bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fraternal Orders, Disfranchisement, and the Institutional Growth of Black Religion
Authors: Giggie John M.
Published: January 2008

This chapter studies how Delta blacks expanded the organizational basis of their religion during the late 1800s by integrating dimensions of African American fraternal culture into their spiritual lives. Thousands of Delta black men joined the Masons, Odd Fellows, and Knights of Pythias in order to tap into their health and burial insurances, employment opportunities, social functions, and ritual life. The popularity of these secret societies, however, angered many churchgoers. Black women complained that fraternal orders represented a new black civic culture open only to men. Many clerics feared a loss of financial support and moral authority as their male congregants devoted much of their time and money to local fraternal orders. Conflict died down by 1900, though, as fraternal leaders openly stressed subservience to churches in spiritual matters and some lodges fell into financial ruin. But churches changed, too. In a bid to boost their popular appeal, churches began to incorporate the most salient and attractive features of fraternal life, such as life and burial insurance, while most women and preachers grudgingly accepted the role of lodges as a new and legitimate source of African American religious life.
Ritual in Japanese Zen Buddhism
Authors: Foulk T. Griffith
Published: January 2008

Chapter 1 summarizes the modern scholarly opinion that throughout its history, the Zen tradition rejected religious ritual as a legitimate means of carrying out its unique Buddhist mission, and subjects this view to a contemporary historical critique. The author's thesis is that modern Japanese Zen scholars constructed the anti‐ritual theme in Zen in order to make Zen more relevant to the modern age in the eyes of both the ruling elite in Meiji/Taisho Japan and Western intellectuals who tended to be dismissive of religious ritual. Pushed in this direction by their own historical circumstances, modern Zen scholars portrayed the entire Zen tradition as anti‐ritual in basic intent and practice in spite of the historical record that belies this view. The author proceeds to describe the history of Zen ritual and presents a catalog description of ritual activities that are practiced in contemporary Sōtō Zen.
Women and Dōgen: Rituals Actualizing Empowerment and Healing
Authors: Arai Paula K. R.
Published: January 2008

Chapter 6 engages in ethnographic study of rituals practiced by nuns in the contemporary Sōtō sect of Zen. Through surveys and interviews conducted among Sōtō nuns in the Nagoya area of Japan, Arai has articulated the ways in which two quite different rituals “shape, stretch, and define” the identity of participants. Both rituals—Anan Kōshiki and Jizō Nagashi—seek to evoke in participants an awareness of their own Buddha nature, and along with that, a strong sense of their own free agency and power. The central themes of these two rituals are gratitude and interrelatedness, and elements in these sacred ceremonies bring these qualities out in the experience of the women who participate in them. In addition, these themes are linked to Dōgen's own Zen teachings as a natural expression of his claims about the Buddha nature in all beings.
Nature's New Deal
Authors: Maher Neil M.
Published: January 2008

The Great Depression coincided with a wave of natural disasters, including the Dust Bowl and devastating floods along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Recovering from the calamities was a major goal of the New Deal. This book examines the history of one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's most successful experiments, the Civilian Conservation Corps, describing it as a turning point both in national politics and in the emergence of modern environmentalism. Indeed, Roosevelt addressed both the economic and environmental crises by putting Americans to work at conserving natural resources, through the Soil Conservation Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC created public landscapes—natural terrain altered by federal work projects—that helped environmentalism blossom after World War II. Millions of American devoted themselves to a new vision of conservation, one that went beyond the old model of simply maximizing the efficient use of natural resources, to include the promotion of human health through outdoor recreation, wilderness preservation, and ecological balance. And yet, as the book explores the rise and development of the CCC, it also shows how the critique of its campgrounds, picnic areas, hiking trails, and motor roads framed the debate over environmentalism to this day.
Celibacy in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism
Authors: Powers John
Published: January 2008

The historical Buddha insisted on celibacy for monks and nuns because suffering was caused by ignorant craving and because sexual relations encouraged attachment to the world. Both functioned as obstacles to mental concentration. Monastic rules helped one to comprehend the reason for the essential role of celibacy in the quest for liberation. Buddhist practice became more complex with later developments, such as Tibetan Buddhism, which witnessed some schools insisting on celibacy, while others allowed sexual intercourse within a ritualistic context for advanced practitioners, and other schools approved a married clergy.
A Social‐Cultural Analysis of Celibacy among the Yoruba
Authors: Olajubu Oyeronke
Published: January 2008

Practitioners of indigenous African religions do not view celibacy in a positive way because it upsets the social and religious order and the necessity to propagate the species. Celibate individuals are treated with contempt along with sterile people because they are unproductive. Among the Yoruba, celibacy is a matter of class and not religion, and celibacy is associated with the need for loyalty, trust, and protection of royal blood.
Abstinence, Balance, and Political Control in Mesoamerica
Authors: Gillespie Jeanne L.
Published: January 2008

Mesoamericans celebrated sexuality, which placed them in opposition to Catholic priests. The cultures manifested a connection between abstinence, purity, and uncleanliness caused by excess and imbalance due to a lack of sexual moderation.
“Pointless and Preventable”
Authors: Peters Shawn Francis
Published: January 2008

This chapter provides an overview of religion-based medical neglect of children, in which devout parents forego providing adequate medical care to their ailing sons and daughters because the doctrines of their religious faiths prohibit it. It outlines the pervasiveness of the phenomenon among members of particular Christian churches (including Christian Science) in the United States, describing in general terms how, since the late 19th century, it has resulted in numerous deaths and injuries to children. The chapter then details how these injuries have generated tangled legal conflicts – implicating such issues as religious liberty and children's rights – when prosecutors have filed criminal charges against parents who have chosen faith-healing practices over medicine. The chapter pays particular attention to how murky manslaughter and child neglect statutes have complicated such legal cases.
“Are Any among You Sick?”
Authors: Peters Shawn Francis
Published: January 2008

This chapter briefly surveys the history of Christian spiritual healing from the era of the apostles and early Christianity to the present day. It begins with a review of Christian scripture, with particular emphasis on New Testament passages that describe the spiritual healing practices of Christ and the apostles (and therefore serve as seminal texts for contemporary faith healers). The narrative then proceeds to examine the beliefs and practices of a wide array of Christian spiritual healers. Prominent figures examined in this survey of American spiritual healing practices include Charles Cullis, Albert Simpson, and John Alexander Dowie, the founder of the religious community of Zion City in Illinois. As a means of contemporizing the discussion of spiritual healing, this chapter also touches on the current explosion of popular books and scholarly studies touting the notion that, as it was put in the title of one recent volume, “prayer is good medicine.”
“The Horriblest Thing I Ever Saw”
Authors: Peters Shawn Francis
Published: January 2008

This chapter reviews relevant American religion-based medical-neglect cases from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when cases relating to faith healing and children began appearing in courts on this side of the Atlantic. A careful study of these prosecutions shows how American judges and juries tentatively followed the leads of their counterparts in England, endeavoring to develop coherent and consistent approaches to balancing protections for religious liberty against the state's duty to safeguard children's welfare. It also reveals how the maturation of medical science in the late 19th century created tensions between spiritual healers and a nascent professional establishment eager to regulate medical practice. Illustrative and noteworthy cases discussed in this chapter include those of John Alexander Dowie and Frank Sanford, who was the leader of a religious colony in Maine known as Shiloh.
“Nightmare Would Not Be Too Strong a Term”
Authors: Peters Shawn Francis
Published: January 2008

This chapter examines the spiritual healing practices of a Philadelphia church, the Faith Tabernacle, and reviews the numerous legal cases that have resulted from deaths of children in the faith. Close scrutiny is paid to Commonwealth v. Nixon (Pennsylvania), a case involving two Faith Tabernacle parents who were prosecuted for manslaughter after their teenage daughter died from untreated diabetes. Several other analogous cases are detailed, among them Commonwealth v. Heilman (Pennsylvania), in which authorities prosecuted two Faith Tabernacle parents after their son, a hemophiliac, received no medical treatment for a small cut and slowly bled to death. This chapter also examines an outbreak of measles that killed five Faith Tabernacle children in Philadelphia in 1991. Close scrutiny of the epidemic and the public health issues it raised leads to a discussion of how states might intervene to protect the health of children endangered by spiritual healing practices.
Muslims, Christians, and the Challenge of Interfaith Dialogue
Authors: Smith Jane I.
Published: January 2008

This book provides an overview and analysis of the recent history of Christian-Muslim dialogue in the United States, and the ways in which it has been furthered and enriched since September 11, 2001. Starting with a brief history of Christian-Muslim relations, the text deals with Islam in America, models of dialogue, problems that can occur in interfaith engagement, pluralism as it is understood by Christians and Muslims, and new avenues for dialogue. The specific examples cited suggest to the reader some of the kinds of cooperative events that are taking place, as well as the variety of thinking on the part of both Christians and Muslims as to what it means to be in dialogue and to take seriously the elements of faith held by the other.
The Legacy of Engagement
Authors: Smith Jane Idleman
Published: January 2008

For more than fourteen centuries Christians and Muslims have lived in proximity and in one way or another have interacted with each other. The responses of each community have been guided both religiously and practically. This chapter details the rise of Islam and the meaning of jihad, relations between Muslims and Christians from the beginning of Islam to the present, religious polemic, the Crusades, the importance of Jerusalem for both faiths, Muslim military advances into western territories and western missionary movements, and political colonialism in Muslim lands. Dialogue between Christians and Muslims cannot proceed in depth without an understanding of the history that has led to current preconceptions, tensions, and often misunderstandings.
Islam
Authors: Smith Jane Idleman
Published: January 2008

American Muslims comprise the most diverse Islamic community that has ever existed. They are immigrants and American born, with more than 30 percent of their population African Americans. Most are Sunni, though Shi̒ites have increased to about 20 percent. Some American Muslims hope to keep alive in their religious practices customs from their country of origin, while others are looking for ways to formulate an American Islam that is at home in the West. Most American Muslims are orthodox in belief and practice, although America fosters a wide range of heterodox movements that often claim to be Muslim. This chapter asks who American Muslims are, what are their major issues and concerns, and in what ways have they been involved in Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Evangelizing the South
Authors: Najar Monica
Published: January 2008

Although many refer to the American South as the “Bible Belt”, the region was not always characterized by a powerful religious culture. In the 17th century and early 18th century, religion was virtually absent from southern culture. The late 18th century and early 19th century, however, witnessed the astonishingly rapid rise of evangelical religion in the Upper South. Within just a few years, evangelicals had spread their beliefs and their fervor, gaining converts and building churches throughout Virginia and North Carolina and into the western regions. This book argues that early evangelicals successfully negotiated the various challenges of the 18th-century landscape by creating churches that functioned as civil as well as religious bodies. As the era experienced substantial rifts in the relationship between church and state, the disestablishment of colonial churches paved the way for new formulations of church-state relations. The evangelical churches were well-positioned to provide guidance in uncertain times, and their multiple functions allowed them to reshape many of the central elements of authority in southern society. They assisted in reformulating the lines between the “religious” and “secular” realms, with significant consequences for both religion and the emerging nation-state.
Conclusion
Authors: Najar Monica
Published: January 2008

This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. In the late 18th- and early 19th-century South, evangelical Baptist churches served as both religious and civil bodies. As religious bodies, they galvanized southerners as no church had previously, marking the transformation of the region into a profoundly evangelical society. Baptist churches also served as civil organizations, regulating marriages, supervising migrating individuals, monitoring prices, and arbitrating business, land, and interpersonal disputes. The demarcation of the province of churches and the province of secular authorities shaped not only physical spaces, but also legal codes and constructions of social authorities and power.
The Fragmented Self and Constrained Agency
Authors: Beste Jennifer Erin
Published: January 2008

This chapter brings into the conversation between trauma theory and theology a third conversation partner: feminist theory. It examines certain feminist conceptions of self and agency that differ from Rahner's theological anthropology. Since feminist theory has been concerned with ways that varied forms of oppression (a type of interpersonal harm) and violence against women impact women's sense of self and agency, it is important to explore whether feminists shed any light on the dynamics of traumatization and recovery from traumatic violence. Paying particular attention to Judith Butler's and Diana Meyers's accounts of the self and agency, this chapter identifies certain insights from feminist theory that resonate with the findings of trauma research.
Response to the Challenge
Authors: Beste Jennifer Erin
Published: January 2008

This chapter argues that the experiences of severely traumatized persons and the insights of feminist theory demonstrate Rahner's failure to acknowledge adequately the effects of relationality and embodiment for one's capacity to realize sufficient freedom to effect a fundamental option. Rahner's general construal of the relation between God's grace and human freedom is also insufficient when attempting to make sense of the workings of God's grace in the lives of trauma survivors. However, by incorporating insights of feminists and trauma theory and drawing on other aspects of Rahner's theology, it is possible to construct a more adequate Rahnerian theology of freedom and grace. A revised account must (1) acknowledge to a greater degree the power of sin against one's neighbor to disable that neighbor's freedom to respond to God's grace, and (2) articulate how God's grace is mediated through loving, interpersonal relations.
ON FEELING INSULTED
Authors: Neu Jerome
Published: January 2008

Starting with etymological issues, this chapter focuses on the relation of feeling insulted to anger and dejection, the contrast between intentional and unintentional insult, and issues of self-respect and self-esteem. Disappointed expectations of attention and respect can lead in extreme situations to moral insult when one's essential identity is undermined, as it may be by certain forms of profiling and discrimination.
THREE INSULT IN PLAY AND RITUAL
Authors: Neu Jerome
Published: January 2008

Modern rap battles are a continuation of the traditional dozens played by black male adolescents. Such insult rituals allow for the controlled expression of aggression and the defining of boundaries (between adolescents and their mothers as well as among peers). Still, there are limits, and what starts as playful insult sometimes crosses over into personal insult. The aggression is sometimes naked, as in Brazilian briga. Even looking at someone “the wrong way” can be a provocation in a world of macho honor. How we are looked at and how we are seen raise issues of who we are, of status and honor.
FIVE THE LANGUAGE OF ABUSE
Authors: Neu Jerome
Published: January 2008

Verbal dueling and imaginative vituperation can provide independent pleasure, as illustrated in Cyrano de Bergerac and by Shakespeare's rich exemplars and reflections on the practice of insults. There is a distinctive vocabulary of abuse, including profanities and vulgarities, but the precise meanings of the words (e.g. “macaca”) need not always be known in order for an insulting intention to be conveyed, manner is as important as matter. Words can also have a power that derives from their history and context of use. This raises issues of legal regulation, especially on the airwaves.
SIX INSULT IN THE LAW
Authors: Neu Jerome
Published: January 2008

Because speech can also be conduct, words deeds, the First Amendment cannot provide blanket protection for all offensive speech. This is especially true for what J.L. Austin calls “performative utterances.” We must try to be clear on the principles at stake‐‐as claims to freedom of speech meet claims of self‐defense and provocation‐‐as we seek to draw legal boundaries to control fighting words, obscenity, and hate speech.
Introduction
Authors: Lahr Angela M.
Published: January 2008

U.S. evangelicals in the Cold War were able to draw on an American apocalyptic narrative that included Native American, European, and African traditions. This chapter shows that premillennialism, as a part of that narrative, helped evangelicals make sense of a Cold War world. At the same time, evangelical eschatology shaped the way conservative Protestants defined time and history.
The Cuban Climax
Authors: Lahr Angela M.
Published: January 2008

Evangelicals in the United States held ambivalent, sometimes contradictory, attitudes about Castro's Cuba that revealed the multifarious influences on evangelical religious and political identity. The Cuban Missile Crisis temporarily homogenized the nation but opened up the potential for conflict between premillennialists and others, sharpening Cold War developments already in place.
Conclusion
Authors: Lahr Angela M.
Published: January 2008

The end of the Cold War did not diminish the influence of evangelicalism on American society. Evangelicals continued to draw on eschatological interpretations to shape their worldviews. The number of prophecy Web sites exploded in the late twentieth century, and born‐again Christians proved a profitable market for the popular Left Behind series. Speculation about evangelical influence on political institutions and local, state, and national elections persist into the 21st century. Yet the diverse evangelical frameworks that emerged after the Vietnam War make it clear that evangelicalism is not monolithic. Whatever the framework, though, American evangelicalism today was in part empowered by its demarginalization in the Cold War.
Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City
Authors: Vogt Katja Maria
Published: January 2008

The book is a comprehensive study of early Stoic political philosophy. It considers the conceptions of the cosmic city and the common law as central to the Stoics' theory, and discusses how these conceptions are integral to Stoic thought on reason, wisdom, and life in agreement with nature. Accordingly, the book devotes detailed attention to central areas of Stoic philosophy, such as the theory of affiliation (oikeiôsis), appropriate and perfect action, epistemology, and theology. The book discusses competing interpretations of Stoic cosmopolitanism, arguing that the ideal city of the early Stoics is the cosmos and thus is already in existence. All human beings live in the cosmic city, but only the wise and the gods are its citizens. The book devotes equal attention to the interpretation of the Stoics' conception of law. To live by the law, it is argued, is to live by nature, in a way which relies on understanding what is of value to human beings, rather than on following a set of rules. Against the view that early Stoic thought about these issues is best described as exploring an ideal for individual agents, the book argues that the Stoics are offering a theory which, while deeply connected with the core concerns of Stoic ethics, can be considered a genuine contribution to political philosophy.
3 Wisdom: Sages and Gods
Authors: Maria Vogt Katja
Published: January 2008

The ideal of wisdom—and citizenship in the cosmos—is explored in detail, both regarding ideal human agents and gods. The view that the sage is strictly omniscient is rejected; rather, the sage's knowledge is knowledge relevant to the leading of a lawful life. The reconstruction of the conception of citizen—gods leads into a core question of Stoic theology: how a plural conception of ‘gods’ fits into Stoic physics, which considers God (in the singular) the first principle. It is argued that the gods of the Stoics are portions of pneuma, and some of them are celestial bodies. The life of the gods exemplifies the Stoics' ideal of an easy flow of life: the planets are considered models of perfect deliberation, being—through their perfect action—fully integrated into the movements of the universe as a whole.
Introduction
Authors: Quinn Frederick
Published: January 2008

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the image of Islam in the West. It details the author's journey towards establishing the book's subject matter. It then considers whether East-West and Muslim-Christian relations have improved or worsened.
“The Time of Araby Has Come at Last” (1600–1800)
Authors: Quinn Frederick
Published: January 2008

This chapter discusses changes in European attitudes towards Islam from 1600 to 1800. Islam in France is discussed, translations of the Koran are examined and the chapter also gives a more detailed study of Islam. Other topics covered include English religious writings on Islam, English popular interest in the Middle East, the Barbary pirates, English drama and literature relating to Islam, Islam in Spanish and German literature, and Muslims in classical music and literature.
The Summing Up
Authors: Quinn Frederick
Published: January 2008

This chapter presents a summary of the discussions in the preceding chapters. The image of Islam in the West from the Middle Ages to the present contains four enduring elements: religiously, Muhammad was seen as either the Antichrist or a fallen Lucifer-like figure; personally, he was a flawed human being, unable or unwilling to contain his sexuality; politically, he was either a major leader who united the desert tribes or a greedy despot; he was viewed as an original source of wisdom of the East for some and the last and greatest prophet of divine revelation for others. In recent times, two aspects — violence and reciprocity — have come to characterize the dominant image of Islam in the West: violence in the widespread prevalence of targeted killings, riots, bombings, and warfare that have devastated parts of the world; reciprocity in that Islam is no longer the passive tableau on which Westerners fashion an image. The Western image of Islam has become the subject of constant modification based on sustained, complex, almost instantaneous global contact.
Bourgeouis Hinduism, or Faith of the Modern Vedantists
Authors: Hatcher Brian A.
Published: January 2008

In 1839, a group of Hindu elite gathered in Calcutta to share and propagate their faith in a non-idolatrous form of worship. The group, known as the Tattvabodhinī Sabhā, met weekly to worship and hear discourses from members on ways to promote a rational and morally responsible mode of worship. They called upon ancient sources of Hindu spirituality to guide them in developing a modern form of theism they referred to as “Vedanta”.This book situates the theology and moral vision set forth in these hitherto unknown discourses against the backdrop of religious and social change in early colonial Calcutta. In doing so, it demonstrates how the theology of the Tattvabodhinī Sabhā legitimated the worldly interests of Calcutta's emergent bourgeoisie. This “bourgeois Vedanta” sanctioned material prosperity while providing members with a means of spiritual fulfillment. The book includes the first ever complete, annotated translation of Sabhyadiger vaktṛtā, the earliest extant record of the Tattvabodhinī Sabhā. The translation is supplemented with an analysis of the text demonstrating that its twenty-one unsigned discourses were composed by such major figures in 19th-century Bengal as Debendranath Tagore, Inullvaracandra Vidyasagara, Inullvaracandra Gupta, and Aksayakumara Datta. The book explores a decisive moment in the construction of modern Vedanta, and comments on the concerns this Vedantic movement raised for contemporary Christian observers. It demonstrates the decisive role played by the Tattvabodhinī Sabhā in both reviving and reformulating the teachings of Rammohan Roy, the founder of Vedantic reform in colonial India. It also suggests that the earliest members of the Sabhā are best viewed as “Brhamos without Rammohan”. Only later would they look to Rammohan as their founding father.
Bourgeois Vedānta for the Bhadralok
Authors: Hatcher Brian A.
Published: January 2008

This chapter discusses the theological and social concerns that emerge from the discourses of Sabhyadiger vaktṛtā. The interpretation of Tattvabodhinī — viewed as the expression and legitimization of bourgeois interests — is not meant to be either definitive or exhaustive. It is principally meant to promote reflection on one fruitful way to understand the moral and spiritual values of the Sabhā as they intersect with the worldly concerns of its bhadralok members. While there is no evidence of a direct Christian response to the discourses of Sabhyadiger vaktṛtā, there is much evidence that the creation of the Tattvabodhinī Sabhā and its subsequent endeavors were to become a cause for a great deal of concern among Christians (missionaries and converts) in Calcutta.
A Necklace of Three Jewels for the Lord of Gods: The Mummaṇikkōvai
Authors: Hopkins Steven P.
Published: January 2008

A full translation of Venkatesha's Tamil prabandham, the Mummanikkovai, with detailed thematic afterword and notes. The afterword situates Venkatesha's Tamil poem in the history of classical Tamil Cankam poetry, particularly poems in the akam or “interior” mode of love, as well as in its models in the Tamil bhakti poetry of the Alvars, which mingle Cankam conventions of akam (“interior,” love) and puram (“exterior,” war) modes. Devotional themes treated include the theology of Shri or Tiru, the goddess, as the feminine power (shakti) and grace/mercy (arul); the uses of the evocative Tamil word for love, anpu; the conventional personae of Tamil poetry, heroine, mother, foster‐mother, and friend; and the significance of the Tamil words arul and inpam in Venkatesha's devotional poetics.
Fifty Verses for the Lord of Gods: The Devanāyakapañcāśat
Authors: Hopkins Steven P.
Published: January 2008

A full translation of Venkatesha's Sanskrit stotra, the Devanayakapanchashat, with detailed thematic afterword and notes. Chapter situates Venkatesha's stotra in the history of Sanskrit stotra literature, focusing on themes of recitation, a poetry of power, and the “fruits” of stotra composition and recitation in goals of prosperity, happiness, auspiciousness (kushalam), as expressed particularly in the concluding verses (phalashrutis) that describe manifold benefits (phalah) of reading, reciting, or studying the poem. The afterword also focuses detailed attention on a major literary motif of this poem and of the remaining poems in the volume, the ecstatic beholding of the beautiful body of Vishnu through the deployment of the anubhava, the step‐wise sequential description, using extravagant similes and metaphors, from foot‐to‐head or head‐to‐foot, of the body of god. Such devotional visions, comparable to the wasfs in the Hebrew Song of Songs, form the emotional center of gravity of the shrine poems to Devanayaka. Afterword ends with a return to the theme of radical surrender (prapatti) to the god and the vulnerability of love, helplessness, and the asymmetry of lover/beloved in Venkatesha's devotional poetics.
The Revolution on the Corner of Main and Hardy
Authors: Ruffin J. Rixey
Published: January 2008

William Bentley began his tenure as assistant pastor of the East Church in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1783, and immediately came into conflict with the much older senior pastor. But within two years, the senior pastor was gone, driven out by the church he had served for half a century. That minister, James Diman, was a Calvinist, but Bentley believed in a theology of salvation called Arminianism—in the benevolence of God and the possibility of salvation through moral behavior. The church's members picked Bentley's Arminianism over Diman's Calvinism. How and why they did so sheds light on the power of the sacraments (Communion and baptism) in New England Christianity, on the unique relationships in Congregationalism between members, parishioners, and pew proprietors, and on the liberating potential of the American Revolution, particularly in the economic power gained from privateering.
Economic Republicanism
Authors: Ruffin J. Rixey
Published: January 2008

Beginning in 1794, Bentley began to adopt the economic components of republicanism as well as the spiritual ones. In seeing merchants choose what he considered interest over commonwealth, Bentley for the first time was awakened to the economic side of republican ideology. Underscored by his unique embrace of Rousseau's theories of the state of nature and the origins of social inequality, Bentley's new republicanism was as much theological as it was social. In being willing to consider an allegorical reading of the Eden story from Genesis, Bentley could redefine original sin not as pride or envy but instead as self‐interest itself.
Seeing Dark Things
Authors: Sorensen Roy
Published: January 2008

If a spinning disk casts a round shadow does the shadow also spin? When the cave guide turns out the light so that you can experience the total blackness, are you seeing in the dark? Or are you merely failing to see anything (just like your blind companion)?

Seeing Dark Things uses visual riddles to explore our ability to see shadows, silhouettes, black ants, plus some things that are only metaphorically “dark” such as holes. These dark things are anomalies for the causal theory of perception: anything we see must be a cause of what we see. Roy Sorensen defends the causal theory of perception by treating absences as causes. With the help of fifty-nine figures, Sorensen proceeds bottom up from observation rather than top down from theory.

Shadows are metaphysical amphibians with one foot on terra firma of common sense and the other in the murky waters of nonbeing. Seeing Dark Things portrays the causal theory of perception's confrontation with the shadows as a triumph against alien attack. Lessons from the parried threat deepen a theory that resonates strongly with common sense and science. Thus the book is an unorthodox defense of an orthodox theory.
1 The Eclipse Riddle
Authors: Sorensen Roy
Published: January 2008

An observer is viewing a double eclipse of the sun. Traveling east is the heavenly body Far. Traveling west and nearer to him is the smaller body Near. Near is close enough to exactly compensate for its smaller size with respect to shadow formation. Near and Far look the same size from his vantage point. When Near falls exactly under the shadow of Far, it is as if one of these heavenly bodies had disappeared. Does the observer see Near or Far? The chapter's thesis is that the causal theory of perception correctly favors Far.
4 Spinning Shadows
Authors: Sorensen Roy
Published: January 2008

If a spinning sphere casts a shadow, does the shadow also spin? This riddle is the point of departure for an investigation into the nature of shadow movement. A general theory of motion will encompass all moving things, not just physical objects. The ultimate thesis is that round shadows do indeed spin. Shadows are followers of the objects that cast them. Parts of the shadow correspond to parts of the leader, so motion of the caster's parts accounts for motions of the shadow's parts. The chapter ends with a discussion of how the dynamic aspects of shadows impose subtle constraints on other puzzles about shadows.
11 Black and Blue
Authors: Sorensen Roy
Published: January 2008

Black has attracted commentary from a long list of philosophers: Empedocles, Aristotle, Goethe, Wittgenstein, and, more recently, C. L. Hardin and Jonathan Westphal. Color scientists have joined the discussion with a sufficient condition for being black: indiscriminate light absorption. This chapter denies that this is also a necessary condition. In particular, the blackness of shadows is defended. Emphasis is placed on the physical and metaphysical variety of black things: sunspots, black holes, light traps, and so on.
Zen Skin, Zen Marrow
Authors: Heine Steven
Published: January 2008

This book provides analyses of the many ways Japanese Zen Buddhism can be interpreted as either a cure‐all for the world's problems as stated by the Traditional Zen Narrative (TZN) view or whether Zen is a contradictory, self‐serving entity as offered by the Historical and Cultural Criticism (HCC) view. Through the concepts of Zen “writes, rites, and rights,” the book examines the character of Zen. “Zen writes” describes the contradiction that although Zen is traditionally considered to be an esoteric religion based on personal transmissions between monks, it has created an extraordinary amount of written literature. The chapter considers whether the voluminous literature is a strength or a weak point for Zen. In the debate of “Zen rites,” the critical view (HCC) points out the history of religious syncretism in Japan as a compromise by Zen to appeal to the general public by incorporating folk gods and rituals into monastic rites, while the traditional view maintains that there is a separation between the syncretic and the monastic sides of Zen. And finally, “Zen rights” deals with both the ethical benefits that Zen can provide in addition to the moral atrocities that Zen has committed in the past. Zen can be a powerful tool in environmental preservation and world peace, but has also been used to justify discrimination and extreme nationalism in Japan through the 20th century. The final chapter seeks to rectify the two views of TZN and HCC through an acknowledgment of both sides and a balanced recommendation for the future of Zen.
2 Desire
Authors: Wolfsdorf David
Published: January 2008

This chapter explains how arguments in Meno, Protagoras, and Lysis present a coherent conception of desire. Furthermore, it is argued that the much discussed passage at Gorgias 466–68 is hermeneutically insignificant for the early dialogues' conception of desire. Finally, the chapter examines salient forms of antiphilosophical desire among the texts: philotimia (love of honor) and philhêdonia (love of pleasure).
4 Method
Authors: Wolfsdorf David
Published: January 2008

“Method” argues against the common view of the Socratic elenchus as adversarial and critical and maintains that Socrates’ contribution in argumentation is largely constructive and cooperative. Further, the method eks hupotheseôs, introduced at Meno 87–88, is not a hypothetical method and does not supplant any earlier method. On the other hand, the epistemological foundations of Socratic method in the early dialogues are inadequately theorized and unstable, especially the epistemological priority of definitional knowledge.
5 Aporia
Authors: Wolfsdorf David
Published: January 2008

“Aporia” distinguishes two form of aporia among the early dialogues, epistemic, which occurs in all the texts, and dramatic, which occurs only in some. It is argued that the occurrence of dramatic aporia in select dialogues reflects the theme of the difficulty of realizing philosophy as a rational discursive enterprise within a political community of antiphilosophical attitudes.
Causation in Physics
Authors: Schmaltz Tad M.
Published: January 2008

This chapter concerns the treatment in Descartes's physics of body-body interaction. There is an extended argument against an occasionalist reading of his physics, on which God is the only real cause of changes in motion due to collision. The alternative view here is that Descartes offers a “conservationist” physics on which God's contribution to such changes is restricted to a “concursus” that consists simply in the continued creation of a constant total quantity of motion. Local changes in that motion are to be explained by appeal not to this concursus but rather to the features of bodies that correspond to the “forces” that Descartes posits in his physics.
CHAPTER 4 The Spectre of “Divide and Conquer”
Authors: Wall Wendy L.
Published: January 2008

The entry of the U.S. into the war brought the federal government fully into the act of promoting national cohesion, and produced an infrastructure of institutions devoted to publicly defining for Americans their common ground. During the war, groups and individuals across the political spectrum warned of the Nazi tactic of “divide and conquer,” and promoted cooperation among subgroups in American society. Beneath this broad canopy of consensus, however, sharp ideological differences remained. This chapter explores the different visions of America offered by anti-fascists and by those who portrayed America’s enemy as totalitarianisms of both right and left. It then considers the implications of the emphasis on national unity for labor and business. The CIO largely abandoned its militant idiom during the war, and business groups too increasingly moderated their tone. Led by Chamber of Commerce president Eric Johnston, business moderates urged Americans to embrace the politics of consensus and argued that all would benefit from a harmonious and productive society in which business rather than government took the lead.
Turning Swiss
Authors: Collins David J.
Published: January 2008

Chapter four examines how the Swiss began to transform the fifteenth‐century peasant‐turned‐recluse Nicholas of Flue into a patron saint for their slowly forming Swiss homeland. Nicholas became an exemplar of Swiss character that retained its appeal even as confessional divisions between Catholic and Reformed Christians hardened through the sixteenth century. This chapter reads the humanist compositions about Nicholas of Flue as an indicator of how the cities and regions making up the Swiss Confederation increasingly thought of themselves as a unified community and of how Nicholas posthumously could attenuate the religious, political, and social tensions across the Confederation that threatened its unity. In short, the case of Nicholas shows how saints could be turned into civic patrons in a new humanist mode.
Conclusion
Authors: Collins David J.
Published: January 2008

The Conclusion investigates lines of continuity between the humanist hagiography and what precedes and follows it, especially in light of the Protestant Reformation. The chapter identifies two ways – the polemical and the critical – that later Catholic authors used and transformed the hagiographical legacy to which the early German humanists had made a substantial contribution. Counter‐Reformation authors such as George Witzel and Peter Canisius mastered a polemical use of hagiography to persuade readers away from the Protestant Reformers and instead towards renewed Catholicism. “Critical hagiographers,” in contrast, developed philological rules with which to evaluate the written traces of ancient and medieval Christianity's saints. These include Laurentius Surius and the Bollandists. This chapter illuminates the variety of ways that these later figures relied on and transformed the work of the early German humanists.
Reverence for Life
Authors: Barsam Ara Paul
Published: January 2008

Albert Schweitzer maintained that the idea of “Reverence for Life” came upon him on the Ogowe River as an “unexpected discovery, like a revelation in the midst of intense thought.” While Schweitzer made numerous significant contributions to an incredible diversity of fields —medicine, music, biblical studies, philosophy and theology — he regarded Reverence for Life as his greatest contribution and the one by which he most wanted to be remembered. Yet this concept has been the subject of a range of distortions and misunderstandings, both academic and popular. This book provides a new interpretation of Schweitzer's reverence and shows how it emerged from his studies of German philosophy, Indian religions, and his biblical scholarship on Jesus and Paul. By throwing light on the origin and development of Schweitzer's thought, we are led to a closer appreciation of the contribution that reverence makes to current ethical concerns. Life‐centered ethics — in the broadest sense — has continued to flourish, though Schweitzer's pioneering contribution is often overlooked. Not only did he help put the issue on the moral agenda, but, most significantly, he also provided much sought after philosophical and theological foundations. Schweitzer emerges from this critical study of his life and thought as a remarkable individual who should rightfully be regarded as a moral giant of the 20th‐century.
Conversations across a Doorway
Authors: Barsam Ara Paul
Published: January 2008

Engaging with reverence, far from being a peripheral subject, requires us to grapple with some frontline issues in theology and ethics. Few theologians have provided detailed analyses of Schweitzer's work. But of these, two major theologians of the twentieth‐century, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, have both lauded and criticized reverence for life. Their comments and objections to his “ethical mysticism” are addressed in Chapter Two. While critical, both support his concern for the lack of attention shown to non‐human species in ethical discourse, and even adopt some of these insights. Especially telling is Barth's engagement with reverence: his discussion of the “command of life” presents in theological terms some of the key concepts which Schweitzer masked in philosophical terminology, and thereby bringing Schweitzer out of the margins to the center of theology.
The Quest Goes On
Authors: Barsam Ara Paul
Published: January 2008

In the last chapter we confront directly the challenges which Schweitzer's ethic poses to contemporary theology and ethics. Chief among these are the mystical apprehension of the value of life itself; seeing one's attitude to life as a touchstone of ethics; and sensitivity to suffering life. What we learn from Schweitzer's concept is that the very notion of reverence cannot stand alone; the recognition of the value of life is almost wholly dependent on other philosophical and specifically religious presuppositions. It is the mystical apprehension of the value of life that lies at the core of Schweitzer's moment on the Ogowe River as well as his own life testimony.
Across the Boundaries
Authors: Steel Daniel
Published: January 2008

The biological and social sciences often generalize causal conclusions from one context to others that may differ in some relevant respects, as is illustrated by inferences from animal models to humans or from a pilot study to a broader population. Inferences like these are known as extrapolations. How and when extrapolation can be legitimate is a fundamental question for the biological and social sciences that has not received the attention it deserves. This book argues that previous accounts of extrapolation are inadequate and proposes a better approach that is able to answer methodological critiques of extrapolation from animal models to humans.
1 Extrapolation and Heterogeneity
Authors: Steel Daniel P.
Published: January 2008

This chapter introduces the general methodological challenges that confront extrapolation in the biological and social sciences, and sketches the outlines of the mechanisms approach to those challenges that is developed in the rest of the book.
3 Causal Structure and Mechanisms
Authors: Steel Daniel P.
Published: January 2008

This chapter explicates the connection between the qualitative concept of a mechanism and the probabilistic causal concepts described in the previous chapter. The main thesis is that, for a broad range of cases of interest to the present study, it is reasonable to identify mechanisms with what is called causal structure in work on the problem of inferring causal conclusions from statistical data.
Social Mechanisms and Process Tracing
Authors: Steel Daniel P.
Published: January 2008

This chapter examines how mechanisms can be discovered in the social sciences. Process tracing is sometimes put forward as a procedure for discovering mechanisms and contrasted with inferring causal inference from statistical data. Chapter 9 argues that the correct contrast with process tracing is not causal inference and provides an account of how these two modes of inference are related.
Looking Back and Ahead
Authors: Steel Daniel P.
Published: January 2008

This chapter summarizes those that went before and ends by sketching some open questions.
Conversion to Piety
Authors: Baer Marc David
Published: January 2008

This chapter explores several of the major themes of the book, including why people attempt to bring others of the same religion to their understanding of that religion (the motivation of Vani Mehmed Efendi), the link between piety and proselytization, and the significance of the advocate or mediator of conversion. It focuses on the changed religious scene in the 1660s following the fire and Islamization in Istanbul and the appointment of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha as grand vizier. The crucial individual is Vani Mehmed Efendi, a preacher who became closer to the dynasty and administration and more influential than the previous Kadızadeli leaders Kadızade Mehmed Efendi and Üstüvani Mehmed Efendi. This advocate of a reformed Islam free of innovations and Sufi accretions — who compelled the enjoining of good and forbidding of wrong in Istanbul by attacking Sufis and dissenters, ending the trade in wine and spirits, and razing taverns — mediated the conversion of the valide sultan, grand vizier, and sultan to his way of Islam through charismatic preaching.