Book Review: \u3ci\u3eHindu-Catholic Encounters in Goa: Religion, Colonialism, and Modernity\u3c/i\u3e

A book review of Hindu-Catholic Encounters in Goa: Religion, Colonialism, and Modernity, by Alexander Henn

The changing perspectives on three Muslim men on the question of saint worship over a 10-year period in Gujarat, western India

In many religious traditions, those who mediate relations between men and gods are often the focus of controversy and moral ambiguity. The ethnography in this paper outlines a number of perspectives on the role of such intermediaries (here ‘saints’) in Muslim society in western India. In the South Asian literature, historians have provided a thorough treatment of the doctrinal history and content of these debates. However, very little attention has been paid to how living individuals interpret and rehearse these debates in practice. The examination of the changing perspectives of three Muslim men on the question of saint worship over a ten-year period reveals the following. First, an individual’s relationship with ‘saints’ is often determined primarily by social context rather than simply by doctrinal allegiance or the compulsions of particular ‘beliefs’. Second, discourses of religious reform are also powerful social objects that can be used as political instruments for purposes other than simply refining the religious practices of a community. Finally, many commonplace assumptions in the literature – notably on the nature of belief and the significance of doctrinal divisions among Muslims – do not withstand ethnographic scrutiny

Reinventing the Russian monarchy in the 1550s: Ivan the Terrible, the dynasty, and the church

Reinventing the Russian Monarchy in the 1550s: Ivan the Terrible, the Dynasty, and the Church by Sergei Bogatyrev This article focuses on the political and cultural priorities of the Daniilovichi dynasty in the middle of the sixteenth century. In the late 1540s to 1550s Ivan IV faced two interrelated challenges: strengthening the prestige of the dynasty and securing succession for his heir. Using the relations with the Orthodox East, the court functionaries, apparently actively supported by Ivan, launched an ambitious dynastic project which was focused on the antiquity of the Muscovite dynasty, the confirmation of Ivan's title of tsar by the patriarch, and the commemoration of members of the dynasty in ancient ccntres of Orthodoxy. The 'Greek project' of Ivan the Terrible was a major step in turning the Muscovite monarchy into a dynastic state

The Latter-Day Saint Home as a Site of Religious Transition, 1890–1930

This thesis examines religion as practiced in the Latter-day Saint home during a period of religious transition between 1890 and 1930. Using the family of June A. Bushman and Hyrum Smith as subjects, we examine how families managed the religious reforms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during this period. As individuals who came of age at the turn of the twentieth century, June and Hyrum’s lives intersected with their church’s transition from an isolated religion to a modern, American church.Administrative modernization, priesthood reforms, reimagined family relationships, and other ecclesiastical changes came into tension with the everyday lived religion of Latter-day Saints. Against the emergent construct of the “ideal home,” this thesis reveals how the home functioned as a site of spiritual negotiation where religion is reconstructed to offer meaning and stability within a church in flux