Download or read book The Embrace of Eros written by Margaret D. Kamitsuka and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The topic of sexuality intersects directly with the most contested historical, theological, and ethical questions of our day. In this edgy yet profound volume, noted scholars and theologians assay the Christian tradition's classic and contemporary understandings of sex, sexuality, and sexual identity. The project unfolds in three phases: contemporary assessments of the Christian tradition, new thinking about eros and being human religiously, and new perspectives on classic mysteries in light of eros and embodiment.
Download or read book The Making of Fornication written by Kathy L. Gaca and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative work provides a radical reassessment of the emergence and nature of Christian sexual morality, the dominant moral paradigm in Western society since late antiquity. While many scholars, including Michel Foucault, have found the basis of early Christian sexual restrictions in Greek ethics and political philosophy, Kathy L. Gaca demonstrates on compelling new grounds that it is misguided to regard Greek ethics and political theory—with their proposed reforms of eroticism, the family, and civic order—as the foundation of Christian sexual austerity. Rather, in this thoroughly informed and wide-ranging study, Gaca shows that early Christian goals to eradicate fornication were derived from the sexual rules and poetic norms of the Septuagint, or Greek Bible, and that early Christian writers adapted these rules and norms in ways that reveal fascinating insights into the distinctive and largely non-philosophical character of Christian sexual morality. Writing with an authoritative command of both Greek philosophy and early Christian writings, Gaca investigates Plato, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans, Philo of Alexandria, the apostle Paul, and the patristic Christians Clement of Alexandria, Tatian, and Epiphanes, freshly elucidating their ideas on sexual reform with precision, depth, and originality. Early Christian writers, she demonstrates, transformed all that they borrowed from Greek ethics and political philosophy to launch innovative programs against fornication that were inimical to Greek cultural mores, popular and philosophical alike. The Septuagint's mandate to worship the Lord alone among all gods led to a Christian program to revolutionize Gentile sexual practices, only for early Christians to find this virtually impossible to carry out without going to extremes of sexual renunciation. Knowledgeable and wide-ranging, this work of intellectual history and ethics cogently demonstrates why early Christian sexual restrictions took such repressive ascetic forms, and casts sobering light on what Christian sexual morality has meant for religious pluralism in Western culture, especially among women as its bearers.
Download or read book Eros Redeemed written by John White and published by Intervarsity Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John White examines the history and consequences of sexual sin, offers a biblical studyof human sexuality and what it means to be a man or woman in Christ, and describes how to minister to those needing forgiveness, healing, and hope.
Download or read book Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality written by Lisa Isherwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-23 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality provides a much-needed overview of the state of scholarship on Christian theological reflection on sexuality and sexual theology. Critically, it also intervenes in the cultural debate over sexuality by privileging feminist, queer, and other counter-normative perspectives. Comprising twenty-three chapters by a team of international contributors this volume is divided into four parts: • Normativity and transgression • Bodies • Economies and violence • Divinity. Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including consideration of the complexities of Christian theology in regard to contemporary sexuality debates. Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality is essential reading for students and researchers in the field of religion, sexuality, and Christianity.
Download or read book Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology written by Tim Hegedus and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original Scholarly Monograph
Download or read book Sexuality and the Sacred written by James B. Nelson and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is rooted in two convictions: first, sexuality is far more comprehensive and more fundamental to our existence than simply genital sex, and, second, sexuality is intended by God to be neither incidental nor detrimintal to our spirituality but a fully integrated and basic dimension of that spirituality. The authors address what our sexual experience reveals about God, the ways we understand the gospel, and the ways we read scripture and tradition and attempt to live faithfully.
Download or read book Phenomenal Blackness written by Mark Christian Thompson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-01-21 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unorthodox account of 1960s Black thought rigorously details the field’s debts to German critical theory and explores a forgotten tradition of Black singularity. Phenomenal Blackness examines the changing interdisciplinary investments of key mid-century Black writers and thinkers, including the growing interest in German philosophy and critical theory. Mark Christian Thompson analyzes this shift in intellectual focus across the post-war decades, placing Black Power thought in a philosophical context. Prior to the 1960s, sociologically oriented thinkers such as W. E. B. Du Bois had understood Blackness as a singular set of socio-historical characteristics. In contrast, writers such as Amiri Baraka, James Baldwin, Angela Y. Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, and Malcolm X were drawn to notions of an African essence, an ontology of Black being. With these perspectives, literary language came to be seen as the primary social expression of Blackness. For this new way of thinking, the works of philosophers such as Adorno, Habermas, and Marcuse were a vital resource, allowing for continued cultural-materialist analysis while accommodating the hermeneutical aspects of Black religious thought. Thompson argues that these efforts to reimagine Black singularity led to a phenomenological understanding of Blackness—a “Black aesthetic dimension” wherein aspirational models for Black liberation might emerge.
Download or read book Christian Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender written by Elizabeth Stuart and published by Gracewing Publishing. This book was released on 1996 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of articles present a variety of broadly-Christian responses to issues such as sexuality and gender, sexuality and spirituality, gay and lesbian sexuality, sexuality and violence, sexuality and singleness, and the family.
Download or read book Eros Ascending written by John Maxwell Taylor and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***FINALIST, USA Best Books 2010 Awards – Spirituality & Self-Help: Relationships The quest for lasting love is one of life’s essential pursuits, in some ways the most essential. But it’s also a quest that’s impossible to separate from spiritual and sexual needs. In Eros Ascending, author John Maxwell Taylor offers a wide-ranging study of sexual dysfunction in society and explains how healthy sexuality can be an entryway to universal love and higher consciousness. Based on Taylor’s twenty-three-year experience with Taoist practices, the book presents an engaging analysis of love, relationships, and sexuality from spiritual, romantic, and sexual perspectives. Taylor melds essential ideas by Jung, Gurdjieff, and Taoist Master Mantak Chia with science, biology, spiritual tradition, and current popular culture to shed new light on this eternal yet misunderstood subject. Not just for couples, the book is equally useful for single people who want to understand the methods for “learning to love yourself ” in preparation for a fulfilling, long-term relationship. Taylor draws on his eclectic background as a successful playwright, composer, actor, and musician in this persuasive plan for converting ordinary sexual energy into food for the soul.
Download or read book The Culturally Savvy Christian written by Dick Staub and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-09-09 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Culturally Savvy Christian—his incisive critique of contemporary culture and religion—Dick Staub concludes that though it is influential, American popular culture is generally superficial (diversionary, mindless, and celebrity-driven) spiritually delusional (moralistic, therapeutic, and deistic) and soulless (sustained not by art, craft, and ideas, but by the mad pursuit of profit—propped up by marketing and technology). Similarly American Christianity has devolved into its own mindless, diversionary, and celebrity-driven superficiality. Because humans are created in God's image with spiritual, intellectual, creative, moral, and relational capacities, we long for more, yet the true seeker faces the lose-lose alternatives of a soul-numbing culture and a vacuous Christianity-lite. The renaissance we need in both faith and culture will originate in a deep spiritual renewal that restores God's image in us and creates a new breed of culturally savvy, thoughtful creatives who rekindle the spiritual, intellectual, and creative legacy of Christians as enrichers of culture.
Download or read book Sexuality and the Sacred Second Edition written by Marvin M. Ellison and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian discourse on sexuality, spirituality, and ethics has continued to evolve since this book's first edition was published in 1994. This updated and expanded anthology featuring more than thirty contemporary essays includes more theologians and ethicists of color and addresses issues such as the intersection of race/racism and sexuality, transgender identity, same-sex marriage, and reproductive health and justice.
Download or read book Ontology of Consciousness written by Helmut Wautischer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-04-11 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars from many different disciplines examine consciousness through the lens of intellectual approaches and cultures ranging from cosmology research and cell biophysics laboratories to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and Tibetan Tantric Buddhism in a volume that extends consciousness studies beyond the limits of current neuroscience research. The "hard problem" of today's consciousness studies is subjective experience: understanding why some brain processing is accompanied by an experienced inner life. Recent scientific advances offer insights for understanding the physiological and chemical phenomenology of consciousness. But by leaving aside the internal experiential nature of consciousness in favor of mapping neural activity, such science leaves many questions unanswered. In Ontology of Consciousness, scholars from a range of disciplines—from neurophysiology to parapsychology, from mathematics to anthropology and indigenous non-Western modes of thought—go beyond these limits of current neuroscience research to explore insights offered by other intellectual approaches to consciousness. These scholars focus their attention on such philosophical approaches to consciousness as Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, North American Indian insights, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization, and the Byzantine Empire. Some draw on artifacts and ethnographic data to make their point. Others translate cultural concepts of consciousness into modern scientific language using models and mathematical mappings. Many consider individual experiences of sentience and existence, as seen in African communalism, Hindi psychology, Zen Buddhism, Indian vibhuti phenomena, existentialism, philosophical realism, and modern psychiatry. Some reveal current views and conundrums in neurobiology to comprehend sentient intellection. Contributors Karim Akerma, Matthijs Cornelissen, Antoine Courban, Mario Crocco, Christian de Quincey, Thomas B. Fowler, Erlendur Haraldsson, David. J. Hufford, Pavel B. Ivanov, Heinz Kimmerle, Stanley Krippner, Armand J. Labbé, James Maffie, Hubert Markl, Graham Parkes, Michael Polemis, E Richard Sorenson, Mircea Steriade, Thomas Szasz, Mariela Szirko, Robert A.F. Thurman, Edith L.B. Turner, Julia Watkin, Helmut Wautischer
Download or read book Religion Ecology Gender written by Sigurd Bergmann and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2009 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The understanding of nature is at the heart of European self - understanding, while in Asia the terms of life and energy play a similar central role. Globally, many institutions and movements have made the protection of the environment and climate a top policy priority. Given the urgency of environmental problems the lack of reflections about the human and especially the spiritual dimension of environmental problems is striking. Environmental - and - climatic change transforms not only culture, politics, and economy, but also religion. Religious traditions have on the one hand always been dependent on human ecologies; on the other hand they vibrantly affect our perceptions of nature and sociocultural practices with(in) it. If life and religion change dramatically at present, how could religion make a change? How are religious and ecologic processes gendered, and how can ecofeminism deepen our understanding of justice? What are the life - enhancing spiritual resources in the East and the West? How can Christian theology contribute to the necessary eco - cultural revolution ahead of us? And how can Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Christian spiritualities cooperate in a common space and future? Questions like these are reflected upon by scholars of religion and theology from Korea, Canada and Scandinavia. Their chapters emerge from an international workshop, which was arranged and convened by the editors 2007 in Yecheon on the Korean countryside and in Seoul.
Download or read book Anthropology in Theological Perspective written by Wolfhart Pannenberg and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-08-23 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive study, a renowned theologian examines the anthropological disciplines-human biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology and history-for their religious implications. The result is a theological anthropology that does not derive from dogma or prejudice, but critically evaluates the findings of the disciplines. Pannenberg begins with a consideration of human beings as part of nature; moves on to focus on the human person; and then considers the social world: its culture, history and institutions. All the elements of this multi-faceted study unite in the final chapter on the relation of human beings to their history.
Download or read book Eros and Magic in the Renaissance written by Ioan P. Culianu and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1987-11-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that "magic" is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today. Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent. In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing. Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.
Download or read book Essentials of Christian Theology written by Stanley James Grenz and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This splendid introductory textbook for Christian theology presents two essays by leading scholars on each of the major theological questions. William Placher provides an excellent discussion of the history and current state of each doctrine while the essays explore the key elements and contemporary issues relating to these important theological concepts.
Download or read book Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective written by Christine Hoff Kraemer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within the past twenty years, contemporary Pagan leaders, progressive Christian and Goddess theologians, advocates for queer and BDSM communities, and therapeutic bodyworkers have all begun to speak forcefully about the sacredness of the body and of touch. Many assert that the erotic is a divinely transformative force, both for personal development and for social change. Although "the erotic" includes sexuality, it is not limited to it; access to connected nonsexual touch is as profound a need as that for sexual freedom and health. In this book, Christine Hoff Kraemer brings together an academic background in religious studies and theology with lived experience as a professional bodyworker and contemporary Pagan practitioner. Arguing that the erotic is a powerful moral force that can ground a system of ethics, Kraemer integrates approaches from queer theology, therapeutic bodywork, and sexual minority advocacy into a contemporary Pagan religious framework. Addressing itself to liberal religious people of many faiths, Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective approaches the right to pleasure as a social justice issue and proposes a sacramental practice of mindful, consensual touch.
