Emotions and Religious Dynamics

We all feel emotions and are moved to action by them. Religious communities often select and foster certain emotions over others. Without understanding this it is hard to grasp the way groups view the world and each other. Often, it is the underlying emotional pattern of a group rather than its doctrines that either divides it from, or attracts it to, others. These issues, so important in today's world, are explored in this book in a genuinely interdisciplinary way by anthropologists, psychologists, theologians and historians of religion, and in some detailed studies of well and less well known religious traditions from across the world.

Douglas J. Davies is Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University and Director of its Centre for Death and Life Studies. His study Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness (2011), and edited collection with Chang-Won Park, Emotion, Identity and Death: Mortality across Disciplines (2012), complement this present edited collection. Other recent publications include Natural Burial: Traditional -Secular Spiritualities and Funeral Innovation (2012) and The Theology of Death (2008). Nathaniel Warne is currently a PhD candidate at Durham University, UK. His interests are primarily in theological ethics and political philosophy. His current research looks at the relationship between eudaimonism, the theoretical approach to happiness and ethical life, and the doctrine of divine calling with special interest in the theology of work. His other research interests include historical theology and the intersection of metaphysics with ethics.