Religious and Theological Journals Online

ABSTRACT

Multiculturalism is less about “the pursuit of recognition,” than about “the pursuit of transformation.” After showing how western theological libraries have been impacted by major western cultural movements such as the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Enlightenment, the author challenges theological librarians to recognize how the experience of western colonialism and imperialism marginalized non-western cultures and believers. The major consequence for theological education and libraries has been to view non-western peoples as “the other,” either hiding their histories or shifting their religious experience to the margins. Sawyer reminds readers that contemporary Christianity is growing fastest “at its old ‘margins’ while diminishing in its historic ‘centers’; therefore, theological librarians must shift their collecting and their collections in response to changing needs and new categories. Otherwise, some collections will become “veritably archival, as use-rates plummet.”     

民族宗教学的创立

民族宗教学是民族学与宗教学的交叉学科,是一门新兴的人文学科,其主轴是研究民族与宗教的互动关系,其核心理念是:"族教和谐,多元互补"。近些年在中央民族大学"985工程"推动下,课题组开展了民族宗教学的学理的系统研究,推出《民族宗教学导论》专著,初步搭建了民族宗教学的理论框架。本文主要围绕着民族宗教学的研究对象、范围、方法、主要概念和理论体系展开论述,从发生学、历史学、社会学、文化学、政治学等多学科角度介绍民族宗教学的基本议题和思路,并阐述中国宗教生态模式。     

Using the Web in Religious Studies Courses

SUMMARY

This article describes various in-class assignments and experiments using Web-based assignments conducted in religious studies courses over the past three years. The author notes both the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet with students. While a number of advantages accrue to teachers, some concerns remain: lack of Web literacy, cost and access for students, copyright considerations, beta-testing course assignments, and grading final results. Nevertheless, students gain practical experience using the Internet, evaluating sources, reading primary source texts, and conducting research for projects. For these reasons the author plans to continue to integrate Web assignments into courses.     

Religious individualisation in historical perspective

Abstract

This article introduces a special issue of Religion which proposes a new, historical and comparative engagement with processes of religious individualisation. Building on the critique of theories of modernisation the proposition is to trace the variety of forms of individualisation as found in various world regions during different time periods. Together with a particular orientation for the study of religion this represents a shift in social theorising. It puts the experiences and activities of individuals centre stage and foregrounds situation, context and contingency. Accentuating interactional and micro-social dimensions, however, does not mean excluding macro- and long-term perspectives. At the centre of attention are constellations in which the individual personality becomes a defining feature for at least certain sections of society. In addition, the approach allows the capturing of paradoxical constellations. In order to secure individuality, individualisation is turned into a norm or even becomes stereotyped. Our approach allows us to address such trends that counter and sometimes block and reverse individualising developments. The special issue of Religion presents examples of a complex research arena that is still evolving. Besides two conceptual papers the special edition covers examples from various phases of Indian and European religious history as well as from the modern period in both regions.     

Focus Introduction: Taking the Measure of Jonathan Edwards for Contemporary Religious Ethics

The Journal of Religious Ethics marks the tercentenary of Edwards's birth with the following collection of essays. In keeping with the overall mission of the journal, this tribute takes the form of historical and constructive reflection, in which diverse perspectives on Edwards's work and diverse forms of engagement with it supplement and correct one another. Our hope is that these essays will serve both to generate interest in Edwards's work among those who are unfamiliar with him, and to advance the discussion of central issues in theological and religious ethics. In this introductory essay, we will offer some reflections on Edwards's general significance for contemporary ethics, followed by a closer examination of his main texts and a brief summary of the essays collected here.     

Religious studies as a modern academic discipline in Korea

This article offers a historical and institutional overview of the discipline of religious studies in Korea. It first reviews four early sources of comparative studies: work by Christian missionaries; by Japanese scholars during the period of colonization by that nation; by nationalist Korean scholars who reacted against colonization; and by Korean Christian theologians. The founding of the Korean Association for the History of Religions (KAHR) in 1969 was a key point in the professionalization of the discipline. The field became more firmly established in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has diversified in recent years with a new generation of often foreign-trained scholars. The article ends with a brief discussion of potential contributions that the discipline could make to current debates of national significance.     

Exercising Research Skills: An Information Literacy Boot Camp for Religious Studies Graduate Assistants

Instructional librarians at the University of Dayton collaborated with a religious studies graduate program to offer a three-day information literacy workshop, or “boot camp,” to the program's graduate research assistants. The graduate program had found that the assistants' research skills did not meet the expectations of their faculty mentors, and the workshop sought to address these deficiencies. With input from the religious studies faculty, the workshop focused on catalog and database searching, Boolean logic, primary sources, and the Chicago citation style. The librarians incorporated active learning exercises into each workshop session. Assessment of the workshop suggested that the assistants gained confidence in these information literacy skills. Feedback from faculty also indicated that the assistants' research skills had improved.     

Working through the Problems of Study Abroad Using the Methodologies of Religious Studies

After illustrating the joys of teaching religious studies abroad with an anecdote from my trip to China, I warn of some of its inherent pedagogical and ethical challenges. I argue that teaching some of the “new directions” in religious studies scholarship might address these challenges. These include a turning away from the abstract (texts, beliefs, theologies) and towards the concrete (bodies, places, rituals); moving away from teaching religions as unchanging, ancient verities and instead emphasizing the impact that colonialism, modernization, and secularism have had; moving from searching for authenticity to questioning it; and emphasizing methodological self‐consciousness. Keeping these new directions in mind will help ensure the study abroad experience is educationally successful. This essay serves as an introduction to a series of six additional essays comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).     

Crossing Streams in the Dark: Religious Pluralism and Theological Education

Examining a presentation made to the Pacific Coast Theological Society in 1939, this essay identifies some of the enduring issues for theological and religious education created by the reality of religious pluralism. Addressing religious pluralism is a dialectic process moving between the two poles of disorienting otherness and analogies based on the already familiar. Both moments are necessary, and neither is final. Education in a religiously plural world requires enabling students to live in a state of uncertainty.     

The study of American religion: looming through the glim

The study of American religion has been expanding to include new perspectives, previously neglected characters, and new geographic insights, driven by critical reflection on the assumptions and ideologies that historically have shaped the field, such as its focus on institutions, doctrines, and texts, its nationalistic westward-expansion historical narrative, and its Protestant biases. The past two decades have seen illuminating work emerge on race and gender, popular culture, class, and the marketplace. But we need to push beyond filling in gaps in the historical record to engage methodological and theoretical concerns in the academic study of religion. Exploring the development of theories of religion in the context of global networks of exchange shaped by 19^th-century seafarers is one example of how Tom Tweed's recent call in this journal for a geographic and temporal expansion of the study of religion in America might raise new questions and perspectives for the field.     

Religious Studies Collections and Information Literacy: A Snapshot of a University Library

Academic library collections are maintained to support programs and research at their home institutions. Information literacy, the formal instruction in the use of library resources, has become one of the essential programs in higher education. There is little research that shows how collection development, information literacy, and religious studies programs can be coordinated to produce successful partnerships. The authors, coordinators of Information Literacy and Collection Development, examined the religion collection, including purchase, usage, and circulation statistics. Information literacy courses in relation to the religious studies program were also investigated. After analyzing this data, the authors identified challenges, as they exist at their home institution, which includes a deficiency in both the religion collection and information literacy classes taught for the religious studies program. The authors conclude that much work is needed to advance successful collaborations between libraries and the religious studies departments, and academic librarians will need to examine their own religion collections to address similar challenges.     

A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity

This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated.     

Filling a data gap: the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) series

Abstract

The last US government survey that collected information on religious identification was in 1957. Since then researchers have relied solely on non-governmental data sources, primarily the General Social Survey. This paper shows how the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) series has deepened understanding of religious identification in the past two decades with its large samples (113?713 in 1990, 50?280 in 2001, and 54?461 in 2008) and its unique open-ended religion question. Giving respondents a chance to name their own religion, if any, allows researchers to identify and study small religious groups, which are placed together under ‘other’ in typical national studies. By using a consistent research methodology, the ARIS surveys form a time-series that enable tracking trends. The paper describes two case studies: how the ARIS series documented the rise of the Nones and how it tracked shifts in religious identification among American Latinos.     

Public, Social, and Individual Perspectives on Religious Education. Voices from the Past and the Present

Inspired by Charles Taylor’s recent quest for the meaning of religion today, this article concentrates on the question of the meaning of religious education (RE) today. The focus is not so much on the ‘what’ but instead more on the ‘where’ (the locus) and the ‘how’ (the function) of RE. The view on what is held to be a pedagogically tenable position regarding RE is build up by methodologically using a differentiated practical–theological three-course model that distinguishes between the public, the social and the private domain. Developments and tendencies within the three domains are shown in respect with religion as such and RE in particular. It is made clear what this may mean for religious educators and philosophers of religious education today, who conceptualize religious education as an impossible possibility. Miedema is full professor of Educational Foundations, Endowed professor of Christian Education in and Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Education, and full professor of Religious Education in the Faculty of Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research is focusing now on pragmatism, history of education, the philosophy of religious education, and early childhood education.     

Religious Homogamy and Marital Satisfaction in South Korea: Exploring Variations across Religious Groups

This study examines whether and how the association between religious homogamy (i.e., whether spouses have the same religious affiliation) and marital satisfaction varies across religious affiliations by utilizing a unique context that four large religious groups (i.e., Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics, and religious nones) coexist in South Korea. Our results show that while religious homogamy has a positive relationship with marital satisfaction among Protestants and Catholics, there is no such association among Buddhists. This study also reveals that higher levels of religious attendance intensify the positive relationship between religious homogamy and marital satisfaction only among Protestants. Moreover, religious heterogamy is positively associated with marital relationships among religious nones compared to religious homogamy. However, this pattern held only for religious nones who married Buddhists or Catholics. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on religion and marriage from cross-cultural perspectives.     

Religious Service Attendance and Religious and Secular Organizational Engagement in the United Kingdom

The study uses nationally representative data to examine whether the moral freighting Putnam and Campbell (2010) propose, based on American experiences, may apply to overall British society. Specifically, it tests whether religious service attendance increases religious or secular organizational activities, possibly due to moral freighting that encourages religious congregants to practice their faith, transcending ego boundaries and self-interest. It is also necessary to determine if engagement in religious or secular organizational activities elevates the degree of religious service attendance, thus forming a bidirectional association. The study employs the maximum likelihood-structural equation modeling (ML-SEM) method to verify the proposed reciprocity. The empirical tests confirm that a synergistic reciprocal relationship is established between religious service attendance and religious organizational engagement, and that religious service attendance increases secular organizational engagement. However, secular organizational engagement does not make a bidirectional contribution to religious service attendance.     

Local Religious Subcultures and Generalized Social Trust in the United States

Using multilevel analyses of 21,193 General Social Survey respondents nested within 256 metropolitan areas and counties, we find that individuals’ willingness to trust others is strongly related to the denominational make‐up of geographic areas. The percent of evangelical Protestants in the population negatively predicts individual‐level generalized trust, while percent mainline Protestant and percent Catholic positively predict trust. The effect sizes of these results are large and robust to statistical controls, and they hold even among nonmembers of the religious groups; for instance, “percent evangelical” predicts lower trust even among nonevangelicals. Black Protestant population share initially appears to predict lower trust, but the association disappears after adjusting for racial residential segregation. Following a longstanding theoretical tradition in the sociology of religion, we argue that the religious characteristics of places—not just individuals—shape local subcultures in ways that affect a broad range of behaviors, attitudes, and values such as generalized trust.     

Religious Involvement and Health Over Time: Predictive Effects in a National Sample of African Americans

In this study, two telephone interviews that assessed both religious involvement and health‐related quality of life were conducted approximately 2.5 years apart in a national sample of 290 African Americans. Religious involvement was assessed with an instrument that measured both personal religious beliefs (e.g., having a personal relationship with God) and more public religious behaviors (e.g., attending church services). Health‐related quality of life was measured with version 2 of the Medical Outcomes Study 12‐item short form (SF‐12v2). Structural equation models indicated that higher religious beliefs at baseline predicted better physical and mental health 2.5 years later. Higher religious behaviors at baseline contributed smaller, complementary suppression effects. Physical and mental health indicators from the SF‐12v2 at baseline did not predict changes in either religious beliefs or religious behaviors over time. These findings indicate that, for African Americans, personal religious beliefs lead to beneficial health effects over time, whereas individual differences in health do not appear to predict changes in religious involvement.     

Storytelling in Liberal Religious Advocacy

Previous research suggests liberal religious advocates often find it necessary to use broadly accessible technical or moral language to communicate with policymakers and public audiences, yet this conformity to secular speech norms diminishes the distinctiveness of their religious voices. Communicating through storytelling offers them one way of overcoming this dilemma. This is demonstrated by examining liberal religious advocacy during recent healthcare reform debates in the United States, using data from interviews and public communications by advocates. By embedding stories within religiopolitical performances that highlight their religious identities, advocates convey policy‐relevant information without relying on explicitly religious language that may be inaccessible or unpersuasive to diverse audiences. They also deploy storytelling strategically, bearing witness to injustices experienced firsthand, secondhand, from the pews, and from the past, depending on the context. These findings have implications for ongoing debates about religious citizens’ capacity to communicate across lines of difference in the public sphere.