If we see ourselves as Earth, rather than Earth as existing for us, our perspective is transformed. A variety of religious, philosophical, cultural, and political self-perceptions that dominate our sense of human identity are deeply challenged by this shift in perspective. John Locke's doctrine of Earth as human 'property' has been central to current presuppositions about our selves: justified on the grounds of our possessing unique, divinely bestowed, rational abilities. But today, the effects of that doctrine on Earth's resource base and on its other-than-human creatures directly challenge such assumptions. At the same time contemporary scientific findings about the evolution of Earthly life demonstrate that while we belong to Earth and nowhere else, Earth does not belong to us. Exploring this role reversal raises fundamental questions about current theological, philosophical, scientific, and economic presuppositions that underpin the 'business as usual' viewpoint and human-centered aims of contemporary policies and lifestyles. It takes us beyond hierarchical Christian and philosophical doctrines toward a deeper, Earth-focused and peace-based understanding of what it means to be human today.

What is a rule, if it appears to become confused with life? And what is a human life, if, in every one of its gestures, of its words, and of its silences, it cannot be distinguished from the rule?
It is to these questions that Agamben's new book turns by means of an impassioned reading of the fascinating and massive phenomenon of Western monasticism from Pachomius to St. Francis. The book reconstructs in detail the life of the monks with their obsessive attention to temporal articulation and to the Rule, to ascetic techniques and to liturgy. But Agamben's thesis is that the true novelty of monasticism lies not in the confusion between life and norm, but in the discovery of a new dimension, in which "life" as such, perhaps for the first time, is affirmed in its autonomy, and in which the claim of the "highest poverty" and "use" challenges the law in ways that we must still grapple with today.
How can we think a form-of-life, that is, a human life released from the grip of law, and a use of bodies and of the world that never becomes an appropriation? How can we think life as something not subject to ownership but only for common use?

Are you a current or emerging Christian leader who yearns to make a significant long-term difference?
Do you sometimes wonder how to distinguish what is imperative from what is important?
Are you a board member who wants your church or parachurch leadership team to become more intentional and on-target about doing the right things the right way?
"The Leader's SEEcret" is a parable that explores and applies God's Word to today's world of leadership diversions. It delves underneath the surface issues of a leader's or manager's knowledge and skills.
"The Leader's SEEcret" will help you discover, understand, and apply ten core features of one ancient principle. You will understand how to infuse the situations you face as a leader or manager with that timeless reality. And you will learn how you can inspire your staff to do so, too.
Along the way, "The Leader's SEEcret" shows the failure and regret a leader causes when his or her current leadership priorities conflict with lifetime purposes.
This story comes in a concise, get-to-the-point writing style, making it very helpful for individual or group study.
One warning: The principle undergirding LeaderSlip is simple---but not necessarily easy. If you take the challenge, you will become a more effective leader and---perhaps even more crucial---you will protect yourself from eventual failure.

Faith-based organizations continue to play a significant role in the provision of social work services in many countries but their role within the welfare state is often contested. This text explores their various roles and relationships to social work practice, includes examples from different countries and a range of religious traditions and identifies challenges and opportunities for the sector. Social Work and Faith-based Organizations discusses issues such as the relationship between faith-based organizations and the state, working with an organization's stakeholders, ethical practice and dilemmas, and faith-based organizations as employers. It also addresses areas of debate and controversy, such as providing services within and for multi-faith communities and tensions between professional codes of ethics and religious doctrine. Accessibly written by a well-known social work educator, it is illustrated by numerous case studies from a range of countries including Australia, the UK and the US. Suitable for social work students taking community or administration courses or undertaking placements in faith-based organizations, this innovative book is also a valuable resource for managers and religious personnel who are responsible for the operation of faith-based agencies.

Claiming Society for God focuses on common strategies employed by religiously orthodox, fundamentalist movements around the world. Rather than employing terrorism, as much of post-9/11 thinking suggests, these movements use a patient, under-the-radar strategy of infiltrating and subtly transforming civil society. Nancy J. Davis and Robert V. Robinson tell the story of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation Army in the United States. They show how these movements build massive grassroots networks of religiously based social service agencies, hospitals, schools, and businesses to bring their own brand of faith to popular and political fronts.

A critical and challenging look at reinventing the synagogue, as the centerpiece of a refashioned Jewish community. "America is undergoing a spiritual revolution: only the fourth religious awakening in its history. I plead, therefore, for an equally spiritual synagogue, knowing that any North American Jewish community that hopes to be around in a hundred years must have religion at its center, with the synagogue, the religious institution that best fits North American culture, at its very core." —from Chapter 1 Synagogues are under attack, and for good reasons. But they remain the religious backbone of Jewish continuity, especially in America, the sole Western industrial or post-industrial nation where religion and spirituality continue to grow in importance. To fulfill their mandate for the American future, synagogues need to replace old and tired conversation with a new way of talking about their goals, their challenges and their vision for the future. In this provocative clarion call for synagogue transformation, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman summarizes a decade of research with Synagogue 2/3000—a pioneering experiment that reconceptualized synagogue life—providing fresh ways for synagogues to think as they undertake the exciting task of global change.

During the twentieth century, religion has gone on the market place. Churches and religious groups are forced to 'sell god' in order to be attractive to 'religious consumers'. More and more, religions are seen as 'brands' that have to be recognizable to their members and the general public. What does this do to religion? How do religious groups and believers react? What is the consequence for society as a whole? This book brings together some of the best international specialists from marketing, sociology and economics in order to answer these and similar questions. The interdisciplinary book treats new developments in three fields that have hitherto evolved rather independently: the commoditization of religion, the link between religion and consumer behavior, and the economics of religion. By combining and cross-fertilizing these three fields, the book shows just what happens when religions become brands.

Contributing to the ongoing excavation of the spiritual lifeworld of Dorothy Day-"the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism"-The Bread of the Strong offers compelling new insight into the history of the Catholic Worker movement, including the cross-pollination between American and Quebecois Catholicism and discourse about Christian antimodernism and radicalism. The considerable perseverance in the heroic Christian maximalism that became the hallmark of the Catholic Worker's personalism owes a great debt to the influence of Lacouturisme, largely under the stewardship of John Hugo, along with Peter Maurin and myriad other critical interventions in Day's spiritual development. Day made the retreat regularly for some thirty-five years and promoted it vigorously both in person and publicly in the pages of The Catholic Worker. Exploring the influence of the controversial North American revivalist movement on the spiritual formation of Dorothy Day, author Jack Lee Downey investigates the extremist intersection between Roman Catholic contemplative tradition and modern political radicalism. Well grounded in an abundance of lesser-known primary sources, including unpublished letters, retreat notes, privately published and long-out-of-print archival material, and the French-language papers of Fr. Lacouture, The Bread of the Strong opens up an entirely new arena of scholarship on the transnational lineages of American Catholic social justice activism. Downey also reveals riveting new insights into the movement's founder and namesake, Quebecois Jesuit Onesime Lacouture. Downey also frames a more reciprocal depiction of Day and Hugo's relationship and influence, including the importance of Day's evangelical pacifism on Hugo, particularly in shaping his understanding of conscientious objection and Christian antiwar work, and how Hugo's ascetical theology animated Day's interior life and spiritually sustained her apostolate. A fascinating investigation into the retreat movement Day loved so dearly, and which she claimed was integral to her spiritual formation, The Bread of the Strong explores the relationship between contemplative theology, asceticism, and radical activism. More than a study of Lacouture, Hugo, and Day, this fresh look at Dorothy Day and the complexities and challenges of her spiritual and social expression presents an outward exploration of the early- to mid-twentieth century dilemmas facing second- and third-generation American Catholics.

Does traditional Jewish life encourage or discourage personal autonomy? To what extent are decisions of Jewish law influenced by subjective factors? Does rabbinic authority extend to all areas of life or does it confine itself to a narrower field of influence? What freedom does a rabbinic authority have to make innovations, and are there grounds for pluralism within the system of Jewish law? These questions cut to the core of Jewish life in the modern world. With the advent of modernity, great emphasis has been placed on the value of personal autonomy. Yet traditional Judaism has historically emphasized the authority of the rabbinic decision maker. The essays in this volume are concerned with exploring the tension between these two poles. Experts from such diverse fields as history, sociology, philosophy, and Jewish law explore the questions raised above. Their analyses are informed not only by their academic expertise but by their deep understanding of the Jewish legal system and Jewish life and their abiding concern for what it means to live that life in the modern world. The contributors to this volume were participants in the Orthodox Forum, an annual gathering of scholars who meet to consider major issues of concern to the Jewish community.

Understanding Muslim Chaplaincy provides a lens through which to explore critical questions relating to contemporary religion in public life, and the institutionalisation of Islam in particular. Providing a rich description of the personnel, practice, and politics of contemporary Muslim chaplaincy, the authors consider the extent to which Muslim chaplaincy might be distinctive in Britain relative to the work of Muslim chaplains in the USA and other countries. This book will make a major contribution to international debate about the place of religion in public life and institutions. This book derives from research that has depended on exclusive access to a wide range of public institutions and personnel who largely work 'behind closed doors'. By making public the work of these chaplains and critically examining the impact of their work within and beyond their institutions, this book offers a groundbreaking study in the field of contemporary religion that will stimulate discussion for many years to come about Islam and Muslims in Western societies.

The rising importance of community organizing in the US and more recently in Britain has coincided with the developing significance of social movements and identity politics, debates about citizenship, social capital, civil society, and religion in the public sphere. At a time when participation in formal political process and membership of faith groups have both declined dramatically, community organizing has provided a new opportunity for small community groups, marginalized urban communities, and people of faith to engage in effective political action through the developments of inter-faith and cross-cultural coalitions of groups. In spite of its renewed popularity, little critical attention has been paid to community organizing.

This book places community organizing within debates about the role of religion in the public sphere and the rise of public theology in recent years. The book explores the history, methodology, and achievements of community organizing, engaging in a series of conversations with key community organizers in the US and Britain. This volume breaks new ground by beginning to articulate a cross-cultural and inter-faith Theology for Community Organizing that arises from fresh readings of Liberation Theology.

Understanding Muslim Chaplaincy provides a lens through which to explore critical questions relating to contemporary religion in public life, and the institutionalisation of Islam in particular. Providing a rich description of the personnel, practice, and politics of contemporary Muslim chaplaincy, the authors consider the extent to which Muslim chaplaincy might be distinctive in Britain relative to the work of Muslim chaplains in the USA and other countries. This book will make a major contribution to international debate about the place of religion in public life and institutions. This book derives from research that has depended on exclusive access to a wide range of public institutions and personnel who largely work 'behind closed doors'. By making public the work of these chaplains and critically examining the impact of their work within and beyond their institutions, this book offers a groundbreaking study in the field of contemporary religion that will stimulate discussion for many years to come about Islam and Muslims in Western societies.

Muhammad b. 'Umar al-Waqidi was a Muslim scholar, born in Medina in the 1st Century. Of his several writings the most significant is the Kitab al-Maghazi, one of the earliest standard histories of the life of the Prophet. Translated into English for the first time, Rizwi Faizer makes available this key text to a new, English-speaking audience. It includes an "Introduction" authored jointly by Rizwi Faizer and Andrew Rippin and a carefully prepared index. The book deals with the events of the Prophet's life from the time of his emigration from Mecca to his death, and is generally considered to be biographical. Bringing together events in the Prophet's life with appropriate passages of Qur'an in a considered sequence, the author presents an interpretation of Islam that existed in his times. It includes citations from the Qur'an, as well as poetry that appears to have been inspired by activities during his life. This English translation of a seminal text on the life of Muhammad is an invaluable addition to the existing literature, and will be of great significance to students and scholars in the field of Islamic studies, Islamic history, Medieval history and Arabic literature.

Ron Geaves demonstrates how the convergence of Prem Rawat, formerly known as Guru Maharaj Ji, and Glastonbury Fayre in 1971 was a key event in understanding the jigsaw that came to be known as 'New Age' spirituality. The book charts the discovery of Prem Rawat in India in 1969 by a small number of British and North American 'hippies', and explores how his arrival in Britain in June 1971, as well as his speech from the pyramid stage at the Fayre at just 13 years old, escalated his activities to make him one of the key influencers of 1970s counterculture spirituality. Both Glastonbury and Prem Rawat have gone on to re-emerge in significantly different identities to the ones presented in 1971. The meeting between the two demonstrates how alternative spiritualities were being formed in the 1960s and how some strands went on to develop into the 'New Age' counterculture that eventually permeated mainstream cultures in Britain and the USA.

The Gentle and Lowly Journal is an ideal companion for anyone desiring to reflect on the biblical truths found in Gentle and Lowly and record their thoughts and prayers as they go.

The future of America, in many ways, depends upon an understanding of the proper role of religion in our shared life as a republic. Discussions and debates on the topic have too often generated noise, platitudes, stereotypes, name-calling, and the distortion of vitally important issues, instead of constructive conversation among citizens--until now.

Of all the voices commenting about American religion today, none is more credible or better known than that of historian Martin E. Marty. A respected scholar, author, editor, and media commentator, he has-perhaps better than anyone else in the field-a deep grasp on the complex issues surrounding public religion.

This is Volume XII of sixteen of the Oriental series looking at Buddhism. It was written in 1926, and looks at the Life of Gotama the Buddha, a religious teacher and reformer. This work is complied from the Pali Canon of the three Pitakas.

This study portrays a man and an age. Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller (1578-1654), author of the famous Mishnah commentary Tosafot yom tov, was a major talmudist, a disciple of the legendary Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, and himself the distinguished chief rabbi of Prague and Cracow. The time in which he lived began as a 'golden age' for the Jews of Prague and the Jews of Poland, an age of prosperity and the rise of Jewish mysticism. During Heller's lifetime, however, the golden age changed to darkness, and prosperity gave way to war, persecution, plague, and massacres. It was the end of the Middle Ages, the last generation before Spinoza and Shabbetai Zevi. Scholar, preacher, religious and communal leader, Heller embodied a religious and cultural ideal; he was the very model of a seventeenth-century rabbi. Born in Germany, he moved from one end of the world of Ashkenazi Jewry to the other, first to Prague, and then to Poland and the Ukraine. His life was enmeshed in a web of family ties, and bounded by complex rules of class and religion. His writing reflects not only the full heritage of medieval Jewish thought and its crystallization in the seventeenth century, but also the time and place in which he lived. In many ways, he exemplified his age, its achievements, and its limitations. Carefully researched and well written, Joseph Davis's work is the definitive biography of Heller. He presents a richly detailed study of Heller's worldview, his conception of Judaism, of the world around him, and of himself within it: the seventeenth century seen through seventeenth-century eyes. Heller was eyewitness to momentous, epoch-making events: the beginning of the Thirty Years' War and the massacres of 1648. He lived through a time of tumultuous change. Texts such as the sermon in which Heller responded to the new astronomy of Brahe and Kepler, or a poem on the massacres of 1648 in which he enlarged the capacity of Hebrew poetry to express horror are significant in the larger context of Jewish and European history. Heller's world-view was not static or motionless. His world changed greatly during his lifetime, and his views of it likewise changed greatly over the fifty years from his first writings to his last, from youth to middle age to old age. His personal circumstances also contributed to this: the experience of betrayal, arrest, imprisonment, the death of his children, and other misfortunes led him to wrestle with such questions as the differences between Jews and non-Jews and the meaning of suffering. Davis weaves these developments succinctly into a fascinating narrative that does full justice both to Heller and the momentous events he experienced.

"Tessas deep intimacy with Teresa of Avila . . . creates an invitational space for readers of any tradition (or none) to enter into their own transformational relationship with the wild woman of Avila."Mirabai Starr. This fresh, upbeat, and deftly profound book joyfully reconnects the fullness of our lives and the depth of our prayer. Much more than yet another book about a great saint who once was, it actually rekindles something of St. Teresas outrageous spiritual impulse for contemporary readers, particularly those who describe themselves as "spiritual, not religious." Tessa Bielecki is the author of several books on St. Teresa of Avila, as well as a former Abbess. "

David Tittensor offers a groundbreaking new perspective on the Gulen movement, a Turkish Muslim educational activist network that emerged in the 1960s and has grown into a global empire with an estimated worth of $25 billion. Named after its leader Fethullah Gulen, the movement has established more than 1,000 secular educational institutions in over 140 countries, aiming to provide holistic education that incorporates both spirituality and the secular sciences. Despite the movement's success, little is known about how its schools are run, or how Islam is operationalized. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Tittensor explores the movement's ideo-theology and how it is practiced in the schools. His interviews with both teachers and graduates from Africa, Indonesia, Central Asia, and Turkey show that the movement is a missionary organization, but of a singular kind: its goal is not simply widespread religious conversion, but a quest to recoup those Muslims who have apparently lost their way through proselytism and to show non-Muslims that Muslims can embrace modernity and integrate into the wider community. Tittensor also examines the movement's operational side and shows how the schools represent an example of Mohammad Yunus's social business model: a business with a social cause at its heart. The House of Service is an insightful exploration of one of the largest transnational Muslim associations in the world today, and will be invaluable for those seeking to understand how Islam will be perceived and practiced in the future.

This study examines one aspect of American women's professionalization and the implications of the cross-cultural dialogue between American woman missionaries and Japanese students and supporters at Kobe College between 1873 and 1909.