Reflexive Religion: The New Age in Brazil and Beyond PDF Download

Author: Anthony D'Andrea
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004380116
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Reflexive Religion: The New Age in Brazil and Beyond examines the rise of alternative spiritualities in contemporary Brazil. Masterfully combining late modern theory with multi-site ethnographies of the New Age, it explains how traditional religion is being transformed by processes of reflexivity, globalization and individualism. The book unveils how the New Age has entered Brazil, was adapted to local Catholic, Spiritist and psychology cultures, and more recently how the Brazilian Nova Era re-enters transnational circuits of spiritual practice. It closely examines Paulo Coelho (spiritualist novels), Projectiology (astral projection) and Santo Daime (neo-shamanism) to understand the broader “new agerization” of Christianity and Spiritualism. Reflexive Religion offers a compelling account of how the religious field is being updated under late modern conditions.

Author: Kimberley Christine Patton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199723281
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
In many of the world's religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, a seemingly enigmatic and paradoxical image is found--that of the god who worships. Various interpretations of this seeming paradox have been advanced. Some suggest that it represents sacrifice to a higher deity. Proponents of anthropomorphic projection say that the gods are just "big people" and that images of human religious action are simply projected onto the deities. However, such explanations do not do justice to the complexity and diversity of this phenomenon. In Religion of the Gods, Kimberley C. Patton uses a comparative approach to take up anew a longstanding challenge in ancient Greek religious iconography: why are the Olympian gods depicted on classical pottery making libations? The sacrificing gods in ancient Greece are compared to gods who perform rituals in six other religious traditions: the Vedic gods, the heterodox god Zurvan of early Zoroastrianism, the Old Norse god Odin, the Christian God and Christ, the God of Judaism, and Islam's Allah. Patton examines the comparative evidence from a cultural and historical perspective, uncovering deep structural resonances while also revealing crucial differences. Instead of looking for invisible recipients or lost myths, Patton proposes the new category of "divine reflexivity." Divinely performed ritual is a self-reflexive, self-expressive action that signals the origin of ritual in the divine and not the human realm. Above all, divine ritual is generative, both instigating and inspiring human religious activity. The religion practiced by the gods is both like and unlike human religious action. Seen from within the religious tradition, gods are not "big people," but other than human. Human ritual is directed outward to a divine being, but the gods practice ritual on their own behalf. "Cultic time," the symbiotic performance of ritual both in heaven and on earth, collapses the distinction between cult and theology each time ritual is performed. Offering the first comprehensive study and a new theory of this fascinating phenomenon, Religion of the Gods is a significant contribution to the fields of classics and comparative religion. Patton shows that the god who performs religious action is not an anomaly, but holds a meaningful place in the category of ritual and points to a phenomenologically universal structure within religion itself.

Author: Malcolm Ruel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004106406
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
This collection of essays focuses upon the religion and ritual of the Kuria people of East Africa, but uses this material to raise wider comparative and cross-cultural issues regarding broad themes in eastern Bantu religions as well as western assumptions about religion and individual personhood.

Author: Jeffrey J. Kripal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118281322
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 557

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Book Description
Comparing Religions is a next-generation textbook which expertly guides, inspires, and challenges those who wish to think seriously about religious pluralism in the modern world. A unique book teaching the art and practice of comparing religions Draws on a wide range of religious traditions to demonstrate the complexity and power of comparative practices Provides both a history and understanding of comparative practice and a series of thematic chapters showing how responsible practice is done A three part structure provides readers with a map and effective process through which to grasp this challenging but fascinating approach The author is a leading academic, writer, and exponent of comparative practice Contains numerous learning features, including chapter outlines, summaries, toolkits, discussion questions, a glossary, and many images Supported by a companion website (available on publication) at www.wiley.com/go/kripal, which includes information on individual religious traditions, links of other sites, an interview with the author, learning features, and much more

Author: John Walliss
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351742450
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This title was first published in 2002. Drawing on primary research on the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, a millenarian New Religious Movement of Indian origin, this book examines the status of tradition in the contemporary world through a critical engagement with the recent social theory of Anthony Giddens on the emergence of a post-traditional society. Wallis examines both the ways in which forms of tradition not only persist but also flourish in the contemporary world and also the manner in which such traditions are drawn on and (re)created by individuals in their ongoing construction of self-identity. Illuminating some of the difficulties encountered when social theory is applied to 'the real world', this book also offers a way of theorising about the status of contemporary religiosity that does not refer directly to the notion of secularisation.

Author: James W. Ellor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317994973
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Since the 1971 White House Conference on Aging in the United States, the need to move from religiosity into new areas such as Spiritual Assessment and Spirituality has emerged. This movement has picked up momentum among scholars, particularly in terms of research in the area of Spirituality. While spirituality as a term is employed in many new studies, this term continues to defy the quest for a single definition and method. This book is divided into three sections. In the first the authors reflect on the philosophical and theological issues presented by these terms from a variety of both cognate and practical methodological approaches. The second section offers insights from the major professions of sociology, psychology, public health, nursing and social work. The final section offers insight and assistance to researchers and authors on specific religious traditions. This book will be important for anyone working to develop such practical tools as spiritual assessment forms to those who engage in more formal scholarly investigation.

Author: Jayeel Serrano Cornelio
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317621972
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
This book, based on extensive original research, examines the nature of Catholicism in the contemporary Philippines. It shows how Catholicism is apparently flourishing, with good attendance at Sunday Masses, impressive religious processions and flourishing charismatic groups, and with interventions by the Catholic hierarchy in national and local politics. However, focusing in particular on the beliefs and practices of young people, the book shows that young people are often adopting a different, more individualised approach to Catholicism, which is frequently out of step with the official position. It considers the features of this: a more personal and experiential relationship with God; a new approach to morality, in which right living is seen as more important than right believing; and a critical view of what is seen as the Catholic hierarchy's misguidedness. The book argues that this reinterpreting of religion by young people has the potential to alter fundamentally the nature of Catholicism in the Philippines, but that, nevertheless, young people's new approach involves a solid, enduring commitment and a strong view of their own Catholic, religious identity.

Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826481469
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Thirty classic and contemporary readings - from such writers as Kant, Hume, Schleiermacher, and Otto, to Ninian Smart, Mircea Eliade, Karen McCarthy-Brown, and Wendy Doniger.

Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019009334X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A new examination of how and why American religious parents seek to pass on religion to their children The most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children, youth, and teenagers is their parents. A myriad of studies show that the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives. We know a lot about the importance of parents in faith transmission. However we know much less about the actual beliefs, feelings, and activities of the parents themselves, what Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk call the "intergenerational transmission of religious faith and practice." To address that gap, this book reports the findings of a new national study of religious parents in the United States. The findings and conclusions in Handing Down the Faith are based on 215 in-depth, personal interviews with religious parents from many traditions and different parts of the country, and sophisticated analyses of two nationally representative surveys of American parents about their religious parenting. Handing Down the Faith explores the background beliefs informing how and why religious parents seek to pass on religion to their children; examines how parenting styles interact with parent religiousness to shape effective religious transmission; shows how parents have been influenced by their experiences as children influenced by their own parents; reveals how religious parents view their congregations and what they most seek out in a local church, synagogue, temple, or mosque; explores the experiences and outlooks of immigrant parents including Latino Catholics, East Asian Buddhists, South Asian Muslims, and Indian Hindus. Smith and Adamczyk step back to consider how American religion has transformed over the last 100 years and to explain why parents today shoulder such a huge responsibility in transmitting religious faith and practice to their children. The book is rich in empirical evidence and unique in many of the topics it explores and explains, providing a variety of sometimes counterintuitive findings that will interest scholars of religion, social scientists interested in the family, parenting, and socialization; clergy and religious educators and leaders; and religious parents themselves.

Author: Morten T. Højsgaard
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415357630
Category : Cyberspace
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Religion and Cyberspace explores how religious individuals and groups are responding to the opportunities and challenges that cyberspace brings.