From the beginning of the twenty‐first century there has been a sharp increase in research on the ways in which young people engage with religion and spirituality. Three trends are apparent: first, there has been a shift away from focusing on the formal processes of young people's religious socialisation and a realisation that youth exercise considerable agency in their construction of personal and group identities; second, the 1970s and 1980s assumption that religion was in decline in developed countries and was of little interest to young adults has been challenged by the growth of trans‐national religions including Pentecostal Christianity, and by the emergence of a myriad spiritualities and identity‐conferring subcultural groups including Paganism, Satanism, Goth culture and vampirism; and third, there is an increased acceptance that youth is less a uniform stage that all human beings undergo, and is more intimately connected to the specific historical, geographical, economic, and social context in which it is experienced. This article reviews four recent publications on religion, spirituality and youth, three of which are from Australia. The fourth volume is an international edited collection containing studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and a small number of European countries.
This article considers the most famous English sacred tree, the Glastonbury Thorn, which has a special place in vernacular Christianity and popular folklore. It was part of the pilgrimage site at Glastonbury during the Middle Ages and after the Reformation, Puritan soldiers chopped it down during the Civil War (1642-1651). However, elaborate folklore concerning the Thorn developed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. according to these tales, Jesus came to Britain with his mother's uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who planted the Glastonbury Thorn. The Thorn is considered miraculous, as it flowers twice yearly, with the second flowering in winter at Christmas. It also plays multiple roles in England's past and present. For example, all Christian traditions that assert that Jesus walked on soil other than that of the Middle East are engaged in the sacralization of territory, the transformation of the periphery into the center. English tales that claim Jesus visited Somerset and Cornwall bestow upon England the status of a 'Holy Land'. Further, the Thorn is part of the web of connections linking Glastonbury with the English Crown. This article considers the symbolism of the Glastonbury Thorn and assembleshistorical accounts, folklore, and popular cultural practices to investigate its historical importance and its contemporary significance.
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