by Loren D. Lybarger (Ohio University; Martin Marty Center Sr. Fellow)
In this month’s Religion and Culture Web Forum, Martin Marty Center Sr. Fellow Loren Lybarger describes ideal-typical varieties of secularism among Palestinian Muslim immigrants in Chicago. Lybarger’s fieldwork demonstrates that Muslim immigrants “do not necessarily identify primarily in religious terms,” and that “secularization, which creates distinctly non-religious milieus, and religious revitalization, which seeks to re-sacralize society, are interactive and mutually constituting processes” Furthermore, Lybarger argues, the persistence of secularism among Palestinians reveals “the capacity of secularism to reproduce across generations either through its own institutional mechanisms or as a consequence of the contradictions intrinsic to regimes of piety.”
With invited responses by:
Louise Cainkar (Marquette University);
Naomi Davidson (University of Ottawa); and
Alain Epp Weaver (Mennonite Central Committee).