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Creating A Feminist Religious Counterpublic:Rlds Feminists And Women's Ordination Advocacy In America, 1970–1985, David Howlett, Nancy Ross Jul 2023

Creating A Feminist Religious Counterpublic:Rlds Feminists And Women's Ordination Advocacy In America, 1970–1985, David Howlett, Nancy Ross

Religion: Faculty Publications

The 1970s witnessed an efflorescence of religious feminism in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, particularly around the issue of women's ordination. We pose a model for understanding this development—the formation of publics/counterpublics—and explore how it illuminates our case study. Drawing upon oral history interviews and archival sources, we document how RLDS women created independent publications, grassroots consciousness-raising groups, feminist classes and conferences, and Women-Church–inspired worship to reimagine priesthood within their church. We conclude that the lens of a counterpublic offers a capacious view of our topic, one capable of integrating both social movement theory and …


“A Plague Broke Out Among Them”: Reflections On The Bible And The Pandemic, Joel Kaminsky Jan 2023

“A Plague Broke Out Among Them”: Reflections On The Bible And The Pandemic, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

This essay seeks to utilize ideas and texts found in the Hebrew Bible in order to historically contextualize the COVID-19 pandemic and to illuminate various existential, religious, political, and ethical issues raised by the current pandemic and our responses to it.


The Rlds Church, Global Denominations, And Globalization: Why The Study Of Denominations Still Matters, David Howlett Jul 2022

The Rlds Church, Global Denominations, And Globalization: Why The Study Of Denominations Still Matters, David Howlett

Religion: Faculty Publications

Within the halls of academia, denominational history is a thoroughly unfashionable genre about an oft-ignored subject. This was not always so. Historian Lincoln Mullen notes that the field of religious history “used to be dominated by denominational histories, more often than not written by scholars from those denominations.” Such histories might make “a genuine contribution to the field, but most bordered on antiquarianism.” By the 1980s, most historians had turned “their attention to the discussions of race, class, gender, and power that animate the historical professions more generally.”1 Denominational histories, at least in this telling, were left behind due to …


“Is There No Balm In Gilead?”: Health, Illness, Death, And Dying In The Hebrew Bible And Today, Joel Kaminsky Jul 2021

“Is There No Balm In Gilead?”: Health, Illness, Death, And Dying In The Hebrew Bible And Today, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

This essay argues that the Hebrew Bible contains conceptual resources that can contribute to and enrich the ongoing discussions surrounding healthcare in the U.S. and in other modern Western societies. These biblical ideas may help us reframe our understandings of sickness and health, something urgently needed if we wish individuals and their families to have less medically invasive and less alienating experiences of illness, most especially during end of life care.


In Quest Of A Coherent Portrait Of Paul: A Rejoinder To Michael Bird, Joel Kaminsky, Mark Reasoner Oct 2020

In Quest Of A Coherent Portrait Of Paul: A Rejoinder To Michael Bird, Joel Kaminsky, Mark Reasoner

Religion: Faculty Publications

This rejoinder to Michael Bird's critique of our argument in Joel Kaminsky and Mark Reasoner, "The Meaning and Telos of Israel's Election: An Interfaith Response to N. T. Wright's Reading of Paul," HTR 112 (2019) 421-46, acknowledges that Wright recognizes a dimension of intrinsic value in God's election of Israel, while it shows how Wright's metanarrative is not only unduly skewed toward an instrumental view of Israel's election but also, in effect, totally redefines Israel. Our rebuttal first reiterates some of our original claims and also presents new arguments against an exegesis of Second Isaiah that portrays Israel as divinely …


Why Denominations Can Climb Hills: Rlds Conversions In Highland Tribal India And Midwestern America, 1964–2000, David Howlett Sep 2020

Why Denominations Can Climb Hills: Rlds Conversions In Highland Tribal India And Midwestern America, 1964–2000, David Howlett

Religion: Faculty Publications

Based on oral history interviews and archival sources, this essay analyzes the religious affiliation between Sora villagers in the highlands of eastern India with Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) members in the American Midwest. The relationship between these distinct groups transposed a pattern of interactions between highlands and lowlands in upland Asia to a new globalized space in the late twentieth century. Conceiving of “conversion” as a broad analytic trope to discuss various individual, group, and organizational transformations, this essay argues that “converts” in the Sora highlands and American plains instrumentalized their relationships with the …


Arabia And The Birth Of Islam: When History, Myth And Opinion Become Inseparable, Suleiman A. Mourad Jan 2020

Arabia And The Birth Of Islam: When History, Myth And Opinion Become Inseparable, Suleiman A. Mourad

Religion: Faculty Publications

In The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity, Aziz al-ʿAzmeh takes on a massive challenge to try to reconstruct the religious scene in Arabia on the eve of the emergence of Islam. He contends that Muhammad was able to champion a little known deity called Allah and the success of his movement made it a major religious divinity in the Near East. This article challenges the premises of Azmeh’s approach, methodology and findings. It argues that the scanty historical evidence does not allow for any credible historical reconstruction of Arabian society and religion. Moreover, the use of the Qurʾan as …


The Orthodox Church And Religion In Revolutionary Russia, 1894-1924, Vera Shevzov Jan 2020

The Orthodox Church And Religion In Revolutionary Russia, 1894-1924, Vera Shevzov

Religion: Faculty Publications

This chapter examines the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church—as an institution and community—during Russia’s years of revolution, from the reign of Nicholas II through the 1917 February Revolution and subsequent Bolshevik coup. It argues that Orthodoxy’s legal status as a ‘primary and predominant’ faith, and the state ascription of the ‘Russian people’ to Orthodoxy from birth under imperial rule, were in large part responsible for Orthodoxy’s institutional turmoil during these years. Further, the chapter challenges the use of the term ‘secularization’ with respect to the Bolshevik regime’s anti-religious policies. In the span of weeks, the Bolshevik regime not only …


“The Might Of My Own Hand Has Gotten Me This Wealth”: Reflections On Wealth And Poverty In The Hebrew Bible And Today, Joel Kaminsky Jan 2019

“The Might Of My Own Hand Has Gotten Me This Wealth”: Reflections On Wealth And Poverty In The Hebrew Bible And Today, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

The growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest members of society is a pressing social concern regularly invoked in discussions surrounding taxation, the minimum wage, and the social safety net. Advocates of particular positions at times reference various biblical passages. This essay examines several relevant themes and passages within the Hebrew Bible in order to explore ways the Bible might be brought into productive conversation with these contemporary issues.


Islamic Shari'a Law, History And Modernity: Some Reflections, Suleiman A. Mourad Jan 2018

Islamic Shari'a Law, History And Modernity: Some Reflections, Suleiman A. Mourad

Religion: Faculty Publications

In the last two centuries, Muslim modernists have introduced major legal reforms that led to the restriction of the range and scope of Islamic Shari’a Law and the overhaul of legal thought and practice in the Muslim World. Nevertheless, every time a new legal reform is proposed, it is met with outcries from Islamists who label it un-Islamic and blasphemy against God. This paper examines some major premodern scholars of Islamic jurisprudence whose thought and practice about Shari’a Law featured tremendous flexibility in the way they understood their role as legislators and accepted a diversity of rules. The paper shows …


Would You Impugn My Justice? A Nuanced Approach To The Hebrew Bible's Theology Of Divine Recompense, Joel Kaminsky Jul 2015

Would You Impugn My Justice? A Nuanced Approach To The Hebrew Bible's Theology Of Divine Recompense, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

Recent scholarship has tended to see the book of Job as sweeping away an earlier, mechanistic theology of divine recompense. This essay argues that the widespread biblical notion that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked is more complex than generally recognized and that recovering its nuances not only helps one better understand the theological outlook of books like Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Psalms, but also helps one better grasp the debates within Job. The essay is framed by some reflections on why our contemporary culture regularly misreads the Bible's language of divine retribution in spite of the fact that …


Review: Tanak: A Theological And Critical Introduction To The Jewish Bible By Marvin A. Sweeney, Joel Kaminsky Dec 2012

Review: Tanak: A Theological And Critical Introduction To The Jewish Bible By Marvin A. Sweeney, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Reflections On Associative Word Links In Judges, Joel Kaminsky Jun 2012

Reflections On Associative Word Links In Judges, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

Attempts to read Judges in a unified fashion have shed much light on this book. Yet, such readings often are not fully convincing because they gloss over details that do not easily fit into the literary, theological, or ideological perspective being advanced. This essay moves in a new direction by exploring a thick web of verbal resonances that brings various distinct components within Judges into a complex literary and theological conversation. Even as this webbing draws various parts of the book into association with each other, it at the same time highlights the distinct elements of each story. While many …


Icons, Miracles, And The Ecclesial Identity Of Laity In Late Imperial Russian Orthodoxy, Vera Shevzov Jul 2009

Icons, Miracles, And The Ecclesial Identity Of Laity In Late Imperial Russian Orthodoxy, Vera Shevzov

Religion: Faculty Publications

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, clergy and professional theologians in the Orthodox Church in Russia found themselves engrossed in debates over the theological nature and “proper” institutional fashioning of the sacred community called “church.” Insofar as this intensive reflection on communal life heatedly addressed issues of religious authority and the role of laypeople in that life, this period in Russian Orthodoxy in many ways lends itself to comparison with two critical points on the time line of the history of Christianity in the West: the Reformation and Vatican II. True, the “evolution” or brewing “revolution” (depending on …


Loving One's (Israelite) Neighbor: Election And Commandment In Leviticus 19, Joel Kaminsky Jan 2008

Loving One's (Israelite) Neighbor: Election And Commandment In Leviticus 19, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

This essay illuminates a number of nuances implicit in the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself" by exploring its connection to Israel's election theology as well as to the larger Priestly theology that forms much of the framework of the Torah.


Review: Zion, City Of Our God By Richard S. Hess And Gordon J. Wenham, Joel Kaminsky Jan 2001

Review: Zion, City Of Our God By Richard S. Hess And Gordon J. Wenham, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Concept Of Election And Second Isaiah: Recent Literature, Joel Kaminsky Jan 2001

The Concept Of Election And Second Isaiah: Recent Literature, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

In this article I contend that the conceptual categories utilized by many recent scholars engaged in analyzing the idea of election in the Hebrew Bible have led to a variety of interrelated misunderstandings, both of the idea of election in general and of specific texts invoked in such discussions. This article traces out the distortions in the scholarship on this central theological concept and shows how similarly problematic trends also occur in discussions of Second Isaiah, a text frequently cited in studies of election. I conclude by offering a brief sketch of both a new possible reading of Second Isaiah …


Review: The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical And Theological Investigation By Rolf Rendtorff, Joel Kaminsky Jul 2000

Review: The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical And Theological Investigation By Rolf Rendtorff, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Review: Seeking Ezekiel: Text And Psychology By David Halperin, Joel Kaminsky Jul 1995

Review: Seeking Ezekiel: Text And Psychology By David Halperin, Joel Kaminsky

Religion: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.