What does religion mean to the individual?

How are people religious and what do their beliefs, practices and identities mean to them?

The individual's place within studies of religion has tended to be overlooked recently in favour of macro analyses. Religion and the Individual draws together authors from around the world to explore belief, practice and identity. Using original case studies and other work firmly placed in the empirical, contributors discuss what religious belief means to the individual. They examine how people embody what religion means to them through practice, considering the different meanings that people attach to religion and the social expressions of their personal understandings and the ways in which religion shapes how people see themselves in relation to others. This work is cross-cultural, with contributions from Asia, Europe and North America.

Contents: Introduction, Abby Day; Part I Belief: Cultural intensification: a theory for religion, Douglas Davies; Speaking personally: women making meaning through subjectivised belief, Janet Eccles; Young people's spirituality and the meaning of prayer, Sylvia Collins-Mayo; Who are the believers of religion in China?, Xiaowen Lu, Richard O'Leary and Yaojun Li. Part II Practice: New paradigm Christianity and commitment-formation: the case of Hope Filipino (Singapore), Jayeel Serrano Cornelio; A peaceable common: gathered wisdom from exemplar Muslim and Christian peacemakers, Kevin S. Reimer, Alvin C. Dueck, Joshua P. Morgan and Deborah E. Kessel; Autonomous conformism – the paradox of entrepreneurial Protestantism. Spring harvest: a case study, Rob Warner; Social vs. spiritual capital in explaining philanthropic giving in a Muslim setting: the case of Turkey, Ali Çarkoglu. Part III Identity: Development of the religious self: a theoretical foundation for measuring religious identity, David M. Bell; Accommodating the individual and the social, the religious and the secular: modelling the parameters of discourse in 'religious' contexts, Peter Collins; Religion and the individual: a socio-legal perspective, Russell Sandberg; Freedom in chains: religion as an enabler and constraint in the lives of gay male Anglican clergy, Michael Keenan; Religious identity and millenarian belief in Santo Daime, Andrew Dawson; Index.

About the Editor: Dr Abby Day is based at the University of Sussex, UK.

Reviews: 'This volume brings together a significant set of reflections on the meaning of religion for the individual as well as society. In doing so it makes a timely and valuable contribution to our understanding both of individualizing tendencies within religion, and of appropriate theoretical and methodological responses to that shift.'
Professor Linda Woodhead, Director AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme, Lancaster University, UK

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Full contents list

Introduction

Index