Journal of the American Academy of Religion - current issue

Restricting the Scope of the Ethics of Belief: Haack's Alternative to Clifford and James

Christian, R. A. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:07 PDT

In "‘The Ethics of Belief’ Reconsidered," Susan Haack sets about to determine the relation of epistemic to ethical appraisal. She promotes her account as an alternative to the "morally over demanding" position of W. K. Clifford and the "epistemically over permissive" proposal of Wm. James. An "overlap" between epistemic and ethical appraisal obtains, on her view, only when individuals are responsible for holding epistemically unjustified beliefs that result in or directly threaten harm. In my discussion, I explore the terms of Haack's attractive proposal in order to consider its implications for a question she does not consider but that exercised both Clifford and James: that of the ethical permissibility of epistemically unjustified religious belief. Adopting Haack's measured approach, I argue, would serve not only to focus contemporary debate over religious belief, but perhaps also to moderate its tone and to engage concerned believers.

Feminism and Heresy: The Construction of a Jewish Metanarrative

Ferziger, A. S. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:07 PDT

The connection of women with heresy and deviance has a long history within religious traditions throughout the world. The following discussion uncovers a new chapter in this convention, by highlighting the efforts of a prominent rabbinical authority to reject attempts at upgrading the public religious roles available to women. The legal or "halakhic" position that he expounds is not unto itself exceptional. What is sui generis, rather, is his construction for polemical purposes of a "metanarrative of Jewish heresy" in which a historical chain that begins with the Sadducees in ancient times and extends to contemporary Orthodox Jewish feminism is linked through the common complaint of rabbinic discrimination against women. By describing the context from which this teleological understanding emerged and analyzing its characteristics, this study offers a new perspective on the role that feminism is playing in the development of American Orthodox Judaism. More broadly, it serves as a case study for how the rise of feminism within contemporary religious life has engendered original theological responses and strategies not only among its supporters and ideologues, but among the "guardians" of the various religious traditions as well.

Religion, Reductionism, and the Godly Soul: Lubavitch Hasidic Jewishness and the Limits of Classificatory Thought

Goldschmidt, H. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

This essay explores the limits of the classificatory category of religion through an analysis of Lubavitch Hasidic discourses of Jewishness. The Lubavitch Hasidim articulate a distinctive vision of Jewish identity based on what they describe as a uniquely Jewish "godly soul," inherited by all Jews from the biblical patriarchs. The godly soul sits, uncomfortably, on the conceptual boundaries of "race" and "religion," as these reductive categories of social analysis are typically understood. Though it may be classified in such terms, it is better described as a conceptual singularity that resists the mechanisms of classificatory thought. To understand such singular phenomena, I argue, we need to develop a social antireductionism—a mode of analysis that interrogates the categories of the modern social sciences without appealing to a transcendent space beyond the social world.

Everyday Religion and Identity in a Western Manitoban Chinese Community: Christianity, the KMT, Foodways and Related Events

Marshall, A. R. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

Immigrating to the Canadian prairies in the late 1870s, a predominantly male Chinese population first settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, then in Brandon and cities, towns, and villages created by new branch lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in the 1880s. From the earliest time of the province's post-colonial settlement, men could join the Chinese Freemasons (Hongmen/Zhigongtang) whose 1863 headquarters was established in Barkerville, British Columbia, and later the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) in 1884 in Victoria. By 1910, a Winnipeg Freemasons "lodge" (probably a restaurant) existed that also housed a local branch of the Tongmenghui (Chinese United League). Two years later, it became a secret KMT (Zhongguo Guomindang or Chinese Nationalist League in the West) office and one year after that a rural outpost opened in Brandon. While the men had found comfort in the fellowship provided by Freemasons and CBA membership, in the KMT they had Sun Yatsen (1866–1925) who, like them, came from a southern village and was now living away from China. This essay examines the front and back regions of everyday religiosity that emerged out of KMT involvement and relationships, reverence for Sun Yatsen, and a nominal Christian identity in a Western Manitoban Chinese Community.

The Reunification of Theology and Comparison in the New Comparative Theology

Nicholson, H. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

This paper examines the relationship between the new comparative theology and the theology of religions in light of their common genealogy in the comparative theology of the late nineteenth century. Noting that the latter's blindness to its considerable biases was sustained by its oppositional relationship with the exclusionary apologetic theology of the day, the paper argues that the new comparative theology risks repeating the same pattern of self-deception when it dichotomizes its relationship with the theology of religions. At the same time, however, the new comparative theology, by openly acknowledging its theological commitments, strips the comparative method of the aura of "science" which has often functioned ideologically to mask bias. In this way, the new comparative theology exemplifies the recent shift in the understanding of comparison from a method of discovery to a critical method for the testing and revision of the categories through which scholars interpret their data.

Dark Teens and Born-again Martyrs: Captivity Narratives after Columbine

Pike, S. M. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

In Columbine and its legacy, two streams of American discourse about threatening young people and captivity by evil forces converged: Protestant evangelical captivity narratives dating from the colonial period and discourse about troubled youth that has its origins in the mid-nineteenth century. Tales about threatening youth convey the extent to which young people do important work for their cultures, especially when they are used to shore up the bounds of normality against the threat of deviance. Captivity narratives provided powerful impetus for change after Columbine, just as they did for Protestants in seventeenth-century New England and for nineteenth-century nativist movements. After Columbine, tales of adolescents captured by darkness contributed to a growing evangelical youth movement, effected legislation concerning the separation of church and state, impacted public school dress codes and behavior policies, and in general shaped Americans' thinking about teenage deviance and normality.

Empire's Allure: Babylon and the Exception to Law in Two Conservative Discourses

Runions, E. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

Reference to Babylon and Babel in theonomist and neoconserative discourse is instructive in thinking about how the Bible and processes of biblical interpretation might condition U.S. citizens to accept the inconsistencies of empire and its recourse to the state of exception, in which leaders suspend the law in order to save democracy. Despite significant philosophical and religious differences, these conservative discourses are strikingly similar in allegorizing the Babel story to motivate resistance to a universalizing secular humanism and its laws (which are called Babylonian). Though suspicious of political unities like empires, and in favor of decentralization and individualism that can go beyond the law, these discourses insist that resistance is in the name of a unified truth, often presented in strongly imperialist terms. Slippages between unity and multiplicity in these allusions to Babylon—partially produced by a mélange of pre- and post-Enlightenment values—are found to be homologous with the structure of the exception and with a common canonical mode of biblical interpretation. When these dynamics are read alongside Carl Schmitt's genealogy of the exception in Political Theology, a clear picture emerges of the scripturalized structure of exception to law in U.S. liberal democracy.

Of Love and How

Hart, K. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

Mipam on Buddha-Nature: The Ground of the Nyingma Tradition. By Douglas S. Duckworth

Burchardi, A. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism. Edited by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter

Hur, N.-l. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

The Sacred Village: Social Change and Religious Life in Rural North China. By Thomas David Dubois

Kang, X. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. By Susannah Heschel

Madigan, K. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

Faith in Schools? Autonomy, Citizenship, and Religious Education in the Liberal State. By Ian MacMullen

Stoker, V. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT

Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. By Margaret A. Farley

Yeager, D. M. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:04:08 PDT