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William James was a great-hearted and generous philosophical spirit. He was also--beneath his human sympathy, his experiments, his scholarship, and his captivating writings--a religious seeker, a pilgrim looking for a new Jerusalem he was ready to define for himself. Cordell Strug, as a young philosophy student, was enthralled by James, especially by his lectures on religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience. He was drawn by the alternative James offered to religious traditions, by his passionate searching, and by his rich humanity. Yet he found he had to part company with James on the very nature of religious experience and the source of its power. Out of the struggle with James's religious vision, he found a way back to a more traditional religious life, eventually becoming a Lutheran pastor. In this book, he looks back at how he came under James's spell, how he embraced and wrestled with James's vision, and how James remained with him as a living presence, both a guiding and a critical companion

The present research examines the history of the Evangelical Christian Church in Harbin among Russian emigrants from the date of community foundation in 1911 till the mid-1940s, when the activity of the parish practically ceased. Religious diversity was formed in the Russian enclave of the right-of-way of Chinese Eastern Railway from the very beginning of its construction. Protestantism represented during these years by Lutheranism, Baptism, Adventism and Evangelicalism was a part of such diversity. In many respects, the religious picture was determined by the multinational and multiconfessional composition of the Russian Empire. After the Civil War and the loss of extraterritoriality Evangelical Christians remained in Harbin, the most populated city of Chinese Eastern Railway, as emigrants. The community had several rented prayer houses in the city. During the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1940s, former Russian nationals began to leave the country. By the mid-1940s the parish actually ceased to exist. It is concluded that owing to the continuous work of church ministers and the absence of pressure from the authorities of Manchukuo and the Russian Fascist Party, the community was able to survive until the departure of Russian emigrants from the country.

The religious life of the Tonga-speaking peoples of southern Zambia is examined over the last century, in the sense of how they have thought about the nature of their world, the meaning of their own lives, and the sources of good and evil in which their cosmology and society have been transformed. The twelve chapters cover Time, Space and Language; Basic Themes, Tonga Religious Vocabulary and its Referents; the Vocabulary of Shrines and Substance; Homestead and Bush; Ritual Communities and Actors; Rituals of the Life Course; Death and its Rituals; Evil and Witchcraft; and Christianity and Tonga Experience. The author has drawn on dairies by research assistants, and field notes and research of fellow anthropologists, but above all from her own interaction with Tonga people since 1946. The older people gave first hand memories of Ndebele and Lozi raids, David Linvingstone encamped near their villages in 1856 and 1862, the arrival of colonial administrators, traders, missionaries and European and Indian settlers, and in some cases, the end of colonial rule. Their experience and that of their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren provides the basis for understanding Tonga religious experience. Elizabeth Colson is an American anthropologist who is widely published on the Tonga. Her research interests have particularly concentrated on the Gwembe Valley.

"This book presents the first large overview of late Soviet religiosity across several confessions and Soviet republics, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Based on a broad range of new sources on the daily life of religious communities, including material from regional archives and oral history, it shows that religion not only survived Soviet anti-religious repression, but also adapted to new conditions. Going beyond traditional views about a mere "returned of the repressed", the book shows how new forms of religiosity and religious socialisation emerged, as new generations born into atheist families turned to religion in search of new meaning, long before perestroika facilitated this process. In addition, the book examines anew religious activism and transnational networks between Soviet believers and Western organisations during the Cold War, explores the religious dimension of Soviet female activism, and shifts the focus away from the non-religious human rights movement and from religious institutions to ordinary believers"--

Introduction. The redemptive power of Martin Luther King -- Growing up King -- The young preacher in Boston and Montgomery -- The Montgomery uprising -- Montgomery and SCLC -- The dream, the letter, and the nightmare -- Struggling in Selma and Chicago -- Shot rings out in the Memphis sky -- Epilogue. The irrelevance of sainthood : the afterlives of King.

Focusing on the practice of fasting, this article traces the ethical efforts and conundrums of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians who take their religion seriously, but do not necessarily see themselves as disciplined believers. I argue that the flexibility and lenience of the Orthodox system allow for morally ambivalent disciplinary projects that, in order to preserve their efficacy, must be sustained by an array of intimate relationships with more pious individuals who are fasting for others or on others' behalf. By examining this relational economy of spiritual care, its temporalities and divisions of labor, I ask whether recent preoccupations with 'technologies of the self' in the anthropology of religion might have overlooked the relevance of 'technologies of the other'.