The purpose of the article is to establish the specificities of the formation of ideas about a person within the framework of the activities of the new urban religious communities of the Kama region, ...namely the Intercession Monastery and the Family of God. These communities combine features of folk religiosity, new religious movements, and the so-called historical sects. Such eclecticism makes it impossible to apply to the communities the established research apparatus for new religious movements (NRMs), formed by Western (B. Wilson, D. Stone, A. Barker) and Russian (L. N. Mitrokhin, E. A. Balagushkin, I. Kanterov and others) researchers and substantiates the need for this study conducted from both a different perspective and involving new research methodology. Both communities act as a closed community, which is expressed in the territorial and communication isolation of the residents of the communal estate, the practice of internal labor duties, and the idea of the group as a family. The study is based on interviews and correspondence with former members of both communities, analysis of materials from a closed group on a social network, and recordings of classes conducted by one of the group leaders. The theoretical basis of the work was K. Dobellard’s concept of the so-called patchwork religiosity, characteristic of an individual’s attitude towards religion in modern culture. The image of a person in both communities is constructed at two levels: through making changes to the traditional Christian idea of a person and at the level of religious and near-religious activities. It has been shown that innovations related to faith include the idea of a special status of community members compared to other people, as well as provisions about their special role in the struggle to save the world. The religious activities of the groups involve conducting adjusted Christian rituals (baptism, wedding), elements of mystical experience (mental struggle with evil and enemies in the Intercession Monastery), training seminars and sermons justifying the special role of followers of the teaching in society. Social interaction within communities is built on a strict selection of monks, leader control over the behavior of group members, a system of specific penalties, including ignoring offenders, public repentance, burial alive and expulsion from the brotherhood. The study concludes that the so-called new religious movements are in reality examples of traditional religious sects observed in Russia over the centuries. Their values, behavior, and the image of the person are archaic, however they also include additional external elements of secular culture.
Recent scholarship finds linkages between religiosity and vaccination practices but neglects the role of religious, social structural influences. The relationship between religious beliefs and ...immunization in the context of closed religious communities remains understudied. We use a survey of Amish and Old Order Mennonite parents to explore relationships between religious belief, group closure, perceived vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine uptake. The results indicate higher group and individual closure levels are positively related to having unvaccinated children and vaccine hesitancy. Perceptions of vaccine effectiveness partially explain these associations. Healthcare providers should consider constructing culturally competent programs to reach closed communities.
Many offenses have been perpetrated by Indonesian religious communities toward the government’s policies on the restriction of congregational worshipping during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, scant ...studies investigating those negative attitudes using a qualitative approach. In order to fill the gap, this paper reports on the religious attitudes of Muslims who are considered to violate the restriction policy on religious activities ordered by the Indonesian government. The involved participants were policymakers, mosque caretakers, and the three largest Muslim social groups, including Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulema (NU), and traditionalists. The results of this study revealed discrepancies in how Muslims' polarized religious attitudes are constructed. These communities have different patterns of thought and diversity in terms of perceiving the government’s policies. This study suggests that there is a critical role for Islamic scholars in educating Muslims about the dangers and possible consequences of COVID-19. In other words, following government policies while partaking in congregational worship can be interpreted as a manifestation of social piety, spiritual activity, and religious faith.
Child sexual abuse (CSA) by authority figures in a religious community (AFRCs) has been studied extensively among the Catholic clergy, and to a limited extent among Orthodox Jewish communities in the ...United States and Australia. However, less attention has been devoted to the phenomenon within the Israeli context.
This article examines the perceptions of survivors within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel of their relationships with authority figures in the community who sexually abused them.
21 in-depth interviews were conducted with men who were abused by authority figures within ultra-Orthodox institutions, which were analyzed based on a thematic approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
The results indicated that in childhood, almost none of the participants recognized that they were sexually abused. Their relationships with the authority figures were instead perceived as one of four variations: (1) normative-educative; (2) mutual; (3) an episode in a hypersexual routine; or (4) abusive punitive. Perceptions later shifted, mostly in adulthood, towards a recognition of the sexual abuse and its personal consequences.
The findings stress the importance of contextual factors (such as perceptions of sexuality, community structures, and cultural norms) in how ultra-Orthodox children experience abuse by authority figures in the community and its aftermath, with implications for successful prevention and intervention efforts.
Cultural sociologists have devised numerous theoretical tools for analyzing meaning making among individuals and groups. Yet, the cognitive processes which underpin these theories of meaning making ...are often bracketed out. Drawing on three different qualitative research projects, respectively on activists, religious communities, and gamers, this article synthesizes work in sociology, psychology, and philosophy, to develop a sociology of imagination. Current work highlights that (1) imagination is a higher order mental function, (2) powerful in its effects, which (3) facilitates intersubjectivity, and (4) is socially constructive. However, sociology can additionally contribute to scholarly understandings of imagination, which have often focused on individualistic mental imaging, by highlighting the degree to which (a) imagination allows individuals and groups to coordinate identities, actions, and futures, (b) imagination relies on widely shared cultural elements, and (c) imagination is often undertaken collectively, in groups. The article concludes with suggestions for future sociological work on imagination.
In this introduction, we outline a comparative tool for studying communicative ideologies and practices, which we call ‘religious suasion’. Developing a conversation about religious forms of ...‘suasion’ is important because it provides a vocabulary for comparing parallel practices of religious influence across different religious communities, allowing for more nuanced understandings of what might commonly – and negatively – be termed ‘proselytizing’. The proposed analytical frame is not concerned with how the ‘convert’ might experience religious change, nor with how social and religious change unfolds on a grand scale. Rather, it interrogates and puts into dialogue multiple forms of discursive practice, demonstrations of virtue, and material forms of religion to reach beyond suasive strategies based on formal doctrines about religious propagation that tend to be associated with traditionally evangelistic religious communities, especially with Christianity. Focusing on the rhetorical strategies, religious imaginaries, and ethical evaluations that underpin how religious actors pursue change in others and in and of the world, ‘religious suasion’ contributes to the development of an anthropology of influence.
Abstrait
La « suasion » religieuse : introduction au numéro spécial
Résumé
En guise d'introduction, les auteurs mettent en lumière un outil comparatif d’étude des idéologies et pratiques communicatives qu'ils appellent « suasion » religieuse. Il est important d'engager le débat sur les formes religieuses de « suasion », mot qui porte une signification plus flexible que « persuasion », afin de disposer du vocabulaire nécessaire pour comparer des pratiques parallèles d'influence religieuse entre différentes communautés de foi et de parvenir ainsi à une compréhension plus nuancée de l'activité habituellement désignée par le mot, connoté négativement, de « prosélytisme ». Le cadre analytique proposé ne s'intéresse pas à la manière dont les « convertis » vivent le changement religieux, ni au déploiement de changements sociaux et religieux à grande échelle. Il interroge et confronte plutôt diverses formes de pratique discursives, de démonstrations de vertu et de formes matérielles des religions, pour aller au‐delà des stratégies de persuasion basées sur les doctrines formelles de la propagation de la foi que l'on tend à associer aux communautés traditionnellement évangélistes, notamment chrétiennes. En s'intéressant aux stratégies rhétoriques, aux imaginaires religieux et aux évaluations étiques qui sous‐tendent la manière dont les acteurs des religions recherchent le changement chez les autres et dans le monde, le concept de « suasion » religieuse contribue au développement d'une anthropologie de l'influence.
У раду се анализирају међунационални односи у Републици Србији који могу имати утицај на безбедност Републике Србије. Циљ рада је да се сагледају и објасне елементи релевантни за систем безбед– ности ...из угла међунационалних односа кроз ставове припадника цркава и верских заједница. Истраживање је обављено кроз анкетно испитивање и усмерене оријентационе интервјуе са представницима исламске заједнице на простору Републике Србије, где живе становници ове заједнице,са представницима државне управе, локалних и регионалних власти.
This study explores how women in two devout religious communities cope with the Internet and its apparent incompatibility with their communities’ values and practices. Questionnaires containing both ...closed and open-ended questions were completed by 82 participants, approximately half from each community. While their discourses included similar framings of danger and threat, the two groups manifested different patterns of Internet use (and nonuse). Rigorous adherence to religious dictates is greatly admired in these communities, and the women take pride in manipulating their status in them. Their agency is reflected in how they negotiate the tension inherent in their roles as both gatekeepers and agents-of-change, which are analyzed as valuable currencies in their cultural and religious markets.
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