Specific Religious Traditions Research Articles

Fighting for Jesus on Ambon: Interpreting Religious Representations of Violent Conflict

AbstractBetween 1999 and 2002 religion-related riots took place on the Maluku islands in Indonesia. After the first clash, in January 1999, the conflict disseminated rapidly along religious lines. Religious language was used in order to understand what was going on, inscribing the conflict into specific religious traditions. However, using religious language to understand the conflict also framed the conflict into an essentialist religious battle with an important religious meaning. In this article I will explore the possibility to understand the religious framing of this conflict as a religious variety of what Vamik Volkan has coined ‘chosen trauma’. Applying this term to the situation in Ambon, elucidates the impact of religious language on violent conflicts.

Sexual Occidentation: The Politics of Conversion, Christian-love and Boy-love in ‘Attār

This article explores tales and tropes of conversion, especially conversion engendered by romantic attraction for the religious other, in the poetry of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Attār. The plot dynamics of class, gender and confessional adherence are complex, and hold important clues to the poet's theology. One particularly rich example of the encoding of religious and social boundaries can be found in a body of ghazals written about the beautiful Christian boy (tarsā-bachcha). The history of this homoerotic sub-genre is traced, and ‘Attār's treatment of the theme is explored in juxtaposition not only to earlier authors, but to other motifs of the religious other and of religious conversion, appearing in his own oeuvre, including the narrative of Shaykh San‘ān with its representation of the Christian girl beloved. The terminology of Christianity and the markers by which ‘Attār construes Christian-ness are discussed, and these symbolically amorous encounters with Christianity are analyzed as part of a larger discourse of emasculation which ‘Attār constructs around conversion, religious affiliation, and insufficient commitment to spiritual growth. Analysis of the dynamic interplay of markers of gender and class in the tales and topoi dealing with religious conversion or cross-confessional interaction will ultimately afford a perspective into ‘Attār's conception of the specific religious traditions juxtaposed to Islam, as well as his beliefs about inter-religious relations.

By the Gods—or Not: Religious Plurality in Xena: Warrior Princess

The problem of religious plurality has been explored not only in philosophical and theological works, but also in popular culture. As Xena: Warrior Princess journeys through the ancient world, she interacts with seminal figures, stories, and ideas from various religious and mythological traditions. The television series constructs the stories in a way that makes provocative suggestions about the truth and usefulness of religion in general, about the truth-claims of specific religious traditions, and about the ontological relationships among the metaphysical claims of various religions. The various answers to the problem of religious plurality suggested in Xena: Warrior Princess are compared to standard philosophical and theological approaches.

Spiritual Intelligence and Transformational Leadership: A New Theoretical Framework

The purpose of this paper is to establish a connection between spiritual intelligence and transformational leadership in an effort to encourage further debate about the legitimacy of spiritual intelligence in educational discourse. In this context we define spiritual intelligence as an interconnected configuration of affective orientations intimately linked to create meaning through connecting ideas, events, and persons rather than to a specific religious tradition or orientation. An exploration of the meaning of transformational leadership in education in K-12 settings provides the basis for the development of a synthesis from a new perspective of two concepts that empower the dispositions of leadership impacting school culture.

Back to the Future: A Response to Robert Orsi

20 Historically Speaking · September/October 2008 about religious experience outside the dominant paradigms of modernity, precisely because such writing necessarily questions one of the predominant intellectual assumptions of modernity: namely, that "the transcendent" does not exist, for nothing can be beyond time. But the criticism itself falls into the old paradigms of modernity and repeats a pattern that Orsi wishes, righdy, to avoid. In short, Orsi is onto something vital here, and his article sets an important agenda for historians of religion. The first test of his model of abundant history is whether it can accommodate Protestantism as well as Roman Catholicism, heterodoxy as well as orthodoxy . The second test is whether it can avoid the charge of ahistoricism and simultaneously account for encounters with presence across time while speaking of their particular manifestations in modernity. Jane Shaw is Dean of Divinity andfellow of New College, Oxford, and teaches in both the history and theologyfaculties at the University Oxford Hermost recentpublication is Miracles in Enlightenment England (Yale University Press, 2006), and she is currently completing the history of an early 20th-century heterodox millenarian community basedin Bedford , England 1 See, for example, Joy Dixon, Divine Femmine: Theosophy and Feminism m EnglandQobns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Alex Owen, The Darkened Room: Women, Power, andSpiritualism in Late Victorian England (Virago, 1989); Molly McGarry, Ghosts of Future Past Spiritualism andthe CulturalPolitics of Nineteenth-Century America (University of California Press, 2008); I-eigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Malting of American Spirituality (Harper Collins, 2005); and Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of MindandSpirit A CulturalHistory of American Metaphysical Religion (Yale University Press, 2007). 2 William James, Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902) (Longmans, Green and Co., 1952) 31.¦' WR. Inge, Christian Mysticism (Methuen, 1899), 3, 5. Back to the Future: A Response to Robert Orsi Brad S. Gregory¦t obert Orsi shows that modern metaphysical and epistemologica ! presuppositions prevent scholars from grasping phenomena such as alleged Marian apparitions and other modern instances of the "face-to-face presence of humans and gods to each other." I agree with Orsi that this is a serious problem. But his proposed solution —the categories of "abundant events" and "abundant history"—is unnecessary and too vague to be of much use. It grants too much to the secular presuppositions that he seeks in some measure to challenge; it remains too enmeshed in models derived from "the science of comparative religion" to address the particularities of specific religious traditions; and, to whatever extent it acknowledges the possibility of supernatural realities beyond human constructions, it implies the need for some recourse to philosophy of religion or theology, which Orsi says he wants to avoid in favor of "critical theory." Orsi seems confused at times in this essay. It is not entirely clear whether the "imaginary" relationships of Bernadette Soubirous include the one between her and the Virgin Mary, but if this is what Orsi means, it seems to contradict the "really real" "presence of the supernatural" in their relationship, to which he also refers. Or again, with abundant events it is the "power of the unlocked imagination" that affects ordinary human relationships , yet what "radiates out" from the events are "routes of the really real." One might argue that as historians we cannot determine whether such alleged experiences are no more than inventions of the human imagination or are initiated by the superBemadettes in procession, early 20th century. Library of Congress, Prints and tographs Division (reproduction number, LC-B2- 655-3). natural reality of the Mother of God. But certainly these are radically different things, as far apart as Feuerbach and Newman. Grounded by modernist metaphysical naturalism but confronted by purportedly supernatural phenomena, Orsi seeks to split the difference with "abundant events." He righdy senses the problem, but a more fundamental critique of its sources makes the invention of new interpretative categories unnecessary. A deeper analysis of modern , secular assumptions yields a stronger and simpler solution. We need to be more radical in our questioning of assumptions that Orsi, like nearly all scholars ("understandably so, given our training"), seems to take forgranted. We need to be more critical of critical theory. We need to critique the...

God Talk

It was revealed in 2006 that Republican candidates employ a type of religious code in their political speeches. Their intention is to cue the support of religiously conservative voters without alienating other voters who may not share the same social issue agenda. The authors assess the efficacy of this GOP Code on the support of voters in specific religious traditions in an experimental setting. As expected, the code proves to be an effective cue for white evangelical Protestants but has no effect on mainline Protestants and Catholics. The form and function of the code expands our understanding of religious influence and broadens the spectrum of cues the electorate uses.

Pilgrimage growth in the modern world: Meanings and implications

This article examines the contemporary growth of pilgrimages. Examples are provided from variety of traditions and parts of the world, from Japan to Europe, with particular attention paid to the Shikoku and Santiago de Compostela pilgrimages that have experienced extensive growth in recent years. It also draws attention to the growing number of new pilgrimage sites that are not associated with any specific religious traditions or that have ‘New Age’ associations. While some of the factors accounting for this growth involve continuities from past eras, there are also specifically modern factors. Also considered in this article is how some modern pilgrims appear to repudiate organised religion even while visiting sites normally associated with established religious traditions. Rather than implying some form of religious revival, contemporary pilgrimage growth may, then, be seen as evidence of an increasing turn away from religion as an organised entity.

TRANSCENDENTAL GUILT: On an Emotional Condition of Moral Experience

ABSTRACTThis article considers a central ethically relevant interpersonal emotion, guilt. It is argued that guilt, as an irreducible moral category, has a constitutive role to play in our ways of conceptualizing our relations to other people. Without experiencing guilt, or being able to do so, we would not be capable of employing the moral concepts and judgments we do employ. Elaborating on this argument, the paper deals with what may be described as the “metaphysics of guilt.” More generally, it is suggested, through a case study on the concept of guilt, that a moral theory avoiding naïve emotivism yet emphasizing the role of emotions in morality can and should pay attention to the transcendental status of emotions such as guilt—emotions constitutive of our concept of moral seriousness. Instead of psychologizing moral emotions, the paper employs Raimond Gaita's Wittgenstein‐inspired way of examining the place of the concepts of guilt and remorse in our ethical language‐use. Finally, some methodological remarks on the possibility of transcendental reflection in moral philosophy are presented. While it is not necessary to commit oneself to any specific religious tradition in order to emphasize the constitutive role of guilt in the way suggested in the paper, it turns out that the moral depth of this concept requires that one is at least open to religiously relevant ways of using moral language. In the fundamental metaphysical sense examined in the paper, guilt is a concept whose home language‐game is religious rather than secular ethics.

Resurrection—Interruption—Transformation: Incarnation as Hermeneutical Strategy A Symposium

Because of its commitment to the Incarnation and the Resurrection, Catholic theology is impelled to deal productively with the issues of embodiment and particularity. These have been noticeably absent in postmodern discussions of religious experience, which tend to be abstract, “dis-embodied,” and dismissive of specific religious traditions. This symposium continues the important intervention of Catholic fundamental theology in these discussions, so that theology might respond more adequately to the embodied religious experience of Christians and the sacramental imagination of the Catholic tradition. The authors argue for the necessary employment of “incarnation” as a fundamental hermeneutical strategy, and apply it to issues in eschatology, theological anthropology, interreligious dialogue, and theological epistemology.

Orthodoxy and Global Pluralism

September i 1, 2001, and subsequent events have brought unprecedented attention to religion in the media, academia, and popular imagination of Western countries. Understandably, much of the attention has been on Islam, and the perspective has been largely pejorative. But there also has been the recognition that there are religious traditions whose adherents do not practice terrorism, and that there are situations in which religion plays a positive role. There has been particular interest in the question of whether specific religious traditions are compatible with the institutions and values of liberal democracy.It is estimated that there are approximately three hundred and fifty million Christians in the world. (The term Orthodox is somewhat flexible, sometimes only referring to churches affiliated with the Patriarch of Constantinople, sometimes also to the so-called non-Chalcedonian churches, such as the Armenian and the Coptic.) Most of the countries with majority populations are of great political and economic importance. A better understanding of Orthodoxy, therefore, is not something that should just interest theologians and scholars of religion, but is of importance for an understanding of the contemporary world.My article is from the social science viewpoint. Not being myself, I cannot make normative judgments or give prescriptions from an standpoint. (I am theologically liberal Lutheran and, although I have very strong sympathies for Orthodoxy, I have no inclination to go swimming in the Bosporus-to use the graphic phrase that has been used to describe converts to Orthodoxy.) However, at the end of this article, I make some observations on why the future of Orthodoxy should be of religious concern to others who are not part of this tradition.Before directly addressing the topic of Orthodoxy, I think it will be useful to make some general observations about the place of religion in today's world. Despite massive evidence to the contrary, there persists among many people (not least the Christian theologians) the view that we live in an age of secularity. Scholars of religion have called this view theory. (I myself shared this view in my early career as a sociologist of religion, then changed my mind, not because of some philosophical or theological reconsideration, but because of the weight of empirical data.) Simply put, modernity inevitably brings about a decline of religion or, another way, modernization causes secularization. This is not an occasion to review the controversy over this matter, which has gone on for several decades. Today, most scholars of religion agree that the secularization theory has been effectively disproven. Far from being characterized by secularity, our age has witnessed vast eruptions of religious passion. The modern age is as religious as any previous period of history; in some places it is more religious than ever. There are two very interesting exceptions to this generalization. One is geographical: Western and Central Europe is indeed marked by a significant decline of religion, having engendered a phenomenon that I call Eurosecularity, since it has become an important ingredient of European cultural identity. The other exception is sociological: A relatively thin but influential international intelligentsia, for whom secularity has become not only an act but, at least for some of its members, a matter of ideological commitment. Both of these exceptions are relevant for Orthodoxy-not everywhere, but in some countries.What modernity does bring about, more or less inevitably, is pluralism. In a broad sense, this can be defined as the coexistence under conditions of civic peace of different racial, ethnic, or religious groups in the same society. Religious pluralism, which concerns us here, is a subset of a more general phenomenon. There is no great mystery as to why modernity has this effect. Through most of history, most people lived in homogenous communities that interacted very little with outsiders and, if they did, did so in an antagonistic way. …

Different Paths, Different Summits: A Model for Religious Pluralism (review)

Reviewed by: Different Paths, Different Summits: A Model for Religious Pluralism Jason Albertson Stephen Kaplan . Different Paths, Different Summits: A Model for Religious Pluralism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Pp. xi + 187. In Different Paths, Different Summits, Stephen Kaplan provides us with a metaphysical system whereby we may view each religion as simultaneously existing, equally valid, and (perhaps) mutually exclusive, yet not contradictory. In this metaphysics there may exist multiple ontologies. Each is to be viewed on its own terms and judged within its own soteriological providence. What, for Kaplan, constitutes a valid religion is the efficacy of its soteriological solution to the human condition. To this end, he utilizes the model, provided initially by David Bohm, of holography. Bohm's goal in the use of the holographic model is to explain the possibility of viewing both quantum mechanics and relativity theory as simultaneously existing and mutually exclusive, but not contradictory. Using Bohm's holographic model as a guide, Kaplan is able to explain the possibility of viewing multiple religions in the same fashion. Kaplan indicates that (1) both domains logically demand the other; (2) both are simultaneously existing, and neither is logically prior; and (3) both are interpenetrating. Kaplan chooses to use Bohm's holographic model in order to understand particular soteriological solutions as proffered by three specific religious traditions. The soteriologies with their representative religions are: theistic salvation according to Richard of St. Victor, monistic nondualistic liberation as represented by the Advaita Vedāntin, and the process nondualistic liberation of the Yogācāra Buddhist. With these, Kaplan achieves a variety of religious perspectives and places them, complete with their ontological perspectives, within his metaphysical system. Therefore, Kaplan's ontological and soteriological pluralism can be better understood in terms of each religion's soteriological solution to the human condition as being simultaneously existing with, equally ontologically valid as, and (perhaps) mutually exclusive of, but not contradicting the soteriological solution of, other religions. Put another way, each may be viewed as ultimately real, but not penultimately real. Kaplan has provided a basis for reconsidering the notion of religious pluralism in terms of both soteriology and ontology. This work, therefore, deserves the attention of philosophers and theologians currently interested in the concept of religious pluralism, as he enlists one of the great scientific minds of our time to provide a foundation for his novel ideas. [End Page 503] Copyright © 2005 University of Hawai'i Press

Focused on the Family? Religious Traditions, Family Discourse, and Pastoral Practice

The relationship between religion and the family has recently reemerged as an important object of sociological inquiry. However, research has largely overlooked the ways in which the family discourse produced by specific religious traditions is connected to family‐focused pastoral practices of congregations. Using data from the National Congregations Study, we find that family discourse and pastoral practice are only “loosely coupled” to one another. Ideological differences among mainline Protestant, conservative Protestant, and Roman Catholic congregations do not translate directly into differences in family ministry offerings. These findings help explain why research often finds that religion exercises uniform effects on family life, insofar as most congregations offer a similar package of ministries even though their family discourse is markedly different.

Revisiting K. C. Bhattacharyya's concept of the absolute and its alternative forms: a holographic model for simultaneous illumination

Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, one of the preeminent Indian philosophers of the 20th century, proposed that the absolute appears in three alternative forms – truth, freedom and value. Each of these forms are for Bhattacharyya absolute, ultimate, not penultimate. Each is different from the other, yet they cannot be said to be one or many. He contends that these absolutes are incompatible with each other and that an articulation of the relation between the three absolutes is not feasible. This paper will review Bhattacharyya's presentation of the absolute in its alternative forms and will place these abstractions within the context of three specific religious traditions that he sees illustrating his point. Then, using a model based upon holography, I will illuminate with ‘concrete images’ that which Bhattacharyya could deductively formulate but could not logically integrate. Holography, the process by which three‐dimensional images are produced from an imageless film – a film in which each part can reproduce the whole – will be used as a heuristic device to illuminate the simultaneous and mutually interpenetrating existence of the absolute in three forms. This model will illumine how these three forms can be conceived of as not the same yet not other and how these forms can be incompatible as absolutes, but metaphysically inseparable.

The Life of Judaism (review)

Reviewed by: The Life of Judaism Riv-Ellen Prell The Life of Judaism, edited by Harvey E. Goldberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 258 pp. $48.00. The growing number of courses in Jewish studies at colleges and universities in the United States brings with it the need for works on Jews that are broader than most [End Page 154] scholarly monographs. If one is to judge by the H Judaic list, our colleagues are regularly in search of works which will help students grasp the broad sweep of Jewish experience—historically, geographically and culturally. How does one communicate the complexity of Jewish experience in a class? How is it possible to teach a little bit about the Jewish people without teaching a great deal? At the same time another need exists. In addition to teaching about Jews as an historical people, a people who developed a religion and culture, and acted politically, how does one teach about how Jews lived? How do we integrate the terrain of anthropology? Is it possible to combine both the broad sweep of Jewish experiences with the lived reality of a Jewish cultural and social life? The University of California Press is suggesting it is with a new series on “the life” of religions. The series’ first volume was devoted to Buddhism, and Goldberg’s book is the second. The press reports that the books in the series will provide an “insider’s view into the ways world religions are lived and experienced.” It will offer books that focus on “the human dimension of specific religious traditions.” The effort is noble and one might suggest brave. Goldberg’s The Life of Judaism is a serious effort to provide this approach, and he is well placed to do this work. Harvey Goldberg is one of a small number of scholars who has labored over decades to create an anthropology of Judaism and Jews. His earlier collection, Judaism Viewed from Without and Within, published in 1987, remains still one of the most important and interesting books in this area. The Life of Judaism is certainly a good effort, and one that has worked diligently to be as inclusive in its definition of Jewish experience as possible. The brief essays selected by Goldberg cover a broad geographic spectrum and include Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Europe, the United States, Israel, and North Africa. The book draws on the fine scholarship on women and Judaism and includes articles by Susan Sered, Lynn Davidman, and Tamar El Or, who have worked in this area. The reader, then, will have the opportunity to learn about women as religious actors in the United States and Israel. Harvey Goldberg’s collection is certainly focused on Judaism as a “religion,” but takes up issues of identity, memory, and family which reflect the cultural meaning of Jewish life in the broadest sense. For example, the volume addresses the issue of the Holocaust in a variety of ways. Ismar Schorsch’s truly moving address delivered to the citizens of the German town which he fled as a child, and from which his grandfather perished having remained behind to continue to direct his school, is a remarkable distillation of family history, Jewish learning, and Jewish history. It is paired with an essay by Jackie Feldman that explores the author’s history as the grandchild of a person who died at Auschwitz who then studies Israeli student trips to Eastern Europe. The juxtaposition of a personal journey with an analysis of a nationalist and hegemonic understanding of the Jews of Eastern Europe is particularly compelling. [End Page 155] The majority of the essays address Jewish religious practice ethnographically. They focus on worship, pilgrimages, study circles, and life cycle rituals. Most of them are drawn from studies that will be familiar to scholars in the field, and they do represent important scholarship in the social scientific study of Judaism. Again, the book offers a clear understanding of the diversity of religious experiences, and one can learn about Moroccan pilgrimages from the pioneering work of Yoram Bilu, as well as Fran Markowitz’s wonderful analysis of a bar mitzvah of a child of Soviet immigrants in a Russian restaurant in...

A kind of Religious Coping: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Consolation in the Lutheran Tradition

Building on the theoretical research of community psychology and cultural psychology, I focus in this paper on these two questions: What kind of religious coping is practiced by some members of the Lutheran tradition? What does an understanding of the relationship between the tradition and religious coping of these members indicate that may be distinctive or unexpected about their religious coping? I do this by: reviewing the background of my research in community psychology, cultural psychology, and tradition-specific research on religious coping – particularly in the United States; outlining a method for a qualitative study of nine Lutheran co-researchers in the United States who had experienced a significant negative event; reporting some of the results of that study; using the results of the study to discuss the two questions above; concluding with some suggestions for future research of the specific religious traditions in which religious coping phenomena may occur, and of the phenomena of religious coping in specific religious traditions.

Healing at the Borderland of Medicine and Religion: Regulating Potential Abuse of Authority by Spiritual Healers

Although historically, the phenomenon of spiritual healing emerged as a religious practice within the context of specific religious traditions and has traditionally been ascribed only to mystics, saints, and holy persons, in modern times, a variety of spiritual healing practices unconnected with traditional religion have entered mainstream professional health care. These practices are used in a variety of health care professions, from medicine to nursing, dentistry, and other allied health professions.For example, some physicians either collaborate with (or refer to) spiritual healers or use “‘healing energy’ through touch” without naming a particular style, school, or technique, and a spiritual healing modality known as Therapeutic Touch is part of the curriculum in many nursing schools. Use of caring or healing touch is increasingly described as potentially useful in various health care settings, from acute care, to surgery, to obstetrical nursing practice; and Reiki, a Japanese form of energy healing, has even been used in efforts to help survivors recover from torture.

Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings

Contemporary Christian spiritual direction is situated within a theological and historical context of religious pluralism. Current writings about spiritual direction per se are few in number. Instead, contemporary authors tend to focus on a wide range of popular spiritual and psychological topics to inform or inspire seekers. Books or articles written for spiritual directors are more likely to explore the nature of spiritual direction in specific religious or spiritual traditions, such as Christian, Anglican, Jewish and Benedictine, Jesuit, or Carmelite, or to treat issues related to the experience of beginning directors. Janet Ruffing's treatment of the theoretical foundations and contemporary practice of spiritual direction supports spiritual development rooted in the wisdom of the Christian tradition. She recognizes similarities and differences in Buddhism, for example, yet avoids any religious eclecticism that wittingly or unwittingly colonizes other spiritual traditions. Ruffing's clear and concise approach to Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings breaks new ground in support of beginning and experienced spiritual directors who engage in the sacred trust of assisting directees in mature spiritual development.

Religious and Secular Reform in America: Ideas, Beliefs, and Social Change

Religious and Secular Reform in America: Ideas, Beliefs, and Social Change. Edited by David K. Adams and Cornelis A. Van Minnen. (New York: New York University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 273. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $20.00.) Historians looking for fresh insights into reform tradition in America should enjoy Religious and Secular Reform in America. This collection of essays ranges in time from colonial period to present and in topic from accounts of specific regional religious and reform movements to analyses of intellectual underpinnings of various eras. The authors are of varying nationalities, which may account for some of novelty of perspectives they offer. As title suggests, these essays reflect comfort of their authors in diagnosing between religious and secular ideals and movements. Two of essays offer new insights into familiar nineteenth-century reform movements: Sabbatarianism and temperance. The movement toward legal recognition of Sunday as a set-apart day began as a response to 1810 Act of Congress legislating Sunday mail delivery. Alexis McCrossen notes, however, that rationalizations for observance of changed over time, from strictly biblical admonition to honor Sabbath to secular call for a day of rest for laborers. McCrossen concludes that Sabbatarians lost battles but won war because today the state does not treat Sunday like other days of week (150). While granting logic of this argument, I would ask whether, in truth, a deprived of all religious meaning fulfills true objectives of Sabbatarians. Valeria Gennaro Lerda studies Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) movement in South. She convincingly argues that WCTU helped to energize post-Civil War South by offering southern women a socially acceptable way to learn to organize and speak out publicly. Three of essays deal with development of specific religious traditions. In his piece on eighteenth-century churches in middle colonies, Mark Haberlein's conclusion, that the struggles over religious reform and authority in ... religiously and ethnically diverse... middle colonies ... led to a heightened sense of denominational identity (20) is not in itself striking. What makes his essay so interesting and useful is wealth of evidence he has amassed on four of emerging ethnically based Protestant denominations in middle colonies: Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, German Lutheran, and German Reformed. Likewise, Louis Billington presents solid evidence for emergence of upstart radical evangelical groups in New England and traces their eventual embourgeoisement in American society. Especially appreciated are his attempts to locate women who composed majority of many congregations, although, as he notes, they are difficult to trace through standard sources such as probate and tax lists. Moving forward in time, Howell John Harris examines modern American Quakerism, beginning by noting that despite its contemporary aura of liberal social activism, it has had a problematic relationship with American liberalism during this (179). World War I, however, brought a renewed commitment to social activism. This, given distinctive (although not unique within American Protestantism) Quaker commitment to pacifism, helped unify and revitalize denomination, resulting in current perception of a bond between modern Quakerism and liberal social activism. Anthony Mann's essay on development of four voluntary associations in Boston in late eighteenth century and Robert Lewis's essay on recreation in antebellum America both deal with issues of social control and moral virtue. …

Fessing up in theory: On professing and confessing in the religious studies classroom

AbstractThe essay focusses on pedagogical method in the undergraduate study of religion. It proposes that the very nature of religious studies as an interpretive program requires that theoretical issues be explicitly foregrounded as the principal route into the discussion of particulars and general cases. The bulk of the essay exemplifies this proposal by reporting on the author's own attempt to bring under theoretical control one of the most contentious issues of pedagogy in the study of religion: the question of the teacher's personal commitments for or against "religion" or specific religious traditions.

Against Spiritual Education

Abstract Spiritual education is only possible within specific religious traditions. In the context of state schools it is a contradiction in terms; and we should beware the political ambition to extend it into that context. Spiritual awareness is a sensitivity to sheer contingency inappropriate to secular institutionalisation. The adequacy of equating spirituality with a sense of the transcendent, as argued recently by David Can, is questioned. This equation marries the spiritual to the rationally knowable and to a concept of ‘a spirit’, elisions which each dictate too tendentious an account of spirituality to justify spiritual education. Spiritual awareness of contingency concerns radically general aspects of human existence. Consideration of the mediation of experience through language supports the claim that spirituality is as much concerned with immanence as transcendence; and that awareness of contingency is the more fundamental issue. The sacrifice and intensity which can attend heightened exercises...