This seminar took place on Thursday 13 February 2020, 4.30-6pm in Seminar Room B (D/TH004, Dept. of Theology & Religion, Abbey House, DH1 3RS, Durham)
ABSTRACT:
The body plays a central part in religious practice. What we now call ‘religion’ evolved from physical practices such as trance dancing. Christian theology emphasises the importance of creation of the material order, the incarnation of God in a human body, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the physical relationship with God through prayer with the icons. Ascetic disciplines and deprivations have often played an important part in the intensification of religious experience. Meditation is both a mental and physical practice. Religion affects how people relate to their bodies and experience them, though there has been much variation in how that works. Religious practitioners have often sought the healing of the body, and hoped for its resurrection. Posture and body language is important in many religious rituals, and religious cognition is often a form of “embodied cognition”. Some forms of religion are more embodied than others, and the effects of religion on health probably depend on how embodied a person’s religion is. Healthy religion, like athleticism, depends on finding the right path between hardship and indulgence
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BIOGRAPHY:
Fraser Watts was formerly Reader in Theology and Science in the University of Cambridge, where he was Director of the Psychology and Religion Research Group and a Fellow of Queens' College. He is also a former President of the British Psychological Society and of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is now Executive Secretary of the International Society for Science and Religion and a Visiting Professor at the University of Lincoln.
His books include Theology and Psychology (Ashgate, 2002); Psychology for Christian Ministry (with R. Nye and S. Savage, Routledge, 2002); Forgiveness in Context (ed. with L. Gulliford, T & T Clark, 2004); Spiritual Healing: Scientific and Religious Perspectives (CUP, 2011); Head and Heart: Perspectives from Religion and Psychology (ed. with G. Dumbreck, Templeton Press, 2013); Evolution, Religion and Cognitive Science: Critical and Constructive Essays (edited with L. Turner, OUP, 2014); Psychology, Religion and Spirituality (CUP, 2017); Living Deeply (Lutterworth, 2018); Rethinking Biology: Public Understandings (ed. with M. Reiss and H. Wiseman, World Scientific, 2019); The Psychology of Religion and Place: Emerging Perspectives (ed. with V. Counted, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
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