The home of Martin Luther for thirty six years and seat of the German Reformation, Wittenberg, Germany is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Wittenberg has long been Protestant sacred space, but since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the city and surrounding region have been developing their considerable cultural capital. Today, Wittenberg is host to two large-scale annual Luther-themed festivals, and is becoming a center for pilgrimage and heritage tourism. In a recent study, Charles Taylor notes that festivity is experiencing a renaissance as "one of the new forms of religion in our world." Festivals and pilgrimage routes are an integral part of contemporary religion and spirituality, and important cultural institutions in a globalized world. In Performing the Reformation, Stephenson offers a field-based case study of contemporary festivity and pilgrimage in the City of Luther. Welcome to Lutherland, where atheists dress up as monks and nuns for Luther's Wedding; conservative Lutherans work to sacralize the secular, carnival-like festivities; and medieval players, American Gospel singers, and Peruvian pan flute bands compete for the attention of the bustling crowds. Festivals and tourism in Wittenberg include a range of performative genres (parades and processions, liturgies and concerts, music and dance), cut across multiple cultural domains (religion, politics, economics), and effect connections and shifts among identities (religious, secular, American, German, traditional, postmodern). Incorporating visual methodologies and grounded in historical and social contexts, Stephenson provides an on-the-ground account of the annual Luther's Wedding Festival, the Reformation Day Festival, and Lutheran pilgrimage. He also brings his case study into dialogue with important methodological and theoretical issues informing the fields of ritual studies and performance studies. A model of interdisciplinary research, the book includes a DVD with over 2.5 hours of material, extending and animating textual accounts and interpretations.

This examination of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Letters of Paul finds that, in both these bodies of literature, religious self-understanding is expressed in terms of the concept of purity so important to primitive religion and earlier Judaism. Dr Newton contradicts the view held by most scholars that the traditional Jewish attitude to purity had no place in Christianity. By using the concept of purity not unlike that at Qumran or of Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism, Paul could elucidate his views on, among other things, the nature of the Church, the divine presence, the basis of ethical behaviour and the significance of the death of Jesus.

This is a collection of readings for individual or group reflection throughout the four weeks of Advent. This book does not advocate a 'cosy' view of Christmas but rather urges people to use this season to address some of the most important issues of our time. To do so the author makes creative use of quotes from the other sources, interspersed with her own perspective on the subjects under consideration.

Rituals transform citizens into presidents and princesses into queens. They transform sick persons into healthy ones, and public space into prohibited sanctuary. Shamanic rituals heal, legal rituals bind, political rituals ratify, and religious rituals sanctify. But how exactly do they accomplish these things? How do rituals work? This is the question of ritual efficacy, and although it is one of the very first questions that people everywhere ask of rituals, surprisingly little has been written on the topic. In fact, this collection of 10 contributed essays is the first to explicitly address the question of ritual efficacy. The authors do not aspire to answer the question 'how do rituals work?' in a simplistic fashion, but rather to show how complex the question is. While some contributors do indeed advance a particular theory of ritual efficacy, others ask whether the question makes any sense at all, and most show how complex it is by referring to the sociocultural environment in which it is posed, since the answer depends on who is asking the question, and what criteria they use to evaluate the efficacy of ritual. In his introduction, William Sax emphasizes that the very notion of ritual efficacy is a suspicious one because, according to a widespread 'modern' and 'scientific' viewpoint, rituals are merely expressive, and therefore cannot be efficacious. Rituals are thought of as superficial, 'merely symbolic,' and certainly not effective. Nevertheless many people insist that rituals 'work,' and the various positions taken on the question tell us a great deal about the social and historical background of the people involved. One essay, for example, illuminates a dispute between 'materialist' and 'enlightenment' Catholics in Ecuador, with the former affirming the notion of ritual efficacy and the latter doubting it. In other essays, contributors address instances in which orthodox religious figures (mullahs, church authorities, and even scientific positivists) discount the efficacy of rituals. In several of the essays, 'modern' people are suspicious of rituals and tend to deny their efficacy, confirming the theme highlighted in Sax's introduction.

Prayer is more than just talking to God. It is an act of focused devotion. We pray by lifting our attention out of the mundane focus of daily activity and interacting with the qualifies of divine love, wisdom, justice, and strength that can help us meet our problems maturely.

Making Prayer Work is a phenomenal book that makes sense out of a common but mystifying process. In the first half, "Praying Effectively, " the authors penetrate to the heart of effective prayer, revealing the inner dimensions of the help and support that are available to us -- through intelligent prayer. In the second half, "Invoking Divine Life, " they go a step further, examining the powerful tools of invocation and evocation and how they can enrich our spiritual life.

This is a beautifully crafted collection of prayers for each Sunday and most major festivals in the church's year, together with additional material for each season. The Sunday prayers - known as "collects" in the Anglican tradition - follow the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. The author uses expansive and inclusive language and imagery to address and describe God, to describe God's presence and action in the world, and to describe the people of God. Ideal for use at weekday celebrations, including the Book of Common Prayer Order for Eucharist.

Independent Catholics are not formally connected to the pope in Rome. They practice apostolic succession, seven sacraments, and devotion to the saints. But without a pope, they can change quickly and experiment freely, with some affirming communion for the divorced, women's ordination, clerical marriage, and same-sex marriage. From their early modern origins in the Netherlands to their contemporary proliferation in the United States, these "other Catholics" represent an unusually liberal, mobile, and creative version of America's largest religion. In The Other Catholics, Julie Byrne shares the remarkable history and current activity of independent Catholics, who number at least two hundred communities and a million members across the United States. She focuses in particular on the Church of Antioch, one of the first Catholic groups to ordain women in modern times. Through archival documents and interviews, Byrne tells the story of the unforgettable leaders and surprising influence of these understudied churches, which, when included in Catholic history, change the narrative arc and total shape of modern Catholicism. As Pope Francis fights to soften Roman doctrines with a pastoral touch and his fellow Roman bishops push back with equal passion, independent Catholics continue to leap ahead of Roman reform, keeping key Catholic traditions but adding a progressive difference.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the mother of all the churches, erected on the spot where Jesus Christ was crucified and rose from the dead and where every Christian was born. In 1927, Jerusalem was struck by a powerful earthquake, and for decades this venerable structure stood perilously close to collapse. In Saving the Holy Sepulchre , Raymond Cohen tells the engaging story of how three major Christian traditions - Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Orthodox - each with jealously guarded claims to the church, struggled to restore one of the great shrines of civilization. It almost didn't happen. For centuries the communities had lived together in an atmosphere of tension and mistrust based on differences of theology, language, and culture-differences so sharp that fistfights were not uncommon. And the project of restoration became embroiled in interchurch disputes and great power politics. Cohen shows how the repair of the dilapidated basilica was the result of unprecedented cooperation among the three churches. It was tortuous at times - one French monk involved in the restoration exclaimed: "I can't take any more of it. Latins - Armenians - Greeks - it is too much. I am bent over double." But thanks to the dedicated efforts of a cast of kings, popes, patriarchs, governors, monks, and architects, the deadlock was eventually broken on the eve of Pope Paul VI's historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1964. Today, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is in better shape than it has been for five hundred years. Light and space have returned to its ancient halls, and its walls and pillars stand sound and true. Saving the Holy Sepulchre is the riveting story of how Christians put aside centuries of division to make this dream a reality.

Religion African-American StudiesLet It Shine! probes the distinctive contribution of black Catholics to the life of the American church, and to the unfolding of lived Christianity in the United States. This im, portyant book explores the powerful spiritual renaissance that has marked African American life and self-understanding over the last several decades by examining one critical dimension: the forging of new expressions of Catholic worship rooted in the larger Catholic tradition, yet shaped in unique ways by African American religious culture.Starting with the 1960s, the book traces the dynamic interplay of social change, cultural awakening, and charismatic leadership that have sparked the emergence of distinctive styles of black Catholic worship. In their historical overview, McGann and Eva Marie Lumas chronicle the liturgical and pastoral issues of a Black Catholic liturgical movement that has transformed the larger American church. McGann then examines the foundational vision of Rev. Clarence R. J. Rivers, who promoted forms of black worship, music, preaching, and prayer that have enabled African American Catholics to reclaim the fullness of their religious identity. Finally, Harbor constructs a black Catholic aesthetic based on the theological, ethical, and liturgical insights of four African American scholars and expressed through twenty-three performative values. This liturgical aesthetic illuminates the distinctive gift of black Catholics to the multicultural tapestry of lived faith in the American church, and can also serve as a pastoral model for other cultural communities. Blending history, theology, and liturgy, Let It Shine! is a valuable resource for scholars, teachers, and students and a practical pastoral guide to bringing African American spirituality more firmly into the sacramental life of American parishes.

Religion African-American StudiesLet It Shine! probes the distinctive contribution of black Catholics to the life of the American church, and to the unfolding of lived Christianity in the United States. This im, portyant book explores the powerful spiritual renaissance that has marked African American life and self-understanding over the last several decades by examining one critical dimension: the forging of new expressions of Catholic worship rooted in the larger Catholic tradition, yet shaped in unique ways by African American religious culture.Starting with the 1960s, the book traces the dynamic interplay of social change, cultural awakening, and charismatic leadership that have sparked the emergence of distinctive styles of black Catholic worship. In their historical overview, McGann and Eva Marie Lumas chronicle the liturgical and pastoral issues of a Black Catholic liturgical movement that has transformed the larger American church. McGann then examines the foundational vision of Rev. Clarence R. J. Rivers, who promoted forms of black worship, music, preaching, and prayer that have enabled African American Catholics to reclaim the fullness of their religious identity. Finally, Harbor constructs a black Catholic aesthetic based on the theological, ethical, and liturgical insights of four African American scholars and expressed through twenty-three performative values. This liturgical aesthetic illuminates the distinctive gift of black Catholics to the multicultural tapestry of lived faith in the American church, and can also serve as a pastoral model for other cultural communities. Blending history, theology, and liturgy, Let It Shine! is a valuable resource for scholars, teachers, and students and a practical pastoral guide to bringing African American spirituality more firmly into the sacramental life of American parishes.

Sabbatarianism is commonly treated as a puritan characteristic, a theological innovation formulated by precisionists in the 1580s and 1590s, and among the earliest issues dividing conformists and puritans. The English Sabbath challenges this orthodoxy. Using local, ecclesiastical and parliamentary evidence, as well as theological works, Dr Parker traces the origins of this doctrine to medieval scholastic theology and finds a broad consensus on the issue in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Church. Re-examining the Book of Sports controversies and the sabbatarian disputes of the 1630s, the author argues that Laudian propagandists triggered vigorous opposition by denying the orthodoxy of this long-established doctrine and calling its defenders innovators. This propaganda polarized opinion and made sabbatarianism one of the most cherished puritan causes during the Civil War. The book is a significant contribution to current re-appraisals of Tudor and Stuart religious history and to our understanding of the origins of the Civil War.

Pilgrimage was a central feature of medieval English life which affected history, politics, art and literature. The shrines were destroyed during the Reformation and pilgrimage stopped, yet the idea of pilgrimage continued--refashioned - in Protestant theology. By reaching beyond the Reformation to explore the transformation of the idea of the pilgrim, this book confronts the religious experience of the English laity over half a millennium. In a series of ground-breaking studies the contributors challenge many orthodox assumptions about English pilgrims and their history.

Cotter gracefully merges the beauty and poetry of the original Psalms with the reality of today's world in well-crafted, contemporary language.

"Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace." And with that sharp warning to his own church, which was engaged in bitter conflict with the official nazified state church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer began his book Discipleship (formerly entitled The Cost of Discipleship). Originally published in 1937, it soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government. At its center stands an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount: what Jesus demanded of his followersand how the life of discipleship is to be continued in all ages of the post- resurrection church. "Every call of Jesus is a call to death," Bonhoeffer wrote. His own life ended in martyrdom on April 9, 1945. Freshly translated from the German critical edition, Discipleship provides a more accurate rendering of the text and extensive aids and commentary to clarify the meaning, context, and reception of this work and its attempt to resist the Nazi ideology then infecting German Christian churches.

The clergy today faces mounting challenges in an increasingly secular world, where declining prestige makes it more difficult to attract the best and the brightest young Americans to the ministry. As Christian churches dramatically adapt to modern changes, some are asking whether there is a clergy crisis as well. Whatever the future of the clergy, the fate of millions of churchgoers also will be at stake.
In Who Shall Lead Them?, prizewinning journalist Larry Witham takes the pulse of both the Protestant and Catholic ministry in America and provides a mixed diagnosis of the calling's health. Drawing on dozens of interviews with clergy, seminarians and laity, and using newly available survey data including the 2000 Census, Witham reveals the trends in a variety of traditions. While evangelicals are finding innovative paths to ministry, the Catholic priesthood faces a severe shortage. In mainline Protestantism, ministry as a second career has become a prominent feature. Ordination ages in the Episcopal and United Methodist churches average in the 40s today. The quest by female clergy to lead from the pulpit, meanwhile, has hit a "stained glass ceiling" as churches still prefer a man as the principal minister. While deeply motivated by the mystery of their "call" to ministry, America's priests, pastors, and ministers are reassessing their roles in a world of new debates on leadership, morality, and the powers of the mass media.
Who Shall Lead Them? offers a valuable snapshot of this contemporary clergy drama. It will be required reading for everyone concerned about the rapidly shifting ground of our churches and the health of religion in America.

A companion to Mary Carruthers' earlier study of memory in medieval culture, The Book of Memory, this book, The Craft of Thought, examines medieval monastic meditation as a discipline for making thoughts, and discusses its influence on literature, art, and architecture, deriving examples from a variety of late antique and medieval sources, with excursions into modern architectural memorials. The study emphasizes meditation as an act of literary composition or invention, the techniques of which notably involved both words and making mental "pictures" for thinking and composing.

The Christian faith depends to a great degree on persuasion. In one of his letters to early Christians, the apostle Paul wrote, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone" (Col. 4:6). Yet rhetoric-the art of persuasion-has been largely ignored by most Christians. In this book, James Beitler seeks to renew interest in and hunger for an effective Christian rhetoric by closely considering the work of five beloved Christian communicators: C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Desmond Tutu, and Marilynne Robinson. Moreover, he situates these reflections within the Christian liturgical seasons for the essential truths they convey. These writers collectively demonstrate that being a master of rhetoric is not antithetical to authentic Christian witness. Indeed, being a faithful disciple of Christ means practicing a rhetoric that beneficially and persuasively imparts the surprising truth of the gospel. It means having seasoned speech.