The publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830 began a new scriptural tradition. Resisting the long-established closed biblical canon, the Book of Mormon posited that the Bible was incomplete and corrupted. With a commitment to an open canon, a variety of Latter Day Saint denominations have emerged, each offering their own scriptural works to accompany the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and other revelations of Joseph Smith. Open Canon breaks new ground as the first volume to examine these writings as a single spiritual heritage. Chapters cover both well-studied and lesser-studied works, introducing readers to scripture dictated by nineteenth- and twentieth-century revelators such as James Strang, Lucy Mack Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Harry Edgar Baker, and Charles B. Thompson, among others. Contributors detail how various Latter Day Saint denominations responded to scriptures introduced during the ministry of Joseph Smith and how churches have employed the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Lectures of Faith over time. Bringing together studies from across denominational boundaries, this book considers what we can learn about Latter Day Saint resistance to the closed canon and the nature of a new American scriptural tradition.

In Faith and Politics in the Public Sphere, Ugur explores the politics of religious engagement in the public sphere by comparing two modernist conservative movements: the Mormon Church in the United States and the Gulen movement in Turkey. The book traces the public activities and activism of these two influential and controversial actors at the state, political society, and civil society domains, discerning their divergent strategies and positioning on public matters, including moral issues, religious freedoms, democracy, patriotism, education, social justice, and immigration. Despite being strikingly similar in their strong fellowship ties, emphasis on conservative social values, and their doctrines concerning political neutrality, these two religious entities have employed different political strategies to promote their goals of survival, growth, and the collective interests of their communities. In contrast to the Mormon Church's more assertive approach and emphasis on its autonomy and distinctiveness, the Gulen movement has been rather cautious with its engagement in the public sphere, with preference for coalition building and ambiguity. To explain such different strategies, Ugur examines how the liberal and republican models of the public sphere have shaped the norms and practices of public activism for religious groups in Turkey and the United States. Ugur's deft and nuanced exploration of these movements' adaptation and engagement is essential to help us better understand the dynamic role of religious involvement in the public sphere.

This interdisciplinary account of a contemporary Great Lakes Algonkian community explores how the ethical system underlying Odawa (Ottawa) myth and ritual sustains traditionalists' efforts to confront the legal and social issues threatening tribal identity. Because many Odawa are not members of federally recognized communities, anthropologist Melissa A. Pflug focuses on their struggle to overcome long-term social marginalization and achieve collective sovereignty.In profound ways, contemporary Odawa people are "walking the paths" of their ancestors Neolin, Pontiac, The Trout, and Tenskwatawa. Those prophetic leaders, together with mythic Great Persons, established a legacy tied to land, language, and tradition - a sovereign identity that defines Odawa life in terms of pimadaziwin: life-sustaining, moral, and healthy interrelationships.

In this theoretically rich work, Mason Kamana Allred unearths the ways Mormons have employed a wide range of technologies to translate events, beliefs, anxieties, and hopes into reproducible experiences that contribute to the growth of their religious systems of meaning. Drawing on methods from cultural history, media studies, and religious studies, Allred focuses specifically on technologies of vision that have shaped Mormonism as a culture of seeing. These technologies, he argues, were as essential to the making of Mormonism as the humans who received, interpreted, and practiced their faith. While Mormons' uses of television and the internet are recent examples of the tradition's use of visual technology, Allred excavates older practices and technologies for negotiating the spirit, such as panorama displays and magic lantern shows. Fusing media theory with feminist new materialism, he employs media archaeology to examine Mormons' ways of performing distinctions, beholding as a way to engender radical visions, and standardizing vision to effect assimilation. Allred's analysis reveals Mormonism as always materially mediated and argues that religious history is likewise inherently entangled with media.

The publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830 began a new scriptural tradition. Resisting the long-established closed biblical canon, the Book of Mormon posited that the Bible was incomplete and corrupted. With a commitment to an open canon, a variety of Latter Day Saint denominations have emerged, each offering their own scriptural works to accompany the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and other revelations of Joseph Smith. Open Canon breaks new ground as the first volume to examine these writings as a single spiritual heritage. Chapters cover both well-studied and lesser-studied works, introducing readers to scripture dictated by nineteenth- and twentieth-century revelators such as James Strang, Lucy Mack Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Harry Edgar Baker, and Charles B. Thompson, among others. Contributors detail how various Latter Day Saint denominations responded to scriptures introduced during the ministry of Joseph Smith and how churches have employed the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Lectures of Faith over time. Bringing together studies from across denominational boundaries, this book considers what we can learn about Latter Day Saint resistance to the closed canon and the nature of a new American scriptural tradition.

Discover the spiritually incisive strategies for peacefully resolving conflictin this masterpiece of military strategy.

Written 2,500 years ago by Chinese general Sun Tzu, The Art of War is a poetic and potent treatise on military strategy still in use in war colleges around the world. Yet its principles transcend warfare and have practical applications to all the conflicts and crises we face in our lives in our workplaces, our families, even within ourselves.

Thomas Huynh guides you through Sun Tzu's masterwork, highlighting principles that encourage a perceptive and spiritual approach to conflict, enabling you to: Prevent conflicts before they arise Peacefully and quickly resolve conflicts when they do arise Act with courage, intelligence and benevolence in adversarial situations Convert potential enemies into friends Control your emotions before they control you

Now you can experience the effectiveness of Sun Tzu's teachings even if you have no previous knowledge of The Art of War. Insightful yet unobtrusive facing-page commentary explains the subtleties of the text, allowing you to unlock the power of its teachings and help prevent and resolve the conflicts in your own life."

While Adolf Hitler's National Socialist government was persecuting Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses and driving forty-two small German religious sects underground, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to practice unhindered. How some fourteen thousand Mormons not only survived but thrived in Nazi Germany is a story little known, rarely told, and occasionally rewritten within the confines of the Church's history - for good reason, as we see in David Conley Nelson's Moroni and the Swastika. A page-turning historical narrative, this book is the first full account of how Mormons avoided Nazi persecution through skilled collaboration with Hitler's regime, and then eschewed postwar shame by constructing an alternative history of wartime suffering and resistance. The Twelfth Article of Faith and parts of the 134th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants function as Mormonism's equivalent of the biblical admonition to ""render unto Caesar,"" a charge to cooperate with civil government, no matter how onerous doing so may be. Resurrecting this often-violated doctrinal edict, ecclesiastical leaders at the time developed a strategy that protected Mormons within Nazi Germany. Furthermore, as Nelson shows, many Mormon officials strove to fit into the Third Reich by exploiting commonalities with the Nazi state. German Mormons emphasized a mutual interest in genealogy and a passion for sports. They sent husbands into the Wehrmacht and sons into the Hitler Youth, and they prayed for a German victory when the war began. They also purged Jewish references from hymnals, lesson plans, and liturgical practices. One American mission president even wrote an article for the official Nazi Party newspaper, extolling parallels between Utah Mormon and German Nazi society. Nelson documents this collaboration, as well as subsequent efforts to suppress it by fashioning a new collective memory of ordinary German Mormons' courage and travails during the war. Recovering this inconvenient past, Moroni and the Swastika restores a complex and difficult chapter to the history of Nazi Germany and the Mormon Church in the twentieth century - and offers new insight into the construction of historical truth.

Theosophy is a key work for anyone seeking a solid grounding in spiritual reality as described by Rudolf Steiner. The book is organized in four parts. First, Steiner builds up a comprehensive understanding of human nature, beginning with the physical bodily nature and moving up through the soul nature to our spiritual being: the I and the higher spiritual aspects of our being.This then leads to the experience of the human being as a sevenfold interpenetrated being of body, soul, and spirit. In the next section Steiner gives an extraordinary overview of the laws of reincarnation and the workings of karma as we pass from one life to the next. This prepares us for the third section where Steiner shows the different ways in which we live, during this life on earth and after death, in the three worlds of body, soul, and spirit, as well as the ways in which these worlds in turn live into us.Finally, a succinct description is given of the path of knowledge by which each one of us can begin to understand the marvelous and harmonious complexity of the psycho-spiritual worlds in their fullness.

Manga and anime (illustrated serial novels and animated films) are highly influential Japanese entertainment media that boast tremendous domestic consumption as well as worldwide distribution and an international audience. Drawing on Tradition examines religious aspects of the culture of manga and anime production and consumption through a methodological synthesis of narrative and visual analysis, history, and ethnography. Rather than merely describing the incidence of religions such as Buddhism or Shinto in these media, Jolyon BarakaThomas shows that authors and audiences create and re-create "religious frames of mind" through their imaginative and ritualised interactions with illustrated worlds. Manga and anime therefore not only contribute to familiarity with traditional religious doctrines and imagery, but also allow authors, directors, and audiences to modify and elaborate upon such traditional tropes, sometimes creating hitherto unforeseen religious ideas and practices. The book takes play seriously by highlighting these recursive relationships between recreation and religion, emphasising throughout the double sense of play as entertainment and play as adulteration (i.e., the whimsical or parodic representation of religious figures, doctrines, and imagery). Building on recent developments in academic studies of manga and anime-as well as on recent advances in the study of religion as related to art and film-Thomas demonstrates that the specific aesthetic qualities and industrial dispositions of manga and anime invite practices of rendition and reception that can and do influence the ways that religious institutions and lay authors have attempted to captivate new audiences. Drawing on Tradition will appeal to both the dilettante and the specialist: Fans and self-professed otaku will find an engaging academic perspective on often overlooked facets of the media and culture of manga and anime, while scholars and students of religion will discover a fresh approach to the complicated relationships between religion and visual media, religion and quotidian practice, and the putative differences between "traditional" and "new" religions.