Power Piety And People

Michael Dumper explores the causes and consequences of contemporary conflicts in holy cities. He offers five case studies of important disputes, beginning with Jerusalem, often seen as the paradigmatic example of a holy city in conflict, and discussing Córdoba, Banaras, Lhasa, and George Town in Malaysia.

Conflicts in cities that have particular religious significance often become intense, protracted, and violent. Why are holy cities so frequently contested, and how can these conflicts be mediated and resolved? In Power, Piety, and People, Michael Dumper explores the causes and consequences of contemporary conflicts in holy cities. He explains how common features of holy cities, such as powerful and autonomous religious hierarchies, income from religious endowments, the presence of sacred sites, and the performance of ritual activities that affect other communities, can combine to create tension. Power, Piety, and People offers five case studies of important disputes, beginning with Jerusalem, often seen as the paradigmatic example of a holy city in conflict. Dumper also discusses Córdoba, where the Islamic history of its Mosque-Cathedral poses challenges to the control exercised by the Roman Catholic Church; Banaras, where competing Muslim and Hindu claims to sacred sites threaten the fragile equilibrium that exists in the city; Lhasa, where the Communist Party of China severely restricts the ancient practice of Tibetan Buddhism; and George Town in Malaysia, a rare example of a city with many different religious communities whose leaders have successfully managed intergroup conflicts. Applying the lessons drawn from these cities to a broader global urban landscape, this book offers scholars and policy makers new insights into a pervasive category of conflict that often appears intractable.

This book examines the ambivalence of folk Catholicism as a resource to fight against injustice, exploitation, and oppression. Cases are cited to illuminate the value and potential trespasses of popular religious beliefs and practices. Over centuries, representatives of the powerful middle and upper middle classes did not hesitate to manipulate popular piety to protect their power and privileges. In fact, much of popular religion still reflects the dominant ideology. Popular piety has the potential for liberation against unjust social and economic structures. When properly guided, this practice can broaden and deepen political consciousness and mobilize people to act. Without a strong level of political consciousness as well as liberative evangelization, popular religion will be alienating to the poor while strengthening the status quo of the rich and the powerful. This study argues that it will be the elites, the well-educated and committed Christians, not the masses, who would foster the transformation of society.

Faces of Power and Piety is the second in the Medieval Imagination series of small, affordable books that draw on manuscript illuminations in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum and the British Library. Each volume focuses on a particular theme to provide an accessible and delightful introduction to the imagination of the medieval world. The vivid and charming faces featured in this volume include portraits of both illustrious historical figures and celebrated contemporaries. They reveal that medieval artists often disregarded physical appearance in favor of emphasizing qualities such as power and piety, capturing how their subjects wished to be remembered for the ages. Faces of Power and Piety also looks at the development of portraiture in the modern sense during the Renaissance, when likeness became an important component of portrait painting. An exhibition of the same name will be on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from August 12 through October 26, 2008.

Douglass Sullivan Gonzalez examines the influence of religion on the development of nationalism in Guatemala during the period 1821-1871, focusing on the relationship between Rafael Carrera amd the Guatemalan Catholic Church. He illustrates the peculiar and fascinating blend of religious fervor, popular power, and caudillo politics that inspired a multiethnic and multiclass alliance to defend the Guatemalan nation in the mid-nineteenth century. Led by the military strongman Rafael Carrera, an unlikely coalition of mestizos, Indians, and creoles (whites born in the Americas) overcame a devastating civil war in the late 1840s and withstood two threats (1851 and 1863) from neighboring Honduras and El Salvador that aimed at reintegrating conservative Guatemala into a liberal federation of Central American nations. Sullivan-Gonzalez shows that religious discourse and ritual were crucial to the successful construction and defense of independent Guatemala. Sermons commemorating independence from Spain developed a covenantal theology that affirmed divine protection if the Guatemalan people embraced Catholicism. Sullivan-Gonzalez examines the extent to which this religious and nationalist discourse was popularly appropriated. Recently opened archives of the Guatemalan Catholic Church revealed that the largely mestizo population of the central and eastern highlands responded favorably to the church’s message. Records indicate that Carrera depended upon the clerics’ ability to pacify the rebellious inhabitants during Guatemala’s civil war (1847-1851) and to rally them to Guatemala’s defense against foreign invaders. Though hostile to whites and mestizos, the majority indigenous population of the western highlands identified with Carrera as their liberator. Their admiration for and loyalty to Carrera allowed them a territory that far exceeded their own social space. Though populist and antidemocratic, the historic legacy of the Carrera years is the Guatemalan nation. Sullivan-Gonzalez details how theological discourse, popular claims emerging from mestizo and Indian communities, and the caudillo’s ability to finesse his enemies enabled Carrera to bring together divergent and contradictory interests to bind many nations into one.

This book examines the ambivalence of folk Catholicism as a resource to fight against injustice, exploitation, and oppression. Cases are cited to illuminate the value and potential trespasses of popular religious beliefs and practices. Over centuries, representatives of the powerful middle and upper middle classes did not hesitate to manipulate popular piety to protect their power and privileges. In fact, much of popular religion still reflects the dominant ideology. Popular piety has the potential for liberation against unjust social and economic structures. When properly guided, this practice can broaden and deepen political consciousness and mobilize people to act. Without a strong level of political consciousness as well as liberative evangelization, popular religion will be alienating to the poor while strengthening the status quo of the rich and the powerful. This study argues that it will be the elites, the well-educated and committed Christians, not the masses, who would foster the transformation of society.

MIKE PENCE: THE ULTIMATE POLITICAL SHAPE-SHIFTER “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican . . . in that order.” —Mike Pence As the impeachment of President Donald Trump remains a constant topic of discussion in political circles, the questions around our current vice president also continue to swirl, and in some ways, the puzzlement over his true nature has never truly been clear. Tom LoBianco, a longtime Pence reporter, cuts to the core of the nation’s most enigmatic politician in this intimate yet expansive account of the vice president’s journey to the White House. In Piety & Power, LoBianco follows Pence from his evangelical conversion in college to his failed career as a young lawyer, to his thwarted attempts at politics until he hitched his wagon to far-right extremism, becoming the Congressional poster boy for faith-based policy and Tea Party rhetoric. Giving readers a minute-by-minute account of the selection process that made him Donald Trump’s unlikely running mate in 2016, Piety & Power traces Pence’s personal and political life, painting a picture of a man driven by faith and conviction, yes, but also a hunger for power. LoBianco crafts a revealing portrait of the real Mike Pence—a politician whose understated style masks a drive for power, but also a surprising political acumen—by drawing on years of research, over one hundred exclusive interviews with those closest to the vice president, and deep ties both within the Beltway and Indiana state politics. Highlighting Pence’s strained, at times obsequious, relationship with Trump; his marriage to Karen; his deeply repressed personality; his presidential aspirations and plans for America’s future; and his deep-rooted faith in his country, in God, and ultimately himself; Piety & Power provides insights and answers as it sheds light on this ambitious Midwestern politician, his past, and his possible future.

In Piety and Power an African scholar provides a unique perspective on historical patterns of religious interaction in West Africa and their meaning for world Christianity and Islam today. Sanneh's topics range from Muhammad's significance for Christians, to an examination of a nineteenth-century "ecumenical" opening between the two faiths in Freetown, to an overview of the relation between religion and politics that directly challenges many Western assumptions about Africa and Islam. Other treatments of Christian-Muslim encounter in Africa are often framed in terms of European colonial and missionary history. In contrast Piety and Power places the inter-faith issues firmly in an African social setting. Sanneh explores the impact of Islam, Christianity, and European mission and colonialism in terms of African adaptations and expressions. An autobiographical essay on Sanneh's own education in an African Qu'ran school gives readers a rare and revealing look at the power and influence of Islamic institutions in their African adaptations.