bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘Objectionable Ornaments and Decorations’
Authors: Kent David
Published: August 2013

In the third quarter of the nineteenth century the High and Low Church wings of the Church of England were bitterly divided over the use of religious ritual. A legacy of the Oxford Movement and the Gothic Revival, Anglican ritualism in practice was most obviously manifested in liturgical forms, eucharistic vestments, church furniture, religious decoration, church design and the use of sacred space. For nearly 18 months services at St George-in-the-East were disrupted by the Vestry-led, popular protest against the ritualistic practices of the Rector and his High Church curates. This article outlines the practices and behaviour which were considered offensive, explores the links with anti-Catholic sentiment and shows how the protesters carried on their campaign of disturbance inside the church so effectively that they eventually secured the resignation of the Rector, the removal of all the ‘objectionable ornaments and decorations’ and an end to Anglo-Catholic ritualism in the parish church.
Anglican Imperialism and the Gothic Style in Australia
Authors: Carey Hilary M.
Published: August 2013

From the middle of the nineteenth century, the Church of England renewed its missionary objectives for the colonies and aspired to demonstrate its credentials to be a national Church for the empire. This essay considers the ways in which ‘imperial Anglicanism’ was reflected in the deployment of the Gothic style for church architecture. It is argued that enthusiasts for the Gothic style in Australia included both Anglicans and Catholics, but was especially favoured by those of English descent. In contrast, Gothic was associated by a number of Irish Catholics with English cultural hegemony whereas Nonconformists generally favoured the Classical style. In this way denominational adherence became reflected in architectural fashion. It is suggested that resistance to Gothic was more muted in the colonies than in Britain, so that by the end of the nineteenth century almost all denominations were building churches and chapels in some form of Gothic. Vernacular adaptations of Gothic to the Australian vernacular were slow to emerge. The Gothic style can therefore be regarded as a benign vehicle for English religious imperialism in the Australian colonies.
A ‘City on a Hill’
Authors: Roberts David Andrew
Published: August 2013

The Anglican Church Missionary Society’s Wellington Valley mission (1832–43) was one of the most ambitious and important religious experiments attempted in early nineteenth-century Australia. Located on the very western fringe of the British colony of New South Wales, amid the remains of an abandoned convict settlement, the mission provided the setting for competing assertions of status, authority and morality, played out in complex interactions between evangelists, Aborigines and British settlers/servants. This article explores those interactions through a particular focus on the built environment of the mission station. To contribute to our understanding of how the grand ideologies of evangelical Christianity played out and faltered on a local level, I argue that the material facilities occupied by the mission reflected and exaggerated many of the shortcomings and conundrums of the missionary agenda, and that infrastructural and spatial difficulties contributed markedly to its failure.
Tablighi Jama'at and the 'Remaking' of the Muslim
Authors: Ali Jan A.
Published: August 2013

The ‘remaking’ of the Muslim as an integral part of a global attempt at reviving Islam has emerged in the last three decades on the backs of movements of Islamic revivalism such as the Tablighi Jama‘at (Conveying the message of Islam Group) as an important sociological phenomenon. Generally speaking it is a response to the failures of modernity and involves protecting Muslims from threats to their faith and identity. This paper draws on Troeltsch’s Church-Sect theory to explore the remaking of the Muslim in the context of the Tablighi Jama‘at. It argues that the Tablighi Jama‘at is a sect which is underpinned by the process of the remaking of the Muslim. This involves inward struggle and self-purification of Tablighis through greater observance of Islamic practices and rituals.
An Imaginary Israel in Contemporary Germany
Authors: Faithful George
Published: August 2013

Built in Germany in the aftermath of World War II, Kanaan is the retreat center of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. They opened their Promised Land to outsiders in order to facilitate their collective witness. For the founders of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, Kanaan was a miracle and a refuge. For their spiritual daughters, it served as a reminder of Christ and of heaven. Yet former members of the group have seen the place as a prison, and guests might perceive it as anything from a source of spiritual sustenance to an evangelistic gimmick. Kanaan’s architecture and artistic representations of the Holy Land are provocative; whether they are persuasive is a matter for individuals to discern, as this reception analysis will demonstrate.
Gaia Pammetor, Maternal Love and the Construction of Female Divinity in Contemporary Paganism
Authors: Bittarello Maria Beatrice
Published: August 2013

This paper argues that diverging representations of Gaia can be found on Pagan websites. She is portrayed as divine ‘Mother of all’ the cosmos, as (divine) living being who feeds and contains us, and as loving Mother Goddess. Each representation is rooted, respectively, in ancient Greek myths, in Ecofeminist elaborations of Lovelock’s Gaia Theory, and in certain Christian representations of the Virgin Mary’s motherhood. This paper shows how the issue of the representation of Gaia is relevant to broader issues of contemporary representation of female divinity.
‘I’ve Got a Spirit Coming through Me’
Authors: Jennings Mark
Published: August 2013

The thesis that Pentecostal music and popular music share a similar emphasis on ecstatic trance experience is provocative, but until now there has been little in the way of a theoretical framework for comparing these phenomena. This paper begins with an explication of Mircea Eliade’s categories of hierophany and shamanism, both of which are useful descriptors of religious ecstatic phenomena. Eliade’s paradigms are then used to illuminate data gleaned from participant observation at an Australian Pentecostal church and excerpts from published interviews with Australian musician Xavier Rudd. This has implications for revealing the ‘proto-religious phenomena’ which are common to both religious and ‘secular’ musical contexts.
Gavin Hopps and Jane Stabler (eds.), Romanticism and Religion from William Cowper to Wallace Stevens.
Authors: Spurr Barry
Published: August 2013

Gavin Hopps and Jane Stabler (eds.), Romanticism and Religion from William Cowper to Wallace Stevens. Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington, 2006, x + 262 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0754655701 (pbk).
Emilio Platti, Islam, Friend or Foe? Translated from the revised Dutch by Brian Doyle.
Authors: Marcotte Roxanne D.
Published: August 2013

Emilio Platti, Islam, Friend or Foe? Translated from the revised Dutch by Brian Doyle, Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs 37, Peeters, Leuven, 2008, pp. 267, ISBN: 987-90-429-2056-9.
Steve Bruce, Fundamentalism.
Authors: Marcotte Roxanne D.
Published: August 2013

Steve Bruce, Fundamentalism. 2d ed., Key Concepts, Polity, Cambridge, 2008, pp.136, ISBN-13: 978-07456-4076-1 (pbk).
Japanese New Religions and the Internet
Authors: Baffelli Erica
Published: August 2013

Kofuku no Kagaku was founded in 1986 by Okawa Ryuho and it remains one of the most interesting of the Japanese new religious movements in terms of its use of media. However, until December 2004, the only official Japanese website of the group was that of its publishing house. This paper discusses why a group whose success was, from the beginning, connected to an extensive use of mass media decided to open its official website quite late in its lifespan, if we compare it to other religious groups in Japan. Their reluctance to use the Internet seems to be in contradiction with the media strategies of the group. This paper seeks to answer some crucial questions that arise from this contradiction. Could the delay in the creation of a website be related to the risk of members being exposed to online criticism? Is the lack of images of the leader on the Internet a consequence of a new image strategy?
A New Domain for Co-Workers of God
Authors: Fink Steven
Published: August 2013

Offering a seemingly endless array of options, the Internet has expanded the realm of Islamic belief and practice. This article adds to scholarly conversation on this topic, focusing on American Muslim use of Friday khutbahs, or sermons, on the Internet. A major goal of the article is to present data, gathered through Internet searching and through correspondence with American Muslims, regarding the prevalence and use of khutbahs on the Internet. The other major goal is to provide a conceptual framework from within the Islamic tradition to reflect on the data. Drawing upon the thought of Muhammad Iqbal, the argument will be made that Muslims who access khutbahs on the Internet instantiate their status as co-workers of God by taking control of sequential time for the sake of improving humankind.
Om-line Hinduism
Authors: Scheifinger Heinz
Published: August 2013

Dawson and Hennebry have speculated that disembedded online phenomena could be linked to the use of religion as a ‘cultural resource’ (Beckford 1992, 2000, 2001) and that this is likely to result in (unspecified) ‘consequences for the future form and function of religion’ (Dawson and Hennebry 2004: 166). In this article I demonstrate that images of Hindu gods and goddesses on the World Wide Web are not generally indicative of the use of Hinduism as a cultural resource. Despite this, I argue that the presence of images of Hindu deities online is a significant development within popular Hinduism. I recognise that darshan, a form of worship which involves a devotee gazing into a deity’s eyes in order to receive a blessing, is possible via a computer screen, but also reveal the limitations of this practice. I further argue though that online images are important because they have the potential to contribute to the universalisation of Hinduism.
Dave Evans and Dave Green(eds.), Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon: A Collection of Essays.
Authors: Cusack Carole
Published: August 2013

Dave Evans and Dave Green(eds.), Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon: A Collection of Essays, Hidden Publishing, 2009, pp. 227, ISBN: 978-0-9555237-5-5.
Luth Assyaukanie, Islam and the Secular State in Indonesia.
Authors: Marcotte Roxanne D,
Published: August 2013

Luth Assyaukanie, Islam and the Secular State in Indonesia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Publishing, Singapore, 2009, pp. xviii + 262, ISBN: 978-230-889-4 (hbk); ISBN 978-230-890-0 (pdf).
Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself.
Authors: Boer Roland
Published: August 2013

Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself. Fordham University Press, New York, 2005, pp. x + 149, ISBN: 0823225046 (hbk), ISBN 0823225038 (pbk).
Paul Reid-Bowen, Goddess as Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy.
Authors: Penicka-Smith Sarah
Published: August 2013

Paul Reid-Bowen, Goddess as Nature: Towards a Philosophical Thealogy. Ashgate, Hampshire, 2007, pp. viii + 200, ISBN: 9780754656272 (hbk).
Shahram Akbarzadeh (ed.), Challenging Identities: Muslim Women in Australia.
Authors: Marcotte Roxanne D.
Published: August 2013

Shahram Akbarzadeh (ed.),Challenging Identities: Muslim Women in Australia, foreword by Hanifa Deen, Islamic Studies Series 5, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2010, pp. vi + 196, ISBN: 9-780-522-857-153 (pbk), ISBN: 9-780-522-857-160 (pdf).
State of Unease
Authors: Hill Michael
Published: August 2013

The Singapore state’s changing policies towards religion have been based on the one hand on a series of perceived exigencies, and on the other on a sustained conviction that religion has an inherent capacity for social disruption. Two strains of religious extremism—associated with Islamic and Christian fundamentalism—have provided a continuing focus of state attention. Iconic events enmeshed in religion are constantly rehearsed as evidence for the need to exercise vigilant surveillance over the religious sphere. This article examines the construction of the problem, especially in the official media, and the range of intervention strategies adopted. Some of these strategies, it will be shown, have relevance for current debates about religious extremism in western societies.
Jeffrey Hadler, Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism.
Authors: Raquib Amana
Published: August 2013

Jeffrey Hadler, Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2008, pp. 211, ISBN 978-0-8014-4697-9 (Hbk). Available in Australia from Footprint Books.
Purushottama Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma (eds.), Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges, vol. 1.
Authors: McGarrity Andrew
Published: August 2013

Purushottama Bilimoria, Joseph Prabhu and Renuka Sharma (eds.), Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges, vol. 1. Ashgate, Hampshire and Burlington, 2007, pp. x + 431, ISBN 978-0-7546-3301-3 (Hbk).
Sarah Klitenic Wear and John Dillon, Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes.
Authors: Johnson Mark
Published: August 2013

Sarah Klitenic Wear and John Dillon, Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007, pp. x + 141, ISBN 978-0-7546-0385-6 (Hbk).
Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha, I Could Not Be a Christian.
Authors: Hedges Paul
Published: August 2013

Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha, I Could Not Be a Christian. Oneworld, Oxford, 2010, pp. 240 + xvii, ISBN 978-1-85168-673-5 (Pbk).
Religious Institutions and Political Order
Authors: Hassan Riaz
Published: August 2013

This paper examines the relationship between politics and religion in Muslim countries. Many western and Muslim scholars argue that Islam is not only a religion but also a blueprint for social order, and therefore encompasses all domains of life, including law and the state. After examining these and related issues, the paper reports empirical evidence, which shows that institutional configurations form an important factor in mediating and articulating the nature of the relationship between religion and politics in Muslim countries. Two types of configurations—undifferentiated and differentiated—are identified. Undifferentiated institutional configurations refer to social formations in which religion and the state are integrated. In contrast, differentiated institutional configurations refer to social formations in which religion and politics—by constitutional requirement or by tradition—occupy separate spaces. The empirical evidence discussed in the paper indicates that, in general, the trust placed in religious institutions and consequently their public influence is greater in Muslim countries with differentiated institutional configurations than in those with undifferentiated ones. The paper offers some theoretical underpinnings for this and other findings, and argues that undifferentiated Muslim societies tend to take on the characteristics of differentiated societies over time.
Violence, the Political and the Religious
Authors: McDonald Kevin
Published: August 2013

Contemporary terrorist violence associated with jihadi movements in Western Europe and North America has been largely explored within existing theories, either of cultural crisis and confrontation (clash of civilization), or as a manifestation of a new kind of cosmic, religious violence. Meanwhile some analysts, and the actors of this violence, frame it as a response to oppression and imbalance of power. This article explores martyrdom as a key dimension of contemporary jihadi violence, and proposes that rather than religious or political, such violence is better understood as an expression of the sublime, evident in the importance of structures of the hidden and the revealed and in its culture of excess and the extreme. This mode of experience helps understand key characteristics of jihadi actors in the West: the culture of conspiracy, practices of repetition, the personalisation of responsibility and the lack of capacity to engage with politics or the state.
George Mountford Adie and Joseph Azize, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia.
Authors: Cusack Carole
Published: August 2013

George Mountford Adie and Joseph Azize, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia. Lighthouse Editions Limited, Cambridge, 2007, pp. xix + 309, ISBN: 978-1-904998-02-0 (Pbk).
Current and Future Identity and Direction for the AASR
Authors: Tidswell Toni
Published: August 2013

The history and development of the AASR is well known to us, but we rarely take the time to consider if there is some distinctive core identity to our association. In this address I will pose some fundamental questions regarding identity: Do we have a core identity? Do we still have a sense of who we are and where it is that the association wants to go? And, can we maintain the diversity of membership, that we once recognised as a real strength, in our current circumstances where more and more of our members also belong to specialist academic groups based in distinct discipline areas?
Netpeace
Authors: Halafoff Anna
Published: August 2013

Multifaith initiatives have been increasingly implemented to counter global risks—such as terrorism and climate change—and advance common security in Western societies. This paper examines the rise of multifaith engagement in the twenty-first century, drawing on 42 semi-structured interviews with leading multifaith practitioners in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Building upon Brodeur’s (2005) typology, I identify four principal aims and six characteristics of the multifaith movement. In addition, I propose a new theoretical framework that I term netpeace, which recognises the interconnectedness of global problems and solutions and the capacity of multi-actor peacebuilding networks—including religious actors—to collaboratively overcome the most pressing risks of our times.
Using Communications Theory to Explore Emergent Organisation in Pagan Culture
Authors: Coco Angela
Published: August 2013

Pagan culture presents a paradoxical case to the traditional frameworks and methodologies social scientists have used to describe religious organisation. A key factor influencing Paganism’s emergence has been its adoption of online communications. Such communications provide a means of coordinating activities in and between networks accommodating diverse beliefs and practices and the ability to avoid overarching hierarchical organisation. These characteristics have led theorists to label Paganism as a postmodern religion, signalling the possibility of a different kind of social organisation from that evidenced in modern religions. Karaflogka (2003) distinguishes between two aspects of the move online, religion in cyberspace and religion on the Internet. While the Internet may be an online place for cybercovens and for performing cyber rituals, the analysis in this paper focuses on the interweaving of online and offline communicative practices. I suggest that communications theories, as outlined in Wenger’s ‘communities of practice’ model (1998) and Taylor and Van Every’s (2000) communications mapping, afford frameworks for exploring the inter-connectedness of online/offline interactions and a means of identifying emergent organisation in the Pagan movement. The analysis focuses on a particular feature of Pagan organisation, the accommodation of both group-oriented and solitary pagans.
Max Weber’s Ghosts
Authors: Marlin Demelza
Published: August 2013

This article re-evaluates sociologist Max Weber’s contributions to ongoing debates about secularisation. Weber is uniformly considered to be one of the founding authors of the secularisation thesis. However, a careful analysis of his use of the tropes of haunting, prophecy and the concept of ‘the gift’, in two of his most widely read texts—‘Science as Vocation’ and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—shows us that instead of affirming the decline of religion in modernity, Weber’s work actually attests to curious dependence between the spiritual and the material, the religious and the secular and the enchanted and disenchanted. This revelation is used to highlight some oversights in more recent scholarship on postmodern ‘re-enchantment’ and the ‘religious revitalisation’ of the postindustrial Western world. It argues that it is not only in postmodernity that evidence of the alliance between the enchanted and disenchanted can be found, but also in the ostensibly secular culture of modernity described by ‘founding fathers’ like Weber.
Satanic Tourism
Authors: Ezzy Douglas
Published: August 2013

This article argues that some Satanic theodicies used by Christians to explain experiences of suffering can also encourage young people to engage in Satanic tourism. Popular and religious explanations often blame Satan, and Satanic cults, for the rebellious behaviour of teenage Satanists. A number of sociological studies have suggested that Satanic symbols and imagery are secondary overlays and that poverty and social exclusion are the primary sources of adolescent Satanism. I argue that Satanic theodicies are a significant influence on the choice of some rebellious youth to engage in Satanic practices. The argument is illustrated with a long extract from an interview with a teenage Satanic tourist who experienced significant childhood trauma. This paper places a young woman’s Satanic tourism in the context of a more general analysis of theodicies of good and evil. It focuses on the use of Satanic symbols by the young woman and her family, and their role in her interpretation of, and response to, an experience of significant childhood suffering.
Lisa Isherwood and Kathleen McPhillips (eds.), Post-Christian Feminisms.
Authors: Penicka-Smith Sarah
Published: August 2013

Lisa Isherwood and Kathleen McPhillips (eds.), Post-Christian Feminisms. Ashgate, Hampshire, 2008, pp. ix + 243, ISBN 9780754653806 (Hbk).
Graham St John (ed.), Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance.
Authors: Norman Alex
Published: August 2013

Graham St John (ed.), Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance. New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2008, pp. 368, ISBN 978-1-84545-462-3 (Hbk).
Pier Luigi Luisi with Zara Houshmand, Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality.
Authors: May John D'Arcy
Published: August 2013

Pier Luigi Luisi with Zara Houshmand, Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality. Columbia University Press, New York, 2009, pp. 218, ISBN 978-0231145503 (Hbk).
The Perception of References to Disability in the Bible
Authors: Watts Graeme
Published: August 2013

Readers were invited to offer their perception of 42 brief extracts referring to disability drawn from the Bible. A total of 103 respondents, of whom approximately 20% had a permanent physical disability, completed this task. Overall, the responses indicated that only 39.3% of the selected extracts were regarded as projecting a favourable perception of the concept of disability. Respondents with a disability themselves reacted least favourably. Only mature age readers with a strong religious commitment responded against the general trend. The generally low level of favourable perception of these extracts relating to disability in the Bible suggests the need to exercise additional sensitivity in reference to such passages.
Realigning the Sacred and Secular among a Marginalised Population of Caravan Park Residents
Authors: Newton Janice
Published: August 2013

This article addresses calls for qualitative research into the realignment of the sacred and secular among contemporary Western individuals, as well as considering the signi?cance of the economic and social marginality of caravan-park living on this. The 50 Victorian residents interviewed did not exhibit the enhanced spirituality experienced globally among some poor communities. Rather, the sample would seem particularly secular, albeit softened by the persistence of Christian moral codes, and a continued belief in the ineffable. The small minority engaged in active Christian worship re?ected the contemporary juxtaposition of postmodern deep feeling and experiences that provide compensatory release, and modern commitment to con?rmatory structured ritual or life rules that give assurance. Involvement with New Age ideas appeared relatively super?cial. The majority of participants displayed a commitment to individual choice and subjectivisation, and some were engaged with identity-building projects that contained a spiritual element
Vedic Science and Modern Science
Authors: King Anna
Published: August 2013

This article raises questions about how non-Christian theologies, especially literalist or ‘fundamentalist’ types, respond to, and join in, the debate over modern science and religion. It focuses attention on the response of Indian religious traditions to one particular theme in the Western discourse on modernity and religion; namely, the notion of rational science as seemingly opposed to irrational religions, and ef?cacious technology as seemingly opposed to ineffective rituals. It presents the case study of ISKCON, a branch of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which makes use of these oppositions by classifying its own teachings as scienti?c, and by asserting that science and religion are ultimately reconcilable because true scienti?c knowledge can only come from religion. This strategy sustains its position as a universalist religion within a modern environment that appears to be hostile towards religion. This article explores why ISKCON in its public documents adopts largely confrontational attitudes to science and historical and archaeological scholarship, and why, while some of these texts claim to lay out the evidence fully and fairly, they are in general characterised by religious apologetic rather than reason and argument. It examines Prabhupada’s ‘scienti?c legacy’ in the form of ISKCON’s public and semi-of?cial pronouncements on history, culture and science, and considers the notion that any ethical or theological principle must be consistent with the natural world as we experience it.

Methodologically this article goes beyond what might be seen as the natural boundaries of religious studies by engaging vigorously with ISKCON’s public stance towards science. It might therefore seem that the author attempts to be theologically normative. However, the aim is not to press a particular (liberal) theological approach, but to clarify ISKCON’s position and to offer a critique. The article argues that ISKCON often con?ates science with scientism and that its representation of ‘Western science’ is ideologically motivated. ISKCON compares the restrictive and reductive effects of modern scienti?c paradigms with the harmony brought about by revealed Vedic science. However, this article asks whether ISKCON’s own literalist understanding of Vedic literature and culture is compatible with a positive evaluation of modern scienti?c achievements. The twenty-?rst century may need scienti?c solutions to a whole range of issues, from global warming to food security, and from ?ghting crime to developing new medicines. While ISKCON seeks to resacralise the world, it may do so at the cognitive cost of demoting reason and modern science.
Liberation Theology as a Postcolonial Critique of Theological Reason:
Authors: Irvine Andrew B.
Published: August 2013

The liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez has offered an effective postcolonial critique of the conditions of life of the Latin American poor, and of a theological method that legitimated them. The present article studies early writings of Gutiérrez that show his critique taking form. In the first instance, Gutiérrez argued, theological truth is not something beheld in philosophical theoria, but is rather a performance of agonistic practice. One may usefully abstract to theoretical expressions of the truth about divine matters; however, the abstractions are only useful if—indeed only true if— they play back upon that practice to effect greater freedom for the poor. So Gutiérrez drew upon and pointed toward a ‘new spirituality’—a theological and practical reorientation away from the spirit of a Eurocentric faith, enmeshed in the geopolitics of colonialism and neocolonialism under which most Latin Americans have suffered for centuries, toward the spirit in which the poor whom he served live. Eventually, in pursuing this reorientation himself, Gutiérrez became persuaded that methodology is not the primary mode of critique, and began a turn from conceiving theology as ‘critical reflection on practice’ to conceiving it as ‘thought about a mystery’. This study’s limited purpose is to understand Gutiérrez’ development to this pivotal moment.
The Autoethnographic Genre and Buddhist Studies: Reflections of a Postcolonial ‘Western Buddhist’ Convert
Authors: Ng Edwin
Published: August 2013

Is there a place for autoethnography in Buddhist Studies, particularly the emerging discourse described as Buddhist critical-constructive reflection? Predicated on a commitment to be always mindful of the colonial, Orientalist heritage of Buddhist Studies and the role of the subject in its own discourse, Buddhist critical-constructive reflection brings together the sacred and scholarly pursuits of the Buddhist practitioner-scholar to develop new interfaces between Buddhism, academia, and society. This article explores the possible contribution of autoethnography by sharing the autoethnographical reflections of the author, who despite growing up in Singapore where Buddhism forms a part of his ancestral, cultural heritage, only embraced it as a life-pursuit after discovering in Australia Western interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and practice.
Sikh Dharam and Postcolonialism: Hegel, Religion and Zizek
Authors: Bhogal Balbinder Singh
Published: August 2013

This article ponders what it would require to rethink Sikh dharam today, given the irreversible transformation that occurred from a (pre-colonial) sikhi to today’s (colonial/modern) Sikhism. Such reassessment is approached through the employment of a third term, sikhi(sm). This third term operates as a postcolonial strategy to foreground the legacy of powerful colonial inscriptions, and in doing so, this study aims to recall how (colonial) power continually affects the production of (modern) knowledge. The article therefore charts not only how Europeans created the modern, and now, ‘world religion’ called Sikhism, but how this mode of naming the other as religious through an abstract conceptualization of religion in general, derives from Hegel and his colonial era—an era where the manufacture of religion as a universal category is simultaneously understood as a racial one. Furthermore, Hegel’s way of confronting difference was through an intellectual/academic project of conceptualizing history as the evolution of religion, and that this way of conceptualizing the other married well with colonial adminstrators that sought to control their colonies. This intellectual project to name the other as being part of a religion and therefore of the past, along with its inherent colonial subjugation, has persisted up to the present—even evident in the critical theory of the Left (Žižek). The persistence of this coloniality in contemporary academic discourse is marked by a mode of enunciation that operates to keep the other at bay and relatively voiceless in their subjugated speech. This subjugation is achieved and maintained through a theory of translation-as-representation; where the difficulty of translation proper (as a real meeting of equals with their varied epistemic centers that are allowed mutually to affect each other) is substituted by one where a singular epistemic center is seen as authoritative, and interacts with the other through orientalist modes of representation only it itself fashions, revealing less a heterolingual dialogue and more a hegemonic monologue. After charting the colonial/modern context, the article then briefly sketches some of the key principles that are required to begin the figuration of a postcolonial sikhi(sm).
I See that from Both Sides Now: On the Intricate Relation between Dialogue and Conversion
Authors: Fridlund Patrik
Published: August 2013

There seems to be a double track in the relationship to the other. On the one hand, there is dialogue—an attitude of seeing the other as she is. On the other hand, we all seem to have some kind of worldview implying that My Way is the Best Way, at least in a certain respect—there seem to be certain points where I would like other people to see things in the same way as I do. I argue that these two seemingly opposite attitudes need not necessarily be connected to opposite values. No, both attitudes may be traced to similar ethical grounds. There is an ethic of dialogue, and there is an ethic of conversion, as it were. W.K. Clifford’s classical text ‘The Ethics of Belief’ is taken as a point of entry together with William James’s reply ‘The Will to Believe’. However, instead of picking up the traditional epistemological debate regarding Clifford and James, this article uses these texts in an argument that the relation between dialogue and conversion is an intricate one from an ethical point of view. Intricate indeed, as an ethical perspective is also related to theological standpoints and to views of religion in an interdependent fashion. Here Dorothée Sölle is given as an illustrative example.
The Persistence and Problem of Religion: Modernity, Continuity and Diversity
Authors: Pratt Douglas
Published: August 2013

Some fifty years ago scholars claimed the end of religion was nigh. Modernity and postmodernity presumed the eclipse of religion. However, religion persists, in diverse forms and expressions, yet not without some considerable problems. Why is religion so persistent? And what of contemporary problematic issues, such as extremism and terrorism, often associated with religion? In this exploratory article, which began life as the Presidential Lecture to the 2012 AASR conference, held in conjunction with the Australian Association for Buddhist Studies, I suggest some reasons that might help explain the persistence of religion, and I discuss the contemporary key problem of an adequate conceptual mechanism for coping with religious diversity. Continuity and diversity are twin features of religion that challenge the modern world. If modernity must contend with the persistence of religion, then contending with diversity is, perhaps, the chief religious issue underlying the problem of exclusivist extremism.
New Religious Movements in Vietnamese Media Discourse since 1986: A Critical Approach
Authors: Hoang Chung
Published: August 2013

Since they appeared, ‘New Religious Movements’ (NRMs) have not only been controversial in the academic realm but also negatively reported by mass media around the world. Journalists’ attitudes towards NRMs have been reflected in the language they use to report on them: stereotyping, bias, sensationalised and unbalanced descriptions and even misinformation feature in media coverage of these movements in Europe, the United States, Australia and China. Interestingly, these problems are also found in the Vietnamese media’s reporting of NRMs as the country’s economy, culture and politics have begun to be globalised. Using Norman Fairclough’s techniques in media critical discourse analysis, and following Sean McCloud’s theses for understanding media presentations of new religions, this article examines Vietnamese journalists’ approaches to and coverage of NRMs. Because NRMs still exist at least for the foreseeable future, I would argue that the Vietnamese media should change its attitudes towards them so that the audience will be effectively informed.
Why Do the Nations Rage? Boundaries of Canon and Community in a Muslim’s Rewriting of Psalm 2
Authors: Vishanoff David R.
Published: August 2013

Numerous Arabic manuscripts of the “Psalms of David” contain not the Biblical Psalms but Muslim compositions in the form of exhortations addressed by God to David. One rewritten version of Psalm 2 manipulates the form and content of the Biblical Psalms so as to highlight a conflict between the Christian and Muslim communities, and the incompatibility of their scriptural canons. Yet it also embraces the imagined idea of the Psalms of David, and incorporates elements of the Quran, ?ad?th, Islamic sermons, and Tales of the Prophets so as to highlight a division that cuts through both the Muslim and Christian communities, separating worldly believers from those who, like the shared figure of David, repent and pursue a life of otherworldly piety. This illustrates how sacred texts can serve as symbols of religious communities, especially in situations of conflict, and how apparently interreligious arguments can turn out to be intrareligious disputes. It shows how the content, form, and imagined identity of someone else’s sacred text can be used to manipulate the boundaries of textual canons and religious communities, and it demonstrates the need for both interreligious and intrareligious frames of reference in the comparative enterprise.
Researching "The Scripture of the Other": Niqula Ghabriyal's Researches of the Mujtahids and Rashid Rida's Rejoinder
Authors: Wood Simon A.
Published: August 2013

This paper discusses a Christian-Muslim debate taking place in Egypt early last century. It examines its protagonists’ deployment of scripture as they evaluated “the religion of the other” and upheld their own. The Christian protagonist is Niqula Ghabriyal, author of Abhath al-Mujtahidin fi al-Khilaf bayn al-Nasara wa al-Muslimin (Researches of the Mujtahids on Christian-Muslim Disputation), published in 1901. Ghabriyal deploys the Quran to uphold the veracity of the Bible and hence the soundness of Christian doctrine. In addition, he rebuts Muslim readings of biblical texts. Upon these bases, he calls for Muslim conversion to Christianity. His approach finds analogs in various missionary publications dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Muslim protagonist is Rashid Rida, who publicly challenged Christian critics of Islam. Beginning in 1901, Rida published a series of articles in his journal al-Manar in response to works critical of Islam, including Ghabriyal’s book. In 1905, Rida published sixteen articles as a separate book, Shubuhat al-Nasara wa Hujaj al-Islam (The Criticisms of the Christians and the Proofs of Islam). This paper examines the arguments developed by Ghabriyal and Rida as they sought to persuade Muslims of the merits of their views. The specification of the Muslim audience is pertinent. The debate was framed by a general notion of Western progress relative to Muslim backwardness. From the perspective of colonial administrators, Western evangelists, and like-minded Arab Christians, Islam was a barrier to progress. This was to be overcome, amongst other means, by conversion to Christianity, the call to which was often accompanied by discussions of Islam’s defects. These frequently draw on the Bible and Quran and, in Ghabriyal’s case, classical and modern Islamic scholarship. From this angle, the debate may appear to be a case of Christian proselytization met by Muslim resistance. Yet in Rida’s view there was something further at play. He felt that evangelism disingenuously if not hypocritically packaged a different agenda. Rather than Muslim conversion to Christianity, he felt that the ultimate Christian goal was to alienate Muslims from a general religious disposition. In resisting that, Rida would establish Islam’s rational character and contrast it with what he found to be the inherent irrationality of traditional Christian doctrine.
Scripture Wars: Contemporary Polemical Discourses of Bible Versus Quran on the Internet
Authors: Greifenhagen F. V.
Published: August 2013

This article argues that on-line polemical discourse between Muslims and Christians deserves not to be dismissed but rather careful examination and analysis. To this end, it engages in the process of describing, categorizing and characterizing online polemical sources dealing with the Quran and the Bible in relation to each other. After a brief consideration of the nature of polemic, and of the themes of past Muslim-Christian polemic, three particular cases are examined in some detail: the suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53, the quranic story of the angels prostrating to Adam, and the meanings of surah 112. In conclusion, some effects of the existence and use of on-line polemic on teaching and scholarship on the Bible and the Quran are considered.
Review Article: Mu?ammad is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet, by David S. Powers. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 376 pp., 7 illus. Hb $55.00/£36.00. ISBN-13: 9780812241785.
Authors: Saleh Walid A.
Published: August 2013

This review calls into question the entire premise of this work. The paleographic as well as the historical evidence presented by Powers does not hold under scrutiny. The author fails to consider the basic rules of paleography such as haplography as the most evident explanation for the mistake he sees in the Codex Arabe 328a. The total absence of historical context of early Islam is far more troubling aspect of this work. Islam is presented as a literary midrash on Rabbinic texts and not as an independent historically unfolding tradition. The tone of the book is also regrettable; condescending and at times dismissive of serious scholarship, the tone mars the value of this work.
East by Mid East: Studies in Cultural, Historical and Strategic Connectivities
Authors: Hoh Anchi , Wheeler Brannon
Published: August 2013

This volume provides a multi-disciplinary and trans-regional approach to the historical roots and continued development of ties between the Middle East and Asia, from Muslim-Confucian relations to nuclear technology exchange between China and Saudi Arabia. The papers are contributed by specialists who live, research, and have spent considerable time in the Middle East and Asia including institutions in Japan, Israel, China and Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Kuwait, Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, North Africa, Indonesia, Lebanon and Syria, India and Kashmir, Egypt, and Korea. The contributors include academics, policy makers and consultants, leaders in international business, law professionals, and military.

The goal of this edited volume is to reach out to the research, diplomatic, and commercial communities. The subjects are addressed to attract individuals and groups from academia, think-tanks, NGOs, members of Congress, the US government, the private sector, and those involved in the policy-making, strategic planning, and public diplomacy in the fields of transnational studies, across-cultural comparison, international relations, energy security, global Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, and terrorism.

The chapters in this volume are broadly divided into three main areas: (I) Cultural and Historical Connections (II) Transnational Allegiances and Local Culture in Asia, and (III) Strategic Relations between Asia and the Middle East.
Globalization, Modernity and Migration: The Changing Visage of Social Imagination
Authors: De Leon Espena Darlene Machell
Published: August 2013

In this article, I assert that the recent phenomenon of migration is one apparent and fundamental process that shapes human communities, transforming cultural variation, and distorts the constructs of distance and space. The boundaries of nation-states and identities are constantly being challenged, restructured and interrogated and the trends of modernity and globalization, new ways of projecting feelings and diffusing cultures among displaced communities are produced. The article looks for the new stories that are produced with this vibrant intersection of globalization, modernity and migration. In particular, I focus on the distinct Sikh migrant community in the Philippines: how they have evolved, how the forces of globalization have pervaded their lifestyle and how they have utilized the benefits of recent trends of modernity to survive life beyond India’s borders. I maintain that Sikh migrants choose to stay in the Philippines because they have produced a simulation of life in their home country albeit with perceptible deviations. This transplanted community utilized the benefits of globalization and modernity to modify the limited space they occupy to re-create their homeland and therefore India has been easier to “imagine,” “visualize” and “experience.”
Xinjiang as Portrayed in Qing’s Historical Gazetteers Housed at the Library of Congress
Authors: Hoh Anchi
Published: August 2013

The author argues that to study the relationship between China and the Middle East it is unavoidable to form an understanding of the Xinjiang region as a bridge between the regions. Focusing on the expansion of China control of Xinjiang and the bordering regions of Central Asia during the Qianlong period (1736-95) and the signification of these regions from the 18th century to the present, this article demonstrates the fervent relationship between East Asia and the Middle East. Due to current political considerations, many contemporary studies focus only on the more recent separatist movements in the region and Xinjiang’s possible ties to terrorism. Hoh shows that it is essential to delve into the historical roots and landscape for any meaningful assessment of contemporary politics and society. Moreover, in dealing with the current Chinese government on Xinjiang related issues, it is imperative to study the relevant historical documents in order to form a full understanding of the current Chinese thinking. As an attempt to bridge this gap, this article emphasizes on Xinjiang’s regional development during the Qing dynasty, as well as the Qing’s attitude toward Xinjiang’s bordering countries in the historical Chinese documents.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the Library of Congress.
An Emergent Trans-Asian Energy Nexus: Likely Costs and Possible Benefits
Authors: Piggott Leanne
Published: August 2013

In this article, I state that the IEA predicts that global energy usage will continue to increase over the next twenty years by as much as 45%, driven largely by the emerging economies of North and South Asia. This assessment is most pertinent in relation to oil, which currently accounts for the largest share of global energy use due to the oil dependence of the transport sector. I point out that the major supplier of oil to the global market, West Asia’s Arabian/Persian Gulf, is also experiencing relatively high energy consumption growth, and the Gulf states have thus found themselves confronted with the paradox of needing to develop alternative energy sources for their own domestic use while requiring the world’s traditional dependence on oil to continue so that they can maintain their export revenues. To the extent that alternative energy sources are developed, the commerciality of the oil reserves of supplier states is made less secure. The article explains how the growth in oil consumption has also raised questions about the medium to long-term security of supply for Asian oil-importing states which have invested substantially in supply contracts and in acquiring equity in upstream production in the Gulf. I examine both the potential threats and benefits that might arise from this emerging trans-Asian oil nexus including the increasing dependence by Asian oil importers on supplies from an inherently unstable region, and the pursuit of alternate technologies by

suppliers and consumers.