Faith, Politics, and Belonging
Faith, Politics, and Belonging

Author: Ian Geary

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2024-07-19

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1666777994

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on the author’s years spent working in and around Westminster, this essay collection provides a personal perspective on the themes of faith, politics, and belonging. To understand identity and place we need faith. Faith should lead to engagement in the wider world, and engagement in the wider world should deepen our faith and sense of purpose. In three sections, each drawing on his experience, Ian Geary reflects on the cognate themes of faith, politics, and belonging. Each section concludes with some questions for discussion and some suggestions for further reading. Written from personal experience via immersion in British political life and informed by his understanding of theology, the author seeks to animate a generous debate about the key themes, not to secure readers’ attachment to a cause or political ideology. These essays are written in the hope that Christians engaged in politics will find them helpful and that they will also reach a wider audience to show how viewing politics through the lens of faith might yield a fresh perspective. Ian Geary would venture to suggest that politics—despite its critics—is a necessary and good thing.

Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging
Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging

Author: Leerom Medovoi

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2021-03-08

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1478012986

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Working in four scholarly teams focused on different global regions—North America, the European Union, the Middle East, and China—the contributors to Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging examine how new political worlds intersect with locally specific articulations of religion and secularism. The chapters address many topics, including the changing relationship between Islam and politics in Tunisia after the 2010 revolution, the influence of religion on the sharp turn to the political right in Western Europe, understandings of Confucianism as a form of secularism, and the alliance between evangelical Christians and neoliberal business elites in the United States since the 1970s. This volume also provides a methodological template for how humanities scholars around the world can collaboratively engage with sweeping issues of global significance. Contributors. Markus Balkenhol, Elizabeth Bentley, Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, David N. Gibbs, Ori Goldberg, Marcia Klotz, Zeynep Kurtulus Korkman, Leerom Medovoi, Eva Midden, Mohanad Mustafa, Mu-chou Poo, Shaul Setter, John Vignaux Smith, Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Ernst van den Hemel, Albert Welter, Francis Ching-Wah Yip, Raef Zreik

Faith, Politics, and Belonging
Faith, Politics, and Belonging

Author: Ian Geary

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2024-07-19

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1666777978

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on the author’s years spent working in and around Westminster, this essay collection provides a personal perspective on the themes of faith, politics, and belonging. To understand identity and place we need faith. Faith should lead to engagement in the wider world, and engagement in the wider world should deepen our faith and sense of purpose. In three sections, each drawing on his experience, Ian Geary reflects on the cognate themes of faith, politics, and belonging. Each section concludes with some questions for discussion and some suggestions for further reading. Written from personal experience via immersion in British political life and informed by his understanding of theology, the author seeks to animate a generous debate about the key themes, not to secure readers’ attachment to a cause or political ideology. These essays are written in the hope that Christians engaged in politics will find them helpful and that they will also reach a wider audience to show how viewing politics through the lens of faith might yield a fresh perspective. Ian Geary would venture to suggest that politics—despite its critics—is a necessary and good thing.

From Belonging to Belief
From Belonging to Belief

Author: Julie McBrien

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2017-06-08

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0822983052

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From Belonging to Belief presents a nuanced ethnographic study of Islam and secularism in post-Soviet Central Asia, as seen from the small town of Bazaar-Korgon in southern Kyrgyzstan. Opening with the juxtaposition of a statue of Lenin and a mosque in the town square, Julie McBrien proceeds to peel away the multiple layers that have shaped the return of public Islam in the region. She explores belief and nonbelief, varying practices of Islam, discourses of extremism, and the role of the state, to elucidate the everyday experiences of Bazaar-Korgonians. McBrien shows how Islam is explored, lived, and debated in both conventional and novel sites: a Soviet-era cleric who continues to hold great influence; popular television programs; religious instruction at wedding parties; clothing; celebrations; and others. Through ethnographic research, McBrien reveals how moving toward Islam is not a simple step but rather a deliberate and personal journey of experimentation, testing, and knowledge acquisition. Moreover she argues that religion is not always a matter of belief—sometimes it is essentially about belonging. From Belonging to Belief offers an important corrective to studies that focus only on the pious turns among Muslims in Central Asia, and instead shows the complex process of evolving religion in a region that has experienced both Soviet atheism and post-Soviet secularism, each of which has profoundly formed the way Muslims interpret and live Islam.

The Wealth of Religions
The Wealth of Religions

Author: Robert J Barro

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-05-21

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0691185794

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How religious beliefs and practices can influence the wealth of nations Which countries grow faster economically—those with strong beliefs in heaven and hell or those with weak beliefs in them? Does religious participation matter? Why do some countries experience secularization while others are religiously vibrant? In The Wealth of Religions, Rachel McCleary and Robert Barro draw on their long record of pioneering research to examine these and many other aspects of the economics of religion. Places with firm beliefs in heaven and hell measured relative to the time spent in religious activities tend to be more productive and experience faster growth. Going further, there are two directions of causation: religiosity influences economic performance and economic development affects religiosity. Dimensions of economic development—such as urbanization, education, health, and fertility—matter too, interacting differently with religiosity. State regulation and subsidization of religion also play a role. The Wealth of Religions addresses the effects of religious beliefs on character traits such as work ethic, thrift, and honesty; the Protestant Reformation and its long-term effects on education and religious competition; Communism’s suppression of and competition with religion; the effects of Islamic laws and regulations on the functioning of markets and, hence, on the long-term development of Muslim countries; why some countries have state religions; analogies between religious groups and terrorist organizations; the violent origins of the Dalai Lama’s brand of Tibetan Buddhism; and the use by the Catholic Church of saint-making as a way to compete against the rise of Protestant Evangelicals. Timely and incisive, The Wealth of Religions provides fresh insights into the vital interplay between religion, markets, and economic development.

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy
Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy

Author: David M. Elcott

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2021-05-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0268200599

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.

All In
All In

Author: Pat Gohn

Publisher: Ave Maria Press

Published: 2017-03-03

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1594716781

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What’s the one thing that defines your life and brings you the most good, the most love? Pat Gohn knows what her one thing is: “More than any single factor in my life, belonging to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church has had the greatest impact on me. Faith gives meaning to everything in my life.” In this passionate and unapologetic account of why her faith in Christ and the Catholic Church are the source of meaning and joy in her life, Gohn—popular speaker, retreat leader, catechist, and author of Blessed, Beautiful, and Bodacious—invites you to become more confident in the power of the Catholic faith to transform your life as well. Being a cradle Catholic, cancer survivor, wife, and mother are all a part of Gohn’s story. But in this appealing, personal book, she shares why her relationship with Jesus and her confidence in his Church are so much bigger than her medical diagnosis, more powerful than her family history, and more significant than her career path. Gohn ardently shares why belonging to the Church will strengthen and nurture your relationship with God. It will keep you connected with Jesus and the sacraments—conduits of grace, forgiveness, healing, wisdom, and renewal. Belonging to the Church connects you to millions of others around the world, to the saints, and to your loved ones in heaven. These relationships are at the heart of Catholicism. In this time when life and society are so fragmented, the joy of belonging to a community—as imperfect as it can be—easily outweighs the agony of separation or isolation. Gohn’s confidence in her faith emerged despite and even out of a struggle with disillusionment. Working in a parish when news of the sex abuse scandals broke in Boston, she confronted heartbreak and anger within herself and her fellow parishioners. Yet she never left the Church and relates how she found a way to dig deeper and discover reasons to stay faithful. Each of the nine chapters identifies a dimension of the Catholic faith that is a source of Gohn’s confidence, including the Incarnation, God’s plan, the Fatherhood of God, the friendship of the Holy Spirit, and the love of neighbor. Each chapter also features reflection questions to challenge you.

Belonging
Belonging

Author: Faith G. Nibbs

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781611632880

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Is refugee belonging more successful in a big city where resettlement agencies and refugees themselves have access to more resources and opportunities or in a small village community that operates on face-to-face relationships? In contexts that offer more hands-on assistance or in those that are more laissez-faire? How do refugees negotiate the often intersecting and complex global relationships that accompany belonging? And what can we learn about the process of how refugees restructure and reposition themselves in the course of upheaval by examining belonging at different scales? In response to a general call for more comparison in migration studies, Belonging offers a cross-national analysis that tackles these questions. Through a case study of two little-known Hmong communities that originated from the same Lao-Hmong refugee group but resettled in communities with markedly different approaches to welcoming them -- Texas, in the United States, and Gammertingen, a small town in Germany -- this book argues that a more thorough understanding of this process requires unpacking the social dynamics of fitting in as they are simultaneously represented across different scales -- local, regional, national and global.Its arguments challenge us to rethink social cohesion as influenced by the intersection of multiple factors in different contexts that go beyond the immigrant/host dichotomy and proposes a framework that re-conceptualizes belonging as a multifaceted phenomenon that overlaps, intersects, and often conflicts with other social arenas where perceived togetherness is also desired. "Dr. Nibbs has made several contributions to the anthropological and refugee studies literature on important questions of refugee settlement, by exploring relevant and inter-related issues that influence refugees' "belonging" in relation to their new larger society, their own local ethnic group, and their diasporic ethnic group members, which readers will find insightful." -- Kathleen A. Culhane-Pera, Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees

Believing in Belonging
Believing in Belonging

Author: Abby Day

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-10-06

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0199577870

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on empirical research exploring mainstream religious belief and identity in Euro-American countries, Abby Day explores how people 'believe in belonging', choosing religious identifications to complement other social and emotional experiences of 'belongings'.

The Founding Myth
The Founding Myth

Author: Andrew L. Seidel

Publisher: Sterling

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9781454943914

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Was America founded on Judeo-Christian principles? Are the Ten Commandments the basis for American law? In the paperback edition of this critically acclaimed book, a constitutional attorney settles the debate about religion's role in America's founding. In today's contentious political climate, understanding religion's role in American government is more important than ever. Christian nationalists assert that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and advocate an agenda based on this popular historical claim. But is this belief true? The Founding Myth answers the question once and for all. Andrew L. Seidel builds his case by comparing the Ten Commandments to the Constitution and contrasting biblical doctrine with America's founding philosophy, showing that the Declaration of Independence contradicts the Bible. Thoroughly researched, this persuasively argued and fascinating book proves that America was not built on the Bible and that Christian nationalism is un-American. Includes a new epilogue reflecting on the role Christian nationalism played in fomenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection in DC and the warnings the nation missed.