front cover of Accounting for Fundamentalisms
Accounting for Fundamentalisms
The Dynamic Character of Movements
Edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby
University of Chicago Press, 1994
Accounting for Fundamentalisms features treatments of fundamentalist movements, groups that often make headlines but are rarely understood, as part of the multivolume Fundamentalism Project. This book remains a standard reference source for comprehending the dynamics of fundamentalist movements around the world. Surveying fundamentalist movements in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, the contributors to Accounting for Fundamentalisms describe the organization of these movements, their leadership and recruiting techniques, and the ways in which their ideological programs and organizational structures shift over time in response to changing political and social environments.
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Afro-Caribbean Religions
An Introduction to Their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions
Nathaniel Samuel Murrell
Temple University Press, 2009
Religion is one of the most important elements of Afro-Caribbean culture linking its people to their African past, from Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santeria—popular religions that have often been demonized in popular culture—to Rastafari in Jamaica and Orisha-Shango of Trinidad and Tobago. In Afro-Caribbean Religions, Nathaniel Samuel Murrell provides a comprehensive study that respectfully traces the social, historical, and political contexts of these religions. And, because Brazil has the largest African population in the world outside of Africa, and has historic ties to the Caribbean, Murrell includes a section on Candomble, Umbanda, Xango, and Batique.

This accessibly written introduction to Afro-Caribbean religions examines the cultural traditions and transformations of all of the African-derived religions of the Caribbean along with their cosmology, beliefs, cultic structures, and ritual practices. Ideal for classroom use, Afro-Caribbean Religions also includes a glossary defining unfamiliar terms and identifying key figures.
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Against Dogmatism
Dwelling in Faith and Doubt
Madhuri Yadlapati
University of Illinois Press, 2013
Many contemporary discussions of religion take an absolute, intractable approach to belief and nonbelief that privileges faith and dogmatism while treating doubt as a threat to religious values. As Madhuri M. Yadlapati demonstrates, however, there is another way: a faith (or nonfaith) that embraces doubt and its potential for exploring both the depths and heights of spiritual reflection and speculation. Through three distinct discussions of faith, doubt, and hope, Yadlapati explores what it means to live creatively and responsibly in the everyday world as limited, imaginative, and questioning creatures. She begins with a perceptive survey of diverse faith experiences in Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Protestant Christianity and then narrows her focus to Protestant Christianity and Hinduism to explore how the great thinkers of those faiths have embraced doubt in the service of spiritual transcendence.

Yadlapati traces religious perspectives on trust, humility, belonging, commitment, and lively skepticism as they relate to faith and doubt. Drawing on various doctrines, scriptures, and the writings of great religious thinkers such as C. S. Lewis, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, and Raimon Panikkar, Yadlapati demonstrates how doubt can serve to enhance faith, not hinder it. Defending the rich tapestry of faith and doubt against polarization, Against Dogmatism reveals an ecumenical middle way, a spiritual approach native to traditions in which faith and doubt are interwoven in constructive and dynamic ways.

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Ancient Egypt
Cradle of Early Christianity
Tjeu van den Berk
Eburon Academic Publishers, 2021
Traces the sources of the Christian religion to ancient Egypt.

The earliest Christian myths emerged in the melting pot of gnostic Alexandria—not in orthodox Jerusalem, classical Athens, or legalistic Rome. In this book, Tjeu van den Berk traces the sources of the Christian faith to the banks of the river Nile. Focusing on ancient archetypes, van den Berk underscores the striking similarities between the Egyptian and Christian religions. In this fascinating study, he explores the symbolism of the Trinity, the cross, and the myths of a god born of a virgin. He also traces the origins of the stories of Lazarus and Saint George, and he finds stunning parallels between Egyptian mythology and the Book of Revelation. 
 
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front cover of Ancient Religions
Ancient Religions
Sarah Iles Johnston, General Editor
Harvard University Press, 2007
Religious beliefs and practices, which permeated all aspects of life in antiquity, traveled well-worn routes throughout the Mediterranean: itinerant charismatic practitioners journeying from place to place peddled their skills as healers, purifiers, cursers, and initiators; and vessels decorated with illustrations of myths traveled with them. New gods encountered in foreign lands by merchants and conquerors were sometimes taken home to be adapted and adopted. This collection of essays by a distinguished international group of scholars, drawn from the groundbreaking reference work Religions of the Ancient World, offers an expansive, comparative perspective on this complex spiritual world.
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front cover of Apples and Oranges
Apples and Oranges
Explorations In, On, and With Comparison
Bruce Lincoln
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Comparison is an indispensable intellectual operation that plays a crucial role in the formation of knowledge. Yet comparison often leads us to forego attention to nuance, detail, and context, perhaps leaving us bereft of an ethical obligation to take things correspondingly as they are. Examining the practice of comparison across the study of history, language, religion, and culture, distinguished scholar of religion Bruce Lincoln argues in Apples and Oranges for a comparatism of a more modest sort.

Lincoln presents critiques of recent attempts at grand comparison, and enlists numerous theoretical examples of how a more modest, cautious, and discriminating form of comparison might work and what it can accomplish. He does this through studies of shamans, werewolves, human sacrifices, apocalyptic prophecies, sacred kings, and surveys of materials as diverse and wide-ranging as Beowulf, Herodotus’s account of the Scythians, the Native American Ghost Dance, and the Spanish Civil War.

Ultimately, Lincoln argues that concentrating one's focus on a relatively small number of items that the researcher can compare closely, offering equal attention to relations of similarity and difference, not only grants dignity to all parties considered, it yields more reliable and more interesting—if less grandiose—results. Giving equal attention to the social, historical, and political contexts and subtexts of religious and literary texts also allows scholars not just to assess their content, but also to understand the forces, problems, and circumstances that motivated and shaped them.  
 
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Augustine and Spinoza
Milad Doueihi
Harvard University Press, 2010

Election and grace are two key concepts that not only have shaped the relations between Judaism and Christianity, but also have formed a cornerstone of the Western philosophical discourse on the evolution and progress of humanity. Though Augustine and Spinoza can be shown to share a methodological approach to these concepts, their conclusions remain radically different. For the Church Father Augustine, grace defines human nature by the potential availability of divine intervention, thus setting the stage for the institutional and political legitimacy of the Church, the Christian state, and its justice. For Spinoza, on the other hand, election represents a unique but local form of divine intervention, marked by geography and historical context.

Milad Doueihi maps out the consequences of such an encounter between these two thinkers in terms of their philosophical heritage and its continued relevance for contemporary discussions of religious diversity and autonomy.

Augustine asserts a theological foundation for the political, whereas Spinoza radically separates philosophy, and thus authority, from theology in order to solicit a political democracy. In this sharply argued and deeply learned book, Milad Doueihi shows us how interconnections between the two thinkers have come to shape Western philosophy.

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front cover of Autobiography, Volume 1
Autobiography, Volume 1
1907-1937, Journey East, Journey West
Mircea Eliade
University of Chicago Press, 1990
"Here finally are Eliade's memoirs of the first thirty years of his life in Mac Linscott Rickett's crisp and lucid English translation. They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's progression from a mischievous street urchin and literary prodigy, through his various love affairs, a decisive and traumatic Indian sojourn, and active, brilliant participation in pre-World War II Romanian cultural life."—Seymour Cain, Religious Studies Review
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front cover of Autobiography, Volume 2
Autobiography, Volume 2
1937-1960, Exile's Odyssey
Mircea Eliade
University of Chicago Press, 1988
"Here finally are Eliade's memoirs of the first thirty years of his life in Mac Linscott Rickett's crisp and lucid English translation. They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's progression from a mischievous street urchin and literary prodigy, through his various love affairs, a decisive and traumatic Indian sojourn, and active, brilliant participation in pre-World War II Romanian cultural life."—Seymour Cain, Religious Studies Review
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