Author: Benjamin Schewel Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300231415 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 261
Book Description
An ambitious scholar’s lucid analysis of religion’s shifting place in the modern world. Western intellectuals have long theorized that religion would undergo a process of marginalization and decline as the forces of modernity advanced. Yet recent events have disrupted this seductively straightforward story. As a result, while religion has somehow evolved from its tribal beginnings up through modernity and into the current global age, there is no consensus about what kind of narrative of religious change we should alternatively tell. Seeking clarity, Benjamin Schewel organizes and evaluates the prevalent narratives of religious history that scholars have deployed over the past century and are advancing today. He argues that contemporary scholarly discourse on religion can be categorized according to seven central narratives: subtraction, renewal, transsecular, postnaturalist, construct, perennial, and developmental. Examining the basic logic, insights, and limitations of each of these narratives, Schewel ranges from Martin Heidegger to Muhammad Iqbal, from Daniel Dennett to Charles Taylor, to offer an incisive, broad, and original perspective on religion in the modern world. “The book should be a widely read guide to the ideas that structure many of the debates scholars are having today about the meaning of postsecularism and future of religion.” —Geoffrey Cameron, Review of Faith and International Affairs "What is the future of religion and how should we narrate its past? For all readers interested in these questions, this balanced and concise book is a must read.” —Hans Joas, Humboldt University, Berlin, and University of Chicago
Author: Benjamin Schewel Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300218478 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 249
Book Description
The author organizes and evaluates the prevalent narratives of religious history that scholars have deployed over the past century and are advancing today. He argues that contemporary scholarly discourse on religion can be categorized according to seven central narratives: subtraction, renewal, transsecular, postnaturalist, construct, perennial, and developmental. He examines the basic logic, insights, and limitations of each of these narratives which offers an incisive, broad, and original perspective on religion in the modern world.
Author: Scott Samuelson Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022640711X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
This philosophical inquiry into the problem of human suffering is “insightful, informative and deeply humane . . . a genuine pleasure to read” (Times Higher Education). Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles this fundamental question. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, while attending closely to the world we live in. Samuelson draws insight from sources that range from Confucius to Bugs Bunny, and from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners to Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. Samuelson guides us through various attempts to explain why we suffer, explores the many ways we try to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s approaches to living with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.
Author: Nancy Tatom Ammerman Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 1479804339 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 157
Book Description
Offers an overarching definition and framework for the study of religion as it manifests itself in everyday life Look around you as you walk down the street; somewhere, usually hidden in plain sight, there will be traces of religion. Perhaps it is the person who walks past with a Christian tattoo or a Muslim hijab. Perhaps it is the poster announcing a charity auction at the local synagogue. Or perhaps you open your Instagram feed to see what inspiring images and meditations have been posted by spiritual guides to help start the day. Studying Lived Religion examines religious practices wherever they happen—both within religious spaces and in everyday life. Although the study of lived religion has been around for over two decades, there has not been an agreed-upon definition of what it encompasses, and we have lacked a sociological theory to frame the way it is studied. This book offers a definition that expands lived religion’s geographic scope and a framework of seven dimensions around which we can analyze lived religious practice. Examples from multiple traditions and disciplines show the range of methods available for such studies, offering practical tips for how to begin. The volume opens up how we understand the category of lived religion, erasing the artificial divide between what happens in congregations and other religious institutions and what happens in other settings. Nancy Tatom Ammerman draws on examples ranging from Singapore to Accra to Chicago to show how deeply religion permeates everyday lives. In revealing the often overlooked ways that religion shapes human experience, she invites us all into new ways of seeing the world around us.
Author: Marlene Winell Publisher: Marlene Winell Ph.D. ISBN: 9781933993232 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
Have you been harmed by toxic religion? Learn how to recover and reclaim your life. Psychologist Marlene Winell is uniquely qualified to address the subject of this book. In addition to her personal experience with leaving fundamentalist religion, she has worked with clients recovering from religion for 28 years. She is known for coining the term Religious Trauma Syndrome. Leaving the Fold is a self-help book that examines the effects of authoritarian religion (fundamentalist Christianity in particular) on individuals who leave the faith. The concrete steps for healing are useful for anyone in recovery from toxic religion. In this book you'll discover: - what you can expect about stages of religious recovery - information about the key issues of recovery - relevant family dynamics - the power of manipulations - motivations for belonging and for leaving religion - specific steps for healing and reclaiming life - further steps for rebuilding life in the present Leaving the Fold is the only self-help psychology book on the subject of religious recovery. The accessible, compassionate writing is ideal for the reader who needs clear information and concrete help. Buy Leaving the Fold and begin your healing journey today
Author: William Paden Publisher: Beacon Press ISBN: 0807077046 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
William Paden's classic exploration in religious studies, with a new introduction In the current climate, Interpreting the Sacred provides a fresh, thorough way to consider and compare various religious belief systems. Paden puts forth the idea that our understanding of religion influences our understanding of ourselves and our world. Updated with a new introduction, this book is for anyone who wants to consider and discuss religious beliefs.
Author: Scott Samuelson Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022613041X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 231
Book Description
This accessible and thought-provoking introduction to philosophy shows how the eternal questions can shed light on our lives and struggles. These days, we generally leave philosophical matters to professional philosophers. Scott Samuelson thinks this is tragic, for our lives as well as for philosophy. In The Deepest Human Life, he restores philosophy to its proper place at the center of our humanity, rediscovering it as our most profound effort toward understanding, as a way of life that anyone can live. Exploring the works of some of history’s most important thinkers in the context of the everyday struggles of his students, Samuelson guides readers through the most vexing quandaries of existence—and shows just how enriching the examined life can be. Samuelson begins at the beginning: with Socrates, and the method he developed for approaching our greatest mysteries. From there he embarks on a journey through the history of philosophy, demonstrating how it is encoded in our own personal quests for meaning. Through heartbreaking stories, humanizing biographies, accessible theory, and evocative interludes like “On Wine and Bicycles” or “On Zombies and Superheroes,” Samuelson invests philosophy with the personal and vice versa. The result is a book that is at once a primer and a reassurance—that the most important questions endure, coming to life in each of us. Winner of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities
Author: Nicolas Howe Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022637680X Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
“What does it mean to see the American landscape in a secular way?” asks Nicolas Howe at the outset of this innovative, ambitious, and wide-ranging book. It’s a surprising question because of what it implies: we usually aren’t seeing American landscapes through a non-religious lens, but rather as inflected by complicated, little-examined concepts of the sacred. Fusing geography, legal scholarship, and religion in a potent analysis, Howe shows how seemingly routine questions about how to look at a sunrise or a plateau or how to assess what a mountain is both physically and ideologically, lead to complex arguments about the nature of religious experience and its implications for our lives as citizens. In American society—nominally secular but committed to permitting a diversity of religious beliefs and expressions—such questions become all the more fraught and can lead to difficult, often unsatisfying compromises regarding how to interpret and inhabit our public lands and spaces. A serious commitment to secularism, Howe shows, forces us to confront the profound challenges of true religious diversity in ways that often will have their ultimate expression in our built environment. This provocative exploration of some of the fundamental aspects of American life will help us see the land, law, and society anew.
Author: Josh Buoy Publisher: ISBN: 9780692710517 Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
This is a book about science, religion, and the world in between. I was born into a Christian family, but fell out of religion and in love with the scientific method. I had little need of faith, I thought, when science could tell me so much more about the world, and ask so little of me in return. But as I aged into young adulthood, a new chapter of my story began. Did I really know why I believed what I believed? How could I be so certain of my convictions when I hadn't even honestly considered the evidence? This book traces my journey through the furthest reaches of thought, a journey that took me through the realms of psychology, biology, physics, and belief. Could I find a place for faith in the modern world? Or was I right to cast it off as I did?
Author: C. Jan Swearingen Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1135667896 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 269
Book Description
This volume of select conference papers respresents current thought on the role of rhetoric in various disciplines including topics of race, technology, and religion. It is of interest to scholars in classical & contemporary rhetoric and related fields.
Author: Benjamin Schewel
Author: Benjamin Schewel
Author: Scott Samuelson
Author: Nancy Tatom Ammerman
Author: Marlene Winell
Author: William Paden
Author: Scott Samuelson
Author: Nicolas Howe
Author: Josh Buoy
Author: C. Jan Swearingen