Religion and Society

This book analyzes media coverage of major news stories in which religion is a major component and recounts how journalist often miss, or misunderstand, these stories because they do not take religion seriously, or misunderstand religion when they do take it seriously. Since religion is a major and growing factor in human affairs throughout the world and, hence in major news stories, including those stories often mislabeled “secular,” if reporters do not take it seriously or understand it, then they will be poorer reporters. To the extent that journalists do not grasp events’ religious dimensions, both global and local, they are hindered from, and sometimes incapable of, describing what is happening in the world around us. The book contains six case studies that each describe an important event, issue, trend, problem, or situation, seek to show the centrality of religion to the story, then outline how journalists actually covered it, and how they often got it wrong. The two concluding chapters focus on ways, both conceptual and practical, of improving coverage.

This book offers an exploration of Arab/Israeli peace partnerships: unlikely friendships created among people who have long been divided by bitter resentments, deep suspicions, and violent sorrows. The book shows how the careful examination of their inner spiritual lives has enabled Jewish and Arab individuals to form peace partnerships, and that these partnerships may someday lead to peaceful coexistence. The peacemakers in this book have no formal experience in conflict resolution or diplomacy. Instead, through trial and error, they have devised their own methods of reaching out across enemy lines. The obstacles they face are unimaginable, the pressure from both sides to desist is constant, and the guilt-ridden thoughts of betrayal are pervasive and intense. Peace partners have found themselves deserted by their closest friends, family members, and neighbors. This book tells their stories—stories not of saints, but of singular people who overcame seemingly unbeatable odds in their dedication to work toward peace with their estranged neighbors. The book provides insightful analysis of the lessons to be learned from these peacebuilders, outlining the characteristics that make them successful. It argues that lasting conflict and misery between enemies is the result of an emotional, cognitive, and ethical failure to self-examine, and that the true transformation of a troubled society is brought about by the spiritual introspection of extraordinary, determined individuals.

Bringing the Sacred Down to Earth celebrates the merits of carefully contextualized comparison as an illuminating approach to the study of religion. Drawing from ethnographical work in several sites over a period of sixteen years, Dempsey juxtaposes Hindu and Christian, Indian and Euroamerican religious expressions that take shape as folklore figures, democratizing theologies, sanctified terrain, and extraordinary human abilities. She uncovers how these expressions, all of which lend sacred meaning and power to the material realities of religious participants, push against systems promoting otherworldly abstractions. The book’s comparison of these religious modes deepens insights into the qualities and interpretations of the earthbound sacred, sheds light on contours otherwise obscured, and suggests possibilities for bridging human contingencies across religious and cultural divides. The method and structure of this book represent a two-tiered rebuttal to two similarly constructed critiques. A complaint commonly lodged against comparison is that it imposes abstractions that erase culturally embedded realities. Critics of religion view religious systems as likewise imposing spiritualized conceptions that neglect earthly realities. As both sets of critics see it, scholarly comparison and religion, dictated from above, easily lend themselves to imperialistic structures of oppression. Unsurprisingly, as frameworks that name and claim varieties of power, both are often guilty as charged. Yet by comparing contextually across religious and cultural divides, this book demonstrates how practitioners variously engage with religious forms and experiences that meet earthly concerns and dismantle oppressive abstractions in the process.

This book assesses the tempestuous impact and reception history of the Book of Mormon, produced by Joseph Smith in 1830, and the primary scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints. Givens describes the book's role as a divine testament of the Last Days and as a sacred sign of Joseph Smith's status as a modern‐day prophet. He reviews its claims to be a history of the pre‐Columbian peopling of the Western Hemisphere, first by a small Old World group in the era of Babel, and later by Israelites from Jerusalem in the age of Jeremiah. Givens explores how the Book of Mormon has been defined as a cultural product of early nineteenth‐century America, and also investigates its status as a new American Bible or Fifth Gospel, displacing, supporting, or—in some views—perverting the canonical Word of God. Givens also probes the Book's shifting relationship to Mormon doctrine and its changing reputation among theologians and scholars. Finally, in exploring the Book of Mormon's “revelatory appeal,” Givens finds the key to the Book's role as the engine behind what may become the next world religion. The Book of Mormon describes and enacts a model of revelation that Givens calls “dialogic.” Ultimately, Givens argues, the Book of Mormon has exerted its influence primarily by virtue of what it points to, represents, and claims to be, rather than by virtue of any particular content.

Catholic high schools in the United States have been undergoing three major changes: the shift to primarily lay leadership and teachers; the transition to a more consumerist and pluralist culture; and the increasing diversity of students attending Catholic high schools. This book argues that to navigate these changes successfully, leaders of Catholic education need to inform lay teachers more thoroughly, conduct a more profound social analysis of the culture, and address the real needs of students. After presenting the history of Catholic schools in the United States and describing the major legal decisions that have influenced their evolution, the book describes the distinctive and compelling mission of a Catholic high school. Two chapters are devoted to leadership, and other chapters to teachers, students, alternative models of high schools, financing, and the key role of parents, who today may be described as “post-deferential” to traditional authorities, including bishops and priests.

On May 17th, 1968, a group of Catholic antiwar activists burst into a draft board in suburban Baltimore, stole hundreds of Selective Service records (which they called “death certificates”), and burned the documents in a fire fueled by homemade napalm. The bold actions of the “Catonsville Nine” quickly became international news and captured headlines throughout the summer and fall of 1968 when the activists, defended by radical attorney William Kunstler, were tried in federal court. This book, written by a Catonsville native, offers a comprehensive account of this key event in the history of this protest. While thousands of supporters thronged the streets outside the courthouse, the Catonsville Nine—whose ranks included activist priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan—delivered passionate indictments of the war in Vietnam and the brutality of American foreign policy. The proceedings reached a stirring climax, as the nine activists led the entire courtroom (the judge and federal prosecutors included) in the Lord's Prayer. The book gives readers vivid, blow-by-blow accounts of the draft raid, the trial, and the ensuing manhunt for the Berrigans, George Mische, and Mary Moylan, who went underground rather than report to prison. It also examines the impact of Daniel Berrigan's play, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, and the larger influence of this remarkable act of civil disobedience. More than forty years after they stormed the draft board, the Catonsville Nine are still invoked by both secular and religious opponents of militarism.

This book is intended for an educated general readership and for use in college courses. It is also intended to be a supplement to other texts in introductory courses in various religious traditions, because the issues raised by its essays play pivotal roles in many cultures. Moreover, the chapters in this book are intended to introduce students to the role of celibacy, or a lack of it, in various religious traditions, and the contributors present the rationale for its observance (or not) within the context of each tradition.

The Order of Christ Sophia (OCS) is a small New Religion which, in the short span of eight years, has evoked intense controversy. An unusual synthesis of traditional Catholicism, esoteric cosmology, and psychology, the OCS already has centers in a dozen major cities in the United States. Thus far, however, it has eluded the attention of scholars of alternative religions. An offshoot of an earlier group, the Holy Order of MANS, the OCS developed a distinctive set of beliefs and practices that set it apart from the mother faith. It has cultivated some curious and provocative features for a Christian-based religion, including the elevation of women to full participation and status within the evolving sacred order. Its treatment of gender is refreshingly egalitarian; women can be priests, and Mary is deified and given equal status with Jesus. Another unusual feature of the group is its emphasis on introspection and intensive psychological and emotional work for all members. Beyond surveying the history, doctrines and practices of this unusual group, this book brings data from the author's study of the OCS to bear on many items of conventional wisdom in the New Religions field. It shows, for example, that far from joining the Order in response to a “youth crisis”, the average age of new OCS members is 37. This and a number of other characteristics of the OCS membership challenge generally accepted conclusions about recruits to New Religions. In addition to the six core chapters, three other experts contribute chapters on: the results of personality and I.Q. tests administered to members; membership attitudes; comparison of OCS with mainstream denominations; and sex roles in the OCS.

This book introduces Chinese religious life and practice in its cultural, social and political context. It is designed for the general reader, written by an international team of scholars from a variety of disciplines. Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Popular Religion, Christianity, and Islam are treated not as distinct systems, but as cultural and religious expressions interwoven in the Chinese context. The emphasis is on religious practice, not doctrines or beliefs. Each chapter treats a different aspect of religion in Chinese public life, and the authors discuss the ways in which religion is practiced in communities where it shapes the lives of individuals and families in villages and cities. The book shows how religion has remerged in the People’s Republic of China, and how religions relate to the Chinese Communist system. Religion provides a lens through which to observe a range of complex social issues related to the economy, gender and sexuality, health and the environment, human rights, ethnicity, and globalization. There is no single “model” of religion and public life in China, and a wide range of imaginable possibilities are found in this volume. This book encourages readers to relate chapter themes to universally relevant areas of religious interest, all the time showing the distinctive features particular to the Chinese context. Religious life in Chinese communities on the mainland, in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere is understood on its own terms and interpreted in creative interdisciplinary ways that will make the study of religion in China more widely accessible.