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Given the significance of spiritual direction in modern Christianity, surprisingly little attention has been given to the tradition upon which today’s spiritual direction is built. This book delinates the history of spiritual direction for women and by women within the larger context of the history of Christian spirituality and its understanding of human perfectibility. By examining the ways in which women practiced spiritual direction, this study reveals the degree to which women influenced society by using an avenue of influence previously overlooked by scholars.
Few Western thinkers have been more influential and less known than
Peter Damian (1007-1072). After centuries of neglect and
misinterpretation, the man who emerges from Patricia Ranft's
exhaustive investigation of his writings will surprise many.
Immoderate in rhetoric yet moderate in teachings, Peter Damian is a
man for the ages. Damian began his career in the schools of
northern Italy, but soon joined a community of hermits at Fonte
Avellana. His genius was too brilliant to hide, however, and he was
called forth from solitude to fill the roles of religious reformer,
theologian, adviser, cardinal, preacher, spiritual director, and
papal legate. These roles brought him in contact with the pressing
issues of mid-eleventh-century Italy. Fortunately, he recorded much
of what he did and thought. In many areas he broke with accepted
practices, abandoned old methods, and offered innovative approaches
to problems. The previously unrecognized social theology at the
core of his thought contributed much to the culture developed
during this crucial period of Western history. In the first
comprehensive work based wholly on critical editions of Damian's
writings, Ranft explores all 180 letters of Damian and his vita of
Romuald. She highlights Damian's ideas across a range of topics-
stewardship, social responsibilities, community, class, gender,
ethics, ecology, justice, sexuality, avarice, authority,
individualism, clerical behavior, and labor-and shows how his ideas
influenced the shape of Western culture.
In recent years numerous scholars in disciplines not traditionally
associated with theology have promoted an interesting thesis. They
maintain that one particular Christian doctrine, the Incarnation,
had an inordinate influence on the shape of Western culture. The
doctrine, they say, was so radical that it mandated an
epistemological break with pagan society s perception of the
universe and forced Christians to form a new culture. As medieval
society worked out the consequences of the doctrine, it gave birth
to those attitudes, institutions, and actions that define modern
Western culture. The claims are well argued, but it is a
historically untested thesis. How the Doctrine of Incarnation
Shaped Western Culture is a response to the situation. It
investigates whether the presence of the doctrine had the
definitive effect on Western culture that so many scholars claim it
did. It searches early Christian and medieval sources for evidence
and concludes that the doctrine had a dominant effect on the
developing culture. No other idea was as omnipresent or pervasive
in Western society during its formative stage as the Incarnation
doctrine. The doctrine was influential in the establishment of
every major facet of Western culture. Its paradox, irrationality,
and juxtaposition of opposites created a tension that cried out for
resolution, and society responded accordingly. The ideas within the
doctrine acted as catalysts for cultural change. As a result, the
West developed its most characteristic traits and forged a path
that was uniquely its own."
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