"Self, Culture, and Others in Womanist Practical Theology" argues for a critical engagement between womanist theology and psychoanalytic Self Psychology. Sheppard's position is that a psychoanalytically informed womanist practical theology will more fully account for the complexities of black women's experiences of self and black embodiment as well as the role of religion and cultural objects in self understanding. This psychoanalytic turn allows us not only to examine practices of care in relation to black women but also to direct a psychoanalytic lens toward womanist theological anthropology, embodiment, pedagogy, psychology of religion, as well as psychoanalytic reader response to engagement with scripture. In the end, her work challenges and advances both psychoanalysis and womanist thought.

This reference offers the nuanced understanding and practical guidance needed to address domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking in diverse religious communities. Introductory chapters sort through the complexities, from abusers' distorting of sacred texts to justifying their actions to survivors' conflicting feelings toward their faith. The core of the book surveys findings on gender violence across Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Eastern, and Indigenous traditions--both attitudes that promote abuse and spiritual resources that can be used to promote healing. Best practices are included for appropriate treatment of survivors, their children, and abusers; and for partnering with communities and clergy toward stemming violence against women. Among the topics featured: Ecclesiastical policies vs. lived social relationships: gender parity, attitudes, and ethics. Women's spiritual struggles and resources to cope with intimate partner aggression. Christian stereotypes and violence against North America's native women. Addressing intimate partner violence in rural church communities. Collaboration between community service agencies and faith-based institutions. Providing hope in faith communities: creating a domestic violence policy for families. Religion and Men's Violence against Women will gain a wide audience among psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and other mental health professionals who treat religious clients or specialize in treating survivors and perpetrators of domestic and intimate partner violence, stalking, sexual assault, rape, or human trafficking.

This volume explores theoretical discourses in which religion is used to legitimize political violence. It examines the ways in which Christianity and Islam are utilized for political ends, in particular how violence is used (or abused) as an expedient to justify political action. This research focuses on premodern as well as contemporary discourses in the Middle East and Latin America, identifying patterns frequently used to justify the deployment of violence in both hegemonic and anti-hegemonic discourses. In addition, it explores how premodern arguments and authorities are utilized and transformed in order to legitimize contemporary violence as well as the ways in which the use of religion as a means to justify violence alters the nature of conflicts that are not otherwise explicitly religious. It argues that most past and present conflicts, even if the discourses about them are conducted in religious terms, have origins other than religion and/or blend religion with other causes, namely socio-economic and political injustice and inequality. Understanding the use and abuse of religion to justify violence is a prerequisite to discerning the nature of a conflict and might thus contribute to conflict resolution.

The primary aim of this book is to explore the contradiction between widely shared beliefs in the USA about racial inclusiveness and equal opportunity for all and the fact that most churches are racially homogeneous and do not include people with disabilities. To address the problem Mary McClintock Fulkerson explores the practices of an interracial church (United Methodist) that includes people with disabilities. The analysis focuses on those activities which create opportunities for people to experience those who are different' as equal in ways that diminish both obliviousness to the other and fear of the other. In contrast with theology's typical focus on the beliefs of Christians, this project offers a theory of practices and place that foregrounds the instinctual reactions and communications that shape all groups. The effect is to broaden the academic field of theology through the benefits of ethnographic research and postmodern place theory.

This book is a cultural and intellectual history of anti-Catholicism in the period 1840-1870. The book will have two major themes: trans-nationalism and gender. Previous approaches to anti-Catholicism in the United States have adopted an exclusively national focus. This book breaks new ground by exploring the trans-Atlantic ties joining opponents of Catholicism in the United States and in France. The anticlerical works of major French writers such as Jules Michelet and Edgar Quinet flowed into the United States in the middle decades of the century. From the French perspective, the United States offered a model in combating the alleged ambitions of the Church. The literature and ideas which passed through this trans-Atlantic channel were overwhelmingly concerned with masculinity, femininity and domesticity. On both sides of the Atlantic, anti-Catholic literature was filled with images of priests or Jesuits craftily usurping the authority of fathers, of young girls tricked into entering convents and then subjected to merciless sexual and physical abuse, of families torn apart by the agents of the Church. Of course, the gender and domestic ideals underlying this opposition to Catholicism were not identical across the two societies. Nevertheless, gender and domesticity acted as a platform on which the trans-Atlantic case against Catholicism was built.

Forces are rapidly reshaping America's morals, social policies, and culture-but how do we stop it? Learn how to make your voice heard and reclaim America's faith and values by reshaping our country's current trajectory. Cultural elites in the media, academia, and politics are daily deceiving millions of Americans into passively supporting policies that are harmful to the nation and their own best interest. Although some Americans can see through the smokescreen, they feel powerless to stop the forces inside and outside government that radically threaten their values and principles. Drawing on her training in political science and law, Dr. Swain thoughtfully examines the religious significance of the founding of our nation and the deceptions that have crept into our daily lives and now threaten traditional families, unborn children, and members of various racial and ethnic groups-as well as national sovereignty itself. Dr. Swain provides encouraging action items for the people of our country to make the political system more responsive. The book is divided into two sections: forsaking what we once knew and re-embracing truth and justice in policy choices. Be the People covers key topics including: The damage caused political correctness and its censoring of traditional Christian expression of thought America's shift to moral relativism and its religious roots Erosion of rule of law, national security, and immigration Abortion's fragile facade and the true toll it takes Racial and ethnic challenges How we can reclaim the future In Be the People, Carol takes a candid look at the problems our country faces but that we're often uncomfortable speaking honestly about, providing hope and actionable solutions to change the direction of America while we still can. "Be the People is a courageous analysis of today's most pressing issues, exposing the deceptions by the cultural elite and urging 'We the People' to restore America's faith and values." -Sean Hannity

How have long-standing and unconscious secular assumptions about religion shaped the post-9/11 climate and its wars? Stacey Gutkowski explores this little-examined, yet crucial, element of British perceptions of and policy towards Jihadism over the last decade, to draw critical conclusions about the relationship between war and the secular. She points to a surprisingly coherent body of secular beliefs that have fuelled policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and counter-terrorism, and that have had mixed results - responsible for both positive strategies and tragic errors. The theory Gutkowski develops on the impact of this secular approach to warfare holds a broader global significance, and cannot be viewed as just a British phenomenon. This book addresses ongoing and critical debates, such as the 'overreach' of Western liberal interventionism in the Middle East, and speaks to policy-makers, security analysts and students of IR, Foreign Policy and Security Studies.

In The Netherlands, the arts have gained a sacralized status, while religion is increasingly viewed through the lens of heritage. The dynamic resonance of sacred forms this results in, is exemplary for the postsecular. Exploring this resonance, this book offers a strong counterweight to the popular trope of the arts having replaced religion in secularized societies. Instead it approaches artistic performance, religion, and its heritage as mutually engaging sacred forms. Lieke Wijnia thoroughly connects theoretical perspectives on the sacred with ethnographic research at the annual festival Musica Sacra Maastricht. She explores the continued relevance of a broad conceptual approach to the sacred, as well as the practical side to negotiating the sacred at the festival. The resulting analyses shed new light on topics like musical performance as generator of the sacred, how art and heritage impact the continuity of religion in secularized societies, and the fragility of artistic performance in the contemporary fragmented framework of the sacred. This book offers an innovative and interdisciplinary interpretation of the continuing significant role of art and religion in postsecular societies.

Pagan and Native Faith movements have sprung up across Europe in recent decades, yet little has been published about them compared with their British and American counterparts. Though all such movements valorize human relationships with nature and embrace polytheistic cosmologies, practitioners' beliefs, practices, goals, and agendas are diverse. Often side by side are groups trying to reconstruct ancient religions motivated by ethnonationalism-especially in post-Soviet societies-and others attracted by imported traditions, such as Wicca, Druidry, Goddess Spirituality, and Core Shamanism. Drawing on ethnographic cases, contributors explore the interplay of neo-nationalistic and neo-colonialist impulses in contemporary Paganism, showing how these impulses play out, intersect, collide, and transform.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were tempted to take a bite out of an apple that promised them the "knowledge of good and evil." Today, a shiny apple with a bite out of it is the symbol of Apple Computers. The age of the Internet has speeded up human knowledge, and it also provides even more temptation to know more than may be good for us. Americans have been right at the forefront of the digital revolution, and we have felt its unsettling effects in both our religions and our politics. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite argues that we long to return to the innocence of the Garden of Eden and not be faced with countless digital choices. But returning to the innocence of Eden is dangerous in this modern age and, instead, we can become wiser about the wired world.

Women as Ritual Experts reveals how in gender segregated religions like Orthodox Judaism women develop their own autonomous religious sphere and activities that sacralize female roles. Until recently, this female world of religion has been all but invisible to both anthropologists and scholars of religion, who typically speak as though the male sphere of religion were the only definition of religion or the sacred. By exploring this separate sphere of women's religion and demonstrating its variety, depth, and dynamism, Susan Sered here attempts to expand the definition of religion, ritual and the sacred. Sered's research was conducted among uneducated, illiterate Kurdish women. She uncovers the strategies these women have used to circumvent the patriarchal institutions of Judaism, the techniques by which they have made their lives meaningful within an androcentric culture, and how they have developed their own `little tradition' within and parallel to the `great tradition' of Torah Judaism.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book explores the emerging topics and rapid technological developments of robotics and artificial intelligence through the lens of the evolving role of sex robots, and how they should best be designed to serve human needs. An international panel of authors provides the most up-to-date, evidence-based empirical research on the potential sexual applications of artificial intelligence. Early chapters discuss the objections to sexual activity with robots while also providing a counterargument to each objection. Subsequent chapters present the implications of robot sex as well as the security and data privacy issues associated with sexual interactions with artificial intelligence. The book concludes with a chapter highlighting the importance of a scientific, multidisciplinary approach to the study of human - robot sexuality. Topics featured in this book include: The Sexual Interaction Illusion Model. The personal companion system, Harmony, designed by Realbotix (TM). An exposition of the challenges of personal data control and protection when dealing with artificial intelligence. The current and future technological possibilities of projecting three-dimensional holograms. Expert discussion notes from an international workshop on the topic. AI Love You will be of interest to academic researchers in psychology, robotics, ethics, medical science, sociology, gender studies as well as clinicians, policy makers, and the business sector.

"Religion, Law, and Freedom: A Global Perspective" introduces readers to diverse perspectives on the interplay of religion, law, and communications freedom in different cultures around the world. Through discussion and analysis of the religious mores and cultural values that a nation adheres to, a greater understanding of that nation, its laws, and its freedoms can be cultivated. Rather than suggesting that harmony can be achieved without conflict, the essays in this volume seek to present the reader with a variety of perspectives from which to view and understand the relationships among religion, law, and freedom in various cultures. This multifaceted analysis, therefore, helps readers draw their own conclusions as to the best way to resolve cultural conflict brought about by the growing global community.

The book consists of fifteen chapters, authored or coauthored by 17 international scholars representing China, Germany, Israel, Iran, Japan, Latvia, Nigeria, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The chapters are organized into four parts: "Perspectives on Eastern and Western Religions; Press Freedom in Religious and Secular Societies; Journalism, Advertising, and Ethical Issues;" and "Religion, Politics, Media, and Human Rights." This important contribution will especially appeal to researchers and students in such fields as mass communications, legal studies, cultural studies, political science, religion, intercultural communications, international communications, and journalism.

The Yearbook of International Religious Demography presents an annual snapshot of the state of religious statistics around the world. Every year large amounts of data are collected through censuses, surveys, polls, religious communities, scholars, and a host of other sources. These data are collated and analyzed by research centers and scholars around the world. Large amounts of data appear in analyzed form in the World Religion Database (Brill), aiming at a researcher's audience. The Yearbook presents data in sets of tables and scholarly articles spanning social science, demography, history, and geography. Each issue offers findings, sources, methods, and implications surrounding international religious demography. Each year an assessment is made of new data made available since the previous issue of the yearbook. The 2017 volume features a wide range of subjects, including religious demography in Botswana, Protestantism in Guatemala, life satisfaction in Japan, fertility rates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the movement of Muslims from the Middle East to Europe. Contributors are: Todd M. Johnson, Gina Zurlo, Peter Crossing, Muhammad Haron, Rachel M. McCleary, Robert J. Barro, Kimiko Tanaka, Jeong-Hwa Ho, Nan E. Johnson, Antonius Liedhegener, Anastas Odermatt, Michaela Potancokova, Marcin Stonawski, Anna Krysinska, Anais Simard-Gendron, Simona Bignami, Robert Dixon, Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa, and Maria Concepcion Servin Nieto.

Surveys over the last twenty years have seen an ever-growing number of Americans disclaim religious affiliations and instead check the "none" box. In the first sociological exploration of organized secularism in America, Richard Cimino and Christopher Smith show how one segment of these "nones" have created a new, cohesive atheist identity through activism and the creation of communities.
According to Cimino and Smith, the new upsurge of atheists is a reaction to the revival of religious fervor in American politics since 1980. Feeling overlooked and underrepresented in the public sphere, atheists have employed a wide variety of strategies-some evangelical, some based on identity politics-to defend and assert themselves against their ideological opponents. These strategies include building and maintaining communities, despite the absence of the kinds of shared rituals, texts, and laws that help to sustain organized religions.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with self-identified atheist, secularist, and humanist leaders and activists, as well as extensive observations and analysis of secular gatherings and media, Cimino and Smith illustrate how atheists organize and align themselves toward common goals, and how media-particularly web-based media-have proven invaluable in connecting atheists to one another and in creating a powerful virtual community. Cimino and Smith suggest that secularists rely not only on the Internet for community-building, but on their own new forms of ritual.
This groundbreaking study will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the growing atheist movement in America.

Over fifty years ago, Will Herberg theorized that future immigrants to the United States would no longer identify themselves through their races or ethnicities, or through the languages and cultures of their home countries. Rather, modern immigrants would base their identities on their religions. The landscape of U.S. immigration has changed dramatically since Herberg first published his theory. Most of today's immigrants are Asian or Latino, and are thus unable to shed their racial and ethnic identities as rapidly as the Europeans about whom Herberg wrote. And rather than a flexible, labor-based economy hungry for more workers, today's immigrants find themselves in a post-industrial segmented economy that allows little in the way of class mobility. In this comprehensive anthology contributors draw on ethnography and in-depth interviews to examine the experiences of the new second generation: the children of Asian and Latino immigrants. Covering a diversity of second-generation religious communities including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews, the contributors highlight the ways in which race, ethnicity, and religion intersect for new Americans. As the new second generation of Latinos and Asian Americans comes of age, they will not only shape American race relations, but also the face of American religion.

The current practice of the cult of Maria Lionza is one of the most important and yet unexplored religious practices in Venezuela. Based on long-term fieldwork, this book explores the role of images and visual culture within the cult. By adopting a relational approach, A Goddess in Motion shows how the innumerable images of this goddess-represented as an Indian, white or mestizo woman-move constantly from objects to bodies, from bodies to dreams, and from the religion domain to the art world. In short, this book is a fascinating study that sheds light on the role of visual creativity in contemporary religious manifestations.

Honorable Mention for the 2008 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion!The roots of contemporary Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia lie in the sixteenth century, when Christian Europeans first tried to dominate Indian Ocean trade. Through a detailed analysis of sacred scriptures, epic narratives and oral histories from the region, this book shows how Southeast Asian Muslims combined cosmopolitan Islamic models of knowledge and authority with local Austronesian models of divine kingship to first resist and then to appropriate Dutch colonial models of rational bureaucracy. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, these models continue to shape regional responses to contemporary trends such as the rise of global Islamism.

A detailed study of the Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land, covering both their military and administrative affairs. The Teutonic Order was founded in 1190 to provide medical care for crusaders in the kingdom of Jerusalem. In time, it assumed a military role and played an important part in the defence of the Christian territories in the EasternMediterranean and in the Baltic regions of Prussia and Livonia; in the Levant, it fought against the neighbouring Islamic powers, whilst managing their turbulent relations with their patrons in the papacy and the German Empire. Asthe Order grew, it colonised territories in Prussia and Livonia, forcing it to address how it distributed its resources between its geographically-spread communities. Similarly, the brethren also needed to develop an organisational framework that could support the conduct of war on frontiers that were divided by hundreds of miles. This book - the first comprehensive analysis of the Order in the Holy Land - explores the formative years of this powerful international institution and places its deeds in the Levant within the context of the wider Christian, pagan and Islamic world. It examines the challenges that shaped its identity and the masters who planned its policies. Dr NICHOLAS MORTON is Lecturer in History at Nottingham Trent University.

Focusing on the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Douglas Pratt argues that despite a popular focus on Islam, extremist Jews and Christians can also enact terror and destruction. Religion and Extremism stresses that the ideological rejection of diversity underlies religious extremism resulting in violent behaviours and, increasingly, in hardening social and religious attitudes and responses. An analysis of religiously-driven terrorism reveals the presence of a distinctive and rigid form of exclusivity found in these religions. In this regard, the contemporary resurgence in totalising claims of fundamentalist ideologues is cause for particular concern. Pratt reasons that however expressed, the motif of the 'Absolute' is central to all, but how that absolute is and has been received, interpreted and responded to, is a matter of great diversity. The author asserts that theological 'Absolutism' displays an underlying dynamic whereby these three religions may be led into extremism. Religion and Extremism also explores contemporary issues of Islamophobia and mutual extremism, identified as 'reactive co-radicalization', and concludes by reflecting on how extremism today might be countered.

This book uses political process theory to examine the three most successful cultural movements that have mobilized around Christopher Columbus, a figure whose surrounding myths have served many interests. The author examines the religious, ethnic, and anti-colonial movements that were most successful in rewriting national origin myth, providing a clear application of the political process model while telling the story of how a powerless public mobilized to rewrite its past.

A 2004 ECPA Gold Medallion Finalist One of Preaching magazine's 2004 "Top Ten Books Every Preacher Should Read" Neo-paganism. The paranormal. Astrology. Nature religion. Holistic thinking. Healing. New Age. New spirituality. A massive shift in Western religious attitudes has taken place almost without our noticing it. The Judeo-Christian tradition of Western culture has slowly but steadily been eclipsed by a new way of viewing spirituality. This shift has been in the making for some three hundred years. James A. Herrick tells the story of how the old view has been dismantled and a new one created not primarily through academic or institutional channels but by means of popular religious media--books, speeches, magazines and pamphlets, as well as movies, plays, music, radio interviews, television programs and websites. Although the new spirituality is diffuse and eclectic in its sources and manifestations, Herrick demonstrates a significant convergence of ideas, beliefs, assumptions, convictions and images in the myriad ways this New Religious Synthesis makes its way into our culture. In fact, the new spirituality, says Herrick, directly calls into question each major tenet of Judeo-Christian tradition and so represents a radical alternative to it. Interest in spirituality increases while participation in institutional religion wanes. Many welcome this evolution of religion. However, few are familiar with its roots, and fewer still have critically examined its prospects. As we stand at a spiritual crossroad, Herrick questions whether we are wise to discard the Western religious tradition and adopt the new spirituality.

Dealing with different regions and cases, the contributions in this volume address and critically explore the theme of borders, educations, and religions in northern Europe. As shown in different ways, and contrary to popular ideas, there seems to be little reason to believe that religious and civic identity formation through public education is becoming less parochial and more culturally open. Even where state borders are porous, where commerce, culture, and trade as well as associative, personal, and social life display stronger liminal traits, normative education remains surprisingly national. This situation is remarkable and goes against the grain of current notions of both accelerating globalisation and a European regional renaissance. The book also takes issue with the foundational tenet that liberal democracies are by definition uninvolved in matters concerning faith and belief. Instead, an implied conclusion is that secular liberal democracy is less than secular and liberal - at least in education, which is a major arena for political-cultural-ethical socialisation, as it aims to confer worldviews and frameworks of identity on young people who will eventually become full citizens and bearers/sharers of prevailing normative communities.