In a curiously titled (“Congregations Gone Wild“) op-ed piece for the New York Times, pastor Jeffrey MacDonald bemoans the pressures that now assail the American clergy. What are these pressures? Entertaining the flock. Selling religion as a commodity for comfortable consumers-parishioners.
Despite the title tease alluding to a sophomoric video series in which college-aged women bare [...]
Tags:clergy burnout·Congregations Gone Wild·entertaining religion·fear based faith·fear based religion·Jeffrey MacDonald·liturgy·marketplace of faith·Peter Berger·puppets·religion as commodity·religious entertainment·sociological theory·soothing religion·The Sacred Canopy
Over at HuffPo Religion, Cynthia Boaz has written an earnest piece that implores Americans to think harder about Islam and not simply demonize it. I agree with much of what she says but the unfortunate fact is that her plea will fall on few or deaf ears. Not many religious or political extremists are reading [...]
Tags:authenticity·authorial intent·Christopher Hitchens·Cynthia Boaz·fear·interpretation·interpretive communities·Islam·jahiliyya·jihadist·John Calvert·Koran·madrassa·Milestones·misconceptions about Islam·multiplicities of Islam·Muslims·oppression of women·Pakistan·political extremism·reader response·religions of the book·religious extremism·religious writings·Sam Harris·Saudi Arabia·Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism·singular Islam·Stanley Fish·truth·truths about Islam·violence·zealotry
In yesterday’s post, I discussed Philip Goldberg’s contention that “Eastern religions” (i.e., Hinduism and Buddhism) are science friendly. To support his argument, Goldberg relies on a very specific — and Westernized — understanding of these traditions. Yesterday’s post was devoted to the Western construction and consumption of Buddhism; today’s post will cover the highly problematic [...]
Tags:consciousness·Constructions of Hinduism·David Lorenzen·eastern religions·Edward Said·energy·essentializing·Hindu·Hinduism·India·Indian nationalism·invention of Hinduism·official Hinduism·Philip Goldberg·Robert Frykenberg·social construction·South Asia·syncretism·Vedic·Western consumption·Who Invented Hinduism·Yoga
Today, while examining the key word searches that have led people to this blog, I noticed this interesting query: “Are tea partiers psychotic?” This Google search must have pulled up my post “Tea Parties and Monkey Gods,” in which I observed that Tea Partiers seem to be animated by a toxic combination of anger and [...]
Tags:anger·angst·autonomy·dependence·faith·fantasy·fear·fiction·free markets·fundamentalists·Hegel·identity·imaginary·individualism·J.M. Bernstein·libertarians·metaphysical·metaphysics·paranoia·Pierre Bourdieu·psychotic·rage·religious right·structuralism·sturm und drang·Tea Party·The Stone
On rare occasion, one encounters a thinker and writer of extraordinary talent; the author, intellectual, and sociologist Daniel Bell is one such person. Bell is perhaps most famous for his 1976 book, Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. It was with great interest, therefore, that I read his 1977 Hobhouse Memorial Lecture, “The Return of the Sacred? [...]
Tags:Christianity·consumption·Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism·Daniel Bell·dualism·Emile Durkheim·fundamentalism·Harvard·high culture·human nature·human universals·Immanuel Wallerstein·intellectuals·intelligentsia·Janus·late capitalism·materialism·modernity·morality·mythical past·New York City elites·nostalgia·science·sociologist·sociology·The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of Religion·the sacred·Western culture·Whore of Babylon·world system
A recently released Pew Survey finds that Africa is the “most religious part of the world.” As the HuffPo Religion section reports:
Islam and Christianity dominate as the most popular religions in the region–a stark reversal from a century ago when Muslims and Christians were outnumbered by followers of traditional indigenous religions. But for the past [...]
There is a long and venerable tradition of “human deities” (i.e., rulers and priests) having many possessions, much money, and considerable power. In a modern twist on that tradition, Nepal’s current “living goddess, Chanira Bajracharya, who serves both Buddhists and Hindus, has decided on a banking career. As reported by Reuters:
Chanira Bajracharya, 15, has been [...]
Tags:Buddhist·Hindu·living goddess
Most people associate shamans with small-scale societies and many scholars contend that shamanism was the first “religion,” practiced by hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic. These perspectives ignore the fact that shamans can be found in large-scale societies, and that shamanic practices are an important aspect of spiritual life in several first-world countries.
Laurel Kendall, an anthropologist at [...]
Tags:globalization·Korea·Laurel Kendall·prosperity gospel·shamans
Social theorists in general and cultural anthropologists in particular seem to agree that globalization is one of the most potent forces (or phenomena) in recent human history. Although globalization defies easy categorization, at a minimum it entails an increasingly connected world. These connections — often characterized in terms of “flows” across differently imagined landscapes — [...]
Tags:globalization
