This accessible study is the first critical investigation of the cult of saints among Muslims and Jews in medieval Syria and the Near East. Josef Meri's critical reading of a wide range of contemporary sources reveals a vibrant religious culture in which the veneration of saints and pilgrimage to tombs and shrines were fundamental.

Some say Christianity is white man's religion. . . . And it is true that there is a long and ugly history of abuse of African-Americans at the hands of Anglo Christians. Afrocentric interpretations of history often point to slavery, lynchings and the like as proof that Christianity is inherently antiblack. But Craig Keener and Glen Usry contend that Christianity can be Afrocentric. In this massively researched book, they show that racism is not unique to Christianity. More important, they show how "world history is also our history and the Bible is also our book." Black Man's Religion is one of the first of its kind, a pro-Christian reading of religion and history from a black perspective. Fascinating and compelling, it is must reading for all concerned for African-American culture and issues of faith.

The essays in this volume examine some of the fundamental doctrinal convictions of Martin Luther and the Reformation legacy, as well as the maturation and development of these convictions in the theology of Karl Barth. The broad evangelical vision that spans its various confessional tributaries is presented in the essays of this volume. Together these studies serve as a cumulative argument for the ongoing coherence, meaning, and consequence of that vision, one that at its heart is constructive and ecumenical rather than narrowly polemical. Kimlyn J. Bender examines a variety of topics such as the relation of Christ and the Church as understood in the theology of Luther and Barth, the centrality of Christ to an understanding of all the solas of the Reformation, the place and significance of the Reformers in Barth's own thought, and Barth's theology in conversation with distant descendants of the Reformation often neglected, including Baptists in America, Pietists in Europe, and Barth's own complicated relationship with Kierkegaard. Bender concludes his discussion by presenting constructive proposals for a Church and university "on the way" and thus ever-reforming.

Within the scope of the English-language literature on Buddhism, the codes of behavior mandated by Buddhist doctrine represent an infrequently discussed topic. The selections here consist of essays on Buddhism by 17 scholars and practitioners, who address the ongoing evolution of Buddhist doctrine as reflected in its cultural, temporal, political, and geographical accommodations from the earliest days, to the present, and into the future. Past precedent is used as a means of clarifying the precise role of the precepts in the modern world as Buddhists face the 21st century and continue to encounter diverse cultural contexts.

Scholars, practitioners, and students alike will find instructive the theoretical as well as practical issues that are covered, including textual criticism, hermeneutics, cross-cultural studies, theories of action, psychology, death and dying, feminism, business management, challenges to the Western scientific paradigm, and religion in popular culture. Three main questions are explored from diverse perspectives: What was and is the significance of the precepts; how can they best be applied, and creatively adapted, to changing social conditions to best fulfill the original intentions of the Buddha; and how are we to determine present upayic demands to avoid violating those intentions? As many argue in these pages, there is much more at stake in the issue of sila/vinaya than simple guidelines for an obsolete lifestyle to be discarded at will. Rather, the case can be made that they represent an intrinsic part of Buddhist cultivation, even a sine qua non of successful, consummate practice.

This book is a critical study of the role played by architecture and texts in promoting political and religious ideologies in the ancient world. It explains a palace as an element in royal propaganda seeking to influence social concepts about kingship, and a text about a temple as influencing social concepts about the relationship between God and human beings. Applying the methods of analysis developed in built environment studies, the author interprets the palace and temple building programs of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, and Solomon, King of Israel. The physical evidence for the palace and the verbal evidence for the temple are explained as presenting communicative icons intended to influence contemporary political and religious concepts. The volume concludes with innovative interpretations of the contributions of architectural and verbal icons to religious and political reform.

Human leadership is a multifaceted topic in the Hebrew Bible. This holds true not only for the final form of the texts, but also for their literary history. A large range of distributions emerges from the successive sharpening or modification of different aspects of leadership. While some of them are combined to a complex figuration of leadership, others remain reserved for certain individuals. Furthermore, it can be considered a consensus within the scholarly debate, that concepts of leadership have a certain connection to the history of ancient Israel which is, though, hard to ascertain. Up to now, all these aspects of (human) leadership have been treated in a rather isolated manner. Against this background,the volume focuses on the different concepts of leadership in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. Concepts like "priest", "prophet", "judge", and "king" are examined in a literary, (religious-/tradition-) historical and theological perspective. Hence, the volume contributes to biblical theology and sheds new light on the redaction/reception history of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. Not least, it provides valuable insights into the history of religious and/or political "authorities" in Israel and Early Judaism(s).

This timely book aims to change the way we think about religion by putting emotion back onto the agenda. It challenges a tendency to over-emphasise rational aspects of religion, and rehabilitates its embodied, visceral and affective dimensions. Against the view that religious emotion is a purely private matter, it offers a new framework which shows how religious emotions arise in the varied interactions between human agents and religious communities, human agents and objects of devotion, and communities and sacred symbols. It presents parallels and contrasts between religious emotions in European and American history, in other cultures, and in contemporary western societies. By taking emotions seriously, A Sociology of Religious Emotion sheds new light on the power of religion to shape fundamental human orientations and motivations: hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds.