This book analyzes the evolution of the Hojjatiyeh movement in Iran, a semi-clandestine movement which emerged in the 1950s as an anti-Baha'i movement, went underground in the 1960s, and re-emerged openly after Iran's 1979 revolution with its members coming to occupy some of the highest echelon posts in Iranian politics

This collection of essays by major scholars analyze the religious diversity in Chinese religion, bringing together topics from traditional and contemporary contexts and Chinese religions' encounters with Western religion.

Based on the author's cross-regional fieldwork, archival findings, and critical reading of memoirs and creative works of Tibetans and Chinese, this book recounts how the potency of Tibet manifests itself in modern material culture concerning Tibet, which is interwoven with state ideology, politics of identity, imagination, nostalgia, forgetting, remembering, and earth-inspired transcendence. The physical place of Tibet is the antecedent point of contact for subsequent spiritual imaginations, acts of destruction and reconstruction, collective nostalgia, and delayed aesthetic and environmental awareness shown in the eco-religious acts of native Tibetans, Communist radical utopianism, former military officers' recollections, Tibetan and Chinese artwork, and touristic consumption of the Tibetan landscape. By drawing connections between differences, dichotomies, and oppositions, this book explores the interiors of the diverse agentive modes of imaginations from which Tibet is imagined in China. On the theoretical front, this book attempts to bring forth a set of fresh perspectives on how a culturally and religiously specific landscape is antecedent to simultaneous processes of place-making, identity-making, and the bonding between place and people.

This book examines the competing regimes of law and religion an offers a multidisciplinary approach to demonstrate the global scope of their influence. It argues that the tension between these two institutions results from their disagreements about the kinds of rule that should govern human life and society, and from where they should be derived.

This volume offers a sample of reflections from scholars and practitioners on the theme of death and dying from scholars and practitioners, ranging from the Christian tradition to Hinduism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, while also touching on the themes of the afterlife and near-death experiences.

Provides the first extensive collection of traditional and academic Jewish approaches to the religions of the world, focusing on those Jewish thinkers that actually encounter the other world religions -that is, it moves beyond the theory of inclusive/exclusive/pluralistic categories and looks at Judaism's interactions with other faiths.

MSIA, the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, has been called the Cadillac of cults. Those interested in new religions may only know of MSIA from these kinds of labels. However, when looked at from a qualitative sociological perspective, a more complex story of religious innovation and cultural change can be told.

Der Autor konzipiert "Interreligioese Religionspadagogik" auf interdisziplinaren Grundlagen. Sein Konzept bezieht sich auf das Verhaltnis zur deutschen Minderheit der Muslime. Es bietet zugleich Raum fur den allgemeinen interreligioesen Dialog. Die Grundlagen stammen aus der Sozialisationsforschung sowie der Anthropologie von Martin Buber. Erkenntnistheoretisch folgt die Studie wichtigen Positionen der Kognitionspsychologie und Naturwissenschaften. Damit schafft sie ein religioeses Bewusstsein fur individuelle Selbstfindung im Glauben und befahigt, religioese Differenzen konstruktiv zu verarbeiten. Dieses Konzept mundet in einer Theologie des Weges, die im religioesen Leben (Mystik, Meditation, Tao) seit jeher eine grosse Rolle spielte und fur den zukunftigen interreligioesen Dialog entscheidend sein wird.

Ausdrucke wie "mit Leib und Seele" und Begriffe wie "Psychologie" und "Seelsorge" belegen, dass der Terminus "Seele" aus unserer Sprache nicht wegzudenken ist. Gleichzeitig scheint es sich um ein Relikt zu handeln, verzichten doch gerade die Wissenschaften auf den Gegenstand der "Seele". Aus den Perspektiven von Physik, Psychologie, Philosophie und Theologie erklart der Band diese Diastase und fragt nach der Phanomenalitat der "Seele". Er zeigt, dass die Rede von der Seele zwar durch Befreiung von dualistischen Klangen reformbedurftig, aber unverzichtbar ist, will man der Phanomenalitat menschlichen Werdens gerecht werden. Der Band beruht auf einer erweiterten Diskussion der Jahrestagung 2015 der Karl-Heim-Gesellschaft.

In this brilliant look at the rise of political Islam, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen?

Mamdani dispels the idea of “good” (secular, westernized) and “bad” (premodern, fanatical) Muslims, pointing out that these judgments refer to political rather than cultural or religious identities. The presumption that there are “good” Muslims readily available to be split off from “bad” Muslims masks a failure to make a political analysis of our times. This book argues that political Islam emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. Mamdani writes with great insight about the Reagan years, showing America’s embrace of the highly ideological politics of “good” against “evil.” Identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies in countries such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Reagan administration readily backed terrorist movements, hailing them as the “moral equivalents” of America’s Founding Fathers. The era of proxy wars has come to an end with the invasion of Iraq. And there, as in Vietnam, America will need to recognize that it is not fighting terrorism but nationalism, a battle that cannot be won by occupation.

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world today.

This book introduces Islam through a "humanistic" lens, by highlighting the affective traditions and expressions associated with Sufism and Shi'ism. While most introductory books emphasize the shari’a, and especially the “Five Pillars,� as the primary defining characteristic of Islam, Vernon James Schubel provides an alternative introduction which instead underscores the importance of humanity and the human being within Islamic thought and practice. The book stresses the diversity of Islamic beliefs and practices, presenting them as varied responses to the shared multivalent concepts of tawhid (the unity of God), nubuwwa (prophecy) and qiyama (the Day of Judgment). Readers are introduced to essential aspects of Islam including the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur’an, the development of the shari‘a, and the emergence of the Sunni, Shi‘a and Sufi traditions. The book concludes with a call to redefine “mainstream� Islam, as a religious tradition focused on the centrality of love and rooted in the importance of humanity and universal human virtues. 

In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries, especially in Europe, have increasingly large nonaffiliate, 'subjectively secular' populations, whilst nonreligious cultural movements like the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity, irreligion, and the relationship between them has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of modern life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, Recognizing the Non-religious develops a new vocabulary, theory and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial - involving merely the absence of religion - and substantial - involving beliefs, ritual practice, and identities that are alternative to religious ones. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious therefore opens up new, more egalitarian and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are 'not religious'. It is also argued that recognizing the nonreligious allows us to reimagine the secular itself in new and productive ways. This book is part of a fast-growing area of research that builds upon and contributes to theoretical debates concerning secularization, 'desecularization', religious change, postsecularity and postcolonial approaches to religion and secularism. As well as presenting new research, this book gathers insights from the wider studies of nonreligion, atheism, and secularism in order to consolidate a theoretical framework, conceptual foundation and agenda for future research.

Based on extensive analysis of surveys from recent decades, this book provides a detailed study of the attitudes of religious groups in Britain. It looks at continuity and change in relation to party support, ideology, abortion, homosexuality and gay rights, foreign policy, and public opinion towards religion in public life.

This book proposes that the drive for religiosity and experiences of the sacred are far from lost in contemporary western societies. The contributors' objective is to explore the myriad of ways late modern shamanism is becoming more vital and personally significant to people, communities, and economies in Nordic countries.

Interreligious Friendships after Nostra Aetate explores the ways in which personal relationships are essential for theology. Catholic theologians tell the personal stories of their interreligious friendships and explore the significance of their friendships for their own life and work.

Grau reconsiders the relationship between "logos" and "mythos" as a precondition to opening theological hermeneutics to discourse from other cultures and genres, other modes of telling and retelling.

This book explores the religious foundations, political and social significance, and aesthetic aspects of the theatre created by the leaders of the Occult Revival. Lingan shows how theatre contributed to the fragmentation of Western religious culture and how contemporary theatre plays a part in the development of alternative, occult religions.

Der Islamische Staat in Syrien und im Irak, die Massaker von Boko Haram in Nigeria - immer neue religioes motivierte Terrorakte rufen weltweite Betroffenheit hervor, auch unter glaubigen Menschen. Weder Bibel noch Koran rechtfertigen einfach jegliche Gewalttat oder Krieg im Namen Gottes, wenn man sich mit Sprache und Sinn dieser Texte kritisch auseinandersetzt. Der Tagungsband der 16. OEkumenischen Sommerakademie Kremsmunster 2014 dokumentiert Vortrage mit unterschiedlichem konfessionellen, religioesen und weltanschaulichen Hintergrund. Sie alle beschaftigen sich mit der Thematik religioes motivierter Gewalt aus der Perspektive der Philosophie, der Praktischen Theologie und Religionspadagogik, der Religions-, Bibel- und Islamwissenschaft. Zu Wort kommen auch Reprasentanten der Friedensarbeit im Militar, in christlichen Vereinigungen und in der kirchlichen Pastoral.

This book explores centuries of power relations and imperial and civilizing rhetorics, overarching themes highlighted in these infrequently heard accounts by eastern travelers to the West. Considered in depth are evolutions in mental frameworks and practices that led to the emergence of anticolonial consciousness and strategies of protest.

This book uses ethnography as theological practice, yielding a theology constructed at the intersection of church, academy and everyday life. Drawing on the author's research in her Baptist church, the resulting 'ethnographic theology' produces creative theological insights, while also proposing fresh alternatives for Christian thought and action.

This book explores the story of the Israelites' worship of the Golden Calf in its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim contexts, from ancient Israel to the emergence of Islam. It focuses in particular on the Qur'an's presentation of the narrative and its background in Jewish and Christian retellings of the episode from Late Antiquity. Across the centuries, the interpretation of the Calf episode underwent major changes reflecting the varying cultural, religious, and ideological contexts in which various communities used the story to legitimate their own tradition, challenge the claims of others, and delineate the boundaries between self and other. The book contributes to the ongoing reevaluation of the relationship between Bible and Qur'an, arguing for the necessity of understanding the Qur'an and Islamic interpretations of the history and narratives of ancient Israel as part of the broader biblical tradition. The Calf narrative in the Qur'an, central to the qur'anic conception of the legacy of Israel and the status of the Jews of its own time, reflects a profound engagement with the biblical account in Exodus, as well as being informed by exegetical and parascriptural traditions in circulation in the Qur'an's milieu in Late Antiquity. The book also addresses the issue of Western approaches to the Qur'an, arguing that the historical reliance of scholars and translators on classical Muslim exegesis of scripture has led to misleading conclusions about the meaning of qur'anic episodes.

This collection of original articles, a sequel of sorts to the 2009 Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (Palgrave Macmillan), is the first sustained reflection, by scholars with expertise in the faith traditions, on how the transhumanist agenda might impact the body.

This book takes a theoretical enterprise in Christian philosophy of religion and applies it to Buddhism, thus defending Buddhism and presenting it favorably in comparison. Chapters explore how the claims of both Christianity and Theravada Buddhism rest on people's experiences, so the question as to which claimants to religious knowledge are right rests on the evidential value of those experiences. The book examines mysticism and ways to understand what goes on in religious experiences, helping us to understand whether it is good grounds for religious belief. The author argues that religious language in both Christian and Buddhist traditions is intelligible as factual discourse, and so reports of mystical experience are true or false. The book contends that those experiences can be fruitfully thought of as perceptual in kind and that they are therefore good prima facie grounds for religious belief, in the absence of defeating conditions. The work goes on to explore Christian and Buddhist testimony and how the likelihood of self-deception, self-delusion, imaginative elaboration and the like constitutes a defeating condition. It is shown that this defeater has less scope for operation in the Buddhist case than in the Christian case, and therefore Theravada Buddhism is better grounded. This work will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy and philosophy of religion, and those interested in the study of religious experience.