Journal of the American Academy of Religion - recent issues

2008 Presidential Address: Walking on the Rim Bones of Nothingness: Scholarship and Activism

Townes, E. M. — 2009-05-09

Jesus Freak and the Junkyard Prophet: The School Assembly as Evangelical Revival

Ebel, J. H. — 2009-05-09

The Christian Wrestling Federation (CWF) and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide (YCR) are two evangelical revivalistic ministries working through popular forms—professional-style wrestling and rock music—to convince young men and women to become Christians. Each group also stages character education assemblies in public schools across the United States. This article describes the activities of these two groups, places each in the broader context of the history of American revivalism, and discusses some of the issues raised by their inclusion in public school curricula. Conservative evangelical discontent with American public education is amply documented, as are attempts by local, state, and national organizations to make more room for Christianity in schools. Revivalist character educators have received almost no attention as part of this "Christianization" effort, yet their work helps frame and answer persistent questions about approaches to moral education, the place of religion in public education, and the much-studied relationship between evangelicalism and popular culture. The history of English and American revivalism, a history in which these ministries partake fully, offers potential answers to these questions—answers that encourage caution on the part of the educators and revivalists who embrace the school assembly as a moral educational venue.

Editor's Introduction: "Roundtable on the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature"

2009-05-09

A Response to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

Keller, C. — 2009-05-09

Comments on the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

Olupona, J. — 2009-05-09

"Why Prince Charles Instead of "Princess Mononoke?" The Absence of Children and Popular Culture in The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

Pike, S. M. — 2009-05-09

Back to Religion and Nature

Taylor, B. — 2009-05-09

All Work and No Play: Chaos, Incongruity and Differance in The Study of Religion

Roberts, T. — 2009-05-09

The last two decades have been fascinating and productive ones for theorists of religion. Recent work has offered a remarkably wide range of theoretical perspectives and possibilities that enrich our field even as they plunge us into vigorous theoretical debates. Amidst this contest—even confusion—some basic principles for guiding future work seem to be asserting themselves. Many think that, after a century of confusion and intermingling between theology and the study of religion, scholars of religion are finally in a position to establish the study of religion on properly academic, theoretical foundations. In this story Eliade's antireductionist discourse of the "sacred" becomes the epitome and, it is hoped, the last gasp of religious studies as a quasi-theological discourse. Yet despite their efforts to guide the study of religion away from Eliade, many remain Eliadan insofar as they accept Eliade's "locative" approach to religion. Yet is it really "theology" that is currently limiting the way we "imagine religion," or might it be instead the refusal to think beyond religion's locative function—a refusal very closely linked to the desire for academic respectability in a historicist age? Mark C. Taylor's After God provocatively disturbs the idea that religion is primarily locative and, in doing so, also disturbs the boundaries between the theological and the theoretical, religion and the study of religion. I consider the significance of this virtual map of religion, by reading After God with and against J. Z. Smith's early reflections or experiments with the ideas of chaos, incongruity, and location. I argue that Taylor's book leads us back to paths from which Smith turned in his early work.

Refiguring Religion

Taylor, M. C. — 2009-05-09

Defining Buddhism(s): A Reader (Critical Categories in the Study of Religion). Edited by Karen Derris and Natalie Gummer

Apple, J. B. — 2009-05-09

Book under Suspicion. Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England. By Kathryn Kerby-Fulton

Bose, M. — 2009-05-09

The Lord for the Body: Religion, Medicine, & Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880-1930. By James Opp

Brown, C. G. — 2009-05-09

Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan. By Nancy K. Stalker

Chilson, C. — 2009-05-09

Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World. By Anthea D. Butler

Evans, C. J. — 2009-05-09

The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology. By Paul K. Moser

Macdonald, P. — 2009-05-09

Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. By Joan Breton Connelly

Miles, M. M. — 2009-05-09

The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations (Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism 20). Edited by Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone

Penkower, L. — 2009-05-09

Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus. By Mark A. Chancey

Ruprecht, L. A. — 2009-05-09

The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science. By Peter Harrison

Bland, K. P. — 2009-05-09

The Oxford Companion of English Literature and Theology. Edited by Andrew W. Hass, David Jasper, and Elisabeth Jay

Kort, W. A. — 2009-05-09

Ippolito Desideri S.J. Opere e Bibliografia [Subsidia ad Historiam Societatis Iesu 15]. By Enzo Gualtiero Bargiacchi

Pomplun, T. — 2009-05-09

Women Shaping Islam: Reading the Quran in Indonesia. By Pieternella van Doorn-Harder

Rinaldo, R. — 2009-05-09

Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, Anti-Christianity, and the Danka System. By Nam-lin Hur

Rowe, M. — 2009-05-09

After God. By Mark C. Taylor

Caputo, J. D. — 2009-05-09

The Political Origins of Religious Liberty. By Anthony Gill

Hall, M. D. — 2009-05-09

Mircea Eliade: A Critical Reader (Critical Categories in the Study of Religion). Edited by Bryan S. Rennie * The International Eliade (Issues in the Study of Religion). Edited by Bryan S. Rennie

Jensen, T. — 2009-05-09

Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. By Webb Keane

Lofton, K. — 2009-05-09

Buddhism and Postmodernity: Zen, Huayan, and the Possibility of Postmodern Ethics. By Jin Y. Park

Magliola, R. — 2009-05-09

Religion and Ecology: A Review Essay on the Field

Jenkins, W. — 2009-05-09

The 'Magical' Language of Mantra

Burchett, P. E. — 2008-11-17

This paper aims to illuminate the phenomenon of mantras and to critique the category of magic through an examination of mantra as magical language. Mantras have often been referred to as "magic formulas" or "spells," yet one searches the scholarly literature in vain for a worthy explanation of precisely why mantra should or should not be considered magical. This essay addresses this lack, (a) explaining how mantra's conflict with modern Western understandings of language has led scholars to conceive of mantra as magic and (b) showing just what is at stake in such characterizations. This examination of mantra will demonstrate how "magic" and related terms have consistently been used not so much to describe as to marginalize and de-authorize that to which they refer. While the issue is partly about flawed terms and categories, the question of mantra as magic ultimately leads to an unsettling confrontation with the limits of our own modern rationalist perspective.

The War in Iraq and the Academic Study of Religion

Chernus, I. — 2008-11-17

We can gain valuable new perspectives on the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and the domestic response to them by applying the historical and analytical–descriptive methods of academic religious studies. The article analyzes the work that has already been done along these lines, placing it in the context of broader studies of American religion and culture that cast the U.S. role in the Iraq war in a new light. These works provide a model of scholarship as good citizenship, helping American society understand itself better in a time of war, stimulating the kind of thoughtful debate that is the lifeblood of democracy.

Painting Landscapes of Religion in America: Four Models of Religion in Democracy

Cladis, M. S. — 2008-11-17

This article explores the role and place of religion in contemporary democratic societies, particularly in American public life. Four models are proposed for thinking about religion in public: (1) Religion over the Public Landscape (in which religion is necessary for the health of public and political life); (2) Religion Banned from the Public Landscape (in which religion is kept mostly out of public and political life); (3) Public Landscape as Religious Space (in which the health of the republic depends on a shared, civil religion); and (4) Public Landscape as Varied Topography (in which religion is not initially treated as a special case, but rather is treated like any other more or less comprehensive view that may offer a voice in public and political debate). I champion this final model and argue that the risk of allowing religion in public and political exchange is not as great as the promise of inviting it in.

The Apophasis of Gender: A Fourfold Unsaying of Feminist Theology

Keller, C. — 2008-11-17

If academic feminism suffers from an institutionalized overfamiliarity, it is also the case that its language of gender has never ceased to shift, bifurcate, and enfold other discourses. In its attention to its own aporias, feminism at points resembles a mysticism of "knowing ignorance." This paper effects an improbable resonance between a particular tradition of apophatic cosmology and a feminist theology that resists at once its own idolatry and its own silence. Negative theology becomes positively embodied. The device of a feminist fourfold allows for the exploration of the potentiality of gender, race, and queerness for an amorous and prolific manifold.

What Cultural Theorists of Religion Have to Learn from Wittgenstein; Or, How to Read Geertz as a Practice Theorist

Springs, J. A. — 2008-11-17

Amid the debates over the meaning and usefulness of the word "culture" during the 1980s and 1990s, practice theory emerged as a framework for analysis and criticism in cultural anthropology. Although theorists have gradually begun to explore practice-oriented frameworks as promising vistas in cultural anthropology and the study of religion, these remain relatively recent developments that stand to be historically explicated and conceptually refined. This article assesses several ways that practice theory has been articulated by some of its chief expositors and critics, and places these developments in conversation with comparable accounts of "social practices" by recent pragmatist philosophers. My aim in generating such a conversation is to illuminate the ways that Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work provides important resources for cultural analysis that are already implicit in practice theory, yet either frequently overlooked or dismissed by practice theorists. I demonstrate how a Wittgensteinian understanding of practice theory coheres with, and illuminates, Clifford Geertz's account of meaning, thick description, and religious practices. Reading Geertz as a practice theorist, I argue, helps alleviate the apparent opposition between assessing meaning and analyzing power in the study of religious practices and institutions, and unsettles dichotomous accounts of belief and intentional action.

African Immigrant Religions in America. Edited by Jacob K. Olupona and Regina Gemignani

Adogame, A. — 2008-11-17

From Primitive to Indigenous: The Academic Study of Indigenous Religions. By James L. Cox

Baum, R. M. — 2008-11-17

Wrestling with God: Jewish Theological Responses during and after the Holocaust. Edited by Steven T. Katz, Scholomo Biderman, and Gershon Greenberg

Braiterman, Z. — 2008-11-17

Kant on God (Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology). By Peter Byrne

Bristow, W. F. — 2008-11-17

Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice. By Michael L. Satlow

Cohn, N. S. — 2008-11-17

Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of the Renaissance. By Patricia F. Cholakian and Rouben C. Cholakian

Crawford, K. — 2008-11-17

Jokei and Buddhist Devotion in Early Medieval Japan. By James L. Ford

Dobbins, J. C. — 2008-11-17

The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism. By J.L. Schellenberg

Draper, P. — 2008-11-17

Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement. By Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori

Frederick, M. — 2008-11-17

The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Sect. By Kenneth G. C. Newport

Gallagher, E. V. — 2008-11-17

How to Behave: Buddhism and Modernity in Colonial Cambodia, 1860-1930. By Anne Ruth Hansen

Gayley, H. — 2008-11-17

Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs. By Rane Willerslev

Grant, B. — 2008-11-17

The Uses of Paradox (Religion, Self-Transformation, and the Absurd). By Matthew Bagger

Griffiths, P. J. — 2008-11-17

The Secrets of the Kingdom: Religion and Concealment in the Bush Administration. By Hugh B. Urban

Hulsether, M. — 2008-11-17

Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop. Edited by Miriam Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence

Kassam, Z. — 2008-11-17

Discovering Levinas. By Michael L. Morgan

Kavka, M. — 2008-11-17

After the Death of God. By John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo. Edited by Jeffrey W. Robbins

Kosky, J. L. — 2008-11-17

Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement: How Religion Matters for America's Newest Immigrants. By Fred Kniss and Paul D. Numrich

Marquardt, M. F. — 2008-11-17

Arguing the Just War in Islam. By John Kelsay

McCants, W. — 2008-11-17

Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World. By Miriam Bodian

Melammed, R. L. — 2008-11-17

In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement. By Michael Lienesch

Moran, J. — 2008-11-17

Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality. Edited by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel

Rey, T. — 2008-11-17

The Politics of Mourning in Early China. By Miranda Brown

Stalnaker, A. — 2008-11-17

Sanctuary Cinema: Origins of the Christian Film Industry. By Terry Lindvall

Trost, T. L. — 2008-11-17

In the Course of a Lifetime: Tracing Religious Belief, Practice, and Change. By Michelle Dillon and Paul Wink

Voas, D. — 2008-11-17

The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed

Satlow, M. L. — 2008-11-17

2007 Presidential Address: The Folly of Secularism

Stout, J. — 2008-08-13

Torture and Origen's Hermeneutics of Nonviolence

Kolbet, P. R. — 2008-08-13

In a world where too many people continue to be tortured without recourse to legal protections, nonlegislative resources for preserving human dignity amid dehumanizing terror are much needed. This article analyzes the hermeneutical exercises constructed by the influential third century Christian intellectual, Origen of Alexandria, to prepare himself and others for torture and martyrdom. These exercises were designed to be a counter-asceticism that would strike at the root of violence both in the self and in society and enable his contemporary Christians to suffer at the hands of the Romans without losing sight either of their own humanity or that of their tormentors. Christians following Origen's practice were trained to resist not only the Roman Empire's violent disciplining of bodies, but the whole interpretation of the world that justified it as they embodied a nonviolent alternative to it. In this way, Origen provides resources for a particularly religious mode of resistance to torture that usefully supplements the contemporary human rights campaign and holds promise for overcoming some of its limitations.

What Bodies Know About Religion and the Study of It

LaMothe, K. L. — 2008-08-13

To advance the project of attending to the bodily dimensions of religious life, scholars must develop ways of acknowledging the role that their own bodily being plays in the study of religious life. One follows the other. Yet, the cast of debates over theory and method in the field hinders such developments. The tendency to think of religious studies as either scientific or interpretive—and the accompanying pressure to resolve the debate to one side or another—reinforces attachment to linguistic methods, models, and metaphors in defending one's position. Such attachment in turn discourages scholars from paying attention to their bodily engagement in the study of religion. This paper argues that scholars, by embracing a tension between "reason" and "experience" as generative of the field, can expand their range beyond text-dominant approaches. This paper demonstrates one direction for doing so, drawing on the case of modern dance to develop a scholarly approach that does justice to what bodies know about religion and the study of it.

Christian-Muslim Relations in Northern Nigeria since the Introduction of Shari'ah in 1999

Ludwig, F. — 2008-08-13

This article analyzes Christian–Muslim relations and the shaping of religious identities in the context of the Shari'ah debate in Northern Nigeria. Since Nigeria has regained credibility by its transition to democracy in 1999, the steps taken to implement the Islamic Criminal Law in some Northern states are watched with anxiety and have given rise to a great deal of discussion. There has been a tendency to perceive the situation as a conflict between two clearly defined antagonistic camps. However, interactions between Christians and Muslims in Northern Nigeria took many different forms since 1999. Apart from the widely reported clashes (which did not always run along clear-cut religious lines), there were also new efforts towards Muslim–Christian cooperation—both at the grassroots' as well as the states' level. Muslims and Christians are redefining their positions and adapting them in different ways to local circumstances, thereby developing some creative responses to the tensions of religious co-existence.

Flowing and Crossing: The Somatic Theologies of Mechthild and Lalleswari

Roberts, M. V. — 2008-08-13

Metaphors of fluidity are pervasive in the theologies of Mechthild of Magdeburg and Lalleswari of Kashmir. This article highlights the various ways in which the body flows with and into divinity. For both thinkers, the universe and individuals proceed from a cosmic or divine flow and return by means of practices that participate in that flow. Their water metaphors diverge when the individual self returns to the divine: Mechthild retains images of water, whereas Lalleswari converts to those of breath. This shift of imagery marks a gift of each thinker for a theology of embodiment: Lalleswari more fully explores the body's capacity for divinity, and Mechthild attends more closely to the suffering body. This comparative conversation opens new avenues in the contemporary debate in which disabilities scholars take issue with feminist enthusiasm regarding embodiment.

How Social Justice Got to Me and Why It Never Left

Wolterstorff, N. — 2008-08-13

Religion Past & Present: Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion, Volume 1 A-Bhu. Edited by Hans Dieter Betz * Religion Past & Present: Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion, Volume 2 Bia-Chr. Edited by Hans Dieter Betz

Alles, G. D. — 2008-08-13

Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity. By Steven Weitzman

Berger, M. S. — 2008-08-13

Holy Hills of the Ozarks: Religion and Tourism in Branson, Missouri. By Aaron K. Ketchell

Bremer, T. S. — 2008-08-13

Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible. By Ronald Hendel

Halvorson-Taylor, M. A. — 2008-08-13

Modes of Faith: Secular Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief. By Theodore Ziolkowski

Jasper, D. — 2008-08-13

Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. By D. Michael Lindsay

Kosek, J. K. — 2008-08-13

"Mek Some Noise": Gospel Music and the Ethics of Style in Trinidad. By Timothy Rommen

McNeal, K. E. — 2008-08-13

Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for Self. By Helen A. Berger and Douglas Ezzy

Pike, S. M. — 2008-08-13

Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724. By Liam Matthew Brockey

Pomplun, T. — 2008-08-13

King of the Empty Plain: The Tibetan Iron-Bridge Builder Tangtong Gyalpo. By Cyrus Stearns

Quintman, A. — 2008-08-13

The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico. By Stafford Poole

Schmidt, J. D. — 2008-08-13

Staking Out the Field: A Henotheistic Review of Supplemental Readers for the Study of Hinduism

Grieve, G. P. — 2008-08-13

A Gift with Diminished Returns

McCutcheon, R. T. — 2008-08-13

Reopening the Gates of J. Z. Smith's Temple: To Take Place in the Light of New Historicism

Weitzman, S. — 2008-08-13

Place and Memory: Response to Jonathan Z. Smith on To Take Place, on the Occasion of Its Twentieth Anniversary

Thomas, C. M. — 2008-08-13

Jonathan Z. Smith's To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual After 20 Years

George, M. K. — 2008-08-13

Social Locations

Mack, B. — 2008-08-13

"Rites Require Rights": J. Z. Smith's To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual After 20 Years Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity Consultation

Hecht, R. D. — 2008-08-13

The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry. By Omid Safi

DeWeese, D. — 2008-08-13