My article ”The Post-Christian Sweden in Numbers” (in Swedish) was published in Signum 2017 no.2, pages 13-18. It is a reflection on data from polls performed by the SOM institute in Gothenburg in relation to Rodney Stark’s book The Triumph of Faith, which is based on data from the World Gallup Polls.
My article on the reformation in Sweden and the visit of the pope in 2016 is now published in an edited volume by Angelico Press.
My biography of Michael O’Brien, the Canadian novelist and artist, is now published by Justin Press (Ottawa).
My article on Michael O’Brien’s Science Fiction novel has just been published.
2015, “Consolations of a New Earth: The Benefits of Science fiction for Catholic Theology” LIR Journal 4: 37–48.
A review of my book Ritualization and Human Interiority has been published in Religious Studies Review (September 2015).
Blum, J. (2015), Ritualization and Human Interiority. By . Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013. Pp. 130. $15.00.. Relig Stud Rev, 41: 101–102. doi:10.1111/rsr.12225
A chapter that I removed from my book Ritualization and Human Interiority before publication (2013) has now (2015) been published in India in the journal Anvikshiki (connected to the philosophy and religion department at BHU in Varanasi) as ”The Ritual Person”. At the time, I felt it necessary to deal in some length with the notion of ’person’ as a background for the discussion of interiorization, but decided to cut it out to make the book more focused. I have put the article here in XPS format as the journal is available only in print and not, to my knowledge, to any great extent spread outside of India.
A presentation that I did in 2013 at the Pontificia Università San Tommaso as part of the workshop Scandinavian Theologians Teaching Catholic Theology is now published in a Festschrift (in Swedish) as ”Reflektion över relationen mellan katolsk teologi och religionsvetenskap” [A reflection on the relation between Catholic theology and religious studies] in Den trogne arbetaren i vingården: Festskrift till Bo Claesson, ed. Staffan Olofsson. LIR.skrifter.varia: Göteborg, pages 109–118.
Here is an article that I published 2012 in an Indian journal. A Swedish version was published 2014 in:
SEGL: katolsk årsskrift for religion og samfunn, eds. Ståle Johannes Kristiansen & Peder K. Solberg: 301–310.
Religion as a human phenomenon vs. openness to transcendence
An issue hotly debated within religious studies due to its importance for the discipline’s identity and status, is the choice between, on the one hand, a study of religion as a purely natural phenomenon and, on the other hand, a perspective that not a priori rejects the truth claims of religious traditions concerning supernatural realities. In the following, I will discuss these two approaches and sketch a position of my own.
An article on Hinduism, I wrote together with professor Åke Sander has just been published in a mammoth 4000 pages multi-volume work at Springer. I must say I didn’t envy the editing done by Stan Brunner. And the price tag is quite substantial 1200 $.