E. Burke Rochford Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195177299
- eISBN:
- 9780199785537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195177299.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter considers a number of questions and issues central to leadership and organization within new religions. Four key issues are explored: the social and historical context in which new ...
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This chapter considers a number of questions and issues central to leadership and organization within new religions. Four key issues are explored: the social and historical context in which new religions have emerged; the distinctiveness of new religious organizations and how they differ from other religious collectivities; the role and fate of charismatic leadership; and the factors that influence the success, failure, and overall development of new religious movements. Attention is given to new religions as oppositional cultures and how the emergence of family life has altered both their pattern of social organization and relationship to mainstream society. A series of class exercises and research-based projects are included to aid teachers and students.Less
This chapter considers a number of questions and issues central to leadership and organization within new religions. Four key issues are explored: the social and historical context in which new religions have emerged; the distinctiveness of new religious organizations and how they differ from other religious collectivities; the role and fate of charismatic leadership; and the factors that influence the success, failure, and overall development of new religious movements. Attention is given to new religions as oppositional cultures and how the emergence of family life has altered both their pattern of social organization and relationship to mainstream society. A series of class exercises and research-based projects are included to aid teachers and students.
Jerome P. Baggett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195326956
- eISBN:
- 9780199870301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326956.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter assesses the meaning of culture and its place in shaping people's sense of what is sacred to them. Religious culture is construed as available to individuals to an unprecedented degree; ...
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This chapter assesses the meaning of culture and its place in shaping people's sense of what is sacred to them. Religious culture is construed as available to individuals to an unprecedented degree; appropriated by them as their needs require; and allocated to them through the distinct parish cultures in which they participate.Less
This chapter assesses the meaning of culture and its place in shaping people's sense of what is sacred to them. Religious culture is construed as available to individuals to an unprecedented degree; appropriated by them as their needs require; and allocated to them through the distinct parish cultures in which they participate.
Paul J. Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195125771
- eISBN:
- 9780199853335
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195125771.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
What social conditions and intellectual practices are necessary in order for religious cultures to flourish? This book finds the answer in “religious reading” — the kind of reading in which a ...
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What social conditions and intellectual practices are necessary in order for religious cultures to flourish? This book finds the answer in “religious reading” — the kind of reading in which a religious believer allows his mind to be furnished and his heart instructed by a sacred text, understood in the light of an authoritative tradition. It favorably contrasts the practices and pedagogies of traditional religious cultures with those of our own fragmented and secularized culture and insists that religious reading should be preserved.Less
What social conditions and intellectual practices are necessary in order for religious cultures to flourish? This book finds the answer in “religious reading” — the kind of reading in which a religious believer allows his mind to be furnished and his heart instructed by a sacred text, understood in the light of an authoritative tradition. It favorably contrasts the practices and pedagogies of traditional religious cultures with those of our own fragmented and secularized culture and insists that religious reading should be preserved.
Jerome P. Baggett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195326956
- eISBN:
- 9780199870301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326956.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter reflects on an inherent paradox of religious traditions. Characterized by both stasis and flux, traditions conserve cultural meanings for new generations of people who, in reinterpreting ...
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This chapter reflects on an inherent paradox of religious traditions. Characterized by both stasis and flux, traditions conserve cultural meanings for new generations of people who, in reinterpreting these as novel situations require, ultimately alter those very meanings. To comprehend this is to grasp more fully the perennial and dynamic nature of religious faith. This pushes us to acknowledge two additional points. The first is that the analytical categories we frequently utilize in investigating religious traditions must also adapt if we are truly to do justice to tradition's paradoxical character. The second point is that the ending of one iteration of a religious tradition is often tantamount to the beginning of another.Less
This chapter reflects on an inherent paradox of religious traditions. Characterized by both stasis and flux, traditions conserve cultural meanings for new generations of people who, in reinterpreting these as novel situations require, ultimately alter those very meanings. To comprehend this is to grasp more fully the perennial and dynamic nature of religious faith. This pushes us to acknowledge two additional points. The first is that the analytical categories we frequently utilize in investigating religious traditions must also adapt if we are truly to do justice to tradition's paradoxical character. The second point is that the ending of one iteration of a religious tradition is often tantamount to the beginning of another.
Jerome P. Baggett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195326956
- eISBN:
- 9780199870301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326956.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter shows that Catholics' personally tailored projects of identity construction are both highly localized and communal in nature. They also complicate one of the most broadly accepted master ...
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This chapter shows that Catholics' personally tailored projects of identity construction are both highly localized and communal in nature. They also complicate one of the most broadly accepted master narratives of contemporary social analysis: the inexorable decline of community that it is presumed accompanies the transformation from traditional to individualistic, modern societies.Less
This chapter shows that Catholics' personally tailored projects of identity construction are both highly localized and communal in nature. They also complicate one of the most broadly accepted master narratives of contemporary social analysis: the inexorable decline of community that it is presumed accompanies the transformation from traditional to individualistic, modern societies.
Lewis V. Baldwin
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195380316
- eISBN:
- 9780199869299
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380316.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Martin Luther King, Jr.s upbringing in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1930s and ’40s is treated, with some focus on how “the Ebenezer tradition” and the larger African ...
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Martin Luther King, Jr.s upbringing in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1930s and ’40s is treated, with some focus on how “the Ebenezer tradition” and the larger African American church culture in Atlanta and the South impacted his growing understanding of and vision for the Christian church as a whole, from his childhood to his adult years. As the son and grandson of Ebenezer pastors and of pious women who were an active presence in that congregation for generations, King is pictured as one who always attached great significance to the church and church-related concerns. His early sense of the church as “a second home,” as extended family, as the fountainhead of culture, as a refuge, as educational center, as custodian of a deep and vital spirituality, and as a benchmark for congregational activism is underscored. The chapter concludes with attention to King’s struggle to negotiate the boundaries between the Christian fundamentalism to which he was exposed at Ebenezer and the theological liberalism he studied as a student at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University.Less
Martin Luther King, Jr.s upbringing in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1930s and ’40s is treated, with some focus on how “the Ebenezer tradition” and the larger African American church culture in Atlanta and the South impacted his growing understanding of and vision for the Christian church as a whole, from his childhood to his adult years. As the son and grandson of Ebenezer pastors and of pious women who were an active presence in that congregation for generations, King is pictured as one who always attached great significance to the church and church-related concerns. His early sense of the church as “a second home,” as extended family, as the fountainhead of culture, as a refuge, as educational center, as custodian of a deep and vital spirituality, and as a benchmark for congregational activism is underscored. The chapter concludes with attention to King’s struggle to negotiate the boundaries between the Christian fundamentalism to which he was exposed at Ebenezer and the theological liberalism he studied as a student at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University.
Jerome P. Baggett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195326956
- eISBN:
- 9780199870301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326956.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter shows that parishioners are unaware of the ways their parish cultures often delimit the role the church's social justice teachings might otherwise play in influencing Catholics' sense of ...
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This chapter shows that parishioners are unaware of the ways their parish cultures often delimit the role the church's social justice teachings might otherwise play in influencing Catholics' sense of obligation and contributions to civil society.Less
This chapter shows that parishioners are unaware of the ways their parish cultures often delimit the role the church's social justice teachings might otherwise play in influencing Catholics' sense of obligation and contributions to civil society.
David J. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195329537
- eISBN:
- 9780199870134
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329537.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Reforming Saints explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Reforming Saints shows that, contrary to ...
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Reforming Saints explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Reforming Saints shows that, contrary to scholarly presumptions, there was a resurgence in the composition of saints’ lives in the half centuries on either side of 1500 and that German humanists were among the most active authors and editors of these texts. A goal of Reforming Saints is therefore to shed light on the intersection of a kind of writer (the humanist) and a kind of literature (hagiography) at a defining moment for both. Reforming Saints argues for evaluating this abundant, if overlooked and misunderstood literature on its own terms and against an approach that would denigrate it for not meeting standards drawn from Erasmus or Luther. By exploring salient themes in the humanists’ hagiographical writings and relating them to the general religious culture of the era, Reforming Saints discovers the unexpected yet coherent extent of humanist engagement in the cult of the saints and exposes the strategic ways that these authors made writings about the saints into a literature for religious and cultural reforms that German humanists promoted through much else of their activity. Writing saints’ lives provided these Renaissance scholars a way to investigate Germany's medieval past, to reconstruct and exalt its greatness, and to advocate programs of religious and cultural reform. Reforming Saints proposes that these German humanists thus showed themselves to be much like their Italian contemporaries, many of whom were engaged in similar projects. Moreover, these compositions provided later authors, polemicists, and philologists in Catholic Europe – from Counter‐Reformation preachers in Switzerland to seventeenth‐century Bollandists in Brussels – a legacy to draw from and use for different purposes by the end of the sixteenth century.Less
Reforming Saints explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Reforming Saints shows that, contrary to scholarly presumptions, there was a resurgence in the composition of saints’ lives in the half centuries on either side of 1500 and that German humanists were among the most active authors and editors of these texts. A goal of Reforming Saints is therefore to shed light on the intersection of a kind of writer (the humanist) and a kind of literature (hagiography) at a defining moment for both. Reforming Saints argues for evaluating this abundant, if overlooked and misunderstood literature on its own terms and against an approach that would denigrate it for not meeting standards drawn from Erasmus or Luther. By exploring salient themes in the humanists’ hagiographical writings and relating them to the general religious culture of the era, Reforming Saints discovers the unexpected yet coherent extent of humanist engagement in the cult of the saints and exposes the strategic ways that these authors made writings about the saints into a literature for religious and cultural reforms that German humanists promoted through much else of their activity. Writing saints’ lives provided these Renaissance scholars a way to investigate Germany's medieval past, to reconstruct and exalt its greatness, and to advocate programs of religious and cultural reform. Reforming Saints proposes that these German humanists thus showed themselves to be much like their Italian contemporaries, many of whom were engaged in similar projects. Moreover, these compositions provided later authors, polemicists, and philologists in Catholic Europe – from Counter‐Reformation preachers in Switzerland to seventeenth‐century Bollandists in Brussels – a legacy to draw from and use for different purposes by the end of the sixteenth century.
Matthew Butler
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262986
- eISBN:
- 9780191734656
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262986.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the divergent forms of religious culture and parish life which characterised the region of Michoacán, Mexico in the 1920s. It explains that the despite the best efforts to ...
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This chapter explores the divergent forms of religious culture and parish life which characterised the region of Michoacán, Mexico in the 1920s. It explains that the despite the best efforts to revolutionary priest-baiters, the Church exercised an omnipresent influence in 1920s Michoacán and the landscape was everywhere dotted with roadside crosses, church towers, and village sanctuaries. By the mid-1920s, Michoacán was not simply a divided political constituency but a mosaic of mutable parish identities which were based on varying degrees of religious participation, distinct popular attitudes to the sacraments and varying relationships to the parish clergy.Less
This chapter explores the divergent forms of religious culture and parish life which characterised the region of Michoacán, Mexico in the 1920s. It explains that the despite the best efforts to revolutionary priest-baiters, the Church exercised an omnipresent influence in 1920s Michoacán and the landscape was everywhere dotted with roadside crosses, church towers, and village sanctuaries. By the mid-1920s, Michoacán was not simply a divided political constituency but a mosaic of mutable parish identities which were based on varying degrees of religious participation, distinct popular attitudes to the sacraments and varying relationships to the parish clergy.
Christian Smith
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195371796
- eISBN:
- 9780199870899
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371796.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter analyzes National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) interview data in order to identify key themes in American emerging adult religious culture. What are the cultural assumptions, ...
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This chapter analyzes National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) interview data in order to identify key themes in American emerging adult religious culture. What are the cultural assumptions, beliefs, expectations, and concerns of emerging adults when it comes to religious faith and practice? The chapter elaborates and illustrates a number of illuminating emerging adult cultural structures concerning religion and spirituality that help to explain the character and bearings of emerging adults' religious and spiritual lives.Less
This chapter analyzes National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) interview data in order to identify key themes in American emerging adult religious culture. What are the cultural assumptions, beliefs, expectations, and concerns of emerging adults when it comes to religious faith and practice? The chapter elaborates and illustrates a number of illuminating emerging adult cultural structures concerning religion and spirituality that help to explain the character and bearings of emerging adults' religious and spiritual lives.
HUGH M. THOMAS
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199251230
- eISBN:
- 9780191719134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251230.003.0022
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
Castles and cathedrals are important heritage sites in England and Britain, with the Tower of London, the origins of which date to William the Conqueror's attempts to secure the Norman conquest, as a ...
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Castles and cathedrals are important heritage sites in England and Britain, with the Tower of London, the origins of which date to William the Conqueror's attempts to secure the Norman conquest, as a prime example. In general, past cultural achievements are celebrated as important sources for national identity. At the same time, the continuing production of high culture is considered important to national pride. This chapter examines whether cultural achievements played a similar role in English or Norman pride and identity after the Norman conquest. First, it provides a brief and necessarily oversimplified account of the cultural interaction between English and Normans in several important cultural arenas. The Anglo-Norman period was a crucial one not only for the emergence of high culture, but also of religious culture.Less
Castles and cathedrals are important heritage sites in England and Britain, with the Tower of London, the origins of which date to William the Conqueror's attempts to secure the Norman conquest, as a prime example. In general, past cultural achievements are celebrated as important sources for national identity. At the same time, the continuing production of high culture is considered important to national pride. This chapter examines whether cultural achievements played a similar role in English or Norman pride and identity after the Norman conquest. First, it provides a brief and necessarily oversimplified account of the cultural interaction between English and Normans in several important cultural arenas. The Anglo-Norman period was a crucial one not only for the emergence of high culture, but also of religious culture.
Matthew S. Hedstrom
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195374490
- eISBN:
- 9780199979141
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374490.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The Religious Book Club, founded in 1927, was a major institution of religious middlebrow culture through the middle decades of the twentieth century. It exemplified the importance of book clubs to ...
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The Religious Book Club, founded in 1927, was a major institution of religious middlebrow culture through the middle decades of the twentieth century. It exemplified the importance of book clubs to the wider middlebrow culture, and illustrates the reading and consuming practices that shaped encounters with religious books in this period. In addition to book clubs, a variety of reading programs based on book lists, such as the Hazen Books in Religion series, and the lists produced by the Religious Books Round Table of the American Library Association, brought religious middlebrow reading practices to the American middle class. Religious middlebrow culture most specifically introduced readers to forms of liberal religion rooted in psychology and mysticism, and thereby shaped middle class spirituality for decades to come.Less
The Religious Book Club, founded in 1927, was a major institution of religious middlebrow culture through the middle decades of the twentieth century. It exemplified the importance of book clubs to the wider middlebrow culture, and illustrates the reading and consuming practices that shaped encounters with religious books in this period. In addition to book clubs, a variety of reading programs based on book lists, such as the Hazen Books in Religion series, and the lists produced by the Religious Books Round Table of the American Library Association, brought religious middlebrow reading practices to the American middle class. Religious middlebrow culture most specifically introduced readers to forms of liberal religion rooted in psychology and mysticism, and thereby shaped middle class spirituality for decades to come.
Matthew Butler
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262986
- eISBN:
- 9780191734656
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262986.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the Cristero Revolt in Michoacán, Mexico from 1926 to 1929. It traces the origin of the revolt from the President Plutarco Elías ...
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This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the Cristero Revolt in Michoacán, Mexico from 1926 to 1929. It traces the origin of the revolt from the President Plutarco Elías Calles' strict enforcement of the anticlerical provisions of Mexico's 1917 revolutionary constitution. It contends that though popular religious cultures in Michoacán were socially constructed, it did not follow that they were empty, merely instrumental, constructs. It argues that popular groups in the 1920s created multi-layered identities and reshaped not only their political ideas but also their religious beliefs and practices as they alternatively accommodated or resisted the post-revolutionary state.Less
This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the Cristero Revolt in Michoacán, Mexico from 1926 to 1929. It traces the origin of the revolt from the President Plutarco Elías Calles' strict enforcement of the anticlerical provisions of Mexico's 1917 revolutionary constitution. It contends that though popular religious cultures in Michoacán were socially constructed, it did not follow that they were empty, merely instrumental, constructs. It argues that popular groups in the 1920s created multi-layered identities and reshaped not only their political ideas but also their religious beliefs and practices as they alternatively accommodated or resisted the post-revolutionary state.
David Smilde
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199938629
- eISBN:
- 9780199980758
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199938629.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores the issue of cultural autonomy as it relates to our portrayals of religion. First, it looks at the recent move toward a more robust view of religion and culture. Then it ...
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This chapter explores the issue of cultural autonomy as it relates to our portrayals of religion. First, it looks at the recent move toward a more robust view of religion and culture. Then it considers at some of the critiques of the idea of cultural autonomy that have taken place over the last few decades. Finally, it reviews some alternatives for understanding the causal impact of religious culture.Less
This chapter explores the issue of cultural autonomy as it relates to our portrayals of religion. First, it looks at the recent move toward a more robust view of religion and culture. Then it considers at some of the critiques of the idea of cultural autonomy that have taken place over the last few decades. Finally, it reviews some alternatives for understanding the causal impact of religious culture.
Peter Marshall
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198207733
- eISBN:
- 9780191716812
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207733.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
One of the most important aspects of the Reformation in England was its impact on the status of the dead. Protestant reformers insisted vehemently that between heaven and hell there was no ‘middle ...
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One of the most important aspects of the Reformation in England was its impact on the status of the dead. Protestant reformers insisted vehemently that between heaven and hell there was no ‘middle place’ of purgatory where the souls of the departed could be assisted by the prayers of the living. This was no remote theological proposition, but a revolutionary doctrine affecting the lives of all 16th-century English people, and the ways in which their Church and society were organised. This book illuminates the (sometimes ambivalent) attitudes towards the dead in pre-Reformation religious culture, and traces (up to about 1630) the uncertain progress of the ‘reformation of the dead’ attempted by Protestant authorities as they sought to stamp out traditional rituals and provide the replacements acceptable in an increasingly fragmented religious world. It provides surveys of perceptions of the afterlife, of the cultural meanings of ghosts, and of the patterns of commemoration and memory which became characteristic of post-Reformation England. Together these topics constitute an important case-study in the nature and tempo of the English Reformation as an agent of social and cultural transformation.Less
One of the most important aspects of the Reformation in England was its impact on the status of the dead. Protestant reformers insisted vehemently that between heaven and hell there was no ‘middle place’ of purgatory where the souls of the departed could be assisted by the prayers of the living. This was no remote theological proposition, but a revolutionary doctrine affecting the lives of all 16th-century English people, and the ways in which their Church and society were organised. This book illuminates the (sometimes ambivalent) attitudes towards the dead in pre-Reformation religious culture, and traces (up to about 1630) the uncertain progress of the ‘reformation of the dead’ attempted by Protestant authorities as they sought to stamp out traditional rituals and provide the replacements acceptable in an increasingly fragmented religious world. It provides surveys of perceptions of the afterlife, of the cultural meanings of ghosts, and of the patterns of commemoration and memory which became characteristic of post-Reformation England. Together these topics constitute an important case-study in the nature and tempo of the English Reformation as an agent of social and cultural transformation.
Alexandra Walsham
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208877
- eISBN:
- 9780191678172
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208877.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, History of Religion
The chapter focuses on the history of a crude providentialism in which suffering and misfortune are simplistically equated with immorality and sin. It emphasizes on the encyclopedias of providential ...
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The chapter focuses on the history of a crude providentialism in which suffering and misfortune are simplistically equated with immorality and sin. It emphasizes on the encyclopedias of providential punishments inflicted upon shameless sinners. The tales of God's judgements recounted in blackletter ballads and pamphlets intermingled gratuitous circumstantial detail with stern spiritual admonition. The theory of sudden deaths and providential punishments as ‘God's judgement’ is exemplified through cautionary tales reported in cheap print and recounted in judgement books. Reformation doctrine and practical divinity stimulated providentialism of late medieval religious culture. The inexorability of supernatural justice was deeply embedded in oral tradition in early modern England.Less
The chapter focuses on the history of a crude providentialism in which suffering and misfortune are simplistically equated with immorality and sin. It emphasizes on the encyclopedias of providential punishments inflicted upon shameless sinners. The tales of God's judgements recounted in blackletter ballads and pamphlets intermingled gratuitous circumstantial detail with stern spiritual admonition. The theory of sudden deaths and providential punishments as ‘God's judgement’ is exemplified through cautionary tales reported in cheap print and recounted in judgement books. Reformation doctrine and practical divinity stimulated providentialism of late medieval religious culture. The inexorability of supernatural justice was deeply embedded in oral tradition in early modern England.
Matthew S. Hedstrom
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195374490
- eISBN:
- 9780199979141
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374490.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The conclusion opens with the story of Frank Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines who became a noted mystic, bestselling author, and most famously, a hugely influential global promoter ...
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The conclusion opens with the story of Frank Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines who became a noted mystic, bestselling author, and most famously, a hugely influential global promoter of literacy. Laubach's story illustrates many of the most important trends in liberal Protestantism in the twentieth century, especially the way its evangelistic energies became sublimated into social reform. But Laubach's story also reflects significant changes in American spirituality in the twentieth century, changes that undergirded the “cultural victory” of liberal religion. As a bestselling author on prayer and mysticism, he shows how religious reading and consuming became critical components of the lived religion of countless ordinary Americans. The conclusion considers the implications of reading as a religious practice for the field of religious studies. Laubach's encounter with Islam as a missionary, which prompted both a spiritual crisis and his shift from evangelism to literacy work, underscores another key facet of religious liberalism in the twentieth century: the spiritual and the ethical implications of religious cosmopolitanism. The conclusion then relates these mid-century developments to the wider religious environment of the 1960s and beyond, including the re-emergence of a more politically oriented evangelicalism and the increasing diversity of American religious life.Less
The conclusion opens with the story of Frank Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines who became a noted mystic, bestselling author, and most famously, a hugely influential global promoter of literacy. Laubach's story illustrates many of the most important trends in liberal Protestantism in the twentieth century, especially the way its evangelistic energies became sublimated into social reform. But Laubach's story also reflects significant changes in American spirituality in the twentieth century, changes that undergirded the “cultural victory” of liberal religion. As a bestselling author on prayer and mysticism, he shows how religious reading and consuming became critical components of the lived religion of countless ordinary Americans. The conclusion considers the implications of reading as a religious practice for the field of religious studies. Laubach's encounter with Islam as a missionary, which prompted both a spiritual crisis and his shift from evangelism to literacy work, underscores another key facet of religious liberalism in the twentieth century: the spiritual and the ethical implications of religious cosmopolitanism. The conclusion then relates these mid-century developments to the wider religious environment of the 1960s and beyond, including the re-emergence of a more politically oriented evangelicalism and the increasing diversity of American religious life.
Michael Walzer
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195103311
- eISBN:
- 9780199854585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195103311.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter offers a brief account of the forms of liberalism that have historically been most attractive to the Jews. Liberal politics is characterized by two sets of commitments: first, to ...
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This chapter offers a brief account of the forms of liberalism that have historically been most attractive to the Jews. Liberal politics is characterized by two sets of commitments: first, to individual freedom, civil liberty, religious toleration, and a pluralist society; second, to social justice, the welfare state, and the idea of mutuality or solidarity that, however attenuated in the modern world, underlies welfarist commitments. The relevant liberalism is that of the New Deal and the Great Society. In theoretical terms, it is the liberalism of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey. It is strongly individualist but not libertarian. Most Jews have supported commitments to both liberty and justice for a long time. Historically, the religious culture of the Jews is no more a liberal culture than is that of Catholics, say, or Muslims. However, liberalism as one knows it today is among the Jews, a product of emancipation—or, more precisely, of emancipation in exile.Less
This chapter offers a brief account of the forms of liberalism that have historically been most attractive to the Jews. Liberal politics is characterized by two sets of commitments: first, to individual freedom, civil liberty, religious toleration, and a pluralist society; second, to social justice, the welfare state, and the idea of mutuality or solidarity that, however attenuated in the modern world, underlies welfarist commitments. The relevant liberalism is that of the New Deal and the Great Society. In theoretical terms, it is the liberalism of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey. It is strongly individualist but not libertarian. Most Jews have supported commitments to both liberty and justice for a long time. Historically, the religious culture of the Jews is no more a liberal culture than is that of Catholics, say, or Muslims. However, liberalism as one knows it today is among the Jews, a product of emancipation—or, more precisely, of emancipation in exile.
John Clifford Holt
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833275
- eISBN:
- 9780824869991
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833275.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book contributes to the understanding of religious culture in Laos and Southeast Asia. This book brings this nation into focus. With its overview of Lao Buddhism and analysis of how shifting ...
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This book contributes to the understanding of religious culture in Laos and Southeast Asia. This book brings this nation into focus. With its overview of Lao Buddhism and analysis of how shifting political power has impacted Lao religious culture, the book offers an integrated account of the entwined political and religious history of Laos from the fourteenth century to the contemporary era. The book advances the argument that common Lao knowledge of important aspects of Theravada Buddhist thought and practice has been heavily conditioned by an indigenous religious culture dominated by the veneration of phi, spirits whose powers are thought to prevail over and within specific social and geographical domains. The enduring influence of traditional spirit cults in Lao culture and society has brought about major changes in how the figure of the Buddha and the powers associated with Buddhist temples and reliquaries have been understood by the Lao. Despite vigorous attempts by Buddhist royalty, French rationalists, and most recently by communist ideologues to eliminate the worship of phi, spirit cults have not been displaced; they continue to persist and show no signs of abating. Not only have the spirits resisted eradication, but they have withstood synthesis, subordination, and transformation by Buddhist political and ecclesiastical powers. Rather than reduce Buddhist religious culture to a set of simple commonalities, the book takes a comparative approach to elucidate what is unique about Lao Buddhism.Less
This book contributes to the understanding of religious culture in Laos and Southeast Asia. This book brings this nation into focus. With its overview of Lao Buddhism and analysis of how shifting political power has impacted Lao religious culture, the book offers an integrated account of the entwined political and religious history of Laos from the fourteenth century to the contemporary era. The book advances the argument that common Lao knowledge of important aspects of Theravada Buddhist thought and practice has been heavily conditioned by an indigenous religious culture dominated by the veneration of phi, spirits whose powers are thought to prevail over and within specific social and geographical domains. The enduring influence of traditional spirit cults in Lao culture and society has brought about major changes in how the figure of the Buddha and the powers associated with Buddhist temples and reliquaries have been understood by the Lao. Despite vigorous attempts by Buddhist royalty, French rationalists, and most recently by communist ideologues to eliminate the worship of phi, spirit cults have not been displaced; they continue to persist and show no signs of abating. Not only have the spirits resisted eradication, but they have withstood synthesis, subordination, and transformation by Buddhist political and ecclesiastical powers. Rather than reduce Buddhist religious culture to a set of simple commonalities, the book takes a comparative approach to elucidate what is unique about Lao Buddhism.
Richard von Glahn
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520234086
- eISBN:
- 9780520928770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520234086.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Chinese religion, past and present, has functioned above all as a means of invoking supernatural powers to gain some measure of control over one's mortal existence. Although historians of Chinese ...
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Chinese religion, past and present, has functioned above all as a means of invoking supernatural powers to gain some measure of control over one's mortal existence. Although historians of Chinese religion have devoted considerable attention to the origin and development of cults centered on individual gods, less attention has been paid to the demonic aspect of the supernatural realm. This book explores the remarkable history of the cult of Wutong within the larger context of China's evolving religious culture. It argues that Chinese religious culture throughout its history has manifested two fundamental orientations: eudaemonistic regimes of propitiation and exorcism that regulated relationships between the human and spirit worlds; and an abiding belief in a moral equilibrium inhering in the cosmos itself (though frequently mediated through the agency of divine powers). Demons and demonic forces were cardinal features of these two basic orientations. The history of the Wutong cult and the development of Wutong into a god of wealth provide a unique perspective on popular conceptions of the nexus between money and social relations.Less
Chinese religion, past and present, has functioned above all as a means of invoking supernatural powers to gain some measure of control over one's mortal existence. Although historians of Chinese religion have devoted considerable attention to the origin and development of cults centered on individual gods, less attention has been paid to the demonic aspect of the supernatural realm. This book explores the remarkable history of the cult of Wutong within the larger context of China's evolving religious culture. It argues that Chinese religious culture throughout its history has manifested two fundamental orientations: eudaemonistic regimes of propitiation and exorcism that regulated relationships between the human and spirit worlds; and an abiding belief in a moral equilibrium inhering in the cosmos itself (though frequently mediated through the agency of divine powers). Demons and demonic forces were cardinal features of these two basic orientations. The history of the Wutong cult and the development of Wutong into a god of wealth provide a unique perspective on popular conceptions of the nexus between money and social relations.
