New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, critical, and historical approaches

New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, critical, and historical approaches
Author: Peter Antes
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783110176988

Internationally recognized scholars from many parts of the world provide a critical survey of recent developments and achievements in the global field of religious studies. The work follows in the footsteps of two former publications: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Jacques Waardenburg (1973), and Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (1984/85). New Approaches to the Study of Religion completes the survey of the comparative study of religion in the twentieth century by focussing on the past two decades. Many of the chapters, however, are also pathbreaking and point the way to future approaches.

Acts of Faith

Acts of Faith
Author: Rodney Stark
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2000-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520924347

Finally, social scientists have begun to attempt to understand religious behavior rather than to discredit it as irrational, ignorant, or foolish—and Rodney Stark and Roger Finke have played a major role in this new approach. Acknowledging that science cannot assess the supernatural side of religion (and therefore should not claim to do so), Stark and Finke analyze the observable, human side of faith. In clear and engaging prose, the authors combine explicit theorizing with animated discussions as they move from considering the religiousness of individuals to the dynamics of religious groups and then to the religious workings of entire societies as religious groups contend for support. The result is a comprehensive new paradigm for the social-scientific study of religion.

Handmaidens of the Lord

Handmaidens of the Lord
Author: Elaine J. Lawless
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2015-08-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1512803839

Includes life histories of four women preachers, transcriptions of sermons, and analysis by Lawless of both life stories and sermons.

Winged Faith

Winged Faith
Author: Tulasi Srinivas
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231149336

The Sathya Sai global civil religious movement incorporates Hindu and Muslim practices, Buddhist, Christian, and Zoroastrian influences, and "New Age"-style rituals and beliefs. Shri Sathya Sai Baba, its charismatic and controversial leader, attracts several million adherents from various national, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. In a dynamic account of the Sathya Sai movement's explosive growth, Winged Faith argues for a rethinking of globalization and the politics of identity in a religiously plural world. This study considers a new kind of cosmopolitanism located in an alternate understanding of difference and contestation. It considers how acts of "sacred spectating" and illusion, "moral stakeholding" and the problems of community are debated and experienced. A thrilling study of a transcultural and transurban phenomenon that questions narratives of self and being, circuits of sacred mobility, and the politics of affect, Winged Faith suggests new methods for discussing religion in a globalizing world and introduces readers to an easily critiqued yet not fully understood community.

God's Peculiar People

God's Peculiar People
Author: Elaine J. Lawless
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813184169

"Holy Rollers"—with this epithet most people dismiss members of the Pentecostal sect as wild religious fanatics. In this new study, folklorist Elaine Lawless draws on fieldwork among Pentecostal congregations in the limestone region of southern Indiana to offer a sympathetic view of the Pentecostals as a special group distinguished by their own folk traditions and religious expression. From her findings she describes the members' codes of dress and behavior, their attitudes toward themselves and others, their special use of words, and their distinctive religious practices. Focusing on the activity of a particular church, she then analyzes the structure of the service and shows how its elements—singing, praying, testifying, preaching, and speaking in tongues—exhibit, not a formless display of fervor, but rather an ordered and traditional sequence that creates a unique religious expression. Important to the study is the attention given the role of women. Although the Pentecostal interpretation of Biblical teachings accords men dominance, women occasionally preach in the church and during the testifying part of the service they are often able to exercise control and religious authority. Many of the women have relatives in the dangerous work of the limestone quarries, and for these women the personal experience and close relationship fostered by the Pentecostal church, Lawless finds, offers welcome emotional support. This readable study affords a new understanding of one Pentecostal sect and an appreciation of the role of women in fundamentalist religious practices.

Man in Adaptation

Man in Adaptation
Author: Yehudi A. Cohen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351507516

How do specific activities and institutions in which people are involved fit into the overall adaptive strategy of their society? What are the particular pressures leading to change in each of these spheres when the group's strategy of adaptation changes? What are the human demands made by a hunting-gathering strategy that lead to the development of particular family systems, modes of social control, religious beliefs and practices, values and ideologies, and personality structures? What are the new human demands that lead to the reorganization of these aspects of life as the group moves from one level of development to another? Man in Adaptation: The Institutional Framework introduces the institutional, psychological, and ideological dimensions of the strategies of adaptation that have characterized human societies from the earliest known forms of social life to the present. Cohen includes topics that are of principal anthropological concern—notably marriage, law and social control, religion and magic, value systems, personality, and art. There are no studies that deal with cultural change as such in this book. Where possible, Cohen includes articles that deal with changes in particular spheres of activity, such as family organization, law, religion, and value systems. He argues that change is not a special situation. Instead, culture is change and change is culture, and it is unrealistic to study change outside the specific social and technological organization of a given society. This volume unifies the subject matter of anthropology within a single and powerful explanatory framework and incorporates the work of the most renowned anthropological experts on man.

Across The Boundaries Of Belief

Across The Boundaries Of Belief
Author: Morton Klass
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2018-02-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429971117

This book focuses on anthropological questions and methods, and is offered as a supplement to textbooks on the anthropology of religion. It is designed to help students collecting and interpreting their own fieldwork or archival data and relating their findings to the work of others.