New Books in Religion

The Hindu tradition has held conflicting views on womanhood from its earliest texts—holding women aloft as goddesses to be worshipped on the one hand and remaining deeply suspicious about women’s sexuality on the other. In Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage: Sexual Ideology in the Mahabharata (SUNY Press, 2008), Arti Dhand examines the religious premises upon which Hindu ideas of sexuality and women are constructed. The work focuses on the great Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata, a text that not only reflects the cogitations of a momentous period in Hindu history, but also was critical in shaping the future of Hinduism. Dhand proposes that the epic’s understanding of womanhood cannot be isolated from the broader religious questions that were debated at the time, and that the formation of a sexual ideology is one element in crafting a coherent religious framework for Hinduism.Today we speak with Arti Dhand on her teaching, her research on the Hindu epics and her exciting new podcast on the Mahābhārata!For information on your host Raj Balkaran’s background, see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Realizing Islam: The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World (The University of North Carolina Press 2020) by Zachary Valentine Wright (Associate Professor in Residence in History and Religious Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar) maps the intellectual history of the largest Sufi order in West and North Africa, the Tijaniyya. Using diverse primary and archival sources, Wright locates the life, teachings, and legacies of Ahmad al-Tijani (d. 1815) within broader 18th century Islamic scholarly milieu of jurisprudence and theology and reformist and revivalist discourses, as well as the social and political climate of European colonialism and Ottoman control. Here, it was the methodology of tahqiq, or verification, as it was formulated through visionary encounters of the Prophet Muhammad and al-Tijani, that led to the formative epistemologies that defined the Muhammadan Path (tariqa Muhammadiyya) of the Tijaniyya. This path which is centered on the living legacy of Prophet Muhammad then defined Tijaniyya conceptualizations of the human condition and the shaykh-murid (master-disciple relationship), but also metaphysical, esoteric, and theological ideas and practices, such as notions of sainthood. Overall, the book offers fresh insights into the wide intellectual and networked traditions that led to the development of Tijaniyya, Sufism, and Islam in North Africa. The book will be of interest to those who work and think on Islam in West and North Africa, but also scholars of Sufism generally. The book is open-access and available online, and so will be a useful and accessible resource for courses on Islam and Sufism.Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Queen’s University. Her research areas are on contemporary Sufism in North America and South Asia. She is the author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism (Bloombsury Press, 2018) and a co-author of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2017). More details about her research and scholarship may be found here and here. She may be reached at shobhana.xavier@queensu.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (Cambridge UP, 2020) addresses one of the big questions in economics and economic history: why did the modern economy emerge in northwestern Europe at some point in the 17th or 18th century but not in the Middle East? After all, for centuries following the spread of Islam, the Middle East was far ahead of Europe – on both technological and economic terms.Jared Rubin argues that the religion itself is not to blame; the importance of religious legitimacy in Middle Eastern politics was the primary factor. In much of the Muslim world, religious authorities were given an important seat at the political bargaining table, which they used to block important advancements such as the printing press and usury. In Europe, however, the Church played a weaker role in legitimizing rule, especially where Protestantism spread (indeed, the Reformation was successful due to the spread of printing, which was blocked in the Middle East). It was precisely in those Protestant nations, especially England and the Dutch Republic, where the modern economy was born.In this interview, Jared shares with us his opinions on a wide range of topics – from the work of Jared Diamond and the theories of Max Weber, to his serendipitous journey in academia that led him to write his first book.Joshua Tham is an undergraduate reading History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests include economic history, sociolinguistics, and the "linguistic turn" in historiography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Over a Thanksgiving dinner, fifty-year-old Bart Campolo announced to his famous Evangelical pastor father, Tony Campolo, that after a lifetime immersed in the Christian faith, he no longer believed in God. The revelation shook the Campolo family dynamic and forced father and son to each reconsider his own personal journey of faith—these dual spiritual investigations into theology, faith, and Humanism eventually led Bart and Tony back to one another.It also led them to coauthor the book I’m looking at today, called Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son (HarperOne, 2017).In it, the Campolos reflect on their individual spiritual odysseys and how they evolved when their paths diverged. Tony recounts his experience, from the initial heartbreak of discovering Bart’s change in faith, to the subsequent healing he found in his own self-examination, to his embracing of his son’s point of view. Bart writes about his faith journey from Progressive Christianity to Humanism, revealing how it affected his outlook and transformed his relationship with his father.As Why I Left, Why I Stayed makes clear, a painful schism between father and son that could have divided them irreparably became instead an opening that offered each an invaluable look not only at what separated them, but more importantly, what they shared. These insights can, no doubt, be helpful for many of us who navigate differences of faith within our own families.Bestselling Christian author and activist, Tony Campolo, is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University and a former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been a pastor, public speaker, and spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. He founded the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education and provided leadership for the progressive Christian movement, Red Letter Christians, and the Campolo Center for Ministry. He has been a guest on programs such as The Colbert Report, The Charlie Rose Show, Larry King Live, Nightline, Crossfire, and Politically Incorrect.Bart Campolo now considers himself a secular community builder, working as a counselor, speaker, the Humanist chaplain at the University of Cincinnati, and as host of the award-winning podcast Humanize Me. Through his work he aims to inspire and assist people around the world who are banding together to actively pursue goodness in an openly secular way. He has been written about in the New York Times Magazine and is the subject of of the documentary film, Leaving My Father’s Faith.Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Millions of tourists visit Washington D.C. every year, vying to see its landscape, museums, and buildings and learn about seminal moments in US history. Attracting white evangelicals to the nation’s capital, Christian heritage tours contribute to the thriving tourist industry in D.C. In Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation’s Capital and Redeem a Christian America (University of North Carolina Press, 2020), Lauren R. Kerby examines how white evangelicals perceive themselves and their role in American life through an analysis of the narratives told by Christian heritage tours. A rich ethnographic study that transports the reader to Washington D.C., Saving History offers a unique analysis of Christian heritage, white evangelical identity, and the role of evangelicals in American society.Lauren R. Kerby is lecturer on religious studies and education specialist of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Women in the Bible aren't shy or retiring; they're fierce and funny and demanding and relevant to 21st-century people. Women in the Bible—some of their names we know, others we’ve only heard, and others are tragically unnamed.In Fierce: Women of the Bible and Their Stories of Violence, Mercy, Bravery, Wisdom, Sex, and Salvation (Fortress, 2017), Pastor and provocateur Alice Connor introduces these women and invites us to see them not as players in a man’s story—as victims or tempters—nor as morality archetypes, teaching us to be better wives and mothers, but as fierce foremothers of the faith. These women’s stories are messy, challenging, and beautiful. When we read their stories, we can see not only their particular, fearsome lives but also our own.Alice Connor is an Episcopal priest and a chaplain on a college campus.Dr. Christina Gessler’s background is in anthropology, women’s history, and literature. She works as a historian, poet, and photographer. In seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary, Gessler writes the histories of largely unknown women, poems about small relatable moments, and takes many, many photos in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Naomi Appleton's new book Many Buddhas, One Buddha: A Study and Translation of Avadānaśataka 1-40 (Equinox Publishing, 2020) introduces a significant section of the important early Indian Buddhist text known as the Avadānaśataka, or “One Hundred Stories”, and explores some of its perspectives on buddhahood. This text, composed in Sanskrit and dating to perhaps the third to fifth centuries of the Common Era, is affiliated with the Sarvāstivāda or Mūlasarvāstivāda, and thus provides important evidence of the ideas and literatures of lost non-Mahāyāna schools of Indian Buddhism. The text is a rich literary composition, in mixed prose and verse, and includes some elaborate devotional passages that illuminate early Indian perspectives on the Buddha and on the role of avadāna texts.The book introduces the first four chapters of the Avadānaśataka through key themes of these stories, such as predictions and vows, preparations for buddhahood, the relationship between Śākyamuni and other buddhas, and the relationship between full buddhahood and pratyekabuddhahood. The study of these stories closes with an argument about the structural design of the text, and what this tells us about attitudes towards different forms of awakening. The second part of the book then presents a full English translation of stories 1-40. From tax-dodging merchants, to monks fretting about their sewing skills, the stories offer a rich and entertaining slice of Indian Buddhist literature and teaching.Olivia Porter is a PhD candidate at Kings College London. Her research focuses on Tai Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar and its borders. She can be contacted at: olivia.c.porter@kcl.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

A “flip,” writes Jeffrey J. Kripal, is “a reversal of perspective,” “a new real,” often born of an extreme, life-changing experience. The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge (Bellevue Literary Press, 2019) is Kripal’s ambitious, visionary program for unifying the sciences and the humanities to expand our minds, open our hearts, and negotiate a peaceful resolution to the culture wars. Combining accounts of rationalists’ spiritual awakenings and consciousness explorations by philosophers, neuroscientists, and mystics within a framework of the history of science and religion, Kripal compellingly signals a path to mending our fractured world.Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University and is the associate director of the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He has previously taught at Harvard Divinity School and Westminster College and is the author of eight books, including The Flip. He lives in Houston, Texas.Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern University, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. His books are Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (English/Hebrew and The Male Body in Jewish Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodoxy (Hebrew). He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

What happens when a new group of migrants enters not just the social and economic life of a city, but also its religious institutions? Deborah E. Kanter, the John S. Ludington Endowed Professor of History at Albion College, takes us through the dramatic demographic transformation of Chicago through the eyes of Catholic parishes and Mexican churchgoers in her new book Chicago Católico: Making Catholic Parishes Mexican (University of Illinois Press, 2020).Catholic churches simultaneously served as a refugio for newly arrived Mexican immigrants to connect with their culture and mexicanidad, while also being sites of Americanization for their U.S.-born children. As the Mexican community in Chicago outgrew its original ethnic enclaves, it expanded into new neighborhoods and mixed into traditionally Slavic parishes.Ultimately, Latino laypeople made these new parishes their own in a process of ethnic succession that continues to define local churches today. Contrary to the mainstream trend in Chicano studies that has deemphasized the role of religion in Mexican American culture, Kanter foregrounds the Church as the center of everyday life for many Mexicans in Chicago throughout the twentieth century. Full of rich detail and personal stories collected from oral interviews, the book illustrates the centrality of local parishes in the creation of Latino Chicago.Jaime Sánchez, Jr. is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at Princeton University and a scholar of U.S. politics and Latino studies. He is currently writing an institutional history of the Democratic National Committee and partisan coalition politics in the twentieth century. You can follow him on Twitter @Jaime_SanchezJr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Should you care how Protestant theologians and philosophers view a man generally regarded as of interest primarily to Catholics and as a pillar of Catholic thinking? Absolutely. Why? Because much of what has made our modern world in terms of law, philosophy and ethics comes from Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).How would we benefit from reading a book about Aquinas by a noted scholar who has been a Protestant but who is now a Catholic? That is what we are going to find out in this interview with Francis J. Beckwith about his 2019 book, Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Baylor University Press).The book is not dry-as-dust theology. It is approachable and often quite funny, even as it tackles some quite arcane subject matter (e.g., faith, works and justification).Beckwith engagingly critiques some of the arguments of recent years against natural law theory—which is more relevant than many of us have realized and which forms some of the background of the soul-searching and debate on the right over recent Supreme Court decisions by supposedly conservative justices.Beckwith examines the contention of many Protestant thinkers that the whole idea of natural law that flowed from Aquinas is a distraction from the truly important goal of engagement with the scriptures and reliance on divine revelation.The book is intended for educated general readers who want to understand why so many Protestant thinkers have been so eager to claim Aquinas as a Proto-Protestant (even though he lived centuries before Luther) and what, according to Beckwith, they get so wrong about him even as they admire him.Among other topics Beckwith addresses in this little volume are the centuries-old debate over whether Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God and the evergreen topic of purgatory.And for those who want to wade into the waters of the decades-long battle between Darwinists and atheists on the one side and those who adhere to the theory of Intelligent Design on the other, there is even a chapter on that.Who would have thought that a medieval religious scholar would still be annoying some scholars and engendering devotion in others all these centuries later? Francis J. Beckwith tells us why.Give a listen.Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy at Baylor University.Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion