Religious Domination Research Articles

The Condition of the Restoration Church of Scotland in the Highlands

Despite the prominence of religious issues in the historiography of Restoration Scotland, understanding of the position of the Kirk in the Highlands remains sparse. This article seeks to address this lacuna through analysis of two related themes. Firstly, it looks at provision, discussing the Kirk's financial, material and manpower resources, as well as the challenge posed by Gaelic. Secondly, it traces the extent of Nonconformity, both Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, with a view to judging the degree of adherence to the established Episcopalian structure. It concludes that the Kirk, while facing challenges, retained a position of unrivalled religious dominance.

The Island of Aegina: An Example of Modus Vivendi in the Medieval Mediterranean

The medieval Mediterranean has predominantly been considered to be a place of continuous conflict in matters of political and territorial ambitions, and, of course, religious dominance. The constant incursions on the islands of the Mediterranean have been considered by historians, legitimately in many instances, to be destructive of local communities, and to have caused turbulence in the economy, society, and culture. However, there is documentation which proves that such invasions were frequently followed by improvement in administration, and subsequently by production of art and a new type of culture that was an amalgam of Western and Eastern elements.This article aims to illustrate certain positive side effects of this interaction in the Mediterranean through a specific example: the medieval city of Aegina in the Aegean Sea. During its history, the island passed through the hands of the Franks, the Venetians, the Catalans, and eventually the Ottomans. The architectural forms and artistic patterns that will be discussed support the argument that the medieval Mediterranean became a place for the exchange of ideas, and a canvas for multicultural activities.

A GIS approach to modelling CO2 emissions associated with the pupil-school commute

Concerns have been raised in numerous countries over declining rates of active transport to school. In a UK context, the pupil-school commute is estimated to contribute around 658 kilotonnes of CO2 per year; however, tackling this issue effectively requires an improved understanding of how emissions can be modelled and mapped over a variety of scales. This paper implements a new estimation technique for the modelling of CO2 emissions linked with the school commute that integrates both transport network-level routing and geographically disaggregate vehicle emissions data. The model is then applied to a national cohort of pupils in England. Areas demonstrating the highest emissions were typically more rural and/or comprising more affluent resident populations. Emissions were also shown to increase with school year, with larger step changes between educational stages reflecting the different geography of school locations. Furthermore, where secondary school entry policies were selective or based on a religious domination, average emissions were typically higher than in non-selective schools.

Loving All Your Neighbors: Why Community Colleges Need the Academic Study of Religion

AbstractThis chapter explains how the study of world religions prepares the community college student to become a better citizen, worker, and neighbor. The effective middle between the pitfalls of religious relativism and religious dominance in a world religions classroom is central to this discussion of teaching critical thinking, empathy, and cross‐cultural communication.

Fighting African Corruption When Existing Corruption-Control Levels Matter in a Dynamic Cultural Setting

Purpose – This paper assesses the determinants of corruption-control with freedom dynamics (economic, political, press and trade), government quality and a plethora of socio-economic factors in 46 African countries using updated data.Design/methodology/approach – A quantile regression approach is employed while controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity. Principal component analysis is also used to reduce the dimensions of highly correlated variables. Findings – With the legal origin fundamental characteristic, the following findings have been established. (1) While political freedom increases corruption-control (CC) in a bottom quantile of English common law countries, there is no such evidence in their French civil law counterparts. (2) Government quality consistently improves CC across all quantiles in English common law countries but fails to exert the same effect in middle quantiles of French civil law countries. (3) Economic freedom ameliorates CC only in common law countries with low existing CC levels (bottom quantiles). (4) We find no significant evidence of a positive ‘press freedom’-CC nexus and having the status of Low income English common law (French civil law) countries decreases (increases) CC.From a religious domination scenario, we also find the following. (1) Political and trade freedoms only reduce CC in Christian dominated countries while press freedom has a mitigation effect in both religious cultures (though more consistent across quantiles of Christian-oriented countries). (2) Government quality is more pro-CC in Christian than in Muslim-dominated countries. (3) While economic freedom has a scanty negative nexus with CC in Christian-oriented countries, the effect is positive in their Muslim-dominated counterparts. (4) Having a low-income status in countries with Christian common law tradition improves CC. Originality/value – We complement the literature on the fight against corruption in Africa by employing recently documented additional factors that should be considered in corruption studies.

‘Lady no be so’: the image of women in contemporary church posters in Nigeria

There is no doubt that churches are proliferating in Nigerian cities and church-going has become a popular culture. Mostly male, pastors are sacrosanct and unaccountable, just as their living standards far outweigh those of their members. In their domination of the contemporary Church in Nigeria, male pastors reproduce and use popular but subjective social images of women to apprehend female pastors. In terms of publicity, printed posters are the most prolific media churches employ. Yet, on these same posters, male pastors differentiate themselves and subordinate female pastors by using graphic principles of layout and visual placement of women's pictures vis-à-vis theirs. That the Church is male-dominated is clearly not in question. This paper interrogates how this domination is played out and the roles women are playing in re-presenting themselves in dominated church spaces. Using data from fieldwork, this paper analyses the image of women in Nigerian church posters, the vast collection of practices built around religious domination and the roles female pastors are playing in re-representing women in the Nigerian religious space.

Exorcising the Mandala: Kālacakra and the Neo-Pentecostal Response

Since the late 1990s, the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra for World Peace initiation has emerged as central site where Tibetan Buddhism and its relationship to the West have been imagined and acted upon by movement within evangelical Christianity called Spiritual Mapping. In Mapping understanding, the Kālacakra is vehicle by which the current Dalai Lama prepares for the end times by seeking to transform America into a universal Buddhocracy called the Kingdom of Shambhala. Tibetan Buddhism is, in short, missionary competitor for global religious domination. Here, the Tibetan-evangelical encounter is presented as the by-product of the simultaneous globalizations of Tibetan Buddhism and Evangelicalism with the human rights discourse in late twentieth century America. The exorcism of the mandala is read as both by-product and critique of globalization, and to engender thoughtful re-evaluation of long-standing Buddhist Studies analytics.

Witchcraft, superstition and the “converso issue”: stories of the construction of “Christian others”

Between the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Age, in German-speaking regions, a novel phenomenon of witchcraft emerged: an unprecedented combination of theory and repressive practice which took the Devil’s work in the world to its highest point. In the same period, however, Hispanic theologians seemed to hold a different view, a more cautious and moderate demonological theory. Throughout this work, we will analyse the anti-superstitition works written by Lope de Barrientos and The Formicarius , by Johannes Nider, as a starting point to identify, bearing in mind their respective political and cultural circles, two opposing views regarding the revolutionary representations of the Devil and, mainly, to assert the existence of two alternative processes for the construction of “Christian Others” in 15th. Century Europe. The Castilian case de serves particular consideration in view of the “issue of the New Christians” and the existence of certain power relationships which moulded and paved the way for the establishment of the Inquisition as the ultimate means for political and religious domination.

Supersession, the Comedia nueva , and Tirso's La mejor espigadera

Supersession is a familiar concept in the history of the rise of Christianity at the expense of the Jews, who found themselves displaced as the People of the Covenant. The history of Spain is also one of supersession accomplished not entirely by means of eradication of the former regime or faith but in addition by taking on the mantle of cultural and religious dominance and essentially inhabiting the space of power and privilege previously occupied by others. As an adjunct to empire, Spaniards adopted the idea that they were God's real chosen people, not just by expelling the Jews from the peninsula but by taking upon themselves markers of special status traditionally used by Jews; even the term "gentiles" was appropriated to refer to non-Spaniards. Thus, at the same time that Jews were exiled from Spain and conversos were actively persecuted, figures from the Hebrew Bible continued to be exalted in Spanish literature. Tirso's La mejor espigadera is a useful case study, not only because it presents the story of one of the righteous women of the Bible, but how a non-Jewish figure can rise to become not just revered by the Israelites but an ancestor of King David and, eventually, Jesus Christ. If we then expand the focus of the notion of supersession to the theatrical genre of the comedia itself, we see how the playwrights, especially as documented in Lope's "Arte nuevo," consciously set out to establish the new comedia nueva as the model destined to supersede Aristotelian precepts of what constitutes a proper play.

Gender, agency and identity, the case of Afghan women in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran

This paper will discuss how Afghan women, as diverse groups, exercised autonomy and agency in diaspora (Iran and Pakistan) and in Afghanistan under US-led invasion. Negotiations between social, political, economic, ethnic, cultural and gender spheres are a constant battle for Afghan women. They have invented different ways of coping with life, under the most extreme forms of coercion, fear and high levels of uncertainties. In diaspora, despite marginalisation, they established women's voices and agency. Exile became an important factor to reshape their identity according to their diverse positions. Under NATO and US-led invasion they are challenging imperialist representation of Afghan women. They are seeking freedom from hierarchical and patriarchal domination. They hope that their active agency will enable them to establish their own identity free from male, ethnic, religious and imperial domination. The paper will draw the attention of the reader to the enormous influence of state policies (Afghanistan/US, Iran, Pakistan), as well as the impact of women's movement in Iran and the NGOs in Pakistan, on the lives of Afghan women and men in Afghanistan and diasporic communities.

Evangelicalism and National Identity in Ulster, 1921–1998. By Patrick Mitchel. Pp. xii + 362. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. isbn 0 19 925615 2. £60

Patrick Mitchel is Lecturer in Theology at the Irish Bible Institute, and his study of Evangelicalism in Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1998 is as much a contribution to theology as to history. His ultimate aim is to suggest how Christians, and especially Evangelical Christians, should behave in this intensely political situation. At the heart of the book is a protest against the popular identification of Ian Paisley as the representative figure of ‘Evangelicalism’ in Ulster. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Mitchel says, has lost its traditional social and religious dominance and faces a daunting challenge in regaining a distinct, independent identity. He admits, with regret, that ‘the evidence suggests that the [Presbyterian] Church has been shaped by the conflict between Unionism and Nationalism more than it has been shaped by an alternative to that conflict’. Twentieth-century Presbyterianism had to struggle against both ‘liberal theology’ and against the political attractiveness of the Orange Order. Mitchel distinguishes between what he calls the ‘closed’, fundamentalist Evangelicalism of Paisley's Democratic Unionism, which is, he says, attracted by the ‘tribal nationalism’ of the Orange Order and willing to legitimize nationalist objectives with its own version of Evangelical belief and imagery, and an ‘open’ style Evangelicalism, less obsessed with fundamentalism and prepared to accept the Good Friday agreement as a positive step towards political and religious peace.

THE EFFECT OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS' DOMINANCE IN CLASSROOMS ON COGNITIVE AND NONCOGNITIVE EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES

This paper focusses on the relation between pupils' religious minority or majority position in school on the one hand, and a number of cognitive and noncognitive educational outcomes on the other. On the basis of theoretical notions about value and functional communities (Coleman), school belonging and school membership (Goodenow), and the effects of school composition, it was expected that pupils in a position of religious dominance function and perform better at school. Data from 550 Dutch primary schools and 10,000 grade 2 pupils were analysed using descriptive and multilevel analysis techniques. The results failed to confirm expectations concerning a position of religious dominance.

Assessing Israel

Israel is often a subject of shrill criticism, with hyperbole more prominent than clear reasoning, systematic analysis of the Israeli record, or comparison of its performances with those of other countries. Inquiries into claims about a threat of religious domination by the ultra-Orthodox and the disadvantages of non-Jews serve to illustrate the problems in assessing claims affected by ideology and emotion. As far as the analysis can go, the prospect of religious domination seems no greater in Israel than in other western democracies. Ethnic differentiation, as measured by indicators for incomes and health, has improved in recent years and is less severe than comparable conditions in the United States.

A Novel Reading of Nineteenth-Century Wales: A Reply to Stark, Finke, and Iannaccone

As Stark et al. rightly note, I am unpersuaded by recent claims to find strong empirical support for the general and universal proposition that pluralism is positively associated with vitality. My reading of the history of religions is that sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Social considerations (religion as guarantor of ethnic identity, as legitimator of wars, as defender of racial interests, for example) often seem more germane than the rational choices of autonomous individuals. My essay which stimulated Stark et al.'s paper questioned the stereotypes of old world as hegemony and new world as competitive pluralism. It identified considerable diversity within British religion and raised the point that the diversity of the United States as a whole may not be reflected at the local levels where choices are made. Contra the dismissive phrase used by my critics, I did not flatly (Stark et al., JSSR 34:435) anything. Rather I cited Gaustad's evidence on religious domination (where more than 50% of church members belong to one denomination): In 1906, 22 of 48 states were dominated by one denomination; in 1950 just over half the counties of the United States were so dominated. The comparable figure for England and Wales in 1851 was 52% of counties. No difference in one measure of diversity. I may be wrong in the conclusions I draw from Gaustad but I am not making it up. A second reason the diversity of the new world may be more apparent than real is that some of it is due to racial and ethnic duplication. It makes little sense to deny America's history of racism and suppose that black churches are available as a choice for whites or vice

The Radical Pietism of Count Nicholas Zinzendorf as a Conservative Influence on the Awakener, Gilbert Tennent

Unlike the religious dominance of Puritans in New England and Anglicans in the South, the mid-Atlantic colonies of eighteenth-century America were covered with an assortment of northern European churches and sects. By the 1740s, an overflow of New England Puritans shared New York with an earlier immigrant population of Reformed Dutch and French Huguenots. In the Raritan valley of New Jersey, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians lived alongside enclaves of more Dutch, and coexisted with English Quakers, Swedish and German Lutherans, and a variety of sectarians along the lower Delaware River and in the city of Philadelphia. On the upper Delaware were further German settlements while along the western frontiers of Penn's colony additional Scotch-Irish Calvinists were to be found.

Education in Chile, 1810-1842

Any history of education in republican Chile, however brief, must of necessity touch first upon the colonial period. Although education, and indeed government, were completely dominated by the Church during the colonial period, in the late eighteenth century Chile grew restless under religious domination and began to free both its educational system and its governmental process from absolute church control.Prior to the eighteenth century education had been the exclusive prerogative of the church. In the period immediately preceding the Independence the Church and the clergy began to lose some of their unchallenged importance and authority. This loss was reflected in administration and schools. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 and the not-too-respectful criticism of things religious by Charles III indicated that the Church was no longer directing the government and hence was no longer the dominant element in the educational process.