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| RIHA
Core Themes |
(1) Religion,
Progress, and
Modernity
The idea of progress
emerged in human history
with linkages to
religiously-derived
concepts and
convictions. How
essential or enduring
are these connections?
These linkages include:
the influence of
religious eschatology,
the belief in the
sacredness of human
existence;
the shaping of important
secular ideas such as
liberty, equality, and
human rights; and the
role of evolutionary
thinking, Darwinian and
otherwise, in framing
ideas about progress.
(2)
Christianity, Science,
and Historical
Consciousness
There has long been
scholarly interest in
the relationship of
Christianity and the
rise of modern science.
This Core Theme seeks to
broaden the discussion
to include a cluster of
roughly simultaneous
innovations, ideas, and
actions in the 15th
-17th centuries: the
emergence of historical
consciousness, of
quantitative approaches
to
science, of exploration
made possible by
innovative cartographic
and
navigational tools, even
of the idea of
constitutional
government. What
role—if any—did religion
play in bringing about
these innovations?
(3)
Religion,
Secularization, and
Innovation
In the light of the
growing interest in
rethinking the meaning
of “secular”
and “secularization,”
how should
we understand the
interplay between
religion and
secularization? What
meaning might we attach
to the concepts of
“disenchantment” and
“re-enchantment,” as
ways of understanding
the
possibilities of the
postsecularist world?
(4)
Religious Tradition as
a Source of Innovation
Tradition and innovation
are generally seen as
opposites. But many of
the greatest moments of
innovation in human
history have expressed
themselves as movements
of recovery. In what
ways can the rediscovery
and reinvigoration of
older, traditional ideas
or practices,
particularly as embodied
or encoded in aspects of
religious life and
worship, be a source of
innovation, not only in
religion but in social
and political and
intellectual life?
(5)
Religion and Social
Innovation
What was the role of
religion in the great
reform movements of the
last
two centuries? How can
we explain the close
relationship between
religion and the growth
of humanitarianism,
religion and the
emergence
of the antislavery
impulse, and religion in
the liberation of women?
To
what extent do such
developments represent
compelling examples of
incontrovertible moral
progress in history?
(6)
Religion, Death, &
Innovation
There is a profound
relationship between the
origins of settled
habitations in human
life and prior
establishment of places
of burial.
Hence a good case can be
made that funerary
ritual is at the very
basis
of all civilized life.
How do various beliefs
about death, about the
relationship between the
dead and the living, and
about the ways that a
society sacralizes
death, affect a
society’s view of the
future and the
place of
innovation—social,
material, political,
etc.?
(7)
Religion and the
Global South
Looking away from Europe
at the rest of the
world, we see a
remarkable
upsurge of religious
activity, including
countless examples of
vigorous
religious innovation
throughout the rest of
the world, as in the
Pentecostal movement in
global South, or the
shift of world
Anglicanism
toward Africa and Asia.
What forms of social and
political innovation
in those areas will
likely flow from these
religious changes?
(8) The
Global South’s
Influence on the West
What are the effects of
these changes in the
Global South upon the
West? Will they
challenge fundamental
premises of Western
secular life? What
is the likely future of
North-South partnerships
like the Anglican
Mission in the Americas?
How will the effects of
such partnerships play
out in the politics and
cultural attitudes of
the developed West?
(9)
Religion, Progress,
and Historiography
Lord Acton noted that
“the wisdom of divine
rule appears not in the
perfection but in the
improvement of the
world….History is the
true
demonstration of
Religion.” If such
Whiggish sentiments now
seem
implausible, it is
nevertheless the case
that serious questions
about
history and purpose
remain tantalizingly
unresolved. To what
extent
does all coherent
historiographical
practice make
teleological
assumptions, consciously
or not? Is there any
place for religious
sensibilities in modern
historiography and
historical practice? If
so,
where and how should it
manifest?
(10)
Religion and
Capitalism Revisited
After decades of
critique, is there any
truth left in the Weber
thesis?
Does it help to account,
for example, for the
volcanic growth of
Protestant Christianity
in South Korea? In what
ways can we more
accurately understand
the relationship between
Protestantism and
capitalism, Catholicism
and capitalism—and the
connections, if any,
between capitalism and
Islam, Buddhism,
Hinduism, and even
Confucianism?
(11) The
Representation of
Religion by Its
Enemies
Nearly all religious
beliefs (particularly
Christianity) have come
under sustained violent
attacks from
intellectual, social,
and political movements
in the name of
modernity,
secularization, and
enlightenment. How
effectively have these
religions
responded to date to
such intellectual
challenges and violent
assaults?
In what ways might they
respond in a more
fruitful and
constructive
manner?
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