Dimorphs and cobblers: Ways of being religious in Canada

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-291
Author(s):  
William Closson James
Keyword(s):  
Native Peoples ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Canadian Native ◽  
Religion In Canada ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Being Religious

Two specific examples considered in the author's Locations of the Sacred— Japanese Canadians and an Inuit crisis cult—raise the possibility of drawing selectively on two or more religious traditions. More generally, in Japan and among other Canadian Native peoples situational needs sometimes determine which religion is followed. Rather than syncretism (that is, the combination of two religions), the term religious dimorphism better describes this kind of compartmentalization and alternation. As several scholars have observed, situational use of various norms characterizes the manner by which many contemporary Canadians manage conflicts between religion and culture. A multilayered spirituality, cobbled together from various sources, is more characteristic of religion in Canada today than an exclusive and hegemonic monotheism.

The Many Meanings of Non-Affiliation

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-55
Author(s):  
Nancy T. Ammerman
Keyword(s):  
Folk Beliefs ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Many ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Being Religious

This chapter shows that non-affiliation means different things in different cultural contexts and among people with different social resources. Some religious traditions, such as Judaism, do not make affiliation central, so non-affiliation matters less. Similarly, many immigrants come from places where belonging and belief are not typical ways of being religious. Not all “nones” are alike. Nor are less well-off nones like the more privileged non-affiliates often imagined. Using the Faith Matters Survey, this chapter shows that less highly educated nones are more likely to hold religious folk beliefs and less likely to be politically liberal, for example. But most important is that the people who are at the bottom of the status hierarchy are—if they are also unaffiliated—more pessimistic, less trusting, less engaged in their communities, and less empowered. They may even be less healthy. The absence of religious ties exacerbates the effects of being on the social and economic margins.

scholarly journals A postcolonial philosophy of religion and interreligious polylogue

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Willy Pfändtner
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Fundamental Ontology ◽  
Religious Plurality ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Being Religious

In this article, an agenda for the development of a philosophy of religion which is informed by the challenges and possibilities of religious plurality is suggested. It is argued that the philosophy of religion as an academic discipline is in need of a kind of reconstruction if it is to maintain its relevance and connection to actual religious phenomena as they present themselves globally. The problem originates in the fact that the modern concept of religions has a distorting effect when applied to non-western traditions. The article focuses on a way to understand religious diversity by using aspects of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology to illuminate different ways of being religious within the same tradition and also to find similar religious dispositions across traditions. It is argued that this can inform interreligious dialogue so that this dialogue—or rather, polylogue—itself can serve as a tool to develop a postcolonial existential philosophy of religion. Part of this project would be to find and apply concepts and categories by reading religious traditions and subtraditions through each other. The article ends with a few suggestions on how this can be done, in this case by drawing on traditions from India.Willy Pfändtner is Senior Lecturer, Study of Religions, Södertörn University, Sweden. Website: http://webappl.sh.se/C1256E5B0040BEB2/0/9E349559FD45F42DC1257577003D0278

Perceptions of danger and co-occurring metaphors in Buddhist dhamma talks and Christian sermons

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Richardson ◽  
Miori Nagashima
Keyword(s):  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Believer ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Active Behavior ◽  
Evangelical Christian ◽  
Hierarchical Relationship ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Linguistic Approach ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Being Religious

Abstract This article focuses on an analysis of the perception of danger in a sample of conservative Evangelical Christian sermons and Thai Forest Tradition dhamma talks. Through the analysis of keywords, frames, conceptual metaphors, and patterns of agency in the use of metaphor, it seeks to explore how one Christian believer and one Buddhist practitioner conceptualize their ways of being religious. We argue that this specific set of dhamma talks has a primary focus on an individual actively progressing within the practice of meditation while interacting with elements that may be beneficial or harmful to that progress. In contrast, this particular sample of sermons has a primary focus on two groups or categories of people, fallen sinners and true Christians, and their strictly defined hierarchical relationship to God. Aspects of this relationship are often defined in terms of power, fear, and danger, with shifting intersections between active behavior and being acted upon by greater forces or powers. We conclude that a cognitive linguistic approach to analyzing perceptions of danger within a specified genre of religious discourse can be useful in producing a picture of how an individual religious believer within a particular context and moment in time views reality, their position within it, and their progression through it.

Churches as Mediating Structures

1983 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-394
Author(s):  
Barbara Hargrove
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Church ◽  
Being Religious ◽  
Primary Agent ◽  
Mediating Structures

“The church is a primary agent for bearing and transmitting the operative values for our society. This is true not only in the sense that most Americans identify their most important values as being religious in character, but also in the sense that the values that inform our public discourse are inseparably related to specific religious traditions. In the absence of the church and other mediating structures that articulate these values, the result is not that the society is left without operative values; the result is that the state has an unchallenged monopoly on the generation and maintenance of values.”

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