New book on the study of religious worldviews

Nine authors describe their journey into the worlds of unusual, sometimes violent religious groups

Mona Kanwal Sheikh & Mark Juergensmeyer

Led by Mona Kanwal Sheikh and Mark Juergensmeyer, the authors of this multidisciplinary volume take seriously the perspectives of the subjects in the social analysis of religious experience. The book is a culmination of several years’ work that initially (2013) led to the development of a sociotheological approach to the study of religious violence in a collaborate effort between Sheikh and Juergensmeyer.

The editors of the book shared a concern about the way that religious worldviews were inadequately addressed from a social science perspective and wanted to convene a gathering of scholars who took seriously the significance of religious experience and shared worldviews, and who were willing to share their insights with other scholars regarding how to go about this analytic task. Hence, the book aims to provide some methodological, practical and theoretical reflection that can inform and inspire students and other scholars who are embarking on research that dissolves the barricades between inside and outside approaches to religious phenomena.

'This important volume makes a significant conceptual and methodological contribution to the study of religion by exploring in-depth cases of religious communities' worldviews...'
Cecelia Lynch, Professor, University of California, Irvine

Each of the scholars represented in this volume has worked on projects involving adherents of a religious worldview different from their own. And they have all tried to describe the experience of those they have studied or attempted to explain the internal logic of the worldview that they studied. Exactly how the different scholars have done that – how they have entered the religious minds of their subjects of analysis – is what this volume is about.

REVIEWS

'This important volume makes a significant conceptual and methodological contribution to the study of religion by exploring in-depth cases of religious communities' worldviews. The chapters provide fascinating inside perspectives on communities across an impressive range of geographic sites and religious traditions. It should be of great interest to a broad, multidisciplinary audience at all levels.'
Cecelia Lynch, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine

'We cannot fully understand religious violence without taking the inside perspective into account – the worldview as perceived by the believer within its particular social context. This unique and important book provides a useful interdisciplinary guide for scholars of religion, political science and sociology on how to emphatically understand and critically analyze the religious experience. By putting the religious imageries, ideas, justifications, and practices as the focal points of the analysis, the book provides novel ways to bridge the inside and outside approach to the study of religion in general, and religious violence, in particular.'
Isak Svensson, Uppsala University, author of Ending Holy Wars: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars (2012) and co-editor of International Relations and Religion (2016).