Finnish Women Making Religion

Finnish Women Making Religion
Author: T. Utriainen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2014-07-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 113738347X

Finnish Women Making Religion puts forth the complex intersections that Lutheranism, the most important religious tradition in Finland, has had with other religions as well as with the larger society and politics also internationally.

Lifelong Religion as Habitus

Lifelong Religion as Habitus
Author: Helena Kupari
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2016-08-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900432674X

In this book, Helena Kupari examines the lived religion of Finnish, evacuee Karelian Orthodox women through an innovative reading and application of Pierre Bourdieu’s practice theory. After the Second World War, Finland ceded most of its Karelian territories to the Soviet Union. Over 400,000 Finns, including two thirds of the Finnish Orthodox Christians, lost their homes. This book traces the ways in which the religion of Orthodox women was affected by their displacement and their experiences as members of the Orthodox minority in post-war and contemporary Finland. It contributes to theoretical discussions on lived religion by producing an account of lifelong minority religion as habitus, or an embodied and practical “sense of religion”.

Orthodox Christianity and Gender

Orthodox Christianity and Gender
Author: Helena Kupari
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2019-10-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351329863

The Orthodox Christian tradition has all too often been sidelined in conversations around contemporary religion. Despite being distinct from Protestantism and Catholicism in both theology and practice, it remains an underused setting for academic inquiry into current lived religious practice. This collection, therefore, seeks to redress this imbalance by investigating modern manifestations of Orthodox Christianity through an explicitly gender-sensitive gaze. By addressing attitudes to gender in this context, it fills major gaps in the literature on both religion and gender. Starting with the traditional teachings and discourses around gender in the Orthodox Church, the book moves on to demonstrate the diversity of responses to those narratives that can be found among Orthodox populations in Europe and North America. Using case studies from several countries, with both large and small Orthodox populations, contributors use an interdisciplinary approach to address how gender and religion interact in contexts such as, iconography, conversion, social activism and ecumenical relations, among others. From Greece and Russia to Finland and the USA, this volume sheds new light on the myriad ways in which gender is manifested, performed, and engaged within contemporary Orthodoxy. Furthermore, it also demonstrates that employing the analytical lens of gender enables new insights into Orthodox Christianity as a lived tradition. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of both Religious Studies and Gender Studies.

Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion

Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion
Author: Abby Day
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2022-09-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192866680

Mocked, vilified, blamed, and significantly misunderstood - the 'Baby Boomers' are members of the generation of post-WWII babies who came of age in the 1960s. Parents of the 1940s and 1950s raised their Boomer children to be respectable church-attendees, and yet in some ways demonstrated an ambivalence that permitted their children to spurn religion and eventually to raise their own children to be the least religious generation ever. The Baby Boomers studied here, living in the UK and Canada, were the last generation to have been routinely baptised and taken regularly to mainstream, Anglican churches. So, what went wrong - or, perhaps, right? This study, based on in-depth interviews and compared to other studies and data, is the first to offer a sociological account of the sudden transition from religious parents to non-religious children and grandchildren, focusing exclusively on this generation of ex-Anglican Boomers. Now in their 60s and 70s, the Boomers featured here make sense of their lives and the world they helped create. They discuss how they continue to dis-believe in God yet have an easy relationship with ghosts, and how they did not, as theologians often claim, fall into an immoral self-centred abyss. They forged different practices and sites (whether in 'this world' or 'elsewhere') of meaning, morality, community, and transcendence. They also reveal here the values, practices, and beliefs they transmitted to the future generations, helping shape the non-religious identities of Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.

Materiality and the Study of Religion

Materiality and the Study of Religion
Author: Tim Hutchings
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317067991

Material culture has emerged in recent decades as a significant theoretical concern for the study of religion. This book contributes to and evaluates this material turn, presenting thirteen chapters of new empirical research and theoretical reflection from some of the leading international scholars of material religion. Following a model for material analysis proposed in the first chapter by David Morgan, the contributors trace the life cycle of religious materiality through three phases: the production of religious objects, their classification as religious (or non-religious), and their circulation and use in material culture. The chapters in this volume consider how objects become and cease to be sacred, how materiality can be used to contest access to public space and resources, and how religion is embodied and performed by individuals in their everyday lives. Contributors discuss the significance of the materiality of religion across different religious traditions and diverse geographical regions, paying close attention to gender, age, ethnicity, memory and politics. The volume closes with an afterword by Manuel Vásquez.

Spirit & Mind

Spirit & Mind
Author: Helene Basu
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2017
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3643907079

For more than a century, anthropologists and psychiatrists engage in conversations concerning relationships between embodied well-being and religion. Taking account of shifting meanings of 'religion' in global modernities, the included essays reveal how historically and culturally embedded local encounters between psychiatry, religious experience, and ritual healing contribute to an increasing diversification of 'mental health.' The multitude of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches brought to the field in the global north and the global south introduce novel insights into current debates between clinical practitioners, ethnographic fieldworkers, and historians of psychiatry. (Series: Culture, Religion and Psychiatry, Vol. 1) [Subject: Psychiatry, Religious Studies, Ethnography, Sociology]

On the Legacy of Lutheranism in Finland

On the Legacy of Lutheranism in Finland
Author: Kaius Sinnemäki
Publisher: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2019-12-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9518581509

This volume analyses the societal legacy of Lutheranism in Finland in broad terms. It contributes to the recent renewed interest in the history of religion in Finland and the Nordic countries by bringing together researchers in history, political science, economics, social psychology, education, linguistics, media studies, and theology to examine the mutual relationship between Lutheranism and society in Finland. The two main foci are (i) the historical effects of the Reformation and its aftermath on societal structures and on national identity, values, linguistic culture, education, and the economy, and (ii) the adaptation of the church – and its theology – to changes in the geo-political and sociocultural context. Important sub-themes include nationalism and religion, the secularization and institutionalization of traditional values, multiple Protestant ethics, and long continuities in history. Overall the book argues that large changes in societies cannot be explained via ‘secular’ factors alone, such as economic development or urbanization, but that factors pertaining to religion provide substantial explanatory power for understanding societal change and the resulting societal structures.

New international studies on religions and dialogue in education

New international studies on religions and dialogue in education
Author: Martin Ubani
Publisher: Waxmann Verlag
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2018
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 383098846X

What are the key questions highlighted in religious and spiritual education today? Many global processes such as migration, pluralism and the redefinition of citizenship challenge the traditional notions of borders concerning cultures, states and nationalities, ethnicities and even religions. Consequently, in societies today, the distinction in religions or identities between global and local or inside and outside no longer functions well. As the many borders in our world are becoming again more transparent and cultures blended, there is an increasing and constant need to re-examine the conceptions and theories concerning religion, dialogue and education. This volume brings together 14 new international studies based on selected presentations from the 14th Nordic Conference on Religious Education. The topics of the articles include studies on religion, dialogue and education in different contexts ranging from policy studies and higher education to home education, and research on education about religions to confessional education. The volume serves the interests of researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students of religious and spiritual education.

Contemporary Encounters in Gender and Religion

Contemporary Encounters in Gender and Religion
Author: Lena Gemzöe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2016-11-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3319425986

The fields of gender and religious studies have often been criticized for neglecting to engage with one another, and this volume responds to this dearth of interaction by placing the fields in an intimate dialogue. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach and drawing on feminist scholarship, the book undertakes theoretical and empirical explorations of relational and co-constitutive encounters of gender and religion. Through varied perspectives, the chapters address three interrelated themes: religion as practice, the relationship between religious practice and religion as prescribed by formal religious institutions, and the feminization of religion in Europe.