Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement is a pioneering study of women's resistance in the emergent Rastafari movement in colonial Jamaica. As D. A. Dunkley demonstrates, Rastafari women had to contend not only with the various attempts made by the government and nonmembers to suppress the movement, but also with oppression and silencing from among their own ranks. Dunkley examines the lives and experiences of a group of Rastafari women between the movement's inception in the 1930s and Jamaica's independence from Britain in the 1960s, uncovering their sense of agency and resistance against both male domination and societal opposition to their Rastafari identity. Countering many years of scholarship that privilege the stories of Rastafari men, Women and Resistance in the Early Rastafari Movement reclaims the voices and narratives of early Rastafari women in the history of the Black liberation struggle.

Foreigners and Their Food explores how Jews, Christians, and Muslims conceptualize us" and them" through rules about the preparation of food by adherents of other religions and the act of eating with such outsiders. David M. Freidenreich analyzes the significance of food to religious formation, elucidating the ways ancient and medieval scholars use food restrictions to think about the other." Freidenreich illuminates the subtly different ways Jews, Christians, and Muslims perceive themselves, and he demonstrates how these distinctive self-conceptions shape ideas about religious foreigners and communal boundaries. This work, the first to analyze change over time across the legal literatures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, makes pathbreaking contributions to the history of interreligious intolerance and to the comparative study of religion.

The story of religion in America is one of unparalleled diversity and protection of the religious rights of individuals. But that story is a muddied one. This new and expanded edition of a classroom favorite tells a jolting history-illuminated by historical texts, pictures, songs, cartoons, letters, and even t-shirts-of how our society has been and continues to be replete with religious intolerance. It powerfully reveals the narrow gap between intolerance and violence in America. The second edition contains a new chapter on Islamophobia and adds fresh material on the Christian persecution complex, white supremacy and other race-related issues, sexuality, and the role played by social media. John Corrigan and Lynn S. Neal's overarching narrative weaves together a rich, compelling array of textual and visual materials. Arranged thematically, each chapter provides a broad historical background, and each document or cluster of related documents is entwined in context as a discussion of the issues unfolds. The need for this book has only increased in the midst of today's raging conflicts about immigration, terrorism, race, religious freedom, and patriotism.

Fears and stories about an underground religion devoted to Satan, which demands and carries out child sacrifice, appeared in the United States in the late twentieth century and became the subject of media reports supported by some mental health professionals. Examining these modern fantasies leads us back to ancient stories which in some cases believers consider the height of religious devotion. Horrifying ideas about human sacrifice, child sacrifice, and the offering to the gods of a beloved only son by his father appear repeatedly in Western traditions, starting with the Greeks and the Hebrews. In Flesh and Blood: Interrogating Freud on Human Sacrifice, Real and Imagined, Beit-Hallahmi focuses on rituals of violence tied to religion, both imagined and real. The main focus of this work is the meaning of blood and ritual killing in the history of religion. The book examines the encounter with the idea of child sacrifice in the context of human hopes for salvation.

Arab debates about the critical relationship between religion and modernity began in the early nineteenth century and are now integral to the struggle for influence and power between a variety of political groups and their opponents. This unique anthology introduces the writings of several key Arab Muslim and Christian religious revisionists or radical "free thinkers" (believers, agnostics, and atheists) who have sought to define this relationship. Although they differ in significant ways, all have been united in disputing the notion that life should conform exclusively to a system of laws and values based upon the Qur'an or the Bible, or, less radically, upon these as they were widely understood before the modern period. Authors from the nineteenth century to the present are represented, including the internationally recognized playwright and novelist Nawal El Saadawi, as well as lesser known writers such as the Iraqi poet Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi and the Syrian religious thinker Muhammad Shahrur. Many of the writings have hitherto been scattered, difficult to locate, or inaccessible, and most have been here translated into English for the first time. The editor's thoughtful overview and introductions to each author help to make the volume relevant to general readers as well as scholars of the Middle East, of Islamic and comparative literary studies, and of politics and modern history.

One of the most pressing issues of our time is the outbreak of extremist violence and terrorism, done in the name of religion. This volume critically analyses the link made between religion and violence in contemporary theory and proposes that 'religion' does not have a special relation to violence in opposition to culture, ideology or nationalism. Rather, religion and violence must be understood with relation to fundamental anthropological and philosophical categories such as culture, desire, disaster and rivalry. Does Religion Cause Violence? explores contemporary instances of religious violence, such as Islamist terrorism and radicalization in its various political, economic, religious, military and technological dimensions, as well as the legitimacy and efficacy of modern cultural mechanisms to contain violence, such as nuclear deterrence. Including perspectives from experts in theology, philosophy, terrorism studies, and Islamic studies, this volume brings together the insights of Rene Girard, the premier theorist of violence in the 20th century, with the latest scholarship on religion and violence, particularly exploring the nature of extremist violence.

Belgium was the second country in the world to introduce same-sex marriage. It has an elaborate legal system for protecting the rights of LGBT individuals in general and LGBT asylum seekers in particular. At the same time, since 2015 the country has become known as the `jihadi centre of Europe' and criticized for its `homonationalism' where some queer subjects - such as ethnic, racial and religious minorities, or those with a migrant background - are excluded from the dominant discourse on LGBT rights. Queer Muslims living in the country exist in this complex context and their identities are often disregarded as implausible. This book foregrounds the lived experiences of queer Muslims who migrated to Belgium because of their sexuality and queer Muslims who are the children of economic migrants. Based on extensive fieldwork, Wim Peumans examines how these Muslims negotiate silence and disclosure around their sexuality and understand their religious beliefs. He also explores how the sexual identity of queer Muslims changes within a context of transnational migration. In focusing on people with different migration histories and ethnic backgrounds, this book challenges the heteronormativity of Migration Studies and reveals the interrelated issues involved in migration, sexuality and religion. The research will be valuable for those working on immigration, refugees, LGBT issues, public policy and contemporary Muslim studies.

Within the next decade, China could be home to more Christians than any country in the world. Through the 150-year saga of a single family, this book vividly dramatizes the remarkable religious evolution of the world's most populous nation. Shanghai Faithful is both a touching family memoir and a chronicle of the astonishing spread of Christianity in China. Five generations of the Lin family-buffeted by history's crosscurrents and personal strife-bring to life an epoch that is still unfolding. A compelling cast-a poor fisherman, a doctor who treated opium addicts, an Ivy League-educated priest, and the charismatic preacher Watchman Nee-sets the book in motion. Veteran journalist Jennifer Lin takes readers from remote nineteenth-century mission outposts to the thriving house churches and cathedrals of today's China. The Lin family-and the book's central figure, the Reverend Lin Pu-chi-offer witness to China's tumultuous past, up to and beyond the betrayals and madness of the Cultural Revolution, when the family's resolute faith led to years of suffering. Forgiveness and redemption bring the story full circle. With its sweep of history and the intimacy of long-hidden family stories, Shanghai Faithful offers a fresh look at Christianity in China-past, present, and future.

In the minds of many Americans, Islam is synonymous with the Middle East, Muslim men with violence, and Muslim women with oppression. A clash of civilizations appears to be increasingly manifest and the war on terror seems a struggle against Islam. These are all symptoms of Islamophobia. Meanwhile, the current surge in nativist bias reveals the racism of anti-Muslim sentiment. This book explores these anxieties through political cartoons and film--media with immediate and important impact. After providing a background on Islamic traditions and their history with America, it graphically shows how political cartoons and films reveal Americans' casual demeaning and demonizing of Muslims and Islam--a phenomenon common among both liberals and conservatives. Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment offers both fascinating insights into our culture's ways of "picturing the enemy" as Muslim, and ways of moving beyond antagonism.

The distinct religious culture of early modern Spain -- characterized by religious unity at a time when fierce civil wars between Catholics and Protestants fractured northern Europe -- is further understood through examining the expulsion of the Jews and suspected Muslims. While these two groups had previously lived peaceably, if sometimes uneasily, with their Christian neighbors throughout much of the medieval era, the expulsions brought a new intensity to Spanish Christian perceptions of both the moriscos (converts from Islam) and the judeoconversos (converts from Judaism). In Parallel Histories, James S. Amelang reconstructs the compelling struggle of converts to coexist with a Christian majority that suspected them of secretly adhering to their ancestral faiths and destroying national religious unity in the process.

Discussing first Muslims and then Jews in turn, Amelang explores not only the expulsions themselves but also religious beliefs and practices, social and professional characteristics, the construction of collective and individual identities, cultural creativity, and, finally, the difficulties of maintaining orthodox rites and tenets under conditions of persecution. Despite the oppression these two groups experienced, the descendants of the judeoconversos would ultimately be assimilated into the mainstream, unlike their morisco counterparts, who were exiled in 1609.

Amelang masterfully presents a complex narrative that not only gives voice to religious minorities in early modern Spain but also focuses on one of the greatest divergences in the history of European Christianity.

The inception of the Ghost Dance religion in 1890 marked a critical moment in Lakota history. Yet, because this movement alarmed government officials, culminating in the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee of 250 Lakota men, women, and children, historical accounts have most often described the Ghost Dance from the perspective of the white Americans who opposed it. In A Whirlwind Passed through Our Country, historian Rani-Henrik Andersson instead gives Lakotas a sounding board, imparting the multiplicity of Lakota voices on the Ghost Dance at the time. Whereas early accounts treated the Ghost Dance as a military or political movement, A Whirlwind Passed through Our Country stresses its peaceful nature and reveals the breadth of Lakota views on the subject. The more than one hundred accounts compiled here show that the movement caused friction within Lakota society even as it spurred genuine religious belief. These accounts, many of them never before translated from the original Lakota or published, demonstrate that the Ghost Dance's message resonated with Lakotas across artificial ""progressive"" and ""nonprogressive"" lines. Although the movement was often criticized as backward and disconnected from the harsh realities of Native life, Ghost Dance adherents were in fact seeking new ways to survive, albeit not those that contemporary whites envisioned for them. The Ghost Dance, Andersson suggests, might be better understood as an innovative adaptation by the Lakotas to the difficult situation in which they found themselves - and as a way of finding a path to a better life. By presenting accounts of divergent views among the Lakota people, A Whirlwind Passed through Our Country expands the narrative of the Ghost Dance, encouraging more nuanced interpretations of this significant moment in Lakota and American history.

Early medieval Ireland is remembered as the "Land of Saints and Scholars," due to the distinctive devotion to Christian faith and learning that permeated its culture. As early as the seventh century, however, questions were raised about Irish orthodoxy, primarily concerning Easter observances. Yet heresy trials did not occur in Ireland until significantly later, long after allegations of Irish apostasy from Christianity had sanctioned the English invasion of Ireland. In The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish, Maeve Brigid Callan analyzes Ireland's medieval heresy trials, which all occurred in the volatile fourteenth century. These include the celebrated case of Alice Kyteler and her associates, prosecuted by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory, in 1324. This trial marks the dawn of the "devil-worshipping witch" in European prosecutions, with Ireland an unexpected birthplace.Callan divides Ireland's heresy trials into three categories. In the first stand those of the Templars and Philip de Braybrook, whose trial derived from the Templars', brought by their inquisitor against an old rival. Ledrede's prosecutions, against Kyteler and other prominent Anglo-Irish colonists, constitute the second category. The trials of native Irishmen who fell victim to the sort of propaganda that justified the twelfth-century invasion and subsequent colonization of Ireland make up the third. Callan contends that Ireland's trials resulted more from feuds than doctrinal deviance and reveal the range of relations between the English, the Irish, and the Anglo-Irish, and the church's role in these relations; tensions within ecclesiastical hierarchy and between secular and spiritual authority; Ireland's position within its broader European context; and political, cultural, ethnic, and gender concerns in the colony.

Turmoil still grips the Middle East, and fear can still paralyze post-9/11 America. The comforts and challenges of this book are thus as timely as when it was first published in 1987. With new reflections on the future of Judaism and Israel, Ellis underscores the enduring problem of justice. Ellis' use of liberation theology to make connections between the Holocaust and contemporary communities from the Third World reminds both Jews and oppressed Christians that they share common ground in the experiences of abandonment, suffering, and death. The connections also reveal that Jews and Christians share a common cause in the battle against idolatry - represented now by obsessions for personal affluence, national security, and ethnic survival. According to Ellis, Jews and Christians must never allow the reality of anti-Semitism to become an excuse for evading solidarity with the oppressed peoples - be they African, Asian, Latin American or, especially, Palestinian.

In 1969, at the height of the Cold War, a group of British Christian researchers and activists, moved by the persecution of believers in the Soviet Union, established an organization dedicated to the study of religion under communism. They had two major goals: to educate the public about religious persecution and to promote academic analysis of religion in communist societies. The organization they founded, eventually named Keston College, amassed an extraordinary collection of primary source and research materials, used by its personnel to document the experiences of persecuted believers in the Soviet bloc and beyond and to publicize human rights violations against believers of all faiths. This formed the basis of a unique collection, called the Keston Archive, now at Baylor University. Voices of the Voiceless, edited by Julie deGraffenried and Zoe Knox, presents readers with twenty-five essays on a curated selection of images and artifacts from the Keston Archive. Some of the world's leading authorities on religion and communism as well as experts personally involved with the operation of Keston College carefully selected and provided commentary for these images. The archival material presented in the book offers vivid testimony of this critically important era in the history of religion and of the Cold War. A guided look into the past, Voices of the Voiceless reveals the power of what atheist and antireligious regimes sought to silence. This collection documents how believers fought for religious freedom, coped with oppression, and practiced their faith, individually and collectively, in states hostile to religion. It also presents atheist propaganda produced by communist regimes that aimed to marginalize and ultimately eradicate religion. This book offers insights into how faith survived - and even flourished - during one of the most intense antireligious campaigns of the modern era.

Persecution of Christians in the Middle East has been a recurring theme since the middle of the nineteenth century. The topic has experienced a resurgence in the last few years, especially during the Trump era. Middle Eastern Christians are often portrayed as a homogeneous, helpless group ever at the mercy of their Muslim enemies, a situation that only Western powers can remedy. The Politics of Persecution revisits this narrative with a critical eye. Mitri Raheb charts the plight of Christians in the Middle East from the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799 to the so-called Arab Spring. The book analyzes the diverse socioeconomic and political factors that led to the diminishing role and numbers of Christians in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan during the eras of Ottoman, French, and British Empires, through the eras of independence, Pan-Arabism, and Pan-Islamism, and into the current era of American empire. With an incisive expose of the politics that lie behind alleged concerns for these persecuted Christians-and how the concept of persecution has been a tool of public diplomacy and international politics-Raheb reveals that Middle Eastern Christians have been repeatedly sacrificed on the altar of Western national interests. The West has been part of the problem for Middle Eastern Christianity and not part of the solution, from the massacre on Mount Lebanon to the rise of ISIS. The Politics of Persecution, written by a well-known Palestinian Christian theologian, provides an insider perspective on this contested region. Middle Eastern Christians survived successive empires by developing great elasticity in adjusting to changing contexts; they learned how to survive atrocities and how to resist creatively while maintaining a dynamic identity. In this light, Raheb casts the history of Middle Eastern Christians not so much as one of persecution but as one of resilience.

The Shi'i clergy are amongst the most influential political players in the Middle East. For decades, scholars and observers have tried to understand the balance of power between, Shi'i 'quietism' and 'activism'. The book is based on exclusive interviews with high-profile Shi'i clerics in order to reveal how the Shi'i clerical elite perceives its role and engages in politics today. The book focuses on three ground-breaking events in the modern Middle East: the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the 2003 Iraq War, and the 2006 July war in Lebanon. By examining the nature and evolution of a Shi'i clerical network the book finds that, far from there being strategic differences between 'quitest' and 'activist' clerics, Shi'i mujtahid statesmen matured, from 1979 in Iran to 2003 Iraq, by way of a pragmatism which led to a strong form of transnational and associated whole in Lebanon in 2006. In doing so, the book breaks down the established, and misleading, dichotomisation of the Shi'i clergy into 'quietists' and 'activists' and discovers that the decision of Shi'i clerical elites to become politically active or to stay out of politics are attributable to their ability to adapt to their political environments.

This book describes Rondine Cittadella della Pace and its unique residential peacebuilding program that works with young activists from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones. Set in its own Tuscan village, Rondine invites students to its two-year long residential program that provides them with a master's degree, trauma healing, and training in peacebuilding. While at Rondine, students work in pairs representing "both sides" of a conflict and prepare projects that they will put into place when they return home. Half of the book is devoted to an in-depth description of the Rondine method by its founder, Franco Vaccari, while the remainder consists of essays by Italian and American experts, including the two editors, providing the religious, psychological, and political context for this innovative psycho-social method of conflict resolution.

Azmi Bishara's book on the Syrian Revolution is one of the most comprehensive and profound works on the subject published to date. Translated here into English for the first time, the study examines the complex roots of Syria's political and sectarian conflicts from the day revolution erupted on 15th March 2011 to its descent into civil war in the two years that followed. The book unearths and discusses the very first signs of protests from across Daraa, Hama, Aleppo, Damascus, Raqqa, Deir El Zour, Edlib and Homs, and it deals with Syria's ruralization process and the subsequent economic 'liberalization', which eventually led to the revolt against the Baath party. The work is based on high-level interviews, analysis of the country's socio-economic background, and examination of the Syrian regime's strategy and its political and media discourse. Syria's revolution is chronicled in two stages: the peaceful civil stage and the armed stage. Bishara's analysis first centres on the regime's strategy, unveiling despotism, massacres, kidnapping, sectarian tendencies, jihadist violence, the emergence of warlords, and the chaotic spread of arms. He then turns to the role of the opposition to narrate in detail the events that broke out and exactly how a peaceful protest turned into an armed struggle. The book provides a roadmap to how revolution broke out and is a comprehensive analysis of what drove those early events. Its publication brings renowned Arabic-language scholarship to the English-speaking world.

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE* *A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR* 'A bona fide historical classic' Sunday Times 'Simply one of the best history books I have ever read' BBC History In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage. Drawing on uniquely rich, previously neglected source material, Malcolm Gaskill brings to life a New World existence steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in curses and enchantments, and precariously balanced between life and death. Through the gripping micro-history of a family tragedy, we glimpse an entire society caught in agonized transition between supernatural obsessions and the age of enlightenment. We see, in short, the birth of the modern world. 'Gaskill tells this deeply tragic story with immense empathy and compassion, as well as historical depth' The Guardian 'As compelling as a campfire story ... Gaskill brings this sinister past vividly to life' Erica Wagner, Financial Times