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With greater focus on and attention to national context, this chapter compares the political impact of Christian and Islamic communities in three countries: religiously diverse Nigeria, predominantly Muslim Senegal, and predominantly Christian Uganda. The chapter finds little evidence to support the assertion that Christianity and Islam are less supportive of a liberal democratic political culture in Nigeria than in Senegal and Uganda. In fact, he finds that religious observance has a more positive impact on key liberal democratic actions and attitudes in Nigeria than in Senegal and Uganda. This chapter analyzes survey data collected in all three countries in 2006–2007. Before describing the survey and presenting the findings, the religious demography of each country is discussed, as well as ways that demography appears to affect the political theologies promoted by religious leaders and the impact that religious communities have on the prospects for liberal democracy.

This chapter discusses the developments that have occurred within the Modern Orthodox community. What had been a stringency in religious observance peculiar to the right in 1960, such as the augmented shi'urim (minimal requisite quantities), had become, in the 1990s, a widespread practice in Modern Orthodox circles, and, among their younger members, an axiomatic one. The phenomena were, indeed, most advanced among the haredim and were to be found there in a more intensive form; however, most of these developments swiftly manifested themselves among their co-religionists to their left. The chapter claims that what had changed radically was the very texture of religious life and the entire religious atmosphere. Put differently, the nature of contemporary spirituality had undergone a transformation. The chapter then looks at the new and controlling role that texts now play in contemporary religious life. As the halakhah is a sweepingly comprehensive regula of daily life, it constitutes a way of life. And a way of life is not learned but rather absorbed.

Chapter 4 seeks to determine whether there is any relationship between involvement in religious communities and components of a liberal democratic political culture, such as political engagement, support for democracy, and respect for basic freedoms, such as freedom of speech and association. The chapter analyzes Afrobarometer survey data, collected from eighteen countries in 2008, with the intention of discerning the effects of religious observance on the political actions and attitudes of individual Christians and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. While the results reported are based on data collected at one particular point in time, they do provide cross-national evidence that, at that point in time, religious-group activity and frequency of contact with religious leaders was having a more positive impact on voting and support for democracy among Christians and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa’s religiously diverse countries than in the region’s religiously homogeneous countries.

This chapter examines the relationship between religiously motivated mobility and the exchange of knowledge and information, using quantitative models and social network analysis. It argues that pilgrimage to participate in cult at Rome was yet another lever by which the mid-Republican res publica bootstrapped itself into statehood. The burnishing of Rome's credentials as a destination for pilgrimage followed closely on the heels of the cresting popularity of a specific brand of religious observance in mid-Republican central Italy, the healing cults that “formed a religious infrastructure that transcended political boundaries.” Although the interaction between premodern state formation and intercultural pilgrimage has surfaced on the radar of scholars working in other periods and regions, few studies of the middle Republic grant much space or recognition to this cultural process. However, mid-Republican Rome was not unlike other imperial cities in its reliance on monumentality to elicit and sustain waves of pilgrimage. The chapter then identifies where in the material record these waves can be detected and their impact gauged.

This concluding chapter offers a two-part assessment of the book's major findings, first through an examination of one of the institutional religious procedures that arose from the repetitive patterning of those collective commitments surveyed in the previous chapters, and second through the formulation of one final model that attempts to visualize the cumulative force of religious practice on the design and experience of civic time. It begins with the institutional procedure: prodigy expiation. The chapter then illustrates two key dimensions of the middle Republic's timescapes that bear directly on the understanding of Roman state formation during the fourth and third centuries. The first is that religious practice must be mentioned in the same breath as political engagement in any study of what held the res publica together. The second proposition is about method, and about quantitative methods in particular. Systematic quantification is a great boon to those seeking to study the interrelation of religious observance and state formation, and in particular those who are seeking to build bridges between otherwise isolated or (artificially) partitioned bodies of evidence.

This chapter examines the relationship between prisoners' identities, both ‘indigenous’ and ‘imported’, and their impact on prisoner solidarity and social relations in Rochester and Maidstone prisons. Based on interviews with British white, black, Asian, mixed race and foreign national prisoners, the chapter examines their variable investment in ethnic, religious, national and cultural identities, and how they assist survival during their incarceration. Using case studies, interviews, observational fieldnotes, and biographical reflections, the chapter considers the way in which ethnic identities are reconstituted within the confines of the prison, operating in ways which are negotiated and strategic. Black cultural symbols and practices have become influential in prison social relations, but are nevertheless constrained by relations of power within the prison and outside it. The tensions and compromises involved in engaging with and negotiating ethnic difference within the emotionally fraught prison in what Amin (2002) calls ‘prosaic encounters’ — during association, exercise, and at the servery hatch, for example — reveal a ‘multicultural conviviality’ (Gilroy 2004) but also wary, unstable, racialized social relations.

This chapter examines the importance of the Protestant Faith and Church and of the Orange Order to UUP members. Whilst overwhelmingly Protestant, the UUP has always rejected the overtly fundamentalist, Free Presbyterian brand with which the DUP was associated for many years. The chapter analyses whether the Church of Ireland or Presbyterian Church provide most UUP members. The chapter then discusses the religiously conservative attitudes of members, assessing the extent of support for, or opposition to, the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion, currently still prohibited (other than in exceptional cases for abortion) in Northern Ireland. The extent to which members offer support for ‘mixed’ (Protestant–Catholic) marriages and for unfettered marching rights for the Orange Order, will also be examined. Are older members, politically socialized in an era of fraternal Orange–UUP relations, still more sympathetic to the Orange Order? The survey data allow direct comparisons with the DUP.

This chapter underscores Columbus's religious side, which must have influenced the role of religious activity at La Isabela. In fact, the events at La Isabela were conditioned by the inextricably connected concerns of religion, defense, and personal honor. Archaeological and architectural evidence suggests, for example, that the church was one of the first and most hastily constructed public buildings in the town, probably owing to the perceived urgency of having a sanctuary in which to hold Mass. Nearly all of La Isabela's chroniclers made note of the first Mass in America, but little is mentioned after that about religious observances in the town. Presumably the daily, weekly, and annual rounds of Catholic Mass, Holy Communion, confession, and prayers were maintained, at least initially.

Maria Maddalena’s vesting as a nun at the convent of S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence was typical of any of the women who entered there, but her death in 1607 was met by an exceptional level of devotional interest. Maria Maddalena’s reputation rested on the many mystical experiences she claimed whilst in the convent, claims that in other circumstances might have drawn sceptical attention from the ecclesiastical authorities. This chapter explores how the nuns of her convent and their confessors discerned their divine origins, arguing that the speed with which they were embraced by people immediately around Maria Maddalena and the convent setting were central to her acceptance. The chapter also considers Maria Maddalena’s identity within her convent community as a voice for religious observance that bears some similarity with the reform ideas of Teresa of Avila.

This chapter studies João Pinto Delgado, the most important literary talent to have emerged from the Marrano background. In common with the other Marrano poets, Pinto Delgado looks frequently to the Bible for his themes: there is an evident attraction in those stories which demonstrate the power of God to effect salvation in times of Israel’s sorrow, as in the case of Esther and the Exodus narrative, both of which Pinto Delgado deals with (Poema de la Reina Ester and Canción). His poetic paraphrase of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (Lamentaciones del profeta Jeremías) expounds the tragedies of Israel’s history, while presenting the view that she is responsible for her travail through having failed to adhere to the Law. This reflects a theme seen elsewhere of the guilt felt by the Marrano regarding the inadequacy of his religious observance (Jewish, that is) while under Christian guise—a guilt which is explored in the unpublished “Autobiographical Poems.” Together with the Lamentaciones, these poems also express the poet’s notion of the Inquisition as God’s instrument for bringing the Marranos back to Judaism by awakening them to their racial and religious origins. In La Historia de Rut, one sees both the theme of the Law and its observance and that of Jewish identity elaborated.

This chapter describes the relationship between Hasidism and the halakhah. In so far as Hasidism is strongly influenced by kabbalah, the relationship of this movement to the halakhah resembles very closely that of the Lurianic kabbalists. But Hasidism also developed its own halakhic way and certain Hasidic practices came to have at least a quasi-halakhic status for the Hasidim. In spite of the strong element of quietism in early Hasidism — its emphasis on spontaneity in religious observance, and its suspicion of excessive scrupulousness — rules and regulations nevertheless developed as to how the Hasid is expected to conduct his life. The truth of the matter is that considerable tensions are present in Hasidism between the need for an ever-fresh response and the demands of the halakhah, which the Hasidim, as faithful Jews, are bound to obey. It is also true that Hasidism, like other movements of revolt against the established order, eventually fostered its own orthodoxies.

This chapter presents the text and translation of Cicero's Verrines II, Book 1. This is Cicero's second speech against Caius Verres concerning the urban praetorship. Cicero accuses Verres of being 'guilty in the extreme' of 'mindless criminality', saying that Verres 'has committed many unholy and unspeakable acts against both gods and men'. He condemns Verres' 'punishments of Roman citizens, some of whom he beheaded, some killed in chains, some raised on a cross even while they invoked their rights as free men and citizens', as well as Verres' 'violation of the sanctity and religious observances of all holy places and shrines'. Cicero also accuses Verres of taking money illegally and that in his quaestorship, he misappropriated public funds.

This chapter explores Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi’s childhood and the path she trod to the convent of S. Maria degli Angeli. It argues that Maria Maddalena’s vocation and spirituality were a product of her family, even though they seem to have intended her to marry. Her early years were marked by an interest in prayer that was nurtured by the piety of her mother and aunt and by the Jesuits with whom they were closely associated. Her decision to join S. Maria degli Angeli was a momentous one, for her and for the convent. Her choice reflected the particular spiritual identity of a convent committed to religious observance and one that boasted connections with devotees of Girolamo Savonarola interested in religious renewal.

This chapter examines secularization. Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, there has no longer been only one form of Christianity: a choice has to be made between Protestantism and Catholicism. But more important is the development, from the eighteenth century onward, of what is commonly called secularization. The term actually refers to two different phenomena, which may or may not coincide. The first form of secularization is based on a legal and constitutional concept: the autonomy of the political sphere, leading either to the separation of the state from religious institutions, or to the political takeover of the religious sphere. The second form of secularization is sociological in nature: it denotes the decline in religious observance and the disappearance of religion as the focus of social and cultural life. This is what is called dechristianization in Europe. However, the decline in religious practice across Europe does not necessarily make references to religious identity irrelevant. That people no longer believe in God does not mean society is no longer Christian in its values, such as respect for human dignity, and its institutions.

For roughly two decades after 1945, Catholicism in the United States did indeed look exceptional when compared with most of Western Europe. Rates of mass attendance were high and an increasingly well-educated Catholic population gave strong voluntary support to institutional separatism. But by 1965, signs of what soon became an inexorable decline in religious observance and communal loyalty were evident. If American Catholics can no longer be regarded as ‘exceptional’ when compared with their Western European counterparts, however, they live in a national culture where religion still functions in ways not found in other developed nations. Why Catholic decline occurred in the United States and why, despite that decline, the religious contours of American life are still markedly distinctive are the twin subjects of this chapter.

This chapter first shows how the increasingly lavish cultural and recreational provision in Britain helped accelerate the decline in religious observance from the 1960s: the new facilities generated competing priorities and values. It then discusses how the schools system continued to expand without realizing the high hopes of the post-war generation, or of the progressive reformers who created the comprehensive school ideal in the 1950s. These schools therefore became central to party-political controversy after 1970, whereas the independent schools not only survived but flourished. The third section focuses on the same picture of rapid growth combined with doubts and controversy in universities. The fourth section deals with the reception to the extraordinary growth and diversification of culture and recreation. The final section considers the widely discussed fears of ‘dumbing down’.

This chapter examines Isaac Mayer Wise’s grand aim of building up a visible edifice of American Judaism. The edifice would need appropriate theological foundations, and Wise wrote explicitly in that field. These writings responded to practical needs also: his two weekly newspapers had appetites which had to be satisfied. Constant reading gave him access to a vast corpus of literature, and he had an energetic mind which could draw on it immediately in reaction to events as they arose. Under such conditions consistency is not to be expected, and it is difficult to isolate a well-rounded statement of beliefs. One consistent thread, his stress on Sinaitic revelation and his belief that Mosaic teaching was being consummated in the American system, has already been mentioned. Here was no isolated off-the-cuff observation but a glimpse of a thread that was expressed throughout his life.

This chapter argues that deciphering the humor of Jews living under the Soviet Russian regime allows for a nuanced understanding of Russian Jewish identity in the Soviet and post-Soviet era. The chapter examines the transformation of the content of Soviet Jewish jokes from the 1920s through the 1930s, 1940s, and into the postwar period, which reflects the transformation of Jewish culture from Yiddish- and religion-based into one that was grounded in Russian and reactive to the antisemitism of the late Soviet period. Jokes that survived in the communal memory of Russian Jews tell stories of balancing, navigating bureaucracy, making hard choices, and overcoming difficulties. In retelling these tales, Russian Jews note the continuing relevance of their past experiences. Moreover, these jokes, and the values they express, offer insights into the evolving post-Soviet Jewish identity and culture in which religious observance, broadly defined, is secondary and cultural affiliation is primary. In that sense, the Jewish jokes “born” in the Soviet state hold a key to the culture and identity of the post-Soviet Russian-speaking Jewish diaspora.