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International Journal for Religious Freedom Accredited

South African Department for Higher Education and Training put IJRF on the list of approved journals

(Cape Town/Bonn, Bonner Querschnitte News 196 – No. 02/2012) The International Journal for Religious Freedom (IJRF) has been included in the “Approved list of South African journals” effective as from 1 January 2012.

Prof. Dr. Christof Sauer as the editor in chief of the journal reports: “The Department of Higher Education and Training of the South African government, which administers this list, has just communicated the acceptance of IJRF on this list. We have been striving for this sought after accreditation since the founding of the journal in 2008. The criteria are very stringent and it is difficult to obtain”.

“In South Africa the recognition of a scholarly journal by the government is crucial for the status of a journal”, Sauer explains. “State subsidies for universities are partly based on the number of articles published by its academics in approved journals. So South African scholars usually prefer to publish in accredited journals.”

The issues of the IJRF were assessed by both the government department and the Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf) according to the National Code of Best Practice in Editorial Discretion and Peer Review for South African Scholarly Journals.

The IJRF aims to provide a platform for scholarly discourse on religious freedom in general, and the persecution of Christians in particular. The IJRF is an interdisciplinary, international, peer reviewed journal, serving the dissemination of new research on religious freedom and is envisaged to become a premier  publishing location for research articles, documentation, book reviews, academic news and other relevant items on the issue.

The IJRF which appears twice a year is published by the International Institute for Religious Freedom (Bonn – Cape Town – Colombo) of the World Evangelical Alliance. The editors are Prof. Dr Christof Sauer (Cape Town) and Prof. Dr Dr Thomas Schirrmacher (Bonn). Prof. Stephen Baskerville (Washington D.C.) is currently the managing editor.

The journal is available for subscription as a print version and made freely available online with a delay on 1 March and 1 September respectively (www.iirf.eu). The IJRF is also included in the portfolio of the provider of electronic journals for libraries, SABINET.

A recent issue on “Advocacy and Law” was widely distributed on 4 continents by Advocates International and a number of other sponsors. The latest issue deals with “Religion and Civil Society”.

55 Essays on the Freedom of Religion: A Book Review

The following review will be published in a shorter version in the International Journal for Religious Freedom (see here) in summer:

Nazila Ghanea (ed.). Religion and human rights. 4 volumes. New York: Routledge, 2010, 1600 p., ISBN 978-0415477871, US$ 1075.00.

The academic publisher Routledge publishes sets, usually of four volumes, with a reprint of a wide range of older and recent articles and book chapters, always edited by a well known scholar and expert on a specific subject (the ‘Major Works Collection’), a dozen of them so far in the area of religions (‘Critical Concepts in Religious Studies’). Those sets are not meant for the wider public, but mainly for libraries and specialists, who want material scattered around the globe and in dozens of publications, as the price of the set is usually above $1000.

One could say, that the title “Religion and human rights“ is wrong. In the only human rights discussed in the volumes is the “Freedom of religion and belief“ and all essays circle aorund this human right. Under the title “Religion and human rights“ one would exspect a larger range of topics.

The editor of the volume on the topic of religious freedom has been chosen well, as Nazila Ghanea is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Religion and Human Rights and Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at Oxford’s Kellogg College. She also initiated and now serves on the Executive Board of the international network ‘Focus on Freedom of Religion or Belief’ (FoFoRB).

Of course a selection of 55 essays, articles and book chapters can always be discussed. Why is there only one historic article (by John Locke from 1640), one from 1974, and all others from 1984 or later? And is the essay by Locke really the most important one before 1974? Why are articles excluded that are just of regional interest or focus on just one religion? And why, then, is an article with the subtitle “Should the United States provide refuge to German scientologists” included, though it does not feature an outcome or principle of international interest, concluding in 1999, that scientologists in Germany “suffer mainly economic disadvantages”, but to describe their present situation “as persecutory … seems exaggerated”? Why is the 1984 article “Parental rights and the religious upbringing of children” by T. H. McLaughlin included? It is more philosophical than religious, arguing for “a non-indoctrinary form of religious upbringing which a liberal can in good conscience claim”, and it is more a private opinion piece on how to raise children than a needed discussion of the application parental rights (part of UN’s standards of religious freedom) and when they have to be overruled, and what this means for education and schooling.

But overall the selection is superb. Highlights on religious freedom, which immediately came to my mind, are included, eg Brice Dickson’s “The United Nations and freedom of religion” (1995), the editor’s “Apostasy and freedom to change religion or belief” (2004), David Keane’s “Why the Hindu caste system presents a new challenge for human rights” (2007), “Models of religion-state religions” from the book by Rex Adhar and Ian Leigh (2005) and the superb “Draft model law in freedom of religion” by Dinah Shelton and Alexandre Kiss (1996). Wherever freedom of religion and belief is studied and these volumes are at hand, students do not need to look for other articles to get started. It is an ideal tool for seminars in universities for a wide range of subjects studied, including law, comparative religions or sociology.

Appendix: Topics of the four volumes: Volume I: Why protect freedom of religion or belief? Volume II: Is freedom of religion or belief an individual or collective human right? Group, collective, and corporate rights. Models for protection of religion or belief. Minority rights. Refugee rights. Volume III: Conflict of rights and freedom of religion or belief in general: On conflict of rights with freedom of religion or belief. Freedom of expression. Women’s rights. Child rights. Volume IV: International standards, persecution and ways forward. International standards and mechanisms regarding freedom of religion or belief. Persecution and discrimination. Equality, differential treatment, special rights, positive duties, and freedom of religion or belief. Ways forward.

An Overview of the 5-year process leading to todays launch of the ecumenical recommendations “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World”

After I published the last blog “People involved in the five year process leading to the ecumenical recommendations ‘Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World’, whom I want to thank”, I was asked to publish my actual opening words at the launch in Geneva on the 28th of June, 2011. Here they are:

Today, we are gathered here to launch this historic document, an outcome of the intense and extensive  process of five years of our collective efforts come to an end, but it will also open a new process to carry out this message in our respective constituencies in the coming days and years. As a person who has been part of the process from the early stage, let me take this opportunity to give you an overview of this process.

The question of conversion emerged as one issue to be discussed on a worldwide scale during a major interreligious event, the „Critical Moment Interreligious Conference“ organized by the WCC June [6-9,] 2005 in Geneva. There was a proposal at that time for the WCC which needed to be much clearer on the question of religious conversion as an  issue in interreligious relations.

Hans Ucko, director of WCC’s Office on „Interreligious Relations and Dialogue“, brought the idea up in one of the yearly staff meetings between PCID and IRRD. The end result was that the two offices initiated a project entitled “Interreligious Reflection on Conversion – From Controversy to a Shared Code of Conduct”. The project was made up of three major consultations, about double as many smaller meetings of staff and experts (mostly called the „drafting committee“) and an ongoing virtual discussion that later on included many Christian leaders worldwide, that were asked of their evaluation of the draft.

The first consultation “Conversion: Assessing the Reality” met at Lariano, Italy, May [12-16,] 2006 and wanted to map the problems and thus was an interreligious meeting. 27 people, representing Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and the Yoruba religion agreed that a code of conduct for propagating one’s own faith should be achieved. They stated: „We affirm that while everyone has a right to invite others to an understanding of their faith, it should not be exercised by violating other’s rights and religious sensibilities.” (Report Lariano 2006, no. 3)

After Lariano 2006 I was invited by the WCC as an expert on this particular issue to a small meeting convened by the WCC in Geneva. It was at that meeting when Hans Ucko on behalf of the WCC, in agreement with Felix Machado of the PCID, invited the World Evangelical Alliance to become part of the process. Most of their staff were connected to the WEA’s Religious Liberty Commission and later the Theological Commission, but it was run directly under WEA’s Director and International Council from the very beginning.

The second consultation „Towards an ethical approach to conversion: Christian witness in a multi-religious world“, which was prepared by a small group meeting in Geneva, January [11-12,] 2007, took place as a larger meeting of all branches of Christianity in Toulouse, France, August [8-12,] 2007 with 45 participants. It was here that the necessity of specific recommendations was discussed in length and the topics were set out, that had to be addressed in a “code”, as it was still called at that time. The idea would be that Christians first of all find a code of conduct among themselves in their relationships to other religions. If even Christians would not agree amongst each other on a peaceful way for their witness that respects the human dignity and rights of others, how could they expect an agreement with all religions?

After Toulouse, a drafting committee of the three bodies involved started to work on the text of the recommendations, following the topics listed in Toulouse. The text was revised again and again in discussion with the leadership and taking in reactions from church leaders from all over the world who got to see the text. Finally the text was taken to a third consultation in Bangkok under the title “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for a Code of Conduct “, January [25-29,] 2011, with 45 high ranking representatives of the three bodies plus church leaders and experts, which had the sole task to discuss and revise the text of the recommendations. In groups and in plenary the text was discussed line by line. There were so many fine and valuable contributions, that we ran out of time. It was amazing, how suddenly the text finally proposed was seen as much better than the one we started with, both by the participants and the institutions involved. It no longer was a text with a lot of single thoughts, plus one flowing from the first sentence to the last, as you will see when reading it.

After Bangkok, only very minor changes were agreed upon between PCID, WCC and WEA.

During the period of the process of drafting and finalising the document over a period of five years, there were many changes in staff and leadership in PCID as well as in WCC. The process went on anyway. This proves that the project, that has come to an end today, is not just a project bound to certain people, but a joint need of the whole Christian community and a great achievement of institutions working together over time.

These pictures show the Great Hall of the World Council of Churches while publishing the code, Schirrmacher is speaking, from left to right: Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata (Sekretary, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID)), Jean-Louis Pierre Cardinal Tauran (President, PCID), Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit (General Secretary, World Council of Churches), Dr. Geoff Tunicliffe (General Secretary, World Evangelical Alliance (WEA)), Monsignor Andrew Vissanu Thanya-Anan (Under Secretary, PCID), Prof. Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher (Chairman, Theological Commission and Speaker for Human Rights, WEA). Fotos by courtesy of WCC-Media.