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4743 books match the query 'Religion' and 371 start with a

cover of A Restless Search: A History of Persian Translations of the Bible

A Restless Search

A History of Persian Translations of the Bible

Kenneth J. Thomas

SBL Press, 2015

A literary detective story, a historical survey, and an important contribution to translation studies

This book from Kenneth J. Thomas is both a philological and linguistic analysis of Persian translations and a call for interfaith cooperation. Thomas appraises biblical translation efforts from the fifth to the twenty-first centuries of Persian history when successive translators and groups of translators, sometimes of different faiths, worked to reshape and refine versions of the Bible in the supple Persian language of their times. Restless, impelled, and wide-ranging, this is a story of translations commissioned by shahs, undertaken by Christian and Jewish communities, and produced by teams working outside the country.

Features

  • Demonstration of the effects of the lack of a standard Persian vocabulary for key biblical terms on literary style and word choice
  • Technical analyses and overviews of Persian biblical translations
  • A careful examination of sixteen centuries' worth of Bible translations
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cover of A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse

A Salem Witch

The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse

Daniel A. Gagnon

Westholme Publishing, 2023

In the winter of 1692 something terrible and frightening began in Salem Village. It started with several villagers having strange fits, screaming, and unnaturally contorting themselves, and ended with almost two hundred people in jail, and at least twenty-five dead. Witchcraft accusations—claims that some inhabitants had forsaken God to become servants of the Devil—spread from Salem Village across Massachusetts, ensnaring innocent people from all strata of society under a burden of assumed guilt. One of the most significant accusations, and most unlikely, was against a seventy-one-year-old grandmother, Rebecca Nurse.
   The accusations against Nurse, a well-respected member in the community, seemed unbelievable. Unflinchingly, this ailing elderly woman insisted on her innocence and refused to falsely confess. Supported by many in Salem, Nurse’s family and neighbors challenged her accusers in court and prepared a thorough defense for her, yet nothing could surmount the fear of witchcraft, and she was sentenced to death. Nurse, seen as a martyr for the truth, later became the first person accused of witchcraft to be memorialized in North America.
    In A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, the first full account of Nurse’s life, Daniel A. Gagnon vividly recreates seventeenth-century Salem, and in the process challenges previous interpretations of Nurse’s life and the 1692 witch hunt in general. Through primary source research, he reveals how the Nurse family’s role in several disputes prior to the witch hunt was different than previously thought, as well as how Nurse’s case helps answer the important question of whether the accusations of witchcraft were caused by mental illness or malicious intent. A Salem Witch reveals a remarkable woman whose legacy has transformed how the witch hunt has been remembered and memorialized.
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cover of A Saltire in the German Lands: Scottish Benedictine Monasteries in Germany 1575-1862

A Saltire in the German Lands

Scottish Benedictine Monasteries in Germany 1575-1862

Thomas McInally

Aberdeen University Press, 2017

For almost three hundred years, when Catholicism was illegal in Scotland, southern Germany was host to communities of Scottish Benedictine monks. From the Reformation onwards Scots went to monasteries run by their own countrymen in Bavaria, Franconia and Thuringia in order to take up life in a religious order. Throughout their stay in the lands of the Holy Roman Emperor the concern of these Scots Benedictines was to support and engage in the missionary activities of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Almost inevitably, however, they became involved in German political life in part through being active participants in their hosts’ counter-Reformation. They became witnesses to and minor participants in a number of major cataclysmic events including the Thirty Years’ War, the War of Austrian Succession, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars all of which threatened their continued existence. However, their survival and prosperity came to depend on the strong networks of support developed by Scots at home and in continental Europe. From the late seventeenth through to the nineteenth century the monasteries were able to engage energetically in the provision of education not only for their fellow Scots but for their German hosts. Efforts in this regard led to their making significant contributions to the wider European Enlightenment movement – a fact that has long been known in Germany although almost unrecognised elsewhere. A Saltire in the German Lands is an attempt to bring their achievements to the wider audience they deserve.
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cover of A Service Beyond All Recompense

A Service Beyond All Recompense

Kurt Martens

Catholic University of America Press, 2018

When Monsignor Thomas J. Green, professor at the School of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America, approached his seventy-fifth birthday and the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination, his colleagues planned on offering him a fitting tribute in the form of a festschrift. Six people with different backgrounds, but all related to Msgr. Green on one way or another, have written a laudatio – a short congratulatory letter – in honor of Monsignor Green. No less than fifteen contributions on various topics by colleagues, canon law scholars, clearly relate and reflect upon the honoree's scholarly contributions to canon law. The topics are extremely varied, and illustrate how Monsignor Green has been or is active in nearly every area of canon law. Virtually every book of the Code of Canon Law is covered, if not directly, at least indirectly. While the book is a tribute to an eminent professor, the various scholarly contributions are unique pieces of scholarship. The authors of the laudatio are: John Garvey (President, The Catholic University of America); Andrew Abela (Provost, The Catholic University of America); Rev. Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield (General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops); Rev. Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins (Dean, School of Canon Law, The Catholic University of America); Rev. Msgr. J. James Cuneo (Diocese of Bridgeport) and Sister Sharon Euart, RSM (Executive Director, Resource Center for Religious Institutes, Silver Spring, MD).
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cover of A Service of Love

A Service of Love

Paul McPartlan

Catholic University of America Press, 2013

In this short and penetrating study, Paul McPartlan, a member of the international Roman Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue, presents a proposal, carefully argued both historically and theologically, for a primacy exercising a service of love in a reconciled church, West and East.
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cover of A Service of Love

A Service of Love

Paul McPartlan

Catholic University of America Press, 2016

"Msgr Paul McPartlan's book constitutes a significant contribution to the theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. It combines valuable historical information with deep theological insights by presenting the development of papal primacy in the two millennia of Church history in close connection with collegiality and the Eucharist. A scholarly work with particular importance for the discussion of one of the most crucial issues in ecclesiology and ecumenism. It is warmly recommended for study by all those interested in the promotion of Christian unity." -Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon
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cover of A Shared Future: Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy

A Shared Future

Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy

Richard L. Wood and Brad R. Fulton

University of Chicago Press, 2015

Faith-based community organizers have spent decades working for greater equality in American society, and more recently have become significant players in shaping health care, finance, and immigration reform at the highest levels of government.

In A Shared Future, Richard L. Wood and Brad R. Fulton draw on a new national study of community organizing coalitions and in-depth interviews of key leaders in this field to show how faith-based organizing is creatively navigating the competing aspirations of America’s universalist and multiculturalist democratic ideals, even as it confronts three demons bedeviling American politics: economic inequality, federal policy paralysis, and racial inequity. With a broad view of the entire field and a distinct empirical focus on the PICO National Network, Wood and Fulton’s analysis illuminates the tensions, struggles, and deep rewards that come with pursuing racial equity within a social change organization and in society. Ultimately, A Shared Future offers a vision for how we might build a future that embodies the ethical democracy of the best American dreams.

An interview of the authors on the subject of faith leaders organizing for justice (Peace Talks Radio, copyright Good Radio Shows, Inc.) can be heard at this link: https://beta.prx.org/stories/190030
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cover of A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1885-1886: The Safarnâmeh of Mirzâ Mo?ammad ?osayn Farâhâni

A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1885-1886

The Safarnâmeh of Mirzâ Mo?ammad ?osayn Farâhâni

By Mirzâ Farâhâni

University of Texas Press, 1990

Western accounts of the Hajj, the ritual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, are rare, since access to Mecca is forbidden to non-Muslims. In the Muslim world, however, pilgrimage literature is a well-established genre, dating back to the earliest centuries of the Islamic era. A Shiʿite Pilgrimage to Mecca is taken from the original nineteenth-century Persian manuscript of the Safarnâmeh of Mirzâ Moḥammad Ḥosayn Farâhâni, a well-educated, keenly observant, Iranian Shiʿite gentleman.

This memoir holds a wealth of social and economic information about Czarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Northern Iran, and Arabia. The author is a meticulous observer, recording details of distances, currencies, accommodations, modes of travel, and so on. He records the experiences encountered by pilgrims of his day: physical hardships, disease, generosity and compassion, banditry, hospitality, comradeship, and exaltation. And, without prejudice, he discusses the tensions between the Shiʿites and the Sunnites in the holy places—tensions that still exist and have erupted in bloody clashes during recent pilgrimages.

A Shiʿite Pilgrimage to Mecca will appeal to a wide audience of general readers, Middle Eastern scholars, anthropologists, and historians.

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cover of A Shining Lamp

A Shining Lamp

Mary C. Sullivan

Catholic University of America Press, 2017

Catherine McAuley (1778-1841), the founder of the Sisters of Mercy in 1831, frequently gave oral instructions to the first Mercy community. Though she sometimes spoke explicitly about their religious vows, her words were always focused on the life, example, teachings, and evangelic spirit of Jesus Christ, emphasizing "resemblance" to him, and fidelity to the calls of the Gospel. Her instructions have, therefore, a broad present-day relevance that can be inspiring and encouraging for all Christians. They are the "shining" words of a companion, a soul-friend, who offers guiding light to those who wend their pilgrim way toward the full embrace of God's merciful reign.
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cover of A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary

A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary

Rene Laurentin

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

As a peritus at Vatican II and by the end of his life arguably the world’s leading Mariologist, René Laurentin has earned the privilege of republication of a work of considerable value for any theologian who aims for comprehensiveness of Catholic theological perspective, historically and systematically. Laurentin’s orthodox, yet highly original treatment displays his command of all of the relevant biblical, patristic, medieval and modern texts up to and including the entire proceedings of the Second Vatican Council, as well as the whole range of related historical and theological scholarship. His proposal to pursue Mariological speculation along two tracks – first, “from above,” following the course of doctrinal development from biblical revelation to the VCII era, and second, “from below,” considering Mary’s own life (walking in her footsteps, as it were), from before the Annunciation to the Parousia – provides a clear, accessible structure for the work, yielding rich theological and spiritual fruit. Not only are all the major Marian doctrines and their developments handled with the greatest sensitivity, from the Virgin birth to the modern promulgations of Immaculate Conception and Assumption, but Laurentin’s approach in his second part opens the way to a human-psychological treatment of motherhood, still solidly bolstered by traditional Christian anthropology. Regarding Mary’s status as Mother of God, Laurentin’s discussion of the Theotokos exhibits his deep ecumenical commitments, as much as his specific attention to Mary’s soteriological role as a sticking point for Protestantism. One of the most striking qualities of the work is Laurentin’s deft integration of his evident scholastic formation into an overarching vision thoroughly at ease with the phenomenological (“personalist”) and existential currents in which he also inevitably swam throughout his education and professional scholarly occupation. As a result, the work can be read and appreciated instinctively, as it were, as much by the eclectic contemporary theologian, influenced by the likes of Heidegger, et al, as by the Thomist.
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cover of A Sip from the "Well of Grace": Medieval Texts from the Apostolic Penitentiary

A Sip from the "Well of Grace"

Medieval Texts from the Apostolic Penitentiary

Kirsi Salonen

Catholic University of America Press, 2009

The first book to include full texts and photographs from the Apostolic Penitentiary, A Sip from the "Well of Grace" is groundbreaking in its analysis of one of the most important papal offices of the Middle Ages.
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cover of A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825

A Spiritual Revolution

The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825

Andrey V. Ivanov

University of Wisconsin Press, 2023

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia’s church and society in the eighteenth century. Though the traditional Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, Andrey V. Ivanov’s study argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution.

Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details, A Spiritual Revolution is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western progressive thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change.
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cover of A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China

A Star in the East

The Rise of Christianity in China

Rodney Stark

Templeton Press, 2015

What is the state of Christianity in China? Some scholars say that China is invulnerable to religion. In contrast, others say that past efforts of missionaries have failed, writing off those converted as nothing more than “rice Christians” or cynical souls who had frequented the missions for the benefits they provided. Some wonder if the Cultural Revolution extinguished any chances of Christianity in China.

Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang offer a different perspective, arguing that Christianity is alive, well, and on the rise. Stark approaches the topic from an extensive research background in Christianity and Chinese history, and Wang provides an inside look at Christianity and its place in her home country of China. Both authors cover the history of religion in China, disproving older theories concerning the number of Christians and the kinds of Christians that have emerged in the past 155 years. Stark and Wang claim that when just considering the visible Christians—those not part of underground churches—thousands of Chinese are still converted to Christianity daily, and forty new churches are opening each week.

A Star in the East draws on two major national surveys to sketch a close-up of religion in China. A reliable estimate is that by 2007 there were approximately 60 million Christians in China. If the current growth rate were to hold until 2030, there would be more Christians in China—about 295 million—than in any other nation. This trend has significant implications, not just for China but for the greater world order. It is probable that Chinese Christianity will splinter into denominations, likely leading to the same political, social, and economic ramifications seen in the West today.

Whether you’re new to studying Christianity in China or whether this has been your area of interest for years, A Star in the East provides a reliable, thought-provoking, and engaging account of the resilience of the Christian faith in China and the implications it has for the future.

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cover of A Storied Sage: Canon and Creation in the Making of a Japanese Buddha

A Storied Sage

Canon and Creation in the Making of a Japanese Buddha

Micah L. Auerback

University of Chicago Press, 2016

Since its arrival in Japan in the sixth century, Buddhism has played a central role in Japanese culture. But the historical figure of the Buddha, the prince of ancient Indian descent who abandoned his wealth and power to become an awakened being, has repeatedly disappeared and reappeared, emerging each time in a different form and to different ends. A Storied Sage traces this transformation of concepts of the Buddha, from Japan’s ancient period in the eighth century to the end of the Meiji period in the early twentieth century.

Micah L. Auerback follows the changing fortune of the Buddha through the novel uses for the Buddha’s story in high and low culture alike, often outside of the confines of the Buddhist establishment. Auerback argues for the Buddha’s continuing relevance during Japan’s early modern period and links the later Buddhist tradition in Japan to its roots on the Asian continent. Additionally, he examines the afterlife of the Buddha in hagiographic literature, demonstrating that the late Japanese Buddha, far from fading into a ghost of his former self, instead underwent an important reincarnation. Challenging many established assumptions about Buddhism and its evolution in Japan, A Storied Sage is a vital contribution to the larger discussion of religion and secularization in modernity.
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cover of A Symphony of Distances: Patristic, Modern, and Gendered Dimensions of Balthasar's Trinitarian Theology

A Symphony of Distances

Patristic, Modern, and Gendered Dimensions of Balthasar's Trinitarian Theology

Christopher M. Hadley, SJ

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

The two-fold task of A Symphony of Distances is to provide an overview of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s use of distance imagery with regard to personal distinctions in the Holy Trinity and to offer a critical analysis of him as a modern Catholic theologian. A metaphor of “distance” integrates all of Balthasar’s theological thought as a primary cipher for the many symbols through which he reads the Christian theological tradition in a trinitarian and eschatological mode. The book follows a chronological, four-stage development of Balthasar’s trinitarianism through the lens of this distance metaphor as it occurs across representative texts. The critical analysis employs the conceit of a symphony of four musical movements that correspond to four varieties of theological distance. These distances show certain correspondences of God’s creation and redemption of the world—marked by the first two “distances”—with the relations of the divine persons to each other in the economy of salvation and in the eternal Trinity itself—marked by the third and fourth distances. “Listening” to the four movements of Balthasar’s theological distances enables his readers to “hear” the themes of all four movements in the ascending order of richness, complexity, and inclusivity over the long development of his thought. This fundamentally positive approach of A Symphony of Distances allows for a thorough critique of the internal consistency of Balthasar’s applied method, of the controversial use of gendered trinitarian notions in his speculations on divine pathos, and of his adequacy to the tasks of modern theology. The final judgment is that Balthasar’s theology of distance can be accepted, with reservations, as a positive element of his contribution to contemporary trinitarian theology. The book can thus serve as a critical reference for readers who find Balthasar’s notion of trinitarian distance, and indeed his trinitarianism as a whole, to be compelling, confusing, or frustrating.
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cover of A Theology of Sense: John Updike, Embodiment, and Late Twentieth-Century American Literature

A Theology of Sense

John Updike, Embodiment, and Late Twentieth-Century American Literature

Scott Dill

The Ohio State University Press, 2018

Scott Dill’s A Theology of Sense: John Updike, Embodiment, and Late Twentieth-Century American Literature brings together theology, aesthetics, and the body, arguing that Updike, a central figure in post-1945 American literature, deeply embeds in his work questions of the body and the senses with questions of theology. Dill offers new understandings not only of the work of Updike—which is importantly being revisited since the author’s death in 2009—but also new understandings of the relationship between aesthetics, religion, and physical experience. Dill explores Updike’s unique literary legacy in order to argue for a genuinely postsecular theory of aesthetic experience. Each chapter takes up one of the five senses and its relation to broader theoretical concerns: affect, subjectivity, ontology, ethics, and theology. While placing Updike’s work in relation to other late twentieth-century American writers, Dill explains their notions of embodiment and uses them to render a new account of postsecular aesthetics. No other novelist has portrayed mere sense experience as carefully, as extensively, or as theologically—repeatedly turning to the doctrine of creation as his stylistic justification. Across this examination of his many stories, novels, poems, and essays, Dill proves that Updike forces us to reconsider the power of literature to revitalize sense experience as a theological question.
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cover of A Theology of the Christian Bible: Revelation - Inspiration - Canon

A Theology of the Christian Bible

Revelation - Inspiration - Canon

Denis Farkasfalvy

Catholic University of America Press, 2018

A Theology of the Christian Bible is built upon the thesis that divine revelation, the inspiration and canonization of Scripture should be viewed as “sequentially linked movements” of a single process wherein God reveals his Word in history and ensures permanent accessibility of revelation for his People, both of Israel and of the Church. The starting point is the view expressed in the Second Vatican Council’s document Dei Verbum that revelation consists of the “words and realities” of Salvation History. This marks a shift away from the neo-scholastic concept that approached revelation primarily as a set of propositional truths. Farkasfalvy begins with the notion of revelation as a historical process: God reveals his Word in a “salvation history,” which culminates in the Incarnation. The transmission of revelation always involves human mediation by chosen individuals or, in the language of the biblical and patristic tradition, “Prophets and Apostles.” Farkasfalvy then moves on to review some of the major contributors to the theology of inspiration around the time of Vatican II (Bea, Rahner, Alonso-Schökel), the teaching of Dei Verbum proper, and finally the 2014 document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and biblical inspiration and the truth of the Bible, treating each of these in its individual context. According to Farkasfalvy, the theology of inspiration was greatly handicapped by the neo-scholastic notion of God as a “literary author” of the scriptural texts. Advocating God as true and genuine “author” of Scripture, but in a non-literary sense, Farkasfalvy also reviews afresh the tradition inspiration-incarnation analogy. Scripture should be thought of in light of God progressively revealing himself in limited and located contexts to chosen human beings, through whom revelation is transmitted in verbal and, eventually, written form. God guides the complex compositional processes of the biblical books so that his word becomes accessibly and permanently preserved in writing for his people, the Church. The final chapters of A Theology of the Christian Bible take up the extension of these dynamics into canonization. These largely exegetical and historical chapters focus on the transmission of the revelation in Christ through both Testaments by means of Jesus’ Apostles, embracing the Hebrew Scriptures and setting in motion the formation and, in early patristics, the canonization of the New Testament.
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cover of A Theory of Religion

A Theory of Religion

Stark, Rodney

Rutgers University Press, 1996

In this unique text, Stark and Bainbridge begin with basic statements about human nature and, employing the principles of logic and philosophy, build toward increasingly complex propositions about societies and their religious institutions. They provide a rigorous yet flexible sociological theory of religion as well as a general sociological model for deriving macrolevel theory from microlevel evidence.
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cover of A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton and Darwin

A Third Window

Natural Life beyond Newton and Darwin

Robert W. Ulanowicz

Templeton Press, 2009

Thus far, the dominant paradigms through which modern scientists have viewed nature have been structured primarily around Newtonian and Darwinian approaches. As theoretical ecologist Robert E. Ulanowicz observes in his new work, A Third Window, neither of these models is sufficient for explaining how real change—in the form of creative advance or emergence—takes place in nature.

The metaphysical foundations laid by these great thinkers centuries ago are ill suited to sustain today's search for a comprehensive description of complex living systems. Ecosystem dynamics, for example, violate each and every one of the Newtonian presuppositions. Hence, Ulanowicz offers his titular "third window"—a new way of understanding evolution and other natural processes beyond the common mechanistic or materialistic philosophies of nature.

Drawing on the writings of Walter Elsasser, Karl Popper, Gregory Bateson, Robert Rosen, and Alfred North Whitehead, as well as his own experience as a theoretical ecologist, Ulanowicz offers a new set of axioms for how nature behaves. Chance and disarray in natural processes are shown to be necessary conditions for real change. Randomness is shown to contribute richness and autonomy to the natural world.
The metaphysical implications of these new axioms will lend A Third Window a wide appeal not only among scientists, but also among philosophers, theologians, and general readers who follow the science and religion dialogue. Ulanowicz's fresh perspective adds a new voice to the discussion.
[more]
cover of A Thomistic Christocentrism: Recovering the Carmelites of Salamanca on the Logic of the Incarnation

A Thomistic Christocentrism

Recovering the Carmelites of Salamanca on the Logic of the Incarnation

Dylan Schrader

Catholic University of America Press, 2021

Saint Thomas Aquinas famously held the opinion that, in God’s actual plan for the world, the Word would not have become flesh except to redeem us from sin. Conversely, Blessed John Duns Scotus argued that God intended Christ first, such that Christ would have come even if there had been no sin. While Aquinas and Scotus were far from the first to consider this question, they became emblematic of two seemingly irreconcilable approaches. In this book, Father Dylan Schrader recovers the thought of the Salmanticenses, the Discalced Carmelites writing at the University of Salamanca in the seventeenth century. The Salmanticenses argue that Christ is primary in God’s intention precisely as redeemer, so that it is true both that God has made everything else for the sake of Christ and that Christ’s coming is essentially redemptive, connected with sin. In this way, the Salmanticenses offer a Thomistic Christocentrism. This book summarizes the historical background to the Salmanticenses, from the time of Anselm up through the early-modern period. Next, it presents and defends the Salmanticenses’ argument for the primacy of Christ the redeemer. A Thomistic Christocentrism then turns to two key post-conciliar figures, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Rahner sees Christ as the culmination of the world’s opening up to God. Balthasar sees Christ as the reconciler of divine and human freedom through his cross, descent, and resurrection. Both Christocentric approaches have good aspirations but suffer from serious flaws. In its final chapters, this book applies the Salamanca theory to Rahner and Balthasar, showing its enduring value for post-conciliar Christocentrism.
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cover of A Thomistic Introduction to Modern Psychology

A Thomistic Introduction to Modern Psychology

Leslie Kelley

Catholic University of America Press, 2026

Modern psychology has garnered an abundance of data, but how do the dis­crete studies of psychology fit together into a clear picture of the human person. Chesterton quips, “. . . what is pompously called induction is simply collecting more of the data. And Aristotle or Aquinas, or anybody in his five wits, would of course agree that the conclusion could only be true if the premises were true; and that the more true premises there were the better.” A Thomistic philosophical framework can provide important insights into the meaning and value of modern psychological theories and research. Thomistic anthropology allows us to develop a holistic vision of the human person, avoiding the modern tendencies toward determinism and reductionism. St. Thomas provides clear direction regarding the role and purpose of man’s var­ious powers, and using a Thomistic philosophical framework allows for ob­jectivity in our understanding of human adaptive and dysfunctional behavior, and helps to specify the unique and unified roles of body and mind. The place of psychology, in relation to philosophy and the natural sciences has been unclear throughout psychology’s short history, and Thomistic distinctions can clarify the distinctive position of psychology. In addition to describing Thomistic anthropology as a framework for modern psychology, Leslie Kelly also demonstrates examples of evidence from the social sciences that supports the Thomistic view of the human person. And last of all, a Thomistic frame­work allows investigators of psychology to develop a teleological perspective, so as to see the results of modern research in relation to the final end of the human person. Whether you are academically seasoned or a beginner, you will enjoy this fresh take on modern psychology through the perspective of St. Thomas.
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cover of A Torah Commentary for Our Times: Volume 2: Exodus and Leviticus

A Torah Commentary for Our Times

Volume 2: Exodus and Leviticus

Rabbi Harvey J. Fields

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1991

A helpful approach to the weekly parashah, juxtaposing the insights of ancient, medieval, and modern commentators (including the author). Perfect for both beginning Torah students and scholars seeking new angles on the text. The volumes are available individually or as a three-volume set, ideal for a bar or bat mitzvah or confirmation gift.

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cover of A Torah Commentary for Our Times: Volume 3: Numbers and Deuteronomy

A Torah Commentary for Our Times

Volume 3: Numbers and Deuteronomy

Rabbi Harvey J. Fields

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1993

A helpful approach to the weekly parashah, juxtaposing the insights of ancient, medieval, and modern commentators (including the author). Perfect for both beginning Torah students and scholars seeking new angles on the text. The volumes are available individually or as a three-volume set, ideal for a bar or bat mitzvah or confirmation gift.

[more]
cover of A Torah Commentary for Our Times: Volume I: Genesis

A Torah Commentary for Our Times

Volume I: Genesis

Rabbi Harvey J. Fields

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1990

A helpful approach to the weekly parashah, juxtaposing the insights of ancient, medieval, and modern commentators (including the author). Perfect for both beginning Torah students and scholars seeking new angles on the text. The volumes are available individually or as a three-volume set, ideal for a bar or bat mitzvah or confirmation gift.

[more]
cover of A Treasure to be Shared: Understanding <i>Anglicanorum coetibus</i>

A Treasure to be Shared

Understanding <i>Anglicanorum coetibus</i>

Walter Oxley

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

A Treasure to Be Shared is intended to promote a more widespread knowledge of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. The Apostolic Constitution provided for Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution, an academic symposium in the year 2019 sponsored by the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, provided historical, liturgical, canonical and ecumenical perspectives on the fruits of the Apostolic Constitution for the wider Church. The hope is that the reader will see the Personal Ordinariates of The Chair of Saint Peter in the United States and Canada, Our Lady of Walsingham in Great Britain and Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia as a gift to the Church, and a treasure to be shared by all.
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cover of A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr & Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas

A Trinitarian Anthropology

Adrienne von Speyr & Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas

Michele M. Schumacher

Catholic University of America Press, 2014

In this magisterial work, Michele M. Schumacher seeks to promote dialogue between disciples of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (d. 1988) and those of the church's common doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) on a critical theological question. How are analogies and metaphors from the philosophy and theology of the person (anthropology) rightly used to address the mystery of the Trinity? She does so by considering the specific setting of Balthasar's theology: the inseparability of his work from that of the Swiss physician and mystic Adrienne von Speyr (d. 1967).
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cover of A User's Guide to the Nestle-Aland 28 Greek New Testament

A User's Guide to the Nestle-Aland 28 Greek New Testament

David Trobisch

SBL Press, 2013

This guide introduces the complex new edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, 28 Edition, explaining its structure, the text-critical apparatus and appendices, and the innovations of the new edition.
[more]
cover of A Very Queer Family Indeed: Sex, Religion, and the Bensons in Victorian Britain

A Very Queer Family Indeed

Sex, Religion, and the Bensons in Victorian Britain

Simon Goldhill

University of Chicago Press, 2016

“We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love story of anything like the usual kind.”

So begins A Very Queer Family Indeed, which introduces us to the extraordinary Benson family. Edward White Benson became Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign, while his wife, Mary, was renowned for her wit and charm—the prime minister once wondered whether she was “the cleverest woman in England or in Europe.” The couple’s six precocious children included E. F. Benson, celebrated creator of the Mapp and Lucia novels, and Margaret Benson, the first published female Egyptologist.

What interests Simon Goldhill most, however, is what went on behind the scenes, which was even more unusual than anyone could imagine. Inveterate writers, the Benson family spun out novels, essays, and thousands of letters that open stunning new perspectives—including what it might mean for an adult to kiss and propose marriage to a twelve-year-old girl, how religion in a family could support or destroy relationships, or how the death of a child could be celebrated. No other family has left such detailed records about their most intimate moments, and in these remarkable accounts, we see how family life and a family’s understanding of itself took shape during a time when psychoanalysis, scientific and historical challenges to religion, and new ways of thinking about society were developing. This is the story of the Bensons, but it is also more than that—it is the story of how society transitioned from the high Victorian period into modernity.
 
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cover of A View from Life's Edge: Discovering What Really Matters with Older Women Across the Globe

A View from Life's Edge

Discovering What Really Matters with Older Women Across the Globe

Corinne G. Dempsey

Rutgers University Press, 2026

In today’s death-denying, success-driven society, older women’s countercultural voices call for our attention. Recounting emotionally charged conversations from across the world, A View from Life’s Edge reflects on women’s comfort with impending death, gratitude forged by catastrophe, and humility that makes way for wonder.
 
Speaking with nearly one hundred women over the age of eighty in four locations—northern Iceland, south India, a retirement community in California, and a convent in upstate New York—Corinne G. Dempsey finds that, as we near life’s end, we gain clarity about what really matters in life. Women’s stories and reflections, in which sorrow and loss are central to a life well lived, help to expand our sense of what it means to be human.
 
Drawing on the paradoxical wisdom of world religions and mystical traditions to frame late-life tendencies across cultures, Dempsey portrays these accounts as a corrective to mainstream values that defeat and diminish us. Dempsey encourages us to turn away from ageist fears rather than denying life’s inevitable end. Learning from older women’s perspectives, we might move their edge-of-life views closer to the center.
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cover of A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience

A Walking Disaster

What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience

Jamie Aten

Templeton Press, 2020

Is there a meaning to our suffering? Is hope realistic when tragedy befalls us? Is a return to normalcy possible after our life is uprooted by catastrophe? These are the questions that disaster psychologist Dr. Jamie Aten wrestled with when he was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. In this gripping memoir, Aten shares the life-affirming and faith-renewing insights that he discovered during his tumultuous struggle against the disease.

Aten’s journey began in 2005 when Hur­ricane Katrina struck his community. After witnessing the devastation wrought by the storm, he dedicated his career to investigat­ing how people respond to and recover from all manner of disasters. He studied disaster zones around the globe and founded the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. His expertise, however, was little comfort when a fateful visit with his oncolo­gist revealed advanced and aggressive cancer. “You’re in for your own personal disaster” was his doctor’s prognosis.

Thrust into a battle for his life, with cancer cells and chemotherapy ravaging his body, Aten found his professional interest taking on new meaning. His ordeal taught him firsthand how we can sustain ourselves when burdened with seemingly unbear­able suffering. Some of his counterintuitive insights include: to find hope, be cautious of optimism; when you want help the least is when you need it most; and spiritual surren­der, rather than a passive act, is instead an act of profound courage.
This last point speaks to the element of grace in Dr. Aten’s story. As he struggled to understand the significance of his suffering, he found himself examining his Christian faith down to its bedrock and learned to experience the redeeming presence of God in his life. Dr. Aten has a natural exuberance that shines through his writing. Infused with his compassionate voice and humanitarian concern,

A Walking Disaster is ultimately an inspirational story about the power of the human spirit to endure trauma with cour­age.

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cover of A Witness to the Silent Church: Memoirs of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj

A Witness to the Silent Church

Memoirs of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj

Josef Slipyj

Catholic University of America Press, 2025

A Witness of the Silent Church is a first-hand personal witness to the life of one of the outstanding religious leaders in the Catholic Church and the confessor of faith. It presents the autobiography of Cardinal Josyf Slipyj (1892-1984), who served as a head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in the period of the Soviet regime (1944-1984) and led his Church through the difficult period of catacombs and persecutions. This memoir traces the trajectory and main events of Slipyj’s life and sheds light on his personality and inner world of his thoughts and intentions. They cover his childhood and formation period, his pastoral and scholarly ministry in the Church, as well as his suffering in prisons, camps, and exile until his liberation in 1963. Slipyj’s life story appears as a backdrop where the entire epoch unfolds. The reader can observe the religious life of Western Ukraine against the background of the complex religious, political and social developments of the twentieth century, the martyrology and underground activity of the Greek Catholics during the period of Church persecution, the dire fate of the clergy, faithful, and cultural and political leaders in the Soviet time. A Witness of the Silent Church is supplied with extensive commentaries and annotations that provide important insights into the religious life of Ukraine of this period. The introduction to Slipyj’s autobiography presents the complicated textual history of the manuscript, its historical value and prepares a reader for the historically-contextualized reading of these memoirs. Slipyj’s autobiography is supplemented with the two studies, which complete Slipyj’s unfinished narrative, elucidating the circumstances of Slipyj’s release from the Gulag and his activity in Rome during the last twenty years of his life (1963-1984) as well as the events following his death: such as Slipyj’s rehabilitation and the glorious return of his relics to the homeland. The book includes appendices with valuable historical documents related to the activity of Cardinal Josyf Slipyj as a witness of the silent Church of the martyrs. This book is intended for scholars, church historians, and all readers interested in the history of Catholic Church, Christian testimony of faith and the biographies of twentieth-century martyrs and confessors.
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cover of A Woman to Deliver Her People: Joanna Southcott and English Millenarianism in an Era of Revolution

A Woman to Deliver Her People

Joanna Southcott and English Millenarianism in an Era of Revolution

By James K. Hopkins

University of Texas Press, 1982

The Second Coming of Christ has been prophesied many times through the centuries but seldom by a figure so fascinating as Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), the domestic servant who at the age of forty-two declared that God had chosen her to announce His return. A Woman to Deliver Her People is the most comprehensive study of this remarkable woman and her movement yet written.

Dramatic social and political changes of the late eighteenth century—among them the revolutions in America and France—had a profound effect on the attitudes of English men and women at all levels of society. With events so far outside the range of ordinary experience, both the educated and the uneducated turned to the prophetic books of the Bible, seeking solace and explanation. A number of prophets and prophetesses appeared, claiming to have a special understanding of the biblical texts and offering startling new revelations which had been disclosed to them by God. The greatest and most influential of these was Joanna Southcott, who attracted tens of thousands of followers from the West Country, London, the Midlands, and the industrial North. Her "spiritual communications" filled some sixty-five books and pamphlets from 1801 until her death.

Most contemporary observers dismissed Southcott as a fanatic, and she was frequently the subject of caricature and ridicule. James Hopkins attempts to remedy this distortion by examining Southcott's life and the millenarian movement she led within the context of the social, political, and economic crises of the period. By tracing the psychological and popular roots of Southcott's piety, and casting her appeal against the backdrop of a revolutionary age, Hopkins not only vividly portrays the life of this fascinating woman but also offers a new perspective on the mentality of ordinary English men and women during the years of their transformation into a working class.

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cover of A Word in Season: Isaiah's Reception in the Book of Mormon

A Word in Season

Isaiah's Reception in the Book of Mormon

Joseph M. Spencer

University of Illinois Press, 2023

A groundbreaking look at the relationship between two sacred texts

The Book of Mormon’s narrative privileges Isaiah over other sources, provocatively interpreting and at times inventively reworking the biblical text. Joseph M. Spencer sees within the Book of Mormon a programmatic investigation regarding the meaning and relevance of the Book of Isaiah in a world increasingly removed from the context of the times that produced it. Working from the crossroads of reception studies and Mormon studies, Spencer investigates and clarifies the Book of Mormon’s questions about the vitality of Isaiah’s prophetic project. Spencer’s analysis focuses on the Book of Mormon’s three interactions with the prophet: the character of Abinadi; the resurrected Jesus Christ; and the nation-founding figure of Nephi. Working from the Book of Mormon as it was dictated, Spencer details its vital and overlooked place in Isaiah’s reception while recognizing the interpretation of Isaiah as an organizing force behind the Book of Mormon.

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cover of A World On Fire: Sharing the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises with Other Religions

A World On Fire

Sharing the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises with Other Religions

Erin M. Cline

Catholic University of America Press, 2018

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola give shape to the spiritual lives of Jesuits and many other Christians. But might these different ways of praying, meditating, and reading scripture be helpful to members of other faiths as well? In response to the call of Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, the thirtieth Superior General of the Jesuits (2008-2016) to explore how the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises can be fruitfully appropriated by non-Christians, A World on Fire analyzes the prospects for adapting the Spiritual Exercises in order to make them accessible to members of other faith traditions while still maintaining their core meaning and integrity.

Erin Cline examines why this ought to be done, for whom, and what the aims of such an adaptation would be, including the different theological justifications for this practice. She concludes that there are compelling reasons for sharing the Exercises with members of other religions and that doing so coheres with the central mission of the Jesuits. A World on Fire goes on to examine the question of how the Exercises can be faithfully adapted for members of other religions. In outlining adaptations for the Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian traditions that draw upon the traditional content of the Exercises supplemented by the texts of these religious traditions, Cline shows how Ignatian spirituality can help point the way to a different kind of inter-religious dialogue – one that is not bound up in technical terminology or confined to conversations between theologians and religious leaders. Rather, in making the Spriitual Exercises accessible to members of other faith traditions, we are as Pope Francis puts it, “living on a frontier, one in which the Gospel meets the needs of the people to whom it should be proclaimed in an understandable and meaningful way.”

A World on Fire will be of interest to comparative theologians and scholars working on inter-religious dialogue, religious pluralism, contemplative studies, and spirituality, as well as Jesuit priests and other practitioners who employ the Spiritual Exercises in their ministry.
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cover of A Year in White: Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santería in the United States

A Year in White

Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santería in the United States

Carr, C. Lynn

Rutgers University Press, 2016

In the Afro-Cuban Lukumi religious tradition—more commonly known in the United States as Santería—entrants into the priesthood undergo an extraordinary fifty-three-week initiation period. During this time, these novices—called iyawo—endure a host of prohibitions, including most notably wearing exclusively white clothing. In A Year in White, sociologist C. Lynn Carr, who underwent this initiation herself, opens a window on this remarkable year-long religious transformation.
 
In her intimate investigation of the “year in white,” Carr draws on fifty-two in-depth interviews with other participants, an online survey of nearly two hundred others, and almost a decade of her own ethnographic fieldwork, gathering stories that allow us to see how cultural newcomers and natives thought, felt, and acted with regard to their initiation. She documents how, during the iyawo year, the ritual slowly transforms the initiate’s identity. For the first three months, for instance, the iyawo may not use a mirror, even to shave, and must eat all meals while seated on a mat on the floor using only a spoon and their own set of dishes. During the entire year, the iyawo loses their name and is simply addressed as “iyawo” by family and friends.
 
Carr also shows that this year-long religious ritual—which is carried out even as the iyawo goes about daily life—offers new insight into religion in general, suggesting that the sacred is not separable from the profane and indeed that religion shares an ongoing dynamic relationship with the realities of everyday life. Religious expression happens at home, on the streets, at work and school.
 
Offering insight not only into Santería but also into religion more generally, A Year in White makes an important contribution to our understanding of complex, dynamic religious landscapes in multicultural, pluralist societies and how they inhabit our daily lives.
 
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cover of Abiding Grace: Time, Modernity, Death

Abiding Grace

Time, Modernity, Death

Mark C. Taylor

University of Chicago Press, 2018

Post-war, post-industrialism, post-religion, post-truth, post-biological, post-human, post-modern. What succeeds the post- age? Mark C. Taylor returns here to some of his central philosophical preoccupations and asks: What comes after the end? 

Abiding Grace navigates the competing Hegelian and Kierkegaardian trajectories born out of the Reformation and finds Taylor arguing from spaces in between, showing how both narratives have shaped recent philosophy and culture. For Hegel, Luther’s internalization of faith anticipated the modern principle of autonomy, which reached its fullest expression in speculative philosophy.  The closure of the Hegelian system still endures in the twenty-first century in consumer society, financial capitalism, and virtual culture. For Kierkegaard, by contrast, Luther’s God remains radically transcendent, while finite human beings and their world remain fully dependent. From this insight, Heidegger and Derrida developed an alternative view of time in which a radically open future breaks into the present to transform the past, demonstrating that, far from autonomous, life is a gift from an Other that can never be known.

Offering an alternative genealogy of deconstruction that traces its pedigree back to readings of Paul by way of Luther, Abiding Grace presents a thoroughgoing critique of modernity and postmodernity’s will to power and mastery. In this new philosophical and theological vision, history is not over and the future remains endlessly open.
[more]
cover of Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John

Abiding Words

The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John

Alicia D. Myers

SBL Press, 2015

A collection of essays by experts from around the world

Like the other New Testament Gospels, the Gospel of John repeatedly appeals to Scripture (Old Testament). Preferring allusions and “echoes” alongside more explicit quotations, however, the Gospel of John weaves Scripture as an authoritative source concerning its story of Jesus. Yet, this is the same Gospel that is often regarded as antagonistic toward “the Jews,” especially the Jewish religious leaders, depicted within it.

Features:

  • Introduces and updates readers on the question of John’s employment of Scripture
  • Showcases useful approaches to more general studies on the New Testament’s use of Scripture, sociological and rhetorical analyses, and memory theory
  • Explores the possible implications surrounding Scripture usage for the Gospel audiences both ancient and contemporary
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cover of Abortion and Unborn Human Life, Second Edition

Abortion and Unborn Human Life, Second Edition

Patrick Lee

Catholic University of America Press, 2010

Patrick Lee surveys the main philosophical arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of abortion and refutes them point by point. In a calm and philosophically sophisticated manner, he presents a powerful case for the pro-life position and a serious challenge to all of the main philosophical arguments on behalf of the pro-choice position.
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cover of About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture

About Religion

Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture

Mark C. Taylor

University of Chicago Press, 1999

"Religion," Mark C. Taylor maintains, "is most interesting where it is least obvious." From global financial networks to the casinos of Las Vegas, from images flickering on computer terminals to steel sculpture, material culture bears unexpected traces of the divine. In a world where the economies of faith are obscure, yet pervasive, Taylor shows that approaching religion directly is less instructive than thinking about it.

Traveling from high culture to pop culture and back again, About Religion approaches cyberspace and Las Vegas through Hegel and Kant and reads Melville's The Confidence-Man through the film Wall Street. As astonishing juxtapositions and associations proliferate, formerly uncharted territories of virtual culture disclose theological vestiges, showing that faith in contemporary culture is as unavoidable as it is elusive.

The most accessible presentation of Taylor's revolutionary ideas to date, About Religion gives us a dazzling and disturbing vision of life at the end of the old and beginning of the new millennium.

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cover of About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Lectures at Dartmouth College, 1980

About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self

Lectures at Dartmouth College, 1980

Michel Foucault

University of Chicago Press, 2015

In 1980, Michel Foucault began a vast project of research on the relationship between subjectivity and truth, an examination of conscience, confession, and truth-telling that would become a crucial feature of his life-long work on the relationship between knowledge, power, and the self. The lectures published here offer one of the clearest pathways into this project, contrasting Greco-Roman techniques of the self with those of early Christian monastic culture in order to uncover, in the latter, the historical origin of many of the features that still characterize the modern subject. They are accompanied by a public discussion and debate as well as by an interview with Michael Bess, all of which took place at the University of California, Berkeley, where Foucault delivered an earlier and slightly different version of these lectures.

Foucault analyzes the practices of self-examination and confession in Greco-Roman antiquity and in the first centuries of Christianity in order to highlight a radical transformation from the ancient Delphic principle of “know thyself” to the monastic precept of “confess all of your thoughts to your spiritual guide.” His aim in doing so is to retrace the genealogy of the modern subject, which is inextricably tied to the emergence of the “hermeneutics of the self”—the necessity to explore one’s own thoughts and feelings and to confess them to a spiritual director—in early Christianity. According to Foucault, since some features of this Christian hermeneutics of the subject still determine our contemporary “gnoseologic” self, then the genealogy of the modern subject is both an ethical and a political enterprise, aiming to show that the “self” is nothing but the historical correlate of a series of technologies built into our history. Thus, from Foucault’s perspective, our main problem today is not to discover what “the self” is, but to try to analyze and change these technologies in order to change its form. 
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cover of Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler

Above All, We Are Jews

A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler

Michael A. Meyer

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2025

Rabbi Alexander Schindler (1925–2000) was an extraordinarily influential leader in the history of Reform Judaism. From 1973 to 1996, he served as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (today’s Union for Reform Judaism), where his charisma and vision raised the Reform Movement to unprecedented influence. Never afraid to be controversial, he argued for recognizing patrilineal descent, institutionalized outreach to interfaith families and non-Jews, and championed LGBTQ rights and racial equality. He was a tireless advocate for Israel while maintaining diaspora Jews’ right to speak out independently on the Jewish state. In this nuanced biography, historian Michael A. Meyer draws on extensive archival research and interviews to paint a definitive portrait of Schindler’s life. A foreword by Jonathan D. Sarna situates Schindler in American Jewish history, and Rabbi Rick Jacobs’s afterword reflects on his legacy.
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cover of Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector

Above the Fray

The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector

Shai M. Dromi

University of Chicago Press, 2020

From Lake Chad to Iraq, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide relief around the globe, and their scope is growing every year. Policy makers and activists often assume that humanitarian aid is best provided by these organizations, which are generally seen as impartial and neutral. In Above the Fray, Shai M. Dromi investigates why the international community overwhelmingly trusts humanitarian NGOs by looking at the historical development of their culture. With a particular focus on the Red Cross, Dromi reveals that NGOs arose because of the efforts of orthodox Calvinists, demonstrating for the first time the origins of the unusual moral culture that has supported NGOs for the past 150 years.

Drawing on archival research, Dromi traces the genesis of the Red Cross to a Calvinist movement working in mid-nineteenth-century Geneva. He shows how global humanitarian policies emerged from the Red Cross founding members’ faith that an international volunteer program not beholden to the state was the only ethical way to provide relief to victims of armed conflict. By illustrating how Calvinism shaped the humanitarian field, Dromi argues for the key role belief systems play in establishing social fields and institutions. Ultimately, Dromi shows the immeasurable social good that NGOs have achieved, but also points to their limitations and suggests that alternative models of humanitarian relief need to be considered.
[more]
cover of Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus

Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus

Susannah Heschel

University of Chicago Press, 1998

Was Jesus the founder of Christianity or a teacher of Judaism? When he argued the latter based on the New Testament, Abraham Geiger ignited an intense debate that began in nineteenth-century Germany but continues to this day.

Geiger, a pioneer of Reform Judaism and a founder of Jewish studies, developed a Jewish version of Christian origins. He contended that Jesus was a member of the Pharisees, a progressive and liberalizing group within first-century Judaism, and that he taught nothing new or original. This argument enraged German Protestant theologians, some of whom produced a tragic counterargument based on racial theory.

In this fascinating book, Susannah Heschel traces the genesis of Geiger's argument and examines the reaction to it within Christian theology. She concludes that Geiger initiated an intellectual revolt by the colonized against the colonizer, an attempt not to assimilate into Christianity by adopting Jesus as a Jew, but to overthrow Christian intellectual hegemony by claiming that Christianity—and all of Western civilization—was the product of Judaism.
[more]
cover of Abraham Lincoln and the Bible: A Complete Compendium

Abraham Lincoln and the Bible

A Complete Compendium

Gordon Leidner

Southern Illinois University Press, 2023

Lincoln’s life and leadership through the lens of the Bible
 
How did Abraham Lincoln’s lifelong study of scripture influence him as a man and, ultimately, as president? Historian Gordon Leidner believes the impact was profound—more than previously recognized—and has investigated all the known writings of Abraham Lincoln to identify, catalog, and study every instance in which Lincoln quoted from or alluded to the Bible. Rather than dwelling on the never-ending debate about Lincoln’s religious beliefs, Leidner shows how scripture affected Lincoln personally, professionally, and politically.
 
Leidner offers first a short biography that focuses on Lincoln’s use of the Bible, how it shaped him as a person, how its influence changed over time, and how biblical quotations peppered his letters, speeches, and conversations. The book concludes with an unparalleled appendix that tabulates nearly 200 instances of Lincoln’s quoting from or alluding to scripture, giving locators for the Bible and Roy P. Basler’s nine volume Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln and quotations from both sources. The appendix also includes when and where Lincoln used each quote, providing valuable context, whether the use was in personal letters such as one to Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert, political speeches such as the Gettysburg Address, or state addresses such as the Second Inaugural Address.
 
By showcasing Lincoln’s specific biblical references and influences, Leidner reframes the question of Lincoln’s religious beliefs so that readers may evaluate for themselves what solace and guidance the Bible afforded the sixteenth president.
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cover of Abridgment of The Religion of the Future

Abridgment of The Religion of the Future

Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Bridwell Press, 2014


Roberto Mangabeira Unger's The Religion of the Future is a secular project for spiritual and political revolution. It offers a comprehensive vision of humanity and a program for the refashioning of self and society that will enable each man and woman to live a greater life. Unger exhorts us to embrace the life we have now by recognizing what makes us human rather than attempt to suppress or overcome — as do existing religions — our existential and spiritual limitations. His program involves both political measures to reform the structure of society and a moral component to engage an individual's conduct of life. Unger's vision of the religion of the future offers us more life here and now so that we can become more human by becoming more godlike. This abridgment represents an edited rendition of the original that, although reduced in size, is complete in argument. It contains an extensive introduction to the argument and the author.
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cover of Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions

Abusing Religion

Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions

Megan Goodwin

Rutgers University Press, 2020

Sex abuse happens in all communities, but American minority religions often face disproportionate allegations of sexual abuse. Why, in a country that consistently fails to acknowledge—much less address—the sexual abuse of women and children, do American religious outsiders so often face allegations of sexual misconduct?  Why does the American public presume to know “what’s really going on” in minority religious communities?  Why are sex abuse allegations such an effective way to discredit people on America’s religious margins? What makes Americans so willing, so eager to identify religion as the cause of sex abuse? Abusing Religion argues that sex abuse in minority religious communities is an American problem, not (merely) a religious one.
 
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cover of Accidental Pluralism: America and the Religious Politics of English Expansion, 1497-1662

Accidental Pluralism

America and the Religious Politics of English Expansion, 1497-1662

Evan Haefeli

University of Chicago Press, 2021

The United States has long been defined by its religious diversity and recurrent public debates over the religious and political values that define it. In Accidental Pluralism, Evan Haefeli argues that America did not begin as a religiously diverse and tolerant society. It became so only because England’s religious unity collapsed just as America was being colonized. By tying the emergence of American religious toleration to global events, Haefeli creates a true transnationalist history that links developing American realities to political and social conflicts and resolutions in Europe, showing how the relationships among states, churches, and publics were contested from the beginning of the colonial era and produced a society that no one had anticipated. Accidental Pluralism is an ambitious and comprehensive new account of the origins of American religious life that compels us to refine our narratives about what came to be seen as American values and their distinct relationship to religion and politics.
[more]
cover of Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas

Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas

By Cristóbal de Molina

University of Texas Press, 2011

Only a few decades after the Spanish conquest of Peru, the third Bishop of Cuzco, Sebastián de Lartaún, called for a report on the religious practices of the Incas. The report was prepared by Cristóbal de Molina, a priest of the Hospital for the Natives of Our Lady of Succor in Cuzco and Preacher General of the city. Molina was an outstanding Quechua speaker, and his advanced language skills allowed him to interview the older indigenous men of Cuzco who were among the last surviving eyewitnesses of the rituals conducted at the height of Inca rule. Thus, Molina's account preserves a crucial first-hand record of Inca religious beliefs and practices.

This volume is the first English translation of Molina's Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los incas since 1873 and includes the first authoritative scholarly commentary and notes. The work opens with several Inca creation myths and descriptions of the major gods and shrines (huacas). Molina then discusses the most important rituals that occurred in Cuzco during each month of the year, as well as rituals that were not tied to the ceremonial calendar, such as birth rituals, female initiation rites, and marriages. Molina also describes the Capacocha ritual, in which all the shrines of the empire were offered sacrifices, as well as the Taqui Ongoy, a millennial movement that spread across the Andes during the late 1560s in response to growing Spanish domination and accelerated violence against the so-called idolatrous religions of the Andean peoples.

[more]
cover of Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements

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.
[more]
cover of Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen

Acting Jewish

Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen

Henry Bial

University of Michigan Press, 2005

The history of the American entertainment industry and the history of the Jewish people in the United States are inextricably intertwined. Jews have provided Broadway and Hollywood with some of their most enduring talent, from writers like Arthur Miller, Wendy Wasserstein, and Tony Kushner; to directors like Jerome Robbins and Woody Allen; to performers like Gertrude Berg, John Garfield, Lenny Bruce, and Barbra Streisand. Conversely, show business has provided Jews with a means of upward mobility, a model for how to "become American," and a source of cultural pride.

Acting Jewish documents this history, looking at the work of Jewish writers, directors, and actors in the American entertainment industry with particular attention to the ways in which these artists offer behavioral models for Jewish-American audiences. The book spans the period from 1947 to the present and takes a close look at some of America's favorite plays (Death of a Salesman, Fiddler on the Roof, Angels in America), films (Gentleman's Agreement, AnnieHall), and television shows (The Goldbergs, Seinfeld), identifying a double-coding by which performers enact, and spectators read, Jewishness in contemporary performance-and, by extension, enact and read other minority identities. The book thus explores and illuminates the ever-changing relationship between Jews and mainstream American culture.

"Fascinating and original . . . Bial's command of sources is impressive, and his concept of 'double-coding' is convincing . . . the book should have no trouble finding a large audience."
-Barbara Grossman, author of Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice

 
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