Global Currents Articles

Addressing Global Restrictions on Religion: The Need for Increased Positive Examples from OIC Member States


Despite the expressed hope of many world leaders that the political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 would lead to greater freedoms and fewer religious restrictions for the people of the region, research suggests that the region’s already high level of restrictions on religion have continued to increase in recent years. In a commitment to furthering necessary progress, the OIC should take on an even greater role in coordinating the efforts of the member states in order to protect the religious freedoms of future generations. Read the full article »

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The Secularization Debate in Indonesia and Egypt


MUN’IM SIRRY

Literature on the secularization debate seldom alludes to Muslim discussions of the issue. During the 1970s and 1980s Indonesia and Egypt witnessed public debates involving both proponents and opponents of secularization. While it is difficult to assess the extent of the impact of these public debates, the complexity of Muslim discussions of secularization in Islamic lands, and their engagements with Western scholarship, should not be overlooked. Read the full article »

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From St. Francis to the Pope: Preach the Gospel Always. If Necessary, Use Words


Reading some of the latest conclave buzz this morning, I’m reminded that the cardinals, like the rest of the world, want everything from the new pope. Administrative prowess and soul-throbbing charisma. The persistent plea for the latter half of this combo reveals a misguided optimism: that all we have to do is find the right words to explain ourselves to one another and to the world. Read the full article »

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Pope Benedict XVI: Modern, Not a Modernist


PAOLA BERNARDINI

While Benedict XVI’s sympathetic observers define his act of resignation as “an eruption of modernity inside the Church,” critics point to his “crackdowns on nuns and liberal theologians,” “his outreach to the Lefebvrists” and “his resurrection of the old Latin Mass” as a sign of his conservative legacy. Neither side is completely wrong, nor completely right. For Benedict XVI’s papacy seems to have struck a balance between “the modern” and “the traditional,” in an attempt to avoid the excesses of both modernism and traditionalism. Read the full article »

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The Two Others


Since at least the time of Pope Urban II and the launching of the first Crusade (1096-99), European Catholicism was partly defined in relation to two “others”: the Jews, who were left dispersed as a negative testament for their failure to accept the teachings of Jesus and for their supposed complicity with deicide, constituted the other within; and the Muslims, against whom Christendom came to be articulated cohesively as such, constituted the other without. Recognizing the intricate connections between the Vatican’s relations to both Jews/Israel and Muslims may be pivotal for the ever complex interfaith challenges facing the Church globally. Read the full article »

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Nahdlatul Ulama: Good Governance and Religious Tolerance in Indonesia


Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, has been poorly understood in the West. While most Western political commentators and policy makers absorb an almost daily dose of news or intelligence regarding Islamist extremist organizations or terrorist groups in the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, there is far less information and understanding of Muslim peacemakers, moderate-progressive groups, and organizations that advocate for tolerance and pluralism. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is one of the world’s foremost Muslim associations devoted to the spread of the Islamic message of justice, peace, and tolerance. Read the full article »

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Debating the Status of Women in Tunisia


As noted in a previous post on the Contending Modernities blog by Michael Driessen, post-authoritarian Tunisia has become the site of fascinating debate between contending modernities — one being self-consciously Islamist and democratic and the other being assertively secular and liberal. One battlefield where the conflict is currently fiercest is the status of women.

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Beyond the Myth of Western-Muslim Clash


Since the rise of so-called “Western civilization” and “modernity,” the relationship between “the West” and the “Muslim world” is highly dynamic and unpredictable, marked by a constant ebb and flow. The encounter between the two has been marked by suspicions, tensions, clashes, and violent conflicts, as well as by cooperation and dialogue across these deep plural societies and overlapping cultures. These modernities will continue to be diverse and they will certainly continue to contend with each other. But their ongoing mutual contention and competition will be far less violent and far more fruitful if we can dispense with the destructive essentialisms recently in evidence in both Western and Muslim-majority societies.

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A Case of Imperial Aggression, Not Contending Modernities


There may be examples of a “clash between modernities,” but the recent wave of protests in several Muslim majority countries against the so-called “innocence of Muslims” film was not one of them. Indeed, protests by Muslims should be accepted as part of the process of “negotiating” the appropriate limits of two varieties of free speech. If the movie maker in this case is exercising his right to free speech, so are Muslims who are protesting the excessively vulgar ways in which he expressed his views. But it is equally clear that violence is never justified.

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An Honest Conversation about Benghazi and Beyond


“[T]he events of the last two weeks…speak to the need for all of us to honestly address the tensions between the West and the Arab World…” Those words were spoken by President Obama in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 25, 2012. Indeed, all the events swirling around a crude video insulting the Prophet Muhammad demand an honest conversation about the tensions between the West and the predominantly Muslim cultures of the Arab World — not to mention Muslim cultures beyond the Arab World. A logical forum for such a conversation is Contending Modernities. And the ideal host for such a conversation is Dr. Paola Bernardini, the new Associate Director for Research for Contending Modernities.

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