Books in the Routledge Studies in Religion series

Shows that the language of 'religion' is far from neutral, and that the packaging and naming of what English speakers call 'religious' groups or identities is imbued with the play of power.

There are contrasting theories that deal with different aspects of human religiosity ¿ some focus on religious beliefs, while others focus on religious actions, and still others on the origin of religious ideas. While these theories might share a similar focus, there is plenty of disagreement in the explanations they offer. This volume examines the diversity of new scientific theories of religion, by outlining the logical and causal relationships between these enterprises. Are they truly in competition, as their proponents sometimes suggest, or are they complementary and mutually illuminating accounts of religious belief and practice?

This book builds on work that examines the interactions between immigration and gender-based violence, to explore how both the justification and condemnation of violence in the name of religion further complicates our societal relationships.

In The Entangled God Kirk Wegter-McNelly draws on recent scientific and philosophical investigations into the nature of "quantum entanglement" to construct a novel account of the God¿world relation. The author creatively interprets the relationality and freedom of physical process from the perspective of trinitarian-relational being.

Gibson presents a new metaphysics with a genealogy based on counter-intuition and locates counter-intuition and complexity at the foundations of truth. He argues that just as we need revolutionary ways of depicting the physical world, so do we with topics as God, miracles, the resurrection, the source and identity of consciousness and reason.

This book takes as its point of departure the historical fact that it was Orthodox pioneers of German origin, in contrast to their Eastern European counterparts, who successfully developed religious kibbutz life.

Explores how people first learn to relate to the images and artefacts of religious belief within their domestic environments, instilling a sense of religious belonging that becomes emotionally linked to family, community, and homeland.

This book explores contemporary French philosophical readings of negative theology. It is the first general and comparative treatment of the role of negative theology in contemporary French thought.

Argues that the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) sets up a support system for a 'logic of domination' toward human and earth over others. This book examines how the concept of creation out of nothing materializes in the world throughout different periods in the history of the Christian West.

How do text, performance, and rhetoric simultaneously reflect and challenge notions of distinct community, religious, and national identities? This volume examines evidence of shared idioms of sanctity, ethnicity, and nationality as they emerge in examples from Indo-Pakistan.

This book offers an academically rigorous examination of the biological, psychological, social and ecclesiastical processes that allowed sexual abuse in the Catholic Church to happen and then be covered up.

The way in which people change and represent their spiritual evolution is often determined by recurrent language structures. This books studies this interesting topic.

This book compiles recent research into the intersection between law and religion within the common law tradition. Working across jurisdictions, it will be of interest to religious studies and law students and researchers.

This book explores the complicated relationship between sainthood and race by examining two distinct characteristics of the saint¿s body: the historicized, marked flesh and the universal, holy flesh. The essays in this volume comment on this tension between particularity and universality by combining both theoretical and ethnographic studies of saints and race across a wide range of subjects within the humanities.

This volume examines both historical developments and contemporary expressions of blasphemy across the world.

This book looks in detail at the intersection of religion and human security in a variety of African contexts. Case studies from a diverse set of countries including Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Burkina Faso, and more, are used to illustrate wider trends across the continent.

Spirit Possession and Communication in Religious and Cultural Contexts explores the phenomenon of spirit possession, focusing on the religious and cultural functions it serves as a means of communication.

This work focuses on processes of articulating identity. The notions of "shared idioms" and "sacred symbols" shaping this volume suggest both a search for common ground and boundary-drawing processes. Individual chapters locate "sites" of these modes and the conditions that engender them, problematizing the truth-claims of unitary markers of identity.

Theology and the Science of Moral Action explores a new approach to ethical thinking that promotes dialogue and integration between recent research in the scientific study of moral cognition and behaviour¿including neuroscience, moral psychology, and behavioural economics¿and virtue theoretic approaches to ethics in both philosophy and theology. The book evaluates the concept of moral exemplarity and its significance in philosophical and theological ethics as well as for ongoing research programs in the cognitive sciences.

This book uses the very latest research to examine current interactions between religion, migration and existential wellbeing. In particular, it demonstrates the role of religion and religious organizations in the social, medical and existential wellbeing of immigrants within their host societies.

This edited collection speaks to what national surveys agree is a growing social phenomenon referred to as the "Spiritual but Not Religious Movement" (SBNRM). Each essay of the volume engages the past, present and future(s) of the SBNRM.