This introduction to Part II explains why the WCC shifted toward a “liberationist” human rights agenda in the late 1960s and 1970s. One key factor was Cold War détente, which opened up space for criticism of the Cold War deadlock and the superpower interventionism it supposedly justified. Another was decolonization, which contributed to a global reconfiguration of Christianity. These enabled the rise of the New Left, which favored grassroots activism over bureaucratic structures and projected hopes for political renewal onto the Third World. While often overlooked because of the simultaneous process of secularization, especially in Western Europe, religion played an important role in the ferment of the 1960s. Liberation theology, emanating above all from Latin America, inspired much of the WCC’s new agenda, which was defined by its overtly political positioning against liberalism and alignment with socialism and especially anti-imperialism. The WCC’s course contrasted with the liberal rights agenda of Amnesty, the statist agenda espoused by postcolonial leaders promoting a New International Economic Order, and the anticommunism of more conservative actors, like US evangelicals.

This chapter sketches the secularization process in the German music historiography of Beethoven during the Nineteenth Century, and how it became a dominant narrative that side-lined voices of other scholars, such as August Wilhelm Ambros and Ludwig Bischoff. In particular, the chapter explores the role of Eduard Hanslick in the context of German unification and the conflict between his supporters and the New German School. Hanslick’s espousal of an imageless formalism was designed to “free” sacred music from “ecclesiastical trappings” so that it could override the cultural diversity of the German-speaking lands – particularly the confessional divide between north and south—with an overarching purely instrumental aesthetic fit for a concert hall. Thus, in the battle betw – en Hanslick’s formalism and the New German School, religious music was ironically in the progressive camp as exemplified by the religious music of Liszt; but with Wagner’s adoption of Schopenhauer – the first important philosopher to see himself as an atheist – the aesthetic of the New German School turned new music into its own art religion and consign Christianity to the backwaters of historical progress.

This chapter traces some common Enlightenment narratives of Beethoven and the problematic role that sacred music plays in defining what is included or omitted as “Enlightenment” in terms of its social, political and philosophical identity. These narratives, however, sit uncomfortably with the Missa solemnis and have resulted in some strange narrative maneuvers within Beethoven scholarship that not only skew the historical context but our image of the composer. The chapter ends by exploring an approach that tries to square “the Enlightenment” with the circle of sacred music without simply reversing the narrative of a progressive Beethoven with a reactionary one: religion is a radically creative force for Beethoven and his Enlightenment belief in “freedom and progress.”

This chapter endeavors to make sense of Japanese religiosity and to unravel how it has formed an undercurrent in Japanese society. First, it focuses on the characteristics of traditional religions that took hold in premodern Japan: Shinto, Japan’s native religion, and two imported religions, Buddhism and Christianity. The chapter then analyzes newer religions founded in the twentieth century and scrutinizes the more recent emergence of a cultural trend in which individuals seek spirituality outside established religious spheres. It looks at this-worldly financial and political activities of these old and new religions, then sketches how the general trend of secularization faces the revitalization of religious practices.

Chapter 4 discusses Iran’s religious diversity. It examines the two main sects of Islam (Sunnism and Shiism) and describes their expressions in Iran. Of the world’s many Muslim-majority nation-states, Iran is one of the few Shi‘i-dominant ones. Safavid rulers proclaimed Shi‘i Islam as the state religion in 1501. Shi‘i clergymen declared a Shi‘i Islamic republic in 1979, after the popular revolution that ousted the secular monarchy. Iran features multiple kinds of religious communities. They include a wide range of Shi‘is and Shi‘i-related peoples, ethnoreligious minorities, Sunni-dominant minorities, and non-Muslims who are Bahais, Christians (Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans), Jews, Zoroastrians, and Mandaeans. The chapter discusses the positioning of religious minorities within the fundamentalist Shi‘i Islamic republic and the changes that have occurred for them since 1978. Iranians who are not mainstream Twelver Shi‘is are not well integrated in Iranian society. Shi‘i Muslims since 1978 also underwent changes in doctrine and practice. Iran’s new “religious” minorities include growing numbers of secularists and others who reject the ruling Shi‘i regime and its restrictive politico-religious ideologies and programs. They threaten the regime’s stability and longevity.

This chapter presents El Evangelista (1877–1886), the first Protestant, Spanish-language newspaper in the Río de la Plata region of Argentina as well as two articles that appeared in El Estandarte (1883–1901) and El Atalaya (1901–1909). These publications were among the most influential journalistic organs that Protestants used for the initial dissemination of their ideas in the port cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario de Santa Fe, and Montevideo in the period 1870–1900. Using these sources, this chapter analyzes how the anti-Catholic discourse wielded by Protestantism contributed to a growing crisis of meaning by questioning Catholic society, its mediations such as the miracle of the mass, prayers for the dead, relics, the cult of saints, the monastic way of life, and its agents. This challenge aimed to establish a religious reformation that would introduce a new moral order to the society and culture of the region.

Chapters 8 and 9 recount group interactions during the final three island times, leading to RA’s deliberate dissolution and reorganization. Unlike previous chapters, these chapters use a first-person, present-tense narrative to closely examine management issues and group dynamics during the last RA meetings and to reaffirm findings presented earlier in the book. Throughout these meetings, RA struggled to manage the transition from a close-knit group of friends to a formalized organization while retaining its foundational social practices, idioculture, and relationships. The group underwent a secularization process and became polarized over future directions. These chapters depict a group grappling with powerful sociological forces in tension with one another and trying to maintain effective collaboration and decision-making as the conditions for effective group decision-making eroded. Ultimately, RA lost its adaptive capacity and became stuck in a resilient yet undesirable state, leading to the decision to disband and seek new pathways to transformation. My own role in RA also comes to the foreground when during pivotal moments of interaction group leaders asked me to provide guidance based on my research, which consequently shaped their decisions and RA’s future.

Chapters 8 and 9 recount group interactions during the final three island times, leading to RA’s deliberate dissolution and reorganization. Unlike previous chapters, these chapters use a first-person, present-tense narrative to closely examine management issues and group dynamics during the last RA meetings and to reaffirm findings presented earlier in the book. Throughout these meetings, RA struggled to manage the transition from a close-knit group of friends to a formalized organization while retaining its foundational social practices, idioculture, and relationships. The group underwent a secularization process and became polarized over future directions. These chapters depict a group grappling with powerful sociological forces in tension with one another and trying to maintain effective collaboration and decision-making as the conditions for effective group decision-making eroded. Ultimately, RA lost its adaptive capacity and became stuck in a resilient yet undesirable state, leading to the decision to disband and seek new pathways to transformation. My own role in RA also comes to the foreground when during pivotal moments of interaction group leaders asked me to provide guidance based on my research, which consequently shaped their decisions and RA’s future.

Abstract: This chapter understands modernity’s fragmented and contradictory secular modernities through the prism of the state of nature accounts of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. It offers a new taxonomy of the varieties of modern secularization in terms of deflationary, collateral, and psychologizing imaginaries.

This chapter traces the development of choral singing in the Bohemian lands throughout the nineteenth century. Civic choral activities in Bohemia began taking shape in the 1840s, ultimately playing a central role in nationalization processes. However, the mass nationalization tendencies faced setbacks in the 1870s due to economic problems and political crises, delaying the full reconfiguration of the Czech choral movement on an ethnocentric principle until the late 1800s. At the same time, even by the end of the nineteenth century, most German-language choral societies maintained regional affiliations established in the 1860s, rather than embracing ethnic ties. Furthermore, choral activities were influenced by the emergence of the industrial working class. During this period, choral endeavors were also affected by the contradictory impulses to view choral singing as both a social activity and an artistic endeavor.

The worldwide scope and depth of the present international system and its sense of legitimacy have not been applied in the same way everywhere. There is still much diversity among countries and the courses of action and the policies that they embrace. This explains, in part, the tensions and disagreements concerning the nature and dynamic of this international system as well as the claims of legitimacy in it. The redistribution of power currently underway at the international level, epitomized by the rise of China, could create more stress in the future. Nevertheless, overlooking the scope and depth of the present international order and its culture of legitimacy would be a mistake. The scope and depth of the present international order and its culture of legitimacy are the manifestations and the products of the following elements working together: position of power dominance, means of penetration and integration, values and norms, and secularization and democratization.