Centre for Religion and Public Life

January 2021

New on the Religion in Public blog

• The full recording of Dr Philip Deslippe's seminar presentation, titled ‘The Past History and Present Management of Abuse within the Yogi Bhajan’s Healthy, Happy, Holy Organisation (3HO)’. 
• In the Faith & Activism series, Anna Bland (Leeds Methodist Mission) writes about 'Creative Activism'.
• Our Researcher of the Month (November) was PhD student Katherine Gwyther.

Collaboration offers UK Muslims greater transparency on Hajj packages

CRPL researchers responding to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic and its multiple implications have greatly affected the ability of many of us to undertake research. At the same time, the pandemic raises critical questions that require academic reflection. Several CRPL researchers have engaged with some of these challenges.
CRPL member Professor Rachel Muers contributed an article to a special issue of The Ecumenical Review, dedicated to the pandemic. Her article, titled 'Christ‐Centred Solidarity in a Time of Pandemic', makes a theological argument to not only practise solidarity with those most at risk, but also to evaluate societal and systemic responses to COVID‐19 in the light of their effects on the most vulnerable members of society. 
CRPL visiting fellow Dr Chris Swift published an article in the journal Health and Social Care Chaplaincy, about 'Chaplaincy in Social Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic'. The article analyses and evaluates how chaplains in the UK’s largest charitable care provider for older people (re-)negotiated 'presence' in their pastoral care. 
CRPL Fellow Dr Carol Tomlin was interviewed by Professor Robert Beckford on BBC Radio 4 World Service, in an item about “Prayer and Theology of Diving Protection during COVID”. She also shared her reflections in Beckford's documentary film, Better Must Come: Black Pentecostals, the Pandemic and the Future of Christianity.
Our weblog Religion in Public has featured two short pieces: one by CRPL Fellow, Dr Xavier Moyet, about Pentecostalism, Public Health, and COVID-19 in Nigeria, and one by Professor Adriaan van Klinken, discussing how LGBTQ refugees in Kenya are affected by, but also creatively address, the impact of COVID-19.
As the pandemic and its consequences continue to unfold, the CRPL will promote further research at the intersections of religion and COVID-19.

Community Religions Project

The Community Religions Project continues to develop ways to work with students and support their research. The website is currently being updated with a new set of resources to support student engagement with research ethics, developed by undergraduate intern Natasha Jones. Two new reports on religion in Museums and hospital chaplaincy have also been added to the website.

Unable to hold visits to places of worship because of lockdown restrictions there were two walking tours of ‘religion on the university campus’ and a virtual visit to Jamyang Buddhist Centre. In Semester two a full programme of virtual visits to places of worship is being developed – giving students the opportunity to engage with religion in Leeds even in these difficult times.

Upcoming CRPL Research Seminars

• Thursday 4 February 2021, 4–5:30pm (BST): Professor Johanna Stiebert and Professor Adriaan van Klinken, University of Leeds: ‘Re-storying the Bible with Ugandan LGBTQ+ Refugees’. 
• Thursday 25th February 2021, 3–4:30pm (BST): Dr Richard Newton, University of Alabama: ‘The Anthropology of Scriptures: Reading Cultural Texts and Social Difference.’ 

Talks and presentations

• Professor Rachel Muers delivered a keynote lecture at the Breadline mid-project conference about Faith-based activism in austerity Britain'. Her lecture, titled ‘Discerning the body: Christian social action, theology and class in austerity Britain’, is now available as a podcast on the conference website.
• Dr Jasjit Singh recently spoke at an Inform seminar on ‘Becoming religious: How and why beliefs and practices are transmitted’ last Thursday. The event was attended by over 100 attendees from media and policy sectors.
• Dr Carol Tomlin will present a paper, 'Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: African Caribbean Second-Generation Pentecostals in Context', in a seminar at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, on 24th February.

New Publications

• Xavier Moyet, 'Reading Jean-François Bayart about Religion in Africa', Leeds Africa Studies Bulletin, no. 81 (2020).
• Rachel Muers, ‘Christ‐Centred Solidarity in a Time of Pandemic: The Theological Challenge to Contemporary Performances of Human Solidarity’, The Ecumenical Review, 72/4 (2020), 527-537.
• Mel Prideaux and Caroline Starkey, 'Student Placements and Communities of Practice', Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions, vol. 22 (2020).
• Shwagota Sayeed, 'Rape Culture And The Culturally Raped In Bangladesh', The Shiloh Project blog, January 2021.
• Chris Swift, 'Being there, virtually being there, being absent: Chaplaincy in social care during the COVID-19 pandemic', Health and Social Care Chaplaincy, 8/2 (2020), 154-164.
• Carol Tomlin, “Sermon Texts in Contexts: Why and How the Preaching of the Second Generation African Caribbean Pentecostals Has Diverged from their Windrush Forebears”, Liturgy (2021 in press).
• Carol Tomlin, “The Hermeneutics of African Caribbean Homiletics.” In Cleophus J LaRue and Luiz C. Nascimento (eds.), The Future Shape of Christian Proclamation: What the Global South can teach us about Preaching (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books), 92-115.
• Adriaan van Klinken, ‘Religion in African Literature: Representation, Critique and Imagination', Religion Compass, 14/12 (2020), 1-12.
• Adriaan van Klinken and Emmanuel Phiri, ‘The Empire Speaks Back: Zambian Responses to European Union LGBTI Rights Diplomacy’, in Public Discourses about Homosexuality and Religion in Europe and Beyond, edited by Marco Derks and Mariecke van den Berg. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2020, 309-324.