Response to editorial

This article focuses on the importance of analysing the mainstream post-rave dance scene in the context of studies of the religious significance of electronic dance cultures. Drawing on their own ethnographic research, as well as other recent comparable studies in Britain, the authors argue that the mainstream post-rave dance scene is a ‘secondary institution’ supporting the new social form of religion identified by Luckmann, which emphasises self-realisation and self-expression. The study serves as an invitation to re-consider the definition of ‘religion’ in relation to electronic dance cultures and points to the role of mainstream leisure industries in supporting contemporary secular worldviews.     

Quaker ideology,colonialism and American Indian education

William Penn, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, set out to found a ‘Holy Experiment’ based on Quaker ideals. While he regarded the Native American Indians whose land he purchased as spiritual equals, he still expected them to convert to Christianity and live under British law. Later, Quakers continued to follow this goal, eventually becoming leaders, under President Grant, in the residential school system for Native American Indian children. They supported assimilation, contributing to the destruction of native culture and society, in contradiction to their principles of equality and integrity. This paper explores the process by which Quakers came to feel it necessary to pursue such measures in spite of their egalitarian beliefs.     

Irony,Embodiment, and the ‘critical Attitude’: Engaging Saba Mahmood's Critique of Secular Morality

At the intersection of feminism, postcolonial studies, and religious studies, this essay engages Saba Mahmood's critique of universalistic ethics and post-structural feminism. It contrasts Mahmood's ‘ethical embodiment’ with a concept of ‘ethical irony’, offering examples of the latter from literature (Brecht, Baudelaire) and cultural theory (Carolyn Steedman, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault). Its thesis is that ethical irony signifies modes of critical engagement that are not premised on notions of metaphysical subjectivity or abstract rules, but may nonetheless be cross-culturally translatable. One specific formulation of ethical irony considered concerns the figure of injurable bodies. At once material (bodily) and transcendental (unknown injuries from unknown sources, or the possibility of injury), injurable bodies the irreducibility of ethics to the purely abstract and the purely empirical. Finally, the defence of ethical irony speaks to the viability of upholding what Foucault called the ‘critical attitude’ as a cross-cultural norm.     

Culture,religion, ethnicity and the meaning of work: Jews and Muslims in the Israeli context

The work values of Arabs in general, and of Muslims in particular, have not yet been studied in Israel. This study examines the meaning of work (MOW) of 1201 Jews and 219 Muslims, who work in the Israeli labour market. The findings reveal significant differences in the MOW dimensions and demonstrate different perceptions and internalisation of work values between the two ethno-religious groups. While the Jews have a higher economic and intrinsic orientation and a higher need for interpersonal relations than the Muslims, the Muslims have higher work centrality. The findings attributed to cultural differences, ethnic conflict, occupational discrimination and high degree of segregation.     

‘Bricolage’: reclaiming a conceptual tool

This article provides the genealogy of bricolage and underscores the modifications it has undergone within the sociologies of culture and religion. It draws on the study of three new religious movements that teach unconventional versions of Hinduism and kabbalah, to show that the current understanding of bricolage in the studies of popular culture and religion over-estimates its eclectic and personal nature and neglects its sociocultural logics. It tends to take for granted the availability of cultural resources used in bricolage, and finally it fails to understand the social significance of individualism, overlooking the ways in which norms and power could be expressed through culture in the contemporary world. This article suggests that it would be best reclaiming bricolage's original meaning, prompting questions about the contexts that make certain elements available, social patterns that may organise bricolage, who ‘bricole’, what for, who is empowered, from what and by using whose tradition.     

Wild tribes and ancient Semites: Israelite-Indian identification and the American West

Rabbi Henry Cohen of Galveston, Texas, carefully preserved a 1916 pamphlet that claimed a common history for ‘Wild Tribes’ of Indians and Jews of antiquity. Why would a Jewish author tie the customs of ‘uncivilised’ tribes to his own religion, and why might it capture Cohen's attention? This article suggests that the ‘Indian-Israelite’ identification appealed to acculturated Jews like Cohen as part of a wider embrace of a vision of manhood that at once held ties to Jewishness and American identity. That is, identification with the American West and frontier emphasised the harmony between Jewishness, a particular type of enlightened Judaism, and Americanisation. A brief survey of three movements – the relatively small-scale Galveston Movement, Jewish agricultural communities and the larger, more diverse Zionist movement – then demonstrates how the gendered and nationalist ideologies of Henry Cohen and other acculturated Jews like him aligned with their imagined constructions of Indians.     

The future of religion: Intersections of Rorty,Vattimo and Zabala

The following work builds and expands on a number of critical themes that were raised and discussed in a colloquy initiated by Santiago Zabala on the topic ‘the future of religion’ (which carries the title of the published version) with the American philosopher Richard Rorty and Italian political activist Gianni Vattimo. But, on top of the essay's principal aim, a re-appropriation of the critical voices of Nietzsche and Heidegger is all the more necessary to begin with: both are known to have pioneered an examination of the progress of humanity following the death of God, an expression that strikes a broader reference to religion. This essay continues from Rorty's assessment of ‘the weakening and/or death of ontology’, in the post-modern age. (Vattimo would translate this Rortyian position into a ‘philosophical slide into sociology’ or the ‘turn to social sciences,’ while Zabala would set out as far as denying the God of monotheism [and its corollary in organised faith and ecclesiastical authority] of its pre-eminent place among the highest ‘goals of knowledge’). But, notwithstanding an otherwise valid criticism of religion in the light of his deconstructive notion of Being, this essay also hopes to spell out, on the contrary even, that Rorty must have missed the point in conflating religion with ontology or, God with Being in view of which his concept of weak ontology that is derived from the death of God (hence the death of ontology) is quickly drawn. Indeed, there is still Being; though it may still resist definition, as Heidegger underscored rather sardonically in the opening pages of his celebrated work Being and Time, it is no longer the other name for God. As this essay also aims to promote, Being is an expression of the private transcendental or rather an exercise in nihilism that is at the core of religion.     

Reading religion back into Terrorist Assemblages: Author's response

In this author's response, Jasbir Puar furthers the conversation between her book Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007. Durham, NC: Duke University Press) and contemporary trends in theories of the theological, religious and secular. It begins with a consideration of the ‘viral’ travels of ‘homonationalism,’ a term that has moved across many geographies and political terrains since its coining. The response then focuses on three aspects of Terrorist Assemblages and the engagement it provoked. First, it traces the the relays between racialisation and religion, particularly vis-a-vis the charge of fundamentalism. Second, the neat opposition between religion and sexuality (particularly when the latter expresses as queer) is troubled through different theories of how exceptionalism has worked historically and continues to constitute investments in certain democratic fantasies of secularism. Finally, the piece concludes by broadening the preceding conversation to a theoretical scope at the very level of identity, particularly how assemblage theory works through intersectionality to relocate critiques of the normative.     

Religiously or spiritually-motivated forgiveness and subsequent health and well-being among young adults: An outcome-wide analysis

ABSTRACT

This study performs an outcome-wide analysis to prospectively examine the associations of forgiveness (including forgiveness of others, self-forgiveness and divine forgiveness) with a range of psychosocial, mental, behavioral and physical health outcomes. Data from the Nurses’ Health Study II and the Growing Up Today Study (Ns ranged from 5,246 to 6,994, depending on forgiveness type and outcome) with 3 or 6 years of follow-up were analyzed using generalized estimating equations. Bonferroni correction was used to correct for multiple testing. All models controlled for sociodemographic characteristics, prior religious service attendance, prior maternal attachment and prior values of the outcome variables. All forgiveness measures were positively associated with all psychosocial well-being outcomes, and inversely associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms. There was little association between forgiveness and behavioral or physical health outcomes. Forgiveness may be understood as a good itself, and may also lead to better psychosocial well-being and mental health.     

Authentic happiness theory supported by impact of religion on life satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis with data for Germany

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey, this paper assesses the relationship between life satisfaction and religious practice. It is shown that individuals who become more religious over time record long term gains in life satisfaction, while those who become less religious record long term losses. This result holds net of the effects of personality traits, and also in fixed effects panel models. The paper has significant implications for the current paradigm theory in SWB research, namely set-point theory. This theory holds that the long term SWB of adult individuals is stable, because SWB depends on personality traits and other stable genetic factors. New evidence in this paper about the effects of consciously chosen life goals, including religious ones, on SWB is hard to reconcile with set-point theory. It is more in line with authentic happiness theory.