The Mainline in Late Modernity

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Tradition and Innovation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Maren Freudenberg

In the last fifty years, religion in America has changed dramatically, and Mainline Protestantism is following suit. This book reveals a fundamental transformation taking place in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA is looking to postdenominational Christianity for inspiration on how to attract people to the pews, but is at the same time intent on preserving its confessional, liturgical tradition as much as possible in late modernity. As American religion grows increasingly experiential and individualistic, the ELCA is caught between its church heritage and a highly innovative culture that demands participative structures and a personal relationship with the divine. In the midst of this tension, the ELCA is deflating its church hierarchy and encouraging people to become involved in congregations on their own terms, while it continues to celebrate its confessional, liturgical identity. But can this balance between individual and institution be upheld in the long run? Or will the democratization and pluralization of the faith ultimately undermine the church? This book explores how the ELCA attempts to resist the forces of Americanization in late modernity even as it slowly but surely comes to resemble mainstream American religion more and more.

Repostings from the AASR: Calls for Papers, Book Announcements, and Job Openings.

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Here are the latest event, book, and job announcements from the newsletter of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion

Click the links or visit https://www.aasr.org.au/january-2018/ for information.

Call for Papers

Islamic Ethics and the Trusteeship Paradigm: Interdisciplinary Explorations

Religious Marriages in the Mediterranean Conference 20-21st March 2018

Religion Area for the 9th Annual International Conference of the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand July 2-4, 2018

Disputing Religion and Politics Research: How Western/Eurocentric is its Agenda? Hamburg 24-26 August 2018

Populist politics and the minority voice: British Muslims, extremisms and inclusion 19 April 2018

Multiple Religious Identities – Individuals, Communities, Traditions
16th Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) / IAHR Regional Conference, Bern 2018

Religions and Identities in the European Migration Crisis – Abstract deadline: January, 31

Post-global Religion, EASR conference 17-21 June in Bern

Academic Publications

Siddiqi, Bulbul (2018) Becoming ‘Good Muslim’: The Tablighi Jamaat in the UK and Bangladesh, Springer

Chakrabarti, Anindita (2018) Faith and Social Movements: Religious Reform in Contemporary India, published by Cambridge University Press

Knut A. Jacobsen (2018) Yoga in Modern Hinduism: Hariharānanda Āraṇya and Sāṃkhyayoga, Routeldge

Foroutan, Y. (2017), Muslim Minority of New Zealand in Global Context: Demographic Perspective, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 37 (4): 511-519.

Račius, Egdūnas (2018) Muslims in Eastern Europe, Edinburgh University Press

Academic Positions

Four Ph.D. research fellowships available at MF-Norwegian    School of Theology

Two vacancies as postdoc at MF-Norwegian School of Theology, with effect from 1st of September 2018

(Thanks to Dr Milad Milani)

Call for Papers for the Panel On Religion and Politics: Post- and Decolonial Interventions

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ECPR General Conference, Hamburg 24-26 August 2018

Section: Revisiting Religion and Politics Research: Achievements, Critique, Future Questions

Panel Chair: Zubair Ahmad, BGSMCS, Freie Universität Berlin (zubair@zedat.fu– berlin.de)

Discussant: N.N.
Deadline: 4th February, 2018 Panel Description

Postcolonial and Decolonial analyses have developed an extensive and valuable body of scholarship. In doing so, they have problematized and critiqued the Eurocentric formation of colonial modernity, along with its forms of epistemic and sociopolitical violence, its contradictions, and contingencies. Furthermore, they have altered analytical avenues in order to critically reevaluate the persistence of Eurocentric hegemonies (normative assumptions, epistemological structures, and power effects) accompanying and underpinning our present. Whereas these scholars have significantly shaped disciplines such as history, comparative literature, anthropology, or the study of religion, it is remarkable how their contributions remain marginal, if not absent, within the study of politics.

Against this backdrop, this panel seeks to provide a forum for critically engaging with postcolonial and decolonial scholarship. It does this by specifically turning toward the, by now, famous dyad of religion and politics. Departing from the premises that European colonization has been a “major, extended and ruptural world-historical event” (Stuart Hall), postcolonial and decolonial interrogations have long suggested convoluted histories of religion and politics. The epistemic, conceptual, and effective formation and history of religion and politics, as a dyad, these scholars suggest, has taken place in close proximity with Europe’s colonial endeavors – their reverberation and duress haunting our very present. From knowing and governing the colonized and (post-)colonial Other to ordering the colony, religion and politics have a longer history and much more complex presence than the liberal paradigm of investigation usually suggests, or forces upon our very inquiries. Engaging with the relationship of religion and politics since the 1970s and 1980s, subfields such as comparative politics or political theory have neglected these and other postcolonial/decolonial insights while keeping colonial epistemologies, divisions, questions, and orders in tact.

In order to address this troubling state-of-affairs within the study of politics, the panel invites contributions from decisively postcolonial or/and decolonial perspectives. The overall aim is twofold: Firstly, to evaluate and problematize the hegemonic, and therefore persistent, analytical avenues taken within a more mainstream engagement with religion and politics and, secondly, to broaden the scope of engagement, depth, and analysis by introducing postcolonial/decolonial questions, epistemologies, modes of investigation, and problematizations to an important and still ongoing debate.

Please submit your abstract (350-500 words) to Zubair Ahmad (zubair@zedat.fu-berlin.de) no later than 4th February.

Zubair Ahmad

Doctoral Fellow

Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies

Freie Universität Berlin

Altensteinstraße 48 | 14195 Berlin

Public lecture: “La nation, la laïcité et le pluralisme religieux”, Wednesday, January 24th, University of Sherbrook

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La nation, la laïcité et le pluralisme religieux

Date : Le mercredi 24 janvier 2018

Heure : De 12 h 00 à 13 h 30

Lieu : Campus principal de Sherbrooke, Faculté de droit, local A9-162

Cette conférence sera présentée par Michel Seymour, professeur titulaire au département de philosophie de l’Université de Montréal.

Pour plus d’information sur la conférence, visitez la page suivante :https://www.usherbrooke.ca/sodrus/accueil/evenements/evenements-details/e/35376/

Call for Papers: panel on “ Being religious, being scientific: the dynamics of science and religion in the laboratory ”

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(Submitted by Joseph Satish, from the University of Hyderabad, India.)

I write to invite paper abstracts from members of the ISA Sociology of Religion Network, to our open panel, “ Being religious, being scientific: the dynamics of science and religion in the laboratory ” (Panel #30), at this year’s Annual Meeting of the  Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in Sydney, 29 August – 1 September 2018.

In keeping with the theme of the conference “TRANSnational STS”, we invite contributions from scholars all over the world, who have explored questions related to the panel, from the perspectives of Science, Technology & Society Studies (STS), Religious Studies, Sociology and Anthropology of Religion, History of Science and related disciplines, across local, national and transnational units of analysis.

Abstract submissions (upto 250 words) to our panel can be made at the conference website via:  https://4s2018sydney.org/call-for-papers-open-panels/ . The abstract should contain the paper’s main arguments, methods, and contributions to STS and related disciplines. The deadline is February 1, 2018.

CALL FOR PAPERS: RELIGION AT THE ROYAL COMMISSION

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JOURNAL FOR THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION

SPECIAL ISSUE

VOL 31. NO 3

CALL FOR PAPERS

RELIGION AT THE ROYAL COMMISSION

Editor: Kathleen McPhillips, University of Newcastle

 The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013-2017) has been internationally recognized as one of the most successful state inquiries into the culture of organizations and child safety and protection ever held. The Commission has amassed a huge repository of knowledge and research and the final report (December 2017) has made many recommendations that aim to increase the safety of children across organizations in Australian social life.

From the earliest days of Royal Commission public hearings, it became clear that religious organizations experienced the most difficulty with keeping children safe and addressing complaints. Research undertaken on behalf of the Royal Commission (Palmer et al 2017) and others (Keenan, 2012; Salter, 2017) indicates clearly that religious groups and particularly the Catholic and Anglican faiths were putting the reputation of their organizations ahead of child safety and protecting perpetrators rather than children. This is hugely problematic for such organizations that have a special claim on articulating moral authority and ethical standards. The full impact of this travesty is yet to be appreciated.

This special issue of JASR looks closely at the religious organizations that appeared before the Royal Commission, and the complex outcomes of child sexual abuse for survivors and organisations. In particular we encourage papers that address the following: mechanisms of organizational management and cultures of leadership; relevant theological discourses; the relationship between gender, religious organizations and child sexual abuse; evaluations of processes of organizational change; intersections between (secular) law and religion; and analysis of the impact of the Royal Commission findings on the authority and legitimacy of religious groups, particularly the Anglican and Catholic churches.

Abstracts of up to 200 words should be submitted no later than March 1st 2018 to the Editor of the Special Issue, Kathleen McPhillips (Kathleen.mcphillips@newcastle.edu.au).

Full papers are due July 1st 2018.

The Journal for the Academic Study of Religion is a highly regarded journal in the field of religious studies and is the leading journal in religion in the Pacific region: https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JASR

It has been in publication for 30 years and regularly publishes special issues.  The journal is committed to publishing cutting edge research from both new and established scholars, both in the Pacific region and internationally.

 

Religious Marriages in the Mediterranean

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Religious Marriages in the Mediterranean

Venue and date: Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta, 20-21 March 2018

Within Mediterranean settings, religious marriage has functioned for centuries, together with conversion, as a means both of formal social incorporation and of exclusion of outsiders in relation to religiously-defined officially-recognised ethnic communities. Such an approach was an integral part of the Ottoman constitution; aspects of the millet system continue to have some posthumous existence in states like Lebanon and Cyprus. Over the last century or so, the development of secular or ‘quasi-secular’ nation-states throughout the region has generally meant the replacement of religious by civil marriage within state legal systems. Whether this has occurred via silent absorption or principled exclusion of religious unions, or even by the creation of dualist systems giving civil marriage pride of place, the juridical implications have been profound and range from the complete legal marginalisation of previously dominant religious traditions to the creation of ‘protected zones’ within secular jurisdictions within which religious law can operate. Everywhere religious courts have been side-lined and have either been completely eliminated from the formal state’s radar, or compelled to accept a subordinate position within the state judicial hierarchy. At the same time, formally secular forms of marriage with religious conceptual roots have had to serve as important gate-keepers in granting or withholding access to citizenship and legal residence in states like Greece, Malta or Spain, which have been at the forefront of Mediterranean migrant flows.

More recently unregistered religious marriages have gone through a revival, proving also to be a useful vehicle for addressing mismatches between state legislation and the matrimonial strategies of couples. Thus the Mediterranean, a point of both intersection and mixing where ideas about the ‘West’ and its ‘other’, are re-produced and transformed, has witnessed how these transitions resulted in either a tense relationship between marriages regulated by formal, state laws and religious marriages celebrated according to informal, religious norms, or on the other end of the spectrum, civil marriages and (certain) religious marriages living harmoniously side-by-side and at times also being considered synonymous.

This multidisciplinary conference seeks to bring together researchers who have engaged in research on religious marriages in the Mediterranean. Papers may focus on, but are not limited to, one or more of the following themes:

  1. Exploring the legal and social interaction between religious and civil marriages in the Mediterranean, whether contemporary or historical perspective (colonial and postcolonial).
  2. Investigating the non-apparent connections between different religions within and without marriage legislation (Sunni, Shia, Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Jewish, Hindu…), including papers on mixed marriages.
  3. How human/civil rights discourses blend and/or conflict with other forms of theological, moral and/or customary discourses on religious marriages.
  4. Diverse ways of concluding and/or celebrating religious marriages in the Mediterranean.

5. Problematization and politicization of religious marriages in the Mediterranean.

Organizers:

Ibtisam Sadegh (University of Amsterdam) David Zammit (University of Malta)
Susan Hirsch (George Mason University)

Papers (7,000-8,000 words), will be considered for publication in a special issue of the international, peer-reviewed Journal of Mediterranean Studies (ISSN: 1016-3476), published by the Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta and available electronically through Project Muse.

Upon request, limited travel and accommodation funds (two nights) may be available for short-listed candidates who cannot apply for funding from their own universities. Please submit your request for funding with your paper proposal.

Key note speaker:
Annelies Moors, Professor of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam

Deadline for abstract submission: 31 January 2018

Abstracts of 200-300 words are to be submitted via e-mail: i.sadegh@uva.nl with ‘abstract’ and your last name in the subject heading.

Timeline:
31 January 2018: Deadline for abstract submission
10 February 2018: Notification of acceptance
1 March 2018: Deadline for complete draft of paper between 5000 – 8000 words
or a PowerPoint presentation.
20-21 March 2018: Conference hosted by the Mediterranean Institute
1 April 2018: Select participants will be invited to submit papers for consideration for publication in 2018 in the Journal of Mediterranean Studies

This two-day conference is organized by the University of Malta through the Department of Civil Law and the Mediterranean Institute research group on Belief, Identity and Exchange in conjunction with the ERC-funded research project on ‘Problematizing “Muslim Marriages”: Ambiguities and Contestations’ hosted by the University of Amsterdam.

 

Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity

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http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319717722#aboutBook

This book provides a sociological understanding of the phenomenon of exorcism and an analysis of the reasons for its contemporary re-emergence and impact on various communities. It argues that exorcism has become a religious commodity with the potential to strengthen a religion’s attraction to adherents, whilst also ensuring its hold. It shows that due to intense competition between religious groups in our multi-faith societies, religious groups are now competing for authority over the supernatural by ‘branding’ their particular type of exorcism ritual in order to validate the strength of their own belief system. Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity features a detailed case-study of a Catholic exorcist in the south of Europe who dealt with more than 1,000 cases during a decade of work.

Giuseppe Giordan is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Padua, Italy.

Adam Possamai is Professor of Sociology and Director of Research at the School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Australia.