NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 71, Issue 4, 2017

Summary

This contribution elaborates the issue how to determine the extent to which a religious faith can meet certain standards of excellence, with an emphasis on religious definition and the means of quality assessment. After a short introduction into the use of the term ‘quality’, I distinguish between a private and a public cause from an internal perspective of faith, followed by a discussion of personal and institutional criteria of faith quality from an external perspective. Finally, I conclude by suggesting a framework for these criteria that contributes to a consensus oriented form of public accountability for faith.

Summary

This contribution considers the functionality of religious beliefs and practices from the angle of the psychology of religion. The role of religion in the main standard for mental health (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is discussed and research findings about the relation between religion and mental health are summarized. It is argued that to determine if a specific religious belief or practice is healthy or unhealthy, we need a fundamentally contextual approach, which takes into account not only the cultural and religious context but also the life-history and personal stance (normativity) of religious authorities, care professionals, patients and believers. The case of depression serves as an example.

Summary

This article attempts to show that the performance of personal and communal Christian faith bears an intrinsic criterion by means of which its quality is to be assessed. This criterion is orthodoxy. In order to substantiate the thesis, a thought experiment will be conducted. In the first part, the experiment demonstrates as to why a purely private interpretation of faith is almost unbearable so that private faith seeks to expose itself to an external examination. Such exposure, as will further be argued, necessarily entails the introduction of a binary code, namely true vs. false or orthodox vs. heterodox. Continuing the thought experiment in the second part, the primary mode of the external examination will be presented as a communal practice of faith. In case this practice is disturbed, however, the examination mode changes from cooperation into a reasonable discourse about orthodoxy. Finally, it will be shown that the quest for orthodoxy cannot be restricted to the faith community alone but reaches beyond it and eventually proves to have a universal scope.

Summary

It is not sufficient to take a purely formal approach to the question whether laws are just, as Witteveen does in his ten nomoi. Laws should not only meet procedural norms, but should also adhere to material and moral standards. Religion is one of the sources for morality, including our conception of justice. What are the consequences of this for the place of religion in the public sphere? What relation exists between religious and legal norms? The Dutch interpretation of the relation between state and religion is relatively flexible. Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, there is room for religion in the public sphere. Furthermore, the state can under special circumstances intervene in the private, religious sphere. But due to this flexibility, new questions arise to which the law does not provide answers. The present contribution addresses a particular issue that has been the subject of litigation: is it appropriate for civil servants to wear religious symbols, such as a headscarf, turban or yarmukle? The author argues that in these cases it is insufficient to appeal to the neutrality of the state. Neutrality is not an external feature, but it is the state of mind with which civil servants perform their functions.

Summary

This essay critically reviews the opposition between believing in a rational way and believing in an emotional way, believing with reason or with the heart. Its objective is not to determine which way of believing has to be considered as being of a higher quality than the other. It rather wants to analyse the public discourse in which religion is opposed to spirituality, where the latter is considered to be a matter of the heart and of emotion. The heart is then seen as superior to reason, as it also is in evangelical and charismatic circles. As a matter of fact, reason and heart are metaphors in the public discourse on religion and spirituality, and both metaphors refer to a certain subsystem of cognition, the implicative (heart) and the propositional (reason). Both subsystems of cognition are at work in the practice of religion and spirituality. They can be compared to the traditional distinction between fides quae and fides qua. Religion needs both, as a bird needs two wings to be able to fly.

This article reviews Freedom of Religion in the 21st Century: A Human Rights Perspective on the Relation between Politics and Religion & (red.), (Empirical Research in Religion and Human Rights, 4), , , ; + pp., € 99.