How the Doctrine of the Incarnation Shaped Western Culture

How the Doctrine of the Incarnation Shaped Western Culture PDF Author: Patricia Ranft
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739174320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In recent years numerous scholars in disciplines not traditionally associated with theology have promoted an interesting thesis. They maintain that one particular Christian doctrine, the Incarnation, had an inordinate influence on the shape of Western culture. The doctrine, they say, was so radical that it mandated an epistemological break with pagan society's perception of the universe and forced Christians to form a new culture. As medieval society worked out the consequences of the doctrine, it gave birth to those attitudes, institutions, and actions that define modern Western culture. The claims are well argued, but it is a historically untested thesis. How the Doctrine of Incarnation Shaped Western Culture is a response to the situation. It investigates whether the presence of the doctrine had the definitive effect on Western culture that so many scholars claim it did. It searches early Christian and medieval sources for evidence and concludes that the doctrine had a dominant effect on the developing culture. No other idea was as omnipresent or pervasive in Western society during its formative stage as the Incarnation doctrine. The doctrine was influential in the establishment of every major facet of Western culture. Its paradox, irrationality, and juxtaposition of opposites created a tension that cried out for resolution, and society responded accordingly. The ideas within the doctrine acted as catalysts for cultural change. As a result, the West developed its most characteristic traits and forged a path that was uniquely its own.

How the Doctrine of the Incarnation Shaped Western Culture

How the Doctrine of the Incarnation Shaped Western Culture PDF Author: Patricia Ranft
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739174320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book Here

Book Description
In recent years numerous scholars in disciplines not traditionally associated with theology have promoted an interesting thesis. They maintain that one particular Christian doctrine, the Incarnation, had an inordinate influence on the shape of Western culture. The doctrine, they say, was so radical that it mandated an epistemological break with pagan society's perception of the universe and forced Christians to form a new culture. As medieval society worked out the consequences of the doctrine, it gave birth to those attitudes, institutions, and actions that define modern Western culture. The claims are well argued, but it is a historically untested thesis. How the Doctrine of Incarnation Shaped Western Culture is a response to the situation. It investigates whether the presence of the doctrine had the definitive effect on Western culture that so many scholars claim it did. It searches early Christian and medieval sources for evidence and concludes that the doctrine had a dominant effect on the developing culture. No other idea was as omnipresent or pervasive in Western society during its formative stage as the Incarnation doctrine. The doctrine was influential in the establishment of every major facet of Western culture. Its paradox, irrationality, and juxtaposition of opposites created a tension that cried out for resolution, and society responded accordingly. The ideas within the doctrine acted as catalysts for cultural change. As a result, the West developed its most characteristic traits and forged a path that was uniquely its own.

Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship

Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship PDF Author: Joel B. Green
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1611649668
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Designed to empower preachers as they lead congregations to connect their lives to Scripture, Connections features a broad set of interpretive tools that provide commentary and worship aids on the Revised Common Lectionary. This nine-volume series offers creative commentary on each reading in the three-year lectionary cycle by viewing that reading through the lens of its connections to the rest of Scripture and then seeing the reading through the lenses of culture, film, fiction, ethics, and other aspects of contemporary life. Commentaries on the Psalms make connections to the other readings and to the congregations experience of worship. Connections is published in partnership with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Art and Mysticism

Art and Mysticism PDF Author: Louise Nelstrop
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351765140
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
From the visual and textual art of Anglo-Saxon England onwards, images held a surprising power in the Western Christian tradition. Not only did these artistic representations provide images through which to find God, they also held mystical potential, and likewise mystical writing, from the early medieval period onwards, is also filled with images of God that likewise refracts and reflects His glory. This collection of essays introduces the currents of thought and practice that underpin this artistic engagement with Western Christian mysticism, and explores the continued link between art and theology. The book features contributions from an international panel of leading academics, and is divided into four sections. The first section offers theoretical and philosophical considerations of mystical aesthetics and the interplay between mysticism and art. The final three sections investigate this interplay between the arts and mysticism from three key vantage points. The purpose of the volume is to explore this rarely considered yet crucial interface between art and mysticism. It is therefore an important and illuminating collection of scholarship that will appeal to scholars of theology and Christian mysticism as much as those who study literature, the arts and art history.

Gastro-modernism: Food, Literature, Culture

Gastro-modernism: Food, Literature, Culture PDF Author: Derek Gladwin
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1942954697
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Gastro-Modernism ultimately shows how global literary modernisms engage with the food culture to express anxieties about modernity as much as to celebrate the excesses modern lifestyles produce.

The Doctrine of the Incarnation

The Doctrine of the Incarnation PDF Author: Robert L Ottley
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781020778162
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A profound exploration of the central Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, which holds that Jesus Christ was both fully human and fully divine. Drawing on scripture, the Church Fathers, and the great theologians of the medieval and modern eras, Ottley offers a clear and compelling vision of this central mystery of the faith. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit

Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit PDF Author: Esther E. Acolatse
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467449377
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Among the many factors that separate churches in the West from those of the global South, there may be no greater difference than their respective attitudes toward supernatural “powers and principalities.” In this follow-up to her book For Freedom or Bondage? African theologian Esther Acolatse bridges the enormous hermeneutical gap not only between the West and global Christianity but also between the West and its own biblical-theological heritage.

Interfaith Engagement Beyond the Divide

Interfaith Engagement Beyond the Divide PDF Author: Johannes M. Luetz
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9819938627
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This book features reflections by scholars and practitioners from diverse religious traditions. It posits that the global challenges facing humanity today can only be mastered if humans from diverse faith traditions can meaningfully collaborate in support of human rights, reconciliation, sustainability, justice, and peace. Seeking to redress common distortions of religious mis- and dis-information, the book aims to construct interreligious common ground ‘beyond the divide’. Organised into three main sections, the book features sixteen conceptual, empirical, and practice-informed chapters that explore spirituality across faiths and cultures. Chapter 1 delineates the state of the art in relation to interfaith engagement, Chapters 2–8 advance theoretical research, Chapters 9–12 discuss empirical perspectives, and Chapters 13–16 showcase field projects and recount stories and lived experiences. Comprising works by scholars, professionals, and practitioners from around the globe, Interfaith Engagement Beyond the Divide: Approaches, Experiences, and Practices is an interdisciplinary publication on interreligious thought and engagement: Assembles a curated collection of chapters from numerous countries and diverse religious traditions; Addresses interfaith scholarship and praxis from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives; Comprises interfaith dialogue and collaborative research involving authors of different faiths; Envisions prospects for peace, interreligious harmony in diversity, and a world that may be equitably and enduringly shared. The appraisal of present and future challenges and opportunities, framed within a context of public policy and praxis, makes this interdisciplinary publication a useful tool for teaching, research, and policy development. Chapter 16 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Relationship Is the Transformative Space

Relationship Is the Transformative Space PDF Author: Darryl Wooldridge
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498280412
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
This book affirms relationship as the shared human elemental pursuit and proposes relationship as the transformative space. Wonderfully, the author asserts, it is God's intention to fulfill this intrinsic human desire in the present in all of us and universally. This desire is an often inarticulate, innate desire and pursuit to enjoy and reflect the divine image in which every human being was created. In this book, this pursuit is referred to as proleptic spiritual transformation (PrōST). That is, this book demonstrates that what is too often relegated to eternity is available now. Relationship is the Transformative Space considers God's heart, in relationship, and its implication toward human spirituality and how this intent has been interrupted and restored. God is actively interested in the recovery of a fully expressed image in humanity.

Western Culture in Gospel Context

Western Culture in Gospel Context PDF Author: David J. Kettle
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630874132
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Approaching us in sovereign freedom, God comes alive to us, we come alive to God, and all creation comes alive as a sign pointing to God. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, God gives and discloses himself in this immediate way as our ultimate context and host, within the provisional medium of creation. This life-giving gospel is met by blindness, however, among those who live today in a collapsing Western culture. This is because their imaginative world is shaped by habitual assumptions and practices that lie--largely unacknowledged--deep within that culture, and that preclude openness to the gospel. Moreover, Western Christians themselves widely share these assumptions, betraying the gospel into cultural captivity. God calls for the conversion of Western culture to the living gospel. Crucially this must include, as Lesslie Newbigin recognized, a repentance from modern Western assumptions about knowledge. Part One explores seeking, knowing, and serving God, as providing a true paradigm for understanding all human enquiry, knowledge, and action. Part Two examines ten resulting "hot spots" where conversion from prevailing cultural assumptions is vital for authentic mission to Western culture.

Humanism and Religion

Humanism and Religion PDF Author: Jens Zimmermann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191613274
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The question of who 'we' are and what vision of humanity 'we' assume in Western culture lies at the heart of hotly debated questions on the role of religion in education, politics, and culture in general. The need for recovering a greater purpose for social practices is indicated, for example, by the rapidly increasing number of publications on the demise of higher education, lamenting the fragmentation of knowledge and university culture's surrender to market-driven pragmatism. The West's cultural rootlessness and lack of cultural identity are also revealed by the failure of multiculturalism to integrate religiously vibrant immigrant cultures. A main cause of the West's cultural malaise is the long-standing separation of reason and faith. Jens Zimmermann suggests that the West can rearticulate its identity and renew its cultural purpose by recovering the humanistic ethos that originally shaped Western culture. In tracing the religious roots of humanism from patristic theology, through the Renaissance into modern philosophy, we find that humanism was originally based on the correlation of reason and faith. In this book, the author combines humanism, religion, and hermeneutic philosophy to re-imagine humanism for our current cultural and intellectual climate. The hope of this recovery is for humanism to become what Charles Taylor has called a 'social imaginary', an internalized vision of what it means to be human. This vision will encourage, once again, the correlation of reason and faith in order to overcome current cultural impasses, such as those posed, for example, by religious and secularist fundamentalisms.