The Spirit of Secular Art

The Spirit of Secular Art PDF Author: Robert Nelson
Publisher: Monash University ePress
ISBN: 0980361613
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
THE SPIRIT OF SECULAR ART explains the spiritual prestige of art. Various theorists have discussed how art has an aura or indefinable magic. This book explains how, when and why it gained its spiritual properties. The idea that all art is somehow spiritual (even though not religious) is often assumed; this book, while narrating the historical trajectory of art in the most accessible language, reveals how the mysteries of religious practice are abstracted and saved through all stages of secularisation in European culture. THE SPIRIT OF SECULAR ART presents a coherent theory defining the sacred basis of Western aesthetics. It evocatively describes the afterlife of the holy from Ancient Greece to the present, and outlines how the mysterious institution of art can be explained in material terms. Unlike other books in the genre, THE SPIRIT OF SECULAR ART radically deconstructs traditional art history in terms of 'prestige' and the value of the non-material. The book functions as: an alternative critical history of art, integrated with the histories of literature and belief; a philosophical essay on the fundamental values of art and religion; and a critique of the spiritual conceits of contemporary aesthetics and art appreciation.

The Spirit of Secular Art

The Spirit of Secular Art PDF Author: Robert Nelson
Publisher: Monash University ePress
ISBN: 0980361613
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book Here

Book Description
THE SPIRIT OF SECULAR ART explains the spiritual prestige of art. Various theorists have discussed how art has an aura or indefinable magic. This book explains how, when and why it gained its spiritual properties. The idea that all art is somehow spiritual (even though not religious) is often assumed; this book, while narrating the historical trajectory of art in the most accessible language, reveals how the mysteries of religious practice are abstracted and saved through all stages of secularisation in European culture. THE SPIRIT OF SECULAR ART presents a coherent theory defining the sacred basis of Western aesthetics. It evocatively describes the afterlife of the holy from Ancient Greece to the present, and outlines how the mysterious institution of art can be explained in material terms. Unlike other books in the genre, THE SPIRIT OF SECULAR ART radically deconstructs traditional art history in terms of 'prestige' and the value of the non-material. The book functions as: an alternative critical history of art, integrated with the histories of literature and belief; a philosophical essay on the fundamental values of art and religion; and a critique of the spiritual conceits of contemporary aesthetics and art appreciation.

The Secular Spirit

The Secular Spirit PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 0870990969
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description


This Life

This Life PDF Author: Martin Hägglund
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1101873736
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
Winner of the René Wellek Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Millions, and The Sydney Morning Herald This Life offers a profoundly inspiring basis for transforming our lives, demonstrating that our commitment to freedom and democracy should lead us beyond both religion and capitalism. Philosopher Martin Hägglund argues that we need to cultivate not a religious faith in eternity but a secular faith devoted to our finite life together. He shows that all spiritual questions of freedom are inseparable from economic and material conditions: what matters is how we treat one another in this life and what we do with our time. Engaging with great philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel and Marx, literary writers from Dante to Proust and Knausgaard, political economists from Mill to Keynes and Hayek, and religious thinkers from Augustine to Kierkegaard and Martin Luther King, Jr., Hägglund points the way to an emancipated life.

The Secular Spirit

The Secular Spirit PDF Author: Michael H. Ducey, Ph.D.
Publisher:
ISBN: 1413496458
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Visit the author´s website at http://www.thesecularspirit.com Osama bin Laden is a person of faith and Al Qaeda is a faith-based initiative. This should serve to notify us that "faith" is not always a healthy human attribute. This book is a psychology of religion and explains why that is the case. Secularism began in Europe in the sixteenth century and has slowly spread to all parts of the globe. It rejects the authority of religious institutions. Globalization has made it impossible for traditional religions to avoid the pressure of secularism, and so they are now "painted into a corner" and must resist. Evangelical insurgency in the West and Islamic jihadism worldwide are two branches of this resistance. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Bishops and Children I. THE HEART OF THE MATTER 1. The Argument 2. A Personal Preamble 3. The Alice Miller Finding 4. Two Kinds of Faith 5. The Jesus Question 6. Spiritual learning 7. The Secular Spirit II. THE BIG PICTURE 8. The Development of Spiritual Life: Theory 9. The Development of Spiritual life: History III.CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA 10. The Mainline Protestant Churches 11. Those Catholics! 12. Evangelical Insurgency

Lourdes

Lourdes PDF Author: Ruth Harris
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014188990X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 702

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Book Description
Lourdes was at the very centre of nineteenth century debates on religion, science and medicine. Both the Church and secularists championed the 'miracle' town as crucial in shaping how society should think about the mind, body and spirit. Since the ‘visions’ of Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 transformed the quiet Pyrenean town into an international tourist and pilgrimage destination, it has been a site for controversy. In her well-crafted and carefully researched book, Harris deftly places Lourdes and its attendant spiritual movement firmly at the centre of French history and shows its significance in the country’s development.

The Modern Spirit of Asia

The Modern Spirit of Asia PDF Author: Peter van der Veer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691128154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
A comparative look at religion and spirituality in postcolonial China and India The Modern Spirit of Asia challenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and distinctive ways. Peter van der Veer begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. He traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled. The Modern Spirit of Asia moves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang. Van der Veer, an outspoken proponent of the importance of comparative studies of religion and society, eloquently makes his case in this groundbreaking examination of the spiritual and the secular in China and India.

A Secular Age

A Secular Age PDF Author: Charles Taylor
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674986911
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

The Spirit and the Secular

The Spirit and the Secular PDF Author: Phil William Zarns
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725269155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
How does one make disciples and plant the church in a secular environment? Does it take technical production? Is a great venue or “mother” church necessary? Does it take a well-networked team? Tangible factors such as these are easily remedied by consulting seasoned, church planting experts. Yet, what if some obstacles to plant the church aren’t tangible at all? The Spirit and the Secular examines the ways that Spirit-led Christians trust the Holy Spirit while church planting amidst a secular cultural backdrop. A review of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles traces a Spirit-led Christ and Spirit-led church as they make disciples. To better discern the challenge of what it means to be a contemporary church planter in Sweden, a historical review of Swedish culture reveals the rise of secularism alongside of the flourish of the Pentecostal church of the 1900s. What follows is a groundbreaking fieldwork study using a current, investigative interview method, Q-Methodology, measuring the perceptions of thirty church planters in Sweden who reveal their collective ideal and differing practices. The study wraps with a comprehensive analysis grounding the research in a theory of Spirit-led church planting.

Secular Societies, Spiritual Selves?

Secular Societies, Spiritual Selves? PDF Author: Anna Fedele
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429853181
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Secular Societies, Spiritual Selves? is the first volume to address the gendered intersections of religion, spirituality and the secular through an ethnographic approach. The book examines how ‘spirituality’ has emerged as a relatively ‘silent’ category with which people often signal that they are looking for a way to navigate between the categories of the religious and the secular, and considers how this is related to gendered ways of being and relating. Using a lived religion approach the contributors analyse the intersections between spirituality, religion and secularism in different geographical areas, ranging from the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy to Canada, the United States and Mexico. The chapters explore the spiritual experiences of women and their struggle for a more gender equal way of approaching the divine, as well as the experience of men and of those who challenge binary sexual identities advocating for a queer spirituality. This volume will be of interest to anthropologists and sociologists as well as scholars in other disciplines who seek to understand the role of spirituality in creating the complex gendered dynamics of modern societies.

This Life

This Life PDF Author: Martin Hägglund
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 1101870400
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
Hägglund argues that a faith not in God or eternal life, but in the finite, temporal life we lead here on earth is one that gives that life far greater depth of meaning. In contrast to the traditional religious faith in eternity, he proposes a secular faith in the value of living in time. His book provides not only a critique of religious ideals, but also a positive, alternative understanding of the beliefs and values that can motivate us to live lives of meaning in the here and now. -- adapted from jacket