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In the twenty-first century, religious life is increasingly moving from churches, mosques and temples onto the Internet. Today, anyone can go online and seek a new form of religious expression without ever encountering a physical place of worship, or an ordained teacher or priest. The digital age offers virtual worship, cyber-prayers and talk-boards for all of the major world faiths, as well as for pagan organisations and new religious movements. It also abounds with misinformation, religious bigotry and information terrorism. Scholars of religion need to understand the emerging forum that the web offers to religion, and the kinds of religious and social interaction that it enables. Religion...
Introducing Religion explores different ways of looking at religion in the twenty-first century. Providing a broad overview to the discipline of religious studies, this textbook introduces students to engaging and contemporary topics such as: sociology of religion psychology of religion history of religion religion and art religious ethics popular religion religion and violence Thoroughly updated throughout, this fifth edition includes images, further reading, a detailed glossary, case studies, and key terms for revision. This is the essential textbook for students approaching this subject area for the first time.
Taking up the challenge of Saba Mahmood to feminist studies in religion, that there is a liberalist understanding of agency and a tendency to mix the feminist political project with the analytical, the authors of this anthology discuss the relations between pieties and politics, pieties and methodologies, virtuous masculinities, and symbolic gender representations. Several articles discuss highly controversial questions: Muslim piety, religion in the European Union between the Vatican and the Muslim populations, the religiously motivated abstinence policies of the US. Furthermore, there is an interesting section about religious masculinities in a historical and contemporary perspective.
Scholars who study the Christian Right often claim that the movement's distinction lies in its moral absolutism and religious fervor. Through a detailed study of the sexually-charged rhetoric of one of America's largest conservative women's organizations, Concerned Women for America (CWA), Righteous Rhetoric argues that the absolute platforms for which CWA is known are not the linchpin of its political power. Rather, such absolutes are the byproduct of a more fundamental rhetorical process called "chaos rhetoric," a type of speech designed to create a heightened sense of social chaos and threat. In response, CWA is able to flexibly counter this negative emotion by crafting a positive identit...
In America today, online spaces serve as critical alternatives for tech-savvy Muslims seeking a place to root their faith, forge religious identity, and build communities. With a particular focus on the Inayati Order, a branch of the oldest Sufi community in the West, Robert Rozehnal explores the online revolution in internal communication, spiritual pedagogy, and public outreach – and looks ahead to the future of digital Islam in the age of Web 3.0.
The concept of secularization has grown to become one of the most important features of contemporary religious thought. This book introduces and examines the thinking of sixteen key theologions, philosophers and historians of religion to explain (a) why by the late nineteenth century the traditional concept of God as an ontologically real being came to be considered no longer necessary and (b) how the new perspective on God, which accepts him only as an idea, turned into the preferred approach of today’s religion and philosophy, namely “religious radicalism”.
This book examines unintended participatory cultures and media surrounding the American televangelists Robert Tilton and Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner. It brings to light heavily ironic fan followings; print, audio, and video projects; public access television parodies; and other comedic participatory practices associated with these controversial preachers from the 1980s onwards. For Tilton’s ministry, some of these activities and artifacts would prove irksome and even threatening, particularly an analog video remix turned online viral sensation. In contrast, Bakker-Messner’s “campy” fans – gay men attracted to her “ludicrous tragedy” – would provide her unexpected opportunities for career rehabilitation. Denis J. Bekkering challenges “supply-side” religious economy and branding approaches, suggestions of novelty in religion and “new” media studies, and the emphasis on sincere devotion in research on religion and fandom. He also highlights how everyday individuals have long participated in public negotiations of Christian authenticity through tongue-in-cheek play with purported religious “fakes.”
While the churches are emptying, other virtual religious places – as the religious websites – seem to be filling up. The researcher focusing on religion and internet or digital religion as an object of study must seek answers to a number of questions. Is computer-mediated religious communication a particular communication process whose object is what we conventionally call religion? Or is it a modern, independent form of religious expressiveness that finds its new-born status in the web and its particular language? To examine the questions above, and others, the book collects more empirical data, claiming that the Internet will have a specific or novel impact on how religious traditions are interpreted. The blurring of previous boundaries (offline/online, virtual/local, illegitimate/legitimate religion) is another theme common to all the contributions in this volume.
"Digital Religion refers to the contemporary practice and understanding of religion in both online and offline contexts, and how these contexts intersect with each other. Scholars in this growing field recognize that religion has been influenced by its engagement with computer-mediated digital spaces, including not only the Internet, but other emerging technologies, such as mobile phones, digital wearables, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion provides a comprehensive overview of religion as seen and performed through various platforms and cultural spaces created by digital technology. The text covers religious interaction with a wide range of...
The study of New Religious Movements (NRMs) is one of the fastest-growing areas of religious studies, and since the release of the first edition of The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements in 2003, the field has continued to expand and break new ground. In this all-new volume, James R. Lewis and Inga B. T?llefsen bring together established and rising scholars to address an expanded range of topics, covering traditional religious studies topics such as "scripture," "charisma," and "ritual," while also applying new theoretical approaches to NRM topics. Other chapters cover understudied topics in the field, such as the developmental patterns of NRMs and subcultural considerations in the s...