Päivämies day

Wednesday is the day when the Conservative Laestadian newspaper Päivämies comes out. Most of the topics dealt with aren’t very current; however, the editorial refers to some more topical issues and often gives me something to write about. This week the editorial referred to the service that has been a part of the opening to the parliamentary spring session.

Several times I have come across the metaphor of a nestling and an egg which has two shells; one of them representing the authority on earth and the other one the authority in heaven, both making sure that the egg is a safe place to grow. According to the editorial the earthly authority i.e. the state, has to take care that the children of God will make it safely to the kingdom of heaven. The editorial emphasizes that the state should be Christian and follow Christian values.

Seppo Lohi -- a visible person in the movement -- has once said that when proportioned to the size of the movement it has significant religious and social importance. No need to say, that these kinds of statements just underpin our research -- the relationship between the state and the Laestadian movement is quite an explicit one.

Another thing that I noticed whilst reading the paper, which I have come across several times lately is a statement which Conservative Laestadians tend to use when some issues are open to interpretation. In these cases it is common to use the part of the bible where the snake lures Eve to eat the apple – this is an example where too much thinking and pondering didn’t lead to a happy ending. I think that probably quite many people would say that this is just a way to “cover up” the statements or rules which don’t have any ground in the bible -- or at least not explicitly.

So these were the thoughts that I wanted to share with you.
I hope you all have a nice week!

-Mari

IRNRD

Dear Colleagues,

Let me shortly inform you about the activities and some of the plans of the IRNRD (International Research Network on Religion and Democracy): an inter-disciplinary research group of international scholars.

The first steps were made in 2008, when we organized a conference with the title Religion and Democracy: Challenges and Prospects. Our second conference Political Theology for the 21st Century? Trends and Tasks was held in December 2009, where Mika -- an active member of the IRNRD -- gave a presentation on Laestadianism and the project Laestadian-ism: Political Theology and Civil Religion (see Mika's related posts). Our next conference will be in Rome in December this year, a joint program at LUISS University and John Cabot University. The meeting is under organisation with the title Between Rawls and Religion. In cooperation with the Laestedianism project, we plan to organize our 2012 annual conference in Rovaniemi on Politics and Evil.

Members of the advisory board are renowned scholars like Neera Chandhoke, Maeve Cooke, Herman De Dijn, Sebastiano Maffettone, András Lánczi, Johannes van der Ven, while the members and cooperative partners include Aakash Singh, Tom Bailey, András Csepregi, Jianhong Chen, Michael Hoelzl, Patrick Loobuyck, Theo de Wit, William Desmond, John Rundell, Walter van Herck, Peter Jonkers, and Matthias Riedl.

Forthcoming publications of the network: From Political Theory to Political Theology (eds. Péter Losonczi and Aakash Singh, Continuum, 2010) and we are about submitting another piece at LIT Verlag on Habermas' postsecular turn.

We have started working on further pieces based on the presentations of the 2009 conference and additional texts. Mika will be co-editor of a book with theological studies.

We intend to submit applications regarding financing on national and international level and intensify the cooperation in the most diverse forms possible. If you get interested in this initiative do not hesitate and contact me at lospeter at the domain yahoo dot com.

Péter Losonczi

Religious views in the secular sphere

There is an interesting article and an entertaining discussion ongoing at Cif belief, The Guardian's opinion site on religious issues. The piece is an article by Jonathan Chaplin that criticises the view held by some secular humanists according to which religion should play no role whatsoever in democratic discourse. Chaplin's point is that the democratic debate should take in as many faith-based and moral views as possible.

Chaplin makes his case against secular humanism by debunking the three main points made against religion in the public square:

1. Faith-based discourse will cause religious views to be legally imposed on secular citizens.
   
2. Faith-based arguments are unintelligible or inaccessible to most citizens, whereas secularist moral arguments can be embraced by everyone.
   
3. Religious faith is just irrational and so can never be the basis of democratic reasoning.

According to Chaplin none of the three stand up. He concludes:

If we want a truly pluralistic democracy which builds consensus by honouring difference rather than suppressing it, we should ensure that democratic debate remains open to as many moral and faith-based standpoints as possible. In a pluralist democracy pretty much everyone at some point is going to feel imposed on by some legislated moral standpoint they deeply repudiate. So for exclusivists to single out just one class of moral standpoints – religious ones – as unacceptable cannot be justified.

I find Chaplin's argument very compelling and agreeable. What I find baffling is the hard time he gets from the commenters. Atheists can be a vicious lot sometimes. Only a handful of commenters who attack Chaplin seem to have read what he is actually saying. He is not saying that faith should be given more influence in public life than any other standpoint, but that it should not be denied influence merely on the grounds that it is faith-based, i.e. "non-rational" knowledge.

I'll leave the final word to the Gaping Void.

Mika