Religion and Democracy in the United States: Danger or Opportunity?, ed. Alan Wolfe & Ira Katznelson (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010)

When I began my search for a book I used the library catalogue and looked up “Christianity” and “politics”. Since I was brought up as a Christian and more specifically catholic, I wanted to get a better understanding of the religious group that I associate with. Also as a Government and Law major and just from watching the news I knew that politics and Christianity in America is a very big issue. The book that I found to be most interesting and relevant was Religion and Democracy in the United States: Danger or Opportunity? The book was published in 2010 so it is fairly recent and is relevant to issues that are presently ongoing.

With a picture of both a Bible and the Declaration of Independence on the cover it highlights on of the many issues that religion and specifically Christianity has faced in the United States and that is separation of church and state. While looking through the book I saw some other interesting topics which may help me in writing my paper. One of these topics was about how religion can affect how a person will vote. Certain religious beliefs have lined up with different political groups. This can been seen in people who feel very strongly making abortions illegal. Many of these people feel this way due to their religious beliefs, which then sets them up to become a supporter of the Republican Party. Although there is a separation of church and state, religion plays a very large role in shaping American politics and democracy.

What I like about the book is that it contains many different authors and editors. Many different people write each section and chapter, which gives a range of viewpoints and opinions on the issue. It is also broken down into many sections that allows for the reader to focus in on the specific topic that they want to research. I will most likely find a way to use this book when I begin research on the upcoming paper.

Religion or Ethnicity?: Jewish Identities in Evolution, ed. Zvi Gitelman (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2009).

I began my search knowing that I wanted to explore Judaism, but I was unsure what aspect of Judaism I wanted to explore. The first term I entered for my search was simply “Judaism,” so that I could get an idea of a topic I might want to explore. With this initial search I saw books available on secularism in Judaism, and decided that was the topic I wanted to find a book on. The next term I entered in was “Secularism in Judaism,” which yielded no results, so I cut down the search term to “Secular Judaism.” Using this term I found a book that discusses the notion of Judaism as a religion versus an ethnicity, as well as secularism in Judaism, Religion or Ethnicity?: Jewish Identities in Evolution.

After briefly flipping through the book and skimming some pages, I found that the Religion or Ethnicity?  contains an interesting discourse on Judaism in the pre-modern era, as well as the origins of secular Judaism and how to define Jewish identity. I found the discourse on secular Judaism and Jewish identity particularly interesting, as I consider myself Jewish even though I do not practices and rarely attend services of an kind. The book’s discussion of the challenges of defining Jewish identity, such as Jewish identity being defined differently in various parts of the world and groups of individuals with different practices and beliefs all identifying themselves as Jewish, seemed to fit with some of our previous readings on Conservative, Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox, and Reform Judaism.

Overall, the book offered what I expected to find, although I was pleased to discover that the book had a larger focus on secular Judaism than I initially anticipated based on the title. Around where I found Religion or Ethnicity? I also saw books on Zionism, modern Judaism, and the displacement of Jews throughout history. There were also more books addressing Jewish identity. If I were to write my paper on secularism in Judaism, I would consider using Religion or Ethnicity?: Jewish Identities in Evolution as a resource.

The book I found is titled, “Early Christianity and the Roman Empire.”  I have enjoyed learning about how christianity was influenced by the Roman Empire and Constantine.  I am especially interested in how the religion changed during the 1st century of its existence and how it became defined by the doctrinal ecumenical councils.  It is interesting to me how the Christian traditions that continue today were defined and rooted in the people in the ecumenical councils.

Initially I used the library catalog’s website to find relevant sources.  I used keywords combinations like, “Rome, Christianity, Influence, Orthodox, Origin.”  Initially I found some very obscure titles and articles that related to other aspects of judaism and christianity, but after some browsing I found some very useful texts.

The book I discovered was published in 1984 and has a plain light blue cover with a simple title on the spine.  It was found on the second floor in a section with other books about Christianity and Rome.  The books adjacent to the one I found had titles such as, “Late Ancient Christianity,” “Last Pagens of Rome”, “The Roman Revolution of Constantine,” and “The Rise of Christianity.”  The shelves above and bellow contained books about christianity in the middle ages and renaissance.

I looked through the table of contents and found a section titled, “Lactantius and Constantine.”  The chapter details the influence that Constantine and Lactantius, the advisor to the first Christian Roman Emperor, had on Christianity.  The influence the men had on christianity included, theological progression, propaganda, and political movements.  I think this book could be useful for a paper on Early Christianity and Rome.

Marble, Manning. Malcolm X; A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking, 2011. Print.

When I began my search I already knew I wanted to research Malcolm X. I had already known he was a crucial figure in the Civil Rights Movement but after our reading for Friday’s class I realized there was a lot more to him. I hadn’t realized that he had converted from the Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam and I was curious to find out more about his teachings during his second conversion. I simply put in the search term Malcolm X into the library catalog and had multiple books to pick from. I picked a book titled Malcolm X; A Life of Reinvention. I chose this book because it is in biography format that focuses on his life and continual reinvention and goes through the many stages of his life.

When I actually got to the book and began looking through I saw that each chapter was broken up by significant periods of time in his life. Starting when he was put in jail to his conversion to the Nation of Islam to his revelation on Hajj, al significant parts of his life. Some chapters covered a span of five or so years while others covered just a few weeks. I was intrigued by how they broke up Malcolms X’s life into various parts. I also think that the idea of each chapter being a different version of Malcolm X and that the book having and overall theme of reinvention will lead to an interesting perspective on Malcolm X. The book also claims to have government reports on him and friends and family reports that have “never been seen before” so that should be interesting. At this point in time I plan on writing my essay on Malcolm X so this book should be incredibly useful for that.

When I went to get my book it was surrounded by other books that were also about Malcolm X. One book that caught my eye was called “The Iconography of Malcolm X”. I thought this might be interesting because it doesn’t focus so much on Malcolm X’s life but rather on his impact on the Civil Rights Movement and Islam and his legacy as an icon. I also saw that above the books on Malcolm X were books on Islam. I was surprised there weren’t books on MLK or more civil rights books but rather books titled, “The War on Islam,” and “Islam in the Modern Century,” filled the shelves. I get the sense that these books are not so much about the practices of Islam but more about their spreading and the perception of Islam in different countries. Especially perhaps, the rather negative view of Islam in America.

Prell, Riv. Women Remaking American Judaism. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2007. Print.

For my second shelfie adventure, I searched for “Judaism Feminism” in the Lafayette College library catalogue because I am interested in seeing how Feminism is different in Judaism compared to popular western beliefs. After watching the documentary “Be Fruitful and Multiply”, I was surprised that most of these Jewish women believed that feminism meant taking care of the household. On the contrary, most ‘western’ feminists would exclaim that having to stay home and tend to children is a barrier for women.

After searching the words “Judaism” and “Feminism”, I came across the book “Women Remaking American Judaism” edited Riv-Ellen Prell and the first thing that I noticed was the cover. The cover depicts a Jewish woman holding a similar pose to ‘Rosie the Riveter’. ‘Rosie’ was a very famous cultural icon during WWII for the representation of American women who worked in factories in order to produce military weapons. This cultural icon is still very popular today because it is used as a symbol of feminism. The book is split into three different categories: Reenvisioning Judaism, Redefining Judaism, and Reframing Judaism. Each section contains essays by different authors who offer various interpretation of Jewish feminism.  In Reenvisioning Judaism, the stories conclude that Feminist thinking challenges traditional Jewish theology. Statements such as “The Jewish legal system is constructed entirely from a male perspective” is used to showcase the challenges women face as a Jewish worshipper. Redefining Judaism showcases the changes in the role of women in American Judaism and how the changes were dependent on American societal changes. Lastly, Reframing Judaism displays how different innovations such as adult bat mitzvah ceremonies or the Miriam’s Tambourine have allowed women to create a ‘new’ Judaism in which women are equally represented as men.

Although I initially was expecting to dive more into how some Jewish women beliefs on feminist differed from western feminist beliefs, I am glad that I found this book because I now want to focus of the Jewish feminist revolution in America. I will probably use this book as one of my sources for my next paper because it contains insights on the different approaches of Jewish feminism.

 

North, John, and S. R. F. Price. The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.

Something that has always intrigued me has been the amount of influence a few theological interpretations can have on a religion. Growing up as a Christian, I remember learning about the Council of Nicea in my Religious Education classes and find it a little unsettling that one of the major foundations of Christianity (the Holy Trinity) was decided by a group of people. The fact that there was an open debate about it made me want to understand more how the final decisions were reached. In class we learned more about this and I think it would be an interesting topic to look at more closely the upcoming paper.

At first, I tried searching specifically on JSTOR for “Council of Nicea,” but I could only find online sources that didn’t seem to be what I was looking for. I decided to use a different wording that was more broad for my next search and typed in “Ecumenical Councils.” This still did not come up with the results that I was looking for. I figured I must have been searching too specifically, so for my next search I typed in “changes in Christianity.” This gave me plenty of choices that looked like they would have the information I needed. One book looked particularly appealing. It was titled The religious history of the Roman Empire : pagans, Jews, and Christians, which would most likely have more information about the Ecumenical Councils. Unlike my last Shelfie, this book was published in 2011 and had an appealing cover and was much more up to date.

After looking through the table of contents, I was able to see that there was a lot of different chapters on specifics of each religion and their position in the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, there was not a specific chapter about the Ecumenical Councils, but there were chapters on Christianity. By taking a closer look at some of these chapters, there was information about the councils. If I decide to write my paper about this topic, this book would be useful to gather a little more information, but another source would most likely need to be consulted.

 

 

White Jr, Calvin. The Rise of Respectability. The University of Arkansas Press: Fayetteville 2012. Print.

First I wanted to research something about African American religion then I thought maybe I could connect race to religion so I searched broader and found the book The Rise To Respectability which is about race and religion. Then I read into the book and the preface connected race and religion so that got me to look even more into the book to see what else I could find and it anything would contribute to my essay/topic.

After this I decided to look at the books table of contents and saw a chapter title that mentioned African American religion and birth of new movements. They liked this one church Mason’s church because the could preach without and education shows an effect of race on religion which was exactly what I was looking for so at first glance this is helpful but I can’t tell how much more I can get out of this book but its looks nice well written and sleek plain cover.

Overall, I believe I can’t at least you this one chapter in my essay which I believe will be about race and religion. Thanks for reading come again.

Carse, James P. The Religious Case Against Belief. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Gauchet, Marcel. The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Trans. Oscar Burge. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997. Print.

Riesebrodt, Martin. The Promise of Salvation. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2010. Print.

Rüpke, Jörg. Religion: Antiquity and Its Legacy. London: I.B. Tarius, 2014. Print.

My Shelfie book search began through the catalog on the Lafayette Library website.  I thought I would keep my search as basic as possible to explore the greatest number of possibilities.  I simply searched “religion” in the catalog and scrolled through to find the sources that were books versus online materials.  The first book I found that I thought sounded interesting is the one by Jörg Rüpke, entitled Religion: Antiquity and Its Legacy.  What I figured I might focus on is the interrelated nature of logic and religion.  Oftentimes, it is assumed that religion falls outside the realm of logic, but it is also often overlooked that there is a logic to religion.  Furthermore, I thought it would be interesting to play with the notion of working with materials that are seemingly antithetical to religion or that challenge popular notions of/within religion.

Looking around the area where I found the first book, I found the other three.  I chose them based on their titles and what I thought they would offer and found some interesting titles within the table of contents:

The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse

Part I: Belief

Part II: Religion

Part III: Religion Beyond Belief

Conclusion: For the Recovery of Wonder

The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion by Marcel Gauchet

Chapter 3: The Dynamics of Transcendence

– Distancing God and Understanding the World

– From Myth to Reason

Chapter 4: From Immersion in Nature to Transforming Nature

– The Other World and Appropriating This World

– The Structure of Terrestrial Integrity

Chapter 5: The Power of the Divine Subject

– The Turn Toward Equality

Chapter 6: Figures of the Human Subject

– Being-a-Self: Consciousness, the Unconscious

– Collective-Being: Governing the Future

– Living-with-Ourselves: Absorbing the Other

The Promise of Salvation by Martin Riesebrodt

1: Religion as Discourse: On the Critique of the Concept of Religion

2: Religion as Social Reference: On Justifying the Concept of Religion

3: Scholarly Imaginations of Religion

– Religion as a Divine Gift of Reason

– Religion as an Experience of Revelation

– Religion as Projection

– Religion as Protoscience

4: Religious Practice and the Promise of Salvation

– Defining Religion

– Understanding Religion

– Explaining Religion

…etc.

Religion: Antiquity and Its Legacy by Jörg Rüpke

Chapter 1: Individual and Corporate Religion

– From religion to religions

– Individualization

Chapter 2: Historicizing Religion

While many of the concepts featured in the tables of contents for each book differ considerably, what I hope to gain from these texts is a more streamlined hypothetical standpoint from which to begin my research.  I do certainly want to focus less on a particular religion than on the dynamics of religion itself.

I started my search by trying to find books about the fall of the second temple. I wanted to learn more about how that event triggered such a strong split of beliefs between Jews and Christians. I was unable any books that centered around the second temple unless it was about rabbinic Judaism only. I wanted to find a comparison between the thinking of the two religions. I ended up finding a book on the library catalog called The Jewish Jesus : how Judaism and Christianity shaped each other by Peter Schäfer. However, when I went to the library and looked through the book I didn’t think it was what I wanted. The book talked more about the philosophical symbols like Angels and creation and the messiah and I wanted to focus on the early differences of the development for Christianity and Judaism.

 

I didn’t have a backup plan in case I didn’t like that book so I spent 15 minutes looking at all the books around me and ended up in the next isle over and found the exact book I was looking for. It was called Ancient Judaism and Christian origins: diversity, continuity, and transformation by George W.E. Nickelsburg. This book may not center on the fall of the second temple but has chapters on traditional topics like scripture and tradition, Torah and the righteous life, God’s activity on humanity’s behalf, and agents of God’s activity. The author says that there is a revolution taking place in regards to the study of Judaism and a lot of it is due to the Quamran Scrolls. Within each chapter though, the author examines first the modern research on early Judaism but then examines the Christian equivalent on the topic or the different interpretation as well as the Jewish interpretation on traditionally Christian ideas.

 

What I really liked about this book was the way it analyzes more than just the surface contradictions like the choosing of the New Testament. It looks at the new construction of the historical, theological and methodical implications on Christian origins. This book would be a huge help in my paper because of its multi-sided views and its use of many textual sources both in the writing itself and many helpful sources at the end of the book.

 

 

Alba, Richard, Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh DeWind, eds. Immigration and Religion in America. New York: New York UP, 2009. Print.

I began my search for my Shelfie book on the Lafayette Library website. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted my paper to be about, so I started off with broad terms in the search engine, in hopes that I would read a title that interested me, and then I would be able to narrow my search. My first search was “religion in America”. As I scrolled through the books and articles that related to religion in America, I came across a book called, “Immigration and Religion in America”. I have always been interested in stories of immigrants and their experiences while traveling into America, and also their stories pertaining to their experiences adjusting to American society, so I decided that this would be the book I would use.

When I went to find this book in the library, I was happy to find that on the front cover of the book, it said right underneath the title, “Comparative and Historical Perspectives”. In my mind, having both comparative and historical perspectives about immigration and religion in American is a big plus, because it gives some background on the past of these issues, it also shows how the issues have progressed over time, and it explains many different views on how religion and immigration relate.

As I flipped through the first few pages of the book, I stopped and read the contents page. Part I of the book is about the “integration of Italian and Mexican Immigrants into an American Religion”, Part II is the “religious conversion among Japanese and Korean immigrants”, Part III is incorporation if new religions into American society by European Jews and Arab Muslims, and lastly Part IV is “religious diversification among African American and Haitian migrants,”. Because it seems that this book covers several of the religions we have discussed in this course, and may possibly get to, I thought it would be a good book and topic for my final paper of the year, in a way concluding this course.