Research has shown the important role of religious social networks in fostering benevolence, but some questions have remained: Why are people who frequently pray or attend church more generous with their time and money? Why does one religious group rather than another get involved in certain forms of outreach? Drawing on an extensive survey of 1,200 Christian men and women across the United States, as well as 120 in-depth interviews, Matthew T. Lee, Margaret M. Poloma, and Stephen G. Post offer a deeper and more nuanced study of religion and benevolence, finding that it is the experience of God as loving that activates religious networks and moves people to do good for others. Lee, Poloma and Post show that, for many Americans, love underlies both authoritative and benevolent images of God. The authors discover that encounters with God's love are frequent-eight out of ten respondents to the survey said that that they had felt God's love increasing their compassion for others-and that such experiences take on very different meanings depending on social context. These encounters can be intensely transformative, both for individuals and their communities. The book provides countless examples of how receiving God's love, loving God, and expressing this love impacted the lives of the Christians they interviewed. Some began to provide community service, others to strive for social justice, still others to seek to redefine religion and the meaning of "church " in America. Many of the interviewees discarded the judgmental image of God they knew as children in favor of a loving and accepting representation of God that is more consistent with their direct, personal, and affectively intense experiences. The Heart of Religion will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in how perceptions of God affect communities in America.

The chapters in Urban Educational Leadership for Social Justice: International Perspectives constitute a collection of works that explore dynamics related to equity in multiple contexts. Authors examined these issues in Turkey, Egypt the United States, Thailand and at a global level by comparing and contrasting school leadership practice across borders. Considered as a whole, these papers explore various topics that will be at the forefront of educational research for years to come. Increasingly, educationalleadership understand that there are important lessons to be learned internationally and globally. This book includes important research conceived from these perspectives. Our hope is that individually and collectively, they might contribute to our understanding of international and global issues in educational leadership and that they will extend, challenge and deepen extant lines of inquiry and begin others.

Explores the role of race and consumer culture in attracting urban congregants to an evangelical church The Urban Church Imagined illuminates the dynamics surrounding white urban evangelical congregations' approaches to organizational vitality and diversifying membership. Many evangelical churches are moving to urban, downtown areas to build their congregations and attract younger, millennial members. The urban environment fosters two expectations. First, a deep familiarity and reverence for popular consumer culture, and second, the presence of racial diversity. Church leaders use these ideas when they imagine what a "city church" should look like, but they must balance that with what it actually takes to make this happen. In part, racial diversity is seen as key to urban churches presenting themselves as "in touch" and "authentic." Yet, in an effort to seduce religious consumers, church leaders often and inadvertently end up reproducing racial and economic inequality, an unexpected contradiction to their goal of inclusivity. Drawing on several years of research, Jessica M. Barron and Rhys H. Williams explore the cultural contours of one such church in downtown Chicago. They show that church leaders and congregants' understandings of the connections between race, consumer culture, and the city is a motivating factor for many members who value interracial interactions as a part of their worship experience. But these explorations often unintentionally exclude members along racial and classed lines. Indeed, religious organizations' efforts to engage urban environments and foster integrated congregations produce complex and dynamic relationships between their racially diverse memberships and the cultivation of a safe haven in which white, middle-class leaders can feel as though they are being a positive force in the fight for religious vitality and racial diversity. The book adds to the growing constellation of studies on urban religious organizations, as well as emerging scholarship on intersectionality and congregational characteristics in American religious life. In so doing, it offers important insights into racially diverse congregations in urban areas, a growing trend among evangelical churches. This work is an important case study on the challenges faced by modern churches and urban institutions in general.

Issues in Religion and Education, Whose Religion? is a contribution to the dynamic and evolving global debates about the role of religion in public education. This volume provides a cross-section of the debates over religion, its role in public education and the theoretical and political conundrums associated with resolutions. The chapters reflect the contested nature of the role of religion in public education around the world and explore some of the issues mentioned from perspectives reflecting the diverse contexts in which the authors are situated. The differences among the chapters reflect some of the particular ways in which various jurisdictions have come to see the problem and how they have addressed religious diversity in public education in the context of their own histories and politics.

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. Contributors are: Todd Johnson, Gina Zurlo, Peter Crossing, Juan Cruz Esquivel, Fortunato Mallimaci, Annalisa Butticci, Brian Grim, Philip Connor, Ken Chitwood, Vegard Skirbekk, Marcin Stonawski, Rodrigo Franklin de Sousa, Davis Brown, Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa, and Maria Concepcion Servin Nieto.

Contributions by Phil Bevin, Blair Davis, Marc DiPaolo, Michele Fazio, James Gifford, Kelly Kanayama, Orion Ussner Kidder, Christina M. Knopf, Kevin Michael Scott, Andrew Alan Smith, and Terrence R. Wandtke In comic books, superhero stories often depict working-class characters who struggle to make ends meet, lead fulfilling lives, and remain faithful to themselves and their own personal code of ethics. Working-Class Comic Book Heroes: Class Conflict and Populist Politics in Comics examines working-class superheroes and other protagonists who populate heroic narratives in serialized comic books. Essayists analyze and deconstruct these figures, viewing their roles as fictional stand-ins for real-world blue-collar characters. Informed by new working-class studies, the book also discusses how often working-class writers and artists created these characters. Notably Jack Kirby, a working-class Jewish artist, created several of the most recognizable working-class superheroes, including Captain America and the Thing. Contributors weigh industry histories and marketing concerns as well as the fan community's changing attitudes towards class signifiers in superhero adventures. The often financially strapped Spider-Man proves to be a touchstone figure in many of these essays. Grant Morrison's Superman, Marvel's Shamrock, Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta, and The Walking Dead receive thoughtful treatment. While there have been many scholarly works concerned with issues of race and gender in comics, this book stands as the first to deal explicitly with issues of class, cultural capital, and economics as its main themes.

Rural areas are a key sector in every nation's economy due to a sizeable majority of the population living therein, as well as their impact on global agriculture and food security. Rural development transcends the availability of infrastructure, technology, and industrialization to also encompass the enviro-cultural and psycho-social needs of its inhabitants. The necessity for greater and deliberate efforts targeting all aspects of development of these rural areas is required to sustain growth. The Handbook of Research on Rural Sociology and Community Mobilization for Sustainable Growth is an essential reference source investigating how global trends, state policies, and grassroots movements affect contemporary rural areas in both developed and developing countries. Featuring research on topics such as gender and rural development, micro-financing, and water resource management, this book is ideally designed for government officials, policy makers, professionals, researchers, and students seeking coverage on the sustainable development of rural areas.

Irish migrants in new communities: Seeking the Fair Land? comprises the second collection of essays by these editors exploring fresh aspects and perspectives on the subject of the Irish diaspora. This volume, edited by Mairtin O Cathain and Micheal O hAodha, develops many of the oral history themes of the first book and concentrates more on issues surrounding the adaptation of migrants to new or host environments and cultures. These new places often have a jarring effect, as well as a welcoming air, and the Irish bring their own interpretations, hostilities, and suspicions, all of which are explored in a fascinating and original number of new perspectives.

Our years between 45 and 65 are no longer a time for decline into old age. Ideally, once the awareness of our 40th 50th or 60th birthday hits, or the last child leaves home, a number of new opportunities arise, allowing us to savor what we have accomplished so far, create new directions, explore where we fit in the larger scheme of things, and determine what we ultimately want from our lives. In Finding Meaning, Facing Fears: Living Fully Twixt Midlife and Retirement, clinical psychologist Jerrold Lee Shapiro invites you to re-envision this unique time in your life and discover opportunities to stretch in your capacities, face and conquer old demons, and meet new challenges with fresh resources. Dr. Shapiro will help you discover which alternatives will best serve your relationships, career goals, personal growth objectives, and even spiritual quests. The text offers answers to inevitable life questions like: "Is that all there is?" "Where do I go from here?" "Is it too late to change my life?" "Why aren't I happier?" The book features real-life vignettes from 45-65-year old women and men who are exceedingly open and honest about their lives. Thoughtful and empowering, Finding Meaning, Facing Fears offers fresh perspective on a previously uncharted life transition.

The challenge of life and literary narrative is the central and perennial mystery of how people encounter, manage, and inhabit a self and a world of their own - and others' - creations. With a nod to the eminent scholar and psychologist Jerome Bruner, Life and Narrative: The Risks and Responsibilities of Storying Experience explores the circulation of meaning between experience and the recounting of that experience to others. A variety of arguments center around the kind of relationship life and narrative share with one another. In this volume, rather than choosing to argue that this relationship is either continuous or discontinuous, editors Brian Schiff, A. Elizabeth McKim, and Sylvie Patron and their contributing authors reject the simple binary and masterfully incorporate a more nuanced approach that has more descriptive appeal and theoretical traction for readers. Exploring such diverse and fascinating topics as 'Narrative and the Law,' 'Narrative Fiction, the Short Story, and Life,' 'The Body as Biography,' and 'The Politics of Memory,' Life and Narrative features important research and perspectives from both up-and-coming researchers and prominent scholars in the field - many of which who are widely acknowledged for moving the needle forward on the study of narrative in their respective disciplines and beyond.

Freemasonry is the largest, oldest, and most influential secret society in the world. The Brill Handbook of Freemasonry is a pioneering work that brings together, for the first time, leading scholars on Freemasonry. The first section covers historical perspectives, such as the origins and early history of Freemasonry. The second deals with the relationship between Freemasonry and specific religious traditions such as the Catholic Church, Judaism, and Islam. In the third section, organisational themes, such as the use of rituals, are explored, while the fourth section deals with issues related to society and politics - women, blacks, colonialism, nationalism, and war. The fifth and final section is devoted to Freemasonry and culture, including music, literature, modern art, architecture and material culture.

In this study, Michael Hryniuk develops a full phenomenological, psychological and theological account of spiritual transformation in the context of L'Arche, a federation of Christian communities that welcome persons with learning disabilities. The book begins with a critical examination of current perspectives on spiritual transformation in theology and Christian spirituality and constructs a new, foundational formulation of transformation as a shift in consciousness, identity and behavior. Through extensive analysis of the narratives of the caregiver-assistants who share life with those who are disabled, this case-study reveals an alternative vision of the "three-fold way" that unfolds through a series of profound awakenings in relationships of mutual care and presence: an awakening to the capacity to love, to bear inner anguish and darkness, and to experience radical human and divine acceptance. The book examines the psychological dimensions of spiritual transformation through the lens of contemporary affect theory and explores how care-givers experience a profound healing of shame in their felt sense of identity and self-worth.

This expanded collection of new and fully revised explorations of media content identifies the ways we all have been negatively stereotyped and demonstrates how careful analysis of media portrayals can create more beneficial alternatives. Not all damaging stereotypes are obvious. In fact, the pictorial stereotypes in the media that we don't notice could be the most harmful because we aren't even aware of the negative, false ideas they perpetrate. This book presents a series of original research essays on media images of groups including African Americans, Latinos, women, the elderly, the physically disabled, gays and lesbians, and Jewish Americans, just to mention a few. Specific examples of these images are derived from a variety of sources, such as advertising, fine art, film, television shows, cartoons, the Internet, and other media, providing a wealth of material for students and professionals in almost any field. Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, Third Edition not only accurately describes and analyzes the media's harmful depictions of cultural groups, but also offers creative ideas on alternative representations of these individuals. These discussions illuminate how each of us is responsible for contributing to a sea of meaning within our mass culture. 33 distinguished authors as well as new voices in the field combine their extensive and varied expertise to explain the social effects of media stereotyping. Includes historical and contemporary illustrations that range from editorial cartoons to the sinking of the Titanic Richly illustrated with historical and up-to-date photographic illustrations Every chapter's content is meticulously supported with numerous sources cited A glossary defines key words mentioned in the chapters

Across Rampart Street from the French Quarter, the Faubourg Treme neighborhood is arguably the most important location for African American culture in New Orleans. Closely associated with traditional jazz and "second line" parading, Treme is now the setting for an eponymous television series created by David Simon (best known for his work on The Wire). Michael Crutcher argues that Treme's story is essentially spatial-a story of how neighborhood boundaries are drawn and take on meaning and of how places within neighborhoods are made and unmade by people and politics. Treme has long been sealed off from more prominent parts of the city, originally by the fortified walls that gave Rampart Street its name, and so has become a refuge for less powerful New Orleanians. This notion of Treme as a safe haven-the flipside of its reputation as a "neglected" place-has been essential to its role as a cultural incubator, Crutcher argues, from the antebellum slave dances in Congo Square to jazz pickup sessions at Joe's Cozy Corner. Treme takes up a wide range of issues in urban life, including highway construction, gentrification, and the role of public architecture in sustaining collective memory. Equally sensitive both to black-white relations and to differences within the African American community, it is a vivid evocation of one of America's most distinctive places.