Quagans: Fusing Quakerism with Contemporary Paganism

Quaker Pagans are a relatively new phenomenon. Since no detailed description of the spirituality of Quaker Pagans has yet been done, to make a modest beginning this paper situates Quaker Pagans within the contexts of British Quakerism and contemporary paganism. It extends Pink Dandelion\u27s concept of a \u27behavioural creed\u27 (1996) by arguing that Quaker Pagans have a \u27practical belief system and a performative theology, and outlines how Quaker Pagans hold together their dual religious identity. Building upon Peter Collins\u27 (2008) work on Quaker narratives, the paper looks particularly at the way in which Quaker Pagans utilise story and metaphor. Finally, it draws parallels between the emphasis on experiential seeking in both Quaker and Pagan ritual

Protestant women in the late Soviet era: gender, authority, and dissent

At the peak of the anti-religious campaigns under Nikita Khrushchev, communist propaganda depicted women believers as either naïve dupes, tricked by the clergy, or as depraved fanatics; the Protestant “sektantka” (female sectarian) was a particularly prominent folk-devil. In fact, as this article shows, women’s position within Protestant communities was far more complex than either of these mythical figures would have one believe. The authors explore four important, but contested, female roles: women as leaders of worship, particularly in remote congregations where female believers vastly outnumbered their male counterparts; women as unofficial prophetesses, primarily within Pentecostal groups; women as mothers, replenishing congregations through high birth rates and commitment to their children’s religious upbringing; and women as political actors in the defence of religious rights. Using a wide range of sources, which include reports written by state officials, articles in the church journal, letters from church members to their ecclesiastical leaders in Moscow, samizdat texts, and oral history accounts, the authors probe women’s relationship with authority, in terms of both the authority of the (male) ministry within the church, and the authority of the Soviet state

Alternative spiritualities: marginal and mainstream

introduction to alternative spiritualities (largely Paganisms and "New Age" or mind-body spirituality) in post-WWII period, and especially since 1960s. considering a range of theoretical issues and influences to and from these phenomena

Feminism and religion : a study of Christian feminists and goddess feminists in the UK

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular

Focusing on the important relationship between the 'sacred' and the 'secular', this book demonstrates that it is not paradoxical to think in terms of both secular and sacred or neither, in different times and places. International experts from a range of disciplinary perspectives draw on local, national, and international contexts to provide a fresh analytical approach to understanding these two contested poles. Exploring such phenomena at an individual, institutional, or theoretical level, each chapter contributes to the central message of the book - that the 'in between' is real, embodied and experienced every day and informs, and is informed by, intersecting social identities.Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular provides an essential resource for continued research into these concepts, challenging us to re-think where the boundaries of sacred and secular lie and what may lie between