Download or read book Faith in Action written by Richard L. Wood and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-09-15 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past fifteen years, associations throughout the U.S. have organized citizens around issues of equality and social justice, often through local churches. But in contrast to President Bush's vision of faith-based activism, in which groups deliver social services to the needy, these associations do something greater. Drawing on institutions of faith, they reshape public policies that neglect the disadvantaged. To find out how this faith-based form of community organizing succeeds, Richard L. Wood spent several years working with two local groups in Oakland, California—the faith-based Pacific Institute for Community Organization and the race-based Center for Third World Organizing. Comparing their activist techniques and achievements, Wood argues that the alternative cultures and strategies of these two groups give them radically different access to community ties and social capital. Creative and insightful, Faith in Action shows how community activism and religious organizations can help build a more just and democratic future for all Americans.
Download or read book A Call to Action written by Jimmy Carter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the highly acclaimed bestselling A Call to Action, President Jimmy Carter addresses the world’s most serious, pervasive, and ignored violation of basic human rights: the ongoing discrimination and violence against women and girls. President Carter was encouraged to write this book by a wide coalition of leaders of all faiths. His urgent report covers a system of discrimination that extends to every nation. Women are deprived of equal opportunity in wealthier nations and “owned” by men in others, forced to suffer servitude, child marriage, and genital cutting. The most vulnerable and their children are trapped in war and violence. A Call to Action addresses the suffering inflicted upon women by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare. Key verses are often omitted or quoted out of context by male religious leaders to exalt the status of men and exclude women. And in nations that accept or even glorify violence, this perceived inequality becomes the basis for abuse. Carter draws upon his own experiences and the testimony of courageous women from all regions and all major religions to demonstrate that women around the world, more than half of all human beings, are being denied equal rights. This is an informed and passionate charge about a devastating effect on economic prosperity and unconscionable human suffering. It affects us all.
Download or read book The Universal Christ written by Richard Rohr and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called “Christ,” and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives. “Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book.”—Melinda Gates In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus’s last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.
Download or read book Religion Theory Critique written by Richard King and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion, Theory, Critique is an essential tool for learning about theory and method in the study of religion. Leading experts engage with contemporary and classical theories as well as non-Western cultural contexts. Unlike other collections, this anthology emphasizes the dynamic relationship between "religion" as an object of study and different methodological approaches and openly addresses the question of the manifold ways in which "religion," "secular," and "culture" are imagined within different disciplinary horizons. This volume is the first textbook which seeks to engage discussion of classical approaches with contemporary cultural and critical theories. Contributors write on the influence of the natural sciences in the study of religion; the role of European Christianity in modeling theories of religion; religious experience and the interface with cognitive science; the structure and function of religious language; the social-scientific study of religion; ritual in religion; the phenomenology of religion; critical theory and religion; embodiment and religion; the impact of colonialism and modernity; theorizing religion in terms of race and ethnicity; links among religion, nationalism, and globalization; the interplay of gender, sex, and religion; and religion and the environment. Each chapter introduces the topic, identifies key theorists and issues, and respects the pluralistic nature of the scholarship in the field. Altogether, this collection scrutinizes the explicit and implicit assumptions theorists make about religion as an object of analysis.
Download or read book Religion The Basics written by Malory Nye and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-05-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new edition has been fully revised and updated, and includes new discussions of: the study of religion and culture in the 21st century texts, films and rituals cognitive approaches to religion globalisation and multiculturalism spirituality in the West popular religion.
Download or read book God s Action in Nature s World written by Mr Nathan Hallanger and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1981 Robert John Russell founded what would become the leading center of research at the interface of science and religion, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Throughout its twenty-five year history, CTNS under Russell's leadership has continued to guide and further the dialogue between science and theology. Russell has been an articulate spokesperson in calling for "creative mutual interaction" between the two fields. God's Action in Nature's World brings together sixteen internationally-recognized scholars to assess Robert Russell's impact on the discipline of science and religion. Focusing on three areas of Russell's work - methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics - this book celebrates Robert John Russell's contribution to the interdisciplinary engagement between the natural sciences and theology.
Download or read book Religion and Prevention in Mental Health written by Robert E Hess and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-23 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the first book which highlights the unique resource of religion in the field of prevention. Until now, religious systems have been a largely undertapped resource of talent, energy, care, and physical and financial assets. Religion and Prevention in Mental Health is a significant new volume that lays a general foundation for preventive work in the religious area. It presents a number of reasons for examining religion as a source for aiding prevention and well-being. The authors dispute the popular notion of religion as damaging to mental health, as well as the idea that religious affiliation is entirely predictive of better mental health. Instead they focus on the framework for living that religions provide which assists believers in anticipating, avoiding, or modifying problems before they develop. For the human service professional willing to build a collaborative relationship with religious systems, this vital book depicts the richness and diversity of religion and shows the interface of religion, well-being, and prevention. Important issues such as the impact of religion on American society and the ethos of mental health and prevention, the historical and contemporary role of the African-American church as an empowering agent and mediating structure for black citizens, the critical roles of theology in determining the attitude of religious systems toward prevention and well-being, the importance of community and personal narratives, and the limitations of religious settings due to their survival concerns and methods to increase their potential to heal are all discussed thoroughly. Through a better understanding of religious settings, programs, and processes, human service professionals can more effectively utilize religion and reach a neglected portion of the population in need of help. In addition, religious leaders, mental health professionals including counselors, social workers, program developers, evaluators, and administrators, and psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists will benefit from the comprehensive material provided in this timely book.
Download or read book Belief and Cult written by Jacob L. Mackey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2025-01-28 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking reinterpretation that draws on cognitive theory to show that belief wasn’t absent from—but rather was at the heart of—Roman religion Belief and Cult argues that belief isn’t uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion. Drawing on cognitive theory, Jacob Mackey shows that despite having nothing to do with salvation or faith, belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices—emotions, individual and collective cult action, ritual norms, social reality, and social power. In doing so, he also offers a thorough argument for the importance of belief to other non-Christian religions. At the individual level, the book argues, belief played an indispensable role in the genesis of cult action and religious emotion. However, belief also had a collective dimension. The cognitive theory of Shared Intentionality shows how beliefs may be shared among individuals, accounting for the existence of written, unwritten, or even unspoken ritual norms. Shared beliefs permitted the choreography of collective cult action and gave cult acts their social meanings. The book also elucidates the role of shared belief in creating and maintaining Roman social reality. Shared belief allowed the Romans to endow agents, actions, and artifacts with socio-religious status and power. In a deep sense, no man could count as an augur and no act of animal slaughter as a successful offering to the gods, unless Romans collectively shared appropriate beliefs about these things. Closely examining augury, prayer, the religious enculturation of children, and the Romans’ own theories of cognition and cult, Belief and Cult promises to revolutionize the understanding of Roman religion by demonstrating that none of its features makes sense without Roman belief.
Download or read book The No Nonsense Guide to Religion written by Symon Hill and published by New Internationalist. This book was released on 2010 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion is a term which is often used in the media and public life without any clarification. However, it is a word that encompasses hundreds of different beliefs. It is also a loaded word that has a different meaning for each person. Religion can be seen as a source of war and peace, love and hate, dialogue and narrow-mindedness. Today, thanks to the globalisation of communications, more people than ever before belong to a different religious community than their parents. This No-Nonsense Guide considers how religion has shaped culture.
Download or read book Religion and Social Problems written by Titus Hjelm and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-01-21 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although students and scholars of social problems have often acknowledged the role of religion, no thorough examinations of the relation between the two have emerged. This book fills this gap by providing a definitive work on the impact of religion on social problems, religion as a solution to social problems, and religion as a social problem in itself.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology written by Charles Taliaferro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion offers an up-to-date overview of the beliefs, doctrines, and practices of the key philosophical concepts at the heart of Christian theology. The sixteen chapters, commissioned specially for this volume, are written by an internationally recognized team of scholars and examine topics such as the Trinity, God's necessary existence, simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, goodness, eternity and providence, the incarnation, resurrection, atonement, sin and salvation, the problem of evil, church rites, revelation and miracles, prayer, and the afterlife. Written in non-technical, accessible language, they not only offer a synthesis of scholarship on these topics but also suggest questions and topics for further investigation.
Download or read book Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan written by Ian Reader and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities? Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed. Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.
Download or read book On Religion written by John D Caputo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John D. Caputo explores the very roots of religious thinking in this thought-provoking book. Compelling questions come up along the way: 'What do I love when I love my God?' and 'What can Star Wars tell us about the contemporary use of religion?' (are we always trying to find a way of saying 'God be with you'?) Why is religion for many a source of moral guidance in a postmodern, nihilistic age? Is it possible to have 'religion without religion'? Drawing on contemporary images of religion, such as Robert Duvall's film The Apostle, Caputo also provides some fascinating and imaginative insights into religious fundamentalism.
Download or read book Introducing Anthropology of Religion written by Jack David Eller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lively and readable survey introduces students to key areas of the field and shows how to apply an anthropological approach to the study of contemporary world religions. Written by an experienced teacher, it covers all of the traditional topics of anthropology of religion, including definitions and theories, beliefs, symbols and language, and ritual and myth, and combines analytic and conceptual discussion with up-to-date ethnography and theory. Eller includes copious examples from religions around the world – both familiar and unfamiliar – and two mini-case studies in each chapter. He also explores classic and contemporary anthropological contributions to important but often overlooked issues such as violence and fundamentalism, morality, secularization, religion in America, and new religious movements. Introducing Anthropology of Religion demonstrates that anthropology is both relevant and essential for understanding the world we inhabit today.
Download or read book Religion of the Gods written by Kimberley Christine Patton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many of the world's religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, a seemingly enigmatic and paradoxical image is found--that of the god who worships. Various interpretations of this seeming paradox have been advanced. Some suggest that it represents sacrifice to a higher deity. Proponents of anthropomorphic projection say that the gods are just "big people" and that images of human religious action are simply projected onto the deities. However, such explanations do not do justice to the complexity and diversity of this phenomenon. In Religion of the Gods, Kimberley C. Patton uses a comparative approach to take up anew a longstanding challenge in ancient Greek religious iconography: why are the Olympian gods depicted on classical pottery making libations? The sacrificing gods in ancient Greece are compared to gods who perform rituals in six other religious traditions: the Vedic gods, the heterodox god Zurvan of early Zoroastrianism, the Old Norse god Odin, the Christian God and Christ, the God of Judaism, and Islam's Allah. Patton examines the comparative evidence from a cultural and historical perspective, uncovering deep structural resonances while also revealing crucial differences. Instead of looking for invisible recipients or lost myths, Patton proposes the new category of "divine reflexivity." Divinely performed ritual is a self-reflexive, self-expressive action that signals the origin of ritual in the divine and not the human realm. Above all, divine ritual is generative, both instigating and inspiring human religious activity. The religion practiced by the gods is both like and unlike human religious action. Seen from within the religious tradition, gods are not "big people," but other than human. Human ritual is directed outward to a divine being, but the gods practice ritual on their own behalf. "Cultic time," the symbiotic performance of ritual both in heaven and on earth, collapses the distinction between cult and theology each time ritual is performed. Offering the first comprehensive study and a new theory of this fascinating phenomenon, Religion of the Gods is a significant contribution to the fields of classics and comparative religion. Patton shows that the god who performs religious action is not an anomaly, but holds a meaningful place in the category of ritual and points to a phenomenologically universal structure within religion itself.
Download or read book Varieties of Atheism in Science written by Elaine Howard Ecklund and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why study atheism among scientists? -- "Tried and found wanting" : how atheist scientists explain religious transitions -- "I am not like Richard:" modernist atheist scientists -- Ties that bind : culturally religious atheists -- Spiritual atheist scientists -- What atheist scientists think about science -- How atheist scientists approach meaning and morality -- From rhetoric to reality : why religious believers should give atheist scientists a chance.
Download or read book Religion and Progressive Activism written by Ruth Braunstein and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New stories about religiously motivated progressive activism challenge common understandings of the American political landscape. To many mainstream-media saturated Americans, the terms “progressive” and “religious” may not seem to go hand-in-hand. As religion is usually tied to conservatism, an important way in which religion and politics intersect is being overlooked. Religion and Progressive Activism focuses on this significant intersection, revealing that progressive religious activists are a driving force in American public life, involved in almost every political issue or area of public concern. This volume brings together leading experts who dissect and analyze the inner worlds and public strategies of progressive religious activists from the local to the transnational level. It provides insight into documented trends, reviews overlooked case studies, and assesses the varied ways in which progressive religion forces us to deconstruct common political binaries such as right/left and progress/tradition. In a coherent and accessible way, this book engages and rethinks long accepted theories of religion, of social movements, and of the role of faith in democratic politics and civic life. Moreover, by challenging common perceptions of religiously motivated activism, it offers a more grounded and nuanced understanding of religion and the American political landscape.
