Wilkinson, Michael (ed.), Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission, and Public Religion. Leiden: Brill, 2012. 228pp. Hbk. ISBN: 9789004235465. £85.

This article is based upon an address to the Conference on Christianity and Literature at the Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association in Toronto on 29 December 1997. The invitation asked me to comment on the public/private distinction that I make as Director of the Public Religion Project and to accent the “cultural context,” which fits my History of Culture faculty assignment and three decades of writing Context, a newsletter relating religion to culture. I was to inform it theologically, which a divinity professor is supposed to be able to do, and to show some curiosity about the literary theme, as my decades-long stint as literary editor at The Christian Century should poise me to do. Under it all my limiting job description matches a badge provided me at a conference in Tübingen, where the hosts handed out identifications marked “Theologian of History,” “Theological Historian,” and “Historical Theologian.” Mine read simply, “Historical Historian.”—MEM

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Word, Image, Sound

Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East ◽

10.1215/1089201x-9127011 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 41 (2) ◽

pp. 148-152

Author(s):

Matthew Engelke

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

South Asia ◽

Case Studies ◽

Recent Work ◽

Special Section ◽

Human Sciences ◽

The Public ◽

Public Religion ◽

The Senses ◽

The Public Sphere

Abstract This essay introduces the special section “Word, Image, Sound,” a collection of essays on public religion and religious publicities in Africa and South Asia. The essays cover case studies in Myanmar, Zambia, Senegal, Rwanda, and Egypt. The introduction situates the essays in relation to the broader fields of work on the public sphere and publics, especially as they relate to recent work in the human sciences that focus on materiality, the senses, and media.

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Explaining the Absence of a Veil Debate: The Mediating Role of Ethno-nationalism and Public Religion in the Irish Context

Muslims at the Margins of Europe ◽

10.1163/9789004404564_009 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 161-179

Keyword(s):

Public Religion ◽

Mediating Role ◽

Irish Context

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Islam and the Question of Confessional Religious Identity: The Islamic State, Apostasy, and the Making of a Theology of Violence

Contemporary Review of the Middle East ◽

10.1177/2347798918806415 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 327-348

Author(s):

Sanjeev Kumar H. M.

Keyword(s):

Religious Identity ◽

Islamic State ◽

Sacred Text ◽

Political Ontology ◽

Muslim Society ◽

Public Religion

The Islamic State (ISIS) has sought to realign the role of public religion in the modern secular space by proclaiming to contest all forms of apostasy and re-interrogate the conceptual formulations of belief/unbelief in Islam. Through such quests for realignment, it has sought to revive the medieval debate on the question of confessional religious identity which involved definitional disputations concerning true Muslims. The debate surfaced during the formative phase of the Muslim society and led to the engendering of competing sectarian religiosities. For the Islamic State, its urge for reviving this medieval discourse on confessional religious identity of Muslims is embedded in a romantic vision of the abode of pure Islam, to be inhabited only by true Muslims. However, such a geopolitical imaginary is deeply grounded in a sectarian Sunni political ontology coupled with a prejudicial interpretation of jihad. To accomplish its objectives and for enunciating the attributes of the land of pure Islam, the organization has transformed the Qur’an, which is in the intransitive form, into a transitive form so as to theologize the sacred text into a radical instrument of violence. It has also attempted to transfigure the spiritual character of Islam, referred to as the deen (a pluralistic system), into a cult.

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