Though many scholars and commentators have predicted the death of religion, the world is more religious today than ever before. And yet, despite its persistence, religion remains a woefully understudied phenomenon. With Objective Religion, Baylor University Press and Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion have joined forces to present select articles from the Institute's Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion that not only highlight the journal's wide-ranging and diverse scope but also advance the field through a careful arrangement of topics with ongoing relevance, all treated with scientific objectivity and the respect warranted by matters of faith. This multivolume project seeks to advance our understanding both of religion and spirituality in general and also of particular religious beliefs and practices. Objective Religion thereby serves as a catalyst for future studies of religion from diverse disciplines and fields of inquiry, including sociology, psychology, political science, demography, economics, philosophy, ethics, history, medicine, population health, epidemiology, and theology. The articles in this second volume, Problems, Prosociality, and Progress, examine the many ways in which religion is linked to prosocial behavior. Whether through classes, retreats, small groups, mission trips, church-sponsored volunteer work, or any number of related group functions, religious participation connects people to multiple networks of social support that are consequential and meaningful. These faith-infused, supportive social networks allow people to build a strong sense of belonging and serve as powerful independent predictors of beneficial outcomes.

Though many scholars and commentators have predicted the death of religion, the world is more religious today than ever before. And yet, despite its persistence, religion remains a woefully understudied phenomenon. With Objective Religion, Baylor University Press and Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion have joined forces to present select articles from the Institute's Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion that not only highlight the journal's wide-ranging and diverse scope but also advance the field through a careful arrangement of topics with ongoing relevance, all treated with scientific objectivity and the respect warranted by matters of faith. This multivolume project seeks to advance our understanding both of religion and spirituality in general and also of particular religious beliefs and practices. Objective Religion thereby serves as a catalyst for future studies of religion from diverse disciplines and fields of inquiry, including sociology, psychology, political science, demography, economics, philosophy, ethics, history, medicine, population health, epidemiology, and theology. The articles in this second volume, Problems, Prosociality, and Progress, examine the many ways in which religion is linked to prosocial behavior. Whether through classes, retreats, small groups, mission trips, church-sponsored volunteer work, or any number of related group functions, religious participation connects people to multiple networks of social support that are consequential and meaningful. These faith-infused, supportive social networks allow people to build a strong sense of belonging and serve as powerful independent predictors of beneficial outcomes.

There is currently much discussion regarding the causes of terrorist acts, as well as the connection between terrorism and religion. Terrorism is attributed either to religious 'fanaticism' or, alternately, to political and economic factors, with religion more or less dismissed as a secondary factor. The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Terrorism examines this complex relationship between religion and terrorism phenomenon through a collection of essays freshly written for this volume. Bringing varying approaches to the topic, from the theoretical to the empirical, the Companion includes an array of subjects, such as radicalization, suicide bombing, and rational choice, as well as specific case studies. The result is a richly textured collection that prompts readers to critically consider the cluster of phenomena that we have come to refer to as 'terrorism,' and terrorism's relationship with the similarly problematic set of phenomena that we call 'religion.'

Global jihadism has been on policy agendas for more than two decades. Since the 9/11 attacks, both transnational jihadi entities such as Al-Qaeda and national or regional militant groups have attracted a great deal of media and scholarly attention. In recent years, policy agendas have increasingly come to include a focus on countering militant jihadi ideologies. Despite this, studies of global jihadism that take the impact of ideas seriously are at a relatively early stage and have yet to fully capture the richness of their social contexts and intellectual universes. Departing from the security studies approaches that have characterised much writing about jihadi groups, this volume aims to engage policy-makers and specialists alike by bridging existing disciplines and areas of study to create a framework for beginning to understand jihadi movements through the study of their ideologies, intellectual histories, political engagements and geographies. The contributors to the volume come from a range of academic disciplines (including history, anthropology, political science, religious studies and area studies), as well as from the worlds of diplomacy and policy research. In addition to studies of globalised contexts and ideologies, the volume also includes detailed studies of jihadi currents of thought and responses to them in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, South-East Asia and Europe.

In September 2014, Azad Cudi became one of seventeen snipers deployed when ISIS, trying to shatter the Kurds in a decisive battle, besieged the northern city of Kobani. In LONG SHOT, he tells the inside story of how a group of activists and idealists withstood a ferocious assault and, street by street, house by house, took back their land in a victory that was to prove the turning point in the war against ISIS. By turns devastating, inspiring and lyrical, this is a unique account of modern war and of the incalculable price of victory as a few thousand men and women achieved the impossible and kept their dream of freedom alive.

Over the past thirty years, Italy-the historic home of Catholicism-has become a significant destination for migrants from Nigeria and Ghana. Along with suitcases and dreams of a brighter future, these Africans bring their own form of Christianity, Pentecostalism, shaped by their various cultures and religious worlds. At the heart of Annalisa Butticci's beautifully sculpted ethnography of African Pentecostalism in Italy is a paradox. Pentecostalism, traditionally one of the most Protestant of Christian faiths, is driven by the same concern as Catholicism: real presence. In Italy, Pentecostals face harsh anti-immigrant sentiment and limited access to economic and social resources. At times, they find safe spaces to worship in Catholic churches, where a fascinating encounter unfolds that is equal parts conflict and communion. When Pentecostals watch Catholics engage with sacramental objects-relics, statues, works of art-they recognize the signs of what they consider the idolatrous religions of their ancestors. Catholics, in turn, view Pentecostal practices as a mix of African religions and Christian traditions. Yet despite their apparently irreconcilable differences and conflicts, they both share a deeply sensuous and material way to make the divine visible and tangible. In this sense, Pentecostalism appears much closer to Catholicism than to mainstream Protestantism. African Pentecostals in Catholic Europe offers an intimate glimpse at what happens when the world's two fastest growing Christian faiths come into contact, share worship space, and use analogous sacramental objects and images. And it explains how their seemingly antithetical practices and beliefs undergird a profound commonality.