Religious Literacy Resource Guide: Sociological and Historical Approaches
Textual Resources
Peace Be upon You by ISBN: 9781400043682Publication Date: 2007-02-27The story of conflict and confrontation between Islam and the West has become daily news, but throughout the ages Muslims, Christians, and Jews have shared more than enmity and war: there is also a rich and textured history of coexistence that has all but disappeared from our collective memory. In this timely and revealing book, Zachary Karabell traces the legacy of tolerance and cooperation from the advent of Islam to the present day. In an extraordinary narrative spanning fourteen centuries, Karabell introduces us to the court of the caliphs in Baghdad, where scholars of various faiths engaged in spirited debate. He evokes the wonders of medieval Spain, where Jewish sages, Muslim philosophers, and Christian monks together deciphered the meaning of God and the universe. He offers a portrait of the Crusades that goes beyond the rivalry of Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted, and shows how Christians and Muslims lived side by side. And he paints a vivid picture of religious autonomy in the Ottoman Empire. As he explores the growing tensions of the modern era, Karabell traces the rise of Arab nationalism, the redrawing of the Middle East map in the wake of World War I, and the increased hostilities following the creation of the state of Israel. Through it all, he reminds us that dialogue and friendship have always punctuated times of war and discord. Today, while some Muslims, Christians, and Jews engage in confrontation, others in Dubai, in Turkey, and around the globe find common ground. Remembering the legacy of coexistence and recognizing its prevalence even today is a vital ingredient to a more stable, secure world.
A Nation of Religions by ISBN: 080785770XPublication Date: 2006-09-25The United States has long been described as a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of religions in which Muslims and Methodists, Buddhists and Baptists live and work side by side. This book explores that nation of religions, focusing on how four recently arrived religious communities--Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs--are shaping and, in turn, shaped by American values. For a generation, scholars have been documenting how the landmark legislation that loosened immigration restrictions in 1965 catalyzed the development of the United States as "a nation of Buddhists, Confucianists, and Taoists, as well as Christians," as Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark put it. The contributors to this volume take U.S. religious diversity not as a proposition to be proved but as the truism it has become. Essays address not whether the United States is a Christian or a multireligious nation--clearly, it is both--but how religious diversity is changing the public values, rites, and institutions of the nation and how those values, rites, and institutions are affecting religions centuries old yet relatively new in America. This conversation makes an important contribution to the intensifying public debate about the appropriate role of religion in American politics and society.
America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity by ISBN: 0691119767Publication Date: 2005-07-25Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of other non-Western religions have become a significant presence in the United States in recent years. Yet many Americans continue to regard the United States as a Christian society. How are we adapting to the new diversity? Do we casually announce that we "respect" the faiths of non-Christians without understanding much about those faiths? Are we willing to do the hard work required to achieve genuine religious pluralism? Award-winning author Robert Wuthnow tackles these and other difficult questions surrounding religious diversity and does so with his characteristic rigor and style. America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity looks not only at how we have adapted to diversity in the past, but at the ways rank-and-file Americans, clergy, and other community leaders are responding today. Drawing from a new national survey and hundreds of in-depth qualitative interviews, this book is the first systematic effort to assess how well the nation is meeting the current challenges of religious and cultural diversity. The results, Wuthnow argues, are both encouraging and sobering--encouraging because most Americans do recognize the right of diverse groups to worship freely, but sobering because few Americans have bothered to learn much about religions other than their own or to engage in constructive interreligious dialogue. Wuthnow contends that responses to religious diversity are fundamentally deeper than polite discussions about civil liberties and tolerance would suggest. Rather, he writes, religious diversity strikes us at the very core of our personal and national theologies. Only by understanding this important dimension of our culture will we be able to move toward a more reflective approach to religious pluralism.
Journal Articles
- Abrahamson, M., & Carter, V. J. “Tolerance, Urbanism and Region.” American Sociological Review 51.2 (1986): 287-294.
This paper offers two sets of analogous hypotheses concerning the effects of city size and region upon people's tolerance. The results suggest that the effects of city size have declined. By contrast, the effects that can be uniquely attributed to region do not appear to have declined, and they almost always exceed the effects of city size.
- Borgonovi, F. “Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Religious Pluralism, Giving, and Volunteering.” American Sociological Review 73.1 (2008): 105–128.
This article examines to what extent religious context influences giving to religious causes and whether it has unintended spillover effects on giving for secular purposes. Results indicate that religious pluralism is directly associated with religious volunteering, increases in religious volunteering associated with a high level of religious pluralism do not displace secular volunteering, and there is not a relationship between the devoutness of a religious community and an individual's propensity to give for secular purposes.
- Brown, R. K., & Brown, R. E. “The Challenge of Religious Pluralism: The Association Between Interfaith Contact and Religious Pluralism.” Review of Religious Research 53.3 (2011): 323–340.
This research uncovers the relationship between interfaith contact and the willingness of white Christians to support the tenets of religious pluralism.
- Cadge, W. “Review: A Nation of Religions: The Politics of Pluralism in Multireligious America by Stephen Prothero.” American Journal of Sociology 113.3 (2007): 912–914.
- Chanley, V. “Commitment to Political Tolerance: Situational and Activity-Based Differences.” Political Behavior 16.3 (1994): 343–363.
Survey research on political tolerance has consistently found situational and activity-based differences in levels of support for the rights of political opposition. This paper finds that attitudinal tolerance tends to be less when the activity in question may affect a respondent's loved ones or home community, and that attitudinal tolerance is less in situations where greater threat is associated with the consequences of the activity in question.
- Merino, Stephen M. “Religious Diversity in a 'Christian Nation:' The Effects of Theological Exclusivity and Interreligious Contact on the Acceptance of Religious Diversity.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49.2 (2010): 231–246.
Americans’ responses to religious diversity are examined at the national and community levels. While an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that religious diversity has been good for the nation, support for the inclusion of non-Christians in community life is mixed. Theological exclusivism is consistently and strongly associated with negative attitudes toward religious diversity, while contact with Americans of other faiths is predictive of more positive views of religious diversity.
- Moore, L. M., & Ovadia, S. “Accounting for Spatial Variation in Tolerance: The Effects of Education and Religion.” Social Forces 84.4 (2006): 2205–2222.
This paper explains the variation of religious tolerance in the South and in urban areas by identifying demographic contextual factors that affect individuals tolerance levels.
- Olson, D. V., & Perl, P. “A Friend in Creed: Does the Religious Composition of Geographic Areas Affect the Religious Composition of a Person’s Close Friends?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50.3 (2011): 483–502.
Using data on the religious identity of close friends and information on the religious composition of counties, this study finds that despite tendencies toward religious homogeneity, the religious composition of the surrounding population has an effect on the ratio of respondents' same-religion friends to their friends belonging to specific other religious groups.
- Yancey, G. “Who Has Religious Prejudice? Differing Sources of Anti-Religious Animosity in the United States.” Review of Religious Research 52.2 (2010): 159–171.
This paper investigates whether animosity towards conservative social groups comes from similar sources as animosity towards progressive social groups.