Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Classifications'

Emerging (Neo-Gnostic) Church

April 11th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Classifications, New Religions

Over at The Atlantic, Josh Kron writes about an evangelical group, the Emerging Church, which is influential in Africa and whose leading members are behind Invisible Children and Kony 2012. Kony’s creator, Jason Russell, was earlier in the good news for his viral video and later in the bad news for what appears to be [...]

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Disrupting & Inventing “Religion”

January 27th, 2012 · 12 Comments · Classifications, Definitions

When I teach my anthropology of religion course the first order of business is to define and disrupt “religion” as a category. I begin by having students identify everything they consider to be “religion.” Our list grows and all the usual suspects make their appearance. After the list has been compiled, we then ask what [...]

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Visions of Ruth Benedict

August 25th, 2011 · No Comments · Classifications, Ecology, Hunter-Gatherers

When it comes to classic anthropology, Margaret Mead may garner the lionesses’ share of attention but Ruth Benedict remains the matriarch. Although Benedict today is dismissed by some as a quaint relic of the “culture and personality” school of anthropology, such demurrals underestimate the theoretical sophistication and continuing relevance of Benedict’s work.
Those who understand Patterns [...]

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Lost in (Western) Translation

June 2nd, 2011 · 2 Comments · Classifications, Cultural Evolution, History, Hunter-Gatherers

There is a sense in which we are all cultural narcissists. By this, I mean that because all of us are acculturated at a particular time and in a particular place, we have a strong tendency to view other times and places through our own cultural lens. These lenses are prismatic and what we see [...]

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Religious Evolution: Sami Sticks & Phoenician Stones

May 28th, 2011 · No Comments · Classifications, Cultural Evolution, History, Hunter-Gatherers, Pagans, Ritual, Shamanism

Unlike living organisms, cultural formations do not “evolve.” Evolution, sensu stricto, is a biological process and not a cultural one. Despite this fact, some scholars have fruitfully deployed evolutionary ideas — as analogy and metaphor — to analyze cultural history.
In 1964 the sociologist Robert Bellah did just this in his classic paper, Religious Evolution. Taking [...]

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Oxford’s “Explaining Religion Project”

April 27th, 2011 · No Comments · Classifications, Cognition, History, Neolithic, Ritual

There is no shortage of research projects whose aim is to “explain religion” or the “evolution of religion.” In addition to the Evolution of Religion Project which I interrogated in a recent post, anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse leads the “Explaining Religion” project based at Oxford University.
Whitehouse is interested primarily in religious variation and sees religions as [...]

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The Jedi Religion

February 28th, 2011 · 10 Comments · Classifications, Definitions, New Religions

Before the 2001 census was taken in Great Britain and several Commonwealth countries, someone suggested that the “Religious Affiliation” question be answered by professing belief in The Force and claiming to be a Jedi Knight. In Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, significant numbers of people did just this.
If you have ever attended a Star [...]

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Lawsuit Challenges “Religion of Atheism”

February 23rd, 2011 · No Comments · Classifications, Definitions

A high school physics and chemistry teacher in Pennsylvania has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that evolution is atheism and because atheism is a religion, it cannot be taught in public schools. Here is the complaint:
1. The Plaintiff is Thomas J. Ritter, Jr., an adult individual residing at 320 MacArthur Drive, Orwigsburg, PA 17961.
2. [...]

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Interview with Professor Craig Martin

January 31st, 2011 · 2 Comments · Classifications, Definitions, Methodology, Philosophy, Power

Craig Martin is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He has published several articles (links below) and a recent book, Masking Hegemony: A Genealogy of Liberalism, Religion and the Private Sphere. Craig is also active in the blogging community and is editor of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion.
I [...]

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Onward “Spiritual” Soldiers!

January 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Classifications, Economy, Power

It is hardly a secret that one of America’s most religious — or to be more precise, Christian — institutions is the military. Despite the juridical and rhetorical lip service paid to the separation of church and state, the military is a place where such separation is seen as inimical to institutional interests ranging from [...]

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