Download or read book Toxic Faith written by Stephen Arterburn and published by Shaw Books. This book was released on 2011-04-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiencing Healing from Painful Spiritual Abuse When religion becomes a means to avoid or control life, it becomes toxic. Those who possess a toxic faith have stepped across the line from a balanced perspective of God to an unbalanced faith in a weak, powerless or uncaring God. They seek a God to fix every mess, prevent every hurt, and mend every conflict. Toxic Faith distinguishes between a healthy faith and a misguided religiosity that traps believers in an addictive practice of religion. It shows how unbalanced ministries, misguided churches, and unscrupulous leaders can lead their followers away from God and into a desolate experience of religion that drives many to despair. Toxic Faith shows readers how to find hope for a return to genuine, healthy faith that can add meaning to life. In the words of the author, “I want to help you throw out that toxic faith and bring you back to the real thing.”
Download or read book When Religion Is an Addiction written by Robert N. Minor and published by Fairness Proj. This book was released on 2007 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Religion is an Addiction first asks us to change our understanding of the radical religious right, to consider it in a new light, so that we can do something that will first of all ensure the health of those outside the addiction, and secondly, end our own activities that are part of the dynamics that further the religious right-wing. Chapters two through seven set out the new understanding of many in the religious right-wing and how it explains what we've been seeing in social issues and politics.The ultimate goal is not only to set forth a way to understand the problem but also to point to solutions. Chapter one sets the tone for that by calling us to stop arguing about religion in general.The recent spate of books that defend atheism — what Time magazine has labelled “an atheist literary wave” — are a welcome alternative voice in American religious dialogue. They also encourage such arguments and soothe the atheist choir, while providing further opportunities for the right-wing to use religion for its accompanying feeling of righteousness.Chapter eight discusses practical guidelines for dealing with people who use religion as their addiction. People in Dr. Minor's workshops have already found these guidelines helpful, reassuring, and empowering.
Download or read book The Addiction of Religion written by Kendra Foy and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Karl Marx called religion "The opiate of the masses." The Addiction of Religion is a journey into the exploration of how religion shapes our lives. It is a moving view into religion from the perspective religion as an addiction. It raises the question are we addicted to religion? Are we holding on to fallacies that our parents learned from their parents? Where does the LGBTQ community fit into the scope of religion? How do I find acceptance and my soul's true identity in the universe? Can all of the other religions that are not my own really be wrong? What if everything they taught me about religion isn't even real? The Addiction of Religion takes a candid look at several religious points of view to see their similarities and their differences. Look to understand how the addiction to religion starts and grows with us as we grow into adulthood. Read compelling personal accounts from all walks of life about their individual journeys with religion.The Recoverist bears her soul in this book of discovery about who we are as God. God is living through us in the journey to know The Recoverist bears her soul in this book of discovery about who we are as God. God is living through us in the journey to know Itself. She offers the questions, the debates, and answers to many of the topics that philosophers have studied for all time. She is not afraid to challenge conventional religion and to dissect it at its core. She examines the idea of morality, sexuality, and spirituality with unabashed candor. This book will challenge everything you were ever taught to believe.
Download or read book Healing Spiritual Abuse Religious Addiction written by Matthew Linn and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the realities of spiritual abuse and religious addiction -- how they are defined, the reasons they exist and how people can move beyond vulnerable life patterns in order to enjoy a more lifegiving relationship with God and with a healthy faith community.
Download or read book Jesus and Addiction to Origins written by Willi Braun and published by Working Papers. This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays constitute an extended argument for an anthropocentric, human-focused, study of religious practices. The basic premise of the argument, offered in the opening section, is that there is nothing special or extraordinary about human behaviors and constructs that are claimed to have uniquely religious status and authority. Instead, they are fundamentally human and so the scholar of religion is engaged in nothing more or less than studying humans across time and place and all their complex existence-that includes creating more-than-human beings and realities. As an extended and detailed example of such an approach, the second part of the book contains essays that address practices, rhetoric and other data in early Christianities within Greco-Roman cultures and religions. The underlying aim is to insert studies of the New Testament and non-canonical texts, most often presented as "biblical studies," into the anthropocentric study of religion proposed in the opening section. For a general reading of modern biblical scholarship makes clear the assumption that the Christian bible is a "sacred text" whose principal raison d'etre is to stand, fetish-like, as the foundational and highest authority in matters moral, ritual or theological; how might we instead approach the study of these texts if they are nothing more or less than human documents deriving from situations that were themselves all too human? Braun's Jesus and Addiction to Origins seeks to answer just that question-doing so in a way that readers working outside Christian origins will undoubtedly find useful applications for the people, places, and historical periods that they study.
Download or read book Addiction and Pastoral Care written by Sonia E. Waters and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely resource treating addiction holistically as both a spiritual and a pathological condition Substance addictions present a unique set of challenges for pastoral care. In this book Sonia Waters weaves together personal stories, research, and theological reflection to offer helpful tools for ministers, counselors, chaplains, and anyone else called to care pastorally for those struggling with addiction. Waters uses the story of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark’s Gospel to reframe addiction as a “soul-sickness” that arises from a legion of individual and social vulnerabilities. She includes pastoral reflections on oppression, the War on Drugs, trauma, guilt, discipleship, and identity. The final chapters focus on practical-care skills that address the challenges of recovery, especially ambivalence and resistance to change.
Download or read book When God Becomes a Drug written by Leo Booth and published by TarcherPerigee. This book was released on 1991 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Father Leo Booth, nationally renowned spokesperson on recovery issues, reveals a startling picture of millions of people living dysfunctional lives through their religious addiction. Father Booth offers a clear-cut program, giving readers practical ways to overcome excessive devotion and attain healthy spirituality.
Download or read book Addicted to Lust written by Samuel L. Perry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few cultural issues alarm conservative Protestant families and communities like the seemingly ubiquitous threat of pornography. Thanks to widespread access to the internet, conservative Protestants now face a reality in which every Christian man, woman, and child with a smartphone can access limitless pornography in their bathroom, at work, or at a friend's sleepover. Once confident of their victory over pornography in society at large, conservative Protestants now fear that "porn addiction" is consuming even the most faithful. How are they adjusting to this new reality? And what are its consequences in their lives? Drawing on over 130 interviews as well as numerous national surveys, Addicted to Lust shows that, compared to other Americans, pornography shapes the lives of conservative Protestants in ways that are uniquely damaging to their mental health, spiritual lives, and intimate relationships. Samuel L. Perry demonstrates how certain pervasive beliefs within the conservative Protestant subculture unwittingly create a context in which those who use pornography are often overwhelmed with shame and discouragement, sometimes to the point of depression or withdrawal from faith altogether. Conservative Protestant women who use pornography feel a "double shame" both for sinning sexually and for sinning "like a man," while conflicts over pornography in marriages are escalated by patterns of lying, hiding, blowing up, or threats of divorce. Addicted to Lust shines new light on one of the most talked-about problems facing conservative Christians.
Download or read book Addiction and Recovery written by Martha Postlethwaite and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Companionship for the lifelong journey of recovery In Addiction and Recovery: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, Martha Postlethwaite--pastor and a person in recovery--reflects on her pilgrimage of healing through valleys of despair and vistas of resurrection. Addiction and Recovery is not just Postlethwaite's story, though. She also draws on the wisdom of pilgrims who have walked other paths to explore themes such as surrender, truth telling, shame, powerlessness, grace, forgiveness, and resurrection. Together, these chronicles bring hope to people who struggle with the disease of addiction and to those who love them. Each chapter ends with questions to reflect on with conversation partners or in a journal, and a spiritual practice. The spiritual practices are related to the chapter themes and serve as samplers, but they can be woven into the reader's own pilgrimage. Readers will recognize themselves in these stories and reflections, learn that they are not alone, and find reasons to hope as they make their own pilgrimage.
Download or read book Alcohol Addiction and Christian Ethics written by Christopher C. H. Cook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-04 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addictive disorders are characterised by a division of the will, in which the addict is attracted both by a desire to continue the addictive behaviour and also by a desire to stop it. Academic perspectives on this predicament usually come from clinical and scientific standpoints, with the 'moral model' rejected as outmoded. But Christian theology has a long history of thinking and writing on such problems and offers insights which are helpful to scientific and ethical reflection upon the nature of addiction. Chris Cook reviews Christian theological and ethical reflection upon the problems of alcohol use and misuse, from biblical times until the present day. Drawing particularly upon the writings of St Paul the Apostle and Augustine of Hippo, a critical theological model of addiction is developed. Alcohol dependence is also viewed in the broader ethical perspective of the use and misuse of alcohol within communities.
Download or read book Addicted to Christ written by Helena Hansen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How are spiritual power and self-transformation cultivated in street ministries? In Addicted to Christ, Helena Hansen provides an in-depth analysis of Pentecostal ministries in Puerto Rico that were founded and managed by self-identified 'ex-addicts.' Richly ethnographic, the book melds Hansen's dual expertise in public anthropology and psychology. Through her interviewees' stories, she examines key elements of the Pentecostal system: mysticism, ascetic practice, and the idea other-worldliness. She then shares the strategies of Pentecostal ministries, which, according to street ministries, are the core elements of spiritual victory over addiction: transformation techniques to build spiritual strength and authority through pain and discipline; cultivation of alternative masculinities based on male converts' reclamation of domestic space; and radical rupture from a post-industrial 'culture of disposability.' By contrasting the ministries' logic of addiction with that of biomedicine, Hansen rethinks roads to recovery while discovering unexpected convergences with biomedicine, revealing the true sway of street corner ministries"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book When God Becomes a Drug written by Leo Booth and published by . This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous has been adapted to help turn compulsive, religious addiction into a healthy, Christ-like spiritual recovery regimen.
Download or read book Addiction Treatment written by Daniel E. Hood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2024-10-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addiction Treatment is an ethnography that compares two types of residential drug-free treatment programs--religious, faith-based programs and science-based, secular programs. Although these programs have originated from significantly different ideological bases, in examining the day-to-day operations of each, Daniel E. Hood concludes that they are far more alike than they are different. Drug-free treatment today, whether in secular or religious form, is little more than a remnant of the temperance movement. It is a warning to stop using drugs. At its best, treatment provides practical advice and support for complete abstinence. At its worst, it demeans users for a form of behavior that is not well understood and threatens death if they do not stop. Hood argues that there is no universal agreement on what addiction is and that drug abuse is little more than a catch-all term of no specific meaning used to condemn behavior that is socially unacceptable. Through extensive participatory observations, intimate life history interviews, and informal conversations with residents and staff, Hood shows how both programs use the same basic techniques of ideological persuasion (mutual witnessing), methods of social control (discourse deprivation), and the same proposed zero tolerance, abstinent lifestyle (Christian living vs. Right living) as they endeavor to transform clients from addicts to citizens or from sinners to disciples.
Download or read book The Spiritual Paradox of Addiction written by Ashok Bedi and published by Nicolas-Hays, Inc.. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addicts and alcoholics are often highly spiritualized individuals who lack the faith apparatus to make a healthy connection with their spiritual drive. As such, they turn to negative behavior patterns to fulfill that hunger: alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, pornography, social media, and dysfunctional relationships. This book offers a series of insights and methods whereby faith may be restored and positively channeled into life-sustaining behaviors. It is addressed to addicts, their families and friends, as well as interested laypeople, government policymakers, and treatment professionals. The authors include instruction in yoga and breathing exercises, meditation, and mindfulness, as well as case studies and medical guidance for detoxification.
Download or read book Handbook of Spirituality Religion and Mental Health written by David H. Rosmarin and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research has indicated that spiritual and religious factors are strongly tied to a host of mental health variables, both positive and negative. That body of research has significantly grown since publication of the first edition 20 years ago. The second edition of the Handbook of Spirituality and Religion and Mental Health identifies not only whether religion and spirituality influence mental health and vice versa, but also how and for whom. The contents have been re-organized to speak specifically to categories of disorders in the first part of the book and then more broadly to life satisfaction issues in the latter part of the book. Hence 100% of the book is now revised with new chapters and new contributors.
Download or read book Spirituality and Religiousness and Alcohol Other Drug Problems written by Brent B. Benda and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-10-13 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the relevance of religious and spiritual issues to alcohol and drug use and abuse throughout the lifespan Spiritual issues and forgiveness are oft-neglected topics in treatment programs for substance abusers. This unique book brings those underrated components of recovery to the forefront through current research, cas
Download or read book Addiction and Virtue written by Kent Dunnington and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this interdisciplinary work, Kent Dunnington brings the neglected resources of philosophical and theological analysis to bear on the problem of addiction. Drawing on the insights of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, he formulates a compelling alternative to the two dominant models of addiction--addiction as disease and addiction as choice.
