With 366 days of thought-provoking prompts, this beautiful gilded journal will help you embark on your spiritual journey. There are few subjects as satisfying to explore as your spirituality. Whether you worship in one religion or follow your own set of practices, this journal will help you examine your beliefs. With daily words of wisdom from inspiring figures and thought-provoking prompts, every page offers a chance to discover new insights, grapple with long-held convictions, or contemplate big questions about the universe. You will describe how your family shapes your beliefs, how your spirituality helped during a difficult time, and your relationship with a higher power. A few minutes every day are all you need to engage with your spiritual side.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This Advanced Introduction sets out the difficulty of defining religion itself and the subsequent impact this has on creating laws which regulate and protect it. Taking a global comparative approach, Frank S. Ravitch guides the reader in how this unique interaction plays out in differing legal systems including in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Providing further context by contrasting specific case studies, the book provides a rounded and coherent exploration of the complexities of law in relation to religion. Key Features: Addresses the many issues surrounding religious exceptions to general laws Considers the extent of separation between government and religion, and the role of courts in deciding religious questions Looks at the ways in which law may govern discrimination by government or by private entities, based on religion or religious concerns Explores the multifaceted interactions between religion and law in many areas, including human rights; public schooling; health and property; tax exemptions; and clergy abuse This foundational book offers a platform for researchers and students in the fields of law, political science, ethics, and religious studies. It also provides valuable insight for lawyers, judges and legislators with a focus on law and religion. .

With the extraordinary growth of Christianity in the global south has come the rise of "reverse missions," in which countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America send missionaries to re-evangelize the West. In The Spirit Moves West, Rebecca Kim focuses on South Korea as a case study of how non-Western missionaries evangelize Americans, particularly white Americans. Known as the "Asian Protestant Superpower," South Korea now sends more missionaries abroad than any country except the United States; there are approximately 22,000 Korean missionaries in over 160 countries. Drawing on four years of in-depth interviews, participant observation, and surveys of South Korea's largest non-denominational missionary-sending agency, University Bible Fellowship, Rebecca Kim gives us an inside look at reverse missions. Conducting her research both in the US and South Korea, she studies the motivations and methods of Korean evangelicals who have sought to "bring the gospel back" to America since the 1970s. She also explores how a mission movement from the global South could evolve over time in the West. The Spirit Moves West is the first empirically-grounded examination of a much-discussed phenomenon, which concludes by considering what the future of non-Western, especially Korean, missions will bring.

A new English translation of the celebrated Poem of the Cloak (Qasidat al-Burda) by Imam Busiri (may Allah be pleased with him) is now available. With calligraphy by Betul Krkan and illumination by Ersan Percem, the beautiful production of this edition reflects the esteem in which the poem is held, as well of course as its high purpose, the remembrance and honouring of God's Beloved and Final Messenger, Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.Sheikh Abdal Hakim's translation renders the poem in beautiful and moving English in a parallel text alongside the original Arabic. In addition, each verse is followed by lines from other poets - classical and modern, and from many parts of the world - echoing and amplifying its theme, encouraging the reader to reflect on its meanings more fully."

Pariah Politics breaks new ground in examining the issue of western Islamist extremism from the perspective of government. It links underlying causes to the capacity of governments to respond directly and to influence others. The book contains four main messages.
Focusing on causes, not symptoms. The book identifies four big causal drivers: settled disadvantage, social isolation, grievance and oppositional cultures, and the volatile dynamics of global Islam. Governments can hope to influence the first two, using existing and innovative policy levers. The scope to make big changes in the latter two is severely limited.
The circle of tacit support. Action by government to counter terrorism has relied too heavily on security policy measures to intercept or disrupt men of violence. This emphasis is misplaced. Though important, this fails to address the moral oxygen for violence and confrontation that exists within Muslim communities.
Better focus and better levers. Ministers and officials need to think and act smart. They need to push ahead with social inclusion policies to broaden opportunity. They need to make more use of community-based strategies to isolate extremism. They need to promote civil society actions so that affected communities can take control of their own reputational future. And, they desperately need to avoid making things worse.
Reputations matter. The pariah status of western Muslims has worsened by the fallout from terrorism. Few have anything good to say about western Muslims; still fewer can imagine an optimistic future. Yet earlier demonised groups, such as Jews or Asian refugees, have overcome significant hurdles, moving from pariahs to paragons. A credible willingness to tackle extremism is the most important first step to a reputational turnaround.

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Central Himalayan region of Kumaon, Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment from the Central Himalayas explores ideas of justice by drawing on oral and written narratives, stories, testimonies, and rituals told and performed in relation to the 'God of Justice', Goludev, and other regional deities. The book seeks to answer several questions: How is the concept of justice defined in South Asia? Why do devotees seek out Goludev for the resolution of matters of justice instead of using the secular courts? What are the sociological and political consequences of situating divine justice within a secular, democratic, modern context? Moreover, how do human beings locate themselves within the indeterminateness and struggles of their everyday existence? What is the place of language and ritual in creating intimacy and self? How is justice linked to intimacy, truth, and being human? The stories and narratives in this book revolve around Goludev's own story and deeds, as well as hundreds of petitions (manauti) written on paper that devotees hang on his temple walls, and rituals (jagar) that involve spirit possession and the embodiment of the deity through designated mediums. The jagars are powerful, extraordinary experiences, mesmerizing because of their intensity but also because of what they imply in terms of how we conceptualize being being human with the seemingly limitless potential to shift, alter, and transform ourselves through language and ritual practice. The petitions, though silent and absent of the singing, drumming, and choreography that accompany jagars, are equally powerful because of their candid and intimate testimony to the aspirations, breakdowns, struggles, and breakthroughs that circumscribe human existence.

Self-initiation is killing our young men. Without strong mentors, boys are walking alone into a wilderness of conflicting messages about who they should be as men. It's no wonder that our sons are confused about what the world expects from them and what they should expect of themselves. The Intentional Father is the antidote. This concise book is filled with practical steps to help men raise sons of consequence--young men who know what they believe, know who they are, and will stand up against the negative cultural trends of our day. Jon Tyson lays out a clear path for fathers and sons that includes specific activities, rites of passage, and significant "marking moments" that can be customized to fit any family. It's not enough to hope our sons will become good men. We need them to be good at being men. This book shows how fathers, grandfathers, and other male mentors can lead the way.

Every year, there are several hundred attacks on India's Christians. These attacks are carried out by violent anti-minority activists, many of them provoked by what they perceive to be Christians' propensity for aggressive proselytization, and/or by rumored or real conversions to the faith. In this violence, Pentecostal Christians are disproportionately targeted. Bauman finds that the violence against Pentecostals and Pentecostalized Evangelicals in India is not just a matter of current social, cultural, political, and interreligious dynamics internal to India, but is rather related to identifiable historical trends, as well as to historical and contemporary transnational flows of people, power, and ideas. Based on extensive interviews and ethnographic work, and drawing upon the vast scholarly literature on interreligious violence, Hindu nationalism, and Christianity in India, this volume accounts for this disproportionate targeting through a detailed analysis of Indian Christian history, contemporary Indian politics, Indian social and cultural characteristics, and Pentecostal belief and practice. While some of the factors in the targeting of Pentecostals are obvious and expected (e.g., their relatively greater evangelical assertiveness), other significant factors are less acknowledged and more surprising, among them the marginalization of Pentecostals by "mainstream" Christians, the social location of Pentecostal Christians, and transnational flows of missionary personnel, theories, and funds.

The fire of love in some of its different forms is described in graphic detail in this book by Kenneth Payne. How does a God of love come into our lives - or does he? These personal encounters, from which the author has drawn strength and inspiration, act as an antidote to terrible events and anxieties of the present time. This is an encouraging book to read.

'The Abrahamic Archetype' is a major scholarly achievement that sheds light on what is similar and what is distinctive in the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It examines the interplay between outward historical forces in religious and esoteric domains and the inward worlds of transcendent values and ideas. Intellectual archetypes, or constellations of religious and esoteric ideas, are the principles which determine the organic integration of outward historical influences which the various religions encounter and share. Zinner emphasizes the unity and diversity of faith which characterize esoteric traditions of Jewish Kabbalah, Sunni Sufism, Shi'i Gnosis, and Christian theology, especially accentuating the dogmas of the Trinity, Christology, and crucifixion on the one hand, and on the other, esoteric ideas regarding unio mystica (mystical union) in the three Abrahamic faiths. The book contains a detailed reconstruction of the esoteric traditions, theology, and history of Jewish Christianity beginning in the era of Jesus' 'brother' and successor James the Just and elucidates to what extent this Jamesian Christianity might parallel Islamic history and ideas.