In Western Europe, Islam is largely perceived as a barrier to the integration of immigrant minorities into the mainstream and as a hindrance to educational success. However, little is known about the perceived role of Islamic religiosity (beliefs, commitments, behaviors and networks) with respect to educational success. In-depth interviews were carried out with Flemish high-school students (N = 129) (northern part of Belgium) in three secondary schools. Our data indicate that most respondents do not spontaneously mention religiosity as an important factor with respect to educational achievement. However, when asked directly, a significant group of Muslim students mention the memorizing of prayers as a transferable skill, the protective aspects of drug and alcohol prohibition, and the religious friends networks as a resource for fostering the feelings of school belonging. Nevertheless, some students also mention possible negative consequences due to discrimination, for example for wearing a headscarf.
Sociological research on the US population’s views of science and religion has recently burgeoned, but focuses primarily on Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Our study advances understandings of how Americans of non-Christian faiths – namely Judaism and Islam – perceive the relationship between science and religion. We draw on in-depth interviews (N=92) conducted in Orthodox Jewish, Reform Jewish, and Sunni Muslim congregations in two major cities to elucidate how respondents’ respective traditions help them frame the relationship between science and religion. Findings demonstrate that members of these religious communities distance themselves from the pervasive conflict narrative. They rely on religious texts and historical traditions to instead articulate relationships of compatibility and independence between science and religion, while developing strategies to negotiate conflict around delimited issues. Findings push the social scientific study of religion and science beyond a specifically Christian and conflict-oriented focus.
Despite the evidence of a progressive disenchantment, the religious sphere maintains a strong grip on current societies though undertaking some transformations. Pluralism, individualism and privatization are three features we cannot ignore if we choose to study religion in the contemporary world and, more broadly, if we choose to study modernity.
The aim of this article is to illustrate some features of the different forms of religiosity in the secular age (Taylor, 2007). We have focused on modern Catholicism, with particular reference to religious experience in the Catholic lay group. The stories of Catholic militants show that the motivation behind their choice is the crucial factor to analyze their religious experience and worldview. In this sense, we will try to reflect on some indicators that can help us to understand the resources and limits of the contemporary Catholic pluralism and the aspects of the ‘modern desire for God’ (Abbruzzese, 2010).
There are two theses originally put forward by Michael Burawoy but which still need to be highlighted; the first is the necessity of challenging the assumed neutrality of the social sciences and the second is the necessity of public engagement in the form of encouraging co-practice in society. Burawoy suggests public sociology should play a role in the struggle to protect humanity against the tyranny of the market. I tend to challenge this by arguing that a post-secular and post-neutrality public sociology could only work as a frame of dialogue about the priority of each struggle. Otherwise, it can be easily turned into a target for the criticism of those who do not share the interest in Burawoy’s preferred struggle. The article would also suggest that Ali Shariati’s political rereading of religious ideas not only to adapt to the modern world but also to transform it makes this Iranian intellectual a classic figure of the traditional post-secular public sociology.
Have we finished with superstition, from the point of view of history, of ideas and of psychology? Nothing is less certain. On the basis of some ancient or recent publications on this topic, this article attempts to pinpoint the fact that, owing to the empirical and theoretical topicality of superstition, it certainly deserves better than the ideological and intellectual disqualification it has been subjected to. Recent reflections, inspired by anthropological and psychological approaches, seem part of a new interest in beliefs and symbols previously mastered by dominant and exclusive systems of thoughts, be they religious or profane. But a close examination of the effective uses of the notion of ‘superstition’ demonstrates that the projective stigmatization of the ‘Other’ remains a relevant point of departure from which it can be rehabilitated, alongside the latest psychological approaches of belief.
Discussing the social construction of the phenomenon of exorcism, this article illustrates how it is located in contemporary culture and specifically in the religious field. Following the study done by Michel de Certeau on the mass possession of the Ursulines’ convent of Loudun (France) in the 17th century, the authors differentiate between the ‘possessed’ and the ‘possessionists’, that is between those who are possessed by the devil and those who are convinced of the reality of possession.
Although the authors cannot claim that there has been a growth of possessed people, they make the claim that there has been an increase of ‘possessionists’ through the over-policing of the devil: the more the over-policing of the devil is practiced, the more people are likely to become ‘possessionist’ and believe in the increase of the presence of the devil.
This article draws on the notion of ‘cultural defense’ to examine how nationalism shapes contemporary contestations around religion and secularity in Armenia. While clearly relevant, this framework has rarely been used for the analysis of religious change in the Caucasus region as part of the broader post-Soviet space. This article fills this lacuna. Simultaneously, it moves beyond the relatively narrow interest in the degree of secularization or reinforced religious nationalism as social outcomes of cultural defense situations. Instead, we are interested in how boundaries between religion and secular spheres in society are drawn in particular ways, how the resulting religious – secular configurations have evolved since the end of the Soviet Union – of which Armenia was a part – and how concepts of nationhood and nationalist mobilizations have shaped this process.
Hurricane Katrina forced one of the largest internal migrations of people in US history. Among the evacuees were 28,000 Filipino Americans many of whom fled to Houston. In a short period of time, Filipino American Catholic Houstonians relocated their co-ethnics with host families, facilitated documents needed for US federal aid (FEMA), provided material assistance, and addressed evacuee medical needs through the establishment and staffing of a crisis triage clinic. Drawing on ethnographic and survey data we explore the factors that impacted and shaped Filipino American community participation and volunteerism during the events of Hurricane Katrina and after. We found that both religious and non-religious organizations were vital in the mobilization of Filipino Americans during the Katrina relief effort and subsequent natural disaster1 responses.
This article highlights the fact that careful study of common posthuman outlooks, as described by Roden (2015), reveals three unique narratives concerning how posthumanists view the nature of humanity and emerging technologies. It is argued that these narratives point to unique frames that present distinct understandings of the human-technology relationship, frames described as the technology-cultured, enhanced-human, and human-technology hybrid frames. It is further posited these frames correlate and help map a range of ways people discuss and critique the impact of digital culture on humanity within broader society. This article shows how these frames are similarly at work in the language used by Religious Digital Creatives within Western Christianity to justify their engagement with digital technology for religious purposes. Thus, this article suggests careful analysis of ideological discussions within posthumanism can help us to unpack the common assumptions held and articulated about the human-technology relationship by members within religious communities.
This article aims to reopen the genealogy of video games, studying the similarities they share with what the author calls ‘techno-trance devices’. These devices, which are contemporary to the first video games in the early 1960s, rely on the creative hijacking of laboratory instruments. They share numerous technical and media properties with video games. Moreover, there are some records of these techno-trance devices being used during religious practices at the time, which might lead to speculation of a latent trance influence in video games as apparatuses. These shared properties between video games and these devices, derived from counterculture, are thus studied through the prism of trance and the debates it fostered in anthropology.
This article proposes a theory of post neo-Protestantism highlighting the key relationships maintained by this new postmodern manner of thinking and living religion with the medialization, that is to say, with the ‘mediatization of everything’ as a model of public communication developed in favor of broadband internet, wireless internet or social media. In this perspective, it is shown that post neo-Protestantism is basically the virtualization of neo-Protestantism still clinging to modernity and the communicative individual pragmatics of this virtualization now inescapably linked to new media.
Contrary to conventional readings of secularization and its usual analytical point of references – American and French civil religions, American religious vitalism and French laïcité – this article seeks to better understand an intermediary religio-political configuration, named ‘cultural religion’, as widespread as neglected. Independently from the question of faith, the full respect of religious practices or knowledge of dogma, Western populations maintain a cultural attachment towards Christianity, which may characterize one of the important contemporary social functions conferred to Christian churches, and help understand their deep cultural and historical impregnation. This article will address the conventional account of religious indicators, more precisely the religious type of ‘seasonal conformists’, the process of secularization as culturalization, and will distinguish between cultural religion, civil religion and political religion.
Spirituality has been theorised as a characteristic of late-modern society, a consequence of individualisation and of a relativized marketplace of religion. Drawing on findings from ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Muslim musicians in the UK, the author claims that spirituality can indeed be considered a postmodern discourse of belief – with trans-religious applicability – but that at the same time it can be articulated from within a clear understanding of group/religious membership. The concepts of ‘spiritual capital’ and ‘expressive communalism’ are used to explain the ways through which a postmodern discourse of spirituality is utilised by Muslim musicians from within contemporary networks of Sufism in the West. The author suggests the cosmopolitan and inclusive nature of these types of Sufism in Britain – particularly among third and fourth generation Muslims – represents a frontier of religious change in the UK and a challenge to traditional forms of religious authority, discourse and membership.
Different religions have strikingly different views of history; but the emergence of modern technology offers promises of salvation that can draw equally on Christian views of time in the US and Hindu views of time in India. For centuries, Christian theologians incorporated technological progress into their linear vision of history, which will end with an eschatological conflict and the rise of the New Jerusalem. In the US today, techno-enthusiasts have adopted the claim that we are fast approaching the end of the world as we know it, though the salvation they expect no longer references Christianity. A ‘Singularity’ will occur, they say, leading to the transformation of biological life into an eternal new world of machine intelligence. In India, however, history is cyclical and the end of the world has long been expected to be a return to the first age. Although presently mired in the misery of the kali yuga, we should anticipate an end to this period and a return to the glorious satya yuga. Based upon popular Indian understandings of science and technology, we should expect that both will be crucial to this process. Interviews and observations made in the US and in India reveal how technological progress is now the critical component in cultural expectations about the end of the world and the emergence of a new world to come.
This article uses conversion to Islam as a lens through which to explore the intricacies of race and religion in France and the United States. Using in-depth interviewing and ethnography, the author explores how white converts relate to their allegedly dissonant racial and religious identities in national contexts where Islam has been racialized as ‘Brown’ and foreign. Focusing on two countries that have historically had highly contrasted understandings of race and religion, she offers a comparative analysis of how race operates in the lives of Muslim converts on both sides of the Atlantic. The article shows that, even though processes of racial assignation work in a similar manner in both cases, French and American converts report different experiences with race, thereby suggesting that the racialization of Islam is endowed with different textures and meanings across national contexts.
Historically, global consumer culture has been portrayed as a threat to traditional and authentic religions. However, in more recent times, several studies have begun to identify that religious organisations and their participants can resist the corrosive effects that adaptation to consumer culture can have on their organisations and practices. Nevertheless, how this is to be achieved remains under-explained, and the purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the branches of the Tibetan Buddhist organisation Rokpa International in Scotland has managed its adaptation to consumer culture through controlling commodification and guiding the consumption of practitioners. It is also demonstrated that this controlled adaptation to consumerism allows both individual participants and the organisation to further religious goals in line with Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.
This article is a case study of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen shrine in Pennsylvania, United States. The authors illustrate how various ‘Sufisms’ coexist and engage in contestation over the way that Bawa’s remaining disciples, new members, and otherwise interested devotees utilize Bawa’s burial shrine. The Fellowship in Philadelphia has established links with spaces affiliated with Bawa Muhaiyaddeen in Sri Lanka as well as with branches of the Fellowship in Toronto, Canada, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Hence, although this project is in many ways a case study of localized Sufism in the United States, it further highlights the dynamics of what might be called globalized Sufism in the 21st century.
This article provides a historically informed analysis of the contemporary incorporation of Islam and Muslims into an idea of common – national – membership in the United States and Britain. It shows that there is a current movement towards synthesis between religious and national identities by Muslims themselves, and explores the ways in which this synthesis is occurring within rich and dynamic public spheres in societies that have historically included and incorporated other religious groups. The authors argue that both countries are wrestling with the extent to which they accommodate Muslims in ways that allow them to reconcile their faith and citizenship commitments, and that the British ‘establishment’ is no less successful at achieving this than secular republicanism in the US.
Debates over faith-based schools have resurfaced in recent years, due largely to an increase in Islamic schools in the West and concerns regarding their role vis-a-vis social cohesion. Such debates typically occur in the public and political realms, with less academic attention to the issue. This study addresses this gap by focusing on Islamic schools in the US and England. The article draws on extensive qualitative data collected over 20 months at three Islamic schools to understand the experiences of Muslim students and their families. Contrary to popular perceptions, the findings suggest that Islamic schools can facilitate the participation of Muslims in mainstream institutions by equipping them with the cultural capital needed to navigate in non-Muslim arenas. Paradoxically, the findings also indicate that attending Islamic schools does not necessarily translate into greater levels of religiosity among Muslim youth; in some cases it even turned them away from the religion.
The borders between sacred and secular music are often believed to be fixed and impenetrable. However, when a secular musical genre is reworked for consumption by religious audiences, a space is created where the sacred meets the secular, and this can be used to examine the variety of ways in which cultural norms, values, and ideologies fluctuate and converge between the religious and temporal spheres. In this article, the author looks at the overlapping of Christian and secular heavy metal music, focusing on the ways gender is described, celebrated, and normalized in the lyrics of Christian metal. After analyzing the lyrics of 351 Christian heavy metal songs, she conducts an in-depth analysis of three sets of lyrics. Despite the obvious antithesis between the worlds of heavy metal music and evangelical Christianity, her analysis highlights one avenue where the sacred and secular merge. The display, production, and management of gender can be viewed as a common trope that links Christian metal to secular metal and can function as a means of creating a space for the alignment of religious beliefs within the larger cultural expectations of gender.
This article utilizes an analytical framework that examines the differences in the organizational forms and strategies of Islamic organizations with reference to both internal and external factors affecting the organization, such as internal organizational characteristics and national and transnational political opportunity structures. This perspective is applied to review the empirical results of recent secondary studies from a cross-national and transatlantic perspective. In particular, this paper centres around a meta-analysis of research findings collected in the volume Islamic organizations in Europe and the USA: A multidisciplinary perspective, edited by Kortmann and Rosenow-Williams (2013), which presents new empirical research on Islamic organizations in the USA, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, the Baltic States, Poland, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland.
Erratum to Chinese evangelists on the move: space, authority, and ethnicisation among overseas Chinese Protestant Christians by Yuqin Huang and I-hsin Hsiao published in Social Compass 62(3): 379–395. DOI:
On page 379, the corresponding author of the article should read:
Corresponding author:
I-hsin Hsiao, East China University of Science and Technology, Xuhui District, Meilong Road 130, Shanghai, 200237, China
Email: ecust1213@gmail.com
Religion has received a large amount of scholarly attention for its role in promoting pro-social outcomes for a community. One of the areas in which religion may demonstrate a positive effect is suicide. The role that religion plays in reducing suicide within a community has long roots in sociology. Émile Durkheim suggested that religion would have a pro-social effect in decreasing suicide. Religion should reduce suicide by establishing values and norms that integrate individuals into society and regulate the behavior of the members of a society. However, the presence of many different religions could erode the social integration and regulation effects of religion. This would cause suicide to increase as individuals become confused as to what values and norms are to be followed. The current analysis uses the religious fractionalization index to examine the effect of religious heterogeneity on suicide. The findings demonstrate that increased religious heterogeneity increased suicide for a sample of countries.
This article deals with the recently revealed paradox that contemporary Muslims score higher on Protestant work ethic than contemporary Protestants. The author tests whether this phenomenon is supported by World Values Survey (WVS) data. According to Inglehart’s theory of post-materialist shift, work ethic should be stronger in the developing societies where there is a lack of existential security. The author also tests whether the effects of the Protestant work ethic extend beyond the religious population of Protestant countries. The multilevel models built on 25,437 respondents in 55 countries show no significant difference in work ethic between Muslims and Protestants. Living in a historically Protestant society does not increase work ethic, but being religious in a Protestant society does. As countries develop, work ethic is likely to decrease. This poses further questions about the universal features of religious ethics and the non-religious factors explaining the economic progress associated with the Protestant work ethic.