A Spiritual History of the Western Tradition

A Spiritual History of the Western Tradition PDF Author: Rabbi Barry Albin
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1435743121
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
This is a history book about how we came to believe what we believe and the effects of our faith upon the world around us. The commentary is insightful and biting. This book is for a person who wants to be challenged.

A Spiritual History of the Western Tradition

A Spiritual History of the Western Tradition PDF Author: Rabbi Barry Albin
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1435743121
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a history book about how we came to believe what we believe and the effects of our faith upon the world around us. The commentary is insightful and biting. This book is for a person who wants to be challenged.

The Spiritual History of English

The Spiritual History of English PDF Author: Andrew Thornton-Norris
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781500559366
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
extremely perceptive - Edward Norman; absolutely fascinating - Michael Burleigh; absorbing and thought-provoking -Michael Gove an enjoyable, erudite and cohesive journey through the history and philosophy of English literature in 150 pithily written pages. Brilliantly thought out, and painstakingly researched -The Times Modernity might be defined as the age when mankind tried to do without God for the first time. The effect on culture has been extraordinarily stimulating. From the Renaissance and Reformation, through the Baroque reaction, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and the Modernist reaction, Western culture has flourished. However, now that God has been so effectively removed from our society and culture, the impetus seems to have gone. And the art and culture that is being produced is singularly tired and uninteresting. Postmodernism is the end of the line. What Britain needs now is the religion it tried to bury with King Charles I and II, says Andrew Thornton-Norris in this new book. He says that today's social and cultural decay comes from the death of Protestantism in the 1960s. It was replaced by the social individualism characteristic of that decade, which became the economic individualism of the 1980s. Now, the idea of upholding objective standards in society or culture is derided and, he contends, this is shown in the demise of English literature. Thornton-Norris believes that only the Roman Catholic Church is able to resist what the Pope describes as the 'dictatorship of relativism': to provide once protestant countries such as Britain and America with the underlying sense of values that they have lost. This is the challenge facing the future King Charles III, with his deep concern for spiritual, social and cultural matters.

God's Joust, God's Justice

God's Joust, God's Justice PDF Author: John Witte
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802844219
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
'God's Joust, God's Justice' provides a vista of the major debates over law and religion in the West, enabling readers to proceed toward a more integrated understanding of the foundational elements of modern democracy.

The Book of Enlightened Masters

The Book of Enlightened Masters PDF Author: Andrew Rawlinson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 678

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Book Description
This is the definitive and complete book about a phenomenon which did not exist a hundred years ago, but is now growing rapidly and dramatically changing Western culture -- the rise of Western (mostly American) teachers, who fill the role of guru or master. A few books have appeared on some narrow aspects of this astounding phenomenon; this is the first book to survey the entire field. Encyclopedic in its scope, The Book of Enlightened Masters includes biographical essays on 140 spiritual teachers, giving their life stories and an account of their teachings. Yet it is also a user-friendly introduction, with a survey of the teachers and their teachings, a historical narrative of how and when the movement developed, and an evaluation of the issues raised by it. A century ago, there were no Western masters-no Westerners who were, for instance, Hindu swamis, Zen roshis, or Sufi sheikhs. Now there are many such teachers, with millions of followers. Starting from scratch, the West has produced its own spiritual teachers in traditions that until recently were utterly alien. And in the last quarter-century, a number of independent teachers have appeared, who belong to no single identifiable tradition. The Western masters have not merely transplanted the Eastern spiritual traditions to the West, they have transformed these traditions by their distinctively Western approach: innovative, entrepreneurial, and combining elements from previously unconnected Eastern traditions. The new teachers are changing Western culture by making available a view of the human condition which is new in the West but very attractive to large and growing numbers of Westerners, an approach Dr. Rawlinson calls"spiritual psychology". Spiritual psychology holds that human beings are best understood in terms of consciousness and its modifications, that consciousness can be changed by spiritual practice, and that there are enlightened masters who have done this and can teach others.

Religion and Violence in Western Traditions

Religion and Violence in Western Traditions PDF Author: André Gagné
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000409066
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
This book examines the connection between religion and violence in the Western traditions of the three Abrahamic faiths, from ancient to modern times. It addresses a gap in the scholarly debate on the nature of religious violence by bringing scholars that specialize in pre-modern religions and scriptural traditions into the same sphere of discussion as those specializing in contemporary manifestations of religious violence. Moving beyond the question of the “authenticity” of religious violence, this book brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines. Contributors explore the central role that religious texts have played in encouraging, as well as confronting, violence. The interdisciplinary conversation that takes place challenges assumptions that religious violence is a modern problem that can be fully understood without reference to religious scriptures, beliefs, or history. Each chapter focuses its analysis on a particular case study from a distinct historical period. Taken as a whole, these chapters attest to the persistent relationship between religion and violence that links the ancient and contemporary worlds. This is a dynamic collection of explorations into how religion and violence intersect. As such, it will be a key resource for any scholar of Religious Studies, Theology and Religion and Violence, as well as Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Studies.

Religion and the Rise of Western Culture

Religion and the Rise of Western Culture PDF Author: Christopher Dawson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christian civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description


Whatever Happened to Tradition?

Whatever Happened to Tradition? PDF Author: Tim Stanley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472974131
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The West feels lost. Brexit, Trump, the coronavirus: we hurtle from one crisis to another, lacking definition, terrified that our best days are behind us. The central argument of this book is that we can only face the future with hope if we have a proper sense of tradition – political, social and religious. We ignore our past at our peril. The problem, argues Tim Stanley, is that the Western tradition is anti-tradition, that we have a habit of discarding old ways and old knowledge, leaving us uncertain how to act or, even, of who we really are. In this wide-ranging book, we see how tradition can be both beautiful and useful, from the deserts of Australia to the court of nineteenth-century Japan. Some of the concepts defended here are highly controversial in the modern West: authority, nostalgia, rejection of self and the hunt for spiritual transcendence. We'll even meet a tribe who dress up their dead relatives and invite them to tea. Stanley illustrates how apparently eccentric yet universal principles can nurture the individual from birth to death, plugging them into the wider community, and creating a bond between generations. He also demonstrates that tradition, far from being pretentious or rigid, survives through clever adaptation, that it can be surprisingly egalitarian. The good news, he argues, is that it can also be rebuilt. It's been done before. The process is fraught with danger, but the ultimate prize of rediscovering tradition is self-knowledge and freedom.

From Sacrament to Contract

From Sacrament to Contract PDF Author: John Witte
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp
ISBN: 0664234321
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
This newly revised and enlarged edition of John Witte's authoritative historical study explores the interplay of law, theology, and marriage in the Western tradition. Witte uncovers the core beliefs that formed the theological genetic code of Western marriage and family law. He explores the systematic models of marriage developed by Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and Enlightenment thinkers, and the transformative influence of each model on Western marriage law. In addition, he traces the millennium-long reduction of marriage from a complex spiritual, social, contractual, and natural institution into a simple private contract with freedom of entrance, exercise, and exit for husband and wife alike. This second edition updates and expands each chapter and the bibliography. It also includes three new chapters on classical, biblical, and patristic sources.

Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church

Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church PDF Author: Robin Maas
Publisher: Abingdon Press
ISBN: 0687392330
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
This volume offers a comprehensive intellectual and experiential introduction to Christian spirituality. It embraces spiritual traditions from the Patristic period to the present day. Part I, "The Roots of Contemporary Western Spirituality," covers spiritual types that have been fundamental in shaping spiritual practice. Part II, "Distinctive Spiritual Traditions," offers major introductory essays on spiritual traditions formed by such notable figures as Luther, Wesley, Ignatius, and John of the Cross, as well as ecclesiastical traditions such as Anglicanism. Part III, "The Feminine Dimension in Christian Spirituality," is devoted to Marian Spirituality, holy women, and feminism. Each of the fourteen chapters is followed by a practicum which enables readers to assimilate the practice prescribed into their own devotional life .

The Path of Initiation

The Path of Initiation PDF Author: J. S. Gordon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620551748
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Details the process of spiritual initiation from aspirant to the highest Adept • Explains the characteristics of each stage of initiation, including the associated psychological issues that need to be faced to move to the next stage • Explores the long history of the Mystery traditions from ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and India to the modern Theosophy of Blavatsky and Bailey • Reveals how the Brotherhood of Spiritual Adepts is increasing global tensions to prepare humanity for the Age of Aquarius and spiritual revelation As the precessional cycle transits from Pisces to Aquarius, great shifts in spiritual evolution are on the horizon--not for all of humanity as many in the New Age movement have generously hypothesized but for those who have undertaken the necessary spiritual preparation and initiatory work. Drawing from his deep immersion in the Mystery traditions of both East and West, author J. S. Gordon investigates the initiatic path from ancient times to modern day, detailing the step-by-step process of initiation and the sequence from spiritual aspirant to the highest Adeptship. He explains the natural logic and characteristics of each stage of initiation, including the associated problems and psychological issues that need to be faced in order to move forward to the next stage. He shows how humanity is naturally inclined to spiritual evolution and the development of higher consciousness. We are part of the overall evolutionary process of Nature, a system guided by the most highly evolved Adepts and extending beyond Earth to the entire kosmos. Exploring the long history of the Mystery schools beginning with ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and India, Gordon examines the sacred metaphors and allegories of esoteric philosophy, metaphysics, occult science, and the Science of the Seven Rays as well as the Adept-inspired theosophical works of H. P. Blavatsky and A. A. Bailey. He looks at the Adept Hierarchy of the Great White Himalayan Brotherhood and considers in detail two much-discussed mysteries: The Jesus-as-Christ mystery and the Maitreya-Buddha mystery. Revealing how advancement--spiritual, scientific, and cultural--erupts out of tension, he explains how the Adepts have been increasing local and global tensions to prepare humanity for the Age of Aquarius, thereby creating the ideal preconditions for spiritual evolution and an eventual restoration of the Mysteries in our own modern era.