This thesis argues that in order to demonstrate the possibility and sensibility of Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo's 'weak religious belief', it should be understood as the becoming uncertain of traditional, metaphysical (strong) belief. The difference between weak belief and strong belief can thereby be understood not as two distinct modes of belief, but as an event of weakening in the history of belief that has yet to be realized by those who believe with the support of metaphysical certainty. Since Vattimo aligns metaphysics with violence, and since he aligns traditional belief with metaphysics, to demonstrate and defend the possibility of Vattimo’s weak belief amounts to the reduction of violence in the world. However, the possibility and validity of weak belief has been called into question by thinkers such as Richard Rorty. In light of a review of the arguments and counter-arguments between Rorty and Vattimo, I argue that it is possible to distinguish weak belief from strong belief as long as this remains a weak distinction.

This study intends to discover distinctions between two minority groups, Mormons and Orthodox Jews, compared to a mainstream Protestant group, the Methodists, in terms of newspaper behavior. It intends to probe for differences in newspaper readership frequency and uses (Berelson, 1949) between religious minority group members and majority group members. It originated with the belief that religion (type) and degree of ingroup identification in the minority communities (stronger) would lead to greater newspaper avoidance and limit newspaper use primarily for information/public affairs, rather than Berelson's (1949) other categorizations of socialization, respite, entertainment. Indeed, minority-majority distinctions did not hold. Important differences emerged between religious and more secular individuals in all communities. It was the degree of religiosity that most deeply impacted newspaper use, not denominational ties. The more individuals scored highly on a "religion-as-spiritual-quest" factor, the less they read newspapers, particularly the business newspaper. For "spiritual questors" of all denominations, the house of worship, with its myriad activities, served as a leisure-time base and, for them, recreational use of the newspaper was minimal. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

Au XIXe siècle, les sœurs hospitalières sont au cœur du système de soin parisien. L’identité et les activités sociales de ces femmes qui partagent un engagement religieux et un apostolat soignant auprès des pauvres de la capitale sont analysées dans cette thèse. La vocation, fruit d’un choix entre les jeunes femmes et l’institution, est une voie d’émancipation dans l’espace public et le monde du travail, mais qui leur permet aussi de s’affirmer comme individu en sapant l’autorité paternelle et en légitimant l’expression d’un désir. Chevilles ouvrières du système de santé publique et figures de la charité privée, les sœurs en accompagnent la croissance. Le soin aux pauvres et leur dévouement justifient la reconnaissance de leur utilité sociale devant l’urgence d’une société confrontée à une pauvreté massive et aux effets contrastés du processus de déchristianisation. Paradoxalement, la laïcisation conforterait leur présence dans le dispositif charitable et soignant de la capitale. Les sœurs se forment à certaines exigences médicales et cherchent à maintenir un « écart chrétien » dans le monde. Le soin des sœurs participe ainsi à la médicalisation de la société mais reste une stratégie de reconquête religieuse. Leur apostolat révèlerait que la demande sociale de santé et de religion reposerait sur un souci de soi et un besoin plus vaste d’attention. Mais ce « souci de soi » est aussi, pour les sœurs, une voie fonctionnelle et harmonieuse de réconcilier les volets religieux et profane de leur mission. Dès lors, les sœurs peuvent s’adapter à la modernité en articulant les préoccupations du siècle avec une exigence spirituelle. / In the nineteenth century, sisters of charity were at the core of the Parisian health system. This thesis analyses the identity and the social activities of these women who shared a religious commitment and a caring apostolate towards the poor of Paris. Vocation, which resulted from a choice by young women and the religious institution, was a way for these women to find a place in public space and in the workplace. It enabled them to assert themselves as individuals, undermining paternal authority and legitimating the expression of a desire. Cornerstones of the public health system and figures of charity, the nuns accompanied the growth of both. Their care of the poor and their devotion justified their claim to be recognised as socially useful in a context where French society was confronted by the new problem of widespread poverty and by the countervailing effects of dechristianization. Paradoxically, republican secularization would confirm their presence in the capital’s caring and charitable system. The sisters undertook training to new medical standards at the same times as they tried to maintain a ‘Christian singularity’ in the world. The care that the sisters provided played a role in the medicalization of society but nonetheless remained part of a strategy of religious reconquest. Their apostolate would reveal that society’s health and religious needs rested on a ‘care of the self’ and a need for attention. This ’care of the self’ was also a way for the nuns to reconcile the lay and religious aspects of their mission. Thus, sisters of charity could adapt themselves to modernity by articulating worldly preoccupations with a spiritual imperative.

In much of the historiography surrounding print culture and the book trade, the worldliness of print remains a point of common emphasis. Indeed, many influential studies either assume or actively present the history of print as part of a broader ‘secularization thesis’. Recently, however, historians have challenged these narratives, recognizing the central role of religious print as a driver of growth within the book trade and discussion within the nascent ‘public sphere’. Yet the scholarship into ‘religion and the book’ remains fragmentary, focused on individual genres or persons, with no unified monograph or standard reference work yet to emerge. This dissertation addresses some of the barriers to synopsis by investigating the long-term print output of the largest social and professional group engaged in evangelizing Christianity to the public: the clergy of the Church of England. By focusing on the clergy, this dissertation evades the usual narrow focus on genre. In the past, book-historical and bibliographic studies have relied heavily on a priori classification schemes to study the market for print. While sufficient in the context of relatively well-defined genre categories, such as printed sermons, the validity of these classification schemes breaks down at the wider level, for example, under the conceptual burden of defining the highly fluid and wide-ranging category of ‘religious works’. This dissertation begins to remedy such problems by modelling the print output of a large population of authors who had the strongest stake in evangelizing Christianity to the public through print. It utilizes the latest techniques in the field of digital humanities and bibliometrics to create a representative sample of the print output of the Anglican clergy over the ‘long’ eighteenth-century (here 1660-1800). Based on statistical trends, the thesis identifies a crucial period in the history of clerical print culture, the first four decades of the Hanoverian regime. The period is explored in detail through three subsequent case studies. By combining both traditional and digital methods, therefore, the dissertation explores clerical publishing as a phenomenon subject to evolution and change at both the macro and micro level. The first chapter provides an overarching statistical study of clerical publishing between 1660 and 1800. By combining data from two bibliographical datasets, The English Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC), and the prosopographical resource, The Clergy of the Church of England Database (CCED), I extract and analyse a dataset of clerical works consisting of almost 35,000 bibliographic records. The remaining chapters approach the thesis topic through primary research-based case studies using both print and manuscript sources. The case studies were selected from the period identified in the preceding statistical analysis as a crucial transitional moment in the history of clerical publishing culture, c.1714 to 1750. These case studies form chapters 2, 3, and 4, each of which explore a different aspect of a network of authors who worked under the direction of the bishop of London, Edmund Gibson (1723-1748), during the era of Whig hegemony under Sir Robert Walpole. Finally, an appendix outlines the methodology used in chapter 1 to extract the sample of clerical printed works from the ESTC. Overall, the thesis demonstrates the profound influence of the clergy on the development of English print in the hand-press period. It thus forms both a historiographic intervention against the secularization thesis still implicit in discussions of print culture and the book trade, as well as providing a cautionary critique of the revisionism which has shaped recent investigations into the Church of England.

Les intellectuels iraniens ont toujours été un groupe social important au sein de la société civile iranienne. Depuis 1990, ce champ d’intellectuels aux vois discordantes, s’élève face à la tentative d’islamisation de la société enclenchée par le pouvoir politique. Constitué en différents groupes, ces penseurs se penchent sur la potentialité d’instaurer Etat-Nation démocratique iranien. Cette recherche rend compte des différentes mouvances qui traversent la sphère intellectuelle iranienne actuelle et prend le parti de réfléchir à quatre groupes importants : les intellectuels "religieux", le cercle des philosophes, les historiens et enfin les sociologues politiques. Tous reconnaissent le risque d’une politisation du religieux et conjointement d’une certaine sacralisation du politique. Leurs réflexions construites autour d’un axe commun questionnant les notions «Etat » et « religion » révèlent un profond souci de changement. A travers cette étude qui met en parallèle les différents discours et les arguments de chacun, ce projet aborde les rapports qu’entretiennent ces intellectuels avec d’autres groupes de la société civile tels les femmes ou les étudiants. L’ambition de cette thèse est d’offrir un panorama théorique des interrogations actuelles en réfléchissant aux stratégies de ces intellectuels. / The Iranian intellectual has been always an important part of civil society. Since 1990, this intellectual field with conflicting voices, rising against islamization of society which has been enforced by political power. This intellectual stream is constituted of different groups bend over study of potentiality of establishment of democratic Iranian Nation-State. This study examines various spheres which crossing the actual Iranian intellectual domain and deliberates over four important categories: religious intellectual, philosophical circle, historians and political sociologists. All these thinkers conjointly consider the risk of politization of religion and the sacralization of politics. Their reflections are constructed around a common axe of two notions “State” and “religion”, which reveal the crucial question of change in political system. Through this approach which puts in a parallel direction different discourses and arguments beside each other, this study looks into the relations between the intellectual field and the other units of civil society. The ambition of this research is offering a theoretical panorama on present problematic of intellectual society with probing their strategies.

Orientador: Sidney Chalhoub / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T02:09:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sial_VanessaVivianeDeCastro_M.pdf: 24681420 bytes, checksum: 3b203dcdd5968b58423026a2a3ba5eab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Esta dissertação analisa, a partir do projeto de construção do Cemitério Público Bom Jesus da Redenção no Recife do século XIX, como se deram as transformações dos costumes fúnebres, mediante a imposição de normas sanitárias relacionadas às práticas funerárias tradicionais, que eram entendidas pelos médicos higienistas como um dos fatores de propagação das epidemias. Neste sentido, os cemitérios extramuros desencadearam novas práticas culturais e adaptações nas atitudes diante da morte. Os médicos higienistas, que influenciaram decisivamente na elaboração e aprovação destas normas sanitárias pelo poder público, acreditavam que os corpos cadavéricos eram possíveis focos de emanações miasmáticas, sendo agentes de grande poder de infecção do ar, causadores de toda sorte de epidemias na cidade. A proibição dos sepultamentos nas igrejas gerou múltiplos pontos de discussão e conflitos na sociedade recifense do século XIX, assim como ocorreu em várias outras cidades brasileiras: dentro do poder público, na elaboração de leis e regulamentos para as novas práticas fúnebres, como também na população, que viu suas crenças mais íntimas ameaçadas, sobretudo entre membros de irmandades religiosas e os emergentes comerciantes dos novos serviços mortuários. Ademais, o estudo das transformações dos costumes fúnebres foi fundamental para a compreensão do conflito entre a Igreja e o Estado na segunda metade do século XIX, sobretudo pela negação da Igreja em conceber o direito dos não-católicos a serem sepultados nos cemitérios públicos, interpretados como elementos decisivos no processo de secularização da morte no Brasil oitocentista / Abstract: From the study of the construction project of the Public Cemetery Bom Jesus da Redenção, in the XIXth century Recife, this work analyses how the traditional funerary customs were modified after the imposed new sanitary norms. In this sense, the outdoor cemeteries triggered new cultural practices and new adapted attitudes related to death. The hygienist physicians, decisively influencing the elaboration and approval of these norms by the public authorities, believed that the dead bodies were possible focuses of miasmatic emanations, becoming powerful infectious agents of the air, and sources of all possible epidemies in the city. The prohibition of burials inside churches originated many arguments and conflicts in the Recife's society of the XIX century, as also happened in other Brazilian cities: into the public authority, in the elaboration of laws and regulations regarding the new burial practices, as well as in the population, that perceived as menaced its most intimate burial practices, mostly between those belonging to religious fraternities and emerging dealers of the new funereal services. Besides, the study of the transformations of the funereal customs was fundamental to the understanding of the conflict between Church and State in the second half of the XIX century, mostly because of the Church refusal in accept the right of the non-catholic to be buried in the public cemeteries, viewed as decisive elements for the secularization of the death in the eighteenth century Brazil / Mestrado / Historia Social / Mestre em História

Ce mémoire de maîtrise analyse les transformations institutionnelles de l’Institut d’études médiévales à l’Université de Montréal entre 1942 et 1968. Pour ce faire, nous nous concentrons sur les effets de la Révolution tranquille sur l’Institut d’études médiévales, une institution d’études supérieures fondée par l’Ordre dominicain en 1930. S’inspirant du courant idéologie de Nouvelle Théologie exposé par Marie-Dominique Chenu, l’Institut embrasse une raison d’être doctrinale et utilise un savoir-faire scientifique pour l’accomplir. En adaptant la méthode historico-critique pour inférer sur l’enseignement du thomisme, l’Institut représente un amalgame religieux-scientifique intéressant à étudier pour comprendre les effets de la laïcisation de l’Université de Montréal sur ses structures, sa culture et ses institutions. Nous décrivons le parcours de cette institution à travers la Grande noirceur, la Révolution tranquille et la laïcisation de la Charte universitaire de l’Université de Montréal. Grâce à l’analyse des dépôts d’archives de l’Université de Montréal et de la Province canadienne de l’Ordre dominicain, nous décrivons l’histoire institutionnelle de l’Institut d’études médiévales selon l’évolution de ses espérances et de ses fonctions à l’Université. Par l’analyse de ses énoncés de mission, nous décrivons comment l’Institut s’adapte pour se mettre en phase avec l’évolution structurelle et culturelle de sa société québécoise / This master's thesis analyses the institutional transformations of the Institut d'études médiévales of the Université de Montréal between 1942 and 1968. To do so, we focus on the effects of the Quiet Revolution on the Institut d'études médiévales, an institution of higher learning founded by the Dominican Order in 1930. Inspired by the Nouvelle Théologie outlined by Marie-Dominique Chenu, the Institute embraces a doctrinal raison d'être and uses scientific know-how to achieve it. By adapting the historical-critical method to infer the teaching of Thomism, the Institute represents an interesting religious-scientific amalgam to understand the effects of the secularization of the Université de Montreal on its structures, its culture, and its institutions. We describe the journey of this institution through La Grande Noirceur, the Quiet Revolution, and the secularization of the university’s Charter. Through the analysis of the archives of the Université de Montreal and the Canadian Province of the Dominican Order, we describe the institutional history of the Institut d'études médiévales according to the evolution of its hopes and of its functions at the university. Through the analysis of its mission statements, we describe how the Institute adapts to keep pace with the structural and cultural evolution within Quebec’s Quiet Revolution.

Text in German / This thesis analyses the contextual concepts for Mission in Europe as developed by European churches between 1979 and 1992 by examining their interpretation of European culture and history (,,Europabild") and the corresponding understandings of mission. The main thrust of the Roman Catholic concept of the ,,New Evangelization of Europe" is to understand European-humanist culture as having grown out of christian (Roman Catholic) roots and to interpret the Church as Soul of Europe. Accordingly, New Evangelization means to call Europe back to the Church in order to keep its culture from ruin and to revitalize it. The European branch of the Lausanne Movement took some clues from the Roman Catholic concept, but interpreted them in its own way since 1984. Here European culture is understood in the basic theological tension between ,,bridge" and ,,barrier" for the Gospel in Europe. The aim of mission is the conversion of Europeans to the biblical and present Jesus Christ who is able to give new life and new hope for individual Europeans and European culture. The Conference of European Churches has coined and discussed the concept of ,,Mission of the Churches in a Secularized Europe" since 1986. The Protestant ,,wing" tends to be less critical towards secularized European culture than Orthodox theologians seem to be. Nevertheless both affirm an understanding of mission as encounter with present time European culture in which God is seen at work in various and mysterious ways. Finally the author formulates his conclusions and perspectives for a transforming (of) mission in Europe. The Body of Jesus Christ in Europe needs to be as deeply rooted in biblical revelation as in biblical spirituality in order to live as a missionary and alternative community in the middle of European culture, and in order to not repeat past european-christian inculturations, but to repent and invite Europeans to turn to Jesus Christ to explore fresh ways of life, hope and reconciliation in the middle of European diversity. / Diese Arbeit fragt nach den theologischen und historischen Grundlinien kontextueller Missionskonzepte filr Europa, wie sie zwischen 1979 und 1992 in den Kirchen Europas entwickelt wurden. In einer ein:f:Uhrenden Standortbestimmung werden zunachst Diskontinuitat und Kontinuitat eines auf Europa bezogenen Missionsverstandnisses in der Missions- und Kirchengeschichte dargestellt. Im Hauptteil der Arbeit werden in einem historisch-theologischen Untersuchungsgang die verschiedenen Missionskonzepte fUr Europa nach ihrem Europabild und dem korrespondierenden Missionsverstandnis befragt. Im romisch-katholischen Programm der ,,Neuevangelisierung Europas", das seit 1979 von Papst Johannes Paul II. inspiriert wird, geht es darum, die christliche (romisch-katholische) Kirche als Wurzel und Seele der europaisch-humanistischen Kultur zu erkennen und sich ihr neu zuzuwenden, um so die europaische Kultur vor dem Zerfall zu bewahren. Der europaische Zweig der evangelikalen Lausanner Bewegung hat Impulse aus der romischkatholischen Kirche aufgenommen und seit 1984 in einer Reihe von Konferenzen in eigener Weise fortgefuhrt. Hier wird die Kultur Europas in der Spannung zwischen Silnde und Erlosung und somit als Herausforderung und Chance fUr eine speziell auf die europaische Situation ausgerichtete Mission verstanden. Ziel der Mission ist es, die Europaer zur Umkehr zu Jesus Christus einzuladen, der alleine Grund fUr neues Leben und neue Hoffnung in der Kultur Europas sein konne. Die Konferenz der Europaischen Kirchen, der ein gro.Ber Teil der protestantischen und orthodoxen Kirchen Europas angehOrt, beschaftigt sich seit 1986 in einer Reihe von Studienkonsultationen mit der ,,Mission der Kirchen in einem sirkularisierten Europa". Die protestantischen Delegierten stehen der sirkularisierten Kultur Europas weniger kritisch gegeniiber als die orthodoxen Vertreter. Insgesamt versteht man Mission in Europa als Begegnung mit der europaischen Kultur der Gegenwart, in der man Gottes Wirken entdecken konne. Ausgehend von diesen Ergebnissen werden in einem Schlussteil Grundlinien fur ein erneuerte und erneuernde Mission in Europa formuliert. Die missionarische Gemeinde in Europa heute braucht die Verwurzelung in der biblischen Offenbarung und in biblischer Spiritualitat, um als Mit-, Gegenund Fur-Kultur inmitten von Europa nicht zu einer Riickkehr zu vergangenen christlichen Inkulturationen, sondern zur Umkehr zum lebendigen Christus einzuladen, der neues Leben und neue Hoffnung schenkt und Versohnung inmitten aller europaischen Verschiedenheit moglich macht. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / D.Th. (Missiology)

A cathedral of the Church of England is the seat of the bishop and a centre of worship and mission. The history of this institution is followed from the English Reformation, which it survived, through to the Commonwealth, which it did not. Restored on the return of the monarchy, it then survived with little further trouble until the nineteenth century, when a lot of its income was diverted to the provision of churches and ministers for the populous urban and industrialised areas, which the Church could not fund in any other way. It was the subject of investigation by two Royal Commissions in the nineteenth century and three church-inspired commissions in the twentieth. These commissions stressed the links that should exist between cathedral, bishop and diocese, which the nineteenth century diocesan revival also encouraged, and suggested changes in instruments of governance to achieve this. Some proposals came to nothing, but others were brought into law. Unlike the Roman Catholic cathedral, the Anglican one never lost its autonomy. The religious situation in Britain today is considered in the light of some contemporary sociology and psychology, and it is recognised that the continued decline in the fortunes of the Church is tied up with the massive subjective turn which characterises contemporary culture. The cathedral has not shared the mistrust which faces the Church, and its various roles are discussed in the light of its continued hold on public affection. The conclusions reached are that, although the cathedral now has strong links with bishop and diocese, it should retain its independence within relationships of interdependence with them, to enable it to harness the popularity which it enjoys to remain a centre of worship, but primarily to concentrate on being a centre of mission. Appropriate ways of achieving that are discussed.

Text in German / Diese MTh Dissertation mit dem Titel Identität und Zukunft der protestantischen Denominationen in Hamburg befasst sich mit der Entwicklung protestantischer Kirchen in Hamburg und dem Bild, auf das die protestantische Landschaft möglicherweise zusteuert. Ausgangspunkt ist eine Reihe von Beobachtungen und Entwicklungen, die Raum für die Hypothese geliefert haben, dass denominationelle Unterschiede ihre Bedeutung verlieren und sowohl protestantische Zusammenarbeit als auch eine gemeinsame christliche Identität an Gewicht gewinnen werden. Die Befragung setzte einen besonderen Akzent auf das Verhältnis von liberalen und konservativen (evangelikalen) Protestanten. Die empirische Untersuchung, die sich der Methodik der Grounded Theory bediente, wie auch das umfassende Literaturstudium konnten die Hypothese im Allgemeinen bestätigen. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich die Perspektive einer stark an den Bedürfnissen der Gesellschaft orientierten kirchlichen Arbeit, die von einem deutlichen Bewusstsein des gemeinsamen Christuszeugnisses und einem ausgeprägten ökumenischen Geist getragen ist. Neben dem Ziel einer empirisch gestützten validen Zukunftsperspektive soll diese Arbeit Entscheidungshilfe und Impulspapier für christliche Leiter in Hamburg und Deutschland sein. / This MTh dissertation titled Identity and Future of Protestant Denominations in Hamburg deals with the development of protestant churches in Hamburg and the picture, the protestant landscape is possibly heading for. Initial point is a number of observations giving room for the supposition that denominational differences will loose their importance and protestant cooperation as well as a common christian identity will gain relevance. The survey put special attention on the relationship of liberal and conservative (evangelical) protestants. The empirical research, using the method of Grounded Theory, as well as the widespread literacy investigation served for – generally speaking – a confirmation of the hypothesis. As a result, it appears a perspective of a church that is strongly orientated towards the needs of society and carried by a clear awareness of the common testimony of Christ and a distinct ecumenical spirit. Besides the goal of a valid and empirically based future perspective, this work intends to be a decision aid and discussion paper for christian leaders in Hamburg and Germany. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology with specialisation in Urban Ministry)