The 30th volume of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion consists of two special sections, as well as two separate empirical studies on attachment and daily spiritual practices. The first special section deals with the social scientific study of religion in Indonesia. Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country whose history and contemporary involvement in the study of religion is explored from both sociological and psychological perspectives. The second special section is on the Pope Francis effect: the challenges of modernization in the Catholic church and the global impact of Pope Francis. While its focus is mainly on the Catholic religion, the internal dynamics and geopolitics explored apply more broadly.

Buddhist-Muslim relations are usually seen as inherently confrontational. This book challenges the view of Buddhism and Islam as fundamentally irreconcilable by exploring the diverse ways representatives of the two traditions have engaged each other in Southeast Asia—the global frontstage of contemporary Buddhist-Muslim relations—and Japan—a Buddhist-majority country whose ‘Islam policy’ played a significant role in its surge to global power status. It investigates the processes through which mutual perceptions and discourses have developed in response to shifting socio-political circumstances and via the intellectual interventions of leading personalities.

Drawing on a rich body of multimethod field research, this book examines the ways in which Indonesian and Philippine religious actors have fostered conflict resolution and under what conditions these efforts have been met with success or limited success. The book addresses two central questions: In what ways, and to what extent, have post-conflict peacebuilding activities of Christian churches contributed to conflict transformation in Mindanao (Philippines) and Maluku (Indonesia)? And to what extent have these church-based efforts been affected by specific economic, political, or social contexts? Based on extensive fieldwork, the study operates with a nested, multi-dimensional, and multi-layered methodological concept which combines qualitative and quantitative methods. Major findings are that church-based peace activities do matter, that they have higher approval rates than state projects, and that they have fostered interreligious understanding. Through innovative analysis, this book fills a lacuna in the study of ethno-religious conflicts. Informed by the novel Comparative Area Studies (CAS) approach, this book is strictly comparative, includes in-case and cross-case comparisons, and bridges disciplinary research with Area Studies. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of conflict and peacebuilding studies, interreligious dialogue, Southeast Asian Studies, and Asian Politics.

This ground-breaking study offers a new paradigm for understanding the beliefs and religions of the Goths, Burgundians, Sueves, Franks and Lombards as they converted from paganism to Christianity between c.350 and c.700 CE. Combining history and theology with approaches drawn from the cognitive science of religion, Belief and Religion in Barbarian Europe uses both written and archaeological evidence to challenge many older ideas. Beginning with a re-examination of our knowledge about the deities and rituals of their original religions, it goes on to question the assumption that the Germanic peoples were merely passive recipients of Christian doctrine, arguing that so-called 'Arianism' was first developed as an 'entry-level' Christianity for the Goths. Focusing on individual ethnic groupings in turn, it presents a fresh view of the relationship between religion and politics as their rulers attempted to opt for Catholicism. In place of familiar debates about post-conversion 'pagan survivals', contemporary texts and legislation are analysed to create an innovative cognitive perspective on the ways in which the Church endeavoured to bring the Christian God into people's thoughts and actions. The work also includes a survey of a wide range of written and archaeological evidence, contrasting traditional conceptions of death, afterlife and funerary ritual with Christian doctrine and practice in these areas and exploring some of the techniques developed by the Church for assuaging popular anxieties about Christian burial and the Christian afterlife.

Southeast Asia’s Internet users are far more diverse than usually reported. They range from the urban youth with laptops and highspeed Wi-Fi, to the older generation semi-rural and rural users with affordable mobile phones for Facebook and WhatsApp. Southeast Asians generally trust social media platforms more than in Western societies. This trust in social media reflects a lack of trust in local mainstream media and official sources of information. What campaign information (and disinformation) is being spread and which ones are most successful are essential for understanding how voters in Southeast Asia use and trust social media. Social media platforms and Southeast Asia’s “app industry” need clearer and enforced regulation on their use of data and the extent to which they can sell data to advertisers. These advertisers include, but are not limited to, politicians and political parties. Since the future of social media usage will likely lie in closed groups, the role of big data analyses that have dominated research on social media over the past ten years, is likely to regress. Instead, ethnographic scholars who can access these groups and engage with their particular interests and identities are more likely to be useful in understanding the digital sphere in the future.