The Embrace of Eros

The Embrace of Eros PDF Author: Margaret D. Kamitsuka
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451413513
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The topic of sexuality intersects directly with the most contested historical, theological, and ethical questions of our day. In this edgy yet profound volume, noted scholars and theologians assay the Christian tradition's classic and contemporary understandings of sex, sexuality, and sexual identity. The project unfolds in three phases: contemporary assessments of the Christian tradition, new thinking about eros and being human religiously, and new perspectives on classic mysteries in light of eros and embodiment.

The Embrace of Eros

The Embrace of Eros PDF Author: Margaret D. Kamitsuka
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451413513
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
The topic of sexuality intersects directly with the most contested historical, theological, and ethical questions of our day. In this edgy yet profound volume, noted scholars and theologians assay the Christian tradition's classic and contemporary understandings of sex, sexuality, and sexual identity. The project unfolds in three phases: contemporary assessments of the Christian tradition, new thinking about eros and being human religiously, and new perspectives on classic mysteries in light of eros and embodiment.

Desirable Belief

Desirable Belief PDF Author: Margaret D. Kamitsuka
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Desirable Belief: A Theology of Eros is a work of critical and constructive theology informed by the phenomenon of erotic love. Within the Christian tradition, passion has long been associated with sinful lust, incurring shaming and accusations of narcissism. Contemporary theologies of eros, on the other hand, extol sexual desire as God-given, even sacred. This book eschews these two extremes through an examination of the complexities of love and desire, as narrated in biblical texts, allegorized by church fathers, manifested in the lives of mystics, analyzed in psychodynamic theory, and depicted in poetry, literature, and Christian art. The volume pairs writers on love as different as Augustine and Jane Austen or Angela of Foligno and Simone de Beauvoir. Desirable Belief argues that eros is human and, as such, informs the Chalcedonian claim of Christ as fully God and fully human. A christological perspective that takes eros into account, in turn, affects the doctrine of the bodily ascension of Christ, the nature of resurrected bodies in heaven, and whether trinitarian impassibility is still a coherent concept.

Desirable Belief

Desirable Belief PDF Author: Margaret D Kamitsuka
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book offers an analysis of erotic love in the Bible, patristic theology, mystical writings, philosophy, and literature. Eschewing hyper-conservative shaming of lust and overly optimistic views of eros as sacred and liberating, the book demonstrates how eros illuminates core Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ, the afterlife, and the Trinity.

Holy Eros

Holy Eros PDF Author: James D. Whitehead
Publisher: Orbis Books
ISBN: 1608332586
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Eros is the passionate energy that makes us one with the beautiful other, with a leper, with the world of nature waiting to be embraced and cared for, with our neighbor, the stranger, with God. The Whiteheads explore this vital energy of love as the gift of a Creator madly in love with his creation a God who would bring us to life in abundance if we only say "Yes." They discuss Eros in the movements of our sexuality, as well as in our arousals of compassion and care. They examine the Eros of pleasure and of generosity. They honor the Eros of hope, of anger, of suffering. They reveal that Eros has a Source far deeper than lust, and is a pathway to a passionate God. Holy Eros recovers this fundamental energy of love as a powerful resource in the revitalization of Christian spirituality. Unlike most books on the topic it eschews easy clichs. Its reader benefit is to understand and appreciate an energy that can heal as well as hinder and to tap into its positive force.

Eros the Bittersweet

Eros the Bittersweet PDF Author: Anne Carson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691249245
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Named one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time by the Modern Library Anne Carson’s remarkable first book about the paradoxical nature of romantic love Since it was first published, Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson’s lyrical meditation on love in ancient Greek literature and philosophy, has established itself as a favorite among an unusually broad audience, including classicists, essayists, poets, and general readers. Beginning with the poet Sappho’s invention of the word “bittersweet” to describe Eros, Carson’s original and beautifully written book is a wide-ranging reflection on the conflicted nature of romantic love, which is both “miserable” and “one of the greatest pleasures we have.”

Alchemy of the Soul

Alchemy of the Soul PDF Author: Martin Lowenthal
Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
ISBN: 0892545909
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Life without myth, the vital force of archetypal experiences, is life filled with maladies, neuroses, addictions, and disease. Alchemy of the Soul retells the myth of Eros and Psyche to help readers reconnect mind and relatedness to find wholeness and deep meaning. Author Martin Lowenthal describes how the story of Eros and Psyche illustrates the alchemical process of marrying soul and matter so that life can be lived with more joy, meaning, and a tangible sense of divine love. The book is divided into three parts: • Part 1 is a beautiful retelling of the myth of Eros and Psyche. • Part 2 examines the power of myth and alchemy and shows how spiritual alchemy can restore and transform the soul. • Part 3 is an initiation into the alchemical mysteries using myth as mentor. Lowenthal writes, "The story assails the defenses of our mind and our reactive habits and seeks to wrest a victory for life and growth from the inertia of daily habits and confusion. It initiates us into a world far more vibrant, rich, and nourishing than the one we knew in childhood and naively, yet regressively, settle for. In this sense, story reveals what happens as we attempt to spread our emotional wings in the developmentally confining domain of our childhood home and community and what it takes to make something significant of ourselves in ways that feed the future. As guests of the story, we discover the larger sacred garden in which we emerge as a unique and beautiful flower in a bed of exquisite blossoms, each one unique and essential." Alchemy of the Soul takes alchemy from the realm of the esoteric and places it in practical terms of story—terms that anyone can understand, value, and use as a guide to life.

The Power of Divine Eros

The Power of Divine Eros PDF Author: A. H. Almaas
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834829134
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Two innovative spiritual teachers show how to use desire and passion—eros—as a gateway to realizing our fullest potential What do desire and passion have to do with our spiritual journey? According to A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson, they are an essential part of it. Conventional wisdom cautions that desire and passion are opposed to the spiritual path—that engaging in desire will take you more into the world, into egoic life. And for most people, that is exactly what happens. We naturally tend to experience wanting in a self-centered way. The Power of Divine Eros challenges the view that the divine and the erotic are separate. When we open to the energy, aliveness, spontaneity, and zest of erotic love, we will find it inseparable from the realm of the holy and sacred. When this is understood, desire and passion become a gateway to wholeness and to realizing our full potential. Through guided exercises, the authors reveal how our relationships become opportunities on the spiritual journey to express ourselves authentically, to relate with openness, and to discover dynamic inner realms with another person. Through embodying the energy of eros, each of us can learn to be fully real and alive in all of our interactions.

Christianity and Eros

Christianity and Eros PDF Author: Philip Sherrard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789607120106
Category : Marriage
Languages : en
Pages : 93

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Book Description
Essays on the theme of sexual love.In spite of the fact that marriage is recognized as a sacrament by the Church, the attitude of Christian thought towards the sexual relationship and its spiritualizing potentialities has been in practice singularly limited and negative.In this book the author does not provide a systematic theology of sexual love but indicates some of the considerations and principles that must be taken into account before such a theology can be adequately formulated.

Befriending Our Desires

Befriending Our Desires PDF Author: Philip Sheldrake
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814647170
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Befriending Our Desires portrays the intimate connection between desire and the spiritual journey. Philip Sheldrake explores the role of desire in relation to God, prayer, sexuality, making choices, and responding to change.

Passionate Embrace

Passionate Embrace PDF Author: Elisabeth Gerle
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532616007
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Luther, passion, and sensualism? In an age of body worship as well as body loathing, Elisabeth Gerle explores new paths. Protestant ethics has often been associated with work and duty, excluding sensuality, sexuality, and other pleasures. Gerle embarks on a conversation with Martin Luther in dialogue with contemporary theologians on attitudes toward body, sensuality, desire, sexuality, life, and politics. She draws on Eros theology to challenge traditional Lutheran stereotypes, such as the dichotomies between different forms of love, as well as between spirit and body. Gerle argues that Luther's spiritual breakthrough, where grace and gifts of creation became central, provides new meaning to sex and desire as well as to work, body, and ordinary life. Women are seen in new light--as companions, autonomous ethical agents, part of the priesthood of all. This had revolutionary consequences in medieval Europe, and it represents a challenge to contemporary theologies with a nostalgic appetite for austerity, asceticism, and female submission. Luther's erotic and gender-fluid language is a healthy challenge to oppressive political structures centered on greed, profit, and competition. A revised Scandinavian creation theology and a deep sense of the incarnational mystery are resources for contemporary theology and ethics.