Marta Kołodziejska

Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularization and the State

This latest work by Bryan S. Turner is a complex and manifold analysis of the impact that modernity and globalisation have on religion and spirituality. Turner, a sociologist of religion, focuses in his works on such issues as globalisation, civil religion, human rights and the body in religious practices. His perspective has roots in Max Weber’s comparative sociology, which enables him to gain a broad view of the topic. The main question that the author poses in this book is about the consequences of globalisation, multiculturalism, the global market and the emergence of new media for religions in the world. He is well aware of the fact that addressing this question is an intellectual challenge and that some simplifications are inevitable. However, his answer, being a pessimistic one, stems from an accurate identification of the main tendencies in the way religion, religiosity and piety are being transformed in the modern world. In the first part, ‘Theoretical frameworks: the problem of religion in sociology’, Turner revises both the classical and modern concepts of religion, analysing the works of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and Pierre Bourdieu. He discusses their main theses and uses them to analyse the transformation of modern societies. In the second part, ‘Religion, state and post-secularity’, Turner looks critically into the secularisation thesis, which predicts the imminent demise of religion and religiosity as societies become more modern and urban. At the same time, he rejects the concept of resacralisation, trying to find a middle ground. In order to do this, he refers to Robert Bellah’s concept of civil religion (Bellah, 1967). He points out the advancing commodification of every aspect of modern reality, which results in the decline of the sacred. Another phenomenon analysed in the book is the ‘globalization of piety’ (pp. 271, 284–92) which is heavily influenced by mobility, consumer culture and the states’ management of religions. Among many theses in Turner’s book, I would like to mention those which critically comment on, or even counter, the secularisation thesis. The most important conclusion of Religion and Modern Society is that commodification and consumerism, which are ingrained in the globalised world and have proved resistant even to the recent economic crisis, are reshaping religion and religiosity. The religious market offers certain products and services, thus meeting believers’ needs. Those believers, or, more accurately, religious consumers, are a creation of the world dominated by passive reception of goods. Individualism and unlimited consumption influence religiosity, Religion, State & Society, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 2012

The Media and Religious Authority, edited by Stewart M. Hoover, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016, viii + 296 pp., US

Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. 1997 [1947]. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Cumming. London: Verso. Barthes, Roland. 2000 [1957]. Mythologies. Ed. And Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Vintage. Blumenberg, Hans. 1985 [1979]. Work on Myth. Trans. Robert M. Wallace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Eliot, T. S. 1948. Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. London: Faber and Faber. Freud, Sigmund. 1957 [1913]. Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Volume 13 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. and Trans. James Strachey and Anna Freud. London: The Hogarth Press. Schelling, F. W. J. 2007 [1842]. Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology. Trans. Mason Richey and Markus Zisselsberger. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Williamson, George S. 2004. The Longing for Myth in Germany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

55.97 (hardcover), ISBN 978 0 2710 7322 4

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to connect the debates on individualisation and mediatisation of religion and transformations of religious authority online on theoretical and empirical basis. The classical and contemporary concepts of individualisation of religion, rooted in the secularisation debate, will be connected with Campbell’s [2007. “Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3): 1043–1062] concept of four layers of religious authority online. The empirical material consists of a joint analysis of German Christian and Polish Catholic Internet forums. In a transnational comparison, the findings show similar tendencies of individualisation and emerging communities of choice, as well as a lasting significance of textual religious authorities, although different levels of authority are negotiated and emphasised to a varying extent. However, in both cases critique of the Church and religion usually emerges offline, and is then expressed online. While the forums do not have a subversive potential, they facilitate adopting a more independent, informed, and reflexive approach to religion.

Between individualisation and tradition: transforming religious authority on German and Polish Christian online discussion forums

Meditation, one of the most ancient forms of religious practice, appears to be undergoing a late modern revival. One of the key expressions of this contemplative turn has emerged in the current popularity of mindfulness a form of meditation originally derived from the Buddhist Theravada tradition. Following the groundwork laid by the global expansion of yoga, meditation is thus widely considered to represent the latest ripple in the easternisation of the West. This article seeks to offer a renewed examination of this subject by presenting the first qualitative study of mindfulness in Poland. Drawing on interviews with leading practitioners in the Polish public landscape, we present evidence showing that mindfulness denotes a much more spiritual form of practice than typically assumed. These findings call us to offer a fresh look into the increasingly complex ways in which our existing categories of religion, spirituality, and now the secular are currently being played out in relatively overlooked parts of the European continent.