Based on extensive primary research and grounded in a historical and theoretical framework, Religion and Personal Autonomy analyzes the role of religion in contemporary American society. The book makes a significant contribution to the current debate among American--and some non-American--sociologists of religion concerning secularization, the contemporary cultural role of 'mainline' religion for individuals, and the relevance of regional differences in religious identity and change. In this thought-provoking book, the author suggests that while the churches have heretofore reflected local...

The charismatic movement that began in the first century currently spans the globe. The term "charismatic" refers to the "gifts of the Holy Spirit"-speaking in tongues, healing, prophecy, and discernment-said to be available to Christians who have surrendered their lives to Christ. Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture takes readers on a journey to discover the history of the movement and the reasons why more and more Christians are finding the charismatic experience so meaningful.Leading scholars in the fields of religion and anthropology discuss the thought patterns and religious...

Contemporary Coptic Nuns reveals a world rarely seen by outsiders - the world of the nuns who worship and serve as part of the largest community of indigenous Christians in the Middle East. One of the few people unaffiliated with the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church to observe these women, Pieternella van Doorn-Harder tells about the nuns who eschew secular pursuits to devote their lives to this extraordinarily conservative faith. Through the actions of leading Coptic women, van Doorn-Harder portrays their rich traditions and beliefs, and she examines the forces that compel these women to...

Amidst a game room, transient hotel, car wash, tire repair shop, and unpaved parking lot, members of First Corinthians Missionary Baptist Church worship in a rickety structure abandoned during Chicago's race riots of the 1960s. Frances Kostarelos, an anthropologist granted unique access to the life and organization of this congregation, ushers readers into its services, seminars, committee meetings, and prayer meetings and into the homes of the individuals who worship there. Her vivid participant-observer portrait sheds light on a remarkably little understood social formation that shapes the...

In this text, leading scholars from around the world take stock of two centuries of international intellectual investment in Hinduism. Since the early 19th century, when the scholarly investigation of Hinduism began to take shape as a modern academic discipline, Hindu studies has evolved from its concentration on description and analysis to an emphasis on understanding Hindu traditions in the context of the religion's own values, concepts and history. Offering an assessment of the current state of Hindu studies, the contributors to this volume identify past achievements and chart the course...

Voices from the Pagan Census provides insight into the expanding but largely unstudied religious movement of Neo-Paganism in the United States. The authors present the findings of The Pagan Census, which was created and distributed by Berger and Andras Corban Arthen of the Earthspirit Community. Analysing the most comprehensive and largest-scale survey of the Neo-Pagans to date, the authors offer a portrait of this emerging religious community, including an examination of Neo-Pagan political activism, educational achievements, family life, worship methods, experiences with the paranormal and...

Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the Nurbakhshiya, an Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century central Asia and Iran and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nurbakhshi activity in the Middle East and central and southern Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within...

Recite the Name of the Red Rose introduces Western readers to constructions of the sacred in twentieth-century Iranian poetry. Sifting through the lives and writings of modern and classical poets, Fatemeh Keshavarz provides a systematic examination of the array of religious impulses in recent Persian verse. Viewing poetry as the site of the emergence of the self and the sacred, she confirms that sanctification is not static in its forms but continuously in flux and that the poetic modes used to articulate the sanctified are equally fluid. Keshevarz begins by introducing the core concepts that...

In his comparative study of four Tamil resettlements, Clothey examines the rituals that have traveled with these South Indian communities -- Hindu, Muslim, and Christian -- and how these practices perpetuate or modify the heritages these groups claim in their new environs. Clothey looks specifically at settlements in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore; Mumbai, India; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In this comparative analysis of the significance of keeping and revealing secrets in early Islamic culture, Khan works with a broad range of Arabo-Islamic texts to map interconnections between concepts of secrecy and identity. In early Islamic discourse, Khan maintains, individual identity is integrally linked to a psychology of secrecy and revelation. Khan further maintains that secrecy and identity demarcate boundaries for interpersonal relations when governed by the cultural norms of discretion espoused in these texts. As evidence for her study, Khan explores religious and literary...