New Books in Religion

Religious freedom debates set blood boiling. Just consider notable Supreme Court cases of recent years such as Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission or Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania. How can we reach any agreement between those who adhere strictly to the demands of divine law and the individual conscience and those for whom human-derived law is paramount? Is there any legal and philosophical framework that can mediate when tensions erupt between the human right of religious liberty and laws in the secular realm?In her 2019 book, The Possibility of Religious Freedom: Early Natural Law and the Abrahamic Faiths (Cambridge UP), Karen Taliaferro argues that natural law can act as just such a mediating tool. Natural law thinking can both help protect religious freedom and enable societies across the globe to maintain social peace and to function on the basis of fairness to all. Taliaferro shows that natural law is not merely a somewhat arcane legal philosophy promulgated by a subset of mostly conservative Catholic scholars and philosophers. She argues that natural law offers those in many faith traditions and those of no faith whatever a workable, intellectually rich way to examine fundamental questions of law and fairness without relegating religion to ever-diminishing permissible venues.One of the signal contributions of the book is that Taliaferro shows us how non-Christian thinkers such as the Muslim scholar Ibn Rushd (also known as Averroes), the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and Sophocles in his play Antigone (and Taliaferro’s original and provocative reading of that work alone is well worth the price of the book) employed natural law reasoning even if they did not use the term as such. For those who need to learn how societies around the world (and Taliaferro draws fascinatingly on her own experiences in the Middle East at times in the book) can balance the rights of religious people and the demands of other citizens for a strict, often ruthless secularism this book is the place to start. Give a listen.Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Jewish religious architecture is central to the Jewish religion. Across the centuries, Jewish temples and synagogues have been treated as symbols of hope, representations of collective memory, and focal points of conflict. They are built around the Jewish way of life and in turn, define it.What are the foundations of Jewish architecture? And what cultures and ideologies have shaped it? With particular reference to Herod’s Temple, these are questions that Professor Steven Fine, Director at the Center for Israel Studies at Yeshiva University, discusses in this podcast, based on the Brill publication Jewish Religious Architecture: From Biblical Israel to Modern Judaism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In the early 20th-century Muslims, primarily with roots in Lebanon, began to settle in Canada’s interior plains. In 1938, the small community in Edmonton opened the first mosque in the country, which would come to play a key role in shaping Islam's development in the Canada. Earle H. Waugh, Professor Emeritus at University of Alberta, narrates the history of this community and the place of this institution in Al Rashid Mosque: Building Canadian Muslim Communities (University of Alberta Press, 2018). The micro-history of Edmonton’s Muslim community opens up vistas on the broader Canadian history and the role of Muslims in forming national projects and identities. Waugh outlines shifts in Islamic educational programs and community leadership, as well as the political terrains Muslims needed to traverse. Overall, the book offers a readable and robust history that adds a unique story to the history of Canada. In our conversation we discuss the Muslim population in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the mosque’s original building and the funding efforts to build it, the role of women in the community, Islamic education, religious leadership, the new mosque building in 1982, the effects of local and global politics, the Palestinian question in Canada, and 9/11 and its aftermath on Canadian Muslims. We also discuss Waugh’s training in Religious and Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and 70s with scholars like Fazlur Rahman and Mircea Eliade.Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

What counts as contemplative practices in Hinduism? What can Hindu Studies offer Contemplative Studies as a discipline?Contemplative Studies in Hinduism: Meditation, Devotion, Prayer, and Worship (Routledge, 2020), edited by Rita D. Sherma and Purushottama Bilimoria, explores diverse spiritual and religious Hindu practices to grapple with meditative communion and contemplation, devotion, spiritual formation, prayer, ritual, and worship. Contemplative Studies in Hinduism covers a wide range of topics – classical Sāṃkhya and Patañjali Yoga, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the role of Sādhana in Advaita Vedānta, Śrīvidyā and the Śrīcakra, the body in Tantra, the semiotics and illocution of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sādhana, mantra in Mīmāṃsā, Vaiṣṇava liturgy - to articulate indigenous categories for grappling to Hindu contemplative traditions. In doing so it enriches the fields of both Contemplative Studies and Hindu Studies.For information on your host Raj Balkaran’s background, see rajbalkaran.com/scholarship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Dignity is a fundamental aspect of our lives, yet one we rarely pause to consider; our understandings of dignity, on individual, collective and philosophical perspectives, shape how we think, act and relate to others. Human Dignity in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition: Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Perspectives (Bloomsbury Academic) offers an historical survey of how dignity has been understood and explores the concept in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.World-renowned contributors examine the roots of human dignity in classical Greece and Rome and the Scriptures, as well as in the work of theologians, such as St Thomas Aquinas and St John Paul II. Further chapters consider dignity within Renaissance art and sacred music. The volume shows that dignity is also a contemporary issue by analysing situations where the traditional understanding has been challenged by philosophical and policy developments. To this end, further essays look at the role of dignity in discussions about transhumanism, religious freedom, robotics and medicine.Grounded in the principal Christian traditions of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and Protestantism, this book offers an interdisciplinary and cross-period approach to a timely topic. It validates the notion of human dignity and offers an introduction to the field, while also challenging it.John Loughlin is a Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, UK and Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, UK.Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern University, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. His books are Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (English/Hebrew and The Male Body in Jewish Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodoxy (Hebrew). He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Historians of early modern religion recognise the importance of the development of covenant theology in the formation of Calvinism. Harrison Perkins, who teaches systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary and serves as assistant minister of London Presbyterian Church, has recently published what promises to be one of the most important accounts of the development of Reformed covenantal thinking. His new book, Catholicity and the Covenant of Works: James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition (Oxford UP, 2020), investigates the covenant theology of James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, and shows that the idea of a covenant of works structures in significant ways his account of predestination, Christology and soteriology.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of An introduction to John Owen (Crossway, 2020). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Is religion indispensable to public life? What can Gandhi’s thought contribute to the modern state? With an intense focus on both the depth and practicality of Mahatma Gandhi's political and religious thought this book reveals the valuable insights Gandhi offers to anyone concerned about the prospects of liberalism in the contemporary world.In Gandhi's Thought and Liberal Democracy (Lexington Books, 2019), Sanjay Lal makes the case that for Gandhi, in stark contrast to commonly accepted liberal orthodoxy, religion is indispensable to the public life, and indeed the official activity, of any genuinely liberal society. Gandhi scholars, political theorists, and activist members of a lay audience alike will all find much to digest, comment upon, and be motivated by in this work.Sanjay Lal is senior lecturer of philosophy at Clayton State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

How do Judaism and Hinduism compare as religions? Beyond the academic merits of comparative religion, what can adherents to one of these faiths gain by learning about the other?Alan Brill's new book Rabbi on the Ganges: A Jewish-Hindu Encounter (Lexington Books, 2019) is the first work to engage the new terrain of Hindu-Jewish religious encounter. The book offers understanding into points of contact between the two religions of Hinduism and Judaism. Providing an important comparative account, the work illuminates key ideas and practices within the traditions, surfacing commonalities between the jnana and Torah study, karmakanda and Jewish ritual, and between the different Hindu philosophic schools and Jewish thought and mysticism, along with meditation and the life of prayer and Kabbalah and creating dialogue around ritual, mediation, worship, and dietary restrictions. The goal of the book is not only to unfold the content of these faith traditions but also to create a religious encounter marked by mutual and reciprocal understanding and openness.For information on your host Raj Balkaran’s background, see rajbalkaran.com/scholarship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Is it possible to interpret the Qur’an using the Qur’an alone? Is a feminist interpretation of controversial verses such as 4:34, the notorious “wife-beating” verse, possible? What evidence is there for the possibility that Maryam, the mother of Isa (Jesus) was a prophet, and why does that matter? How are Islamic feminist scholars in conversation with each other, as they both draw from and challenge each other in their efforts to find meaning in gender-related verses in the Qur’an? Abla Hasan’s book Decoding the Egalitarianism of the Qur’an: Retrieving Lost Voices on Gender (Lexington Books, 2020) offers possible answers to these questions and more.Hasan is an Associate Professor in Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches courses in Arabic language and culture. She received her PhD in Philosophy of Language from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research and teaching focus on Qur'anic Studies, Islamic feminism, women and gender studies, and Arabic Studies.In Decoding the Egalitarianism of the Qur’an, Hasan aims to provide new interpretations of qur’anic verses related to gender and family—or, at least verses believed by others to be about the family—through a Qur’an-only approach. She shows that it is possible, meaningful, and necessary to read the Qur’an outside of any external sources such as hadiths, fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence, tafsir, and other traditional ways through which the Qur’an has historically been read. This allows her to offer new interpretations of many verses, such as those related to polygyny, the hijab, child marriage, the claim that men have a degree of superiority over women, and verse 4:34, which is traditionally believed to grant husbands the right to physically discipline their wives. Using her background in the linguistics of the Qur’an, she analyzes the textual context of each verse in question as well as in specific key terms to highlight what she argues are the original, intended meanings of these verses. For example, she interrogates common understandings of the audience of many gender-related verses, believed to be men or husbands, and offers alternative possibilities.The book is the latest important intervention in the discourse on Islam and gender. It will be of interest to specialist and non-specialist, including non-academic, audiences interested in women’s and gender studies, Qur’anic studies, religion and gender, and tafsir studies. It will be especially relevant in undergraduate and graduate courses related to gender and religion.In our discussion today, she explains her choice to rely on the Qur’an alone for her arguments, including the importance of a linguistic and semantic approach to understanding the Qur’an. She shares with us what some of the problems in existing scholarship on gender and Islam are – whether from feminist engagements or the historical patriarchal ones. And she shares some of her interpretations of some verses, such as female agency in the Qur’an, Maryam’s prophethood, polygyny, the hijab, the idea of men’s darajah (or a degree of superiority) over women, and, of course, 4:34, among others.Shehnaz Haqqani is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Mercer University. Her primary research areas include Islam, gender, and interreligious marriage. She has a YouTube channel called What the Patriarchy, where she vlogs about feminism and Islam in an effort to dismantle the patriarchy; the vlog is available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClvnmSeZ5t_YSIfGnB-bGNw She can be reached at haqqani_s@mercer.edu.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse (Oxford UP, 2020), Christopher James Blythe examines apocalypticism across the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly as it took shape in the writings and visions of the laity. The responses of the church hierarchy to apocalyptic lay prophecies promoted their own form of separatist nationalism during the nineteenth century. Yet, after Utah obtained statehood, as the church sought to assimilate to national religious norms, these same leaders sought to lessen the tensions between themselves and American political and cultural powers. As a result, visions of a violent end to the nation became a liability to disavow and regulate. Ultimately, Blythe argues that the visionary world of early Mormonism, with its apocalyptic emphases, continued in the church's mainstream culture in modified forms but continued to maintain separatist radical forms at the level of folk-belief.Daniel P. Stone holds a PhD in American religious history from Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom) and is the author of William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet (Signature Books, 2018). He has taught history courses at the University of Detroit Mercy and Florida Atlantic University, and currently, he works as a research archivist for a private library/archive in Detroit, Michigan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion