The Challenges of Universalising Religions: the Kabbalah Centre in France and Britain.

The Kabbalah Centre is an offshoot of Judaism which since the 1990s has spread kabbalistic teaching in several countries to a religiously diverse audience. This article compares two European branches of the Kabbalah Centre: the flourishing London Centre, and the Parisian Centre that declined in the late 1990s before closing its doors in 2005. It emphasizes in particular the responses they stirred from the media, anticult movements, Orthodox Judaism and the Jewish population. Ultimately, this case study allows us to observe, in situ, the trajectory of a global religion, torn between its Jewish roots and universalistic ambitions. It emphasizes the importance, in this process, of the relationship it maintains, willingly or not, with its original religious frame. Consequently, the importance of local contexts is raised, illustrating the impact and combination of diverse factors. In addition to public and official responses to religious diversity, religious movements are affected by the religious landscape and the structures and authorities of religious organizations, as well as the religious and cultural characteristics of the population. Ultimately, this article underscores the complexity of the globalization of religion, which embraces a wide range of complex, sometimes ambiguous, situations lying between strong particularistic identity-claims and cosmopolitan, universalistic ambitions.

Religion, Human Rights, Equality and the Public Sphere

This article distinguishes three different conceptions of the relationship between religion and the public sphere. The reconciliation of these different aspects of freedom of religion can be seen to give rise to considerable difficulties in practice, and the legal and political systems of several Western European countries are struggling to cope. Four recurring issues that arise in this context are identified and considered: what is a 'religion' and what are 'religious' beliefs and practices for the purposes of the protection of 'freedom of religion', together with the closely related issue of who decides these questions; what justification there is for a provision guaranteeing freedom of religion at all; which manifestations of religious association are so unacceptable as to take the association outside the protection of freedom of religion altogether; and what weight should be given to freedom of religion when this freedom stands opposed to other values. It is argued that the scope and meaning of human rights in this context is anything but settled and that this gives an opportunity to those who support a role for religion in public life to intervene.

Glacial Survival of Boreal Trees in Northern Scandinavia

It is commonly believed that trees were absent in Scandinavia during the last glaciation and first recolonized the Scandinavian Peninsula with the retreat of its ice sheet some 9000 years ago. Here, we show the presence of a rare mitochondrial DNA haplotype of spruce that appears unique to Scandinavia and with its highest frequency to the west—an area believed to sustain ice-free refugia during most of the last ice age. We further show the survival of DNA from this haplotype in lake sediments and pollen of Trøndelag in central Norway dating back ~10,300 years and chloroplast DNA of pine and spruce in lake sediments adjacent to the ice-free Andøya refugium in northwestern Norway as early as ~22,000 and 17,700 years ago, respectively. Our findings imply that conifer trees survived in ice-free refugia of Scandinavia during the last glaciation, challenging current views on survival and spread of trees as a response to climate changes.

Experiences of fathering a baby admitted to neonatal intensive care: A critical gender analysis

More fathers than ever before attend at the birth of their child and, internationally, there is a palpable pressure on maternity and neonatal services to include and engage with fathers. It is, thus, more important than ever to understand how fathers experience reproductive and neonatal health services and to understand how fathers can be successfully accommodated in these environments alongside their partners. In this paper we advance a theoretical framework for re-thinking fatherhood and health services approaches to fatherhood based on Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities (CSM). We illustrate the importance of this feminist-informed theoretical approach to understanding the gendered experiences of fathers in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) setting. Using a longitudinal follow-up research design, with two data collection points, a total of 39 in-depth semi-structured interviews was conducted with 21 fathers of infants admitted to NICU between August 2008 and December 2009. The findings demonstrate: (i) ways in which men are forging new gendered identities around the birth of their baby but, over time, acknowledge women as the primary caregivers; (ii) how social class is a key determinant of men’s ability to enact hegemonic forms of ‘involved fatherhood’ in the NICU, and; (iii) how men also encounter resistance from their partners and health professionals in challenging a gender order which associates women with the competent care of infants. An understanding of these gendered experiences operating at both individual and structural levels is critical to leading change for the inclusion of fathers as equal parents in healthcare settings. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Science of Religious Beliefs

Why have humans, throughout history and across cultures, shown a strong tendency to believe in the existence of superhuman intentional agents and attached this belief to notions of morality, misfortune, and the creation of the world? The answer emerging from the cognitive science of religion appears to be that explicit beliefs are informed and constrained by the natural and cross-culturally recurrent operation of implicit cognitive systems. Successful god concepts resonate with the expectations of these implicit systems but also have attention-demanding and inferentially-rich properties that allow their integration into various areas of human concern. Theological concepts may deviate from these natural cognitive moorings but require special cultural scaffolding, such as Whitehouse's two Modes of Religiosity, to do so and constitute additions to, rather than replacements of the religious beliefs supported by implicit cognitive systems.

Cognitive Adaptation to the Experience of Social and Cultural Diversity

Diversity is a defining characteristic of modern society, yet there remains considerable debate over the benefits that it brings. The authors argue that positive psychological and behavioral outcomes will be observed only when social and cultural diversity is experienced in a way that challenges stereotypical expectations and that when this precondition is met, the experience has cognitive consequences that resonate across multiple domains. A model, rooted in social categorization theory and research, outlines the preconditions and processes through which people cognitively adapt to the experience of social and cultural diversity and the resulting cross-domain benefits that this brings. Evidence is drawn from a range of literatures to support this model, including work on biculturalism, minority influence, cognitive development, stereotype threat, work group productivity, creativity, and political ideology. The authors bring together a range of differing diversity experiences and explicitly draw parallels between programs of research that have focused on both perceiving others who are multicultural and being multicultural oneself. The findings from this integrative review suggest that experiencing diversity that challenges expectations may not only encourage greater tolerance but also have benefits beyond intergroup relations to varied aspects of psychological functioning.

Response to Comment on "Glacial Survival of Boreal Trees in Northern Scandinavia"

Birks et al. question our proposition that trees survived the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Northern Scandinavia. We dispute their interpretation of our modern genetic data but agree that more work is required. Our field and laboratory procedures were robust; contamination is an unlikely explanation of our results. Their description of Endletvatn as ice-covered and inundated during the LGM is inconsistent with recent geological literature.