The Challenges of Pluralism: Locating Religion in a World of Diversity

This is a postprint (author's final draft) version of an article published in the journal Social Compass in 2010. The final version of this article may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0037768610362406 (login may be required). The version made available in OpenBU was supplied by the author.The author argues that religious pluralism is the normal state of affairs. Religion itself is multi-dimensional, and the several dimensions of religious and spiritual experience can be combined in myriad ways across individual lives. Preliminary findings from new research are presented, detailing modes of spiritual discourse that include mystery, majesty, meaning, moral compassion, and social connection. These dimensions find expression across multiple social institutions. In addition, religion is multi-traditional and organized by plural producers of the goods and services and events that embody and transform religious tradition. Finally, it is argued that religious pluralism must be studied in terms of the structures of power and privilege that allow some religious ideas to be given free voice, but limit the practice of other religious rituals or the gathering of dissident religious communities

Doing Good in American Communities: Congregations and Service Organizations Working Together

A Research Report from the "Organizing Religious Work Project," Hartford Institute for Religion Research Hartford Seminar

America’s Changing Religious and Cultural Landscape and its Implications for Theological Education

This article was provided to OpenBU by the author for open deposit. The publisher's copyright notice states: "Permission is hereby granted without charge for the reproduction and distribution of this work, or any of its parts, for educational purposes by the faculty or administration of member institutions of The Association of Theological Schools, provided that no fee or compensation is charged for copies, use of, or access to such information beyond the actual cost of reproduction or access, and that the copyright notice is included intact. Requests for permission for all other uses of any part of this work should be addressed to the author(s)."This essay explores the changes in American culture that have made the very notion of religious communities and religious leadership an increasing challenge. Gathering, sustaining, and leading a congregation requires different assumptions and skills than when ATS was founded. Despite the difficulties, however, religious communities are essential, both to the faith and spiritual lives of their participants and to the well-being of the communities in which they are located

Lived religion as an emerging field: an assessment of its contours and frontiers

Over the last three decades, lived religion has emerged as a distinct field of study, with an identifiable “canon” of originating sources. With this body of work reaching maturity, a critical assessment is in order. This study analyzes sixty-four journal articles published in English, since 1997, which have used either “lived religion” or “everyday religion” in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. We find that the field has largely been defined by what it excludes. It includes attention to laity, not clergy or elites; to practices rather than beliefs; to practices outside religious institutions rather than inside; and to individual agency and autonomy rather than collectivities or traditions. Substantively, the focus on practice has encompassed dimensions of embodiment, discourse and materiality; and I argue here that these substantive foci can form the analytical structure for expanding the domain of lived religion to include the traditions and institutions that have so far largely been excluded from study. In doing so, lived religion’s attention to gender, power, and previously-excluded voices must be maintained. But that task cannot be accomplished without continuing to expand the field beyond the still-limited geographic and religious terrain it has so far covered

From canopies to conversations: the continuing significance of "plausibility structures"

Among the most generative – but oft-misunderstood – ideas found in Peter Berger’s magisterial work is the idea that religions depend on plausibility structures. This assertion points toward the social worlds in which religious ideas and practices take on meaning. The most powerful situation for a religious system is one in which the entire taken-for-granted world falls under a sacred canopy. The fracturing of that canopy was at the heart of the theory of secularization Berger put forward. This chapter argues that no such comprehensive canopy is necessary for sustaining religious systems. We should instead examine the social interaction at the base of the plausibility structures, namely the conversations in which a sacred view of the world is sustained. Likewise, we must situate those conversations in the practical, embodied, and material experiences described as “lived religion.

Spiritual Narratives in Everyday Life: A Description of the Project

John Templeton Foundatio