Religion and Reason

How can the emergence of religion be understood consistently as a genuinely social process without resorting to phenomenological, intellectual-historical, biological, or cognitive-scientific approaches?

To answer this question, the book refers to three theories: theory of evolution, systems theory, and semiotics. Against this background, it traces the emergence of religion from general societal processes and the differentiation from its environment (other societal subsystems, mental systems, organic and physical conditions). It is shown how the religious system draws information from its environment and at the same time provides its environment with meanings.

Applying the theories mentioned, four dimensions are distinguished in which religion evolves: experience, embodiment, cognition, and regulation. Overall, the approach understands religion as a specific sign system that deals with indeterminable contingency with the help of the distinction between known immanence and absolute transcendence.

The book offers a way out of the false alternative of either following religious self-descriptions or explaining away religion and completely dissolving it into non-religious factors, such as political, economic, or mental circumstances.

Flagging enrollments. Disappearing majors. Closed departments. The academic study of religion is in trouble. No Bosses, No Gods argues that Karl Marx is essential for reversing course—but it will take letting go of what most scholars think they know about him.

The book’s first half draws on the scholarship of international specialists—as well as new translations of the original German texts—to present Marx the anti-theorist, a political journalist deeply skeptical about what happens when the professoriate sits down to "theorize" about social worlds. The second half appeals to this modified portrait of Marx and charts a new course beyond both actually existing religious studies and contemporary genealogies of the religion category. The result, perhaps, is an academic study of religion worth having in the twenty-first century.

　　

This book offers new theoretical insights into religious, esoteric, and philosophical practices and narratives that deal with "intentional transformative experiences." Exceptional life-changing experiences are often believed to be beyond the individual's control—they are thought to "simply happen." However, many individuals actively and self-reflectively search for transformative experiences.

Intentional Transformative Experiences provides analyses of such intentionally sought experiences in different spiritual, religious, and esoteric milieus. Case studies range from South and Central Asian traditions to Western esoteric practices, compare autobiographical narratives of self-cultivation, and explore attempts to systematize intentional transformative experiences.

Next to applying established theoretical frameworks, such as the cognitive science of religion and philosophy, this volume also includes considerations on subsets of transformative experiences such as the dichotomy of intentionality and unintentionality, risk and failure, as well as the transformation of others instead of one's own self. The result is an important contribution for researchers who deal with narratives or practices that include "transformative experiences."

Ancient authors debated proper verbal and non-verbal signs as representations of divinity. These understanding of signs were based on ideas drawn from language and thus limited due to a their partial understanding of the multi-functionality of signs. Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics, as adapted by anthropological linguists including Michael Silverstein, better explains the contextual linkages ("performativity") of ancient religious signs such as divine names. Sign meaning is always dependent on processes of interpretation and is always open to reinterpretation. Focusing on these processes permits a more detailed analysis of the ancient evidence. Examples are drawn from ancient Israelite verbal and non-verbal divine representation, the apostle Paul’s linguistic letter/spirit model, Christian debates about the limits of language to best represent the deity, Josephus’ aniconic advertisement of Jewish rites, the multi-layered divine representations in the Dura-Europos synagogue, the diverse "performativity" of Jewish ascent liturgies, and—the single modern example—the role of art at Burning Man. Divine representation is the basis for ritual efficacy even as sign meaning is a constant source of contention.

To what extent can semiotics illuminate key problems in religious studies, given the centrality of symbols, language, and other modes of signification in religion and theology?

The volume explores semiotic methodologies for the study of religion, with an emphasis on their critical and creative reconfigurations. The contributors come from different specialties, such as cognitive science, ethnography, linguistics, communication studies, art studies, religious studies, philosophy of religion, and theology. Part One consists of chapters focusing on theoretical perspectives. Part two focuses on applications in texts and case studies while still considering methodological issues. Many specific traditions and perspectives are taken up, such as C. S. Peirce, A. J. Greimas and the Paris School, Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture, Bruno Latour and material semiotics, linguistic anthropology, social semiotics, cognitive semiotics, embodied and enactive perspectives on language and mind, semiotics of the image and iconicity, multimodality, intertextuality, and semiotics of colors.

The book provides readers with a succinct overview of how contemporary semiotics can be useful in understanding a broad array of topics in the study of religion.

Religion, like any other domain of culture, is mediated through symbolic forms and communicative behaviors, which allow the coordination of group conduct in ritual and the representation of the divine or of tradition as an intersubjective reality. While many traditions hold out the promise of immediate access to the divine, or to some transcendent dimension of experience, such promises depend for their realization as well on the possibility of mediation, which is necessarily conducted through channels of communication and exchange, such as prayers or sacrifices. An understanding of such modes of semiosis is therefore necessary even and especially when mediation is denied by a tradition in the name of the 'ineffability" of the deity or of mystical experience.

This volume models and promotes an interdisciplinary dialogue and cross-cultural perspective on these issues by asking prominent semioticians, historians of religion and of art, linguists, sociologists of religion, and philosophers of law to reflect from a semiotic perspective on the topic of mediation and immediacy in religious traditions.

In this volume, an interdisciplinary group of scholars uses history, sociology, anthropology, and semiotics to approach Transcendence as a human phenomenon, and shows the unavoidability of thinking with and through the Beyond. Religious experience has often been defined as an encounter with a transcendent God. Yet humans arguably have always tried to get outside or beyond themselves and society. The drive to exceed some limit or condition of finitude is an eduring aspect of culture, even in a "disenchanted" society that may have cut off most paths of access to the Beyond. The contributors to this volume demonstrate the humanity of Transcendence in various ways: as an effort to get beyond our crass physical materiality; as spiritual entrepreneurship; as the ecstasy of rituals of possession; and as a literary, aesthetic, and semiotic event. These efforts build from a shared conviction that Transcendene is thoroughly human, and accordingly avoid purely confessional and parochial approches while taking seriously the various claims and behavioral expressions of traditions in which Transcendence has been understood in theological terms.

The aim of this study is to present, as far as possible, a general description of the theory of the sign and signification in Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), with a view to its evaluation and implications for the study of semiotics. Accurate studies for subject, discipline, and significance have not yet given an organic and systematic vision of Augustine’s theory of the sign. The underlying aspiration is that such an endeavour will prove to be beneficial to the scholars of Augustine’s thought as well as to those with a keen interest in the history of semiotics.

The study uses Augustine’s own accounts to investigate and interpret the philosophical problem of the sign. The focus lies on the first decade of Augustine’s literary production. The De dialectica, is taken as the terminus ad quo of the study, and the De doctrina christiana is the terminus ad quem. The selected texts show an explicit engagement with poignant discussion on the nature and structure of the sign, the variety of signs and their uses. Although Augustine’s intention never was to establish a theory of meaning as an independent field of study, he largely employed a theory of signs. Thus, Augustine’s approach to signs is intrinsically meaningful.

This book presents a semiotic study of the re-elaboration of Christian narratives and values in a corpus of Italian novels published after the Second Vatican Council (1960s). It tackles the complex set of ideas expressed by Italian writers about the biblical narration of human origins and traditional religious language and ritual, the perceived clash between the immanent and transcendent nature and role of the Church, and the problematic notion of sanctity emerging from contemporary narrative.

This volume is the first English language presentation of the innovative approaches developed in the aesthetics of religion. The chapters present diverse material and detailed analysis on descriptive, methodological and theoretical concepts that together explore the potential of an aesthetic approach for investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. In dialogue with, yet different from, other major movements in the field (material culture, anthropology of the senses, for instance), it is the specific intent of this approach to create a framework for understanding the interplay between sensory, cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of world-construction. The volume demonstrates that aesthetics, as a theory of sensory knowledge, offers an elaborate repertoire of concepts that can help to understand religious traditions. These approaches take into account contemporary developments in scientific theories of perception, neuro-aesthetics and cultural studies, highlighting the socio-cultural and political context informing how humans perceive themselves and the world around them. Developing since the 1990s, the aesthetic approach has responded to debates in the study of religion, in particular striving to overcome biased categories that confined religion either to texts and abstract beliefs, or to an indisputable sui generis mode of experience. This volume documents what has been achieved to date, its significance for the study of religion and for interdisciplinary scholarship.

How have humans sought to prevent viable assumptions about themselves and their world from being in force, how does this propensity manifest itself, and in what terms has it been theorized and criticized throughout the ages?

Through a diversity of discrete case-studies spanning a vast time-scale (including topics such as paleolithic personal ornaments, pre-ancient ritual economy, ancient philosophy, and modern artful science), this study explores the means by which humans voluntarily suspend habitual patterns of judgement and disbelief in order to perceive the world differently. In recognizing how such modes of suspension can be variously traced back to religious comportments and institutions, a new sense of religious participation is identified beyond the credulous subjunction to artifice and its critical dismissal.

The relevant outcome of this long-term comparative approach is that sincere devotion to a (practical or theoretical, scientific or spiritual) cause and the temporary affirmation of artifice are not mutually exclusive comportments, but rather genealogically akin to the discretely sacred (alchemical, ataraxic, epistemological, spectacular, thaumaturgic, etc.) concerns of a pre-modern world.

Over the course of his career, Luther H. Martin has primarily produced articles rather than monographs. This approach to publication has given him the opportunity to experiment with different methodological approaches to an academic study of religion, with updates to and different interpretations of his field of historical specialization, namely Hellenistic religions, the subject of his only monograph (1987). The contents of this collected volume represent Martin's shift from comparative studies, to socio-political studies, to scientific studies of religion, and especially to the cognitive science of religion. He currently considers the latter to be the most viable approach for a scientific study of religion within the academic context of a modern research university. The twenty-five contributions collected in this volume are selected from over one hundred essays, articles, and book chapters published over a long and industrious career and are representative of Martin's work over the past two decades.

It is a truism that religion has to do with social cohesion, but the precise nature of this link has eluded scholars and scientists. Drawing on new research in religiously motivated prosociality, evolution of cooperation, and system theory, this book describes how fluctuations in individuals' strategic environment give impetus to a self-organizatory process where ritual behavior works to alleviate uncertainties in social commitment. It also traces the dynamic roles played by emotions, social norms, and socioeconomic context. While exploring the social functions of ritual and revivalist behavior, the book seeks to avoid the fallacies that result from disregarding their explicit religious character. To illustrate these processes, a case study of Christian revivals in early 19th-century Finland is included. The thesis of the book is relevant to theories of the evolution of religion and the role of religion in organizing human societies.

These two volumes present Pye’s methodological, theoretical, and field-based interests in the study of religions. Pye understands the study of religions to be an international enterprise with roots in both European and East Asian culture. This relates to his active role in the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), as a former General Secretary and President. The work is presented in seven sections, which could be used in teaching assignments. The first volume begins with a lively introduction on “Methodological Strategies,” followed by “East Asian Starting Points,” a radical attempt to overcome Eurocentrism, and “Structures and Strategies,” which tackles globally significant institutional and ideological questions. The second volume presents selected strands in the study of religions. “Comparing and Contrasting” is followed by “Tradition and Innovation,” including reference to specific new religions. “Transplantation and Syncretism” is a definitive package on syncretism and includes new materials from South-East Asia. Finally, “Contextual Questions” explores wider themes of identity, plurality, dialogue of religions, religious education, and peace. These show how relevant the study of religions can be –when it is distinctly and responsibly defined.

These two volumes present Pye’s methodological, theoretical, and field-based interests in the study of religions. Pye understands the study of religions to be an international enterprise with roots in both European and East Asian culture. This relates to his active role in the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), as a former General Secretary and President. The work is presented in seven sections, which could be used in teaching assignments. The first volume begins with a lively introduction on “Methodological Strategies,” followed by “East Asian Starting Points,” a radical attempt to overcome Eurocentrism, and “Structures and Strategies,” which tackles globally significant institutional and ideological questions. The second volume presents selected strands in the study of religions. “Comparing and Contrasting” is followed by “Tradition and Innovation,” including reference to specific new religions. “Transplantation and Syncretism” is a definitive package on syncretism and includes new materials from South-East Asia. Finally, “Contextual Questions” explores wider themes of identity, plurality, dialogue of religions, religious education, and peace. These show how relevant the study of religions can be –when it is distinctly and responsibly defined.

At a religion’s margins a counterpoint can be found for its power center. In a creative manner, relatively free from clerical control, religious virtuosos take new initiatives there. Inspired by their experience with the sacred, they explore their liberty to play with meanings, images and practices. Yet, the eventual success of such an innovation calls for organization and thus for the exercise of power. Accordingly new movements slow down into institutions – till a new virtuoso brings the cycle to a fresh start.
Over the last thirty years André Droogers has extensively published on the relation between religion, power and play. In this collection of essays the most relevant articles are reprinted. For this volume Droogers wrote an autobiographical introduction, showing how the contingencies of a career may nevertheless lead to a more or less consistent approach.
In Part I of the book articles are included that represent the basic ideas of Droogers’ approach, with an emphasis on margin, inversion, ritual and meaning-making. In part II some of his articles on syncretism and Pentecostalism illustrate his views. Part III contains articles that apply the play-and-power perspective to methodological issues in the study of religion.

Why give money to beggars? Why make sacrifices to help others? The current volume targets such questions with the tools of neoclassical and behavioural economics, philosophy, and sociology of religion. Both religion and economics are analyzed as social institutions that support human intra-group cooperation. Even if individuals are rational maximizers of personal utility, they yet must take into account the reciprocal nature of human relationships. It is better to be part of a cooperative group and make some personal sacrifices because, in the end, everybody benefits from this. Sometimes the metaphor of an invisible hand is used to describe the fact that economic exchange seems to follow some rules that guarantee the best possible result for everyone. In religion, it is of course the hand of God that guides the world. In both cases, individuals are in a way playing against a superior being that always seems to win. In this volume, some of the cognitive mechanisms and cultural selective forces behind this are examined by specialists in different fields of science. The first contributions analyze theoretical and methodological issues; in later chapters, developments in the European history are explored from the perspectives of sociology and economic theory.

This volume consists of 12 essays published by the author between the years 1997-2007, a thirteenth paper read at a conference in 2006, and a long introduction prepared specifically for the collection. All of the essays deal with epistemological issues attendant on conceptualizing and defining religion, understanding what is likely to be involved in studying and discussing beliefs, and attempting to explain religion and religions by drawing on the contemporary cognitive and evolutionary sciences. The problem of how best to understand and represent the cultural sensitivities of others is addressed by considering the works of three predecessors, Edward Burnett Tylor, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and A. Irving Hallowell.

This book is a contribution to the development of the young discipline of the didactics of the Study of Religions (Religionswissenschaft) in international perspective. Integrative religious education refers to education about different religions in classrooms with children of various religious and non-religious backgrounds. Cornerstones of recent debates about theory and methodology in the academic study of religions and in education are discussed in the first chapter. They form the basis of the following analysis and evaluation of current approaches to integrative religious education in Europe, with a special focus on England and Sweden. Particular attention is paid to the different underlying concepts of religion, education and ways of representing religious plurality in these approaches. Building on a discussion of the current situation of teaching and learning about religions in schools in Europe in the context of wider cultural, social and political debates, the book concludes with the suggestion of a framework for integrative religious education in Europe, from a perspective that combines insights from the study of religions and education.

This book deals with Islamic studies and with the question how the scholarly study of religion can contribute to the study of Islam. The author advocates studying Islamic phenomena as signs and symbols interpreted and applied in diverse ways in existing traditions.

He stresses the role of Muslims as actors in the ongoing debate about the articulation of Islamic ways of life and construction of Islam as a religion. A careful study of this debate should steer clear of political, religious, and ideological interests. Research in this area by Muslims and non-Muslim scholars alike should address the question of what Muslims have made of their Islam in specific circumstances.

Current political contexts have created an unhealthy climate for pursuing an “open” approach to Islam based on reading, observing, listening and reflecting. Yet, precisely nowadays we need to look anew at ways of Muslim thinking and acting that refer to Islam and to avoid certain schemes of interpreting Muslim realities that are no longer adequate for present-day Muslim life situations.

Muslim recourses to Islam can be studied as human constructions of value and meaning, and relations between Muslims and others can be seen in terms of human interaction, without blame always falling on Islam as such.

It is crucial today to understand how religions can exist harmoniously in a shared environment, whether local or global. A reasoned approach to this question was sought by participants at a stimulating conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in a predominantly Muslim country, Indonesia. Themes treated include the relation between theoretical approaches and religious viewpoints, practical problems and conflict resolution at the local level, and religious education with special reference to the role of Muslim schools (pesantren) in Indonesia.

Well-known scholars in the study of religions bring up to date and elucidate the discussion on the three most debated approaches in comparative religion, namely, the hermeneutical approach, the explanatory or cognitivist approach, and the critical approach. The approaches and methods of studying religion are disputed in an outspoken and challenging way, critically and radically arguing pros and cons. This work is unique, unrivalled, and full of essential insights into the dialogue of today and of the challenges of tomorrow.

Internationally recognized scholars from many parts of the world provide a critical survey of recent developments and achievements in the global field of religious studies. The work follows in the footsteps of two former publications: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Jacques Waardenburg (1973), and Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (1984/85). New Approaches to the Study of Religion completes the survey of the comparative study of religion in the twentieth century by focussing on the past two decades. Many of the chapters, however, are also pathbreaking and point the way to future approaches. Originally published in 2004, New Approaches are now available as paperback for classroom use.

Also available as a 2 volume set.

Internationally recognized scholars from many parts of the world provide a critical survey of recent developments and achievements in the global field of religious studies. The work follows in the footsteps of two former publications: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Jacques Waardenburg (1973), and Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (1984/85). New Approaches to the Study of Religion completes the survey of the comparative study of religion in the twentieth century by focussing on the past two decades. Many of the chapters, however, are also pathbreaking and point the way to future approaches. Originally published in 2004, New Approaches are now available as paperback for classroom use.

Also available as a 2 volume set.

Internationally recognized scholars from many parts of the world provide a critical survey of recent developments and achievements in the global field of religious studies. The work follows in the footsteps of two former publications: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Jacques Waardenburg (1973), and Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (1984/85). New Approaches to the Study of Religion completes the survey of the comparative study of religion in the twentieth century by focussing on the past two decades. Many of the chapters, however, are also pathbreaking and point the way to future approaches.

Jacques Waardenburg writes about relations between Muslims and adherents of other religions. After illuminating various aspects of Islam from an outside point of view in his volume "Islam" (published in 2002 by de Gruyter) his second volume changes the perspective: The author shows how Muslims perceived non-Muslims - particularly Christianity and "the West", but also Judaism and Asian religions - in many centuries of religious dialogue and tensions. The main focus is on Muslim minorities in Western countries and on religious dialogues of which he provides first-hand knowledge through his participation in several important dialogue meetings.

After 50 years of research and personal involvement, Waardenburg aims at a mutual understanding and reconciliation of Islam and other religions, particularly Christianity, both on an international level as well as on a more local level where "old" and "new", Christian and Muslim Europeans live together.

This book presents some twenty essays on different aspects of Islam in history and the present. These essays are grouped into eight larger sections. The first, "The Beginnings", deals with the transition from pre-Islamic understandings and reason, an essential part of the Quranic message. The next two sections deal with Islam specifically as a religion with its particular signs and symbols. The question of rules of interpretation in Islam and its structural features is discussed here. Sections four and five deal with ethics in Islam, including Muslim identity and human rights, and certain social functions of Islam. Section six introduces some 19th and 20th century reform movements, with special attention given to developments in Saudi Arabia and the "puritan" characteristics of present-day Islamic revival movements. The final two sections discuss contemporary issues: Islamization processes and policies, Islamic ideologies, the ideologization of Islam, and the political uses of religion. Throughout the book the author shows the links between the religious and other interpretations and uses made of Islam and the contexts in which they are made. The Introduction signals some important developments in Islamic studies since World War II.

This paperback edition contains selected articles from the original clothbound editions of Contemporary Approaches to The Study of Religion. Vol I: The Humanities. Vol II: The Social Sciences. (Religion and Reason, 27/28).