Drees, Willem B. Religion, Science, and Naturalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Print.

I originally wanted to write my paper about something regarding Christianity and the changes it has undergone throughout history. When searching for books I used to keywords “Christianity” and “history” and when I couldn’t find anything that I found interesting I searched “Christianity” and “America”. With this I found a book called “The Catholic Ethic in American Society” but upon reading the back cover I didn’t find information that would be helpful for writing my essay. I looked around for more book titles in the same section of the library and found “Religion, science, and naturalism” which I thought might be interesting.

Upon reading the preface of this book I found that it was based mostly on how the principles of science interact with those of different religions in society and how people have changed their views on religion over time as science has progressed. This made me want to write my paper on the relationship between Christianity and science and how those ideals have changed over time. I also intend on focusing more on evolution and religion and how society deals with the conflicting views on those topics, since that’s something that is a pretty common debate in the modern day.

I will use this book to start off my research so that I can get a general idea on religion, science, and naturalism and then find more books in the library so that I can go more in depth on Christianity and on more specific topics. I think it will be a good source because it is an easy book that can help me in the beginning of the essay writing process for my paper topic.

Between 2008 and 2010 my mother was posted to Morocco, and I really enjoyed visiting and experiencing Moroccans and their culture. I was quite surprised to find that not only was there a community of Moroccan Jews, but apparently one with a long and rich history. While there are several books in the library about the state of the community in the 20th century, I picked Two Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Morocco because I’m particularly interested in the origins of the community and how it developed it in its early years. Having read the first chapter, I now understand that the origins of the community not only predate the immigration of the Arabs, but in fact are so old that they cannot be accurately dated. If anything, I am now even more interested about further exploring this topic.

I am interested in exploring the ways in which religion influenced the civil rights movement for my second paper. To start my search for the “shelfie” book, I used the online Lafayette library catalog and searched “Christianity and Civil Rights Movement”. Since we read about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X in class, I thought this topic would be relevant as a “shelfie” book as well as paper topic.

The book I found is entitled Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement. It is 924 pages long and can be found on the upper level of Skillman. There were few texts surrounding it that included religion in the title, but several books about African-Americans and the Civil Rights Movement. The book itself is a collection of stories from people around the time of the Civil Rights Movement. The book stresses that religion played a huge part in the Civil Rights Movement as many turned to scripture and sacred texts throughout that time. There are two volumes of the book, each is a collection of stories from a specific time period during the Civil Rights Movement. The table of contents is sorted by year as it lists different stories from each year during the time period that the book covers. Some of the story titles include “Spiritual Rearmament”, “The Church Amidst Ethnic and Racial Tensions” and “The Disturbing Christ”.

As mentioned before, there were few titles containing religion as part of the title on the same shelf as this book, so I will most likely have to look in other areas as well to find more sources. This source will be an invaluable resource in my research, as will the second volume. The book contains endless support to an argument that says religion had a vast influence on the Civil Rights Movement, and I look forward to exploring that more as I conduct research for my paper.

Houck, Davis W., and David E. Dixon. Rhetoric, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965. Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2006. Print.

Bonner, Michael David. Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print.

Initially, to start my search, I began to search for books involving Christianity and African Americans in the United States. I ended up changing my search from Christianity to African American Islam in the United States. I found the aisle where books on related to this topic were located and took a walk down, browsing titles. One in particular caught my eye, even though it wasn’t exactly what I had initially wanted to find.

It is called Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice by Michael Bonner. Bonner is a scholar of Islamic Studies at the University of Michigan and the book is published by Princeton University Press, so I’m sure that the content is reliable. Upon skimming through the table of contents and some of the pages I found that this book can be particularly insightful into some of the teachings of Islam and how they relate to jihad. Much of the book is focused on the first Muslim community in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the great conquests, and the development of the doctrine of martyrdom. Bonner is also interested in the role that Islamic Scholars have played in the development of jihad.

Though I have been able to discern a fair amount of information about this book just at a quick glance, I’m sure that there is more to be discovered upon further reading. This book may be very helpful when writing my essay because, looking at the syllabus, it does not look like we will be covering much about this topic. Even if I decide to change what I want to write about, this book can still help me understand more about Islamic traditions and about some current day issues that we see in our society.

DeCaro, Louis A. Malcolm and the Cross: The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and Christianity. New York and London: New York UP, 1998. Print.

In my search, I wanted to focus on finding a book that related to Malcolm X’s development in the civil rights movement and his expansion of the Islamic movement in America. With that being said, my terms were pretty straightforward considering the search consisted of “Islam,” and “Malcolm X.” I focused on both of these because the Islamic movement for blacks in America caught my eye easily, especially after we began to focus on the shift in the movement brought on by Malcolm X.

The book really focuses on the identity of X as a religious revolutionist, and moves away from putting more of an importance on his discussions in the context of Christianity. While DeCaro avoids talking too much about Malcolm X’s affiliation with Christianity, he does feel the necessity to discuss the comparison of Islam to Christianity because Malcolm X shaped his opinions for a second Nation of Islam through his criticisms of Christianity.

What really caught my eye was how DeCaro breaks the development down by Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, then Malcolm X’s criticism of Muhammad’s system, and finally Malcolm’s application of Islam to blacks in a Christian world. I feel as if the section titled, “This Bitter Earth: Black Muslims in a Christian World,” is most relevant to the ideas portrayed by Malcolm X as it denounces Christianity as the right fit for blacks to practice and promotes X’s central ideas. A majority of the information provided in this book seems like it will really guide me in writing my paper about the connection between the civil rights movement and the rise of the second Nation of Islam.

After watching the film about the lives of Ultra Orthodox Jewish woman I was very intrigued. Coming from a more modern perspective I wondered what drew these woman to these lifestyles and why they continue to live these very difficult and challenging lives. I went into the library catalog and searched for Woman in Orthodox Judaism. And found this novel “Tradition in a Rootless World” that discusses why Orthodox Judaism is very appealing to many woman.

After skimming through this book and reading some sections I think this book is perfect for finding out more about the role of women in the Orthodox Judaism. The paragraph on the back of the book had a sentence that seems to be exactly what I am looking for and will lead me to the answers for some of the questions I have about woman in Orthodox Judaism. The sentence read “Recently, however, some women have turned away from the complex choices presented by modern life and have chosen instead a Jewish orthodox tradition that sets strict and rigid guidelines for women to follow.” The book is split up into 8 chapters. These include chapters discussing a day in the life of these orthodox women, the relationship to Modernity, Order, Belonging, Identity, and how women become wives and mothers in orthodox Judaism. I believe that if i choose to focus my essay on the role of Woman in Orthodox Judaism that this book will be an amazing resource.

In the same Isle as this book  I found many other book having to do with gender in Judaism. I found another interesting book entitled “Mitzvah Girls” which examined the perspective of young girls coming of age in Orthodox Judaism, specifically in Brooklyn, NY. I believe that I found a considerable number of books that will be useful when writing this paper.

Davidman, L. Tradition in a Rootless World. California: University of California Press, 1991. Print.

Paul, Nicholas, and Suzanne M. Yeager. Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity. Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Print.

Being that I am very interested in the Crusades, I used this as my search term to start my shelfie process. A lot of results came back, many having nothing to do with the religious crusades of the 11^th and 12^th centuries. The book I liked the sound of the most was Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity edited by Nicholas Paul and Suzanne Yeager. Although there were many other books about the Crusades I stuck to my first choice and checked out Remembering the Crusades.

Unlike my last shelfie, Remembering the Crusades is very visually pleasing and draws a potential reader’s eyes to it. Also, throughout the book, artwork from the time of the Crusades is used to help the reader connect to those times. Paul and Yeager use many different vehicles to assist the reader in learning about the Crusades. Just by looking at the Table of Contents, one can see that the authors compare and contrast firsthand accounts, analyze poetry and writings from that time, and evaluate artwork and buildings. This book is not only a retelling of the events in the Crusades, but an analysis of the response of medieval communities to the challenges posed by the Crusades.

There were many other books about the Crusades in the same section as this book. I believe that these books can assist in my writing process and help provide additional information about the Crusades.

“Setting Down The Sacred Past” – Laurie F. Maffly – Kipp

As I pondered possible paper topics, I originally intended to compare and contrast the Gospels, with a heavy focus on Matthew (awesome name).  However, with our recent introduction of African American religion, I was inspired to go down a whole new path.  I searched “African American Religion” on OneSeach, narrowed down to books, and out popped 1,749 results.  Woah.  I began scrolling through, with  general idea in my head of what I wanted to focus on: why were African Americans enslaved?

Race is a cultural invention that has evolved over hundreds of years.  Evidence reveals that 15th Century European explorers were indifferent of Blacks.  Christopher Columbus employed African sailors, “whose knowledge of the coasts, the trade winds, and navigation were of immeasurable importance”.  The first signs of race-categorization didn’t appear until the 16th century, when those of Irish descent began to be considered savage, earning the badge wild Irish. 

Thus, African Americans were not immediately targeted, rather selected based upon certain characteristics (immune to disease, for example) that suited the needs of a farmhand in America.  My question then turned to how this transpires to religion.  As I scrolled through the results, I noticed the title,  “Setting Down the Sacred Past”, which caught my eye.  The title can be read in two different ways: setting down, as in putting it behind us, or going back and examining what the past entailed.  I immediately wrote down the call number and began my search.

The book was in between a mix of books on African Americans, from economics to psychology, and its bright green cover stood out amongst the masses.  I pulled it out, and opened it up to the second page.  I read the line “African Americans are forced to see the world through the eyes of their oppressors rather than freely through their own self-understandings”.  This touched me, for a lack of a better phrase, and I continued to skim through, reading quotes by W.E.B. Du Bois, discussions of President Barrack Obama (written in 2010), and various other areas of interest that pertained to my general question.

I plan on using this book as I continue my research and begin my paper.  I am excited to uncover what this book has to offer in regards to African American religion.

I used the library’s online catalog to begin my search for a book using the keywords “Paul” and “Christianity” because I was interested in how Paul influenced the spread of Christianity throughout history. I find it fascinating that one man could make such an impact on the world. The first result that appeared was Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity. I felt this title grasped the general idea I hope to expand on with my paper- the origins of how Paul began his journey to spread the gospel. I am interested in further investigating Christianity before and after Paul.

After a brief flip through I found this book to cover a variety of topics including a timeline of major events and figures, a map of cities Paul visited, Christianity before Paul, and reading the gospels from Paul’s perspective. I found the map and timeline particularly helpful as they each gave me glimpse in the general events and cities part of Paul’s history. I know have a more concrete understanding of when Paul’s journey began at his conversion, when he began to write his letters and preach, and eventually executed. As I flipped through the chapters I found the organization to be helpful as many of the writer’s ideas are supported by references to passages in the Bible. It aids in my understanding of the foundation of Paul’s teachings. There are also extensive notes that cover each chapter in detail regarding the author’s sources.

I know this is a credible source because the author is not only the chair of the department of religious studies at the University of Carolina at Charlotte but also holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies from the University of Chicago and is an expert on Christian origins. In addition to his writing and teaching, he has also done field work in archaeology at a number of sites in Israel and Jordan.