Seculosity

Seculosity PDF Author: David Zahl
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506449441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
At the heart of our current moment lies a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." To fill the void left by religion, we look to all sorts of everyday activities--from eating and parenting to dating and voting--for the identity, purpose, and meaning once provided on Sunday morning. In our striving, we are chasing a sense of enoughness. But it remains ever out of reach, and the effort and anxiety are burning us out. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism" and its cousins, highlighting both their ingenuity and mercilessness, all while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. Zahl unmasks the competing pieties around which so much of our lives revolve, and he does so in a way that's at points playful, personal, and incisive. Ultimately he brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.

Seculosity

Seculosity PDF Author: David Zahl
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506449441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Get Book Here

Book Description
At the heart of our current moment lies a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." To fill the void left by religion, we look to all sorts of everyday activities--from eating and parenting to dating and voting--for the identity, purpose, and meaning once provided on Sunday morning. In our striving, we are chasing a sense of enoughness. But it remains ever out of reach, and the effort and anxiety are burning us out. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism" and its cousins, highlighting both their ingenuity and mercilessness, all while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. Zahl unmasks the competing pieties around which so much of our lives revolve, and he does so in a way that's at points playful, personal, and incisive. Ultimately he brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.

Politics, Religion, and Love

Politics, Religion, and Love PDF Author: Naomi Levine
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814750575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 882

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Book Description
A biography of Edwin Montagu, British Secretary of State for India in 1917-22. Conservative Party opposition to his policies was accompanied by more or less openly expressed antisemitism (see the index). Ch. 23 (pp. 422-449), "Zionism: The Balfour Declaration, " traces the debate among British Jewry over the government's support for a Jewish state in Palestine. Montagu, like most of the Jewish establishment, attempted to prevent adoption of the Declaration, fearing that it would lead to perceptions that Jews were not loyal citizens in the countries of their residence and thus fuel antisemitism.

The Romance of Religion

The Romance of Religion PDF Author: Dwight Longenecker
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0849922941
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
C. S. Lewis said that Christianity works on us like every other myth, except it is a myth that really happened. Dwight Longenecker grabs this idea and runs with it, showing that the Christian story is the greatest story ever told because it gathers up what is true in all the fantasy stories of the world and makes them as solid, true, and real as a tribe of dusty nomads in the desert or the death of a carpenter-king. In The Romance of Religion Longenecker calls for the return of the romantic hero—the hero who knows his frailty and can fight the good fight with panache, humor, and courage. Conflict and romance are everywhere in the story of Christ, and our response is to dust off our armor, don our broad-brimmed hats, pick up our swords, and do battle for Christ with confidence, wonder, and joy. Is religion no more than a fairy tale? No, it is more than a fairy tale—much more: it is all the fairy tales and fantastic stories come true here and now. “This book is witty, whimsical, and deadly serious. With panache and aplomb, Dwight Longenecker sets out to prove that Christianity is, in every sense of the word, fabulous. And does he succeed in his quest? I encourage you to read it to find out.” —Michael Ward, senior research fellow, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, and professor of apologetics, Houston Baptist University “If you've never thought about the Christian faith as romance and story, then this book will introduce you to a whole new way of thinking.”—Frank Viola, author of God's Favorite Place on Earth

Politics, Religion, and Romance

Politics, Religion, and Romance PDF Author: Timothy D. Whelan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description


Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right

Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right PDF Author: Mark Lewis Taylor
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451413892
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Princeton theologian Mark Taylor here looks at the influence and stance of the right-wing Christian movement in the U.S. He questions its religious authenticity, its claim to be called Christian, and the ethical stands it has taken in national politics of the last ten years. The heart of Taylor's argument is Jesus himself. Using the latest New Testament scholarship on the historical Jesus and his tactic in relation to the Roman Empire, Taylor argues that Jesus' life and work and message are inherently political and driven by the need to show God's love for the poor, condemnation of the oppressor, and search for a reign of justice. These Christian hallmarks, Taylor asserts, stand as a critical corrective to a distorted Christianity that often dominates the U.S. political scene today.

Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars

Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars PDF Author: Douglas Brode
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 081088514X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In 1977, Star Wars blazed across the screen to become one of the highest grossing and most beloved movies of all time. In Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars: An Anthology, Douglas Brode and Leah Deyneka have assembled a provocative collection of essays that explore such hot topics as race and racism in the Star Wars galaxy, Judeo-Christian and Eastern religious themes, homosexual romance, and philosophical and political implications—earthbound and otherworldly. The wide range of essays collected here will engross readers, both fans and scholars alike.

The Idea of the Muslim World

The Idea of the Muslim World PDF Author: Cemil Aydin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674050371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
“Superb... A tour de force.” —Ebrahim Moosa “Provocative... Aydin ranges over the centuries to show the relative novelty of the idea of a Muslim world and the relentless efforts to exploit that idea for political ends.” —Washington Post When President Obama visited Cairo to address Muslims worldwide, he followed in the footsteps of countless politicians who have taken the existence of a unified global Muslim community for granted. But as Cemil Aydin explains in this provocative history, it is a misconception to think that the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims constitute a single entity. How did this belief arise, and why is it so widespread? The Idea of the Muslim World considers its origins and reveals the consequences of its enduring allure. “Much of today’s media commentary traces current trouble in the Middle East back to the emergence of ‘artificial’ nation states after the fall of the Ottoman Empire... According to this narrative...today’s unrest is simply a belated product of that mistake. The Idea of the Muslim World is a bracing rebuke to such simplistic conclusions.” —Times Literary Supplement “It is here that Aydin’s book proves so valuable: by revealing how the racial, civilizational, and political biases that emerged in the nineteenth century shape contemporary visions of the Muslim world.” —Foreign Affairs

In Praise of Love

In Praise of Love PDF Author: Alain Badiou
Publisher: New Press/ORIM
ISBN: 1595588892
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
The renowned French philosopher’s “ode to love’s power to unite in the face of eternity, and its optimism in the face of pain” (Publishers Weekly). In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a mere variant of desire and hedonism, Alain Badiou believes that love is under threat. Taking to heart Rimbaud’s famous line “love needs reinventing,” In Praise of Love is the celebrated French intellectual’s passionate treatise in defense of love. For Badiou, love is an existential project, a constantly unfolding quest for truth. This quest begins with the chance encounter, an event that forever changes two individuals, challenging them “to see the world from the point of view of two rather than one.” This, Badiou believes, is love’s most essential transforming power. Through thought-provoking dialogue edited from a conversation between Badiou and Truong, a vibrant cast of thinkers are invoked: Kierkegaard, Plato, de Beauvoir, Proust, and more, create a new narrative of love in the face of twenty-first-century modernity. Moving, zealous, and wise, Badiou’s “paean to the anticapitalist, antiessentialist, unifying power of love” urges us not to fear it but to see it as a magnificent undertaking that compels us to explore others and to move away from an obsession with ourselves (Publishers Weekly). “Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love.” —Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless

If God Meant to Interfere

If God Meant to Interfere PDF Author: Christopher Douglas
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501703528
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. In If God Meant to Interfere, Christopher Douglas shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Religiously inflected literature since the 1970s must be understood in the context of this unforeseen resurgence of conservative Christianity, he argues, a resurgence that realigned the literary and cultural fields. Among the writers Douglas considers are Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, N. Scott Momaday, Gloria Anzaldúa, Philip Roth, Carl Sagan, and Dan Brown. Their fictions engaged a wide range of topics: religious conspiracies, faith and wonder, slavery and imperialism, evolution and extraterrestrial contact, alternate histories and ancestral spiritualities. But this is only part of the story. Liberal-leaning literary writers responding to the resurgence were sometimes confused by the Christian Right’s strange entanglement with the contemporary paradigms of multiculturalism and postmodernism —leading to complex emergent phenomena that Douglas terms "Christian multiculturalism" and "Christian postmodernism." Ultimately, If God Meant to Interfere shows the value of listening to our literature for its sometimes subterranean attention to the religious and social upheavals going on around it.

God and the Gothic

God and the Gothic PDF Author: Alison Milbank
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198824467
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Alison Milbank provides a complete reimagining of the Gothic literary canon to examine its engagement with theological ideas, tracing its origins to the apocalyptic critique of the Reformation female martyrs, and to the Dissolution of the monasteries, now seen as usurping authorities.