Download or read book Ren Girard and Secular Modernity written by Scott Cowdell and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of René Girard’s controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard’s thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard’s singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible’s exposure of the cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism. In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard’s basic intellectual vision (mimesis, sacrifice, biblical hermeneutics) and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of “secularization” and “modernity,” as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard (particularly his Battling to the End) and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard’s own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: “What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?”
Download or read book A Secular Age written by Charles Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.
Download or read book Secular Cycles written by Peter Turchin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-09 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Secular Cycles elaborates and expands upon the demographic-structural theory first advanced by Jack Goldstone, which provides an explanation of long-term oscillations. This book tests that theory's specific and quantitative predictions by tracing the dynamics of population numbers, prices and real wages, elite numbers and incomes, state finances, and sociopolitical instability. Turchin and Nefedov study societies in England, France, and Russia during the medieval and early modern periods, and look back at the Roman Republic and Empire. Incorporating theoretical and quantitative history, the authors examine a specific model of historical change and, more generally, investigate the utility of the dynamical systems approach in historical applications."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Biblical Origins of Modern Secular Culture written by Willis B. Glover and published by Mercer University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Gathering Storm written by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The president of Southern Seminary reveals how secularism has infiltrated every aspect of society and how Christians, equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ, can meet it head on with hope, confidence, and steadfast conviction. A Storm Is Coming Western civilization and the Christian church stand at a moment of great danger. Facing them both is a hurricane-force battle of ideas that will determine the future of Western civilization and the soul of the Christian church. The forces arrayed against the West and the church are destructive ideologies, policies, and worldviews deeply established among intellectual elites, the political class, and our schools. More menacingly, these forces have also invaded the Christian church. The perils faced by the West and the church are unprecedented: threats to religious liberty redefinitions of marriage and family attacks on the sacredness and dignity of human life How should Christians respond to this multifaceted challenge? Addressing each dimension of this challenge, The Gathering Storm provides answers and equips Christians both to give an answer for the hope that is within them and to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.
Download or read book The Case for Islamo Christian Civilization written by Richard W. Bulliet and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-22 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 'clash of civilisations' so often talked about in connection with relations between the West and Arab nations is, argues Richard Bulliet, no more than dangerous sophistry based on misconceptions in American government. He sets out the common ground between Islam and Christianity.
Download or read book Culture and Redemption written by Tracy Fessenden and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans wish to believe that the United States, founded in religious tolerance, has gradually and naturally established a secular public sphere that is equally tolerant of all religions--or none. Culture and Redemption suggests otherwise. Tracy Fessenden contends that the uneven separation of church and state in America, far from safeguarding an arena for democratic flourishing, has functioned instead to promote particular forms of religious possibility while containing, suppressing, or excluding others. At a moment when questions about the appropriate role of religion in public life have become trenchant as never before, Culture and Redemption radically challenges conventional depictions--celebratory or damning--of America's "secular" public sphere. Examining American legal cases, children's books, sermons, and polemics together with popular and classic works of literature from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, Culture and Redemption shows how the vaunted secularization of American culture proceeds not as an inevitable by-product of modernity, but instead through concerted attempts to render dominant forms of Protestant identity continuous with democratic, civil identity. Fessenden shows this process to be thoroughly implicated, moreover, in practices of often-violent exclusion that go to the making of national culture: Indian removals, forced acculturations of religious and other minorities, internal and external colonizations, and exacting constructions of sex and gender. Her new readings of Emerson, Whitman, Melville, Stowe, Twain, Gilman, Fitzgerald, and others who address themselves to these dynamics in intricate and often unexpected ways advance a major reinterpretation of American writing.
Download or read book Owning the Secular written by Matt Sheedy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-11 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Owning the Secular examines three case studies dealing with religious symbols and cultural identity, including two public controversies over the veil in Canada – at the federal level and in the province of Québec – and an ex-Muslim podcaster rethinking her atheist identity in the era of Donald Trump and the alt-right. Drawing on theories of discourse analysis and ideology critique, this study calls attention to an evolution in how secularism, nationalism, and multiculturalism in Euro-Western states are debated and understood as competing groups contest and rearrange the meaning of these terms. This is especially true in the digital age as online cultures have transformed how information is spread, how we imagine our communities, build alliances, and produce shared meaning. From recent attempts to prohibit religious symbols in public, to Trump’s so-called Muslim bans, to growing disenchantment with the promises of digital media, this study turns the lens how nation-states, organizations, and individuals attempt to "own" the secular to manage cultural differences, shore up group identity, and stake a claim to some version of Western values amidst the growing uncertainties of neoliberal capitalism.
Download or read book Living the Secular Life written by Phil Zuckerman and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sociology professor examines the demographic shift that has led more Americans than ever before to embrace a nonreligious life and highlights the inspirational stories and beliefs that empower modern-day secular culture.
Download or read book The Secular City written by Harvey Cox and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Archaeology of Disbelief written by Edward Jayne and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Archaeology of Disbelief traces the origin of secular philosophy to pre-Socratic Greek philosophers who proposed a physical universe without supernatural intervention. Some mentioned the Homeric gods, but others did not. Atomists and Sophists identified themselves as agnostics if not outright atheists, and in reaction Plato featured transcendent spiritual authority. However, Aristotle offered a physical cosmology justified by evidence from a variety of scientific fields. He also revisited many pre-Socratic assumptions by proposing that existence consists of mass in motion without temporal or spatial boundaries. In many ways his analysis anticipated Newton’s concept of gravity, Darwin’s concept of evolution, and Einstein’s concept of relativity. Aristotle’s follower Strato invented scientific experimentation. He also inspired the pursuit of science and advocated the rejection of all beliefs unconfirmed by science. Carneades in turn distorted Aristotelian logic to ridicule the god concept, and Lucretius proposed a grand secular cosmology in his epic De Rerum Natura. In the two dialogues, Academica and De Natura Deorum, Cicero provided a useful retrospective assessment of this entire movement. The Roman Empire and advent of Christianity effectively terminated Greek philosophy except for Platonism reinvented as stoicism. Widespread destruction of libraries eliminated most early secular texts, and the Inquisition played a major role in preventing secular inquiry. Aquinas later justified Aristotle in light of Christian doctrine, and secularism’s revival was postponed until the seventeenth century’s paradoxical reaction against his interpretation of Aristotle. Today it nevertheless remains possible to trace western civilization’s remarkable secular achievement to its initial breakthrough in ancient Greece. The purpose of this book is accordingly to trace the origin and development of its secular thought through close examination of texts that still exist today in light of Aristotle’s writings.
Download or read book The Secular Abyss written by Gerald S. Graham and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book India as a Secular State written by Donald Eugene Smith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout India's history, religion has been the most powerful single factor in the development of her civilization. Today, despite her religious tradition, India is emerging as a secular state. In this book, Donald E. Smith explores the origin of the concept of secularization as it is found both in Indian culture and in the example of the western nations. He emphasizes the important role of secularization in India’s total democratic experiment and points out that the degree of its realization will undoubtedly affect the eventual character of democracy in India. In addition, the success or failure of the secular state in India cannot fail to influence the attitudes of her neighbors. Professor Smith considers the many aspects and implications of India’s attempt to secularize her government. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Sacred Music in Secular Society written by Jonathan Arnold and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If music has ever given you 'a glimpse of something beyond the horizons of our materialism or our contemporary values' (James MacMillan), then you will find this book essential reading. Sacred Music in Secular Society is a new and challenging work asking why Christian sacred music is now appealing afresh to a wide and varied audience, both religious and secular. Jonathan Arnold offers unique insights as a professional singer of sacred music in liturgical and concert settings worldwide, as an ordained Anglican priest and as a senior research fellow. Blending scholarship, theological reflection and interviews with some of the greatest musicians and spiritual leaders of our day, including James MacMillan and Rowan Williams, Arnold suggests that the intrinsically theological and spiritual nature of sacred music remains an immense attraction particularly in secular society. Intended by the composer and inspired by religious intentions this theological and spiritual heart reflects our inherent need to express our humanity and search for the mystical or the transcendent. Offering a unique examination of the relationship between sacred music and secular society, this book will appeal to readers interested in contemporary spirituality, Christianity, music, worship, faith and society, whether believers or not, including theologians, musicians and sociologists.
Download or read book Radical Secularization written by Stijn Latr� and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-06-30 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean for a society to be secular? Answering this question from a philosophical angle, Radical Secularization? delves into the philosophical presuppositions of secularization. Which cultural evolutions made secularization possible? International scholars from different disciplines assess the answers given by many leading philosophers such as, among others, L�with, Blumenberg and Habermas (Germany), Gauchet and Nancy (France), Taylor and Bellah (North America). They examine the theory that secularization cannot only be regarded as a cultural change that was forced upon religion from an external source (e.g. science), but should also be considered as a phenomenon triggered by motives internal to religion. If religions are indeed capable of inner transformations, the question arises whether religions can persist in the secular societies they inadvertently helped to bring about, and how secular societies may accommodate religion.
Download or read book The Works of Orestes A Brownson Civilization written by Orestes Augustus Brownson and published by . This book was released on 1884 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Battling the Gods written by Tim Whitmarsh and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities. Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well known: Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata. Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright disbelief: the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries. As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.
