Religious Memetics

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Burroughs ◽  
Gavin Feller
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Participatory Culture ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Institutional Authority ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Church

Recently leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) faith have called upon members to “sweep the earth” with positive religious messages through social media. This digital moment in Mormonism exemplifies the interrelation and concomitant tension between everyday lived religion, technology, and religious institutions. While studies on digital religion have emphasized the push of participatory culture into everyday lived religion, this research on religious memes contributes to an emergent vein of digital religion scholarship focused on institutional authority. In our analysis of the “doubt your doubts” meme and antimemes we theorize religious memetics as a space for the reconnection of the everydayness of religious practice, which boils down meaningful moments of faith into facile, nonthreatening avenues for sharing religion. While this is beneficial for institutions, the reflexive and metonymic function of religious memes ruptures routine, offering participants momentary pauses from the demands of orthodox religious life.

scholarly journals The Role of Religious Leaders in Religious Heritage Tourism Development: The Case of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 256
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Olsen ◽  
Scott C. Esplin
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
The Church

For centuries, people have traveled to sacred sites for multiple reasons, ranging from the performance of religious rituals to curiosity. As the numbers of visitors to religious heritage sites have increased, so has the integration of religious heritage into tourism supply offerings. There is a growing research agenda focusing on the growth and management of this tourism niche market. However, little research has focused on the role that religious institutions and leadership play in the development of religious heritage tourism. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of religious leaders and the impacts their decisions have on the development of religious heritage tourism through a consideration of three case studies related to recent decisions made by the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Keeping the Faith in Revolutionary Mexico: Clerical and Lay Resistance to Religious Persecution, East Michoacán, 1926-1929

2002 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Butler
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The State ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This article analyses the character of local religious practice in the archdiocese of Michoacán during Mexico'scristerorebellion, and explores the relationship between ‘official’ and ‘popular’ religion under persecution. In particular, it shows how the Catholic clergy and laity reconstructed the religious life at parish level in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the revolutionary state's campaigns against the Church. For a variety of reasons, the significance of such passive resistance to the state, and the complexity of the interaction between the ecclesiastical elite and the Catholic laity, tend to be downplayed in many existing accounts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many historians see cristero violence as the most important response to religious persecution, and therefore study it to the exclusion of alternative, less visible, modes of resistance. As for the Church, the hierarchy's wranglings with the regime similarly tend to overshadow the labours of priests and their parishioners under persecution. But the full range of popular experiences has also been deliberately compressed for ideological reasons. Many Catholic writers, for instance, seek to exalt the Church by describing a persecution of mythical ferocity. While Calles is likened to Herod, Nero, or Diocletian, the clergy and laity comprise a uniform Church of martyrs designate in revolt against a godless state. To achieve this instructive vision, however, a few exemplary martyrs—such as Father Pro and Anacleto González Flores—are allowed to stand for the whole mass of priests and believers, in the same way that Edmund Campion is revered as the protomartyr of the Elizabethan persecution in England. As a result, a stereotypical but politically serviceable image of a monolithic Church is perpetuated, an image which was recently institutionalised by the canonisation of 25 ‘cristero’ martyrs in May 2000.

scholarly journals TAREKAT SYEIKH MUHAMMAD ARSYAD AL-BANJARI: TELAAH ATAS KITAB KANZ AL-MA'RIFAH

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Hadi
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Colour Patterns

Development of Sufism in the archipelago is one icon in view of the problems connected with the Sufi. Sufism is the diversity of colour patterns of thought of religious life, while religious practice to be a representation of the diversity of religious thought to be highly variable and often decorated with the interview "controversial" a very sharp. In the context of religious institutions belonging to the tarekat also have a variety of variants, so that a diverse group of tarekat scattered every where and have the characteristics of each in accordance with religious discourse and the "religious experience" developer congregation. In fact there are some "differences" between the executive tarekat in an area with other regions, although with the same tarekat. Sheikh Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjary as a prolific writer in various fields of Islamic sciences, such as Tawheed, Fiqh and Sufism. Among his works is the Kanz al-patterned ma'rifah Sufism, but in some discussion related to religious practices and traditions of the congregation are very close, but the Sammaniyah tarekat who had been brought closer to the Al-Banjary Arsyad not so visible in Kanz al-Ma 'rifah but Syaziliyah tarekat who are more visible.

Habit, Practice, Grace

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Carlisle
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
Propositional Form

Traditional philosophy of religion is shaped by its focus on the cognitive aspects of religious life—beliefs and doctrines—which can easily be articulated in propositional form. But “lived religion” encompasses more than belief, and if philosophers of religion are to do justice to our subject-matter, we need to learn to think philosophically about practice in general, and about religious practices in particular. This chapter considers some of the methodological questions and challenges that come with this task, and looks at two recent attempts to develop a philosophy of religious practice. It then outlines a concept of practice which tries to take account of two features of religious practice: how practice uses repetition to generate change, or even transformation; and how practice gives form to desire.

scholarly journals ‘We Are Children of God’: An Ethnography of a Catholic Community in Rural China in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 448
Author(s):  
Wei Xiong ◽  
Xinan Li
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Local Case ◽  
Rich Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Academic studies of the relationship between religion and pandemics have been emerging since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many of these studies have been conducted in Euro-American contexts, with little attention paid to non-Western cases. This article provides a local case study from China, the earliest epicenter of the pandemic. The study focused on a Catholic community in rural China, Little Rome, through the lens of lived religion, exploring the relationship between religion and the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in our ethnographic study indicated that the Church plays an essential role in responding to the pandemic. In contrast to conventional studies of lived religion, in this ethnographic study on Catholicism in China, we contend that while the study of the lived experience of individuals is central to the lived-religion approach, more attention needs to be paid to the role of religious institutions such as the church, which mediate relations between individuals, society, and other social institutions. This article also argues that investigating different places and cultures can provide rich data for understanding the dynamic and diverse relationship between religion and the pandemic.

“Light cleaveth unto light”: Intermarriage discourse, LDS women of color, and the new racism

2021 ◽  
pp. 205030322110444
Author(s):  
Nazneen Khan
Keyword(s):  
Women Of Color ◽  
The United States ◽  
Interracial Relationships ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Faith Traditions ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
The Church

Fifty years after Loving v. Virginia, oppositional attitudes toward interracial relationships are still advanced by religious institutions in the United States. Extant social science literature characterizes these attitudes as generated largely by Evangelical and Christian nationalist traditions where members harbor negative attitudes toward interracial relationships. Hidden behind this characterization are the significant, but less obvious ways in which non-Evangelical denominations construct and disseminate similar attitudes. Through discourse analysis and digital interviews with LDS women of color, this study uses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon) as an entry point for examining intermarriage discourses in other faith traditions. Findings highlight that LDS messaging about interracial relationships shifted over time, integrating multiple racial frames in ways that expanded the scope of LDS racism with especially harsh implications for LDS women of color. Broader theoretical implications for the study of race, gender, and religion are discussed.

‘A Divergence of Views: Attitude change and the religious crisis over homosexuality’

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 88-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alasdair Crockett ◽  
David Voas
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Panel Surveys ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
The Face ◽  
Private Matter ◽  
The Church

British attitudes towards homosexuality have changed with astonishing rapidity over recent decades. Society has managed to assimilate these shifts with relative ease. The Christian churches, however, as repositories of tradition and defenders of inherited values, have been finding it increasingly difficult to adjust to the new environment. The Church of England is internally divided in the face of an external crisis: the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledges that the global Anglican Communion could split over the issue, and the church faces similar pressures domestically. These events raise important questions about how religious institutions come to terms with modernity. The rapidity of social change, the decline in deference to authority, the increase in tolerance of anything that seems a private matter, and the sense that sexuality is fundamental to the free expression of personal identity, all make it difficult for a church to declare that sexual orientation might disqualify one from ministry or even membership. This paper analyses empirical evidence covering two decades from the British Social Attitudes and British Household Panel surveys. It is apparent that no real consensus yet exists on basic issues of sexual morality. Society as a whole is highly polarised over the question of whether same-sex unions are wrong, with significant and increasing divisions between young and old, women and men, and religious and non-religious. Far from being better placed than others to avoid disputes, Christian churches suffer from compounded problems. The attitudes of lay Christians are starkly and increasingly polarised along the dimensions of ideology and religious practice. This gulf presents a particular problem for churches with both liberal and evangelical wings, notably the Church of England.

scholarly journals Militant Liturgies: Practicing Christianity with Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Weil

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
J. Aaron Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Traditional Philosophy ◽  
Religionless Christianity ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Church

Traditional philosophy of religion has tended to focus on the doxastic dimension of religious life, which although a vitally important area of research, has often come at the cost of philosophical engagements with religious practice. Focusing particularly on Christian traditions, this essay offers a sustained reflection on one particular model of embodied Christian practice as presented in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. After a discussion of different notions of practice and perfection, the paper turns to Kierkegaard’s conception of the two churches: the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant. Then, in light of Kierkegaard’s defense of the latter and critique of the former, it is shown that Kierkegaard’s specific account gets appropriated and expanded in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s account of “costly grace” and “religionless Christianity,” and Simone Weil’s conception of “afflicted love.” Ultimately, it is suggested that these three thinkers jointly present a notion of “militant liturgies” that offers critical and constructive resources for contemporary philosophy of religion.

On Roman Religion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Rüpke
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Dynamic Character ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
Literary Practices

Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude for individual initiative and creativity? This book demonstrates that it was a lived religion with individual appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying, dedicating, making vows, and reading. The book dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different, strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional protections, this text highlights the dynamic character of Rome's religious institutions and traditions. In the view expressed in this book, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. The text analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the “Shepherd of Hermas.” These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. The book also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.

scholarly journals Disconnection and the Healing Practice of Imagination for Mormon Environmental Ethics

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 948
Author(s):  
Kristen Blair
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
The Church ◽  
Indigenous Voices

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses a subversive and fecund interpretation of the Christian creation narrative. This interpretation, denying creation ex nihilo, bespeaks a particular attention to and care for the living earth. However, Latter-day Saint praxis is wounded by a searing disconnect between the theopoetics of its conceptual creation and its lived practice. I argue that the Church must understand this disconnect as a wound and attend to it as such. I turn to theopoetics, arguing that it is in the lived practices of Latter-day Saints engaging somatically with the Earth that can restore our imaginative potential and move toward healing. I begin by exploring the Christian conception of creation ex nihilo and juxtapose this with the Latter-day Saint understanding of formareex materia. I then explore the implications of such a cosmology for environmental ethics and probe the disconnections between theory and practice in Mormonism broadly construed. I propose that the healing salve for disconnection is imagination, a salve found in the first heartbeat of the Latter-day Saint story. I speak with Latter-day Saint theopoetics and indigenous voices, proposing ultimately that is with them that the healing of theology and praxis must begin.

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