The Nature of Religious Diversity: A Cultural Ecosystem Approach

Studies of religious and other cultural groups tend to be particularistic or focus on one or more axes of variation. In this article we develop a more comprehensive approach to studying cultural diversity that emulates the study of biological diversity. We compare our cultural ecosystem approach with the axis approach, using the distinction between “tight” and “loose” cultures as an example. We show that while the axis approach is useful, the cultural ecosystem approach adds considerable value to the axis approach. We end by advocating the establishment of field sites for the study of religious and cultural diversity, comparable to biological field sites.

The Scottish Reformations and the Origin of Religious and Civil Liberty in Britain and Ireland: Presbyterian Interpretations, c.1800-60

This article examines Presbyterian interpretations in Scotland and Ireland of the Scottish Reformations of 1560 and 1638–43. It begins with a discussion of the work of two important Presbyterian historians of the early nineteenth century, the Scotsman, Thomas McCrie, and the Irishman, James Seaton Reid. In their various publications, both laid the template for the nineteenth-century Presbyterian understanding of the Scottish Reformations by emphasizing the historical links between the Scottish and Irish churches in the early-modern period and their common theology and commitment to civil and religious liberty against the ecclesiastical and political tyranny of the Stuarts. The article also examines the commemorations of the National Covenant in 1838, the Solemn League and Covenant in 1843, and the Scottish Reformation in 1860. By doing so, it uncovers important religious and ideological linkages across the North Channel, including Presbyterian evangelicalism, missionary activity, church–state relationships, religious reform and revival, and anti-Catholicism

An Inclusive Design Dialogue on Ethics and Aesthetics

One of the many definitions of inclusive design is that it is a user-led approach to design. To date its focus has been on ‘critical’ users, in particular disabled people. As such, there is pressure to design environments that meet the often urgent and complex demands of these users. Designers, uncertain of their knowledge, rely heavily on user input and guidance, often resulting in designs that are ‘solution’ driven (rather than solution seeking) and short term; users focus on what they need, not what they might need. This paper argues that design needs to reclaim an equal presence within inclusive design. It proposes that the ‘weakness’ of design lies in the uneasy and at times conflicting relationship between ethics and aesthetics. The paper itself is constructed around a dialogue between two academics, one concerned with critical user needs, the other with aesthetics, but both directed towards the support of design quality

Research Ethics in Divided and Violent Societies: Seizing the Ethical Opportunity

This chapter explores how to conduct social research in divided and violent societies by developing the concept of the ‘ethical opportunity’. The ‘ethical opportunity’ is situated in a brief discussion of ‘action’ and feminist approaches to research. It argues that seizing the ethical opportunity requires researchers to: plan for their personal safety, plan for participants’ personal safety and plan how they will communicate and disseminate their results. It draws on the author’s personal experience researching in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Northern Ireland, concluding that it is in the communication and dissemination phase that researchers’ hopes for ‘making a difference’ may be realised or dashed. It cautions would-be researchers to manage their own – and research participants’ – expectations about what social research can achieve. Its effects may not often be as transforming and liberating as idealistic researchers hope for, but that should not dissuade them from striving towards those ends.

Ethnoreligious change in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe:A comparative study of how religious havens can have ethnic significance

This study compares the internal dynamics of religious change in the 'post-evangelical' Ikon community in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a charismatic, multiethnic congregation in Harare, Zimbabwe. Although the theological ideas behind Ikon and the congregation vary widely, the processes whereby both groups manage change are broadly similar and have wider theoretical significance. Accordingly, this article analyses how people use the religious resources of their traditions to construct 'havens' in which change is facilitated. Havens are conceived of as safe spaces where people use religious resources to challenge ethnic boundaries and power structures. They can be seen to function as mechanisms for disrupting long-entrenched feedback patterns of opposition and conflict. © 2010 The Editor of Ethnopolitics.

Evangelical Journeys:Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture

This book draws on interview material with more than 100 evangelicals. We ask why do people born into the same religious community turn out so differently? We tell the stories of pro-life DUP picketers, liberal peace-campaigning ministers, housewives afraid of the devil, students deconstructing their faith and atheists mortified by their religious past. We explore why people have chosen to go in one religious direction or another, and how their religious journeys have unfolded.

Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland: Religious Practice in Late Modernity

Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland is the first major book to explore the dynamic religious landscape of contemporary Ireland, north and south, and to analyse the island’s religious transition. It confirms that the Catholic Church’s long-standing ‘monopoly’ has well and truly disintegrated, replaced by a mixed, post-Catholic religious ‘market’ featuring new and growing expressions of Protestantism, as well as other religions. It describes how people of faith are developing ‘extra-institutional’ expressions of religion, keeping their faith alive outside or in addition to the institutional Catholic Church.

Drawing on island-wide surveys of clergy and laypeople, as well as more than 100 interviews, this book describes how people of faith are engaging with key issues such as increased diversity, reconciliation to overcome the island’s sectarian past, and ecumenism. It argues that extra-institutional religion is especially well-suited to address these and other issues due to its freedom and flexibility when compared to traditional religious institutions. It describes how those who practice extra-institutional religion have experienced personal transformation, and analyses the extent that they have contributed to wider religious, social, and political change. On an island where religion has caused much pain, from clerical sexual abuse scandals, to sectarian violence, to a frosty reception for some immigrants, those who practice their faith outside traditional religious institutions may hold the key to transforming post-Catholic Ireland into a more reconciled society.

Beyond Pietism and Prosperity: Religious Resources for Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Zimbabwe

It is often assumed that charismatic Christianity in Africa promotes either a pietist withdrawal from social and political concerns, or a preoccupation with gaining individual health and wealth (the prosperity gospel). This research presents an alternative vision of the role of charismatic Christianity in Zimbabwe. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a charismatic congregation, it analyzes how these Christians are drawing links between spirituality and social action. This congregation is developing an egalitarian conception of power, promoting service to the poor, and using biblical discourses to support their actions. This can be understood as part of a wider process in which Zimbabwean Christians are using religious resources to develop a vision for reconstruction and reconciliation. This article points to further areas in which the churches could use their public position to raise sensitive issues, including how to deal with the past and heal relationships between previously antagonistic groups.