In April 2019, athlete Isileli ‘Israel’ Folau was sacked for posting anti-LGBTQ+ social media messages. The ‘Israel Folau case’ was contentious in Australia and internationally. Although Folau claimed to be expressing genuinely held Christian beliefs, he has previously articulated heterodox anti-Trinitarian ideas. Throughout Christian history, orthodox beliefs concerning the Trinity have been central. Conversely, same-sex desire has been variously tolerated or censured, but has mostly been regarded as adiaphora: a matter of marginal importance. I argue that the support Folau received from two conservative Christian bodies—the Australian Christian Lobby and the Anglican Diocese of Sydney—suggests that in Australian conservative Christianity, ‘orthodox’ sexuality is now regarded as central, with orthodox belief now de facto consigned to adiaphora.
{"title":"Adiaphora","authors":"Mark Jennings","doi":"10.1558/jasr.22486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.22486","url":null,"abstract":"In April 2019, athlete Isileli ‘Israel’ Folau was sacked for posting anti-LGBTQ+ social media messages. The ‘Israel Folau case’ was contentious in Australia and internationally. Although Folau claimed to be expressing genuinely held Christian beliefs, he has previously articulated heterodox anti-Trinitarian ideas. Throughout Christian history, orthodox beliefs concerning the Trinity have been central. Conversely, same-sex desire has been variously tolerated or censured, but has mostly been regarded as adiaphora: a matter of marginal importance. I argue that the support Folau received from two conservative Christian bodies—the Australian Christian Lobby and the Anglican Diocese of Sydney—suggests that in Australian conservative Christianity, ‘orthodox’ sexuality is now regarded as central, with orthodox belief now de facto consigned to adiaphora.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135339915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many local governments in Australia open their council meetings with prayer and have done so for some time. Yet this phenomenon has been largely ignored by the literature examining religion-government interactions in Australia. After outlining the origins of local government prayers, this article goes on to show that approximately one-third of Australian local governments have a prayer practice (rising to more than half of local governments in New South Wales and Victoria), that almost all of those prayer practices are exclusively Christian, and that in some states communities with the smallest Christian populations are more likely to have a council with a prayer practice than communities with the largest Christian populations. This phenomenon does not sit neatly with existing accounts of post-secularism in Australia. The article suggests that local government prayers in Australia also pose a challenge to existing post-secular explanatory accounts of the nature of religion-government interactions in Australia and speak to the need to develop more nuanced accounts that distinguish between the policy realm and institutional issues in developing accounts of the relationship between religion and government in Australia.
{"title":"Local Government Prayers in Australia","authors":"Luke Beck","doi":"10.1558/jasr.21309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.21309","url":null,"abstract":"Many local governments in Australia open their council meetings with prayer and have done so for some time. Yet this phenomenon has been largely ignored by the literature examining religion-government interactions in Australia. After outlining the origins of local government prayers, this article goes on to show that approximately one-third of Australian local governments have a prayer practice (rising to more than half of local governments in New South Wales and Victoria), that almost all of those prayer practices are exclusively Christian, and that in some states communities with the smallest Christian populations are more likely to have a council with a prayer practice than communities with the largest Christian populations. This phenomenon does not sit neatly with existing accounts of post-secularism in Australia. The article suggests that local government prayers in Australia also pose a challenge to existing post-secular explanatory accounts of the nature of religion-government interactions in Australia and speak to the need to develop more nuanced accounts that distinguish between the policy realm and institutional issues in developing accounts of the relationship between religion and government in Australia.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":"746 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135339912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the spiritual journeys of LGBTQA+ people seeking to reconstruct their faith as minorities within, or excluded from, evangelical traditions. Twenty-four queer individuals with histories in evangelical settings took part in in-depth interviews. Twenty-two participants had restructured traditional Christian doctrines to integrate their religious and queer selves. In the process of reconstructing religious or spiritual identities, participants’ understanding of God took on a more enigmatic form, larger than the boundaries that traditional orthodoxy had placed on the nature of the divine. It was found that LGBTQA+ individuals began to ‘take God out of the box’, showed a willingness to approach ‘heresy’, and attempted (with varied success) to separate religion from spirituality. This reimagining of God from the margins is theorised as an expression of spiritual resilience and a lay-led form of queering theology that can benefit the broader church.
{"title":"Spiritual Identity Reconstruction among Australian LGBTQA+ Christians from Evangelical Traditions","authors":"Joel Hollier","doi":"10.1558/jasr.21044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.21044","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the spiritual journeys of LGBTQA+ people seeking to reconstruct their faith as minorities within, or excluded from, evangelical traditions. Twenty-four queer individuals with histories in evangelical settings took part in in-depth interviews. Twenty-two participants had restructured traditional Christian doctrines to integrate their religious and queer selves. In the process of reconstructing religious or spiritual identities, participants’ understanding of God took on a more enigmatic form, larger than the boundaries that traditional orthodoxy had placed on the nature of the divine. It was found that LGBTQA+ individuals began to ‘take God out of the box’, showed a willingness to approach ‘heresy’, and attempted (with varied success) to separate religion from spirituality. This reimagining of God from the margins is theorised as an expression of spiritual resilience and a lay-led form of queering theology that can benefit the broader church.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":"79 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135339913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores how New Zealand religious leaders and their communities responded to the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. This article analyses qualitative data, drawn from leaders across New Zealand’s diverse religious communities, specifically including minority religions and the non-religious. It utilizes a two-time-period qualitative data collection methodology combining material drawn directly after the attacks with interviews subsequently conducted one year later with a diverse sample of religious leaders (n=14). We offer three findings: 1) Immediate religious community responses to the Christchurch mosque shootings, 2) Religious community reactions and reflections on the state response, and 3) Inclusive and exclusive religious framing of the mosque victims’ Muslim identity. Our findings demonstrate that New Zealand religious communities were universally appalled by the Christchurch mosque attacks, in terms of its human impacts on the Muslim community, but in some cases the recognition and legitimation of the victims’ religious identity were contested.
{"title":"New Zealand Religious Groups’ Responses to the Christchurch Terror Attacks","authors":"Catherine Rivera, Theis Oxholm, Wil Hoverd","doi":"10.1558/jasr.21175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.21175","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how New Zealand religious leaders and their communities responded to the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. This article analyses qualitative data, drawn from leaders across New Zealand’s diverse religious communities, specifically including minority religions and the non-religious. It utilizes a two-time-period qualitative data collection methodology combining material drawn directly after the attacks with interviews subsequently conducted one year later with a diverse sample of religious leaders (n=14). We offer three findings: 1) Immediate religious community responses to the Christchurch mosque shootings, 2) Religious community reactions and reflections on the state response, and 3) Inclusive and exclusive religious framing of the mosque victims’ Muslim identity. Our findings demonstrate that New Zealand religious communities were universally appalled by the Christchurch mosque attacks, in terms of its human impacts on the Muslim community, but in some cases the recognition and legitimation of the victims’ religious identity were contested.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135339914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers the relationship between the law, charity and religion, and specifically, the charitable doctrines of the advancement of religion and public benefit. In doing so, it addresses a number of matters, including controversy and morality, from the perspective of some key religious charity law cases. The discussions consider whether or not the Lord’s name may be taken in vain through the works of these charities, and thus require legal reform, or whether charity law is indeed doing the Lord’s work within the constructs of charity law such that the law remains fit for purpose.
{"title":"Doing the Lord’s Work or Taking His Name in Vain","authors":"Juliet Chevalier-Watts","doi":"10.1558/jasr.22674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.22674","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers the relationship between the law, charity and religion, and specifically, the charitable doctrines of the advancement of religion and public benefit. In doing so, it addresses a number of matters, including controversy and morality, from the perspective of some key religious charity law cases. The discussions consider whether or not the Lord’s name may be taken in vain through the works of these charities, and thus require legal reform, or whether charity law is indeed doing the Lord’s work within the constructs of charity law such that the law remains fit for purpose.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135339916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The turn to ‘everyday religion’ has disrupted the so-called ‘Muslim problem’, suggesting modes of multiculturalism located not in abstract principles of citizenship but grounded in the concrete practices of local communities. In this article, however, I offer two critiques of the literature on everyday religion in Australia. First, the literature has limited itself to discursive methodologies, largely ignoring material aspects of the everyday. Second, I show how studies of everyday religion assume multiculturalism’s location in a given public space. Drawing on ethnography from the Shia Muslim community of Sydney, I show how Shia practices of visual pilgrimage leverage an understanding of complex space that transforms everyday experience. I argue that allowing for diversity requires not merely an attentiveness to different discourses in the public sphere; it requires an allowance for difference at a deeper level, where everyday religion can generate complex alternative experiences of space itself.
{"title":"Everyday Religion and the Complexity of Islamic Space","authors":"Samuel D. Blanch","doi":"10.1558/jasr.19233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.19233","url":null,"abstract":"The turn to ‘everyday religion’ has disrupted the so-called ‘Muslim problem’, suggesting modes of multiculturalism located not in abstract principles of citizenship but grounded in the concrete practices of local communities. In this article, however, I offer two critiques of the literature on everyday religion in Australia. First, the literature has limited itself to discursive methodologies, largely ignoring material aspects of the everyday. Second, I show how studies of everyday religion assume multiculturalism’s location in a given public space. Drawing on ethnography from the Shia Muslim community of Sydney, I show how Shia practices of visual pilgrimage leverage an understanding of complex space that transforms everyday experience. I argue that allowing for diversity requires not merely an attentiveness to different discourses in the public sphere; it requires an allowance for difference at a deeper level, where everyday religion can generate complex alternative experiences of space itself.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46241844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marion Maddox (ed.), Charles Strong’s Australian Church: Christian Social Activism 1885–1917. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2021, pp. 208, ISBN: 9780522877892 (hbk).
{"title":"Marion Maddox (ed.), Charles Strong’s Australian Church: Christian Social Activism 1885–1917","authors":"Rosemary Hancock","doi":"10.1558/jasr.23946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.23946","url":null,"abstract":"Marion Maddox (ed.), Charles Strong’s Australian Church: Christian Social Activism 1885–1917. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2021, pp. 208, ISBN: 9780522877892 (hbk).","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43320568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Trish Griffin, Dancing on the Head of a Pin: Reflections on the Camino. Kiama, NSW: AIA Publishing, 2020, pp. 158. Colour photographs. ISBN: 9781922329059 (pbk). AU$29.70; US$28.43.
{"title":"Trish Griffin, Dancing on the Head of a Pin: Reflections on the Camino","authors":"Jamie Scott","doi":"10.1558/jasr.23466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.23466","url":null,"abstract":"Trish Griffin, Dancing on the Head of a Pin: Reflections on the Camino. Kiama, NSW: AIA Publishing, 2020, pp. 158. Colour photographs. ISBN: 9781922329059 (pbk). AU$29.70; US$28.43.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45765262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion has been identified as a potential driver of vaccine hesitancy. Nevertheless, the connections between religion and immunisation refusal can be complex, while there is a deficit of research exploring religion and vaccination doubts in Australia. With that in mind, this study considers Australian vaccine hesitancy with respect to religion and trust by analysing the 2018 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes and the Australian dataset of the 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor. Statistical analyses reveal no significant correlations between religion and vaccine hesitancy, while participants with negative vaccine attitudes identify that they do not have religious reasons for being vaccine hesitant. Nonetheless, a higher proportion of respondents with negative vaccine attitudes self-identify as religious or spiritual and maintain pro-religious views. It was also found that negative vaccine attitudes are correlated with unfavourable perceptions of both Jews and Muslims. Notably, religious self-identification divides two main groups of vaccine hesitant participants, described as Religious Conservatives and Nonreligious Progressives. These groups diverge on sexual ethics and social concerns, as well as around whether they trust in science as opposed to religion, while differing in their perceptions of Jews. What unites these vaccine hesitant participants, however, is a mutual lack of trust in government and scientists.
{"title":"Religion, Trust, and Vaccine Hesitancy in Australia","authors":"Thomas Aechtner, Jeremy Farr","doi":"10.1558/jasr.22476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.22476","url":null,"abstract":"Religion has been identified as a potential driver of vaccine hesitancy. Nevertheless, the connections between religion and immunisation refusal can be complex, while there is a deficit of research exploring religion and vaccination doubts in Australia. With that in mind, this study considers Australian vaccine hesitancy with respect to religion and trust by analysing the 2018 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes and the Australian dataset of the 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor. Statistical analyses reveal no significant correlations between religion and vaccine hesitancy, while participants with negative vaccine attitudes identify that they do not have religious reasons for being vaccine hesitant. Nonetheless, a higher proportion of respondents with negative vaccine attitudes self-identify as religious or spiritual and maintain pro-religious views. It was also found that negative vaccine attitudes are correlated with unfavourable perceptions of both Jews and Muslims. Notably, religious self-identification divides two main groups of vaccine hesitant participants, described as Religious Conservatives and Nonreligious Progressives. These groups diverge on sexual ethics and social concerns, as well as around whether they trust in science as opposed to religion, while differing in their perceptions of Jews. What unites these vaccine hesitant participants, however, is a mutual lack of trust in government and scientists. ","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47316086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mar Griera, Jordi Morales i Gras, Anna Clot-Garrell, Rafael Cazarín
This article focuses on the development of COVID-19 anti-vaccination movements in Spain and explores their relationship with the phenomenon of conspirituality. By using a mixed-methods approach combining big data analysis with small ethnographic data analysis, we examine how conspiracy theories and spiritual ideas circulate, merge and crystallize in particular practices and encounters in Spain. The big data analysis of Twitter conversations reveals the centrality and hypervisibility of far-right populist influencers, and the predominance of classic conspiracy views over spiritual ones in anti-vax discourses. However, ethnographic observations and the analysis of digital ethnographic data of other social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube and Telegram) show the emergence and growth of a network of actors merging spiritual messages, alternative visions on health and healing, anti-vax views and conspiracy theories in different ways and degrees. These are the conspiritual assemblages, which are smaller and more local in their scale and impact but still significant in sociological terms.
{"title":"Conspirituality in COVID-19 Times","authors":"Mar Griera, Jordi Morales i Gras, Anna Clot-Garrell, Rafael Cazarín","doi":"10.1558/jasr.22390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.22390","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the development of COVID-19 anti-vaccination movements in Spain and explores their relationship with the phenomenon of conspirituality. By using a mixed-methods approach combining big data analysis with small ethnographic data analysis, we examine how conspiracy theories and spiritual ideas circulate, merge and crystallize in particular practices and encounters in Spain. The big data analysis of Twitter conversations reveals the centrality and hypervisibility of far-right populist influencers, and the predominance of classic conspiracy views over spiritual ones in anti-vax discourses. However, ethnographic observations and the analysis of digital ethnographic data of other social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube and Telegram) show the emergence and growth of a network of actors merging spiritual messages, alternative visions on health and healing, anti-vax views and conspiracy theories in different ways and degrees. These are the conspiritual assemblages, which are smaller and more local in their scale and impact but still significant in sociological terms.","PeriodicalId":41609,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Academic Study of Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49556343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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