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Since the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven-dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a theologically prescribed outlook. In Religious Statecraft, Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar argues that such views have the link between religious ideology and political order backwards. This provocative book examines the politics of Islam rather than political Islam-demonstrating that religious narratives can chan...

A great deal has changed in the ten years since the first edition of this book was published; an area of rather esoteric interest has become one of the major public battlefields of political and academic debate. Rejecting both the art historian's essentialism and the sociologist's reductionism, Janet Wolff argues in this new edition that the concept of the aesthetic must be rescued as much from those who would equate artistic value with political worth as from the total aesthetic relativists who...

Believers is a scientist's answer to attacks on faith by some well-meaning scientists and philosophers-a firm rebuke of the "Four Horsemen": Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. Melvin Konner, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew but has lived his adult life without such faith, explores the psychology, development, brain science, evolution and genetics of the religious impulses we experience. He views religious people with a sympathetic eye; his own upbringing, his...

For more than half a century, Saudi Arabia—through both official and non-governmental channels—has poured billions of dollars into funding and sponsoring religious activities and Islamic causes around the world. The effect has been to propagate Wahhabism, the distinctively rigid and austere form of Islam associated with the Kingdom's religious establishment, within Muslim communities on almost every continent. This volume features essays by leading scholars who explore the origins and evolution...

Although David Riesman wrote over half a century ago, his concept of autonomy as presented in The Lonely Crowd (1950) speaks directly to the intellectual and emotional disarrangements of the twenty-first century. The current malaise produced by the excesses of commodity culture, information technology, the hyperreal, and "fake news" militate against our ability to think critically about contemporary society. And while postmodern authors insist that this bewildering situation weakens and assails...

Buddhism has become a major religion in Canada over the last half-century. The 'ethnic Buddhism' associated with immigrant Asian people is the most important aspect, but there is also a growing constituency of Euro-Canadian Buddhists seriously interested in the faith. This insightful study analyzes the phenomenon of Buddhism in Canada from a regional perspective. The work provides an important examination of the place of Buddhism in a developed western country associated with a traditional Judeo...

At the heart of many homes in Mexico is the "altarcito", or home altar: private shrines which have profound personal and familial meaning and reflect the vitality of Mexico's spiritual practices. The photographs in this collection depict the altars in detail. Some are constructed for special holidays - Christmas or the Day of the Dead - while others commemorate family members using photographs, mementoes and the deceased's favourite foods. For more than ten years, photographer Dana Salvo - a Gug...

Does the Presbyterian church help or hinder individuals in their lives? Baillie uses over a hundred interviews with Ministers and individuals to examine the role of women, the influence of life history and geographical location, education, inter-church relations, the Orange Order, Freemasonry, the ministry and the future.

Through essays, expressive works and resource materials, this text investigates how religious traditions, movements, and institutions have been vital for Asian Americans, past and present. It looks at how religion has assisted people to deal with the upheaval of migration and other transformations. The essays cover a wide range of topics: Chinese American Protestant nationalism; the development of a Filipino American folk religion; law and religion among American Sikhs; and identity and Taiwanes...

The Hindu-derived meditation movement, The Art of Living (AOL), founded in 1981 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Bangalore, has grown into a global organization which claims presence in more than 150 countries. Stephen Jacobs presents the first comprehensive study of AOL as an important transnational movement and an alternative global spirituality. Exploring the nature and characteristics of spirituality in the contemporary global context, Jacobs considers whether alternative spiritualities are primar...

A massive religious transformation has unfolded over the past forty years in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a region where the Catholic Church could once claim a near monopoly of adherents, religious pluralism has fundamentally altered the social and religious landscape.onversion of a Continent"" brings together twelve original essays that document and explore competing explanations for how and why conversion has occurred. Contributors draw on various insights from social movement theory to...

Mercenaries and Missionaries examines the relationship between rapidly diffusing forms of capitalism and Christianity in the Global South. Using more than two hundred interviews in Bangalore and Dubai, Brandon Vaidyanathan explains how and why global corporate professionals straddle conflicting moral orientations in the realms of work and religion. Seeking to place the spotlight on the role of religion in debates about the cultural consequences of capitalism, Vaidyanathan finds that an "apprehen...

During a time when global interest in radicalism has intensified, this book provides an illuminating and comprehensive account for the resurgence of radical Islam in Turkey. Putting aside popular perceptions, empirical research and analysis reveal that the appeal of Islam crosses all social and economic groups, including those that are successful and well educated. Awareness of the significance of ideology, socialization agents, motivation and relevant historical and contemporary contexts bring...

This is an examination of the role of the church and the individual Christian and the inherent conflicts between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. The author questions whether Christians have failed to understand the message of Christ and whether humanists have failed to understand the nature of man. He asks to what extent Christians can affect public policy and whether there is a responsible Christian political role. Illustrated with historical and current dramas, the questioning is bo...

In recent years, writing on early-modern culture has turned from examining the upheavals of the Reformation as the ruptured birth of early modernity out of the late medieval towards a striking emphasis on processes of continuity, transition, and adaptation. No longer is the 'religious' seen as institutional or doctrinaire, but rather as a cultural and social phenomenon that exceeds the rigid parameters of modern definition. Recent analyses of early-modern cultures offer nuanced accounts that mov...

This book explores the themes of identity, suffering, and hope in the stories of Puerto Rican people to surface the anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology of a Puerto Rican decolonial theology. Using an interdisciplinary methodology of dialogue between literature and theology, this study reveals the oppression, resistance, and theological vision of the Puerto Rican community. It demonstrates how Puerto Rican literature and Puerto Rican theology are prophetic voices calling out for the liber...