"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."

Seelsorge gilt mit Recht als Herzsteck der Pastoral - einer Pastoral, die sich als kreative Konfrontation des Evangeliums mit unserer Gegenwart versteht. Pastoral lasst an Hirten, an bauerliches Leben denken, an biblische Kultur, an Agrikultur - und nicht etwa an heutige Kulturwelten. Die Konfrontation des Evangeliums mit unserer Gegenwart geht von Anfang an mit fremden, wenn nicht befremdlichen Ansprechen einher. Seelsorge ist konzeptionell eine interkulturelle Qualitat eigen, noch bevor Fragen einer interkulturellen Seelsorge laut werden, sei es aufgrund muslimischer Patientinnen und Patienten in katholischen oder evangelischen Krankenhausern, sei es aufgrund auslandischer Priester in Deutschland, sei es aufgrund vielfaltiger Migrations- und Fluchtbewegungen. Seelsorge interkulturell lasst programmatisch anklingen, dass es nicht allein um Gestalten interkultureller Seelsorge geht, sondern um eine Interkulturalitat, wie sie zum Selbstverstandnis jeder Seelsorge gehoert.Zu diesem Band tragen Autorinnen und Autoren mit praktisch-theologischer und insbesondere pastoralpsychologischer Kompetenz bei: Bischof Franz-Josef Bode, Ulrike Elsdoerfer, Ottmar Fuchs, Rebecca Marie Hafner MMS, Martin Kempen, Tobias Kessler CS, Klaus Kiessling, Agnes Lanfermann MMS, Jakob Mertesacker, Peter Claver Narh SVD und Lisa Strassberger.Dieser Band will die aktuellen pastoralpsychologischen Diskussionen inspirieren und vorantreiben. Er richtet sich an Seelsorgerinnen und Theologen sowie an alle, die sich in der Pastoral der Kirchen engagieren und dafer Verantwortung tragen.

Aprenda acerca de...- La epidemia de caidas morales que amenaza tanto a los lideres como a los cristianos en general- Como vivir una vida moral de pureza y santidad- Como guarder su matrimonio de comtaminacion moral- Como proteger su ministerio y su testimonio de las aschanzas del pecado sexual- Porque los pastores y lideres cristianos son blancos para los ataques de Satanas en el area moral- Cuales son las senales de alerta cuando uno corre el peligro de una caida moral- Los deferentes tipos de pecado sexual y lo que la Biblia dice acerca de ellos- Cuales son las influencias que puenden llevar a un problema moral

Larry nos ensena como vivir en pureza de pensamiento y accion. -- Wayne Myers, misionero veterano a Mexico

As head of the Sufi Order in the West, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan has been conducting workshops and giving personal counseling for over thirty years. Introducing Spirituality into Counseling and Therapy sums up Pir Vilayat's experience in applying spiritual principles to everyday life situations, problem solving, and personal growth. Among the topics explored are spiritualizing emotion, personality and the divine inheritance, relationship, creativity, awakening and cause and purpose. Pir Vilayat gives detailed instructions for many meditation practices that can be used to bring fresh insights to bear on specific problems. Everyone concerned with human growth, whether professionally or on a more personal level, will find inspiration in this book.

This enlightening edited collection shows how migration shapes the lives of faith communities - and vice versa - through diverse prisms including diaspora, generational change, cultural conflict, conceptions of 'ministry' and artistic response. The contributors comprise writers, poets and artists from the three largest Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and beyond. They show how issues of migration are addressed through a variety of different media such as theological debate and shared community action, poetry and art. As issues of migration are an important factor in so many political and social debates, faith communities are looking for guidance on how to deepen their theological understanding of migration. This book helps them to reflect on their own practices and experiences, learn from their own traditions and engage in dialogue with diverse communities. *All royalties from book sales will be donated to The Helen Bamber Foundation - a UK-based charity that supports people who have survived extreme physical, sexual and psychological violence.*

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.

This book is an attempt by the author to give us a brief human insight into life behind bars in one of our penal institutions.  It is written from the perspective of someone who has walked the walk with the prisoner for twenty years and now questions the effectiveness of our criminal justice system. She is an advocate for a Restorative Justice System and sees this model as the way forward. She argues that true justice lies in healing for all involved in criminal behaviour, including victim, perpetrator and society. The second part of the book hears the voices of the prisoners in emotionally charged reflections on the reality of life within a prison cell. The author challenges the use of prisons to deal with addictions, mental health issues and homelessness.Where prisons are needed, as they are for a small cohort of people, they should be open institutions dedicated to rehabilitation based on the needs of the individual and on societal needs of the time.  

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

"Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants captures the fascinating diversity of faith-based resistance around U.S. immigration issues. While much attention is given to the destructive aspects of fundamentalism, this book reveals that other religious groups are working constructively and tenaciously for the rights of those who are marginalized and mistreated."-Sharon Erickson Nepstad, author of Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement "This timely volume is the first social science analysis to focus on the influence of religion on social justice issues for immigrants."-Helen Rose Ebaugh, coauthor of Religion and the New Immigrants Religion has jumped into the sphere of global and domestic politics in ways that few would have imagined a century ago. Some expected that religion would die as modernity flourished. Instead, it now stares at us almost daily from the front pages of newspapers and television broadcasts. Although it is usually stories about the Christian Right or conservative Islam that grab headlines, there are many religious activists of other political persuasions that are working quietly for social justice. This book examines how religious immigrants and religious activists are working for equitable treatment for immigrants in the United States. The essays in this book analyze the different ways in which organized religion provides immigrants with an arena for mobilization, civic participation, and solidarity. Contributors explore topics including how non-Western religious groups such as the Vietnamese Caodai are striving for community recognition and addressing problems such as racism, economic issues, and the politics of diaspora; how interfaith groups organize religious people into immigrant civil rights activists at the U.S.-Mexican border; and how Catholic groups advocate governmental legislation and policies on behalf of refugees. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo is a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Proven, Healing Ways to Speak the Truth in Love
Now in a fresh package, this classic on learning the art of true communication is good news for all. The author uses Scripture, case histories, and dialogue to impart timeless principles that can heal damaged relationships, strengthen everyday communication, and help people avoid the traps of manipulation that often disrupt the free flow of honest discussion. Readers will find this information invaluable in every relationship of life--especially those that don't come easy.

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.

This Sacred Earth was the first comprehensive survey of the critical connections between religion, nature and the environment. In this second edition, Roger Gottlieb has added nearly forty new selections, dramatically expanding the book's multicultural range, chronicling the explosive growth of ecotheology and religious environmental activism, and including responses to globalization.
This Sacred Earth includes selections from sacred texts and a broad spectrum of new eco-theological writings. It begins with spiritual reflections by naturalists. Surveying traditional religious myths, creation stories, and conceptions of nature - with extensive selections from Jewish Christian, Native American, Indian, African, Chinese, and indigenous texts and commentators - the contributors focus on religion in the age of environmental crisis. We see how individuals and institutions are reinterpreting and transforming old traditions, and eco-feminists are challenging patriarchal perspectives. In the final section, contributors crystallize the complex relations between religion, ecology and society, including the role of religion in environmental political movements.
This ground-breaking collection offers a comprehensive examination of religion's complex relationship to the environment.