Modern religious movements in India.

http://www.archive.org/details/modernreligiousm025064mbp

A Mixed Blessing: Market-mediated Religious Authority in Neopaganism

This is a study of the interplay of market-mediated and religious authority in the context of new religious movements. Specifically, we explore the ambivalent relationship followers of Wicca have with the marketplace. Our main argument is that in this context marketplace success can be a source of religious legitimacy and validation. At the same time, however, excessive engagement with the market can act as a powerful delegitimizing mechanism, leading religious leaders to continually monitor their practices. Market success is thus a mixed blessing that can increase religious authority and influence, but is just as likely to decrease authority and credibility. Based on an ethnographic study, we explore the boundary work carried out by religious marketers and consumers in order to establish themselves in a “safety area” where engagement with the market brings its positive effects without causing a loss of credibility.

The Pursuit of Tangible Happiness: Religion and Politics in a Japanese New, New Religion

The decline of traditional religions in Japan in the past century, and especially since the end of World War Two, has led to an explosion of so-called “new religions” (shin shūkyō 新宗教), many of which have made forays into the political realm. The best known—and most controversial—example of a “political” new religion is Sōka Gakkai 創価学会, a lay Buddhist movement originally associated with the Nichiren sect that in the 1960s gave birth to a new political party, Komeitō 公明党 (lit., Clean Government Party), which in the past several decades has emerged as the third most popular party in Japan (as New Komeitō). Since the 1980s, Japan has also seen the emergence of so-called “new, new religions” (shin shin shūkyō 新新宗教), which tend to be more technologically savvy and less socially concerned (and, in the eyes of critics, more akin to “cults” than the earlier new religions). One new, new religion known as Kōfuku-no-Kagaku 幸福の科学 (lit., Institute for Research in Human Happiness or simply Happy Science), founded in 1986 by Ōkawa Ryūho 大川隆法, has very recently developed its own political party, Kōfuku Jitsugentō 幸福実現党 (The Realization of Happiness Party). This article will analyse the political ideals of Kōfuku Jitsugentō in relation to its religious teachings, in an attempt to situate the movement within the broader tradition of religio-political syncretism in Japan. In particular, it will examine the recent “manifesto” of Kōfuku Jitsugentō in relation to those of New Komeitō and “secular” political parties such as the Liberal Democratic Party (Jimintō 自民党) and the Democratic Party (Minshutō 民主党).

"New" Social Movements: Alternative Modernities, (Trans)local Nationalisms, and Solidarity Economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development.

Surviving and Thriving in a Hostile Religious Culture

The present study explored a minority oppositional religious culture, which continued practicing despite overt hostilities to their practices. The qualitative research project utilized interviews and observations of the Gardnerian Wiccans in Broward County, Florida. The narrative data were transcribed, coded, and categorized into three themes related to the following research questions: Why would individuals create a secretive religion? Given they had to practice in secret, what about this religion had people seeking out information and joining Covens? What would keep this group together despite opposition from dominant culture? As a microcosm for religious conflict in society, the study showed differences in the culture’s religious paradigm structure as a major factor for religious conflict.

"Not Without My Ancestors": A Christological Case Study of the Shona Ancestor Cult of Zimbabwe

The issue of ancestors has been controversial since the first encounters of Christianity with Shona religion. It remains a major theological problem that needs to be addressed within the mainline churches of Zimbabwe today. Instead of ignoring or dismissing the ancestor cult, which deeply influences the socio-political, religious, and economic lives of the Shona, churches in Zimbabwe should initiate a Christology that is based on it. Such a Christology would engage the critical day-to-day issues that make the Shona turn to their ancestors. Among these concerns are daily protection from misfortune, maintaining good health and increasing longevity, successful rainy seasons and food security, and responsible governance characterized by economic and political stability. Since the mid-16th century arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the Mutapa Kingdom, the Church has realized that many African Christians resorted to their ancestors in times of crisis. Although both Catholic and Protestant missionaries from the 1700s through the early 1900s fiercely attacked Shona traditional beliefs as superstitious and equated ancestors with evil spirits, the cult did not die. Social institutions, such as schools and hospitals provided by missionaries, failed to eliminate ancestral beliefs. Even in the 21st century, many Zimbabweans consult their ancestors. The Shona message to the church remains "Not without My Ancestors." This dissertation examines the significance of the ancestors to the Shona, and how selected denominations and new religious movements have interpreted and accommodated ancestral practices. Taking the missiological goal of "self-theologizing" as the framework, this dissertation proposes a "tripartite Christology" of "Jesus the Family Ancestor", "Jesus the Tribal Ancestor," and "Jesus the National Ancestor," which is based on the Shona "tripartite ancestrology." Familiar ecclesiological and liturgical language, idioms, and symbols are used to contribute to the wider Shona understanding of Jesus as the ancestor par excellence, in whom physical and spiritual needs-including those the ordinary ancestors fail to meet-are fulfilled.

‘Bricolage’: reclaiming a conceptual tool

This article provides the genealogy of bricolage and underscores the modifications it has undergone within the sociologies of culture and religion. It draws on the study of three new religious movements that teach unconventional versions of Hinduism and kabbalah, to show that the current understanding of bricolage in the studies of popular culture and religion overestimates its eclectic and personal nature and neglects its sociocultural logics. It tends to take for granted the availability of cultural resources used in bricolage, and finally it fails to understand the social significance of individualism, overlooking the ways in which norms and power could be expressed through culture in the contemporary world. This article suggests that it would be best reclaiming bricolage’s original meaning, prompting questions about the contexts that make certain elements available, social patterns that may organise bricolage, who ‘bricole’, what for, who is empowered, from what and by using whose tradition.

"It's all a Giant Web" : syncretism, agency and (re)connection in a contemporary Pagan community

Les anthropologues ont examiné le syncrétisme religieux, soit l’incorporation d’éléments de sources diverses, au sein des religions du monde depuis plusieurs décennies. Cependant, très peu d’intérêt a été accordé au paganisme contemporain, un Nouveau Mouvement Religieux hautement syncrétique. À travers les récits de plusieurs païens/nes contemporain/es à Montréal, j’examine comment et pourquoi les pratiquants sont inspiré/es à faire le choix d’incorporer divers éléments provenant de sources religieuses et non religieuses. Le recours à des sources différentes reflète l’effort de créer une expérience religieuse plus profonde et personnelle. La créativité impliquée dans la construction d’une pratique spirituelle et d’un système de croyance personnels est souvent conduite par un désir de (re)connexion, que ce soit à la terre, aux ancêtres, ou bien à une communauté. Les acteurs acquièrent un sentiment accru d’agentivité dans ce processus. Ma participation dans cette communauté a influencé mes expériences de recherche; j’examine également ma position en tant qu’anthropologue chez soi.