The Constitutional (In)Validity of Religious Vilification Laws: Implications for Their Interpretation

A study is conducted to determine whether religious vilification laws are contrary to the implied freedom of political communication affirmed in the High Court's decision in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He feels that to the extent that religious vilification laws are interpreted with principles, they are likely to leave sufficient place for freedom of religious discussion that happens to be relevantly political, at the same time the implied freedom of political means that the prohibitions imposed by religious vilification laws need to be interpreted narrowly and the exceptions construed widely, in order to leave room for political communication.

Exploring Visitors' Perceptions of Art Gallery Festivals

The contemporary directions of art galleries worldwide are changing as social patterns and demands, and visitor expectations of their experiences at art galleries change. New programs and strategies are being developed in galleries to make these institutions more appealing to people who would not normally visit them. One such strategy is the staging of special events, which in galleries take a variety of forms. As special events are increasingly being employed by galleries to inspire new audiences, it is important that these institutions develop an awareness of how their visitors understand and respond to such events. Festivals are one type of special event that visitors identify as having a distinct role and nature. This paper explores visitors’ perceptions of festivals in art galleries and identifies several characteristics that distinguish festivals from other special events. These characteristics include the focus of the event, the audience attending, the degree of interactivity offered, the timing, and the place at which the event is staged. Understanding visitors’ perceptions and expectations of festivals will enable galleries to develop and further enhance their programs and special events to meet visitors’ needs.

Religious diplomacy and socialism. The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Church of England, 1956-1959

This article analyzes the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the communist regime during one of the most intense periods of religious persecution in the Romanian People's Republic from 1956 to 1959. The church hierarchy demonstrated its support for the socialist construction of the country, while, at the same time, the regime began a campaign against religion by arresting clergy and reducing the number of religious people in monasteries; rumours even circulated that in 1958 Patriarch Justinian was under house arrest. Seeking closer contact with Western Europe, the regime allowed the hierarchy to meet foreign clergymen, especially from the Church of England. These diplomatic religious encounters played a double role. The regime realised that it could benefit from international ecclesiastical relations, while the image of Justinian in the West changed from that of "red patriarch" to that of a leader who was genuinely interested in his church's survival.

Wittgenstein and the justification of religious belief

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The use of metaphors as models in religious discourse, with special reference to implications for syllabuses in religious education

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Religious young adults recounting the past:narrating sexual and religious cultures in school

Schooling can be a pivotal time in young people’s formative experience when identities are negotiated and forged. However, contradictory dominant cultures can operate within the school context, making it very challenging for individuals to negotiate their religious and sexual identities within a sexualised and heteronormative space. This essay draws on interview data relating to 18- to 25-yearolds of diverse religious faiths in the UK, who recounted their secondary schooling experiences, and focuses on the formal and informal ways in which the school was constituted in relation to religion and sexuality.

Religious compliance in Islamic financial institutions

The central goal of this research is to explore the approach of the Islamic banking industry in defining and implementing religious compliance at regulatory, institutional, and individual level within the Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF) industry. It also examines the discrepancies, ambiguities and paradoxes that are exhibited in the individual and institutional behaviour in relation to the infusion and enactment of religious exigencies into compliance processes in IBF. Through the combined lenses of institutional work and a sensemaking perspective, this research portrays the practice of infusion of Islamic law in Islamic banks as being ambiguous and drifting down to the institutional and actor levels. In instances of both well-codified and non-codified regulatory frameworks for Shariah compliance, institutional rules ambiguity, rules interpretation and enactment ambiguities were found to be prevalent. The individual IBF professionals performed retrospective and prospective actions to adjust the role and rules boundaries both in the case of a Muslim and a non-Muslim country. The sensitizing concept of religious compliance is the primary theoretical contribution of this research and provides a tool to understand the nature of what constitutes Shariah compliance and the dynamics of its implementation. It helps to explain the empirical consequences of the lack of a clear definition of Shariah compliance in the regulatory frameworks and standards available for the industry. It also addresses the calls to have a clear reference on what constitute Shariah compliance in IBF as proposed in previous studies (Hayat, Butter, & Kock, 2013; Maurer, 2003, 2012; Pitluck, 2012). The methodological and theoretical perspective of this research are unique in the use of multi-level analysis and approaches that blend micro and macro perspectives of the research field, to illuminate and provide a more complete picture of religious compliance infusion and enactment in IBF.