Theory of Religion

An unhappy lover of theology: Feuerbach and contemporary religious studies

by Jakob De Roover

Published in Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Theses de magia

by Marco Pasi

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

Predicting Atheism: A Test of the Defective Father Hypothesis

by Joseph Langston

Post-hoc controls for age, race, and gender do not render the analysis results significant or substantial.

OBJECTIVE:  To examine relationship between presence/absence of father in childhood or male figure in adolescence... more OBJECTIVE:  To examine relationship between presence/absence of father in childhood or male figure in adolescence and belief/non-belief in God.  Variable of image of God as masculine/feminine was added to assess its potential as a moderator.  Those with absent fathers were hypothesized to evince greater rate of non-belief.

METHODS:  Using secondary data analysis, a path analysis was employed, constituted by two linear regression analyses, to examine data from the 2008 GSS Cross-Section version 2 (N = 2,023).

RESULTS:  Hypothesis was unconfirmed.  No relationships were found to have significance at the .001 level.  Neither linear regression analysis met a .30 threshold for association (LRA 1, R = .09; LRA 2, R = .06) or .001 threshold for significance.  Results were nevertheless generalizable from sample to population due to the large number of cases.

DISCUSSION:  Future research should seek to obtain samples where believers and non-believers are more equally represented.  Inclusion of attachment scales, dynamic religiosity measures, and control and additional variables are recommended.  Results are discussed in light of attachment theory.

Review of THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY ed. Chad Meister (Oxford University Press, 2011)

by Amir Dastmalchian

published in RELIGIOUS STUDIES
2012, vol. 48 (FirstView)
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Hard to Reach Communities: Living in the UK, and Issues Facing British Muslims of Kashmiri Heritage Born & Bred in the UK

by Owais Rajput

In my presentation I will focus on British Muslim Communities living in UK; my main focus will be on the British local... more In my presentation I will focus on British Muslim Communities living in UK; my main focus will be on the British local community with Kashmiri heritage, as most of the time they are labelled in the media as “Home Grown Radicalised” Muslims, even if they are the fourth & fifth generation born & bred in UK.

I will also focus on Processes to Radicalisation in UK, in local communities, again particularly in the Kashmiri community.

I will also focus on design and delivery processes so far used by authorities in de-radicalisation processes and the results so far, and why we need to change those design and delivery processes, especially when we focus on the British Diaspora with Kashmiri heritage, the fourth & fifth generation born & bred in the UK.

Residing in a Liminal Space: Finding a scholarly home at the Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy by Patricia ‘Iolana

by Feminism and Religion

originally published at the Feminism and Religion Project.

For years I was outside of traditional academia.  I can no longer count the times I have heard that my research... more For years I was outside of traditional academia.  I can no longer count the times I have heard that my research and my theories were highly radical and would never find a home or a place of acceptance.  Early in my career, while still in the States, a number of my colleagues tried to convince me to take a traditional theological stance, and join the world of orthodox faith tradition.  What my well-meaning colleagues never considered was that in asking me to alter my way of being, they were asking me to deny myself, my understanding of the Numinous, and negating that there were other people in the world who think and feel as I do.  I would rather cut off my nose to spite my face. Needless to say, I continued on, even though it often meant blazing my own trail off the safe and ‘beaten path.’ I trusted that I was on the right path and that the Divine would lead my way.  In other words, I had faith—loads of it, and in the end it paid off.

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.

Book Review: Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism (Lopez, 2005)

by John Bilodeau

published in Journal of Religion and Culture, 2007

My Review of this Book:

Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. Ed. Donald S. Lopez The University of... more My Review of this Book:

Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. Ed. Donald S. Lopez The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Terms-Study-Buddhism-Modernity/dp/0226493156

Nota sul sacrificio.

by marco pucciarini

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

PRINTING SUGGESTION: the following click sequence will print the article at full page size, allowing for comfortable reading of both text and footnotes: (1.) Download article and open using Adobe Acrobat or Reader; (2.) Click on the ‘File’ menu and choose ‘Print...’; (3.) Set the ‘Page Scaling’ option to ‘Fit to Printable Area’ (or 'Fit to Printer Margins'); (4.) Click on ‘Print'

NOTE TO NON-MEMBERS: If you are not an Academia member, you will not be able to download this article from this page. However, the article is available with unrestricted access at: http://benjaminabelow.com/Writings.html

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.

Communicating Religious Ideologies: Comparative Translations of the "Dao De Jing"

by Augustin Gallion

Notes on vodun imagery in southern Benin. Observing an African religious modernity

by Joël Noret

published in A. Bouttiaux and A. Seiderer (eds), Fetish Modernity, Tervuren, MRAC, 2011, p. 98-103.

Rationality, Choice, and the Religious Economy: The Problem of Belief

by Carl L Bankston

What is the relationship between religion and morality?

by Lawrence Lazarus

" I Saw You Disappear with My Own Eyes": Hidden Transcripts of New York Black Israelite Bricolage

by Jacob Dorman

This became part of Chapter Five of my forthcoming book, "Chosen People: African Americans and the Rise of Black Judaism" (Oxford: 2012).

To date, scholars have tended to view Black Israelites as mercenary, derivative, or imitative. However, this... more To date, scholars have tended to view Black Israelites as mercenary, derivative, or imitative. However, this microhistorical reading of the public, partial, and hidden transcripts of New York Rabbi Wentworth Arthur Matthew’s beliefs and ritual practices demonstrates that Black Israelites did not simply imitate Jews, but rather they were bricoleurs who constructed a polycultural religion that creatively reworked threads from religious faiths, secret societies, and magical grimoires. Matthew’s religious identity was imagined and performed in sidewalk lectures and in Marcus Garvey’s Liberty Hall; it was embodied through Caribbean pageants, and acted out through Garveyite and Masonic parades. Black Israelism was lived through secret Spiritualist and Kabbalistic rituals, and taught openly through Sunday Schools and Masonic affiliates. Finally, it was an identity that was formed and performed in a mixture of Sanctified and Judaic rites. Print culture, performance, and complex social networks were all important to the imagination and realization of this new Israelite religious identity. Recognizing the subversive quality of this bricolage and the complexity of the partial and hidden transcripts belies attempts to exclude esoteric African American new religious movements from the categories of protest religion and black religion. When one combines the study of Black Israelism with similar studies of African American NRM’s of the 1920s, it is possible to appreciate a remarkable wave of overlapping esoteric religious creativity that accompanied the much more famous artistic creativity of the Harlem Renaissance.

Changing Roles of Pentecostal Hermeneutics

by Sam Hey

A Transformative Theory of Religious Freedom: Promoting the Reasons for Rights

by Corey Brettschneider

Political Theory April 2010 vol. 38 no. 2 187-213

Religious freedom is often thought to protect, not only religious practices, but also the underlying religious beliefs... more Religious freedom is often thought to protect, not only religious practices, but also the underlying religious beliefs of citizens. But what should be said about religious beliefs that oppose religious freedom itself or that deny the concept of equal citizenship? The author argues here that such beliefs, while protected against coercive sanction, are rightly subject to attempts at transformation by the state in its expressive capacities. Transformation is entailed by a commitment to publicizing the reasons and principles that justify the basic rights of citizens.

The Burning Saints: Cognition and Culture in the Fire-walking Rituals of the Anastenaria

by Dimitris Xygalatas

forthcoming by Equinox Press, London.

The Burning Saints is an anthropological account of the fascinating tradition of fire-walking rituals performed by the... more The Burning Saints is an anthropological account of the fascinating tradition of fire-walking rituals performed by the communities of the Anastenaria in Northern Greece in honour of Saints Constantine and Helen.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and insights from various disciplines across the humanities and the natural sciences, this book offers a multi-level approach of the Anastenaria. It examines the historical development and sociocultural context of the Greek fire-walking tradition, while at the same time placing it within a wider framework of highly arousing rituals, discussing possible social, psychological and neurobiological factors that may be involved in their performance. Of particular interest is the role of emotional and physiological arousal involved in the performance of such rituals in motivating participation, mediating experience and providing meaning for it.

Muharram in and around Sayyeda Zaynab

by Edith Szanto

Syrian Studies Association Newsletter 13 no. 1 (2007): 4-5.

A Scholar of Popular Contemporary Islam on the Quest for ‘Truth’ in Damascus

by Edith Szanto

Syrian Studies Association Newsletter 13 no. 2 (2008): 8-9, 15.