The author discusses how religious groups, especially Jews, Mormons and Jesuits, were labeled as foreign and constructed as political, moral and national threats in Scandinavia in different periods between c. 1790 and 1960. Key questions are who articulated such opinions, how was the threat depicted, and to what extent did it influence state policies towards these groups. A special focus is given to Norway, because the Constitution of 1814 included a ban against Jews (repelled in 1851) and Jesuits (repelled in 1956), and because Mormons were denied the status of a legal religion until freedom of religion was codified in the Constitution in 1964. The author emphasizes how the construction of religious minorities as perils of society influenced the definition of national identities in all Scandinavia, from the late 18th Century until well after WWII. The argument is that Jews, Mormons and Jesuits all were constructed as "anti-citizens", as opposites of what it meant to be "good" citizens of the nation. The discourse that framed the need for national protection against foreign religious groups was transboundary. Consequently, transnational stereotypes contributed significantly in defining national identities.

Patricia Crone's Collected Studies in Three Volumes brings together a number of her published, unpublished, and revised writings on Near Eastern and Islamic history, arranged around three distinct but interconnected themes. Volume 1, The Qur'anic Pagans and Related Matters, pursues the reconstruction of the religious environment in which Islam arose and develops an intertextual approach to studying the Qur'anic religious milieu. Volume 2, The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands, examines the reception of pre-Islamic legacies in Islam, above all that of the Iranians. Volume 3, Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness, places the rise of Islam in the context of the ancient Near East and investigates sceptical and subversive ideas in the Islamic world. The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness

Rituals may be one of the most obvious aspects of social and religious life, but it is certainly not the most accessible. As a subject of systematic historical and comparative study ritual has proved to be a particularly complicated phenomenon to analyse, because of the variety of activities that may be considered ritual and the multiplicity of perspectives from which they may legitimately be interpreted.

In this book Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual and its study, presenting comprehensive overviews of the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our interest in ritual. Instead of approaching ritual as a clear-cut and timeless object of scrutiny, Bell focuses on how a variety of definitions and constructed understandings of ritual have emerged and changed. She organizes the issues and data within three distinct frameworks: the first addreses theories of ritual; the second explores the range of activities understood as ritual; and the third analyses the contexts and conditions in which ritual activitiis take place. Throughout, Bell develops the position that ritual activity appears to us today as a complex social medium, a cultural construction of playing a wide variety of roles and communication a rich density of meanings.

In the waning years of the Roman Empire, Jews, Christians, and pagans alike used rituals to bridge the gap between the human and the divine. Depending on one's point of view, however, such rituals could be labeled negatively as "magic" or positively as "theurgy." This has led to numerous problems of interpretation, including marginalizing certain ritual practices as magic or occult while privileging others as genuine or orthodox. In Icons of Power, Naomi Janowitz sifts through the polemics to make sense of the daunting mosaic of religious belief and practice in Late Antiquity.

From rabbis who ascended to heavenly places, to sorcerers seeking to harm enemies with spells, to alchemists working metals to purify the soul, Janowitz reveals how ritual practitioners held common assumptions about why their rituals worked and about how to perform those rituals. Indeed, such assumptions were so much a part of the inherited mentality of the age that they were, for the most part, never explained--and this is precisely what Janowitz accomplishes in Icons of Power. By shifting the discussion out of the rhetoric of "magic" or "mysticism" and describing the mechanisms of ritual with semiotic terms, she moves us beyond the value-laden terminology of ancient polemicists and modern scholars so that we can better see how these rituals worked and how they affected the social identities of their followers.

Janowitz recovers a lost world of religious expression that has been clouded by misinterpretation for many centuries. In the process, Icons of Power makes an important contribution to our understanding of society in Late Antiquity.

Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world.Written with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind, " Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion" surveys the field of ritual studies looking at it both historically within anthropology and in terms of its contemporary relevance to mass phenomena.

It is a widespread idea that the roots of the Christian sermon can be found in the Jewish derasha. But the story of the interrelation of the two homiletical traditions, Jewish and Christian, from New Testament times to the present day is still untold. Can homiletical encounters be registered? Is there a common homiletical history - not only in the modern era, but also in rabbinic times and in the Middle Ages? Which current developments affect Jewish and Christian preaching today, in the 21st century? And, most important, what consequences may result from this mutual perception of Jewish and Christian homiletics for homiletical research and the practice of preaching? This book offers the papers of the first international conference (Bamberg, Germany, 6th to 8th March 2007) which brought together Jewish and Christian scholars to discuss Jewish and Christian homiletics in their historical development and relationship and to sketch out common homiletical projects.

Britain’s Pilgrim Places captures the spirit of 2,000 years of history, heritage and wonder. It is the complete guide to every spiritual treasure, including 500 enchanting holy places throughout England, Wales and Scotland and covers all major pilgrimage routes. Produced in collaboration with The British Pilgrimage Trust, this book encapsulates the timeless quest of the human spirit to find meaning, connection and peace. Each listing is illustrated in full colour and written and presented in a way that appeals to everyone. From wild hermit islands to city-centre cathedrals alike, there is something to surprise and enlighten anyone with a sense of the sacred. 2020 is the Year of the Pilgrimage and the Year of Cathedrals, and events are being held throughout the year to mark a revival in pilgrim places, cathedrals and free-form spiritual expression. The British Pilgrimage Trust’s mission is to harness the quiet but powerful resurgence of interest in ancient ways of finding meaning and peace in the landscape. Britain’s Pilgrim Places follows on from best-selling Britain’s Holiest Places which became a 6-part BBC television series.

It has been said that Chinese government was, until the republican period, government through li. Li is the untranslatable word covering appropriate conduct toward others, from the guest rituals of imperial diplomacy to the hospitality offered to guests in the homes of ordinary people. It also covers the centring of self in relation to the flows and objects in a landscape or a built environment, including the world beyond the spans of human and other lives. It is prevalent under the republican regimes of China and Taiwan in the forming and maintaining of personal relations, in the respect for ancestors, and especially in the continuing rituals of address to gods, of command to demons, and of charity to neglected souls. The concept of 'religion' does not grasp this, neither does the concept of 'ritual', yet li undoubtedly refers to a figuration of a universe and of place in the world as encompassing as any body of rite and magic or of any religion. Through studies of Chinese gods and ghosts this book challenges theories of religion based on a supreme god and that god's prophets, as well as those like Hinduism based on mythical figures from epics, and offers another conception of humanity and the world, distinct from that conveyed by the rituals of other classical anthropological theories.