Religion and Academia Reframed: Connecting Religion, Science, and Society in the Long Sixties

Religion and Academia Reframed: Connecting Religion, Science, and Society in the Long Sixties PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-08-07

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 900454657X

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The Long Sixties (1955–1973) were a period of economic prosperity, political unrest, sexual liberation, cultural experimentation, and profound religious innovation throughout the Western world. This social effervescence also affected the study of religion by reshaping the relationships between academic and religious institutions and discourses. While the mainstream churches sought to deploy the instruments of the social sciences to understand and manage the changing socioreligious context, prominent scholars regarded the bubbly spirituality of the counterculture as the harbinger of a new era; some of them actively used their academic knowledge to further this revolution. This book discusses the multiple entanglements of religion and science during these turbulent decades through theoretically informed case studies from both sides of the Atlantic.

The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University

The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University PDF

Author: Donald Wiebe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1350103454

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In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.

Science under Siege

Science under Siege PDF

Author: Dick Houtman

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2021-06-06

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 9783030696481

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Identifying scientism as religion’s secular counterpart, this collection studies contemporary contestations of the authority of science. These controversies suggest that what we are witnessing today is not an increase in the authority of science at the cost of religion, but a dual decline in the authorities of religion and science alike. This entails an erosion of the legitimacy of universally binding truth claims, be they religiously or scientifically informed. Approaching the issue from a cultural-sociological perspective and building on theories from the sociology of religion, the volume unearths the cultural mechanisms that account for the headwind faced by contemporary science. The empirical contributions highlight how the field of academic science has lost much of its former authority vis-à-vis competing social realms; how political and religious worldviews define particular research findings as favorites while dismissing others; and how much of today’s distrust of science is directed against scientific institutions and academic scientists rather than against science per se.

NVMEN, the Academic Study of Religion, and the IAHR

NVMEN, the Academic Study of Religion, and the IAHR PDF

Author: Tim Jensen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-11-24

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9004308466

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Nvmen publishes papers representing the most recent scholarship in all areas of the history of religions ranging from antiquity to contemporary history. It covers a diversity of geographical regions and religions of the past as well as of the present. The approach of the journal to the study of religion is strictly non-confessional. While the emphasis lies on empirical, source-based research, typical contributions also address issues that have a wider historical or comparative significance for the advancement of the discipline. Numen also publishes papers that discuss important theoretical innovations in the study of religion and reflective studies on the history of the discipline. Brill is proud to present this special volume of articles compiled to celebrate the occasion of the 60th anniversary of NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions in 2014. The articles in this volume have been selected under the auspices of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), and reflect critically on the past, present, and future of NVMEN, the IAHR and the study of the History of Religions.

The Science of Religion and the Sociology of Knowledge

The Science of Religion and the Sociology of Knowledge PDF

Author: Ninian Smart

Publisher: Princeton Legacy Library

Published: 2016-04-03

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9780691637921

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Ambitiously undertaking to develop a strategy for making the study of religion "scientific," Ninian Smart tackles a set of interrelated issues that bear importantly on the status of religion as an academic discipline. He draws a clear distinction between studying religion and "doing theology," and considers how phenomenological method may be used in investigating objects of religious attitudes without presupposing the existence of God or gods. He goes on to criticize projectionist theories of religion (notably Berger's) and theories of rationality in both religion and anthropology. On this basis he builds a theory of religious dynamics which gives religious ideas and entities an autonomous place in the sociology of knowledge. His overall purpose is thus "to indicate ways forward in the study of religion which free it from being crypto-apologetics or elevating poetry." Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Sixties Spiritual Awakening

The Sixties Spiritual Awakening PDF

Author: Robert S. Ellwood

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 9780813520933

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For many people, the '60s were a period of reawakening. The political and cultural upheavals of the time had a tremendous effect on the spiritual lives of Americans, and American religion in its various forms and incarnations has not been the same since. Ellwood pulls together the changes that occurred in organized and disorganized religions during this turbulent decade.

The Cognitive Science of Religion

The Cognitive Science of Religion PDF

Author: James A. Van Slyke

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1409421244

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The cognitive science of religion is a relatively new academic field in the study of the origins and causes of religious belief and behaviour. The focal point of empirical research is the role of basic human cognitive functions in the formation and transmission of religious beliefs. However, many theologians and religious scholars are concerned that this perspective will reduce and replace explanations based in religious traditions, beliefs, and values. This book attempts to bridge the reductionist divide between science and religion through examination and critique of different aspects of the cognitive science of religion and offers a conciliatory approach that investigates the multiple causal factors involved in the emergence of religion.

The Restructuring of American Religion

The Restructuring of American Religion PDF

Author: Robert Wuthnow

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 9780691073286

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A study of developments in modern American religion examines the interaction between religion and politics that has occurred in the years since World War II, the polarization of religious dogma, and the rise of special interest groups

Negotiating Science and Religion in America

Negotiating Science and Religion in America PDF

Author: Gregory Cootsona

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 9781138067394

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Science and religion represent two powerful forces that continue to influence the American cultural landscape. Negotiating Science and Religion in America sketches an intellectual-cultural history from the Puritans to the twenty-first century, focusing on the sometimes turbulent relationship between the two. Using the past as a guide for what is happening today, this volume engages research from key scholars and the author's work on emerging adults' attitudes in order to map out the contours of the future for this exciting, and sometimes controversial, field. The book discusses the relationship between religion and science in the following important historical periods: from 1687 to the American Revolution the revolutionary period to 1859 after Darwin's 1859 On the Origin of Species 1870-1925: the rise of religious modernism and pluralism to the Scopes Trial from Scopes to 1966 the present: 1966 to 2000 the third millennium: the voices of Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Francis Collins the future and its contours. This is the ideal volume for any student or scholar seeking to understand the relationship between religion and science in society today.