Download or read book Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America written by Robert Ellwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explores the major new or unconventional religions and spiritual movements in America that exist outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Download or read book Religious Leaders of America written by J. Gordon Melton and published by Gale Cengage. This book was released on 1999 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reference by noted scholar J. Gordon Melton provides more than 1,200 detailed biographical profiles of the contemporary and historical men and women responsible for influencing American religion. Features a comprehensive index and a religious affiliation appendix.

Download or read book The Influence of Faith written by Elliott Abrams and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2002-05-30 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Realists have long argued that the international system must be based on hard calculations of power and interest. But in recent years, religion's role on the international scene has grown. The Influence of Faith examines religion as a growing factor in world politics and U.S. foreign policy. Particular attention is placed on the American reaction to the persecution of Christians and Jews overseas, as well as the role of faith-based groups such as missionary and relief organizations in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy. The Influence of Faith considers these timely issues from diverse points of view, offering broad historical analysis as well as concrete examples taken from current affairs.

Download or read book Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans written by R. Laurence Moore and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1987-12-03 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In light of the curious compulsion to stress Protestant dominance in America's past, this book takes an unorthodox look at religious history in America. Rather than focusing on the usual mainstream Protestant churches--Episcopal, Congregationalist, Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran--Moore instead turns his attention to the equally important "outsiders" in the American religious experience and tests the realities of American religious pluralism against their history in America. Through separate but interrelated chapters on seven influential groups of "outsiders"--the Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Christian Scientists, Millennialists, 20th-century Protestant Fundamentalists, and the African-American churches--Moore shows that what was going on in mainstream churches may not have been the "normal" religious experience at all, and that many of these "outside" groups embodied values that were, in fact, quintessentially American.

Download or read book The Myth of American Religious Freedom written by David Sehat and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Download or read book Sacred Companies written by Nicholas Jay Demerath and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1998 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion is intrinsically social, and hence irretrievably organizational, although organization is often seen as the darker side of the religious experience--power, routinization, and bureaucracy. Religion and secular organizations have long received separate scholarly scrutiny, but until now their confluence has been little considered. This interdisciplinary collection of mostly unpublished papers is the first volume to remedy the deficit. The project grew out of a three-year inquiry into religious institutions undertaken by Yale University's Program on Non-Profit Organizations and sponsored by the Lilly Endowment. The scholars who took part in this effort weree challenged to apply new perspectives to the study of religious organizations, especially that strand of contemporary secular organizational theory known as "New Institutionalism." The result was this groundbreaking volume, which includes papers on various aspects of such topics as the historical sources and patterns of U.S. religious organizations, contemporary patterns of denominational authority, the congregation as an organization, and the interface between religious and secular institutions and movements. The contributors include an interdisciplinary mix of scholars from economics, history, law, social administration, and sociology.

Download or read book The Westminster Handbook to Women in American Religious History written by Susan Hill Lindley and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Westminster Handbook to Women in American Religious History provides an affordable and accessible reference to over 750 outstanding individual women and women's organizations in American religious history.--From publisher description.

Download or read book Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices written by Anna Fedele and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social scientists and philosophers confronted with religious phenomena have always been challenged to find a proper way to describe the spiritual experiences of the social group they were studying. The influence of the Cartesian dualism of body and mind (or soul) led to a distinction between non-material, spiritual experiences (i.e., related to the soul) and physical, mechanical experiences (i.e., related to the body). However, recent developments in medical science on the one hand and challenges to universalist conceptions of belief and spirituality on the other have resulted in “body” and “soul” losing the reassuring solid contours they had in the past. Yet, in “Western culture,” the body–soul duality is alive, not least in academic and media discourses. This volume pursues the ongoing debates and discusses the importance of the body and how it is perceived in contemporary religious faith: what happens when “body” and “soul” are un-separated entities? Is it possible, even for anthropologists and ethnographers, to escape from “natural dualism”? The contributors here present research in novel empirical contexts, the benefits and limits of the old dichotomy are discussed, and new theoretical strategies proposed.

Download or read book The American Religion written by Harold Bloom and published by Chu Hartley Publishers LLC. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: La 4ème de couv. indique : "In this fascinating work of religious criticism, Harold Bloom examines a number of American-born faiths: Pentecostalism, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Southern Baptism and Fundamentalism, and African American spirituality. He traces the distinctive features of American religion while asking provocative questions about the role religion plays in American culture and in each American's concept of his or her relationship to God. Bloom finds that our spiritual beliefs provide an exact portrait of our national character."

Download or read book Ranking Faiths written by James D. Davidson and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-01-16 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranking Faiths: Religious Stratification in America discusses how religion shapes access to power, privilege, and prestige in the U.S., both historically and today. James D. Davidson and Ralph E. Pyle dispel the idea that the U.S. was founded on the principle of religious equality for all, documenting how religion has been a factor in the allocation of power from the colonial period through the present. From the time of the earliest settlements in America through today, the book demonstrates that some religious groups have had more access to economic, political, and social rewards than others, and they have benefited from laws and customs that have maintained religious inequality over time. While a few religious groups, such as Catholics and Jews, have experienced significant upward mobility over time, the social status of most has remained remarkably static over time. The book shows how religious inequalities developed, highlight where they remain in society today, and discuss what Americans can and should do about it.

Download or read book Endowed by Our Creator written by Michael I. Meyerson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate over the framers' concept of freedom of religion has become heated and divisive. This scrupulously researched book sets aside the half-truths, omissions, and partisan arguments, and instead focuses on the actual writings and actions of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others. Legal scholar Michael I. Meyerson investigates how the framers of the Constitution envisioned religious freedom and how they intended it to operate in the new republic. Endowed by Our Creator shows that the framers understood that the American government should not acknowledge religion in a way that favors any particular creed or denomination. Nevertheless, the framers believed that religion could instill virtue and help to unify a diverse nation. They created a spiritual public vocabulary, one that could communicate to all—including agnostics and atheists—that they were valued members of the political community. Through their writings and their decisions, the framers affirmed that respect for religious differences is a fundamental American value, Meyerson concludes. Now it is for us to determine whether religion will be used to alienate and divide or to inspire and unify our religiously diverse nation.

Download or read book Religions Bodies of America written by F.E. Mayer and published by . This book was released on 1968-06-01 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes most religious bodies to help readers understand what each church body believes and practices.

Download or read book Religious Movements in Contemporary America written by Irving I. Zaretsky and published by . This book was released on 2015-02-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary religious movements in America vary greatly in their organization, goals, methods, and membership. Reflecting the striking diversity of the current religious movement, the papers in this volume consider three categories of religious movements: native American churches, recently founded religious groups, and syncretistic groups based on imported cults. The general aim is to understand the varieties of human behavior within these institutions and to point out their relationship to society in the United States. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book American Religion written by Mark A. A. Chaves and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most authoritative resource on religious trends in America—now fully updated Most Americans say they believe in God, and more than a third say they attend religious services every week. Yet studies show that people do not really go to church as often as they claim, and it is not always clear what they mean when they tell pollsters they believe in God or pray. American Religion presents the best and most up-to-date information about religious trends in the United States, in a succinct and accessible manner. This sourcebook provides essential information about key developments in American religion since 1972, and is the first major resource of its kind to appear in more than two decades. Mark Chaves looks at trends in diversity, belief, involvement, congregational life, leadership, liberal Protestant decline, and polarization. He draws on two important surveys: the General Social Survey, an ongoing survey of Americans' changing attitudes and behaviors, begun in 1972; and the National Congregations Study, a survey of American religious congregations across the religious spectrum. Chaves finds that American religious life has seen much continuity in recent decades, but also much change. He challenges the popular notion that religion is witnessing a resurgence in the United States—in fact, traditional belief and practice is either stable or declining. Chaves examines why the decline in liberal Protestant denominations has been accompanied by the spread of liberal Protestant attitudes about religious and social tolerance, how confidence in religious institutions has declined more than confidence in secular institutions, and a host of other crucial trends. Now with updated data and a new preface by the author, this revised edition provides essential information about key developments in American religion since 1972, plainly showing that religiosity is declining in America.

Download or read book America s Alternative Religions written by Timothy Miller and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a source of reliable information on the most important new and alternative religions covering history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. It includes a chapter on the Branch Davidians.

Download or read book America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity written by Robert Wuthnow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of other non-Western religions have become a significant presence in the United States in recent years. Yet many Americans continue to regard the United States as a Christian society. How are we adapting to the new diversity? Are we willing to do the hard work required to achieve genuine religious pluralism? Award-winning author Robert Wuthnow tackles these and other difficult questions surrounding religious diversity. Wuthnow contends that responses to religious diversity are fundamentally deeper than polite discussions about civil liberties and tolerance would suggest. Rather, he writes, religious diversity strikes at the very core of our personal and national theologies. Only by understanding this important dimension of our culture will we be able to move toward a more reflective religious pluralism. -- From publisher's description.

Download or read book Born Again Bodies written by Ruth Marie Griffith and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a wonderful book, well-conceptualized, written with style and wit, and impressive for its ambition, reach and achievement. R. Marie Griffith brings to the scene learning, theoretical subtlety, critical acumen, historical skill, and humane sensibility. She has emerged as one of the most sophisticated and insightful scholars of the Christian body in any period of Christian history."--Robert Orsi, Harvard University "Born Again Bodies is extraordinary. It uncovers an arena of knowledge never before looked at with this level of critical attention when examining American religious culture; Griffith's strength is that she looks across the 'evangelical' denominations. Her work is elegant and truly original."--Sander L. Gilman, author of Difference and Pathology and Jewish Frontiers