ABSTRACT

This book opens a new research field in Balkan contextual theology. By embracing culturally rich traditions of the Western Balkans as its starting point, it explores their existential and theological bearings. Placed at the crossroads of civilisations and religions, this region has witnessed some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. At the same time, it has produced unique textures of inter-cultural life. The volume addresses some of the most poignant phenomena endemic to the region, such as sevdalinka music, intimate forms of neighborhood, archetypes of ‘sacred warriors,’ the experience of democratic jet lag, collective melancholy, and intergenerational trauma. As the first book of this nature, it aims to encourage further development of contextual theological thinking in the region and promote its international reception.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

Balkan the Unifier and Balkan the Divider

part I|124 pages

Religion, Politics, Identity

chapter 1|14 pages

Religion and National/Ethnic Identity in the Balkans

Theological and Contextual Positions in Islam 1

chapter 2|15 pages

Religion and National/Ethnic Identity in the Western Balkans

Serbian Orthodox Context

chapter 3|34 pages

Ecumenism Divided

Christian Churches at the Fault Lines

chapter 4|13 pages

IncarNation

On the Possibility of Balkan Contextual Theology

chapter 5|27 pages

Gender and Religion in the Balkans

The Example of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

part II|92 pages

Violence, God, Memory

chapter 7|16 pages

Prayer as the Curse

Religious Tabooisation of God

chapter 8|16 pages

The Balkan Love Triangle

God, Love, and Violence

chapter 9|11 pages

Theology in the Spirit of Palanka

Catechism of Croatian Catholic and Serbian Orthodox Ethnonationalist Imaginaries

chapter 12|16 pages

The Grace of Not Remembering

Painful Memories and Their Theological Implications 1

part III|79 pages

Life, Culture, Longing

chapter 13|11 pages

Inat, the Explosive Instinct of Freedom

Towards the Theology of Spite

chapter 14|12 pages

Other God or God of the Other

Sevdah, Queer Laments, and the Balkan Religious Imaginary

chapter 15|21 pages

Neither Exclusionary Religious Nationalisms, Nor Abstract Religious Humanisms

Belonging and Border-Living in the Balkans

chapter 16|11 pages

Komšiluk

The Starting Point of the Balkan Contextual Theology

chapter 17|12 pages

The Rootless God

Theology of Emigrations

chapter 18|11 pages

Paradise Lost

Theology of Nostalgia and Hope