May, 2005 (Vol. 20, No. 7)

Popular Internet portals in China were flooded with comments and prayers about the pope on the day his death was announced, but they all had disappeared two days later, reports AFP (April 4).

The companies running the website confirmed the censorship, enforced through the use of sophisticated technology, claiming that “religious issues are special” and potential problems related to them should be prevented.

Coincidentally, a report on Internet filtering in China in 2004-2005 was released on April 14. The result of a collaborative partnership between the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School, and the University of Cambridge, the issue appears to be a complex one, since China’s filtering regime is reported to be conducted at various control points, in contrast with the practice of other countries attempting to filter Internet content. The researchers tested e-mail filtering on sensitive topics, including religious persecution.

According to the results, filtering takes place, but is not consistent across different service providers. Religious persecution (which would include arrests of Tibetan monks or Falun Gong followers) is only one of the issues which Chinese Internet managers attempt to censure. According to the researchers, “China makes a systematic, comprehensive, and frequently successful effort to limit the ability of its citizens to access and to post online content the state considers sensitive.”

What is especially of concern to them is the increased sophistication of Chinese Internet filtering, considering that China will soon become the country with the most Internet users in the world. With the most extensive and sophisticated Internet control system in the world, the researchers think that China’s efforts might become a model for other countries attempting to filter Internet content – for political or religious reasons.

(OpenNet Initiative: http://www.opennetinitiative.net)

— By Jean-Francois Mayer
 

The trajectory of radical, “jihadist” Islamic groups indicates that they will increasingly target wider categories of groups, including Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, perhaps limiting their appeal in the Muslim world, writes Quintan Wiktorowicz in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (March).

The radicals belong to one segment of the Salafi or Wahabbi movement in Islam, which stresses returning to a purified Islam but is divided on the use of violence to achieve its aims. Both the  jihadists and those taking a non-violent position in the movement use the same texts and teachings, but the former camp has developed new understandings about how such principles as “defense against agression,” and “civilians” are operative in the contemporary period.

The most well-known division among Salafis is over the use of the term jihad (or “struggle”), with the extremists, such as those associated with Al Queda, going well beyond the traditional understanding that battle with non-Muslims is only pemitted as a defense against an outside force invading Muslim territory.

Wiktorowicz writes that even by the late-1990s, the extremists agreed with the non-violent Salafis that violence should never be used against fellow Muslims, though they had little problems with killing non-Muslim non-combatants. By September 11, even that prohibtion was dropped, as jihadists argued that any one who cooperated with a non-Muslim enemy (the U.S. in this case) should be targeted since they are technically no longer non-combatants.

The extremists have continued to broaden their use of violence since 9/11, as can be seen in recent attacks against the Shi’ite Muslim communities of Pakistan. Wiktorowicz concludes that “More attacks might also be expected against others in the Sunni community, in addition to state officials and government personnel…In the end, this may erode popular support for Al Queda, as increased violence did to [radical groups] in Algeria, but in the meantime, more groups of people will likely find themselves on the jihadi list of legitimate targets.”

(Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 1200 South Hayes, Arlington, VA 22202-5050)

While religious consumerism is a global force, the mixing of  religion organizations and practices with economic goods and services is no metaphor in Russia. In the journal Religion, State and Society (March), anthropologist Melissa L. Caldwell writes that religion has been divorced from spirituality in an unusual way in Russia; it is not only that seekers have ventured outside religious institutions but also that many value both traditional churches and new religious movements more for their material and practical benefits than for their spiritual beliefs and practices.

Caldwell studied churches and new religious groups in Moscow, particularly focusing on an English-speaking international church.  The Russian members of this church rarely expressed direct professions of personal faith, and instead focus on the material assistance they received by attending. In contrast, the African members spoke openly of their personal spiritual journeys as the reason for attending.

Caldwell finds similar utilitarian motives–ranging from desiring to learn a new language and finding job contacts to seeking practical advice on relationships and family matters or just getting food–among those attending a Hare Krishna temples, Orthodox churches and patronizing the growing numbers of healers.

Members of one church may also seek the benefits and services of other congregations, even if they are from other denominations. Caldwell also found Orthodox clergy and followers who are publicly participating in and offering alternative healing practices (although she is not certain of the extent of such involvement throughout the country), illustrating how “religion may be transformed into a service or commodity.” Such pragmatic factors should not be ignored in seeking to explain Russia’s religious revival, Caldwell concludes.

(Religion, State & Society, Keston Institute, 38 St. Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1BN UK)

Few events in recent years have demonstrated as strongly the lasting impact of religion in a supposedly secularized world as the passing away of Pope John Paul II. Every news channel and print media devoted extensive coverage to the event as well as to the election of Benedict XVI. The events affecting the Roman Catholic Church in April have also revealed how much has changed over the recent decades in the field of interfaith relations.

The harshest criticism of the late pope probably had come from American Catholics, while evangelicals expressed a much more positive assessment, observed Ted Olsen on Christianity Today‘s website (April 5, 2005). Olsen quoted a poll of evangelicals conducted by PBS’sReligion and Ethics Newsweekly, which revealed that a higher percentage among evangelicals expressed warm feelings toward John Paul II than toward Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell.

John Paul’s championship of pro-life and pro-family stances especially impressed Evangelicals. Several obituaries in Evangelical media described him as an ally against the forces of secularism and theological liberalism. Praise for the late pope came from an even more unexpected corner. According to ISKCON inside sources, some Krishna devotees around the world paid visits to Roman Catholic churches in order to pay hommage to the deceased pope. ISKCON sent a letter of condolence (posted onIskcon.com), describing the passing of John Paul II as a great loss “to all people of faith”. As with the evangelicals, ISKCON representatives praised the Pope’s defence of “the dignity and sanctity of human life.” ISKCON also appreciated John Paul’s call “for dialogue between faiths.”

Although it has been little noticed by outsiders, in 2004 the Oxford-based ISKCON Interfaith Commission published its first document (authorized by the group’s Executive Committee) on interfaith relations. The document recognizes that “no one religion holds a monopoly on truth” and encourages ISKCON’s members to respect “people of faith from other traditions”.

It emphasizes that it is not meant to deny ISKCON’s missionary spirit: but it says that ISKCON’s missionary activities are “not governed by an exclusivist conversion model.” The document also contains guidelines for ISKCON’s members on such issues and responses from people of other faiths.

— By Jean-Francois Mayer, RW Contributing Editor and founder of the website Religioscope (http://www.religion.info)

The popular wisdom surrounding the election of Pope Benedict XVI is that it is too early to speculate much about his papacy.

Even the former Cardinal Ratzinger’s recent record as the gatekeeper of church doctrine may not mean as much in his broader and more pastoral role as the universal shepherd of the world’s Catholics.  Nevetheless, observers note that Benedict’s papacy will likely be marked by both continuity and change. At a recent symposium on the Benedict papacy and its significance for Germany at New York University attended by RW, participants were mainly positive about the cultural significance of the election.

Hubert Kohl, Germany’s cultural minister to the U.S., said the election will help the nation’s image abroad, showing non-Germans that a “conservative intellectual can come from Germany.” He added that Benedict’s leadership style may reflect Bavarian Catholicism: “tough on principles but more flexible in practice.”

But Peter Steinfels, religion writer for the New York Times,  added that Benedict’s theological writings are heavily German, often carrying few non-German references, and are preoccupied with ideas to the exclusion of first hand experience, perhaps hampering a down-to-earth approach in his papacy. Steinfels noted that the name the new pope took can be read in several ways. Benedict, taken from the founder of the monastic order, can mean hospitality, or it could refer to the role of the saint in fending off the dark ages by creating islands of Christianity .

The former Cardinal Ratzinger’s writings and interviews have stressed the creation and maintenance of small groups as remnants of Christianity in secularized societies. Steinfels noted that other writings have stressed the mystical and communal nature of the church and are critical of its bureaucratic dimension. Britain’s The Tablet  magazine (April 23) forecasts that it will be the problems stemming from the curial bureaucracy that Benedict will first address. He has indicated, quietly, that “some form of decentralization of authority must be taken for the future good,” writes Robert Mickens.

Because Pope John Paul II left a number of top Vatican officials in their post well past retirement age, “Benedict XVI will have a much greater freedom in replacing these officials without having to resort to power politics and causing dissent in the Roman curia.” The choices made in replacing the Vatican Secretary of State and the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be an “important signal of the way the new pope chooses to exercise his ministry.”

Back at the NYU symposium, Steinfels said that another indicator of the direction of Benedict’s papacy will be next fall’s World Synod of Bishops (far more than the much publicized World Youth Day). “If he revises procedures [to allow] for more open discussions, rather than restricting [them], that would be a good sign of a  `listening papacy.'”

Another speaker, New School sociologist Jose Casanova, added that a sign of Benedict’s commitment to giving greater freedom to the world’s bishops and their national and regional conferences may also be seen if  Latin American bishops are permitted to hold their 1996 gathering in Latin America rather than in Rome.

Meanwhile, Benedict’s commitment to battling secularism in Europe–evident long before he became pope– was clearly on display in the Vatican’s tough response to Spain same-sex marriage bill. The Wall Street Journal (April 28)  reports that the bill, which would allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, was met with a Vatican rebuke and an unusual call for civil servants to resist implementing the measure through civil disobedience.

The article adds that the “response surprised many church observers, who wonder if this marks the beginning of a more aggressive response to creeping secularism, which Pope Benedict has described as one of the greatest evils facing Europe.”