What has happened to religion in China since the Communist revolution? Against all the odds of eradication measures dictated by the atheist ideology and secularization effects of modernization, ...religion has survived and has been reviving and thriving despite Communist rule. This book presents a comprehensive overview of Chinese versions of Marxist atheism, evolving religious policies, and the religious change in China under Communism. It presents a fresh definition of religion for the social scientific study that classifies the religious and religion-like phenomena into a clear order. Working within the new paradigm in the sociology of religion that explains religious vitality instead of secularization, the book adopts a political economic approach. It contends that the dominant “supply-side explanations” in the new paradigm is not suitable to explain the religious change in China. The author articulates the triple religious market model in a
shortage economy of religion under heavy regulation, which is very much a demand-driven economy of religion. Moreover, China is only one case of religious oligopoly, where a selected few religions are sanctioned by the state. Oligopoly is the most common type of religion-state relations in the world today. What has happened to religion in China may be indicative of religious dynamics in other oligopoly societies under heavy regulation.
Across much of the postcolonial world, Christianity has often become inseparable from ideas and practices linking the concept of modernity to that of human emancipation. To explore these links, Webb ...Keane undertakes a rich ethnographic study of the century-long encounter, from the colonial Dutch East Indies to post-independence Indonesia, among Calvinist missionaries, their converts, and those who resist conversion. Keane's analysis of their struggles over such things as prayers, offerings, and the value of money challenges familiar notions about agency. Through its exploration of language, materiality, and morality, this book illuminates a wide range of debates in social and cultural theory. It demonstrates the crucial place of Christianity in semiotic ideologies of modernity and sheds new light on the importance of religion in colonial and postcolonial histories.
Steve Bruce explores Scotland's transformation from the largely devout Presbyterian country of 1900, with the church as a major social force, to the diverse, more secular society of today, when less ...than 10 per cent of Scots attend church. He bases his study on a career's worth of historical, ethnographic and statistical research, to provide both a coherent description of Scotland's current religious complexion and a considered explanation of the forces that shaped it. Scottish Gods is both a fascinating summary of over a century of religious and cultural change, and a searing analysis of the state of religion in Scotland today by one of our leading social historians.
This book brings together leading international scholars with the aim of exploring ritual perspectives in the study of contemporary religions. It combines significant theoretical and methodological ...reflections and applies it to four main fields relevant to the study of contemporary religions: indigeneity; new spiritualities and ecology; lived religion (with Islam and Africa as case studies); and finally, religion and embodiment. The structure and content of the book takes its point of departure from the research topics and collegial network of the internationally acclaimed scholar of ritual studies, Professor Anne-Christine Hornborg. The book is dedicated to her.
The Modern Spirit of Asiachallenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in ...unique and distinctive ways. Peter van der Veer begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. He traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled.
The Modern Spirit of Asiamoves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang. Van der Veer, an outspoken proponent of the importance of comparative studies of religion and society, eloquently makes his case in this groundbreaking examination of the spiritual and the secular in China and India.
Contributing to the growing interest in early modern women and religion, this essay collection advances scholarship by introducing readers to recently recovered or little-studied texts and by ...offering new paradigms for the analysis of women's religious literary activities. Contributors underscore the fact that women had complex, multi-dimensional relationships to the religio-political order, acting as activists for specific causes but also departing from confessional norms in creative ways and engaging in intra-as well as extra-confessional conflict. The volume thus includes essays that reflect on the complex dynamics of religious culture itself and that illuminate the importance of women's engagement with Catholicism throughout the period. The collection also highlights the vitality of neglected intertextual genres such as prayers, meditations, and translations, and it focuses attention on diverse forms of textual production such as literary writing, patronage, epistolary exchanges, public reading, and epitaphs. Collectively, English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500-1625 offers a comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and methodological issues preoccupying scholars of women and religious writing.
This volume explores how religious and spiritual actors engage for environmental protection and fight against climate change. Climate change and sustainability are increasingly prominent topics among ...religious and spiritual groups. Different faith traditions have developed ""green"" theologies, launched environmental protection projects and issued public statements on climate change. Against this background, academic scholarship has raised optimistic claims about the strong potentials of religions to address environmental challenges. Taking a critical stance with regard to these claims, the chapters in this volume show that religious environmentalism is an embattled terrain. Tensions are an inherent part of religious environmentalism. These do not necessarily manifest themselves in open clashes between different parties but in different actions, views, theologies, ambivalences, misunderstandings, and sometimes mistrust. Keeping below the surface, these tensions can create effective barriers for religious environmentalism. The chapters examine how tensions are manifested and dealt with through a range of empirical case studies in various world regions. Covering different religious and spiritual traditions, they reflect on intradenominational, interdenominational, interreligious, and religious-societal tensions. Thereby, this volume sheds new light on the problems that religions face when they seek to take an active role in today’s societal challenges. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Über uns der Ideenhimmel, in uns das Bewusstsein und dazwischen: die Religion als Bestandteil der soziokulturellen Wirklichkeit. Volkhard Krech entfaltet in seinem soziologischen Grundriss der ...religiösen Evolution das Verständnis von Religion als Kommunikation, die zwischen den Menschen entsteht und stattfindet.In seiner Analyse zur Ausdifferenzierung des Religiösen, die Bezug auf die Evolutionstheorie, Systemtheorie und eine semiotisch informierte Kommunikationstheorie nimmt, bewegt er sich in der Zirkularität von Gegenwart und Geschichte. Dabei macht er Religion als Sinnform zur Bearbeitung unbestimmbarer Kontingenz begreifbar.
How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking book the ...contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Engaging with a phenomenally wide range of ideas, issues, and thinkers from the Enlightenment to today, Eagleton discusses the state of religion before and after 9/11, the ironies surrounding Western capitalism's part in spawning not only secularism but also fundamentalism, and the unsatisfactory surrogates for the Almighty invented in the post-Enlightenment era.The author reflects on the unique capacities of religion, the possibilities of culture and art as modern paths to salvation, the so-called war on terror's impact on atheism, and a host of other topics of concern to those who envision a future in which just and compassionate communities thrive. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.
