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Religion and the Struggle for European Union: Confessional Culture and the Limits of Integration (Religion and Politics)
by Brent F. Nelsen James L. Guth<p>In <i>Religion and the Struggle for European Union</i>, Brent F. Nelsen and James L. Guth delve into the powerful role of religion in shaping European attitudes on politics, political integration, and the national and continental identities of its leaders and citizens. <p>Nelsen and Guth contend that for centuries Catholicism promoted the universality of the Church and the essential unity of Christendom. Protestantism, by contrast, esteemed particularity and feared Catholic dominance. These differing visions of Europe have influenced the process of postwar integration in profound ways. Nelsen and Guth compare the Catholic view of Europe as a single cultural entity best governed as a unified polity against traditional Protestant estrangement from continental culture and its preference for pragmatic cooperation over the sacrifice of sovereignty. As the authors show, this deep cultural divide, rooted in the struggles of the Reformation, resists the ongoing secularization of the continent. Unless addressed, it threatens decades of hard-won gains in security and prosperity. <p>Farsighted and rich with data, <i>Religion and the Struggle for European Union</i> offers a pragmatic way forward in the EU's attempts to solve its social, economic, and political crises.
Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body
by Geoffrey Samuel Jay JohnstonSubtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy.
Religion and the Technological Future: An Introduction to Biohacking, Artificial Intelligence, and Transhumanism
by Calvin Mercer Tracy J. TrothenWe live in an age of rapid technological advancement. Never before has humankind wielded so much power over our own biology. Biohacking, the attempt at human enhancement of physical, cognitive, affective, moral, and spiritual traits, has become a global phenomenon. This textbook introduces religious and ethical implications of biohacking, artificial intelligence, and other technological changes, offering perspectives from monotheistic and karmic religions and applied ethics. These technological breakthroughs are transforming our societies and ourselves fundamentally via genetic modification, tissue engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, the merging of computer technology with human biology, extended reality, brain stimulation, and nanotechnology. The book also considers the extreme possibilities of mind uploading, cryonics, and superintelligence. Chapters explore some of the political, economic, sociological, and psychological dimensions of these advances, with bibliographies for further study and questions for discussion. The technological future is here – and it is up to us to decide its moral and religious shape.
Religion and Theism: The Forwood Lectures Delivered at Liverpool University, 1933. Together with a Chapter on the Psychological Accounts of the Origin of Belief in God (Routledge Library Editions: Philosophy of Religion)
by Clement C.J. WebbFour lectures on the Philosophy of Religion are included in this compact book along with an extra chapter on the psychology of belief in God. In a search for an acceptable theism, the author examines religious faith and human personality via many theories and facets of thinking, referring to psychologists, theologians and philosophers who have battled with similar questions. Originally published a year after the lectures were presented, this is an interesting classic volume by a well-known theorist of the early Twentieth Century.
Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters
by Michael StausbergThis book explores the dynamic interaction between religion and tourism in the modern world. It considers questions such as: do travellers leave their religion at home when they are touring – and what happens if not? what are the relationships between tourism and pilgrimage? what happens to religious performances, places and festivals that function as tourism attractions? Other chapters examine religious theme parks, wellness and spa tourism, the roles played by tourist guides, guidebooks and religious souvenirs, and the role of tourism as a major arena of religious encounters in the contemporary world. Surveying the growing body of work in the field, Michael Stausberg argues that tourism should be a major focus of research within religious studies.
Religion and Transnational Citizenship in the African Diaspora: Akan London (Routledge Studies on Religion in Africa and the Diaspora)
by Mattia FumantiThis book focuses on Akan-speaking Ghanaians in London and explores in detail the experience of African migrants living in Britain, investigating how they construct their British citizenship through their membership of the church. Building on extensive ethnographic research in London and Ghana, the author explores the relationship between religion and citizenship, the emergence of transnational subjectivities, and the making of diaspora aesthetics among African migrants. Starting from the understanding that citizenship is dialogical, a status mediated by a subject’s multiple and intersecting identities, the author highlights the limitations of existing conceptualisations of migrant citizenship. Anchored in a case study of the British/Ghanaian Methodist Church as a transnational religious organisation and cultural polity, the book explores diasporic religious subjectivities as both cosmopolitan and transnational, while being configured in emotionally and morally significant ways by the Methodist Church, as well as family, ethnicity, and nation. Interdisciplinary by nature, this book will be of interest to a wide range of researchers and scholars across the social sciences and humanities working in the fields of anthropology, religion, sociology, postcolonial studies, and African studies, and additionally policy makers interested in diaspora and migration studies.
Religion and US Empire: Critical New Histories (North American Religions)
by Tisa Wenger Sylveste A JohnsonShows how American forms of religion and empire developed in tandem, shaping and reshaping each other over the course of American historyThe United States has been an empire since the time of its founding, and this empire is inextricably intertwined with American religion. Religion and US Empire examines the relationship between these dynamic forces throughout the country’s history and into the present. The volume will serve as the most comprehensive and definitive text on the relationship between US empire and American religion.Whereas other works describe religion as a force that aided or motivated American imperialism, this comprehensive new history reveals how imperialism shaped American religion—and how religion historically structured, enabled, challenged, and resisted US imperialism. Chapters move chronologically from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, ranging geographically from the Caribbean, Michigan, and Liberia, to Oklahoma, Hawai’i, and the Philippines. Rather than situating these histories safely in the past, the final chapters ask readers to consider present day entanglements between capitalism, imperialism, and American religion. Religion and US Empire is an urgent work of history, offering the context behind a relationship that is, for better or worse, very much alive today.
Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida
by Hent de VriesChosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2003 by Choice MagazineOriginally published in 2002. Does violence inevitably shadow our ethico-political engagements and decisions, including our understandings of identity, whether collective or individual? Questions that touch upon ethics and politics can greatly benefit from being rephrased in terms borrowed from the arsenal of religious and theological figures, because the association of such figures with a certain violence keeps moralism, whether in the form of fideism or humanism, at bay. Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida's careful posing of such questions and rearticulations pioneers new modalities for systematic engagement with religion and philosophy alike.
Religion and Violence: A Religious Studies Approach
by Paul R. PowersDoes religion cause much of the world’s violence? Is religion inherently violent? Would violence disappear if religion did? Is true religion a force for peace? Is religion a mask for power and self-interest? What aspects of religion make violence more—or less—likely? Religion and Violence: A Religious Studies Approach explores the potential of classic social theories to shed light on the relationships between religion and violence. This accessible and engaging book starts from the premise that both religion and violence are ordinary elements of social life and that rather than causing violence religion plays a crucial role in the management of violence. Ideal for any student approaching the topic of religion and violence for the first time, this core textbook includes chapter overviews and summaries, guides for applying theory to real-world events, discussion questions, and case studies. Further teaching and learning resources are available on the accompanying companion website.
Religion and Violence in South Asia: Theory and Practice
by John R. Hinnells Richard KingDo religions justify and cause violence or are they more appropriately seen as forces for peace and tolerance? Featuring contributions from international experts in the field, this book explores the debate that has emerged in the context of secular modernity about whether religion is a primary cause of social division, conflict and war, or whether this is simply a distortion of the ‘true’ significance of religion and that if properly followed it promotes peace, harmony, goodwill and social cohesion. Focusing on how this debate is played out in the South Asian context, the book engages with issues relating to religion and violence in both its classical and contemporary formations. The collection is designed to look beyond the stereotypical images and idealized portrayals of the peaceful South Asian religious traditions (especially Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sufi), which can occlude their own violent histories and to analyze the diverse attitudes towards, and manifestations of violence within the major religious traditions of South Asia. Divided into three sections, the book also discusses globalization and the theoretical issues that inform contemporary discussions of the relationship between religion and violence.
Religion and Violence in Western Traditions: Selected Studies (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by André GagnéThis book examines the connection between religion and violence in the Western traditions of the three Abrahamic faiths, from ancient to modern times. It addresses a gap in the scholarly debate on the nature of religious violence by bringing scholars that specialize in pre-modern religions and scriptural traditions into the same sphere of discussion as those specializing in contemporary manifestations of religious violence. Moving beyond the question of the “authenticity” of religious violence, this book brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines. Contributors explore the central role that religious texts have played in encouraging, as well as confronting, violence. The interdisciplinary conversation that takes place challenges assumptions that religious violence is a modern problem that can be fully understood without reference to religious scriptures, beliefs, or history. Each chapter focuses its analysis on a particular case study from a distinct historical period. Taken as a whole, these chapters attest to the persistent relationship between religion and violence that links the ancient and contemporary worlds. This is a dynamic collection of explorations into how religion and violence intersect. As such, it will be a key resource for any scholar of Religious Studies, Theology and Religion and Violence, as well as Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Studies.
Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis (Routledge Revivals)
by Stephen YeoFirst published in 1976, Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis, analyses the experience of late nineteenth and early twentieth century organised religion by setting it in the context of the whole range of voluntary and other organisations. It provides a detailed study of churches and chapels in Reading set alongside the experience of a biscuit factory, football club, the hospital, the university, the WEA branch, the Social Democratic Federation, the Coop, and the other organisations. The interweaving of religion into the broad social history of the town gives a detailed and exciting picture of the social development of late nineteenth century England. It shows the part that religion had to play in the life of the locality in a very different society from our own and it explores the pressures on religion in the changing phases of capitalist development. This book is an essential read for scholars and researchers of religion, sociology of religion and history.
Religion and Volunteering
by Lesley Hustinx Johan Von Essen Jacques Haers Sara MelsReligion is considered a key predictor of volunteering: the more religious people are, the more likely they are to volunteer. This positive association enjoys significant support in current research; in fact, it could be considered the 'default perspective' on the relationship between both phenomena. In this book, the authors claim that, although the dominant approach is legitimate and essential, it nonetheless falls short in grasping the full complexity of the interaction between religion and volunteering. It needs to be recognized that there are tensions between religion and volunteering, and that these tensions are intensifying as a result of the changing meaning and role of religion in society. Therefore, the central aim and contribution of this book is to demonstrate that the relationship between religion and volunteering is not univocal but differentiated, ambiguous and sometimes provocative. By introducing the reader to a much wider landscape of perspectives, this volume offers a richer, more complex and variable understanding. Apart from the established positive causality, the authors examine tensions between religion and volunteering from the perspective of religious obligation, religious change, processes of secularization and notions of post-secularity. They further explore how actions that are considered altruistic, politically neutral and motivated by religious beliefs can be used for political reasons. This volume opens up the field to new perspectives on religious actors and on how religion and volunteering are enacted outside Western liberal and Christian societies. It emphasizes interdisciplinary perspectives, including theology, philosophy, sociology, political science, anthropology and architecture.
Religion and Wittgenstein's Legacy (Ashgate Wittgensteinian Studies)
by Mario von RuhrWittgenstein was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. In this collection, distinguished Wittgenstein scholars examine his legacy for the philosophy of religion by examining key areas of his work: Wittgenstein's Tractatus; Frazer's 'Golden Bough'; and the implications of his later philosophy for the understanding of religion. Assessments are also provided of the philosophical and theological reception of his work. The collection provides an invaluable resource for graduate and undergraduate teaching of Wittgenstein in relation to religion.
Religion and World Conflict
by Caroline KennonReligion has been at the heart of many wars and acts of violence throughout history. Why is this such a deep-rooted source of conflict around the world, and what can be done to foster peace between people of different religions instead? <p><p> Readers are presented with these questions and more to challenge their critical-thinking skills as they learn about the relationship between religion and conflict, from ancient history to the Crusades to the rise of ISIS. Facts and opposing viewpoints are presented in the main text and sidebars, which are enhanced by the use of annotated quotations and primary sources.
Religion and Youth (Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series in Association with the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group)
by Pink DandelionWhat is the future of religion given the responses of young people? What impact do existing religious forms have on youth? What kind of spirituality and religion are young people creating for themselves? Religion and Youth presents an accessible guide to the key issues in the study of youth and religion, including methodological perspectives. It provides a key teaching text in these areas for undergraduates, and a book of rigorous scholarship for postgraduates, academics and practitioners. Offering the first comprehensive international perspective on the sociology of youth and religion, this book reveals key geographical and organisational variables as well as the complexities of the engagement between youth and religion. The book is divided into six parts organised around central themes: Generation X and their legacy; The Big Picture - surveys of belief and practice in the USA, UK and Australia; Expression - how young people construct and live out their religion and spirituality; Identity - the role of religion in shaping young people's sense of self and social belonging; Transmission - passing on the faith (or not); Researching Youth Religion - debates, issues and techniques in researching young people's religion and spirituality. James A. Beckford writes the Foreword and Linda Woodhead the Epilogue.
Religion Around Billie Holiday (Religion Around #3)
by Tracy FessendenSoulful jazz singer Billie Holiday is remembered today for her unique sound, troubled personal history, and a catalogue that includes such resonant songs as "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child." Holiday and her music were also strongly shaped by religion, often in surprising ways. Religion Around Billie Holiday examines the spiritual and religious forces that left their mark on the performer during her short but influential life.Mixing elements of biography with the history of race and American music, Tracy Fessenden explores the multiple religious influences on Holiday’s life and sound, including her time spent as a child in a Baltimore convent, the echoes of black Southern churches in the blues she encountered in brothels, the secular riffs on ancestral faith in the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, and the Jewish songwriting culture of Tin Pan Alley. Fessenden looks at the vernacular devotions scholars call lived religion—the Catholicism of the streets, the Jewishness of the stage, the Pentecostalism of the roadhouse or the concert arena—alongside more formal religious articulations in institutions, doctrine, and ritual performance.Insightful and compelling, Fessenden’s study brings unexpected materials and archival voices to bear on the shaping of Billie Holiday’s exquisite craft and indelible persona. Religion Around Billie Holiday illuminates the power and durability of religion in the making of an American musical icon.
Religion Around Billie Holiday (Religion Around)
by Tracy FessendenSoulful jazz singer Billie Holiday is remembered today for her unique sound, troubled personal history, and a catalogue that includes such resonant songs as “Strange Fruit” and “God Bless the Child.” Holiday and her music were also strongly shaped by religion, often in surprising ways. Religion Around Billie Holiday examines the spiritual and religious forces that left their mark on the performer during her short but influential life.Mixing elements of biography with the history of race and American music, Tracy Fessenden explores the multiple religious influences on Holiday’s life and sound, including her time spent as a child in a Baltimore convent, the echoes of black Southern churches in the blues she encountered in brothels, the secular riffs on ancestral faith in the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, and the Jewish songwriting culture of Tin Pan Alley. Fessenden looks at the vernacular devotions scholars call lived religion—the Catholicism of the streets, the Jewishness of the stage, the Pentecostalism of the roadhouse or the concert arena—alongside more formal religious articulations in institutions, doctrine, and ritual performance.Insightful and compelling, Fessenden’s study brings unexpected materials and archival voices to bear on the shaping of Billie Holiday’s exquisite craft and indelible persona. Religion Around Billie Holiday illuminates the power and durability of religion in the making of an American musical icon.
Religion Around Bono: Evangelical Enchantment and Neoliberal Capitalism (Religion Around #7)
by Chad E. SealesFor many, U2’s Bono is an icon of both evangelical spirituality and secular moral activism. In this book, Chad E. Seales examines the religious and spiritual culture that has built up around the rock star over the course of his career and considers how Bono engages with that religion in his music and in his activism.Looking at Bono and his work within a wider critique of white American evangelicalism, Seales traces Bono’s career, from his background in religious groups in the 1970s to his rise to stardom in the 1980s and his relationship with political and economic figures, such as Jeffrey Sachs, Bill Clinton, and Jesse Helms. In doing so, Seales shows us a different Bono, one who uses the spiritual meaning of church tradition to advocate for the promise that free markets and for-profits will bring justice and freedom to the world’s poor. Engaging with scholarship in popular culture, music, religious studies, race, and economic development, Seales makes the compelling case that neoliberal capitalism is a religion and that Bono is its best-known celebrity revivalist.Engagingly written and bitingly critical, Religion Around Bono promises to transform our understanding of the rock star’s career and advocacy. Those interested in the intersection of rock music, religion, and activism will find Seales’s study provocative and enlightening.
Religion Around Bono: Evangelical Enchantment and Neoliberal Capitalism (Religion Around)
by Chad E. SealesFor many, U2’s Bono is an icon of both evangelical spirituality and secular moral activism. In this book, Chad E. Seales examines the religious and spiritual culture that has built up around the rock star over the course of his career and considers how Bono engages with that religion in his music and in his activism.Looking at Bono and his work within a wider critique of white American evangelicalism, Seales traces Bono’s career, from his background in religious groups in the 1970s to his rise to stardom in the 1980s and his relationship with political and economic figures, such as Jeffrey Sachs, Bill Clinton, and Jesse Helms. In doing so, Seales shows us a different Bono, one who uses the spiritual meaning of church tradition to advocate for the promise that free markets and for-profits will bring justice and freedom to the world’s poor. Engaging with scholarship in popular culture, music, religious studies, race, and economic development, Seales makes the compelling case that neoliberal capitalism is a religion and that Bono is its best-known celebrity revivalist.Engagingly written and bitingly critical, Religion Around Bono promises to transform our understanding of the rock star’s career and advocacy. Those interested in the intersection of rock music, religion, and activism will find Seales’s study provocative and enlightening.
Religion Around Emily Dickinson (Religion Around #2)
by W. Clark GilpinReligion Around Emily Dickinson begins with a seeming paradox posed by Dickinson’s posthumously published works: while her poems and letters contain many explicitly religious themes and concepts, throughout her life she resisted joining her local church and rarely attended services. Prompted by this paradox, W. Clark Gilpin proposes, first, that understanding the religious aspect of the surrounding culture enhances our appreciation of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and, second, that her poetry casts light on features of religion in nineteenth-century America that might otherwise escape our attention. Religion, especially Protestant Christianity, was “around” Emily Dickinson not only in explicitly religious practices, literature, architecture, and ideas but also as an embedded influence on normative patterns of social organization in the era, including gender roles, education, and ideals of personal intimacy and fulfillment. Through her poetry, Dickinson imaginatively reshaped this richly textured religious inheritance to create her own personal perspective on what it might mean to be religious in the nineteenth century. The artistry of her poetry and the profundity of her thought have meant that this personal perspective proved to be far more than “merely” personal. Instead, Dickinson’s creative engagement with the religion around her has stimulated and challenged successive generations of readers in the United States and around the world.
Religion Around Emily Dickinson (Religion Around)
by W. Clark GilpinReligion Around Emily Dickinson begins with a seeming paradox posed by Dickinson’s posthumously published works: while her poems and letters contain many explicitly religious themes and concepts, throughout her life she resisted joining her local church and rarely attended services. Prompted by this paradox, W. Clark Gilpin proposes, first, that understanding the religious aspect of the surrounding culture enhances our appreciation of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and, second, that her poetry casts light on features of religion in nineteenth-century America that might otherwise escape our attention. Religion, especially Protestant Christianity, was “around” Emily Dickinson not only in explicitly religious practices, literature, architecture, and ideas but also as an embedded influence on normative patterns of social organization in the era, including gender roles, education, and ideals of personal intimacy and fulfillment. Through her poetry, Dickinson imaginatively reshaped this richly textured religious inheritance to create her own personal perspective on what it might mean to be religious in the nineteenth century. The artistry of her poetry and the profundity of her thought have meant that this personal perspective proved to be far more than “merely” personal. Instead, Dickinson’s creative engagement with the religion around her has stimulated and challenged successive generations of readers in the United States and around the world.
Religion Around John Donne (Religion Around #4)
by Joshua EckhardtIn this volume, Joshua Eckhardt examines the religious texts and books that surrounded the poems, sermons, and inscriptions of the early modern poet and preacher John Donne. Focusing on the material realities legible in manuscripts and Sammelbände, bookshops and private libraries, Eckhardt uncovers the myriad ways in which Donne’s writings were received and presented, first by his contemporaries, and later by subsequent readers of his work.Eckhardt sheds light on the religious writings with which Donne’s work was linked during its circulation, using a bibliographic approach that also informs our understanding of his work’s reception during the early modern period. He analyzes the religious implications of the placement of Donne’s poem “A Litany” in a library full of Roman Catholic and English prayer books, the relationship and physical proximity of Donne’s writings to figures such as Sir Thomas Egerton and Izaak Walton, and the movements in later centuries of Donne’s work from private owners to the major libraries that have made this study possible. Eckhardt’s detailed research reveals how Donne’s writings have circulated throughout history—and how religious readers, communities, and movements affected the distribution and reception of his body of work.Centered on a place in time when distinct methods of reproduction, preservation, and circulation were used to negotiate a complex and sometimes dangerous world of confessional division, Religion Around John Donne makes an original contribution to Donne studies, religious history, book history, and reception studies.
Religion Around Shakespeare: Religion Around Shakespeare (Religion Around #1)
by Peter Iver KaufmanFor years scholars and others have been trying to out Shakespeare as an ardent Calvinist, a crypto-Catholic, a Puritan-baiter, a secularist, or a devotee of some hybrid faith. In Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Kaufman sets aside such speculation in favor of considering the historical and religious context surrounding his work. Employing extensive archival research, he aims to assist literary historians who probe the religious discourses, characters, and events that seem to have found places in Shakespeare’s plays and to aid general readers or playgoers developing an interest in the plays’ and playwright’s religious contexts: Catholic, conformist, and reformist. Kaufman argues that sermons preached around Shakespeare and conflicts that left their marks on literature, law, municipal chronicles, and vestry minutes enlivened the world in which (and with which) he worked and can enrich our understanding of the playwright and his plays.
Religion Around Shakespeare (Religion Around)
by Peter Iver KaufmanFor years scholars and others have been trying to out Shakespeare as an ardent Calvinist, a crypto-Catholic, a Puritan-baiter, a secularist, or a devotee of some hybrid faith. In Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Kaufman sets aside such speculation in favor of considering the historical and religious context surrounding his work. Employing extensive archival research, he aims to assist literary historians who probe the religious discourses, characters, and events that seem to have found places in Shakespeare’s plays and to aid general readers or playgoers developing an interest in the plays’ and playwright’s religious contexts: Catholic, conformist, and reformist. Kaufman argues that sermons preached around Shakespeare and conflicts that left their marks on literature, law, municipal chronicles, and vestry minutes enlivened the world in which (and with which) he worked and can enrich our understanding of the playwright and his plays.