Religious Shock: Religious Upheavals in Different Religions and Cultures, Interfaith Dialogue and Practical Religion on a Pilgrimage Perspective
Abstract
The monograph deals with a new sociological-religious theme, which proposes to call a religious shock. It does so from the positions of religion, theology and ethics, from the perspective of an independent traveler confronted by different cultures and religions.
Religious shock is a psychological, spiritual or existential shock caused by a clash with a different, unknown or as yet uninteriorized religion or religious cult, which can affect individuals usually during a rapid change of cultures on the road, but can also affect a social group or even a culturally-religious area often during the larger waves of migration originating in a different cultural and religious area. In the book, we propose three basic phases and manifestations of religious shock: 1. a shock, the experience of something unexpected, special, extraordinary in relation to the domestic religion (or disbelief), distinguishing between positive and negative shock; 2. the enchantment, that is, the experience of something seductive, tempting, at first sight "the right spiritual path," followed by sobering up and escaping, or, conversely, sobering up and rational deepening of interest; 3. disgust, in other words a religious experience from the point of view of the shocked stupid, absurd, cruel, disgusting or kitschy.
Subsequently, we consider the phase preceding the religious shock and other typical steps and the return religious shock. The next section of the book deals with the world's various religions - including unique little-known syncretions such as the union of Islam and the West African Vodun in Mali or the union of Catholic Christianity and Vodun in Benin - and the religious shocks mediated by foreigners.
The basic theme of the whole monograph is interfaith dialogue conducted on the level of tolerance, respect and reverence for the human person with inalienable dignity, built on the theological and ethical principle of personality.