Allegories of Progress: Industrial Religion in the United States

Callahan, Richard J.; Lofton, Kathryn; Seales, Chad E.

doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfp076

Cited by 19 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…While a more pathogenetic focus on disease is predominant in medicine and even public health, religion could be used to advocate for a shift in focus to a more ‘salutogenic’ ( 40 ), health-promoting approach. For example, ideas of physical purity and cleanliness, with ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ (a phrase popularised by the Methodist leader John Wesley in the late eighteenth century ( 41 )), could promote handwashing, a key strategy in the defence against COVID-19.…”

Section: Religion For Public Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health promotion perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic: The importance of religion

Barmania¹,

Reiß²

2020

Glob Health Promot

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In this article we examine the importance of religion for COVID-19 health promotion. We advance three main arguments. First, religion plays an important role in affecting how likely it is that people will become infected with COVID-19. Second, religion should not be seen as a ‘problem’ with regards to COVID-19 but as an important part of the worldview and lifestyle of many people. Third, there are valuable health promotion lessons we can learn not only from the intersection of religion and other infectious diseases, but also from approaches taken within science education. Contentious science topics such as evolution and vaccine hesitancy have been effectively communicated to those with a religious faith who are disposed to reject them by reframing and considering religion as a worldview and treating those who do not accept standard scientific theories sensitively. Religion has much to contribute to health promotion, including introducing perspectives on life’s meaning and on death that can differ from those held by many without religious faith. Furthermore, religious leaders are important gatekeepers to their communities and can therefore play a vital role in policy implementation, even when that policy makes no overt reference to religion. Our contention is that by working with those of faith in the context of COVID-19, health promotion can be enhanced.

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Section: Religion For Public Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health promotion perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic: The importance of religion

Barmania¹,

Reiß²

2020

Glob Health Promot

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“…Like other persons, corporations are "partible (subject to external claims and extractions), composite (made up of heterogeneous parts), and permeable (assimilating ideas and substances from the outside)" (Welker 2016, 408). Because it is internally multiple, the corporate form mediates between what some have called "industrial religion" (Callahan, Lofton, and Seales 2010) and "individualized religion" (Martin 2014). As incorporeal entities that may be privately owned or publicly traded, corporations traverse and erode the artificial division of public and private on which many conceptions of religion depend.…”

Section: Defining the Corporate Formmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form

McLaughlin

Rots

Thomas

et al. 2020

Journal of the American Academy of Religion

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A growing body of research describes connections between religion and economic activity through the language of commodification and marketization. Although this scholarship rightly challenges the assumption that religion is or should be divorced from worldly concerns, it still relies on distinctions between religion and the economy as isolable, reified entities. Rejecting this binary approach as untenable, we argue that studying the corporate form enriches the academic study of religion by providing concrete examples of how people create institutions and how organizations turn human bodies into resources while also fostering individuals’ devotion to collective agendas. Attention to the corporate form enables us to keep money and power in view as we trace historical formations and current manifestations of religious organizations. We investigate Japanese genealogies of the corporate form to elucidate some generalizable principles for how nonprofit religions and for-profit companies alike generate missions, families, individuals, and publics.

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“…In addition, following trends in history and anthropology, the study of religion has, after years of silent treatment, turned towards consideration of economics and industrial capitalisms as emerging areas of interests. In doing so, scholars are uncovering the ways that the moral and the material become intertwined and indistinguishable from each other (Callahan et al, 2010;Moreton, 2010;Rudnyckyj, 2014). This is another area of intersection where those who have taken up the mantle of the Frankfurt school might provide added insight and background knowledge.…”

Section: Religious Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can mainstream approaches become more critical?

Goldstein

Boer

King

et al. 2015

Critical Research on Religion

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Since our launch, we have received a number of submissions that follow what we consider to be ''mainstream'' approaches in the study of religion. We think that all of these approaches have the potential to be critical, but in many cases, those who employ them do not take the additional steps necessary to make their scholarship a critical contribution. This suggests that a discussion of pathways between (to borrow Max Horkheimer's terms) traditional and critical approaches may be helpful to both readers and potential contributors. Some of the comments below reiterate and expand on our inaugural editorial.We will begin our discussion with religious studies, where to a considerable extent, critical approaches have in fact become normative. While there is much work to be done, the inherently interdisciplinary nature of religious studies makes it a useful guide to the study of religion from particular disciplinary perspectives. Our discussion will continue with theology, biblical criticism, and the relationship between the two. In the sociology of religion, which has much to learn from religious studies and biblical criticism, we would characterize mainstream approaches as those belonging to the other major paradigms including interpretive sociology, comparative-historical sociology, positivism, functionalism, social constructionism (phenomenology) or rational choice. While some of the work within some of these paradigms has been critical, too much of it has not. The fields on which we concentrate in this editorial are intended as models for a more comprehensive discussion. In this editorial, we will make suggestions as to how the scholarship in each of these fields can become

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Allegories of Progress: Industrial Religion in the United States

Cited by 19 publications

References 4 publications

Health promotion perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic: The importance of religion

Health promotion perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic: The importance of religion

Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form

How can mainstream approaches become more critical?

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