Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités

Recent events - from strife in Tibet and the rapid growth of Christianity in to the spectacular expansion of Chinese Buddhist organizations around the globe - vividly demonstrate that one cannot understand the modern Chinese world without attending closely to the question of religion. The Religious Question in Modern China highlights parallels and contrasts between historical events, political regimes, and cultural movements to explore how religion has challenged and responded to secular Chinese modernity, from 1898 to the present. Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer piece together the puzzle of religion in not by looking separately at different religions in different contexts, but by writing a unified story of how religion has shaped, and in turn been shaped by, modern Chinese society. From Chinese medicine and the martial arts to communal temple cults and revivalist redemptive societies, the authors demonstrate that from the nineteenth century onward, as the Chinese state shifted, the religious landscape consistently resurfaced in a bewildering variety of old and new forms. The Religious Question in Modern China integrates historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives in a comprehensive overview of China's religious history that is certain to become an indispensable reference for specialists and students alike.

This book is the initial outcome of the REDCo-project, Religion in Education: A contribution to Dialogue or a factor of Conflict in transforming societies of European countries. The REDCo project (2006-2009) is the first major research project on religion and education to be funded by the European Commission. The project includes ten studies from eight different European countries, plus some collaborative thematic studies. This volume reports the first thematic study, which assesses current issues in religious education and related fields in Europe.

This article proposes a general model of analysis of the relations between religion and modernity, where modernity is conceived as a new axial age. Modernity appears to have four principal types of religious effects: decline, adaptation and reinterpretation, conservative reaction, and innovation. It produces secularization as well as new religious forms, in particular: worldliness, dehierarchization of the human and the divine, self-spirituality, parascientificity, pluralism, and mobility. Two thresholds of secularization are distinguished: (1) autonomization in relation to a religious authority and (2) abandonment of any religious symbol. I conclude that the first threshold has largely been crossed, but not the second one, except in some domains (science, economics) or for only a minority of the population. This is because of the adaptation of the great religions to modernity, of fundamentalist reactions, and of the spread of new religious forms.

On July 10, 1898, the reformist leader Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927) memorialized the throne proposing that all academies and temples in China, with the exception of those included in registers of state sacrifices (sidian 祀典), be turned into schools. The Guangxu emperor was so pleased with the proposal that he promulgated an edict (shangyu 上諭) the same day taking over Kang’s phrasing. On three occasions in the following weeks, the editorial in the famous Shanghai daily Shenbao 申報 discussed the edict not as a piece of legislation aiming at facilitating the creation ex nihilo of a nationwide network of public schools, but as the declaration of a religious reform, that is, a change in religious policy that would rid China of temple cults and their specialists, Buddhists, Taoists, and spirit-mediums. This it was, indeed, although both Chinese and Western historiography have so far usually neglected to appreciate the importance of the religious element in the so-called Wuxu reforms (June 11–September 21, 1898) and later modernist policies. This importance, as we will see, can be gauged both in the writings of some of the reformist leaders, and among the populations concerned by the practical consequences.

The 1981 and 1990 European Values surveys largely supported the thesis of increasing secularisation in Western Europe. Almost all the variables showed a religious decline, which was even deeper among young people, except for beliefs in an afterlife. Peter Berger and Grace Davie have underlined the ‘European exception’ in contrast to the rest of the world. However, the last survey in 1999 revealed significant changes. The downward trend is now counterbalanced by two new tendencies: a Christian renewal and the development of religiosity without belonging, especially among young people. In particular, beliefs in an afterlife are spreading. These tendencies vary according to country. Post-socialist Europe shows an even more developed religious renewal, in particular among the young.

Les premiers sociologues, parce qu’ils s’interrogeaient sur la societe moderne, ont ete conduits a etudier les phenomenes religieux, en particulier les changements que la modernite impliquait pour la religion. Le regard sociologique sur l’univers religieux n’a cesse depuis de se renouveler et de s’enrichir. En dressant un tableau des diverses approches depuis Weber et Durkheim jusqu’aux questionnements les plus contemporains sur la secularisation, les integrismes et progressismes…, cet ouvrage montre que les religions sont des faits sociaux dont l’analyse permet de mieux comprendre les societes et leurs evolutions.

When theories of secularisation came to the forefront in the 1960s and 1970s, western religious evolution appeared to be The Decline of the Sacred in Industrial Society, especially in Europe. It is well known that the last thirty years have further complicated this pattern. We have witnessed the rise of the NRMs (New Religious Movements), the expansion of Pentecostal, Evangelical and Charismatic tendencies (throughout Christianity), the worldwide success of Pope John Paul II, the diffusion of parallel beliefs (astrology, telepathy, near death experiences, and so on), the development of religious fundamentalism, although essentially in the non-western world (especially the Islamic countries), and the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. Now we speak of desecularisation and the recomposition of religion. Meanwhile, in western Europe, the erosion of religious belonging paradoxically continues and the secularisation thesis remains the only master narrative, as Jeffrey Cox observes. But how can we explain both of these tendencies?

En sociologie des religions, le concept de sécularisation a longtemps constitué un paradigme interprétatif central désignant de diverses manières un processus de perte d’influence sociale de la religion dans les sociétés modernes. Malgré ses connotations idéologiques associant la progression de la modernité à la diminution de la religion, malgré le fait que les États-Unis entraient difficilement dans ce schéma, le paradigme trouvait une validation empirique dans les données européennes attestant la baisse des appartenances et des pratiques religieuses. Cela n’a pas empêché, dès les années soixante, une discussion critique de ce concept, certains allant même jusqu’à y voir « un mythe sociologique ». La remise en cause du paradigme s’est accentuée depuis les années quatre-vingt-dix et l’on parle aujourd’hui plus volontiers d’« exception européenne » que d’exception états-unienne. C’est à l’examen de ces discussions que cette contribution est consacrée. Il se termine par une reformulation du concept où il apparaît que l’ultramodernité contemporaine associe sécularisation de la modernité et reconfiguration du religieux.

Abstract Orthodox Christianity and the legacy of the Byzantium are integral parts of Greek national identity. As the only Orthodox member state of the European Union Greece has been involved in a controversy of the inclusion of religion on identity cards. The statutory position of the mention of religion on official documents was recently changed by the socialist government, which enacted a privacy act omitting the declaration of faith, occupation or family status from newly issued state identity cards. Archbishop Christodoulos, who represents the Church of Greece and has undertaken a rigorous campaign of defending the Greek Orthodox tradition against the forces of globalisation, has strongly reaffirmed the right of citizens to specify their faith on identity cards. The article is a pilot study presenting a content analysis of the controversy by examining Greek and non-Greek perspectives on the issue, as they are expressed in a sample of Greek and international newspaper articles. The author analyses the different arguments and opinions of the conflict and explores the key themes raised by the controversy, namely the challenges and tensions posed by Greece's Church and State model, increasing religious diversity, and its dual, western and eastern, heritage.

Throughout the 20th century, Chinese religion has undergone a process of massive destruction, which historiography has so far largely ignored. Traditional relations between the state, society and religion broke down around 1898. This break led within a few decades to the destruction of most Chinese temples. The western notion of “religion” upon which both Nationalist and Communist China built their religious policies separated legitimate forms of religion (world religions) from local cults considered as folklore and superstition. The author outlines the political and intellectual history of this process of partition and selective destruction, and then attempts to evaluate the role of the science of religions in the current reinvention of religion in China.

Issue de la « guerre des deux France », la laicite a constitue, paradoxalement, une rupture pacificatrice : la France est, constitutionnellement, une Republique laique et la laicite fait, en quelque sorte, partie du « patrimoine » national. Si la laicite nous semble familiere, son histoire, hormis la figure de Jules Ferry et quelques images d’Epinal, est assez peu connue. Confrontee aujourd’hui a la mondialisation et a la montee du communautarisme, la notion de laicite est au cœur des grands debats actuels que cette approche historique met en perspective.

Cet ouvrage problematise la notion de laicite de deux manieres: d'abord par une periodisation socio-historique distinguant 3 seuils de laicisation; ensuite en reliant la notion de laicite a d'autres notions: regalisme, secularisation, religion civile, public/prive. Les chapitres du livre traitent, pour chaque theme des differentes periodes clefs. Differents domaines d'application de la laicite sont abordes, notamment les institutions scolaires et medicales.

« Cathos de gauche » : l’expression s’est imposée dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle pour désigner un monde de militants et de « clercs », d’organes de presse et de mouvements, laïques ou religieux, dont la contribution politique, sociale, culturelle et intellectuelle à l’histoire de la France de l’après-guerre apparaît souvent oubliée. Cet ouvrage retrace pour la première fois l’aventure des « chrétiens de gauche », comme on devrait appeler plus justement les catholiques et les protestants de cette mouvance. Contre une Église catholique jusque-là massivement portée à droite et une Église protestante embourgeoisée, ils voulaient, au nom de leur foi, s’engager dans la Cité et peser sur la politique tout en changeant le visage de leurs Églises. Décolonisation, syndicalisme, autogestion, féminisme, tiers-mondisme… : ils ont été de toutes les luttes, et souvent même à l’avant-garde de la contestation. Beaucoup engagèrent un dialogue exigeant avec la tradition marxiste. Après le concile Vatican II et Mai 68, certains furent même tentés par la révolution dans la société et dans leurs Églises. Leur contribution à la rénovation de la gauche socialiste puis à l’élection de François Mitterrand en 1981 fut ensuite décisive. Mais la réforme de l’Église catholique n’est-elle pas devenue restauration sous Jean-Paul II puis Benoît XVI ? Et la victoire de la gauche en 1981 n’a-t-elle pas sonné l’heure du déclin politique de la gauche chrétienne ? Que reste-t-il aujourd’hui de ses combats et des idéaux qu’elle entendait porter ? Au-delà d’une parenthèse utopique, c’est l’évolution du rapport entre le politique et le religieux, à l’épreuve de la sécularisation de la société française, que cette histoire éclaire.

The author studies the growth of religious pluralism in state schools through the case of Muslim students and their wish to express their religious affiliation. Two problems, symptomatic yet different, are highlighted. In France, wearing the Islamic headscarf in school resulted in dress code and discipline problems, with its underlying symbolism causing widespread arguments about laïcité, religious pluralism and integration. The headscarf was only a minor problem in Britain, where the debate over the state funding of Islamic schools was focused primarily on discrimination and religious education within the context of British ethnic and race relations. The data analyzed consist of over 1000 press articles published from 1989 to 1999 by major French and British daily newspapers.

By looking at the activities of Taoist clerics in Peking, this book explores the working of religion as a profession in one Chinese city during a period of dramatic modernization. Rather than the political history of modern Taoist institutional development or the idealized narratives of spiritual history, the author focuses on ordinary religious professionals, some of whom became famous (revered gurus or homicidal abbots), but most of whom remained obscure temple employees. Although almost forgotten, they were all major actors in the urban religious and cultural life.<br /> The clerics at the heart of this study spent their time training disciples, practicing and teaching self-cultivation, performing rituals, and managing temples. Arguing that there cannot be a history of Taoism without the Taoists--all of them--Vincent Goossaert shows that these Taoists were neither the socially despised illiterates dismissed in so many studies, nor out-of-this-world ascetics, but active participants in the religious economy of the city. In exploring exactly what their crucial role was, he addresses the day-to-day life of modern Chinese religion from the perspective of ordinary religious specialists. This approach highlights the social processes, institutions, and networks that transmit religious knowledge and mediate between prestigious religious traditions and the people in the street. In modern Chinese religion, the Taoists are such key actors. Without them, “Taoist ritual” and “Taoist self-cultivation” are just empty words.

The religious question in China, which is today marked by various conflicts between the state and unrecognized confessional organizations, can be understood only in a historical perspective. In particular the adoption early in the 20th century of a notion of religion coming directly from the West, and narrowly defined, has justified a policy that grants a relative but controlled freedom to five great religions while actively condemning others, which are seen as ‘superstitions’. The article details the implications of this notion of ‘religion’ in modern and contemporary China and looks at how Chinese religious traditions have adapted to it.

Modern and contemporary Chinese society (from 1800 to the present, for the purposes of this article) contains numerous types of religious specialists: Daoists, Buddhists, spirit-mediums, self-cultivation teachers, and so on. Most of these do not construct their authority on a charismatic basis, because the global division of labor in the Chinese religious economy divides leadership and authority among different persons. This article looks at the idioms (emic categories) the Chinese use to describe religious specialists and the division of religious labor. It suggests that situations of charismatic authority arise when one person can overcome the division of labor and be equally convincing in different idioms, thus able to meet all the expectations of the extraordinary from his/her followers. While potential charisma, evident in mastery of the various idioms, is rather common, situations where a charismatic relationship is in fact activated by both leader and followers are less so.

ABSTRACT Living in close relationship with the Siberian environment, for several decades the Tungus (Evenk and Even peoples) have been noticing numerous changes in climate, flora and fauna. Based on fieldwork among reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen in Yakutia, the Amur region and Kamchatka, this paper explores how climate change is perceived, and how it causes economic, social and ritual changes. It questions the modifications of the economic and religious human-environment relationships through various aspects. It analyses the indigenous perception of a link between the environment and identity and the indigenous notion of adaptation and vulnerability. It also compares their adaptive strategies that either use old techniques, or trigger mutations. In this context, the notion of reciprocity seems to be disappearing and a new notion of time-space in managing the environment is appearing. This paper analyses the religious changes, such as the creation of new rituals and millenarian narratives or the rebirth of shamanistic legends.

The quantitative approach has, since the 1950s, deeply changed our knowl-edge of the history of religions in the West, especially for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, this methodology has barely been applied to the history of Chinese religions. Although this situation may be partly ex-plained by sinological tradition, it should be observed that it is also the result of the nature of the currently available sources. Many of the quantitative stud-ies done by Western historians were based upon archives. The archival situa-tion in the West is very different from that in China: there was no Chinese equivalent of a bishop ordering reports on church attendance, and nothing comparable to parish registrars. Yet there was state control of the clergy, but the Chinese central archives have not yet yielded much serial data on reli-gious institutions. Local archives—the next revolution—are slowly begin-ning to open. As for non-state archives, especially for monasteries, temples, and associations, they have either disappeared or are still unavailable. No scholar has yet had access to a substantial amount of such sources. The treasure-trove for quantitative-minded China historians, the local gaz-etteers, are quite disappointing for the quantitative study of religions. They do include lists of temples2 but their demographic sections do not normally count the clerics,3 nor do fiscal sections inform us about landholdings of the reli-

Le quotidien Shenbao , publié à Shanghai, fournit une documentation abondante sur la vie religieuse dans les grandes villes portuaires à la fin du XXe siècle. Au sein de cette documentation religieuse dans les grandes villes portuaires à la fin du XXe siècle. Au sein de cette documentation se trouve un ensemble d'articles anticléricaux visant bouddhistes et taoïstes que l'on peut identifier par des critères formels (stéréotypes, appel à des mesures radicales, imagination se trouve un ensemble d'articles anticléricaux visant bouddhistes et taoïstes que l'on peut identifier par des critères formels (stéréotypes, appel à des mesures radicales, imagination obsessionnelle, usage du ridicule). Si les articles anticléricaux n'excluent pas d'autres discours moins hostiles dans la même presse, ils constituent néanmoins un ensemble frappant par sa virulence. Trois thèmes majeurs les traversent : la sexualité cléricale, la violence des techniques de mendicité, et, plus occasionnellement, les accusations de sorcellerie. L'analyse des discours sur ces thèmes et des mentalités qui sous-tendent montrent que l'anticléricalisme à cette époque et dans ce genre est motivé essentiellement par un rejet de modes de vies en contradiction avec les valeurs sociales majoritaires concernant le corps et le rapport des individus aux groupes.