Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

"Ako je došao silom, on ne ostaje": narativi o konverziji u neoprotestantskim zajednicama // "If he came by force, he would not stay": narratives on conversion in Romanian neo-Protestant communities

by Aleksandra Djurić-Milovanović

Interkulturalnost, no. 3, 2012

What is Wrong With Pagan Studies?

by Markus Altena Davidsen

”What is Wrong with Pagan Studies?, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 24(2), 183-199.

Review of Pizza Murphy & James Lewis (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, in the series Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion 2, Leiden & Boston: Brill.

Published May 2012.

Theses de magia

by Marco Pasi

Published in: Societas Magica Newsletter, 20 (Fall 2008), pp. 1-8.

Latour, Prepositions and the Instauration of Secularism

by Anna Strhan

published in Political Theology, Vol. 13, No.2, 2012

Bruno Latour’s understanding of different modes of existence as given through prepositions offers a new approach to... more Bruno Latour’s understanding of different modes of existence as given through prepositions offers a new approach to researching “secularism,” taking forward attention paid in recent scholarship to its historically contingent formation by bringing into clearer focus the dynamics of its relational and material mediations. Examining the contemporary instauration of secularism in conservative evangelical experience, I show how this approach offers a new orientation to studying secularism that allows attention to both its history and its material effects on practice. This shows how Latour’s speculative realism extends and provides a bridge between both discursive analysis of religion and secularism and the recent turn towards materiality in empirical study of religion.

Introduction: Anthropology, History, and the Remaking of Jewish Studies

by Marina Rustow

co-authored with Ra'anan Boustan and Oren Kosansky in Boustan, Kosansky, and Rustow (eds.), Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History: Authority, Diaspora, Tradition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 1–28

Major Paper - Barth’s Doctrine of the Trinity and Theological Method

by Dean Marco Funk

FRANK WHALING (Ed.), Theory and Method in Religious Studies. Contemporary Approaches to the Study of ReligionBerlin and New York: Walter de …

by Abdulkader Tayob

Enemy Brothers: Gary Lease and the Scholarship of Religion

by Nathan Rein

Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 21/2 (2009): 197-212

Gary Lease, a controversial figure in the study of religion, was best known throughout his long career for his... more Gary Lease, a controversial figure in the study of religion, was best known throughout his long career for his uncompromising antipathy towards theologically and phenomenologically-oriented approaches to the field. Lease developed his analytic perspective on religion around a set of broad, global assumptions about human nature, the mind, and society. These assumptions lie at the root of those provocative positions which have come to characterize Lease's work. This paper argues that those assumptions, which center primarily on his understanding of human thought as sharply and inescapably limited by biological, cognitive, and historical constraints, form the basis for a distinctive and robust framework for the study of religion. This framework posits, among other things, a fundamentally agonistic relationship between the religion and the study of religion.

LTNHS

by Historically Digitized

located in the island of Boracay, Yapak, Ilig-iligan, Philippines

The Lamberto Tirol National High School The Lamberto Tirol National High School

The Shaping of New Testament Narrative and Salvation Teachings by Painful Childhood Experience

by Benjamin Abelow

Archive for the Psychology of Religion 33 (2011) 1-54

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This article considers the influence of childhood corporal punishment, abandonment, and neglect on the development and... more This article considers the influence of childhood corporal punishment, abandonment, and neglect on the development and reception of seminal New Testament teachings. Two related but distinct propositions are argued. First, that widespread patterns of painful childhood experience provided a thematic template that deeply shaped the New Testament during its formative period. Second, that this thematic shaping has contributed, on an individual level, to subjective experiences of faith and, on a cultural level, to the initial spread and subsequent persistence of Christianity. The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on religious texts, historical evidence about the treatment of children, and several areas of psychology. The article ends with an exploratory excursus intended to stimulate thought about possible childhood influences in non-Christian religions and myths; the traditions considered are Judaism and Islam, the religious-philosophic system of karmic reincarnation that is foundational to Hinduism and Buddhism, and a Greek mythic text associated with the historically important Eleusinian mystery religion.

Do our notions of transcendence in a definition of religion meet the philosophical requirement for intelligibility?

by Jonathan Tuckett

My undergraduate dissertation.

In this paper I look at the notions of transcendence used in three definitions of religion and ask whether they meet... more In this paper I look at the notions of transcendence used in three definitions of religion and ask whether they meet the philosophical requirement for intelligibility. I argue that each definition employs a different model of transcendence and then apply them to the case study of two schools of orthodox philosophy in Hinduism to see if similar models of transcendence are present. If the models used by the definitions and the models found in the case study match up then the definition(s) will meet the requirement of intelligibility.

Definitions and the Domino Effect: Religious Violence, Islamophobia, and Tariq Ramadan

by Emma Sturgeon

Undergraduate Journal of Religious Studies Vol 1, Spring 2011 (2011): 180-193. University of Ottawa, Ottawa ON.

The Participative Self: An Enquiry into the merits and limits of a Theological and Postmodern Anthropology

by Graeme Fancourt

This is my doctoral thesis, so if you think it reads like an exam paper, that's because...
In many ways have tried to too much with too little space, but the three main concerns in the paper are:
What is this thing called the 'Emerging Church', and what does it think it is up to?
Can postmodern and theological discourses really be considered as suitable dialogue partners?
Can Practical theology, drawing on both academic and practical resources, deal with proper theological questions (in this case, theological anthropology)?

Christianity Becomes Unfamiliar

by Devaka Premawardhana

Harvard Divinity Bulletin 39:1-2 (2011): 29-34

My aim in this essay is to raise some critical questions of the emerging field of “world Christianity” by describing... more My aim in this essay is to raise some critical questions of the emerging field of “world Christianity” by describing it against key debates in the study of world religions during the past half century. The place of Christianity in those debates must be reassessed in light of what observers refer to as a historic shift, away from Europe and the United States, in Christianity's center of gravity. Contemporary world Christianities relate to world religions and to the study of them differently than the theoretical construct of a singular Western Christianity ever could.

Heathens up North: Politics, Polemics, and Contemporary Norse Paganism in Norway

by Egil Asprem

Published in: Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, Vol 10, No 1 (2008)

The variety of religious positions commonly grouped together under the heading “Neo-Paganism” call for no homogenous... more The variety of religious positions commonly grouped together under the heading “Neo-Paganism” call for no homogenous reading of that phenomenon. As recent research on contemporary forms of paganism has flowered in recent years, emphasis has been given to the nuances and complexities of this kind of new religious currents. For instance it is clear that contemporary pagan currents, such as Wicca, Ásatrú, and Roman paganism, tend to vary significantly between themselves on matters of theology, sociological profile, and political tendencies.
While varieties in the social manifestations of given groups can be partly explained by diverging religious/ideological content, it also holds true that ideological formations will be determined in part by the society in which they emerge. This means that a contemporary pagan current such as “Ásatrú” is not necessarily describable as one single tendency on a global scale, but will unavoidably be shaped by local conditions. Thus varieties within currents will tend to follow national and geographical borders, being always locally situated, and adapted to local political, social, and religious conditions.
This article discusses the emergence and development of contemporary Norse paganism in Norway in light of the abovementioned framework. Special notice is given to the interplay between public discourses on issues such as paganism, the occult, neo-Nazism, and the relationship between the church and state in Norway, and the self-fashioning of reconstructionist Norse pagans. Through a partial comparison with the thoroughly discussed American context of contemporary Norse religion an argument is advanced that Norwegian Ásatrú came to bear certain distinct marks that are due to and only explicable by specific, local cultural conditions.

Does Yahweh Play Dice with the Torah? Or: And Out of His Mouth Went a Fiery Packet of Discrete Energy

by Karl Hand

Bible & Critical Theory 7.1 (2011)

This article raises the question of whether the meaningful interplay between the physical and mental aspects of... more This article raises the question of whether the meaningful interplay between the physical and mental aspects of speaking and writing, and the observer-conditionality of the aspects might be a starting point for overcoming some of the dichotomies of contemporary biblical research including the synchronic diachronic disctinction, and the divergence of historical and theological readings of texts.

ARTICLE: Sacred Violence and the Scholar of Religion as Public Intellectual

by Philip Tite

Religion, Terror, and Violence: Religious Studies Perspectives, edited by Bryan Rennie and Philip L. Tite, pp. 3-10. New York/London: Routledge, 2008.

This essay introduces Religion, Terror, and Violence (edited by Bryan Rennie and Philip L. Tite -- SEE BOOKS). Beyond... more This essay introduces Religion, Terror, and Violence (edited by Bryan Rennie and Philip L. Tite -- SEE BOOKS). Beyond simply setting forth the reason for the project and the papers collected, my introduction touches on some key issues in the field. Specifically (and perhaps most importantly), I engage the question as to what role should a scholar of religion play within public dialogue on, especially, issues of religion and violence. The book includes a series of different answers to this topic (sometimes implicitly set forth in individual chapters). My own contribution is to challenge us to recognize that there are various public spheres within which scholars emerge, speak to, and hold accountability.

ARTICLE: Naming or defining? On the necessity of reduction in religious studies

by Philip Tite

Culture and Religion 5.3 (2004): 339-365.

Although debate continues over the place of reductionist and non-reductionist approaches within the academic study of... more Although debate continues over the place of reductionist and non-reductionist approaches within the academic study of religion, much of the debate falters due to a failure to appreciate the necessity of 'understanding' for the effectiveness of 'explaining' cultural phenomena. This article addresses this very problem, reassessing the role of the insider within a methodological reductionist approach within religious studies. Assessing the delimitation of critical analysis to 'knowable knowledge' construction, teasing out theoretical problems with verification, and recognising the role of data construction in first-order description prior to second-order theorisation, this article will argue that the insider's perspective is indeed an essential aspect of the critical analytical approach. Unlike phenomenological or irreductive approaches, however, the insider's perspective is limited to the stage of data construction ('understanding'). At the secondary level of theorisation, the relative relations bringing together data within an analytical study takes precedence ('explanation'). Thus, within a methodological reductionist approach (distinguished from ontological reductionism), there can be no explanation without understanding.


[Abstract from published article]

ARTICLE: Teaching with faith crisis: a summary of 'On the necessity of crisis'

by Philip Tite

Didache: Faithful Teaching 3.2 (2004): http://nazarene.org/iboe/riie/didache_vol3_2 [Special symposium section on my 2003 article that appeared in Teaching Theology and Religion; responses by Samuel M. Powell, Henry W. Spaulding, and Terry D. Fach.]

As part of a special symposium section on my earlier article "On the Necessity of Crisis: Pedagogical Conflict... more As part of a special symposium section on my earlier article "On the Necessity of Crisis: Pedagogical Conflict and the Academic Study of Religion" (Teaching Theology and Religion, 2003), this article offers a summary discussion of the key points in my earlier article. I advocate the need for recognizing and addresses faith crisis moments in the classroom as a type of cognitive dissonance. Such cognitive dissonance offers moments of learning rather than moments of distraction. The goal of the symposium was to extend the discussion beyond the secular university context of the original article.

ARTICLE: Is There Room for Theory in Religious Studies?

by Philip Tite

ARC: The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University 31 (2003): 1-12. [Editor’s introduction]

As the editor's final introduction to the journal, this article offers a reflection on the author's vision for the... more As the editor's final introduction to the journal, this article offers a reflection on the author's vision for the field of religious studies and the journal's future in particular. Specifically, theory is presented as an essential part of religious studies rather than as a distraction from studying religious phenomena. Methodological reduction is advocated (i.e., levels of (re-)description, theorization, and critique) as well as the continued need for pedagogical discussions along with reflections on the profession.