"Epistle on Worship: Risalat al-ubudiyya" aims to shed new light on the thought of Ibn Taymiyya who remains one of the most controversial Islamic thinkers today because of his supposed influence on many fundamentalist movements. In this work, Professor James Pavlin argues that the common understanding of Ibn Taymiyya's ideas has been filtered through fragments of his statements-which have been misappropriated by alleged supporters and avowed critics alike-and that most people still have limited access to Ibn Taymiyya's beliefs and opinions as expressed in his own writings. "Epistle on Worship: Risalat al-ubudiyya" aims to begin filling this gap by presenting an annotated translation of one of Ibn Taymiyya's most important epistles on the theology of worship.---The introduction to "Epistle on Worship: Risalat al-ubudiyya" gives the reader an overview of Ibn Taymiyya's biography, situating him in the broader world of Islamic intellectual history by explaining his methodological arguments and theological opinions, while the annotated translation captures the immediacy of his ideas as they impacted his world as well as the relevancy they have for our times.

Contents: Introduction; The House of My Pilgrimage; The Personal Interrogative -- Arjuna and the Gita; 'So Help Me -- Who?'; Pronounal Jewry -- God's Own People; The Self-Encounter in Judaism; The Muslim Personal Pronoun Singular; The Muslim Personal Pronoun Plural; The 'We' and the 'I' in the New Testament; Two Great Sexes Animate the World; Our Dividual Being -- The Irony of Mystical Union; Faiths' Pronoun-Users Now; Notes; Index of Names and Terms.

The 365 daily readings found in this devotional have been taken from the writings of Watchman Nee, the noted Chinese pastor/writer. They cover a variety of topics but are bound together by a call to experience Christ as our portion--our all.

At the beginning of his gospel, John refers to Jesus Christ as the Logos--the "Word." John Ronning makes a case that the Jewish Targums--interpretive translations of the Old Testament into Aramaic that were read in synagogues--hold the key to understanding John's Logos title. Examining numerous texts in the fourth gospel in the light of the Targums, Ronning shows how connecting the Logos with the targumic Memra (word) unlocks the meaning of a host of theological themes that run throughout the Gospel of John.

Winner of the 2016 Goldstein-Goren Award for the best book in Jewish Thought At once a study of biblical theology and modern Jewish thought, this volume describes a "participatory theory of revelation" as it addresses the ways biblical authors and contemporary theologians alike understand the process of revelation and hence the authority of the law. Benjamin Sommer maintains that the Pentateuch's authors intend not only to convey God's will but to express Israel's interpretation of and response to that divine will. Thus Sommer's close readings of biblical texts bolster liberal theologies of modern Judaism, especially those of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Franz Rosenzweig. This bold view of revelation puts a premium on human agency and attests to the grandeur of a God who accomplishes a providential task through the free will of the human subjects under divine authority. Yet, even though the Pentateuch's authors hold diverse views of revelation, all of them regard the binding authority of the law as sacrosanct. Sommer's book demonstrates why a law-observant religious Jew can be open to discoveries about the Bible that seem nontraditional or even antireligious.

This is a serious, scholarly of liturgy analysis combining historical, philosophical, musicological and liturgical. The volume, like the series, will be aimed at moving the debate about liturgy out of the narrow confines of either 'pastoral liturgy', 'reform of the reform' or nostalgia and bemoaning of the ruination of liturgical tradition to an entirely higher plane, of serious, scholarly, measured analysis combining historical, philosophical, musicological and liturgical. This book advances a provocative and controversial set of proposals for the development of future liturgical reform in its attempt to re-engage with a traditional sense of the Roman Rite. The author is uniquely placed to make the case he does. A mediaevalist and musicologist of unparalleled experience and breadth, Dobszay combines - almost uniquely - a profound knowledge of the history of the development of the Roman Rite - especially the Antiphonary - with a personal interest and passionate concern for the lived experience of the rite itself. The result is a lively and vigorous text based around the idea of the actual liturgical sense of the Roman Rite - meaning a respect for its integrity as an historical tradition that found multiform expression across Europe and also across at least 1600 years, combined with a sympathy for the fact that the rite is still a living entity with a long future ahead of it. "T&T Clark Studies in Fundamental Liturgy" offer cutting edge scholarship from all disciplines related to liturgical study. The books in the series seek to reintegrate biblical, patristic, historical, dogmatic and philosophical questions with liturgical study in ways faithful and sympathetic to classical liturgical enquiry. Volumes in the series include monographs, translations of recent texts and edited collections around very specific themes.

In the Shadow of the Cross examines the historical and theological relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and puts forward a new theory as to the psychological roots of anti-Semitism. Rather than seeing the Oedipal Complex as the pivotal impulse behind the persecution of the Jews, Professor Sheleff proposes that the Rustum Complex provides a better explanation. He illustrates his theory with an in-depth comparison of the central events of the Old and New Testaments: the Akedah - God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac; and the Crucifixion - God's decision to sacrifice his own son, Jesus.

In human progress unity and complexity are the two correlatives forming together the great paradox. Life is manifold, but it is also one. So it is seldom possible, and still more seldom advisable, to divide a civilization into departments and to attempt to trace their separate developments; life nowhere can be cut in two with a hatchet. And this is emphatically true of the civilization of Islam. Its intellectual unity, for good and for evil, is its outstanding quality. It may have solved the problem of faith and science, as some hold; it may have crushed all thought which is not of faith, as many others hold. However that may be, its life and thought are a unity.

The Shariah is one of the most misunderstood and maligned Islamic terms in the West. The word conjures up images of uncivilised Muslims whipping criminals, stoning adulterers and confining women within their homes in the minds of many people. Yet, Shariah literally means a way or a path and, more specifically, the way to a watering place. Far from being a strict penal code it is a humane, compassionate and benevolent system of laws that guides Muslims, based on the Qur'an, the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, and the interpretation of religious scholars. This book is a simple and concise guide to the Shariah (Islamic law) to explain its meaning, scope and operation in practical life, as well as helping readers understand and appreciate its value and necessity in the believer's life.

Despite their distinct theological differences, Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, followers of the two main branches of Islam, share a number of core beliefs including an allegiance to and love for the Prophet Muhammad and members of his family. For Shi'a Muslims, reverence for the Prophet and allegiance to his household (Ahl al-bayt, 'People of the House'), comprising his immediate family and their descendants, constitutes an essential principle of belief that has directly impacted how Shi'i artists, rulers, patrons and ritual participants have conveyed their love and loyalty through material culture and religious ritual. The 22 essays in this volume, richly illustrated with over 200 coloured images, present a diversity of beliefs and practices expressed through the arts, architecture, material culture and ritual that spans Shi'i history from the tenth century to the present day. With contributions from experts in the fields of anthropology, religious studies, art and architectural history, numismatics, film studies and contemporary art, the book also calls attention to the global diversity of the artistic and devotional expressions ofShi'a Muslims from across Trinidad, Senegal, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India and China. Additionally, some essays draw upon important female Shi'i figures and female ritual practices and many chapters underscore the theme oflove for the Ahl al-bayt beyond Sunni and Shi'i demarcations. This work contributes to a growing body of scholarship dedicated to the religious arts and rituals ofShi'a Muslims around the world.

Today's shifting discourses regarding life and death are about theology, medicine, economics, and politics as much as they are about life and death. At the heart of one of these discourses is HIV & AIDS, a pandemic that allows for a slippery discussion about its origins and nature. Those who live in the borderland this pandemic creates are often blamed for the affliction; they are seen as 'dirty.' Yet, those who live or work with persons with HIV & AIDS know another story of marginalizing macrostructures that indicate that the issue is as much structural injustice as individual responsibility. Theology in the Age of Global AIDS and HIV is a courageous and challenging call to look at how dominant theologies have participated in the creation of 'risk environments' for susceptibility to this virus and to act so that our weeping and raging with the suffering helps us learn how to care for one another and be responsible theo-ethicists and global citizens in this age of global AIDS and HIV.

How a religion based on the sacredness of nature deals with the problem of evil.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish refugee from Nazism, became a significant theologian and social activist in the USA, though relatively unknown in the UK. The first part of this book contains a brief biography, which puts his work into context, personally, culturally and historically. His style is examined and he is located as a theologian, with an examination of his "depth theology." Part Two is an examination of "divine pathos," its influence on Christian theologians, its major critics, the theological anthropology that relies on it and interfaith dialogue made possible by it.

This collection of 21 papers were written by leading and emerging critical scholar/practitioners who represent three generations of survivors of imperial invasions and genocidal massacres across the globe. They are from the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific and the Caribbean Islands who are renowned for the depth and urgency of their analyses and their principled ethical and political positions against empire and militarization. The contributors interrogate the oppressive ideologies and mechanisms of the modern empire and its allies and exemplify in particular how militarization has affected various peoples, lands, seas, and skies across the globe. They expose the desecration of lives and the earth by the modern empire and its local allies through various means, ranging from psychological warfare to brute force of advanced technological warfare, leaving an intergenerational impact. The authors have embraced people's cries against mass killings, starvation, rape, militarized prostitution, torture, forced disappearances, land grab, and the destruction of nature caused by modern warfare, as well as people's inherent collective aspiration for liberation of their lives and lands. They help evoke and sharpen the alternate consciousness amongst peoples in furthering resistance, and in envisioning and building a non-imperialist future for us, for our children, and for the planet earth. The authors foreground a breadth of modes of resistance and the places where they have been implemented, sharing with the reader their hard-earned knowledge and stories of truth and liberation, with a prophetic urgency.

Dr. Tillich shows here that in spite of the contrast between philosophical and biblical language, it is neither necessary nor possible to separate them from each other. On the contrary, all the symbols used in biblical religion drive inescapably toward the philosophical quest for being. An important statement of a great theologian's position, this book presents an eloquent plea for the essential function of philosophy in religious thought.

In antiquity, "son of god"-meaning a ruler designated by the gods to carry out their will-was a title used by the Roman emperor Augustus and his successors as a way to reinforce their divinely appointed status. But this title was also used by early Christians to speak about Jesus, borrowing the idiom from Israelite and early Jewish discourses on monarchy. This interdisciplinary volume explores what it means to be God's son(s) in ancient Jewish and early Christian literature. Through close readings of relevant texts from multiple ancient corpora, including the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman texts and inscriptions, early Christian and Islamic texts, and apocalyptic literature, the chapters in this volume engage a range of issues including messianism, deification, eschatological figures, Jesus, interreligious polemics, and the Roman and Jewish backgrounds of early Christianity and the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The essays in this collection demonstrate that divine sonship is an ideal prism through which to better understand the deep interrelationship of ancient religions and their politics of kingship and divinity. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Richard Bauckham, Max Botner, George J. Brooke, Jan Joosten, Menahem Kister, Reinhard Kratz, Mateusz Kusio, Michael A. Lyons, Matthew V. Novenson, Michael Peppard, Sarah Whittle, and N. T. Wright.

A multi cultural collection of third-wave feminist voices, this book reveals how current feminist religious scholars from around the world are integrating social justice and activism into their scholarship and pedagogy.