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Robert Van Gulik, one of the twentieth century’s most prominent sinologists and detective writers, has made significant contributions to the study of Chinese cultures but received inadequate scholarly appraisal until the twenty-first century. Although Van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries have been well received informally among ordinary readers and scholars, little academic attention has been devoted to Judge Dee’s trials of evil clergy due to their covert representation in Van Gulik’s narration. This paper pays attention to crimes committed by religious leaders and members of orders to reveal an implicit religion-crime relationship in Van Gulik’s works on Judge Dee with the help of Kenneth Burke’s pentadic criticism. In our analysis, we find that Van Gulik differentiates between good and evil disciples, the acts of the disciples and the beliefs of religions, and non-mainstream and orthodox religion, presenting a heterogeneous religious crime landscape. As a result, in the misdeeds of clergy and offenses against the sacred religion, a Janus-faced (two-faced) clergy crime is identified in the mysteries.

Assertions about the relationship (or, sometimes, the lack of a relationship) between religiosity and criminality are examined in light of over 50 research studies, paying special attention to how criminality and particularly religiosity were operationalized in each study. These studies reveal that three religiosity-criminality relationships have been established. The best documented relationship is between church attendance and crime rates. At least among church members, the evidence consistently indicates that frequent church attenders have lower crime rates than infrequent attenders, especially regarding victimless offenses. Second, among the main Western religions, membership in the Jewish religion is associated with lower crime rates, compared to Christian religious membership as a whole; and, among Christians, Protestants as a whole have lower crime rates than Catholics. Third, belief in an afterlife with divine punishment possible, at least among persons who consider themselves members of an organized religion, is associated with lower crime rates. Four conventional explanations of these associations are assessed.

The paper empirically examines municipality convergence within Mexico’s southern Oaxaca region. We find municipalities are converging more rapidly than the “iron law” of 2% with up to 8% β convergence. Though homicides from the Drug War have negatively impacted growth, overall crime perhaps through strengthening local institutions has a positive but weak impact. Higher income inequality and Catholic belief are associated with higher per capita GDP growth in Oaxaca overall and within two microregions. The positive impact of a higher share indigenous population on growth in the relatively urban Valles Centrales microregion suggests a cultural element to policy making with the dependency ratio drag on growth suggesting a need for policies that give more attention to how retirees can continue to participate in the economy as well.

Early modern European society took a serious view of blasphemy, and drew upon a wide range of sanctions - including the death penalty - to punish those who cursed, swore and abused God. Whilst such attitudes may appear draconian today, this study makes clear that in the past, blasphemy was regarded as a very real threat to society. Based on a wealth of primary sources, including court records, theological and ecclesiastical writings and official city statutes, Francisca Loetz explores verbal forms of blasphemy and the variety of contexts within which it could occur. Honour conflicts, theological disputation, social and political provocation, and religious self-questioning all proved fertile ground for accusations of blasphemy, and her contention - that blasphemers often meant more than they said - reveals the underlying complexity of an apparently simple concept. This innovative approach interprets cases of verbal blasphemy as 'speech actions' that reflect broader political, social and religious concerns. Cases in Protestant Zurich are compared with the situation in Catholic Lucerne and related to findings in other parts of Europe (Germany, France, England, Italy) to provide a thorough discussion of different historical approaches to blasphemy - ecclesiastical, legal, intellectual, social, and cultural - in the Early Modern period. In so doing the book offers intriguing suggestions about what a cultural history of religiousness could and should be. By linking a broad overview of the issue of blasphemy, with case studies from Zurich and Lucerne, this book provides a fascinating insight into a crucial, but often misunderstood aspect of early-modern society. The conclusions reached not only offer a much fuller understanding of the situation in Zurich, but also have resonance for all historians of Reformation Europe.

This short and accessible book introduces readers to the problems of heresy, schism and dissidence over the last two millennia. The heresies under discussion range from Gnosticism, influential in the early Christian period, right through to modern sects. The idea of a heretic conjures up many images, from the martyrs prepared to die for their beliefs, through to sects with bizarre practices. This book provides a remarkable insight into the fraught history of heresy, showing how the Church came to insist on orthodoxy when threatened by alternative ideals, exploring the social and political conditions under which heretics were created, and how those involved were 'tested' and punished, often by imprisonment and burning. Engaging written, A Brief History of Heresy is enlivened throughout with fascinating examples of individuals and movements. * A short, accessible history of heresy. * Spans the last two millennia, from the Gnostics through to modern sects. * Considers heresy in relation to ecclesial separatism, doctrinal disagreement, church order, and basic metaphysics. * Enlivened with intriguing examples of individuals and movements. * Written by a leading academic in the field of Religious History.

In this article, I argue that hateful practices that are prevalent in society are, for the most part linked to our excessive quest for materialism. To demonstrate this, I discuss different ways John Newton, author of the popular hymn, Amazing Grace, justified why he became a slaver in Granfield's non fiction picture book, Amazing Grace: The Story of the Hymn. Knowing fully well that slavery was wrong, Newton willingly participated in the triangular trade business, because he believed it was truly the only he could make a living.

U radu se analiziraju odredbe Kaznenog zakona o zločinima, prijestupima i prekršajima od 27. svibnja 1852., kojima se vjerskim pravnim dobrima u Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji na prijelazu iz 19. u 20. stoljeće jamčila kaznenopravna zaštita. U skladu s trodiobom kažnjivih ponašanja na zločine, prijestupe i prekršaje teži slučajevi delikata protiv vjere objedinjeni su u zločinu smetanja vjerozakona (§ 122.), koji je obuhvaćao bogohuljenje, smetanje državno priznatog vjerozakona i svetogrðe, navoðenje na otpadništvo od kršćanske vjere te širenje bezvjerstva ili nauka protivnog kršćanskoj vjeri. Lakši slučajevi delikata protiv vjere normirani su kao prijestupi protiv javnog mira i reda, i to kao: vrijeðanje zakonom priznate crkve ili vjerske zajednice (§ 303.) i promicanje vjerske sljedbe koju je država ustanovila kao nedopuštenu (§ 304.). Pored normativnog okvira u radu se prikazuje samo relevantna sudska praksa, pod čime se misli na one slučajeve na temelju kojih su sudovi oblikovali načelna shvaćanja o deliktima protiv vjere. Primjeri iz sudske prakse obuhvaćaju ponajprije presude vrhovnog suda, kao i slučajeve koji su u tadašnjim komentarima kaznenog zakona i udžbenicima bili istaknuti kao relevantni za sudsku praksu jer su se njima definirala sporna obilježja bića kaznenog djela. Time je utvrðen konkretni sadržaj pojedinih delikata protiv vjere te je povučena jasna granica izmeðu dopuštenog i kažnjivog ponašanja. U onim slučajevima u kojima se kažnjivo ponašanje iz nekog razloga nije moglo podvesti pod odredbe kaznenog zakona zaštita vjerskih pravnih dobara nastojala se postići odredbama upravnog (redarstvenog) prava. Naposljetku, analizom dostupnih statističkih publikacija, u onom opsegu koji nam dopušta statistika kao kriminološka metoda, upozorava se na rasprostranjenost i učestalost delikata protiv vjere na području Hrvatske i Slavonije te na politiku njihova kažnjavanja. Delikti protiv vjere imali su vrlo mali udio u ukupnom kriminalitetu, dok je sudska politika njihova kažnjavanja bila vrlo blaga.

Sex abuse happens in all communities, but American minority religions often face disproportionate allegations of sexual abuse. Why, in a country that consistently fails to acknowledge—much less address—the sexual abuse of women and children, do American religious outsiders so often face allegations of sexual misconduct?  Why does the American public presume to know “what’s really going on” in minority religious communities?  Why are sex abuse allegations such an effective way to discredit people on America’s religious margins? What makes Americans so willing, so eager to identify religion as the cause of sex abuse? Abusing Religion argues that sex abuse in minority religious communities is an American problem, not (merely) a religious one.  

178 p.

Abstract National governments now recognize online hate speech as a pernicious social problem. In the wake of political votes and terror attacks, hate incidents online and offline are known to peak in tandem. This article examines whether an association exists between both forms of hate, independent of ‘trigger’ events. Using Computational Criminology that draws on data science methods, we link police crime, census and Twitter data to establish a temporal and spatial association between online hate speech that targets race and religion, and offline racially and religiously aggravated crimes in London over an eight-month period. The findings renew our understanding of hate crime as a process, rather than as a discrete event, for the digital age.