- Table View
- List View
Religious Foundations of Western Civilization: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
by Jacob NeusnerWorld ReligionsReligious Foundations of Western Civilization introduces students to the major Western world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—their beliefs, key concepts, history, as well as the fundamental role they have played, and continue to play, in Western culture. Contributors include: Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, Bruce D. Chilton, Th. Emil Homerin, Jon D. Levenson, William Scott Green, Seymour Feldman, Elliot R. Wolfson, James A. Brundage, Olivia Remie Constable, and Amila Buturovic."This book provides a superb source of information for scientists and scholars from all disciplines who are trying to understand religion in the context of human cultural evolution." David Sloan Wilson, Professor, Departments of Biology and Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York This is the right book at the right time. Globalization, religious revivalism, and international politics have made it more important than ever to appreciate the significant contributions of the Children of Abraham to the formation and development of Western civilization. John L. Esposito, University Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Muslm-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology, and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.General Interest/Other Religions/Comparative Religion
Religious Freedom Under Scrutiny (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights)
by Heiner Bielefeldt Michael WienerFreedom of religion or belief is deeply entrenched in international human rights conventions and constitutional traditions around the world. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as does the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1966. A rich jurisprudence on freedom of religion or belief is based on the European Convention on Human Rights, drafted in 1950 by the Council of Europe. Similar regional guarantees exist in the framework of the Organization of American States as well as within the African Union. Freedom of religion or belief has found recognition in numerous national constitutions, and some governments have shown a particularly strong commitment to the international promotion of this right.As Heiner Bielefeldt and Michael Wiener observe, however, freedom of religion or belief remains a source of political conflict, legal controversy, and intellectual debate. In Religious Freedom Under Scrutiny, Bielefeldt and Wiener explore various critiques leveled at this right. For example, does freedom of religion contribute to the spread of Western neoliberal values to the detriment of religious and cultural diversity? Can religious freedom serve as the entry point for antifeminist agendas within the human rights framework? Drawing on their considerable experience in the field, Bielefeldt and Wiener provide a typological overview and analysis of violations around the world that illustrate the underlying principles as well as the relationship between freedom of religion or belief and other human rights.Religious Freedom Under Scrutiny argues that without freedom of religion or belief, human rights cannot fully address our complex needs, yearnings, and vulnerabilities as human beings. Furthermore, ignoring or marginalizing freedom of religion or belief would weaken the plausibility, attractiveness, and legitimacy of the entire system of human rights.
Religious Freedom and COVID-19: A European Perspective (ISSN)
by Jelle Creemers and Tatiana KopaleishviliThe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a topic for academic research for years to come. This collection brings together international scholars from various disciplines to analyse the impact of the pandemic on both religious freedom and on religious community life in Europe.Divided into two parts, the first focuses on theoretical considerations, while the second explores local challenges and includes case studies from countries with different socio-political profiles. The book includes critical evaluations of public crisis management of religious communities during the pandemic, as well as critical reflections on religious freedom appeals in such crisis.In sum, the volume probes and challenges scholars and students of law, religion, politics, and sociology to go beyond the typical oppositions in considering Freedom of Religious Belief in the current secular European context. The work will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policy-makers working in the areas of Law and Religion, Human Rights Law, Sociology, and Political Science.
Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights)
by Laura JenkinsHinduism is the largest religion in India, encompassing roughly 80 percent of the population, while 14 percent of the population practices Islam and the remaining 6 percent adheres to other religions. <P><P>The right to "freely profess, practice, and propagate religion" in India's constitution is one of the most comprehensive articulations of the right to religious freedom. Yet from the late colonial era to the present, mass conversions to minority religions have inflamed majority-minority relations in India and complicated the exercise of this right. <P><P>In Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India, Laura Dudley Jenkins examines three mass conversion movements in India: among Christians in the 1930s, Dalit Buddhists in the 1950s, and Mizo Jews in the 2000s. Critics of these movements claimed mass converts were victims of overzealous proselytizers promising material benefits, but defenders insisted the converts were individuals choosing to convert for spiritual reasons. >{?>{?Jenkins traces the origins of these opposing arguments to the 1930s and 1940s, when emerging human rights frameworks and early social scientific studies of religion posited an ideal convert: an individual making a purely spiritual choice. However, she observes that India's mass conversions did not adhere to this model and therefore sparked scrutiny of mass converts' individual agency and spiritual sincerity. <P><P>Jenkins demonstrates that the preoccupation with converts' agency and sincerity has resulted in significant challenges to religious freedom. One is the proliferation of legislation limiting induced conversions. Another is the restriction of affirmative action rights of low caste people who choose to practice Islam or Christianity. Last, incendiary rumors are intentionally spread of women being converted to Islam via seduction. <P><P>Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India illuminates the ways in which these tactics immobilize potential converts, reinforce damaging assumptions about women, lower castes, and religious minorities, and continue to restrict religious freedom in India today.
Religious Freedom and the Australian Constitution: Origins and Future (ICLARS Series on Law and Religion)
by Luke BeckThis book examines the origins of Australia’s constitutional religious freedom provision. It explores, on the one hand, the political activities and motives of religious leaders seeking to give the Australian Constitution a religious character and, on the other, the political activities and motives of a religious minority seeking to prevent the Australian Constitution having a religious character. The book also interrogates the argument advanced at the Federal Convention in favour of section 116, dealing with separation of religion and government, and argues that until now scholars and courts have misunderstood that argument. The book casts new light to show how the origins of the provision lead to section 116 being conceptualised as a safeguard against religious intolerance on the part of the Commonwealth. Written in an accessible style, the work has potential to influence the development of constitutional doctrine by the High Court through its challenge of historical assumptions on which the High Court’s current doctrine is based. Given the ongoing political debates concerning the interaction of discrimination law and religious freedom, the book will be of interest to academics and policy-makers working in the areas of law and religion, constitutional law and comparative law.
Religious Freedom and the Constitution
by Christopher L. Eisgruber Lawrence G. SagerReligion has become a charged token in a politics of division. In disputes about faith-based social services, public money for religious schools, the Pledge of Allegiance, Ten Commandments monuments, the theory of evolution, and many other topics, angry contestation threatens to displace America's historic commitment to religious freedom. Part of the problem, the authors argue, is that constitutional analysis of religious freedom has been hobbled by the idea of "a wall of separation" between church and state. That metaphor has been understood to demand that religion be treated far better than other concerns in some contexts, and far worse in others. Sometimes it seems to insist on both contrary forms of treatment simultaneously. Missing has been concern for the fair and equal treatment of religion. In response, the authors offer an understanding of religious freedom called Equal Liberty. Equal Liberty is guided by two principles. First, no one within the reach of the Constitution ought to be devalued on account of the spiritual foundation of their commitments. Second, all persons should enjoy broad rights of free speech, personal autonomy, associative freedom, and private property. Together, these principles are generous and fair to a wide range of religious beliefs and practices. With Equal Liberty as their guide, the authors offer practical, moderate, and appealing terms for the settlement of many hot-button issues that have plunged religious freedom into controversy. Their book calls Americans back to the project of finding fair terms of cooperation for a religiously diverse people, and it offers a valuable set of tools for working toward that end.
Religious Freedom and the Global Regulation of Ayahuasca (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by Beatriz Caiuby Labate Clancy CavnarThis book offers a comprehensive view of the legal, political, and ethical challenges related to the global regulation of ayahuasca, bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars. Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew containing DMT, which is a Schedule I substance under the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the legality of its ritual use has been interpreted differently throughout the world. The chapters in this volume reflect on the complex implications of the international expansion of ayahuasca, from health, spirituality, and human rights impacts on individuals, to legal and policy impacts on national governments. While freedom of religion is generally protected, this protection depends on the recognition of a religion’s legitimacy, and whether particular practices may be deemed a threat to public health, safety or morality. Through acomparative analysis of different contexts in North America, South America and Europe in which ayahuasca is consumed, the book investigates the conceptual, philosophical, and legal distinctions among the fields of shamanism, religion, and medicine. It will be particularly relevant to scholars with an interest in Indigenous religion and in religion and law.
Religious Freedom and the Law: Emerging Contexts for Freedom for and from Religion (ICLARS Series on Law and Religion)
by Brett G. Scharffs Asher Maoz Ashley Isaacson WoolleyThis volume presents a timely analysis of some of the current controversies relating to freedom for religion and freedom from religion that have dominated headlines worldwide. The collection trains the lens closely on select issues and contexts to provide detailed snapshots of the ways in which freedom for and from religion are conceptualized, protected, neglected, and negotiated in diverse situations and locations. A broad range of issues including migration, education, the public space, prisons and healthcare are discussed drawing examples from Europe, the US, Asia, Africa and South America. Including contributions from leading experts in the field, the book will be essential reading for researchers and policy-makers interested in Law and Religion.
Religious Freedom at Risk
by Melanie AdrianThis book examines matters of religious freedom in Europe, considers the work of the European Court of Human Rights in this area, explores issues of multiculturalism and secularism in France, of women in Islam, and of Muslims in the West. The work presents legal analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on concepts such as laïcité, submission, equality and the role of the state in public education, amongst others. Through this book, the reader can visit inside a French public school located in a low-income neighborhood just south of Paris and learn about the complex dynamics that led up to the passing of the 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves. The chapters bring to light the actors and cultures within the school that set the stage for the passing of the law and the political philosophy that supports it. School culture and philosophy are compared and contrasted to the thoughts and opinions of the teachers, administrators and students to gage how religious freedom and identity are understood. The book goes on to explore the issue of religious freedom at the European Court of Human Rights. The author argues that the right to religious freedom has been too narrowly understood and is being fenced in by static visions of Islam. This jeopardizes the idea of religious freedom more broadly. By becoming entangled with regional and domestic politics, the Court is neglecting important nuances and is jeopardizing secularism, pluralism and democracy. This is a highly readable and accessible book that will appeal to students and scholars of law, anthropology, religious studies and philosophy of religion.
Religious Freedom in India: Sovereignty and (Anti) Conversion (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series)
by Goldie OsuriDrawing on the critical and theoretical concepts of sovereignty, biopolitics, and necropolitics, this book examines how a normative liberal and secular understanding of India’s religious identity is translatable by Hindu nationalists into discrimination and violence against minoritized religious communities. Extending these concepts to an analysis of historical, political and legal genealogies of conversion, the author demonstrates how a concern for sovereignty links past and present anti-conversion campaigns and laws. The book illustrates how sovereignty informs the making of secularism as well as religious difference. The focus on sovereignty sheds light on the manner in which religious difference becomes a point of reference for the religio-secular idioms of Bombay cinema, for legal judgements on communal violence, for human rights organizations, and those seeking justice for communal violence. This wide-ranging examination and discussion of the trajectories of (anti) conversion politics through historical, legal, philosophical, popular cultural, archival and ethnographic material offers a cogent argument for shifting the stakes and rethinking the relationship between sovereignty and religious freedom. The book is a timely contribution to broader theoretical and political discussions of (post) secularism and human rights, and is of interest to students and scholars of postcolonial studies, cultural studies, law, and religious studies.
Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government
by Michael F. BirdReligious freedom is up for debate and needs to be defended--discover how.In Religious Freedom in a Secular Age author Michael Bird argues that religious freedom should not be preserved by churches entrusting themselves to the protection of a conservative leader draped in the apparel of civil religion, nor should they consent to allowing religious freedom to be steam rolled by progressive activists with their increasing hostility towards people of faith. What is needed instead is a better appreciation for how secularism can work to create space for people of all faiths and none, to resolve tense relationships between church and state, and to come to a fair and equitable settlement when religious liberty and LGBTQI+ rights come into conflict. Bird tackles complicated debates about the nature, extent, and limitations of religious freedom with a view to encouraging Christians to stand up for their faith in a post-Christian world in a way that is humble and gentle yet also courageous.Advance Praise:"This book's global perspective will challenge readers of all backgrounds and beliefs toward better arguments and better understanding." - John D. Inazu, Washington University in St. Louis"Bird demonstrates that religious liberty is of interest not only to Christians but also to the marketplace of ideas that helped deepen faith while simultaneously making room for peaceable difference." - Andrew T. Walker, professor and author of Liberty for All
Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age
by Nelson TebbeNelson Tebbe shows how a method called social coherence offers a way to resolve conflicts between advocates of religious freedom and proponents of equality law. Based on the way people reason through moral problems in everyday life, it can lead to workable solutions in a wide range of issues, including gay rights and women’s reproductive choice.
Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer
by John D. WilseyA conservative perspective on vital questions about religious liberty In this timely book, historian John D. Wilsey addresses urgent questions about religious freedom in America. How have conservatives historically understood the meaning of religious freedom? How do Americans who identify as conservative now think about religious freedom in this era? What are the differences between the historical and contemporary views, and how do those differences shape fights about religious freedom today? Writing for fellow Americans concerned about threats to religious liberty, Wilsey draws on US history to explain why rather than weaponizing religious freedom in the context of the culture wars, today&’s conservatives need to rally around religious freedom to promote peace between church and state. With wisdom and acuity, Wilsey charts a path forward for thinking about and maintaining a uniquely American tradition: the harmony between liberty and religion that each generation has received as an inheritance from the generations preceding theirs.
Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal
by Tisa WengerReligious freedom is so often presented as a timeless American ideal and an inalienable right, appearing fully formed at the founding of the United States. That is simply not so, Tisa Wenger contends in this sweeping and brilliantly argued book. Instead, American ideas about religious freedom were continually reinvented through a vibrant national discourse--Wenger calls it "religious freedom talk--that cannot possibly be separated from the evolving politics of race and empire. More often than not, Wenger demonstrates, religious freedom talk worked to privilege the dominant white Christian population. At the same time, a diverse array of minority groups at home and colonized people abroad invoked and reinterpreted this ideal to defend themselves and their ways of life. In so doing they posed sharp challenges to the racial and religious exclusions of American life. People of almost every religious stripe have argued, debated, negotiated, and brought into being an ideal called American religious freedom, subtly transforming their own identities and traditions in the process. In a post-9/11 world, Wenger reflects, public attention to religious freedom and its implications is as consequential as it has ever been.
Religious Genius
by Alon Goshen-GottsteinThis book sets forth a new area in the study of extraordinary individuals in religious traditions. It develops the category of "Religious Genius" as an alternative to existing categories, primarily "saint. " It constructs a model by which to appreciate these individuals, suggesting key characteristics such as love, humility, and self-surrender. Religious geniuses transform their traditions and their legacies endure through these very transformations. They also inspire changes across religious boundaries and traditions. The study of religious geniuses in various faith traditions therefore advances interfaith engagement today. The book complements existing, primarily historical, studies of saints by offering a phenomenological approach that seeks to touch the subjectivity of these individuals, and how they have affected the unfolding of their religious traditions.
Religious Hair Display and Its Meanings (Popular Culture, Religion and Society. A Social-Scientific Approach #4)
by William C. Innes, JrThis book explores the fascinating world of religious hair observances within six religious traditions that account for 77% of the world’s adherents: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Symbolic use of hair has been, and remains, prevalent in all six and carries significant amounts of religious and social meaning. Hair is a unique body substance. It can be shaped and colored, removed from us without pain but still retain an individual’s essence, signal our age, sex, and sexual maturity, and much, much more. The book’s approach is to situate each practice within its tradition. That requires a study of its foundational leaders and their teachings, sacred texts (where they mention hair), its rites and rituals, ideas of religious power and subsequent historical development. Contemporary practitioners are interviewed for their motivations. Even more insight can be gleaned by searching beyond an overt religious purpose. Social scientists from anthropology, sociology, psychology, and related fields bring their research to deliver added perceptions.The author reveals how hair practices are created from ancient psychological and cultural impulses, become modified by time, culture and religious intent, and are adopted by adherents for reasons ranging from personal religious expression to group identity. This book is written for the interested observer of our increasingly diverse society and for the student of comparative religion and sociology. It will change forever how you see hair.
Religious Hatred and Human Conflict: Psychodynamic Approaches to Insight and Intervention
by Andrew Floyer AclandReligious Hatred and Human Conflict focuses the lens of psychodynamic psychology on a phenomenon that often confounds conventional thinking – the intensity of conflict with religious or quasi-religious dimensions. The book highlights six dimensions of religion: identity, doctrine and practice, emotion and experience, mythology, sacred values and power and control, exploring how these can give rise to religious hatred and lead to marginalisation, persecution and even genocide. It also explores reasons for the evolution of religion and religious hatred, and their relationship with human behaviour through contemporary issues such as fundamentalism, martyrdom, clerical narcissism and apocalyptic belief. Acland examines how religious hatred and conflict may be transcended by facilitating processes of dialogue and diapraxis which enable a systematic understanding of prejudices and projections. Last, it offers practical methods and strategies for helping individuals and communities grow beyond the constraints of religious hatred, treating religious hatred as a psycho-spiritual problem that requires self-understanding. Identifying the implications for professionals in conflict resolution and mediation, politicians, community leaders, diplomats and anyone working to prevent or reduce conflict where religious belief is a factor, this book sets out how those tasked with intervening can respond to the challenges involved. It will also be highly relevant reading for students and researchers of psychology and religious studies.
Religious Identities and the Global South: Porous Borders and Novel Paths (New Approaches to Religion and Power)
by Felix WilfredThis book offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary account of religious identities in the Global South. Drawing on literature in various fields, Felix Wilfred analyzes how religious identities intersect with the processes of globalization, modernity, and postmodernity. He illustrates how the study of religion in the Global North often revolves around questions of secularism and fundamentalism, whereas a neo-Orientalist quality often attends study of religion in the Global South. These approaches and theorizing fail to incorporate the experiences of lived religion in the South, especially in Asia. Historically, the religions in the South have played a highly significant role in resistance to the domination by the colonial forces, an important reason for the continued attachment of the peoples of the South to their religious universe. This book puts the two regions and their scholarly norms in conversation with one another, exploring the social, political, cultural, and economic implications.
Religious Ideology and the Roots of the Global Jihad: Salafi Jihadism and International Order
by John A. TurnerThe events of 9/11 prompted questions as to the origins, nature and purpose of international jihadist organisations. In particular, why had they chosen to target the US and the West in general? Turner's book provides a unique, holistic insight into these debates, taking into account historical perceptions and ideology as key factors.
Religious Imaging in Millennialist America: Dark Gnosis
by Ashley CrawfordAshley Crawford investigates how such figures as Ben Marcus, Matthew Barney, and David Lynch—among other artists, novelists, and film directors—utilize religious themes and images via Christianity, Judaism, and Mormonism to form essentially mutated variations of mainstream belief systems. He seeks to determine what drives contemporary artists to deliver implicitly religious imagery within a ‘secular’ context. Particularly, how religious heritage and language, and the mutations within those, have impacted American culture to partake in an aesthetic of apocalyptism that underwrites it.
Religious Indifference
by Johannes Quack Cora SchuhThis book provides a conceptually and empirically rich introduction to religious indifference on the basis of original anthropological, historical and sociological research. Religious indifference is a central category for understanding contemporary societies, and a controversial one. For some scholars, a growing religious indifference indicates a dramatic decline in religiosity and epitomizes the endpoint of secularization processes. Others view it as an indicator of moral apathy and philosophical nihilism, whilst yet others see it as paving the way for new forms of political tolerance and solidarity. This volume describes and analyses the symbolic power of religious indifference and the conceptual contestations surrounding it. Detailed case studies cover anthropological and qualitative data from the UK, Germany, Estonia, the USA, Canada, and India analyse large quantitative data sets, and provide philosophical-literary inquiries into the phenomenon. They highlight how, for different actors and agendas, religious indifference can constitute an objective or a challenge. Pursuing a relational approach to non-religion, the book conceptualizes religious indifference in its interrelatedness with religion as well as more avowed forms of non-religion.
Religious Influences on Economic Thinking: The Origins of Modern Economics (Karl Brunner Distinguished Lecture Series)
by Benjamin M. FriedmanHow religious thinking was—and remains—a central influence shaping economics.The conventional view of economics is that the field was a product of the Enlightenment and, therefore, bore no relation to religious ideas. But is this true? In Religious Influences on Economic Thinking, Benjamin Friedman shows that religious thinking was, in fact, a powerful force in shaping the initial development of modern Western economics and that it has remained an influence on economic thinking ever since. Friedman argues that an important influence enabling the insights of Adam Smith and his contemporaries was the new and highly controversial line of religious thinking at that time in the English-speaking Protestant world.Friedman explains that the influence of religious thinking on modern economic thought at the field&’s inception established resonances that have persisted through the subsequent centuries, even as the economic context has evolved and the questions economists ask have shifted along with it. Because we are largely not conscious of these influences, neither in the past nor as they are at work today, we are sometimes puzzled when we stumble across evidence of them—for example, in the otherwise hard-to-explain attitudes that many of our fellow citizens express on issues like estate taxes, business regulation, and environmental restrictions. But they are still at work. Understanding them can only enhance the economics profession&’s capacity to contribute to our ongoing public discussion of the important questions on which the discipline so usefully bears.
Religious Innovation in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (Elements in New Religious Movements)
by Olav Hammer Mikael RothsteinThe scholarly study of new religious movements focuses on the contemporary period, but religious innovation is nothing new. This Element explores a historical epoch characterized by a multitude of emergent religious concepts and practices – the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A precondition for the intense degree of religious innovation during this time was a high level of cultural exchange. Religious elements crossed porous cultural borders and were adapted to suit new purposes. The resulting amalgams were presented in a vast corpus of texts, largely produced by a literate elite. Charismatic leaders played a particularly important role in creating new religious options and were described in genres that were infused with ideological agendas. Novel religious developments were accepted by the Roman authorities unless suspected of undermining the social order. The rise of one of the many new religions of the period, Christianity, ultimately changed the religious landscape in profound ways.
Religious Interactions in Europe and the Mediterranean World: Coexistence and Dialogue from the 12th to the 20th Centuries
by Benjamin J. Kaplan Katsumi Fukasawa Pierre-Yves BeaurepaireThe religious histories of Christian and Muslim countries in Europe and Western Asia are often treated in isolation from one another. This can lead to a limited and simplistic understanding of the international and interreligious interactions currently taking place. This edited collection brings these national and religious narratives into conversation with each other, helping readers to formulate a more sophisticated comprehension of the social and cultural factors involved in the tolerance and intolerance that has taken place in these areas, and continues today. Part One of this volume examines the history of relations between people of different Christian confessions in western and central Europe. Part Two then looks at the relations between Western and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the vast area that extends around the Mediterranean from the Iberian Peninsula to western Asia. Each Part ends with a Conclusion that considers the wider implications of the preceding essays and points the way toward future research. Bringing together scholars from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America this volume embodies an international collaboration of unusual range. Its comparative approach will be of interest to scholars of Religion and History, particularly those with an emphasis on interreligious relations and religious tolerance.
Religious Internationals in the Modern World
by Abigail Green Vincent ViaeneTracing the emergence of 'Religious Internationals' as a distinctive new phenomenon in world history, this book transforms our understanding of the role of religion in our modern world. Through in-depth studies comparing the experiences of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, leading experts shed new light on 'global civil society'.