Throughout the last two decades, the modern dialogue movement has gained worldwide significance. The knowledge about its origins is, however, still very limited. This book presents a wide range of insights from eleven case studies into the early history of several important international interreligious/interfaith dialogue organizations that have shaped the modern development of interreligious dialogue from the late nineteenth century up to the present. Based on new archival research, they describe, on the one hand, how these actors put their ideals into practice and, on the other, how they faced many challenges as pioneers in the establishment of new interreligious/interfaith organizational structures. This book concludes with a comparison of those case studies, bringing to light new and broader historico-sociological understanding of the beginnings of international and multi-religious interreligious/interfaith dialogue organizations over more than one century. The World's Parliament of Religions / 1893 The Religioeser Menschheitsbund / 1921 The World Congress of Faiths / 1933-1950 The Committee on the Church and the Jewish People of the World Council of Churches / 1961 The Temple of Understanding / 1968 The International Association for Religious Freedom / 1969 The World Conference on Religion and Peace / 1970 The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions / 1989-1991 The Oxford International Interfaith Centre / 1993 The United Religions Initiative / 2000 The Universal Peace Federation / 2005 Based on these analyses, the authors identify three distinct groups with sometimes-conflicting interests that are shaping the movement: individual religious virtuosi, countercultural activists, and representatives of religious institutions. Published in cooperation with the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious & Intercultural Dialogue, Vienna.

Winner of The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022 Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize 2022 A The Times Books of the Year 2022 Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had seventy children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books, and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions. But as Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou reveals, God's cultural DNA stretches back centuries before the Bible was written, and persists in the tics and twitches of our own society, whether we are believers or not. The Bible has shaped our ideas about God and religion, but also our cultural preferences about human existence and experience; our concept of life and death; our attitude to sex and gender; our habits of eating and drinking; our understanding of history. Examining God's body, from his head to his hands, feet and genitals, she shows how the Western idea of God developed. She explores the places and artefacts that shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical world. And in doing so she analyses not only the origins of our oldest monotheistic religions, but also the origins of Western culture. Beautifully written, passionately argued and frequently controversial, God: An Anatomy is cultural history on a grand scale. 'Rivetingly fresh and stunning' - Sunday Times 'One of the most remarkable historians and communicators working today' - Dan Snow

This book offers a welcome solution to the growing need for a common language in interfaith dialogue; particularly between the three Abrahamic faiths in our modern pluralistic society. The book suggests that the names given to God in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran, could be the very foundations and building blocks for a common language between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths. On both a formal interfaith level, as well as between everyday followers of each doctrine, this book facilitates a more fruitful and universal understanding and respect of each sacred text; exploring both the commonalities and differences between the each theology and their individual receptions. In a practical application of the methodologies of comparative theology, Maire Byrne shows that the titles, names and epithets given to God in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam contribute towards similar images of God in each case, and elucidates the importance of this for providing a viable starting point for interfaith dialogue.

In Islam Is a Foreign Country, Zareena Grewal explores some of the most pressing debates about and among American Muslims: what does it mean to be Muslim and American? Who has the authority to speak for Islam and to lead the stunningly diverse population of American Muslims? Do their ties to the larger Muslim world undermine their efforts to make Islam an American religion? Offering rich insights into these questions and more, Grewal follows the journeys of American Muslim youth who travel in global, underground Islamic networks. Devoutly religious and often politically disaffected, these young men and women are in search of a home for themselves and their tradition. Through their stories, Grewal captures the multiple directions of the global flows of people, practices, and ideas that connect U.S. mosques to the Muslim world. By examining the tension between American Muslims' ambivalence toward the American mainstream and their desire to enter it, Grewal puts contemporary debates about Islam in the context of a long history of American racial and religious exclusions. Probing the competing obligations of American Muslims to the nation and to the umma (the global community of Muslim believers), Islam is a Foreign Country investigates the meaning of American citizenship and the place of Islam in a global age. Zareena Grewal is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Religious Studies at Yale University and Director for the Center for the Study of American Muslims at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

The 7 chakras located along your spine up to the crown of your head may be the biggest secret Western conventional health care is keeping from you. Bonus: Exclusive Gift Inside! In this book you'll discover How to Clear your Energetic Blockages, Radiate Energy and Finally heal yourself. What if I told you that your body had the ability to heal itself through the use of chakras -- unseen spinning wheels of energy that are found at crucial areas along your spine? If you've never heard of chakras before you may be a bit skeptical about their existence, let alone the health and natural influence they offer your body. This book will not only introduce you to these potent vortices of health and wholeness, but it'll also reveal the secrets that make rebalancing and awakening them seem like child's play.

Chinese Buddhists have never remained stationary. They have always been on the move. In Monks in Motion, Jack Meng-Tat Chia explores why Buddhist monks migrated from China to Southeast Asia, and how they participated in transregional Buddhist networks across the South China Sea. This book tells the story of three prominent monks Chuk Mor (1913-2002), Yen Pei (1917-1996), and Ashin Jinarakkhita (1923-2002) and examines the connected history of Buddhist communities in China and maritime Southeast Asia in the twentieth century. Monks in Motion is the first book to offer a history of what Chia terms "South China Sea Buddhism," referring to a Buddhism that emerged from a swirl of correspondence networks, forced exiles, voluntary visits, evangelizing missions, institution-building campaigns, and the organizational efforts of countless Chinese and Chinese diasporic Buddhist monks. Drawing on multilingual research conducted in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Chia challenges the conventional categories of "Chinese Buddhism" and "Southeast Asian Buddhism" by focusing on the lesser-known-yet no less significant-Chinese Buddhist communities of maritime Southeast Asia. By crossing the artificial spatial frontier between China and Southeast Asia, Monks in Motion breaks new ground, bringing Southeast Asia into the study of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism into the study of Southeast Asia.

'This book really, really will stay with me forever. It's not only laced with the most incredible wisdom, but it's also gentle and beautiful and eloquent. It brought me so much joy and so much comfort' FEARNE COTTON The Sunday Times bestselling book of comfort and timeless wisdom from former forest monk, Bjoern Natthiko Lindeblad We like to think we can determine the path our life takes, but events rarely unfold the way we plan for or expect. In this international bestseller, former forest monk Bjoern Natthiko Lindeblad draws on his humbling journey towards navigating uncertainty - helping you, with kindness and good humour, to: - Let go of the small stuff - Accept the things you cannot control - Manage difficult emotions - Find stillness at busy times - Face yourself - and others - without judgment Infusing the everyday with heart and grace, this is a wise and soothing handbook for dealing with life's challenges.