Critical Christianity

Critical Christianity PDF Author: Courtney Handman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520283767
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In Critical Christianity, Courtney Handman analyzes the complex and conflicting forms of sociality that Guhu-Samane Christians of rural Papua New Guinea privilege and celebrate as “the body of Christ.” Within Guhu-Samane churches, processes of denominational schism—long relegated to the secular study of politics or identity—are moments of critique through which Christians constitute themselves and their social worlds. Far from being a practice of individualism, Protestantism offers local people ways to make social groups sacred units of critique. Bible translation, produced by members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, is a crucial resource for these critical projects of religious formation. From early interaction with German Lutheran missionaries to engagements with the Summer Institute of Linguistics to the contemporary moment of conflict, Handman presents some of the many models of Christian sociality that are debated among Guhu-Samane Christians. Central to the study are Handman's rich analyses of the media through which this critical Christian sociality is practiced, including language, sound, bodily movement, and everyday objects. This original and thought-provoking book is essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology and religious studies.

Critical Christianity

Critical Christianity PDF Author: Courtney Handman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520283767
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Critical Christianity, Courtney Handman analyzes the complex and conflicting forms of sociality that Guhu-Samane Christians of rural Papua New Guinea privilege and celebrate as “the body of Christ.” Within Guhu-Samane churches, processes of denominational schism—long relegated to the secular study of politics or identity—are moments of critique through which Christians constitute themselves and their social worlds. Far from being a practice of individualism, Protestantism offers local people ways to make social groups sacred units of critique. Bible translation, produced by members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, is a crucial resource for these critical projects of religious formation. From early interaction with German Lutheran missionaries to engagements with the Summer Institute of Linguistics to the contemporary moment of conflict, Handman presents some of the many models of Christian sociality that are debated among Guhu-Samane Christians. Central to the study are Handman's rich analyses of the media through which this critical Christian sociality is practiced, including language, sound, bodily movement, and everyday objects. This original and thought-provoking book is essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology and religious studies.

Christianity and Literature

Christianity and Literature PDF Author: David Lyle Jeffrey
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830868402
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
"What has Jesus Christ to do with English literature?" ask David Lyle Jeffrey and Gregory Maillet in this insightful survey. First and foremost, they reply, many of the world's best authors of literature in English were formed--for better or worse--by the Christian tradition. Then too, many of the most recognized aesthetic literary forms derive from biblical exemplars. And finally, many great works of literature demand of readers evaluative judgments of the good, the true and the beautiful that can only rightly be understood within a Christian worldview. In this book Jeffrey and Maillet offer a feast of theoretical and practical discernment. After an examination of literature and truth, theological aesthetics, and the literary character of the Bible, they turn to a brief survey of literature from medieval times to the present, highlighting distinctively Christian themes and judgments. In a concluding chapter they suggest a path for budding literary critics through the current state of literary studies. Here is a must-read for all who are interested in a Christian perspective on literary studies.

The Anthropology of Christianity

The Anthropology of Christianity PDF Author: Fenella Cannell
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822388154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
This collection provides vivid ethnographic explorations of particular, local Christianities as they are experienced by different groups around the world. At the same time, the contributors, all anthropologists, rethink the vexed relationship between anthropology and Christianity. As Fenella Cannell contends in her powerful introduction, Christianity is the critical “repressed” of anthropology. To a great extent, anthropology first defined itself as a rational, empirically based enterprise quite different from theology. The theology it repudiated was, for the most part, Christian. Cannell asserts that anthropological theory carries within it ideas profoundly shaped by this rejection. Because of this, anthropology has been less successful in considering Christianity as an ethnographic object than it has in considering other religions. This collection is designed to advance a more subtle and less self-limiting anthropological study of Christianity. The contributors examine the contours of Christianity among diverse groups: Catholics in India, the Philippines, and Bolivia, and Seventh-Day Adventists in Madagascar; the Swedish branch of Word of Life, a charismatic church based in the United States; and Protestants in Amazonia, Melanesia, and Indonesia. Highlighting the wide variation in what it means to be Christian, the contributors reveal vastly different understandings and valuations of conversion, orthodoxy, Scripture, the inspired word, ritual, gifts, and the concept of heaven. In the process they bring to light how local Christian practices and beliefs are affected by encounters with colonialism and modernity, by the opposition between Catholicism and Protestantism, and by the proximity of other religions and belief systems. Together the contributors show that it not sufficient for anthropologists to assume that they know in advance what the Christian experience is; each local variation must be encountered on its own terms. Contributors. Cecilia Busby, Fenella Cannell, Simon Coleman, Peter Gow, Olivia Harris, Webb Keane, Eva Keller, David Mosse, Danilyn Rutherford, Christina Toren, Harvey Whitehouse

Intersections in Christianity and Critical Theory

Intersections in Christianity and Critical Theory PDF Author: Cassandra Falke
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Dealing with the historical and thematic intersections of Christianity and critical theory, this collection brings together a diversity of specialist scholars in the area. Building on recent discourses in theology as well as their knowledge of hermeneutic and critical traditions, they examine major themes in contemporary critical theory.

Christianity in the Making

Christianity in the Making PDF Author: S. H. Hooke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000228142
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Originally published in 1926, Christianity in the Making is a consideration of the processes of birth, growth and change observable in the first centuries of Christianity. The book draws attention to the key problems and debates that arise in studying the development of Christianity and encourages analysis of early Christian documents. Beginning with an overview of the life and death of Jesus, it reconstructs the main stages of the movement which resulted in Christianity and explores how it transitioned from a purely Jewish community with a narrow theology and apocalyptic outlook into a world-wide organisation. Christianity in the Making is ideal for readers with an interest in the history of Christianity, the history of religion, religious philosophy, and the development of Christian theology.

Critical Conversations

Critical Conversations PDF Author: Tom Gilson
Publisher: Kregel Publications
ISBN: 0825443962
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Christian parents need to be prepared to answer the myriad challenges teens might hear in today’s increasingly pro homosexual culture. “Why shouldn’t gays get married?” “Who says gay sex is wrong?” “Does the Bible actually say there’s anything wrong with homosexuality?” “Don’t you care that kids are being bullied just for being themselves?” To start the discussion, Gilson provides a brief history of the issues beginning with the sexual revolution of the 1960s. He explains how and why cultural attitudes have reversed on this subject in such a short timespan, leaving Christians scrambling for answers. This is perhaps the most complicated and contentious issue Christians face in today’s culture. Most churches are poorly equipped to handle it; parents are even less prepared. The good news is that parents need not have pat answers ready before they dive into conversations with their teens and preteens on this difficult topic. Learning together—parents struggling through these issues alongside their kids and leading them to biblical answers— has relational benefits. Answers are important, though, so manageable, nontechnical answers to common questions surrounding this issue are provided, as well as a guide to further resources.

Critical Theory and Early Christianity

Critical Theory and Early Christianity PDF Author: Matthew G. Whitlock
Publisher: Studies in Ancient Religion and Culture
ISBN: 9781781794135
Category : Christian literature, Early
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Applies social theory to the study of early christian texts

Critical Terms for Religious Studies

Critical Terms for Religious Studies PDF Author: Mark C. Taylor
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226791562
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Following in the very successful tradition of Critical Terms for Literary Studies and Critical Terms for Art History, this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight.

Christianity and Critical Realism

Christianity and Critical Realism PDF Author: Andrew Wright
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136196099
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
One of the key achievements of critical realism has been to expose the modernist myth of universal reason, which holds that authentic knowledge claims must be objectively ‘pure’, uncontaminated by the subjectivity of local place, specific time and particular culture. Wright aims to address the lack of any substantial and sustained engagement between critical realism and theological critical realism with particular regard to: (a) the distinctive ontological claims of Christianity; (b) their epistemic warrant and intellectual legitimacy; and (c) scrutiny of the primary source of the ontological claims of Christianity, namely the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, it functions as a prolegomena to a much needed wider debate, guided by the under-labouring services of critical realism, between Christianity and various other religious and secular worldviews. This important new text will help stimulate a debate that has yet to get out of first gear. This book will appeal to academics, graduate and post-graduate students especially, but also Christian clergy, ministers and informed laity, and members of the general public concerned with the nature of religion and its place in contemporary society.

Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism

Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism PDF Author: Bjorn Krondorfer
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334049024
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Bjorn Krondorfer, one of the leading scholars in this field, has collected 35 key texts that have shaped this field within the wider area of the study of gender, religion and culture. The texts in this critical reader engage actively and critically with the position of men in society and church, men's privileged relation to the sacred and to religious authority, the ideals of masculinity as engendered by religious discourse, and alternative trajectories of being in the world, whether spiritually, relationally or sexually. Each of the texts is introduced by the editor and accompanied by bibliographies that make this the ideal tool for study.