What is the place of religious belief in modern culture? Recent years have seen cataclysmic chab=nges in society, yet, far from being banished from today's world, religion is assuming a new significance. Clashing Symbols has become recognised as the most accessible and authoritative introduction to a crucial area in religious studies: the relationship between faith and culture.

Movies are often examined for subtext and dramatizations of social and psychological issues as well as current movements. Studies of well-known Catholic directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford, have made the search for Catholic themes a reputable field of examination. Through a Catholic Lens continues the search for these themes and examines the Catholic undercurrents by studying nineteen film directors from around the world. Although these directors may or may not be practicing Catholics, their Catholic background can be found in their writing and directing. Each chapter, written by a different contributor, analyzes one film of each director for its Catholic motifs. With the recent increase of cinema studies, this collection will be of interest to students and academics as well as cinema buffs.

Support development of personal and professional skills and their relationship to the reflective project, with emphasis on critical skills development for the workplace and ongoing career development. - Break down and evaluate the five main areas of Personal Development, Intercultural Understanding, Effective Communication, Thinking Processes and Applied Ethics, in both business and personal contexts. - Ensure understanding of how the five main areas and the personal and professional skills link to the reflective project. - Engage students with action-based chapters with activities divided into three categories: thinking, doing and reflecting. - Develop attitudes, skills and strategies to be applied to personal and professional situations and contexts, now and in the future. - Support visual learners with an infographic at the start of each chapter relating to the themes of the chapter. - Feel supported with detailed introductory advice on how to approach the Personal and Professional Skills course.

Much of the language of the church--messiah, kingdom, lord--belongs to the realm of politics as much as it does that of religion. Yet, given the tendency in Western society to treat politics as the business of government and moral instruction as the prerogative of the church, the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is habitually regarded as an example of the latter to the neglect of its political content. This book challenges this limitation of politics to statecraft as it identifies Christian social practices, such as nonviolence, enemy-love, and unlimited generosity, as laying the foundation for a community that is more truly political, that is, more properly ordered, than are its secular alternatives. The close exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount unfolds through an engagement with the theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez and John Howard Yoder. Indeed, this study brings together the work of these two important twentieth-century theologians for the first time. New Testament and theological scholars and students as well as those interested in the relation of religion and politics will learn from and be challenged by this important book.

Movies are often examined for subtext and dramatizations of social and psychological issues as well as current movements. Studies of well-known Catholic directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford, have made the search for Catholic themes a reputable field of examination. Through a Catholic Lens continues the search for these themes and examines the Catholic undercurrents by studying nineteen film directors from around the world. Although these directors may or may not be practicing Catholics, their Catholic background can be found in their writing and directing. Each chapter, written by a different contributor, analyzes one film of each director for its Catholic motifs. With the recent increase of cinema studies, this collection will be of interest to students and academics as well as cinema buffs.