Leif-Hagen Seibert carries out a three-step praxeological analysis of empirical data from field studies in the research project “The ethos of religious peace builders” that allows for novel assessments of societal conjuncture (field theory), subjective meaning (habitus analysis), and the mutual ‘rules of engagement’ of religious practice (the religious nomos). Over the course of this three-step argument, the sociological concept of religious credibility – i.e. the determinants of religious legitimacy – gains more and more contours and facilitates the reevaluation of risks and chances in a peace process where religion is a vector for both peace and division.

Interreligious Dialogue: From Religion to Geopolitics discusses how interreligious dialogue takes place within, and is influenced by, important sociological categories and theories, such as modernity, secularization, deprivatization, social movements, and pluralism. Starting from the study of interreligious coexistence, sacred spaces, and multi-religious rituals, the book explores the patterns of interreligious governance and politics and forms of interreligious social action in European, North American, and West and South Asian contexts. The contributors to this volume apply broader theories of organizational change and planning, communication, urban neighborhood and community studies, functionalist perspectives, and symbolic interactionism, thus presenting a wide range of possibilities for sociological engagement with studies on interreligious dialogue.

Discursive approaches to the study of religion have received a lot of attention recently. Making Religion brings together leading theorists in the field who explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of the analysis of religious discourse. The volume provides an overview of current debates in the field, extends and improves upon contemporary theories and methodologies, and contributes to the discipline more broadly by flagging the importance of this emerging field of research. The combination of theoretical reflection and practical application of discourse analysis as a tool to study religion opens up new perspectives for future research. Contributors are: Helge Årsheim, Stephanie Garling, Adrian Hermann, Titus Hjelm, Mitsutoshi Horii, George Ioannides, Jay Johnston, Reiner Keller, Jens Köhrsen, Marcus Moberg, Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer, Leif-Hagen Seibert, Adrián Tovar Simoncic, Kocku von Stuckrad, Teemu Taira, and Frans Wijsen.

This interdisciplinary volume examines intersecting journeys of women from around the globe on their pilgrimages to peace. It consists of twelve chapters that discuss theoretical and practical issues related to the study of peace. The focus of this volume is the successful movement from war to building peace through nonviolent means. It is a study of how and why contemporary tactics of a nonviolent approach have proved effective. International scholars from Ukraine, India, Lebanon, and the US, amongst others, explore the ways in which journeys towards peace have evolved amid the twenty-first century’s growing social changes in their respective countries. This collection will provide a valuable resource for those researching and practising peace and conflict resolution studies, sociology, comparative cultural studies, history, and international development studies.

The Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu examines the legacy of one of the most influential social thinkers of the last half-century. Taken together, these writings offer a comprehensive overview of Bourdieu's biography, his main theoretical ideas, and his ongoing influence on the social sciences.

Who is Jesus? What did he do? What did he say? -Are the traditional answer to these questions still to be trusted? - Did the early church and tradition "Christianize" Jesus? - Was Christianity built on clever conceptions of the church, or on the character and actions of an actual person? These and similar questions have come under scrutiny by a forum of biblical scholars called the Jesus Seminar. Their conclusions have been widely publicized in magazines such as Time and Newsweek. Jesus Under Fire challenges the methodology and findings of the Jesus Seminar, which generally clash with the biblical records. It examines the authenticity of the words, actions, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, and presents compelling evidence for the traditional biblical teachings. Combining accessibility with scholarly depth, Jesus Under Fire helps readers judge for themselves whether the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus of history, and whether the gospels' claim is valid that he is the only way to God.

Starting from the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Schäfer composes a methodical approach to habitus of social actors and the logic of their praxis: Building upon the generative terms of praxeology, he focuses on identity and strategy in processes of internalization, their transformation by means of dispositional schemes, and their externalization in action. The emphasis lies on a theory of dispositions that allows a flexible understanding of identity and strategy formation in the context of social experience and the interplay with social structures. This theory is developed over the course of a three-step analysis on habitus as a network of dispositions, on the dynamics that unfold between the logic of socio-structural processes and practical logic, and on the praxeological assessment of social structures via models of fields and the social space.This book is the second of three volumes of HabitusAnalysis. While the first volume deals with the epistemological underpinnings of praxeology, this book advances Bourdieu's theory with a special focus on creativity of action in the context of social structures, thereby preparing the methodological design of empirical models in the third volume.

This book is the first of three volumes of HabitusAnalysis that take the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu as a starting point to develop a methodical approach to the habitus of social actors. However, the concept of habitus and Bourdieu’s approach to language are somewhat disputed while his relationist epistemology is seldom paid tribute to. The present volume therefore in its first part deals with Bourdieu’s roots in relationist Neo-Kantian philosophy, the basic traits of his relationist sociology. The second part examines Bourdieu’s theoretical and empirical work on language before elaborating its own praxeological concept of language use that opens the road to a methodically and theoretically sound reconstruction of the habitus of social actors. In the second volume of HabitusAnalysis we will carefully re-read Bourdieu’s theory in order to develop a disposition-based theory of the habitus that emphasizes the creative potential of the linkage between mental orientations and socio-structural processes, classification and classes, as well as dispositions and positions. The method presented in the third volume will facilitate a detailed empirical analysis of the creative transformations operated by the habitus in relation with the social structures of domination and the dynamics of social differentiation.

This book presents the first full-length study of the relationship between religion and the controversial concept of civil society. Across the world in the last two decades of the twentieth century religions re-entered public space as influential discursive and symbolic systems apparently beyond the control of either traditional religious authorising institutions or states. This differentiation of religion from traditional institutions and entry into secular public spheres carries both dangers and possible benefits for democracy. Offering a fresh interdisciplinary approach to understanding religion in contemporary societies, this book provides an invaluable resource for students and researchers in religious studies, sociology, politics and political philosophy, theology, international relations and legal studies. Part one presents a critical introduction to the interaction between religion, modernization and postmodernization in Western and non-Western settings (America, Europe, the Middle East and India), focussing on discourses of human rights, civil society and the public sphere, and the controversial question of their cross-cultural application. Part two examines religion and civil society through case studies of Egypt, Bosnia and Muslim minorities in Britain, and compares Poland as an example of a Christian majority society that has experienced the public reassertion of religion.

God Never ChangesOr does he? God has been getting a makeover of late, a "reinvention" that has incited debate and troubled scholars and laypeople alike. Modern theological sectors as diverse as radical feminism and the new “open theism” movement are attacking the classical Christian view of God and vigorously promoting their own images of Divinity.God Under Fire refutes the claim that major attributes of the God of historic Christianity are false and outdated. This book responds to some increasingly popular alternate theologies and the ways in which they cast classical Christian theism in a negative light. Featuring an impressive cast of world-class biblical scholars, philosophers, and apologists, God Under Fire begins by addressing the question, “Should the God of Historic Christianity Be Replaced?” From there, it explores issues as old as time and as new as the inquest into the “openness of God.” How, for instance, does God risk, relate, emote, and change? Does he do these things, and if so, why? These and other questions are investigated with clarity, bringing serious scholarship into popular reach.Above all, this collection of essays focuses on the nature of God as presented in the Scriptures and as Christians have believed for centuries. God Under Fire builds a solid and appealing case for the God of classical Christian theism, who in recent years—as through the centuries—has been the God under fire.