Processes Of Religious Change Research Articles

THE ROLE OF MASS MEDIA IN FORMING THE RELIGIOUS IDENTITY OF CONTEMPORARY STUDENT YOUTH

The article reveals the role of mass media in the process of forming the religious identity of modern student youth. The phenomenon of religious self-determination becomes particularly relevant as a process of religious change, which is influenced by factors whose number cannot but change in the modern world. Theoretically significant for this article are the works of Peter Berger, who develops social constructionism in sociology and considers the role and place of religion in modern secularized society. The work also used the theory of mediatization developed by S. Hjarvard and M. Levheim. The empirical basis is the results of qualitative and quantitative research. Using the results of interviews with UdSU students, it was possible to determine the features of practical student religiousness, as well as students' attitude towards the media. Using the results of an online survey of UdSU students, the relationship to religion and religious figures was analyzed depending on what news the student meets. In addition, the main indicators of religiosity were identified, as well as the sources of news about religion. Religious identity is formed primarily in the family. Students mostly go through the process of converting to religion in early childhood. The process of religious conversion is manifested in different ways - baptism, attendance of religious Sunday schools, discussions about religion, and imitation of family members. During student years, students question their religiosity. As active users of electronic technology, students encounter news about religion in the media (mainly on television and on the Internet). However, if they need information related to religion, students tend to turn primarily to religious officials with whom they know, religious relatives, friends who seem to be authority on the subject, and the Internet. The final decision, however, is made by the student.

Total Devotion: Dismantling Religious Practices and Training Devotion in 2 Kings 22-23

Abstract The demise and disappearance of religions are processes rarely analysed or theorised in depth in the study of religions. This article engages the discussion of how religious traditions disappear by focusing on religious demise as an active process and suggests that this can also teach us about religious persistence. Using memory and emotion perspectives, I focus on processes of religious change in Judaism in the Persian-Hellenistic era by analysing a case study from the Hebrew Bible that involves an active dismantling of previous religious practices and their replacement with a new programme for religious devotion: the narrative of 2 Kgs 22-23. I argue that the new total devotion programme involves the active erasure of previous religious practices as a key part of the new identity. On the basis of the analyses, I discuss religious changes in Second Temple Judaism and suggest a novel reframing of some of the key changes in terms of memory, media, and emotions.

Studying Change in Religious Organizations: A Discourse-Centered Framework

Abstract This article highlights the discourse-driven nature of contemporary processes of religious change. Drawing on the textually-oriented discourse theory and discourse analysis of Fairclough supplemented by additional perspectives from organizational discourse studies, the article outlines a discourse-centered analytic framework for the empirical study of the changing discursive practices and modus operandi of contemporary religious organizations. The framework consists of four analytic factors, each of which highlight the role that discourse plays at various levels of processes of religious organizational change. The article demonstrates the application of the framework in actual practice in relation to empirical examples from five traditional Christian churches in three different national contexts, thus bringing the tangible effects of changing discursive practices on the operations and practices of religious organizations into clear focus.

The earth, the sky and the water's edge: changing beliefs in the earlier prehistory of Northern Europe

There have been two kinds of study of ancient beliefs in the earlier prehistory of Scandinavia. One considers the impact of ideas which originated further to the south and east. It considers a cosmology based on the movements of the sun. A second tradition develops out of the ethnography of the circumpolar region and combines archaeological evidence with the beliefs of hunter-gatherers. It postulates the existence of a three-tier cosmology in which people could communicate between different worlds. This paper argues that certain elements that are thought to epitomize the ‘Southern’ system might have been suggested by existing ideas within Scandinavia itself. Both sets of beliefs came to influence one another, but they became increasingly distinct towards the end of the Bronze Age. This paper reconsiders the rock carvings, metalwork and mortuary cairns of that period and the Iron Age in relation to the process of religious change.

"The Churches were Opened and Lots of Missionaries Arrived": Dialogue between Komi Identity and Faith

The Komi people in northern Russia tend to consider the Russian Or- thodox faith as a natural part of their lives and self-image. During recent decades different Protestant churches have spread intensively over the Republic of Komi. Although the Protestants constitute a small minority of the local population, they play a major role in initiating discussion concerning ethnic traditions, identity and the freedom to select a faith. The local population's predominant approach to religious issues is blurred, although they tend to prefer the Russian Orthodox faith, albeit without frequenting church ceremonies. This pro-Orthodox stand is grounded on loyalty to ancestors and ethnic traditions. We take the process of religious change among the Komis as a starting point from which to discuss issues of individual and collective identity, and the variability and stability of people's self-understanding as well as understanding of the Other.

Devotional Landscapes: God, Saints and the Natural World in Early Modern Ireland

Reconstructing the relationship of the inhabitants of early modern Ireland with the natural world and its Creator is both a difficult and a straightforward task. At one level those who lived in Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant, had much in common with other contemporary Europeans, and they shared similar ideas about the existence of God, his actions in creating the world and how that world worked. At another level the relationship between the inhabitants of early modern Ireland and the natural world is rather different from that observable in other places. In terms of pilgrimage, the inhabitants of Ireland before the Reformation in the early sixteenth century had litde interest in visiting corporeal relics, and body parts of saints were in short supply in Ireland by comparison with other European countries. Rather, the devout preferred to visit places in the natural world that had reputed associations with a saint, such as a well created by a saint or a cave where he had lived. Why this should be so is difficult to explain, but it certainly created an experience of the natural world which, though not unique to Ireland, was certainly more intense there. In turn, this affected local religious experiences as they were reshaped through the process of religious change in the early modern period, giving a particular hue to the local forms of religious devotion practised by both Catholics and Protestants. This essay aims to reveal something of the distinctive traits of local religion that formed as a result of the conscious interaction of the inhabitants of Ireland with God’s creation.

Refraining the Reformation

The Reformation in Ireland has never lacked chroniclers, defenders and detractors. The reason for this is not hard to discern. The older literature that grappled with the processes of religious change in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ireland was based on a number of well-recognised and widely agreed propositions. The first of these was that confessional and political positions were inextricably linked, and the fate of one served not only as a proxy for the other but as an explanation for the trajectory of change; thus, to explain the failure of the reform process to strike deep roots in sixteenth-century Ireland, one had only to invoke the failure of the Tudor conquest.

Religious Change in Europe: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Findings

The author describes the changes in church adherence and personal religiosity in European societies. In order to understand these changes, different theoretical models are available: the economic market model, the thesis of individualization, and the theory of secularization. A distinction between different dimensions of religion is used for discussing the applicability of these theoretical models on the process of religious change in European societies. As a result, the author states that the secularization thesis and the individualization theory are the most appropriate approaches in describing the religious changes in Europe. Despite much ado about the revival of religion during recent years, in the long run religions and churches have lost in social significance in European societies. The emergence of new religious groups and of individualistic forms of syncretistic religiosity is not able to compensate for the losses of the churches and the traditional religious forms.

Alasdair Crockett and Richard O'Leary (Eds.): Patterns and Processes of Religious Change in Modern Industrial Societies--Europe and the United States

Alasdair Crockett and Richard O'Leary (Eds.): Patterns and Processes of Religious Change in Modern Industrial Societies--Europe and the United States

Nicaragua's Other Revolution: Religious Faith and Political Struggle

The 1979 rebellion in Nicaragua was the first in modern Latin America to be carried out with the active participation and support of Christians. Like all revolutions, the Nicaraguan Revolution has provoked controversy and hostility, and the Christian presence has been a focal point in the debate. In this work Michael Dodson and Laura Nuzzi O'Shaughnessy offer a detailed study of the religious sources of the revolution set against the backgound of the revolutionary traditions of the United States. Nicaragua's Other Revolution places the experience of the Nicaraguan Revolution in a historical framework that extends back to the Protestant Reformation and in an institutional framework that encompasses the whole of Nicaraguan politics. Examining the broad process of religious change, this work explores how that process interacted with the political struggles that culminated in the revolution. Dodson and O'Shaughnessy conclude that the religious values and attitudes arising out of postconciliar renewal in the church contributed powerfully to demands for revolutionary change in Nicaragua. In England and America the Protestant Reformation gave a tremendous boost to demands for democratic changes in society and politics. This work shows that something similar happened in Catholic Central America in the post-Medellin period. Changes in religious thought and action were part of, and served to reinforce and stimulate, a wider movement for social and political change. Without denying the importance of Marxism, the authors demonstrate that other important influences are at work there. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Identity and Individuality in the Nouveau-Religious Patient.

Revitalized interest in the clinical complexities of psychotherapy with religious patients (for example, Bradford 1984; Lovinger 1984; Spero 1985a; Stern 1985) has drawn attention to the need for perspectives on religious personality development that account for healthy and adaptational aspects as well as psychopathological aspects of particular forms and levels of religious beliefs, enabling more creative, enriching psychotherapy. This search represents movement beyond the significance of infantile wish-fulfillment aspects of religiosity toward the broader domain of ego functioning and quality of object relations. Rizzuto (1976, 1979) and McDargh (1983) emphasize qualitative similarities between interpersonal object representations and God representations. Elkind (1971), using a Piagetian model, views religious beliefs and rituals as forms of constructive adaptation to normal cognitive needs for conservation, representation, symbols of relation, and comprehension. Meissner (1984) highlights the role of God concepts as transitional phenomena. In earlier papers, I have demonstrated the relationship between patients' use of religious themes and legends, quality of psychosexual and object relational achievements, and the consolidation of religious identity (Spero 1982a,b, 1986a,b). Throughout the preceding there is unequivocal recognition that religious development recapitulates many important aspects of healthy psychological development, and that in the case of pathological or dysfunctional religiosity something has gone wrong in an otherwise normal process. There is need to understand and if necessary distinguish between the development of religious belief in individuals whose ideological commitment is relatively constant from earliest childhood and its development in those who adopt or modify religious belief in later life, in conjunction with the many technical implications for psychotherapy. Clinical experience has taught that the process of religious change in later life represents a significant psychosocial crisis, requiring certain important psychological tasks in order to achieve successful resolution. In some instances, generally when there are preexisting difficulties or psychiatric disorders, the process of ideological change, either at the onset or during subsequent stages, takes on psychopathological momentum and quality. Clinicians who intervene at this juncture are confronted with patients whose primary complaints include malfunction in their religious lives or misuse of religious metaphor or behavior enmeshed with mild to serious personality disorder.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

The Reformation of the Ministry in Elizabethan Sussex

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the local history of the English Reformation — that long, slow process of religious change which in many parts of the country did not really begin until after Elizabeth's accession and was still not complete at her death. The process was slow because of the paucity of parish clergy able and willing to preach the Word, catechise the young, upbraid the ungodly and so plant Protestantism firmly in the land. It took a long time to raise the intellectual and moral standards of the Church's personnel – to carry out a thorough ‘reformation of the ministry’.

The domestication of Islam and Christianity in African societies: A Methodological Exploration

A critical question facing the student of religion in Africa is the continuing vitality of indigenous religions and their status in Muslim and Christian Africa. The picture has been complicated by attempts to project models of traditional religions on the basis of what Islam and Christianity appear to tolerate, or find tolerable. In spite of the positive yield of such an approach it has not seriously moved us beyond assumptions rooted in the ancient competition between Islam and Christianity, a competition now being fostered on the unstated ground that the African religious heritage offered little challenge and was consequently abolished by whichever of the two religions first came on the scene. The rival claims to superiority of Islam and Christianity have followed these religions into Africa where the lure of numerical prizes stiffened the competitive resolve. Without necessarily abandoning such a competitive view of religious encounter some Western scholars, with a scarcely concealed prejudice against Christianity, in which they have been imitated by scores of educated Africans, grant to Islam in Africa the capacity for tolerance and adaptation which they refuse to a begrudged Christianity. In addition to belittling the role of African religions, this approach sedulously propagates old religious rivalries and thus gravely distorts the process of religious change and adaptation in which the African environment has continued to play a formative role. The challenge thus facing Islam and Christianity in Africa is not the facile one of carving up the continent between them but one that demands creative involvement. We should therefore now apply to these two religions the crucial test of responsiveness to Africa's religious traditions. This produces a wholly different situation whose implications should make us less complacent about accepted designations.

A Model for the Study of Thai Buddhism

THIS paper constitutes an attempt to reconcile—at least for one region of Southeast Asia: central Thailand—one of the discrepancies in analyses of contemporary Theravada Buddhism. The model proposed below—which is the outcome of comparing some of the relevant literature with my own field data—encompasses two distinct sections of society, each holding a different attitude towards Buddhism. The interaction between different interpretations of religion may well be one of the major factors n i the process of religious change in Thailand. Furthermore, this model may be of use for other Theravada Buddhist countries.Literature on the SubjectA survey of the literature on the practice of religion in Theravāda Buddhist countries reveals what may be a unique situation in the study of religions. Many authors state unequivocally that Theravāda Buddhists adhere to more than one religious tradition. Apart from “otherworldly” Buddhism, these Southeast Asian peoples adhere to other strands of religion, generally classed under rubrics such as “non-Buddhist beliefs,” “folk religion,” “animism,” or “supernaturalism.” Yet, though virtually all authors recognize this situation, there is no consensus in their views on how the different subsystems are interrelated.

The New Triple Melting Pot: Herberg Revisited

The relative permeability of the boundaries between white Protestants and white Catholics, Jews and (white) gentiles, and blacks and whites is assessed in five institutional areas: marriage, friendship, residence, occupations, and politics. Where possible, the data are examined in a time series perspective. The review of the literature generated by this outline indicates that the categories implied in Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew must be modified. The new set of categories is white Christian, white non-Christian, and black. One of the best-known books ever written about religion in America is Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955; rev. ed., 1960). Starting from a review of this nation's immigrant history, Herberg analyzes the process of religious change in this country from the standpoint of ethnic assimilation. His argument, later echoed by Gordon (1964), is two-pronged. First, Herberg argues, religious boundary lines have replaced national origin lines as the significant form of ethnic differentiation among whites in American society. Social interaction tends to be confined to one's own religious group, and there are only three religious groupings that are important to consider in this way--the three that form the title of his book. Herberg's second major thesis concerns the way American society has solved the problem of religious pluralism. (For good theoretical treatments of the sociological problems created by religious pluralism, see Lenski, 1965, and Yinger, 1970. Descriptive materials about religious pluralism in other societies are presented for Lebanon by Gulick, 1965, for the Netherlands by Moberg, 1961, and Lijphart, 1968.) Taking the Durkheimian stance that all societies must have some religious base to continue to exist, Herberg (1960) distinguishes between the formal religious structure of a society (the Church or the churches) and the society's operative religion, the set of beliefs and practices that actually perform the Durkheimian task of societal integration. Herberg's (1960: 78-79) second the-