This essay explores the role of religion, science, and the secular in contemporary society by showing their connection to social and political legitimacy as a result of historical processes. In Chapter One, the essay presents historical arguments, particularly linguistic, which confirm science and religion as historically created categories without timeless or essential differences. Additionally, the current institutional separation of science and religion was politically motivated by the changing power structures following the Protestant Reformation. In Chapter Two, the essay employs the concept of the modern social imaginary to show how our modern concept of the political and the secular subtly reproduce the objectified territories of science and religion and thus the boundary maintenance dialectic which dominates science-religion discourse. Chapter Three argues that ‘religious’ worldviews contain genuine metaphysical claims which do not recognizably fit into these modern social categories. Given the destabilizing forces of globalization and information technology upon the political authority of the nation-state, the way many conceptualize of these objects religion, science, and the secular will change as well.

The transformation of Christianity from a small sect of Judaism into a stabilized and powerful multinational political structure has been the topic of a tremendous amount of research and study over the last several hundred years. The question on how, or in what cultural situation was the Christian movement able to grow and stabilize, has been answered in a variety of different ways, by a variety of eminent scholars. In this thesis I apply traditional academic explanations for Christian growth, specifically those of Princeton Historian Peter Brown, to the Syriac-speaking regions of the East during the fourth and fifth centuries. Within this cultural situation, I explore the life and works of the influential Syrian theologian Ephrem the Syrian as a reflection of the concerns of Christians in the East. I provide rich historical information, as well as analysis of Ephrem's many theological concerns. I make use of a myriad of other resources and historical figures relevant to the thesis, and use the vivid picture of Syriac Christianity to answer the fundamental question of how Syriac Christianity grew, and how wealth, poverty, and the changing role of the Christian clergy contributed to this growth. In this investigation, I argue that Syriac Christianity promoted the same radical attitude concerning charity, renunciation of wealth, and the role of the clergy as Mediterranean Christianity according to Brown, but that many cultural and societal impediments faced in Persia prevented the same growth from occurring. The cultural situation faced by Christians in the East was radically different from that of the Mediterranean. This distinction, and all of its implications, is shown to be the reason for the historically underwhelming growth of Christianity during these centuries and beyond.

Transhumanist concepts and themes increasingly occupy a prominent place in contemporary visions of the future, particularly with regard to technology. A growing number of scholars, including some self-described transhumanists, see transhumanism as functioning like a religion for secular people, in that it fulfills many of the same desires and impulses without reference to any supernatural forces. For this reason there is a growing discussion of transhumanism in comparison with major religious traditions, but one which has heretofore been underappreciated is Protestant pietism. Pietism grew out of a need among Protestants after the Reformation to realize a better Christian community and better prepare individual believers for the afterlife. It had a significant influence over the European Enlightenment, of which transhumanists claim to be the successors. In its understanding of human improvement, human nature, and ultimate human destiny in death and the end-point of history, pietism has multiple interesting points of comparison with transhumanism. Both ideologies begin by improving individual human beings as the primary means to the end of eliminating suffering, especially death and disease, and building the ideal human community. Transhumanism accomplishes its goals for humanity through the use of advanced technologies which enable human beings to transcend their natural limitations. Pietism focuses, as its name suggests, on moral and spiritual improvement according to practical guidelines that lead a Christian believer to take an active role in his or her own sanctification. This essay concludes that pietism reveals certain key limitations in transhumanism as a comprehensive life philosophy, especially in its ability to organize society according to its system of values.

In the 1980s Jose Casanova wrote a book called Public Religions in the Modern World. He noticed that, although religion was seen a private matter for some time, it was now becoming more de-privatized, which he believes was strongly compelled by the rise of the Moral Majority. Moreover, Talal Asad, also, agrees that religion is definitely not disappearing but becoming more identifiable in the public realm. Casanova's theory contends that the privatization and the de-privatization of religion appeared to be happening simultaneously. Assuming Casanova is correct, it is now approximately 35 years later and the question is "where are we now in the process of the de-privatization of religion?" I chose to use the Evangelical Community as an example due to the fact that the majority of people that live in the United States are very familiar with this particular religion. It has become evident that the Evangelical Community has had a strong voice in the political arena. Focusing mainly on politics and using Billy and Franklin Graham as a lens, who have been both visible and influential in the process of the de-privatization of religion, I try to determine where the United States is in this process. I look at how the Grahams see God fitting into politics and how each of them views their participation in politics. In addition, I utilize present-day examples of what, both, the privatizing and de-privatizing of religion looks like while examining some areas that religion has been asserted into the public sphere. Moreover, I discuss the role of the secular in relationship to religion. Finally, I conclude with answering the question, "is religion still a private matter?"

Experiential evidence leads specific individuals and groups within India to believe that individuals with disabilities are marginalized due to a Hindu value system that stigmatizes disability and relegates individuals with disabilities to below average social positions. I experienced this perspective firsthand by spending two months volunteering at an orphanage in India that cares for individuals (primarily children) with disabilities and significant health issues. The orphanage identifies with a Christian tradition, framing their perspective in a worldview that declares that all human beings have equal value regardless of their physical health situations. The orphanage perspective declares that there is a Hindu religious paradigm that stigmatizes individuals with disability in a manner so extreme that it leads parents to abandon their children with disabilities. From the orphanage perspective, this Hindu religious belief is what inevitably leads to the need for orphanages for children with special needs because the stigma that the orphanage perceives leads to abandonment. This premise led me to an investigation of perceived cultural and societal norms and Hindu beliefs within India that may lead to the marginalization of individuals with disabilities. In order to do this, I first had to contextualize the perspective of the orphanage. From there I looked to Indian disability policy and sought to connect stigma and disability in the secular and social realm, evaluating whether or not secular policies can be said to contribute to or detract from a stigma of disability. I then looked to Hindu beliefs, to determine whether or not Hinduism can truly be said to, in a generalized manner, marginalize individuals with disability, and furthermore the caste system, to evaluate what India's social hierarchy might have to say about disability. The goals of this thesis are to evaluate the popular Hindu beliefs that are often blamed for the stigmatization of disability, and to analyze policies regarding disability and examine how these policies are affected by the religious context in which they are situated. To what extent does Hinduism encourage or contribute to a society or culture in which individuals with disabilities are treated badly, and how do Indian policies regarding disability respond to that? I come to the conclusion that the stigma related to disability in India is far more complex than simply a Hindu belief that mandates it as so. There are social and economic factors that play into it, as well as deep-rooted cultural ideologies in both the tradition of the orphanage that perceives Hinduism as stigmatizing of disability, and Indian religion and social hierarchy. I furthermore find that, though there are numerous disability policies in place to provide human rights to individuals with disabilities, these policies ultimately do not work to tear down the stigma and the roots it does have in ancient religious tradition and social hierarchy.

A new sect of Swaminarayan Hinduism emerged in the late eightieth century. This sect rapidly grew into a global organization due their highly structuralized nature. Fascinatingly, the new sect was able to create the feeling of home away from home in multiple countries. Through the establishments of mandirs, Hindu place of worship, practitioners were able to solidify the feeling of home away from home. Through books, magazine articles and letters the evidence of the new sect creating this feeling is overwhelming. Diaspora theory is woven within the thesis due to the global nature of the sect. This thesis uses a broad definition of diaspora to encompass the change in literature due to the ability of one to maintain close ties to their old homeland. The Swaminarayan sect treaded through diaspora by assimilating to their new homeland all the while keeping a close tie with their old homeland.

Since the 1960’s and 1970’s, ethnographic research on Jewish menstrual rituals known as niddah, Taharat HaMishpacha, or Family Purity has associated their practices with religious behavior. Much of this research organizes around questions of women’s agency within ostensibly patriarchally constructed religious practices that carry the potential to oppress its women practitioners. This premise is built upon a number of implicit assumptions about the history of today’s niddah practices: that niddah is observed exclusively by Orthodox Jews; that increasing rates of niddah observance correlate exclusively with the trend toward stricter observance levels among the Orthodox since the 1960s; and that this increasingly strict observance itself reflects a reactionary trend among the Orthodox community (a.k.a. tradition versus modernity). All these assumptions currently circulate, in various degrees, among the American Jewish lay community and are shared by a significant number of congregational rabbis. Until the 1990s, no history of niddah existed to either support or refute these assumptions. I initially intended that this project would provide future ethnographers with a comprehensive history of niddah in America during the past one and a half centuries. I engaged Victor Turner’s theory of Social Drama as a framework for understanding this history as a socio-cultural process, rather than as a series of less than related events. However, this study h*as resulted in the identification of many more specific assumptions about the decline and revival of niddah observance in the twentieth century, which are not supported by the scant evidence available. These challenged assumptions beg new directions for research; a thorough reworking of the history of niddah in America; and a fresh look at the literature advocating niddah produced in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This genealogy as Social Drama presents niddah in twentieth century America as undergoing periods of crisis, negotiation, and reintegration. This drama was triggered by late nineteenth century concepts of religion, body, and ritual that undermined and ruptured the integrity of niddah as a bodily religious ritual practice. Niddah’s twentieth century social drama culminated in fresh articulations of a unique Jewish sexuality and Jewish marital ethic.