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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Religious institutions & organizations
George W. Bush has invited more analysis and controversy over the
impact of religion on his presidency than perhaps any chief
executive of the modern era. Opinion on Bush's religiosity is
intensely divisive, with conservative evangelicals seeing him as a
man of deep faith and principles and at the same time many
progressives seeing the president as almost dangerously fanatical.
This volume is a scholarly review and analysis of the role of
religion in the Bush presidency. It is divided into two sections of
essays by leading scholars: The first examines the impact of
various religious voting groups to the 2004 presidential campaign.
The second reviews and assesses the impact of religion on the
policies of the George W. Bush presidency.
As understanding and awareness of abuse has grown, many revelations
of church leaders abusing their power have come to light. How did
the church get here? Is there a way we can address both individual
and institutional failings to counter the misuse of power and, more
importantly, prevent it in first place? Powerful Leaders? exposes
and explores how leaders are tempted away from a biblical model of
leadership into illegitimate - and in the worst cases abusive - use
of authority and power. Director of Living Leadership, a charity
that focuses on healthy leadership and church culture, Marcus
Honeysett traces how leaders move along a spectrum of healthy to
unhealthy uses of power and position and offers practical wisdom
for countering and preventing harmful leadership. Drawing on his
years of experience in the local church and working with leaders
and congregations, Honeysett unpacks how to spot danger signs of
abuse in the church and provides advice on what to do if you see or
are under unhealthy leadership. He also explores why people don't
blow the whistle and encourages critical self-examination in
existing leaders to ensure they maintain a healthy use of power -
and offers guidance to help leaders improve their skills and move
back towards healthy, biblically-based leadership. For anyone
concerned about improving safeguarding in the church, Powerful
Leaders? will prove a valuable resource. It challenges and equips
both those in leadership and those in a position to hold leaders
accountable, and will empower them to take the necessary steps
forward to create healthier church cultures in which everyone can
thrive.
This volume addresses the problematic relationship between
colonialism and the Bible. It does so from the perspective of the
Global South, calling upon voices from Africa and the Middle East,
Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The
contributors address the present state of the problematic
relationship in their respective geopolitical and geographical
contexts. In so doing, they provide sharp analyses of the past, the
present, and the future: historical contexts and trajectories,
contemporary legacies and junctures, and future projects and
strategies. Taken together, the essays provide a rich and expansive
comparative framework across the globe.
Just as Christianity has its Vatican in Rome, modern Daoism boasts
of a unique center of religious authority and administration: the
Temple of the White Clouds (Baiyun guan) in Beijing, seat of the
general headquarters of the Chinese Daoist Association. This temple
complex in Beijing, called by Dr Esposito "modern Daoism's
Vatican," houses the grave of the mythical founder of Daoism's
Quanzhen tradition and celebrates the patriarchs of its Longmen
("Dragon Gate") branch as his legitimate heirs. Monica Esposito
describes in this book how Daoist masters and historiographers in
China, much like their Catholic counterparts in Europe, invented a
glorious patriarchal lineage as well as a system of ordination
designed to perpetuate orthodox transmission and central control.
They also created a kind of New Testament: a new canonical
collection of scriptures entitled "The Gist of the Daoist Canon"
(Daozang jiyao). It contains hundreds of texts including the Daoist
classic The Secret of the Golden Flower which achieved fame through
the commentary by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. A classic
study on the invention of religious traditions, the four parts of
Creative Daoism describe in detail the construction of the Daoist
Vatican's lineage of patriarchs, system of ordination, canon of
sacred scriptures, and doctrine of universal salvation.
* Provides the only practical resource available to teach Buddhism
as a complete counselling model. * The book will benefit western
students by offering a non-western approach to counselling, raising
their multicultural sensitivity to different assumptions about
mental health. * Includes contemplative exercises, practise
exercises, a list of Buddhist and psychological techniques for the
Buddhist counselling model, plus additional reading suggestions.
Eros and the Pearl is the first monograph devoted to the Yezidi
cosmogonic myth. It is based on the author’s field research among
the Yezidi people in Iraq, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia. The author
focuses on the analysis of the cosmogonic motif of Pearl and Love
and, referring to various source materials, traces the presence of
analogous threads in other religious traditions, esp. Yarsanism,
Mandaeism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, as well as the
Greek philosophical concepts of Eros and the primordial One that
influenced Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Early Christianity, and Sufism.
Demonstrating the complexity of the Yezidi tradition, the author
also points to Harranian ‘Sabians’ as those who may have
contributed to its beliefs at the beginning of the formation of the
Yezidi religion.
Written by a brilliant scholar, this book is the first volume of a
major work, which makes full use of the very rich documentary
material still surviving and relates it to the evidence of the
chronicles. Oriental sources are not disregarded: use is made of
Arabic material and the latest archaeological discoveries in the
Near East. The author has concentrated upon the Order as an
institution in the crusader states and as a powerful international
religious corporation. He considers its growth to power, its
participation in the polititcs of the Latin settlement in the East,
its organisation, its position as an exempt Order of the Church,
its properties and its methods of administration as a landlord in
feudal states. For the first time, the Order of St John is treated
in a way that is neither hostile nor romantically partisan: and the
author's conclusions differ from those of other historians. In his
description of the Hospitallers' policies, the place they occupied
in the government of Latin Syria, their privileges and the way they
lived, he shows how it was thay they - individuals as well as the
corporate body - played such a significant part in the history of
the Christian East in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This
book is important to all those interested in the Knights of St
John, the international Orders of mediaeval Christendom or the
extra-ordinary states established by western Europeans on the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
* Provides the only practical resource available to teach Buddhism
as a complete counselling model. * The book will benefit western
students by offering a non-western approach to counselling, raising
their multicultural sensitivity to different assumptions about
mental health. * Includes contemplative exercises, practise
exercises, a list of Buddhist and psychological techniques for the
Buddhist counselling model, plus additional reading suggestions.
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.
Franciscan Lectio is for all those on a spiritual journey who long
to see the world more beautifully and deeply and become more
attentive and present. An ancient tradition dating back to the
third century, lectio divina has long served as an avenue of
contemplative prayer, but the practice has often been systematized,
intellectualized, or only practiced by monastics. Few authors have
attempted to universalize lectio using contemporary language or
approach it from a Franciscan perspective. St. Paul says that the
Word of God is alive and active in our hearing, and if the
incarnation is true, then the Word can be experienced in all
places. Lectio, therefore, is not only a spiritual practice for
reading sacred texts but can be applied to any felt experience. Our
experiences, too, are sacred: we need only to acknowledge their
depth and beauty. In the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, we can
see the God of all creation who has always been "hidden in plain
sight"-a presence that shows forth in every created thing. In
Franciscan Lectio, Fr. Dan Riley comes alongside us in our own
encounters with lectio and inspires our spiritual imagination
through story, art, poetry, nature, Franciscan mysticism, and
Scripture - helping us to see that all of life is unitive and
sacred.
In medieval Europe, the death of a king could not only cause a
dispute about the succession, but also a severe crisis. In times of
a vacant throne particular responsibility fell to the bishops -
whose general importance for the time around the first milennium
has been revealed by recent scholarship - as royal counsellors and
policy makers. This volume therefore concentrates on the bishops'
room for manoeuvre and the patterns of episcopal power, focusing on
the Eastern Frankish Reich and Anglo-Saxon England in a comparative
approach which is not least based upon the research of a renowned
medievalist, Timothy Reuter. His article about "A Europe of
Bishops" ("Ein Europa der Bischofe") is presented in English
translation for the first time."
""What I particularly appreciated as I read through these texts is
that each one is an engaging meditation that combines sound
theology with poetic skill. I think they would be an enrichment to
any worshiping community and certainly food for personal reflection
and prayer."" The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop of
the Episcopal Church Before Michael Hudson was ordained, he was a
successful songwriter in the Contemporary Christian field with 75
hymns to his credit. As his journey led him to become a liberal
Anglican, he turned his considerable skill at matching text and
tune to writing hymn texts. He began a spiritual discipline of
writing a text for each of the gospels of the three-year cycle of
Scripture readings. The result is a collection of 153 beautiful,
evocative, and very singable poetic hymn texts. Each text can be
sung to at least one familiar hymn tune, making the material easily
accessible to congregations. A hymn tune index and a thematic index
provide additional planning possibilities. Based on the Episcopal
lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer, hymn tunes are suggested
for each text and are indexed metrically so that substitutions may
be made when necessary. Songs may be reproduced for congregational
use.
Protests of neoliberal globalization have proliferated in recent
years, not least in response to the financial crisis, austerity and
increasing inequality. But how do religious groups organize
themselves in response to these issues? This book systematically
studies the relationship of religious activism towards neoliberal
globalization. It considers how religious organizations often play
a central role in the resistance against global capitalism,
endeavouring to offer alternatives and developments for reform. But
it also examines the other side of the coin, showing how many
religious groups help to diffuse neoliberal values, promote and
reinforce practices of capitalism. Drawing on a unique set of case
studies from around the world, the chapters examine a range of
groups and their practices in order to provide a thorough
examination of the relationship between religion and the global
political economy.
Protests of neoliberal globalization have proliferated in recent
years, not least in response to the financial crisis, austerity and
increasing inequality. But how do religious groups organize
themselves in response to these issues? This book systematically
studies the relationship of religious activism towards neoliberal
globalization. It considers how religious organizations often play
a central role in the resistance against global capitalism,
endeavouring to offer alternatives and developments for reform. But
it also examines the other side of the coin, showing how many
religious groups help to diffuse neoliberal values, promote and
reinforce practices of capitalism. Drawing on a unique set of case
studies from around the world, the chapters examine a range of
groups and their practices in order to provide a thorough
examination of the relationship between religion and the global
political economy.
Justice in the City argues, based on the rabbinic textual
tradition, especially the Babylonian Talmud, and utilizing French
Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas' framework of interpersonal
ethics, that a just city should be a community of obligation. That
is, in a community thus conceived, the privilege of citizenship is
the assumption of the obligations of the city towards Others who
are not always in view - workers, the poor, the homeless. These
Others form a constitutive part of the city. The second part of the
book is a close analysis of homelessness, labor, and restorative
justice from within the theory that was developed. This title will
be useful for scholars and students in Jewish studies, especially
rabbinic literature and Jewish thought, but also for those
interested in contemporary urban issues.
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom offers a new history of the field of
Egyptian monastic archaeology. It is the first study in English to
trace how scholars identified a space or site as monastic within
the Egyptian landscape and how such identifications impacted
perceptions of monasticism. Brooks Hedstrom then provides an
ecohistory of Egypt's tripartite landscape to offer a reorientation
of the perception of the physical landscape. She analyzes
late-antique documentary evidence, early monastic literature, and
ecclesiastical history before turning to the extensive
archaeological evidence of Christian monastic settlements. In doing
so, she illustrates the stark differences between idealized
monastic landscape and the actual monastic landscape that was
urbanized through monastic constructions. Drawing upon critical
theories in landscape studies, materiality and phenomenology,
Brooks Hedstrom looks at domestic settlements of non-monastic and
monastic settlements to posit what features makes monastic
settlements unique, thus offering a new history of monasticism in
Egypt.
A friendly and affirming collection of 52 secular essays with
interactive journaling prompts for those seeking spiritual
connection and comfort outside the confines of organized religion.
In Sermons on the Couch, Cindy Gentry offers weekly sermons that
meet people where they are—whether religious or spiritual,
agnostic or atheist. Instead of references to deities, her lessons
are placed in the context of a force in the Universe. Instead of
Biblical quotes, she uses the wise words of celebrities,
scientists, poets, and thinkers. Rather than traditional hymns, she
closes each sermon with suggested popular songs from across genres.
At the end of each Sermon, she offers journal questions to guide
further contemplation of the weekly topic. For example, the
book’s opening sermon is titled “Resolutions.” To avoid the
self-criticism that comes from not following through on
resolutions, Cindy suggests reframing them into more general goals
such as becoming a happier, healthier person, improving
relationships, and making the world a better place. Journal
questions prompt reflection on past experiences with resolutions
and what the reader might do differently this year, and the hymn
selection for this sermon is New Beginning, by Tracy Chapman.
Writes Cindy, “So, that is my mission. To enjoy a laugh and a
song, but most of all, to remind people each week, despite the
crazy ups and downs of life, that they are perfect in their
imperfections, the Universe loves them unconditionally, and that we
can hold on to each other.”
What is the foundation of work that lasts? As Christians in a
hypermobile culture, most of the time we talk about going and
doing, about the need for meaningful action, service, and
pilgrimage. Here, we listen to a quieter call. We consider the
foundation, the roots, the bass note, that place of origin from
which the building rises and the fruit blooms and the music soars
and all the action comes-the place of stability. This call is
rooted in the being of God; the faithfulness, reliability, and
unchanging character of God. Drawing from some of the best writings
on Benedictine spirituality and from his personal experiences
raising a family, pastoring a church, and spending time living with
monks, Nathan Oates offers a compelling invitation to find inner
peace and stillness right where we are. When faced with decisions
to stay or go, we rarely consider a beautiful, challenging third
option-embracing the value of stability, which is moving closer to
the root. Rather than pulling up our tents or simply enduring, we
can choose to press deeper into the core of the question, to lean
into the source of life, the real need, the true passion.
Honorable Mention, Theology and Religious Studies PROSE Award A
powerful insight into the historical and cultural roles of the
black church If we are in a post-racial era, then what is the
future of the Black Church? If the US will at some time in the
future be free from discrimination and prejudices that are based on
race how will that affect the church's very identity? In The Ground
Has Shifted, Walter Earl Fluker passionately and thoroughly
discusses the historical and current role of the black church and
argues that the older race-based language and metaphors of
religious discourse have outlived their utility. He offers instead
a larger, global vision for the black church that focuses on young
black men and other disenfranchised groups who have been left
behind in a world of globalized capital. Lyrically written with an
emphasis on the dynamic and fluid movement of life itself, Fluker
argues that the church must find new ways to use race as an
emancipatory instrument if it is to remain central in black life,
and he points the way for a new generation of church leaders,
scholars and activists to reclaim the black church's historical
identity and to turn to the task of infusing character, civility,
and a sense of community among its congregants.
From 1642 to 1654 Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was the hakham (Torah
scholar) and spiritual leader of the oldest Jewish community in the
New World. As a Hebrew grammarian, a poet, and a mystic, as well as
an excellent and very popular preacher, Aboab da Fonseca (born
1605) was not only one of the most interesting Jewish personalities
of the seventeenth century, but his writings are an invaluable
historical resource with regard to many aspects of Jewish life in
Dutch Colonial Brazil, the local attitudes towards Jews, and
corroboration of events outlined in contemporary literary sources.
His forebears were so-called New Christians, having undergone
compulsory conversion to Catholicism in Portugal. In order to be
able to live freely as professing Jews, the family moved in about
1612 to Amsterdam. There, Hakham Isaac Uziel of Fez became his
Talmud teacher; among his colleagues was Menasseh Ben Israel. In
1638 he was confirmed as one of the four hakhamim of the new
congregation Talmud Torah of Amsterdam. In 1641/42 he accepted the
nomination for hakham of the growing Jewish community in Recife,
Brazil, where he was in charge of all rabbinical functions and gave
lectures in Talmud and Hebrew. In the interim he wrote the Hebrew
grammar Melekhet ha-Dikduk, published here in translation for the
first time. Aboab da Fonseca enjoyed a few prosperous years until
the Portuguese rebellion caused the economic ruin of the Jews of
Dutch Brazil. His salary much reduced, he nevertheless remained to
lead and help his people until the occupation of Recife by
Brazilian-Portuguese troops on January 26, 1654. Upon returning to
Amsterdam, his inclination toward mysticism made him one of the
leading believers in the false messiah Shabbetai Zvi. But his
writing and scholarship remained undiminished: In 1646 he wrote
Zekher asiti leniflaot El, in which he described events in Dutch
Brazil after the outbreak of the war; he also published a Hebrew
translation of the Spanish cabbalistic works of Abraham Cohen
Herrera, Casa de Dios y Puerta del Cielo, under the title Shaar
ha-Shamayim (The Gate of Heaven). This first scholarly monograph on
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and his intellectual and spiritual
contributions, includes discussion of his commentary on the
Pentateuch entitled Parafrasis Comentada sobre el Pentateuco, as
well as a consideration of Aboabs involvement in the ban of
Spinoza.
A Handbook of Chaplaincy Studies explores fundamental issues and
critical questions in chaplaincy, spanning key areas of health
care, the prison service, education and military chaplaincy.
Leading authors and practitioners in the field present critical
insight into the challenges and opportunities facing those
providing professional spiritual care. From young men and women in
the military and in custody, to the bedside of those experiencing
life's greatest traumas, this critical examination of the role
played by the chaplain offers a fresh and informed understanding
about faith and diversity in an increasingly secular society. An
invaluable compendium of case-studies, academic reflection and
critical enquiry, this handbook offers a fresh understanding of
traditional, contemporary and innovative forms of spiritual
practice as they are witnessed in the public sphere. Providing a
wide-ranging appraisal of chaplaincy in an era of religious
complexity and emergent spiritualities, this pioneering book is a
major contribution to a relatively underdeveloped field and sets
out how the phenomenon of chaplaincy can be better understood and
its practice more robust and informed.
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