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Public Discourses About Homosexuality and Religion in Europe and Beyond
This volume addresses three things many people do not discuss candidly with strangers or mere acquaintances: God, sex, and politics. These can easily become topics of fierce debate, particularly when taken together, as has been the case with same-sex marriage legislation, the Vatican’s criticism of “gender ideology,” or the repeatedly asserted claim that Islam, homosexuality, and gender equality are essentially incompatible. This volume investigates what is at stake in these constructions of religion and homosexuality in public discourses. Starting with the Netherlands as a special case study, it proceeds with contributions on other predominantly postsecular countries in central, northern, and southern Europe as well as several postcommunist and postcolonial countries “beyond Europe.” Combining contemporary and historical perspectives and approaches from both the humanities and the social sciences, the contributors explore how national and European identities are constructed and contested in debates on religion and homosexuality. Chapter 2 and Chapter 8 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.
The Calling of the Church in Times of Polarization
In many societies all over the world, an increasing polarization between contrasting groups can be observed. Polarization arises when a fear born of difference turns into ‘us-versus-them’ thinking and rules out any form of compromise. This volume addresses polarizations within societies as well as within churches, and asks the question: given these dynamics, what may be the calling of the church? The authors offer new approaches to polarizing debates on topics such as racism, social justice, sexuality and gender, euthanasia, and ecology and agriculture in various contexts. They engage in profound theological and ecclesiological reflection, in particular from the Reformed tradition. Contributors to this volume are: Najib George Awad, Henk van den Belt, Nadine Bowers Du Toit, Jaeseung Cha, David Daniels, David Fergusson, Jan Jorrit Hasselaar, Jozef Hehanussa, Allan Janssen, Klaas-Willem de Jong, Viktória Kóczián, Philipp Pattberg, Louise Prideaux, Emanuel Gerrit Singgih, Peter-Ben Smit, Thandi Soko-de Jong, Wim van Vlastuin, Jan Dirk Wassenaar, Elizabeth Welch, Annemarieke van der Woude, and Heleen Zorgdrager.
Stories about good education
Educational professionals as well as academic scholars agree that a clear educational vision is of utmost importance for successful school leaders and schools. What this vision contains, and how it is communicated and used is less clear. This study proposes a conceptual framework for educational visions as 'stories about good education.' The qualitative empirical part investigates to what extent school leaders and school teams of primary schools in the Netherlands are able to formulate these stories about good education and how they are used in school improvement projects. The results show that while school leaders and teams vary greatly in the extent to which they articulate stories about good education, only few formulate stories that include both educational aims and design principles, which are shared in the school community, directive for the school practice and in rich interaction with cultural sources.
A Graceful Embrace: Theological Reflections on Adopting Children
This book significantly deepens the contemporary discussion of the theology and practice of adopting children. Though adoption appears prominently in Scripture, contemporary adoption practice has thus far proceeded without serious theological engagement. This book seeks to fill this gap by offering a theological and ethical perspective on adoption that not only clarifies and complicates contemporary understandings of adoption, but also throws fresh light on family, community, vocation, and even what it means to be human. Both interdisciplinary and international, the volume is brings together theologians and ethicists from Europe, the UK, Canada and the United States. A rich set of reflections from both practical and theoretical perspectives offers a unique and uniquely insightful vision of Christian adoption. Contributors are: Dale P. Andrews, Jana Marguerite Bennett, Marco Derks, R. Ruard Ganzevoort, Bill McAlpine, Kirsten Sonkyo Oh, Sarah Shea, Paul Shrier, Henning Theißen, Hans. G. Ulrich, Karin Ulrich-Eschemann, Heather Walton, Brent Waters, Nick Watson.
Religion, Gender and Race in Western European Arts and Culture
This book examines narratives of individual religious transformation in Western European literature and culture. Religious individuals, themes, experiences and communities are widely represented in diverse literature and culture, including literary texts and visual arts and media. Taking the subject of religious transformation as an angle from which to study constructions of religion, gender and race, this book reveals through various case studies what authors, documentary makers, film makers and playwrights consider to be important (possible) shifts between the old and the new, continuities and discontinuities, and the formation of the self. The chapters demonstrate how individual religious transformations are understood to be shaped by various intersections of difference, and point at the need to consider gender as always related to and co-constructing religion and race. This transdisciplinary and intimate study provides a fresh lens through which to examine pressing questions regarding the place and future of religion, gender and race in contemporary Western Europe.
Women and Religion
This edited collection provides interdisciplinary, global, and multi-religious perspectives on the relationship between women’s identities, religion, and social change in the contemporary world. The book discusses the experiences and positions of women, and particular groups of women, to understand patterns of religiosity and religious change. It also addresses the current and future challenges posed by women’s changes to religion in different parts of the world and among different religious traditions and practices. The contributors address a diverse range of themes and issues including the attitudes of different religions to gender equality; how women construct their identity through religious activity; whether women have opportunity to influence religious doctrine; and the impact of migration on the religious lives of both women and men.
Religion in Times of Crisis
This book explores the role of religion in times of personal, political, and social crisis in Europe and beyond. Its fresh perspectives on religion, modernity and the nation-state demonstrate the complexity and ambivalence of religion’s role in the contemporary world.
The Femininity Puzzle
In the Hobsbawmian long 19th century, gender and processes of sexualization and feminization have been crucial in the construction of the »Jewish Other«. Ulrike Brunotte explores how these processes came about by addressing imaginative, aesthetic, and epistemological questions. She analyzes how literature, psychoanalysis and the performing arts traverse and react to the ambivalence of racialized stereotypes. The »femininity puzzle« presents itself in two ways: first in the role of effeminization of the male Jew in antisemitic discourse, and then in the transgressive forms of femininity connected to Jewish women, especially the allosemitic orientalization in the figure of the »Beautiful Jewess«.
Sexual Self-Fashioning
Sexuality and gender have come to serve as measures for cultural belonging in discussions of the position of Muslim immigrants in multicultural Western societies. While the acceptance of assumed local norms such as sexual liberty and gender equality are seen as successful integration, rejecting them is regarded as a sign of failed citizenship. Focusing on premarital sex, homosexuality, and cohabitation outside marriage, this book provides an ethnographic account of sexuality among the Iranian Dutch. It argues that by embracing, rejecting, and questioning modernity in stories about sexuality, the Iranian Dutch actively engage in processes of self-fashioning.
Family and Christian Ethics
In this book, Petruschka Schaafsma offers an innovative appraisal of family. Eschewing the framework of worry and renewal that currently dominates family studies, she instead explores the topic through the concepts of 'givenness' and 'dependence'. 'Givenness' highlights the fact that family is not chosen; 'dependence' refers to being intimately included in each other's identities and lives. Both experiences are challenging, especially in a contemporary context, where independence and freedom to shape one's own life have become accepted ideals. Schaafsma shows the impasses to which these ideals lead in several disciplines – theology, philosophy, sociology, social anthropology and care ethics. She moves constructively beyond them by tapping literary, artistic and biblical sources for their insights on family. Grounded in a theological approach to family as 'mystery' rather than 'problem', she develops an understanding of the current controversial character of family that accounts for both its ordinary and transcendent character.
