Religious Revival Research Articles

Church Attendance and Religious Change in Italy, 1968–2010: A Multilevel Analysis of Pooled Datasets

The debate over religious change in Italy is far from having reached unanimous conclusions: some scholars point to an unbroken trend toward a decrease of religiosity, while others highlight the signs of a religious revival, especially in younger generations. Besides difficulties with definitions, different conclusions are also due to a lack of information over a sufficiently long period of time. This problem is tackled here by developing a pooled analysis of repeated cross‐section surveys that span over four decades. Using six different studies, the article analyzes the secularization trend in Italy on the basis of church attendance that, despite well‐founded criticism, continues to be a crucial indicator of this phenomenon. The results, estimated using multilevel models, show that the trend of attendance at Mass in Italy has decreased since the 1960s until today, despite a period of stability at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The overall trend looks like a “recumbent S” trend (decrease up to the 1970s, stability in the 1980s, decrease afterwards). Thus, the claims of a religious revival in Italy are not supported by our results.

Tibetan minzu market: the intersection of ethnicity and commodity

In downtown Chengdu a pocket of Tibetan culture has sprung up: a Tibetan market where Tibetans and Han Chinese meet to buy and sell ethnic minority products. Pointing to how Tibetan migration to Chengdu has contributed to the growth of a vibrant ‘minzu market’ attracting Tibetan and Han Chinese merchants, customers, Buddhist devotees, and voyeurs, this article presents novel understandings of the ethnic goods market in urban Chengdu. The article first explores the growth of the market, which is the result of a history of political and economic reforms, increased mobility, and religious revival. Second, it maps the market infrastructure according to the ethnicity of the shopkeepers and the commodities that are traded. Although there is still a clear ethnic division in the market, this article also documents the emergence of Han Chinese market participation in forms of trade that have historically been dominated by Tibetans.

Book review: Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival, written by Susanna Mancini and Michel Rosenfeld

Book review: Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival, written by Susanna Mancini and Michel Rosenfeld

THE PEACE CORPS IN US FOREIGN RELATIONS AND CHURCH–STATE POLITICS

AbstractThis article uses new archival evidence and the growing literature on religion and the foreign relations of the United States to reinterpret the Peace Corps. The religious revival of the 1950s continued into the 1960s, and the Kennedy administration saw ‘spiritual values’ as part of the national interest. Church–state politics and Kennedy's public conception of the role of religion in foreign relations dictated that this aspect of the cold war would change in form. The Peace Corps should, in part, be seen as a continuation of the religious cold war, one that drew on the precedents of missionary and church-service organizations. The Corps was a counterpart to church groups working abroad, and hoped to subcontract much of its work to them. Kennedy hoped to work with religious groups in ecumenical fashion. As Catholic organizations were most visibly interested in receiving Corps funds, funding church groups proved politically unworkable, leading to church–state arguments that Kennedy wanted to avoid. The Kennedy administration struggled to separate the secular and the sacred, as confused definitions of ‘religion’ and a tough constitutional stance narrowed policy options. The Peace Corps fight shaped, and was shaped by, contemporary debates over church and state.

Transnational Religious Dynamics of Syrian Christians from Kerala in Kuwait

This article focuses on changes in religious practices and the rise of radical religious groups among Christian Kerala immigrants to Kuwait after the First Gulf War in 1990–1. The impact of religious revivalism shows how religion has become a site for various identity-based community-centred networks among South Asian immigrants to Gulf countries. The article analyses the ways in which the church is increasingly active among Syrian Christian immigrants of Kerala in post-liberation Kuwait. Such religious groups are transnational in nature, actively linked to both home and destination countries, and the world beyond. The article focuses specifically on the growing affinity of Syrian Christian immigrants towards Pentecostalism. At the macro level, this article also investigates the interconnection between the geopolitical dynamics in the Gulf and the expansion of what appears to be ‘religious space’ in Kuwait.

Romanticising Legal Pluralism Through Religious Revival in Democratic Nigeria: Crusaders, Criminals, and Casualties

The two epochal events that have shaped Nigeria’s socio-cultural, economic and political contexts are colonialism and the military authoritarian regimes. The former resulted in the emergence of post-colonial elites including the latter, with efficacy to effectively popularise, mobilise and manipulate primordial identities in their struggle over the control of public resources. The later militarised the Nigerian polity along primordial considerations to the detriment of national cohesion, integration and unity. One of the mechanisms used to execute this task is the deployment of legal pluralism as instrument of inclusion or exclusion. Hence, in deploying legal pluralism they are scaling up their tendencies to not only legitimise their instruments of control, but also legalise the resort to primordial identities. The paper relied on secondary materials in arguing that though the Nigeria’s Legal Systems have been influenced by customary and English jurisprudences, the curiously re-emergence of the Sharia debate and several other proselytised narratives are continuation of elites’ contestations. It is further argued that the state of insecurity is the translation or metamorphosis of the undercurrent in these social conflicts that finds expression in the activities of perpetrators of violence (crusaders or criminals). The resultant consequences of violence conflicts in Nigeria are seen in the country’s democracy and development challenges that manifest deaths, injuries, destitutions, displacements, disruptions, and destructions. As response to this menace, state and non-state institutions should be strengthened and encouraged in the promotion of understanding, tolerance, forgiveness, brotherliness, justice, fair-play and dialogue. Equally, efforts towards depleting the support base of sponsors of identity-driven programmes must be intensified by consolidating measures aimed at national orientation, patriotism and oneness. This is achievable through virile civil society organisations, labour unions, professional bodies, media and academia.

The Ojibwe Renaissance: Transnational Evangelicalism and the Making of an Algonquian Intelligentsia, 1812–1867

Between the War of 1812 and the emergence of a self-sufficient Canadian Methodism in the 1850s, the combination of geopolitical instability, transatlantic evangelicalism, indigenous and settler enthusiasm for religious revival, and the ideas of romantic nationalism produced a distinctly Ojibwe Christianity. This Christianity is known to us primarily through the letters, journals, and publications of a small group of Algonquian-speaking intellectuals educated in American colleges who mobilized the ideology and institutional networks of the Protestant missionary project to mount a vigorous challenge to the encroachments of settler colonialism occurring on both sides of the Great Lakes. Ojibwe Christians participated in a movement to transform the world into a multiracial Christian commonwealth, a movement within which they could remain committed to a historiographical and nation-building project meant to establish an autonomous, or at least semi-autonomous, Indian polity within the imperialist state.

The Akron Offering: A Ladies’ Literary Magazine, 1849–1850 ed. by Jon Miller (review)

Reviewed by: The Akron Offering: A Ladies’ Literary Magazine, 1849–1850 ed. by Jon Miller Arielle J. Lester The Akron Offering: A Ladies’ Literary Magazine, 1849–1850. Edited by Jon Miller (Akron, Ohio: Univ. of Akron Press, 2013. 466pp. Paper $39.95, isbn 978-1-935603-53-5.) In this edited, periodical commentary, Jon Miller offers an insightful vignette on the intellectual, literary pieces The Akron Offering presented to its antebellum, largely female audience, which mirrored broader social issues such as public reforms, slavery, and women’s suffrage. The introduction analyzes problematic typographic errors that inundated print material throughout America, positing that many republished selections became victims of “textual corruption” by printers’ errors, often significantly impacting an original work’s interpretation and meaning (5). However, not all print errors resulted from ignorance or haste; some editors purposefully adulterated a submission to protest an author or his or her ideas. Moreover, pervasive written works such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and other national publications also contained careless orthography and printing errors, symptoms not anomalous to a regionalized periodical, but a result of rapid print demand and dissemination (19). Many middle-class women in mid-nineteenth-century America read the proliferation of prescriptive books, journals, and magazines meant wholly for female consumption during the “market revolution,” which significantly affected print culture with its mass distribution but also the influx of women agents as subscribers, writers, and public educators. Frequently used as a tool for social reform and reinforcing viewpoints on gender roles, ladies’ literary magazines held widely varied readerships in northern and midwestern states, such as The Akron Offering, hailing from northeastern Ohio. However, few accounts reveal the perspective of the rare, overtly criticized female editor who played a part in turning out edifying literature for other women. The Akron Offering’s editor, Calista Cumings, experienced a brief professional life printing her magazine from 1849 to 1850, compared to her contemporaries, Sarah J. Hale and Catharine Beecher, who spent many years employed as writers, educators, or editors. Miller illuminates that Cumings, like other female, middle-aged, or unmarried professional counterparts in her time, self-identified as anti-suffrage, [End Page 96] promoting traditional gender-role reinforcement in her writing, while in reality contributing to expanding women’s domain in the public sphere with her own professional and independent efforts. Cumings, although a noteworthy, progressive woman, fell through the cracks in the public historical records as an unmarried woman, a common oversight within government census data. Despite her short-lived success, Cumings and her contributors, many using pseudonyms or anonymity, stand as a reminder that many women participated and claimed a public voice in the midst of their own inner turmoil regarding their domestic duties and opinions on women’s “appropriate sphere” (29). Miller’s exceptional work as an editor contextualizes Akron’s place in ante-bellum society as a microcosm, a young city that flourished from the booming canal industry, burned with religious revivalism, and hosted a woman’s rights convention in 1851, complete with Sojourner Truth’s speech about being a woman and women’s intellect. The Akron Offering’s readers conveyed their sentiments on the California Gold Rush and the conversion of native Hawaiians, proving that virtually no literate American could be isolated from or apathetic toward national news and global events. Miller’s contribution to historical and literary scholarship effectively demonstrates the value of looking past popular, well-known periodicals at lost-and-found literature, exemplified by this annotated edition. Arielle J. Lester Youngstown State University Copyright © 2015 The Kent State University Press

Reconciliation through the Devolution of Powers in Post-War Sri Lanka: A Special Reference to Debates on 13thAmendment of the Constitution

Reconciliation is a more forward-looking process of healing divisions between and within communities. It requires recognition of others’ grievances and experiences and changes in policies that may have worsened the conflict or prevented greater cohesion. In the history of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, ethnicization of politics and politicization of ethnicity have become very common. The politicization of ethnic and religious revivalism as also assertion of various ethnic and regional identities is posing serious problems for the integrity of Sri Lanka. Post-colonial Sri Lanka followed strategies of modernity and economic progress. However, the modernization and development process led to the centralization of development progress. The negative connotation of such centralization was the manifestation of discriminatory attitudes in terms of ethnicities and region. Discriminatory distribution of rights and privileges together with the arbitrary attitude of power elites led to a feeling of deprivation among minority ethnic groups. The Sinhala elites largely failed to strengthen the democratic institutions by decentralizing political economic power. Instead, they responded by strengthening and using coercive powers to preserve regime interests against minorities which paved the way for a civil war. Four years since the end of civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka is farther from reconciliation than ever. Devolution of power to the north and east is essential to for sustainable peace. It has become no less urgent with the defeat of the LTTE; indeed, the end of the war and the return of normalcy in those areas make real power sharing all the more important. In this context, the government has essentially rejected the need for any political solution or power sharing with the Tamil-speaking-majority in North and East under the 13th amendment. This is a remarkable change from previous governments. The current chaos on devolution creates uncertainty and, therefore, Thammasat Review  108 it is difficult to outline the future moves of the present government. But despite such problems, prospects for reconciliation through devolution should remain hopeful. This study focuses on the current crisis of the 13th amendment of the constitution of the Sri Lanka. The prime objective of this study is to critically analyze the ongoing debates over the devolution of powers to minority under the 13th amendment. The fundamental questions of this research are the following: why does the present government deny provision of a reasonable devolution of power to minorities and its impact on reconciliation among the multi-ethnic society of Sri Lanka. This research is a critical one based one interpretive analysis in which both quantitative and qualitative data have been used. Here, the stated purpose is being examined by studying both primary and secondary materials. This secondary data have been collected from books, reports, journals, news papers, official documents and research articles Key Words: Ethnic Conflict, Politics of Sri Lanka, Reconciliation, Devolution of Power

Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands: The Premi of Southwest China, by Koen Wellens. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010. xx + 278 pp. US$70.00 (hardcover), US$30.00 (paperback).

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsReligious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands: The Premi of Southwest China, by Koen Wellens. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010. xx + 278 pp. US$70.00 (hardcover), US$30.00 (paperback).Elisabeth HsuElisabeth HsuOxford University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 73January 2015 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/679182 Views: 67Total views on this site Copyright 2015 by The Australian National University. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Zespolenie idei narodowej, odrodzenia religijnego z pracą społeczną dla rozwoju rodzimej koncepcji wczesnej edukacji

The Polish conception of early childhood education was understood to be part of a larger whole, including the relationship between the state of society, its socio-cultural and political situation, its moral and mental concepts, the educational ideal and contemporary pedagogical theory and practice. Its constituent elements were used to achieve specific goals, and they were combined into a coherent and dynamic pedagogical system. Eventually such a system was created thanks to the cooperation of such great personalities as August Cieszkowski (1814-1894), Edmund Bojanowski (1814-1871), Jan Koźmian (1814-1877) and the priest, Piotr Semenenko (1814-1886). A characteristic feature of their contribution to the development of native foundations of theory and practice of early education in the concept of rural orphanages is the fusion of the national idea and religious revival with social work.

Mancini, Susanna, and Michel Rosenfeld (eds.): Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival

Mancini, Susanna, and Michel Rosenfeld (eds.): Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival

Managers and Ministers: Instilling Christian Free Enterprise in the Postwar Workplace

This article examines the early industrial chaplain movement. In the midst of a postwar religious revival, companies, primarily in the South, hired Protestant ministers to care for their workers' spiritual needs. Many were motivated by both religious convictions and the desire to build a productive, loyal workforce. The opposition of unions and liberal Protestantism slowed the movement's growth, although over the last three decades thousands of employers have rediscovered the benefits of faith-based workplace programs. This article illuminates important postwar trends such as the persistence of paternalism and the importance of religion in managerial strategies.

The Journal of Ann McMath: An Orphan in a New York Parsonage in the 1850s by Ann McMath

128 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY The Journal of Ann McMath: An Orphan in a New York Parsonage in the 1850s. By Ann McMath, edited and with an introduction by G. Stewart Doty. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2011, 279 pages, $29.95 Cloth. Reviewed by Paul Ringel, Independent Scholar The Journal of Ann McMath is, as its editor describes it, “an authentic voice of a young woman coming of age” (1). McMath wrote threefourths of her journal between 1851 and 1856, when she was seventeen to twenty-two years old. During most of this period, she lived with her uncle, the Reverend Charles C. Carr and his family in Horseheads, a village in southern New York. Born in Michigan, McMath had been sent east at the age of fourteen by her father following the death of her mother. The young woman never saw her father again—he died soon after she began keeping this record—and she seems to have adopted the practice of regular writing (often two to three times a week) in a journal as a means of articulating the struggles she confronted in adapting to her new life. McMath perceived much of that struggle through the lens of evangelical Protestantism. Living in a clergyman’s household in a region of the United States profoundly influenced by the wave of religious revivals historians have labeled the Second Great Awakening, she constantly assessed herself, her peers, and her neighbors according to her received standards of Christian piety. McMath underwent a conversion experience in 1849, soon after her arrival in Horseheads, yet throughout her journal she worried that she has not “advanced any in godliness” and that “there is always something in my conduct or language that I have to mourn over. When shall I be perfect?” (34, 132). She eschewed entertainments she perceived as improper, and distanced herself from friends whom she found “winning and affectionate” because of their Quaker faith and their interest in spiritualism (105, 34, 64). Yet the young writer’s journal entries are not consistently severe—she occasionally mixes in self-deprecating humor and even silliness, as in her writing exercise “An Apostrophe to a Dog” (46, 65). McMath’s journal also highlights the limited economic and social options available to young women in mid-nineteenth century American society. She worked for several months as a teacher, but found the work Book Reviews 129 exhausting and the constant shifting of her board to different students’ families humiliating. Given her lack of economic resources, the only alternative avenue McMath appears to have considered was marriage. She remained circumspect on the subject of courtship through much of the journal, hinting at but never clearly identifying possible suitors. Yet her often-reluctant participation in social events (at one point she writes “I am tired, yea, sick of the name, picnic”) reveals her understanding of the importance of this process to her future (98). Ironically, her irritation with these constant demands for sociability shifted to complaints of a deep and abiding loneliness following her 1856 marriage to William Hammond. Even though the marriage was apparently a happy one, the couple’s separate duties left the young bride isolated—six months after the wedding , McMath writes “I am alone is the record of every day now” (189). Increased physical responsibilities compounded her burden, particularly after she gave birth to six children (three of whom died in their first year of life) and William left the family for nearly two years to homestead in Kansas. During this period, McMath’s journal entries dwindled to a few times a month and then a few times a year, leaving readers with only sporadic insights into her married life. The Journal of Ann McMath is a valuable resource for both scholars and students because it provides insights into the world of a young, single woman living in a small village in the mid-nineteenth United States. Editor G. Stewart Doty’s introduction effectively contextualizes the journal , offering additional information about its author and her family and friends as well as analysis of issues of gender, religion, and rural life that emerge from the text. Doty particularly makes a compelling case that the...

Rise of Fundamentalist Discourse and the Reassertion of Modern Ethos

The religious resurgence in the contemporary world has generally been described as a threat to global peace in general and to the axiological centrality of humanist values i.e. autonomy and self-determination, in particular. This threat presumes an oversimplified version of fundamentalism which is not only predominantly modernistic but also views religious reservations against modern life-world in abstraction to postmodern critique on the colonization of modern discursive practices. Islamic discourse determines the limit of modernity in the non-Western, post-colonial world; on the other hand, it provides substantive theoretical resistance to anti-foundationalist, contingent and relativistic postmodernism prevailing in Eurocentric cultures. In this way, Islamic discourse naturally performs two functions simultaneously which has the potential to be instrumentalised for the sustenance of modern institutional order.

Game theory application to reframe river myths

Water was viewed as sacred by the very early civilisations. Ancient Greeks had rendered religious reverence and homage to many water deities. The Alpheus River and the Achelous River, worshiped as gods in ancient times, had a central part in Greek mythology and cultural heritage. The present article narrates some of the myths about these two rivers and interprets these stories on a game theory perspective. Through this narration, an alternative way of viewing game theory is presented, by highlighting two river myths and applying illustrations to the study of conflict resolution and the fundamental notion of game theory: strategy.

The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism: Religious Revivalism in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1670-1760

The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism: Religious Revivalism in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1670-1760

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Contemporary social and cultural trends in Western society suggest that, far from becoming marginal to society, religion is returning to public prominence as a significant factor in global politics and civil society. Whilst the predictions of classic secularization theory are cast into question, however, this should not be mistaken for a religious revival. Instead, we are witnessing an unprecedented co-existence of resurgence, decline, and mutation, which some are terming the ”post-secular” condition.This article considers the implications of the post-secular, and in particular for the way in which the churches might negotiate their role in public life. I answer this by calling for a renewal of the practice of apologetics: of offering a reasoned defence or rationale for one's faith. Christians need to cultivate a public vocation that is more interested in the well-being of society than the survival of the Church, which is prepared to “speak truth to power”, and enables them to be advocates for the marginalized and powerless in society.

Threats of Hellfire and Jumping for Heavenly Joy

Religious revivals are often accompanied by manifest emotional phenomena, such as ecstaticism, trances, and glossolalia, which have proven challenging to explain. Following the recent wave of insights to properties of religious rituals and beliefs conductive to human cooperation, I propose that emotional signals provide a solution to the problem of Machiavellian opportunists who undertake displays of commitment as calculated investments and are liable to defect when it appears more profitable. As an empirical case I explore the Christian revivals that arose in early 19th century Finland, and demonstrate how their emotionalism was connected to assumed hypocrisy of ordinary Christians and especially that of the state church clergy. In addition to exposing the context in which to expect emotional revivals, the article suggests ways to reconciliate long-standing debates on the relative importance of socioeconomical versus religious motivations in the birth of new movements.

Exploitation of Contemporary Religious Revivals a Few Doubts About the Explanations Provided by Scholars

Since the 1970s, religious revivals have been happening all across the world. Numerous scholars have been investigating the reasons behind such a phenomenon. However, everyone seems to perceive it from a macroscopic and general angle, trying to provide a universal explanation. Therefore, everyone inspects this phenomenon from a “global” point of view. The purpose of this paper is to try to find out the cause and development of the revival as well as the true meaning behind the explanations provided by the scholars. However, after studying the materials, the author finds the discussion, or the attempted explanation, provokes many doubts.