November—December, 2011 (Vol. 27, No. 1-2)

The growth of orthodox—and in some cases militant—forms of Islam is leading to a belated attempt to manage the new religious pluralism in Kazakhstan. A special section on religion in Kazakhstan in the the journal Central Asia and the Caucasus (Volume 12, Number 3) reports that the delicate balancing act maintained by the Kazakh leaders between the Russian Orthodox Church (representing about one-quarter of the population) and Islam (63 percent) is failing, particularly after extremist incidents took place last summer.

The government has attempted to control Islam through the organization SAMK (Spiritual Administration of Muslim Kazakhstan), which encourages traditional Sufi and moderate expressions of the religion. But the younger generations now gravitate toward orthodox and in some cases extremist Islam. By SAMK’s own estimate, by 2009 only about half of the mosques were under its administration, according to writer Kadyrzhan Smagulov. While religious devotion was previously strongest in rural areas and among ethnic minorities, today religious revival is most prevalent in the large cities and among Kazakhs.

Arab “missionaries” from Saudi Arabia, particularly in the western oil-rich regions of the country, have spread Salafi Islam. The government’s involvement in Islamic financing as an alternative to the weakening Anglo-American model during the economic crisis has also facilitated Islamic growth. The Russian Orthodox Church has also become alienated from the government, at the same time as new Kazakh theologians and their followers are coming into conflict with the official clergy in Russia.

Non-traditional religions—from evangelical Protestantism to Scientology—have likewise grown (from 671 organizations in 1990 up to 4,300 today). Smagulov concludes that these developments have forced the government to pay more attention to religious issues, including regulating non-traditional groups.

(Central Asia and the Caucasus, Press AB, Hubertusstigen 9, 97455 Sweden)

Muslim–Coptic Christian tensions are at their height in Egypt after security forces killed 27 Copt civilians demonstrating peacefully. The October massacre at Maspero—a Cairo neighborhood—is the latest of several cases of violence and repression against Egypt’s Christian minority.

The democratic revolution in Tahir Square was marked by a religious consensus, but since last spring, this interfaith tolerance has given way to sectarian violence and fears of discrimination, write Anthony Banout and Emran El-Badawi in the e-newsletter Sightings (Nov. 3). The violence at Maspero was unleashed against protesters of recent demolitions of several churches in Upper Egypt. The way in which false information about the supposed violence of the demonstrators was spread by state television suggests the “continued role of the federal government—now controlled by the armed forces—to manipulate the religious sensibilities of Egyptians in order fan the flames of sectarian violence,” according to the authors.

The mistrust between the Muslim and Coptic communities may have been heightened “in the wake of a costly revolution and subsequent economic hardship…” Even after redrafting the Egyptian constitution and promising equal citizenship, Copts remain wary; they are not mentioned in the constitution and Islam is still referred to as the religion of the state, with Islamic jurisprudence as the principal source of legislation.

A posture of openess on the part of the current Turkish government toward the Alevis is taking place at the same time that this quasi-Muslim group is experiencing internal divisions regarding their identity in relation to Islam, write Bayram Ali Soner (Izmir University) and Şule Toktaş (Kadir Has University, Istanbul) in the September issue of the journal Turkish Studies.

The Alevis have consistently supported the secular foundations of the Turkish Republic, even as it institutionalized Sunni Islam while keeping it under strict state control. This was welcomed by the Alevis, explain the authors, because it prevented Sunni Islam from dominating the public sphere. However, with the rise of identity politics in Turkey in the 1980s, Alevi circles started to demand communal rights. Clashes, such as the infamous killing of 35 Alevi intellectuals in 1993, reinforced those trends, as did Alevi revivalism in the diaspora.

Due to European Union pressure and Alevi demands, a recognition of Alevi communal identity has emerged. The current government, with its ideological roots in Islam, started with a Sunni view of Alevism, but broader views developed within Islamist intellectual circles. A rapprochement between the government and the Alevis appeared just before the 2007 general elections: several Alevis were nominated by the ruling Justice and Development Party and elected to Parliament. A process of dialogue started in 2008, with a document made public two years later that could pave the road to practical steps in order to meet a number of Alevi expectations.The document defines Alevism as a belief system within Islam. On this issue, Alevis themselves are divided.

Soner and Toktas describe one wing as “traditionalist-religious Alevis” and the other one as “modernist-secularist Alevis.” Members of the first group, headed by the state-friendly Cem Foundation, have a religious understanding of Alevism, which they see as the original version of Islam. On the other hand, the modernist-secularist Alevis emphasize the non-Islamic elements of Alevism and see it as a syncretistic religion outside of Islam; they are gathered under the umbrella Alevi-Bektashi Federation. This second camp tends to support liberal secularism. Both groups agree, however, that Alevism is non-Sunni and thus opposes a Sunni-centric system.

(Turkish Studies, Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Inc., Journals Department, 325 Chestnut Street, 8th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106, www.tandf.co.uk)

Despite the Netherlands’ reputation as a bastion of secularism, a “Bible Belt” of conservative Protestantism has maintained itself in the small nation, which includes a political wing feeling new pressure from the secular right, writes Phillip Jenkins in the Christian Century (October 4).

The Dutch Bible Belt runs from the northeast to the southwest of Holland, representing a substantial portion of the country. Many of the small conservative Calvinist churches that refused to merge into the liberal mainline bodies are represented in these towns, which still observe and in some cases legally enforce the sabbath. In other areas, these churches have taken to American innovations, with megachurches growing in such belt towns as Zwolle and Barneveld.

The traditional “pillars” of Holland, where adherents of different faiths had their own social institutions (such as newspapers, schools and political parties), have long collapsed, except in these Reformed enclaves. As in the U.S., the Dutch Bible Belt has been a base for conservative political activism, from the traditionalist Reformed Political Party to the more open Christian Union, which has taken its communitarian and pro-family message to wider Dutch society.

Jenkins adds that there is concern that such a secular right-wing group as the Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, with its anti-immigrant and anti-Islam platform, will seek to co-opt or “threaten to seduce tradition-minded religious voters.”

(The Christian Century, 407 S. Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60605)

A special section in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet (October 29) reports on the signifiant decline of the “northern Catholic heartlands,” marked by parish closings and mergers, as well as declining membership.

The heartlands, with its two largest dioceses in Liverpool and Lancaster, served a thriving Catholic population that was part Irish and part recusant (families that remained Catholic after the Reformation), but is now facing a dearth of new priests (a 40 percent drop in the number of priests in 10 years) and changes in people’s attitudes to Catholic traditions. In the Lancaster Diocese, 22 parishes have merged since 2009 and 10 others have been linked, while there has only been one ordination this year.

There may well be as many Catholics living in this region as before, but a much larger proportion of them are non-practicing.Recent research by Durham University’s Centre for Catholic studies finds that part of the current problems may stem from the expectations and building projects from the 1931–61 boom period, marked by population growth and a rise in religious vocations. Dioceses have to deal with the legacy of too many buildings, often in the wrong places, and too few priests to serve them.

In response to these changes, there are new initiatives that often take an ecumenical approach, for instancing, borrowing from the Anglicans, who developed a “minister model, which, rather than spreading a pool of ministerial talent thinly across many communities, invests in the creation of a smaller number of beacon parishes as a focus for the evangelization of an area,” write Paul Murray and Marcus Pond. Another article suggests that where parishes have introduced the practice of perpetual adoration of the eucharist, “there has been a noticeable increase in the number of young men considering a vocation.”

(The Tablet, 1 King Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0QZ, UK)

The disestablishment of the Church of Sweden in 2000 has led to a weakening of the national church and, somewhat surprisingly, greater interference in church matters by politicians, according to Thomas Girmalm of Umea University.

In presenting a paper at the SSSR conference, Girmalm noted that the Church of Sweden (COS) had been “too bound up wih the state to be completely free of state control” even after disestablishment. Since disestablishment, there has been an increasing “congregationalist” position of the church, even though such a posture was officially rejected by the COS in 1995. Local church services are increasingly distinct from the national church. This fragmentation within the same church is expressed as “different services for different people,” although it conflicts with traditional compliance with the church service manual.

The church traditionally has two “lines” of authority—the lay line and the bishop line. This double line is now being erased as the authority of bishops is being put into question. At the same time, the lay segment of the church is increasingly represented by local politicians who see themselves as representatives of society. In 2005 the church structure was challenged as being in conflict with a total “democratized organizational structure.”

There is a shift in episcopal leadership from “control to support, resulting in a church where the bishop cannot intervene in its theological life or doctrine.” In such a tranformation, the COS is increasingly viewed as a “guardian of democracy,” with little attention being given to doctrinal limits, according to Girmalm.

Rising government concern about pluralism, social cohesion, and the role of Islam in Europe and Canada has led to the establishment of several large and unprecedented research programs on religion in these nations.

When speaking of this trend at the SSSR meeting, sociologist Grace Davie noted that these national programs have “generated enormous activity and a new generation of scholars, although the research findings have not reached many lay people.” The largest programs include the Religion and Society program in Great Britain, with 75 separate projects; the Future of the Religious Past program in the Netherlands; VEIL in France; Religion, State and Society in Switzerland; the Role of Religion in the Public Sphere in Scandinavia; and Religion and Diversity in Ottawa, Canada.

The European Commission is also funding 22 projects that deal in some way with religion.  There is often a large Islamic component to these programs; for instance, one-third of the projects in the Swiss program concern Muslims, even though they represent four percent of the population. But Davie argues that it is more than Muslim growth that is bringing the millions of euros to fund these programs. From the 1960s religion was largely ignored if not invisible in the public sphere, but in the 1980s and 1990s there was increased visibility to religion, even though it was seen as a “problem to be solved …. Now religion is viewed as a resource to be used,” as in the case of faith-based social services.

But while religion is re-emerging in public debate, the “increasingly religiously illiterate public don’t have a clue to what is happening,” Davie adds. The problem of getting the results of the research from these programs to lay people and religious groups is not helped by the media, which are often more “story-focused” rather than concerned with research, Davie concludes.

A pan-ethnic identity is developing among Roma people, often with the help of evangelical and especially Pentecostal churches.

Our recent study of a Spanish neighborhood with a high percentage of native Spanish Gitanos and Roma immigrants from Eastern Europe found how everyday interactions and involvement in Pentecostal churches give rise to a common identity. Previous research has identified a common identity in the case of Roma political leaders and activists in Europe, while emphasizing existing differences among Roma ethnic subgroups. In recent years, Western Europe has been transformed by its reception of migrants from Eastern Europe, who included a significant proportion of Roma people.

In our fieldwork, we observed that people from both subgroups not only shared a common identification as Roma, which is promoted by the mainstream society and media, but they also shared narratives through their involvement in Pentacostal congregations, such as the Philadelphia Church and the Church of the Open Bible. Both churches located in the barrio adapted rituals to the needs of Gitanos, while building ties with Roma immigrants as soon as they arrived, serving both groups within the same buildings.

The new Roma immigrants also sought help from the churches’ pastors and other members of the community in renting a place to live and tackling bureaucratic formalities; these churches thus provide services that other mainstream institutions and churches do not offer. Roma Pentecostalism emerged in Spain during the 1960s through the influence of French Roma pastors. Although initially it faced difficulties due to the Franco dictatorship, Pentecostalism grew during the 1980s and 1990s because it successfully adapted Roma cultural traits and music. By 2004 there were an estimated 150,000 Roma Pentecostals, comprising 10–15 percent of Roma people in the country, according to the Spanish Federation of Evangelical Churches.

Even those Gitano and Roma immigrants in the neighborhood not participating in political organizations tend to adopt this common Roma identity. They are influenced not only by media and images from mainstream society that encourage them to be part of the same group, but also by their daily interactions with evangelical churches and with pastors who through their services offer support to all Roma people. Thus, a common identity is being constructed for converts and non-converts through their interactions in churches and in the neighborhood.

— By Òscar Prieto-Flores, a sociologist at the Universitat de Girona, and Teresa Sordé Martí, a sociologist at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. A different and longer version of this article appeared in the journal Ethnicities.

A new Vatican document calling for reform of the world’s economic and monetary system suggests the rising influence of the global South church in Catholic social thought, writes John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter (Nov. 11–24).

The document, entitled “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority,” received wide notice for its critique of free market or neoliberal economic principles and its call for a world governing structure and a central world bank. Conservative critics dismissed the statement as coming from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, a department with little clout with the pope, and as a throwback to failed socialism.

But Allen writes that even without papal infuence, the document bears a striking resemblance to the social thinking that has come out of previous documents from global South church leaders. “It’s fitting that the Vatican official responsible for the document is an African, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, because it articulates key elements of what almost might be called a ‘Southern consensus.’”

(National Catholic Reporter, http://www.ncronline.org)

The Occupy Wall Street movement has re-energized congregations and other religious groups on the left side of the spectrum and antagonized those on the right, but so far there are few signs that it is having a broad impact in American religion.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly (October 28) reported that a “growing number of leaders from across the religious spectrum have been supporting Occupy Wall Street’s protest against greed and economic inequality.” Yet it is clearly mainline Protestant and liberal movements of Catholicism, Judaism and other faiths that have most strongly made their presence felt at the various protest sites.

Interfaith prayer services and the support provided by “protest chaplains,” usually seminarians, have been the main corporate religious activities at the protest sites. Religious organizations and congregations have also provided practical assistance to the protesters, such as donating tents, food, money and even shelter when protesters were forced out of the park in New York.

The religious left blog Religion Dispatches (November 4) reports that there are “cross-pollinations that exceed interfaith politics, and to which some faithful 99%ers may be opposed.” A makeshift “community altar” has been set up in New York’s Zuccotti Park, where protesters of all faiths come to pray or meditate before images of Ghandi, Alex Grey, John the Baptist and Kwan-Yin. At the Occupy Boston site, there is a “Sacred Space” tent that invites meditation between a Buddha statue and a picture of Christ. Occupy Phoenix built an improvised shrine where First Nations traditions interact with Catholicism and Neo-Paganism.

(Religion Dispatches, http://www.religiondispatches.org)

While rumors of the Christian right’s demise are regularly invoked by the media and pundits, such obituaries are just as easily revoked as the U.S. presidential campaign season approaches.

This is not to say that the Christian right has not changed: in 2011 conservative Christian activism appears more localized and attuned to charismatic and Pentecostal sensibilities than in the past. The conservative evangelical weekly World (October 22) reports that in such a highly politicized state as Iowa, churches were roused to political activism by hate-speech legislation that was feared would constrain what may be preached from the pulpit. Three Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled with the majority were voted off the bench, bringing a new confidence to pastors.

Outside of Iowa, pastors are increasingly heeding the call to speak out on politics. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention describes the emerging national movement of activist pastors as a “congregational version of the tea party.”But it is in the Pentecostal and charismatic milieu where the promise—or temptations—of political activism is mostly strongly felt. The November issue of Charisma magazine is devoted to Pentecostals and politics, noting that current Republican candidates Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry are appealing to Pentecostals, who are “prone to like authoritative candidates who speak with the same authority of a traditional Pentecostal preacher.” Charismatics tend to be more open than other Christians to minority candidates, such as Herman Cain.

But the current political season has particularly reinforced the feeling of bigotry against Pentecostals, writes John Stemberger. The article points to media attacks against “Pentecostal-friendly” candidates and their connections to a shadowy movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).Stemberger writes that the NAR, often associated with charismatic teacher Peter Wagner, has been compared to a Christian “jihadist” movement. When the NAR refers to concepts such as the “seven mountain” strategy of asserting Christian influence in various spheres of society, it is wrongly accused of pressing for a Christian government.

But he adds that Pentecostals and charismatics may make themselves targets of media criticism and derision with their tendency to run their churches with “singular authority” that is backed up with questionable prophetic teachings. Stemberger concludes that emerging charismatic leaders in politics, such as Samuel Rodriguez and Bishop Harry Jackson, defy an across-the-board Republican agenda, such as on immigration, and appeal to non-charismatics. Other influential leaders who have mobilized charismatics include Rick Joyner (who founded the Oak Initiative); charismatic prayer leader Lou Engle; Jim Garlow, who rallied thousands to defeat the California gay marriage initiative; and Rod Parsley of the Center for Moral Clarity.

(World, P.O. Box 20002, Asheville, NC 28802-9998; Charisma, 600 Rhinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746)