Religious Transformation Research Articles

Religious Transformations in the Middle Ages: Towards a New Archaeological Agenda

UNDERSTANDING RELIGIOUS CHANGE between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Reformation forms one of the cornerstones of medieval archaeology, but has been riven by period, denominational, and geographical divisions. This paper lays the groundwork for a fundamental rethink of archaeological approaches to medieval religions, by adopting an holistic framework that places Christian, pagan, Islamic and Jewish case studies of religious transformation in a long-term, cross-cultural perspective. Focused around the analytical themes of ‘hybridity and resilience’ and ‘tempo and trajectories’, our approach shifts attention away from the singularities of national narratives of religious conversion, towards a deeper understanding of how religious beliefs, practices and identity were renegotiated by medieval people in their daily lives.

Implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda? Somali debates on women’s public roles and political participation

ABSTRACTIn conflict and post-conflict settings, the international community operates with the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda supporting gender equality. During and after war, gender roles are often deeply contested as part of larger societal transformations and uncertainties. In Somalia since the 1960s, gender identities and roles have undergone substantial changes, influenced by contemporary political systems, the women’s movement, civil war and religious transformations. The international community’s role in these societal transformations should not be over-estimated. Life history research with Somali women shows that debates on women’s roles in the public sphere are taking place irrespective of the international agenda. Somali women have, at least since the 1960s, held civil-political leadership positions, despite substantial disagreements on the public role of women in Somalia. Furthermore, the “international” and “local” are difficult to disentangle. The Somali female elite have often spent years abroad and introduced new gender perspectives from places as divergent as Egypt, Russia and the United States. Global cultural and religious trends are influencing post-war Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland. In this complex socio-cultural landscape, the international WPS agenda can support – but also risk delegitimizing – Somali processes and perspectives. The article illustrates the gap that exists between global norms and local realities by focusing on Somali discourse on women’s public roles and political participation.

Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas

Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas

Os catecismos de Lutero e o uso da Escritura

The third decade of sixteenth century marks the establishment of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and Switzerland. This article initially addresses the political and ecclesial context and religious transformations in Germany under the leadership of Martin Luther. To fulfill the pressing need for religious instruction of the people, the Reformer published, in 1529, the Small Catechism and the Large Catechism. It highlights the primacy of Scripture in catechesis, adopting the principle that the Scripture might be explained by itself, with Christ as center. Luther takes of early Church the method of Lectio Divina, but he distanced himself from the four-way method: literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical, from antiquity and the middle Ages. Through catechisms, Luther emphasized the Word proclaimed and accepted in Faith, since in his time very few Christians had access to the full text of Scripture.

Os catecismos de Lutero e o uso da Escritura

<p>A terceira década do século XVI assinala a implantação da Reforma protestante na Alemanha e na Suíça. O artigo trata inicialmente do contexto político e eclesial e das transformações religiosas na Alemanha, sob a liderança de Martinho Lutero. Para atender a premente necessidade de instrução religiosa do povo, o reformador publicou, em 1529, o Catecismo Menor e o Catecismo Maior. Em seguida, o artigo analisa a hermenêutica bíblica empregada nos catecismos. Destaca a primazia da Escritura na catequese adotando o princípio de que a Escritura se explica por si mesma tendo Cristo como centro. Lutero retoma da Igreja primitiva a insistência na Lectio Divina, porém distancia-se do método dos quatro sentidos, literal, alegórico, moral e anagógico, da antiguidade cristã e da Idade Média. Adota métodos próprios de interpretação. Por meio dos Catecismos Lutero deu ênfase a Palavra proclamada a ser acolhida na fé, uma vez que na sua época bem poucos cristãos tinham acesso ao texto pleno das Escrituras. <strong></strong></p>

全球宗教变迁与华人社会——世俗化、宗教化、理性化与躯体化

20世纪的宗教变迁带来了一些影响全球社会生活并在今天持续产生重要作用的新发展，这其中最重要的四个趋势就是世俗化、宗教化、理性化与躯体化。这些发展趋势也影响了华人社会，通过考察两个相当不同的华人地区——中国江苏和中国台湾，我们可以看出这两地在全球化宗教变迁中的差异性与共同性。通过观察与研究可以看出，两地的相似性显示出在不同政治背景下，两地共享的文化传统和共同受到的全球影响的相对重要。与此同时，一些明显的差异性也在两地宗教生态上表现出来，尤其重点表现在地方寺庙崇奉状况，以及佛教和基督教发展的各自特点方面。

Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas ‐ edited by Kirk, Stephanie and Rivett, Sarah

Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas ‐ edited by Kirk, Stephanie and Rivett, Sarah

Does a Religious Transformation Buffer the Effects of Lifetime Trauma on Happiness?

ABSTRACTA number of studies have examined religious transformations. But most of this work has been concerned with identifying different types of transformations and steps in the process of transformation. The current study was designed to examine the ways in which religious transformations may be associated with happiness. We take a novel approach toward the evaluation of this relationship. We argue that a religious transformation may be an important resource for coping with lifetime trauma. Two major findings emerge from our nationwide survey (N = 2,851). First, the data indicate that the magnitude of the relationship between lifetime trauma and happiness is reduced significantly for people who have had a religious transformation but not for those who have not had this type of religious experience. Second, the results reveal that the potential stress-related benefits of a religious transformation are more evident among younger adults than among middle-aged or older adults.

An archeology of moments: Christian conversion and practice in a medieval household cemetery

The Christian conversion of Iceland in A.D. 1000 was accompanied by distinct changes in religious practice and ritual places. In the following century, household cemeteries were established at many farms. Examining the early Christian household cemetery at Seyla in northern Iceland, we explore how the establishment, usage, and closure of these cemeteries provide an opportunity to examine how the new religion was realized in Icelandic society. At the same time Seyla represents cemetery management at a household level, which provides rarely witnessed household level social actions. The individual moments discussed can be used to enlighten the agency of family as well as its realization of the social and religious changes of the 11th century. Here, we argue that the isolation and discussion of these specific archeological moments at Seyla add to our understanding of the experiences and actions of early Christian households during a time of religious transformation.

Flexible Believers in the Netherlands: A Paradigm Shift toward Transreligious Multiplicity

Abstract The Netherlands has undergone a radical religious transformation through secularization, individualization and migration. Expressions of Christian belief are no longer strictly defined by the Church and hybrid forms of religiosity incorporating other religions have emerged. After a brief sketch of Dutch religious plurality, the author focuses on interviews with ‘flexible believers’, people who combine elements from different religious traditions and worldviews. Through interviews, she discovers a number of characteristics of these multiple religious believers (MRB) - interviewees - such as ritual praxis, identity-making processes and belonging - and reflects on their impact for the wider picture of religiosity in today‘s post-Christian Dutch network society. She concludes that hybrid forms of lived religion like mrb, present a challenge to traditional concepts of religious identity and belonging. They require a paradigm shift from an ‘either/or’ to a relational ‘as well as’ approach within a rhizomatic network of meaning.

Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas ed. by Stephanie Kirk, Sarah Rivett

Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas ed. by Stephanie Kirk, Sarah Rivett

The World Day of Prayer: Ecumenical Churchwomen and Christian Cosmopolitanism, 1920–1946

AbstractBetween World War I and World War II, the World Day of Prayer (WDP) expressed Protestant women's Christian cosmopolitanism that combined rituals of prayer with a liberal program of social activism and humanitarianism. The WDP began as a way to unite Protestant women together across organizational denominational lines as women's missionary societies entered a period of decline in the 1920s. The WDP raised awareness of home and foreign missionary work and took up a collection to support designated home and foreign mission projects, but it quickly emerged as a site for ritual creativity. The planning committees and prayer service facilitated Protestant women's efforts to replace a traditional understanding of missionary work with a cosmopolitan Christianity that coupled American women's spirituality with a liberal program supportive of racial diversity and internationalism. The prayer services became sacred spaces to enact “unity in diversity,” even though this was always more an ideal than a reality. Churchwomen used the evident dissonance between a universalist vision of a united Christian world and the realities of racial, religious, and national difference to generate discomfort in the prayer services and to deepen participants' spiritual experiences. While the interwar era is understood as a period of theological schisms and Protestant declension, a gendered analysis of Protestantism through the World Day of Prayer shows that it was also a period of religious transformation as churchwomen formulated a modern social gospel that paired spirituality and action in ways that would shape Protestant churches for the next several decades.

Alternative Forms of Spirituality and the Socialization of a Self-Enhancing Subjectivity: Features of the Post-Secular Religious Space in Contemporary Romania

AbstractMy paper focuses on the shift in religious values in post-socialist Romania and explores the emergence of alternative spiritual beliefs and practices among the younger generations socialized during the post-communist period. It analyses some of the changes that occurred in the wider traditional religious field and looks at the various spiritualized technologies of the self that produce a distinctive type of religious subjectivity and an immanent ethics of authenticity. By departing from the idea of an integrated religious community and from the relational understanding of religious transformation, the field of alternative spiritualities operates a radical break with traditional religion and emphasizes the possibility of spiritual self-realization and self-discovery. It is this process of the individualizing sacralization of the self that constitutes the object of various workshops, blogs, personal and spiritual development literature, courses, spiritual retreats and counselling services. My research looks at how innovative technologies of the self are developed within these spaces that emphasize creativity, wellbeing and a new understanding of subjective interiority that learns how to find in itself the resources it needs to live in a spiritualized ontology of the present.2

Reconsidering mediatization of religion: Islamic televangelism in India

This article proposes a rethinking of religion and mediatization by differentiating between two intersections of religion and media, public religion and religious mediation. I argue that whenever religious change that can be usefully described as mediatization occurs it can best be captured as an effect resulting from the interaction of these two dimensions. Extending the debate on religion and mediatization beyond Christian North Atlantic contexts, I compare two instances of Islamic televangelism in India in order to illustrate the diversity of configurations of public religion and religious mediation even within the same regional setting and religious tradition. My analysis greatly complicates an assessment of mediatization as the subsumption of religion under an extraneous media apparatus, pointing at the highly uneven nature of media-related religious transformation and the ongoing domestication of contemporary media practices into established religious paradigms.

Review: New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa edited by Rosalind I. J. Hackett and Benjamin F. Soares

Review: New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa edited by Rosalind I. J. Hackett and Benjamin F. Soares

TRADISI UNGGAHAN SEBAGAI TRANSFORMASI AGAMA, SOSIAL, DAN BUDAYA (Studi Etnografi Komunitas Bonokeling di Desa Pekuncen Kecamatan Jatilawang Kabupaten Banyumas)

Abstract: Unggahan tradition in a ritual that is unique and full of magical feel. Unggahan conducted at sites considered sacred and trusted local people can get closer to the Almighty. This ritual in understood as a form of preservation of cultural heritage. In the social and cultural context, unggahan can be used as a vehicle for social cohesion, a means of togetherness of community members. In a unggahan ritual procession, community members gathered togheter without any barriers in the class and social status. Unggahan centred in rural communities Bonokeling Pekuncen Jatilawang District of Banyumas. All members of the community, including “child putu” of the various regions, both in the district of the Banyumas, Cilacap, Banjarnegara, even in far away arears come together in Pekuncen. Unggahan also become a means of gathering the family and as well as a social, cultural, and religious transformation. Unggahan is an expression of piety society where a sense of mutual assistance, solidarity and togetherness become main patterns of this tradition.
 Keyword: Unggahan, Transformation, Religion, Social, Culture.

Axial Breakthrough in Athens: Religious Topography and Transformation

Axial Age theory posits that there should be major transformations in Greece (as elsewhere) in the middle of the first millennium BCE. One could point to the creation of the world’s first democracy in Athens in the years around 508. Equally important, and not unrelated to the democracy, was a re-conceptualizing of the role of religion and worship in society, for which Athens provides especially striking archeological evidence. The physical setting for religious expression changed markedly around the end of the sixth century, especially at Athens. The Agora was filled with cults, temples, and shrines of gods and heroes, laid out along with the establishment of the democracy and adapted to the changing political and social needs of the community. Conversely, the Acropolis, which had been strictly the domain of the goddess Athena, takes on a more civic character in the late sixth century with a radical change in the nature of votives dedicated to her. Thus, in the Greek version of axial breakthrough, religion is not set aside or diluted, but put in the service of a new political order.

Vodún, Spiritual Insecurity, and Religious Importation in Benin

The Republic of Benin (formerly Dahomey) is known as the African source of New WorldVodouandVoodoo, but the country’s religious landscape is best characterized by religious importation. Since precolonial times BeninoisVodúnhas exhibited ongoing amalgamation of deities introduced from neighboring peoples. This essay outlines historicalVodúnimports along with more-recent spiritual influences from abroad. I argue that while Beninois people have always been accepting of foreign religions, today this process is largely motivated by the dangers and promises of witchcraft. The current constellation of spiritual traditions embodies a dynamic moment of religious transformation that prompts people to collect even more distant spiritual remedies to seemingly old problems. In this analysis we see that what scholars call syncretism is not necessarily an ideological or hegemonic process, but a product of Beninois people’s pragmatic response to life’s troubles, inequalities, and opportunities.

Peter Wick & Volker Rabens (eds.): Religions and Trade. Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West

This contribution offers a review of:Peter Wick & Volker Rabens (eds.): Religions and Trade. Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West.Leiden: Brill, 2014. xx + 374 pages, €147.00/$180.00, ISBN 978-90-04-25528-9

Some remarks on the provision of animal products to urban centres in medieval Islamic Iberia: The cases of Madinat Ilbirah (Granada) and Cercadilla (Cordova)

This paper deals with the first results of an on-going research project that attempts to elucidate, amongst other aspects, how medieval Islamic urban centres in Southern Iberia obtained animal products. The analysis is focused here on the examination of the taxonomic distribution in a set of archaeofaunal assemblages dated between the 8th and the 12th centuries and recovered from two different sites: the town of Madinat Ilbirah (Atarfe, Granada) and the quarter of Cercadilla (Cordova). The results reveal major differences in the most consumed species in these two urban sites. Caprines (sheep/goats) account for the majority of the identified animal bones at Ilbirah, although chicken and rabbit remains are also present in high proportions. The results from Cercadilla reveal a substantial variation over time in the frequency of the primary mammal species, possibly reflecting meaningful trends in the animal economy of this Cordova quarter. Furthermore, the analysis of food consumption patterns sheds some light on the changing eating habits and food practices of urban consumers during the period following the Islamic conquest of Iberia in 711 AD, which allows us to study the socio-economic, cultural and religious transformations deriving from the process of ‘Islamisation’ from a relatively unexplored perspective.