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Abstract

Investigating the potential compatibility between the ongoing shariʿa-compliant cyber reforms with the standards enshrined in the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles, the article regards the contemporary European digital agenda as a point of reference to examine the variegated Muslim responses to modern technologies, including virtual Islamic (e-)counseling. Comparing Western and Islamic attitudes toward the usage of robotics and a (human-centric) artificial intelligence, it becomes clear that these tools must support individuals, being Islamic scholars or Western legal professionals. While skillfully relying on different languages and transcending domestic borders, European Islamic bodies can also engage in synergetic collaborations with state institutions at inter/national levels by aligning themselves with the cyber reorientation of the digital public space.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe

Abstract

This article aims to explore how the entanglement of Protestant Christianity and race and racism is manifested in contemporary Dutch society, and to identify which themes for introspection this yields for majority white Dutch Protestant churches. We argue that introspection on perceived superiority of white Dutch Protestantism is crucial to uncover subtle, unconscious mechanisms and ideas that are present in majority white Dutch Protestant churches and that contribute to maintaining racism. Furthermore, we argue that contemporary topical issues such as racism and colonial history run the risk of being pushed to the margins again as long as there is no systematic review of power and privilege of white Dutch Protestantism.

Open Access
In: Journal of Religion in Europe
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Abstract

This article presents positions on the digitability of religion as they are lived and reasoned about by digital natives who claim to be religious, spiritual, and/or searching and curious in this regard. Data were collected through explorative participant observations and semistructured interviews with digital natives with transmigratory biography elements in Switzerland. Examples of the borders that interlocutors drew between digitable and nondigitable aspects of religion are also presented to provide an overview of the emic assumptions about the possibilities and limits of religious digitability in the field. The analysis revealed that digital natives tended to see almost all aspects of religion but not all aspects of the religious community experience as digitable, and sometimes value the nondigitability of certain nuances of community explicitly.

Open Access
In: Journal of Religion in Europe
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Abstract

There are 120 Jains living in Switzerland today. Desiring to exchange information about their religion and to expand their knowledge, they started to meet in 2008. This initiated a community-building process in which Jains of different branches took part. Such a process, as well as the diaspora situation itself, is always connected with negotiations and religious transformations, which is also evident in the Swiss context. Following the common meetings, a distinct form of Jainism was created in Switzerland. This new form is supradenominational and universal and based on aspects such as vegetarianism, environmentalism, and nonviolence. Additionally, the Swiss Jains developed new strategies of knowledge transfer. This article focuses on not only the formation of a Swiss Jain community but also its dissolution as no common gatherings have taken place since 2016. Therefore, factors are named that can lead to the dissolution of a community.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe

Abstract

The role of religion in Western societies has gained renewed attention in recent years. While choirs have been studied to varying extents in the social sciences, the geography of choirs has received little attention, particularly in human geography. Using questionnaire responses from secular choir members, this exploratory study examines the possible differences and/or similarities of secular choir’s sacral and/or secular activity in urban and rural spaces in Sweden. The study reveals two primary findings. First, it reveals that secular choir members engage in a mixture of secular and sacred activities, suggesting that these activities can be considered postsecular. Second, the data challenges the geographical perception of rural environments as more sacred/traditional, as they have a high proportion of secular activities. Likewise, the results questions the geographical perception of urban environments as secular/modern, as they demonstrate an even distribution of sacred activities.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe

Abstract

Supranational cultural institutions and communities play an interesting role in the development of abortion policy both historically and today. In this article we consider two such institutions: the Catholic Church and the European community. The church is famously antiabortion, and we describe the ways in which the Catholic position manifests itself in different countries. Conversely, almost all European countries have liberal laws that allow abortion on demand for twelve weeks of pregnancy. Italy sits at the intersection of European and Catholic identities. Italy adopted European-style liberal abortion laws early, but Italians continue to identify with the church in surveys, which is one of the causes of high levels of conscientious objection by medical professionals. Italy’s abortion policy pleases neither Catholics nor secularists. We explain this by understanding Italy’s abortion law as liberal de jure, but its culture is still heavily influenced by Catholicism, resulting in limited abortion access de facto.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe

Abstract

In this article we will examine how ethnicity (Russians and Russian speakers of mixed ethnic identities) and religion (Orthodoxy) interact and construct ethnoreligious identity in the case of Orthodox Christians in Lithuania. To investigate these aspects, the article will draw on data from qualitative fieldwork (2019–2021) and the analysis of articles from the official journal of the archdiocese of Vilnius and Lithuania. We argue that for the Orthodox community in Lithuania, the historically established close links of Orthodoxy with Russian Orthodox tradition and Russian identity are important today. However, a significant part of the Lithuanian Orthodox community identifies with the global (Byzantium) and/or local (Grand Duchy of Lithuania) Orthodox tradition and faces the challenge of including the Lithuanian language in religious education and practices.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe