Role Of Religious Practices Research Articles

What do we know about religion and interreligious peace? A review of the quantitative literature

AbstractInterreligious relations remain an important dimension of human coexistence and we currently observe an increase in religiously motivated violence and discrimination. Hence, we need to better understand determinants of interreligious peace. Building on a new concept of interreligious peace which includes but exceeds the absence of interreligious physical violence, we provide a systematic review of 83 quantitative empirical studies examining religious determinants of interreligious physical violence, hostile attitudes, threat perceptions, trust, and cooperation. We find that religious ideas foster or hinder interreligious peace depending on their content. Religious identities have negative effects but must be considered in context. Evidence regarding the role of religious practice is mixed and the role of religious actors and institutions remains understudied. Our results show the need for (1) more conceptual clarity, (2) replications in different contexts, (3) research on dimensions of religion beyond identities, and (4) a better integration of different strands of literature.

The Transformation of the Human Self through Religious Practice in Sufism and Buddhism

This article offers a comparative analysis of the transformation of the human self in Sufism and Mahāyāna Buddhism focusing particularly on the nature and role of religious practice in human transformation. It first outlines the Qur’ānic concept of innate human nature (fiṭra) and the Sufi practice of invocation of God (dhikr, lit. “remembrance”), and explores how the practice of dhikr is conceived as a process of uncovering a primordial awareness of God possessed by all human beings. This article then examines the concept of Buddha nature and practices of invocation of the Amida, aka Amitābha, Buddha (buddhānusmṛti/nembutsu) and zazen (sitting meditation). Specifically, it discusses how these practices are intended to facilitate the realization of Buddha nature, which is likewise considered to be latent in all sentient beings. Based on this doctrinal and ritual background, this article concludes with a comparative analysis of human nature and spiritual transformation through religious practice in Sufism and Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Territories of Faith: 1000 Years of Landscape Multifunctionality in Santa Mariña de Augas Santas (NW Spain)

Landscape multifunctionality is increasingly recognized as an important aspect in sustainability and developmental debates. Yet, how and why a multifunctional landscape configuration develops over time has not been sufficiently studied. Here we present the geoarchaeological investigation of the Santa Mariña de Augas Santas site, in northwestern Spain. We focus on the role of religious practice, and of its interplay with productive strategies, in landscape transformation. A geochemical, mineralogical, and geochronological characterization of the pedo-sedimentary record (including XRF, EA-IRMS, XRD, OSL and 14C measurements) allowed to characterize catchment scale sedimentation processes in relation to agricultural activities. The geographical and chronological coincidence of production functions with documented religious activities demonstrate that both aspects shared geographical spaces during the last millennium. Current landscape multifunctionality at Santa Mariña is thus not the final outcome of a specific evolution, but an essential aspect of traditional land use strategies through history and a driver of change. This work highlights the need of a long-term study of the processes of landscape configuration when assessing the sustainability of traditional productive systems.

Interactive Effects of Stoicism and Religious Coping on Psychological Distress, Fatigue and Intercultural Communication: Muslim Health Workers in Bali

The rapid transmission of Covid-19 posed threats and challenges for people all around the world. Based on self-ownership theory, the current study tested the interactive effect of positive religious coping and stoicism in decreasing psychological distress and physical fatigue and increasing intercultural communication among Muslim health workers. This study advances the body of literature regarding coping mechanisms in the form of stoic believes and religion to decrease the stressors during disastrous situations like the COVID-19. Using a longitudinal field survey, data were collected from 243 Muslim health workers performing their duties at various public and private hospitals and medical centers in Bali, Indonesia. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS software. The results revealed that interactive effects of positive religious coping with stoicism helped decrease psychological stress and physical fatigue and increase intercultural communication among Muslim health workers during Covid-19. The study contributed to the body of knowledge regarding the role of religious practices and stoicism in building coping mechanisms among Muslim health workers to sustain themselves in a challenging environment.

Could Wealth Make Religiosity Less Needed for Subjective Well-Being? A Dual-Path Effect Hypothesis of Religious Faith Versus Practice.

Religiosity is important for religious people to maintain their subjective well-being (SWB). We propose a dual-path effect hypothesis to explore different working mechanisms of religious faith and practice on benefiting people’s SWB. Religious faith can promote SWB mainly via an intrinsic meaning-making path although religious practice can promote SWB via both an intrinsic meaning-making path and an extrinsic capital-accumulating path. If the dual-path effect hypothesis stands, then the role of religious practice in influencing SWB should be partly substituted by good economic status, but the role of religious faith should not. Then, only the effect of religious practice would be moderated by wealth. Results show that people’s individual income and national GDP have significant moderating effects on the relationship between religious practice and SWB, but they had no moderating effect on the association between religious faith and SWB, indicating wealth could be an alternative source of accumulating capital and social resources between religious practice and SWB. Results provide important evidence for the dual-path effect hypothesis. The findings uniquely contribute to the literature of religiosity, SWB, and their connections with wealth. Implications for future research are also discussed.

The Nexus Between Religious Practices and Rural Community Development in Ethiopia: The Study of Ethiopian Orthodox Church Monasteries Experience

People argue that religion hinders socio economic development confined to non working saint days while there are a number of works being done in these days that are equivalent to “working” days. The overall objective of this study is to examine the role of religious practices to rural community development with a particular reference to Ethiopian Orthodox Church Monasteries, particularly Sellasie Monastery of Debre Elias Woreda, East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Region. A cross-sectional study design and qualitative research approach was used emphasizing on a phenomological methodology. Hence, in-depth interviews, Key informant interview, Focus Group Discussions and Field observation have been used to collect primary data. Study participants were selected from ascetic members, services users and surrounding community residents of the study monastery by using purposive sampling. The major finding indicates that hard work is considered as healing and rehabilitation mechanism and activities being undertaken in the study monastery have an influence on livelihoods, social attachments and psycho-social conditions of the communities. Attendants in the monastery and surrounding rural communities have being educated and baptized to be well and productive members. Moreover, the monastery has established practical income generating activities for residents of both monastic and surrounding community farmers. In general, the religious practices in the study area have been playing great role in the reduction of poverty and harmful traditional practices (including criminal acts), and for the improvement of health, community mobilization, social solidarity and therefore economic development of surrounding rural communities. Keywords : Religion, religious practice, Monastery, Community development DOI: 10.7176/JCSD/60-03 Publication date: June 30 th 2020

One novel virus, different beliefs as playmakers towards disease spread in Africa: looking at COVID-19 from a religious lens.

Religious and spiritual observances that draw large people together are pervasive in many parts of the world, including Africa. With the recent emergence of COVID-19, these mass religious gatherings may pose significant threats to human health. Given the compromised healthcare systems in many parts of Africa, faith-based institutions have a huge responsibility towards the management of the potential spread of the virus through effective organizational strategies or interventions. This essay sheds light on what the novel virus has to do with religion, the role of religious practices in inhibiting or spreading COVID-19, and what appropriate evidence-based interventions religious or faith-based organizations could adopt to help prevent the spread of the disease in Africa through a unity of thoughts for religious action.

Reflections on the Psychosocial Impact of COVID-19 in Latin American Countries

The Latin American subcontinent, with more than 600 million inhabitants, is facing different periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a spectrum of social responses to the virus aggression and the governments' actions in the crisis. A rapid review of these realities in various countries includes more or less effective measures in Argentina or Colombia, uneven (and unexpected) responses to seemingly adequate management decisions in Peru, and chaotic evolution in countries that ignored the risks, such as Brazil. The economic cost of the pandemic will be large and, together with internal migration phenomena, modulatory impact of governmental decisions, breakouts of social rebelliousness, role of religious practices, risky habit transformations, and negative behavioral changes, and a variety of physical and mental health challenges as part of a “new normality”, constitute important future sociopsychological and psychiatric research topics in the subcontinent.

The Impact of Ritual Bathing in a Holy Hindu River on Waterborne Diseases

In this paper, we identify the role of religious practices on individual outcomes by examining if bathing in polluted river water for religious reasons affects the likelihood of missing days at work. To exploit the relationship, we use a primary survey (N = 1,200) of the residents of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal on their Bagmati River water usage. Probit and negative binomial estimation strategies reveal that bathing in river water, driven by traditional and cultural norms, is significantly associated with a higher probability of missing work. Among other factors, accessibility to personal sanitation facilities have a negative and significant correlation with the likelihood of missing work due to health reasons.

A Prelude to Civil War: The Religious Nonprofit Sector as a Civil Means of Debate over Slavery, Christian Higher Education, and Religious Philanthropy in the Stone-Campbell Movement

This paper examines the role of Christian higher education and religious philanthropy in the debate over slavery prior to the Civil War. Competing religious views regarding slavery led to the founding of Indiana’s abolitionist Butler University. The school’s decision to brazenly support the cause of abolition directly conflicted with the leadership of The Disciples of Christ and mired the Indianapolis school in one of the most impassioned debates about the role of religious practice in civic life in the nineteenth century. In this case, the religious nonprofit sector functioned as battlefield upon which competing forces engaged in a form of civil conflict. An examination of the role of Butler University’s philanthropic action provides fresh insight into the debate over slavery brewing on the eve of Civil War and the way individuals use philanthropic institutions, especially religious institutions, as a means to assert their values within society. Research for this study has employed primary archival research of documents held at Butler University, Christian Theological Seminary, and The Indiana Historical Society. The author has consulted period specific newspapers, journals, and handwritten documents. The author has also employed a host of secondary resources ranging from academic journals and religious histories to personal interviews and literature on the State of Indiana.

Evangelical Church Polity and the Nuances of White Flight

Present patterns of residential segregation have been proven to have antecedents in the so-called white flight of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Close scrutiny of this social phenomenon has yielded results that indicate complicated impetuses and call into question sweeping assumptions about white flight. A case study of seven congregations from a denomination called the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) who left the Englewood and Roseland neighborhoods of Chicago during the juncture in question further reveals the dubious role of religious practices and arrangements in the out-migration of white evangelical Christians. By utilizing church histories, council minutes, and field interviews, it became readily apparent that the departure of the members of these congregations found sanction within the hierarchical apparatus (or lack thereof) of the church. The response of these CRC congregations exemplified how the political structures (congregational polity) and social networks of a particular denomination could allow for an almost seamless process of white flight.

MAINTAINING AMBIVALENCE: RELIGIOUS PRACTICE AND JEWISH IDENTITY AMONG ISRAELI TRADITIONISTS—A POST-SECULAR PERSPECTIVE

Based on personal interviews with 102 Israeli Jews who identify themselves as “traditionists” (I shall argue below on the merits of this neologism as the proper translation of the Hebrew noun masorti), the paper studies the meanings traditionists associate with their Jewish practice, and endeavours to decipher and reconstruct the unwritten (and often unformulated) code guiding traditionist practice. This code, the paper argues, revolves around the preservation of a valid, “thick” sense of modern, ethnonational Jewish identity. The first part of the paper examines the tendency to present traditionism as lacking a consistent guiding logic, and addresses the question of whether it should be dismissed as the simple preference of “comfortableness” and easiness over the demanding observance of strict Orthodoxy. The second part enquires into the issue of the guilt arising from the supposed inconsistency between traditionists’ ideas of the role of religious practice and their “selective” attitude towards it. The paper thus argues against the (mis-) understanding of traditionism as deficient religiosity. Arguing that such dismissal is nurtured on the dichotomous world view propagated by the secularization thesis, the paper suggests that a post-secular epistemology is better suited for the interpretive understanding of this phenomenon.

The Step Model of Transformative Religious Experiences: A Phenomenological Understanding of Religious Conversions in India

This is a phenomenological study of individual conversion experiences to Christianity from different religious traditions in India. The author has collected 165 accounts of conversion experiences by using maximum variant sampling and multiple methods of data collection. By using grounded theory, the author has generated a step model of transformative religious experiences. The step model incorporates the religious experience in conversion to which the converts attribute great significance. It accommodates both the role of religious practices and social psychological factors in the conversion process. This study also brings to light the hostilities to conversion in a multi-religious context.

Seeing “That of God” in Texts: Christian Practices for Training in Perception

The diversity of submissions for the seminar on the turn to religion in studies makes clear that there are in fact many contemporary turns to religion. My article is concerned with the study of religious practice as part of that turn, concern shared by the essays of Liam Corley and Karen Dieleman, which follow this one. Where their essays are chiefly concerned with the values of particular practices--devotional reading and liturgy, respectively--mine focuses more on the general value for Christian scholars of conscious reflection on the role of religious practice in their exercise of literary, professional interpretation and judgment, though I will turn to practices for cultivating sensibility--training one's faculties of perception to be more or less responsive to certain feelings or kinds of details--for examples to illustrate some of my general claims. That the study of religious practice has been major element of the religious turn, especially as starting point for secular scholarship on religion I take to be an obvious point. If, as Karen Dieleman points out, religion has re-entered the discourse of largely through recognition of its status as a component of individual and social formations (this issue, 278), then practice will be the element of religion that this discourse will first explore. (1) It is perhaps not obvious that religious practice can also, therefore, be valuable starting point for religious scholarship on literature. Our seminar's discussions have raised reasonable hopes that, given the religious turn in scholarship, Christian scholars might be able to enrich that turn by providing explications of faith and theology not accessible to secular scholars who lack intimate experience of the former or intimate knowledge of the latter. As Caleb Spencer put it, can be argued that literary texts, like other art forms and texts, can be revelatory and that the role of the Christian scholar is to mediate that revelation to those who don't have the eyes to see it (this issue, 278). If the Christian scholar is to seek after truly revelatory insight into texts, then attention to ordinary religious practice might be too limited scope. (2) Our discussions have also raised doubts, however, about the capacity of Christian to make revelation available to readers who are not prepared to see for themselves. Vincent Buckley, for instance, doubts that even if a specifically Christian criticism is possible, will likely seem to the non-believer to be a kind of aesthetic dogmatism making for its own powers of interpretation claims which derive from, and represent, the claims of Christianity itself, in other words, a particularly demanding and even aggressive ideology thrusting out from the ruck of contemporary loyalties (215-16). (3) If the revelatory insights of Christian critics run the risk of being dismissed as aesthetic dogmatism, then examination of religious practice might provide way for the religious scholar to explain to secular scholars something of how religious scholars see, rather than more directly telling them what they cannot see but ought to. (4) Literary scholarship on religious practice might then prepare the way for scholarship that more directly addresses the foundations of religious meaning in experiences of faith and communion with the divine, as well as the systematic application of this experience to an understanding of God and creation in theology. This view of practice as the point of departure for growth in faith and knowledge is consistent with much recent work in Christian theological ethics. Stanley Hauerwas, for example, claims: We do not become free by conforming our actions to the categorical imperative but by being accepted as disciples and thus learning to imitate master. Such discipleship can only appear heteronomous from the moral point of view, since the paradigm cannot be reduced to, or determined by, principles known prior to imitation. …

End-of-life decisions by adults with cancer: Role of religious practices and spiritual beliefs

9067 Background: Religious practices and spiritual beliefs may affect end of life care decisions. Methods: Adult patients with advanced common cancers (Stages III, IV; lung, breast, prostate, colon) who were within one year of their diagnosis and were receiving active treatment in two community oncology practices, were interviewed (30 questions, 20–30 minutes) during an outpatient office visit to determine the major influences on end of life decisions. Specific attention was given to advance directives, influences on end of life decisions, discussions with family and physicians, and the role of religious practices and spiritual beliefs. 353 consecutive patients were invited to be interviewed and 339 patients (median age 66.2 yrs, 52.7% female, 57% married, 58% Caucasian, 30% African-American, 62% Christian, 61% high school education) completed the interview and were evaluable. Results: Fifty-one percent of the patients had an advance directive. The major influences on end of life decisions were family discussions (63%), quality of life (56%), personal experiences (50%), religious/spiritual beliefs (48%), financial burdens (41%), physician discussions (39%), and specific individuals (10%). Factors associated with having an advance directive were religious or spiritual affiliation, participating in regular religious or spiritual practices, and having discussed end of life decisions with their family or a physician. Patients had little knowledge of their religion's specific recommendations on end of life care and had few discussions with a religious professional on these issues. Conclusions: Health care providers need to recognize the influences on end of life decisions, as well as the role of patients’ religious practices and spiritual beliefs. No significant financial relationships to disclose.

Christian rock concerts as a meeting between religion and popular culture

Different forms of artistic expression play a vital role in religious practices of the most diverse traditions. One very important such expression is music. This paper deals with a contemporary form of religious music, Christian rock. Rock or popular music has been used within Christianity as a means for evangelization and worship since the end of the 1960s. The genre of "contemporary Christian music", or Christian rock, stands by definition with one foot in established institutional (in practicality often evangelical) Christianity, and the other in the commercial rock musicindustry. The subject of this paper is to study how this intermediate position is manifested and negotiated in Christian rock concerts. Such a performance of Christian rock music is here assumed to be both a rock concert and a religious service. The paper will examine how this duality is expressed in practices at Christian rock concerts.

Religion and Public Health

The paper begins by acknowledging several ways in which religious beliefs and behavior have had a negative impact on people's physical and mental health; fanatical violence, mortifying asceticism, and oppressive traditionalism (e.g., sexism) are mentioned. Three areas of positive influence are explored: 1) the role of religious practices in personal health; 2) the impact of social ministries on community health, and 3) the complementarity of religious ideas of salvation with medical conceptions of health in contemporary conceptions of human well-being. That religion mediates between the social and individual dimensions of well-being is a unifying theme of the paper.

Keepers of the Flame: The Role of Fire in American Culture, 1775–1925 by Margaret H. Hazen, Robert M. Hazen

194 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE explaining entire systems or useful objects that cannot be easily grasped. How valid are the thesis and method? One cannot but feel a lurking skepticism, if only because Petroski’s infinity of change is as inconceivable as the finiteness of Plato’s ideal table and chair. But if nothing else, Petroski reminds us not only to pay attention to the commonplace things of our culture but to look critically at how they perform their functions, and how the perception of that performance affects changes in forms. One shortcoming of this book for serious students is the bizarre style of documentation (which appears to be a trade-book fad): only direct quotations are documented, leaving many paraphrased pas­ sages untraceable. The bibliography is valuable; as any work on popular culture, it blends popular catalogs and magazine features with scholarly sources. Notably missing to my mind is George Kubler’s The Shape of Time (New Haven, Conn., 1962), where the alliterative principles of formal change are made much more complex by injecting rate of change into the formula, for in cultural history, it is sometimes as curious to explain why things do not change, as why they do. Fred E. H. Schroeder Dr. Schroeder teaches in the Department of Interdisciplinary Programs at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Keepers ofthe Flame: The Role ofFire in American Culture, 1775—1925. By Margaret H. Hazen and Robert M. Hazen. Princeton, N.J.: Prince­ ton University Press, 1992. Pp. x + 281; illustrations, notes, index. $29.95. There is space on my shelves, between Michael Faraday’s Chemical History of a Candle (London, 1933) and Walter Hough’s Fire as an Agent in Human Culture (Washington, D.C., 1926), for another book on fire in our culture. That by Robert and Margaret Hazen is limited to the role of fire in America from the beginnings of the United States until the majority of its cities had been electrified. It excludes the use of fire as a weapon, forest fires, and fire’s role in religious practices. The Hazens’ underlying thesis is the need for almost everyone to produce a flame and keep it going. Their tale is told in seven chapters on good servant, bad master, fighting back, keeping the homes fires burning, fire tending and maintenance, understand­ ing fire, and perpetuating the flame. A prologue sets out what the early settlers found when they came to America, and the epilogue reviews the modern period. Each has a battery of references. Each has a wealth of anecdote. There are interesting accounts of important fires and the reactions to them, the often desperate efforts technology and culture Book Reviews 195 to prevent and contain fires, and how the use of fire enabled people to live in hostile conditions. Unfortunately, those anecdotes take the place of analysis. The argument disappears in a tangle of tales. Important questions are not asked. Why has the death rate from fires in the United States been so much higher than in the United Kingdom for so long? When did Americans experience the change in expectations about the hazards of fire that occurred in London, around 1700, that Keith Thomas delineates in Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971)? The book is a chronicle, not a history. The part of the most technical chapter (6) that purports to expound the scientific basis of our understanding of fire raises two questions: for whom was it written and what does it achieve? I could not find a convincing answer to the first question. Occasionally, in the earlier chapters, the text needs to be expanded: on page 194 the authors refer to a previous mention of charcoal making in chapter 3, a more appropriate place for its explanation. If the reader has reached this far unaided, it is redundant. The answer to the second question is that the chapter lacks all coherence: historical notes, not always accurate or helpful, mix uneasily with a more formal exposition. The authors assert that Newton’s methods of attacking scientific problems were ineffective in attacking those of light and heat. But his general approach did, in the end, sweep away the notions of their...