Religion Commons^™

Enlightening The Bats: Sound And Place Making In Burmese Buddhist Practice, Andrew Dicks

Andrew Dicks

In Burma (Myanmar), the Abhidhamma, a rigorous and abstract soteriological treatise situated within the vast Pali Buddhist canon, is the focus of both monastic and lay practitioners’ close study and popular veneration. In particular, the Paṭṭhāna, the last and most complex volume of the Abhidhamma, is envisioned as a keystone in the long-term preservation of the Buddha’s teachings, which are also understood to inevitably disappear. As a result of these conditions and understandings, a popular ritualized and amplified recitation of this difficult text has developed in order to maintain the text’s presence in popular consciousness. This is a conscientious move …

A Hidden Life, Matthew Schmalz

Mathew Schmalz

The author recalls a former student whose traditional Catholic devotion celebrated the hidden life, a life cut short by domestic violence.

Formal Polity And Power Distribution In American Protestant Denominations, K. Takayama, Lynn Weber

Lynn Weber

No abstract provided.

Raising Narcissists: What Over-Approving Parents Can Learn From Philippians 2, A. Thornhill

A. Chadwick Thornhill

No abstract provided.

The Religification Of Pakistani-American Youth, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

This article describes a cultural production process called religification, in which religious affiliation, rather than race or ethnicity, has become the core category of identity for working-class Pakistani-American youth in the United States. In this dialectical process, triggered by political changes following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Muslim identity is both thrust upon Pakistani-American youth by those who question their citizenship and embraced by the youth themselves. Specifically, the article examines the ways in which schools are sites where citizenship is both constructed and contested and the roles that peers, school personnel, families, and the youth themselves play in …

Information Processing In Bible Study Groups, Darin Freeburg

Darin Freeburg

No abstract provided.

Teleinvestmentevangelists: Celebrity, Ritual And Religion And The Quest To “Beat The Market”, E. Douglas, Mary Keller, Elton Mcgoun

Mary L Keller

Purpose – This paper aims to offer a cultural understanding of investor faith in stock picking despite overwhelming evidence questioning its efficacy. Why, in the face of very widely communicated findings calling into question the advice and assistance offered by financial professionals to help them pick stocks or manage their mutual funds, do so many people persist in these practices? The authors believe that the best way to understand investor faith in the efficacy of stock picking is through teleinvestmentevangelists such as Jim Cramer, whose fusion of celebrity and religion taps into the ritualistic elements of investment that usually lie …

Beyond Exile: The Ramayana As A Living Narrative Among Indo-Fijians In Fiji And New Zealand, Kevin Miller

Kevin C. Miller

Drawing on the themes of collective memory, cultural ideologies, and narrative constructions, this chapter proposes to examine the narrative of the Ramayana epic, its exegesis through performance, and its continued relevance to identity formation among Indo-Fijian Hindus both within Fiji and its Pacific Rim diaspora. Based on the recasting of the “twice-migrated” Indo-Fijian as the “twice-banished” by certain observers, we might expect the meaning of the Ramayana in the lives of Indo-Fijian Hindus in New Zealand to shift towards the theme of Rama’s exile, just as it did for the indentured laborers who made the original journey to Fiji. Nevertheless, …

"On Translating Taiji", Joseph Adler

Joseph Adler

No abstract provided.

Unaffiliated Lay Vincentians: Trends And Opportunities For The Vincentian Family, Scott Kelley, Jessica Werner

Scott Kelley

In 2013, DePaul’s Office of Mission & Values (OMV) commissioned a survey of “unaffiliated lay Vincentians,” young adults, ages 18-35, who have had a formative experience in the Vincentian mission either as a student or post-graduate volunteer at a Vincentian institution. Working with Dr. Jessica Werner, Director of Lay Vincentian Missionaries, Dr. Scott Kelley, assistant vice president for Vincentian Scholarship for OMV, shares the survey’s results and what they mean for the larger Vincentian Family.

Science And Theology: Questioning The ‘Two-State Solution, William Cavanaugh

William T. Cavanaugh

No abstract provided.

The Aesthetic Of Revolution In The Film And Literature Of Naguib Mahfouz, Nathaniel Greenberg

Nathaniel Greenberg

In the wake of the 1952 Revolution, Egypt’s future Nobel laureate in literature devoted himself exclusively to writing for film. The Aesthetic of Revolution in the Film and Literature of Naguib Mahfouz is the first full-length study in English to examine this critical period in the author’s career and to contextualize it within the scope of post-revolutionary Egyptian politics and culture. Before returning to literature in 1959 with his post-revolutionary masterpiece Children of the Alley, Mahfouz wrote or co-wrote some twenty odd scripts, many of them among the most successful in Egyptian history. He did so at a time when …

Worlds Without End: The Many Lives Of The Multiverse, Mary-Jane Rubenstein

Mary-Jane Rubenstein

Worlds without End explores the recent proliferation of "multiverse" cosmologies, which imagine our universe as just one of a vast, even infinite, number of others. While this idea has been the stuff of philosophy, religion, and literature for millennia, it is now under consideration as a scientific hypothesis, with wildly different models emerging from the fields of cosmology, quantum mechanics, and string theory. Beginning with the Atomistic and Stoic philosophies of ancient Greece, this book assembles a genealogy of the multiverse, seeking to map contemporary models in relation to their forerunners, and to ask why the proposition has become such …

The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Reconstructing The Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi's Appropriation Of Zhou Dunyi, Joseph Adler

Joseph Adler

No abstract provided.

Emotional Doubt And Divine Hiddenness, A. Thornhill

A. Chadwick Thornhill

This essay will seek to develop a possible model for addressing the existential problem of divine hiddenness and the emotional doubt that it might cause in the life of a believer. In doing so, it will identify several potential "root causes" for the experience of the existential problem of divine hiddenness and attempt to guide a hurting individual through dealing with their doubt by applying misbelief therapy.

American Evangelicals Talking With God In Their Minds, Rebecca Kim

Rebecca Kim

Tanya M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back examines how God becomes real in the minds of American evangelicals. How is it that sensible and reasonable people in this evidential world claim to walk and talk with God and experience God personally? Luhrmann answers this conundrum as an anthropological psychologist and sympathetic outsider delving into the world of American evangelicals. She finds that evangelicals are able to experience an all-loving God who has a direct and positive effect in their lives because they train their minds to do so. They school their minds to see, touch, and feel God. Reviewing the …

Proof For The Power Of Prayer?, Thomas Schwartz

Thomas W Schwartz

Mindfulness meditation has been found in the research literature to promote a sense of well-being, quality of life, and even physical health among its practitioners. Does centering prayer have the same effects? A reflection.

Socially Constructed Teen Motherhood: A Review, Marc Fonda, Rachel Eni, Eric Guimond

Marc V. Fonda Ph.D.

This article reviews literature on the gradual construction of teenage pregnancy as a social issue in North America. It shows how teen motherhood emerged not as an issue unto itself, but as a microcosm of numerous, closely intertwined phenomena including: the evolution of Western views on human sexuality and gender roles; the place of religious values in society; and the emergence of various modern technologies, the social and medical sciences, and how such disciplines view childhood, motherhood, and women in society. In particular, it shows that even as teen pregnancy is today viewed primarily through public health and/or socioeconomic lenses, …

Odnos Žrtve I Milosti U Oblicima Obožavanja I Postizanja Mira, Matija Kovačević

Matija Kovačević

Review, The Spirits And The Law: Vodou And Power In Haiti, Gina Ulysse

Gina Athena Ulysse

Book review, Kate Ramsey, The Spirits and The Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti (UChicago 2011).

To The Jew First: A Socio-Historical And Biblical-Theological Analysis Of The Pauline Teaching Of `Election' In Light Of Second Temple Jewish Patterns Of Thought, Anthony Thornhill

A. Chadwick Thornhill

Paul's "doctrine" of election has remained a controversial and enigmatic topic for centuries. Few studies, however, have approached Paul's doctrine through the context of Second Temple Judaism. This study examines Paul's view of election through the lens of Second Temple Jewish texts written prior to 70 CE. In doing so, it is argued that the best framework through which to view Paul's discussion of election is through a primarily corporate model of election. While such a model is rooted in Judaism, Paul departs from his Jewish contemporaries in arguing that the locus of election is in God's Messiah, Jesus.

Recognition Regimes For Religious Minorities In Europe: Institutional Change And Reproduction, Claus Hofhansel

Claus Hofhansel

No abstract provided.

Roy Rappaport, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

Roy Abraham Rappaport, an American anthropologist recognized as a key figure in ecological anthropology and the study of religious ritual in human evolution.

“Orthodoxy And Heresy In Departments Of Economics,”, William Cavanaugh

William T. Cavanaugh

No abstract provided.

Poverty Reduction And Vincentian Higher Education Institutions, Marco Tavanti, Craig Mousin

Craig B. Mousin

Dr. Marco Tavanti and Craig Mousin discuss with Dr. Scott Kelly the university's responsibility for poverty reduction as expressed in the conferences and special number of Vincentian Heritage "What would Vincent do? Vincentian Higher Education and Poverty Reduction"

Disrupting Homelessness : Alternative Christian Approaches, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

Review Of The Survey Of Institutional Digital Repositories, 2011 Edition By Primary Research Group, Paul Royster

Paul Royster

This work reports the results of an online survey completed by respondants from 59 institutions, 24 of them being universities in the United States. This represents less than 3% of the 2099 open-access repositories listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories; and less than 4.4% of the 1359 specifically identified as “Research Institutional or Departmental.” The institutions responding ranged from the Library of Congress and the British Library at one end of the spectrum to Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Keene State College, and Amgen, Inc. at the other. ... I would be sorry if any resource-challenged library invested in this …

The Institutional Repository As A Tool For Librarians: Not Preaching To The Choir, Paul Royster

Paul Royster

What makes the Institutional Repository a good tool for librarians who are not IR managers? Or (for IR managers): "How to get librarians to buy in to the repository?" An Institutional Repository is different from most other library functions. Instead of acquiring resources from the world marketplace to deliver to a local community, it acquires locally developed resources and delivers these to a worldwide community.

Ten reasons why librarians should support the IR:
1. Earn the respect of your administration
2. Earn the love of the faculty
3. Provide persistent URLs
4. Preserve digital assets
5. Make the Library the …

The Art Of Scanning, Paul Royster

Paul Royster

Yes, it is presumptuous to call scanning an “art,” when it is really more of a craft, but “The Craft of Scanning” doesn’t sound as sexy, so we will consider it for the time being as one of the fine arts, like music, or painting, or dance. This short treatise derives from work done in the process of scanning published and original materials to create PDF files for online publication or deposit in our institutional repository. This approach assumes you have a scanner and software to drive it, and also three software programs from Adobe (sold together as their Creative …