Transplanting Religious Traditions

There are over 1.5 million Asian Indians in the Americas, most of whom have transplanted the religious customs of their homeland. Transplanting Religious Traditions is a study of how individuals, families, and small groups transport and sustain their religious practices and how they eventually construct stable religious institutions suited to the American context. The book centers on the Indian community in Atlanta, Georgia from 1979 to 1988 but relates the study to America's East Indian population as a whole. Social scientists, religion scholars and students, as well as all members of the East Indian-American community, will find this a valuable study.

Bicultural individuals often articulate the themes of rootlessness, identity formation, cultural dissolution, and “home”, and reframe them into theological questions. Bicultural individuals who have spent their formative childhood years living in, and interacting with, two or more cultures can be found in immigrant, refugee, transnational, missionary, borderland, and hybrid communities. This book challenges the traditional understanding of human development. In particular, Portable Roots: Transplanting the Bicultural Child underscores the contextual and religious nature of development. By focusing on identity formation in children and adolescents who have grown up in more than one culture, the parameters of stage theorists such as Erik Erikson are expanded. Three samples of children of missionaries formed the initial research population. The children were raised in boarding schools, mission schools, and international schools – settings which have been likened to a hybrid or third culture or interstitial space. These original three samples first articulated a phenomenon of “rootlessness” that sent the author on an investigative journey spanning three decades. After interviewing many persons with portable roots, the study’s last sampling in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2012, articulated what was needed for the end of this quest: how transplanted roots thrive in terra firma.

This comprehensive study includes more than twenty contributions from members, ex-members, and academics who have followed the Hare Krishna movement for years. Providing a privileged look at the people and issues shaping ISKCON, this volume offers insight into the complex factors surrounding the emergence of religious traditions, including early Christianity, as well as a glimpse at the origins and growth of a religious tradition putting down roots in foreign soil.

Over fifty years ago, Will Herberg theorized that future immigrants to the United States would no longer identify themselves through their races or ethnicities, or through the languages and cultures of their home countries. Rather, modern immigrants would base their identities on their religions. The landscape of U.S. immigration has changed dramatically since Herberg first published his theory. Most of today’s immigrants are Asian or Latino, and are thus unable to shed their racial and ethnic identities as rapidly as the Europeans about whom Herberg wrote. And rather than a flexible, labor-based economy hungry for more workers, today’s immigrants find themselves in a post-industrial segmented economy that allows little in the way of class mobility. In this comprehensive anthology contributors draw on ethnography and in-depth interviews to examine the experiences of the new second generation: the children of Asian and Latino immigrants. Covering a diversity of second-generation religious communities including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews, the contributors highlight the ways in which race, ethnicity, and religion intersect for new Americans. As the new second generation of Latinos and Asian Americans comes of age, they will not only shape American race relations, but also the face of American religion.

The ten essays in this volume explore the vast diversity of religions in the United States, from Judaic, Catholic, and African American to Asian, Muslim, and Native American traditions. Chapters on religion and the South, religion and gender, indigenous sectarian religious movements, and the metaphysical tradition round out the collection. The contributors examine the past, present, and future of American religion, first orienting readers to historiographic trends and traditions of interpretation in each area, then providing case studies to show their vision of how these areas should be developed. Full of provocative insights into the complexity of American religion, this volume helps us better understand America's religious history and its future challenges and directions.

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History brings together a number of established scholars, as well as younger scholars on the rise, to provide a scholarly overview for those interested in the role of religion and race in American history. Thirty-four scholars from the fields of History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and more investigate the complex interdependencies of religion and race from pre-Columbian origins to the present. The volume addresses the religious experience, social realities, theologies, and sociologies of racialized groups in American religious history, as well as the ways that religious myths, institutions, and practices contributed to their racialization. Part One begins with a broad introductory survey outlining some of the major terms and explaining the intersections of race and religions in various traditions and cultures across time. Part Two provides chronologically arranged accounts of specific historical periods that follow a narrative of religion and race through four-plus centuries. Taken together, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History provides a reliable scholarly text and resource to summarize and guide work in this subject, and to help make sense of contemporary issues and dilemmas.

Enter the world of organ transplantation and develop a new understanding of processes and techniques for working effectively with patients in this increasing medical population. This multidisciplinary overview of organ transplantation contains chapters by major figures in the medical arena, internationally known bioethics writers, and experienced chaplains from the clinical setting of transplantation, as well as respected pastoral theologians. The authors, who include Art Caplan, Donald Capps, and Jack Copeland, explain transplantation completely for the nonmedical person and delve into the myriad ethical and religious issues and controversies surrounding organ donation and transplantation. Enlightening chapters clarify issues and help readers better understand the transplantation process, making them more effective in their work with transplant patients. Organ Transplantation in Religious, Ethical and Social Context is divided into three sections. The first emphasizes transplantation as a team effort. Chapters focus on the various roles of chaplains and other team members. Section two addresses ethical questions which arise from transplantation and organ donation and includes interfaith perspectives. The third section is dedicated to theological and pastoral views concerning transplantation. Some specific topics discussed in this book include: a surgeon’s perspective of the role of the chaplain influence of psychosocial factors in the heart transplantation decision process ministry to organ recipients and their families the special relationship between the transplant coordinator and the transplant patient Catholic and interfaith perspectives on organ donation using the Psalms as a pastoral resource with transplant patients Hospital chaplains, transplant social workers, transplant coordinators, and other professionals interested or involved in the process of organ transplantation will find this book to be full of interesting and thought-provoking insights and information.