Links film history with church history over the past century, illuminating America's broader relationship with religious currents over time Moments of prayer have been represented in Hollywood movies since the silent era, appearing unexpectedly in films as diverse as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Frankenstein, Amistad, Easy Rider, Talladega Nights, and Alien 3, as well as in religiously inspired classics such as Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments. Here, Terry Lindvall examines how films have reflected, and sometimes sought to prescribe, ideas about how one ought to pray. He surveys the landscape of those films that employ prayer in their narratives, beginning with the silent era and moving through the uplifting and inspirational movies of the Great Depression and World War II, the cynical, anti-establishment films of the 60s and 70s, and the sci-fi and fantasy blockbusters of today. Lindvall considers how the presentation of cinematic prayer varies across race, age, and gender, and places the use of prayer in film in historical context, shedding light on the religious currents at play during those time periods. God on the Big Screen demonstrates that the way prayer is presented in film during each historical period tells us a great deal about America's broader relationship with religion.

In Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean, Anna Collar and Troels Myrup Kristensen bring together diverse scholarship to explore the socioeconomic dynamics of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage from archaic Greece to Late Antiquity, the Greek mainland to Egypt and the Near East. This broad chronological and geographical canvas demonstrates how our modern concepts of religion and economy were entangled in the ancient world. By taking material culture as a starting point, the volume examines the ways that landscapes, architecture, and objects shaped the pilgrim's experiences, and the manifold ways in which economy, belief and ritual behaviour intertwined, specifically through the processes and practices that were part of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage over the course of more than 1,500 years.

The Jewish practice of bar mitzvah dates back to the twelfth century, but this ancient cultural ritual has changed radically since then, evolving with the times and adapting to local conditions. For many Jewish-American families, a child's bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah is both a major social event and a symbolic means of asserting the family's ongoing connection to the core values of Judaism. Coming of Age in Jewish America takes an inside look at bar and bat mitzvahs in the twenty-first century, examining how the practices have continued to morph and exploring how they serve as a sometimes shaky bridge between the values of contemporary American culture and Judaic tradition. Interviewing over 200 individuals involved in bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies, from family members to religious educators to rabbis, Patricia Keer Munro presents a candid portrait of the conflicts that often emerge and the negotiations that ensue. In the course of her study, she charts how this ritual is rife with contradictions; it is a private family event and a public community activity, and for the child, it is both an educational process and a high-stakes performance. Through detailed observations of Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, and independent congregations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Munro draws intriguing, broad-reaching conclusions about both the current state and likely future of American Judaism. In the process, she shows not only how American Jews have forged a unique set of bar and bat mitzvah practices, but also how these rituals continue to shape a distinctive Jewish-American identity.

Divination, the use of special talents and techniques to gain divine knowledge, was practiced in many different forms in ancient Israel and throughout the ancient world. The Hebrew Bible reveals a variety of traditions of women associated with divination. This sensitive and incisive book by respected scholar Esther J. Hamori examines the wide scope of women's divinatory activities as portrayed in the Hebrew texts, offering readers a new appreciation of the surprising breadth of women's "arts of knowledge" in biblical times. Unlike earlier approaches to the subject that have viewed prophecy separately from other forms of divination, Hamori's study encompasses the full range of divinatory practices and the personages who performed them, from the female prophets and the medium of En-dor to the matriarch who interprets a birth omen and the "wise women" of Tekoa and Abel and more. In doing so, the author brings into clearer focus the complex, rich, and diverse world of ancient Israelite divination.

Behind the stereotype of a solitary meditator closing his eyes to the world, meditation always takes place in close interaction with the surrounding culture. Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context explores cases in which the relation between meditative practice and cultural context is particularly complex. The internationally-renowned contributors discuss practices that travel from one culture to another, or are surrounded by competing cultures. They explore cultures that bring together competing practices, or that are themselves mosaics of elements of different origins. They seek to answer the question: What is the relationship between meditation and culture? The effects of meditation may arise from its symbolic value within larger webs of cultural meaning, as in the contextual view that still dominates cultural and religious studies. They may also be psychobiological responses to the practice itself, the cultural context merely acting as a catalyst for processes originating in the body and mind of the practitioner. Meditation and Culture gives no single definitive explanation, but taken together, the different viewpoints presented point to the complexity of the relationship.

If prayer has ever felt frustrating, complicated, laborious or even useless to you, this book has the potential to give you a fresh perspective on the heart of prayer. The author shares her experience of crying out, "Lord, teach me to pray " and the Holy Spirit's response to her cries. Included are six lessons about the principles of prayer and the author's gained insight into why prayer is a necessity; the very heartbeat of a believer. These insights can move you into a place of simplicity and rest in prayer and reveal that prayer is not something you do, but rather someone you become; a pray-er.

Japan's Sexual Gods is an authoritative and original work that describes the unique deities represented by sexual objects in certain Japanese shrines and temples. Hundreds of sexual shrines still exist in spite of previous repression and range from the Tagata Shrine with its well-known giant festival phallus to small obscure places. Many also contain female sexual imagery and some phalluses act in a protective role. The study is based on observations of over 500 sexual sites including phallic festivals, many of which are modern inventions created purely for commercial reasons. The study makes an assessment of the place of sexual beliefs in modern Japan and includes almost 300 stunning original photographs, a glossary and a highly detailed map.