September—October 2013 (Vol. 28, No. 11-12)

Estonia is reported to be among the most atheistic of countries, but a study of the Baltic country’s last elections showed that religion is playing a new role in its national identity and politics.

An article in the journal Religion, State & Society (September) by political scientist Alar Kilp argues that the 2011 parliamentary elections showed a trend toward “desecularization” in the country as church buildings became symbols of ethnic and political loyalty and the predominant Lutheran and Russian Orthodox churches reinforced ethnic identity. He notes that desecularization does not necessarily mean an increase in affiliation and religious belief, but it does indicate only that religious objects, buildings and symbols are connected to cultural identity.

During the elections, politicians from the ruling party took part in the opening of St. John’s Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg, Russia, and declared that the church was the center of Estonian culture and its aspirations toward freedom and independence. At about the same time, opposition party leaders took part in ceremonies at a prominent Orthodox church for the country’s Russian population in the capital city of Tallinn. Politicians also publicized their donations to these and other churches during the campaign. While these events “predict the persistence” of political religion in Estonia, such activity is unlikely to spill over into increased religious devotion and affiliation, Kilp concludes.

(Religion, State, and Society, http://www.tandfonline.com.)

While foreign Islamic volunteers in Syria are sometimes well-equipped and fierce fighters, organizations under their control are smaller and seen as foreign elements by most Syrians, who envision the future of their country in terms other than a global struggle, according to Laurent Vinatier (Thomas More Institute, Paris, and Small Arms Survey, Geneva). Vinatier recently presented a lecture at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul, which RW attended. Vinatier’s research has focused on jihadist volunteers coming from the Caucasus (his main area of research). There are currently between 600 and 1,000 jihadists — many Chechens — but others hail from other countries of the Caucasus. Beside them, there are a number of Libyan fighters, as well as jihadists from Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Some of them join local groups, while other ones have their own units.

Foreign jihadists have several motivations for fighting in Syria. All of them cite a hadith (saying) attributed to Muhammad, according to which, on the day where there will be fighting in Yemen, Iraq and Shams (i.e. the Levant, including today’s Syria), fighters will gather there and the caliphate will be (re)established. The jihadists often cite the call to correct injustices suffered by Muslim women and children as a reason for coming there. Moreover, Vinatier also found that fighting in Syria can be viewed as a continuation of a struggle in the jihadists’ home countries. For instance, for Chechens, fighting in Syria is also another way to fight against Russia.

The most important Syrian jihadist group is Ahrar al-Shams. Among foreign jihadist groups, the one that is most often quoted is the Islamic State of Irak and Shams, an Al Qaeda-connected group of Iraqi origin, which has extended its operations to neighboring Syria and includes a number of volunteers with Saudi and Yemeni backgrounds. It includes Syrian fighters, but all commanders are foreigners, which means it is perceived as foreign by the Syrian population. Moreover, the brutality of those foreign fighters and their harsh understanding of sharia (Islamic law) do not always go well along with the feelings of the local (Muslim) population. Thus there is a lack of legitimacy at this point. In addition, while anti-Shiite feelings are widespread among Syrian Sunnis, their goal is to liberate Syria, not to start a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Vinatier concludes.

The willingness of New Agers and members of the alternative healing community—heavily overlapping— to appropriate and refashion Native American and Asian traditions is well known. Now, however, the American metaphysical milieu is a channel for the spread of Mexican-American folk and religious healing to new groups, writes Brett Hendrickson (Lafayette College, Easton, PA) in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (September). At the same time, healers are amending their practices and discourses according to their new popularity. Called curanderismo, Mexican-American healing practices are the result of the colonial encounter between the Spanish and indigenous inhabitants of what is now Mexico and the American Southwest.

There were later inputs of spiritualism, devotion to folk saints, and biomedical knowledge. Herbal remedies, ritual prescriptions, massage and sometimes spirit channeling are part of the healing practices for physical and other problems. There has always been some interaction with white patients in the border region; but Mexican-American healing practices have now begun to find a place in the services offered by both white and Mexican-American metaphysical healers.

Hendrickson traces the roots of such an approach to the romanticization of Indian and Mexican-American spirituality, seeing their religious views as close to unadulterated wisdom.

The fascination for shamanism has paved the way for an opening to Mexican-American healing practices. Summarizing the biography of prominent Mexican-American healer Elena Avila, Hendrickson shows how she emphasized the “Aztec” identity of her teachers, thus endowing her message with the authenticity of a native tradition carrying preconquest knowledge (and downplaying—but not ignoring—the Spanish contribution to curanderismo), and also answering the spiritual demand of white people for Native American wisdom.

Yet, conversations with Mexican and other Latin American healers indicate curanderismo has taken on new features in recent decades, notes Hendrickson.

Going one step further, vocabulary familiar in New Age circles, such as chakras, is now commonly used by Mexican-American healing practitioners for explaining how their system works. Thus has curanderismo become one more product available in the American spiritual marketplace. Some offer it on the Internet (including “distant spiritual cleansing” for payment), beside other techniques, and prices are rising. Courses and workshops are offered for people of non-Mexican-American backgrounds, although some Mexican-Americans resent the fact of losing such a cultural marker. Moreover, not all healers have adjusted to the needs of a multiethnic, metaphysical clientele.

(Journal of the American Academy of Religion, www.aarweb. org/publications/journal-american-academy-religion.)

The heavy involvement in foreign adoptions by American evangelicals, many of whom have developed a “theology of orphans,” may be a factor in increasing cases of abuse and corruption among some adoption agencies and the countries of adoptees, according to recent reports. Journalist Kathryn Joyce has been among those reporting on how “some evangelicals have fueled the global adoption frenzy” and how this has had unintended consequences in the growth of trafficked children, according to an interview in Sojourners magazine (September/October).

Joyce says “adoption has become a powerful metaphor in many evangelical churches studying and preaching what has become known as adoption or orphan theology. Many leaders within the movement teach that earthly adoption is a perfect mirror of Christian adoption by God, and it’s a way “Christians can put their faith into action in a very personal way.”

Leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention churches and Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren have urged Christians to consider adopting children from developing countries, and many of the largest adoption agencies are Christian. Joyce adds that evangelical families often enter the international adoption process without realizing the potential for corruption in agencies and impoverished countries, where children might be coerced from poor but intact families.

In the evangelical magazine Books & Culture (August 26), writer Jonathan Merritt acknowledges that the evangelical partnership on adoption, found in such a group as the Christian Alliance for Orphans, seemed a “perfect match…Evangelicals, who routinely affirm the authority of Scripture, were confronted with unambiguous biblical admonitions to care for the ‘least of these’ and to ‘look after orphans and widows in distress.’

Additionally, the new emphasis on adoption tapped into the group’s opposition to abortion.” Merritt also noted
that the huge swell of evangelical adoptions in many countries during the early 2000s was rife with misinformation (such as exaggerating the actual numbers of orphans) and corruption in “sending-
countries.”

But Merritt argues that Joyce’s reporting of the evangelical adoption movement paints with too wide of a brush. Her portrayal of fringe groups and large home-schooling families, such as those in the conservative “Quiverfull movement” is misleading. It actually represents a small and unrepresentative percentage of evangelicals involved in the issue. He charges that Joyce’s recent book on the subject ignores the work of the evangelical
Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the U.S., which has addressed many of Joyce’s concerns, including safeguarding against child trafficking.

(Sojourners, 3333 14th St. NW, Suite 200. Washington, DC 20010; Books & Culture, 465 Gundersen, Dr., Carol Stream, IL 60188.)

While the name “Kabbalah” may seem to be evocative of one specific spiritual tradition, recent research shows that there is a considerable diversity of what that name is labeled with, writes Gemma Kwantes (University of Amsterdam) in the latest issue of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism (Vol. 13, No. 2, 2013). The academic study of present-day Kabbalah has developed since 2002. It has increasingly questioned the supposed opposition between Kabbalah and modernity. Some authors even claim that Kabbalah has actually been used to introduce modern ways of thinking (individualistic cultural values, eclecticism) in sectors of Orthodox Judaism.

Kabbalistic concepts and symbols are found today in various kinds of conventional Judaism as well as in emerging religious movements. It can be used by Zionist and non-Zionist, Orthodox and more liberal Jews—but as well by non-Jewish spiritual seekers who see it as universal wisdom. Most people teaching Kabbalah have a Jewish background, but they cover an amazingly varied spectrum, from traditional to people uncomfortable with institutional religion. Interestingly, specific examples show that Kabbalah can function both as a mechanism to remove one from the strict barriers of orthodoxy, as well as a mechanism for reintroducing people to it.

Many proponents of Kabbalah claim that it can be understood as science, a perspective that makes it more acceptable to modern audiences. Boundaries are varied: some authors suggest that everyone can benefit from Kabbalah, while others feel it is first intended for Jews who have proper grounding in Talmud and Torah. Some authors advocate a concept of religion in which Kabbalah is seen as corresponding to the “inner content” of each religion.

While Kabbalah often used to be associated with secrecy, it is now transmitted across all possible channels and media, with lessons being broadcast on the Internet. “Surprisingly, such modern media are used by the secular as well as the most orthodox,” Kwantes says.

(Aries http://www.esswe.org.)

While Catholic schools still close regularly, philanthropy plus innovation within independent parochial schools are reviving Catholic education, particularly in inner cities, writes Michael Sean Winters in The Tablet (Sept. 21). In the past decade, some 2,000 U.S. Catholic schools have closed, often in areas serving low-income students.

In cities, such as Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix, where Catholic populations are growing, the demand for Catholic schooling is strong, so the church has found a way—often through scholarship programs—to establish new schools.

Another sign of hope for Catholic schools is the “growing attention they are receiving from Catholic philanthropists,” Winters adds. The group Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA), has a working group of philanthropists from across the country who support innovations to ensure the sustainability of Catholic schools. One network drawing donors’ funding is the Cristo Rey Jesuit schools, which has programs giving students jobs in the business world, with their earnings used to offset tuition costs. Close to 100 percent of the graduates from the 26-school network go on to college. Another independent
Catholic network receiving philanthropic support is the NativityMiguel schools, aimed at middle school students.

Their distinguishing mark is a longer school year and days than public schools plus their high graduation rates (85-90 percent). Such schools are described as a “breakthrough” because they are filling the gap of serving poor students—the same populations facing the closing of Catholic schools, says Stephen Schneck of Catholic University of America’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.