Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice

Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice PDF Author: Christopher C. H. Cook
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317066189
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
In Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice several leading scholars explore key themes within the Christian mystical tradition, contemporary and historical. The overall aim of the book is to demonstrate the relevance of mystical theology to contemporary spiritual practice. Attention is given to the works of Baron von Hugel, Vladimir Lossky, Margery Kempe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Merton, and Francisco de Osuna, as well as to a wide range of spiritual practices, including pilgrimage, spiritual direction, contemplative prayer and the quotidian spirituality of the New Monasticism. Christian mystical theology is shown to be a living tradition, which has vibrant and creative new expressions in contemporary spiritual practice. It is argued that mystical theology affirms something both ordinary and extraordinary which is fundamental to the Christian experience of prayer.

Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice

Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice PDF Author: Christopher C. H. Cook
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317066189
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Get Book

Book Description
In Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice several leading scholars explore key themes within the Christian mystical tradition, contemporary and historical. The overall aim of the book is to demonstrate the relevance of mystical theology to contemporary spiritual practice. Attention is given to the works of Baron von Hugel, Vladimir Lossky, Margery Kempe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Merton, and Francisco de Osuna, as well as to a wide range of spiritual practices, including pilgrimage, spiritual direction, contemplative prayer and the quotidian spirituality of the New Monasticism. Christian mystical theology is shown to be a living tradition, which has vibrant and creative new expressions in contemporary spiritual practice. It is argued that mystical theology affirms something both ordinary and extraordinary which is fundamental to the Christian experience of prayer.

The Spiritual Way

The Spiritual Way PDF Author: Philip Sheldrake
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814644821
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
In The Spiritual Way: Classic Traditions and Contemporary Practice,Philip Sheldrake aims to make the wisdom of Christian spirituality better known to contemporary readers. After an introductory chapter on the foundations of Christian spirituality, Sheldrake describes its diverse riches through the centuries in terms of five distinctive types of Christian spiritual wisdom, illustrated by a rich selection of classical examples. The five types are “The Way of Discipline,” “The Contemplative-Mystical Way,” “The Way of Practical Action,” “The Way of Beauty,” and “The Prophetic Way.” This book also briefly explores the contemporary interest in spirituality within and beyond conventional religion and suggests how we might engage with these five types on our spiritual journeys in today’s world.

Mystical Theology

Mystical Theology PDF Author: Mark A. McIntosh
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
ISBN: 9781557869074
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
MYSTICAL THEOLOGY reveals that the growing popularity of spirituality in all its forms is largely separated from theology. Through a study of exemplary writers such as Gregory of Nyssa, MYSTICAL THEOLOGY uncovers an understanding of the inner integrity of mystical consciousness and the difference between knowledge through direct experience and theological expression.

Mysticism

Mysticism PDF Author: Evelyn Underhill
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 741

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Book Description
"Mysticism" is one of most celebrated books on the subject. The spirit of the book is romantic, engaged, and theoretical rather than historical or scientific. Underhill has little use for theoretical explanations and the traditional religious experience, formal classifications or analysis. She dismisses William James' pioneering study, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), and his "four marks of the mystic state" (ineffability, noetic quality, transcience, and passivity). _x000D_ Excerpt:_x000D_ "All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been a passing passion: they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical things. But others remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality: though the manner of their love, the vision which they make to themselves of the beloved object varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice: an adorable yet intangible figure, found in this world yet revealing the next."

Exploring Lost Dimensions in Christian Mysticism

Exploring Lost Dimensions in Christian Mysticism PDF Author: Louise Nelstrop
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317137353
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
’Mystical theology’ has developed through a range of meanings, from the hidden dimensions of divine significance in the community’s interpretation of its scriptures to the much later ’science’ of the soul’s ascent into communion with God. The thinkers and questions addressed in this book draws us into the heart of a complicated, beautiful, and often tantalisingly unfinished conversation, continuing over centuries and often brushing allusively into parallel concerns in other religions. Raising fundamental matters of epistemology, representation, metaphysics, and divine reality, contributors approach the mystical from postmodern, feminist, sociological and historical perspectives through thinkers such as Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, William James, Evelyn Underhill, Ernst Troeltsch, Rudolf Otto, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chrétien. Medieval and early modern radical prophetic approaches are also explored. This book includes new essays by Sarah Apetrei, Tina Beattie, Raphel Cadenhead, Oliver Davies, Philip Endean, Brian FitzGerald, Ann Loades, George Pattison, Simon D. Podmore, Joel D.S. Rasmussen, and Johannes Zachhuber.

An Introduction to Christian Mysticism

An Introduction to Christian Mysticism PDF Author: Jason M. Baxter
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493429086
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This brief, accessibly written volume introduces key figures, texts, and themes of the mystical tradition and shows how and why the mystics can speak to the church today. Jason Baxter, an expert educator and storyteller, explains that the mystical tradition offers a more robust understanding of God than our current shallow conceptions. Featuring engagement with primary sources and suitable for use in a variety of courses, this book argues that the mystics have much to say to contemporary Christians searching for authentic modes of spirituality.

The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology

The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology PDF Author: Edward Howells
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019103407X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 719

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology provides a guide to the mystical element of Christianity as a theological phenomenon. It differs not only from psychological and anthropological studies of mysticism, but from other theological studies, such as more practical or pastorally-oriented works that examine the patterns of spiritual progress and offer counsel for deeper understanding and spiritual development. It also differs from more explicitly historical studies tracing the theological and philosophical contexts and ideas of various key figures and schools, as well as from literary studies of the linguistic tropes and expressive forms in mystical texts. None of these perspectives is absent, but the method here is more deliberately theological, working from within the fundamental interests of Christian mystical writers to the articulation of those interests in distinctively theological forms, in order, finally, to permit a critical theological engagement with them for today. Divided into four parts, the first section introduces the approach to mystical theology and offers a historical overview. Part two attends to the concrete context of sources and practices of mystical theology. Part three moves to the fundamental conceptualities of mystical thought. The final section ends with the central contributions of mystical teaching to theology and metaphysics. Students and scholars with a variety of interests will find different pathways through the Handbook.

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.

Christian Mysticism

Christian Mysticism PDF Author: Dr Kevin Magill
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409480496
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This book introduces students to Christian mysticism and modern critical responses to it. Christianity has a rich tradition of mystical theology that first emerged in the writings of the early church fathers, and flourished during the Middle Ages. Today Christian mysticism is increasingly recognised as an important Christian heritage relevant to today's spiritual seekers. The book sets out to provide students and other interested readers with access to the main theoretical approaches to Christian mysticism – including those propounded by William James, Steven Katz, Bernard McGinn, Michael Sells, Denys Turner and Caroline Walker-Bynum. It also explores postmodern re-readings of Christian mysticism by authors such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-François Lyotard. The book first introduces students to the main themes that underpin Christian mysticism. It then reflects on how modern critics have understood each of them, demonstrating that stark delineation between the different theoretical approaches eventually collapses under the weight of the complex interaction between experience and knowledge that lies at the heart of Christian mysticism. In doing so, the book presents a deliberate challenge to a strictly perennialist reading of Christian mysticism. Anyone even remotely familiar with Christian mysticism will know that renewed interest in Christian mystical writers has created a huge array of scholarship with which students of mysticism need to familiarise themselves. This book outlines the various modern theoretical approaches in a manner easily accessible to a reader with little or no previous knowledge of this area, and offers a philosophical/theological introduction to Christian mystical writers beyond the patristic period important for the Latin Western Tradition.

Christian Mystics

Christian Mystics PDF Author: Ursula King
Publisher: Paulist Press
ISBN: 1587680122
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
"Ursula King's Christian Mystics offers a distinctive perspective on spirituality. The author presents the Christian mystical tradition through short biographies of its great figures, biographies which are highly readable without oversimplifying the ideas of these great figures. This is an outstanding entryway into the rich and deep world of Christian mysticism, recommended for readers of all backgrounds." - Michael Sells (Professor of Comparative Religions, Haverford College).