Description: Steven Lewis's Landscape as Sacred Space: Metaphors for the Spiritual Journey invites new discussions about our spiritual journeys and allows seekers to rethink approaches to Christian spirituality and theology in light of postmodernity. Landscape metaphors provide a common and accessible language to articulate one's spiritual journey. Spiritual mountains, deserts, and valleys are dominant landscapes on our journey through life. Most people have experienced the joy of a mountaintop spiritual experience, the pain of spiritual deserts, or perhaps the dreariness too often associated with spiritual valleys. There is a tendency, however, to highlight spiritual mountaintops, while avoiding spiritual deserts and ignoring spiritual valleys. This leaves many Christians ill-equipped either to deal with crises or to integrate God into ordinary life. Each landscape offers rich lessons that, when combined together, lead us toward a maturing faith and into a deeper relationship with God. Landscape as Sacred Space is intended to aid those who search for more meaningful ways to articulate their faith journey. The book grants permission to struggle with life's landscapes, provides safe spaces to reflect on the journey, and introduces language that enables exploration and discovery. Endorsements: ""Mountaintops, deserts, and valleys--physical spaces at once familiar yet strange and apt metaphors for moments in any person's life. Steve Lewis employs these landscapes to help Christians consider the familiar and the strange, the welcome and the avoided dimensions of their own journeys of life and faith. Drawing on biblical resources and classic traditions in spirituality to develop these landscape metaphors, Lewis invites readers to a deeper appreciation of a disciple's journey, a fuller sense of the myriad ways God invites a disciple into intimacy, and a more finely honed sensitivity to God's actions in the world. A refreshing perspective on the spiritual journey."" --Patricia O'Connell Killen, Pacific Lutheran University co-author of The Art of Theological Reflection. About the Contributor(s): Steven Lewis, PhD, is the Academic Dean at Bangor Theological Seminary in Portland, Maine.

Do scientists see conflict between science and faith? Which cultural factors shape the attitudes of scientists toward religion? Can scientists help show us a way to build collaboration between scientific and religious communities, if such collaborations are even possible? To answer these questions and more, the authors of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion completed the most comprehensive international study of scientists' attitudes toward religion ever undertaken, surveying more than 20,000 scientists and conducting in-depth interviews with over 600 of them. From this wealth of data, the authors extract the real story of the relationship between science and religion in the lives of scientists around the world. The book makes four key claims: there are more religious scientists than we might think; religion and science overlap in scientific work; scientists - even atheist scientists - see spirituality in science; and finally, the idea that religion and science must conflict is primarily an invention of the West. Throughout, the book couples nationally representative survey data with captivating stories of individual scientists, whose experiences highlight these important themes in the data. Secularity and Science leaves inaccurate assumptions about science and religion behind, offering a new, more nuanced understanding of how science and religion interact and how they can be integrated for the common good.