Digital Commons Network^™

In Search Of A New Indigeneity: Archaeological And Spiritual Heritage In Highland Bolivia, Isabel Scarborough

Isabel Scarborough

The Social Effects Of Psychism: Spiritual Experience And The Construction Of Privatized Religion, Marty Laubach

Marty Laubach

What is the relationship between spiritual experiences and privatized religion? This study defines spiritual experiences in terms of “psychism,” or psychic intrusions in the stream of consciousness that are not perceived by the actor as originating within the “self.” Intrusions interpreted as psychism are regarded by the actor as having the same facticity as empirical experience and are regarded as “proof” of an esoteric belief system. Psychism originated beliefs are therefore resistant to refutation or change, and support spiritual autonomy. Psychism theory is tested using 1988 GSS data on religious beliefs, where psychism is measured using GSS questions on “paranormal” …

A King Who Devours His People: Jiang Zemin And The Falun Gong Crackddown: A Bibliography, Michael J. Greenlee

Michael Greenlee

In July 1999, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began an official crackdown against the qigong cultivation group known as Falun Gong. Intended to quickly contain and eliminate what the PRC considers an evil or heretical cult (xiejiao), the suppression has instead created the longest sustained and, since the Tiananmen Square protests of June 1989, most widely known human rights protest conducted in the PRC. The Falun Gong has received worldwide recognition and support while the crackdown continues to provoke harsh criticism against the PRC as new allegations of human rights …

Building A Spiritual Home: Religious Engagement Of Former Vincentian Volunteers, Scott Kelley, Patricia A. Wittberg Sc

Scott Kelley

The Epistemology Of Esoteric Culture: Spiritual Claim-Making Within The American Neopagan Community, Marty Laubach

Marty Laubach

Non-institutionalised religious communities within western esotericism, such as New Age or Neopagan subcultures, are dynamic marketplaces for knowledge construction that may appear to be chaotic and governed only by the rule of caveat emptor. However, a close examination reveals authorization processes developing along similar lines as those followed by scientific empiricism during the seventeenth century. Claims of esoteric knowledge are developed from psychism experiences, and are authenticated by examining the claimant’s social standing, the narrative structure of the claim and the interests of the claimant and the judge. Such claims are authorized by incorporation into collective action, publications, workshops and …

Religion And Science Fiction, James F. Mcgrath

James F. McGrath

As announced by its title, this multidisciplinary book focuses on the intersection between religion and science fiction. Several perspectives are addressed by scholars from different disciplines: theology, literature, history, music, and anthropology. Thus, gathering a range of distinct voices and approaches, this work edited by James F. McGrath shows how multifaceted and multicultural the science's fiction treatment of religion is.

From Reading To Revering The Good Book, Or How The Word Became Fossil At The Creation Museum, Susan L. Trollinger

Susan L. Trollinger

Given the complexity of this sacred text and the intensity with which Protestants have sought to glean its truths from it, it is not surprising that Luther’s “dangerous idea” yielded countless splits, schisms, and sects. Whereas once there was the Church, Protestants dedication to reading the Scripture for themselves has brought an endless variety of theologies, practices, and fellowships with no end in sight. While every one of these groups claims (whether explicitly or implicitly) that they alone have the true word of God, none has been able to arrest the flow of interpretations. With everyone free to read the …

Wild Things: Stories, Transition And The Sacred In Ecological Social Movements, Luigi Russi

Luigi Russi

This article examines the role of stories in ecological activism. It first situates stories inside object ecologies, encompassing relationships of reliance, care and maintenance of things. It suggests that ecologies of this sort work as an extended mind where our cognition takes place and meaning is apprehended, so that what we can think of is always a function of what we have Ôat handÕ. The article then considers how these ecologies are impacted by discourses on climate change and peak oil, which stress the impossibility to keep ordering our lives through the same entanglements that have supported them so far. …

The Genealogy, Ideology, And Future Of Isil And Its Derivatives, Ahmed E. Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

Review: 'God's Own Party: The Making Of The Christian Right', William Vance Trollinger

William Vance Trollinger Jr.

There has been no end of predictions that the demise of the Religious Right is imminent. Over the past three decades, proof of its impending collapse has included the televangelist scandals, Pat Robertson’s failure to secure the Republican presidential nomination, the election and re-election of Bill Clinton, and the emergence of “young” evangelicals who refuse to toe the Religious Right line (this one keeps popping up).

The latest version involves the notion that economically focused libertarians of the Tea Party will inevitably find themselves in heated conflict with evangelical and fundamentalist social conservatives, thus challenging the power of the Religious …

Civil Religion In The Interfaith Context Of Northern California: Revisiting Robert Bellah's Broken Covenant Project, Harlan Stelmach

Harlan Stelmach

Are there signs of new emerging myths and stories about our religious self-understanding as a nation that will help us address what Robert Bellah calls, our "third time of trial"? On and off for many years, I have been interested in the questions raised by Robert Bellah's work on civil religion. Specifically, I have sought answers to the above question posed in the last Chapter of Broken Covenant, "The Birth of New American Myths." Perhaps to be more precise about my interest in this question, I would at least have to go back to my graduate student days in Berkeley …

Protestantism And Fundamentalism, William Vance Trollinger

William Vance Trollinger Jr.

The term "fundamentalism" has been used to describe a host of religious movements across the globe that are militantly antimodernist, aggressively patriarchal, literalist in their reading of sacred texts, and assiduous in their efforts to draw boundaries between themselves and outsiders. While "Islamic fundamentalism" has received the most attention, particularly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, scholars and journalists have also applied the term to movements within such disparate traditions as Judaism, Sikhism, and Hinduism, as well as to various Christian groups. There are benefits to understanding fundamentalism as a global movement that grows out of deep-seated and intense …

The Election Of Pope Francis: What Does It Mean For Global Catholicism?, Mathew N. Schmalz

Mathew Schmalz

This lecture addresses the election of the Argentinian pope and whether that will mean a shift in the Church’s focus to the developing world and how that might impact American Catholicism.

Meet The Mormons: From The Margins To The Mainstream, Mathew Schmalz

Mathew Schmalz

No abstract provided.

Mooknayak: The Mute Protagonist, Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi

No abstract provided.

A Leader For Every Generation, Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi

No abstract provided.

The Cult Of Liberation: The Berkeley Free Church And The Radical Church Movement 1967-1972 Volume 1, Harlan Stelmach

Harlan Stelmach

The Berkeley Free Church was a major actor in the drama of church social action in the sixties. The emergence of the Free Church coincided with the high water mark of social action, and its dissolution paralleled the receding waters of church based social action in the early seventies. The and fall of the Free Church, as this study point out, indicates that there were forces outside the churches that were also dictating the ebb and flow of the waters of church social action. As much as the church activists were involved in social reform movements in the sixties and …

The Future Of The Vincentian Charism In The United States: Challenges, Trends, And Opportunities, Scott Kelley, Jessica Werner

Scott Kelley

With declining membership in many branches of the Vincentian Family looming in the background, a key question emerges: how will the Vincentian mission continue in the United States in the twenty-first century? In 2005, Rev. Edward R. Udovic, C.M., Senior Executive for University Mission at DePaul University, argued that “by 2023 the Vincentians may well have no physical presence, canonical sponsorship role, or governance role at DePaul University.” His conclusion is based on careful observation of the historical membership trends in the Congregation of the Mission in the United States, going all the way back to their arrival in 1816. …

The Altar At Home: Sentimental Literature And Nineteenth-Century American Religion, Claudia Stokes

Claudia Stokes

The Anomaly Of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries: A New Testament-Based Call For Christian Polygamy, Spencer L. Allen

Spencer L Allen

Currently serving a 175-year prison sentence for transporting underage girls across state lines for sexual purposes, new religious movement leader Tony Alamo (b. 1934) of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries contends not only that Christian men should be polygamous but that they actually are commanded to be by Old Testament polygamy laws. Alamo bases this interpretation primarily upon Jesus’ statement in Matthew 5:17 that he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. Numerous other New Testament passages regarding marriage and the law are likewise reinterpreted through a polygamous lens, and the Old Testament’s ‘‘Holy Men of God’’ (e.g., Abraham, Jacob …

Money And Power In Religious Competition: A Critique Of The Religious Free Market, Jianlin Chen

Jianlin Chen

Academics have frequently alluded to the normative value of the religious free market fostered by the twin legal guarantees of the free exercise of religion and the absence of state establishment of religion. This article challenges the idealized portrayal of a religion’s ‘flourish[ing] according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma’ and examines the dynamics of material wealth and political power in a religion’s success. This article suggests that controversial measures such as affirmative action for socio-economically disadvantaged religions and restrictions of religious involvement in politics are not necessarily incompatible with the religious free market.

"Redeemed From The Curse Placed Upon Her": Dialogic Discourse On Eve In The Woman's Exponent, Boyd J. Petersen

Boyd J Petersen

Some fifty years before Virginia Woolf published A Room of One's Own, many Mormon women not only had a room of their own, but they also had their own printing press, acting as proprietors, editors, and sub-editors. Within the pages of the Woman's Exponent, an independent Mormon periodical published between 1872 and 1914, Mormon women engaged in a spirited defense of two seemingly contradictory issues: women's suffrage and polygamy. Yet for these early Mormon suffragists, polygamy was a key to their liberation; and Eve, seen as the prototypical woman, was a central symbol in this debate. Despite the fact that …

Emergent Public Discourse And The Constitutional Debate In Tunisia: A Critical Narrative Analysis, Nathaniel Greenberg

Nathaniel Greenberg

The appointment of the Minister of Industry, the so-called “technocrat” Mehdi Jomaa, to form a caretaker government in Tunisia on the eve of the revolution’s third anniversary, threw into stark relief the country’s complex struggle for democracy following the January 14 revolution. The announcement came in the wake of the Islamist party Ennahdha’s sudden renunciation of the Prime Minister’s office in September, ostensibly a sign of cooperation in the face of mounting criticism surrounding the government’s failure to investigate the assassinations of two political opposition figures. A number of Western media outlets, including the New York Times, quickly absorbed the …

Teaching From A Feminist Perspective, Pamela J. Benson, Sharon Farmer

Pamela J Benson

No abstract provided.

Review: The Mormon Rebellion: America’S First Civil War 1857–1858 By David L. Bigler And Will Bagley, Gene Deerman

Gene Deerman

No abstract provided.

Active Religion: James Ireland, The Separate Baptists, And The Great Awakening In Virginia, 1760-1775, Cooper Pasque

Cooper Pasque

In the mid-eighteenth century, the religious fervor of the Great Awakening entered Virginia. Evangelical Baptists soon threatened to undermine the authority of the Anglican Church and its planter patrons. Despite their efforts to quiet the Baptists, evangelical religion took root in Virginia by the end of the American Revolution. Historical works on these events offer valid but incomplete explanations. Puzzling dynamics in the Virginian context require a more complex interpretation. The life of James Ireland provides a unique window into possible answers. His autobiography provides evidence for what appears to be the most fundamental reason for evangelicalism's successes in Virginia. …

Liberalism In Decline: Legislative Trends Limiting Religious Freedom In Russia And Central Asia, Elizabeth A. Clark

Elizabeth A. Clark

De 5000-Jarige Cyclus Van Schuldkwijtschelding: Van Sumer En Babylonië Naar Amerika En Europa [The 5000-Year Circle Of Debt Clemency: From Sumer And Babylon To America And Europe], F.P.C. Strijbos Trans.

Jason Kilborn

No abstract provided.

Religious Leaders Who Have Advocated And Engaged In Violence, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Organisational Control And The Self: Critiques And Normative Expectations, Karin Garrety

Karin Garrety

This article explores the normative assumptions about the self that are implicitly and explicitly embedded in critiques of organisational control. Two problematic aspects of control are examined – the capacity of some organisations to produce unquestioning commitment, and the elicitation of ‘false’ selves. Drawing on the work of Rom Harré, and some examples of organisational-self processes gone awry, I investigate the dynamics involved and how they violate the normative expectations that we hold regarding the self, particularly its moral autonomy and authenticity. The paper concludes by arguing that, despite post-structuralist challenges, some notion of a ‘core’ or ‘real’ self still …