Buddhist insight meditation (Vipassanā) and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction”: an example of dedifferentiation of religion and medicine?

For about 25 years, mindfulness meditation has attracted growing attention. Developed in the context of a traditional Asian religious tradition, mindfulness meditation originally served soteriological goals. In therapeutic settings, it has been claimed, it has become a secular ‘consciousness technology’. So far, studies have mainly been interested in clinical evidence for salutogenetic effects. Questions about if and how practices such as “Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction” (MBSR) are to be conceptualized as ‘religious’ still require further analysis. To provide a more fitting criteriology, we propose to distinguish between ‘salvific’ (‘liberating’) and ‘salvetive’ (‘healing’) settings of meditation, with the latter denoting a more ‘therapeutic’ outlook. It will be argued that MBSR bears elements of salvetive and salvific meditation. In the paradigm of a functional differentiation between ‘religion’ and ‘biomedicine’, MBSR’s presence in biomedical institutions seems to provide a counter-example, which will be discussed in the final section.     

Ethical selfhood and the status of the secular: Muslim identity in Mumbai

As part of a larger project, this essay contributes to the current anthropological rethinking of categories such as ‘religion’, ‘secularism’ and ‘politics’ in relation to social processes and subjects: a series of ventures that are related, in the Indian context, to modernity and liberal conceptions of statehood, sovereignty and personhood. In discussing everyday phenomena such as piety and religious authority, gender and childraising, and political and professional pursuits in Mumbai, I demonstrate that the ostensibly ‘religious’ domain of Islam is not necessarily the only, or even primary, basis for achieving a self-consciously ethical selfhood for even those who identify as observant and devout Muslims. I argue that the religious domain of Islam in this context is defined as such and intersected by discourses and practices of the self as a political and economic agent defined largely in terms of political modernity.     

Faith in community and communities of faith? government rhetoric and religious identity in Urban Britain

This paper examines the concept of community and the discourse around it in the context of the religious diversity in urban areas in England. Sociology has a long history of working with, deconstructing, and at times rejecting the usefulness of the term ‘community’ and many scholars have in the context of postmodernity preferred to talk about processes of identity formation and networking. Constructions of identity in which faith affiliation plays a salient role are probably becoming more common and more politically significant. However, an integrated theory of the relationship between religion, community, ethnicity, and identity remains to be developed and this paper attempts some tentative first steps.

In their search for ‘feel good’ terminology, politicians in democracies such as the UK have often turned to the language of community and continue to do so. Faced with the task of managing local conflicts and delivering services which are responsive to the demands of users, contemporary governments have increasingly adopted communitarian positions and the language of social capital. In recent years in the UK, religion has moved up the political agenda and an official discourse and policy initiatives structured around the notion of ‘faith communities’ have emerged.

The New Labour government has indeed put its faith in community and sought to co‐opt communities of faith into its ‘project’. However, it is far from clear that there is a coherent understanding of the notion of faith community or of the two words that make up the phrase. One may question whether the government discourse resonates with the understandings of community and identity in the major faith traditions found in the contemporary city. An examination of some of the official discourse set alongside the changing and conflicting identities of some ‘faith communities’ in London and other British cities suggests that the British State's current simplistic approach to engaging with religious diversity is an inadequate basis for policy development.     

Floating food: Eating ‘Asia’ in kitchens of the diaspora

This article borrows fragments of memory to chart a drifting course towards an imagined ‘other’ of ‘Asia’, produced and consumed in the kitchens of the west and available for diasporic digestion. Specifically, the argument focuses on micro-narratives of ‘Asian’ food, with these emerging here during an interview on food and transnationalism, conducted while the interviewer and household members eat together in the intimacy of a North London kitchen. Specifically, the analysis reflects on these narratives, tracing some of their curious and disturbing nuances. The ‘oddness’ of such stories (identity's capacity to ‘float’ while ‘grounded’), in turn, is used to question the figure of the consuming cosmopolitan (and its necessary ‘other’) that haunts cultural and culinary analyses. Meanwhile, everyday practices of ‘eating back’ at ‘Asia’ in order to feel ‘at home’ become resonant resources not only for identity's place-making but also for imagining a different politics of eating. Furthermore, the narrative richness of everyday interactions between strangers and familiars in the kitchen points to less usual, and perhaps more productive, ways of understanding the complexities of diasporic place-making.     

Holy piracy: Kopimism,the sacralisation of information,and the legitimating power of religion

Kopimism is a new religious movement predicated on, and revolving around, the assertion and belief that information is inherently sacred and needs to be copied and shared. Adherents to this Swedish-born religious movement have persisted in small pockets of devout communities around the world for almost a decade. This paper outlines a rudimentary and general sketch of the Kopimist worldview, its basic aims and its place within the contemporary religious landscape. In the latter part of this analysis, particular attention is given to the movement’s claim that it is not simply a sacralisation of political ideals – pirate politics, in particular – but that it maintains a distinct worldview and ethical system based on the notion that information – the foundation of everything – is itself divine. ‘Religion’ as a legitimating categorical force and the sociocultural conditions that engender new religious movements are also considered alongside the movement’s history and development.     

Modernity and rural religion in the Philippines

The present paper concerns religious beliefs and practices— relating to the national hero of the Philippines Jose Rizal—of a religious community that calls itself Ciudad Mistica de Dios (the Mystical City of God). In the late 1950s, Mistica established its headquarters on the lower slopes of the holy mountain, Mount Banahaw. The paper commences by reading a selection of ‘nationalist’ constructions of the life and death of Jose Rizal through Bauman's conception of ‘modernity’ as ‘cultivating action’ and Foucault's notion of ‘pastoral power’. This is juxtaposed with Mistica's reading of Rizal—a reading that constructs Rizal's life and death as a mirror to the life and death of Christ, and that emerges as a critical engagement with modernity and the state. The paper concludes by suggesting that local religious beliefs and practices must be interpreted in terms of the historical experiences of particular peoples and places.     

Ethnography and Subjectivity in Comparative Religious Ethics

The ethnographic turn in religious studies has responded to important developments, such as the rejection of value neutrality and the need to better address the lived experience of individuals and communities. In this essay, I affirm the value of ethnography as a method in comparative religious ethics, but distinguish between two ways of framing ethnography in relation to ethics. The first way insists on the hard limits of translating values across cultures, and tends to marginalize or dismiss normative inquiry. The second way allows for the interpretation of practices of ethical justification in diverse cultural contexts. I argue that this second category of ethnography is more congenial to the work of comparative religious ethicists, since an integral part of ethical inquiry involves reflecting on, and making arguments about, social norms and practices.     

Alternative religion kids: spiritual and cultural identity among children and youth involved with new religious movements

ABSTRACT

The term ‘new religious movement’ (NRM) has come to replace the more provocative term ‘cult,’ however this shift of scholarly language has not resulted in a softening of public perception towards those in religious groups perceived as ‘weird’. This perception leaves a distinct mark on the identities of children raised in these communities.Children from alternative and controversial religions comprise a unique subculture.. The experience of growing up in a new religious movement has an important impact on a young person’s cultural and spiritual identity. Drawing on and expanding Useem and Downie’s model of ‘third culture kids’ (TCKs) the model of ‘alternative religion kids’ (ARKs) is developed. It is proposed that ARKs are a subculture in their own right and share a sense of belonging and identity based on their experience of being religious ‘others’. ARKs may be able to connect through a powerful, shared experience not paralleled with other peers.     

British,Asian and Hindu: identity,self‐narration and the ethnographic interview

This article, based on a longitudinal study of young British Hindus’ perceptions of their religious tradition, explores their understandings of themselves as ‘British’, ‘Asian’ and Hindu’ [1] [1] The Longitudinal Study of Young British Hindus’ Perceptions of their Religious Tradition was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and directed by Professor Robert Jackson in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, University of Warwick 1995‐97. Earlier ethnographic study of these young people is reported in Jackson and Nesbitt (1993). View all notes. A theoretical framework is provided by psychologists’ and philosophers’ acknowledgement of the processual, interactive, integrative nature of identity and the conceptualisation of it as both narrative and interpretative. The young people's narratives of identity are contextualised by the ‘between two cultures’ debate, and by Jacobson's (1997) recent analysis of the factors in young British Pakistanis’ increasing preference for an Islamic rather than Asian or Pakistani identity. It is suggested that a binary model is over simple and that ‘Hindu’ emerges as a transgenerational, core identity, but with significant differences from the young South Asian Muslims’ preferred Islamic identity.

     

How Christian upbringing divides the religious nones in Britain: exploring the imprints of Christian upbringing in the 2016 EU referendum

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, Britain has witnessed a significant decline in Christian affiliation and the corresponding growth in the number of religiously unaffiliated individuals. Relatively little attention has, however, been paid to ‘former Christians’ who were brought up in a Christian household but now identify as having no religion. This study focuses on the effects of Christian upbringing on the voting behaviour of religious nones in the EU referendum of 2016. Using data from the 2016 British Social Attitudes survey, the empirical analysis in this article examines the socio-cultural characteristics of Anglican, Catholic, and ‘Other Christian’ households as well as their role in shaping the voting turnout and the voting intentions of individuals who are religiously unaffiliated. The results suggest that Anglican upbringing and Catholic upbringing serve as salient proxies for national identities among the secular groups. Additionally, in the EU referendum, the voting behaviour of religious nones with different kinds of Christian upbringing was very distinct. This reveals that religious upbringing is a source of within-group variety among British religious nones and that Britain’s Christian heritage still has important socio-political implications despite the decrease in the country’s Christian population.     

Religious exploration and conversion in forced displacement: a case study of Syrian Muslim refugees in Lebanon receiving assistance from Evangelical Christians

The idea of religious conversion as a break with one’s past and a change in identity and belonging is precarious when religious practices are considered in a context of displacement. Forced migrants’ sense of identity often becomes volatile when social and political pressures lead them to break with various aspects of their past lives. During a season of displacement, refugees and forced migrants may begin to attend religious meetings of a tradition different to that of their family or cease engaging in religious activities at all. Using the humanitarian engagement of Lebanese Evangelical churches with Syrian Muslim refugees as a case study, this article explores some of the unique dynamics in religious engagement in refugee communities. Many Syrian refugees began to attend church and study Christianity and this did indeed seem to have some sort of ‘spiritual’ influence on them, although few considered making a more radical change in their identity.     

‘Othering’ and ‘selving’ in therapeutic dialogue

In this article we consider therapeutic conversations about suffering and sexual identity through an ethical and practical lens we refer to as ‘othering’ and ‘selving’. The ethical lens is shaped by recent developments in discursive theory and approaches to therapy. Our practical lens draws from research by discourse analysts showing how conversational practices feature in consequential ways in delicate discussions such as those about suffering and sexual identity. After helping readers understand these lenses we then use them in examining actual discussions about identity and suffering. We conclude with some general ideas and reflective questions for therapists wishing to extend these kinds of sensitivities and conversational practices in their work with clients.     

Wrestling the Serpent: Gandhi,Amritsar and the British Empire

Throughout the period of the non‐co‐operation movement in India in the early 1920s, Gandhi surprised and sometimes bewildered the British in India with his incessant labelling of the Government as ‘satanic’. It is argued in this paper that Gandhi deliberately employed the word ‘satanic’ with a keen awareness of its power on both his opponents and supporters. He used it to give religious justification to the non‐co‐operation movement. He used it to apportion guilt and spread disaffection with the British Government. He used it to exhort his followers to greater self‐purification, especially against the ‘weaknesses’ of violence and untouchability.     

Flanders and Helmand: chaplaincy,faith and religious change in the British Army, 1914–2014

Abstract

The year 2014 marked the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and the end of eight years of major British combat operations in Afghanistan. Against the background of profound religious changes in British society over the course of the intervening century, this article examines the continuities and discontinuities between British army chaplaincy on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 and in southern Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014, and explores the religious beliefs and practices of British soldiers caught up in the deadly and protracted struggles on the Western Front and in Helmand Province. While acknowledging major differences in the operational contexts involved and seismic shifts in British religious life over the course of the twentieth century, besides important divergences this article identifies striking degrees of continuity between the ministry of army chaplains and the religious attitude and behaviour of soldiers themselves.     

Wittgenstein,Quasi-fideism,and Scepticism

In the discussion of certainties, or ‘hinges’, in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty some of the examples that Wittgenstein uses are religious ones. He remarks on how a child might be raised so that they ‘swallow down’ belief in God (§107) and in discussing the role of persuasion in disagreements he asks us to think of the case of missionaries converting natives (§612). In the past decade Duncan Pritchard has made a case for an account of the rationality of religious belief inspired by On Certainty which he calls ‘quasi-fideism’. Pritchard argues that religious beliefs are just like ordinary non-religious beliefs in presupposing fundamental arational commitments. However, Modesto Gómez-Alonso has recently argued that there are significant differences between the kinds of ‘hinges’ discussed in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and religious beliefs such that we should expect an account of rationality in religion to be quite different to the account of rational practices and their foundations that we find in Wittgenstein’s work. Fundamental religious commitments are, as Wittgenstein said, in the foreground of the religious believer’s life whereas hinge commitments are said to be in the background. People are passionately committed to their religious beliefs but it is not at all clear that people are passionately committed to hinges such as that ‘I have two hands’. I argue here that although there are differences between religious beliefs and many of the hinge-commitments discussed in On Certainty religious beliefs are nonetheless hinge-like. Gómez-Alonso’s criticisms of Pritchard mischaracterise his views and something like Pritchard’s quasi-fideism is the correct account of the rationality of religious belief.

     

When symptom is symbol: some comments on Rosemary Gordon's, ‘Masochism: the shadow side of the archetypal need to venerate and worship’

This paper is a commentary on Rosemary Gordon's paper, ‘Masochism: the shadow side of the archetypal need to venerate and worship’, with a suggestion for an alternative interpretation of masochism as a part of a sado‐masochistic couple. Gordon postulates an archetypal need to venerate and worship that can be hidden in the shadow and distorted in such practices as sexual masochism. Her paper also offers several avenues of exploration for further studies in connection with the phenomenon of masochism, including sexual perversion (‘paraphilia’), chronic psychological victimhood, PTSD and traumatology, religious extremist behaviour such as self‐flagellation, transformation in the individuation process and numinous experience. An extension of her hypothesis to include religious problems of modernity is suggested.     

The ethics of religious giving in Asia: introduction

ABSTRACT

The ethical evaluation of religious giving involves multiple metrics of theological references, everyday ethics, ritual correctness, and materialist self-interest. Understanding how these categories are constantly re-made and experienced in the lives of individuals and the broader history of religious traditions is vital to understandings of the ethics of religious giving. The salience of this ‘value pluralism’ is particularly amplified in contemporary Asian contexts, where complex inter- and intra-religious dynamics, agendas of modernizing reform, state projects of nation building, economic development programs, and various forms of activist mobilization cut across intertwining vectors. It is our goal to describe the ongoing everyday decision-making processes of individuals in diverse contexts in order to contribute both empirically and theoretically to discussions of the ethics of religious giving. In this special issue, we present an interactionist perspective in which the category of ‘the religious’ is dynamically and mutually reconfigured in relation to other salient fields of charity, philanthropy, and humanitarianism.     

Islam offline—living ‘The message’ behind the screens

This article is an ethnographic account of the Social Section of Arabic language Islam Online. It focuses on what Krüger has called the ‘hidden knowledge’ of religious websites. Drawing on longitudinal fieldwork in the Islam Online offices in Cairo, Egypt, this article brings forth and analyzes rich data about Islam Online employees’ work practices and meaning-making activities. Drawing on an organizational ethnographic approach, this article highlights new aspects of this influential Islamic website. More specifically, the author employs Linde’s concept of an ‘institutional narrative’ to conceptualize and analyze the strong institutional identity and corporate values that are in play in everyday work practices. Focusing on key tropes such as ‘the message’, ‘professional’, ‘pluralistic’, and ‘pioneers’, the article demonstrates how Islam Online’s Islamist institutional narrative includes a creation story and set of organizational values that play out in the execution of work tasks. Moreover, the author argues that the objective of the emic concept of “the message” is to contribute to both self- and societal-reform in the Arab world, and that Islam Online’s own work environment represents a micro-cosmos of this ideal.     

The Spaces of Knowledge: Bertrand Russell,Logical Construction,and the Classification of the Sciences

What Russell regarded to be the ‘chief outcome’ of his 1914 Lowell Lectures at Harvard can only be fully appreciated, I argue, if one embeds the outcome back into the ‘classificatory problem’ that many at the time were heavily engaged in. The problem focused on the place and relationships between the newly formed or recently professionalized disciplines such as psychology, Erkenntnistheorie, physics, logic and philosophy. The prime metaphor used in discussions about the classificatory problem by British philosophers was a spatial one, with such motifs as ‘standpoints’, ‘place’ and ‘perspectives’ in the space of knowledge. In fact, Russell’s construction of a perspectival space of six-dimensions was meant precisely to be a timely solution to the widely discussed classificatory problem.