The minority question is often discussed nowadays, and more particularly as new religious minorities raise concerns about integration, assimilation, and domination. Thus, minorities can be set aside by something in their behaviour, beliefs or collective identity that creates the perception – and the historical experience – that they are different from ‘the majority’, or by identifying some of their characteristics to a threat for the rest of society. This panel, organised by the research group “Protestantism as a minority religion” aims at offering space for comparison of multiple approaches and territories where Protestantism – broadly defined – contributed to a paradigm shift in community relations and the perception of other religious minorities, whether former Christian minorities or Jews.

Arguments

The minority question is frequently discussed nowadays, and more particularly as new religious minorities raise concerns about integration, assimilation, and domination. But what is a minority group? Though the answer depends on historical context, in general a group becomes a ‘minority’ not primarily because of its numerical size, but because of its de facto and often de jure inequality within a given political and social system. In other words, minority status depends on power relations and is accompanied by relative marginalization, political disenfranchisement, and cultural segregation. Stausberg, Van der Haven and Baffelli raise the issue of ‘minoritization’ and its corollary ‘majoritization,’ and the dilemma they pose for states[1]. Thus, minorities can be set aside by something in their behaviour, beliefs or collective identity that creates the perception – and the historical experience – that they are different from ‘the majority’ in some important aspects, but also by identifying some of their characteristics as a threat for the rest of society. According to Finet, a minority is “a group subjected to a relationship of domination […] that pushes [its] members […] to unity”, the latter becoming a matter of “self-affirmation […] to resist the […] process of assimilation[2].” Their marginalization may thus be implemented constitutionally, but can also proceed from a majority reaction to their social practices[3] (Weber, 1971: 41). Hence, their aspiration to both integration and preservation of their specificity creates a tension, often reflected in their political behaviour. The underlying question is therefore that of agency: is the minority status always imposed on these religious communities or do they participate in the underlying processes?

Studying minorities leads us to explore the related concepts of marginalization justified with appeals to race and ethnicity, religion and beliefs, and gender identity, among others. In the case of religious minorities, it is their religious diversity that gives them identity and cohesion. This panel aims at offering space for the comparison of multiple approaches and territories where Protestantism – broadly defined – contributed to a paradigm shift in community relations and the perception of other religious minorities, whether former Christian minorities or Jews. It therefore intends to examine the diverse relationship between Protestantism and domination, as well as the various forms of resistance that Protestant minorities have aroused, depending on its constitutional or social status.

The Reformation provoked societal changes and crises that partook in the emergence of modernity and religious plurality led to a renewed religious competition in the age of nation-states. We may thus wonder how, and to what extent, did the secularizing trend it introduced favour the emergence of religious freedoms and civil rights? With the spread of Protestantism worldwide, how do states and their majority populations deal with the phenomenon of religious conversion throughout space and time? Has it provoked shifting patterns in dealing with religious minorities? All in all, how do these receptions relate to religious freedom in general and the integration of minorities in past and in present societies?

More on the Minority Protestants network

 Submission guideliens

This panel is open to 5 proposals. Please send your paper proposals to karina.wendling@univ-lorraine.fr 

before February 8, 2024.

Disciplinary tags: Protestantism / History / Political sciences / Minorities / Modernity

Hours: 5

Chair

• Prof. Eugenio Biagini (Professor, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge).

Speakers

• Prof. Philipp David (Professor, Giessen University)
• Paula Malan (PhD candidate, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL)
• Laura Popa (PhD candidate, Giessen University)
• Dr Karina Bénazech Wendling (Associate Professor, Université de Lorraine)

Notes

[1] M. Stausberg, A. Van Der Haven, and E. Baffelli. "Religious Minorities: conceptual perspectives". Religious Minorities Online, Erica Baffelli, Alexander van der Haven and Michael Stausberg (ed.), (Berlin, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1515/rmo.23389320. Accessed 2023-12-18.

[2] A. Finet, “The question of minorities in the order of law’” in Gérard Chaliand (ed.). Minority peoples in the Age of Nation-States, (London, 1989), pp. 22-23. 

[3] M. Weber. Économie et Société, T. 1, (Paris, 1971, [1922]).