[PDF] Contesting Religion eBook

Author : Knut Lundby
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 44,57 MB
Release : 2018-07-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 311049891X

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As Scandinavian societies experience increased ethno-religious diversity, their Christian-Lutheran heritage and strong traditions of welfare and solidarity are being challenged and contested. This book explores conflicts related to religion as they play out in public broadcasting, social media, local civic settings, and schools. It examines how the mediatization of these controversies influences people’s engagement with contested issues about religion, and redraws the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion. FEATURED CONTRIBUTORSLynn Schofield Clark, Professor of Media, Film, and Journalism at the University of Denver, Colorado, USAMarie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at the Open University, UKBirgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Author : Ivan Strenski
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 47,42 MB
Release : 2002-07
Category : History
ISBN : 0226777367

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From the counter-reformation through the twentieth century, the notion of sacrifice has played a key role in French culture and nationalist politics. Ivan Strenski traces the history of sacrificial thought in France, starting from its origins in Roman Catholic theology. Throughout, he highlights not just the dominant discourse on sacrifice but also the many competing conceptions that contested it. Strenski suggests that the annihilating spirituality rooted in the Catholic model of Eucharistic sacrifice persuaded the judges in the Dreyfus Case to overlook or play down his possible innocence because a scapegoat was needed to expiate the sins of France and save its army from disgrace. Strenski also suggests that the French army's strategy in World War I, French fascism, and debates over public education and civic morals during the Third Republic all owe much to Catholic theology of sacrifice and Protestant reinterpretations of it. Pointing out that every major theorist of sacrifice is French, including Bataille, Durkheim, Girard, Hubert, and Mauss, Strenski argues that we cannot fully understand their work without first taking into account the deep roots of sacrificial thought in French history.

Author : Dick Houtman
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 13,24 MB
Release : 2021-05-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 3030696499

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Identifying scientism as religion’s secular counterpart, this collection studies contemporary contestations of the authority of science. These controversies suggest that what we are witnessing today is not an increase in the authority of science at the cost of religion, but a dual decline in the authorities of religion and science alike. This entails an erosion of the legitimacy of universally binding truth claims, be they religiously or scientifically informed. Approaching the issue from a cultural-sociological perspective and building on theories from the sociology of religion, the volume unearths the cultural mechanisms that account for the headwind faced by contemporary science. The empirical contributions highlight how the field of academic science has lost much of its former authority vis-à-vis competing social realms; how political and religious worldviews define particular research findings as favorites while dismissing others; and how much of today’s distrust of science is directed against scientific institutions and academic scientists rather than against science per se.

Author : James L. Halverson
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 33,11 MB
Release : 2008
Category : History
ISBN : 9780742554726

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The pervasiveness of the Christian religion has long been treated as one of the key features of medieval society. Indeed, Europe in the Middle Ages is often described simply as a Christian culture. Yet what do we mean when we say that medieval Europe was a Christian society, and what did it mean to be a Christian in the Middle Ages? These questions are fundamental to any understanding of the Middle Ages, yet the variety of theoretical approaches and conclusions represented in this carefully selected and provocative collection of key works in the field highlights the complexity of the answers. Introducing students to medieval Christianity, James L. Halverson presents a rich array of readings that offers a variety of ways to study the history of religion within a chronological setting. His opening chapter and introductions to each section and selection frame the essays and provide a strong conceptual framework to build upon. Making it clear that scholars have approached religion from many perspectives and used many different methodologies, this collection presents some of the best scholarship of religion as culture and practice, emphasizing the ongoing attempt to understand the social and cultural aspects of medieval Christianity. Contributions by: Rudolf Bell, Constance Brittain Bouchard, Peter Brown, Marcus Bull, Caroline Walker Bynum, Mark R. Cohen, Georges Duby, Eamon Duffy, Joan Ferrante, Richard Fletcher, Katherine L. French, Thomas A. Fudge, Herbert Grundmann, James L. Halverson, Karen Louise Jolly, Lester Little, Rob Means, Bernd Moeller, Andrew P. Roach, Jane Tibbets Schulenburg, Keith Thomas, and Ian Wood.

Author : Tyler T. Roberts
Publisher :
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 17,42 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691001272

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Challenging the dominant scholarly consensus that Nietzsche is simply an enemy of religion, Tyler Roberts examines the place of religion in Nietzsche's thought and Nietzsche's thought as a site of religion. Roberts argues that Nietzsche's conceptualization and cultivation of an affirmative self require that we interrogate the ambiguities that mark his criticisms of asceticism and mysticism. What emerges is a vision of Nietzsche's philosophy as the enactment of a spiritual quest informed by transfigured versions of religious tropes and practices. Nietzsche criticizes the ascetic hatred of the body and this-worldly life, yet engages in rigorous practices of self-denial--he sees philosophy as such a practice--and affirms the need of imposing suffering on oneself in order to enhance the spirit. He dismisses the "intoxication" of mysticism, yet links mysticism, power, and creativity, and describes his own self-transcending experiences. The tensions in his relation to religion are closely related to that between negation and affirmation in his thinking in general. In Roberts's view, Nietzsche's transfigurations of religion offer resources for a postmodern religious imagination. Though as a "master of suspicion," Nietzsche, with Freud and Marx, is an integral part of modern antireligion, he has the power to take us beyond the flat, modern distinction between the secular and the religious--a distinction that, at the end of modernity, begs to be reexamined.

Author : Robin Fretwell Wilson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,75 MB
Release : 2019-08-08
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781108405508

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Like many beliefs, religious views matter across an individual's life and the life cycle of a family - from birth to marriage, through child-rearing, and, eventually, death. This volume examines clashes over religious liberty within the personal realm of the family. Against swirling religious beliefs, secular values, and legal regulation, this volume offers a forward-looking examination of tensions between religious freedom and the state's protective function. Contributors unpack some of the Court's recent decisions and explain how they set the stage for ongoing disputes. They evaluate religious claims around birth control, circumcision, modesty, religious education, marriage, polygamy, shared parenting, corporal punishment, faith healing, divorce, and the end of life. Authors span legislators, attorneys, academics, journalists, ministers, physicians, child advocates, and representatives of minority faiths. The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law begins an overdue conversation on questions dividing the nation.

Author : John H. Evans
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 45,17 MB
Release : 2010-10-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0226222705

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Scientific breakthroughs have led us to a point where soon we will be able to make specific choices about the genetic makeup of our offspring. In fact, this reality has arrived—and it is only a matter of time before the technology becomes widespread. Much like past arguments about stem-cell research, the coming debate over these reproductive genetic technologies (RGTs) will be both political and, for many people, religious. In order to understand how the debate will play out in the United States, John H. Evans conducted the first in-depth study of the claims made about RGTs by religious people from across the political spectrum, and Contested Reproduction is the stimulating result. Some of the opinions Evans documents are familiar, but others—such as the idea that certain genetic conditions produce a “meaningful suffering” that is, ultimately, desirable—provide a fascinating glimpse of religious reactions to cutting-edge science. Not surprisingly, Evans discovers that for many people opinion on the issue closely relates to their feelings about abortion, but he also finds a shared moral language that offers a way around the unproductive polarization of the abortion debate and other culture-war concerns. Admirably evenhanded, Contested Reproduction is a prescient, profound look into the future of a hot-button issue.

Author : Anna Xiao Dong Sun
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 42,60 MB
Release : 2013
Category : History
ISBN : 0691155577

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Is Confucianism a religion? If so, why do most Chinese think it isn't? From ancient Confucian temples, to nineteenth-century archives, to the testimony of people interviewed by the author throughout China over a period of more than a decade, this book traces the birth and growth of the idea of Confucianism as a world religion. The book begins at Oxford, in the late nineteenth century, when Friedrich Max Müller and James Legge classified Confucianism as a world religion in the new discourse of "world religions" and the emerging discipline of comparative religion. Anna Sun shows how that decisive moment continues to influence the understanding of Confucianism in the contemporary world, not only in the West but also in China, where the politics of Confucianism has become important to the present regime in a time of transition. Contested histories of Confucianism are vital signs of social and political change. Sun also examines the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China and the social significance of the ritual practice of Confucian temples. While the Chinese government turns to Confucianism to justify its political agenda, Confucian activists have started a movement to turn Confucianism into a religion. Confucianism as a world religion might have begun as a scholarly construction, but are we witnessing its transformation into a social and political reality? With historical analysis, extensive research, and thoughtful reflection, Confucianism as a World Religion will engage all those interested in religion and global politics at the beginning of the Chinese century.

Author : Lesley Hustinx
Publisher : Springer
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 24,10 MB
Release : 2014-07-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 3319045857

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Religion is considered a key predictor of volunteering: the more religious people are, the more likely they are to volunteer. This positive association enjoys significant support in current research; in fact, it could be considered the ‘default perspective’ on the relationship between both phenomena. In this book, the authors claim that, although the dominant approach is legitimate and essential, it nonetheless falls short in grasping the full complexity of the interaction between religion and volunteering. It needs to be recognized that there are tensions between religion and volunteering, and that these tensions are intensifying as a result of the changing meaning and role of religion in society. Therefore, the central aim and contribution of this book is to demonstrate that the relationship between religion and volunteering is not univocal but differentiated, ambiguous and sometimes provocative. By introducing the reader to a much wider landscape of perspectives, this volume offers a richer, more complex and variable understanding. Apart from the established positive causality, the authors examine tensions between religion and volunteering from the perspective of religious obligation, religious change, processes of secularization and notions of post-secularity. They further explore how actions that are considered altruistic, politically neutral and motivated by religious beliefs can be used for political reasons. This volume opens up the field to new perspectives on religious actors and on how religion and volunteering are enacted outside Western liberal and Christian societies. It emphasizes interdisciplinary perspectives, including theology, philosophy, sociology, political science, anthropology and architecture.

Author : Knut Lundby
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 35,94 MB
Release : 2018-07-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 3110502062

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As Scandinavian societies experience increased ethno-religious diversity, their Christian-Lutheran heritage and strong traditions of welfare and solidarity are being challenged and contested. This book explores conflicts related to religion as they play out in public broadcasting, social media, local civic settings, and schools. It examines how the mediatization of these controversies influences people’s engagement with contested issues about religion, and redraws the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion. FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Lynn Schofield Clark, Professor of Media, Film, and Journalism at the University of Denver, Colorado, USA Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at the Open University, UK Birgit Meyer, Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands