Discussing the Inheritance and Evolution of the Patronus Mahakala

As the only Gelugpa temple in Northwest China and the only Green Tara Dojo in China, Guangren Temple, a Tibetan Buddhism temple in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, is crucial to the study of Tibetan Buddhism development in the mainland. This paper takes the Patronus Mahakala as the starting point, because it is not only one of the most important Patronus, but also the incarnation of Shiva, one of the most critical gods in Hinduism. The extraction elements from the statues and the establishment of a connection with Tibetan Buddhism will help explore the origin of the external components of the sculptures in Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Furthermore, through clarifying the process of religious transmission and development, the conflict and integration of the inter-sectarian, find the impact and evolution of the shape of Gods.

Cultural Models of Religious Parenting

This chapter describes and illustrates the “cultural models” that inform what the vast majority of American religious parents assume and believe about the value and means of passing on religion to their children. It sketches out the cognitive maps that religious parents use to make sense of the task of religious transmission to children. Drawing upon the theory of cultural models developed by cognitive anthropologists, such as Naomi Quinn and Claudia Strauss, it reconstructs the operative cultural models that American religious parents presuppose or believe about the purpose of life, the job of parenting, and the positive role that religion can play in providing children greater resources of happy and successful lives. Emphasis is placed on the pragmatic and functional approach to religion that most parents assume.

Why Are Parents the Crucial Players?

This chapter considers why parents are—and increasingly have become—the central players in their children’s religious socialization. It theorizes historical transformations of the American religious field and of family life that are crucial for understanding intergenerational religious transmission, particularly the centrality of parents talking to children about religion as a most powerful mechanism of socialization in religious faith and practice. It suggests that the “reflexive imperative” theorized by Anthony Giddens and Margaret Archer creates a culture that situates parents and talk with children at the center of religious transmission. It provides a big-picture interpretation of the transformation of American religion in recent decades as one from religion as communal solidarity project to personal identity accessory, which sheds light not only on the dynamics of religious socialization but also changes in the macro religious field.

Parent Religiousness, Parenting Styles, and Intergenerational Religious Transmission

Parents’ religious beliefs and practices, along with their parenting styles, matter for shaping how parents choose to transmit religious belief to their children and the extent to which they are effective. This chapter explores the direct, independent effects of parents’ religiousness and to some extent their parenting styles on children’s religious outcomes. Survey data are used to show how parenting styles moderate the relationship between parents’ religious importance and adult children’s religious importance and attendance. The chapter shows that an authoritative approach, whereby parents combine high expectations of and involvement with their children with emotional warmth and good communication can help more religious parents transmit religion to their children. This chapter also explores the role of religion in strengthening the connection between parents and offers important context and insight for understanding the relationship between corporal punishment and religion.

Handing Down the Faith

The most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children, youth, and teenagers is parents. Yet little research has studied this link in the intergenerational transmission of religion between generations. This book reports the findings of a new, national study of religious parents in the United States. The findings are based on 215 in-depth, personal interviews with religious parents from many traditions and different parts of the country; and on analyses of two nationally representative surveys of American parents. Unlike many studies that focus only on mainstream Christianity, this book reports on parents from a wide range of traditions: mainline Protestant, Catholic, evangelical, black Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Buddhist, and Hindu. It explores the background beliefs informing how and why religious parents seek to pass on religion to their children; examines how parenting styles interact with parent religiousness to shape religious transmission; shows how the approaches of parents now were influenced by their own experiences as children growing up under their parents; reveals how religious parents view their congregations and what they most seek out in a local church, synagogue, temple, or mosque; explores the experiences and outlooks of immigrant parents; and steps back to consider how the field of American religion has transformed over the last 100 years to explain why parents shoulder such a huge responsibility today in transmitting religious faith and practice to children. The book will interest scholars of religion, family, parenting, and socialization; clergy and religious educators and leaders; and religious parents themselves.

Preserving and Transmitting the Teachings of the Thariqah 'Alawiyyah: Diasporic Ba 'Alawi female preachers in contemporary Indonesia

Within academic discussions of Indonesia’s Hadhrami diaspora, women’s voices have often escaped scholarly attention. This paper focuses on the changing roles of three contemporary Indonesian Ba ‘Alawi female preachers, in Jakarta, Surabaya and Solo, with regard to their endeavors in preserving and transmitting the teachings of the Thariqah ‘Alawiyyah, a Sufi path that is traditionally reserved for men and which was established by the founding ancestor of the Ba ‘Alawi, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad named Muhammad b. ‘Ali ‘Alawi (d. 1255). While many important studies focus on the Hadhrami diaspora in Southeast Asia, and particularly on the role of male religious authorities, there is a dearth of research that takes the role of female actors seriously. This article presents a more complex picture of female Ba ‘Alawi religious teachers, highlighting similarities between them, but also the differences. It argues that the intellectual legacies, spiritual engagements and genealogical connections that these female preachers enjoy have enabled them also to assume the roles of preservers and transmitters of the teachings of the thariqah. In doing so, they inform the dynamics of religious transmission spearheaded by Hadhramis in Indonesia today.

Immigrants’ Religious Transmission in Southern Europe: Reaction or Assimilation? Evidence from Italy

In recent decades, scholars have been increasingly interested in analysing immigrants’ religiosity in Europe. In this article, we provide evidence about how the patterns of religious transmission are shaped by religious characteristics of both the origin and receiving contexts. We do so by focusing on Italy, which is both an almost homogeneously Catholic country and a fairly recent immigration destination, and by analysing three different dimensions of religiosity: service attendance, prayer and importance of religion. By relying on the “Social conditions and integration of foreign citizens” survey (ISTAT, 2011–2012), we fill an important theoretical and geographical gap by analysing differences in religiosity between parents and children. We claim that immigrant groups who share many characteristics with the natives tend to assimilate by adopting the same patterns of transmission (for example, Romanians in Italy). In contrast, immigrants who come from very different religious contexts, such as the Muslim Moroccan group, strongly react to this diversity by emphasising the transmission of their own religiosity. If, instead, immigrants come from a very secular country, such as Albania, they also tend to replicate this feature in the receiving countries, thus progressively weakening their religiosity and also their denominational differences. Overall, it is the interplay between origin and destination context which matters the most in shaping the patterns of religious transmission.

Transmission of Faith in Families: The Influence of Religious Ideology

The family and denominational factors influencing intergenerational religious transmission have been examined in a substantial body of work. Despite research identifying religious ideology as a salient aspect of American religion, however, its role in religious transmission remains unexplored. In this study, I use the National Study of Youth and Religion to test whether children’s worship attendance and centrality of faith in young adulthood differ based on whether their parents identify as religiously liberal, moderate, conservative, or none of these. I further test whether the strength of the relationship between parent and child religiosity differs between ideological groups. The primary finding is that religious transmission is stronger among children of religious conservatives than for any other group, while the other groups do not differ significantly from one another. These differences in transmission are largely explained by religious conservative parenting approaches, congregational involvement, and most importantly, more intensive religious socialization.

Manual Labor and the Artistry of Devotion in the Basement

This chapter explores masculinity and material culture in the backstage space of the church basement, where devotional and ritual objects are under construction. It argues that manual labor is devotional labor and examines the relationship between masculinity, embodiment, and religious transmission. In the basement men learn to embody masculine values and skills, like craft, creativity, and dedication. Through painting saints and building the giglio men enact their devotion and commitment to the parish and achieve belonging and status in the feast community. In this homosocial space, men demonstrate proficiency in Catholic iconography and negotiate questions of materiality and sacred presence as they repair the broken bodies of saints. This chapter explores the relationship between homosociality, Catholic practice, joking, and camaraderie among lay men. As embodied ethnography, this chapter centers reflexivity by examining the positionality of the female ethnographer in the male space and gender in fieldwork.

Keeping the faith? Secularisation, the family and civic engagement

This chapter explains that it is in the area of religious practice that the uncertainties of intergenerational transmission are most clearly demonstrated. All available evidence indicates that religious affiliation is inherited from parents. However, that is only part of the story. The chapter focuses on the precariousness of religious transmission and seeks to explore: first, what family and lifecourse events appear to disrupt an inheritance of faith; and, second, what the implications are for young people's civic engagement. In addition to examining the levels and processes of the intergenerational transmission of faith (or its absence), it discusses how religious affiliation is reflected in particular kinds of associational membership, levels of volunteering, and other kinds of social activism.