Search

This short paper provides the context for the six theological papers published in this issue that were part of a wider discussion with other scientists and theologians on becoming human. It raises the questions that the papers sought to address and shows how the different aspects of what it means to be human from a theological perspective are challenged by, but also serve to engage and in some cases confront, scientific debates on this matter. The particular sciences involved included neuroscience, genetics, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and paleontology. Selected scientific and other theological papers will appear in subsequent issues of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. The particular theological positions taken in this collection are distinctive and form the basis for a theological debate on what it means to be human in theistic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential segregation is pervasive in many societies. People making residential moves in these divided contexts may increase or decrease segregation levels. In this paper, the divided society of Northern Ireland is used as an example to explore how residential mobility relates to residential segregation by religion. Survey evidence for this country consistently shows a preference for mixed neighbourhoods, yet actual patterns of geographical mobility suggest people move to same‐religion areas. The paper uses the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) to explore the individual and contextual factors that influence the destinations of internal migrants by religion between 2001 and 2011. How they move up or down the contextual 'religion ladder' of localities is modelled with reference to both their individual socio‐demographic and neighbourhood characteristics in 2001. It is found that there are still individual religious differentials in people's destinations. Catholics, for instance, are more likely than Protestants to move to more Catholic areas, suggesting that individual religion remains important despite the Peace Process. Some possible reasons for this are considered with a partial explanation being found in the geographical patterning of the population. Existing patterns of residential segregation constrain moves in religious space for the majority of people. It is concluded, nevertheless, that an individual's religion remains a considerable factor contrary to expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the census data published by the government in 2016, 92% of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region population is ethnic Chinese, while the number of ethnic minorities increased significantly by around 70% over the past decade. Enhancing the youth's intercultural sensitivity is becoming critical. Although many of the schools start to provide intercultural sensitivity training as extra‐curriculum activities, students often find them unattractive while teachers question their effectiveness. In this paper, we present a virtual reality enabled approach for enhancing the youth's intercultural sensitivity. The objective is to design and develop an approach that can benefit from using virtual reality to deliver the instructional materials, making the learning more effective. A total number of three different virtual reality learning scenarios have been created, covering topics such as views of marriage and family, religious beliefs, and language barrier. The empirical study found significantly increase of intercultural sensitivity among the 67 qualified participants after joining the session. The calculated linear regression model also suggested that the participants' perceived motivation from the virtual reality learning content positively contributed to the intercultural sensitivity increase, while interestingly the perceived enjoyment during the virtual reality exposure may negatively affected the learning outcomes. Lay Description: What is currently known about this topic: Although enhancing youth's intercultural sensitivity is necessary, the available learning materials are very limited in Hong Kong.Previous studies suggest learners are better motivated and perceive more enjoyment during virtual reality enabled learning when being compared to traditional ways of learning, but this might not always result better learning outcomes.Virtual reality has been used in cultural education in settings such as museums and galleries, but not in the classroom setting due to the accessibility to virtual reality devices. What the paper adds to this: Virtual reality learning contents can be designed and produced for effectively enhancing youth's intercultural sensitivity.The relation among instructional material motivation to learners, learners' perceived enjoyment during learning and the learning outcomes, in this case, the enhancement of learners' intercultural sensitivity, can be analyzed using a linear regression model.The latest generation of virtual reality headsets can be used in classroom settings for delivery virtual reality enabled learning experience. Implications of the study findings: Significantly increase of intercultural sensitivity among the 67 qualified participants demonstrated the effectiveness of using virtual reality for enhancing youth's intercultural sensitivity in the classroom setting.The virtual reality learning contents can be designed to better motivate learners, resulting better learning outcomes.Distractions resulted from over enjoyment during the virtual reality enabled learning activities should be reduced to minimize the negative effects to learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intent of this special issue is to extend community psychology's voice in the growing discourse about spirituality, religion, and psychology. While lively debate will continue about particular religious beliefs, the social significance of religious and spiritual experiences cannot be overlooked. These papers will not enter the debate over the existence of a higher power, but rather they will contribute to the development of knowledge and greater understanding of how these phenomena are interwoven into social life. Some authors focus on how religion and spirituality can serve as independent variables that have an impact on phenomena of interest, from the individual to the institution. In other papers, spirituality is treated more as a dependent variable, important as an outcome in its own right. In several of the papers, religion and spirituality are integral parts of an intervention. In sum, when religion and spirituality are viewed as legitimate variables of psychological study, they offer seemingly endless perspectives on human behavior. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internal migration plays a key role in shaping the demographic characteristics of areas. In this paper, data from the 2011 England and Wales census are used to assess the geographic patterns of migration for 4 small cultural groups that each constitute about 0.5% of the population-Arabs, Chinese, Jews, and Sikhs-with a White British 'benchmark' group. It examines the sensitivity of the scale of intercommunity moves to distance, having controlled for other migrant characteristics, through the development of spatial interaction models. The analysis finds that, where a choice exists, Jews are more averse to making a longer move than other small groups, all of whom favour shorter moves than the White British. The paper also investigates the influence of origin location and socioeconomic characteristics on the choice of migration destination using multinomial logistic regression. It finds that the influence of student status, age, qualifications, and home tenure vary by group though a number of patterns are shared between groups. Finally, it probes the presence in these smaller groups of patterns found historically in the wider population, such as counter-urbanisation. Overall, this paper broadens the understanding of minority group migration patterns by examining, for the first time, Arabs (identified separately only in the 2011 census) and 2 groups based on religion (Jews and Sikhs) and by revisiting, with new questions, the White British and Chinese groups using the latest census data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: In 2019 the United States experienced the largest outbreak of measles in 27 years, 19 years after the United States declared measles eliminated. The purpose of this paper was to present a population study of a measles outbreak within Orthodox Jewish communities in New York that led to the elimination of religious exemption for school mandated vaccines. Methods: Peer reviewed articles, news media, health department, and government resources were used to investigate environmental factors that led to this outbreak. State, county, and city immunization records were accessed to explore measles compliance rates before and after policy change. Results: Rockland County had low compliance rates compared to the rest of the state, and the elimination of religious exemptions raised compliance rate almost to state level. In all but one affected New York City zip codes, compliance following policy change rose to 97.95%–99.15%. Conclusions: Overall, changes in measles compliance rates reflect policy goals, but localized differences imply a need for more customized interventions for each unique community. Public health planning to promote vaccination should be sensitive to the concerns and perceptions of each community in order for health interventions to have a positive effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite prayer's central role in religious life, quantitative research on prayer typically focuses on its frequency without regard to the total amount, to why, to whom, or for what a person might be praying, nor how people feel when they pray. In this paper, we broaden our understanding of the prayer practices of American adults by focusing on their (1) quantity of prayer, (2) style of prayer, (3) purpose of prayer, (4) prayer target, and (5) emotional state during prayer. Using the Baylor Religion Survey (N = 1248), collected January–March 2021, we present frequencies and findings from factor analyses of key conceptual dimensions of prayer and then indicate how prayer dimensions correlate with each other and vary by basic religion and demographic variables. Our findings provide a detailed picture of these relationships and also provide researchers with best practices in how to measure the various dimensions of prayer in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The negative relationship between religiosity and cognitive ability is well documented though most research on the connection between religion and cognitive factors has largely ignored how social positions like race and gender may inform the association. This paper explores how race and gender intersect with the association between religious factors and verbal ability. Using data from the General Social Surveys, I examine racial differences in the impact of religious identification, religious participation, and beliefs about the Bible on verbal ability. The analyses show that the association between religious factors and verbal ability varies significantly across racial groups, and points to some gender differences in the association between religious factors and verbal ability by race. The findings highlight the importance of an intersectional approach and suggest that psychological theorizing about the relationships between religion and cognitive ability is underdeveloped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy as a way of life has been undergoing a revival in recent years. This essay explores how the central idea of the spiritual exercises can be used to develop an account of philosophy of religion as a way of life. It details some of the contemporary uses and trajectories of philosophy as a way of life. Through engaging the religiously inflected philosophies of Karl Jaspers and Simone Weil, this paper argues that their thought can present an account of philosophy of religion as a way of life that is both ethically and transcendentally oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of studies have investigated the neural networks and brain regions activated by different aspects of religious faith or spiritual practice. The extent to which religiousness and spirituality are dependent on the integrity of neural circuits is a question unique to neurological illnesses. Several studies have reported that neural networks and brain areas represent the various components of religious faith or spiritual activity in recent decades. In addition to research in healthy people, another strategy is to observe if neurological abnormalities caused by stroke, tumour, brain damage, or degenerative sickness are accompanied by an alteration in religiosity or spirituality. Similarly, Parkinson's disease (PD), an ailment characterized by dopaminergic neuron malfunction, has been utilized to explore the role of dopaminergic networks in the practice, experience, and maintenance of religious or spiritual beliefs. Case–control and priming studies have demonstrated a decline in spirituality and religion in people with PD due to dopaminergic degeneration. These studies could not adequately control for confounding variables and lacked methodological rigour. Using qualitative and quantitative assessments, a mixed‐method approach might shed additional light on putative religious beliefs alterations in PD. In the current review paper, we discussed the recent research on the impact of PD on spiritual beliefs and spirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living together in culturally plural societies poses numerous challenges for members of ethnocultural groups and for the larger society. An important goal of these societies is to achieve positive intercultural relations among all their peoples. Successful management of these relations depends on many factors including a research‐based understanding of the historical, political, economic, religious and psychological features of the groups that are in contact. The core question is 'how we shall we all live together?' In the project reported in this paper (Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies; MIRIPS), we seek to provide such research by reviewing three core psychological hypotheses of intercultural relations (multiculturalism, contact and integration) in 21 culturally plural societies. The main goal of the project is to evaluate these hypotheses across societies within the MIRIPS project in order to identify if there are some basic psychological principles that underlie intercultural relations panculturally. If there are, the eventual goal is to employ the findings to propose some policies and programmes that may improve the quality of intercultural relationship globally. An internal meta‐analysis using the MIRIPS project data showed that the empirical findings from these societies generally support the validity of the three hypotheses. Implications for the development of policies and programmes to enhance the quality of intercultural relations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) has a long history of delivering conferences addressing topics of interest in the field of science and religion. The following papers from the 2013 summer conference on 'The Scientific, Spiritual, and Moral Challenges in Solving the World Food Crisis' are, in keeping with the eclectic nature of these conferences, very different in content and approach. Such differences underline the challenges of synergistically combining scientific and religious insights to increase understanding of global problems and their possible solutions. This in turn reflects deeper questions about the purpose and nature of the science/religion dialogue. These papers suggest various ways in which the two perspectives can be combined in the pursuit of building better understandings of food-related issues, as well as highlighting difficulties and limitations which need to be addressed if the fruits of such dialogue are to make a wider impact. As such they serve as useful pointers for how this type of science/religion interaction might be further developed and deployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether there is a moral virtue of hope, and if so, what it is. The enterprise is motivated by a historical asymmetry, namely, that while Christian thinkers have long classed hope as a theological virtue, it has not traditionally been classed as a moral one. But this is puzzling, for hoping well is not confined to the sphere of religion; and consequently, we might expect that if the theological virtue is structurally sound, there will be a secular, moral analogue. This paper proposes that there is such an analogue and that it is closely linked to the everyday notion of "having your priorities straight," a phenomenon which is naturally understood in terms of the attitude of hope. It turns out that the priorities model provides an abstract way of characterizing a central but underexplored virtue, one which can be developed in secular or theological ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winnicott's concept of an 'area of intermediate experiencing' is a very important component of his understanding of religious and cultural practices. It is nonetheless a term that seems to have created considerable confusion and uncertainty among analysts and others. In this paper, I suggest, through a discussion of Winnicott's own work, a review of dissociative phenomena and a selection of illustrations, that the intermediate area of experiencing can be understood best when considered within the framework of a normal, voluntary dissociative or near‐dissociative process that is characteristic of many religious experiences generally. This approach suggests that religious practices and expressions need not be understood primarily on the basis of factual truth as Freud would have done. They also need to be considered on the basis of their meaning or value for the individual or society, as Winnicott suggests. Religious practices and expressions often can be understood as dissociative or near‐dissociative processes that have their own unique properties and characteristics that are separate from but related to the more usual expressions of logical, goal‐directed mental activity that are so valued in modern societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 20th century, public discourse in Muslim‐minority countries has centered around the question of how to classify Muslims. In this paper, we compare the state, academic, and self‐classification of Muslims in two countries: the United Kingdom and Germany. We propose that the historical experience of anti‐Semitism makes religion a more salient master category to understand Muslims in Germany, while the history of both anti‐Semitism and anti‐Black racism largely resulting from colonial domination means that religion together with race are master categories used to understand Muslims in the United Kingdom. Through this multilayered ethnographic and historical analysis, we challenge taken‐for‐granted assumptions in both the political and academic milieu about what it means to be Muslim, emphasizing the importance of the interplay between sociopolitical categories and self‐identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines religious change of immigrants from Poland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Spain in the first years after their arrival in the Netherlands––one of the least religious countries in the world. Religiosity is measured by attendance, praying, and subjective religiosity. Multiple‐group latent growth models are estimated based on four waves spanning a total of 4 years (n = 3354 at Wave 1) to identify religious trajectories. Results show an initial increase in attendance that levels off and ultimately reverses and a steady decrease in subjective religiosity across all immigrant groups. A group‐specific pattern is visible on the praying dimension: Turks show an initial increase that levels off over time and then reverses, whereas the other groups show no substantial change. The analysis suggests that differences in opportunities to attend and exclusion experiences are unlikely to be the main drivers of the immigrants' religious trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recovery, a model of care aimed at patient‐led nursing practice emphasizing autonomy, hope and self‐determination, has in recent years been adapted for the secure forensic psychiatric setting. Often referred to as 'secure recovery', this model suggests the aims of recovery are achievable even in highly restrictive settings. This paper will adopt a Foucauldian perspective to offer a critical analysis of recovery in forensic settings. In providing recovery‐oriented care, nurses utilize pastoral power in guiding patients to institutionally preferred outcomes. Akin to Christian religious conversion, nurses engage in a neo‐religious conversion of patients to a neoliberal subjectivity of homo‐economicus. This path of recovery is grounded in an ethos of personal responsibility and self‐government, inseparable from the greater context of neoliberal governmentality. Despite attempts at transforming forensic nursing practice into more egalitarian directions, recovery remains a coercive practice, and fails to meet the overall goals of this paradigm in secure settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic and religious differentials in labour market outcomes within many countries have been remarkably persistent. Yet one very well‐known differential—the Catholic/Protestant unemployment differential in Northern Ireland—has largely (although not completely) disappeared. This paper charts its decline since the early 1980s and examines potential explanations using Census data from 1991, 2001 and 2011 together with annual survey data. These data span the ending of The Troubles, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the introduction of fair employment legislation, growth in hidden unemployment and major structural changes in Northern Ireland. We assess the potential impact of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has its origins in a 2013 proposal by the author that the concept of 'spiritual care' in clinical settings might fruitfully be grounded in the findings of the Cognitive Science of Religion ( CSR). In a recent paper, John Paley rejects the central arguments and asserts his conviction that a model for 'spiritual care' cannot be derived from the insights of evolutionary psychology. In this article, the author employs a modified form of Fichtean dialectic to examine the contrasting positions and, via a process of analysis and synthesis, identify the key areas for further exploration and research. He concludes, first, that CSR in itself does not provide a sufficient theoretical justification for the notion and practice of 'spiritual care'; secondly, that any attempt to develop a general theory of spiritual care would need to pay closer attention to the role of historically situated religious communities; and finally, that these objections nevertheless do not amount to an argument against the attempt to provide spiritual care as part of person-centred care. Instead, a revised model is proposed which has the potential to provide testable predictions in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classic sociological theories hold that rituals offer opportunities for community integration and cohesion. Rituals allow people to come together across many differences and experience similar thoughts and feelings. Death rituals raise existential questions about the purpose of society and generally foster preexisting social ties. This paper examines the efforts of a US community of volunteers who gather to bury unclaimed, or "abandoned," babies. Drawing on ethnographic research over a two‐year period, we advance the concept of cultural palimpsest to capture the process by which a gathering of strangers turns a potentially divisive political issue in to a community forming event. We find that in their efforts to mourn babies to whom they have no connection, these volunteers temporarily foster new social bonds that allow them to work through unresolved grief. Similar processes of ritualistically inverting social meanings occur whenever people gather to turn potentially negative into group forming events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the identity work of women undergoing high‐cost religious disaffiliation by examining the exit experiences of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saint (LDS, Mormon). Previous research into religious change has not fully engaged with the extensive identity work that exiters do as they leave these groups. I propose a stage model of religious exit identity development to expand upon the process of identity transformation during and after high‐cost religious exit. Additionally, I examine how the gender regimes of high‐cost‐religions result in different pathways out and experiences during disaffiliation for women and men. Though constructed to describe high‐cost religious exits, this model may also be helpful in understanding other "high‐cost" exits. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/hup3KFXvODs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Culturally competent health care has led to increasing interest in how patients' identities influence the management of their health. The ways rural patients with advanced cancer process emotions and cope with their disease may be influenced by their rural context. The aims for this study were to (1) describe the emotions rural cancer patients experience, (2) describe how rural cancer patients manage their emotions within their rural context, and (3) interlace the themes related to coping with emotions. Methods: This paper is a subanalysis of a larger project focused on symptom management among rural patients living with advanced cancer. Using a qualitative descriptive design, authors read and coded patient interview transcripts to extract key perspectives related to managing emotions within a rural context. Findings: Sixteen participants, 10 men and 6 women, with a mean age of 68.75 years completed this study. Participants described a spectrum of emotional experiences. Some participants reported no distress, and some described high levels of distress. While previous writers described low levels of religious coping among rural patients, participants in this study often named their faith/spirituality as a major source of emotional coping. Participants also galvanized their social support network, particularly those in their religious community. Finally, participants in this study reported the use of medication as a last resort. Conclusion: Results from this study might be influenced from cultural variables found in the rural community; specifically, religiosity and close social networks. Future interventions need to be tailored to the unique responses of rural patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are few published articles on conducting large-scale surveys in secondary schools, and this paper seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on the experiences of the Youth On Religion project, it discusses the politics of gaining access to these schools and the considerations leading to the adoption and administration of an online survey. It is concluded that successful research in schools has to be planned carefully in collaboration with key members of staff, and justified as an educational activity. Providing speedy feedback was helpful to ensure schools benefited from the research and to keep them engaged with the project. © 2011 The Author(s). Children & Society © 2011 National Children's Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The paper explores theoretical and practical issues related to spiritual mobility and engagement with Eastern European migrants in rural Scotland. Emerging mobile lifestyles create different patterns of living 'on the move', but the church and other rural institutions in Scotland often fail to attend to migrants' affective relationships with existing immigrant communities, unpredictable travelling behaviour, and cross-border spiritual links. For this gap to be addressed, the paper develops a complex understanding of migrants living on the move. It suggests adding a spiritual element to the analysis of transnational mobilities and explores the ways in which constellations of mobility and religion generate more-than-corporeal dislocations (faith-based sensations), generate virtual movement (beyond rationality to the outside of knowing), and create new imaginations of the migrants' place in the world. It argues that the spiritual can be seen as an important factor in producing new social worlds and overcoming the separations and division created by migrations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disability has, in recent years, become a focal point of discussion in many parts of the world with the increasing awareness that people with disabilities (PWDs) are disadvantaged because of their condition. Throughout history, PWDs have been relegated to the status of second‐class citizens and in some instances treated inhumanly. In many cultures, particularly in Africa, issues of disability are surrounded by fear because of the strong belief that they are caused by sin, witchcraft, or evil spirits. People with mental challenges are demonized. This has led to a negative attitude toward PWDs in the world generally and in Southern and Central Africa in particular. This paper discusses the mission of the church in this context. It argues that the church must act as a catalyst for change by generating a positive attitude toward PWDs so that they can enjoy fullness of life. This can be achieved by mainstreaming issues of disability in the social, economic, political, and spiritual life of society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with disabilities are often excluded within our churches: Why is that so? This paper will explore why disabled people are not missed within our churches as a mission group and as a member of the body of Christ. It will also explore why the fact that they are not missed makes them feel like they do not belong in the church. The paper will conclude with what people with disabilities have to offer the church, and what the church can positively do to help them feel like they belong through our mission and inclusion of them into the full ministry of the church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Habermas' model of a post‐secular political order in the light of the debate on male circumcision that arose in Germany after a court ruled that male circumcision was an unjustifiable act of bodily harm. Central to this model is the idea that religious reasons can only become effective in central legal institutions when they are translated into secular reasons. My paper demonstrates that there are two distinguishable readings of this proviso. On the one hand, there is a broad reading according to which it is only necessary to reach a conclusion that is in line with the democratic principle stating that all citizens can be regarded as co‐legislators even if non‐generalizable value orientations might then shape the interpretation of fundamental rights (in the case of circumcision, the right to bodily integrity). On the other hand, a truly secular (narrow) reading would avoid the inclusion of non‐generalizable value orientations. The debate on circumcision demonstrates that these two interpretations lead to different and conflicting modes of justification. The broad reading allows for a justification of male circumcision, whereas the narrow reading makes such a justification unlikely. In addition, the filtering function of the proviso is weakened in a broad reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extant literature finds religion to be a major determinant of life satisfaction. However, in contexts characterized by religious tensions, the outcome may be very different. In particular, the literature shows that religious polarization has a major influence on some economic outcomes. The analysis presented in the paper tries to identify the impact of religious polarization on a major component of life satisfaction: financial satisfaction. The paper inquires how belonging to a minority religion and living in areas with different levels of religious polarization affect the individual satisfaction with the financial situation of the household. The results show that the members of minority religious groups are less satisfied than the members of the dominant group, and that the financial satisfaction decreases—for a given income—as the religious polarization increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the report "Existential Crises in Two Religious Patients: Vicissitudes of Faith and the Emergence of the True Self," by Lucia Fattori and Cesare Secchi that was published in the "International Journal of Psychoanalysis." The authors wished to reflect on the idea-affective dynamics in two patients

The article discusses three papers published within the issue related to faith-based organizations. The topics of these papers include the role of faith-based organizations in fighting social distress in urban areas of the Netherlands, the relations between religion and development in Peru and about the alliances between religions and labor unions and the invocation of religion to establish moral authority and political legitimacy in Western democracies.

This paper provides an historiographical review of the rhetorical and historical sources for religious suspicion of empires and imperialism in the west. It begins with an analysis of Ronald Reagan's celebrated “evil empire” speech of March 1983, and traces its polemical roots to scriptural precedents, notably in the Book of Revelation, in which “empire” is equated with the unjust rule of Babylon. Some comparisons are made between the general use of religious ideologies to support imperial regimes in ancient and other, more modern, world empires including China and Islam. The final section considers the debate about the role of religion in supporting — or critiquing — modern, secularised empire states such as the second British Empire. The paper argues that it is not possible to understand the problematical relationship of religion and empire in modern societies without recognising the ongoing force of Christian polemic even when religious arguments have not specifically been invoked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern fiction writer Flannery O’Connor once characterized the South as Christ-haunted, and having taught in the South for eight years now, I have come to appreciate O’Connor's evaluation. Most of the students I encounter understand one predominant way to practice Christian faith: assent to propositional theology. Most of them either accept this view uncritically or reject Christian thought completely, seeing it as stifling. My goal is to introduce the diversity of Christian thought in a non-threatening way. Knowing story's potential to draw people into community as well as to transform consciousness, I believe story offers a less threatening way to invite students to explore diversity. This paper describes a course titled “Christian Thought and Contemporary Short Fiction,” a course I developed to try to introduce students to a variety of ways to understand Christian thought and practice Christian faith. The paper describes development and facilitation of the course, including student responses to the course content and evaluation of the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper concerns an alleged event in the history of haematology that disrupts the otherwise positive narrative of papal encouragement for blood transfusion. It is frequently stated, in popular websites and in the scholarly literature, that when blood transfusion was first developed it was banned by the Pope. However, careful analysis of the sources cited shows this claim to be without historical foundation. There was never any papal prohibition of blood transfusion. It is a myth that needs to be dispelled if the full extent of the Catholic Church's support for blood and organ donation is to be appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the literature on 'gender and development' has remained largely sequestered from that on 'religion and development', and consequently the presence of conceptual problems common to the two fields has gone largely unremarked. This paper identifies three such conceptual problems, here termed categorization, identification and representation. The oversight of common conceptual problems has important implications for the assessment of religion and gender in sustainable development policy. One such effect, I argue, is the consolidation of a narrow range of negative and secularist readings of the potential role of gender and religion in sustainable development. To circumvent conceptualizations that may give rise to prejudicial readings of gender and religion, this paper follows feminist and religious studies scholars in arguing that we conceive of gender and religion as permeable categories and non-exclusive identities, constituted by diverse discursive elements. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eighty per cent of the world's population professes religious belief. Such beliefs provide precepts on how individuals should conduct their private lives and (often) how society should be organized. Given there are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide and 1.3 billion Muslims, understanding the religious approach to social life based on sacred texts and social teachings of Christianity and Islam has a strong relevance to those interested in implementing international economic development policies. This paper argues that religion can thus play a positive role in development and specifically support development economic policies at the international level. The purpose of this paper is not to present a fully formed development economic policy, but rather to identify teachings of the world's two largest religions - such as preferencing the poor, minimizing inequality and having the economy serve wider realms of society - that directly speak to how sustainable economic development is understood within these faith traditions and how these teachings could scaffold and support and international policy frameworks aimed to achieve sustainable economic development. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses various topics within the issue including religious beliefs of parents and its implications on child life and development, a paper on physical and sexual abuses in sports sector in Great Britain and a paper on need of child protection workers.

This paper explores how two spiritual communities—a Catholic prayer house and an Integral Yoga studio—shape the emotional lives of their members. I find that both organizations promise to facilitate what I call holistic emotional change: modifications of deep‐seated emotional habits and dispositions. Moreover, both organizations transmit a comprehensive emotion management system—a regimen of different practices, or techniques of emotion management, with distinct goals and temporal horizons. At both sites, these practices—prospective, reflexive, and in situ techniques—are thought to work in tandem to overcome negative emotional habits and cultivate abiding dispositions of joy, peace, and contentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing data from a nationally representative sample of 3442 interviews conducted in Egypt in 2020, this study examines the influence of four sets of factors in predicting compliance with the advice of healthcare professionals to combat the spread of COVID‐19: demographics, knowledge and values, fear of the disease and denial, and the pandemic as a foreign invasion. The findings show that a higher likelihood of compliance is linked to socioeconomic status, awareness of the pandemic, reliance on a plurality of information sources, adherence to liberal values, and fear of the disease, but being male, young, employed, religious, fatalistic, and in denial of the severity of the pandemic lower this likelihood – all consistent with the results reported in the literature. In addition, this study highlights the link between compliance and such attributes of nationalism as national identity, national pride, the perception of the pandemic as a national event, and the willingness to sacrifice one's human right to combat the spread of the disease. Drawing on these factors, this paper suggests building societal consensus around the theme of national unity against the microparasitic invasion is the key to an effective strategy to combat the spread of the virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The skeletal remains of the alleged Italian Saint Nazarius (1st or 3rd century AD) were examined by a team of anthropologists of the University of Milan upon request from ecclesiastical authorities who sought scientific verification of their authenticity and to add tangible information on the life of the saint. Anthropological analyses were performed for the construction of the biological profile as well as pathological and traumatic analysis and were later compared with historical and hagiographic documentation. In addition, biological sampling of one bone sample was performed for radiocarbon dating. As a result, the osteobiography of the skeletal remains showed a concordance with the available historical data, thus supporting their authenticity and permitted the implementation of further information on the lives of the alleged saint. Furthermore, interesting anatomical 'mistakes' in the postmortem assemblage of the facial bones by the fossores, a guild of gravediggers, morticians and keepers of the Christian catacombs, were noted. This paper discusses the relation between science and religious heritage by demonstrating through a concrete case study the contribution of anthropology in a mutually beneficial collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian and international nursing educators are increasingly concerned with the quality of university nursing education. Contemporary nursing education is fraught by a growing anti‐intellectualism coupled with the dominance of neoliberalism and corporate university business culture. Amid these challenges, nursing schools must prepare nurses to provide care in an era compounded by social and health inequities. The purpose of this paper was to explore the philosophical and contextual factors influencing anti‐intellectualism in nursing education. We use John Henry Newman's view of the purpose of a university education as a heuristic perspective to examine anti‐intellectualism in nursing. We contend that the ideological worship of technological advances, a culture of consumerism, quality improvement and risk management, the primacy of doing over thinking, competency‐based curricula and business models rooted in neoliberal financial policies reinforce anti‐intellectualism in nursing. Anti‐intellectualism is a complex issue to address within the corporate university culture. We propose multiple strategies at the disciplinary, university and sociopolitical levels to decrease anti‐intellectualism. Counteracting anti‐intellectualism requires critical thinking, praxis and emancipation. Nurses should critically examine this anti‐intellectual trend as it limits the advancement of the discipline and marginalizes its contributions within the academy. If nurses do not address this challenge, the survival of nursing as an academic discipline may be jeopardized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the historical alignment of nursing with divinity‐based perspectives and modern New Age nursing theories are explored. The nature of divinity in nursing is examined, together with the complexities and issues that arise in adopting a spiritual basis for care. The work of the key theorists in this area (Rogers, Newman, Parse, Watson, Dossey) is reconsidered and fundamental epistemological problems inherent in this approach reviewed. Specific concerns with the interpretation of holistic care, adoption of doxastic logic, faith‐based rationales, influence of Caucasian Judeo‐Christian and New Age values, misappropriation of science, use of pseudoscience and development of divinity as social consumer product are discussed. Practical problems with using a spiritual basis in contemporary nursing practice are also explored and the alignment of divinity‐based nursing theories with the modern antiscience movement is examined. Overall, the re‐emergence of divinity‐based nursing and spiritual basis for care may be problematic, and would seem to counter the development of an inclusive profession. Additionally, the alignment of nursing with antiscience movements rejecting biomedicine has significant public health implications. This is argued as a regressive step for the advancement of the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores religious adolescents' reported experiences of secondary schools. Fifty-four qualitative interviews were conducted in places of worship in three cities in England with Christians (n=46), Jews (n=38) and Muslims (n=15). Secondary schools of a religious and non-religious character were reported as not providing a suitable environment for religious observances, nor as a place to act and behave according to participants' religious principles. Religious adolescents reported prejudice and criticism of their beliefs or religious affiliations from their peers and sometimes from teachers. They also perceived their religious traditions to be distorted, inaccurately or unfairly represented in some lessons. The focus of this paper is the identity choices religious adolescents reported in response to these challenges. Three groups of identity choices are theorised and explored: religious identity seeking, religious identity declaration and religious identity masking. The findings are discussed in view of religious identity construction theory, good practice for teachers and also the potential concerns of faith communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute to an emerging debate in human geography concerning the spatialities of the future, and aims to address a gap in work on the geography of religion regarding the temporalities of faith. Through a focus on religious prophecy, the paper seeks to examine how different spaces, temporalities, identities, practices and dispositions (both religious and secular-scientific) are generated through and generate this religious future. The paper argues that prophecy is a particular form of making the future, and advances the dual notions cosmic-divine time and preparatory assured readiness in order to understand and underline this specificity. Through the example of the prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) and an event involving a box of her prophecies publically opened in 1927, it argues that prophetic space-times presence the future through multiple and intersecting 'not-yets', hesitancies and assurances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Turban has been worn by Muslims since the early period of Islamic history. This paper examines the significance of the turban in Twelver Shi‘ism. It argues that the turban and its color have been used to enhance the social and religious status of the descendants (sayyids) of the Prophet Muhammad. The paper also discusses the importance attached to the method of tying the turban and demonstrates how social pressure forced scholars to abandon a practice established by the Prophet and Imams. It will also argue that the method of trying the turban was used as an ideological tool among Shi‘i scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates trends in adult child‐rearing values in the United States over a 30‐year period, from the mid‐1980s into the first decades of the 21st century. Using data from the General Social Surveys, we report trends in emphasis on five child traits: think for self, obey, work hard, popularity, and helping others. Independent of the time of the surveys, child‐rearing values are associated with several individual attributes: gender, schooling level, occupational class, birth year, race/ethnicity, region, party identification, religious affiliation, and religiosity. Socioeconomic factors continue to be among the most important, but contrary to many arguments, occupational class, as measured by Weeden–Grusky micro‐classes, has a relatively less important role in predicting child‐rearing values, once education is taken into account. Religious variables are also important, less so than socioeconomic factors, but there is support for the hypothesis of the growing strength over time in the impact of religious conservatism and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When U.S. respondents to soda surveys are asked to report their attendance at religious services, approximately 40% of Protestants and 50% of Catholics claim to attend church in any given week. These survey findings have been widely disseminated. They are prominently and broadly cited though out scholarly, popular and textbook writing on American religion. Such extensive interest makes it all the more important to investigate whether these rates give a true or a distorted picture of religious practice in the United States. A recent paper has shaken confidence in the self-reported church attendance rates. Using counts of actual attendees at religious services rather than self-reports, the study has argued that the true weekly U.S. church attendance rate is approximately half the rate implied by the self-reports. The line of investigation is continued by collecting count-based church attendance data from an additional 31 Catholic dioceses. Including 17 dioceses reported on in the original paper, one is able to calculate count-based church attendance rates in 48 U.S. Catholic dioceses.