In contemporary Turkey-a democratic, secular, and predominantly Muslim nation-the religious healer is a controversial figure. Attracting widespread condemnation, religious healers are derided as exploiters of the sick and vulnerable, discredited forms of Islamic and medical authority, and superstitious relics of a pre-modern era. Yet all sorts of people, and not just the desperately ill, continue to seek them out. After years of research with healers and their patients in working-class neighborhoods of urban Turkey, anthropologist Christopher Dole concludes that the religious healer should be regarded not as an exception to Turkey's secular modern development but as one of its defining figures. Healing Secular Life demonstrates that religious healing and secularism in fact have a set of common stakes in the ordering of lives and the remaking of worlds. Linking the history of medical reforms and scientific literacy campaigns to contemporary efforts of Qur'anic healers to treat people afflicted by spirits and living saints through whom deceased political leaders speak, Healing Secular Life approaches stories of healing and being healed as settings for examining the everyday social intimacies of secular political rule. This ethnography of loss, care, and politics reveals not only that the authority of the religious healer is deeply embedded within the history of secular modern reform in Turkey but also that personal narratives of suffering and affliction are inseparable from the story of a nation seeking to recover from the violence of its own secular past.

Radical Humanism and Generous Tolerance articulates the religious ideas and vision of Wole Soyinka in his non-fiction writings. It also analyzes Soyinka's response to religious violence, terror, and the fear of religious imperialism. The book suggests the theoretical notions of radical humanism and generous tolerance best summarize Soyinka's religious ideals and religious piety. Through a close reading of Soyinka's religious works, the book argues that African traditional religions could be used as a catalyst to promote religious tolerance and human solidarity, and that they may also contribute to the preservation of life, and the fostering of an ethics of care and relationality. Soyinka brings in conversation Western Humanist tradition and African indigenous Humanist tradition for the sake of the world, for the sake of global shalom, and for the sake of human flourishing.

In "Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World, " Daniel Boscaljon takes up the contemporary challenges to faith by skepticism and secularism. He proposes a model of faith for believers and unbelievers alike--a passionate agnosticism--that is rooted in a skeptical consciousness. Skepticism and faith are structurally similar, he writes, in that they share an "unknowing" quality. The author argues that vigilance--the act of keeping watch, a spiritual practice in its own right--is as necessary a precondition for the structure of faith as it is for the structure of skepticism. A suspension in uncertainty and an openness to possibility require vigilance, he attests, if faith and skepticism are to avoid the often dogmatic tendencies of both theism and atheism to cling to their own brands of certainty and knowledge.

Boscaljon has three aims: to expand the current, post-theistic definitions of God for greater relevance to human beings on an individual and existential level; to integrate skepticism into faith so that it will restore the importance of faith to current theology and recover it from anti-intellectual bias; and to conceptualize the vigilance of faith in such a way that can provide a vocabulary for distinguishing "good faith" from "bad faith." He offers a variety of cultural examples ranging from film to poetry to represent a life of faith and to show how its components come together in practice. As an alternative to the prevailing fundamentalisms in today's world, his book proposes a paradigmatic understanding of faith in which theism, atheism, and agnosticism refuse to differ.

Enlightenment is not something that can just be handed to you. The closest thing to it that you can receive are thoughts and questions that can lead you inward in the search for meaning. What Does That Mean? is full of thoughts and questions that do just that. Some insights you may have thought of and then forgotten, and others you may have experienced but simply haven't appreciated. An old saying asserts that the value of a book is not in what it says but rather in what it does. What Does That Mean? is one of those books that will have a lifetime impact on all who read it. The book squarely faces the many inconsistencies held in our systems of belief, from the sciences to psychic phenomena. Eldon Taylor is willing to speak out without reservation, and without avoiding any so-called sanctities. The result is absolutely thought-provoking at every level, as this work addresses the meaning of life and the ultimate "humanness" of the human being. If you have ever questioned the nature of life, the power of the mind, unexplained events, and other mysteries, you will find this book totally riveting. Throughout these pages, Eldon shares life experiences that will lead you to revelations about your own life. Perhaps this book's greatest value is that it assists you in remembering who you really are and thereby places you firmly back on the path to personal enlightenment. English writer and poet Joseph Addison, said, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." If that is the case, then this book is the perfect workout to enrich your thinking. You may not always like what you read, but you will always find the depth of thought wholly provocative.

The Renaissance movement known as humanism eventually spread from Italy through all of western Europe, transforming early modern culture in ways that are still being felt and debated. Central to these debates-and to this book-is the question of whether (and how) the humanist movement contributed to the secularization of Western cultural traditions at the end of the Middle Ages. A preeminent scholar of Italian humanism, Riccardo Fubini approaches this question in a new way-by redefining the problem of secularization more carefully to show how humanists can at once be secularizers and religious thinkers. The result is a provocative vision of the humanist movement. Humanism and Secularization offers a nuanced account of humanists contesting medieval ideas about authority not in order to reject Christianity or even orthodoxy, but to claim for themselves the right to define what it meant to be a Christian. Fubini analyzes key texts by major humanists-isuch as Petrarch, Poggio, and Valla-from the first century of the movement. As he subtly works out these authors' views on religion and the Church from both biographical and textual information, Fubini reveals in detail the new historical consciousness that animated the humanists in their reading of classical and patristic texts. His book as a whole shows convincingly just how radical the humanism of the first half of the fifteenth century was and how sharply it challenged well-entrenched ideas and institutions. Appearing here in English for the first time, his work provides a model set of readings of humanist texts and a critical perspective on Italian humanism that will alter and enrich discussion and understanding of the nature of the humanist movement.

Increasingly, the religious practices people engage in and the ways they talk about what is meaningful or sacred take place in the context of media culture -- in the realm of the so-called secular.

Focusing on this intersection of the sacred and the secular, this volume gathers together the work of media experts, religious historians, sociologists of religion, and authorities on American studies and art history. Topics range from Islam on the Internet to the quasi-religious practices of Elvis fans, from the uses of popular culture by the Salvation Army in its early years to the uses of interactive media technologies at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance. The issues that the essays address include the public/private divide, the distinctions between the sacred and profane, and how to distinguish between the practices that may be termed "religious" and those that may not.

Religious toleration is much discussed these days. But where did the Western notion of toleration come from? In this thought-provoking book Gary Remer traces arguments for religious toleration back to the Renaissance, demonstrating how humanist thinkers initiated an intellectual tradition that has persisted even to our present day. Although toleration has long been recognized as an important theme in Renaissance humanist thinking, many scholars have mistakenly portrayed the humanists as proto-Englightenment rationalists and nascent liberals.

Remer, however, offers the surprising conclusion that humanist thinking on toleration was actually founded on the classical tradition of rhetoric. It was the rhetorician's commitment to decorum, the ability to argue both sides of an issue, and the search for an acceptable epistemological standard in probability and consensus that grounded humanist arguments for toleration. Remer also finds that the primary humanist model for a full-fledged theory of toleration was the Ciceronian rhetorical category of sermo (conversation).

The historical scope of this book is wide-ranging. Remer begins by focusing on the works of four humanists: Desiderius Erasmus, Jacobus Acontius, William Chillingworth, and Jean Bodin. Then he considers the challenge posed to the humanist defense of toleration by Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Bayle. Finally, he shows how humanist ideas have continued to influence arguments for toleration even after the passing of humanism--from John Locke to contemporary American discussions of freedom of speech.

Anthony Grafton is erudite and elegant in the style of the best historical writers who make the past come alive for the reader. In a full-scale presentation of the world of scholarship, from the Renaissance to the modern period, Grafton sets before us in three-dimensional detail such seminal figures as Poliziano, Scaliger, Kepler, and Wolf. He calls attention to continuities, moments of crisis, and changes in direction.

The central issue in "Defenders of the Text" is the relation between humanism and science from the mid-fifteenth century to the beginning of the modern period. Treatments of Renaissance humanism in English have emphasized the humanists' commitment to rhetoric, ethics, and politics and have accused the humanists of concentrating on literary matters in preference to investigating the real world via new developments in science, philosophy, and other technical disciplines. This revisionist book demonstrates that humanism was neither a simple nor an impractical enterprise, but worked hand-in-hand with science in developing modern learning.

Anthony Grafton makes clear that humanism remained an integral and vital part of European culture until the eighteenth century, maintaining a technical component of its own--classical philology--which developed in as rich, varied, and unexpected a way as any other field of European thought. Attention to the text led the humanists to develop a whole range of cools and methods that lent power to science and learning for centuries to come. Grafton shows the continued capacity of classical texts to provoke innovative work in both philology and philosophy, and traces a number of close and important connections between humanism andnatural science. His book will be important to intellectual historians, students of the classics and the classical tradition, and historians of early modern science.

Stephen Strehle is a leading scholar of church/state issues. In this volume, he focuses his rigorous historical analysis and philosophical acumen upon a topic of great interest today and source of cultural wars around the globe-the process of secularization. The book starts with a discussion of early capitalism and how it saw the real world functioning well-enough on its own principles of individual struggle and self-interest, without needing religious or moral principles to meddle in its affairs and eventually dispelling the need for any intelligent design or providential orchestration of life through the work of Darwin. The book then discusses the growth of the secular point of view: how historians dismissed the impact of religion in developing modern culture, how scientists conceived of the universe running on self-sufficient or mechanistic principles, and how people no longer looked to the providential hand of God to explain their suffering. The book ends with a discussion of how the Deist concept of human autonomy became a political policy in America through Jefferson's concept of a wall of separation between church and state and how the US Supreme Court proceeded to dismiss the importance of religion in shaping or justifying the values of the nation and its laws. The book is accessible to most upper-level and graduate students in a wide-variety of disciplines, keeping technical and foreign words to a minimum and leaving scholarly details or debates to its extensive notes.

Young people are doing faith differently. They are redefining community, ministry and ritual for a new era. In the face of planetary crisis, the next generation no longer see faith as a private matter, instead they are integrating it with activism and the need for systemic change. Influenced by the wealth of different teachings and traditions available around them, their identities are increasingly multifaceted and emphatically global. This collection of stories and interviews with young adults and their allies explores this new landscape, reflecting both the energy and inspiration of the next generation and the tremendous challenges they face. It points towards an exciting evolution in the way we are relating to the sacred. With stories from: Adam Bucko, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Kara Moses, Abbas Zahedi, Camille Barton, Bruna Kadletz, Dekila Chungyalpa, Matt Youde, Amrita Bhohi, Sun Kaur, and many others. With supporting stories from senior leaders including: His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Rabbi Laura Janner Klausner, Bhai Sahib Dr Mohinder Singh, and more.

This new study offers a serious and long-overdue examination of the unstable bifurcation between theology and secularity. Rather than understanding these two formative elements of culture to be in a constant state of opposition, the author chooses an alternative path toward their reconciliation. In this way, a constructive relationship is developed between secular and theological ideas wherein they symbiotically challenge one another in such a way as to create new and/or re-examined opportunities for thinking about God, the world, and, indeed, the self. The book first of all embarks upon a hermeneutical reading of Meister Eckhart's defining statement that "Being is God" and ultimately arrives (via Kant, Hegel, Gadamer, Henry, and others) at a mystically informed understanding of God's presence both in the world and in the "heart and mind" of the human experience - an understanding that defies conventional categories and static cultural identities. It is an important study of the history, the present, and the future of religious thought, presenting a hopeful image of unity and love in a world that has been for too long divided by difference.

The growing absence of meaningful ritual in contemporary Western societies has led to cohesive research on the history of ritualizing behaviour in different cultures. The relatively new field of ritology, which includes neuroscience, anthropology, cultural psychology, psychotherapy and even art and performance, raises questions about the significance and practice of ritual today. This book is the first of its kind to discuss the importance of secular rituals for cultural and personal growth. Using a transdisciplinary approach, a range of contributors provide an authoritative account of the science and history of rituals and their role in creating healthy societies in the modern age.

A humane and sensible guide to and for the many kinds of Americans leading secular lives in what remains one of the most religious nations in the developed world. The New York Times Book Review Over the last twenty-five years, no religion has become the fastest-growing religious preference in the United States. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people have turned away from the traditional faiths of the past and embraced a moral yet nonreligious or secular life, generating societies vastly less religious than at any other time in human history. Revealing the inspiring beliefs that empower secular culture alongside real stories of nonreligious men and women based on extensive in-depth interviews from across the country Living the Secular Lifewill be indispensable for millions of secular Americans. Drawing on innovative sociological research, Living the Secular Lifeilluminates this demographic shift with the moral convictions that govern secular individuals, offering crucial information for the religious and nonreligious alike.Living the Secular Lifereveals that, despite opinions to the contrary, nonreligious Americans possess a unique moral code that allows them to effectively navigate the complexities of modern life. Spiritual self-reliance, clear-eyed pragmatism, and an abiding faith in the Golden Rule to adjudicate moral decisions: these common principles are shared across secular society. Living the Secular Lifedemonstrates these principles in action and points to their usage throughout daily life. Phil Zuckerman is a sociology professor at Pitzer College, where he studied the lives of the nonreligious for years before founding a Department of Secular Studies, the first academic program in the nation dedicated to exclusively studying secular culture and the sociological consequences of America s fastest-growing faith. Zuckerman discovered that despite the entrenched negative beliefs about nonreligious people, American secular culture is grounded in deep morality and proactive citizenship indeed, some of the very best that the country has to offer. Living the Secular Lifejourneys through some of the most essential components of human existence child rearing and morality, death and ritual, community and beauty and offers secular readers inspiration for leading their own lives. Zuckerman shares eye-opening research that reveals the enduring moral strength of children raised without religion, as well as the hardships experienced by secular mothers in the rural South, where church attendance defines the public space. Despite the real sorrows of mortality, Zuckerman conveys the deep psychological health of secular individuals in their attitudes toward illness, death, and dying. Tracking the efforts of nonreligious groups to construct their own communities, Zuckerman shows how Americans are building institutions and cultivating relationships without religious influence. Most of all, Living the Secular Lifeinfuses the sociological data and groundbreaking research with the moral convictions that govern secular individuals and demonstrates how readers can integrate these beliefs into their own lives. A manifesto for a booming social movement and a revelatory survey of this overlooked community Living the Secular Lifeoffers essential and long-awaited information for anyone building a life based on his or her own principles."

The essays collected in this volume represent many years of Professor Nauert's research and teaching on the history of Renaissance humanism, and more particularly on humanism north of the Alps. Much of the early work involved the significant but often-overlooked history of humanism at the University of Cologne, notoriously the most anti-humanist of the German universities. Later essays deal with the most famous humanist of the early sixteenth century, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and natural philosophy, a broad term covering many subjects now associated with natural science, is the topic of three of the pieces published here. Taken as a whole, the book presents a detailed study of intellectual development among European elites.