In Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner, Ralph H. Craig III tells the story of Tina Turner’s life as a tale of two dreams. The first is well known to the general public: achieving commercial success—as she put it, “[to] fill a football stadium” (p. 165). The second is to be a religious teacher, and it is this dream that Craig identifies as the main throughline of Turner’s life. Craig’s thesis is that “Turner’s story is fundamentally a religious one” (p. 6), and his stellar book takes care in crafting a compelling narrative of Turner’s life in terms of religion and spirituality. Published within Eerdmans’s Library of Religious Biography series, this book will be an exciting and insightful read for fans of Tina Turner because of Craig’s focus on Turner’s spirituality and religiosity in telling her story, which amounts to an intervention in previous accounts of Turner’s life that have not paid sufficient attention to this aspect of her life.
Tag: American Buddhism
Introduction to the Special Section on American Buddhism, Race, and Power
To say that the United States is experiencing a tumultuous existential crisis of cultural and political identity may, indeed, be an understatement. Race, especially, is at the heart of many current cultural divides and political battles. From debates over Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, to fearmongering over Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools, to racialized policies over citizenship…
Imagined and Realized Black-Asian Solidarity and American Buddhism
Part of a special section on American Buddhism, Race, and Power. This paper explores the question of Black–Asian solidarities in American Buddhism in response to Rima Vesley-Flad’s examination of the possibility of Black–Asian Buddhist solidarities being stymied by historic tension and aversion among Black and Asian American communities. Rather than lingering on anti-Blackness, I focus on unpacking how Asian American…
Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan: Critical Reflections on Cross-CulturalPractice and Lived Experience
Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan. How do we connect Buddhist teachings with effective service? Buddhists uphold the ideal to respond compassionately to suffering in our ever-changing world. Buddhist chaplains in particular take on roles of serving those who are in crisis, imprisoned, sick, dying, or grieving. Yet what compassionate engagement looks…
Foundations and Dialogues in Buddhist Chaplaincy
Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan. Editors’ note: Rev. Dr. Daijaku Kinst established the Buddhist chaplaincy program at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and served as the Noboru and Yaeko Hanyu Professor of Buddhist Chaplaincy from 2015 to 2022. She is a Sōtō Zen priest and guiding teacher of the Ocean Gate Zen…
Contemporary Approaches to Buddhist Pedagogy for Chaplaincy Education
Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan. Editors’ note: Dr. Jitsujo Gauthier is chair and Associate Professor of Buddhist Chaplaincy at University of the West. Dr. Gauthier is also a Zen teacher, priest, and preceptor within the Zen Peacemakers and White Plum Asanga lineage. In this article, Dr. Gauthier introduces the work of…
A Community-Based Disaster Chaplaincy Education Program
Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan. Editors’ note: Dr. Elaine Yuen served as chair of the master of divinity program at Naropa University. Cross-trained as a meditation teacher, Buddhist chaplain, and public health researcher, she continues to teach and is interested in how social contexts inform spiritual and contemplative care practices. Dr.…
REVIEW: American Sutra, by Duncan Ryūken Williams
American Sutra is the first comprehensive study of the history of Buddhism in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the Pacific War. As Williams notes, this is a topic that has heretofore been relatively understudied in the history of a country that continues to be seen as white and Christian.
Beyond Mindfulness: Buddhism & Health in the US
This article describes an unprecedented survey of a wide swathe of American Buddhists of diverse racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and sectarian backgrounds about their attitudes toward health and healing. The final section describes a follow-up study investigating how a segment of the survey respondents benefited from their practice of Buddhism during the Covid-19 pandemic. The most important overall finding is that American Buddhists see their participation in a wide range of Buddhist activities as a source of mental, physical, emotional, and social wellbeing. In light of this result, I argue that Buddhism is playing a larger than appreciated role in shaping Americans’ attitudes about health, and that the entire range of Buddhist approaches needs to be taken into account beyond simply meditation.
Review: Be the Refuge
“Where are all the young adult Asian American Buddhists, and what can we learn from them?” In answering these questions, Chenxing Han’s Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists combats the erasure of Asian American Buddhists in representations of American Buddhism. Despite making up two thirds of the American Buddhist population, Asian Americans are frequently left out of histories of American Buddhism. In “raising the voices of young adult Asian American Buddhists,” Han has created a new American sutra that is at once memoire, ethnography, history, and cultural critique.