The Alypius Problem

This chapter discusses the rituals and beliefs of the Han Chinese majority, their local communities, indigenous popular religious sects, Daoism and Buddhism, as well as Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity. After many years of suppression, since the 1980s these traditions have been revived in many areas of the country, community festivals in honour of local gods are again being carried out, Daoist and Buddhist clergy are once again being ordained, and there are more Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians than ever before. As for Confucianism, its ethical principles permeated late traditional Chinese culture, and have had considerable influence on the beliefs and values of the practitioners of other religious traditions and on the veneration of ancestors by families and lineages. In Taiwan there are still temples dedicated to Confucius, and some popular sects for which he is the chief deity, but during much of the twentieth century he was attacked on the Mainland as a symbol of all that was out-moded and backward. In recent decades, however, there has been an attempt by some intellectuals in China to rediscover his teachings, and the shrine and tomb in his hometown in Shandong Province have been restored. Before we explore these religions, however, a few words should be said about Islam in China. Muslim merchants reached China by both land and sea by the late seventh century, and eventually settled in many parts of the country, mostly in the northwest.

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES61 that Friends in New Jersey, like those in eighteenth-century Rhode Island and North Carolina, had little political significance. When scholars begin to examine in detail the role of Quakers in New Jersey, they will need to consult frequently Pomfret's well-balanced survey of the colonial and revolutionary periods. Swarthmore CollegeJ. William Frost Colonial Pennsylvania—A History. By Joseph E. Illick. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976. xix, 359 pages. $15.00. A treatise on colonial Pennsylvania always has to pass judgment on controversies that defy resolution and keep enlisting partisans long after the event. Like a tongue going to a sore tooth, the historians' pen will not stay away from die series of contentions from the squabbles between William Penn and his colonists to the complex of antagonisms on die questions of the day from 1763 to 1776. In all the classical episodes Friends figured prominently (often as the donkey on which somebody was trying to pin the tail) and have kept public attention ever since. Joseph E. Illick had to deliberate on the whole familiar procession when he undertook to write a comprehensive volume on colonial Pennsylvania for that elusive beast the general reader. Perforce, he relied heavily on the labors of others who had mined the sources, so his book reflects what historians over the years have chosen to investigate. As he points out, intriguing topics await inquiry. Still, he might have done more with the structure of commerce, the stratification of society, and the process of populating the province. Illick's task was to rise above the well-rehearsed arguments, select the choicest fruits of scholarship, and blend them with some fresh ideas. This he did most successfully in two long segments of die book, one revolving around William Penn and one on the political battles from the entry of Benjamin Franklin to the Declaration of Independence. Illick's previous work on Penn gave him a sure touch in handling the early period; the first few chapters are judicious and balanced. Though less masterful, the synthesis of new research on late colonial politics provides original insights and brings to this intricate subject as much clarity as reasonably may be expected. (Some may be disturbed by the undigested tidbits of psychohistory .) The middle of the book, lacking a focus on an eminent personage, often seems to ramble from one sub-topic to another. Readers of Colonial Pennsylvania may be troubled by a less than finished quality. There are too few connective passages linking one part with another , too many opaque or muddled paragraphs, clumsy sentences, and illchosen words. The followers of George Keith change occupations oddly; the celebrated schism in the Presbyterians is mentioned first in a passing remark on its resolution; implausibly, "plutocrats" dwelt in the colony before 1702. Such flaws, however, detract little from the value of the book, which offers a predominantly thoughtful, impartial, reliable, and readable survey of its subject. University of IowaSydney V. James ...

Purpose The sexual lives of religious youth and young adults have been an increasing topic of interest since the rise of abstinence-only education and attendant programs in many religious institutions. But while we know a lot about individual-level rates of sexual behavior, far less is known about how religious organizations shape and mediate sexuality. We draw on data from observations with youth and young adult ministries and interviews with religious young adults and adult leaders from Muslim, Hindu, and Protestant Christian groups in order to examine how religious adults in positions of organizational authority work to manage the gender and sexual developments in the transition to adulthood among their youth. We find three distinct organizational styles across the various religious traditions: avoidance through gender segregation, self-restraint supplemented with peer surveillance, and a classed disengagement. In each of these organizational responses, gender and sexuality represent something that must be explained and controlled in the process of cultivating the proper adult religious disposition. The paper examines how religious congregations and other religious organizations oriented toward youth, work to manage the gender and sexual developments in their youth’s transitions to adulthood. The paper draws from a larger project that is studying the lived processes of religious transmission between generations. Methodology/approach Data were extracted from (a) ethnographic observations of youth programming at religious organizations; (b) ethnographicobservations with families during their religious observances; (c) interviews with adult leaders of youth ministry programs. The sample includes Protestant Christian, Muslim, and Hindu organizations and families. Findings The paper presents three organizational approaches toward managing sex and instilling appropriate gender ideas: (a) prescribed avoidance, in which young men and women are segregated in many religious and educational settings and encouraged to moderate any cross-gender contact in public; (b) self-restraint supplemented with peer surveillance, in which young people are repeatedly encouraged not only to learn to control themselves through internal moral codes but also to enlist their peers to monitor each other’s conduct and call them to account for violations of those codes; and (c) “classed” disengagement, in which organizations comprised of highly educated, middle-class families do little to address sex directly, but treat it as but one aspect of developing individual ethical principles that will assist their educational and class mobility. Research limitations/implications While the comparative sample in this paper is a strength, other religious traditions than the ones studied may have other practices. The ethnographic nature of the research provides in-depth understandings of the organizational practices, but cannot comment on how representative these practices are across regions, organizations, or faiths. Originality/value Most studies of religion and youth sex and sexuality either rely on individual-level data from surveys, or study the discourses and ideologies found in books, movies, and the like. They do not study the “mechanisms,” in either religious organizations or families, through which messages are communicated and enacted. Our examination of organizational and familial practices shows sex and gender communication in action. Further, most existing research has focused on Christians, wherein we have a comparative sample of Protestant Christians, Muslims, and Hindus.

As xenotransplantation advances toward clinical trials, viewpoints from various segments of society are continually needed to engage the public and to inform the prospective clinical trials. As the majority of the world's population identifies with a religious tradition, religious perspectives regarding the ethical issues associated with clinical xenotransplantation are an important element to take into account. At the 2024 Congress of The Transplantation Society in Istanbul, Türkiye, a group of religious scholars from Catholicism, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hinduism, Shia Islam, Judaism, Protestant Christianity, and the African American religious traditions met together to discuss viewpoints toward xenotransplantation from their respective religious tradition. Additional contributions were received from representatives from the American Anglican Episcopal Church and Sunni Islam faith traditions. Each speaker presented viewpoints on the ethical issues associated with clinical xenotransplantation from their own religious perspective. Common issues that were raised include the treatment and stewardship of animals, xenozoonotic infection and other risks, while religious dictums of particular relevance for each faith tradition were noted. Overall, none of the participants considered xenotransplantation to be impermissible within their religious tradition. Yet, it is important to note that persons of religious faith may come to different conclusions from their coreligionists about the permissibility of xenotransplantation as a personal choice or as spokespersons for others of their faith. Additional empirical viewpoint data from each religious tradition will be helpful to further inform normative views and measure the impact of public education. As xenotransplantation continues to advance to the clinic, continued exploration of religious perspectives is needed to best support individual decision-making and optimize patient-centered care.

Black Catholicism

Background: Euthanasia is one of the important challenges in the field of end of life care. There are few studies investigated the attitude of Shiite Muslim nurses about different aspects of euthanasia. Objectives: The aim of present study was to investigate the attitude of Iranian Shiite nurses about different aspects of euthanasia in East Azerbaijan Provence, Iran, 2012. Patients and Methods: In this descriptive study, 209 nurses (census sampling method) from 6 educational hospitals in East Azerbaijan Province were participated. The attitude of nurses was investigated with Euthanasia Attitude Questionnaire, which is a 31-item scale. This scale investigate the attitude of nurses in 5 domains, including general attitude (3 items), legal and religious issues (5 items), end of life care (8 items), euthanasia decision making (8 items), and attitude toward different types of euthanasia (7 items). Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis using SPSS software (ver. 13). Results: Participants had a negative attitude towards all aspects of euthanasia. They reported that they would not participate in euthanasia procedure even this procedure was accepted by religious leaders and legal authorities. They believed that caring of end of life patients is a burden but this is not a reason for euthanasia and also they did not consider patients or their relative as decision makers for euthanasia. In addition, participants rejected all types of euthanasia. Conclusions: Iranian nurses in East Azerbaijan Provence have negative attitudes toward different aspects of euthanasia and this negative attitude is not related to religious or legal issues. So, searching for the reasons for such an attitude needs more investigation.

Background: Euthanasia is one of the important challenges in the field of end of life care. There are few studies investigated the attitude of Shiite Muslim nurses about different aspects of euthanasia. Objectives: The aim of present study was to investigate the attitude of Iranian Shiite nurses about different aspects of euthanasia in East Azerbaijan Provence, Iran, 2012. Patients and Methods: In this descriptive study, 209 nurses (census sampling method) from 6 educational hospitals in East Azerbaijan Province were participated. The attitude of nurses was investigated with Euthanasia Attitude Questionnaire, which is a 31-item scale. This scale investigate the attitude of nurses in 5 domains, including general attitude (3 items), legal and religious issues (5 items), end of life care (8 items), euthanasia decision making (8 items), and attitude toward different types of euthanasia (7 items). Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis using SPSS software (ver. 13). Results: Participants had a negative attitude towards all aspects of euthanasia. They reported that they would not participate in euthanasia procedure even this procedure was accepted by religious leaders and legal authorities. They believed that caring of end of life patients is a burden but this is not a reason for euthanasia and also they did not consider patients or their relative as decision makers for euthanasia. In addition, participants rejected all types of euthanasia. Conclusions: Iranian nurses in East Azerbaijan Provence have negative attitudes toward different aspects of euthanasia and this negative attitude is not related to religious or legal issues. So, searching for the reasons for such an attitude needs more investigation.

Although popular culture has awarded Massachusetts the distinction of being recognized as America's "witchcraft capital," it was Pennsylvania's earliest practitioners of the mystical arts who quietly fostered the archetype of the American "cunning man." Much like their European brethren, these hybrid practitioners of the occult arts often paired the esoteric worldview of the Renaissance magus with the practicality of the traditional sorcerer.

This article introduces the special issue on religion and fat by providing an overview of the connections between fat studies and religious studies. We identify four areas of potential overlap: religion and the fat body; religion and embodiment more generally; religion, food, and eating; and religion, weight loss, and food restriction. We then introduce the articles in this volume, which focus largely, if not exclusively, on Protestant Christianity and weight loss. We conclude with a call for fat studies scholarship to take religion more seriously, and for scholarship on religion and fat to engage a broader range of questions and religious traditions.

This article introduces the special issue on religion and fat by providing an overview of the connections between fat studies and religious studies. We identify four areas of potential overlap: religion and the fat body; religion and embodiment more generally; religion, food, and eating; and religion, weight loss, and food restriction. We then introduce the articles in this volume, which focus largely, if not exclusively, on Protestant Christianity and weight loss. We conclude with a call for fat studies scholarship to take religion more seriously, and for scholarship on religion and fat to engage a broader range of questions and religious traditions.

The book of Tobit tells the story of Tobit and his family, who are living as exiles from Israel after the Assyrian conquest. Through a series of events, Tobit goes blind and sends his son on a journey accompanied by the angel Raphael disguised as a human. On his journey, the son Tobias meets Sarah, who is afflicted by a demon. Raphael intervenes and dispatches the demon, allowing Tobias and Sarah to marry. They return to Tobit and his wife, Anna, Tobit’s sight returns and he dies old and happy because of God’s intervention in their travails. The book is not historical, but rather a folk tale with manifold entertaining elements, such as defecating birds, meddling fish, menacing demons, and disguised angels. Beneath the surface, however, the book interacts with deep theological questions at the core of the human condition, questions that also find expression—with various answers—throughout the Jewish scriptures: Where does suffering come from? What are the benefits of righteousness? What is the value of religious tradition? In answering such questions through its entertaining narrative, the book of Tobit weaves together an erudite panoply of religious, scriptural, and cultural traditions. Within scholarship, there are a number of debated issues with which treatments of the book have dealt, including: original language, provenance, date of composition, and ideological disposition. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Tobit was primarily known from Greek and Latin manuscripts. Although some scholars had posited a Semitic Vorlage behind it, all major translations and interpretations of the book had to be made from Greek. Several Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts of Tobit were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, which provided a watershed in understanding the book. Analysis of the scrolls has provided widespread agreement that the book was originally written in Aramaic. These manuscripts, however, are fragmentary and translations are still made from the Greek version of Codex Sinaiticus. Association with the Qumran community has also led to some reassessment of the book’s theological outlook. The book of Tobit is one of the Deuterocanonical books, also known as the Apocrypha. As such, it is generally not included among Protestant Christians’ list of canonical texts, while it is for Roman Catholics and most Orthodox traditions. There is no evidence that the text was ever “canonical” in the Jewish tradition.

Materiality—the role of objects, bodies, physical contact—plays an important part in many religious traditions. Protestant evangelical Christianity offers an interesting perspective on materiality, given that its megachurches rely on the growth, size, and vibrancy of their congregations and services, and that connectional ties and/or the transmission of supernatural power play important organizational and spiritual roles. The Coronavirus epidemic has accelerated the process of digitalization (if nothing else as a hybrid of or backup to physical services). Protestant evangelical churches’ strategies of digital materiality can be considered under the three main rubrics of the “mega,” “accountability,” and “anointing,” each of which strategy has its particular characteristics, capabilities, and limitations. The case of Protestant evangelical Christianity shows the ways in which materiality poses one of the most significant challenges to online religious forms, which is also likely to provoke the most innovative digital solutions looking ahead.

This study explores the association between attitudes toward socio-economic human rights and three dimensions of religion (religious practice, religiosity, and self-assigned religious affiliation), after taking into account personal factors (age and sex) and psychological factors (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism) among a sample of 987 students between the ages of 14 and 18 years in England and Wales. Religious practice was assessed by two factors, personal prayer and worship attendance. Religiosity was assessed by three factors, thinking about religious issues, reconsidering religious issues, and belief in God. Self-assigned religious affiliation distinguished among four groups, Protestant Christians, Catholic Christians, Muslims, and religiously unaffiliated. The data demonstrated the importance of personal factors, with females and older students holding more positive attitudes toward socio-economic human rights, and the importance of psychological factors, with higher neuroticism scores and lower psychoticism scores being associated with more positive attitudes toward socio-economic human rights. Among the dimension of religion, religiosity provided stronger prediction of individual differences in attitudes toward socio-economic human rights than either religious practice or self-assigned religious affiliation. In particular, adolescents who often gave thought to religious issues held more positive attitudes toward socio-economic human rights.

This chapter provides a summary of treason law in Pennsylvania from the founding of the colony by William Penn in 1682 through the outbreak of the War for Independence. After several halting starts, Pennsylvania formally adopted English treason law in 1718. This law was rooted in the 1351 English Statute of Treasons and the chapter explains the broad contours of that law as it was developed in the succeeding centuries. Treason law, however, was rarely employed in colonial Pennsylvania, even though the Seven Years’ War, the march of the Paxton Boys, and the disputes with Virginia and Connecticut over land claims (hostilities that amounted to low-level open warfare) provided possible opportunities for its employment. The chapter also addresses whether members of American Indian tribes were subject to Pennsylvania treason law.

This exploratory study investigated U.S. university students’ perceptions (N = 186) and the predictor variables associated with their willingness to use clergy as a source of help. In the final regression analysis using the predicted variable of willingness to use clergy as a source of help (R = 0.816, R 2= 0.665, Adjusted R 2= 0.650), there were seven significant predictor variables: (a) trust of clergy, (b) empathic ability of clergy, (c) having previously sought help from clergy, (d) respondents’ dominant/minority cultural identification, (e) attendance at religious services at least once a year, (f) believing that spiritual counselling is as effective as psychotherapy, and (g) receiving religious/spiritual education as a child. An eighth variable was retained in the final regression model because of its proximity to significance (Friendships between clergy and people, p = 0.051). Accusations against clergy and the belief that clergy are held to a higher standard did not predict willingness to use clergy as a source of help. A general linear model (F = 125.696, df = 10, p < 0.001) revealed that those who self-identified with Protestant Christianity, Catholic/Orthodox Christianity, and Judaism were more likely to consider seeking help from clergy than those who self-identified with another religious tradition (Hinduism, Islam, or Buddhism), or adherence to spiritual not religious belief. Further, those who self-identified as Jewish or Christian were also more like to perceive clergy as trustworthy and empathic. Finally, African American/Caribbean Black respondents were more likely than either Latino/Latino American respondents or European American respondents to seek help from clergy, to perceive clergy as empathic, and to believe that spiritual counselling is as effective as psychotherapy (F = 1495, df = 12, p < 0.001).