Carl Sterkens

Interreligious contact, perceived group threat, and perceived discrimination: Predicting negative attitudes among religious minorities and majorities in Indonesia

This study examines the relationship between interreligious contact and negative attitudes toward the religious outgroup among minority Christians and majority Muslims in Indonesia. It answers two research questions: Does interreligious contact reduce negative outgroup attitudes equally for minority Christians and majority Muslims? Are mediation by perceived group threat and moderation by perceived discrimination equally important for religious minorities and majorities? The analysis is based on unique survey data collected from among Christian and Muslim students in Ambon (the Moluccas) and Yogyakarta (central Java). Results show that a higher quantity of interreligious contact reduces negative outgroup attitudes among majority Muslims but not among minority Christians. However, the quality of contact reduces negative attitudes regardless of relative group size. Perceived group threat is an important mediator of the contact-attitude relationship and is equally so for Christians and Muslims. Findings suggest that perceived discrimination does not affect the relationship between interreligious contact and negative attitudes.

INTERPRETING RELIGIOUS PLURALISM: COMPARATIVE RESEARCH AMONG CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM AND HINDU STUDENTS IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA

How do Christians, Muslims and Hindus interpret religions other than their own? The theoretical framework of the research is models of religious pluralism developed by scholars in the field of theology of religions, especially Knitter. The authors pay special attention to pluralistic models, which have so far remained rather unclear. Special attention is paid to gender as a factor influencing levels of agreement with models of religious pluralism. Empirical research undertaken among Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu in 2003 reveals three common models of religious pluralism that can be found among the adherents of these traditions: monism, commonality pluralism, and differential pluralism. Christian and Muslim students have much the same approach to religious pluralism, measured according to these three models; Hindu students differ from both Christian and Muslim students. Especially among Muslim students gender influences the level of agreement with the monism and commonality models. The article concludes with a discussion of the fruitfulness of comparative research (among members of different religious traditions) based on models derived from Christian theology.

Preferences for Religious Education and Inter-Group Attitudes among Indonesian Students

This article analyses Indonesian students’ preferences for different types of religious education, with the help of their personal characteristics and inter-group attitudes. We investigate a comparative understanding of Muslim, Christian and Hindu students of different types of religious education. The comparative measurement of different models of religious education shows that the mono-religious model consists of all aspects of religious education. A remarkable result is that in all models, the attitudinal aspect (sometimes together with the affective) is the most dominant aspect. The cognitive aspect is absent in the inter-religious model. On average, all Muslim, Christian and Hindu students prefer the mono-religious over the inter-religious model. For the mono-religious model, the negative evaluation of religious plurality is the strongest predictor; and indeed, is the only aspect to contribute to the preference for the mono-religious model among Muslims. The attitude towards pluralism is the most important predictor of the preference for a mono-religious model among Christians. This result is in contrast with our hypothesis. As for Hindu respondents, the centrality of own religion has the most positive correlation with the mono-religious model. Pluralism is the most influential factor for the inter-religious model among all groups.

Comparison in religion: a methodological contribution

How do we build theory on religion in cross-religious research? This article deals with four methodological issues in answering this question. What are the goals of cross-religious comparison? What is the object of cross-religious research? What kind of definition of religion is used in cross-religious comparison? And finally, how can we asses similar phenomena across different religious traditions? The last question is specified by the distinction of levels of equivalence in quantitative cross-religious survey research.

Religion for the Political Rights of Immigrants and Refugees? An Empirical Exploration Among Italian Students

This contribution deals with the support, or lack of support, for political rights of immigrants and refugees among Italian students. Confronted with relatively big groups of migrants and refugees in the Southern part of the country, Italian youth is a highly relevant population to ask the following question: Are political rights the property of all people residing in a country, or can they only be claimed by its citizens? This question is not merely an academic one; it touches the lives of thousands of migrants arriving on the Italian shores every month while risking their lives. This burning issue engages intensely political voices and actors in civil society. One among the latter, the Catholic Church, has become more vocal in recent years in advocating an extension of the rights of immigrants and refugees, sometimes even creating a public clash between bishops’ statements and the voices of those politicians who express populist and xenophobic ideas. This contribution concerns the role of the Catholic Church in Italy’s debate about the political rights of foreigners; not only at the level of public statements and official teachings of the Catholic hierarchy but also at the level of Italian students’ opinions on these matters.

Positive and negative contact and attitudes towards the religious out-group: Testing the contact hypothesis in conflict and non-conflict regions of Indonesia and the Philippines

This study examines the relationship between interreligious contact and negative attitudes towards the religious out-group. It uses unique survey data collected by the authors among Christian and Muslim students in Maluku and Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and Mindanao and Metro Manila (the Philippines). Even after taking self-selection effects into account, interreligious friendships reduce negative attitudes towards the religious out-group. However, casual interreligious contact increases negative out-group attitudes. Also individuals who experienced interreligious violence have more negative out-group attitudes than those without such experience. The experience of interreligious violence has no influence on the effect of interreligious friendships but it further deteriorates the relationship between casual interreligious contact and out-group attitudes. Perceived group threat is an important mechanism explaining the effects of both positive and negative interreligious contact. [125].

Religion and Civil Rights in Italy: An Empirical Exploration Among Secondary School Students

What is the role of religion in building up a culture of civil rights in Italy? According to Marzano and Urbinati (2013), the privileged status of the Catholic Church in Italy can result in a negative role of religion towards civil rights issues; according to these sociologists, Habermas’ theory of a public role of religion in a post-secularized society is not applicable in Italy, because of the virtual Catholic religious monopoly. The present study shows the historical background of this debated relation between church and civil rights in Italy. It points out the reasons why both a negative and a positive role of religion toward civil rights can be expected. It presents the results of an empirical investigation among Italian secondary school students (N = 1087), carried out in order to explore the role of religion about civil rights among this portion of public opinion, which will shape the future of this debate in Italy. The questions of this empirical research are: What understanding of civil rights is present among the sample of students? Are there significant differences in support for civil rights in student groups as defined by their religious affiliation and practice? Is there a correlation between the students’ views on civil rights and their religious attitudes? Is there a correlation between the students’ views on civil rights and their background characteristics? What is the predictive strength of the students’ religious attitudes and background characteristics with regard to views on civil rights?

Empirical models of the relationship between religion and state in Indonesia. How religious beliefs define the relation between religion and state.

In Indonesian political context the plausibility of religion is very high, both at individual and at societal level. People normally think that religion and state are not seen as totally independent. Religion should not be marginalised in public policies, and the state should deal with religious matters. In the same time we found the rise of religious fundamentalism and its influence on Indonesian politics. This particular situation shows the problematic relationship between religion and state in Indonesia. The dividing line between religion and state in today’s Indonesia is very thin at some points; and the role of religion in the legislative and executive branch receives a lot of attention in public debate. In this article we would like to examine empirically the attitudes of Indonesian students in higher education towards the relationship between religion and state. We will elaborate on the relationship between the religious convictions of individuals, and the influence of these convictions on their ideas about the separation of religion and state. We expect that university students attitudes are highly relevant regarding respect for religious freedom in domains where the state exercises control. The tension between religion and state is indeed visible in concrete legislation. Keywords: religion-state relation, liberalism, communitarianism, religion, Islam, Kristen, empirical research, Indonesia

Research in Religion on the Political Agenda. A Swiss National Research Programme on Religion and Its Implications

Abstract This introductory article for this special issue of the Journal of Empirical Theology, sketches the political and societal context in which the Swiss National Research Programme on “Religion, State, and Society” was developed and gives a general overview of this research programme. First, it introduces recent developments in Switzerland’s religious landscape and illustrates their relevance for the development of a broad state-funded research programme on religion. The authors reflect on Switzerland’s understanding of religious neutrality which has been both questioned and reactivated due to increased religious plurality in Switzerland. While interdisciplinary approaches open new possibilities for research on religion, theology seems to be perceived as manifesting an ‘ecclesiastical captivity’. Consequently, theology clearly plays a secondary role in interdisciplinary research programmes. The impending marginalisation of theology, even in the realm of its main research competence, is forcing theological disciplines to position themselves in a new way.

Religion and civil human rights in empirical perspective

This volume is focused on the ambiguous relationship religion and the first generation of human rights. These civil rights and liberties include, amongst others, the right to life, equality before the law, the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the right to privacy, the protection from discrimination, and the prohibition of inhuman treatment. Although the separation between religion and state is not explicitly part of the codified lists of human rights, it offers important conditions for it. Separation of religion and state is therefore implicitly related to this first generation of human rights. This book explores the legitimization of these rights by individual people, both because of their religion and because of their vision of what constitutes human dignity. This empirical approach provides an important complementary perspective for legal, political and public debates. Empirical research can clarify the factors that induce or reduce people’s support of human rights. The key question in this volume is: to what extent do adolescents in different countries support civil human rights and what influences their attitudes towards these rights? All participating scholars have used the same measuring instruments in different countries. In all instances, respondents are students, either those at the end of secondary school or those in the first year of college. Therefore it is possible to validly compare empirical outcomes across national borders.