Religious Pluralism as an Imaginative Practice

To understand the complex religious dynamics in a globalizing world, Arjun Appadurai’s view on imagination as a social practice, Charles Taylor’s view on social imaginaries, and John Dewey’s view on moral imagination are discussed. Their views enable us to understand religious dynamics as a “space o...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alma, Hans 1962- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: SAGE Publishing 2015
In: Archive for the psychology of religion
Year: 2015, Volume: 37, Issue: 2, Pages: 117-140
Further subjects:B Religious Pluralism imagination social imaginary dialogical self globalization
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:To understand the complex religious dynamics in a globalizing world, Arjun Appadurai’s view on imagination as a social practice, Charles Taylor’s view on social imaginaries, and John Dewey’s view on moral imagination are discussed. Their views enable us to understand religious dynamics as a “space of contestation” in which secular and religious images and voices (sometimes embodied in the same person) interact, argue, and clash. Imagination can be used in violent ways in service of extremist world images that spread over the world by the intensive use of social media. This raises an urgent question for psychology of religion: what enables people psychologically to engage in religious pluralism, understood as negotiating and perhaps stimulating diversity in non-violent, constructive ways? It is argued that dialogical psychology helps us to understand the self as the anchor point and navigational system of the social imaginaries that are at play in religious dynamics.
ISSN:1573-6121
Contains:In: Archive for the psychology of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15736121-12341305