Often ignored, misunderstood, or compared with Christian belief in a haphazard or inconsistent manner, the Mysteries of the Graeco-Roman world, when handled carefully and consistently, can aid in elucidating the context of New Testament texts. By closely examining the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Mysteries of Isis, and particularly their promises of a pleasant afterlife in Hades for those initiated into the cults, this work offers insight into difficult interpretational issues in First Corinthians 15. The work proceeds from a methodological commitment to understanding the Mysteries in their own right and without an overlay of Christian belief. The book includes a broad overview of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Mysteries of Isis and their place in Graeco-Roman culture, taking a deep and careful dive into conceptions of the afterlife in these cults. In each instance available historical data is considered, from works of mythology to dramas to archeological fragments, all with a focus on afterlife beliefs. With an ultimate goal to better understand Paul's writing in First Corinthians 15, the study includes an overview of Corinthian society and a particular examination of the available evidence concerning the impact of the Mysteries on Corinthians' expectation of the afterlife. Having considered the Mysteries independently, the work turns to First Corinthians 15 with a brief exegetical overview before drawing careful comparisons between Paul's teaching and the afterlife beliefs of the Mysteries. The book concludes with suggestions for interpretational issues on Paul's teaching in first Corinthians 15 regarding death and resurrection and baptism for the dead.

This book explores the idea of religious pluralism while defending the norms of secular cosmopolitanism, which include liberty, tolerance, civility, and hospitality. The secular cosmopolitan ideal requires us to be more tolerant and more hospitable toward religious believers and non-believers from diverse traditions in our religiously pluralistic world. Some have argued that the world's religions can be united around a common core. This book argues that it is both impossible and inadvisable either to reduce religion to one thing or to deny religion. Instead, the book affirms non reductive pluralism and seeks to understand how we should live in a pluralistic world. Building on work in the sociology of religion and philosophy of religion, the book examines the grown of religious diversity (and the spread of nonreligion) in the contemporary world. It argues that religious toleration, hospitality, and compassion must be extended in a global direction. Secular cosmopolitanism recognizes that each person has a right to his or her deepest beliefs and that the diversity of the world's religious and non-religious traditions cannot be reduced or eliminated.

The Way of Mary, Maryam, Beloved of God is a weaving of strands from ancient sources, traditional stories, poetry, and prayers of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and beyond (with full colour illustrations), to reveal, through the illuminated being and twelve life stations of Beloved Mary, the palpable Oneness of all Creation, our Oneness in Spirit. Drawing on passages from the Quran, the Bible, poetry of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi and inspirations of other mystics (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim), classical Islamic sources and ancient Biblical texts, oral traditions recorded by hearts across the centuries such as the Protoevangelium of James and the Lives of the Prophets of al-Tha‘labi, and Biblical apocrypha such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, with awareness of all the elements of nature that rose up in support of Beloved Mary through the stages of her journey, Camille Helminski weaves together a fabric of love to embrace us with healing and new life.

In September 2002, twenty-one prominent Catholic and Protestant scholars released the groundbreaking document 'A Sacred Obligation,' which includes ten statements about Jewish-Christian dialogue focused around a guiding claim: 'Revising Christian teaching about Judaism and the Jewish people is a central and indispensable obligation of theology in our time.' Following the worldwide reception of their document, the authors have expanded their themes into Seeing Judaism Anew. The essays in this volume offer a conceptual framework by which Christians can rethink their understanding of the church's relationship to Judaism and show how essential it is that Christians represent Judaism accurately, not only as a matter of justice for the Jewish people, but also for the integrity of Christian faith. By linking New Testament scholarship to the Shoah, Christian liturgical life, and developments in the church, this volume addresses the important questions at the heart of Christian identity, such as: Are only Christians saved? Why did Jesus die? Why is Israel so important to Jews, and what should we think about the conflict in the Middle East? How is Christianity complicit in the Holocaust? What is important about Jesus being a Jew?

Theologians have had to increasingly engage with beliefs and practises outside of their own traditions. The resultant "theology of religions" is, however, often formulated in isolation from the religions they are describing. This book provides a comparison of the development of theology of religions in Western Christianity and its application in anIslamic context. It also shows the parallels between some specific forms of theology of religions, i.e. exclusivism, inclusivism or pluralism, in both Islamic and Christian traditions. The arguments of Christian and Muslim theologians, including the specific contributions of Rowan Williams and Jerusha Lamptey, are examined in order to reveal the interconnections and contradictions of their pluralist, exclusivist and inclusivist approaches. This provides a rounded picture of Christian-Muslim understanding of religious others and prepares the ground for a stronger and more sophisticated Islamic theology of religions. This is vital reading for those studying theology of religions, comparative theology and interfaith relations.

This book surveys the 8 basic approaches to religious pluralism, ranging from exclusivism (evangelical right) through classic inclusivism (Rahner), revised inclusivism (DuPuis), particularism (Paul Griffith), radical diversity (S. Mark Heim), pluralism (Knitter), comparative theologies (Frank Clooney), and dual belonging (Raimundo Panikkar). The unique contribution of this book is the ability to situate the issue of pluralism in the cultural site in the US (here relying on "thick" cultural analyses of Robert Wuthnow, Vincent Miller, and others) and in the religious site of Roman Catholicism (as offering mainstream Christian responses to religious diversity).

Down to Earth scientifically describes the multitude of environmental problems besetting planet earth and indicates why these environmental problems are, at their root, a spiritual or religious challenge. Simply learning about the scientific description of these environmental threats will not be sufficient to solve them, the author argues, for attitudes must be changed and behavioral patterns must be altered. This need for change invariably confronts the core values that we hold and the routine actions that we undertake. Through an examination of the worldviews and sacred texts of eight spiritual traditions, we learn of the common insights and powerful resources that these world religions can offer. The author believes that it is necessary to join an ecological conscience to an ecological consciousness for humans to exercise custodianship of nature both responsibly and sustainably.

The book offers a comprehensive discussion on the Buddhist liberation and meditation concepts based on the original Pali scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. It interprets the early Buddhist soteriology critically and sympathetically by interweaving the Buddhological and the Buddhistic debates on understanding the Buddha's original teaching on bondage, liberation, liberated ones, and meditation. It showcases the liberal and pluralistic character of early Buddhist soteriology by interpreting it psychologically through the lens of the Buddha's recognition of two sets of psychosomatic and epistemic mental configurations active in the human mind. It shows how this dualism pervades the early Buddhist soteriology by pointing out its recognition of craving and ignorance as two causes of suffering; the emancipation of mind and the emancipation by wisdom as two constituents of liberation; and the meditative appeasing and the meditative watching as two methods to attain that liberation. It demonstrates how the Buddha structures a gradual path to liberation enabling individuals to experience many temporary and irreversible secondary goals along the way and allowing them to join the path at any stage appropriate to their temperaments and advancement at a given time and space. The book therefore serves the students and scholars of Buddhism, religion, and psychology to obtain a comprehensive and insightful introduction to Buddhist soteriology.

Thinking about ultimate reality is becoming increasingly transreligious. This transreligious turn follows inevitably from the discovery of divine truths in multiple traditions. Global communications bring the full range of religious ideas and practices to anyone with access to the internet. Moreover, the growth of the "nones" and those who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" creates a pressing need for theological thinking not bound by prescribed doctrines and fixed rituals. This book responds to this vital need. The chapters in this volume each examine the claim that if the aim of theology is to know and articulate all we can about the divine reality, and if revelations, enlightenments, and insights into that reality are not limited to a single tradition, then what is called for is a theology without confessional restrictions. In other words, a Theology Without Walls. To ground the project in examples, the volume provides emerging models of transreligious inquiry. It also includes sympathetic critics who raise valid concerns that such a theology must face. This is a book that will be of urgent interest to theologians, religious studies scholars, and philosophers of religion. It will be especially suitable for those interested in comparative theology, inter-religious and interfaith understanding, new trends in constructive theology, normative religious studies, and global philosophy of religion.

When Muslim and Christian scholars met in 2001 in Samsun, Turkey for a symposium on inter-religious dialogue as a contribution to world peace, little did they know that September 11th was less than three months away. The events of that tragic day underline the urgency of such dialogue. As conflicts surfaced in Afghanistan, Palestine/Israel, Kashmir, Pakistan, Chechnya, and Iraq, the need to understand the underlying issues of the conflict became evident. The papers found in found in Muslim and Christian Reflections on Peace explore how people of diverse faiths can communicate, dispite discord, on issues of truth and justice. These Christian and Muslim reflections from the symposium in Turkey, which straddles East and West, are an attempt to explore some of these issues.

For half a century Rene Girard's theories of mimetic desire and scapegoating have captivated the imagination of thinkers and doers in many fields as an incisive look into the human condition, particularly the roots of violence. In a 1993 interview with Rebecca Adams, he highlighted the positive dimensions of mimetic phenomena without expanding on what they might be. Now, two decades later, this groundbreaking book systematically explores the positive side of mimetic theory in the context of the multi-faceted world of creativity. Several authors build on Adams' insight that loving mimesis can be understood as desiring the subjectivity of the other, particularly when the other may be young or wounded. With highly nuanced arguments authors show how mimetic theory can be used to address child and adult development, including the growth of consciousness and a capacity to handle complexity. Mimetic theory is brought to bear on big questions about creativity in nature, evolutionary development, originality, and religious intrusion into politics.

This ancient Gnostic text can be a companion for your own spiritual quest. The Gospel of Philip is one of the most exciting and accessible of the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. The source of Dan Brown's intriguing speculations about Mary Magdalene in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, the Gospel of Philip draws on ancient imagery—the natural world, the relationships between women, men and family, the ancient distinctions between lord and servants, free people and slaves, and pagans, Jews and Christians—to offer us insight into the spiritual interpretation of scripture that is at the foundation of Christianity. The Gospel of Philip: Annotated and Explained unravels the discourses, parables and sayings of this second-century text to explore a spiritual, non-literal interpretation of the Bible. Along with his elegant and accurate new translation from the original Coptic, Andrew Phillip Smith probes the symbolism and metaphors at the heart of the Gospel of Philip to reveal otherwise unrecorded sayings of Jesus, fragments of Gnostic mythology and parallels to the teachings of Jesus and Paul. He also examines the joyful imagery of rebirth, salvation and mystical union in the bridal chamber that was the pursuit of Christian Gnosticism. Now you can experience this ancient Gospel even if you have no previous knowledge of early Christianity or Gnostic thought. This SkyLight Illuminations edition provides important insights into the historical context and major themes of the Gospel of Philip, and gives you a deeper understanding of the Gospel’s overarching message: deciphering our own meaning behind the symbols of this world increases and enriches our understanding of God.

This timely book offers an accessible introduction to religion in international affairs. Shireen T. Hunter highlights the growing importance of religion in politics and analyzes its nature, role, and significance. She places the question of religion's impact on global affairs in the broader context of state and nonstate actors, weighing the factors that most affect their actions. Through the lens of three compelling and distinctive case studies-Russia's response to the Yugoslav crisis, Turkey's reaction to the Bosnian war, and Europe's policy toward Turkish membership in the EU-Hunter demonstrates that religion increasingly shapes international affairs in significant and diverse ways. Her book is essential reading for anyone needing a better understanding of why and, more important, how, religion influences the behavior of international actors and thus the character of world politics.