Linda Woodhead

A Sociology of Religious Emotion

Introduction 1. Emotion - a relational view 2. Delineating religious emotion 3. Dynamics of religious emotion I: connections of self, society, and symbols 4. Dynamics of religious emotion II: disconnections of self, society, and symbols 5. The power of religious emotion 6. Religious emotion in late modern society and culture Conclusion Appendix: Studying religious emotion: Suggestions for method and practice

Peter Berger and the study of religion

Peter Berger is the most influential contemporary sociologist of religion. This collection of essays is the first in-depth study of his contribution to the field, providing a comprehensive introduction to his work and to current thought in the study of religion. Themes addressed include: * Berger on religion and theology * Religion, spirituality and the discontents of modernity * Secularization and de-secularization A postscript by Peter Berger, responding to the essays, completes this overview of this major figures work.

Five concepts of religion

In the face of continuing debate about the adequacy and definition of the concept of ‘religion’, this paper argues that it is necessary for the social sciences to become more self-critical about their various – and changing – uses of the term. As this paper shows, three main uses are currently dominant: religion as belief/meaning, religion as identity, and religion as structured social relations. By contrast, some uses which were once important are currently recessive, including Marxist approaches to religion as ideology, and Parsonian conceptions of religion as norms and values. Some new uses are also emerging, including ‘material’ religion, religion as discourse, and religion as practice. Drawing these together, the paper proposes a taxonomy of five main major uses of the term. It reflects on their adequacy, and points out where there are still occlusions: above all with regard to ‘super-social’ or ‘meta-social’ relations with non-human or quasi-human beings, forces and powers.

Religions in the modern world : traditions and transformations

Introduction: The Modern Contexts of Religion 1. How to Study Religion Kim Knott 2. Hinduism David Smith 3. Buddhism (Cathy Cantwell and Hiroko Kawanami 4. Sikhism Christopher Shackle 5. Chinese Religions Stephan Feuchtwang 6. Japanese Religions Robert Kisala 7. Judaism Seth Kunin 8. Christianity Linda Woodhead 9. Islam David Waines 10. Religion in Africa Charles Gore 11. Native American Religions Kenneth Mello 12. Spirituality Giselle Vincett and Linda Woodhead 13. New Age Religion Wouter J. Hanegraaff 14. Paganism Graham Harvey 15. New Religious Movements Douglas Cowan 16. Religion and Globalization David Lehmann 17. Religion and Politics Jeffrey Haynes 18. Religion and Violence Charles Selengut 19. Religion and Gender Linda Woodhead 20. Religion and Popular Culture Christopher Partridge 21. Secularism and Secularization Grace Davie and Linda Woodhead

Secular privilege, religious disadvantage.

Judith Butler’s paper ‘Sexual Politics, Torture and Secular Time’ (Butler 2008) makes an excellent point about the ways in which individual sexual freedoms can be used to negate the rights of vulnerable groups. She makes her case in relation to the Dutch citizenship test and the forms of torture devised for Muslim prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. As she points out, it is the rankest hypocrisy when freedoms are invoked for the purpose of oppression by those who do not respect the rights of women and sexual minorities in the first place. The vital question which Butler’s paper raises but does not answer is whether the connection between championship of individual sexual freedoms and oppression of minority groups is necessary or contingent. By simply pointing out the dark uses to which enlightened liberal support for individual rights may be put,Butler leaves it open for readers to conclude that she is drawing attention to the abuse of an otherwise innocent set of commitments. Here I want to develop her hints and whispers that there may be a more integral and disturbing connection between championship of a maximal programme of individual rights and the disturbing uses to which it is being put.Although this issue opens out onto a much broader debate about the relation between individual and associational rights, I will confine my remarks to a consideration of gender and sexual rights ‘versus’ the rights of religious groups,particularly religious minorities.Does championship of the one necessarily involve denigration of the other? And if so,are feminists and other defenders of individual freedoms always going to be in danger of sanctioning violence against vulnerable minorities?

Introduction: Religion et société de consummation/ Religion in Consumer Society

Le point départ de ce numéro thématique est l’observation que les nouvelles formes d’économie politique et culturelle qui sont devenues dominantes depuis les années 1980 ont entraîné de profondes conséquences sur les croyances, les pratiques et les expressions religieuses en Occident et dans le monde. La montée du consumérisme dans les années d’après-guerre, accompagnée de l’accroissement constant d’une sphère communicationnelle mondialisée et mondialisante, combinée à l’influence de plus en plus marquée de l’idéologie du néolibéralisme, n’a pas été sans influencer le religieux. Ces changements en appellent à une réflexion critique et à l’exploration de nouvelles voies théoriques et analytiques. Ce numéro thématique de Social Compass vise à apporter une contribution en ce sens, quoiqu-évidemment partielle et fragmentaire. Comment le religieux a-t-il été articulé à l’économique suite à ces transformations? Les travaux sur le sujet s’inscrivent dans des courants différents. En premier lieu, une série de travaux aborde la question de la croissance de la société de consommation en relevant Introduction: Religion in Consumer Society

Spiritualising the Sacred: A Critique of Feminist Theology

This article submits feminist theology to a two-pronged theological critique. First, the article notes the overwhelmingly critical nature of feminist theology, and suggests that this concentration on critique at the expense of construction is itself a weakness of feminist theology. Further, it argues that the feminist critique tends to construe Christianity in a way which distorts the more complex realities of the faith, placing too much emphasis on the textual nature of Christianity. Second, the article argues that feminist attempts to construct new theologies are flawed because of their dependence upon the contentious notion of ‘women’s experience’ and their consequent failure to engage with the traditional resources of theology. The article concludes with the suggestion that much feminist theology is dependent upon an influential post-Christian strand of religiosity, and that it uncritically appropriates the latter’s unhelpfully individualistic, monistic and idealist stance.

Intensified Religious Pluralism and De-differentiation: the British Example.

Drawing on surveys of religion and values in Great Britain, this paper suggests that Peter Berger’s paradigm of two pluralisms can be usefully supplemented by taking account of a third kind of intensified pluralism. This involves the breakdown of the boundaries between religions, and between the religious and the secular, and is therefore a pluralism of de-differentiation. It helps explain many features of contemporary religion and identity, including the rise of the “nones” and the increasing reluctance of each new generation to identify with religious (and secular) labels and packages.

Spirituality and Christianity: The Unfolding of a Tangled Relationship

This chapter analyzes the five main aspects of the on-going relationships between spiritualities and religions: (1) early spirituality as a radicalization and “Easternization” of liberal Christianity, (2) ritual, esotericism and nativism in Christianity and spirituality, (3) New Age and its parallels with charismatic-evangelical Christianity, (4) the holistic turn in spirituality and its links to “lived” religion in the West; (5) contemporary neo-Paganism and its links with Christian tradition, ritual, and place. Woodhead observes on the one hand the interactions between what could be called by traditional categories “the religious” and “the spiritual,” and then pays particular attention to aspects of power relations between the two, not least those that relate to gender.

Religion and Brexit: populism and the Church of England

ABSTRACT Drawing on our own recent surveys on beliefs and values in Great Britain (Woodhead) and evangelical Christians in the UK (Smith) this article explores the links between religion, views and votes on leaving or remaining in the EU in the UK’s 2016 referendum. Poll data gathered shortly after the 2016 referendum (n = 3,243) allows us to test associations between religious identity and behaviour and attitudes to voting Leave, while controlling for other demographic variables. The main finding is that identifying as Church of England (Anglican) is an important independent predictor of voting Leave even when other relevant factors like age and region are corrected for. By contrast, self-defined English evangelicals (from an opportunity sample of 1,198, collected and analysed by Smith) appear to be more pro-EU and generally internationalist in outlook. Previous surveys by Woodhead on religion and values in the UK provide some explanation for these findings, and for the striking difference of UK and US evangelicals, 81% of whom supported Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election. The article ends with reflections on whether the term ‘populist’ can be usefully applied to the evangelical pro-Trump vote in the US or the Church of England pro-Brexit vote in the UK.