According to Census Canada, after eight decades of consistent growth Canadian Pentecostal affiliation reached an all-time high of 436,435 individuals in 1991. A decade later, the results of the 2001 Canadian census revealed that Pentecostalism underwent a precipitous 15.3 percent, or 66,969 affiliate, decline—the first in Canadian Pentecostal history. Scholars of religion assumed that this decline in affiliation represented an actual decrease in the number of Canadian Pentecostal adherents. Drawing on 42 personal interviews, 158 survey responses, content analysis of material culture, and one year of participant observation within three Canadian Pentecostal congregations located in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, I provide an alternative interpretation of the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation that pays closer attention to both the data contained in the census as well as important changes in religious culture that have occurred at the congregational level. I demonstrate how the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation recorded by Census Canada does not alone provide adequate evidence to claim that Pentecostal adherents abandoned their congregations at a rate of more than 15 percent in the decade between 1991 and 2001. Instead, I argue that this decrease in affiliation can be explained by the fact that Canadian Pentecostals have experienced a transformation of religious identity, belief, and practice from traditionally Pentecostal to generically evangelical categories significant enough to be detected by the census. When asked, for instance, to describe their religious affiliation, 86 percent of interview participants in this study chose a generically evangelical or Christian moniker rather than the term “Pentecostal.” This means that just 14 percent of interview participants would have been recorded as Pentecostal if they answered in a similar way on the census instrument. The significant proportion of the participants in this study that did not identify, believe, or behave the way that Canadian Pentecostals did just a few decades earlier, I believe, helps explain the dramatic, if misleading, 2001 census results.

<p>Research into how different life events shape individual religiosity has a long history within sociology. However, some scholars have begun to question whether research in this area has methodologically justified making strong causal claims. In an effort to re-center religion within the field of sociological concerns, quantitative sociologists of religion have tended to over-state the meaning of their statistical relationships and this has led to many of their causal assumptions being unstated and/or untested in their analyses. The advances in causal statistical modeling and counterfactually grounded analyses has led to the development of statistical models that are better able to establish causal relationships. It is time to begin implementing these approaches within the sociology of religion. This more rigorous statistical approach runs the risk of demonstrating that social life’s influence on religion may be less impressive than was previously thought. But researchers in this area must take this risk to develop a better sense of the real effects of society on religion. This in turn will provide a better foundation for developing theories of religion’s role in our modern world. </p><p> One way in which sociologists of religion can improve their causal modeling strategies is through the use of longitudinal data and methods. In recent years there has been a significant increase in the availability of large-scale longitudinal data that collects information on respondents’ religious belief, practice, and belonging. With these data, scholars interested in religious change can move away from their reliance on comparing individuals to one another – a constraint of cross-sectional data – and begin to analyze how certain life course events may lead to change in individual religiosity. I revisit two important areas within the sociology of religion –the relationship between family formation and religious service attendance and the effects of educational achievement on religious beliefs and practices – to assess whether these relationships can be considered causal in light of results from longitudinal statistical models. By implementing longitudinal models, I am able to directly assess whether between-individual differences or individual change over time is driving the statistical relationships found in my analyses. I will show that the story we thought we knew about how religion responds to family formation and educational attainment changes when these additional statistical tests are brought to bear on the data.</p> / Dissertation

According to Census Canada, after eight decades of consistent growth Canadian Pentecostal affiliation reached an all-time high of 436,435 individuals in 1991. A decade later, the results of the 2001 Canadian census revealed that Pentecostalism underwent a precipitous 15.3 percent, or 66,969 affiliate, decline—the first in Canadian Pentecostal history. Scholars of religion assumed that this decline in affiliation represented an actual decrease in the number of Canadian Pentecostal adherents. Drawing on 42 personal interviews, 158 survey responses, content analysis of material culture, and one year of participant observation within three Canadian Pentecostal congregations located in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, I provide an alternative interpretation of the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation that pays closer attention to both the data contained in the census as well as important changes in religious culture that have occurred at the congregational level. I demonstrate how the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation recorded by Census Canada does not alone provide adequate evidence to claim that Pentecostal adherents abandoned their congregations at a rate of more than 15 percent in the decade between 1991 and 2001. Instead, I argue that this decrease in affiliation can be explained by the fact that Canadian Pentecostals have experienced a transformation of religious identity, belief, and practice from traditionally Pentecostal to generically evangelical categories significant enough to be detected by the census. When asked, for instance, to describe their religious affiliation, 86 percent of interview participants in this study chose a generically evangelical or Christian moniker rather than the term “Pentecostal.” This means that just 14 percent of interview participants would have been recorded as Pentecostal if they answered in a similar way on the census instrument. The significant proportion of the participants in this study that did not identify, believe, or behave the way that Canadian Pentecostals did just a few decades earlier, I believe, helps explain the dramatic, if misleading, 2001 census results.

Muslim groups in Karlstad are rarely visible online. There is also no previous research about them. Through an interview-based mapping study, I want to research what activities take place in Muslim mosques in Karlstad. The aim of the study is to document and analyze Muslim activities. This study is included in a research project at Karlstad University: Karlstad’s mosque - negotiations on Islam in Värmland. It aims to illuminate Islam’s development in Värmland from various aspects. Religious change and religion collision are theoretical starting points for the study. The results of this study show that three congregations are active in Karlstad: Islamiska Kulturföreningen [sunni], Bosniska Islamiska Kulturföreningen [sunni] and Mahdi Al Montazar [shia]. They established their congregations since 1990s. They are dependent on their main organizations and do not cooperate with other Muslim associations. Members of the congregation are very important for the organization’s existence. The result indicates that the religious activities of groups are not affected by data-based communication. Different branches work for their own community and have different views about Islam. In a Christian society, these Muslim congregations try to adapt to the rules of majority society in different ways. They find new ways to practise their religion. Minority groups want to preserve their own cultural and religious traditions through the mosque building or association board. It will be a way to be included and recognized by the majority.

This essay is about the religious change that Jing-cult underwent 600-1500 A.D. It is a historical-critical essay based on literature studies, using Håkan Rydving’s theory of religious change. In chronological order, it will go through the religious change from ancient Japan to the late Muromachi-period when Shinto was created. It describes the early temple- cult, buddhism's mission to Japan and how the Jingikan was created. Further, it addresses the changes that occurred with the immigration from Korea and the consequences involved in the creation of the great temple-shrine complex in which Shinto and buddhism fused. Finally, it tells how the theological thinking of Japanese buddhism and the Jingi-cult changed and created Shinto. The essay has the main focus on the Kami-tradition, the shrine-tradition and the study of Shinto. The essay discusses the changes that occurred in the end and draw conclusions about why they occurred. The conclusion reached is that buddhism has had a great influence and changed the Jingi-cult most. In history there has come about akultration between buddhism and the Jingi-cult that eventually resulted in the creation of Shinto.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地域研究) / 甲第20492号 / 地博第211号 / 新制||地||76(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科東南アジア地域研究専攻 / (主査)准教授 片岡 樹, 教授 速水 洋子, 教授 清水 展, 教授 櫻井 義秀 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Area Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM

The aim of this thesis has been to explore the role of institutional religion in western Europe between individual and society. This is achieved through an empirical study of the role of the Church of England at local level, using the area of social welfare as the prism through which broader issues of the place of the Church in society can be brought to light. At the heart of this thesis lies a case study of the town of Darlington in the North East of England. This is set against a background of a detailed description of the situation regarding religion and welfare in England and of the organisation and situation of the Church at national level. The case study uses a variety of qualitative methods to assess the Church's role in welfare at local level and the expectations and perceptions of its involvement in this sphere held by representatives of the churches, local authorities, voluntary organisations and town residents. The role of the Church of England in its national and local context is therefore used as one example which can shed light on issues pertinent to a broader European one. To this end the results of the case study are compared with the situation in Sweden to tease out the extent to which conclusions pertaining to the established church in England can also be applied in a wider European context. The study concludes that the Church has a continued role to play in welfare both in terms of practical provision and social activism. It reveals that the Church is, at one and the same time, both seen as one of many organisations in civil society and also perceived to have a particular part to play in society at local level. This continuing though changing role 'in-between' individual and society can be further specified as including three dimensions: mediator, neutral ground and critical voice. This suggests that a distinct role in society is also possible for other religious institutions in Europe today within their national contexts, as representatives and upholders of overarching common values in the public sphere. It indicates that although the relationships between individuals and institutional religion and the role religions have to play in society today are ambiguous, they are by no means absent. Thereby the study engages with and contributes to the development of the theoretical debate concerning social change in late modern society, the continued role of institutional religions in the public sphere and the relevance of the secularisation paradigm. / Impact of Religion

Boij, A. 2002: Jorden är mörk och svart. Vad som rör pastorer i Svenska Missionsförbundet när de ska predika om samhället. (The world is black and dark. What concerns pastors in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden when they preach about society). Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Psychologia et Sociologia Religionum 16. 239 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-554-5488-7. The dissertation reflects a study of what pastors in the Mission Covenant Church in Sweden say in their sermons about society and social responsibility and represents an attempt at finding factors such as gender, education, age, values, and faith behind what has been said in the sermons. The results show that in general pastors have a negative picture of society irrespective of which of its aspects they are addressing. The pastors’ view of Christian responsibility for society is that it is primarily something for the individual to take, not for the congregation. Above all, Christian responsibility for society is about individual Christians' taking responsibility for her fellow human beings. For theoretical clarification the findings are discussed within the framework of the concept of secularisation, following Casanova (1994) sub-divided into differentiation, decline of religion and privatisation. In the study differentiation is identified when pastors do not relate theological reflection to their description and analysis of society. Thus they do not provide an integrated system of meaning for everyday life. As for privatisation, even when pastors are mainly speaking about public events, they are unable to place those events in a religiously interpreted context. According to the pastors social problems are to be met with private and individual solutions through Christians' actions to the benefit of their fellow men. The MCC is a part of what in Swedish can be called a popular movement, a kind of "social movement" or "voluntary organisation." The analysis shows that its pastors in their sermons do not embrace some of the central parts of the ideology that generally pertain to popular movements, namely concern with reforming society.

This study, the first in its scope on transgender religiosity, is based on in-depth biographical interviews with 13 transgender participants with a Jewish Orthodox background (currently and formerly Orthodox). The primary aim of the study has been to elucidate the entanglements of gender and religion in three periods of the participants’ lives: pre-transition, transition and post-transition. One of the main topics investigated have been the ways participants negotiated gendered religious practices in those three periods. A secondary aim of this study has been to co-theorize, in dialogue with the participants, different possible paths for religious change; that is, the ways in which the larger Orthodox community might respond to the presence of openly transgender members in its midst. Concerning the findings, in the course of this study I have developed the themes of dislocations and reversal stories to explain how the participants negotiated the entanglements of gender and religion particularly in the transitional and post-transitional periods. The latter theme–reversal stories–has been of special relevance to explain how gendered religious practices, which were generally detrimental to the acceptance of the participants’ gender identities during the pre-transitional period, had the potential to become a powerful source for gender affirmation after transition. In this study I argue that this possibility and its related mode of agency are not contained within the binary resistance/subordination that feminist scholars have developed to account for the agency of women in traditionalist religions. In order to better conceptualize the notion of agency and explore the nature of the mutual entanglements of gender and religion, I deploy the body of theoretical work developed by Karen Barad known as agential realism. Lastly, I conclude by examining my initial commitments to social constructionism (in Peter Berger’s definition). In the final chapter, I describe how in the course of my study I have encountered three unexpected sites of resistance to social constructionism that have led me to reconsider my previous epistemological commitments and embrace posthumanism as a more satisfactory alternative. / The Impact of Religion - Challenges for Society, Law and Democracy

This thesis analyses discourses on health and wellbeing in three Swedish lifestyle magazines for women, Amelia, Tara and M-magasin, and how readers of these magazines reflect on and negotiate the values and identities presented in them. The aim of the thesis is to contribute to increased knowledge about mediatized religion, directed to women by commercial women's magazines on a secular market, and how this religion is presented, perceived and used as a resource for women's wellbeing, lifestyle and identity. The study is a qualitative case study combining a content analysis of what is referred to as the wellbeing discourses of the three magazines, and a reception study. This design was selected to combine a media centred and a consumer oriented perspective. Inspired by Nancy T. Ammerman, the magazines’ and the readers’ discursive understanding of religion and spirituality was approached through the concept of everyday religion. The magazines and the readers associated religion with institutional religion and a collective experience. Spirituality was related to non-institutional religion and individually chosen meaning-making elements from both non-institutional and institutional religion. This individualistic spirituality was, thus, still connected to institutional religion. This religion can, on an individual as well as structural level, be connected to a global holistic consumption spirituality and a standardization and homogenization of contemporary religion where practises like yoga and meditation occupied a prominent position. The understanding of religion and spirituality presented through the magazines’ wellbeing discourses, can be seen as “glossy-feminism”, a feminism that grows out of a neo-liberal self-help paradigm, and a feminisation of wellbeing in contemporary western society. Wellbeing is depicted as a female concern that legitimates the reader's attention to her own body as the primary tool to achieve control over her own life and social relationships, and for gender equality in society. This strategy is connected to female caring practice in traditional gender positions. The thesis draws on theories of deregulation of religion, the mediatization and individualisation of religion, and contributes to a deeper understanding of how these shape contemporary religious change. Through focusing the understudied area of commercial women's magazines, it contributes with new knowledge to the field of research on media as a primary source of peoples’ encounter with religion. / Impact of Religion