Download or read book The Sacred Secular written by Dottie Escobedo-Frank and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sacred Secular examines cultural spaces where people are experiencing something sacred. These places are not in the church. They’re in yoga studios, neighborhood potlucks, and TED Talks. Dottie Escobedo-Frank and Rob Rynders see lessons for the church in these spaces. They see new ways we can convey to people that the church is uniquely sacred and significant and that Jesus is for them. These glimpses into the sacred-secular will inspire creative church leaders to set aside their assumptions about what church looks like. The Sacred Secular nurtures empowerment, creativity, spiritual movement, and the courage to embody the sacredness and substance of our faith. “Many of us in the church (including clergy) feel we have more in common with the ‘spiritual but not religious’ than we have with lots of church folks these days. We are just as spiritually hungry and thirsty as ever, but we’re open to finding God in surprising places and spaces . . . including ‘secular’ ones. This beautifully written book is all about that phenomenon. I think you’re going to love it.” —Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker, brianmclaren.net “Be prepared to hear contemporary stories akin to the Apostle Peter discovering God in an ‘outsider’—Cornelius—in twenty-first–century urban America. This book is a jewel from two missional church practitioners in The United Methodist Church. It offers wisdom, vision, creativity, and humility that will mark the gospel-bearing church of the future. I highly recommend The Sacred Secular to pastors, church planters, and laity who want their congregations to know how to develop culturally connected faith communities in our rapidly changing world.” —Elaine A. Heath, Dean, Duke Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, NC

Download or read book The Secular Sacred written by Markus Balkenhol and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do religious emotions and national sentiment become entangled across the world? In exploring this theme, The Secular Sacred focuses on diverse topics such as the dynamic roles of Carnival in Brazil, the public contestation of ritual in Northern Nigeria, and the culturalization of secular tolerance in the Netherlands. The contributions focus on the ways in which sacrality and secularity mutually inform, enforce, and spill over into each other. The case studies offer a bottom-up, practice-oriented approach in which the authors are wary to use categories of religion and secular as neutral descriptive terms. The Secular Sacred will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, political scientists, and social psychologists, as well as students and scholars of cultural studies and semiotics. Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Download or read book Sacred and Secular Scriptures written by Nicholas Boyle and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boyle examines influential readings on the Bible as literature--notably Herder, Schleiermacher, Hegel and Levinas--and then applies them to literary writings.

Download or read book Sacred Books Secular Books written by Kalman Dubov and published by Kalman Dubov. This book was released on with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultra-orthodox Jewish world divides the world into two distinct realities; the sphere within and the sphere without. The internal sphere, which I refer to as the Sphere of Holiness is maintained in a sacrosanct manner so that the Sphere of Secularity does not intrude and contaminate the other sphere. The range of figurative walls maintaining these two spheres affects the consciousness and reality of every ultra-orthodox Jew so that this construct is continually brought to conscious awareness. Every member of those who maintain this lifestyle is urged to continually be reminded and reinvigorated in this awareness. Examples of such awareness begin with ultra-orthodox schooling. A child begins religious studies that are exclusive with secular studies either ignored or completed in a way that denies credence or importance. In New York State, the education law contains vague language regarding how a child is to be educated. This vagueness allows those in charge of that school to largely circumvent traditional pedagogy. As the child advances in religious studies, the lack of external exposure coupled with the intensity of study requirements ensures the young man does not stray into forbidden areas that might endanger his sacred standing in the community and be enticed by the larger world. Such study intensifies with each passing grade and year until he is fully conversant with ancient Jewish law and traditions after nearly twenty years of such study. At the same time, however, he will a functional illiterate in the lingua franca of his home country. His female counterpart will not be exposed to such traditional studies because her role is to be the mother and home caretaker, not the scholar. The Jewish tradition not to teach girls and women similar to men derives from the Talmud and the legal determination of Maimonides. This mindset has continued for hundreds of years and is unlikely to change. Despite this limitation on women's education, through Jewish history, exceptional women achieved a high scholarship to the acclaim of their entire community, including men. In fact, one woman, a singular exception, became a Chassidic Rebbe amidst fierce opposition. A modern exception to such a study curriculum is Chabad. Because it has a messianic outreach program, the Chabad couple who establish a Chabad House in diverse cities and countries and are often the only ones running the program, the woman must have the training to lead and know the deeper aspects of Judaism. This book is not only about women's education, but it represents the larger dynamics in how the ultra-orthodox Jewish world bifurcates the reality of its members so that any intrusion from that external world remains in place. An example of such limitation is the ultra-orthodox public denunciations against the use of the internet, use of computers, as against the smartphone unless these devices are programmed so that 'surfing' is not possible. The future of these communities, on a trajectory of high fertility, ensures their future growth. As they populate the United States and other countries, replenishing the numbers lost in the Holocaust, their exposure to and awareness of the world at large will remain extremely limited.

Download or read book Sacred and Secular written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-17 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations.

Download or read book Praying with Jane Eyre written by Vanessa Zoltan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-07-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In these soaring, open-hearted essays, Vanessa Zoltan writes with fierce brilliance about suffering, survival, and the kind of meaning in life that can withstand real scrutiny.”—John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and The Anthropocene Reviewed A deeply felt exploration of the ways our favorite books can shape and heal us, from the host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Our favorite reads keep us company, give us hope, and help us find meaning in a chaotic world. In this fresh and relatable work, atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan blends memoir and personal growth as she grapples with the notions of family legacy and identity through the lens of her favorite novel, Jane Eyre. Informed by her training at the Harvard Divinity School and filtered through the pages of Jane Eyre as well as Little Women, Harry Potter, and The Great Gatsby, Zoltan explores topics ranging from the trauma she has inherited as the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors to finding hope, meaning, and even magic in our deeply fractured times. Brimming with a love of classic literature and the tenderness of self-reflection, the book also reveals simple techniques for reading any work as a sacred text--from Virginia Woolf to Anne of Green Gables to baseball scorecards. Whether you're an avowed "Eyrehead" or a voracious reader and pop culture fan, this deeply felt and inspiring book will light the way to a more intimate appreciation for whatever books you love to read.

Download or read book The Good Book written by A. C. Grayling and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few, if any, thinkers and writers today would have the imagination, the breadth of knowledge, the literary skill, and-yes-the audacity to conceive of a powerful, secular alternative to the Bible. But that is exactly what A.C. Grayling has done by creating a non-religious Bible, drawn from the wealth of secular literature and philosophy in both Western and Eastern traditions, using the same techniques of editing, redaction, and adaptation that produced the holy books of the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic religions. The Good Book consciously takes its design and presentation from the Bible, in its beauty of language and arrangement into short chapters and verses for ease of reading and quotability, offering to the non-religious seeker all the wisdom, insight, solace, inspiration, and perspective of secular humanist traditions that are older, far richer and more various than Christianity. Organized in 12 main sections----Genesis, Histories, Widsom, The Sages, Parables, Consolations, Lamentations, Proverbs, Songs, Epistles, Acts, and the Good----The Good Book opens with meditations on the origin and progress of the world and human life in it, then devotes attention to the question of how life should be lived, how we relate to one another, and how vicissitudes are to be faced and joys appreciated. Incorporating the writing of Herodotus and Lucretius, Confucius and Mencius, Seneca and Cicero, Montaigne, Bacon, and so many others, The Good Book will fulfill its audacious purpose in every way.

Download or read book The Golden Cord written by Charles Taliaferro and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2012-12-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The title of Charles Taliaferro’s book is derived from poems and stories in which a person in peril or on a quest must follow a cord or string in order to find the way to happiness, safety, or home. In one of the most famous of such tales, the ancient Greek hero Theseus follows the string given him by Ariadne to mark his way in and out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. William Blake's poem “Jerusalem” uses the metaphor of a golden string, which, if followed, will lead one to heaven itself. Taliaferro extends Blake’s metaphor to illustrate the ways we can link what we see, feel, and do with deep spiritual realities. Taliaferro offers a foundational case for the recognition of the experience of the eternal God of Christianity, in which God is understood as the fount of all goodness and the subject and object of our best love, revealed through scripture, tradition, philosophical reflection, and encountered in everyday events. He addresses philosophical obstacles to the recognition of such experiences, especially objections from the “new atheists,” and explores the values involved in thinking and experiencing God as eternal. These include the belief that the eternal goodness of God subordinates temporal goods, such as the pursuit of fame and earthly glory; that God is the essence of life; and that the eternal God hallows domestic goods, blessing the everyday goods of ordinary life. An exploration of the moral and spiritual riches of the Christian tradition as an alternative to materialism and naturalism, The Golden Cord brings an originality and depth to the debate in accessible and engaging prose.

Download or read book The Sacred and the Secular University written by Jon H. Roberts and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2000-03-26 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This secularization has long been recognized as a decisive turning point in the history of American education. John Roberts and James Turner identify the forces and explain the events that reformed the college curriculum during this era.".

Download or read book Social Identities Between the Sacred and the Secular written by Dr Abby Day and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the important relationship between the 'sacred' and the 'secular', this book demonstrates that it is not paradoxical to think in terms of both secular and sacred or neither, in different times and places. International experts from a range of disciplinary perspectives draw on local, national, and international contexts to provide a fresh analytical approach to understanding these two contested poles. Exploring such phenomena at an individual, institutional, or theoretical level, each chapter contributes to the central message of the book - that the ‘in between’ is real, embodied and experienced every day and informs, and is informed by, intersecting social identities. Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular provides an essential resource for continued research into these concepts, challenging us to re-think where the boundaries of sacred and secular lie and what may lie between.

Download or read book The Decline and Fall of Sacred Scripture How the Bible Became a Secular Book written by Scott Hahn and published by Emmaus Road Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is wrong with Scripture scholarship today? Why is it that the last place one should go to study the Bible is a biblical studies program at virtually any university? Why are so many faithful priests and pastors, and the people in their pews, unaware of the centuries-long effort to turn the sacred Word of God into just another secular text? In The Decline and Fall of Sacred Scripture: How the Bible Became a Secular Book, authors Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker trace the various malformations of Scripture scholarship that have led to a devastating loss of trust in the inspired Word of God. From the Reformation to the Enlightenment and beyond, Hahn and Wiker sketch the revolutions and radical figures that led to the emergence of the historical-critical method and the pervasive ill effects that are still being felt today.

Download or read book The Black Image in the White Mind written by George Marsh Frederickson and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Secular Steeples written by Conrad Ostwalt and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2003-03-24 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conrad Ostwalt explores the confluence of religion and popular cultural forms in the secular world, demonstrating that a secular religiosity has co-opted some of the functions previously reserved for religions institutions.

Download or read book A SECULAR AGE written by Charles TAYLOR and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 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 Seeking the Sacred written by Roméo Dallaire and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speaking from experience--where things can go wrong and wrongs can remain unrighted--the five modern thinkers in this collection offer ways to maintain a spiritual life outside of a strictly religious context. (Practical Life)

Download or read book Books as Bodies and as Sacred Beings written by James W. Watts and published by Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts. This book was released on 2020 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume an international team of scholars address the theme of books as sacred beings from an impressively diverse range of primary material and perspectives. Yet, as a group, they meld to engage and advance previous research to solidify the conclusion that human cultures, especially religious groups, often ritualize bodies as sacred books and books as divine beings. The studies collected here not only increase the range of examples of this phenomenon. They also show the wide variety of ways in which the identity of books, bodies and beings gets both ritualized and theorized. The articles are bracketed by an introduction to the collection, and then by a concluding essay that extrapolates the theme of books as sacred beings on a more general level.

Download or read book Secular Music Sacred Space written by April Stace and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Easter Sunday, 2009, was the Sunday heard ‘round the evangelical internet: NewSpring Church, the second-largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention and among the top one hundred largest churches in the US, had begun their service with the song “Highway to Hell” by hard rock band AC/DC. They had brazenly crossed the sacred/secular musical divide on the most important Sunday of the year, and commentary abounded on the value of such a step. Many were offended at the “desecration” of such a holy day, deriding Newspring as the “theater of the absurd.” Others cheered NewSpring’s engagement with “the culture” and suggested that music could be used to convert non-Christians. No mere debate over stylistic preferences, many expressed that foundational aspects of evangelical identity were at stake. While many books have been written about religious music that utilizes popular music styles (a.k.a. “contemporary Christian music”), there has yet to be a scholarly treatment of how and why popular, secular music is utilized by churches. This book addresses that lacuna by examining this emerging trend in evangelical and “emerging” churches in America. What is the motivation behind using music that seemingly has no connection to Christian theology, values, or themes—such as music by Katy Perry, AC/DC, or Van Halen—and what can we learn about post-denominational evangelical churches in America by uncovering these motives? In this book, April Stace uncovers several themes from an ethnographic study of these churches: the increasingly-porous boundary between the sacred and the secular, the importance placed on “authenticity” in contemporary American culture, how evangelicals are responding to what they perceive is an increasingly-secular society, the “turn to the subject” of contemporary culture, the desire to leave a space for expression of doubt in the worship service without fully authorizing that doubt, and the individualization of the construction of religious identity in the modern era.