Re-conceptualising the religious habitus: Reflexivity and embodied subjectivity in global modernity

The utility of the notion of the religious habitus rests on its capacity to illuminate how embodied dispositions emergent from routinised practices come to be socially and culturally significant. This has been called into question, however, by global changes that undermine the societal stability and personal habits on which it is often understood to rely, stimulating instead reflexive engagements with change. After assessing conventional conceptions of the religious habitus vulnerable to such criticism, we utilise the writings of Latour in developing a new understanding of the term. Re-conceptualising the religious habitus as something reflexively re-made or instaured, through the cultivation of a subjectivity that locates human action, feeling and thought at the embodied intersection of worldly and other-worldly realities, we illustrate the value of this approach with reference to contemporary Pentecostalism and Islam.     

Social and religious controls in pre-revolutionary France: The beginnings of modernity

Focusing on social and religious controls enacted by the kehillotof northeastern France in the ancien régime, this articleexamines the dynamics of social change in the century precedingthe Revolution. At the heart of this study is the propositionthat Metz and Alsace represent two distinct frameworks in whichthe encounter of Jewish tradition and modernity can be observed. The sumptuary laws issued by the Metz community in 1690–1697 and in1769 reflect the efforts of an increasingly powerful urban laityto assert its authority over a declining rabbinate. Sumptuarylegislation was used as a tool to freeze the existing socialhierarchy and exclude from the communal power structure a youngergeneration whose wealth was derived from new commercialopportunities. Acknowledging that certain cultural changes werean inevitable consequence of the expanding mercantile economy,lay leaders endeavored to limit conspicuous consumption, curb theinsubordination of youth, and legislate standards of moral andreligious behavior. An analysis of the takkanot ratified by theprovincial assemblies of Alsace in the 1770s reveals severalimportant differences. The Alsatian legislation reflected moretraditional concerns about the influence of the surroundingvillage culture and the potentially harmful impact of modernityon moral and religious life; neither consumption nor classdivisions were mentioned. In rural Alsace, where the social,cultural, and economic milieu differed sharply from Metz, thecommunal leadership was far more aggressive in its efforts tostrengthen rabbinic authority and religious institutions. Thecomparison between the urban and rural settings suggests thatthere is a correlation between economic condition and religious change, and that modernization, at least in its preliminary stage, wasalready underway well before the advent of civic emancipation.     

道家与道教的“理身理国”思想——先秦至唐的历史考察

本文考察了先秦至唐道家和道教“理(治)身理(治)国”思想的发展。道家及道教各派都曾围绕着身理(治)身与理(治)国的关系进行过不同层次的探讨。从“天人合一”原则出发,道家和道教各派不仅将身与国比拟为结构和功能相似的有机系统,而且对于理(治)身与理(治)国的终极基础和实践原则作了深入地剖析。随着语境的变迁,特别是在唐代,原道家语义被转换或开掘出新的内涵,故“理身治国”的实质内涵也在变化。“理身理国”观体现了道家和道教各派对个体生命及其生存状态的深度人文关切。     

Reflexive Communication and the Whole Self

After summarizing Kathleen Wallace’s cumulative network model of the self, this paper explores Wallace’s account of the whole self’s capacity for self-reflection in some detail. Supposing that constituents of the self are capable of interpreting and communicating with one another, how is it possible for the whole self to interpret and communicate with itself and to act on the basis of its self-understandings? The paper suggests that Wallace needs an account of the self’s ability to synthesize the information that interpretative communication furnishes and manage it to reach all-things-considered judgments and decide what to do. The paper sketches such an account and concludes by considering some implications for selfhood of different types of traumatic experience.     

Rational-emotive therapy and the religious client

The religious client presents a particular challenge to the RET therapist in that the irrational beliefs responsible for the client's problems are often created or supported by distortions in the religious belief system. This paper will discuss the connections between religious distortions and the irrational ideas, ways to deal with them, and then present the most common religiously based irrational beliefs along with biblical disputations.Constance Lawrence, M.S., is Director of the Christian Counseling Center in Norwalk, CT, and also has a private practice in Weston, CT.     

American psychology and the religious imagination

In just three generations, American psychology grew from a fledgling science to a culturally authoritative discipline. Standard accounts of psychology's meteoric rise typically omit what most needs to be illuminated: the resonance between psychological theory and the symbolic universe underlying America's popular religious imagination. This article sketches a cultural history of American psychology by examining how many of its core concepts invoke a metaphysical horizon associated with the nation's heritage of unchurched spirituality.     

《道德经》与中国式宗教意识

一般认为中国没有统一的宗教信仰与发达的神学讨论,但是作为中国古代哲学经典之一的《道德经》,却成就了道教。这很