ABSTRACT

What does religion mean to the individual? How are people religious and what do their beliefs, practices and identities mean to them? The individual's place within studies of religion has tended to be overlooked recently in favour of macro analyses. Religion and the Individual draws together authors from around the world to explore belief, practice and identity. Using original case studies and other work firmly placed in the empirical, contributors discuss what religious belief means to the individual. They examine how people embody what religion means to them through practice, considering the different meanings that people attach to religion and the social expressions of their personal understandings and the ways in which religion shapes how people see themselves in relation to others. This work is cross-cultural, with contributions from Asia, Europe and North America.

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

part I|58 pages

Belief

chapter One|12 pages

Cultural Intensification

A Theory for Religion

chapter Two|14 pages

Speaking Personally

Women Making Meaning through Subjectivised Belief 1

part II|62 pages

Practice

chapter Five|14 pages

New Paradigm Christianity and Commitment-formation

The Case of Hope Filipino (Singapore) 1

chapter Six|16 pages

A Peaceable Common

Gathered Wisdom from Exemplar Muslim and Christian Peacemakers 1

part III|72 pages

Identity

chapter Nine|16 pages

Development of the Religious Self

A Theoretical Foundation for Measuring Religious Identity

chapter Ten|14 pages

Accommodating the Individual and the Social, the Religious and the Secular

Modelling the Parameters of Discourse in ‘Religious' Contexts

chapter Eleven|12 pages

Religion and the Individual

A Socio-legal Perspective

chapter Twelve|14 pages

Freedom in Chains

Religion as Enabler and Constraint in the Lives of Gay Male Anglican Clergy 1