Mormon studies is one of the fastest-growing subfields in religious studies. For this volume, Terryl Givens and Philip Barlow, two leading scholars of Mormonism, have brought together 45 of the top scholars in the field to construct a collection of essays that offers a comprehensive overview of scholarship on Mormons. The book begins with a section on Mormon history, perhaps the most well-developed area of Mormon studies. Chapters in this section deal with questions ranging from how Mormon history is studied in the university to the role women have played throughout Mormon history. Other sections examine revelation and scripture, church structure and practice, theology, society, and culture. The final two sections look at Mormonism in a larger context. The authors examine Mormon expansion across the globe-focusing on Mormonism in Latin America, the Pacific, Europe, and Asia-in addition to the interaction between Mormonism and other social systems, such as law, politics, and other faiths. Bringing together an unprecedented body of scholarship in the field of Mormon studies,The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism will be an invaluable resource for those within the field, as well as for people studying the broader, ever-changing American religious landscape.

This substantial volume of thirty-three original chapters covers the full range of issues in religious diversity. An indispensable guide for scholars and students, its essays make novel contributions and are crafted by recognized experts who represent a wide variety of religious and philosophical perspectives and backgrounds.

The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is an outstanding reference source to this controversial subject area. Since its founding in 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has engaged gender in surprising ways. LDS practice of polygamy in the nineteenth century both fueled rhetoric of patriarchal rule as well as gave polygamous wives greater autonomy than their monogamous peers. The tensions over women’s autonomy continued after polygamy was abandoned and defined much of the twentieth century. In the 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s, Mormon feminists came into direct confrontation with the male Mormon hierarchy. These public clashes produced some reforms, but fell short of accomplishing full equality. LGBT Mormons have a similar history. These movements are part of the larger story of how Mormonism has managed changing gender norms in a global context. Comprising over forty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into four parts: • Methodological issues • Historical approaches • Social scientific approaches • Theological approaches. These sections examine central issues, debates, and problems, including: agency, feminism, sexuality and sexual ethics, masculinity, queer studies, plural marriage, homosexuality, race, scripture, gender and the priesthood, the family, sexual violence, and identity. The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, gender studies, and women’s studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, anthropology, and sociology.

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion offers a comprehensive exploration of the dynamics of religious conversion, which for centuries has profoundly shaped societies, cultures, and individuals throughout the world. Scholars from a wide array of religions and disciplines interpret both the varieties of conversion experiences and the processes that inform this personal and communal phenomenon. This volume examines the experiences of individuals and communities who change religions, those who experience an intensification of their religion of origin, and those who encounter new religions through colonial intrusion, missionary work, and charismatic and revitalization movements. The thirty-two innovative essays provide overviews of the history of particular religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, indigenous religions, and new religious movements. The essays also offer a wide range of disciplinary perspectives-psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, political, feminist, and geographical-on methods and theories deployed in understanding conversion, and insight into various forms of deconversion.

The study of New Religious Movements (NRMs) is one of the fastest-growing areas of religious studies, and since the release of the first edition of The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements in 2003, the field has continued to expand and break new ground. In this all-new volume, James R. Lewis and Inga B. Tøllefsen bring together established and rising scholars to address an expanded range of topics, covering traditional religious studies topics such as "scripture," "charisma," and "ritual," while also applying new theoretical approaches to NRM topics. Other chapters cover understudied topics in the field, such as the developmental patterns of NRMs and subcultural considerations in the study of NRMs. The first part of this book examines NRMs from a social-scientific perspective, particularly that of sociology. In the second section, the primary factors that have put the study of NRMs on the map, controversy and conflict, are considered. The third section investigates common themes within the field of NRMs, while the fourth examines the approaches that religious studies researchers have taken to NRMs. As NRM Studies has grown, subfields such as Esotericism, New Age Studies, and neo-Pagan Studies have grown as distinct and individual areas of study, and the final section of the book investigates these emergent fields.

Nearly every form of religion or spirituality has a vital connection with art. Religions across the world, from Hinduism and Buddhism to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, have been involved over the centuries with a rich array of artistic traditions, both sacred and secular. In its uniquely multi-dimensional consideration of the topic, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts provides expert guidance to artistry and aesthetic theory in religion. The Handbook offers nearly forty original essays by an international team of leading scholars on the main topics, issues, methods, and resources for the study of religious and theological aesthetics. The volume ranges from antiquity to the present day to examine religious and artistic imagination, fears of idolatry, aesthetics in worship, and the role of art in social transformation and in popular religion-covering a full array of forms of media, from music and poetry to architecture and film. An authoritative text for scholars and students, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts will remain an invaluable resource for years to come.

The field of `science and religion' is exploding in popularity among both academics and the reading public. This is a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the debate, written by the leading experts yet accessible to the general reader.