Intersection Of Religion Research Articles

Танец и религия: онтологические точки пересечения

The article raises questions about how changes in sacred dogmatics affect the development of dance culture. In contrast, is it possible for dance to influence religious ideology? Why for some confessions dance is an inte-gral part, and for others – a sinful act? Consideration of the attitude of religious consciousness to dance in the historical aspect determines the relevance of the topic. The paper attempts to go beyond the understanding of dance as a bodily-physical phenomenon and determine its metaphysical foundations, from the position of which it is possible to talk about the relationship between dance and religion and proto-religion. The author shows not only the historical and cultural points of intersection of dance and religion, but also reveals the onto-logical features of their relationship on the basis of M. Eliade’s method of the history of religions.

Time and Temporalities in Early Modern Chinese Islam

This essay brings to light the intersectionality of Time, Religion and Identity, and the complex relationship with Time and temporality that the history of Islam in China displays. The deeply embedded temporality in Islamic praxis produced expertise in time-making that secured Chinese-Muslims an important place in Chinese society and polity. At the same time, an anxiety arising from the negative effects of the passing of Time prompted Chinese Muslim scholars to come up with methods to negotiate Past, Present and Future and new articulations of Time. This essay focuses on four articulations of Time that materialized throughout the history of Islam in China. The first examines the temporal dimension of Islamic praxis and the inter-fertilization between religion and technologies. The second introduces the philological activities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a panacea for the loss of the authentic knowledge of the past. The third focuses on Liu Zhi, a prominent Chinese Muslim whose conviction that Time is universal - but can be grasped only through its various local and technical articulations - brought him to employ a matrix system that defined Time through conjunction of dates and natural phenomena. The final part will show how Liu further articulated Time as a teleological construct in his effort to present Islam as relevant and significant for readers in China. It does so by assessing the different temporal registers Liu introduced to position Muhammad and the emergence of Islam as the ultimate and decisive stage of universal Time.

Religiosity, Spirituality, Healthcare, and Aphasia Rehabilitation.

Awareness of the intersectionality of a person's religious and spiritual belief system with their mental and physical health is slowly being elevated within the Western healthcare system. There are many opportunities for better understanding and incorporation of religious and spiritual beliefs into aphasia rehabilitation. To extend the recognition of religion and spirituality's importance in healthcare to persons living with post-stroke aphasia while emphasizing the diversity of beliefs, the current article seeks to provide a brief overview of the global religions; explain the intersection of religion, spirituality, and health; review the existing literature in the area of aphasia and religion, spirituality, and spiritual care; discuss the clinical importance and implications of religion and spirituality; and finally, lay out a forward view of the direction this area of exploration may take within aphasiology.

Women’s experience with religion and spirituality when perceiving their husband’s pornography use as problematic: A qualitative study

Background: Several recent studies concerning men’s pornography use have challenged past research conclusions that male pornography use negatively impacts relational outcomes in heterosexual relationships. While extant literature has explored the intersection of religion and men’s experience with pornography consumption, the impact on religious wives has primarily been understudied. Purpose: The present study examined the impact of a husband’s problematic pornography use on a religious woman’s spirituality and religiosity. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 women who self-identified as religious women. Faith traditions of the participants include Catholic, Jewish, Latter-day Saint, Native American Spiritual, non-denominational Christians, Protestant Christians, and Spiritual. The data was analyzed using interpretive phenomenology, a qualitative methodology. Results: Using a feminist hermeneutics theoretical lens to analyze the data in a way that gives preference for the woman’s experience, three primary themes emerged: Wrestle with Religion, Relationships that Facilitate Healing, and Spiritual Growth. Nine subthemes were identified, including Influence of Religious Culture, Unmet Expectations of Religious Leaders, Challenges to Faith, Support from Inside the Religion, Recognizing the Need for Support Outside the Religion, Women Need Women for Healing, Divine Assistance, Relationship with God, and A Journey of Growth and Transformation. Conclusions & Implications: These primary themes and subthemes provide a rich description of the religious context, means to healing, and resilience that characterize religious women’s experiences after discovering a husband’s problematic pornography use. Most importantly, the authors discuss significant implications for religious leaders and clinicians seeking to provide culturally sensitive care to distressed women.

Un/desirable encounters at the intersections of caste, class and religion

Tamil thirunangais (or hijras) emphatically claim that in thirunangai kinship networks there is no caste, class or religion, that individuals are accepted regardless of their birth family. This kinship network creates a space of desirable encounters where thirunangais can reorientate themselves to their community as well as the larger public. Gender identity is central to thirunangai lives, but it operates in a nexus of other forces. Devotional practices within and outside the kinship community provide a space for thirunangais to transgress hierarchical norms of gender, caste and class and construct authentic identities empowered by divine agency.

Neurology Meets Theology: Charles Sherrington’s Gifford Lectures Then and Now

Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952) is widely acclaimed as the most important neurophysiologist in history. He became a legend in his own time, coined the term “synapse”, and in 1932 received the Nobel Prize in medicine for his discoveries on the function of neurons. By the time he presented the Gifford Lectures 1937–38, he represented the best that science had to offer on behalf of the relationship of the mind to the natural world. The lectures, including one never publicly presented, were published as Man on His Nature (1941). Here neurology meets theology at the busy and often treacherous intersection of science and religion. Examining Sherrington’s views in some detail, the standard rendering of Sherrington as a theist cannot be sustained by their contents; he ends up as at least a humanist and perhaps an atheist. Views by neurologists and philosophers of mind some seventy to eighty years later are compared and contrasted with Sherrington’s. Although expectations of a materialist/reductionist answer to the mind/body problem have not been realized, neuroscientist Raymond Tallis appears as a parallel figure to Sherrington: both are clearly naturalistic humanists. A theistic response is presented addressing the mind/body problem from a hylomorphic process theology perspective, along with some comments regarding natural theology in general. In the end, this essay has two complementary aims: (1) to relocate Sherrington’s neurotheology—if it can be called that—in a more appropriate historiographical category; and (2) to offer a viable answer to the mind/body problem.

Fetishization of Christian Martyrdom

Martyrdom in Christianity has been extensively researched, but this study examines its fetishization within modern violence, such as school shootings. This paper examines Christians' fantasy of martyrdom in the 1990s, and the cultural influence of Columbine shooting victims Rachel Scott and Cassie Bernall. The idealization of sacrifice and becoming a martyr post-death concerning faith maintains significant cultural relevance and negative implications throughout history. I found that martyrdom within Columbine has created a shift within teen Christian culture, especially with fantasies of violence and sacrifice. This research contributes to the extant research on the intersections of religion and violence.

Contextualizing the work-family experiences of women in the Nigerian banking industry

ABSTRACT At the intersection of culture, ethnicity, gender, and religion, this paper offers insights into the lived experiences of Nigerian women by adopting Nkomo and Ngambi’s multilevel framework on African women’s leadership to understand their work-family experiences in the Nigerian banking sector. Employing data from interviews with eleven Northern women and ten Southern women who live in the following states: Kano, Kaduna; Akure, Lagos, Ibadan; and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, the findings confirm the existence of patriarchal systems at the macro (social), meso (organizational), and micro (individual) levels of social action that shape Nigerian women’s work-family experiences. Nevertheless, as tradition and modernity interact to provide a hybrid social space within which these women negotiate the different levels, they demonstrated the ability to redefine femininity and womanhood and reject constraints that confine them. The women from both regions resisted conformity to the patriarchal systematic ideologies and cultural processes that placed them in a disadvantaged position. Despite social and cultural criticisms that restrict women’s movement and career options, their agency was evident in their narratives.

When religion meets history of technology: Secularism and the problem of the sacred

ABSTRACT Despite the growing scholarly work at the intersection of religion and technology, how to characterize their relationship remains a matter of dispute for historians of technology. This essay leverages a seminal piece by Jennifer Karns Alexander in a recent special issue of History and Technology on religion and technology for addressing the metatheory behind the subject. Alexander appears to believe that the problems affecting the scholarship of the religion–technology relationship are caused by inappropriate terminology and a certain primacy of technological knowledge over religious knowledge. This essay argues that those problems are rather caused by a clash of ontologies. The ontology assumed in the realm of history of technology is informed by secularization; the ontology of religion, when religion is not normalized, is rather based on a postsecular worldview that maintains and protects the sense of the sacred. The harmonization of religion and history of technology requires a reconsideration of the secularization argument, that is, the theoretical apparatus that governs the religion-secular divide.

Managing Identity When Worlds Collide

Stigma is a powerful social construct that fluctuates, yet it can stay with a person for their entire life. When someone moves from a stigmatized to a socially acceptable position, it creates tension between their social and personal identity. This article examines how stigma is internalized and presented in different contexts. The author utilizes autoethnography to explore how his family, socioeconomic class, criminal history, vocation, and religion intersect and impact how he manages and presents stigma. The author finds that his transition from a stigmatized identity leaves him in a liminal space where he does not belong to the new or old group. The significance of the study is that it offers insight into how people process and present stigma, which is helpful for rehabilitation and recovery.

Arap Şairlerin Osmanlı Hükümdarlarına Övgü Şiirleri

This study aims to examine the rich tradition of panegyric odes composed by Arab poets in honor of Ottoman sovereigns, highlighting the historical, cultural, and political context that gave rise to this distinctive form of literary expression. The paper seeks to explore the reciprocal relationship between Arab poets and the Ottoman Empire, shedding light on how these poets paid tribute to the imperial majesty, conveyed the sultans’ might, and helped to legitimize their rule. By focusing on a diverse range of panegyric odes from the later periods of the Ottoman Empire, the research encompasses the evolving dynamics of power, patronage, and poetic expression that underpinned this unique interaction between Arab poets and the Ottoman court. The primary purpose of the study is to offer a comprehensive analysis of the thematic and stylistic features of these panegyric odes, elucidating the creative strategies employed by Arab poets to extol the virtues of the Ottoman sultans and to articulate their own political, social, and religious allegiances. The paper utilizes historical, literary, and textual analysis, to examine panegyric poetry’s role in fostering cultural exchange and diplomatic communication between the Arab and Ottoman worlds, and its function in bolstering imperial ideology and projecting the Ottoman state’s image. This paper further delves into the critical intersections of politics, religion, and artistic expression within these odes, illuminating how the poets navigated these spheres to construct a nuanced portrait of Ottoman rule. By interpreting the subtexts, allegories, and metaphors employed within these poems, the research uncovers the profound philosophical, spiritual, and cultural paradigms that underscored the political landscapes of the time. Through this lens, the panegyric odes emerge as invaluable literary artifacts that bear testimony to the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire and the intricate socio-political relationships that existed between the Arab poets and the Ottoman court.

The pull into wakefulness: How sociocultural categories intersect to shape sleep opportunity and sleep ability in Israel

ObjectivesPrior studies have documented the existence of sleep disparities between social groups and have proposed possible reasons for these gaps. To extend these empirical findings, the current study elucidates whether and how intersections between sociocultural identities shape the lived experience and management of sleep and sheds light on the social factors that explain within-group heterogeneity. MethodsThis article draws on semi-structured interviews with 66 employed Israelis, aged 40-60, conducted between February 2020 and February 2022. Participants were selected using a non-probability purposeful sampling design that sought to include individuals with a wide range of sociodemographic backgrounds in terms of gender, ethnonationality, socioeconomic status, religion, and religiosity as well as the quality of sleep. ResultsThe analysis shows that intersections of gender, socioeconomic status, ethnonationality, religion, and religiosity prompt qualitatively different understandings, experiences, and management of sleep, in a way that affects both sleep opportunity and sleep ability. ConclusionsThis study contributes to the scholarly understanding of the social determinants of sleep by highlighting the significance of the intersections of sociocultural identities for sleep health and implementing a nuanced socioecological approach to understanding within-group variability. The results call for the design of tailored interventions that consider the sociocultural context.

Between Symbolic Distancing and Following Desires

Abstract Over the past decades, Judaism and Jewishness have been subject to transformation and more fluid boundaries. This article looks at women’s conversions to Judaism in Germany. Analyzing differing biographical trajectories, the article shows how individuals negotiate their desire to become Jewish, which is often closely related to an experience in Israel and a Jewish partner. Arguing that the context makes the conversion, I show how desires and negotiations are deeply entangled with the socio-historical context of German society as well as with the erotic and sexuality. I demonstrate how becoming Jewish presents a way of symbolically distancing oneself from biographical experiences of difference, which are negotiated in and through the conversion. As these conversions are not uncontested, I also show how becoming part of Jewish socialities evokes a negotiation of one’s positionality at the intersection of gender and religion.

Intersectionality contesting privilege; fostering inclusion

ABSTRACT Identity categories have the potential to become salient factors for unequal treatment within a public school setting in Ethiopia. Public school teachers can experience administrative procedures and processes differently based on the identity categories they belong. Hence, this situation can become a condition for the problem of horizontal inequality within public schools with teachers of diverse social identities. Horizontal inequality was investigated at the state level using unitary identity category difference. However, horizontal inequality within school diversity using an intersectional perspective is ignored, particularly in the Ethiopian public school context. Accordingly, this study investigated horizontal inequality within school diversity using an intersectionality lens. We investigated out-group member teachers’ horizontal inequality experience within a public school setting through ideas conceived of equal treatment for public school teachers. Using qualitative hermeneutic phenomenology design the data were collected from 10 former teachers sampled with both snowball and maximum variation techniques. Content analysis of the data not only revealed that the intersection of ethnic, race, religion and political affiliation identity categories determine teachers’ access to privileged space within public school diversity but also the manner of horizontal inequality establishment and othering instruments. Horizontal inequality within public schools’ diversity may be eliminated by first admitting it exists and then taking additional measures to ensure equality policies and legislation are implemented to serve their intended purposes.

Nashville Qi? Chinese Medicine in an American Heartland.

This article shares preliminary results from current research on Chinese medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, a city in the American South known both as "Music City, USA" and "The Buckle of the Bible Belt." The author has interviewed dozens of patients and practitioners in Nashville to understand how Chinese medicine came to the city, what styles of practice are present, and whether or not new understandings of Chinese medicine's fundamental concept of qi might emerge from the unique cultural setting of the American South. While Chinese medicine is flourishing in the city, because of complexities at the intersection of religion, science, and the experience of healing, the clinical encounter between patients and practitioners is not typically characterized by a mutual embrace of a language of qi.

Online Graduate Social Work Education and Critical Feminist Perspectives: An Educational Framework

ABSTRACT Studies highlight online education’s effectiveness; however, few examine theoretical frameworks for guiding pedagogy in online MSW programs. Patriarchal systems create policy and program inequities in higher education, hindering student achievement. Confronting these inequities is essential in designing successful online MSW programs. This conceptual paper asserts that utilizing a critical feminist perspective promotes nontraditional and minoritized students’ unique needs. Educators can prioritize student success by examining systems of oppression and the intersectionality of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and disabilities in online environments. Utilizing critical feminist perspectives enhances student experiences by operationalizing inclusivity and and should be measured as student success and engagement in an online graduate course.

Teaching against the “False Religion” of the Market: Toward Explicitly Anticapitalist Teaching and Research in Religion and the Environment

David Loy’s 1997 essay, “The Religion of the Market,” should be a foundational text for all who study and teach the intersection of religion and the environment. In contrast to the more field-defining essay by Lynn White, Loy focuses on the structural and economic roots of environmental degradation and calls for scholars and practitioners to actively oppose the global capitalist systems causing the problem. When brought into conversation with other anticapitalist scholarship, Loy’s essay offers ways to characterize existing debates about economics within our field, and can be used to argue against hegemonic capitalocentrism to set the stage for other kinds of resistance in our teaching and scholarship.

Intersectional barriers to women’s advancement in higher education institutions rewarded for their gender equity plans

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a research project designed to understand the work experiences and career opportunities of people working in higher education institutions (HEIs) across the UK, which received formal recognition for supporting gender equity between 2015 and 2020. The findings reveal multiple intersecting barriers to women’s full engagement, inclusion, support and career success in higher education, despite the implementation of organization-based gender equity plans, and institutional inter/national recognition for advancing equity. Most axes of de/privilege that are based along lines of gender, race, ethnicity and religion are enacted as everyday sexism that resist gender equality policy. Moreover, our findings suggest that ‘place’ is a constitutive element of intersectional dis/advantage, not merely a context within which compounded barriers to inclusion and advancement may exist. In addition, the findings demonstrate that whilst inter-categorical intersectionality is based on the notion that all social categories (such as age, race and gender) are equally salient, the degree of importance of any category will likely depend on location or context of the phenomena being examined. Our findings therefore invite further, iterative and translocational research into the impacts of the intersections of gender, ethnicity, race and religion in spaces of higher education, particularly those with colonial legacies and presence.

Crossfit, SoulCycle, and Evangelical Christianity with Cody Musselman

The Interview brings you in-depth exchanges with scholars working to reframe how we carry out the academic study of religion. In this edition, Michael J. Altman at the University of Alabama sat with Cody Musselman (Postdoctoral Research Associate at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, PhD Yale 2022) to discuss SoulCycle, CrossFit, and evangelical Christianity in the United States. In so doing, these scholars of religion in America open up numerous possibilities for theorizing the intersections of capitalism, neoliberalism, and religion. This exchange has been excerpted from the 2021 Day Lecture at the University of Alabama.

Take a(nother) Left at the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Revisiting the Queer Crossroads of Art, Religion, and Education of Big Gay Church

In this excerpt from a chapter originally published in McNeil et al (2017), five queer art educators interrogate the intersections of religion, education, the arts, and LGBTQ identities through an annual performance session called "Big Gay Church" (BGC).