but perhaps for different reasons than Orbán may defend. To forget impoverishes our understanding, of self, history and the presence of the past. Forgetting endangers repeats of the past which include the crusades, the religious wars in Europe, the witch trials, the ghettoisation of Jewish communities and Jewish programs amongst a plethora of other examples. To forget our religious history creates an assumption that religious violence has always been carried out by ‘Them’ and never ‘Us’. Perhaps more importantly forgetting skewers our memories of the enormous potential religion has for the common good, charitable systems, interfaith dialogue, peace and reconciliation and so on and so on. However, the forgetting of our Christian past cannot be blamed on the Other – the responsibility is Ours.

As many scholars have already articulated, secularism can take many forms. Secularism in Britain has been associated with an accompanying normative and ideological process whereby to be secular was to be non-religious (i.e., rational and modern) (Asad et al., 2014: p.vii). The ideological assumption to this notion of secularisation is that religion is ‘backward’ and thus to retain religious beliefs somehow flies in the face of modern science. Thus to publically discuss religion and religious history in everyday life becomes a social faux pas. The consequences of this normative process have been the growth of a generation largely ignorant of the (debated) ‘Christian’ identity of Britain. The point being, that if non-Christian refugees were indeed a threat to Europe’s ‘Christian’ identity, as Orbán suggests, there would need to be a real understanding of what Christian values and practices actually are throughout the population.

Neither should it be assumed that the history of ‘Christian’ values are shared by all of society. A recent YouGov poll indicated that only 32% of the British population believes in a God (Jordan, 2015). The line that religion in general is in decline in Britain (and Western Europe generally) provides the only piece of evidence that secularism- understood here as a decline in religious belief – is a real phenomenon. Yet, what is considered as “religious” perhaps needs redefining in our contemporary society. The same YouGov poll found that 20% still believed in a higher power albeit not a “god”. Another YouGov poll found that while less than half of the population considered themselves ‘religious’ 1 in 3 (34%) believed in the existence of ghosts (Dahlgreen, 2014). The dichotomy between what is secular and what is spiritual is increasingly (if always) blurred and fluid. According to Asad et. al ‘“secularism does not merely organize the place of religion in nation-states and communities but also stipulates what religion is and ought to be…’ (2013: p.ix).

Post-secularism here should not be understood as the absence of secularism but simply that the religious, the non-religious, the spiritual and the secular coexist and are best thought of as ‘overlapping’ (Falk, 2014: p.34). No longer can we claim with any empirical evidence that religion or belief is absent from the public domain, though its nature may have changed. Post-secularism as both a theory and a methodology assists my own work regarding Muslim charities in the UK and the consequences of political policy as it allows religious practice and theological concerns to be taken seriously which in turn challenge pre-conceived assumptions regarding the motivations of charitable giving, and the distribution of alms: which more dominant theories in PIR cannot accommodate while maintaining the public/private divide and marginalising religion and belief to ‘private’ practice.

Post-secular theory can be considered in at least two ways: the first being simply the recognition of the resilience of religion in the public sphere and the second as a radical critique of secular theory and the emergence of a new intellectual paradigm that questions the empirical reality of the public/private divide (Mavelli and Petito 2012: 931). Importantly, it allows us to understand that neither belief nor non-belief is the default option for individuals in society. A range of options are now available so that non-belief, religion, and spirituality are all now legitimate options amongst many others (Wilson, 2014: p.222). Rather than using the dichotomy of either religion or secularity, post-secularism allows the codependent language of ‘both’/’and’ (Wilson, 2014: 234). As Mahmood has argued, ‘The secular and the religious are not opposed but intertwined both historically and conceptually such that it is impossible to inquire into one without engaging with the other’ (Mahmood, 2013: p.140). Post-secular theory thus allows the breakdown of opposing dichotomies of religion and secular. This then provides a useful tool to examine the abundance of differing perspectives in a world where religion refuses to disappear and is shaped and re-shaped by its co-dependent, the secular.

References

Asad, T, Brown, W, Butler, J & Mahmood, S. 2013.Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury and Free Speech, Fordham University Press, New York.

Dahlgreen. W. 2014. ‘”Ghosts Exist”, say 1 in 3 Brits’, YouGov, https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/10/31/ghosts-exist-say-1-3-brits/

Richard Falk. 2014. “Achieving political Legitimacy in the Twenty First Century: Secular and Post Secular Imperatives” pp.41-48 in pp13-38 (eds) Mavelli and Petito, Towards a Post Secular International Politics: New Forms of Community, Identity and Power, (Palgrave Macmillan; Basingstoke).

Jordan, W. 2015. ‘A Third of British Adults don’t believe in a higher power’, YouGov, https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/02/12/third-british-adults-dont-believe-higher-power/

Mavelli and Petito. 2012. ‘The Post-Secular in International Relations: An Overview’, Review of International Studies, 38.5.

Mendick, R. 2015. ‘Archbishop of Canterbury spoke with David Cameron and to the House of Lords regarding plight of Syrian Christian refugees’, The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11860902/Archbishop-warns-Cameron-over-Syrian-refugees.html

Pilkington, E. 2015. ‘Donald Trump: ban all Muslims entering U.S’, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/07/donald-trump-ban-all-muslims-entering-us-san-bernardino-shooting

Traynor, I. 2015. ‘Migration Crisis: Hungary PM says Europe in grip of Madness’, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/migration-crisis-hungary-pm-victor-orban-europe-response-madness

Wilson, E. K. 2014. “Faith-Based Organisations and Post Secularism in Contemporary International Relations” in (eds) Mavelli and Petito, Towards a Post Secular International Politics: New Forms of Community, Identity and Power, (Palgrave Macmillan; Basingstoke).

Samantha May is a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen and award holder of the Leverhulme Early Careers Fellowship for the project entitled: “ Zakat in the UK: Islamic Giving, Citizenship and Government Policy”.

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CFP: Rethinking Boundaries in the Study of Religion and Politics

Postgraduate Conference: Rethinking Boundaries in the Study of Religion and Politics

11-12 September 2015

University of Aberdeen

Submission Deadline: 19 June 2015

A common approach to the study of religion and politics frames the inquiry using boundaries. Such boundaries include religion/secular, private/public, belief/practice and theism/atheism, to name just a few. It may be argued that these categorisations are analytically useful in understanding social phenomena because, for example, what is ‘religious’ should be analysed in relation to what is ‘secular.’ Another approach may instead point to the problem with the construction of such binaries in that empirically these distinctions become blurred, so that framing an action, for example as ‘public’ or ‘private’, does not reflect the diversity of human experience. Continue reading →

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Event: LSE: Governing Difference through Rights: The Politics of Religious Freedom

FORUM ON RELIGION SEMINAR

Governing Difference through Rights: The Politics of Religious Freedom

Speaker: Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (Northwestern University)

Chair: Mathijs Pelkmans

Date: Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Time: 6.30-8.00pm
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE, WC2A 2AE

What happens when social difference is conceived through the prism of religious rights and religious freedom? Far from occupying an autonomous sphere independent of religious affairs, human rights advocacy is a site of difference and governance that implicates religion in complex ways. This paper explores the consequences of a religious rights model for both politics and religion. It argues that this model regulates the spaces in which people live out their religion in specific and identifiable ways: singling out groups for legal protection as religious groups; moulding religions into discrete “faith communities” with clean boundaries, clearly defined orthodoxies, and seniorleaders who speak on their behalf; and privileging a modern liberal understanding of faith. The right to religious freedom is a specific, historically situated mode of governing difference through rights.

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd teaches and writes on the politics of religious diversity, the intersection of law and religion, the history and politics of US foreign relations, and the international relations of the Middle East including Turkey and Iran. She is the author of The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (Princeton, 2008), which won an APSA award for the best book in religion and politics (2008-2010) and co-editor of Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age (Palgrave, 2010) which will appear in paperback in 2013. Recent publications include “International politics after secularism” in Review of International Studies (2012) and “Contested secularisms in Turkey and Iran” in Contesting Secularism: Comparative Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013). Hurd is currently writing a book on the “strategic operationalization” of religion in international affairs and its implications for religion, law and public policy.

The event is free and open to all. For further information, please contact Dr Mathijs Pelkmans, m.e.pelkmans@lse.ac.uk.

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News: New survey – religion and politics in the US

Please see below details of a report released by Juhem Navarro-Rivera, who has worked on a number of reports about the nonreligious, in conjunction with the Public Religion Research Institute on the connections between religion and politics in the US.  The report focuses on the nonreligious (a.k.a. religiously unaffiliated):

http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/10/american-values-survey-2012/

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CFP: Kongress “Rethinking Europe with(out) Religion” nächsten Februar in Wien

International Congress: Rethinking Europe with(out) religion. Deadline for abstracts 30 September 2012

Full details as PDF can be found here CFP_Rethinking Europe with(out) Religion

Sehr geehrte Interessierte an der Forschungsplattform RaT! Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen!

Die Forschungsplattform „Religion and Transformation in Contemporary European Society“ (RaT) möchte Sie hiermit auf den im Februar 2013 stattfindenden Kongress „Rethinking Europe with(out) Religion“ aufmerksam machen.
Details sowie ein Anmeldeformular finden Sie auf der Kongress-Homepage: http://www.rethinkingeurope.at

Die Kolleginnen und Kollegen an Universitäten und Bildungseinrichtungen bitte ich, diese Information im Rahmen der Ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Möglichkeiten weiterzuleiten. Bitte machen Sie Studierende auf diesen Kongress aufmerksam! Für alle Fälle hänge ich den CfP an.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen und allen guten Wünschen für einen erholsamen Sommer!

Angelika Walser

Dr. Angelika Walser
Plattformmanagerin
RaT (Religion and Transformation
In Contemporary European Society)
Schenkenstr. 8-10
1010 Wien
T.: 0664-60277-23803

Beschreibung: RaT_Logo

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CFP: Religion and Politics in a Post-Secular World: Telos conference in New York City, Feb 16-17, 2013

Deadline for CFP October 15, 2012.
Religion and Politics in a Post-Secular World: The Sixth Annual Telos Conference in New York City, February 16-17, 2013
The 21st century has been marked by both events and reflections that have explicitly challenged the long-standing liberal project of maintaining a separation between religion and politics. Not only have political conflicts become inseparable from theological and metaphysical considerations, but standard liberal claims of value-neutrality have been undermined by insights into the theological presuppositions of secular institutions. The goal of the 2013 Telos Conference will be to investigate the changing relationship between religion and politics.

Possible topics include secularization and the “post-secular” turn; the theological foundations of political systems such as liberalism, socialism, and fascism; political theology; religion and the public sphere; separation of church and state; new civil forms of religious practice; the politics of religious pluralism; myth and sovereignty; theology and modernity; religion and political values; theocracy and religious law.

Please send short cv, paper title, and a 200-word abstract for a 15-minute presentation to David Pan (dtpan@uci.edu) with “2013 Telos Conference” in subject line by October 15, 2012.

David Pan
European Languages and Studies
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697
949-824-4363
Email: dtpan@uci.edu
Visit the website

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Publication: Islam and the Politics of Secularism and Varieties of Secularism in Asia

Islam and the Politics of Secularism

The Caliphate and Middle Eastern Modernization in the Early 20th Century

Nurullah Ardic

Published 16th January 2012 by Routledge – 394 pages

This book examines the process of secularization in the Middle East in the late 19th and early 20th century through an analysis of the transformation and abolition of Islamic Caliphate. Focusing on debates in both the center of the Caliphate and its periphery, the author argues that the relationship between Islam and secularism was one of accommodation, rather than simply conflict and confrontation, because Islam was the single most important source of legitimation in the modernization of the Middle East.

Through detailed analysis of both official documents and the writings of the intellectuals who contributed to reforms in the Empire, the author first examines the general secularization process in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th century up to the end of the 1920s. He then presents an in-depth analysis of a crucial case of secularization: the demise of Islamic Caliphate. Drawing upon a wide range of secondary and primary sources on the Caliphate and the wider process of political modernization, he employs discourse analysis and comparative-historical methods to examine how the Caliphate was first transformed into a “spiritual” institution and then abolished in 1924 by Turkish secularists. Ardiç also demonstrates how the book’s argument is applicable to wider secularization and modernization processes in the Middle East.

Deriving insights from history, anthropology, Islamic law and political science, the book will engage a critical mass of scholars interested in Middle Eastern studies, political Islam, secularization and the near-global revival of religion as well as the historians of Islam and late-Ottoman Empire, and those working in the field of historical sociology and the sociology of religion as a case study.

Varieties of Secularism in Asia

Anthropological Explorations of Religion, Politics and the Spiritual

Edited by Nils Ole Bubandt, Martijn Van Beek

Published 29th September 2011 by Routledge – 261 pages
Varieties of Secularism is an ethnographically rich, theoretically well-informed, and intellectually coherent volume which builds off the work of Talal Asad, Charles Taylor, and others who have engaged the issue of secularism(s) and in socio-political life. The volume seeks to examine theories of secularism/secularity and examine concrete ethnographic cases in order to further the theoretical discussion.

Whereas Taylor’s magisterial work draws up the conditions and problems of a belief in God in Western modernity, it leaves unexplored the challenges posed by the spiritual in modernity outside of the North Atlantic rim. This anthology seeks to begin that task. It does so by suggesting that the kind of secularity described by Taylor is only one amongst others. By attending to the shifting relationship between proper religion and ‘bad faiths’; between politically valorised and embarrassing spiritual phenomena; between the new visibilities and silences of magic, ancestors, and religion in democratic politics, this book seeks to outline the particular formations of secularism that have become possible in Asia from China to Indonesia and from Bahrain to Timor-Leste.

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CFP: International Workshop on Religion, Politics and Policy-making in Russia: Domestic and International Dimensions

For members of the group interested in secularism and religion in the public sphere and distinctions in the role of policy making, this conference has some scope for inclusion.

International Workshop

Religion, Politics and Policy-making in Russia: Domestic and International Dimensions

Center for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS), University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

June 6-7, 2012

Organizers: Prof Jerry G. Pankhurst (Wittenberg University, USA; visiting Fulbright scholar at the University of Tartu) and Alar Kilp (University of Tartu)

The Center for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) at the University of Tartu invites your participation in a workshop on Religion, Politics and Policy-making in Russia: Domestic and International Dimensions. The workshop is meant to highlight new research on the questions of religion and politics in Russia, to foster collaborative relations for future projects, and to provide an opportunity for everyone to learn about high-quality research that is being carried out in this area of inquiry.

The program organizers seek to explore the politics of religious affairs in Russia and the former Soviet countries and to assess the activities and role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and other organized religious groups in domestic and foreign policy. Issues related to religious diversity and religious tolerance in Russia and the neighboring countries are also of interest.

Confirmed keynote speakers include Irina Papkova, Professor of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations at the Central European University, and Viacheslav Karpov, Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University.

Workshop organizers will actively seek opportunities to publish selected papers in a special issue of a journal or in an edited volume.

Workshop Venue: University of Tartu, Estonia. Tartu is a home to one of the oldest universities in Eastern Europe. It was founded by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus in 1632. Today the University of Tartu is the only classical university in Estonia. It is a leading center of research and training, ranked among the 400 best universities of the world by Times Higher Education. The city of Tartu is a charming university town whose relaxed and sophisticated atmosphere creates a perfect environment for scholarly conversations. Tartu is well-served with bus and train connection with the city of Tallinn and its Lennart Meri Airport. There are also flights to Tartu from Tallinn (Estonian Air) and Helsinki (Flybe, in connection with Finnair). For more information, see: http://www.tartu.ee; http://www.ut.ee.

Who may participate? We invite scholars of Russian religious affairs and scholars with research focusing on the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church both in and outside of Russia. Graduate students carrying out advanced work are welcomed to submit proposals for a presentation.

The workshop sessions will be open to the public. Anyone who has a serious and informed interest in scholarly research on the topical issues is invited to attend the presentations and participate in question and answer sessions.

Cost: There will be no registration fee for this workshop. The sponsoring organizations will host a reception and a dinner but are not able to cover travel or accommodation expenses of individual participants. However, limited travel support is available to participants from the CIS countries. CEURUS will assist as much as possible with information about local accommodations and other arrangements. If you have questions, please contact Britt Ressar at britt.ressar@ut.ee

Proposing a paper: If you are interested in presenting a paper, please consider the topic preferences below and send your abstract (250-300 words) and a succinct statement of your present position and recent publications and grants (if any) to Alar Kilp (alar.kilp@ut.ee).

The deadline for receiving abstracts for consideration for the program is April 2, 2012.

Abstracts will the evaluated by the workshop organizers for quality of scholarship and appropriateness for the program structure and workshop theme. Authors of abstracts selected to be presented will be notified by April 13 via email.

Full papers by presenters will be due by 25 May, 2012. Send papers via email to Alar Kilp (alar.kilp@ut.ee)

Potential Topics for Workshop Presentations: Below are some areas of special interest, but this is not a complete list of options for the program. Within the overall guidelines of the workshop, all proposals will be given serious consideration even if their topics are not explicitly listed below.

o What is the political and social role and influence of the Russian Orthodox Church (including its role in Russian politics in general, its role in Russian foreign policy/international affairs, contributions to EU-Russia relations)?

o What is the nature of religious or church engagement in various social and political institutions in Russia (schools, marriage, military, prisons, etc.)

o Given Russia’s religious diversity, what is the state of inter-group relations on a scale of tolerance-intolerance or accommodated-alienated? Of special interest is the state of adaptation and acceptance of Muslim groups in Russia.

o What are the issues related to religion in the Russian diaspora in the EU (including the Baltic states) and the Russian “Near Abroad” – religious practices, needs; role of Orthodox churches, Eastern orthodoxy in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia?

o How well have Russian practices and policies lived up to European norms regarding religion? What are the European concerns regarding freedom of religion/religious life in Russia? What is the role of various European institutions: ECHR, Council of Europe, European Parliament, OSCE, etc.?

o To what extent have Russian religious groups been active in European governing institutions like those just named? How much do Russians see these institutions as appropriate venues for their own political or politically relevant pursuits?

o How much and in what ways have Russian religious groups expressed their concerns about problems in religious conditions in Europe, excessive secularity in Europe, and the like?

o To what extent and in what ways is the Russian Orthodox Church engaged in a “politics of family values” on the broader European stage? How are common interests with Orthodox churches of the countries of the European Union enlisted in these endeavors, and how are non-Orthodox churches (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, other Protestant churches, etc.) involved with the Russian Orthodox? Are non-Christian groups, especially Jews and Muslims, involved in these efforts?

o Explorations of additional issues in the area of politics and religion related to Russia will be considered for inclusion in the workshop program.

Additional information: Workshop participants may be interested in a conference at the University of Tartu that is scheduled to take place in the week following this workshop. It is the 2012 annual conference of CIHEC, the Commission Internationale d’Histoire et d’etudes du Christianisme. For more information on this conference, see http://www.history.ac.uk/cihec/our-conferences

2 Comments Posted on by katieaston Calls for Papers, News and Events

CFP Comics, Religion & Politics

‘Comics, Religion & Politics’

4-5th September 2012

Lancaster University, UK

Alongside the continued popularity of political themes in comics recent years have also seen the rise of religious themes entering into the medium. The aim of this conference is to explore the relationship between comics, religion and politics in greater depth, to show how through the unique properties of the medium comics have the ability to be as thought-provoking as they are entertaining. The conference will examine the history and impact of religious and political themes, their relationship to audiences, and consider the future of such themes in all forms of sequential art narrative.

We invite papers that address religious and/or political themes in comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, or manga. Papers working at the interface of these two areas are particularly encouraged. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

– Comics as cultural, social, religious, political text

– Use of religious imagery and themes

– Fan culture

– Political cartoons and cartoonists

– Gothic comics

– Comics and magic

– Representation of politics, religion, spirituality

– Religious or political rhetoric of comics and their authors

– Myths, legends, fables

-Depiction of religious figures or politicians as comic characters

– Comics and science fiction

– Comics and propaganda

– Representation of apocalypse, utopia, dystopia

– Representation of war

– Superheroes and religious, political identity

– Theoretical approaches to the study of religion, politics in comics

Contributions are sought from researchers at any stage of their careers. Abstracts (300 words) for papers 20 minutes in length should be sent with a short biography to Emily Laycock (Department of Politics, Philosophy & Religion) at e.laycock@lancaster.ac.uk

 

Emily Laycock, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YL, U.K.

Email: e.laycock@lancaster.ac.uk

or visit the website