Bloomsbury Religious Studies

Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain in the US - Interview with Editors Monica R. Miller and Anthony B. Pinn

Publishing on the 23rd of April in the US and the 18th of June in the UK, Religion in Hip Hop, edited by Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn and Bernard "Bun B" Freeman, spans a host of topics, questions and debates around the intersection of religion and hip hop, and its relationship with American culture. We talked briefly with two of the editors about their new book:

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

Over the years, we (Drs. Anthony B. Pinn and Monica R. Miller) have involved ourselves in the study of African American Religions; Black Theology; theory and method in the study of religion; constructive theologies; religion in/and culture; religious humanisms; religion and embodiment, youth cultures and new black religious movements. In many ways, attention to religion and hip hop require interdisciplinary approaches, so our efforts cut in many directions across the humanities and social sciences.

Shifting from methodologies to content, a couple things about religious studies come to mind, and they’re connected. In our individual work and in our continued collaborative efforts, we’re interested in complicating discourses of meaning and expanding data, the everyday practices for the study of religion in culture in black life. Our larger intellectual efforts at this, however, extend beyond any one particular group. That is to say, we have an ongoing scholarly fascination with the ways that people transform their various contexts (social, economic, racial, etc.) into their doorway for understanding and exploring the larger world. Of course, framing it that way is a bit misleading, as if people have much of a choice regarding their contexts, but doing so helps to explain that we have a mutual curiosity about the relationships between the particular and the universal, and how various tensions between the two seemingly “construct” meaning.

At the same time, thanks largely to Pinn’s earlier methodological interventions in the study of African American Religions, in combination with the larger trends in theory and method in the study of religion, building from this and with Miller’s more recent efforts, we also have a growing interest in critically methodologically interrogating even this assumption that the things people are doing when they make music, dance, write, act “religiously” is about meaning at all. Maybe it is more simple than that. Perhaps these things of culture are simply the stuff people do. So we’ve been interested to rigorously evaluate not just people “out there”—the scholar’s traditional “data—but ourselves as well, as scholars, looking at the ways scholars and scholarship are part of these same processes that we write about.

Our collaboration with prolific recording artist Bun B is a testament to this back and forth between our “data” (hip hop) and ourselves (as scholars). The collaboration was a natural fit, in that Bun B has been a long-standing cultural leader in hip hop for many years now, and Bun has a concern to safeguard and preserve the rich cultural material of hip hop, but also a desire to look back, and reflect critically on what hip hop has been for so many, and what it might be now.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

A fast-paced, but incredibly substantive, exploration of cutting-edge scholarship at the intersection of the academic study of religion and hip hop culture.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

We started working on this book roughly 16 months ago, but Pinn and Miller have co-authored or co-edited a number of projects, and our efforts to expand what we know about hip hop culture goes back years. Pinn, in particular, is one of the first scholars in religion to give attention to hip hop culture.

Pinn’s first book Why Lord (Continuum, 1995), was one of the very first in the academic study of religion to take seriously hip hop culture and rap music, in particular. Thanks to his vision and leadership, younger scholars have been supported and compelled to double-down on his efforts. Studies in hip hop and religion have brought with them the need to do the work exploring hip hop, but also undergird the necessity of that work in the larger field of religious studies. Pinn’s been instrumental on both fronts. And we’re just now, really, in a space where the topic of hip hop is no longer in need of a marketing campaign, and all of our efforts are directed at doing the actual work of fully unpacking the rich material that hip hop offers.

So to answer your question, this particular volume has been in process about a year and a half; the research going into it years before that. But in some very real ways as well as some figurative ways, we’ve been working on this book for a very long time!

4. What’s the meaning behind the title?

As hinted towards in the second part of the first question, the most important words in the title of this book are “in” and “mapping.” That is, religion in hip hop speaks to the co-constitutive nature of religion in culture, rather than a competition model between the sacred/profane that would suggest something like religion and hip hop. This part of the title is a methodological invitation to consider, more seriously, what sorts of social, cultural and political interests are part and parcel of classification/categorization in the academic study of religion more broadly. That is not to say that all of the contributions in this volume follow such a “neat and tidy” approach. Rather, readers will be confronted by the back-and-forth play with and between such constructed designators of in/and throughout.

Additionally, the word “mapping” speaks to the manner in which we see this volume connecting the dots of religion and/in hip hop scholarship, not only in terms of expansion of data, but also, highlighting and charting the coordinates of such a map (for the field), while remaining self-conscious about reminding ourselves that while we seek to construct such representations, we are also, actively constituting the field, as such. Hence the “ing” in mapping. And Bun B’s participation brings a voice internal to hip hop as to remind the field, ourselves, and so on that this map belongs as much to hip hop as it does to the academic study of it. This mapping begins in the Preface with the inimitable words of one we consider among the most formative and prolific in carving out a space this area of study in religion, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. His foregrounding presence in the volume nicely provides historical context for a new generation of readers who have new-fangled and varying starting points for the study of religion and/in hip hop culture. We are ever grateful that it is here, discursively and historically, we begin the work of this volume.

5. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

The interactions with the contributors who come from a wide variety of fields and areas of study—the opportunity to gain greater perspective on how various disciplines and contexts are brought to bear on this shared concern with the synergy between two significant cultural developments.

It has also been a joy to bring Bun B into this project. The collaboration has allowed for a rich exchange of ideas that would not have been possible otherwise. Bun B’s critical feedback on the volume, as well as a lengthy and robust interview and Afterword that we’ve included in the book, help to add layers to the project. The final product, we feel, has one foot firmly in hip hop culture, and another in the academy. And this is a very good thing. Breaking down the walls of the “ivory tower” in this way has been challenging, but rewarding, and we hope the efforts speak for themselves.

6. Any tips for people reading the book?

Social media has forever changed the way we interact. We’d encourage readers to tweet about, give status updates, and otherwise read “actively” with the use of social media tools. Tweet back to the authors with questions, and we’ll do our best to respond. The book is very much a conversation, so with new means of interaction, we hope the book isn’t the last word on the topic, but only some of the first words. So find us on Twitter @religionhiphop, @anthony_pinn, and @BunBTrillOG.

Other than that, Enjoy!

7. Where will your research go from here?

[Pinn] There still things I want to investigate concerning the intersections of religion and hip hop.  Regarding this, I’m turning my attention to the ways in which death and dying are described and explored within hip hop, with a primary focus on how hip hop has altered the grammar of demise within popular culture.

[Miller] I have a number of different pots on the stove, so to speak. I have an ever-expanding interest in hip hop culture, so I’ll keep on with that. I have some forthcoming volumes that work to situate religion and/as identity formation and studies in identity with the Culture on the Edge scholarly collective of which I’m a part; aside from some edited volumes, my next monograph is tentatively titled New Black Godz, an outgrowth of my current major research project that explores contemporary black legibility and illegibility—that is, in what ways do we today “see” black humanity, and who do we see it in, and why them?

8. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

[Pinn] I can’t narrow it to one person.

[Miller] Wow, this is a fun but weighty question. Okay, let me think…Derrida or Tupac, Derrida or Tupac…okay, Tupac Shakur. Without question. I’m a deconstructionist at heart, and although Derrida may have given us the vocabulary to deconstruct, for me Tupac holds within himself and his memory not only an intense deconstructive edge, but also a constant reminder of why deconstruction is so necessary for intellectual as much as social engagement. 

If you would like anymore information on this title or any of our others, please visit our website here

The Composition of the Qur'an: Rhetorical Analysis - Interview with Author Michel Cuypers

Recently published in the UK and still to come in the US, The Composition of the Qur'an, by Michel Cuypers, is the first volume to argue that the Qur'an should be interpreted rhetorically, providing numerous examples and a methodology for future researchers to apply. We talked briefly with the author about his new book:

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

I am especially interested in the exegesis of sacred writings and particularly in the Qur’an since I live in Cairo, in a Moslem country, and I wanted to understand Moslems better through the study of their sacred book.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

My book helps to understand how an apparently composite text is, in reality, very  skillfully constructed by using the techniques of Semitic rhetoric which is very different from the Greek rhetoric to which we are accustomed.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

In 1993, I became aware of the method of rhetorical analysis of the Bible and I began to apply this method to the text of the Qur’an. After having dedicated myself to this task in about a dozen articles on thirty suras (or chapters) of the Qur’an and a book on a long sura (The Banquet. A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qur’an, 2009) it seemed to me that it was necessary to write this more theoretical book explaining the method systematically, first in French (2012) and now in English.

4.What’s the meaning behind the title?

I explained the title in my reply to the second question. The sub-title requires additional explanation. Rhetorical analysis consists in discovering the different literary procedures the author or editor has used to give a specific structure to a text. These structures are always variants of parallelism (AB/A’B’), of mirror composition (AB//B’A’) or ring composition (AB/C/B’A’).

5. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

The chapter on ring composition was particularly fascinating because this structure is very frequent in the Qur’an and often difficult to detect. But it is very important to discover the center of a ring composition since, most of the time, it shows the way to the interpretation of the whole structure and, therefore, of the text.

6. Any tips for people reading the book?

This book is intended for all those, Moslems or not, who are interested in the Qur’an and who are often confused by the apparent disorder of the text. They will discover that, in reality, it is very exquisitely composed according to a complex ensemble of the procedures explained in this book, which is a sort of grammar of the text or of the discourse.

7. Where will your research go from here?

Since most of the Qur’an still has to be analyzed through this system, I still have plenty of work ahead for me. But I am also counting on dedicating myself more to forming students who will be able to continue my work. Leave room for the next generations!

8. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

That would be Fakhr-al-Dīn al-Rāzī, the greatest among the classical commentators of the Qur’an (12^th century),  because he was very attentive to all the subtleties of the text. I think he would be interested by my book. And I would ask him how it was that, in spite of his keen attention to the text, he did not discover the rhetorical system of the Qur’an!  

If you would like anymore information on this title or any of our others, please visit our website here

Capitalizing Religion: Ideology and the Opiate of the Bourgeoisie - Interview with Author Craig Martin

Recently published in the UK and still to come in the US, Capitalizing Religion, by Craig Martin, is a critical account of 'spirituality' or 'individual religion', arguing that much of what is labelled as 'spirituality' can be understood as consumerist ideology. We talked briefly with the author about his new book:

1.What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

For some reason I’ve been captivated by abstract, theoretical questions and concerns. I’m almost always less interested in the content of a particular religious tradition than the vocabulary that practitioners and scholars use to talk about those traditions. Why is it that, despite the fact that those forms of culture we call religion are not systematic and are not just about “beliefs,” practitioners and scholars continue to refer to them as “belief systems”? When what we call religion is so clearly public, why do people call it a “private” matter? When people opposed to “organized religion” organize themselves into communities devoted to “spirituality,” what’s going on there? I generally find that one doesn’t have to dig too deep into it to find that these are loaded terms—tied to varying social interests—and the social work they accomplish fascinates me.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

That’s a hard question! Since I think the book ties together several theoretical concerns, how I would summarize it would depend on which theoretical strand I was thinking of at the moment.

First, Capitalizing Religion addresses the discourse of individualism in religious studies: Individuals, upon inspection, always turn out to be conforming to social codes; however, it appears that the rhetoric of individualism—an overtly normative rhetoric used both by scholars and religious practitioners—masks how subjects are constituted by their social worlds.

Second, this book addresses how discourses assign agency and responsibility to subjects: Individualism displaces all responsibility for social ills to individuals as opposed to social structures, protecting the latter from criticism or revision.

Third: Many “spirituality” and related “self-help” discourses recommend quietism, consumerism, and worker productivity in a way seemingly designed to reproduce the status quo within neoliberal capitalism.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

I would say that this book has, in a sense, three points of origin. First, I read Jeremy Carrette and Richard King’s Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion when it first came out in 2005. The book’s thesis—that our ways of talking about “religion” and “spirituality” are both implicitly and explicitly tied to capitalism—made a huge impact on me and I’ve never stopped thinking through the critical implications of their work.

Second, when I was working on my Ph.D. I spent quite a bit of time studying Christian discourses on theodicy and free will, according to which because individual humans had “free will,” the Christian god was not to be held responsible for evil or suffering in the world. I couldn’t help but notice the parallel between Christian theodicy and the common claim today that “poor people are poor because they are lazy.” Since then I’ve wanted to publish something drawing attention to this parallel.

Third, as I note in the “Introduction” to the book, before my father’s death he dealt with being laid off during an economic downturn by reading self-help literature that encouraged positive thinking yet blamed him for his inability to find a job. According to this literature, all of us have it within our power to improve our life’s station, if only we think positively; the necessary corollary is that we have only ourselves to blame for our failures. It broke my heart to see my father blame himself for his underemployment and financial woes, and that heartbreak lies behind much of my analysis in Capitalizing Religion.

4. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

While I hated reading “spirituality” and “self-help” literature for my research—as it seemed so frustratingly naïve and superficial to me—I did enjoy writing about that literature. For the second half of the book, where I offer an ideology critique of “spirituality,” I found I could write a chapter in just a few days because I knew exactly what I wanted to say. There was something cathartic in taking these authors to task.

5. Any tips for people reading the book?

If you’re not interested in the theoretical questions of part 1, jump to part 2 for the fun stuff!

6. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

Easy: Mark Twain. I read a lot of Twain in high school and college, and his work has made an indelible impact on who I am today.

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Sex, Death and Witchcraft: A Contemporary Pagan Festival - Interview with Author Douglas Ezzy

Published this year in the UK and US, Sex, Death and Witchcraft, by Douglas Ezzy, explores a controversial Pagan festival Faunalia and develops a new relational theory of culture. We talked briefly with the author about his new book:

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

The book is both a rich ethnographic account of controversial Pagan festival and a provocative reflection on the role of emotions, symbols, and ritual in theories of religion.  The festival involves “a recreation of the Witches' sabbat … It's R-rated, it contains adult themes, nudity and sex references”, according to Harrison – one of the festival participants I interviewed.  The theory develops what Graham Harvey and I are calling “relational theory” in the study of religion.

I’m interested in studies of religion that expose the way we find meaning and purpose in life.  I’m particularly interested in religious responses to difficult and confronting life situations.  These expose aspects of being human that are harder to see in everyday situations are a sort of “breaching experiment” to use Harold Garfinkel’s term.  The religious breaching experiments expose the centrality of relationships, emotions, practices and symbols.  These are central to both religion, and to what it is to be human. 

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

In one sentence: The book develops a theory of the role of symbols, emotions, and performance in religious practice, illustrated through an ethnographic account of a Pagan festival involving theatrically elaborate rituals that explore sex and death.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

The project was conceived in 2003. I conducted the research in 2005.  I then spent a long time working out how to theorise the data.  My initial attempts focused on the shock value: “Oh wow! 80 people dancing naked around a bonfire!”  I soon realised that behind the confronting nature of the rituals were some very mundane, but profoundly challenging issues about how we understand what it is to be human: we fear and desire sex; we are deeply ambivalent about loss, death, and dying.  These aspects of the rituals always fascinated me, but it took a long time to work out how to write about them in a way that focused on the theoretical issues that they point to.

4. What’s the meaning behind the title?

The title of the book references the two main rituals at the festival.  The first is a death rite, in which participants role play their own death.  The ritual is a re-enactment of the Greek myth of Persephone’s descent into the Underworld.  The second rite is highly erotic.  Participants dance naked around a bonfire and interact with an hermaphroditic deity called “Baphomet”.

5. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

The book moves between description and theory.  Some sections are largely narrative, based on participant accounts.  I find these sections very emotionally engaging – they provide a rich sense of the experience of the rituals.  Other sections are very theoretical.  It is these theoretical sections that I found most satisfying intellectually.  I have come to understand religious ritual and its purpose in a much more sophisticated way.

6. Any tips for people reading the book?

The Introduction is deceptively descriptive.  The book becomes quite theoretically sophisticated in the later chapters.  The book is best read in the order that it is written.  It is tempting to flick forward to the description of the sex rite, and if people choose to do this, then that is OK. Theoretically, these sections will take on greater significance if they are contextualised by the earlier chapters.

7. Where will your research go from here?

My current research builds on the relational approach to religion developed in this book.  I’m particularly interested in the role of emotions and ritual in shaping our response to climate change.  I expect the next decades to be particularly challenging for the world as the economic impacts of climate change begin to have an impact.  I hope that we can work out creative and compassionate responses to the grief and loss that this will create.

8. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

Paul Ricoeur and Jessica Benjamin are two of the most significant influences on my thought.  Ricoeur’s hermeneutics helped me see beyond the narrow methodological atheism that constrains much of academia.  Benjamin’s concept of mutual recognition still challenges me, both intellectually and practically.  I’d love to talk through some of their ideas with both of them over a beer and an evening meal.

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Spirituality: A Guide for the Perplexed - Interview with Author Philip Sheldrake

 

Publishing next month in the UK and in November in the US, Spirituality: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Philip Sheldrake, provides students and  general readers with a reliable and comprehensive guide to 'spirituality' as an area of study, religiously, historically, philosophically and in the social sciences. We talked briefly with the author about his new book:

 

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

My particular interests are in the area of “spirituality”. I have taught and written about the theology and history of Christian spirituality for many years but more recently have become involved in interreligious dialogue and the role of spirituality in other religions. I’ve also been asked to speak to professional groups (e.g. in healthcare and in architecture) about what “spirituality” may add to the theory and practice of their work.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

The book is written for general readers and students to provide a reliable guide to “spirituality” both in a range of religions and in non-religious forms.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

In one sense, many years ago! But, directly for this book, about four years ago.

4. What’s the meaning behind the title?

The subtitle suggests that the notion of “spirituality” is complex and is often ill-defined which makes it difficult to pin down. Yet spirituality fascinates many people these days. Hopefully the book makes the topic more approachable and coherent.

5. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

Probably I most enjoyed the profound challenge of dealing with so much varied material, coming to understand it myself and then shaping it into a coherent pattern without oversimplifying matters.

6. Any tips for people reading the book?

It is important to read Part 1, especially chapters 1 & 4, before anything else. That gives the vital background and definitions. After that it is possible to dip into the chapters of Parts 2 & 3 that interest you most. And don’t forget the additional “Suggested Reading” at the end if you want to do some more in-depth study of any particular area! I have only provided an introduction.

7. Where will your research go from here?

I am now working intensively on the theme of “spirituality and the urban” which I outlined briefly in Chapter 10.

8. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

This is a difficult question! Do I want to be entertained or to be able to quiz someone who tantalises me? If I went for the latter, I suspect I’d settled for Jesus Christ as the teacher, role model and revealer of the divine, who inspired what became Christianity. What does he think about religion and what we humans have done with it across time?! Also, according to the Christian gospels, Jesus regularly had meals with all kinds of people and so having dinner and being quizzed would be familiar to him!

 

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Secularism, Theology and Islam - Interview with Author Jennifer Elisa Veninga

Just out in the UK and still to come in the US, Secularism, Theology and Islam: The Danish Social Imaginary and the Cartoon Crisis of 2005 - 2006, by Jennifer Elisa Veninga, is a new analysis of the Danish cartoon which ultimately discusses the nature and place of religion in the public sphere at local and global levels. We talked briefly with the author about her new book

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

My Ph.D. is in Christian Systematic Theology, but I am interested in a range of topics within religious and theological studies. Geographically, I’m very interested in Scandinavia and particularly Denmark, which became one of my loves as an undergraduate studying Søren Kierkegaard. In Scandinavia and beyond, I’m intrigued by the evolving meanings of secularism and religion, particularly as they intersect with issues of politics and increasing religious pluralism. Thus one of my interests includes contemporary Islam and its relationship to Christianity, especially in Europe and North America. Finally, I’m always fascinated by the impact of media and imagination on how we define our identity as individuals and as communities.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

The book is a new analysis of the historic Danish cartoon crisis of 2005-2006, which examines theological elements of the Danish social imaginary that contributed to the publication of twelve images of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

 3. When did you start researching for this book?

My research for the book began right after the worldwide protests over the Danish cartoons erupted in January of 2006. I immediately became interested in what was happening and why the cartoons were published in Denmark in September of 2005.

4. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

I don’t think I can choose between two elements of writing the book. The first includes my travels to Denmark for research, during which I met many amazing people and gained so much insight into the cartoon crisis. The second would be writing the conclusion, when I got to sit back and look at all of my research and really pull the thesis together. In the end, the book probably raised more questions than answers, but I hope the questions can challenge us all to keep thinking about important questions of how to love the neighbour in an increasingly pluralistic world.

5. Any tips for people reading the book?

The book includes a great deal of reflection on the specific history and identity of Denmark. While these reflections do focus on Denmark, I would encourage the reader to enter into this particular concrete context with the idea that the bigger questions it raises about pluralism are applicable to a variety of settings beyond Denmark or even Europe. I would also say that while the book is about the Danish cartoon crisis, it is helpful to remember that the cartoons themselves are not the focus. The book gives context and background for the event and analyses it through a theological lens.

6. Where will your research go from here?

I have a number of projects in mind, but I plan to continue my focus on Scandinavia and Kierkegaard. In particular, I will be researching intersections between trauma theory and Kierkegaard’s understanding of the self, healing and wholeness, areas that haven’t been explored much yet. I’m interested in individual experiences of trauma, but also communal trauma, so I intend to examine several contemporary cases studies, including the tragic 2011 mass shooting in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik. This case study provides some continuity with Secularism, Theology and Islam, as it also brings questions of immigration, Islam and religious pluralism back into play.

7. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

Given my long-time interest in him, I would have to say Søren Kierkegaard.

If you would like anymore information on this title or any of our others, please visit our website here

 

 

Interview with Editors of the Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all! What better way to kick off the new year than talking to the editors of the The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements, which published yesterday in the UK (and publishes in the US in February).

We caught up with George Chryssides (Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK) and Benjamin E. Zeller (Assistant Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College, Chicago, USA) about their new book and ideal dinner guest....

What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

Ben: What fascinated me most when I first began studying religion were new religious movements (NRMs), the subject of our book. Why is it that people believe and do things that bring such social stigma and sometimes even persecution? Dismissing adherents of new religions as crazy was too simple and too unsatisfactory—especially after I met many of these people and found them really no different than anyone else. Trying to understand new religions remains one of the core interests of my academic life.

George: Yes, initially an NRM’s beliefs and practices can seem unpromising – even weird, but discussing them with their supporters usually reveals an internal logic. Their supporters are seldom stuck for explanations about problem areas. This highlights the importance of talking to exponents of NRMs – it’s not all in the textbooks, and it soon becomes apparent that they are usually as intelligent and articulate as anyone else.

Ben: On the topic of ordinariness, another research interest of mine is religion and food. Eating is something that everyone does, every day, and nearly every religion has developed rituals, beliefs, and ethics around food and eating. Yet it is very understudied, perhaps because it is so quotidian. Like the study of new religious movements, if you scratch beneath the surface, it is so ordinary!

How would you describe your book in one sentence?

George: The Companion is a guide to current research issues in NRM studies, highlighting the ‘state of the art’ in the early 21st century.

Ben: I’ll add that the Companion features chapters by some of the top researchers in the field, as well as many up-and-coming scholars.

When did you start researching for this book?

George: People often ask when I started writing a book and how long it took. But it’s an unanswerable question. Bloomsbury approached me initially in the summer of 2011, but the book was only possible after I’d spent about 30 years studying various aspects of NRMs, beginning around 1982.

Ben: George asked me to join him to co-edit the book, and to bring a North American perspective. But like him, writing the book has drawn on all my previous experience studying this material, about 15 years in my case.

What’s the meaning behind the title?

George: It’s part of the Bloomsbury (and formerly Continuum) series of guides to academic topics. This one examines issues relating to NRM research. The book isn’t a compendium of NRMs, of which there are several. If you need a compendium, you might try my Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2 ed, Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012).

Ben: By “Companion” we mean that the book is an indispensible research tool, one that scholars and students will want to keep handy and make frequent use.

Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

George: In the case of the Companion, I enjoyed the collaboration. At one point a designated author failed to deliver, and we jointly wrote the missing chapter, using a shared Dropbox file. Writing 7,000 words collaboratively in such a short time was a bit hair-raising, but we were pleased that we were able to do it!

Ben: I agree, working with my colleague George has been the most rewarding part of the experience. The technology today is amazing, allowing us to collaborate and not only co-edit but also co-write. At one point we joked with our Bloomsbury editor Lalle Pursglove that George and I were so productive because we had a 30-hour day. But it was true, given the time zones!

Any tips for people reading the book?

Ben: I suggest starting with our introduction, then flipping through the table of contents to find a topic about which you know relatively little and want to learn more. Certainly for all of us, even the most focused scholars, there is a lot in this book that is new. I really enjoyed learning from my colleagues as we edited their work. I am much the richer from working on this project, and I suspect our readers will be too!

George: I once did a course on photo-reading (not the same as speed-reading), and one key piece of advice was to define your aims in reading right at the start. Maybe that seems obvious, but students shouldn’t plod their way through the Companion. It covers a range of themes, some of which will be more useful than others, depending on their specific interests.

Where will your research go from here?

George: I’m currently writing Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change, to be published by Ashgate. Surprisingly, there’s a dearth of good academic material on the JWs, or indeed on several of the ‘old new religions’. They got passed over in the 1970s and 1980s, when there was more public interest in ‘Moonies’, Scientologists, Hare Krishnas and the like.

Ben: I’ve become quite intellectually invested in the study of religion and food, so my next research project will likely take me in that direction. But in terms of the studies of NRMs, I may do some more work on transnational new religions, particularly groups like the Hare Krishna movement.

If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

Ben: Carl Sagan, the late physicist and scientific populariser. He wrote quite a bit about religion and science, which is another area that has always fascinated me. (See the published version of his Gifford Lectures that Ann Druyan edited after his untimely death, The Varieties of Scientific Experience [Penguin Books].) I would want to push him a bit on some of his assumptions, but at the same time admire him for his intellectual curiosity and rigor. He treated science with a religious reverence that has always really interested me.

George: Sorry if it’s an unimaginative answer, but it would have to be Jesus of Nazareth. There’s so much debate about who he was, what he really taught, and how the religion he kick-started should be interpreted. I’d like to hear it from the man (or God?) himself! I hope he speaks good English – I didn’t sign up for Aramaic at college!

Ben: I don’t know, you would lose all the mystery that way!

George: One other person we ought to mention is Professor Eileen Barker of the London School of Economics and INFORM. We’ve both had dinner with her on several occasions, so she’s not on our hypothetical wish list. However, without Eileen NRM studies would not be as it is today, and so we’ve dedicated the book to her. The book will be publicised at the INFORM Anniversary Conference in London in January-February 2014. It is 25 years since Eileen founded INFORM, and we want to pay tribute to her enormous contribution to the field.

Ben: We plan on publically announcing the book and its dedication to her there, so if you have an interest in the academic study of NRMs, please consider attending! More information on the conference can be found here.

Read more about the Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements and how to buy it here:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-bloomsbury-companion-to-new-religious-movements-9781441190055/

 

Guest Post - Alan Murray on Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Contexts

Alan Murray chairs the Trustees of All Faiths And None, an educational programme and resource primarily for further education. AFAN works for dialogue and mutual understanding and against discrimination and intolerance at national and local levels, in educational and community contexts, exploring the 'Big Questions' in life within the diverse multi-faith belief traditions of our society. Murray is also Chair of the European Network on Religion and Belief, based in Brussels, and he was the Churches' National Adviser on Further Education at the Archbishops Council from 2003-2008.

Murray agreed to read and review a benchmark publication on religion, discrimination and equality that we will be publishing this fall: Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Contexts, by Paul Weller, Kingsley Purdam, Nazila Ghanea and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor.

Paul Weller and his team have produced a magnificent report for our time, when religion and belief are of ever-increasing importance in public life. Their analysis of the current UK contexts: legal, religious and political, is comprehensive and nuanced in its recognition of the complexity of the UK context itself, built on four different nations and a chequered religious heritage. Of particular interest is the way in which the report situates current controversies in a long-term historical context of inequality and discrimination for those outside the Anglican Church: non-conformists, non-believers and members of other faiths.

The core of the book is the data – qualitative and quantitative – in its central chapters on the experiences of unfair treatment of individuals and groups in British society: education, employment, justice, housing, health and other areas of welfare. The richness of the examples selected, and the vividness of the comments of those interviewed bear witness to the harsh reality of discrimination which persists in British society. They also bring the whole area of discrimination and inequality to life with a clarity rare in an academic report.

The analysis of the data is measured and judicious, with special attention paid both to the rights of the non-religious and those from all minority religions, including the resurgent Pagan movements. The three-dimensional model the report adopts for its analysis of UK Society – Christian, Secularist and Religiously Plural – is an accurate reflection of British society and the place of religion and belief as understood by most people. But it is also a dynamic model, with rich possibilities for policy makers and practitioners. It offers the possibility of making significant progress in reducing tensions and improving social cohesion without limiting freedom.

The overall conclusions: that unfair treatment is occasional rather than frequent, and that hate-speech and crime comes from small extremist groups – in fact many of those who experience discrimination feel things have improved in the 10 years since the shocks of 2001-5 – are sensible, and positive for the future. But in addition to a number of direct recommendations, the report rightly suggests that much detailed work, “calibrated to the local religion or belief situation” needs to be undertaken at local level. It is here that its impact may be greatest – in encouraging local inter-faith structures to become more open to the non-religious and religious minorities, to reflect the three-dimensional realities of British society, and also to move from dialogue towards joint action for the common good. developing effective methods of combating inequality and hatred wherever they are found.

In summary, the report is both timely and pertinent, in setting an agenda across the whole range of public policy in UK: not for radical change, nor for new law, but for steady adaptation of policy and practice to reflect the local realities of our variegated religious landscape.

In Europe, the report deserves the widest possible circulation: as the first comprehensive national report on the religion and belief context from an equalities perspective, its methodology and approach should serve as a model for similar work in countries across Europe.

Alan Murray, August 2013

Beyond the Sanctification of Subordination: Reclaiming Tradition and Equality in Jewish Marriage

Beyond the Sanctification of Subordination: Reclaiming Tradition and Equality in Jewish Marriage

 Dr Melanie Malka Landau, author of the newly published Tradition and Equality in Jewish Marriage

Monash University

“The status of a human as an acquisition, that is surely not acceptable to me, and the fact that it’s not mutual, that the man acquires the woman..and of course all the problems that come after- that a woman can’t divorce, and that if she is unfaithful her children are ‘mamzerim’. This is terroristic rule of women’s sexuality that is not applied to men. I don’t think it is healthy at all for a couple to live with the awareness of power relations such as these.” Tehila

(quoted in Koren, You are Hereby Renewed Unto Me: Gender, Religion and Power Relations in the Jewish Wedding Ritual, Magnes Press 2011, p110)

“I find kiddushin humiliating. The kiddushin itself humiliates me. It humiliates me in a deep way and represents everything I oppose in my whole being. And what was so hard for me- I can cry just thinking about it- that here I am, at the moment that would be so important to me going to stand in a public way in front of everyone who I love and who is important to me, and I am going to allow halakha to relate to me in a way that I think is forbidden for anyone to relate to a woman ever!” Shlomit

(Ibid, p111)                                                     

(my translations)

A few months ago in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia I told an orthodox rabbi and community day school principal that I write about Jewish marriage. He asked me, tongue in cheek, “Are you ‘for’ or ‘against’?”

“Proceed with caution!”  I responded. And I wasn’t joking. Kiddushin, and the acquisition of the woman by the man that traditional Jewish marriage entails, is a dangerous enterprise.

The current non-reciprocal model of kiddushin is not an appropriate contract for a relationship between equals. Many, if not, most women would not agree to such a relationship if they knew what it entailed. Other women who do know what it entails, (see for example, Koren, You are Hereby Renewed, 2011) are still going on with it for a range of complex and difficult reasons not within the scope of this blog.

Before I zoom back in on more details about Jewish Marriage and my book I want to explain that my academic work and personal practice represents a dance within the tension of marrying the traditional and the radical new. I am not willing to sacrifice my values on the altar of religious practice and observance masquerading as an excuse for male privilege (or racism or whatever), and I am not willing to abandon the richness and the love and depth of the tradition. And so it is within this creative tension that my work and my life happens. As Rav Kook says: If we don’t have the ancient, we also don’t have the radical new. 

Back to marriage: In addition to the inequality of the structure and formation of the marriage relationship, the possibility of a woman being stranded in a marriage because of a recalcitrant husband is a risk that no Jewish woman should be forced to take in the 21^st century.

My recently published book Tradition and Equality in Jewish Marriage: Beyond the Sanctification of Subordination explores two particular alternative forms of ‘marriage’ in the Jewish tradition, namely conditional marriage and “derekh kiddushin” (in the way of marriage). Firstly, I discuss conditional marriage where the marriage is conditional on the husband not to withhold a ‘get’, Jewish divorce. In the event that he does withhold a ‘get’, after a specified period then the marriage is considered retroactively nullified. After civil divorce was introduced in French courts in 1884, French Jews were concerned about Jewish women getting divorced civilly and then remarrying without a Jewish divorce. They received permission from Rabbi Eliyahu Hazan, the Chief Rabbi of Alexandria, to introduce conditional marriage, in order to overcome the dangers they foresaw. This prompted great consternation from many European rabbis, which culminated in 1930 in the publication of a collection of these rabbinic protests, Ein Tenai be Nissuin (There is no Condition in Marriage). In response to this collection, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits defended conditional marriage in Tenai be nissuin u’v’get (Condition in Marriage and in Divorce), published in 1966. As well as the interesting and relevant content, the dialogue that these publications contain is a stunning example of divergent understandings of the role of halakha (Jewish law) and the relevance of moral agency of the legal decider.

Conditional marriage partially avoids the non-reciprocity of the ‘kiddushin’, the traditional marriage. Although the woman is still ‘acquired’, the marriage is retroactively nullified if the husband exercises his non-reciprocal powers and refuses to give the wife a divorce.

‘Derekh kiddushin’ (The Way of Marriage) is the other model I address. It also has talmudic precedent (although applied in a different situation in the Talmud) and refers to an exclusive relationship that is mutually contracted. Rabbi Meir Simcha Feldblum reintroduced this model of partnership in his article (in Hebrew): ‘The Problem of Agunot (stranded women) and Mamzerim (children born of a mother who is married to someone other than the father): A suggested overall and general solution.’ The article was his response to ethical concerns about the plight of agunot and mamzerim, as well as the alienation from Judaism, especially among Israelis. His article is another wonderful example of halakhic creativity that is motivated by ethical concerns. Appropriating dormant legal traditions, such as those mentioned above, in order to align praxis with current moral concerns is an important feminist methodology.

My reading of kiddushin as unreconcilably non-reciprocal and in need of utter transformation suggests a radical break from the status quo. Instead of emphasizing the holiness of marriage and its centrality to Jewish family and Jewish community, it reads kiddushin as a relationship based on unequal power dynamics that needs to be transformed if it is to serve as the basis for Jewish families.

Others have advocated for equal ceremonies, without acquisition, that are still called ‘kiddushin’. This approach that keeps the concept of ‘kiddushin’ but shifts its meanings pays tribute to the canon, but radically transforms it at the same time. Such a model maintains the rabbinic concept of kiddushin while equalizing its power differential. Mutuality explicitly defies the rabbinic definition of kiddushin. This may be possible and desirable in the long run. But for the moment, I think that a process needs to begin in which both women and men become aware of traditional kiddushin, its implications, and possible ramifications.

Orthodox women who value equality also need to take the risk and refuse to participate in traditional kiddushin. At a time of potential union with a beloved, and connection with the Divine, no woman should have to participate in something that is at odds with her deepest values and commitments.

At the basis of this research is my deep conviction about the full spiritual and material potential of women and the necessity of creating all the right preconditions so that they can be supported to take their rightful place in family, community and society. This rightful place includes full legal rights and status, as well as the opportunity to develop and share their voices and actualize their spiritual  and leadership potential in all spheres.

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Religion at Ground Zero: A guest post by Continuum author Christopher Craig Brittain

Christopher Craig Brittain will be part of a panel discussion about the 9/11 attacks on the BBC Radio Wales programme 'All Things Considered'. We'll post more infomation closer to the air date.

'It is at times like these that I really hate religious people.' This is what one of my Professors said to me, as we sat in shock in his university office, moments after his secretary had interrupted our meeting to inform us that a passenger plane had just been flown into one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. This outburst startled me, but it was the next conversation I had that morning, that really left an impact on me.

After leaving the university office, I met a theology student outside, a kind and gentle man training to be a minister. He was fuming with anger. He had just heard the news from New York, and burst out:

'For too many years we have been naïve, and our bleeding hearts have let people take advantage of us. We have tried to be liberal and tolerant, but now we've had to learn the hard way. Maybe now we won't be afraid to punish terrorism and Iraq. Maybe now we can finally bomb those bastards back into the dark ages!'

I was shocked to hear this man – who up to now I had found to be a calm and compassionate Christian – say such things. I attempted to calm him down, but also couldn't resist commenting on his desire for revenge. When I expressed the concern that the kind of military action he wanted might kill innocent people – including women and children – he quickly interrupted: 'I don't care! Let's bomb them all. I don't care how many we need to kill! I'm tired of all this wishy-washy open-mindedness. The Muslims don't like us and never will! It's time that we faced reality.'

Experiences such as these are the origin of the thoughts that led to my book Religion at Ground Zero (Continuum, 2011). For beyond the question of how it is possible for men to fly airplanes into office towers, I now had another troubling question confronting me: How can ordinary and gentle Christians like this man so quickly and utterly be transformed into a ball of rage demanding violent attacks on defenceless children? How do events like September 11, 2001 cause average people to transform into a hateful desire for violent revenge? This, along with the angry statement by my Professor, led me to ask some difficult questions about my own religious faith: How can a religious tradition that teaches peace and respect be do easily deployed to justify murder? Why is it that people of religious faith seem no less prone to panic and desire for revenge? If religion is capable of causing such violence, can it even hope to be part of the solution to such tragedies?

The most common theological response to disasters and tragedies in human history is to ask why a loving God would allow such terrible things to happen. People raise this question in a number of ways: 'Where was God when I needed him?' 'What did I do to deserve this?' Trying to find answers to these questions – an exercise known as 'theodicy' – has been the concern of philosophers and theologians for generations. But as I thought about the events of 9/11, and then stepped back to examine how people have responded to other shocking events in history – the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, the First World War, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina – two things in particular struck me. The first observation is that many (if not most) people who are caught up in a disaster tend not to find the answers provided by theodicy to be very helpful. Second, the temptation to engage in the sort of calculus modelled by theodicy appears to remain very powerful, even among people who have no overt religious beliefs. In the wake of the shock of a terrible tragedy, many of those caught up in it lament that 'The world will never be the same!' This is quickly followed by a drive to identify who is to blame for causing the tragedy, and to articulate the 'meaning' of what is being experienced.

My interest in this dynamic, which is explored in my book, has only been deepened since I finished writing it, for very recent events have continued to exhibit this general pattern of human behaviour.

Many of the survivors, as well as the family and friends of the victims of the recent massacre in Norway, are currently wrestling with these feelings as they seek to make sense of attacks, while asking the terrible question, 'Why?' The same painful thoughts were no doubt experienced by mourners commemorating the first anniversary of the Love Parade tragedy in Duisburg, Germany. In the wake of such terrible events, many people find themselves struggling to achieve some sense of the meaning of their experiences.

As the victims and their friends wrestle with these painful issues, the media and the general public engage in a similar process, but in a way that is frequently saturated with political controversy. The aftermath of the Love Parade disaster became a spectacle of public officials passing the blame on to others. The events in Norway have been followed by a variety of politically motivated declarations: some assuming the attacks were by Muslim extremists, while an American radio commentator compared the young Labour Party victims to the Nazi Youth. Not long after the terrible earthquakes and tsunamis that shook Japan in March, the mayor of Tokyo publically stated that, because 'Japanese politics is tainted with egoism', a tsunami was needed 'to wipe out egoism'. He thus described the disaster as 'divine punishment.' Examples such as this demonstrate how, in the wake of a disaster, many people use the intensity of the situation as an opportunity to advance their agendas and interests.

For those who are members of religious traditions, this dynamic is disturbing and humbling. Religion at Ground Zero explores the tension that exists between religion's capacity to both cause and enhance the suffering and destruction surrounding historical tragedies, but also its potential to serve as a resource for responding to such disasters. Thus, while my book challenges simplistic accusations that suggest that religion is inherently violent and dangerous, I also argue that theology needs to operate with greater humility and honesty about its own limitations.

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I'll be carefully watching how individuals and communities commemorate and tell the stories of their experiences of that terrible experience. Most particularly, however, I'll be interested in analysing what sort of meaning people are making about the attacks ten years after the fact. What theodicies continue to subtly be constructed and retold? Does the impact of 9/11 continue to influence how people think about the place of religion in society, or in their personal lives?

There will be a great deal of editorials, official commemorations, television retrospectives, and even academic debates, surrounding the tenth anniversary of September 11. As I witness this media spectacle (and admittedly participate in it), I will be wondering whether, for all this talking, we have yet achieved any deeper understanding of this event? Or will the media overage amount to a repetition of problematic patterns found in versions of Christian theodicy, only in more secular forms? How we commemorate this anniversary will tell us a great deal about how much we have, or have not, learned over the last ten years.