Logos Bookstores' Best Book in Christianity and Culture How do we live with our deepest differences? In a world torn by religious conflict, the threats to human dignity are terrifyingly real. Some societies face harsh government repression and brutal sectarian violence, while others are divided by bitter conflicts over religion's place in public life. Is there any hope for living together peacefully? Os Guinness argues that the way forward for the world lies in promoting freedom of religion and belief for people of all faiths and none. He sets out a vision of a civil and cosmopolitan global public square, and how it can be established by championing the freedom of the soul-the inviolable freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In particular he calls for leadership that has the courage to act on behalf of the common good. Far from utopian, this constructive vision charts a course for the future of the world. Soul freedom is not only a shining ideal but a dire necessity and an eminently practical solution to the predicaments of our time. We can indeed maximize freedom and justice and learn to negotiate deep differences in public life. For a world desperate for hope at a critical juncture of human history, here is a way forward, for the good of all.

Despite the widespread trends of secularization in the 20th century, religion has played an important role in several outbreaks of genocide since the First World War. And yet, not many scholars have looked either at the religious aspects of modern genocide, or at the manner in which religion has taken a position on mass killing. This collection of essays addresses this hiatus by examining the intersection between religion and state-organized murder in the cases of the Armenian, Jewish, Rwandan, and Bosnian genocides. Rather than a comprehensive overview, it offers a series of descrete, yet closely related case studies, that shed light on three fundamental aspects of this issue: the use of religion to legitimize and motivate genocide; the potential of religious faith to encourage physical and spiritual resistance to mass murder; and finally, the role of religion in coming to terms with the legacy of atrocity.

Despite the widespread trends of secularization in the 20th century, religion has played an important role in several outbreaks of genocide since the First World War. And yet, not many scholars have looked either at the religious aspects of modern genocide, or at the manner in which religion has taken a position on mass killing. This collection of essays addresses this hiatus by examining the intersection between religion and state-organized murder in the cases of the Armenian, Jewish, Rwandan, and Bosnian genocides. Rather than a comprehensive overview, it offers a series of descrete, yet closely related case studies, that shed light on three fundamental aspects of this issue: the use of religion to legitimize and motivate genocide; the potential of religious faith to encourage physical and spiritual resistance to mass murder; and finally, the role of religion in coming to terms with the legacy of atrocity.

First published in 2006. This book is a study of the political struggles over the repeal of laws restricting or penalizing religious minorities in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and of the opinions and ideas expressed in the controversies surrounding these struggles.

Using case studies from the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Basin, this book examines the global trend of violence against religious places and figures. The contributors believe attacks on sacred places to be particularly damaging to peace and harmony because of the centrality of religion in many Asian and Pacific countries.

A diverse range of topics are covered, including an empirical exploration of the global trends of violence against sacred spaces; attacks against and policies toward holy sites in Israel and the Palestinian Territories; the fate of Indian Islamic monuments after India gained independence in 1947; the Christian community's response to the increasing Islamization of Malaysia, and the future of communalism in Malaysia. Africa and Australia are also referenced in the work.

Taken together, this volume explores the importance of protecting sacred spaces, holy symbols, and religious people as a crucial element in fostering peace in the world, and especially the Asia-Pacific region. The contributors argue that much of the violence in the world is rooted in politics of religious identity.

A critical examination of political Zionism, a topic often considered taboo in the West, is long overdue. The discussion of Christian Zionism is usually confined to evangelical and fundamentalist settings. The present volume will break the silence currently reigning in many religious, political, and academic circles and, in so doing, will provoke and inspire a new, challenging conversation on theological and ethical issues arising from various aspects of Zionism - a conversation that is vital to the quest for a just peace in Israel and Palestine. The eleven authors offer a rich diversity of religious faith, academic research, and practical experience, as they represent all three Abrahamic faiths and five different Christian traditions. Among the many themes that run through Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land is the contrast between exclusivist narratives, both biblical and political, and the more inclusive narratives of the prophetic Scriptures, which provide the theological foundation and the moral imperative for human liberation. Readers will be drawn into a compelling, readable, and stimulating series of essays that tackle many of the complex issues that still confound clergy, politicians, diplomats, and academic experts.

In September 2014, Azad Cudi became one of seventeen snipers deployed when ISIS, trying to shatter the Kurds in a decisive battle, besieged the northern city of Kobani. In LONG SHOT, he tells the inside story of how a group of activists and idealists withstood a ferocious assault and, street by street, house by house, took back their land in a victory that was to prove the turning point in the war against ISIS. By turns devastating, inspiring and lyrical, this is a unique account of modern war and of the incalculable price of victory as a few thousand men and women achieved the impossible and kept their dream of freedom alive.

This is the first book in English to examine the Mizrahi Jews (Jews from the Muslim world) in Israel, focussing in particular on social and political movements such as the Black Panthers and SHAS. The book analyses the ongoing cultural encounter between Zionism and Israel on one side and Mizrahi Jews on the other. It charts the relations and political struggle between Ashkenazi-Zionists and the Mizrahim in Israel from post-war relocation through to the present day.

The author examines the Mizrahi political struggle and resistance from early immigration in the 1950s to formative events such as the 1959 Wadi-As-Salib rebellion in Haifa; the 1970s Black Panther movement uprising; the ?Ballot Rebellion? of 1977; the evolution and rise of the SHAS political party as a Mizrahi Collective in the 1980s, and up to the new radical Mizrahi movements of the 1990s and present day. It examines a new Mizrahi discourse which has influenced Israeli culture and academia, and the nature of the political system itself in Israel.

This book will be of great interest to those involved in Middle East Studies and Politics, Jewish and Israeli Studies and Race and Ethnic Studies.

Jihad is the most organized force against Western capitalism since the Soviet era. Yet jihadism is multifaceted and complex, much broader than Al-Quaeda alone. In the first wide-ranging introduction to today's rapidly growing jihadism, Khosrokhavar explains how two key movements variously influence jihadi activists. One, based in the Middle East, is more heavily influenced by Islamic religion and political thought. The other, composed of individuals growing up or living mostly in Europe and Western democracies including the United States, is motivated by secular as well as religious influences. Khosrokhavar interprets religious and lesser-known Arabic texts and the real world economic and political dynamics that make jihadism a growing threat to Western democracies. Interviews with imprisoned jihadists on what motivated their plots and actions help the readers understand reality as seen by jihadists. The author concludes with recommendations to safeguard democracies from future jihadism.

This second volume of Crusader Warfare focuses on cultures that have not been written about in the same depth or to the same degree as those Western European Crusader and Byzantine cultures. Islamic, Mongol and medieval Indian civilization have certainly been studied, and there is a reasonable amount of material available in academic journals or specialist anthologies. Here the fluid nature of politics and warfare, not to mention culture and religion, makes it necessary to look closely at Islamic and other regional armies which campaigned outside the immediate sphere of Middle Eastern or Crusading warfare. Futhermore, research into the military affairs of the medieval Islamic World is still at a relatively early stage when compared to medieval European or even Byzantine military studies. Hence the Islamic net needs to be cast wider in order to get a better understanding of what forces were involved, how they were motivated, maintained and led, as well as the military traditions or expectations which spurred their commanders to victory or defeat. Until now this material has not yet been brought together within one book. Working in tandem with the first volume, each "culture" is approached in almost exactly the same manner, using the same format, approach and organization of its constituent subject material, thus enabling parallels, similarities and contrasts to be recognized clearly and accurately.

With an approach both personal and symbolic, this volume leads us through the imagined worlds, delusions, discoveries, questions, hopes, ambivalences, anxieties, and historical, cultural and psychological dynamics of six German-Jewish writers and intellectuals who arrived in Palestine between the 1920s and 1930s. Hugo Bergmann, Gershom Scholem, Gabriele Tergit, Else Lasker-Schuler, Arnold Zweig, and Paul Muhsam witnessed the gap between dream and reality from their own perspectives, representing it at many levels: intellectual, cultural, historical, psychological, and literary. As these six figures arrived in Palestine, this ancient land long imagined by diaspora generations with life-long nostalgia was new and open to different interpretations, outcomes, and realities. This book explores the difficulties and challenges that these figures had to face as they returned to the land of their fathers, a return shadowed by a historical, symbolic and metaphysical exile. It tells the story of a culture suspended and balanced between many worlds- a story of exile and return that is still unfolding under our eyes today.

The scope of this collection of original essays covers the years 1050 to 1215, but it really begins in the summer of 1096, when marauding crusaders attacked Jewish communities in three Rhineland cities. These violent episodes disrupted what had been a fairly peaceful history of coexistence between Jews and Christians for more than two centuries. Although the two groups inhabited fundamentally different religious universes, Jews and Christians lived in the same towns, on the same streets, and pursued their lives with minimal mutual interference and often with considerable cooperation. The events of 1096 destroyed that status quo. Relations between the two communities deteriorated, and the Jewish communities suffered as a result.

The contributors' careful analyses of people, events, and texts provide a balanced perspective on the fate of twelfth-century Jewish communities. They reveal that there is considerable evidence that old routines and interactions between Christians and Jews persisted throughout this period. From the perspective of the editors and contributors, this sense of complementarity, of interaction or action and reaction, needs to better inform the medieval story. The essays in this volume therefore intentionally highlight areas of common or parallel activity: in vernacular literature, in biblical exegesis, in piety and mysticism, in the social context of conversion, in relations with prelates and monarchs, in coping in a time of change, renewal, and upheaval. Most importantly, the editors and contributors insist on integrating both Jewish and Christian perspectives into the larger history of a very complex and increasingly urban twelfth-century Europe.

Terrorists and peacemakers may grow up in the same community and adhere to the same religious tradition. The killing carried out by one and the reconciliation fostered by the other indicate the range of dramatic and contradictory responses to human suffering by religious actors. Yet religion's ability to inspire violence is intimately related to its equally impressive power as a force for peace, especially in the growing number of conflicts around the world that involve religious claims and religiously inspired combatants. This book explains what religious terrorists and religious peacemakers share in common, what causes them to take different paths in fighting injustice, and how a deeper understanding of religious extremism can and must be integrated more effectively into our thinking about tribal, regional, and international conflict.

Religion-the source of inspiration, hope, and basic values for most of humanity throughout history-has also been the motive for atrocious persecutions from antiquity to the present. In the Name of Heaven is a wide-ranging historical survey of religious persecution encompassing three millennia and a great diversity of cultures worldwide. Defining religious persecution as "repressive actions initiated or condoned by authorities against their own people on religious grounds," author Mary Jane Engh begins with ancient Egypt, followed by the biblical history of Israel with its accounts of divinely ordered genocides and capital punishment for worshipers of other deities. Chapters are devoted to ancient Greece (Socrates, Alcibiades, and Aristotle, among others, clashed with the religious establishment); the Roman Empire (persecutions of Jews, Christians, and Manichaeans, and the later persecution of pagans and heretics by a Christianized Rome); the Islamic Empire (persecutions of polytheists and dissident Muslims); and medieval and Reformation Europe (where Protestants and Catholics persecuted each other and both persecuted heretics). The twenty-two chapters also cover Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific area. In an epilogue Engh reviews the new forms of religious persecution from the 20th century to the present-from major genocides and militant forms of polytheism to persecution of all religion by atheistic governments. Complete with references to further reading, this sobering but factually indisputable survey of religion's dark side enlightens while serving as a warning for the future.

Examining contestation and conflict management within holy cities, this book provides both an overview and a range of options available to those concerned with this increasingly urgent phenomenon. In cities in India, the Balkans and the Mediterranean, we can see examples where religion plays a dominant role in urban development and thus provides a platform for conflict. Powerful religious hierarchies, the generation of often unregulated revenues from donations and endowments, the presence of holy sites and the enactment of ritualistic activities in public spaces combine to create forms of conflicts which are, arguably, more intense and more intractable than other forms of conflicts in cities. The book develops a working definition of the urban dimension of religious conflicts so that the kinds of conflicts exhibited can be contextualised and studied in a more targeted manner. It draws together a series of case studies focusing on specific cities, the kinds of religious conflicts occurring in them and the international structures and mechanisms that have emerged to address such conflicts. Combining expertise from both academics and practitioners in the policy and military world, this interdisciplinary collection will be of particular relevance to scholars and students researching politics and religion, regional studies, geography and urban studies. It should also prove useful to policymakers in the military and other international organisations.

'This is Irish history seen anew, from below, bristling with practical lessons for working-class struggle today' - Eamonn McCann The 32 counties of Ireland were divided through imperial terror and gerrymandering. Partition was borne from a Tory strategy to defend the British Empire and has spawned a 'carnival of reaction' in Irish politics ever since. Over the last 100 years, conservative forces have dominated both states offering religious identity as a diversion from economic failures and inequality. Through a sharp analysis of the history of partition, Kieran Allen rejects the view that the 'two cultures' of Catholic and Protestant communities lock people into permanent antagonism. Instead, the sectarian states have kept its citizens divided through political and economic measures like austerity, competition for reduced services and low wages. Overturning conventional narratives, 32 Counties evokes the tradition of James Connolly and calls for an Irish unity movement from below to unite the North and the Republic into a secular, socialist and united Ireland.

Previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Israeli History, this book presents the reflections of historians from Israel, Europe, Canada and the United States concerning the similarities and differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism primarily in Europe and the Middle East.

Spanning the past century, the essays explore the continuum of critique from early challenges to Zionism and they offer criteria to ascertain when criticism with particular policies has and has not coalesced into an ism of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Including studies of England, France, Germany, Poland, the United States, Iran and Israel, the volume also examines the elements of continuity and break in European traditions of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism when they diffused to the Arab and Islamic.

Essential course reading for students of religious history.

How were the Crusades made possible? There have been studies of ancient, medieval and early modern warfare, as well as work on the finances and planning of Crusades, but this volume is the first specifically to address the logistics of Crusading. Building on previous work, it brings together experts from the fields of medieval Western, Byzantine and Middle Eastern studies to examine how the marches and voyages were actually made. Questions of manpower, types and means of transportation by land and sea, supplies, financial resources, roads and natural land routes, sea lanes and natural sailing routes - all these topics and more are covered here. Of particular importance is the attention given to the horses and other animals on which transport of supplies and the movement of armies depended.

In the Spring of 2015, a post-modern version of the Salem witchcraft trials took place at Connecticut College on the Thames River. Only this time instead of sorcery it was Zionism; instead of punishing in the name of God's law it was in the name of anti-hate speech and inclusive excellence; instead of young teenage girls leading the hysteria it was college-aged social warriors stampeding 200 professors into sacrificing one of their colleagues, and thereby contributing to a wave of administration-promoted hate-speech at their college.The Pessin affair offers us a case study in a tendency towards "public shaming" that not only deeply compromises the integrity of academia, but increasingly spreads to many aspects of our society, so susceptible to media-driven feeding frenzies.

The Knights Templar, part monastic order, part military force, lived by a firm code, or rule, which exists in differing versions. This Spanish version is a follow-up to J.M. Upton-Ward's highly successful edition of the French Rule. The introduction to this Catalan Rule, Barcelona Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Cartes Reales, MS 3344, discusses the content, language and dating of the manuscript. It also provides background information derived from the French Rule (which the reader may require for a fuller appreciation of the text - see author note below) on the circumstances of the Knights Templar. There is a brief description of the provincial organisation of the Order with particular reference to the houses in Aragon, where it is most likely that the manuscript was used; a summary of clauses; and a concordance with de Curzon's 1886 edition of the French Rule. Compared to de Curzon's edition, the Barcelona text is incomplete, but it contains important clauses not found in other manuscripts. A partial transcription claiming to represent all the clauses without equivalents in de Curzon's edition was published in 1889, but it omitted several clauses now published here for the first time. Footnotes to the English translation elucidate the text; give biographical information on the named officers of the Order where possible; and indicate significant differences compared with the French Rule. J. M. UPTON-WARD edited and translated The Rule of the Templars (Boydell & Brewer 1998), now available in paperback.

What is ISIS? A quasi-state? A terrorist group? A movement? An ideology? As ISIS has transformed and mutated, gained and lost territory, horrified the world and been its punch line, media have been central to understanding it. The changing, yet constant, relationship between ISIS and the media, as well as its adversaries' dependency on media to make sense of ISIS, is central to this book. More than just the images of mutilated bodies that garnered ISIS its initial infamy, the book considers an ISIS media world that includes infographics, administrative reports, and various depictions of a post-racial utopia in which justice is swift and candy is bought and sold with its own currency. The book reveals that the efforts of ISIS and its adversaries to communicate and make sense of this world share modes of visual, aesthetic, and journalistic practice and expression. The short tumultuous history of ISIS does not allow for a single approach to understanding its relation to media. Thus, the book's contributions are to be read as contrapuntal analyses that productively connect and disconnect, providing a much-needed complex account of the ISIS-media relationship. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Written in an accessible, journalistic style, Jihad in Paradise focuses on Southeast Asia's struggle to deal with Islamic extremists and terrorism at the hands of Jemah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's Southeast Asian arm. Although the book gives particular attention to Singapore's attempts to deal with these issues, the story extends into Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. All of these countries have significant Muslim populations, and recent violent events have affected the business environment, tourism, and the region's tradition of religious tolerance. The author draws on personal interviews with experts in the field as well as key political and religious figures in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, including Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Minister for Muslim Affairs Jaacoub Ibrahim, and expelled Muslim dissident Zulfikar Mohamad Sharif. Millard examines the Bali bombing, Malaysia's conservative Islamic party PAS, the Malaysian province of Kelantan which is a Muslim political hotbed, Abu Saayaf of the Philippines, and Fateha.com and the use of the Internet. He also provides a glimpse of how Singapore, the region's most developed nation, has engineered its society in order to impose a degree of racial and religious tolerance.

Contributors to this volume explore the relationships between fundamentalist religious belief, political extremism and outbreaks of religiously inspired violence. Is the post-Cold War world increasingly violent and is this violence the result of increasingly strident religious understandings of how societies should be organised? The contributors to this volume do not always agree on the answers to these questions. But they do agreee the questions themselves are among the most important to be posed in the early years of the 21st century.

Written in an accessible, journalistic style, Jihad in Paradise focuses on Southeast Asia's struggle to deal with Islamic extremists and terrorism at the hands of Jemah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's Southeast Asian arm. Although the book gives particular attention to Singapore's attempts to deal with these issues, the story extends into Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. All of these countries have significant Muslim populations, and recent violent events have affected the business environment, tourism, and the region's tradition of religious tolerance. The author draws on personal interviews with experts in the field as well as key political and religious figures in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, including Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Minister for Muslim Affairs Jaacoub Ibrahim, and expelled Muslim dissident Zulfikar Mohamad Sharif. Millard examines the Bali bombing, Malaysia's conservative Islamic party PAS, the Malaysian province of Kelantan which is a Muslim political hotbed, Abu Saayaf of the Philippines, and Fateha.com and the use of the Internet. He also provides a glimpse of how Singapore, the region's most developed nation, has engineered its society in order to impose a degree of racial and religious tolerance.

Contributors to this volume explore the relationships between fundamentalist religious belief, political extremism and outbreaks of religiously inspired violence. Is the post-Cold War world increasingly violent and is this violence the result of increasingly strident religious understandings of how societies should be organised? The contributors to this volume do not always agree on the answers to these questions. But they do agreee the questions themselves are among the most important to be posed in the early years of the 21st century.