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What does religion mean to the individual? How are people religious and what do their beliefs, practices and identities mean to them? The individual's place within studies of religion has tended to be overlooked recently in favour of macro analyses. Religion and the Individual draws together authors from around the world to explore belief, practice and identity. Using original case studies and other work firmly placed in the empirical, contributors discuss what religious belief means to the individual. They examine how people embody what religion means to them through practice, considering the different meanings that people attach to religion and the social expressions of their personal understandings and the ways in which religion shapes how people see themselves in relation to others. This work is cross-cultural, with contributions from Asia, Europe and North America.
Religion is of enduring importance in the lives of many people, yet the religious landscape has been dramatically transformed in recent decades. Established churches have been challenged by eastern faiths, revivals of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, and the eclectic spiritualities of the New Age. Religion has long been regarded by social scientists and psychologists as a key source of identity formation, ranging from personal conversion experiences to collective association with fellow believers. This book addresses the need for a reassessment of issues relating to identity in the light of current transformations in society as a whole and religion in particular. Drawing together case-studies from many different expressions of faith and belief - Hindu, Muslim, Roman Catholic, Anglican, New Age - leading scholars ask how contemporary religions or spiritualities respond to the challenge of forming individual and collective identities in a nation context marked by secularisation and postmodern decentring of culture, as well as religious revitalisation. The book focuses on Britain as a context for religious change, but asks important questions that are of universal significance for those studying religion: How is personal and collective identity constructed in a world of multiple social and cultural influences? What role can religion play in creating, reinforcing or even transforming such identity?
Religion, Identity and Human Security seeks to demonstrate that a major source of human insecurity comes from the failure of states around the world to recognize the increasing cultural diversity of their populations which has resulted from globalization. Shani begins by setting out the theoretical foundations, dealing with the transformative effects of globalization on identity, violence and security. The second part of the volume then draws on different cases of sites of human insecurity around the globe to develop these ideas, examining themes such as: securitization of religious symbols retreat from multiculturalism rise of exclusivist ethno-religious identities post- 9/11 state religion, colonization and the ‘racialization’ of migration Highlighting that religion can be a source of both human security and insecurity in a globalizing world, Shani offers a ‘critical’ human security paradigm that seeks to de-secularize the individual by recognizing the culturally contested and embedded nature of human identities. The work argues that religion serves an important role in re-embedding individuals deracinated from their communities by neo-liberal globalization and will be of interest to students of International Relations, Security Studies and Religion and Politics.
The Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, and many ultra-right-wing racist "religious" organizations adhere to a doctrine called Christian Identity. Christian Identity is not a denomination, but a loosely organized movement embracing a range of beliefs. Its foundation is the theory that Anglo-Saxons (and Aryans, in most cases) are the true descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and are the chosen people of God. Christian Identity is a bloodline religion: a belief system irrevocably tied to race. As such it lends itself to the violence, racism, and anti-Semitism of its more militant practitioners, and its growth and links to domestic terrorism warrant a better understanding of the movement. This survey of the Christian Identity Movement traces its development and beliefs, from its origins to its modern manifestations. It examines the doctrines and visions of the future of Identity communities and organizations in America. The initial chapter explores British Israelism, forerunner of most bloodline Identity groups; the oral traditions behind the movement are reviewed in the second. The third chapter outlines the American Israel, Israel Identity and bloodline Identity movements, including major figures and groups. The following chapters provide an introduction to Christian Identity itself, its general religious tenets, and post-Creation beliefs upon which much of the theory is based. Subsequent chapters describe militant bloodline and Identity groups, and individual militant Identity leaders. The final chapter explores the "Third American Revolution" predicted by these groups, a forthcoming war based on race and religion.
Between 1901 and 1907, a coalition of Protestant churches sought to expel newly elected Reed Smoot from the Senate for being a Mormon. Here, Kathleen Flake shows how the subsequent investigative hearing ultimately mediated a compromise between Progressive Era Protestantism and Mormonism and resolved the nation's long-standing "Mormon Problem."
A sociological study of the cultural choices and identity negotiation of North African women immigrants in France.
Kosovo is a frontier society where two Balkan nations, Albanian and Serb, as well as two religions, Islam and Christianity, clash. The tension between conflict and symbiosis lies at the core of this book.
Religions carry strong visions of renewal and thereby have the potential to trigger dynamics of change in all spheres of human life. Religions have contributed to societal transformation and processes of renewal spark intensive theological debates. The renewal of religious identity is informed by how religious communities interpret their traditions and past, present, and future challenges to themselves, society and the world at large. How do religious communities understand their own resources and criteria for renewal in the twenty-first century? In this publication, Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars analyze and reflect on the meaning and dynamics of religious renewal and explore the meaning of religious renewal across religious traditions. [Religiöse Identität und Erneuerung im 21. Jahrhundert. Untertitel: Jüdische, christliche und muslimische Perspektiven] Religionen haben klare Vorstellungen von Erneuerung und damit das Potential, in allen Sphären menschlichen Lebens Veränderungen einzuleiten. Religionen haben schon immer zu gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen beigetragen und Erneuerungsprozesse durch kontroverse theologische Debatten ausgelöst. Die Erneuerung religiösen Identität ist abhängig davon, wie religiöse Gemeinschaften ihre Traditionen und ihre gegenwärtigen und zukünftigen Herausforderungen für sich selbst, die Gesellschaft, in der sie leben, und die Welt als Ganzes interpretieren. Wo sehen religiöse Gemeinschaften ihre eigenen Ressourcen und welches sind die Kriterien für Erneuerungsprozesse im 21. Jahrhundert? In dieser Publikation analysieren reflektieren jüdische, christliche und muslimische Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler die Bedeutung und Dynamiken religiöser Erneuerung und untersuchen die Bedeutung religiöser Erneuerung in den verschiedenen religiösen Traditionen.
What is the interplay between religion and national culture in modern times? Distinguished scholars reflect on this question based on empirical research. They offer a vast set of insights about how religious identity is connected to the national heritage in which people are born and brought up.
Profound demographic and cultural changes in American society over the last half century have unsettled conventional understandings of the relationship between religious and political identity. The "Protestant mainline" continues to shrink in numbers, as well as in cultural and political influence. The growing population of American Muslims seek both acceptance and a firmer footing within the nation’s cultural and political imagination. Debates over contraception, same-sex relationships, and "prosperity" preaching continue to roil the waters of American cultural politics. Perhaps most remarkably, the fastest-rising religious demographic in most public opinion surveys is "none," giving rise to a new demographic that Gutterman and Murphy name "Religious Independents." Even the evangelical movement, which powerfully re-entered American politics during the 1970s and 1980s and retains a strong foothold in the Republican Party, has undergone generational turnover and no longer represents a monolithic political bloc. Political Religion and Religious Politics:Navigating Identities in the United States explores the multifaceted implications of these developments by examining a series of contentious issues in contemporary American politics. Gutterman and Murphy take up the controversy over the "Ground Zero Mosque," the political and legal battles over the contraception mandate in the Affordable Health Care Act and the ensuing Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision, the national response to the Great Recession and the rise in economic inequality, and battles over the public school curricula, seizing on these divisive challenges as opportunities to illuminate the changing role of religion in American public life. Placing the current moment into historical perspective, and reflecting on the possible future of religion, politics, and cultural conflict in the United States, Gutterman and Murphy explore the cultural and political dynamics of evolving notions of national and religious identity. They argue that questions of religion are questions of identity -- personal, social, and political identity -- and that they function in many of the same ways as race, sex, gender, and ethnicity in the construction of personal meaning, the fostering of solidarity with others, and the conflict they can occasion in the political arena.