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On the Sacred: On The Sacred (Heretics)
By Gordon Lynch. 2013
Progressive, modern societies hold the promise of the triumph of reason and the banishing of primitive, religious impulses to a…
bygone age. If this statement is orthodoxy to much of Western liberal thought, then Gordon Lynch's On the Sacred is heresy. Challenging the myth of the idealized rational society, Lynch argues that emotionally-charged forms of the sacred remain an inevitable foundation of social life. Modernity has not rid us of the sacred, but merely presented us with new sacred forms focused around humanity, nature and the nation. Drawing on examples from the changing status of the British monarchy, the growing influence of humanitarian NGOs and moral justifications for the invasion of Iraq, On the Sacred presents a compelling account of what the sacred is and why it still matters for us today. By the end of the book, Lynch calls us to a new understanding of our moments of deep moral certainty, challenging us to think about the harm we do in the name of what we call sacred.Reinventing Religious Studies: Key Writings in the History of a Discipline
By Scott S. Elliott. 2013
"Reinventing Religious Studies" offers readers an opportunity to trace the important trends and developments in Religious Studies over the last…
forty years. Over this time the study of religion has been transformed into a critical discipline informed by a wide range of perspectives from sociology to anthropology, politics to material culture, and economics to cultural theory. "Reinventing Religious Studies" brings together key writings which have helped shape scholarship, teaching and learning in the field. All the essays are drawn from the CSSR Bulletin, a provocative, occasionally irreverent, and always critical journal which has long been at the centre of debates in Religious Studies. This collection will prove invaluable for students and scholars of theory and method in Religious Studies. It offers readers a unique opportunity to understand the history of key issues in the study of religion and what remains central to the study of religion today.Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music (Studies in Contemporary and Historical Paganism)
By Andy Bennett, Donna Weston. 2013
Paganism is rapidly becoming a religious, creative, and political force internationally. It has found one of its most public expressions…
in popular music, where it is voiced by singers and musicians across rock, folk, techno, goth, metal, Celtic, world, and pop music. With essays ranging across the US, UK, continental Europe, Australia and Asia, 'Pop Pagans' assesses the histories, genres, performances, and communities of pagan popular music. Over time, paganism became associated with the counter culture, satanic and gothic culture, rave and festival culture, ecological consciousness and spirituality, and new ageism. Paganism has used music to express a powerful and even transgressive force in everyday life. 'Pop Pagans' examines the many artists and movements which have contributed to this growing phenomenon.Defining Magic: A Reader (Critical Categories in the Study of Religion)
By Bernd-Christian Otto, Michael Stausberg. 2013
Magic has been an important term in Western history and continues to be an essential topic in the modern academic…
study of religion, anthropology, sociology, and cultural history. Defining Magic is the first volume to assemble key texts that aim at determining the nature of magic, establish its boundaries and key features, and explain its working. The reader brings together seminal writings from antiquity to today. The texts have been selected on the strength of their success in defining magic as a category, their impact on future scholarship, and their originality. The writings are divided into chronological sections and each essay is separately introduced for student readers. Together, these texts - from Philosophy, Theology, Religious Studies, and Anthropology - reveal the breadth of critical approaches and responses to defining what is magic. CONTRIBUTORS: Aquinas, Augustine, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Dennis Diderot, Emile Durkheim, Edward Evans-Pritchard, James Frazer, Susan Greenwood, Robin Horton, Edmund Leach, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Christopher Lehrich, Bronislaw Malinowski, Marcel Mauss, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Plato, Pliny, Plotin, Isidore of Sevilla, Jesper Sorensen, Kimberley Stratton, Randall Styers, Edward TylorReligion and Sustainability: Social Movements and the Politics of the Environment
By Lucas F. Johnston. 2013
Sustainability is now key to international and national policy, manufacture and consumption. It is also central to many individuals who…
try to lead environmentally ethical lives. Historically, religion has been a significant part of many visions of sustainability. Pragmatically, the inclusion of religious values in conservation and development efforts has facilitated relationships between people with different value structures. Despite this, little attention has been paid to the interdependence of sustainability and religion, and no significant comparisons of religious and secular sustainability advocacy. Religion and Sustainability presents the first broad analysis of the spiritual dimensions of sustainability-oriented social movements. Exploring the similarities and differences between the conceptions of sustainability held by religious, interfaith and secular organizations, the book analyses how religious practice and discourse have impacted on political ideology and process.Many Catholics today are disenchanted with the Church's continuing distrust of women and laity. But, despite this widespread dissatisfaction, traditional…
power relations have hardly changed over the last century. "Catholics, Conflicts and Choices" presents detailed interviews with lay people, priests, Sisters, and Christian Brothers, each discussing their personal struggles with church teachings and practices. The conversations are selected to illustrate different experiences of power relations - particularly different aspects of gender dynamics - within the organisational structures of the Church. The interviews are examined within a framework of feminist, sociological and psychological theory. "Catholics, Conflicts and Choices" reveals how, despite a long history of challenging official notions of authority and obedience and assumptions about intimate relationships, there is little potential for change if the established power relations of the Church are not confronted.Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe (Studies in Contemporary and Historical Paganism)
By Kaarina Aitamurto, Scott Simpson. 2013
The resurgence of religiosity in post-communist Europe has been widely noted, but the full spectrum of religious practice in the…
diverse countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been effectively hidden behind the region's range of languages and cultures. This volume presents an overview of one of the most notable developments in the region, the rise of Pagan and "Native Faith" movements. Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe brings together scholars from across the region to present both systematic country overviews - of Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, and Ukraine - as well as essays exploring specific themes such as racism and the internet. The volume will be of interest to scholars of new religious movements especially those looking for a more comprehensive picture of contemporary paganism beyond the English-speaking world.Sufism formed one of the cultures of resistance which has existed in the social fabric of Persia since antiquity. Such…
resistance continues to manifest itself today with many looking to Sufism as a model of cooperation between East and West, between traditional and modern. 'Sufism in the Secret History of Persia' explores the place of Sufi mysticism in Iran's intellectual and spiritual consciousness through traditional and contemporary Sufi thinkers and writers. Sufism in the Secret History of Persia examines the current of spirituality which extends from the old Iranian worship of Mithra to modern Islam. This current always contains elements of gnosis and inner knowing, but has often provided impetus for socio-political resistance. The study describes how these persisting pre-Islamic cultural and socio-religious elements have secretly challenged Muslim orthodoxies and continue to shape the nature and orientation of contemporary Sufism.Throughout the history of European imperialism the grand narratives of the Bible have been used to justify settler-colonialism. "The Zionist…
Bible" explores the ways in which modern political Zionism and Israeli militarism have used the Bible - notably the Book of Joshua and its description of the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land - as an agent of oppression and to support settler-colonialism in Palestine. The rise of messianic Zionism in the late 1960s saw the beginnings of a Jewish theology of zealotocracy, based on the militant land traditions of the Bible and justifying the destruction of the previous inhabitants. "The Zionist Bible" examines how the birth and growth of the State of Israel has been shaped by this Zionist reading of the Bible, how it has refashioned Israeli-Jewish collective memory, erased and renamed Palestinian topography, and how critical responses to this reading have challenged both Jewish and Palestinian nationalism.Religion and spirituality are being transformed in our late modern and secularising times. New forms of belief proliferate, often notable…
for not being limited to traditional systems of reference or expression. Increasingly, these new religions present worldviews which draw directly upon popular culture - or occulture - in fiction, film, art and the internet. Fantasy and Belief explores the context and implications of these types of beliefs through the example of the Otherkin community. The Otherkin are a loosely-affiliated group who believe themselves to be in some way more than just human, their non-humanity often rooted in the characters and narratives of popular fantasy and science fiction. Challenging much current sociological thinking about spirituality and consumption, Fantasy and Belief reveals how popular occulture operates to recycle, develop, and disseminate metaphysical ideas, and how the popular and the sacred are combining in new ways in today's world.Judaic Technologies of the Word: A Cognitive Analysis of Jewish Cultural Formation
By Gabriel Levy. 2013
Judaic Technologies of the Word argues that Judaism does not exist in an abstract space of reflection. Rather, it exists…
both in artifacts of the material world - such as texts - and in the bodies, brains, hearts, and minds of individual people. More than this, Judaic bodies and texts, both oral and written, connect and feed back on one another. Judaic Technologies of the Word examines how technologies of literacy interact with bodies and minds over time. The emergence of literacy is now understood to be a decisive factor in religious history, and is central to the transformations that took place in the ancient Near East in the first millennium BCE. This study employs insights from the cognitive sciences to pursue a deep history of Judaism, one in which the distinctions between biology and culture begin to disappear.Pacific Apostle: The 1920-21 Diary of David O. McKay in the Latter-day Saint Island Missions
By David D McKay. 1918
In 1920, David O. McKay embarked on a journey that forever changed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.…
His visits to the Latter-day Saint missions, schools, and branches in the Pacific solidified the Church leadership's commitment to global outreach. As importantly, the trip inspired McKay's own initiatives when he later became Church president. McKay's account of his odyssey brings to life the story of the Church of Jesus Christ’s transformation into a global faith. Throughout his diary, McKay expressed his humanity, curiosity, and fascination with cultures and places--the Maori hongi, East Asian customs, Australian wildlife, and more. At the same time, he and his travel companion, Hugh J. Cannon, detailed the Latter-day Saint missionary life of the era, closely observing logistical challenges and cultural differences, guiding various church efforts, and listening to followers' impressions and concerns. Reid L. Neilson and Carson V. Teuscher's meticulous notes provide historical, religious, and general context for the reader.Blending travelogue with history, Pacific Apostle illuminates the thought and work of an essential figure in the twentieth-century Church of Jesus Christ.Celestial Joyride
By Michael Waters. 2016
In these poems of taut clarity, craft, and texture, Michael Waters continues his bold exploration of sensual pleasure and moral…
transgression as means of affirming spiritual faith. Just as a joyride suggests recklessness and exhilaration, so Celestial Joyride is an energized journey marked by spiritual recklessness in the face of perpetual mortality. Compelling, musical narratives offer rich meaning and vivid consequence.Michael Waters's poetry books include BOA Editions titles Gospel Night, Darling Vulgarity, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Parthenopi, finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. He teaches at Monmouth University and in the Drew University MFA Program.Life in the twenty-first century presents a disturbing reality. Otherness, the simple fact of being different in some way, has…
come to be defined as in and of itself evil. Miroslav Volf contends that if the healing word of the gospel is to be heard today, Christian theology must find ways of speaking that address the hatred of the other. Is there any hope of embracing our enemies? Of opening the door to reconciliation? Reaching back to the New Testament metaphor of salvation as reconciliation, Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion. Increasingly we see that exclusion has become the primary sin, skewing our perceptions of reality and causing us to react out of fear and anger to all those who are not within our (ever-narrowing) circle. In light of this, Christians must learn that salvation comes, not only as we are reconciled to God, and not only as we "learn to live with one another," but as we take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to the other, of enfolding him or her in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God. Volf won the 2002 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for the first edition of his book, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon, 1996). In that first edition, professor Volf, a Croatian by birth, analyzed the civil war and “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia, and he readily found other examples of cultural, ethnic, and racial conflict to illustrate his points. Since September 11, 2001, and the subsequent epidemic of terror and massive refugee suffering throughout the world, Volf revised Exclusion and Embrace to account for the evolving dynamics of inter-ethnic and international strife.Refining Gold: Stages in Buddhist Contemplative Practice (Core Teachings of Dalai Lama #8)
By The Dalai Lama. 1994
One of the latest additions to the Core Teachings of the Dalai Lama series, Refining Gold explains, in clear and…
direct language, foundational instructions for attaining enlightenment.One of the most central set of teachings of the succession of Dalai Lamas since the fifteenth century is the Lam Rim, or Stages of the Path, teachings—in particular those written by the great Tsongkhapa. These teachings are a guide, from start to finish, on how to engage in the transformational Buddhist practices that lead to enlightenment. In this illuminating work, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama discusses a short but powerful text by his predecessor, the Third Dalai Lama Sonam Gyatso, who penned a famous commentary on the Lam Rim entitled Essence of Refined Gold. The Dalai Lama speaks directly to the reader—offering spiritual guidance, personal reflections, and scriptural commentary. His sincere approach and lucid style make Refining Gold one of the most accessible introductions to Tibetan Buddhism ever published. This book was previously published under the title The Path to Enlightenment.As she did for the Modernists IN MONTMARTRE, noted art historian and biographer Sue Roe now tells the story of…
the Surrealists in Montparnasse. In Montparnasse begins on the eve of the First World War and ends with the 1936 unveiling of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. As those extraordinary years unfolded, the Surrealists found ever more innovative ways of exploring the interior life, and asking new questions about how to define art. In Montparnasse recounts how this artistic revolution came to be amidst the salons and cafés of that vibrant neighborhood. Sue Roe is both an incisive art critic of these pieces and a beguiling biographer with a fingertip feel for this compelling world. Beginning with Duchamp, Roe then takes us through the rise of the Dada movement, the birth of Surrealist photography with Man Ray, the creation of key works by Ernst, Cocteau, and others, through the arrival of Dalí. On canvas and in their readymades and other works these artists juxtaposed objects never before seen together to make the viewer marvel at the ordinary—and at the workings of the subconscious. We see both how this art came to be and how the artists of Montparnasse lived. Roe puts us with Gertrude Stein in her box seat at the opening of The Rite of Spring; with Duchamp as he installs his famous urinal; at a Cocteau theatrical with Picasso and Coco Chanel; with Breton at a session with Freud; and with Man Ray as he romances Kiki de Montparnasse. Stein said it best when she noted that the Surrealists still saw in the common ways of the 19th century, but they complicated things with the bold new vision of the 20th. Their words mark an enormously important watershed in the history of art—and they forever changed the way we all see the world.Participation in God: A Study in Christian Doctrine and Metaphysics
By Andrew Davison. 2019
Few ideas have excited greater interest among theologians in recent decades than the idea of 'participation'. In thinking about creation,…
it is the notion that everything comes from, and depends upon, God, inviting the language of sharing, or of an exemplar and its images; in thinking about redemption, it points to the restoration of that image, and is expressed in the language of communion with God and with the redeemed community. In this volume, Andrew Davison considers these themes in unprecedented breadth, investigating the fundamental character of participation as it can be applied to a wide range of theological topics. Exploring what it means to know, to love, to do good, and to live together well, he shows how these ideas animate a particular understanding of human life and how we relate to the world around us. His book offers the most comprehensive survey of participation to date, contributing to detailed discussions of these themes among academic theologians.Encuentros con mis sentimientos
By Sonia Jiménez. 2019
Reflexiones sobre la vida, un nacimiento para el aprendizaje. Me encuentro en mi presente, cara a cara con mis sentimientos.…
Un encuentro único para mí, donde se desvelan los secretos de la vida con pequeñas cosas. Solo basta una mirada, una palabra, una canción, una historia donde, de alguna forma, todos somos protagonistas por los sentimientos que nos unen. Historias de nuestro día a día llenas de aprendizaje, que muestran partes ocultas y que vuelven a aparecer para poder ver la luz que esconden cada una de ellas.In his seminary classes and his writings, Frederick Crowe, SJ (1915–2012) sought to understand anew the eternal identity of the…
Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s role in the Church’s life. Despite Crowe’s fame as a professor of Trinitarian theology and his groundbreaking work on Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of complacent love as an analogy for the Holy Spirit’s eternal procession, no book has ever been published on this influential Canadian Jesuit, who set up centres around the world for the study of the thought of Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904–84). Drawing on Crowe’s published works and archival material, Eades emphasizes how Crowe’s Trinitarian pneumatology modestly and creatively extended Lonergan’s theology of the Holy Spirit. Making use of Crowe’s own historical methodology, Eades looks for the emergence of new and significant questions about the Holy Spirit in Crowe’s works.Urban Ministry Reconsidered: Contexts And Considerations
By R. Drew Smith, Stephanie C. Boddie, Ronald E. Peters. 2018