Prepared by the Office of the Chief of Chaplains, United States Army, this handbook provides a useful guide to the beliefs and practices of a number of religious groups. It provides a useful reference, both for professionals such as airport and hospital chaplains, and for lay readers interested in a basic guide to religious groups not readily covered in other references. A specific purpose of the handbook was also to limit the amount of information provided on each group. Thus, while the information is accurate (in most instances approved by authorities from the individual groups themselves), it is by no means comprehensive. The material presented in the handbook was derived through an extensive research effort. The handbook includes 37 different group descriptions, divided into seven categories. The categories are: Christian Heritage Groups Japanese Heritage Groups Jewish Groups Indian Heritage Groups Islamic Groups Sikh Groups Other Groups Among the uniform topics covered for each group are: historical roots, origins in the U.S., number of adherents in the U.S., organizational structure, leadership and role of priesthood, who may conduct worship services, is group worship required, dietary laws or restrictions, special religious holidays, funeral and burial requirements, autopsy, cremation, medical treatment, is a priest required at the time of death, basic teachings or beliefs, and ethical practices.

On the Sabbath, calling women to the Torah, and counting them in the minyan.

A new examination of how and why American religious parents seek to pass on religion to their children The most important influence shaping the religious and spiritual lives of children, youth, and teenagers is their parents. A myriad of studies show that the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives. We know a lot about the importance of parents in faith transmission. However we know much less about the actual beliefs, feelings, and activities of the parents themselves, what Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk call the "intergenerational transmission of religious faith and practice." To address that gap, this book reports the findings of a new national study of religious parents in the United States. The findings and conclusions in Handing Down the Faith are based on 215 in-depth, personal interviews with religious parents from many traditions and different parts of the country, and sophisticated analyses of two nationally representative surveys of American parents about their religious parenting. Handing Down the Faith explores the background beliefs informing how and why religious parents seek to pass on religion to their children; examines how parenting styles interact with parent religiousness to shape effective religious transmission; shows how parents have been influenced by their experiences as children influenced by their own parents; reveals how religious parents view their congregations and what they most seek out in a local church, synagogue, temple, or mosque; explores the experiences and outlooks of immigrant parents including Latino Catholics, East Asian Buddhists, South Asian Muslims, and Indian Hindus. Smith and Adamczyk step back to consider how American religion has transformed over the last 100 years and to explain why parents today shoulder such a huge responsibility in transmitting religious faith and practice to their children. The book is rich in empirical evidence and unique in many of the topics it explores and explains, providing a variety of sometimes counterintuitive findings that will interest scholars of religion, social scientists interested in the family, parenting, and socialization; clergy and religious educators and leaders; and religious parents themselves.

Religion in Uniform argues powerfully that Americans must reform their military’s chaplaincy. Americans fund this public project to serve all persons in the armed forces, but the chaplaincy currently fails to do so. Waggoner shows that Americans’ support for keeping chaplain positions in the military has always rested on a mix of political, military, and religious rationales that continue to evolve. He argues political, military, and theological reasons to eradicate bias, gender discrimination and sexual violence in the chaplain corps and to stop the use of chaplains in strategic roles abroad. Acknowledging that Christian groups are providing the strongest support for the chaplaincy’s status quo, Waggoner contests the specific theological claims that underwrite their policies. He launches a new, critical and constructive discussion about US military religion for the twenty-first century.