Jacob Neusner Series: Religion/Social Order – serie

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For years, many have observed the notion that there are a number of distinctive differences in the mate-selection process of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and other North Americans. Because of the strongly held values espoused by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in regard to marriage within the larger picture of American cultural patterns, there are many Mormon sub-cultural differences. Unique LDS culture patterns have been found to be an expression of a young adult LDS Church member's paradigms of life's meanings. This book combines cutting edge scholarly research with items of popular interest analyzing and summarizing data and research already collected. Making commitments is vital to LDS life and affects the mate-selection process. Parental attitudes, values, and interpretations of accepted codes within the Church have developed into traditions that constitute a complex Mormon lore. Therefore, the book's approach is a detailed, comprehensive report of the author's research that uniquely incorporates folklore data.This volume defines the formation of heterosexual relationships culminating in marriage of LDS couples from 1960 to 2005, and compares this pattern to that of other cultural courtships. The study will assist future researchers in their analysis of the family, and have a direct influence on further exploration of what constitutes successful LDS families.

The Golden Rule—'do to others as you would have them do to you', 'what is hateful to you to your fellow don't do', to take the two most familiar formulations—defines a meeting place for many fields of learning. There the study of comparative religion, philosophy and ethics, anthropology and sociology, and the whole range of cross-cultural studies carried on in the social sciences and the humanities intersect. That hardly presents a surprise, since the Golden Rule finds a place in most religions and is universally acknowledged to form a part of the shared heritage of human wisdom. But if it is one thing on which religions concur, that does not mean the Golden Rule is simple or self-evident. Its ubiquity presents us with tough questions of context and difficult problems of content. Both the Golden Rule itself and how it attests to the human condition demand study. Defining the rule and explaining its universality in religion and culture require attention. The role of the Golden Rule in various systems of thought, both religious and philosophical, invites study. How the logic of a given system interprets the Golden Rule demands analysis. Objective data deriving from empirical study of nature and society deserve close examination. Specialists in a wide range of disciplines have a contribution to make out of their particular disciplines and areas of expert knowledge.

This collection of essays by a host of leading scholars of religion reflects on the urgent theological questions of our day. They present a worthy commendation of the life and academic career of William M. Shea—particularly his instinctive empathy for the 'other' and the contribution of multiple voices in our understanding of humanity, of religion, and of Christianity. These selections address contemporary challenges in the church, academy, and society, such as epistemology, culture, ecumenical/inter-religious dialogue, and the manifold nature of human religious experience.

Free-standing ideas form systems when random facts coalescing in a set of abstract propositions can be shown logically to cohere. We know that that is so when ideas intersect and can be shown to accommodate new problems and generate answers to fresh questions. The system exhibits its cogency by fixing upon one thing and saying it in many ways. That emerges when the evidence of a particular conception of the social order turns out to concern itself with a generative question and to recapitulate an answer that is repeated many times over. In that way the writings that in theory form a system of the social order signal their logic by what they deem self-evident. The essays address writings of formative Judaism in the time of the Mishnah and the Talmud, the first six centuries of the Common Era, and formative Christianity in the first six centuries of the Common Era. They take up a common program of categories and consequent convictions: where Judaism and Christianity intersected. This seeks not just random points of agreement but fundamental structural congruence: the confluence of systems. That inquiry concerns shared organizing categories of religion and ethics of the two faiths. What concerns us is how Scriptures held in common produced a single construction of history and a common view of culture and society.

These essays emerged from papers presented under the auspices of the American Academy of Religion. The contributors explored cases that highlight the development of “historical consciousness” in diverse Christian traditions from the early sixteenth century to the early twentieth century. Topics considered range from Erasmus of Rotterdam and Richard Simon to nineteenth-century Anglicanism, Catholicism, and European and American Protestantism. Like a mosaic—with many disparate parts—definite patterns begin to emerge. First, the contributors demonstrate that historical consciousness grew out of Christian scholarship, not eighteenth-century enlightenment thought. Second, they highlight how historical scholarship implicitly asserted the scholar’s authority to critique cherished assumptions about Christian truth. Finally, the essays explore how ecclesiastical authorities reacted to these critiques as challenges to their spiritual authority. This volume contributes to scholarship that explores Christianity’s role in modernity, the ongoing implications of historical controversies, and the importance of history in Christian theology.