Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Mohammadi, “Political Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Shi’i Ideologies in Islamist Discourse”

In July, the I.B. Tauris International Library of Iranian Studies will release “Political Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Shi’i Ideologies in Islamist Discourse,” by Majid Mohammadi (Stony Brook University). The publisher’s description follows:

The relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Western World is fraught with challenges and tensions. In order to generate the capacity for greater engagement and dialogue, there is a need for the West to better understand the complex ideological developments that are central to Iran. Majid Mohammadi charts the central concepts and nuances of the ideological map of post-revolutionary Iran, and examines the rise and development of Shi’i Islamism. He recognizes that the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iranian political discourse are the outcome of contesting perspectives and ideologies: identity-oriented, socialist, nationalist, authoritarian, Shari’a, scripturalist, mystical, militarist and fascist. This is a comprehensive, comparative contribution to one of today’s most important topics: that of the relationship between Political Islam and the West.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Stoll, “Inherit the Holy Mountain”

In May, the Oxford University Press released “Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism,” by Mark Stoll (Texas Tech University). The publisher’s description follows: 

In Inherit the Holy Mountain, historian Mark Stoll introduces us to the religious roots of the American environmental movement. Religion, he shows, provided environmentalists both with deeply-embedded moral and cultural ways of viewing the world and with content, direction, and tone for the causes they espoused.

Stoll discovers that specific denominational origins corresponded with characteristic sets of ideas about nature and the environment as well as distinctive aesthetic reactions to nature, as can be seen in key works of art analyzed throughout the book.

Stoll also provides insight into the possible future of environmentalism in the United States, concluding with an examination of the current religious scene and what it portends for the future. By debunking the supposed divide between religion and American environmentalism, Inherit the Holy Mountain opens up a fundamentally new narrative in environmental studies.

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“Religion at the European Parliament” (Foret, ed.)

In July, Rutledge will release “Religion at the European Parliament” edited by François Foret (Université Libre de Bruxelles-ULB). The publisher’s description follows:

The interactions between religion and politics in the European integration process are the focus of increasing attention in political and academic debates. However the body of research that has been developing for several years relates mainly to the representation of religious interests at the European Commission. The influence of religious actors and networks within the European Parliament give rise to many suppositions, ambitions or fears, but there is nothing tangible with which to evaluate them. Studying the preferences of European legislators reveals the conditions in which religion exerts an influence.

This analysis also aims to provide useful information on the socialisation capacities of the European Parliament vis-à-vis its members by focusing on an aspect of the normative orientations of MEPs that has been the subject of very little study to date. Furthermore, the denominational dimension is a particularly key factor in understanding partisan formations in the European Parliament and possible divisions between old and new Member States. Finally, the religious variable provides an opportunity to investigate the way in coalitions are formed, particularly in relation to those matters that continue to move higher up the EU agenda (the fight against discrimination; ethical issues; geopolitical stakes; the accession of Turkey, etc.).

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

McVicar, “Christian Reconstruction”

In April, the University of North Carolina Press released Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism, by Michael J. McVicar (Florida State University). The publisher’s description follows: 

This is the first critical history of Christian Reconstruction and its founder and champion, theologian and activist Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001). Drawing on exclusive access to Rushdoony’s personal papers and extensive correspondence, Michael J. McVicar demonstrates the considerable role Reconstructionism played in the development of the radical Christian Right and an American theocratic agenda. As a religious movement, Reconstructionism aims at nothing less than “reconstructing” individuals through a form of Christian governance that, if implemented in the lives of U.S. citizens, would fundamentally alter the shape of American society.

McVicar examines Rushdoony’s career and traces Reconstructionism as it grew from a grassroots, populist movement in the 1960s to its height of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He reveals the movement’s galvanizing role in the development of political conspiracy theories and survivalism, libertarianism and antistatism, and educational reform and homeschooling. The book demonstrates how these issues have retained and in many cases gained potency for conservative Christians to the present day, despite the decline of the movement itself beginning in the 1990s. McVicar contends that Christian Reconstruction has contributed significantly to how certain forms of religiosity have become central, and now familiar, aspects of an often controversial conservative revolution in America.

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Levin, “Collectivization and Social Engineering: Soviet Administration and the Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917-1939”

In July, Brill will release “Collectivization and Social Engineering: Soviet Administration and the Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917-1939” by Zeev Levin (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). The publisher’s description follows:

Zeev Levin seeks to provide a comprehensive picture of government efforts to socialize the Jewish masses in Uzbekistan, a process in which the central Soviet government took part, together with the local, republican and regional administrations and Soviet Jewish activists. This research presents a chapter in the history of the Jews in Uzbekistan, as well as contributing to the study of the socialization process of the Jewish population in the USSR in general. It also contributes to the study of relations among political and government bodies and decision makers. The study is based on archival documents and provides a unique glance at the implementation of Soviet nationalities policy towards Bukharan Jews while comparing it to other national minority groups in Uzbekistan.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Watts, “The Final Pagan Generation”

In February, the University of California Press released “The Final Pagan Generation,” by Edward J. Watts (University of California, San Diego). The publisher’s description follows:

The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the “final pagan generation”—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.

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“Handbook of Religion and the Asian City” (van der Veer, ed.)

Last month, the University of California Press released “Handbook of Religion and the Asian City: Aspiration and Urbanization in the Twenty-First Century,”  edited by Peter van der Veer (Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen and University Professor at Large at Utrecht University). The publisher’s description follows: 

Handbook of Religion and the Asian City highlights the creative and innovative role of urban aspirations in Asian world cities. It does notassume that religion is of the past and that the urban is secular, but instead points out that urban politics and governance often manifest religious boundaries and sensibilities—in short, that public religion is politics. The essays in this book show how projects of secularism come up against projects and ambitions of a religious nature, a particular form of contestation that takes the city as its public arena.

Questioning the limits of cities like Mumbai, Singapore, Seoul, Beijing, Bangkok, and Shanghai, the authors assert that Asian cities have to be understood not as global models of futuristic city planning but as larger landscapes of spatial imagination that have specific cultural and political trajectories. Religion plays a central role in the politics of heritage that is emerging from the debris of modernist city planning.

Megacities are arenas for the assertion of national and transnational aspirations as Asia confronts modernity. Cities are also sites of speculation, not only for those who invest in real estate but also for those who look for housing, employment, and salvation. In its potential and actual mobility, the sacred creates social space in which they all can meet. Handbook of Religion and the Asian City makes the comparative case that one cannot study the historical patterns of urbanization in Asia without paying attention to the role of religion in urban aspirations.

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Green, “Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding”

In July, Oxford University Press will release “Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding” by Steven K. Green (Williamette University, College of Law). The publisher’s description follows:

Among the most enduring themes in American history is the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. A pervasive narrative ineverything from school textbooks to political commentary, it is central to
the way in which many Americans perceive the historical legacy of their nation. Yet, as Steven K. Green shows in this illuminating new book, it is little more than a myth.

In Inventing a Christian America, Green, a leading historian of religion and politics, explores the historical record that is purported to support the popular belief in America’s religious founding and status as a Christian nation. He demonstrates that, like all myths, these claims are based on historical “facts” that have been colored by the interpretive narratives that have been imposed upon them. In tracing the evolution of these claims and the evidence levied in support of them from the founding of the New England colonies, through the American Revolution, and to the present day, he investigates how they became leading narratives in the country’s collective identity. Three critical moments in American history shaped and continue to drive the myth of a Christian America: the Puritan founding of New England, the American Revolution and the forging of a new nation, and the early years of the nineteenth century, when a second generation of Americans sought to redefine and reconcile the memory of the founding to match their religious and patriotic aspirations. Seeking to shed light not only on the veracity of these ideas but on the reasons they endure, Green ultimately shows that the notion of America’s religious founding is a myth not merely in the colloquial sense, but also in a deeper sense, as a shared story that gives deeper meaning to our collective national identity.

Offering a fresh look at one of the most common and contested claims in American history, Inventing a Christian America is an enlightening read for anyone interested in the story of-and the debate over-America’s founding.

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Scribner, “A Partisan Church: American Catholicism and the Rise of Neoconservative Catholics”

In March, the Catholic University of America Press released “A  Partisan Church: American Catholicism and the Rise of Neoconservative Catholics” by Todd Scribner (Education Outreach Coordinator at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops). The publisher’s description follows:

In the wake of Vatican II and the political and social upheavals of the 1960s,Screen Shot 2015-06-05 at 1.07.07 AM disruption and disagreement rent the Catholic Church in America. Since then, a diversity of opinions on a variety of political and religious questions found expression in the church, leading to a fragmented understanding of Catholic identity. Liberal, conservative, neoconservative and traditionalist Catholics competed to define what constituted an authentic Catholic worldview, thus making it nearly im- possible to pinpoint a unique “Catholic position” on any given topic. A Partisan Church examines these controversies during the Reagan era and explores the way in which one group of intellectuals—well-known neoconservative Catholics such as George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Richard John Neuhaus—sought to reestablish a coherent and unified Catholic identity.

Their efforts to do so were multilayered, with questions related to Cold War politics, US foreign relations with Central American dictator- ships, the economy, abortion, and the state of American culture being perhaps the most contentious subjects. Throughout these debates neo- conservative intellectuals voiced their opposition to positions staked out by the Catholic bishops of the United States and to other schools of thought within American Catholicism.

While policy questions were an important component of Catholic identity, a more fundamental disagreement was reflected in the neo- conservative concern that a significant fraction of church leadership had embraced a misguided ecclesiology, one that misconstrued the re- lationship between the church’s mission and political life. In this book, Todd Scribner, of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, traces out the contours of these disagreements by focusing on neoconservative Cath- olic thought and identifying the distinct manner in which they ad- dressed matters of grave importance to the post-Vatican II church.

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James, “Current Conflicts in Law and Religion”

Last month, Vandeplas Publishing released “Current Conflicts in Law and Religion” by Vaughn E. James (Texas Tech University School of Law). The publisher’s description follows:

The core of Current Conflicts in Law and Religion takes the reader through eleven hot-topic issues in law and religion in twenty-first century society:
• The role of religious voices in the political debate;
• Religious voices in the abortion rights debate;
• The legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States;
• The ordination of LGBT clergy;
• Prayer and religious exercises in the public schools;
• The place of the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance;
• Evolution versus Creationism;
• The place of Intelligent Design in the public school curriculum;
• The patient’s right to refuse medical treatment based on religious belief;
• The Affordable Care Act, RFRA and the Free Exercise Clause; and
• International issues in law and religion.

Professor James has presented in this one book a review of at least eleven hot-topics in law and religion in contemporary society. Yet, the cases the book covers span a vast expanse of time. They are as old as Reynolds v. United States (1879), and as new as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014).

Two things set this book apart from others that discuss these two clauses of the Constitution. First, the book devotes a lengthy first chapter to discussing the basic tenets of some world religions. Some of these religions are well-known and often talked about; their tenets are well-known, even to non-adherents. Others are not-so-well-known, are even obscure; their tenets are hardly known or talked about.  Second, the book begins each chapter with a true story (with names and places changed or otherwise disguised) that depicts one or more of the current conflicts in law and religion.