Religions in Practice: An Approach to the Anthropology of Religion

by Bowen, John R.

• ISBN13: 9780205336326
• ISBN10: 0205336329
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon

Summary

This book takes a unique perspective as it looks at how people engage in everyday religious practices , such as prayer, sacrifice, pilgrimage, and dress, as well as investigates major issues of gender, nation-states, and laws with respect to religion. No other text examines the full spectrum of religions from small-scale societies to full-blown world religious movements. The in-depth treatment of Islam and Christianity is of particular interest to students, and is easily expanded to include field projects directly related to material covered in the text. The revised edition includes up-to-the-minute examples and high-interest news stories from today's headlines.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Studying Religion through Practice	1	(9)
Defining Religion	3	(7)
An Anthropological Approach to Studying Religion	6	(1)
Practices, Contexts, Diversity	7	(3)
Ideas and Practices of ``Religion'' in Europe and Elsewhere	10	(18)
Western Ideas of Religion	10	(2)
Religion as a Belief System	11	(1)
Other Religions, Other Models	12	(4)
Imposed Definitions of Religion	14	(1)
Wana Practices and Indonesian Definitions	15	(1)
Combining Religious Practices in Japan	16	(12)
Practice and Belief	17	(1)
Shinto and Spirits	18	(1)
Spirits and Social Change	19	(2)
Buddhism and Souls	21	(2)
The State and Religion	23	(5)
Ritual and Emotions	28	(13)
Sequence and the Liminal Stage of Rituals	29	(2)
Reshaping, Reversing, Communitas	30	(1)
Grief and Ritual	31	(3)
Is Grief Universal?	32	(1)
Emotions and Their Expressions	33	(1)
Initiation, Secrecy, and Fear	34	(2)
Hopi Whipping and Disenchantment	34	(1)
New Guinea Traumas and Homosexuality	35	(1)
Theory in Anthropology: Emotion as Religion's Source	36	(5)
The Complexity of Grief in Sri Lanka	38	(3)
Jonathan Spencer
Death, Life, and Debates	41	(19)
Death Ritual and the Social Order	41	(7)
From Spirit to Household God in Japan	41	(2)
Regenerating Life from Death	43	(1)
Asmat Headhunting and Birth through Death	44	(2)
Secondary Burial	46	(2)
Debates about Death; Debates about Life	48	(7)
Teaching the Soul	50	(1)
Chanting for the Sake of the Spirit	51	(3)
Catholic Masses for the Dead	54	(1)
Theory in Anthropology: Emile Durkheim and Society as Religion's Source	55	(5)
Studying Culture through Internal Debates	58	(2)
John Bowen
Gender, Religion, and Ethnography	60	(23)
Creating Gender through Ritual	61	(4)
Producing Men and Women	61	(1)
Ritual, Fertility, and Culture	62	(2)
Gender Differentiation and Initiation	64	(1)
Reanalyses through the Lens of Gender	65	(1)
Rituals of Reversal, Reversed	65	(1)
Articulating Women's Perspectives through Spirits	66	(4)
Zar Possession	66	(2)
Wicca	68	(2)
Religious Patriarchy and Its Challenges	70	(3)
Abraham and Sacrifice	71	(1)
Fundamentalism and Gender Roles	71	(2)
Women and Islamic Dress	73	(6)
Dress and Feminism in Cairo	75	(3)
Comparisons	78	(1)
Theory in Anthropology: Pierre Bourdieu, from Norms to Practices	79	(4)
Studying Fundamentalism	81	(2)
Susan Friend Harding
Extending Our Powers: ``Magic'' and Healing	83	(18)
Understanding ``Magic''	84	(3)
Likeness and Contact	84	(1)
Magic and Anxiety	85	(1)
Crop Magic and Change in the United States	86	(1)
Healing and Culture	87	(3)
Giving Birth in Panama and Malaysia	87	(1)
Faith and Healing in Christian Science	88	(2)
Trance, Possession, and Healing	90	(2)
Afro-Brazilian Trances	90	(1)
Shared Healing in Southern Africa	91	(1)
Modern Magic in Japanese New Religions	92	(9)
Purification and Apocalypse	93	(1)
Amulets and Ancestors	94	(1)
Trance Psychology	95	(1)
Who Joints the New Religions?	96	(1)
Magic and Religion	97	(1)
Studying New Age Religions in the United States	98	(3)
Michael Brown
Explaining Misfortune: Witchcraft and Sorcery	101	(19)
Religion and Explanation	101	(3)
Karma in South Asia	102	(1)
Suffering as Part of God's Plan	103	(1)
Sorcery as a Focus on Practitioners	104	(1)
Sorcery and Leadership in Melanesia	104	(1)
Distrust and Navajo Sorcery	105	(1)
Witchcraft and Moral Accounts of Misfortune	105	(2)
Witchcraft as a Characteristic of the Individual	107	(5)
Azande Ideas of Bodily Substance	107	(1)
Explaining Misfortune	108	(2)
Consulting Oracles	110	(1)
African Witchcraft and Social Change	111	(1)
Witchcraft as Satan versus God	112	(8)
New England Puritans	112	(1)
Evil and Accusations	113	(1)
The Salem Outbreak of 1692	114	(2)
Salem and Disruption of the Moral Community	116	(2)
Evidence and Confessions	118	(2)
Prohibitions and Boundaries	120	(16)
Taboos, Eating, and Social Inequality	121	(4)
Hawaiian Taboo and Captain Cook	122	(1)
Purity and Pollution in India	123	(2)
Taboos and Community in Judaism	125	(1)
The Prohibitions of Leviticus	125	(11)
Passover and History	128	(1)
Ritual Life Today	129	(2)
Movable Boundaries	131	(1)
The Lubavitchers of Brooklyn	131	(2)
What Is the ``Jewish Community''?	133	(3)
Objects, Images, and Worship	136	(28)
Conveying Meaning through Symbols	136	(2)
Embodying Deities	138	(1)
Masks in West Africa	138	(4)
Images and Offerings in Hinduism	142	(5)
Gods: Few and Many	142	(2)
Offerings to Deities	144	(3)
Relics and Images in Catholicism	147	(7)
The History of Relics and the Host	148	(1)
Images versus Relics	149	(2)
A More Hierarchical Ritual	151	(2)
Christ Incarnate	153	(1)
Mary and Marys in European Societies	154	(10)
Marian Apparitions and Modern Life	154	(3)
Spanish Shrines	157	(2)
Many in One	159	(1)
A Japanese Comparison	159	(2)
Generalized Devotions	161	(1)
Jesus, Mary, and the Nation--State	161	(1)
Relics and Images in Buddhist Politics	162	(2)
Crossing Cultural Boundaries	164	(21)
Converting	165	(5)
Adult Baptism among the Amish	165	(1)
Conversion as Total Social Change	166	(1)
External and Internal Conversion	167	(1)
Missions and Civilization in South Africa	168	(2)
Translating: Mary in The Americas	170	(6)
The Virgin of Guadalupe	170	(1)
Guadalupe and Mexican Resistance to Spain	171	(2)
Africa to Brazil: The Role of Images	173	(1)
Umbanda in Rio	174	(2)
Adapting: Islamic Sacrifice in New Cultures	176	(9)
Gayo Observances	177	(2)
Objections to Ritual Efficacy	179	(2)
Moroccan Muslim Sacrifice: Reaffirming Male Dominance	181	(1)
Other Moroccan Forms of the Sacrifice Ritual	182	(1)
Fieldwork under Apartheid	183	(2)
Jean Comaroff
Sacred Speech and Divine Power	185	(21)
The Qur'an as Recitation of God's Speech	186	(3)
The Creative Power of Navajo Speech and Song	189	(3)
Speech and Grace in Protestant Churches	192	(14)
The Letter and the Spirit of Scripture	192	(2)
Election and Signs	194	(2)
Singing and Certainty among U.S. Primitive Baptists	196	(2)
Two Models of Church Authority	198	(1)
Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches	199	(4)
Urban Fieldwork in Egypt	203	(3)
Gregory Starrett
Transmitting Religion	206	(17)
Improvisation and Variation	207	(1)
New Age ``Channeling''	208	(2)
Transmission and Religious Universals	210	(3)
Mimesis and Performance	213	(4)
The Qur'an, Again	215	(1)
On to Audio	216	(1)
Replication/Performance	217	(1)
Religion on the Web	217	(6)
Creole Spaces	219	(2)
Supernatural Concepts and Experimental Methods	221	(2)
Pascal Boyer
Places and Pilgrims	223	(22)
Centers and Directions	223	(3)
Chinese Geomancy	225	(1)
Japanese Temples and Branches	225	(1)
Dimensions of Pilgrimage	226	(2)
The Pilgrimage to Mecca	228	(8)
Following the Footsteps of Muhammad	228	(1)
Rites of Separation	229	(1)
Moving in the Liminal State	230	(2)
The Hajj Proper	232	(1)
Reintegration to Normal Life	233	(1)
How Is It Meaningful?	233	(3)
Contrasts in Pilgrimage from Japan and India	236	(9)
Circling Shikoku	236	(3)
Bathing at Benares	239	(4)
From ``Sorrows of Simplicity'' to ``Shared Blessings'' in Ghatiyali	243	(2)
Ann Grodzins Gold
Saints, Visions, and Prophets	245	(25)
Saints as Exemplars and as Sources of Assistance	246	(4)
Acharn Man, a Buddhist Forest Dweller	248	(1)
Sathya Sai Baba, a Jet-Age Holy Man	248	(2)
Prophets and Social Change	250	(4)
The Problem of the Prophet's Continuity	251	(1)
The Birth of Prophecy in the Sudan	252	(2)
Revitalization Movements: Messiahs, Millennia, and Revivals	254	(6)
Land, Wealth, and Religious Visions	255	(1)
Maori Prophecies in New Zealand	255	(1)
Cargo Cults in Samoa and New Guinea	256	(1)
The Ghost Dance in North America	257	(2)
Christian Millenarian Movements in the United States	259	(1)
Mormon Prophecy and Authority	260	(4)
Joseph Smith, Prophet	260	(2)
The New Prophet and Conflicts with the United States	262	(1)
Authority and History Today	263	(1)
Muhammad and His Successors	264	(6)
Muhammad as Messenger and Prophet	265	(1)
Who Rules after Muhammad?	266	(1)
The Development of the Shi'i	266	(1)
Masters and Disciples in Sufi Orders	267	(3)
The Place of Religions in Modern Nations and States	270	(23)
Religious Nationalisms	271	(5)
Church and Nation in Poland	272	(1)
Hindu Nationalism in India	273	(3)
Religion and State Law	276	(3)
Gender and Marriage in Israeli Jewish Law	277	(2)
Religious Minorities and Public Religions	279	(3)
Kwaio Strategies for Recognition	280	(2)
Protestants in the Pueblos	282	(1)
Catholics in China	282	(1)
Minority Religions in Europe: Toleration or Public Recognition?	282	(4)
French Secularism versus Headscarves in Schools	283	(1)
The National Church in Britain	284	(1)
The Crucifix in Bavaria	285	(1)
Religion, Nation, and State in the United States	286	(7)
Religion in the Early Centuries	287	(1)
Balancing Rights and Tradition in a Pluralistic Nation	288	(5)
References	293	(10)
Index	303