Maintaining hope in Christ for the weary soul. In the face of trials and tribulations, persevering in the faith can be a difficult task. For Puritan pastor and theologian William Gouge, this question was of critical importance for those he shepherded. His theology of assurance during the difficult seasons in life provided direction and help to weary souls. In Christ Is Yours, Eric Rivera explores Gouge's theology, revealing a man who cared deeply about the truths of Scripture and the spiritual lives of his community. His theology was focused on the promises of God found in Scripture while staying grounded in the realities of life. This message of perseverance and hope is just as necessary for Christ-followers today as it was then. Written for academics and pastors alike, Rivera brings this important theology to a modern audience.

This innovative and sensitive guide to providing spiritual care to people with dementia features original methods drawn from the author's experiences of working with over 1,000 individuals with dementia. It provides creative new ways for chaplains to connect with patients whose spiritual needs are all too often neglected. Ranging from the author's personal experience, factual information about different kinds of dementia and the challenges of pastoral care, it provides instructions for staging a multi-sensory spiritual care intervention with patients. Included are links to exclusive online resources of the author's video presentations and photographs for use in treatment. This insightful work will prove an essential resource for all chaplains working with people living with dementia, and will enable them to achieve both exceptional patient care and a sense of personal accomplishment.

Presenting clergy and chaplains with unique therapeutic tools for helping senior adults enrich their later years, this book gives advice on how to strengthen relationships, find meaning in life and feel comfortable approaching life's final chapter. It guides clergy and chaplains through how to effectively conduct "Soul Legacy" projects, in which older people reflect on what they want to leave behind for their loved ones and how they want to be remembered after they die. It enables older people to pay loved ones personal tributes and show them how important they are. By focusing on others rather than the self, it provides comfort for loved ones as well as the senior adult, prevents loneliness and negative feelings about ageing, and helps adults gradually become comfortable with the challenges of approaching the end of life.

Focusing on how someone in need can best be helped, the author identifies the skills and honesty of the person who wants to help as key to how effective this can be. Looking in detail at the nature of boundaries, willingness to speak from a place of authenticity and to be honestly present to the experience of the individual person, and the sensitive and economical use of language, the author shows how people in a state of deep personal crisis can be richly helped. Taking the view that no set response is always right or always wrong, he argues strongly for the importance of going with what is spontaneous and real in the moment, and responding thoughtfully and with integrity to the experience of the person in need. The book is an inspiration to develop deep awareness about the practice of encounter. Focusing on experiences of crisis and anxiety, the author provides many in-depth case examples, and sample scripts with actual questions and answers included. This short and deceptively simple book will raise awareness of, and broaden the range of, possible interventions for the open-minded reader.

This edited collection about good practice for mental health chaplains and other related professionals looks at how spirituality is viewed across mental health fields. It identifies what mental health chaplaincy is, how mental health chaplaincy interacts with other organisations like the NHS, and what good practice means with examples of positive and fulfilling experiences in mental health settings. The chapters consider some of the main issues of working with the mental health community, such as the place of volunteers, the recovery process, religious diversity and patient safety. They are followed by uplifting case studies, including service user perspectives, to provide a valuable overall insight into mental health chaplaincy and its context in wider mental health services.

American environmentalism historically has been associated with the interests of white elites. Yet religious leaders in the twenty-first century have helped instill concern about the earth among groups diverse in religion, race, ethnicity, and class. How did that happen and what are the implications? Building on scholarship that provides theological and ethical resources to support the "greening" of religion, God and the Green Divide examines religious environmentalism as it actually happens in the daily lives of urban Americans. Baugh demonstrates how complex dynamics related to race, ethnicity, and class factor into decisions to "go green." By carefully examining negotiations of racial and ethnic identities as central to the history of religious environmentalism, this work complicates assumptions that religious environmentalism is a direct expression of theology, ethics, or religious beliefs.

Why does God feel so far away? The reason--and the solution--is in your attachment style. We all experience moments when God's love and presence are tangible. But we also experience feeling utterly abandoned by God. Why? The answer is found when you take a deep look at the other important relationships in your life and understand your attachment style. Through his years working in trauma recovery programs, extensive research into attachment science, and personal experiences with spiritual striving and abuse, licensed therapist Krispin Mayfield has learned to answer the question: Why do I feel so far from God? When you understand your attachment style you gain a whole new paradigm for a secure and loving relationship with God. You'll gain insights about: How you relate to others--both your strengths and weaknesses The practical exercises you can use to grow a secure spiritual attachment to God How to move forward on the spirituality spectrum and experience the Divine connection we all were created for You'll learn to identify and remove mixed messages about closeness with God that you may have heard in church or from well-meaning Christians. With freedom from the past, you can then chart a new path toward intimate connection with the God of the universe.

Healthcare chaplains working as part of interdisciplinary teams are frequently involved in contributing to discussions on all aspects of patients' wellbeing. This insightful collection of case studies shows how chaplains can effectively support patients and their families in making decisions regarding medical care, as well as for their spiritual needs. Reflecting the reality of medical decision-making, each case study follows a format where a chaplain and a non-chaplain (e.g. a doctor or a social worker) gives their response to the example considered, helping the reader to understand the chaplain's role in the decision making and how they can contribute constructively to the process. Adding another layer to the multifaceted role of the chaplain, this is essential reading for any chaplain in healthcare.

In a timely book with a powerful and persuasive message, Dr. Harold G. Koenig addresses federal, state, and local government policy leaders, urging them to more fully integrate religious organizations into the formal disaster response system, and he then provides recommendations on how this can effectively be done. Koenig also advocates faith communities and organizations to learn more about the role they can play in responding to disasters and terrorism.The chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina made extraordinarily clear the gaps in the United States' disaster policies. At the same time, the contributions of organized faith communities were highlights amidst the bungled federal, state, and local responses. One example is the "New York Times," September 9, 2005, headline: "A New Meaning for 'Organized Religion': It Helps the Needy Quickly." But as faith-based organizations look for ways to help, there are few, if any, guidelines for them. This book provides information on the psychological, social, and spiritual responses to trauma. It addresses how the emergency response system works, and the role that religious communities can play in disaster response and recovery in terms of providing emotional and spiritual care for victims. It advocates integrating mental health into emergency response systems directed at those affected by hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and terrorism. "The aim is to help victims of disaster to better cope with the stresses they face, as well as help direct care workers (firefighters, police, health care providers, etc.) to deal better emotionally with the trauma to which they are exposed so they can remain effective and functional on the job," explainsDr. Koenig, whose research on the healing power of faith has been published worldwide. Increasing the resiliency of our communities in the face of disaster is crucial. Religious communities have tremendous potential to contribute to this. Here are guidelines on how to do that more effectively, alongside data on how to facilitate the integration of these contributions with the formal disaster-response system.

"Authentic Fakes "explores the religious dimensions of American popular culture in unexpected places: baseball, the Human Genome Project, Coca-Cola, rock 'n' roll, the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the charisma of Jim Jones, Tupperware, and the free market, to name a few. Chidester travels through the cultural landscape and discovers the role that fakery--in the guise of frauds, charlatans, inventions, and simulations--plays in creating religious experience. His book is at once an incisive analysis of the relationship between religion and popular culture and a celebration of the myriad ways in which invention can stimulate the religious imagination.
Moving beyond American borders, Chidester considers the religion of McDonald's and Disney, the discourse of W.E.B. Du Bois and the American movement in Southern Africa, the messianic promise of Nelson Mandela's 1990 tour to America, and more. He also looks at the creative possibilities of the Internet in such phenomena as Discordianism, the Holy Order of the Cheeseburger, and a range of similar inventions. Arguing throughout that religious fakes can do authentic religious work, and that American popular culture is the space of that creative labor, Chidester looks toward a future "pregnant with the possibilities of new kinds of authenticity."

Offering a model of care that the church can use with survivors of sexual abuse, this supportive book is backed up by Rene Girard's Mimetic Theory throughout. The book proposes that the treatment survivors receive in churches could be greatly improved if instead of adding to a survivor's sense of guilt, difference or isolation or trying to change survivors' thoughts, feelings or behaviour they adopt the role of God as benevolent other. It shows that by adopting these beliefs churches can move past unintentional scapegoating of sexual abuse survivors and into a healing community where survivors feel included on churchgoers' journeys towards health and wholeness.

A collection of readings and reflections for participants in the Inspiring Faith Communities programme.

A new perspective on religions and the environment emerges from this collection. The authors, a diverse group of indigenous and non-native scholars and environmental activists, address compelling and urgent questions facing indigenous communities as they struggle with threats to their own sovereignty, increased market and media globalization, and the conservation of endangered bioregions.

Drawing attention to the pressures threatening indigenous peoples and ways of life, this volume describes modes of resistance and regeneration by which communities maintain a spiritual balance with larger cosmological forces while creatively accommodating current environmental, social, economic, and political changes.

Without an appropriate spiritual care model, it can be difficult to discuss existential questions about death and dying with people who are confronted with life-threatening or incurable diseases. This book offers a simple framework for interpreting existential questions with patients and helping them to cope in end-of-life situations, with illustrative examples from practice. Building on the medieval Ars moriendi tradition, the author introduces a contemporary art of dying model. It shows how to discuss existential questions in a post-Christian context, without moralising death or telling people how they should feel. Written in a straightforward manner, this is a helpful resource for chaplains and clergy, and those with no formal spiritual training, including counsellors, doctors, nurses, allied healthcare workers and other professionals who come into contact with patients in hospitals and hospices.

Die Virtuelle Realitat lasst Menschen in Welten eintauchen, in denen ihr Verantwortungsbereich nur noch verwaschen erkennbar ist. Zudem generiert der Cyberspace Muster mit religioeser Qualitat: Menschen erschaffen sich ihr virtuelles Double. Allein indem man in den Cyberspace eintaucht, kommen neurophysiologisch nachweisbare Glucksgefuhle auf. Die Erlebnisgehalte werden dabei unwichtig; es kommt allein auf die subjektive Erlebnisintensitat an. Das gesuchte Gluck steigt insofern uber die Welt hinaus in ein virtuelles Jenseits. Auf der einen Seite vervielfachen sich menschliche Identitaten, auf der anderen Seite gewinnen Phantasien Kunstlicher Intelligenz an Kontur. Die Autoren gehen der Frage nach, welche Auswirkungen diese Entwicklung fur ethische Subjekte hat, in denen sich Mensch und Maschine vermischen.

The Road of the Heart’s Desire focuses on the emergence of the human race and the individual from an undifferentiated oneness and the return of the individual to the human community and to reflective and differentiated oneness with God. Dunne expresses this reunion through music and language. “Thinking of the human essence, we can discern in story and song a double emergence and separation, that of the human race and that of the individual,” he writes. Dunne traces four cycles of story and song: the unity of all things, an emergence and separation of the human race, the emergence of the individual, and finally a reunion of humanity with “all in all.” The “road of the heart’s desire” is the path each person takes toward this reunion.