Dorothea Erbele-Küster | Volker Küster (Eds.): Between Pandemonium and Pandemethics (Leseprobe)

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10 Introduction • How does religion help to cope with the crisis? • How does the Covid-19 pandemic affect interreligious life and practices? Pradeep Chakkarath focus lies on the situation and responses from within Hinduism in India as by far the largest number of Hindus live in India. He argues that Hindu worldview integrating suffering as part of human existence and meditation practices help to cope with the pandemic. At the same time hygiene measures reinforce social inequalities of the caste system and conceptions of impurity. Carola Roloff also points out that Buddhist worldview is regarding suffering as a central feature of human existence that has to be overcome by eliminating the root causes in human greed, hatred and delusion. Likewise, meditation may help in coping with the pandemic. Annette Boeckler investigates how Judaism has changed due to transpositions of religious practices into the virtual space in response to the Corona hygiene politics. From an outsider perspective one is tempted to ask in how far some of these changes are also boosted due to diasporic existence? The sudden availability of virtual religious practices allowed new networks in the global Jewish diaspora to be woven. In spite all efforts we finally did not succeed including a Muslim voice, not the least due to the restraints of the Covid-19 pandemic itself authors withdraw their commitment last minute. Similar to blaming the pandemic on the Jews in rightwing conspiracy theories, in India Muslims were suspected of launching a “Corona-Jihad”. While some fundamentalist Muslims saw the pandemic as divine punishment against the infidels, in general Muslim religious authorities cooperated with government health policies and regulations and advised believers to pray in private rather than in public gatherings like the Friday prayer and to abstain from the traditional pilgrimage (hadj) to Mecca. Also, religious feasts like Ramadan were restricted to the private realm of the family home. In Germany arouse a discussion about allowing the Muezzin call to prayer and Muslim religious prayers on TV in analogy to the Christian church bells and TV church services. While in Germany and other Western countries the focus of the public debate was on the cancelation of Easter and Christmas celebrations and the consequences for religious and family life, Muslims and Jews pointed out that their feasts and families were affected too. As a matter of fact, this should have been debated as an interreligious issue. Jude Lal Fernando highlights precisely interfaith responses to the pandemic, as a counter voice to dominant responses to the pan-
Between Pandemonium and Pandemethics 11 demic, which “have reinforced the existing war paradigm like marketdriven economy and racial ideologies and religious discrimination”. He too underlines the importance of poetic language along several poems and interfaith prayers written in response to the pandemic. In the quoted poetic texts both the specificity and complementarity of the theistic (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and non-theistic traditions (Buddhism, Jainism, Neo-Vedanta Hinduism) become evident. This may stimulate an interfaith response to hegemonic discourses and false polarizations between the divine and human. All contributions highlight main characteristics of the particular religion and its foundational texts including the hermeneutics the different communities and proponents apply. Despite the global character of the Covid-19 pandemic the crisis is perceived quite differently among the different religious communities: Whereas Carola Roloff initial question is “What can Buddhism offer to deal with crisis?”, according to her Buddhism itself is not undergoing a crisis, Annette Boeckler starts with the observance that Judaism has been challenged and changed by the pandemic. Hence, the strategies religious communities develop to counteract the pandemic and the way they are affected or not by the pandemic differs mainly due to three factors: (1) the specific belief systems and worldviews of a religious tradition (as expressed in their sacred texts), (2) the religious rituals and (3) the life of the religious community. Notwithstanding that the pandemic confronts all humans with their vulnerability, the focus among religious communities may differ. 3 The editors shared in writing a prologue and an epilogue to the contributions of this volume. Opening the toolbox Volker Küster revisits liberation theologies as a frame of reference to deal with the inequalities the virus has revealed. At the same time, he sketches intercultural pandemethics and attitudes as well as strategies for imagining Pantopia as an alternative to the neo-liberal New Normal. Against the backdrop of the religions of Indian origin Hinduism and Buddhism that view suffering as an integral part of human life that can be coped with by religious practices such as meditation, Dorothea Erbele- Küster rereads apocalyptic literature from the perspective of lament as a counter strategy to tackle with crisis in the so-called Abrahamic religions. May the contributions in this book foster apocalypso poetical thinking and dream up Pantopia vs the New Normal. 3 See the contributions by Jude Lal Fernando and Heike Springhart as well as the epilogue by Dorothea Erbele-Küster.
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Dorothea Erbele-Küster | Volker Küster (Eds.): Between Pandemonium and Pandemethics (Leseprobe)

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