Islam challenges Europe view religion is private

[Dracos]

Recent controversies such as those about the wearing of the Muslim headscarf by school students in France, or the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, were cases in point
The growth of Islam in Europe is challenging deeply-held notions that faith is a private matter which should be banished from public life, a prominent sociologist of religion has told a gathering of European Christian leaders.

"We ignore the presence of Islam at our peril," Professor Grace Davie of the University of Exeter in Britain told leaders from Europe's main Christian traditions at a 15-18 February meeting in Wittenberg in Germany. "This is a catalyst for a much more profound change in the religious landscape of Europe."

Recent controversies such as those about the wearing of the Muslim headscarf by school students in France, or the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, were cases in point, noted Davie, professor of sociology at Exeter university and director of its centre for European studies.

"The presence of Islam is a catalyst that has reopened issues that Europeans thought were closed," Davie said on 16 February. "You cannot privatise Islam. We have seen that." But she said Christian churches had a major task in helping to find ways to deal with such public expression of religion.

Davie was presenting the results of recent research* on the place of religion in Europe, in which she wrote about the controversy over the cartoons: "The lack of comprehension on both sides of this affair, together with an unwillingness to compromise, led alarmingly fast to dangerous confrontations, both in Europe and beyond."

The notion that religion should be banished from public life - and particularly from the state and from the education system - was widespread in Europe, Davie noted. But in part due to the presence of Islam, religion was increasingly likely to penetrate the public sphere in Europe, a tendency being encouraged by the ever more obvious presence of religion in the modern global order.

However, this was "probably more of a problem for the secular elite than the Christian churches", Davie suggested in her comments in Wittenberg. She said, "We need to grasp how to deal with religion in the political sphere and here Christian churches have a huge contribution to make."

The Wittenberg meeting is being organized by the Council of European (Roman Catholic) Bishops' Conferences (CCEE) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC), which groups most Anglican, Protestant and Orthodox churches in Europe.

It is one of a series of events that will culminate in September in the Romanian city of Sibiu at the Third European Ecumenical Assembly, which will gather several thousand people from Europe's main Christian traditions.

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=33&idsub=124&id=8009&t=Islam+challenges+Europe+view+religion+is+private

[kenny blankenship]

1. Religion can be public in your state sponsored religion countries

Most of Europe is secular. If you have a problem with that DON'T MOVE THERE.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. The problem is that some of the recent islamic immigrants don't get that

and are indeed trying to force the Sharia and other nonsense on non believers.

[JCMach1]

4. Like Britain...

Send your kid to a British school and get daily and weekly doses of God and Queen. It's part of the curriculum...

[kenny blankenship]

6. Like I SAID most Europe

is secular. And if you should happen to move of your own choice to a country with a state sponsored religion that isn't yours, you don't have ANY sympathy from me if your religious duties conflict with the laws and values of that country. You decided to move there--and probably for the MONEY that life in a secular country can bring. If you get any rights to exercise your religion in a state whose official religion is not yours, and to exercise its coercive nature over others in the community of worship to which you belong you are, being granted a liberty purely gratuitously by your adopted country. It's not a right they owe you.

You want to exercise your religion in the public sphere? Then move to whatever country where that faith is the prop of the state and is enforced by the law. Don't presume on secular countries or countries that aren't founded on your brand of boogeyman worship.

[JCMach1]

7. It's funny how in societies where it is open there is MORE tolerance

towards differences.

No one in the UAE would EVER

-presume to ask a Sikh to remove their turban.
-presume to ask a Hindu to remove their Bindi.
-presume to ask a Christian to remove a crucifix.
-or presume to tell another Muslim EXACTLY what religious garb to wear.

And yes, there are inconveniences during Ramadan. But Christians get Christmas trees in public spaces. Divali is celebrated with lights etc.

That doesn't mean everything is perfect... it isn't. But, diversity and tolerance exist.

So, why in nominally Christian nations where there has been a strong separation of religion from the secular world there seems to be a problem with religious expression?

[kenny blankenship]

8. Yeah sure, well there's a very simple answer:

They don't want shit like this happening in their lands again:



Hindu & Muslim rioting in Gujurat in 2002 which killed over a thousand people...

Or the 1992/93 rioting in Mumbai which killed around 900 people...

Or the recent rioting of Christians and Muslims in Egypt just a couple of months ago...
...ditto in Nigeria...

And I'm sure the Sunni-Shi'ite death squad duel in Iraq isn't convincing Europeans that they should be rethinking their commitment to secularism...

Public exercise of religion invariably brings the totalitarian claims of different religions into PUBLIC CONFLICT.

This kind of thing used to happen in Europe ALL THE TIME, just as it still does elsewhere. That was the time when religion in Europe was absolutely public and official and taken very seriously. Pushing religion into a private sphere--marginalizing it, and to a undeniable degree even suppressing it in its totalitarian claims to a monopoly on truth and legitimate power, has been essential to development of prosperous material civilization and to the development of a public life unimpeded by regular clashes of faith. We do this in the name of "Freedom of Religion", since without this marginalization different religions would be forever attempting to exterminate each other either by appropriating the mechanisms of the state or by less organized means. In order that all religions may be free in secular society, and safe from each other, they are ALL denied their unlimited claims to truth, and kept out of the public sphere as far as can be practically achieved.

Yes Freedom of Religion is SUPPRESSION of religion --and thank God! Any religious believer eventually finds the limits that the secular state places on the overt exercise of their beliefs to be a bind and chafing irritation in some way or another. If they are allowed to oppress women in private out of respect for their faith, soon enough they demand to do so through the laws as well, for example. Sorry: we owe it to the other faiths, and to the secular non-believers, to keep religion private. It's necessary to CIVIL order. If you don't like this compromise which secular society imposes on you, by all means move to some country where your religion is the official state religion and see how you like it there. I will do whatever I can to get our secular government to help you find, and move to, the country of your choice where you feel you belong and will be allowed/forced to worship your God(s) as your faith commands you.

[JCMach1]

9. There are many factors in the examples you brought up

Religion is part...

But, in almost everywhere but Iran Shia have been treated as second class citizens for centuries. As secularized as Iraq was, the struggle there is mostly about power, wealth, and control.

God forbid the American media move beyond the simple definition of a struggle between religious factions.

As for India and elsewhere it is much about power, politics, and resistance as it is about religion.

You can't tell me the London bombers hated Christianity more that they hated British racism, lack of opportunity and foreign policy.

[kenny blankenship]

10. Sorry, when religion is given free reign it absorbs EVERYTHING else

that is in keeping with its totalizing claims to truth and authority. That's part of the nature of religion. Religions claim to know the origin and purpose of human life, and indeed what becomes of one's soul after death. They claim to know not just the origin of the stars but also how one is to behave in every situation however mundane and inconsequential. They prescribe a path to life as well as forbidding deviations. They know everything--but can be questioned about nothing. In true religious societies there is no public/private distinction and no political/religious distinction. You have freedom of religion in private, in our secular society, only because other religions are suppressed from acting with freedom on their all-prescribing knowledge and wisdom in public.

That's the deal in secular society, and if one does not value it or agree with it one should not pretend to be a party to this bargain by accepting the status (and benefits) of citizen under its terms. Speaking for myself, I value the contract made in secular society at the same price as my own life, since without it I'D BE MURDERED by one set of religious believers or another.

[Withywindle]

11. The problem is when it starts to impinge on others (as it always does sooner or later)

If the woman sitting next to me on the bus wears a headscarf, that's fine, no problem. If people start telling me I have to wear one, that's a BIG problem. And the thing about fundamentalists of any stripe, Muslim or Christian, is that they're never content with keeping it to themselves. Sooner or later, they always start to want to remake everyone in their "godly" image.

[insidious]

3. Religion IS Private

In free secular societies nobody is denied the right to worship. However, I expect to be provided the "Freedom FROM Religion." I was never allowed to wear baseball caps in class so I could give two flying shits about Muslim headgear. You live in a secular society, you follow the rules, it's as simple as that. Those who believe in some version of the "great apparition" (Emerson) need to keep their head dress, their Koran, their Testaments, their Commandments, their rituals, their Intolerance, Murder, and Lies all to themselves and leave the sane people to live their lives in peace. FUCK RELIGION!!!

[JCMach1]

5. Absolute idiocy in a society allowing freedom of religion...

So little Sikh boys must show their hair...

not to mention all the Muslim permutations.

We don't leave our constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. I assume that applies to the whole constitution, not just free speech.