A sense of ritual in the modern world had ostensibly vanished following the breakdown of institutionalized religion. The importance of rituals as expressions of fundamental psychological conditions was recognized by Jung, but most psychologists have shied away from religious experience in analysis. However, the apparent chaos and pointlessness of modern life prompt questions which in turn prompt search and revelation, processes which are themselves a form of ritual. Our religious capacity is thus activated, with or without therapist, companion or priest. In Susceptible to the Sacred Bani Shorter, a well-known Jungian analyst, examines the psychological experience of ritual in contemporary life through personalized and descriptive images that suggest and imply the place of ritual in the pyschology of the individual and group. Basing her book on live material ranging from the consulting room to larger cultural events, Bani Shorter investigates, with great sensitivity, how people perceive the sacred and use ritual in their search for purpose, motivation and transformation

In this thought-provoking book, clinical psychologist and professor of religious studies James W. Jones presents a dialogue between contemporary psychoanalytic thinking and contemporary theology. He sheds new light on the interaction of religion and psychology by viewing it from the perspective of world religions, providing an epistemological framework for the psychology of religion that draws on contemporary philosophy of science, and bringing out the importance of gender as a category of analysis. Developments in psychoanalysis provide new resources for theological reflection, Jones contends. The Freudian view that human nature is isolated and instinctual has shifted to a vision of the self as constituted in and through relationships. Jones uses this relational model of human nature to explore the convergence between contemporary psychoanalysis, feminist theorizing, and themes in religious thought found in a variety of traditions. He also critiques the reductionism inherent in Freud's discussion of religion and proposes nonreductionistic and genuinely psychoanalytic ways for psychoanalysis to treat religious topics. For therapists, psychologists, theologians, and others interested in spiritual or psychological issues, Jones offers illuminating clinical material and insightful analysis.

Faith, Reason, and Revelation in the Thought of Theodore Beza investigates the direction of religious epistemology under a chief architect of the Calvinistic tradition (1519-1605). Mallinson contends that Beza defended and consolidated his tradition by balancing the subjective and objective aspects of faith and knowledge. He makes use of newly published primary sources and long-neglected biblical annotations in order to clarify the thought of an often misunderstood individual from intellectual history.

The Roman Catholic Bishops of the Caribbean, the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC), have over the past forty years written statements addressed to their faithful and people in the wider Caribbean. The statements covered a wide range of issues impinging on the life and faith of Caribbean people, including political engagement, crime and violence, homosexuality, HIV-AIDS, sexuality, the environment. A key theme running through the statements is the concern with justice. This collection of critical essays and personal reflections explores the insights provided by these statements. In so doing, it presents a critical reading of the corpus with a view to presenting its relevance to the regional and global conversation on matters of human flourishing. The authors of the volume represent the diverse voices from within the Catholic Caribbean, particularly some fresh new voices. This collection brings together the voices of men and women--pastors, laity, theologians, political leaders, educators; each essayist considers a specific statement and provides a commentary and interpretation of its contents as well as a considered assessment of its impact on the life of the faithful. Academics, lay persons, pastors, policy makers and politicians will find this a useful collection.

Today there is growing concern with the problems posed by dogmatic religious belief. Throughout history religion has too often been a source of contention between groups of people and has frequently stifled intellectual (especially scientific) and social progress. Rather than abandon religious belief altogether, as some suggest, Kevin Lowery contends that the real problem is the intellectual immaturity with which religious beliefs are held. This book thus explores the nature and dynamics of religious belief, and it offers constructive criticism in order to promote the intellectual maturity of religious belief. Rather than artificially resolving points of tension by simply dismissing particular viewpoints out of hand, as with the radical skeptics and the dogmatists, Lowery argues that intellectual maturity requires us to acknowledge the limitations of our beliefs.

This book draws the philosophical contribution of Martin Heidegger together with theological-spiritual insights from the East, especially that of Nikolai Berdyaev. Thus, it brings into dialogue the West with the East, and philosophy with theology. By doing so, it offers Christian theology an existential-spiritual language that is relevant and meaningful for the contemporary reader. In particular, the work explores Heidegger's 'being towards death' (Sein zum Tode) as the basis for theological-philosophical thinking. Only the one who embraces 'being towards death' has the courage to think and poetize. This thinking, in turn, makes 'being towards death' possible, and in this circular movement of thinking and being, the mystery of being reveals itself and yet remains hidden. Since the work aims at demonstrating 'being towards death' through language, it transitions away from the common formulations and traditionally accepted ways of writing (dogmatic) theology towards an original, philosophical reflection on faith and spirituality. At different points, however, the work also retrieves the profound thoughts and theologies of the past, the insightful creativity of which cannot be denied.

What drives religious people to act in politics? In Latin America, as in the Middle East, religious belief is a primary motivating factor for politically active citizens. Edward Lynch questions the frequent pitfall of Latin American scholarship--categorizing religious belief as a veil for another interest or as a purview just of churchmen, thereby ignoring its hold over lay people. Challenging this traditional view, Lynch concludes that religious motivations are important in their own right and raises important questions about the relationship between religion and politics in Latin America. Looking at the two most important Catholic lay movements, Liberation Theology and Christian Democracy, Lynch uses Nicaragua and Venezuela as case studies of how religious philosophy has fared when vested with political power. This timely study describes the motivations driving many important political actors.

Divided into two parts, Ideologies In Theory and Ideologies In Practice, this volume features a discussion of the theoretical background of two Catholic philosophies. Using Nicaragua and Venezuela as case studies, Lynch finds that Liberation Theology and Christian Democracy are not as different as many scholars think; in fact, there are many parellels. He concludes that both philosophies face their strongest challenge from a revitalized orthodox Catholic social doctrine.

A new edition of the study of Syriac Christianity up to the early fifth century CE: its beliefs and worship; its life and art.
In this classic work, Robert Murray offers the fullest and most vivid picture yet available of the development and character of the culture, illustrating both its original close relationship to Judaism and its remoter background in Mesopotamian civilization. He is interested in the subsequent influence of Syriac Christian culture, particularly on European literature.
The largely revised Introduction (now assisted by a sketch map) locates Syriac as an Aramaic dialect, then traces the origins of Syriac Christianity, its relationship to Jewish Christianity and the Syriac Bible version, the character of Syriac asceticism (including Marcionism and Manichaeism), and of the Christian schools. Key Syriac terms are explained, and all citation of Syriac texts throughout the work are given in translation either by other scholars or by the author.
The second part of the introduction reviews the literature studied in the following chapters, concentrating on Aphrahat and Ephrem. In both parts, a number of positions adopted in the first edition are revised in the light of recent studies, the bibliographical details of which are given in the greatly increased number of footnotes.
This book deals with a topic of interdisciplinary importance, at the cultural crossroads of the ancient and medieval worlds of east and west, and of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students.

This is the first booklength account of how Maurice Merleau-Ponty used certain texts by Alfred North Whitehead to develop an ontology based on nature, and how he could have used other Whitehead texts that he did not know in order to complete his last ontology. This account is enriched by several of Merleau-Ponty's unpublished writings not previously available in English, by the first detailed treatment of certain works by F.W.J. Schelling in the course of showing how they exerted a substantial influence on both Merleau-Ponty and Whitehead, and by the first extensive discussion of Merleau-Ponty's interest in the Stoics's notion of the twofold logos-the logos endiathetos and the logos proforikos. This book provides a thorough exploration of the consonance between these two philosophers in their mutual desire to overcome various bifurcations of nature, and of nature from spirit, that continued to haunt philosophy and science since the 17th-century.

The concept of religious freedom is the favoured modern human rights concept, with which the modern world hopes to tackle the phenomenon of religious pluralism, as our modern existence in an electronically shrinking globe comes to be increasingly characterised by this phenomenon. To begin with, the concept of religious freedom, as embodied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems self-evident in nature. It is the claim of this book, however, that although emblematic on the one hand, the concept is also problematic on the other, and the implications of the concept of religious freedom are far from self-evident, despite the ready acceptance the term receives as embodying a worthwhile goal. This book therefore problematizes the concept along legal, constitutional, ethical and theological lines, and especially from the perspective of religious studies, so that religious freedom in the world could be enlarged in a way which promotes human flourishing.

In this new translation, Laruelle offers a serious and rigorous challenge to contemporary theological thought, calling into question the dominant understanding of the relation between Christ, theology, and philosophy, not only from a theoretical, but also political perspective. He achieves this through an inversion of St Paul's reading of Christ, through which the ground for Christianity shifts. It is no longer the 'event' of the resurrection, as philosophical and theological operation (Badiou's St Paul), so much as the Risen Himself that forms the starting point for a non-philosophical confession. Between the Greek and the Jew, Laruelle places the Gnostic-Christ in order to disrupt and overturn such theologico-philosophical interpretations of the resurrection and set the Risen within the radical immanence of Man-in-Person. Forming the basis for a non-Christianity, Clandestine Theology offers a more radical deconstruction of Christianity, resting upon the last identity of Man and the humanity of Christ as opposed to endless deferral or difference (Nancy) or the universalising economy of Ideas and Events (Badiou).

Art has always been important for religion or spirituality. Secular art displayed in museums can also be spiritual, and it is this art that is the subject of this book. Many of the works of art produced by Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Anselm Kiefer are spiritual in nature. These works reveal their own spirituality, which often has no connection to official religions. Wessel Stoker demonstrates that these artists communicate religious insights through images and shows how they depict the relationship between heaven and earth, between this world and a transcendent reality, thus clearly drawing the contours of the spirituality these works evince.

In the Name of Friendship: Deguy, Derrida and "Salut" centres on the relationship between poet Michel Deguy and philosopher Jacques Derrida. Translations of two essays, "Of Contemporaneity" by Deguy and "How to Name" by Derrida, allow Christopher Elson and Garry Sherbert to develop the implications of this singular intellectual friendship. In these thinkers' efforts to reinvent secular forms of the sacred, such as the singularity of the name, and especially poetic naming, Deguy, by adopting a Derridean programme of the impossible, and Derrida, by developing Deguy's ethics of naming through the word "salut," situate themselves at the forefront of contemporary debates over politics and religion alongside figures like Alain Badiou and Jean-Luc Marion, John Caputo and Martin Hagglund.

For over twenty years, Beverley Clack and Brian R. Clack's distinctive and thought-provoking introduction to the philosophy of religion has been of enormous value to students and scholars, providing an approach to the subject that is bold and refreshingly alternative. This revised and updated edition retains the accessibility which makes the book popular, while furthering its distinctive argument regarding the human dimension of religion. The central emphasis of the philosophy of religion - the concept of God, and the arguments for and against God's existence - is reflected in thorough analyses, while alternative approaches to traditional philosophical theism are explored. The treatments of both the miraculous and immortality have been revised and expanded, and the concluding chapter updates the investigation of how philosophy of religion might be conducted in an age defined by religious terrorism. Clear, systematic and highly critical, the third edition of The Philosophy of Religion will continue to be essential reading for students and scholars of this fascinating and important subject.

What is the nature of Hell? What role(s) may Hell play in religious, political, or ethical thought? Can Hell be justified? This edited volume addresses these questions and others; drawing philosophers from many approaches and traditions to analyze and examine Hell.