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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Religious life & practice > General
Warren Felt Evans (1817-1889) converted to Methodism while at
Dartmouth College, became a minister, and spent his Methodist years
as a spiritual seeker. His two extant journals, edited and
annotated by Catherine L. Albanese, appear in print for the first
time and reveal the inner journey of a leading American spiritual
pilgrim at a critical period in his religious search. A voracious
reader, he recorded accounts of intense religious experience in his
journals. He moved from the Oberlin perfectionism he embraced early
on, through the French quietism of Madame J. Guyon and Archbishop
Fenelon, then into Swedenborgianism, spiritualism, and mind cure
with distinct theosophical overtones. His carefully documented
journey is suggestive of the similar journeys of the religious
seekers who made their way into the burgeoning metaphysical
movement at the end of the 19th century-and may shed light too on
today's spirituality.
Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which
ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg
considers these questions based on two years of ethnographic
research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which
girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called
"devadasis," or "jogatis," those dedicated become female and male
women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her
main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal
matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the
dedication ceremony authorizes "jogatis" to perform, have long been
seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is
productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg
argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender,
family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to
the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the
possibilities of relations--between and among humans and
deities--that exceed such categories.
The theological enterprise in the West finds itself in a critical
moment. Traditional models have failed to supply the church with
the proper tools for engaging the hard, persistent realities of
injustice. This is primarily because the models propose a language
of faith that does not begin from the part of life where faith
begins: namely, the testimonies we encounter along the way. Leaving
Emmaus conceives of theology as "thinking with testimonies of
Christian faith," offering new students and seasoned practitioners
alike a "new departure" for Christian discourse. The book
restructures the sources of theology (Scripture, tradition, reason,
experience) to make space for the integration of new voices
alongside a thoughtful reading of Scripture and classic texts of
the tradition. Discussing and interpreting our encounters with the
risen Christ becomes a way of "leaving our home" of personal
experience or faith conviction. In company with Alice Walker,
Gregory of Nyssa, Rowan Williams, and Eve Sedgwick, Anthony Baker
unfolds this integrative language and initiates a new departure
into classical themes of theology, gathered around the central
image of the Emmaus encounter. The "burning hearts" of that
pericope become a periperformative encounter with the Word, issuing
in the Spirit's internal witnesses to the calling of all creation
by the Father to find itself in the risen Christ. In this way the
act of testimony itself becomes a repetition of the trinitarian
God. This repetition carries through each loci of theology, from
theological anthropology to eschatology. Noteworthy among the new
insights this brings are a thoughtfully structured understanding of
sin, a bold recovery of sacrifice, and an integrated theology of
prayer. Baker equips us with a fresh map for navigating the
peculiar demands of our cultural moment through resourcing the
heritage of our shared faith for a theology that witnesses to the
fullness of life and extends welcome to all.
The visible increase in religious practice among young
European-born Muslims has provoked public anxiety. New government
regulations seek not only to restrict Islamic practices within the
public sphere, but also to shape Muslims', and especially women's,
personal conduct. Pious Practice and Secular Constraints chronicles
the everyday ethical struggles of women active in orthodox and
socially conservative Islamic revival circles as they are torn
between their quest for a pious lifestyle and their aspirations to
counter negative representations of Muslims within the mainstream
society. Jeanette S. Jouili conducted fieldwork in France and
Germany to investigate how pious Muslim women grapple with
religious expression: for example, when to wear a headscarf, where
to pray throughout the day, and how to maintain modest interactions
between men and women. Her analysis stresses the various ethical
dilemmas the women confronted in negotiating these religious duties
within a secular public sphere. In conversation with Islamic and
Western thinkers, Jouili teases out the important ethical-political
implications of these struggles, ultimately arguing that Muslim
moral agency, surprisingly reinvigorated rather than hampered by
the increasingly hostile climate in Europe, encourages us to think
about the contribution of non-secular civic virtues for shaping a
pluralist Europe.
This compiled and edited collection engages with a theme which is
increasingly attracting scholarly attention, namely, religion and
LGBTQ sexuality. Each section of the volume provides perspectives
to understanding academic discourse and wide-ranging debates around
LGBTQ sexualities and religion and spirituality. The collection
also draws attention to aspects of religiosity that shape the lived
experiences of LGBTQ people and shows how sexual orientation forges
dimensions of faith and spirituality. Taken together the essays
represent an exploration of contestations around sexual diversity
in the major religions; the search of sexual minorities for
spiritual 'safe spaces' in both established and new forms of
religiosity; and spiritual paths formed in reconciling and
expressing faith and sexual orientation. This collection, which
features contributions from a number of disciplines including
sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, religious studies and
theology, provides an indispensable teaching resource for educators
and students in an era when LGBTQ topics are increasingly finding
their way onto numerous undergraduate, post-graduate and profession
orientated programmes.
The events surrounding the birth of Jesus are told with remarkable
simplicity in the Bible, but they have too often been obscured by
myths, mistletoe, and consumerism.
Now in paperback, "The First Christmas" separates fact from
fiction, stripping away Yuletide folklore and questionable
traditions to tell how it really was in the world of the Nativity.
Delving into Jewish, Greek, Roman, and early Christian sources,
Paul L. Maier uncovers fresh and fascinating insights into the
true, yet unfamiliar, story of the first Christmas. A captivating
combination of sacred and secular history, this informative and
entertaining book answers many compelling questions, such as: Why
did the Roman emperor Augustus order his famous census? What
marriage customs applied to Mary and Joseph? When and where was
Jesus born? Who were the Wise Men? What was the Star of
Bethlehem?
This beautifully illustrated gift book by a best-selling author
and church history expert offers a glimpse at the real, historical
drama of Christmas.
This book traces the mixing of musical forms and practices in
Istanbul to illuminate multiethnic music-making and its
transformations across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It
focuses on the Jewish religious repertoire known as the Maftirim,
which developed in parallel with "secular" Ottoman court music.
Through memoirs, personal interviews, and new archival sources, the
book explores areas often left out of those histories of the region
that focus primarily on Jewish communities in isolation, political
events and actors, or nationalizing narratives. Maureen Jackson
foregrounds artistic interactivity, detailing the life-stories of
musicians and their musical activities. Her book amply demonstrates
the integration of Jewish musicians into a larger art world and
traces continuities and ruptures in a nation-building era. Among
its richly researched themes, the book explores the synagogue as a
multifunctional venue within broader urban space; girls, women, and
gender issues in an all-male performance practice; new technologies
and oral transmission; and Ottoman musical reconstructions within
Jewish life and cultural politics in Turkey today.
One of the most talked about books in the Jewish community when it
originally appeared, Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a
Diverse World offers an eloquent and thoughtful new vision for all
Jews seeking a sense of belonging in a changing world, regardless
of their current level of observance. Roberta Kwall sets out a
process of selection, rejection, and modification of rituals that
allow for a focus on Jewish tradition rather than on the
technicalities of Jewish law. Her goal is not to sell her own
religious practices to readers but, rather, to encourage them to
find their own personal meaning in Judaism outside the dictates of
Commandment, by broadening their understanding of how law, culture
and tradition fit together. She inspires readers to be intentional
and mindful about the space they allocate for these elements in
defining their individual Jewish journeys and identities. The
paperback edition includes a new preface addressing the critical
response the book received and further explores the challenges of
practicing Judaism today.
With its five thematic sections covering genres from cantorial to
classical to klezmer, this pioneering multi-disciplinary volume
presents rich coverage of the work of musicians of Jewish origin in
the Polish lands. It opens with the musical consequences of
developments in Jewish religious practice: the spread of hasidism
in the eighteenth century meant that popular melodies replaced
traditional cantorial music, while the greater acculturation of
Jews in the nineteenth century brought with it synagogue choirs.
Jewish involvement in popular culture included performances for the
wider public, Yiddish songs and the Yiddish theatre, and
contributions of many different sorts---technical and commercial as
well as creative---in the interwar years. Chapters on the classical
music scene cover Jewish musical institutions, organizations, and
education; individual composers and musicians; and a consideration
of music and Jewish national identity. One section is devoted to
the Holocaust as reflected in Jewish music, and the final section
deals with the afterlife of Jewish musical creativity in Poland,
particularly the resurgence of interest in klezmer music. The
essays in this collection do not attempt to to define what may well
be undefinable---what 'Jewish music' is. Rather, they provide an
original and much-needed exploration of the activities and
creativity of 'musicians of the Jewish faith'. CONTRIBUTORS:
Eliyana R. Adler, Michael Aylward, Slawomir Dobrzanski, Paula
Eisenstein-Baker, Beth Holmgren, Sylwia Jakubczyk-Sleczka, Daniel
Katz, James Loeffler, Michael Lukin, Filip Mazurczak, Bozena
Muszkalska, Julia Riegel, Ronald Robboy, Robert Rothstein, Joel E.
Rubin, Adam J. Sacks, Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel, Eleanor
Shapiro, Carla Shapreau, Tamara Sztyma, Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota,
Joseph Toltz, Maja Trochimczyk, Magdalena Waligorska, Bret Werb,
Akiva Zimmerman
This is the first multidisciplinary text to address the growing
scholarly connection between religion and family life. The latest
literature from family studies, psychology, sociology, and religion
is reviewed along with narratives drawn from interviews with 200
racially, religiously, and regionally diverse families which bring
the concepts to life. Written in a thought-provoking, accessible,
and sometimes humorous style by two of the leading researchers in
the field, the book reflects the authors' firsthand experience in
teaching today's students about religion's impact on families.
Prior to writing the book, the authors read the sacred texts of
many faiths, interviewed religious leaders, and attended religious
services for a wide array of faiths. The result is an accurate and
engaging account of why and how families are impacted by their
religion. The pedagogical features of the text include boldfaced
key terms defined in the glossary, text boxes, chapter conclusions,
summary points, and review questions. Religion and Families:
Examines several denominations within Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam. Reviews findings from racially and ethnically diverse
families, from traditional and diverse family forms, and examines
gender and life-course issues. Addresses the impact of one's
religious involvement on longevity, divorce rates, and parenting
styles. Considers demographic, family-, couple-, and
individual-level data that relate to prayer and other sacred
practices. Presents a balanced treatment of the latest research and
a new model for studying family and religion. Explores the "whys,"
"hows," and processes at work in the religion-family connection.
The book opens with a discussion of why religion and family
connections matter. Chapter 2 defines religion and presents a new
conceptualization of religion. Empirical research connections
between religion and marriage, divorce, family, and parent-child
relationships are explored in chapters 3 through 6. The interface
between religion and the family in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
are reviewed in chapters 7, 8, and 9. Chapter 10 explores the
unique challenges that religion presents for diverse family forms.
Prayer as a coping mechanism for life's challenges such as death
and disability are explored in chapter 11. Chapter 12 examines
forgiveness in the context of marriages and families. The book
concludes with a review of the book's most important themes and
findings. Intended as a text for undergraduate courses in family
and religion, the psychology or sociology of the family, the
psychology or sociology of religion, pastoral/biblical counseling,
or family and youth ministry, taught in human development and
family studies, psychology, sociology, religion, social work,
pastoral counseling, and sometimes philosophy. This book also
appeals to family therapists and counselors.
Esta su vida sin control? siente que la gente le utiliza? Le es
dificil decir que no? Esta desilusionado con Dios por la falta de
respuesta a sus oraciones? Estableces limites claros es esencial
para obtener un estilo de vida sano y balanceado. Un limite es una
linea de propiedad personal que marca las cosas de las que somos
responsables. En otras palabras, es lo que define quienes somos, o
quienes no somos, y afecta diferentes aspectos de nuestra vida:
*Los limites fisicos nos ayudan a determinar quien nos pude tocar y
bajo que circunstancia. *Los limites mentales nos dan la libertad
de tener ideas y opiniones propias. *Los limites emocionales nos
ayudan a tratar con nuestras propias emociones y a librarnos de las
emociones daninas y manipuladoras de otros. *Los limites
espirituales nos ayudan a distinguir entre la voluntad de Dios y la
nuestra, nos dan temor a Dios."
Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to
escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is
one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada
Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the
Buddha's most important gift to humanity. In the first book to
examine how this practice came to play such a dominant and
relatively recent role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to
Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were
pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern
Buddhism. Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw, a pivotal
architect of modern insight meditation, and explores Ledi's
popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts
in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such
abstruse texts, Braun shows, Ledi was able to standardize and
simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible in part
to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885.
Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the
"modern" in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism, arguing
that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by
precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive
forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the
life and legacy of one of modern Buddhism's most important figures,
The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the
development of mass meditation.
Humorous anecdotes and touching insights inspire readers to
reach out with encouragement to people who are hurting and need
help. Learn how to make others feel special, mend broken dreams and
share the affirming message of the gospel through
encouragement.
Lynne Renoir began life as a devout Christian, but after many
years, she realized that her faith was not working. She sought an
explanation for her situation by completing postgraduate degrees in
psychology and philosophy and carrying out research in quantum
theory. Drawing on the insights that the universe is
multidimensional and that everything is ultimately one, Renoir
proposes that we, too, are multidimensional beings. She points out
that what we believe about anything is generally deemed to be
either true or false. This approach in her view is applicable to
our everyday three-dimensional reality, but that transformation
occurs when what we consciously accept as fact resonates with the
oneness that lies at the deepest level of our being.
Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which
ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg
considers these questions based on two years of ethnographic
research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which
girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called
"devadasis," or "jogatis," those dedicated become female and male
women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her
main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal
matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the
dedication ceremony authorizes "jogatis" to perform, have long been
seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is
productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg
argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender,
family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to
the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the
possibilities of relations--between and among humans and
deities--that exceed such categories.
Of all Michael Ramsey's many books, The Christian Priest Today is
perhaps the best loved and most enduring. The main part of the
volume is composed of charges to ordination candidates, with an
emphasis on the intellectual and devotional life of the minister in
an increasingly self-sufficient world. Later chapters reflect on
the ministry of the laity, the theology of priesthood and the roles
of bishop and presbyter in the context of the practical meaning of
divine vocation. 'Michael Ramsay's profound simplicity leaps off
the page . . . The Christian Priest Today can be read with great
and lasting benefit by anyone interested in this strange and
magnificent vocation.' John Pritchard, author of The Life and Work
of a Priest
In Jezebel Unhinged Tamura Lomax traces the use of the jezebel
trope in the black church and in black popular culture, showing how
it is pivotal to reinforcing men's cultural and institutional power
to discipline and define black girlhood and womanhood. Drawing on
writing by medieval thinkers and travelers, Enlightenment theories
of race, the commodification of women's bodies under slavery, and
the work of Tyler Perry and Bishop T. D. Jakes, Lomax shows how
black women are written into religious and cultural history as
sites of sexual deviation. She identifies a contemporary black
church culture where figures such as Jakes use the jezebel
stereotype to suggest a divine approval of the "lady" while
condemning girls and women seen as "hos." The stereotype preserves
gender hierarchy, black patriarchy, and heteronormativity in black
communities, cultures, and institutions. In response, black women
and girls resist, appropriate, and play with the stereotype's
meanings. Healing the black church, Lomax contends, will require
ceaseless refusal of the idea that sin resides in black women's
bodies, thus disentangling black women and girls from the jezebel
narrative's oppressive yoke.
Abby Chava Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in
Brooklyn, profoundly isolated in a culture that lives according to
the laws and practices of an eighteenth-century Eastern European
enclave, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life.
Stein was born as the first son in a rabbinical dynastic family,
poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews.
But Stein felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. Without
access to TV or the internet and never taught English, she
suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers
wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to
smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a
personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood into mainstream
femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her
family and her way of life.
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