September, 2006 (Vol. 21, No. 11)

The Alevis, a Turkish-based group long considered part of Islam though with heterodox leanings, are undergoing changes in their identity due to developments in Turkey and the diaspora, reports Martin Eichhorn in the August issue of Materialdienst der EZW. Germany plays a key role in that evolution. According to 2004 statistics, there are 410,000 Alevis in Germany (while they make up 20 percent of the Muslims in Turkey). The first Alevi associations in Germany had been founded in the 1970s, but they were close to Turkish political parties, and religious activities only played a minor role; quite often, Alevis in the diaspora continued to keep their Alevi identity hidden from the Sunni majority.

But the Alevi dimension came more and more to the foreground in the 1980s, as reflected in the growing use of “Alevi” in the names of local groups. In 1991, a national organization was launched, gathering 10 regional centers. Alevis in Germany also were influential in the founding of an Alevi Union of Europe in 2002. It represents a total of 170 groups and one million faithful. Since major religious bodies may have religious teaching arranged for them in German, the issue of offering separate Alevi religious teachings has become a major issue.

Religious teaching for Alevis has already been introduced in Berlin. Four other German Laender (federal States) have agreed to introduce teaching of the Alevi religion. This means that tens of thousands of Alevi children will receive their own religious teachings in the schools. Developments in the diaspora are bound to give further impetus to affirming an Alevi identity clearly separate from that of Sunni Islam within Turkey itself. The process of rapprochement between Turkey and the European Union, with associated requirements for membership, should also help Alevi claims for a separate identity to be accepted by the Turkish government.

(Materialdienst der EZW, Auguststrasse 80, 10117 Berlin, Germany;http://www.ezw-berlin.de) — By Jean-Francois Mayer

The destruction of a Mandaean temple in the al-Ahshar district of Basra (Iraq) by Shi’ite guerillas on June 28 was the latest in a long series of attacks since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, writes C.G. Haberl in the August issue (No.4) of the online newsletter The Arab Washingtonian. Mandaeans are the descendents of an ancient, pre-Islamic Gnostic sect, which recognizes John the Baptist as its main prophet and uses an ancient form of Aramaic. Mandaeans (also called Sabeans) are mentioned in the Quran, and thus considered by Islam as belonging to the “people of the book” alongside with Christianity and Judaism, and therefore enjoyed the same right to protection.

Mandaeans – also present in smaller number in Iran – used to live in harmony with their neighbors in Iraq. However, soon after the Americans seized control, the leader of the Shi’ite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq issued a fatwa declaring the Mandaeans to be unclean – despite a fatwa to the contrary by Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mandaeans have been facing persecution ever since.

Many Mandaeans are reported to have fled the country, including members of the clergy. According to a human rights organization, out of 30,000 members, only 13,000 still remain and are under constant threat. In a recent development, the Mandaean community is reported to have applied for asylum in Kurdistan. Some observers are unconvinced that this would offer them lasting security, and Mandaeans might have no other option than to flee the country. “Whether they come to Kurdistan or emigrate elsewhere, the history of the Mandaeans in southern Iraq is coming to an end,” writes Haberl.

(http://www.arabwashingtonian.org)

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

Just as the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland has grown less violent if still persisting, historic sectarian tensions in Scotland appear to be subsiding.

The Tablet of London (Aug. 4) reports that in both countries, the Protestant Orange orders’ traditional anti-Catholic edge has been dulled. In Northern Ireland, the government has proposed turning the annual Orange march into communal festivals open to everyone. In Scotland, the Orange Lodges have devised a scheme where young people from Protestant backgrounds are introduced to youth from Catholic and other backgrounds.

But crucial to Scotland’s diminishing conflict is the public acknowledgement that the problem existed. Persistent attacks on the Scottish Catholic school system were represented as liberal and anti-sectarian when they were more likely driven by anti-Catholic prejudice. Only when the prejudice was acknowledged could the full force of peer-group pressure be mobilized to stop it. The article adds that there is still a denial of sectarianism in Scottish politics, and a continuing need for open dialogue on the issue.

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

The Democratic Union Party (DUP), now the largest political party in Northern Ireland, has distanced itself from much of its fundamentalist past and is accommodating a more pragmatic wing, according to Gladys Ganiel of Trinity College, Dublin.

In a paper presented at the meeting of the ASR, she traced how the DUP has changed from once being the right-wing political bastion of fundamentalist leader Ian Paisely to a party that has a growing secular and pragmatic wing under the leadership of Peter Robinson. The DUP has shifted away from evangelical issues and will compromise on peripheral issues, such as Sabbath observance. Today the fundamentalist or Paisleyite segment is seen more as a lobby within the DUP than its core element, functioning similar to the way the Christian Coalition works with the Republican Party in the U.S.

But Ganiel concluded that even as the DUP tries to appeal to a wider base, it still has a strong anti-Catholic element that makes it difficult to accommodate Sinn Fein and republicanism. The DUP’s intransigence on social and moral issues could be seen in its refusal to sign the Belfast peace agreement and its opposition to releasing political prisoners without their repenting of their actions.

Known for its strict segregation of the sexes, ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israel is undergoing a notable change in gender relations, according to a researcher at Hebrew University.

A paper by Nurit Stadler presented at the meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) finds that the image of Heredi, or ultra-Orthodox, Jewish men spending more time with their studies than with their families is giving way to a more egalitarian family model. In traditional Heredi writings, women tending their homes and families is seen as a way to gain awards in the world to come. In her research, Stadler found in popular books and other media a new emphasis on men to providing emotional support to their wives and children and on being aware of womens’ psychological needs and desires.

Such a process of domestication is in effect redefining fatherhood and motherhood in the Haredi community, she concluded.

There is a growing alliance between social conservatives made up largely of evangelicals and Catholics and the new Conservative Party in power in Canada, reports Religion in the News (Summer). Although the emergence of a religious right and culture wars in the mold of the U.S. is unlikely in Canada, the election of Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper as Prime Minister has created an opening for conservative Christian voters to roll back liberal measures that have been introduced in the country, writes Dennis Hoover. The most likely rallying point is over gay marriage, which the Liberal government endorsed last year, though it was already legal in several provinces.

The gay marriage issue “provoked an unprecedented level of activism from Canada’s growing network of social conservative advocacy groups,” including the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Equipping Christians for the Public Square, and Canada Family Action. Some of these groups “entered the fray in the recent election,” and it was found that at least eight new Conservative candidates had secured their nominations with the support of conservative religious organizations.

In fact, the Conservative’s stronger showing at the polls in 2006 was partly due to the religious vote. Two-thirds of Protestants who attend church voted for the Conservatives–jumping 25 percent from the 2004 elections, according to Andrew Grenville, a leading Canadian religion pollster. Grenville also found that for the first time ever, church-going Catholics voted more Conservative (42 percent) than Liberal (40 percent). Hoover concludes that so far Harper has not been too eager to fan the flames of the culture wars, but the renewed Christian activism gathering around him may serve to at least block further initiatives by the left, such as legalizing prostitution.

(Religion in the News, Leonard Greenberg Center, Trinity College, 300 Summit St., Hartford, CT 06106; http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl)

Buddhist immigrants are downplaying the ethnic elements of their faith and stressing its affinity to modernity and science in order to counteract the widespread conversions to Christianity in their community.

This change of emphasis and strategy is most apparent among Taiwanese Buddhists in the U.S, according to researcher Carolyn Chen of Northwestern University. Chen delivered a paper on this development at the early August meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in Montreal attended byRW. Chen notes that just as the majority of Taiwanese convert to Christianity after they arrive in the U.S., most Buddhists only begin practicing the religion after they immigrate.

She adds that the “true” Buddhism these immigrants take up is shorn of its Chinese ethnic elements and what are seen as “superstitious” practices and traditions. Rather, Taiwanese immigrants emphasize the scientific and rational nature of their faith, contrasting it with what they see as the Christian emphasis on tradition.

“They say Buddhism is the most scientific and wants you to think for yourself. Other religions require faith,” Chen said. She concludes that these immigrants are not using religion as a barrier against assimilation, but rather redefine the religion in a “cultural way to make it scientific and to differentiate themselves against Christian Taiwanese.”

Calvinism continues to grow in evangelical institutions and denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, especially softer strains of the faith that emphasize spirituality as much as doctrine. The gravitation of evangelicals toward the Reformed tradition, both in theology and political thinking, has been taking place [and noted in RW] for well over a decade.

Christianity Today (September) reports that the most recent wave of interest in Reformed theology is found among young evangelicals in Southern Baptist, charismatic and “seeker“-based churches who are attracted to the in-depth doctrine and a firm sense of God’s sovereignty over all of life. In fact, the leaders of the current movement are mostly outside of the traditional conservative Presbyterian orbit–Baptist preacher John Piper, Joshua Harris, pastor of the charismatic New Life Covenant Church, Gaithersburg, MD, and Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. Although differing on such issues as charismatic gifts and church government, the young Calvinists seem especially captivated by the spirituality of the Puritans and the works of such Reformed forefathers as Jonathan Edwards and Charles H. Spurgeon.

(Christianity Today, 465 Gundersen Dr., Carol Stream, IL 60187)

The Da Vinci Code is only one of several “new traditions” that are currently circulating about Jesus and finding large followings among spiritual seekers. In a paper presented at the conference of the Center for the Study of New Religions (known as CESNUR) in San Diego in July, Reender Kranenborg of the Free University of Amsterdam finds several new kinds of traditions or teachings about Jesus in the spiritual marketplace, including:

01: The infancy gospels, circulating since the 2nd century, intend to fill in the “missing years” of Jesus’ childhood, and usually gather a small but devoted following around a teacher claiming to channel Jesus for such knowledge.
02: The tradition of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is among the most popular, including the Da Vinci Code as well as other works claiming the centrality of the role of Mary Magdalene and the journey of Jesus to France.

03: The esoteric tradition is based on the view that Jesus was a Gnostic master or teacher of secret wisdom, a view closely associated with Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code, though Brown‘s linkage of Gnosticism with the principle of the “sacred feminine“ has little to do with the historic Gnostic tradition.

04: The tradition of Jesus journeying to India to give esoteric teachings has also been around for a century, but it has gained new currency with the publication of recent books on the topic.

05: The Tradition of Jesus as a Precursor to Muhammad is actually from a late-dated (17th century) Book of Barnabas, but many Muslims cite it as a true gospel to counter Christian claims. Most of the above traditions have been found to contain more historical inaccuracies than the traditional Christian gospels. But Kranenborg writes that they are popular today because they stress spiritual experience and personal enlightenment over adherence to traditional Christian dogma, and they give greater prominence to the place to the position of women in early Christianity.

A new breed of mainline Protestant congregations are growing by taking a countercultural stance in American society. That is the provocative plot-line running through the new book Christianity for the Rest of Us (Harper SanFrancisco $23.95) by Diana Butler Bass.

The book is the result of a three-year study of what Bass calls “intentional” or “practicing” churches in moderate and liberal Protestant denominations which, she asserts, are confounding forecasts of inevitable mainline decline by showing growth and vitality. Although Bass makes no attempt to show that the 50 churches studied are representative of this movement, she maintains that they are models of an important trend in the mainline.

In interviewing members of the churches she studied, Bass finds that many were not brought up in these churches; many are ex-Catholics and ex-evangelicals. The theme of finding an “authentic” faith for oneself rather than one inherited by birth is common in members’ accounts, as is the concept of being on a spiritual quest and yet finding a communal “home.” The cultivation of spiritual practices also sets these congregations apart from others. Such practices as contemplation, hospitality and worship–often of a liturgical mode–are valued for the spiritual experiences and community they generate.

Likewise, the call for social justice is often seen as a communal practice with a spiritual component. Bass writes that in the congregations she studied, there is a “nearly wholesale rejection of the definition of politics as systemic change and policy platforms” in favor of “personal politics” and volunteerism. These churches clearly portray themselves as politically and socially marginal and criticize the Christian right for becoming the new establishment in American society.

Bass agrees that mainline denominations are in decline, but argues that this is the case because bureaucratic institutions cannot embody the communal and spiritual practices that are the driving forces of intentional congregations. These congregations appear to value the broad traditions (for instance, the Reformed tradition for Presbyterians) of their denominations but not the denominations themselves (making them “post-denominational”).

Bass doesn’t explore how the younger “second generation” members of these intentional mainline churches are faring; are they keeping younger members who are raised in these churches? As with the “emerging church” movement (which shows many similarities to intentional mainline churches), it remains to be seen how well these new style mainline congregations can socialize the young and embed their innovations in new structures and networks.