2002-01-01,John Caird,An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion,Hardback,9781904303046,4.99,"John Caird can accurately be described as a Hegelian, but it would be wrong to assume from this that he simply regurgitated the ideas of his German master. In the first place he offers a distinctive reading of Hegel, one which is particularly designed to answer the religious questions of his day. It is thus very different from most modern readings. In the second place his Hegel is very well digested. Although he freely acknowledge his debt to him, he seldom refers directly to his writings, he does not use Hegelian terminology and his manner of exposition is entirely different. 

The present work provides a fascinating account of religion, a brilliant introduction to its philosophy, and a unique interpretation of Hegelian thought. It is a must for all enthusiasts of the philosophy of religion, students of Scottish philosophy, and scholars of Hegel or idealism more generally.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2003-01-01,Borden Parker Bowne,The Essence of Religion,Hardback,9781904303176,29.99,"This is a collection of Bowne’s most important sermons, some of which appeared in other collections. It covers a remarkably large number of aspects of religion and faith, and summarises well the thought and achievements of this great preacher. 
The topics covered range from the role of Jesus Christ in religion and in our own lives, to the activities of the church, to Christianity as a doctrine, to the ways in which we can enjoy a healthy and successful life. 
The book will appeal to many, from the scholar to the relative newcomer to religion. It is lucid and flows easily, yet not without giving the reader much food for thought, and a new angle on many things he has probably thought and enquired about. 
In the words of the author’s wife, “ ‘if,’ to use the author’s own words, ‘the great end of religion is a developed soul, a soul with a deep sense of God, a soul in which faith, courage, and resolution are at their highest,’ then the writer of these sermons had in this life entered into the fullest realisation of all he taught to others.” And most readers will probably feel this after reading a few words of the first sermon.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-06-01,Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba,The Practice of Altruism: Caring and Religion in Global Perspective,Hardback,9781904303954,34.99," The study of altruism and altruistic behavior has caught the attention of social scientists especially in recent years. What motivates individuals to cultivate attitudes and actions that promote the wellbeing of others at the expense of, or at the risk of negative consequences for their own?
        In our contemporary global society marked by conflict and violence among different sectors of the population in various regions of the world, and wherein religion can be a factor that exacerbates such conflict and violence, harnessing the power of religion towards directions of reconciliation, creativity, and altruistic action, remains a crucial task for humankind.
        This volume addresses a question especially relevant in our day: do people who profess religious commitment or affiliation in a particular religious community tend to nurture altruistic kinds of attitude and action more than others? Social scientists present results of their empirical studies on Japanese society, as well as on North American, European, Indian, and Thai societies, to focus on this issue and offer insightful reflections on the relationship between religion and society.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-07-01,YANG Huilin and Daniel H. N. YEUNG,Sino-Christian Studies in China,Hardback,9781847180063,39.99,"In the 1980s there was a wave of introducing western thoughts in the academia of Mainland China. The significance of this movement is regarded by some Chinese scholars as another Enlightenment since the May 4th movement, 1919. In this movement there was a small group of Chinese scholars who thought that subtle interaction between Christian thought and western culture and academic should be noticed.

The aim of this book is at reporting this academic movement, which is still active and dynamic today. This book includes 22 essays written by authors from Mainland China and overseas, who may be intra or extra ecclesia. But all of them are prominent in their respective geographical and academic area.

This is the first book introducing to the English-speaking world the origin and development of ""Sino-Chirstian Studies"" and ""Sino-Christian Theology"" systematically.






","""During my different visits to China I witnessed the vigour and creativity of Chinese scholars especially in the field of religious studies. This volume is a splendid example for the high quality of factual information, intellectual penetration and historical and systematic reflection.""

Hans Küng, Professor emeritus and President of the Global Ethic Foundation, Tübingen University, Germany


""The essays in this timely and intellectually rich volume demonstrate, both in their range and in their evident historical, philosophical and cultural attunement, the high level of sophistication of contemporary religious studies in China.  Particularly for the scholarly appreciation of the remarkable history and steadily evolving contemporary role of Christian thought in Chinese intellectual life, this volume makes an invaluable, state-of-the-art contribution. No serious student of the subject can afford to overlook this book.""

…Sino-Christian Studies in China is a collection of academic essays by 22 mostly established Chinese intellectuals, published in English translation in order to provide Western scholars the opportunity to overhear internal philosophical reflection amongst Chinese intellectuals themselves on the emerging role of Christianity in Chinese culture. 

DAVID L. JEFFREY, Professor & Vice-President, Baylor University, USA


""The Universe is a “Cosmic Dance of Dialogue,” from the interplay of matter and energy, protons and electrons, body and spirit, man and woman, individual and society.... We humans need to be “in sync” with the Universie by engaging in the Dialogue of the Head (seeking to understand the Other), Dialogue of the Hands (joining hands with the Other to solve the world’s problems), and Dialogue of the Heart (embracing the aesthetic expressions of the Other). It is to the first, the Dialogue of the Head, that this new volume of Sino-Christian Studies in China makes a major contribution in this new Age of Global Dialogue."" 
LEONARD SWIDLER, Professor of Inter-religious Dialogue, Temple University, USA


""“Sino-Christian Studies in China” charters new waters at a time of increased interest in the significance of contemporary Chinese thought.  The quality of the authors and the range of the contributions makes this volume indispensable for anyone interested in religious studies, cultural studies, and Chinese studies.  It promises to advance comparative and inter-disciplinary in a stimulating and creative fashion.""  

Francis Schüsler Fiorenza, Stillman Professor, Harvard University


""“Sino-Christian Studies in China” is a speaking example of the exceptional development of scholarship in the field of religious studies in China through the past twenty years. Renowned Chinese scholars present twenty academic essays introducing the trend of religious studies in China and its growing public role in the country. Some of the authors have been leading this breakthrough in religious studies all through the 1990’s: Yang Huilin, Zhuo Xinping, Zhao Dunhua, Li Pingye, Liu Xiaofeng, He Guanghu, Li Tiangang, You Xilin. These Chinese scholars are doing pioneering work to establish the relevance of theological research in Chinese society.  “Sino-Christian Studies in China” illustrates that theology is on the way of being recognized as an independent field of research within the academic world of China. That definitely is a breakthrough. It challenges scholars over the world, especially also the ‘faith community’ of the Chinese Christian Church to join this evolution and to pass beyond the technical and scholarly language, to find the language of dialogue with the public and address the people in a meaningful way. The editors state their thesis clearly, saying:
…we believe that
- Theology should become a “public discourse,” providing meaning and interpretation to humankind;
- Theological discourse can receive universal understanding, discussion and respect; and
- The “publics” of theology will finally form a generation of “public intellectuals” who present the value ideals and social justice from theological resources.
The book is to be recommended to anyone who wishes to remain informed on the impressive evolution of academic research in Sino-Christian Studies in China.""

Jeroom Heyndrickx, Director, F.Verbiest Institute, Leuven University, Belgium


""Fifteen years ago few experts of modern China would dare to think that theological studies would be recognized as a research field within the academic world and in Chinese society. The ""discovery"" of theology gives an idea of the tremendous changes done in China in the last times.   ""Sino-Christian Studies in China"", whose editors and the authors of contributions are renowned Chinese scholars in the fields of religious and philosophical studies, is an impressive document of such changes, but at the same time it offers a scientific approach to the Christian studies in China, under different perspectives: the historical background, the interrelation between Christianity, hermeneutics, aesthetics and ethics, in the light of contemporary Chinese culture. Whoever deals with modern Chinese history and intellectual life, any researcher on religious studies, as well as observers of academic research in the religious fields in China, find in this book a stimulating and exciting material.""

Paolo Santangelo, Professor of History of China, Rome-Naples, Italy


""In modern China, Christian faith is no longer a controversial choice. Christianity, along with other religions, has gained some public sphere and recognition in recent years. The present volume, written by first-class Chinese scholars of the Christian religion, is a first-class demonstration how Christianity is increasingly becoming a serious topic of public discussion and debate not only in the Chinese academic circles but also in society at large.

The book at hand shows how the Christian point of view is a relevant factor in the modern debate on the reconstruction of people's world view in the rapidly changing China. The writers believe that Christian theology could make an important contribution for the development of values, morality, and social justice in this new situation. Christianity is already both a legitimate subject of university studies and a legitimate topic for public debate in China Mainland. The specific aim of the writers of this volume is to further enhance the public role of religion in China.

This collection of articles is also an excellent introduction to the present state of the academic research of Christianity in China. The volume is especially strong in discussing methodology for creating Christian theology with Chinese characteristics.""

Miikka Ruokanen, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Helsinki, Finland


""I am honored to be asked to offer a comment on the new book, Sino-Christian Studies in China.  It is a remarkable collection of authors and essays.  This volume offers an historic set of reflections by leading Chinese scholars who have recognized that religion has a place in the future of China, not only as an object of scientific analysis, like so many animals to be inspected by biologists, or so many plants to be studied by botanists; but as a fundamental way of understanding both the deepest dynamics of the human spirit and the internal architecture of human societies.  Even more, these scholars - a number of whom I have been privileged to meet in my several trips to Chinese conferences - recognize that theology is a science that both penetrates to the depth of those dynamics and articulates decisive ethical realities that are indispensable to every enduring civilization.  Warmest congratulations to the editors and contributors in this signal volume.""

Max Stackhouse, Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale Theological Seminary, USA


""In Chinese academia, Christian theology has largely been studied and researched in an adjunct capacity. "" Sino-Christian Studies in China"" is a corpus of inspiring essays on this 'adjunct theology'. The authors are respected scholars in their own fields, ranging from philosophy and religion to history and sociology of intercultural relations. The result is a valuable interdisciplinary and intercultural reflection on the potentials of theology from a contemporary Chinese perspective.""

Carine Defoort, Professor of Sinology & Chief-director of Contemporary Chinese Thought, Leuven University, Belgium


""Religion in China reflects complex and sometimes tumultuous social, political, economic and cultural circumstances for centuries. Similarly, religious studies, the study of Christianity in particular, reflects equal amounts of tension and complexity in the past decades in China on social, cultural and scholarly levels. The twenty-one intellectually stimulating essays included in Sino-Christian Studies in China reveal the status of the field in China today. Chinese scholars have come a long way to obtain this extraordinary achievement. The invaluable scholarly contribution is the collective Chinese voice in one publication. It represents the true driving force today behind the development of this innovative discipline in China that touches the minds and hearts of so many more.""

XIAOXIN WU, Director, Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco, USA









",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-08-01,Chandana Chakrabarti and Joel Wilcox,Religion and the Politics of War,Hardback,9781847180247,34.99,"Religious strife and theocratic inclinations—at present widespread and threatening to become yet more so—are obviously harmful to human beings, but also to life on earth generally. This book examines the complex interrelationships between religion, politics and war from a variety of perspectives in an attempt not only to enable the reader to gain an understanding of these interrelationships, but also to contribute to a critically important discussion concerning problems which they generate. The chapters examine topics such as arguments for and against the separation of church and state, whether or to what extent religion can be said to be the cause of war, the nature of (especially religious) tolerance, the ethics of evangelism, the nature and adequacy of the American response to the events of September 11, 2001 and possible ways to address the problems of, and arising from, religious strife and theocratic inclinations. 

The selection of readings is sufficiently diverse and accessible to afford interested students or non-specialists a grasp of the big picture with respect to the issues involved. Specialists in disciplines such as history, philosophy, political science or theology will find many stimuli for reflection and discussion. The book is notable for its combination of both western and Asian analyses and responses to the issues. This mixture of approaches constitutes an attempt on the part of the editors to represent in microcosm a discussion that, for reasons noted above, cannot take place too quickly or too widely.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-10-01,Amardeep Singh,Literary Secularism: Religion and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Fiction,Hardback,9781847180490,34.99,"Literary Secularism: Religion and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Fiction shows the path to secularization in the modern novel in comparative perspective. Writers as diverse as George Eliot, James Joyce, Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, Taslima Nasrin, and James Wood, have all struggled with religious orthodoxy in their personal lives, and are some of the most important and representative ""secular"" writers in the modern world canon. But their novels, which are far more than mere anti-religious manifestos, directly reflect the continued power of religious communities and institutions in the modern world. While religion is in a very real sense displaced from epistemological centrality in modernity, all of these writers suggest that religious texts, rituals, and communities have a force that is, in George Eliot's words, “still throbbing” in modern life. In a series of close readings, Literary Secularism argues that the  intimate, often deeply ambivalent representation of religion is a key feature of modern writing and is central to the larger intellectual and historical project of modernity.

""Literary Secularism"" is then a complex literary ethos, which impinges as much on style, language, and novelistic form as on theme. The close readings here of novels such as George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Rabindranath Tagore's Gora, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses all hinge on the ambiguity of religious and secular discourses. In some cases, the ambiguity is expressed through the affective and embodied experience of the protagonists, whose private subjectivity often conflicts with their public identities. The conflict between present and private is also explored in a dedicated chapter on secularism and feminism in India, as well as with regard to the global crisis of secularism that has emerged following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. While the particular experiences of the various narratives vary somewhat from author to author, all of the authors in this study are interested in defining a way of being secular that no sociological or ideological formula can fully describe. Correspondingly, while works of literature are certainly artifacts marking key moments in the history of secularisation, literature by itself doesn't produce secularism in either the cultural or the political context. In arguing for the ""literary"" as a historically-specific social and cultural mode of secularity, Literary Secularism offers a unique perspective on the problem of secularisation that may be of interest to fields such as literary criticism, religious studies, the sociology of religion, and polticial theory.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2006-12-01,Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino and Clevis Ronald Headley,"Shifting the Geography of Reason: Gender, Science and Religion",Hardback,9781847180780,39.99,,"""Shifting the Geography of Reason constitutes an event. The contributions within this text boldly and effectively confront epistemic orders that were/are predicated upon the presumptive Occidental circumscription of reason and intelligibility. This text thus challenges the misanthropic effrontery of the west to territorialize the very meaning of the “human.” Through a collection of critically reflective contributions that capture the geo-spatial historicity, complexity, and diversity of Caribbean knowledge-production, from the epistemic, phenomenological, and the scientific to the aesthetic, poetic, and semiotic, this text forces a shift away from reason as totalizing to reason as possibility, s emancipatory and inclusive.""
George Yancy, Duquesne University


""Here stands the first of a series of important collective statements on the proverbial problem of reason that once fled those spaces in which the person of color reached for a meeting. What other resources are left for those of us who rely on ideas in a world that offers few options short of violence or, worse, apathy but to transcend the struggle for recognition into the sphere of building new intellectual homes?  One must read this courageous celebration of thinking and of asserting the value of intelligence.""

Lewis R. Gordon, President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy at Temple University and Ongoing Visiting Professor at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-03-01,Maurice J. O’Sullivan,The Books of Job,Hardback,9781847181206,24.99,"For over a thousand years translators have attempted to find the perfect English voice for The Book of Job. That challenge has attracted a broad spectrum of men and women, ranging from a member of parliament to a beggar, from a Kentish wool merchant to the Earl of Winchilsea, from the first woman to translate a book of the Bible to the Metropolitan of Canada, from a chronologer of the City of London to the secretary for the American Continental Congress, and from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia to a British officer of the Raj. 

In accessible, lively prose, The Books of Job begins by exploring the ways these men and women have used their translations of Job for everything from royalist apologetics to revolutionary polemics, from orthodox endorsements of traditional beliefs to highly heterodox speculations, and from feminist theories to idiosyncratic metrical experiments. While celebrating the conversation that these translators have with each other and their original sources, the first section places their work in particular moments of political, literary, and theological history. 

The second section offers a composite translation from fifty of these versions to provide as wide a variety of voices and styles as possible. The very breadth and creativity of these remarkable translations show how eclectic, compelling, and paradoxical the colloquy on Job has been. In the last section, a bibliography of translations through 1900, each author’s interpretation of one unremarkable but ambiguous verse offers a basis for tracing the English Job from Aelfric, Coverdale, and the Geneva Bible to Elizabeth Smith, Rabbi Isaac Leeser, and Noah Webster.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara,Heroes and Saints: The Moment of Death in Cross-cultural Perspectives,Hardback,9781847181602,39.99,"The present volume makes a unique contribution to the study of dying in ancient cultures by focusing on what happens in the critical moments before death.
Employing a wide range of literary sources, the essays in this volume focus exclusively on the moment of death and practices associated with the transition
from this world to the next. Five of the essays deal with Asian religions, primarily Buddhism in India, Tibet, China, and Japan. The other five essays
deal with the moment of death in the West, old Norse-Icelandic, Old English, and the Judeo-Christian tradition. The authors explore the many ways in which
the good death was envisioned. Remarkable parallels emerge between the good death in religious texts and in heroic sagas . Despite the diversity
of cultures, time periods and religious traditions represented in these essays, this volume vividly illustrates the fundamental human need to see in the
inevitable moment of death a possibility of choice and a promise of hope.


","'There is much here both for those interested in the topic of death in Buddhist traditions and for those with broadeer interests in death and dying as a category of comparison within the history of Religions... the book covers a great deal of ground in terms of time and space... the book will interest students of death and dying in Buddhist traditions.'

Liz Wilson, Miami University, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 36, No. 3, September 2010
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,Afis Ayinde Oladosu,"Islam in Contemporary Africa: On Violence, Terrorism and Development",Hardback,9781847181572,34.99,"Islam in Contemporary Africa: On Violence, Terrorism and Development features essays which are written by scholars, Christians and Muslims, on their experience of Islam and the Muslims in the continent of Africa and how tterrorism and violence have impacted intra-African harmony and cross-cultural understanding in the world today. The authors, most of whom reflect the cultural diversity of the continent particularly in its Eastern, Western and Southern-African contexts, have also tried to grapple with the dynamics which attend the current global war on terror, the Islamic and Christian jurisprudential perspectives to same and the politics of terror in and outside the continent. Perhaps most importantly the essays in this book betray, even though in an eclectic manner, a deep interest in the analyses of the phenomenon of terrorism and its over-all effects on Africa. Specifically the book examines the following as they relate to Violence, Terrorism, Africa's Development and global peace:
Jurisprudence
Anti-Terrorism
Theology
History
Drugs and Narcotics 
The Media
International Diplomacy
Colonialism
Intellectual Terrorism
Gender and African Value System",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-04-01,Richard Hill and Lyle Smith,"Teaching C. S. Lewis: A Handbook for Professors, Church Leaders, and Lewis Enthusiasts",Hardback,9781847181497,29.99,"This handbook provides a practical guide for teachers and non-academic C.S. Lewis enthusiasts who lead Lewis study groups. It can eliminate the weeks of research necessary to build a course from scratch and can also be used by students as a supplementary text. 

The chapters cover all of Lewis’s novels, plus Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. Each chapter includes the following components:

I. A biographical sketch of Lewis’s life at the time he was composing the book, including his sources and influences. This section provides basic background for a well-rounded discussion.

II. A chapter-by chapter summary for quick reference or brush-up before class sessions. The summaries can also be read or incorporated into a background handout if course leaders opt to cover particular sections rather than the entire work. 

III. A discussion of major themes to help readers understand Lewis’s concerns and how he developed them. 

IV. Study questions geared to a range of reading levels..

V. A “For Further Reading” annotated bibliography of books related to the book under discussion. 

Both Authors have facilitated Lewis discussions in college classrooms, public seminars, and church gatherings. Appendices include their prospectus and reading lists for small groups and a college course syllabus.
","Teaching C. S. Lewis provides a substantive amount of useful information about Lewis and his featured writings that is easily accessible in one spot, is clearly and concisely presented, and will foster greater interaction between readers and Lewis' religious and intellectual world.

Ronald Cox, Pepperdine University in Christianity and Literature, Volume 58 - Issue 2, Winter 2009
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-06-01,"Daryl McCarthy, Bob VanderVennen and Joy McBride",Surprised by Faith: Conversion and the Academy A Collection of Papers Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Conversion of C. S. Lewis,Hardback,9781847181978,39.99,"Surprised by Faith celebrates the 75th anniversary of C. S. Lewis “kicking and screaming” his way into Christianity—his 1931 conversion.  Lewis described himself as, “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."" But a convert, nonetheless, surprised by joy. 

This volume was inspired by Lewis’s autobiographical account of the life-events which led to his coming to faith—an event that had a profound effect on his work and his relationships. In Surprised by Faith, Lewis’s conversion is explored as both “a rational quest for truth and a romantic quest for meaning.”

This collection of essays commemorates Lewis’s conversion, but also celebrates, examines and discusses what conversion means to us as scholars, academicians, and most importantly, as human beings. It’s a kind of conversation about conversion. The conversation’s participants are individuals from a variety of backgrounds who themselves have been converted in the classic Christian sense. 

Surprised by Faith hopefully will challenge the reader to think more deeply, biblically and theologically about the transformation that takes place in each life that embraces Christ and moves from unbelief to belief. The essays look at the influence of conversion on perspectives as they relate to various disciplines, such as anthropology, poetry, psychology, education, philosophy and culture.

","“Surprised by Faith is a sparkling set of essays about the nature and experience of true Christian conversion, with detailed examples ranging from Abraham to John Wesley.  This book will delight and challenge both the casual reader and the serious student of theology.  It will surely be very widely read and discussed.”
—Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial

“Truth be told, there are no unconverted people, because everyone, everywhere has turned to something in search of foundation for life. The big question, of course, is what we have been converted to! This fine book thoroughly examines the neglected but significant notion of Christian ‘conversion’ in an interdisciplinary fashion, especially by and among scholars in the academy. The surprise of faith in Jesus Christ is that it not only results in redemption, but is accompanied by a transformation of one's entire life-system or worldview. This is just one of many insights in this book that celebrates the seventy-fifth anniversary of C. S. Lewis's turn from atheism to Christian theism.”
—David Naugle, Professor of Philosophy, Dallas Baptist University, Author of Worldview: The History of a Concept (Eerdmans 2002)

“This is a valuable contribution to the on-going conversation about the nature of conversion.  We need this book; it is so urgent that we re-think the meaning of conversion and its implications for the church and for the academy.  And this will be one of those resources that many will turn to.”
—Gordon T. Smith, President, reSource Leadership International and adjunct lecturer at Regent College, Vancouver.  Smith is the author of Beginning Well:  Christian Conversion and Authentic Transformation (IVPress 2001) and A Holy Meal:  the Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church (Baker 2005).

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-07-01,Nicolás Kanellos,Recovering Hispanic Religious Thought and Practice of the United States,Hardback,9781847182210,39.99,"The primary role played by religion in the development of the Spanish nation in the Iberian Peninsula and its subsequent role in the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas has been well studied.  Similarly, Hispanics around the world and in the United States have been characterized in scholarship and popular opinion by the dimensions of their predominant Catholic faith.  To date, neither their diversity of faith nor their ethnic and racial diversity have been adequately addressed, thus contributing to a widely held perception of a monolithic culture with its own Catholic world view, a world view often categorized as obscurantist, mystical and anachronistic.  Most important, the role of religion, in all of its diversity and historical evolution, in building Hispanic culture in the United States has not been adequately studied or understood.  
Today, because a corpus of Hispanic religious thought from across the ages in the United States has been reconstituted and there are scholars dedicated to understanding this thought and the experience it reveals, publication of this present volume has been made possible. The chapters of Recovering Hispanic Religious Thought and Practice in the United States have resulted from the research underwritten by the eponymous Recovery project and initially presented at Recovery conferences in 2004 and 2005. After scholarly debate and re-working of the research papers, the articles contained in this volume were selected. They represent original work on topics rarely addressed before, in recognition that these articles are laying the groundwork on which an entire sub-discipline of Hispanic history, literature and theology will be constructed. The material addressed is so rich and the themes so numerous and promising that their presentation and elaboration here most certainly will entice scholars from other disciplines to broaden their perspectives on Hispanic life in the United States and perhaps to look to these religious and other alternative sources in conducting their own disciplinary research.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-08-01,Thomas Crombez and Katrien Vloeberghs,On the Outlook: Figures of the Messianic,Hardback,9781847182463,29.99,"This volume explores the traditional and contemporary modes and stakes of messianic thinking in its close interaction with both previous and actual political contexts and theoretical discourses. In the past decades, philosophers and political thinkers repeatedly drew upon the millennial tradition of messianic thinking in their efforts to come to terms with the injustices of the present. Their conceptions of messianism build upon and revise, modify or radicalize politico-theological theories developed in the period between the two world wars by thinkers who, in the face of doom and destruction, reverted to ancient Judeo-Christian visions of redemption. The essays address the ways in which today’s messianic thinking relates to its historical Jewish and Christian origins, and how it deals with the legacy of its early twentieth century precursors, such as Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, Ernst Bloch, Gerschom Scholem, and Theodor W. Adorno. Historically, attitudes toward messianism interact with the political and historical conditions as well as with the prevailing theoretical and philosophical discourses of their times. Cross-fertilization between messianism, politics and philosophy also inform recent conceptualizations of history and time, language and the law in the writings of Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben. 

The analysis of messianism in contemporary discourse encourages reflections on the following core questions: How does messianism figure in modern and contemporary philosophy? How does it relate to today’s state of affairs in the juridical, political, and social realm? Is it still primarily a Jewish concern, and how has it interacted with other religious and political traditions? How does the impact of Jewish messianism on modern philosophy compare with and relate to other influences of Jewish thought, such as the legalistic tradition? 

The contributors to this volume shed light on as divergent aspects of messianism as its socio-historical embeddedness, its discontinuous historiography, its manifestations in literature and the arts and its complex relation to human agency.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-08-01,Trevor Curnow,Pantokrator: An Introduction to Orthodoxy,Hardback,9781847182418,29.99,"Although most people think of Greek philosophy as “Western”, its religion is commonly referred to as “Eastern”. For those who have not spent time in countries where Orthodox Christianity is the dominant religion, it can seem exotic and alien. Even those who visit these countries can come away with little understanding of it. Pantokrator:  an Introduction to Orthodoxy helps those unfamiliar with Orthodoxy to become acquainted with the history of the Orthodox Church, what it teaches, how it is structured, and how it differs from other churches. There is also a brief guide to the architecture and internal design and decoration of Orthodox churches. Because monasticism plays an important role in the life of the Orthodox Church, an account is given of the monastic life. This is illustrated with reference to how that life is lived on Mount Athos, an enclave within Greece run entirely by monks. The history and organisation of the Holy Mountain, as Athos is called, is explained in general terms with a more detailed account of one of its monasteries, Pantokrator.
","This is an admirable book, which succeeds in the difficult task, implied by its title, of combining an account of a particular Athointe monastery with concise and illuminating introduction to Orthodoxy. It will be found useful equally by those planning a visit to the Holy Mountain and by those who have been there on pilgrimage and wish to understand better that they have experienced. I found that objects, practices and statements which I had seen and heard in the monasteries were frequently illuminated by Curnow's account.

Michael Llewellyn Smith, Friends of Mount Athos, Annual Report 2008
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-09-01,David Ives and David A. Valone,Reverence for Life Revisited: Albert Schweitzer's Relevance Today,Hardback,9781847182609,34.99,"This book is the product of a conference held by the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Quinnipiac University in 2005. The conference re-examined the life and work of Albert Schweitzer, particularly his idea of ""Reverence for Life,"" and assessed the relevance of his ideas for the twenty-first century. The essays in this book represent various perspectives on Schweitzer's life and works, including: reminiscences from individuals who worked with or were directly influenced by Schweitzer's life, including Jane Goodall (who was the keynote speaker at the conference); philosophical examinations of Schweitzer's ideas in light of present concerns; and practical applications of Schweitzer's ideas to current problems in global issues including arms control, medical ethics, education, and state building. The essays represent perspectives drawn from individuals of diverse backgrounds (from undergraduate students to professional academics, as well as those engaged in diplomacy, wildlife conservation, and health care), and from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Africa.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Alistair D. B. Cook,"Culture, Identity and Religion in Southeast Asia",Hardback,9781847183286,29.99,"""I have read the draft of this book sent to me by the editor. After reading this draft, I do think this book is valuable and timely. It discusses the contemporary issues that have worried many people in the present world: terrorism, human rights, Islamic radicalism and the problem of identity in the Singaporean capitalism. These issues are not discussed in the theoretical/abstract way (it also doesn't meant that theories are not discussed at all), but in the context of various concrete societies. The book deals with one of the above issues in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia (Aceh and Sumenep in Madura). Each issue is written by a different author that has studied the issue thoroughly. So, the book is a collection of research done by specialists of these issues. Two essays on Southeast Asia (one on health and the other on human security) give the general picture of this region, acting as a broad introduction of the chapters that follow. Each chapter has been written professionally and the readers will learn many things from each of them. One has to read the chapter in order to really appreciate them. Therefore I really recommend that this manuscript to be published as a book in order to get a large audience. One shortcoming though, this book deals with three countries only
(Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia), albeit these three are the important countries in the region. Other important Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and Burma are not discussed individually. With the omission of these countries, it thus can be argued whether this book can represent the Southeast Asian region? Also in dealing with Indonesia, the chapters talk on sub-national level, namely on Aceh province and a peripheral city Sumenep in the island of Madura, East Java, while Malaysia and Singapore are dealt on the level of nation state. To conclude, even with these shortcomings, this book is still valuable.
Therefore I would like to recommend it be published.""

—Arief Budiman, Foundation Professor of Indonesian, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne, Australia

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Patrick Curry and Angela Voss,Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination,Hardback,9781847183613,39.99,"Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination represents the cutting-edge of contemporary thought and research on divination.  The thirteen authors come from a variety of academic disciplines, ranging from anthropology and classics to English literature and religious studies, and all address the question of divination, astrology and oracles in a spirit of critical but sympathetic inquiry.  The emphasis is on a participatory and reflexive approach which is firmly post-positivist, seeking to understand the divinatory act on its own terms within widely varying contexts – ancient Greek and Chaldean philosophy and theurgy, Theravadan Buddhism, Biblical studies, Elizabethan Hermeticism, Jacobean drama, Heideggerian philosophy, Medieval scholasticism, 19th century occultism, contemporary Guatemalan divination and Western medical practice.
 
The authors are all teachers or researchers in the area of divination and symbolism, which is a new disciplinary focus developing at the University of Kent, Canterbury under the aegis of the MA programme in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination.  The essays in this volume originally contributed to an international conference of the same name held there in April 2006.







","""...all papers reflect the currently renaissance of divination studies within humanities and social sciences and will undoubtedly further stimulate this development.""

Audrius Beinorius, Vilnius University, Acta Orientalia Vilnensia Volume 9, Issue 1, 2009

""...a central theme is that divinatory knowledge involves a different mode of insight and a corresponding shift in perception. The essays range over many cultures and schools, including Chaldea, Stoicism, lamblichus, Theravadan Buddhism, astrology, medicine and Mayan culture. The tension between divination and the normal approach of academic studies is particularly fruitful and brings the reader to a deeper understanding of the meaning of participatory knowledge.""

Network Review, Summer 2010

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Natasha Duquette,"Sublimer Aspects: Interfaces between Literature, Aesthetics, and Theology",Hardback,9781847183361,34.99,"How did eighteenth-century aesthetics come to so strongly influence not only the theology but also the practice of Christianity by the late nineteenth century? The twelve essays in Sublimer Aspects seek to answer this question by examining interfaces between literature, aesthetics, and theology from 1715-1885. In doing so, they consider the theological import of canonical writers–such as Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, Voltaire, and Immanuel Kant–as well as writers whose work is now experiencing a revival, namely women writers–including Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, Anne Brontë, Frances Ridley Havergal, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Adelaide Procter. The volume concludes with essays on the possibility for hope within the Christian Romanticism of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle and George MacDonald, whose texts continue to cultivate a sense of wonder in new generations.    

Divided into five sections, essays by Ben Faber, Katherine Quinsey, Melora G. Vandersluis, Richard J. Lane, Natasha Duquette, Susan R. Bauman, Krista Lysack, Sandra Hagan, Roxanne Harde, Cheri Larsen Hoeckley, Franceen Neufeld, and Monika Hilder address mutually interdependent connections between providence and grace, sublimity and ethics, gender and hymnody, literature and activism, and finally, aesthetics and hope.


","""With topics ranging from Daniel Defoe to Jacques Derrida, this book shows the reach and the long-standing importance of the aesthetics of the sublime.   Natasha Duquette has assembled a plurality of voices in a fascinating mix of essays that provide a chronological study of the shifting representations of the sublime in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature.  The religious and the Biblical sublime are well represented, in addition to secular manifestations of the sublime, even, as one author describes, in a movement from the “aspiration of the Gothic spire to the madness of subterranean dungeons.” These scrupulously researched and well-written essays include analysis of Alexander Pope’s brilliant satires and Anne Brontë’s tenacious hymns, a rich range of material that will appeal to a wide audience.""

Deborah Kennedy, Saint Mary’s University
author of Helen Maria Williams and the Age of Revolution




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-11-01,Michael Berman,The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story,Hardback,9781847183569,29.99,"The book makes out a case for the introduction of a new genre of tale, the shamanic story, which has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic
journey, or contains a number of the elements that are typical of such a journey.

The stories featured are the Book of Jonah from the Old Testament, two traditional stories from the Republic of Georgia–The Earth will take its
Own and Davit, a contemporary German tale Bundles, and the Korean story of Shimchong, the Blindman’s Daughter.

By making use of textual material from a number of different cultures and times, the intention is to highlight the pervasive influence shamanism has
had and to show how the “new” genre being proposed is a universal one.

The research questions addressed include 1) defining what shamanism is, deciding whether it should be classified as a religion, a methodology or a
way of life 2) considering whether a case can be made out for the introduction of a new genre of tale and, if so, what its characteristics are.

It is hoped the book will be of interest not only to those involved in the study of shamanism but also to those whose interest is in the study of
literary texts. Since the old bearers of shamanic traditions quite often were, and even today are, illiterate, the study of their folklore–epic
songs, laments, narratives–undoubtedly provides a rich source for research.


","""Wiccan Rede readers will recognise Michael’s name as the author of a few articles about Azerbaijan and Ossetia. As Shamanic teacher and storyteller Michael has first hand knowledge of the folks of the Caucasus. I enjoyed reading this book because for once this isn’t a book arguing for Shamanism ‘as the next best thing to apple pie’, but a sober look into the roots of Shamanism. The chapter Shamanism – A Religion. A Way of Life, or a Methodology? is particularly interesting. Shamanism – like Wicca – seems to have suffered something of a process of sanitization, as if, for example, using hallucinogenic drugs somehow ‘degenerated’ the whole practice. Michael continues by using a number of stories to illustrate Shamanic journeys to Lower, Middle and Upper World. One is perhaps a surprising choice – the Shamanic Story of Jonah but as Michael writes it is the universality of its appeal. He also uses stories from Georgia, Germany and Korea to illustrate how mythology, sagas and folktales can provide us with inner or Shamanic journeys. In fact he later devotes a chapter on the Parallels between the Shaman and the Storyteller. Many Pagans will recognise the importance of the oral tradition Michael is describing. And how we all need to be adept storytellers.""

- Morgana - the International Coordinator of Paga Federation International

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-12-01,Dr. Stephen T. Neese,Algernon Sidney Crapsey: The Last of the Heretics,Hardback,9781847183958,39.99,"Algernon Sidney Crapsey: “The Last of the Heretics,” is a biography about a man whose life reflected the religious, social and cultural conventions of late nineteenth and early twentieth century America. The fascinating changes that Crapsey experienced in his personal life paralleled the intellectual developments that attended the nation as it moved from a Protestant, Christian culture to a primarily secular one. Recognizing those transformations in the life of Crapsey helps us to understand them at the societal level as well. After a short stint in the military during the Civil War, Crapsey began his career as a young man caught up in the pomp and ritual of the Oxford Movement and Anglo-Catholicism. He maintained a long romance with the medieval communitarian- based Anglican institution. He eventually became a leading missioner or, one who brought instruction and Episcopal evangelism to various places both at home and abroad. He was, at one point, the leading candidate for the Bishopric of Omaha, Nebraska though he ultimately declined the offer. But as he became more successful at one point traveling to Great Britain, he eventually witnessed the discrepancies between the hierarchical church and the laity. The seeds of socialism both Christian and secular were set at this point. He became more and more broad- minded and liberal in his thinking leading to his utterances of heresy and eventual excommunication between 1905-07. His trial captivated the nation twenty years before the Scopes Monkey Trial, and every major newspaper carried its developments. As he moved on in years his life deepened becoming more interesting and legendary as a favorite circuit speaker, author, avowed communist and New York State’s first youth probation officer. For many, his death at the end of the decade of the twenties marked the end an era of modernism in America. As a true progressive, Crapsey had not only helped to initiate a process that brought successive modification to society, but he also helped to establish a tradition of liberality within the Episcopal Church. The subsequent controversies surrounding Bishops Pike and Spong attest to this tradition, as does the current controversy concerning the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson. 



","‘Religious radicals are interesting people, and Stephen Neese’s fine account of the life of Algernon Sidney Crapsey, tried for heresy by the Episcopal Church, portrays a person moving to ever more radical stances.  Based on exhaustive mining of family and archival material, as well as Crapsey’s writings, Neese brings to life a surprisingly neglected figure and fills a gap in the story of American religious liberalism at the turn of the twentieth century.’

Dewey D. Wallace, Jr., Professor of Religion, George Washington University


""Stephen Neese's book does an exemplary job of describing the stormy life of Algernon Crapsey, an unjustly forgotten freethinker. This story is especially relevant today, when the Episcopal Church is again undergoing doctrinal disputes over matters elating to human sexuality, the reliability of scripture, and the role of the hierarchy. It would seem that Crapsey is unlikely to remain the ""last heretic"" after all.""

- Tim Madigan, Department of Philosophy, St. John Fisher College



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2007-12-01,Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman,The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia,Hardback,9781847183903,39.99,"The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia contains essays written by established scholars in the field that trace the multiplicity of Asian goddesses: their continuities, discontinuities, and importance as symbols of wisdom, power, transformation, compassion, destruction, and creation. The essays demonstrate that while treatments of the goddess may vary regionally, culturally, and historically, it is possible to note some consistencies in the overall picture of the goddess in Asia.

The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the goddess, culminating in the selections that draw from research on Indian, Nepali, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese traditions, seldom found in other works of similar subject.  The volume will be useful for students in religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies, and women's studies. With the intent of making the volume truly broad in scope, an effort has been made to include works written by art historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars.  Culture cannot be separated from religion; they are intertwined as an organic whole, and variations manifest themselves in the rituals and daily lives of the people. In this sense, all the essays are interconnected: the goddess manifests in many forms and appeals to differing aspects of a particular culture as a paradigm of the divine feminine.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-03-01,Neil Spurway,Creation and the Abrahamic Faiths,Hardback,9781847184665,29.99,"Creation! How we are here. Not just us, of course, but bluetits and Hereford cattle and cabbages and E. coli and deserts and mountains and suns and nebulae … in fact, all that is. So not only “Why are we here?” but “Why is there a ‘here’ for us to inhabit?”. That is this book’s theme. Inevitably it doesn’t answer the question in a mechanistic sense. A telescope cannot look at itself, and neither can an inhabitant of the Universe say how it came to be. But that does not stop those questions haunting us.

So where shall we turn? To cosmology? The concept of an initial event, a “Big Bang”, is now almost universally accepted. But what caused that? Most would feel that this is not a question science can answer. The first two contributors to this book are professional cosmologists, yet cosmology is only a background for this book, not its core theme. That theme is the conviction that the Universe owes its existence to a divine Creator – and the specific formulations of this conviction in the three great monotheistic religions, the “Abrahamic” faiths. The scriptures of all three faiths include the creation-accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis. Later developments moved the expressions of the three faiths considerably apart, but the social and political conditions of the 21st C world make it imperative that every effort should be put into a recovery of understanding between their practitioners.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to that understanding. Of thirteen chapters, two are by Jewish authors and three by Moslems; several of the Christian authors also are deeply versed in the other traditions. Together, the chapters show that the attitudes of the three faiths to Creation have far more in common than otherwise. In particular, they are noticeably and encouragingly coming together in their endorsements of 21st C concerns for the environment.
The book derives from a conference of the Science and Religion Forum in Sept 2006, but all chapters have been rewritten for publication, and carefully edited with linking commentaries. 


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-04-01,Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm,Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies,Hardback,9781847185266,39.99,"
This publication is the first interdisciplinary collection of articles focusing on religion and mythology in Celtic studies. The first part presents various current viewpoints within the field from scholars of history, art history and literary studies. In addition to more traditional approaches, the other two parts of the book illustrate the possibilities of applying new theories and methods from the discipline of Comparative Religion to the analysis of Celtic materials. They introduce previously unpublished results of the international research network “The Power of Words in Traditional European Cultures”, and the research project “Religion, Society, and Culture: Defining the Sacred in Early Irish Literature” funded by the Academy of Finland at University of Helsinki. The present collection serves as a significant contribution towards a better understanding of issues that have not been previously brought together in a single volume. As such it is of interest to scholars in Celtic studies as well as other related disciplines. 


","“The present collection presents a stimulating range of new insights and new approaches to the study of Celtic religion and mythology. The enrichment of the discipline of Celtic Studies by interaction with the disciplinary theories and methods of comparative religion is clearly demonstrated. Moreover, non-Celticists get an invaluable introduction to the extent and variety of evidence about religion in sources from the Celtic-speaking world. The way is opened for advancement of research on
a variety of fronts. Scholars of the University of Helsinki have made a significant contribution to disciplinary cross-fertilisation between religious studies and Celtic. It is a pleasure to welcome a publication which so cogently communicates both the achievement and the possibilities of this pioneering scholarship.

Professor Máire Herbert, Department of Early and Medieval Irish
University College Cork



“…the projected volume contains the cream of the papers given [at the Eighth Symposium of the Societas Celtologica Nordica]. It is also worth insisting on the fact that these papers form a thematically coherent whole, in a way conference volumes perhaps do not always achieve… All that is needed here is a few words concerning the high scholarly standard that [the individual papers] have achieved. The geographical spread is also impressive. They testify very competently to the fact that Celtic Studies is now an important worldwide discipline, taught far beyond the confines of the old Celtic countries of Brittany, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.”

Anders Ahlqvist, Emeritus Professor of  Old and Middle Irish and Celtic Philology, National University of Ireland, Galway 




",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-05-01,Edoardo Mungiello,Christ Among Them: Incarnation and Renaissance in Medieval Italian Culture,Hardback,9781847185419,29.99,"This essay newly interprets the rise of the individual within the Italian peninsula between 1180 and 1300. It follows the historical events and the cultural products that define the period keeping in mind that the creators were conscious of a tangible, real Christ in their midst. For it is the time when Jesus was known to be in the Eucharist as a carnal potentiality, as well as a time when Europeans on Crusade had reached his temporal abode. As Christ as neighbor became a consistent idea, the relationship towards that idea became one of accommodation, making subsequent worship a form of individualism. 
The later Renaissance was as much a specific reaction to a particular understanding of Christology within the cultural sphere as it was a reawakening of Classical ideals through a new paradigm of European selfhood outside of Christianity. Understood in this way, the Incarnation helped to produce an action based Christianity amenable to the needs of the Roman Church. The later insistence upon text and notions of personal conscience that identifies the Reformation, can now be seen as a true end to the Renaissance Christian praxis which began with the excitement over Christ among them.



","
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-05-01,Chandana Chakrabarti and Gordon Haist,Revisiting Mysticism,Hardback,9781847185587,34.99,"The twelve essays in this collection promote scholarship on the rich and diverse subject of mysticism by examining the nature of its thought both from Eastern and Western and from philosophical and religious perspectives.  These include studies of specific mystics, including Teresa de Avila, Lady Nijo, Hiroshi Motoyama, and Mirabai, and thinkers about mysticism, including Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.  The book opens with two descriptive studies of similarities in the life of Teresa de Avila and mystics of very different times and cultures. The issue of mysticism and ethics is addressed in three essays, and central concepts involving pure conscious events and primordial oneness in Nietzsche are addressed in two separate essays.  Wittgenstein's comments on mysticism are examined in two essays, one that places them in the perspective of his overall development and the other that studies them in comparison with recent continental thought.  The book concludes with two essays that look broadly at the supersensible, one from an examination of Kantian aesthetics and the other from quantum mechanical interpretations of reality.  Taken together, these essays attest to the power of mysticism to provoke reasoned thought about ultimate matters.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-05-01,Pink Dandelion and Peter Collins,The Quaker Condition: The Sociology of a Liberal Religion,Hardback,9781847185655,34.99,"This book focuses primarily on what we have termed the ‘Quaker Condition’. It looks sociologically at the condition of present-day British Quakerism. This original and innovative collection contributes to several different, though obviously connected, fields within the study of religion. It operates on five levels. In the first place, the volume is the first to represent, substantially, the contribution of social science to the study of Quakerism and therefore provides useful comparative material for those whose focus is on other faith groups. Second , the book focuses largely on British Quakerism and so enriches the pool of resources relating to the sociology of British religion and British culture more generally Third , there are very few sociological volumes dedicated to the analysis of a single faith group. Fourth, the book represents an in-depth study of a liberal faith group, when liberal religion is the focus of much scholarly debate at present particularly with reference to the secularisation thesis. The study of British Quakerism is especially fascinating in this regard, given how the group can be described almost as hyper- or ultra-liberal, prefiguring many of the developments which may overtake currently more conservative groups. Fifth, the volume represents a particularly collective way of working of interest to all those concerned with the methodology of social research, with the design and construction of the volume jointly agreed by all the authors. Regular meetings of the group and a conference based on these chapters has culminated in a book far more interwoven and layered than a typical ‘edited collection.’





","""This is a collection designed for, and attractive to, academics. However it remains accessible, with much to fascinate the lay reader. The book is a wide-ranging and fascinating look into what is distinct about contemporary Quakerism, compared both to Friends in the past, and other religions.""

-Hannak Brock, the Friend, September '09

‘…the interconnectedness and mutual supportiveness of the contributors’ chapters are striking. I recommend all readers with an interest in the dynamics and manifestations of contemporary religion to engage with this book’

Eleanor Nesbitt, University of Warwick, Quaker Studies, Vol.14, Issue 2 March 2010

""All the contributions to this edited volume contain interesting insights and it is convenient to have twelve studies of the same movement in one volume. The editors are to be commended for bringing their contributors together and I most strongly recommend this book.""

Steve Bruce, University of Aberdeen, Journey of Contemporary Religion, Vol.25, No.3, October 2010, pg 485


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-06-01,Willem Lemmens and Walter Van Herck,Religious Emotions: Some Philosophical Explorations,Hardback,9781847185716,34.99,"In recent decades contemporary Anglo-American philosophy has seen a boom in publications on the subject of ‘the emotions’. Most publications focus on the cognitive value of emotions and on their moral significance. The role which emotions play in religion, however, has sofar received little attention. In this volume a number of scholars present their research on ‘religious emotions’. Is there a category of ‘religious emotions’? What is so distinctive about them? Was there really a Christian-inspired repression of the emotions? Or did Christianity also made use of the human emotional potential? How is the relation between religion and emotions conditioned by the process of secularisation? How and why did a shift from the concept of ‘passion’ to that of ‘emotion’ occur from the eighteenth century on?
            
This collection includes systematical treatments as well as historical approaches of these issues. The last part gives some paradigmatical cases of religious emotions, like emptiness and oceanic feeling. In the study of what constitutes a human being neither religion nor emotion can be neglected. The reader is invited to reflect on their interaction.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-07-01,"Suzanne Bray, Adrienne E. Gavin and Peter Merchant","Re-Embroidering the Robe: Faith, Myth and Literary Creation since 1850",Hardback,9781847186089,34.99,"Religious faith, myths and legends have always been present in literature. However, their role has changed over time. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, with the diminishing role of religion in European society, writers with some kind of belief system, whether religious or political, have tended to use myth in two different ways.
They have either retold the old, familiar myths of the past so that they carry fresh messages relevant to a contemporary audience or created their own, new myths as modern vehicles of traditional truths. Many writers have combined the two techniques.

Such is the transforming artistry which the eighteen essays in Re-Embroidering the Robe examine: the remaking or new-minting of myth, in literature from 1850 to the present day, so that what it embodies and expresses speaks powerfully to the modern reader. In widely differing ways, therefore, all of the texts analysed here compel attention.





","

“This fascinating and timely collection of essays explores the diverse uses and inflections of myth in European literary culture since 1850. The scope of its engagements is ambitious, and includes Victorian, Modernist and postmodern texts, in French as well as English.  The collection is carefully structured, with helpful introductions to each section. The essays contextualize and discuss in innovative ways a remarkable miscellany of literature for both adults and children, from the familiar Chronicles of Narnia to the unfamiliar world of Estonian mythology, from explorations of orthodox Christian faith to diverse expressions of paganism ranging from Swinburne to Yourcenar.”

Dr William Gray, Reader in Literary History and Hermeneutics, University of Chichester, author of Fantasy, Myth and the Measure of Truth: Tales of Pullman, Lewis, Tolkien, MacDonald and Hoffmann (Palgrave Macmillan), Robert Louis Stevenson: a Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan) and C.S. Lewis (Northcote House)
	
""The book will undoubtedly command the attention and respect of its targeted audience, the academic community.  But there also exists a very large general readership, both Anglo-American and European, for whom this book will also have a significant appeal.""

Chris Mitchell, Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, Illinois and Director of the Marion E. Wade Center

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-07-01,Michael Berman,The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales,Hardback,9781847186218,24.99,"“In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement … The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die out” (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on people’s attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices. 

On the other hand, it has been suggested that “all intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Armenia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Armenia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Armenian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.
","
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-08-01,Khalid El-Awaisi,Geographical Dimensions of Islamicjerusalem,Hardback,9781847186331,29.99,"Islamicjerusalem has been at the heart of the Muslim religion from its early days. “The Geographical Dimensions of Islamicjerusalem” brings new dimensions and horizons to the relations between Islam and this Holy region.  It delves into topics that have been overlooked in much of modern scholarship.  It reinvestigates concepts and translates them into something that can be understood both physically and geographically.  This work is an attempt to shed light on some of these concepts and the way they were perceived in early and later centuries.  It lays the foundation and raises more questions for further scholarship.

The book introduces the concept of Islamicjerusalem and the background development of this new field and presents some of the latest research to the reader.  One of the main contributions of this book is the unveiling of the fact that Bayt al-Maqdis (Islamicjerusalem) is not a single city only; rather this work testifies to its long existence as a large spiritual region encompassing various cities, towns and villages.  The book also contrasts the region of Islamicjerusalem with the sacred regions of Makkah and Madinah; particular attention is paid to the physical similarities between the Ka‘bah and al-Aqsa Mosque.  A further asset of this book is the study of the various names and their connotations in early and later periods of Muslim rule.  These evocative ideas and findings are supported with explanatory maps and diagrams.  



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-08-01,Markus Locker,The New World of Jesus' Parables,Hardback,9781847186546,29.99,"
Not too many other texts in biblical studies received more attention than the parables of Jesus, in fact raising the question whether or not we need yet another book on this subject. The answer to this question will always remain an emphatic yes. For Jesus and the church, the parables are mysteries, i.e. not beyond understanding, but open to an infinite possibility of meaning. This perhaps explains why more than a century after Adolf Jülicher convincingly argued for a non-allegorical reading of the parables this quest is far from over.

Notwithstanding their significant metaphorical force, this book will attempt to shed new light on the parables in understanding and reading these short stories as speech-events (J.G. Hamann) and language-games (L. Wittgenstein). Parables do not primarily signify abstract truths, but illustrate a world reminiscent of God’s kingdom. 

Engaging in the parables, therefore, does not simply evoke thought processes, but actively calls readers into participating in the unfolding events pictured by the text, hereby joining in actions that seek to establish the kingdom of God as envisioned through the words of Jesus. Reading and interpreting the parables as language-games renders these stories accessible to questions of faith that could not be asked previously: Why does a man without wedding garment face expulsion from the banquet? Why are wise virgins rewarded by not sharing their oil? Why is anxiety and caution severely punished and financial risk taking awarded? 

Understanding Jesus’ parables as pictures of a world reigned by God, yet in need of redemption and our collaboration will remove these texts from the pedestal of enigma and obscurity, placing them into the hands of the faithful reader.


","
“Markus Locker takes a fresh approach to the parables by means of “audience oriented methods”. He understands parables as ""speech-events"" (J. G. Hamann) and ""language games"" (L. Wittgenstein) whose “secrets” are only revealed and made known to the true believer. Being heard and understood, the parables call for shaping the world in terms of Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God. Locker treats the great parables in the Gospel of Matthew.”

Prof. Dr. Martin Ebner, Chair for the Exegesis of the New Testament, University of Münster, Germany.

“By making use of the concept of language games for the parables of Jesus Markus Locker has introduced a hermeneutical tool into New Testament Studies that offers a wide range of possibilities. Locker takes parables to be illustrations of how God's reign can be envisioned and realized in the ""Hic et Nunc"". Indirectly, some elements of speech act theory are incorporated - the success of the discourse depends on the hearers' and readers' response as well. Locker succeeds in presenting the urgency of the parables that are ""calls for transformation and action"" in order to make the Kingdom of God available to all. I am grateful for this fascinating book that reminds us once again that scripture in general and the parables in particular are sources and inspirations for Christian living.”

Professor Clemens Sedmak, Dr. phil., Dr. theol., Dr. phil.fac.theol., F.D. Maurice Professor for Social Theology and Moral Theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Neil Spurway,Creation and the Abrahamic Faiths,Paperback,9781847188090,14.99,"Creation! How we are here. Not just us, of course, but bluetits and Hereford cattle and cabbages and E. coli and deserts and mountains and suns and nebulae … in fact, all that is. So not only “Why are we here?” but “Why is there a ‘here’ for us to inhabit?”. That is this book’s theme. Inevitably it doesn’t answer the question in a mechanistic sense. A telescope cannot look at itself, and neither can an inhabitant of the Universe say how it came to be. But that does not stop those questions haunting us.

So where shall we turn? To cosmology? The concept of an initial event, a “Big Bang”, is now almost universally accepted. But what caused that? Most would feel that this is not a question science can answer. The first two contributors to this book are professional cosmologists, yet cosmology is only a background for this book, not its core theme. That theme is the conviction that the Universe owes its existence to a divine Creator – and the specific formulations of this conviction in the three great monotheistic religions, the “Abrahamic” faiths. The scriptures of all three faiths include the creation-accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis. Later developments moved the expressions of the three faiths considerably apart, but the social and political conditions of the 21st C world make it imperative that every effort should be put into a recovery of understanding between their practitioners.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to that understanding. Of thirteen chapters, two are by Jewish authors and three by Moslems; several of the Christian authors also are deeply versed in the other traditions. Together, the chapters show that the attitudes of the three faiths to Creation have far more in common than otherwise. In particular, they are noticeably and encouragingly coming together in their endorsements of 21st C concerns for the environment.
The book derives from a conference of the Science and Religion Forum in Sept 2006, but all chapters have been rewritten for publication, and carefully edited with linking commentaries. 



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Eun Sim Joung,Religious Attachment: Women's Faith Development in Psychodynamic Perspective,Hardback,9781847187802,34.99,"Exploration of religious attachment from a psychodynamic perspective, this book provides a coherent and convincing account of the roots and characteristics of Christian women’s faith experience which will complement and, in some respects correct, existing accounts.  Drawing on attachment theory as a conceptual framework, this book employs a qualitative methodological approach, focusing analysis on linguistic meanings, and using autobiographical narrative in-depth interviews with a group of ten Korean Christian women. Examining the patterns of religious attachment in relation to human attachments, the key characteristics in women’s faithing are explored: the language, means and context, and the relational and affective accounts of faith with or in which women practice their faith.  Three major patterns of religious attachment are identified in which the women’s faithing strategies and their representations of self and God are presented: these are Distance/Avoidance, Anxiety/Ambivalence and Security/Interdependence. Integrating theoretical and practical implications of religious attachment for Christian education and pastoral practice, this book will be a good use to all concerned with women’s religious attachment, faith development, spirituality and education, and those working in the field of practical theology, pastoral care, Christian education, counselling and psychotherapy.


","“This book is what we have been waiting for. Refreshing interpretation and carving out new ground on religious attachments through the honest discourse and with far-reaching implications for Christian education, pastoral care, spiritual direction, counselling and psychotherapy, this book will be well and widely read by those who study and work in the fields.”
Yong Won Kang, Dr. theol., Professor, Christian Education, Dean of Chaplaincy, Kosin University, Busan, Korea. 

“This is an excellent study of Korean Christian women at different stages of their spiritual journeys that allow the women to relate their faith ventures in sufficient detail to enable the reader to enter their worlds and come out again both refreshed and challenged.”
Mark Beaumont, PhD, Deputy Principal, Birmingham Christian College

“Eun Sim Joung has made an important and original contribution to the empirical study of women’s faith development in many new and striking ways. The work is scholarly, thoroughly embedded in the literature of attachment theory, faith development and women’s identity formation. At the same time, drawing as it does on the faith narratives of ordinary women, it is accessible to non-specialists, clergy and other church leaders and particularly those who are working in culturally diverse contexts.”  
Nicola Slee, PhD, MA co-ordinator in Applied Theology, Queen’s College

“Focused upon the psychological dynamics and examined biographical material gained in conversation with Christian women, Dr Joung’s work offers a distinctive insight which will inform practitioners engaged in pastoral and educational work with women.”
Peter Hammersley, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow, Birmingham University 

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-09-01,Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba,The Practice of Altruism: Caring and Religion in Global Perspective,Paperback,9781847187765,16.99," The study of altruism and altruistic behavior has caught the attention of social scientists especially in recent years. What motivates individuals to cultivate attitudes and actions that promote the wellbeing of others at the expense of, or at the risk of negative consequences for their own?
        In our contemporary global society marked by conflict and violence among different sectors of the population in various regions of the world, and wherein religion can be a factor that exacerbates such conflict and violence, harnessing the power of religion towards directions of reconciliation, creativity, and altruistic action, remains a crucial task for humankind.
        This volume addresses a question especially relevant in our day: do people who profess religious commitment or affiliation in a particular religious community tend to nurture altruistic kinds of attitude and action more than others? Social scientists present results of their empirical studies on Japanese society, as well as on North American, European, Indian, and Thai societies, to focus on this issue and offer insightful reflections on the relationship between religion and society.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-10-01,Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino and Clevis Ronald Headley,"Shifting the Geography of Reason: Gender, Science and Religion",Paperback,9781847189325,17.99,,"""Shifting the Geography of Reason constitutes an event. The contributions within this text boldly and effectively confront epistemic orders that were/are predicated upon the presumptive Occidental circumscription of reason and intelligibility. This text thus challenges the misanthropic effrontery of the west to territorialize the very meaning of the “human.” Through a collection of critically reflective contributions that capture the geo-spatial historicity, complexity, and diversity of Caribbean knowledge-production, from the epistemic, phenomenological, and the scientific to the aesthetic, poetic, and semiotic, this text forces a shift away from reason as totalizing to reason as possibility, s emancipatory and inclusive.""
George Yancy, Duquesne University


""Here stands the first of a series of important collective statements on the proverbial problem of reason that once fled those spaces in which the person of color reached for a meeting. What other resources are left for those of us who rely on ideas in a world that offers few options short of violence or, worse, apathy but to transcend the struggle for recognition into the sphere of building new intellectual homes?  One must read this courageous celebration of thinking and of asserting the value of intelligence.""

Lewis R. Gordon, President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy at Temple University and Ongoing Visiting Professor at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2008-11-01,Michael Berman,The Shamanic Themes in Chechen Folktales,Hardback,978-1-4438-0011-2,24.99,"“All intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). In Chechnya, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia and Armenia, these roots lie in shamanism and the stories in this collection clearly show this to be the case. 

The history of the Nokhchii (the name the Chechens have given themselves), and their land, is filled with rich and colourful stories, which have survived for thousands of years through oral traditions that have been passed down generation by generation through clan elders. However, legends have blended with actual events so that the true history is difficult to write. The 1994-1996 war destroyed most of Chechnya's treasured archaeological and historical sites, though fortunately ancient burial sites, architectural monuments and several prehistoric cave petroglyphs still remain in the mountains. These valuable relics, coupled with the histories and stories of the elders, provide the people with virtually the only remaining evidence of who their ancient ancestors were. This book contains both the texts of some of the tales and commentaries on them, focusing in particular on their shamanic elements.  


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-01-01,John Young and Boris DeWiel,Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada,Hardback,978-1-4438-0117-1,39.99,"This collection of essays questions the capacity of Canadian democracy to promote religious pluralism and recognize disparate faith groups as legitimate players on the political stage. These are more than rhetorical questions, as issues and public policies in contemporary Canada reflect an increasing concern that religion and religious belief ought not to intrude in political debate and matters of governance. Despite playing an active role in Canadian politics in the past, religious faith now risks relegation to the private sector. Efforts to push religious belief outside the public square set a dangerous precedent, provide rationale for further exclusion rather than inclusion, and logically culminate in monism rather than pluralism.

Faith in Democracy focuses on contemporary challenges to religious pluralism in Canada with attention to the changing religious landscape throughout the country.  These challenges are both old and new.  They include such tasks as reconciling universal and particular perspectives of liberalism in law and recognizing the limits of secularism as an emergent dominant faith.   How Canada responds to these challenges will not only influence public policy, but also test its commitment to democracy.  




",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-02-01,Mirosław Patalon,The Philosophical Basis of Inter-religious Dialogue: The Process Perspective,Hardback,978-1-4438-0164-5,39.99,"In the present epoch of tensions between civilizations, challenges being brought by globalization processes and the necessity of the coexistence of various cultures and traditions, the subject of inter-religious dialogue seems to be particularly significant. Can religions remain isolated islands? Are their claims of being the only source of theological truth justified? Or should it rather be understood as an effect of interaction between different points of view and common effort of looking for the answers to the questions about God and his relations to the world? What is the role of dialogue? Is it only a politically correct element or maybe something more essential – the basis of reasonable existence and development of religion? Should the direction traced by 20th century's partisans of ecumenical movements be widened in order to embrace also non Christian religions? What is the orthodoxy and where are its boundaries? The process philosophy creates a convenient and favorable atmosphere for this kind of considerations. The articles of this selection represent different points of view of the discussed topic. The book is addressed to all who deal with the inter-religious dialogue: both clergy and laymen as well as scholars and students interested in the subject.


","""Full of possibility across traditions, this pearl is worth the purchase of the book""

Carla Mae Streeter, O.P, Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis, MO in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45:1 2010.
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-03-01,Jeremy F. Worthen,The Internal Foe: Judaism and Anti-Judaism in the Shaping of Christian Theology,Hardback,978-1-4438-0207-9,44.99,"The relationship between Christianity and other religions is a vital issue in the world today. This book provides a fresh perspective by exploring how Christian theology has been shaped over two millennia by interaction with its original religious “other”, continuing Judaism.

It begins by describing the origins of the “classic framework” in Christianity that correlates claims about the gospel with judgments about Judaism as resistance to the new thing God has done in Jesus Christ. This framework binds Christianity to the task of interpreting Jewish presence, which then renders engaging with Judaism as well as rehearsing judgments about it integral to Christian theology’s development. The central chapters of the book demonstrate this in relation to three pivotal periods of Western history: 1050-1300 CE, early modernity and the first half of the twentieth century. They reveal the classic framework to have been remarkably resilient, despite sometimes radical adaptation, before, in and after modernity.

The insights of Franz Rosenzweig about Judaism as Christianity’s “internal foe” resonate deeply with the book’s historical analysis. Does this mean that non-relativistic Christian theology must remain intrinsically anti-Jewish? The book concludes that it need not, if it can renounce its historic stance of hermeneutical comprehension.







","“Many books have been written on anti-Judaism in Christian texts. Jeremy Worthen’s The Internal Foe is distinctive in that it analyzes the complex interaction between Christian and Jewish thinkers from antiquity through the mid-twentieth century. His stimulating, sensitive, judicious and fair-minded survey should be read carefully by all who are interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue.”
Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein, Leo Baeck College

“Jeremy Worthen’s book is a significant historical and theological engagement with the question of the role of Judaism in the shaping of Christian theology. Its conclusion, which substantiates a Rosenzweigian thesis, is an important and distinctive contribution to current scholarly literature. Dr Worthen offers a sensitive and sophisticated treatment of this fraught and painful topic.”
Dr Susannah Ticciati, King’s College London

'Worthen’s book is a magisterial study of the theological exchanges between the Jews and Christians…'

Leonard S. Kravitz- Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, in Journal of Ecumenical Studies- Spring 2010

""Jeremy Worthen's Internal Foe is a well-researched and thorough study of the role that Judaism, and especially Christian anti-Judaism, has played in Christian theological self-understanding  from its formative years to the present day.

An Internal Foe is a sincere and important theological study of the role of Judaism in Christian theology and Worthen is to be congratulated for his willingness to tackle honestly a difficult and painful chapter in Christian self-understanding.""

Edward Kessler, Woolf Institute, Cambridge in Theology Journal (SAGE) Vol 114, No. 3, June 2011

""Jeremy Worthen's Internal Foe is a well - researched and thorough study of the role that Judaism, and especially Christian anti - Judaism, has played in Christian theological self - understanding from its formative years to the present day.

 . . . An Internal Foe is a sincere and important theological study of the role of Judaism in Christian theology and Worthen is to be congratulated for his willingness to tackle honestly a difficult and painful chapter in Christian self - understanding.""

Edward Kessler, Woolf Institute, Cambridge, Theology, Vol. 114, no.3, May / June 2011



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-03-01,Neil Spurway,"Theology, Evolution and the Mind",Hardback,978-1-4438-0197-3,39.99,"In pre-scientific thought mind itself, and its religious perceptions particularly, were considered gifts from God, injected into a previously created world of matter. By contrast, all the contributors to this book accept an evolutionary account of life, mind and its religious dispositions. However they hold more divergent views on the relation of mind to body and brain, on the validity of those religious dispositions, and on how far even Christ, and his predicted Second Coming, may be seen as aspectc of the evolutionary process.
The seventeen contributions are rewritten and extended versions of papers first delivered at the annual conference of the UK’s Science and Religion Forum, held at Canterbury Christ Church College in Sept 2007. Though most speakers were British, representatives from The Netherlands, Jordan, Zimbabwe and USA also contributed. Invited individual chapters consider the general pattern of evolutionary thought, arguing that it can make a major contribution to the maturation of theology; archeological evidence for the emergence of religion, and the proposal that it was an inevitable phase in human evolution; the contribution of religious concepts to the development of our species, and the question whether that provides any ground for accepting them as true; the unresolved debate whether mind is a separate entity from brain, or a consequence of its activity; and the melding of paleo-anthropology with theology to provide an integrated account of humanity and its culmination in Christ. Each of these papers is the subject of an individual expert response, and they are all drawn together in an overview essay which concludes the first part of the book.
The second, shorter part contains a selection from the papers contributed by registrants for the meeting. Their topics are whether mathematics consists of truths discovered, or thought-forms developed, by human minds; ecological awareness as an evolutionary development; the neurobiology of freewill and sin; an evolutionary perspective on holistic medicine; and the impressive fruitfulness of juxtaposing neurophysiological and biblical concepts of the human body-mind.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-04-01,"Anunciación Carrera and María José Carrera, with Carlos Herrero, Pilar Garcés and Berta Cano, Elena González-Cascos, Ana Sáez",Philip Perry’s Sketch of the Ancient British History: A Critical Edition,Hardback,978-1-4438-0448-6,39.99,"This book presents a thorough edition of a so-far unpublished manuscript preserved at St Alban's English College in Valladolid, Spain. Written by Philip M. Perry, who was rector of this Catholic seminary from 1768 until his death in 1774, the Sketch of the Ancient British History provides a historical account stretching from the arrival of the Romans in Britain up to and including St Columba’s Christianizing mission in the sixth century and possesses an intrinsic value insofar as it is genuinely (and historically) anchored in major historical and cultural phenomena: the history of the English Church and the huge influence of Bede’s work, the religious history of Europe since the sixteenth century, the perception of antiquity during the Enlightenment or the theological and historiographical debates of the eighteenth century.

Additionally, the edition includes an inventory of bibliographical sources used by Philip Perry and extant at St Alban’s as well as the author’s own transcript of the Stannington military diploma (AD 124), a unique historical document registered by Perry himself around 1761.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-05-01,"Steve Brie, Jenny Daggers and David Torevell",Sacred Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives within Contemporary Contexts,Hardback,978-1-4438-0517-9,39.99,"The identification and positioning of sacred space within contemporary contexts has, to date, received scant attention. In reflecting upon a broad spectrum of conceptions of what constitutes sacred space, this collection of interdisciplinary essays presents a new perspective on an area that is developing into an important theological and philosophical concept.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-05-01,L. Bryan Williams,via media philosophy: Holiness Unto Truth; Intersections between Wesleyan and Roman Catholic Voices,Hardback,978-1-4438-0506-3,39.99,"This book, via media philosophy: Holiness unto Truth.  Conversations between Wesleyan and Roman Catholic Voices, records the first formal philosophical conversations between Wesleyan and Roman Catholic philosophers and theologians. Although the Methodist community has developed numerous points of intersection with Roman Catholic counterparts, authors from smaller Wesleyan/Holiness groups along with Roman Catholic writers now offer new philosophical conversations. This book begins that conversation with a review of Pope John Paul II's call in Fides et Ratio [Faith and Reason] for adequate dialogue by philosophers on crucial areas of mutual concern. Important bridges between the two communities are developed within each chapter.  Examples of via media practices in the lives of Rev. John Wesley and Cardinal John Henry Newman are highlighted.  An editorial thread of other via media practices is offered after each chapter.  A special contribution by Marquette Professor D. Stephen Long, ""Performing the Truth,"" closes this conversation with a call for holiness unto truth to be made present in the world. This book strives to facilitate early steps along a via media to a holy relationship unto truth between Wesleyan and Roman Catholic voices.   
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-06-01,John Martyn,Pope Gregory and the Brides of Christ,Hardback,978-1-4438-0616-9,34.99,"The Letters of Gregory the Great, pope from 590 to 604, have long been viewed as an indispensable resource for scholars of the early medieval period.  John Martyn’s knowledge of these letters is well nigh unsurpassed, In this book he turns his attention to a hitherto neglected subject; those letters of Pope Gregory which pertain to nuns and convents. Despite the fact that scholarship on the Middle Ages has in the last thirty years been transformed by feminist contributions, and there has developed, as a result, a heightened awareness of the presence of women in medieval life, both secular and religious, only two of the thirty-six letters identified by Martyn have previously been discussed by scholars. This edition of the letters in both Latin and English is therefore of inestimable value to scholars and will act as a spur for further research.

This sizeable collection of letters are analysed in company with other, better-known, writings about nuns from Gregory’s dialogi. In the introduction Martyn argues that his upbringing, dominated by his mother and four devout aunts, might reasonably have inculcated in him a deep and abiding concern for women, the religious in particular. This is evidenced by his friendships with Theoctista and Gordia, the sisters of the Byzantine Emperor Maurice, and with his wife, the pious Constantina. and with a number of abbesses, including Respecta (from Marseilles) and Talasia (from Autun).  Gregory’s deep interest in the religious life of women, and his concern for their safety and wellbeing, are apparent throughout the letters. Martyn’s translations are clarified and enhanced by a commentary.





","“While there has been a dramatic growth of interest over the last two decades in the life of medieval nuns and in the complex relationship between nuns and the clerics who served female religious communities, the witness of Gregory the Great has been unjustly neglected. John Martyn enables us to glimpse the role played by religious women in the late sixth century through the Pope’s extensive collection of letters addressed to such women. Through these letters, we can observe the significant, and hitherto unnoticed depth of concern of Pope Gregory for nuns, often women of aristocratic birth, accustomed to the exercise of power and influence. Gregory emerges not simply as a great Roman, concerned for the physical as much as the spiritual survival of his society in the face of enormous military threats, but as a pastor unusually aware of the contribution women could make in such a world.”

- Professor Constant J. Mews, Monash University


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-07-01,W. Creighton Peden,"Evolutionary Theist: An Intellectual Biography of Minot Judson Savage, 1841-1918",Hardback,978-1-4438-0984-9,39.99,"This book concludes fifty years of research on the empirical tradition in American liberal religious thought. At the University of Chicago, I wrestled with the issue of how to make pre-scientific religion intelligible in our scientific world. Being a student of B. E. Meland and attracted by H. N. Wieman’s philosophy of creative interchange, I initially worked on the key thinkers in the Chicago School from Shailer Mathews to B. E. Meland. This resulted in books on Wieman, A. N. Whitehead (with C. Hartshorne), A. E. Haydon, and The Chicago School: Voices of Liberal Religious Thought (1987). 

While teaching at the U. of Glasgow in 1982, I began a research project on the empirical tradition in nineteenth century American liberal religious thought. Chauncy Wright led me to F. E. Abbot and the Free Religious Association. The past twenty five years has focused on the empirical tradition in this association, with writings on the thought of F. E. Abbot, W. J. Potter, D. A. Wasson. This work on Minot J. Savage concludes my research on the Free Religious Association. Nearing completion is a work tracing the empirical tradition through the four thinkers in the FRA and eight in the Chicago School.
","“This book provides detailed information about Savage’s life and work, accompanied by Peden’s critical evaluation of Savage’s main ideas. Savage was a highly influential preacher, lecturer, and writer who sought, principally under the influence of Herbert Spencer, to incorporate a version of Darwinian evolutionary thought into his theological outlook. His thinking also reflects the impact of the Higher Criticism of the Bible that came to the fore in his lifetime. Savage endorsed the idea of universal salvation for all humans and contended that salvation results from or is identical with their ongoing perfection of character, a process that continues into the afterlife. Finally, he was fascinated by spiritualism and the spiritualist research of his time and argued that all reality was essentially spirit rather than matter. In general, Savage sought to bring religious ideas under the critical eye of reason and the developing science of his day. His life and thought give important insight into how liberal religious thinkers wrestled with challenging and often profoundly threatening cultural developments in the second part of the nineteenth century.”
—Donald A. Crosby, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Colorado State University

“Peden is probably America’s most productive scholar of 19th century liberal religious thought.  His study of Minot Judson Savage—whose struggle for a “free” religion that was compatible with science, was exploring spiritualism, was indebted to the Christian heritage, and was politically workable within the Unitarian/Universalist organization—provides a monumental study of the human struggle for spiritual growth with intellectual integrity.”
—J. Edward Barrett, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Reigion, Muskingum College, Ohio 

""This expanded version of a long-regarded classic introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy by his most reliable interpreters  is most welcome. With the inclusion of  a brief biography and a carefully chosen bibliography, it will prove most useful to students and general readers interested in knowing more of Whitehead’s work, now influential in  so many branches of learning, not least theology. 
—D.W.D. Shaw, emeritus Professor of Divinity, University of St Andrews, Scotland
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman,The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia,Paperback,978-1-4438-1134-7,19.99,"The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia contains essays written by established scholars in the field that trace the multiplicity of Asian goddesses: their continuities, discontinuities, and importance as symbols of wisdom, power, transformation, compassion, destruction, and creation. The essays demonstrate that while treatments of the
goddess may vary regionally, culturally, and historically, it is possible to note some consistencies in the overall picture of the goddess in Asia.

The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the goddess, culminating in the selections that draw from research on Indian, Nepali, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese traditions, seldom found in other works of similar subject.  The volume will be useful for students in religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies, and women's studies. With the intent of making the volume truly broad in scope, an effort has been made to include works written by art historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars.  Culture cannot be separated from religion; they are intertwined as an organic whole, and variations manifest themselves in the rituals and daily lives of the people. In this sense, all the essays are interconnected: the goddess manifests in many forms and appeals to differing aspects of a particular culture as a paradigm of the divine feminine.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Wayne Cristaudo and Frances Huessy,The Cross and the Star: The Post-Nietzschean Christian and Jewish Thought of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig,Hardback,978-1-4438-1011-1,44.99,"Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a Christian convert and a social philosophy scholar, had an intense conversation with the Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig in 1913. This “Leipzig Conversation” shattered Rosenzweig’s understanding of the meaning of religion, but it also propelled him to embrace his innate Jewish faith. Three years later, they engaged in a correspondence that has emerged as an historic, stunning dialogue on Jewish-Christian thinking. Rosenzweig went on to write The Star of Redemption, a classic work of modern Jewish philosophical theology and to become one of the most important and influential figures of twentieth-century German Jewry. Rosenstock-Huessy took a different path—writing his Sociology, which pointed the social sciences in a new direction based on speech-thinking, and an enormous, rich body of work covering grammar and society, revolutions, Church history, and industrial law; teaching generations of European and American university students; and putting his faith into action. This is the first major collection of essays on these two close friends’ “new thinking.” Their dialogue mirrored Nietzsche’s anti-transcendent reading of Judaism and Christianity, as well as his attack on idealism. But their dialogue also resurrected the redemptive cores of these faiths as sources for the rejuvenation of human society. 
This book brings to publication three essays by Rosenstock-Huessy on Nietzsche, and a translation of a chapter from his Sociology, clarifying the post-Nietzschean approach of the “new thinking.”  The Cross and the Star, a 50-year span of significant scholarship, vivifies the reasons for Rosenzweig’s and Rosenstock-Huessy’s influence on faith and society, and why their respective thought speaks directly and enduringly to the global human challenges of our time.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-08-01,Axel Stähler and Klaus Stierstorfer ,Writing Fundamentalism,Hardback,978-1-4438-1121-7,39.99,"Given its discursive amplification and its very real impact on contemporary societies, fundamentalism has become the focus of much scholarly attention. However, whereas it is commonly recognized to be centred on texts, the complex and at times paradoxical relationship of fundamentalism with literature remains as yet largely unexplored. Based on new research by an international team of scholars working in the fields of literary and cultural studies, the essays gathered in this volume are based on a number of theoretical frameworks and debates and open up a historical perspective which engages critically with received notions of fundamentalism: by exploring literary representations of fundamentalisms and the function of literature in fundamentalism, they enquire into the underlying generic differences and incompatibilities as well as – perhaps more unexpected – the similarities and affinities between fundamentalism and literature. 
Opening up a historical perspective reaching back to the early sixteenth century, concepts of fundamentalism as a response to exclusively modernist tendencies since the beginning of the twentieth century are challenged in this volume and several contributors begin to explore the rise of fundamentalisms at various points in history characterized by the crisis experience of cultural change. While taking this conceptual base as a point of departure, the articles collected here then spread out on a plurality of theoretical frameworks. Alert to the productive friction between these discourses, which it aims to elicit, the volume confronts earlier research in the disciplines of theology, history of religion, sociology, political history, anthropology and – if less copious – literary studies with postcolonial and cultural studies. 
With its general focus on writing in English, including American and British literatures as well as the “new” literatures in English worldwide, the collection takes into account cultural and historical affinities and differences which have contributed to the ongoing negotiations of fundamentalism and literature in the English language and transcends borders of both nations and academic disciplines. In exploring new perspectives on fundamentalism and literature, the volume offers tools for a better understanding of this interrelation which should be of interest to scholars across all disciplines concerned with fundamentalism as a social and cultural phenomenon of ever growing global importance and impact.






",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-09-01,Jeffrey Jon Richards,War Time Preaching and Teaching,Hardback,978-1-4438-1255-9,39.99,"War Time Preaching and Teaching explores the hermeneutics (science of interpretation) and homiletics (art of preaching) of both Rudolf Bultmann and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The book explores the thought and impact of these two theologians primarily within the American debate.  Both Bultmann and Bonhoeffer are somewhat misunderstood, and it seems that they are either totally accepted or rejected, depending in many instances on one's personal understanding of their method of biblical interpretation.  The book attempts to objectively view their methods of biblical interpretation and how they expressed their research in their writings, preaching and teaching.  Both concluded that the presenting of the Gospel in a relevant manner is the ultimate message for humankind today.  Both lived during a most challenging period of world history, but were able to communicate in a captivating manner.  Certainly the times in which we live today call for those who possess a similar commitment.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-10-01,Gavan Jennings,New Perspectives on the Irish Catholic Tradition,Hardback,978-1-4438-1304-4,34.99,"New Perspectives on the Irish Catholic Tradition is a book of essays based on articles previously published in Position Papers. This is a monthly journal which explores theoretical and practical aspects of the Catholic faith, particularly as it is lived out in Ireland. The writers are Irish and Catholic, and are drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds. Each of them brings their own particular expertise and life experience to bear on a diverse range of issues including liturgy, pastoral work, politics, culture, bioethics, and Church history. This collection endeavours to present a thought-provoking examination of philosophical issues based on the Catholic tradition while, simultaneously, providing an encouragement to fidelity.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-10-01,Nilgün Anadolu-Okur,"Women, Islam and Globalization in the Twenty-First Century",Hardback,978-1-4438-1309-9,39.99,"In this interdisciplinary volume, Dr. Nilgün Anadolu-Okur aims to communicate a constructive analysis of Muslim identity, but primarily of Muslim womanhood in the twenty-first century. Her own essay discusses Turkish women’s historical emancipation and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s reforms. The other contributors focus on civil, political and international human rights, family laws, honor killings, ethical and gender issues, education, participation in civil life, modernism versus conservatism, life in gated communities, and professional goals and rights of Muslim women under Shari’a law throughout a wide range of countries where Islam is not only the established faith of the land but a principal way of life. Through seven interdisciplinary essays, one play and an interview, the lesser-known aspects of Muslim womanhood in Muslim countries—including Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon—are examined. In addition, the essays depict legal and social impediments faced by Muslims who live in France, Germany and the United States.

As an original work this volume seeks to articulate Muslim women’s daily struggles, challenges, choices and needs as they practice their rights of womanhood and motherhood in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Through an accurate analysis, a positive subtext is ultimately provided to Muslim identity, specifically to Muslim womanhood. Like anything else, during the age of globalization Islam is going through a transition. As expressed in this study, amendments to civil and religious laws, modifications in established governmental systems and the prominence of individual rights—as opposed to societal norms—coalesce to bring about a contemporary re-assessment of women’s rights within Islam globally. Additionally, this volume intends to articulate the concern commonly shared by various scholars that the Western mind needs to be illuminated and educated concerning racially motivated Eurocentric delineations which tend to dismiss the varied qualities and characteristics of Muslim women who have persevered for centuries under the unbending rule of Muslim men in power. Hence, this pioneering study explores the boundaries of the new female Muslim identity both within and outside the Muslim world at the crossroads of globalism and the twenty-first century.
","“This is certainly a timely topic, and the essays are thoughtful, carefully researched, and well-written. The bibliography will also be useful for the students of the subject.”
—Professor Michael McGaha, Lucille D. Griffith Professor of Modern Languages, Pomona College, Claremont, California

“Nilgün Anadolu-Okur’s edited volume is to be congratulated, as it casts light on the contemporary status of women in Islam. In particular, it comes timely in the present circumstance in which few studies approach Islam from both a critical and multi-disciplinary perspective. The editor is highly successful in gathering the contributors from different academic fields for various socio-cultural contexts and presenting a mosaic picture and realistic understanding of contemporary women in Islam. While each contributor approaches the common theme from a respective specialty in theology, philosophy, history, international law, sociology, anthropology, architecture and arts, all of the authors are inclusive in their depiction of Islam as a religio-political ideology, whereas globalization serves as the overarching contemporary frame affecting women in private and public spheres.”
—Dr. Heon C. Kim, Assistant Professor, Intellectual Heritage, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-11-01,Neil Spurway,"Theology, Evolution and the Mind",Paperback,978-1-4438-1369-3,19.99,"In pre-scientific thought mind itself, and its religious perceptions particularly, were considered gifts from God, injected into a previously created world of matter. By contrast, all the contributors to this book accept an evolutionary account of life, mind and its religious dispositions. However they hold more divergent views on the relation of mind to body and brain, on the validity of those religious dispositions, and on how far even Christ, and his predicted Second Coming, may be seen as aspectc of the evolutionary process.
The seventeen contributions are rewritten and extended versions of papers first delivered at the annual conference of the UK’s Science and Religion Forum, held at Canterbury Christ Church College in Sept 2007. Though most speakers were British, representatives from The Netherlands, Jordan, Zimbabwe and USA also contributed. Invited individual chapters consider the general pattern of evolutionary thought, arguing that it can make a major contribution to the maturation of theology; archeological evidence for the emergence of religion, and the proposal that it was an inevitable phase in human evolution; the contribution of religious concepts to the development of our species, and the question whether that provides any ground for accepting them as true; the unresolved debate whether mind is a separate entity from brain, or a consequence of its activity; and the melding of paleo-anthropology with theology to provide an integrated account of humanity and its culmination in Christ. Each of these papers is the subject of an individual expert response, and they are all drawn together in an overview essay which concludes the first part of the book.
The second, shorter part contains a selection from the papers contributed by registrants for the meeting. Their topics are whether mathematics consists of truths discovered, or thought-forms developed, by human minds; ecological awareness as an evolutionary development; the neurobiology of freewill and sin; an evolutionary perspective on holistic medicine; and the impressive fruitfulness of juxtaposing neurophysiological and biblical concepts of the human body-mind.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-12-01,Johanna Pink,"Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption: Politics, Culture and Identity between the Local and the Global",Hardback,978-1-4438-1405-8,44.99,"In the course of the 20th century, hardly a region in the world has escaped the triumph of global consumerism. Muslim societies are no exception. Globalized brands are pervasive, and the landscapes of consumption are changing at a breathtaking pace. Yet Muslim consumers are not passive victims of the homogenizing forces of globalization. They actively appropriate and adapt the new commodities and spaces of consumption to their own needs and integrate them into their culture. Simultaneously, this culture is reshaped and reinvented to comply with the mechanisms of conspicuous consumption. It is these processes that this volume seeks to address from an interdisciplinary perspective. 
 
The papers in this anthology present innovative approaches to a wide range of issues that have, so far, barely received scholarly attention. The topics range from the changing spaces of consumption to Islamic branding, from the marketing of religious music to the consumption patterns of Muslim minority groups. This anthology uses consumption as a prism through which to view, and better understand, the enormous transformations that Muslim societies—Middle Eastern, South-East Asian, as well as diasporic ones—have undergone in the past few decades.







",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2009-12-01,Eugene Broderick,"Waterford’s Anglicans: Religion and Politics, 1819-1872",Hardback,978-1-4438-1399-0,44.99,"This book explores the religious, political and social fortunes of Waterford’s minority Church of Ireland community during a turbulent period in Irish history. In the decades under consideration, an emerging and strident Catholic democracy eroded the power and social position of a once powerful ruling class. Waterford’s fearful and confused Anglicans took refuge and found consolation in a community which defined itself increasingly in denominational terms. This denominationalism came to be characterised by its Protestant evangelicalism and loyalty to the union with Britain. A unique insight is given into provincial Anglicanism, with a detailed examination of the character of its religious life and practice. There is a particular focus on one of the most controversial figures in the nineteenth century Anglican Church, Robert Daly, Bishop of Waterford, 1843-1872. Described by a contemporary as ‘a Protestant Pope’, this cleric inspired admiration and loathing, as he strove to resist the advances of an increasingly confident and vibrant Catholic Church. Studies of bishops of the nineteenth century Protestant Church have been largely conspicuous by their absence, but this book makes a valuable and original contribution to a glaring hole in this area of historiography.  This study of Waterford’s Anglicans adds significantly to our understanding of the nature of Irish Protestantism at a time of crisis and decline.   



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-01,Jerome Teelucksingh,The Lost Gospel: Christianity and Blacks in North America,Hardback,978-1-4438-1635-9,34.99,"Religion was a key factor facilitating integration, assimilation, adaptation and acculturation among the United States Blacks in Canada during the 19th century. The Wesleyans, Methodists, British Methodists Episcopalians, Baptists and Presbyterians were some of the Protestant denominations instrumental in forging a foundation for the transition to freedom. Protestant churches played a crucial role as Blacks struggled to adapt to their new host society.

An interesting phenomenon that emerged in this research is the similarities and links with Black churches in the United States. There was considerable communication between Blacks and Whites which overshadowed the racial problems in society.

The main areas of this study dwell on the church’s role in education, development of Black leadership, assimilation and independence of Black churches. These themes are used in reconstructing and investigating the socio-religious encounter between Blacks, from the United States and Protestants who belonged mainly to the White churches in Upper Canada. There is also a focus on the educational nature and extent of the relationship of the Protestant church and Blacks. The relationship between Blacks and churches revealed the pre-occupation with education which became the guiding concept in the lives of Blacks.

","“Jerome Teelucksingh has written a well-argued and well-researched analysis of the evolution of church leadership among the Upper Canadian Black community. He does a particularly good job in delineating the tensions and dynamics within white churches that simultaneously supported and advanced black education but also restricted and separated black church members through segregated pews and burial plots. Historians working in early Canadian history or Black Studies will find this an important book.”
—Professor Richard M. Reid, Department of History, University of Guelph, Canada
Author of Freedom for Themselves: North Carolina’s Black Soldiers in the Civil War Era 

“Jerome Teelucksingh’s The Lost Gospel: Christianity and Blacks in North America, seeks to enlighten readers as to the development of the Black Church in Canada. By exploring black and white participation, cooperation, and leadership roles in the Black Church, Teelucksingh informs readers of the continual education, assimilation, and independence process of blacks in Canada, as well as the emotional, racial, and religious obstacles they encountered and surmounted as they endeavored to reinvigorate their spirituality in light of physical freedom from slavery. While detailing the cooperation and assistance of the white Protestant churches, Teelucksingh concentrates on the leadership of blacks themselves, showing the striving of the black community to grow independently of white control. The Lost Gospel thus illustrates the entwining of white and black in both spiritual and material matters.”
—Professor Sharon Roger Hepburn, Department of History, Radford University, Virginia, United States.

""I have enjoyed perusing the pages of this book. 

I have come accross several books that document the historical development of Black Christianity in the United States, but not any that documents Black Church history in Canada. It is therefore safe to say that this is a pioneering contribution on the subject of Black Protestant Churches in Canada.

..I therefore commend this book to anyone interested in Diaspora or immigration studies. It is also commendable to anyone interested in Black history in another place than Africa, Caribean r United States.""

Rev Israel Olofinjana, Crofton Park Baptist Church, London 





",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-01-01,Wessel Bentley,The Notion of Mission in Karl Barth’s Ecclesiology,Hardback,978-1-4438-1671-7,39.99,"As the church moves towards its 21st century of existence, it is confronted by challenges it has never known before. Globalization, the rise of different socio-political orders and a growing tendency towards a post-modern understanding of the world are but some of the issues. This changing world demands self-reflection from the church. It has to consider its place, identity and function, thereby giving rise to the exploration of its mission.

In this book, the ecclesiology of Karl Barth is explored. By considering Barth’s understanding of the church’s relationship with different parties such as God, other religions, those outside the Christian faith, the State and its own inner dynamics, the church will be reminded of its missionary function in the world. The church’s relationships are important for they direct the way in which it fits into the world. When it considers that it exists purely because of God’s self-revelation, and that its own existence is an act of faith in response to this divine self-disclosure, it becomes aware of defined parameters within which the church can operate under the banner of mission.




","“I believe Dr Bentley’s book makes a significant and necessary contribution as he brings a fresh and lively perspective to the theology and practise of mission in and through the Church in the pages of this volume.  What is particularly useful is the manner in which he has made the complex theology of Professor Karl Barth accessible and vital for the contemporary Church.  There has been a recent resurgence of interest in Karl Barth’s theology.  This interest has stemmed from many quarters.  Among the more notable proponents of Barth’s ecclesiology are Stanley Hauerwas, and there are even traces of Barth’s missiology and ecclesiology in the work more avant-garde Christian thinkers, such as Brian Mclaren.  This interest is not surprising when one considers Barth’s critical and significant insights into the relationship between the Church and prevailing culture, the relationship between the Church and the State, and of course the Church and the churches.  The importance of these issues seems to be a timeless concern for Christians across the globe.
I discovered a wealth of theological and practical insight in the pages of Dr Bentley’s book that has helped me to reflect critically upon my own theology and practise of mission (and ministry in general), as well as the theology and methodology of others.  The scholarship that informs the insights in these pages is meticulous, thorough and challenging.  I have little doubt that this book will be a significant resource for mission and ministry in and through the Church.”
—Rev Dr Dion Forster, Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation (Theology Working Group), Research Associate, Department of New Testament, University of Pretoria, Adjunct Faculty, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.

“ Barth’s context could hardly have been more daunting – twentieth century Europe in the iron grip of a godless power that threatened the lives of millions and invaded the very soul of the church itself.  Barth was one of the few to stand against the Nazi power.  It must never be forgotten that his famous Church Dogmatics is not only a massive, epoch making theological statement, but is a major declaration of the church’s struggle for its identity and mission in that deadly context.
Wessel Bentley, as an emerging scholar of Karl Barth’s work, clearly sees the relevance of Barth for our own time and place.  Barth’s struggle informs our struggle and strengthens us in the conflict today.  For Bentley as for Barth, the church is not a static institution but a dynamic event.  Church happens as mission is engaged and faith is generated.  There could hardly be a more important message for our time.  Our context of conflicting cultures and confusing ideologies urgently needs such a church and such a mission.
Dr Bentley is to be highly commended for the diligence and insight of his work.  This is an important book for all who take the Christian gospel seriously in this day and age, and who yearn for a church that truly seeks to partner God in God’s mission to our suffering world.”
—Rev Dr Neville Richardson, (Chaplain and Senior Tutor at Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary, Pietermaritzburg, and Senior Research Associate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal)






",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-02-01,Ioannis Tsoukalas,Conceiving God: Perversions and Brainstorms; A Thesis on the Origins of Human Religiosity,Hardback,978-1-4438-1738-7,34.99,"This book presents a novel explanation for the emergence of the God-concept and human religiosity. In doing so, it makes creative use of the most recent findings in anthropology, neurology and psychology. At the center of this explanation is the fact that early childhood experiences predispose people to ‘magical thinking’, a tendency that is reinforced by the human ability to dream and the over-excitability of the cerebral cortex. The interaction of these three elements, both on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic level, has given rise to the uniquely human ability to apprehend transcendental agency.  
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-02-01,Reverend Cheryl Anne Kincaid,Hearing the Gospel through Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”,Hardback,978-1-4438-1714-1,34.99,"Most people don’t realize Charles Dickens has a biblical foundation. Each of the spirits that appear in A Christmas Carol directly correlates with an Advent lesson that is found in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Perhaps that is what attracts Christians to the story of A Christmas Carol. Every Advent Christians revisit this old Victorian moral story with its images of snow covered English cobblestone streets, the sentimentally portrayed ragged poor, and its familiar story line doesn’t seem to grow tiresome through the years. We revisit this story because it echoes with the ancient lessons of Advent.

Hearing the Gospel Through Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” is a Christian devotional that uses A Christmas Carol as a tool to teach the ancient Advent lessons of Hope, Faith, Peace, Love and Joy. Each week’s devotion begins with a section from A Christmas Carol which dramatizes the Advent Lesson and is followed with a scriptural Advent lesson from the Church of England’s Book of Prayer. The word Ebenezer is defined in scripture as “The Lord is my help” (1 Samuel 7:1–2). As we travel through Ebenezer’s redemptive healing journey, the devotional invites the participants to examine how Christ is born in their past, present and future. As a Christian pastor, I am grieved that the modern evangelical church has diminished the Advent season to a single Christmas Eve service or Christmas Sunday service. As a community, we no longer spend time preparing our hearts for the season of “Christ coming.”

This devotional is for Christians to use as private and family devotions to prepare themselves for the Advent season.


","“Cheryl Kincaid has produced a fascinating and insightful reading of the lessons of Advent through the lens of one of the most beloved of Christmas stories, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Preachers and teachers will find here a treasure trove of ideas for teaching and preaching, and every reader will be inspired to reflect on the great redemptive themes of Christmas embedded in Dickens' classic story.”
—Dr. Mark Strauss, Professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary, San Diego


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-02-01,"M. Kathryn Armistead, Brad D. Strawn and Ronald W. Wright",Wesleyan Theology and Social Science: The Dance of Practical Divinity and Discovery,Hardback,978-1-4438-1733-2,39.99,"Science and religion are living, organic, and creative traditions.  Both see humans as profoundly interconnected and in some way responsible for our environs. This worldview is especially true for social science and Wesleyan religious tradition. While the dance between science and religion will always be complex, it can also be enjoyable and mutually satisfying. However when couples dance only one at a time can lead and both have to acknowledge the importance of the other. This book is written with the conviction that theology and science can have a beneficial relationship if only both recognize their mutual value to the lives of persons.

The Methodist tradition links the welfare of the body with care for the soul. Historically, ministry involved tending to physical and psychological needs of the Methodist band members but also to non-churched poor and imprisoned. Thus Methodists built places of worship, schools, orphanages, and hospitals.  For John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, practical divinity always involved attention to whole persons including their living conditions and basic physical needs.  He sought to improve life for all. Therefore throughout his life, Wesley was interested in theology but also scientific discovery as paths toward a better future. He believed that both were of value to help people move toward “perfection.” He even attended lectures and offered medical treatment in the first Methodist meeting hall in Bristol, England.  As a scientific practitioner Wesley wrote the best selling book, Primitive Physic or An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases using the cutting edge science of his day. Packed next to the Bible, this book traveled with countless pioneers as they settled the territories that became the United States. 

Methodism has a long tradition of using science and religion to carry out the biblical mandate to go into the world and make disciples for Jesus Christ. This book seeks to continue that legacy by bringing current trends in psychology into conversation with Wesleyan theology. Composed of essays that represent different psychologies and theological traditions, which trace their roots to Wesley, this book aims at creating a space where science and theology can partner and dance. In the book readers will find positive psychology, self psychology, object relations, family systems, moral psychology, and neuroscience in conversation with various theologies. Under this canopy, the contributors see themselves as “people called Methodists” seeking to follow the example of Wesley to use all available tools to enable persons to live fully and well.

","“It is evident that we have pressed the ‘delete’ button too soon and too often, thereby cutting ourselves off from rich and pertinent sources that pertain to contemporary life. This wondrous collection of essays pushes back behind ‘delete’ to probe the ways in which John Wesley, a formidable and generative thinker, engaged with and practiced psychology. His affectional pastoral sensibility provides an important articulation for contemporary psychology, most especially Object Relations perspectives, as it probes the moral dimension of relationships. The book offers careful impressive research that will a) lead to a fresh engagement with Wesley as a learned critical thinker, and b) draw contemporary secular psychology back to its roots in the quest for joy, empathy, and finally health. The book boldly and effectively moves between disciplines to the great benefit of both.”
Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia


“The engaging essays of this book are an invitation to think seriously about the relation between Wesleyan theology and the social sciences in general as well as John Wesley's understanding of co-operant grace and contemporary psychology in particular. The fruits of such integrative and thoughtful reflections should be considerable in the days ahead.” 
Kenneth J. Collins, Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky

“While some theology-science 'dialogue' is more of a monologue, with either scientists or theologians merely listening, this book is truly dialogical. Much of its success comes from the shared theological 
perspective of the authors, giving them the ability to ask quite specific questions of science (and of their own theology). I hope it will serve as a model for groups from other sub-traditions within 
Christianity.”
Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California; and author (with George F. R. Ellis) of On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics, Fortress Press


“This book makes a grand leap forward in the inspiring interaction between science and Wesleyan theology. Front and center is theological anthropology and some of the best recent research in psychology. The contributors include the finest minds in this burgeoning and fruitful field. Future Wesleyan science-and-theology research will be indebted to this fine collection of scholarly essays.”
Thomas Jay Oord, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho; and editor of Divine Grace and Emerging Creation: Wesleyan Forays in Science and Theology of Creation

""As a Christian in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, I celebrate this contribution in general and its substantive contents inparticular. Do not let the book's brevity suggest that it is slim in substance. The editors have successfully pressed the chapter authors to discuss theology historically and in a variety of contempoary scholarly and applied extrapolations to psychology.

A particular point of appreciation is that each author demonstrated understanding of this giant of eighteenth-century theology and sought to bring their understanding to twenty-first century psychology in a manner that connected timeless theological principles to highly different cultural and specific issues.

Don MacDonald, Professor, School of Psychology, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Faith-Science News, Vol. 63/2 June 2011

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-03-01,Eric R. Severson,I More than Others: Responses to Evil and Suffering,Hardback,978-1-4438-1771-4,39.99,"Fyodor Dostoyevsky expressed a strange and surprising sentiment through one of the characters of The Brothers Karamazov. A dying young man named Markel declares: ""Every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than others.” He later says: “…every one of us is answerable for everyone else and for everything.” Markel’s absurd claims have engendered many reflections on the nature of suffering and what it means to be responsible for someone else’s suffering. The world has no shortage of pain and evil; what exactly is the relationship between suffering and responsibility?  Markel’s declarations press forward a question that drives this essay collection: how responsible should we consider ourselves for the suffering of the world? 

This volume is a collection of essays that struggle in various ways to understand and respond to several philosophical, theological and practical problems.  In each case the authors grapple with issues surrounding suffering, immorality, evil, exploitation and oppression. The contributors share a clear concern for the ways that philosophers and theologians should respond to the problems of suffering and evil.  They also share a conviction that these remain intense and central problems for philosophy and theology. Evil is an obstacle for belief, for morality, for hospitality, and for hope. This book struggles to address the particular and strong sense of responsibility that falls on Christians when it comes to understanding and, more importantly, responding to the problems of suffering and evil in the world.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-03-01,"Steve Brie, Jenny Daggers and David Torevell",Sacred Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives within Contemporary Contexts,Paperback,978-1-4438-1773-8,19.99,"The identification and positioning of sacred space within contemporary contexts has, to date, received scant attention. In reflecting upon a broad spectrum of conceptions of what constitutes sacred space, this collection of interdisciplinary essays presents a new perspective on an area that is developing into an important theological and philosophical concept.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-04-01,Michael Fuller,Matter and Meaning: Is Matter Sacred or Profane?,Hardback,978-1-4438-1907-7,34.99,"We live in a material world. But what is matter? Can it point us towards meanings outside itself, or can any meaning it possesses only be invested in it by human beings? To what extent might these semantic activities overlap? How have our current understandings of matter and meaning developed from those of past thinkers, in both Western and non-Western contexts?

These and many other questions were addressed at a conference held under the auspices of the Science and Religion Forum at Liverpool Hope University in 2008. That conference brought together some leading figures in the disciplines of theology and the natural sciences, and a selection of the papers given at it is now presented in this book. They offer important new historical, scientific and theological insights from a variety of perspectives to those with an interest in the fast-developing area of the dialogue between these disciplines; and they will also be found valuable by anyone who wishes to explore the complexities of this dialogue, as it moves beyond the black-and-white histrionics of its presentation in the popular media.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,Gloria Robinson Boyd,African American Religious Experiences: A Case Study of Twentieth Century Trends and Practices,Hardback,978-1-4438-1983-1,34.99,"African Americans encountered many challenges throughout history facing slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and other forms of racism. Many relied on religion as their source of strength and endurance. The African American religious experience is a story of survival that demonstrates how religion became the key ingredient that allowed a race to adapt and survive the harshest systems of injustice and prejudice in America. Religion became the greatest universal and dynamic tool of survival adopted by enslaved individuals and the utmost weapon known to the black race. African American religious practices, a blend of African and European traditions, are distinctively unique because of worship styles and contemplative practices; all reflective of the vital role religion played in the lives of blacks during slavery and beyond.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler,After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion,Hardback,978-1-4438-1987-9,49.99,"Continental philosophy of religion has been dominated for two decades by “postsecular” and “postmodern” thought. This volume brings together a vanguard of scholars to ask what comes after the postsecular and the postmodern—that is, what is Continental philosophy of religion now? Against the subjugation of philosophy to theology, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion argues that philosophy of religion must either liberate itself from theological norms or mutate into a new practice of thinking in order to confront the challenges religion presents for our time. The essays do not propose a new orthodoxy but set the stage for new debates by reclaiming a practice of philosophy of religion that recovers and draws on the insights of a distinctly modern tradition of Continental philosophy, confronts the challenge of rethinking the secular in the light of the postsecular event, and calls for a move from strictly critical to speculative thought in order to experiment with what philosophy can do. This collection of essays is indispensable for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and theology, political questions regarding religion and in what contemporary speculative Continental philosophy has to add to philosophy of religion.
","“A superb and groundbreaking collection featuring the brightest scholars in the continental philosophy of religion. The book deals with a feast of topics, and will become indispensable the moment it is published.”
 – Kenneth Surin, Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory, Duke University

“Every once in a while, a collection of essays comes along that does not merely contribute to a field, but redraws its boundaries, repositions it in unforeseen ways. This is one such collection. The burgeoning work of ‘continental philosophy of religion’ is both employed and interrogated to startling effect. This is no tired and worn treadmill of ideas, but a disciplined armoury and an unruly intervention. The editors and authors display a well-won confidence in philosophy at the limit. They are not afraid to take on the sacred cows of orthodoxy or the modish assumptions of the recent ‘turn to religion’ in continental thinking. Fascinating new insights into the modern canon sit alongside adventurous forays into cutting edge speculative philosophy and non-philosophy (the editors’ introduction is worth the admission price alone). Demanding, provocative and groundbreaking, this is required reading for anyone who wants to know what matters in philosophy of religion today.”
 – Steven Shakespeare, Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University and Co-Facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,Chet Cataldo,"A Spiritual Portrait of a Believer: A Comparison Between the Emphatic “I” of Romans 7, Wesley and the Mystics",Hardback,978-1-4438-1969-5,39.99,"The focus of this study is to discover the identity of the emphatic ‘I’ of Rom 7 with the added purpose of attempting to ‘draw’ a spiritual portrait of a mature Christian believer. To accomplish this purpose, the process is as follows: An examination of Rom 7, within its context, is conducted. This examination is followed by an attempt at determining the experience of the emphatic ‘I’ found within Rom 7. The next step in the process is to compare the experience of the emphatic ‘I’ of Rom 7, as found within its context of Rom 1–8 with what Paul wrote elsewhere on the experience of new life in Christ for Christian believers. The purpose of this comparison is to discover if Paul had a ‘consistent’ portrait of spirituality and Christian maturity. The final step is to compare the experience described by Paul, both in Rom 7 and in the wider Pauline Corpus, with the experience which John Wesley called ‘perfection,’ and with the Mystical experience called the ‘spiritual marriage.’ 

The study of Romans, Wesley, and the Mystics, coupled with the wider study of the secondary literature showed that there is a remarkable consistency in the teaching and understanding that the closer a Christian believer gets to God, the more this Christian believer is aware of his or her own sinfulness. Paul, in describing the experience of the emphatic ‘I,’ is describing a person who is becoming more and more aware of his or her own sinfulness. 

The conclusion to be drawn from this study is that the identity of the empathic ‘I’ is of a regenerate Christian believer, one who is growing ever closer and closer to God and at the same time is in ‘pain’ over the remaining effects of sin.


","“New Testament scholarship struggles with the identity of the emphatic ‘I’ of Romans 7. The author investigates this matter within the context of Romans 1–8 in order to establish if Paul had a ‘consistent’ portrait of spirituality and Christian maturity, whilst trying to get behind the experience of the emphatic ‘I.’ The study then compares the identity of the emphatic ‘I’ with John Wesley and with the Mystics, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. By comparing Romans with examples from the Church’s tradition and documented experience, the author succeeds in drawing a spiritual portrait of a Christian believer and shows that the experiences of Wesley on ‘perfection’ and the Mystics on ‘spiritual marriage’ are similar experiences to that of the emphatic ‘I’ of Romans 7. This investigation is well in line with a post-modern approach in scholarship which steers away from disciplinary fragmentism, but rather moves along interdisciplinary and holistic lines. The work is highly recommended to all those particularly interested in the fields of New Testament Hermeneutics, Spirituality, Church History and Systematic Theology.”
—Prof  Gert J. Steyn (DD, DLitt), Chair of New Testament Studies, University of Pretoria; Chair of the New Testament Society of South Africa


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-05-01,"Paul Rennick, Stanley Cunningham and Ralph H. Johnson",The Future of Religion,Hardback,978-1-4438-1972-5,34.99,"Religion evokes strong emotions and raises hard questions. This volume addresses many of the contentious elements that religion provokes and challenges some of the easy answers contemporary society has produced. The frequent and often facile dictum about the separation of church and state, when examined closely, may prove to contribute to the erosion of some of our most cherished human values, rather than to their preservation. The science-versus-religion dichotomy is dogma for many, yet the empiricism that is the hallmark of scientific method and knowledge can be singularly absent from positions that claim to be science. The current spate of attacks against God and religion that are now commonplace, when critically scrutinized, often fail to provide compelling arguments or even to be as objective as their authors claim. These and other explorations are the focus of this book. From the Forward in which Charles Kimball challenges the West to re-evaluate its perspective and understanding of the East, particularly Islam, to the Afterword in which theologian Gregory Baum chronicles the extraordinary reversal of sociology’s estimation of religion, the invitation from this volume to all of us is to review our pieties and presuppositions as we reflect on the future of religion.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-06-01,"Joy Schmack, Matthew Thompson and David Torevell with Camilla Cole",Engaging Religious Education,Hardback,978-1-4438-2134-6,39.99,"This book is the first to bring together a number of essays which deal directly with the crucial topic of ‘engagement’ in Religious Education. But it also breaks new ground by creating a dialogue with the world of ethics. Here readers will find fresh insights relevant to the 21st century. 

Contributors, all committed to excellence in Religious Education, include school teachers, sixth form tutors and those working in higher education. Addressing central issues in the debate from a range of theoretical and methodological positions, the book raises important questions about how we might understand and promote positive ‘engagement’ at the present time. Primarily, it has one aim in view: to make Religious Education a more stimulating and enjoyable experience for all those involved.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-07-01,Rothney S. Tshaka,Confessional Theology?: A Critical Analysis of the Theology of Karl Barth and its Significance for the Belhar Confession,Hardback,978-1-4438-2165-0,39.99,"Christian confessions are usually seen as statements of faith which has no relationship with politics. The result is a tendency to view these documents as theological but not political. This study discusses this misconception but adds that although these documents are not to be perceived as political per se, that they can nonetheless not ignore the political contexts from which they emerge. Two confesional documents are discussed to illustrate the point, viz the Barmen Theological Declaration (1934) in Nazi-Germany as well as the Belhar Confession (1986) during apartheid South Africa.

The findings of the study is that the theology of Karl Barth and therefore the Belhar Confession establishes and unavoidable link between christian confessions and politics. The word ‘confession’ is used here in relation to Barth’s interpretation of our responsibility to speak about God because of the fact that we are christian and also our inability to speak about God as if God is known in God’s entirety to us. Seen in this way, confesional theology is opposed to tendencies that gives the impresion that we are able to speak about God as if we know Him in His entirety.

Five characteristics in the theology of Barth are investigaed. These characteristics illustrate the degree to which theology is related to politics. It also point to the fact that politics was never a marginal factor in the theological reflections of Barth. The study suggests that the theology of Barth remains relevant because it interprets the Word in a manner that does not ignore the contexts in which this interpretation of the Word takes place.

The study furthermore suggests that the entire theology of Barth can be construed as confessional theology. It arrives at this end and makes very clear that confessional theology differs fundamentally from ‘confessonalism,’ but that confessional theology always calls for those who espouse it to embody that which is confessed. To uphold the characteristics of confessional theology in the theology of Barth, it is agreed that his theology continued to play significant roles in different theological contexts. It is because of this view that it is argued that the theology of Barth had a great influence on the Belhar Confession. The debate around the Belhar Confession brings further important questions about the theological situation in South Africa today.

In the end it is suggested that confessional theology is a significant theological method which can safeguard theology from the claws of ‘theologised politics.’ Confessional theology can thus make a significant contribution to the current theological debates in democratic South Africa.

",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-07-01,K. A. Beville,Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture,Hardback,978-1-4438-2151-3,34.99,"Starting with some observations relating to shifts in ecclesiology and identifying them as a move beyond contextualization to syncretism this work goes on to assess the feasibility of preaching in a postmodern culture which rejects both the idea of absolute truth and authority used as power. It traces the historical and philosophical development of postmodernism. The Enlightenment project is deemed to have failed and Christianity is perceived as an oppressive metanarrative. In a world that is becoming increasingly sceptical and where preaching practitioners are becoming disillusioned this book offers some guidelines about preaching to postmoderns. In a relational age rationality is impotent, but the author distinguishes between authoritative and authoritarian preaching allowing hope for the survival of the homiletic task. Humility is presented as preferable to certitude and persuasion is redefined. The author suggests using an inductive mode of communication as a means of engaging postmodern listeners. He signposts a way forward in the labyrinthine complexity of the new paradigm and demonstrates that the homiletic task is still feasible. Thus this book will be of interest to teachers and students of theology as well as pastors desiring to develop a new apologetic strategy.

","“Kieran Beville discusses the powerful wind shift of Postmodernism, the subtle ways it is affecting society and how preachers must reset their sails to become effective. In this scholarly primer the author engages with philosophers and the leading homileticians of the day. His approach is succinct without getting bogged down or becoming superficial. Dr Beville’s book provides clear and useful handles for understanding the elusive nature of postmodernity. He writes chiefly for teachers and students of the art of preaching in western societies yet this is a practical book that will encourage all those engaged in preaching and other forms of Christian communication. Preachers who ignore the urgent challenge of this book do so at their own peril and at the risk of talking to themselves in the stale backwater of irrelevance.”
—Dr Geoff Pound, Theologians Without Borders

“Kieran Beville’s Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture is an extremely helpful analysis of the crisis that has overtaken preaching with the emergence of postmodernity in western culture. He rightly demonstrates that a full-blown embrace by the church of the postmodern critique of  past ways of communicating the gospel, in particular, the traditional emphasis on preaching, is a sure path to theological and ecclesial disaster. On the other hand, he rightly points out that it is not at all helpful for the church to be sullen and reactionary at this turn of events in western culture, trying to live in some past ‘golden age’ when things were done right! Beville guides the reader through this modern—or should one say postmodern!—Scylla and Charybdis and provides a helpful template for preaching that takes due cognizance of the new cultural paradigm and that also emphasizes the vital importance of clear communication of the best news a human being can hear. Highly recommended.”
—Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky; and Research Professor of Irish Baptist College, Constituent College of Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-08-01,James L. Codling,"Calvin: Ethics, Eschatology, and Education",Hardback,978-1-4438-2262-6,34.99,"This study examines the influence of John Calvin in ethics eschatology and education, as well as those influences that affected him.  It examines his writings to determine if his vision made him an innovator. The research searched for reforms in the areas of ethics, curriculum, understanding of the teaching office, and universal education. It also looked at philosophy, economics, and labor. 
	A belief in the after life and end times was an ethical motivation for Calvin and education was a means by which the people that he worked with and wrote to could understand how they should live and why they should live like that. Thus, there is an important connection among ethics, eschatology and education. All people were to work to their potential at their job because in doing their job they would honor God. Teachers were especially important. Those who taught would affect the quality of education. Calvin worked to provide teacher training and support. He believed that all occupations could be a special calling from God and education was a means to prepare the young person for his or her calling.
	Schools existed in Geneva before Calvin arrived in 1536; however, they did not function in the way that Calvin would have liked. Calvin provided the elementary students with a needed text when he prepared a catechism. The students had written material that they could read and study and a systematic presentation of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.  Calvin also wanted more appropriate facilities in which the students could learn. Although his organization of the schools improved the atmosphere for learning, the building of the Academy was his dream and became his major educational achievement in the city of Geneva.
	Because16th century students needed to be prepared for the new world, there was a need for curriculum change. The students were required to read many of the prominent Greek and Roman authors in the ancient languages but the student learned theology, Hebrew, poetry, dialectic and rhetoric, physics, and mathematics as well. Calvin wished to graduate a well rounded scholar who could take his or her place in society. In this way the citizens of Geneva and all those of the Reformed belief would be better prepared for life on earth and the after life.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-08-01,Barry Taylor and Alejandro Coroleu,Humanism and Christian Letters in Early Modern Iberia (1480-1630),Hardback,978-1-4438-2227-5,39.99,"Even though humanism derived its literary, moral and educational predilections from ancient Greek and Roman models, it was never an inherently secular movement and it soon turned to religious questions. Humanists were, of course, brought up with Christian beliefs, regarded the Bible as a fundamental text, and many of them were members of the clergy, either regular or secular. While their importance as religious sources was undiminished, biblical and patristic texts came also to be read for their literary value. Renaissance authors who aspired to be poetae christianissimi naturally looked to the Latin Fathers who reconciled classical and Christian views of life, and presented them in an elegant manner.

The essays offered in this volume examine the influence of Christian Latin literature, whether biblical, patristic, scholastic or humanistic, upon the Latin and vernacular letters of the Iberian Peninsula in the period 1480 to 1630. The contributions have been organized into three thematically coherent groups, dealing with transmission, adaptation, and visual representation. Contrary to most studies on the Iberian literature of the period in which practically no essays are devoted to texts other than in Spanish, this volume successfully accommodates authors writing in Portuguese and Catalan. Likewise, a significant part of the pieces presented here is concerned with literary texts written in Latin. Moreover, it shows how the interests and preoccupations of the better-known authors of the Iberian Renaissance were also shared by contemporary figures whose choice of language may have resulted in their exclusion from the canon.

","""This work gives us a richly varied set of studies examining the many-sided inheritance and transmission of, and response to, the Christian Latin literary tradition across the centuries and across the whole Iberian Peninsula, ranging from Isidore of Seville to Velázquez and from medieval pietism to Renaissance Christian humanism. The many angles of approach present new readings of big names and introduce others so far little remembered to a wider readership. Highly stimulating in its range, variety, and many insights.""
—R. W.Truman, Oxford University

""The transformation of biblical and later Christian sources in humanist thought and cultural production was an essential feature of the European Renaissance. The essays in the present volume survey various forms of religious influence on a wide range of scholarly and artistic domains in Spain and Portugal, taking account of both Latin and vernacular sources. This important collection offers nothing less than a fresh panoramic perspective on the intellectual history of early modern Iberia.""
—Andrew Laird, Professor of Classical Literature, Warwick University

""This volume has attracted many of the leading scholars in the field and is notable for its breadth—it does not limit itself to the canonical works and is not just Spanish-focused—as well as the rich variety of the studies within it. The studies I have read are meticulously researched, lucidly written and present exciting, new ideas even on well known areas of study, such as the writings of San Juan de la Cruz and the painting of Velázquez. Like the other volumes of studies that Taylor and Coroleu have co-edited, this volume will be widely quoted and will help to set the agenda for other scholars working on Spanish and indeed European humanism.""
—Dr Jonathan Thacker, Fellow and Tutor in Spanish, Merton College, Oxford

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-08-01,"Ian Leask with Eoin Cassidy, Alan Kearns, Fainche Ryan and Mary Shanahan",The Taylor Effect: Responding to a Secular Age,Hardback,978-1-4438-2263-3,39.99,"The Taylor Effect presents an original and diverse collection of essays addressing Charles Taylor’s magisterial A Secular Age. Ranging from close and critical readings of Taylor’s formulations and suppositions; to comparative studies of Taylor and various ‘interlocutors’; to applied approaches utilizing Taylor’s concepts; to explorations launched from a Taylorian foundation; the 13 chapters comprise a multifaceted exploration of Taylor’s multifaceted achievement.

Given the vast, synoptic sweep of Taylor’s magnum opus, the contributors represent a suitably diverse range of interests, backgrounds and expertise—members of departments of philosophy, literature, philosophical theology, systematic theology, moral theology, education, and political science, whose interests stretch from Plato to Girard, phronesis to pedagogy, Deism to dogmatics, medical ethics to aesthetics... Accordingly, The Taylor Effect is not only one of the first major responses to A Secular Age: the astonishing breadth as well as the quality of contributions will ensure that it remains a central reference point in any future discussion of Taylor’s work.

","“Charles Taylor is one of the most inspiring philosophers of our time, addressing urgent questions of politics, ethics, language, culture and religion. In this volume some of his keenest readers engage in timely debate with the master and bring the discussion to new levels of intellectual excitement and insight.”
—Prof. Richard Kearney, Boston College and University College Dublin

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-08-01,Sook-Young Kim,The Warrior Messiah in Scripture and Intertestamental Writings,Hardback,978-1-4438-2267-1,44.99,"The picture of the warrior Messiah depicted in the Old Testament as a future redeemer figure matches that of Jesus as the warrior in the New Testament, fighting against the cosmic evil power. The warrior’s struggle takes place in a cosmic, heavenly dimension rather than earthly, utilizing the word from his mouth as the only weapon to defeat the demons and the evil hosts. Strong unity and continuity of the motif are detected within the Old and New Testaments, as well as between the Testaments.

","“Dr Sook-Young Kim’s study of the Judeo-Christian concept of the warrior Messiah is timely and much-needed. Thanks in part to the Dead Sea Scrolls and other intertestamental writings that have been published in the last twenty years, there has been a marked increase in scholarly interest in Jewish messianism and how it relates to Jesus and the early church’s understanding of Christology. Older assumptions about the nature of the Messiah and what he was expected to accomplish have been called into question. The entire topic is under review, new questions are being asked, and the messianism of Jesus of Nazareth is open to new interpretation. Dr Sook-Young Kim’s study sheds significant new light on this important topic. I recommend it highly. ”
—Craig A. Evans, Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia, Canada

“Sook-Young Kim’s work on the ‘warrior Messiah’ motif is a very significant contribution to Old Testament, Intertestamental, and New Testament studies. She has delved into the key texts and conclusively demonstrates an alternative to the popular view that a nationalistic messiah was universally expected. Even more importantly, for me as a systematic theologian, is the fact that Dr Kim has followed the ‘warrior Messiah’ theme via a whole-of-Scripture approach with the result that the continuity both within and between the Hebrew and Christian Testaments is strongly affirmed.”
—Ray C. W. Roennfeldt, President, Avondale College

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-09-01,Dawn Hutchinson,"Antiquity and Social Reform: Religious Experience in the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and Nation of Yahweh",Hardback,978-1-4438-2287-9,39.99,"Although religious innovation in America has historically been the norm rather than the exception, mainstream Americans have often viewed new religious movements with suspicion and occasionally with outright alarm. The question motivating many studies of new religious movements has been “why would someone join these religions?” In Antiquity and Social Reform, Dawn Hutchinson offers at least one answer to this often repeated query. She argues that followers of new religious movements in the 1960s–1980s, specifically the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and the Nation of Yahweh, considered these religions to be legitimate because they offered members a personal religious experience, a connection to an ancient tradition, and agency in improving their world. Utilizing an historical approach, Antiquity and Social Reform considers the conversion narratives of adherents and primary literature of the formative years of these movements, which demonstrates that the religious experiences of the adherents, and a resonance with the goals of these religions, propelled members into social action.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-10-01,W. Creighton Peden,"Life and Thought of Bernard Eugene Meland, American Constructive Theologian, 1899–1993",Hardback,978-1-4438-2406-4,34.99,"This book deals with Bernard Eugene Meland’s “life” (as presented in his unpublished intellectual autobiography) and “thought” as a constructive theologian who taught in the Divinity School of The University of Chicago (1945-64). When Meland was in the process of completing his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, he came into close association with Henry Nelson Wieman who was joining the faculty. Meland took the first course Wieman offered in which they read William Ernest Hocking’s The Meaning of God in Human Experience (Part IV) and Whitehead’s Religion in the Making. He audited Wieman’s other courses. The philosophy of A. N. Whitehead played a large role in their relationship and theology. With the sudden death of G. B. Smith, Wieman became Meland’s doctoral advisor. After completing the doctoral program, Meland spent the next year at Marburg University in Germany studying with Rudolf Otto. He came away from this experience having discovered that the stimulus and lure in the language of the arts had become for him an alternative to the moral way of expressing value, sensibility, and fulfillment of human experience.  He returned from Europe to begin teaching at Central College in Missouri and in 1936 joined the faculty at Pomona College in Claremont, California.   His association with Wieman continued in the 1930s as they co-authored  American Philosophies of Religion (1936). While teaching at Central College, Meland authored  Modern Man’s Worship (1934), and at Pomona College published Write Your Own Ten Commandments (1938), and The Church and Adult Education (1939).

In 1945, Meland joined Wieman at the Divinity School as Professor of Constructive Theology. Although Wieman soon retired, their connection continued throughout Wieman’s life. The Second World War had concluded and Meland was in a state of anguish and despair over the war and especially by the atomic bomb. In this troubled state of mind he published Seeds of Redemption (1947), America’s Spiritual Culture (1948), and The Reawakening of Christian Faith (1949). His next two publications were Higher Education and the Human Spirit (1953) and Faith and Culture (1955), with the latter considered by many as his most important work. While teaching at Chicago, Meland twice served twice as The Barrows Lectures in India. His lectures in 1957-58 were published as The Realities of Faith (1962). In 1963-64,  he continued his theme of the relationship between faith and culture by focusing on the impact of secularization on modern cultures.  These lectures were published as The Secularization of Modern Cultures (1966). His last book was Fallible Forms and Symbols (1977).

In the first section of this book, Meland’s “thought” is considered under four headings: Metaphysical View, Method, Doctrine of God, and View of Religion, followed by an evauation. Section two is devoted to his “Later Writings,” followed by a conclusion.
","“Peden, a leading authority on the history of the empirical tradition in American liberal religion, provides a new in-depth review of Meland’s thought, situating his core theological ideas in the shifting contexts of his major influences, especially G. B. Smith, H. N. Wieman, A. N. Whitehead, and W. James. After Meland’s own ‘Fifty Years of Religious Inquiry,’ readers will find: (1) an elucidation of Meland’s metaphysical construals of reality, creativity, humanity, the structure of experience, faith, and spirituality; (2) an insightful rendering of his development of the method of ‘empirical realism;’ (3) a revealing reflection on his doctrine of God; (4) a succinct exposition of his views on the nature and purpose of religion; and (5) the most invaluable gem of the entire book, an enlightening critical summary of Meland’s later writings (from the 1960s through 1989) that includes many unpublished essays and lectures. Along the way, Peden guides us on an archaeological dig into some of Meland’s most complex theological constructions, and presents probing evaluations of the adequacy and effectiveness of those constructions, particularly Meland’s vexing treatment of the relationship between faith and reason, and his pluralistic view of God.”
—Jennifer G. Jesse, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Truman State University

“Bernard Meland (1899–1993) represented the best in the pragmatic tradition of constructive theology associated with the University of Chicago. In this book Creighton Peden has presented a masterful overview of his work. For those interested in Meland’s thought as well as the various figures who framed it this book is indispensable reading.”
—David M. Rasmussen, Professor of Philosophy, Boston College; Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy and Social Criticism
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-10-01,Gary D. Badcock and Darren C. Marks,"War, Human Dignity and Nation Building: Theological Perspectives on Canada’s Role in Afghanistan",Hardback,978-1-4438-2381-4,39.99,"Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is the longest martial conflict in its history precipitated literally overnight by a world changing event in the 2001 9/11 attack in New York City. In 2010, the Afghan “Mission” remains front page news for Canadians, even threatening to undermine the Federal Government due to the so-called “Detainee Scandal.” The human cost (Canadian and Afghan), financial burdens and impact on the self-perception of Canadians as a peace keeping “Middle-Power” are immense and likely will form a watershed in Canadian history. And yet, the “Mission” remains little scrutinized by faith communities, and further, left as a non-conversation for many and the domain of a nebulous foreign policy and largely toothless Manley Report. This volume is the first such major attempt by the Centre for Public Theology to bring together theologians, philosophers, faith leaders, NGOs, politicians and other academics from sociology, politics and peace-keeping in order to dialogue about the impact of the Afghan “Mission.”

These papers form much of the conversation of a conference held in May 2009 at the Centre for Public Theology. The papers offer reflections on the Manley Report, investigations on the theological and philosophical issues at play in Canada’s response, interaction with Canada’s shift from “peace-keeping” to “war-fighting” and the new NATO mandate, thoughts on the role of Islamic nations and analysis of the role of the Abrahamic faith communities in this wider Canadian conversation.

The Centre for Public Theology is a federally funded research centre housed at Huron University College whose mandate is to bring into conversation academics, NGOs, media, Government and the public on issues of public policy and life with a particular attention to the role of religion in Canadian life. Its founding motto is “intelligence, not advocacy.”  It is not an advocacy or lobbying centre, instead seeking only to facilitate dialogue across boundaries. Its webpage can be found at www.publictheology.org.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-11-01,William Lakos,Chinese Ancestor Worship: A Practice and Ritual Oriented Approach to Understanding Chinese Culture,Hardback,978-1-4438-2495-8,34.99,"This book is a new approach to how we in the West understand China and Chinese culture. It challenges the master narrative of Confucianism and shows that ancestor worship has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways and provides a nuanced and more efficacious paradigm through which Chinese culture may be viewed.

It is an exposition and analysis of Chinese ancestor worship and its correlations, especially filial piety and ritual, and it shows the intrinsic importance of ancestor worship to Chinese culture. By using a practice theory—ritual—and communication theory approach this work highlights the relationship between the rituals of ancestor worship and their meaning within Chinese culture. In emphasizing the efficacy of ritual to cultural meaning it also questions and compares the master narrative of Confucianism in its role as the prime cultural symbol and paradigm of Chinese culture. China and Chinese culture is conventionally understood by the West through the paradigm and its articulated discourse of Confucianism. 

In order to ameliorate and overcome the epistemological problematic of a cross-cultural understanding of China, a new approach to the understanding of China and Chinese culture is proposed. The thesis approach is ‘meta-disciplinary’ and multi-viewed, and draws on a range of evidence and theories which focus on the problematic of ‘cross-cultural understanding.’
","“Confucianism has long been considered as the prime cultural symbol of Chinese tradition and values. This centuries old Chinese official and ruling class discourse has been supported and reinforced by Western scholars, and even current Chinese authorities. In this important book Dr Lakos challenges this master narrative of Confucianism as the Chinese culture and argues instead that ancestor worship practiced in terms of filial piety and ritual has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways, both normatively and epistemologically. Dr Lakos also skilfully uses the theory of practice and theory of communication to analyse ancestor worship as a way of thinking and practical activities in Chinese daily life. This study brings fresh air to the field of China studies and provokes critical thinking about what is usually taken for granted.”
—Professor Mobo Gao, Chair of Chinese Studies, Director, Confucius Institute, Centre for Asian Studies, The University of Adelaide
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-11-01,Rekha Pande,Divine Sounds from the Heart—Singing Unfettered in their Own Voices: The Bhakti Movement and its Women Saints (12th to 17th Century),Hardback,978-1-4438-2490-3,39.99,"Recent years have seen a sea change in the way history is written and also in the way our conceptions of the past are being rewritten. In traditional historiography, women’s articulation is often marginalized and dominated by male voices. Through centuries of patriarchal control, women negotiated many layers and levels of existence working out different forms of resistance which have often gone unnoticed. Bhakti was one such medium. Religion provided the space in the medieval period and women saints embraced bhakti to define their own truths in voices that question society, family and relationships. For all these women bhaktas, the rejection of the male power that they were tied to in subordinate relationship became the terrain for struggle, self assertion and alternative seeking. Most of these women lived during the period from 12th to 17th Century. While the dominant mode of worship in bhakti was prostration to a deity like a feudal lord, the women bhaktas’ idea of God as a lover, a husband and a friend came as a breath of fresh air. The individual outpourings and the voices of these women, who had the courage to sing unfettered in their own voices, refused to melt in the din of the feudal scene which was largely patriarchal. This book will be useful to scholars interested in Feminist History, Comparative Religion and Asian Studies. The sensitive and rigorous research will be of great help to young scholars interested in embarking on a journey to discover religious history, especially with regards to women’s history in the South Asian context.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2010-11-01,"Bruno De Nicola, Yonatan Mendel and Husain Qutbuddin",Reflections on Knowledge and Language in Middle Eastern Societies,Hardback,978-1-4438-2430-9,44.99,"This book presents a collection of articles that put forward original research and significant insight regarding several key issues related to knowledge and language in Middle Eastern societies. The aspects studied include: the role of knowledge and language in affirming and negating political agendas and self-identities within areas of conflict and tension; ideas regarding the usefulness and interaction of religious and secular knowledge; and the attributes that render knowledge and language, especially that which is believed to be of divine origin, outstanding and worthy of admiration. The selection of studies has been purposefully diverse to include a variety of languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew and Persian, within multiple traditions, including Hellenism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, while focussing on a range of periods, from the classical to the mediaeval to the modern, and examining a range of issues, such as methods of analysing and interpreting Persian, Turkish and Arabic literature, literary and other attributes of the Bible and the Qur’an, diglossic languages, the Turkish modernisation project, Turkish-Kurdish tensions, Andalusian music, Azerbaijani politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By underlining the substantial commonalities that exist between such seemingly different fields of research, the book highlights the idea—increasingly on the wane in departments of Middle Eastern Studies across many universities—that a shared area of study, viz. the Middle East, naturally and inherently entails a shared cultural, historical, and sociological milieu. It suggests that academics who engage in different branches of research related to this area should—rather than focussing singly on their own field—avail substantially and meaningfully of one another’s scholarship, learn from each other’s methodologies, and collectively build upon a body of knowledge that should never be seen as dissociated.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-01-01,Gerald MacLean,Britain and the Muslim World: Historical Perspectives,Hardback,978-1-4438-2590-0,44.99,"Based on papers presented at an international three-day conference, sponsored by the British Academy and held at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter in April 2009, this collection of essays provides a comprehensive and accessible synthesis of the most advanced specialist and scholarly knowledge to date concerning historical perspectives on relations between Britain and the Muslim World. Ranging from the early-modern period to the present day, the essays collected here represent work by leading writers and scholars from relevant fields—history, international relations, economics, religion, law, art history and design, film studies, and sociology, as well as literary and cultural studies. These essays explore the historical impacts of cross-cultural encounters between Islam and Britain by variously addressing the question of how relations between Britain and the Muslim world in the past have brought us to our current situation and, in some cases, by proposing directions for necessary further consideration and research.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-01-01,"Catherine Brace, Adrian Bailey, Sean Carter, David Harvey and Nicola Thomas",Emerging Geographies of Belief,Hardback,978-1-4438-2586-3,44.99,"This interdisciplinary book presents new research from international scholars that explores questions of belief, faith, and religion. Focusing on theoretically informed cultural, geographical and historical analyses of faith, belief, religion, society and space, the book presents new and revised theoretical approaches and methodologies, grounded in rigorous empirical research both contemporary and historical. The volume takes a deliberately eclectic approach, reflecting the complex interactions of the political and poetic dimensions of sacredness in contemporary societies. Taking this research agenda forward, this book explores how religious beliefs inform and construct social identities, public knowledge and modes of governance. In particular, the book meets an urgent need for a critical understanding of how terms such as “religion,” “faith,” “fundamentalism” and “secularism,” for example, inform public debates and foster constructive engagements both between faith groups and between people of faith and people of no faith. 
 
The essays in Emerging Geographies of Belief also show that religion cannot be mapped neatly onto faith or belief. We attempt to tease out the different circumstances in which—for example—belief can operate without religious adherence or faith can inspire social action in geographies of hope. The geography of the title relates to an overarching concern with space and spatiality rather than describing a single disciplinary approach. Our concern with belief, faith and religion operates at different temporal and spatial scales in different localities, from the contemporary appeal to a more global sense of responsibility to a historically situated account of faith-led educational practices. This reflects, more generally, the so-called spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities. But despite this wide historical and geographical sweep, the authors share some key concerns. This collection is unique in combining theoretical, conceptual and discursive approaches to the emerging geographies of belief with substantive examples of the intersection of belief, faith and religion with aspects of everyday life. Discussions of the potential subversive and prophetic capacities of faith, belief and religion sit alongside consideration of how these have become implicated in the spaces and performances of hope. It provides a critique of the situationist and substantive approaches to religion along with insights into the role of faith in education, community and social work. It considers the practices of remembrance, representation and pilgrimage and the place of religion in contemporary identity politics. In sum, the book problematises the seemingly simple categories of faith, religion, and belief, calling attention to how these are mobilised and implicated differently in different circumstances. 
 
In addressing these themes, the book provides a key theoretical resource, but crucially, goes on to show how multiple perspectives on belief, however defined, can be applied in practice. Whilst there has been much contemporary work on the individual areas covered by the book, they have not been bought together before to provide a dynamic insight into issues of the most pressing relevance.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-01-01,"Olivia Cosgrove, Laurence Cox, Carmen Kuhling and Peter Mulholland",Ireland's New Religious Movements,Hardback,978-1-4438-2588-7,49.99,"Until recently, Irish religion has been seen as defined by Catholic power in the South and sectarianism in the North. In recent years, however, both have been shaken by widespread changes in religious practice and belief, the rise of new religious movements, the revival of magical-devotionalism, the arrival of migrant religion and the spread of New Age and alternative spirituality.

This book is the first to bring together researchers exploring all these areas in a wide-ranging overview of new religion in Ireland. Chapters explore the role of feminism, Ireland as global ‘Celtic’ homeland, the growth of Islam, understanding the New Age, evangelicals in the Republic, alternative healing, Irish interest in Buddhism, channelled teachings and religious visions.

This book will be an indispensable handbook for professionals in many fields seeking to understand Ireland’s increasingly diverse and multicultural religious landscape, as well as for students of religion, sociology, psychology, anthropology and Irish Studies. Giving an overview of the shape of new religion in Ireland today and models of the best work in the field, it is likely to remain a standard text for many years to come.




","“For centuries to be Irish has meant that one was a Catholic. There have long been some Protestants, of course, but these are from across the water and have not always been considered really Irish. Today, however, the situation is changing, and changing rapidly. Not only has the taken-for-granted Catholic culture been severely, possibly irreparably, damaged through the exposure of the ‘Magdalene Laundries’ and of the widespread sexual abuse of young boys and girls by priests, but there has been flourishing of new religious and spiritual alternatives throughout the country.

Until recently very little in the way of reliable knowledge was publicly available about these new religions and spiritualities, but in 2009 a conference at the National University of Ireland Maynooth brought together a number of researchers who have been exploring the changes within and alternatives to Catholicism. The papers covered an extraordinarily wide variety of groups and movements ranging from new atheisms to revivals of Celtic lore, and from the home-grown Fellowship of Isis to the American channelled ‘Course of Miracles’, interspersed with novel Irish manifestations of traditional religions from the East.

This collection of essays that emerged from the Maynooth conference offers a unique insight into the emerging scene. The papers are well-written and informative, combining both empirical data and theoretical insight. It is a book that should be read well beyond the confines of Ireland – and it will be an enjoyable read for scholars and lay alike.”
—Prof. Eileen Barker, OBE, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics. Prof. Barker is one of the world’s leading experts on new religious movements and the author of many publications on the subject, including New religious movements: a practical introduction, Of Gods and men: new religious movements in the west, The making of a Moonie and Freedom and religion in Eastern Europe. She is the founder and chairperson of the UK’s INFORM (Information Network Focus on New Religious Movements), an internationally-recognised source of professional expertise on the subject.

“This scholarly collection of studies provides a comprehensive map of an area of Irish culture that has been previously ignored. It shines an important new light on the diversity of religious life in Ireland. With the decline in the significance of insititutional religions, it reveals the alternative ways in which contemporary Irish people seek to be spiritual and moral. It is a remarkable achievement.”
—Prof. Tom Inglis, Department of Sociology, University College Dublin, is the leading figure in the study of Irish religion. He is the author of many publications on globalisation, secularisation and identities, including Moral monopoly: the rise and fall of the Catholic church in modern Ireland, Truth, power and lies: Irish society and the case of the Kerry babies, Discourses of sexuality in Ireland and Global Ireland: same difference.

“Ireland’s New Religious Movements is a truly significant publication; the first of its kind to appear in Ireland. Not only does it mark the 'coming of age' of the academic study of religions in Ireland, where for too long the study of any religious topic outside the Catholic-Protestant theological nexus has been virtually unknown, it also heralds a new and very significant Irish academic voice within the big debates about new and minority religions in Europe and worldwide. As exemplified in chapters such as those on Irish Islam and Irish Buddhism, research on religions relatively new to Ireland can readily challenge knowledge about these traditions produced and consumed elsewhere. This is not because Ireland is intrinsically exceptional, special or different - although research on new and minority religions in a Catholic-majority, postcolonial European context can pose obvious challenges to theories and histories of religion from colonial, Protestant-dominated European cultures. It is, rather, because Irish contributions (both in Ireland and among the huge worldwide Irish diaspora) to the global and multifaceted history of religions new to Europe have so far remained virtually unknown, and the reason is that these topics have not  - until now - been the focus of much concentrated academic research. The breadth and depth of scholarship and the wide range of topics addressed in this volume signal a new energy, resolve and spirit of co-operation among the growing ranks of scholars of religions in Ireland. This is in every sense a pioneering volume, for apart from its own merits it is undoubtedly the first of many publications in the coming years which will bring thought-provoking academic research on the whole range of religions in Ireland to the attention of a global audience.”
—Prof. Brian Bocking founded the first non-confessional department of religious studies in Ireland. Previously Professor of the Study of Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he is the author of many publications on Japanese religion, Buddhism and the Study of Religions, including The oracles of the three shrines, A popular dictionary of Shinto and Nagarjuna in China.

""With its captivating chapters on (among other subjects) Irish Buddhism and Islam, Neo-paganism, New Age groups and a generic Celtic spirituality infusing other non-institutional religious expressions, the volume, edited by Olivia Cosgrove, Laurence Cox, Carmen Kuhling and Peter Mulholland, succeeds in filling in the tapestry of contemporary Irish religion.""

Religion Watch, March-April 2011


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-01-01,Shlomo Giora Shoham,The Genesis of Genesis: The Mytho-Empiricism of Creation,Hardback,978-1-4438-2647-1,44.99,"The Genesis of Genesis is about the mytho-empiricism of creation— cosmogony. In its attempt to compare the mythologies of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean cultures—Egyptian, Greek, Judaic and Mesopotamian—the Judaic cosmogony of genesis, which is unique in its reliance on the word as creative agent, is contrasted with the Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamian mythologies, which are more deterministic.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Michael Fuller,Matter and Meaning: Is Matter Sacred or Profane?,Paperback,978-1-4438-2672-3,19.99,"We live in a material world. But what is matter? Can it point us towards meanings outside itself, or can any meaning it possesses only be invested in it by human beings? To what extent might these semantic activities overlap? How have our current understandings of matter and meaning developed from those of past thinkers, in both Western and non-Western contexts?

These and many other questions were addressed at a conference held under the auspices of the Science and Religion Forum at Liverpool Hope University in 2008. That conference brought together some leading figures in the disciplines of theology and the natural sciences, and a selection of the papers given at it is now presented in this book. They offer important new historical, scientific and theological insights from a variety of perspectives to those with an interest in the fast-developing area of the dialogue between these disciplines; and they will also be found valuable by anyone who wishes to explore the complexities of this dialogue, as it moves beyond the black-and-white histrionics of its presentation in the popular media.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Patricia ‘Iolana and Samuel Tongue,"Testing the Boundaries: Self, Faith, Interpretation and Changing Trends in Religious Studies",Hardback,978-1-4438-2669-3,39.99,"As individuals, we have the ability (although not always the opportunity) to create our own paradigmatic image of the Divine; moreover, as a society we can alter, transform, or even replace those paradigms. Progressive movements exist in nearly every faith tradition—moving towards the future of our world and our belief systems; these movements include both radical and reformist thinkers, and they are challenging the lenses that we employ to image, worship, connect with and understand the Divine.

With so many possible interpretations and paradigms competing for social acceptance and support, the choice must be made carefully and wisely, bearing in mind the inevitability of change whilst remaining open to pluralities of thought and practice. This is especially important when it comes to the future of theology and religious studies—in particular to the relations between the various global faith traditions.  

In Testing the Boundaries, ten scholars explore the praxis of faith including our image of Self in relation to the Divine, our relation to the religious Other, our struggle for religious identity in new locales, the limits of language and translations in sacred texts, our responsibility to nature, our nomadic and transitory tendencies, traditions in the academy, and our interreligious relationships. They test the boundaries of traditional theology and their interdisciplinary fields—dancing in the liminal space where possibilities gather.
","“Deftly joined together by the editors, these highly accomplished essays collectively reflect on the re-imagining of religious/post-religious structures in a multicultural world. Each essay fully deserves to be consulted by specialists in its own disciplinary and cultural terrain(s).  As a whole, the book augurs extremely well for the futures of the mobile and versatile interdisciplinary spaces that it begins to map.”
—Professor Yvonne Sherwood, Professor of Bible, Religion and Culture, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow

“This is a remarkable collection of essays by a community of younger scholars who here give us hope for the future at a time of bleak outlook for the study of the humanity. Written with assurance and sound good learning, they cross many boundaries of disciplines, as well as faiths and cultures. They have the virtue of not being afraid of some of the categories that impose themselves on more established writers, combining good scholarship with imagination and a willingness to think outside boundaries without losing the discipline that boundaries establish and require. They will be of interest to a wide number of people within the fields of religion, women’s studies, cultural studies and more. I am deeply impressed.”
—Professor David Jasper, FRSE, University of Glasgow and Renmin University of China
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-02-01,Paolo Diego Bubbio and Philip Andrew Quadrio,The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today,Hardback,978-1-4438-2664-8,39.99,"The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today is a collection of texts authored by philosophers with an interest in contemporary philosophy of religion, its merits and its limitations. The collection has been stimulated by such questions as: “What ought philosophy of religion be?” and “How ought philosophy relate to religion today?” In pursuing such questions, the editors have asked the contributors to offer their insights and reflections on issues that they see as important to contemporary philosophy of religion, with the goal of producing a collection of texts offering the reader a variety of perspectives without privileging any particular philosophical, religious or irreligious orientation. The book covers such themes as the relationship between religion and modernity, faith in keeping with reason, contemplation, the merits and limitations of the atheism, and the relationship between philosophy, religion and politics.
","“A stimulating collection of essays from diverse perspectives, both theoretical and practical, in which the authors reflect on the current state of philosophy of religion and the relationship between the religious and the philosophical enterprises. It makes interesting reading for all who care about the future of the subject.”
—John Cottingham, University of Reading and Heythrop College, University of London, England

“This is a fascinating collection of philosophical papers focused on contemporary issues in religion and philosophy of religion. The editors have done very well to collect papers that explore this theme through a variety of philosophical perspectives and from different orientations. It is a unique and timely offering on a subject matter that is increasingly important to contemporary philosophy.”
—Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research, New York, USA

“[This book’s] concern is not with this or that argument in the philosophy of religion, but with what the relation between philosophy and religion is, has been, could be and (its editors say) should be. Some of the essays are theoretically oriented while others focus on the cultural and political possibilities of a critically self-reflective philosophical engagement with religion. They span the divide between analytical and continental philosophy. The editors hope that The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today will contribute ‘towards a more fulsome engagement with religion as a phenomenon worthy of philosophical reflection.’ Their hope has, I believe, been fulfilled.”
—Raimond Gaita, King’s College London, University of London, England
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-03-01,Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler,After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion,Paperback,978-1-4438-2704-1,29.99,"Continental philosophy of religion has been dominated for two decades by “postsecular” and “postmodern” thought. This volume brings together a vanguard of scholars to ask what comes after the postsecular and the postmodern—that is, what is Continental philosophy of religion now? Against the subjugation of philosophy to theology, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion argues that philosophy of religion must either liberate itself from theological norms or mutate into a new practice of thinking in order to confront the challenges religion presents for our time. The essays do not propose a new orthodoxy but set the stage for new debates by reclaiming a practice of philosophy of religion that recovers and draws on the insights of a distinctly modern tradition of Continental philosophy, confronts the challenge of rethinking the secular in the light of the postsecular event, and calls for a move from strictly critical to speculative thought in order to experiment with what philosophy can do. This collection of essays is indispensable for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and theology, political questions regarding religion and in what contemporary speculative Continental philosophy has to add to philosophy of religion.
","“A superb and groundbreaking collection featuring the brightest scholars in the continental philosophy of religion. The book deals with a feast of topics, and will become indispensable the moment it is published.”
 – Kenneth Surin, Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory, Duke University

“Every once in a while, a collection of essays comes along that does not merely contribute to a field, but redraws its boundaries, repositions it in unforeseen ways. This is one such collection. The burgeoning work of ‘continental philosophy of religion’ is both employed and interrogated to startling effect. This is no tired and worn treadmill of ideas, but a disciplined armoury and an unruly intervention. The editors and authors display a well-won confidence in philosophy at the limit. They are not afraid to take on the sacred cows of orthodoxy or the modish assumptions of the recent ‘turn to religion’ in continental thinking. Fascinating new insights into the modern canon sit alongside adventurous forays into cutting edge speculative philosophy and non-philosophy (the editors’ introduction is worth the admission price alone). Demanding, provocative and groundbreaking, this is required reading for anyone who wants to know what matters in philosophy of religion today.”
 – Steven Shakespeare, Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University and Co-Facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-03-03,David Lewin,Technology and the Philosophy of Religion,Hardback,978-1-4438-2513-9,39.99,"The last one hundred years has seen unimaginable technological progress transforming every aspect of human life. Yet we seem unable to shake a profound unease with the direction of modern technology and its ideological siblings, global capitalism and massive consumption. Philosophers such as Marcuse, Borgmann and especially Heidegger, have developed important analyses of technological society, however in this book David Lewin argues that their ideas have remained limited either by their secular context, or by the narrow conception of religion that they do allow. 

This study guides the reader along the newly formed paths of the philosophy of technology, arguing that where those paths come to an abrupt end, a religious discourse is needed to articulate the ultimate concerns that drive technological action. It calls for a meditation on the central insight of many religious traditions that, in an ultimate sense, we ‘know not what we do.’ To acknowledge that we know not what we do is the first step towards a theology of technology that draws upon insights from the mystical theological tradition, as well as from recent developments in the continental philosophy of religion.


",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-04-01,Archana Verma,"Performance and Culture: Narrative, Image and Enactment in India",Hardback,978-1-4438-2735-5,34.99,"This book deals with various aspects of performance in India; especially that related to dance and dance-drama. Rather than being a description of the various dance forms of India, it attempts to discuss the social equations and cultural ideas that a performance attempts to portray. In this sense, a performance is a narrative. At the same time, performances also deal with well-known narratives from the religious traditions of India, often redefining and recounting them in the process of performance. A study of these aspects is important to understand the kind of equations that define these discourses on the performance narratives.

Chapter I shows the different forms of dances that are described in the iconographic canons and also the famous dance treatise the Natyashastra, correlating them with the sculptures of dance available in the temples. Here, the temples of south India datable to 6th- 13th centuries have been studied for this purpose. Attempt is made to study the gender equations that are expounded through these dance images and texts, as also the correlation between the audience and the performance and how these ideas are intertwined with the religious images.

Chapter II deals with four Sanskrit burlesque plays written in the ancient period, which reverse social equations and classical dramatic representations through the genre of satire. Almost every elite-class person, generally idealized in the classical Sanskrit plays, is lampooned here. Issues of audience perception and the reception of this kind of reversed images of the ideal figures of the society are discussed in this chapter.

Chapter III deals with the aesthetics of eroticism that form the basis of many Indian classical dances, how they are intertwined with the notion of devotionalism in Hinduism and how they are negotiated in the Indian classical dances in our contemporary period. A case study is done here of Odissi, the classical dance from the eastern state of Orissa, which draws extensively from the temple sculptures of dance.

Chapter IV shows that sacred narrative in India is not always a means of glorifying the divine. Rather, sometimes it is also used to satirize the established notions of religiosity and of divinity. This forms the basis of this very interesting semi-classical dance-drama form called Ottan Thullal from the southern state of Kerala. Kathakali, the classical dance-drama and Mohiniattam, the classical dance from Kerala have dominated the scene so much that this form of dance-drama has been overshadowed and it is little known to the world outside Kerala, even in India. There is not much scholarship on Ottan Thullal. This chapter deals with this form and the manner in which it uses the idiom of satire to narrate the religious legends.

Chapter V is a study of the Mithila narratives from the eastern region of Mithila in Bihar to understand the ways in which gender equations in the Mithila society influence the making of these narratives. There is a discussion of the nature of “folk narratives” in this chapter.

Chapter VI takes some folk forms of performance and visual narratives from different states of India to show how social equations such as power hierarchy, gender and caste dimensions are negotiated. All these use the traditional religious space to work out these equations. 

Chapter VII on one hand is a comparative study of two Hindi films made in 1960s, based on the lives of two women dancers from ancient India. One of them is a historical figure and the other is a figure. On the other hand, this is an attempt o show how the narratives of these women dancers are remodeled in literary as well as the cinematic medium, every time these narratives are retold. Effort is made to show how the cultural memory of the ancient history of India that the modern narrators of these stories have been received as a process of acculturation, which influences this recasting of narratives in literature as well as in film. It is also shown that this process of narration through cultural memory is not a new phenomenon, since it occurred even in the ancient period when narrative was being remodeled to present in a new form before the audience. 
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-05-01,"Stephen Hutchings, Chris Flood, Galina Miazhevich and Henri Nickels",Islam in its International Context: Comparative Perspectives,Hardback,978-1-4438-2886-4,39.99,"Changing attitudes to Islam profoundly influence political cultures and national identities, as well as policies regarding immigration, security and multiculturalism. Given that the majority of relevant scholarly works have either adopted monocultural perspectives, or approached Islam in its general, non nation-specific dimension, the need for in-depth, multi-nation studies is urgent. Islam itself, and responses to its rise, are becoming increasingly internationalised. It is therefore important that analyses of Islam-related phenomena are sensitive to the particular cultures in which they are encountered. This volume does precisely that. Contributions, some explicitly comparative, others implicitly so, cover perspectives from across Europe, the USA and the Middle East, along with new treatments of the rich diversity to be found in Islamic art, and discussions of inter-faith exchanges. They also represent a range of disciplinary approaches. Among the many issues addressed are: the challenges posed by the rise of Muslim radicalism to multicultural societies; various media treatments of the ‘War on Terror’; the national specificities of Islamophobic xenophobia; contemporary visual arts in Islamic societies; differing attitudes to the translation of religious texts. The authors include authoritative, international experts, balanced by promising, younger scholars.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-05-01,K. A. Beville,Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture,Paperback,978-1-4438-2881-9,24.99,"Starting with some observations relating to shifts in ecclesiology and identifying them as a move beyond contextualization to syncretism this work goes on to assess the feasibility of preaching in a postmodern culture which rejects both the idea of absolute truth and authority used as power. It traces the historical and philosophical development of postmodernism. The Enlightenment project is deemed to have failed and Christianity is perceived as an oppressive metanarrative. In a world that is becoming increasingly sceptical and where preaching practitioners are becoming disillusioned this book offers some guidelines about preaching to postmoderns. In a relational age rationality is impotent, but the author distinguishes between authoritative and authoritarian preaching allowing hope for the survival of the homiletic task. Humility is presented as preferable to certitude and persuasion is redefined. The author suggests using an inductive mode of communication as a means of engaging postmodern listeners. He signposts a way forward in the labyrinthine complexity of the new paradigm and demonstrates that the homiletic task is still feasible. Thus this book will be of interest to teachers and students of theology as well as pastors desiring to develop a new apologetic strategy.


","“Kieran Beville discusses the powerful wind shift of Postmodernism, the subtle ways it is affecting society and how preachers must reset their sails to become effective. In this scholarly primer the author engages with philosophers and the leading homileticians of the day. His approach is succinct without getting bogged down or becoming superficial. Dr Beville’s book provides clear and useful handles for understanding the elusive nature of postmodernity. He writes chiefly for teachers and students of the art of preaching in western societies yet this is a practical book that will encourage all those engaged in preaching and other forms of Christian communication. Preachers who ignore the urgent challenge of this book do so at their own peril and at the risk of talking to themselves in the stale backwater of irrelevance.”
—Dr Geoff Pound, Theologians Without Borders

“Kieran Beville’s Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture is an extremely helpful analysis of the crisis that has overtaken preaching with the emergence of postmodernity in western culture. He rightly demonstrates that a full-blown embrace by the church of the postmodern critique of  past ways of communicating the gospel, in particular, the traditional emphasis on preaching, is a sure path to theological and ecclesial disaster. On the other hand, he rightly points out that it is not at all helpful for the church to be sullen and reactionary at this turn of events in western culture, trying to live in some past ‘golden age’ when things were done right! Beville guides the reader through this modern—or should one say postmodern!—Scylla and Charybdis and provides a helpful template for preaching that takes due cognizance of the new cultural paradigm and that also emphasizes the vital importance of clear communication of the best news a human being can hear. Highly recommended.”
—Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky; and Research Professor of Irish Baptist College, Constituent College of Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-06-01,Daniel Maoz and Andrea Gondos,From Antiquity to the Postmodern World: Contemporary Jewish Studies in Canada,Hardback,978-1-4438-2929-8,44.99,"Characteristic histories and literatures of the Jewish people are brought together in this volume and arranged in the form of a cultural mosaic, a distinctly Canadian approach to life. The articles and scholarly contributions contained herein investigate Jewish life and thought, not merely in the Canadian and contemporary context but also in other geographical localities and historical epochs that were formative in the shaping of Jewish history. The wealth of knowledge represented within these pages engages traditional ancient Jewish sources (Talmud and Tanakh, Mishnah and Midrash); topics in Jewish mysticism (Lurianic Kabbala, popularization of kabbalistic literature, the Tosher Rebbe); historical and contemporary themes that address aspects and environ of everyday life (kitchen, classroom, theologian’s desk, synagogue, Holocaust survival, women’s and peace studies).

Jewish life and identity, better described than defined, come alive in the reading of this book. Both general readers and specialists will find value in this collection of studies. For the former, it offers a glimpse into the complicated network of themes and perspectives in which contemporary Jews engage. Rich bibliographies of cogent resources avail themselves to the latter. They will nevertheless commonly conclude that, however diverse the terrain, Jewish Studies in Canada—with research ongoing and range ever-expanding—offers vibrant and real response to key questions raised in past generations: “Who is a Jew?” and “What is Judaism?”
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-08-01,Virginia Burnett and Yetkin Yıldırım,Flying with Two Wings: Interreligious Dialogue in the Age of Global Terrorism,Hardback,978-1-4438-3160-4,34.99,"Many people are of the opinion that our world faces a crisis, a “clash of civilizations,” from which we are unlikely to recover. However, Turkish born educator, scholar and advocate for peace Fethullah Gülen believes that through education, tolerance, and dialogue, peace can be achieved. Gülen has spoken of what he calls “peace islands” in an analogy describing his non-violent, cooperative ideas about conflict resolution. The perceived “clash of civilizations” may come in waves of violence and anger throughout the world, but once these waves reach these peace islands, they will retreat with the tide leaving the islands unscathed. Gülen ideals provide the blueprint for these islands.

This collection as a whole attempts what each individual paper proposes: a dialogue rooted in tolerance that accounts for the unique histories and assumptions of each member involved. Proper interfaith dialogue requires first an encounter between two or more individuals, then a willingness (rooted in tolerance) of each individual to engage with the other. This definition of interfaith dialogue is central to Gülen’s writings, and indeed to the focus of this collection of papers. Each author relates to Gülen’s ideas in a unique way, offering a diversity of perspectives that gives true dialogue its vibrant energy.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-09-01,W. Creighton Peden,"Christian Pragmatism: An Intellectual Biography of Edward Scribner Ames, 1870-1958",Hardback,978-1-4438-3198-7,39.99,"Edward Scribner Ames (1870–1958) was raised in the American Midwest as his family moved westward after the Civil War. His father was a minister in the Disciples of Christ, which was later changed to the Christian Church. In between serving several small churches in the Iowa area, his father did various odd jobs. Young Ames joined the Church one Sunday when his father was preaching, and was baptized in the river that afternoon. Ames was able to attend Drake College in Des Moines, Iowa, and did a post-graduate year here. He then went to Yale University’s Divinity School, where he was placed in the senior class because of his previous studies. Following the BD, he spent two years toward a PhD at Yale. In 1894, Dr William R. Harper, whom Ames had known at Yale, was the new president of the new University of Chicago. Harper arranged for a fellowship for Ames to complete his dissertation and become the first PhD student under the departmental leadership of John Dewey. Ames taught the next three years at Butler College, a Disciples institution. He then returned to Chicago to become minister of a very small Disciples Church located near the center of the University. Soon after his return as a minister, Dewey offered him part time teaching in the philosophy department. As the years went by Ames taught more until he carried a full teaching load, ministered to the people of his Church, raised money to build the Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago, served as Dean of the DDH, and retired as Chairman of the philosophy department. He continued serving as minister to his Church for five more years. Ames taught for thirty five years at the University of Chicago and served in his final ministry for forty years.

Ames would have nothing to do with theology, which he considered to be a process of looking for a black cat in a dark room that is not there. Being strongly influenced by William James, Ames published Psychology of Religious Experience in 1910, in which he presents a pragmatic view of religious experiences from the perspective of the modern science of his day. If there is a God, this God must be immanent in nature. Humans are relational animals who have evolved like other animals. In considering Christianity, Ames begins with Jesus and seeks a God as good as Jesus. For Ames, Jesus’ greatness is to be found in his ethical and spiritual teachings. God is the total living process, which encompasses our intelligence and conduct. This God is not supernatural but wholly natural.

Ames was a prolific writer. In order to expose the development of his thought, this volume presents his ideas historically by considering his major writings as well as journal articles, which addressed issues not completely considered in other writings. The companion volume, Edward Scribner Ames’ Unpublished Manuscripts, contains important lectures as he relates his pragmatism to John Dewey and other pragmatic thinkers, as well as attempting to lead Disciples’ ministers to expand their thought.
","“One of the central classical pragmatists is finally receiving his rightful attention. Ames was not only a creative philosopher alongside Dewey and Mead at Chicago, but he also was a psychologist and sociologist of religion who understood the religious life intimately. An amazing life indeed! He tireless did it all -- as a university professor, minister of the University Church of Disciples of Christ, founder of the Disciples of Christ's Campbell Institute, and long-time dean of the Disciples Divinity House. Ames was a powerful humanistic voice in the liberal religious world of his day. This volume's superb collection of Ames's most significant and vibrant writings eloquently and persuasively speak to the needs of our own times today.”
—John R. Shook, author of The Companion to Pragmatism, professor at University at Buffalo

“Scholars affiliated with the University of Chicago in the early 20th century played major roles in developing empirical, pragmatic theologies that could hold their own in academic circles. Edward Scribner Ames was a star among those stars. Creighton Peden once again enriches our knowledge of this current of religious modernity. Accompanying his intellectual biography of Ames comes this publication of all of Ames’ unpublished manuscripts. These tools will not only serve future historians but they just might convince more theologians to keep alive this daring form of Christian survival.”
—Robert B. Tapp, Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Religious Studies, and South Asian Studies, University of Minnesota and Dean & Faculty Chair Emeritus, The Humanist Institute, New York City
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-09-01,Eugene Broderick,"The Boycott at Fethard-on-Sea, 1957: A Study in Catholic-Protestant Relations in Modern Ireland",Hardback,978-1-4438-3173-4,34.99,"This book examines the boycott of the Protestant community of Fethard-on-Sea, County Wexford, Ireland, by local Catholics because of a dispute over a mixed marriage. Sheila Cloney, a member of the Church of Ireland, refused to have her two children educated in the local Catholic National School, in accordance with promises she had made before she married her Catholic husband, Sean Cloney. Rather than submit to pressure being put on her by the local Catholic clergy, she took her children to Belfast and then to Scotland. It was alleged that local Protestants had assisted her and, as a result, a boycott of local Protestant businesses was instituted to secure the return of the children. The boycott began in May 1957 and lasted until September of the same year. The drama, which combined personal, religious and political elements, was to be played out in the law courts of Belfast, the pulpits of the land, in the Dail and Senate, but especially in the boycotted shops and Protestant school of Fethard. The incident attracted a great deal of attention in Northern Ireland, and was furiously debated in the Stormont Parliament and on the Orange fields of the Twelfth. International interest was also considerable, with Time magazine suggesting a new word for the English language – fethardism, meaning to practise boycott along religious lines. The great figures of the 1950s in Church and State became involved, as a local incident attracted attention at home and abroad. This book recounts the events of the Fethard boycott, situating them in the broader context of Catholic-Protestant relations since the foundation of the state. This is more than a dramatic, human tale – this story highlights how the independent Irish state treated a religious minority and how that minority responded to the crisis.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-11-01,Shlomo Giora Shoham,And Man Created God,Hardback,978-1-4438-3302-8,44.99,"And Man Created God presents a new theory of mytho-empiricism based on the mythological concepts of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the structuralism of Jeanne Piaget. The whole nature of mythogenes as the creative force linking history and transcendence is then elucidated. The corpus of myths in the books of Genesis and Exodus are presented in a new light and then compared with the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek mythologies to highlight the Judaic myths with the pagan contrast.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-11-01,Kenneth Craven,Hamlet of Morningside Heights,Hardback,978-1-4438-3343-1,34.99,"This book reveals the remarkable life of a Renaissance New Yorker sustained by the play Hamlet. Craven’s detective work finds for the first time Apostle Paul’s ethical principles integrated throughout the play. The insights that emerge from this discovery reverberate throughout American culture today, explaining dramatic shifts in values that have cascaded down the generations. These dynamics reflect Craven’s lineage: a fascinating mix of genial humanists, fiery ideologues, and effective, business-minded Yorkers traced back to Shakespeare’s London. Craven melds groundbreaking literary insight with reflection on his own life, a continuing search for and demonstration of executive power.



","“Nobody beside Dr Craven ever studied the way that Paul’s Epistle to the Romans affects the play Hamlet. It has staggeringly wide-ranging implications, many of which are identified in this account of how and when these thoughts resounded in Dr Craven’s mind.”
– Andrew Gurr, Director of the Renaissance Texts Research Centre

“I’ve just finished reading the magisterial conclusion to your autobiography. It is an astonishing tale of discoveries personal, scholarly, and of the origins and nature of modern culture. Of course it would be preposterous to expect such discoveries from anyone, but somehow as I read it seemed right that you would be the person to see these things. I feel privileged to be among your readers. Thank you for this.”
– Frank T. Boyle, English Professor, Fordham University



",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Saikat Guha,"After God, with Reason Alone – Saikat Guha Commemorative Volume (Volume 8: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3373-8,29.99,"Saikat Guha (1974–2008) wrote prolifically on many topics. Trained as a philosopher and physicist, Guha was interested in topics ranging from sexual ethics to Bell’s Theorem to Anselm’s ontological argument to Augustine’s persecution of the Donatists—though he was primarily a metaphysician. Guha studied at the University of Texas at Austin, Boise State University, the University of Washington at Seattle, and Syracuse University. He wrote more than one hundred papers from roughly 1997–2006, five of which are published here. Three of these papers reformulate some of Aquinas’s key doctrines on God: his first, second, and third ways, and his account of how necessity of being entails absolute perfection. The fourth paper considers whether Ockham’s razor requires the presumption of atheism. The fifth paper presents a logical model of the doctrine of the Trinity in order to prove that the doctrine can be understood without logical contradiction.
","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.”
– Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

“In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.”
– Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA

“It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.”
– Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA

“The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.”
– Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

“The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.”
– Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Dragoş Gheorghiu,Archaeology Experiences Spirituality?,Hardback,978-1-4438-3368-4,39.99,"This book’s aim is to go beyond the limits of the contemporary scientific paradigm of “material culture” by presenting some of the issues confronting archaeology, as it attempts to approach the spirituality of the past.

It brings together archaeologists from Western and Eastern Europe, and the USA who, more or less obviously, have used their experientiality to approach the world view and mystic experience of ancient peoples.

The book intends to present several arguments in support of an archaeology of spirituality through a series of seven case studies.

What method should we use to approach spirituality? Are we still dependent on quantitative methods? Is phenomenology an appropriate instrument? Can experientiality approach a spiritual experience? Is the emic approach efficient enough to approach the spiritual side of a studied phenomenon? Are the analogous ethnographic models suitable instruments for this task? How much of the spirituality of the past is still accessible today? Could we build artificial contexts that would allow the recreation of the phenomenological condition analogous to the originals?

Archaeology Experiences Spirituality? goes beyond the archaeological study of material culture, offering a fascinating lecture for the reader of the twenty-first century.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,John R. C. Martyn ,From Queens to Slaves: Pope Gregory’s Special Concern for Women,Hardback,978-1-4438-3386-8,39.99,"The book is based on the author’s very careful study of all the women who were involved with the normally extremely busy and painfully sick Pope Gregory the Great, many of them staying with him in Rome while he sorted out their mainly legal cases, and one of them, Theoctista, the learned sister of the Emperor Maurice, receiving the longest letter that he ever wrote to any individual. The consular son of the great Boethius, Flavius, was the father of Lady Rusticiana, who received several letters from her very dear friend, Pope Gregory, as did all of her family. After a preface, the book is divided into seven main sections, the first on Pope Gregory himself, with an historical setting, and a short first chapter dealing with his female relatives. Chapters 2 and 3 cover the royal and aristocratic women, including four queens, and then the abbesses and nuns are discussed, including several who were missed in the precursor to this book, Pope Gregory and the Brides of Christ. Then the widows and marriages are discussed, followed by women cohabiting with clerics and escaping from slavery to join convents. Finally, a bibliography provides the main works on the Pope and the period when he lived, about 600 AD, with an index to help scholars find the main characters and places in the book.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Maria Dimitrova,In Levinas’ Trace,Hardback,978-1-4438-3361-5,34.99,"Maria Dimitrova (Sofia University, Bulgaria) in response to Jerard Bensussan (University of Strasbourg, France), Jeffrey Andrew Barash (University of Amiens, France), Jacob Rogozinski (University of Strasbourg, France) and Ernst Wolff (University of Pretoria, South Africa) commenting on Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy.

This book is essential reading for those interested in the current debates in ethics, metaphysics, and social and political philosophy. The discussed issues are presented from the perspective of phenomenology.

This publication is not simply a pure and abstract academic work but has a much broader scope, touching upon the most important dimensions of human relationships. The book tries to find a new way to articulate these. It will be of significant help to scholars and graduate students in all fields of the humanities, as well as to policy makers and social workers who feel themselves challenged by the question of humanism and justice.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,"Medieval Metaphysics, or is it ""Just Semantics""? (Volume 7: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3375-2,34.99,"Medieval semantic theories develop out of Aristotle’s On Interpretation, in which he notes that “Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds” (tr. J. L. Ackrill, OUP 1984). The medieval commentary tradition elaborates on Aristotle’s theory in light of various epistemological and metaphysical commitments, including those entailed by the doctrine of the transcendentals that emerges from the tradition in the writings of Philip the Chancellor (d. 1236). Transcendental attributes such as unity, truth and goodness (properties that figure into most if not all accounts of the transcendentals) characterize every being as such, and hence the doctrine of the transcendentals promised some knowledge of God. This hope, together with the general medieval consensus that the cognitive acts by which we grasp extra-mental entities are veridical (i.e., in most cases, these acts represent what the cognizing subject takes them to represent) encouraged medieval thinkers to devote considerable effort to discerning how concepts latch onto reality. Medieval Metaphysics, or Is It “Just Semantics”? follows these attempts as concerns the signification of theological discourse in general and Trinitarian semantics in particular, the proper object of the intellect, and what is signified through quidditative or essential definition.
","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.”
– Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

“In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.”
– Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA

“It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.”
– Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA

“The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.”
– Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

“The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.”
– Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,The Demonic Temptations of Medieval Nominalism (Volume 9: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics),Hardback,978-1-4438-3374-5,34.99,"This volume presents three sets of papers discussing the medieval problem of singular cognition, nominalist epistemology, and the metaphysics of the great medieval nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. The first group of essays concerns issues surrounding the possibility of singular cognition in light of the cognitive psychology of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, as well as the latter’s “argument from indifference” as developed by William Ockham to support his own, nominalist epistemology. However, Ockham’s epistemology, worked out in detail by John Buridan, seems to have implications concerning the possibility of “Demon Skepticism” (later popularized by Descartes), which in turn poses a threat to the consistency of the nominalist cognitive psychology in general, as discussed in the second group of essays. Finally, the third group of essays explores some intriguing, but “weird” implications of the nominalist approach to epistemology in the metaphysics of John Buridan.
","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.”
– Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

“In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.”
– Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA

“It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.”
– Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA

“The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.”
– Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

“The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.”
– Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,"The Immateriality of the Human Mind, the Semantics of Analogy, and the Conceivability of God (Volume 1: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3362-2,34.99,"The Immateriality of the Human Mind, the Semantics of Analogy, and the Conceivability of God brings together the work of experts in the field of medieval philosophy to consider the nature of God and the soul, what can be known of the divine essence and the semantics of theological discourse from the perspectives of medieval theology (both natural and revealed), logic and natural philosophy. In his capacity as an arts master commenting on a work of natural philosophy, Aristotle’s De Anima, John Buridan discusses the immateriality of the intellect against the background of the competing, mutually exclusive views of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes. Aquinas takes up the same issue, but in a more properly theological setting, in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, where Aquinas argues that the being of the intellect is independent of matter. Thomas de Vio Cajetan considers the semantics of theological discourse or ‘God talk’ in order to derive a proper means to speak of the divine essence in his De Nominum Analogia; and Anselm of Canterbury’s Proslogion seeks with unaided reason to develop a single proof whereby those who think seriously of anything as ‘that than which nothing greater can be thought’ may know that God exists.
","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.”
– Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

“In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.”
– Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA

“It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.”
– Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA

“The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.”
– Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

“The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.”
– Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-01-01,Wayne Cristaudo and Gregory Kaplan,Love in the Religions of the World,Hardback,978-1-4438-3504-6,39.99,"The study of comparative religion is no longer a matter merely for those interested in religion – it is a matter of concern for everybody. For irrespective of whether one believes in God, religion is a major characteristic of identity. And in the post 9/11 world, every educated person is aware of how important it is to understand what others believe. This collection of essays by international scholars emerged from an intense and powerful dialogue at the University of Hong Kong about love in the major religions of the world. Eschewing the comforting, but ultimately erroneous and dangerous idea that all religions believe more or less the same thing, each essay examines the role and nature of love in a major religion of the world. It is an invaluable guide for students, teachers and the general reader wanting to cut through the morass of doctrinal differences and emphases in the world’s religions. It also makes an important contribution to the urgent issue of dialogue amongst faiths and cultures.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-01-01,Patrick Mannix,The Belligerent Prelate: An Alliance between Archbishop Daniel Mannix and Eamon de Valera,Hardback,978-1-4438-3499-5,39.99,"This book is an examination and evaluation from a historical perspective of the alliance that was established and forged between the former Taoiseach and President of Ireland, Eamon de Valera and the former President of Maynooth and Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Daniel Mannix. The book will examine how the alliance between the two men played a pivotal role in Ireland’s push for independence. The Archbishop’s role will be used as a symbol of the vast Irish Diaspora worldwide and how their support both financially and physically through demonstrations for Ireland helped keep the push for autonomy alive. Having examined the role the Archbishop played in his alliance with de Valera and the clergy the book will appraise how Dr. Mannix, so revered at one stage in Irish society, became such an isolated figure after 1925. Irish history has largely neglected the role of the Archbishop. This historical analysis grounded in research of both primary and secondary sources including previously undocumented oral evidence; archival papers, written public and private correspondence between the two characters and visual sources will help to replenish his role. 

","""The history of Irish diaspora leaders, both religious and lay, is a fertile ground for the Irish history scholarship. Dr. Mannix was the Archbishop of Melbourne for forty-six years and was a very influential figure in both Australia and Ireland. Mannix stood up for Irish Catholics when they were still treated as second-class citizens even in their own country. On this pretext alone, his name will never be forgotten. This volume is an important contribution to the study of Mannix's historical legacy""
 - Dr. Mícheál Ó hAodha, Department of History, University of Limerick, Ireland

""The type of dual contextualized biography pursued by Patrick Mannix is more sophisticated and compelling than previous titles. my view is that ‘the Belligerent Prelate – an alliance between Archbishop Mannix and Eamon de Valera’ will prove popular in a number of specialized areas and has the capacity to excite public interest in Ireland, Australia, North America and beyond.""
- Dr Ruan O’Donnell, Senior Lecturer, History Department, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Ireland

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-01-01,Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.,The Life and Legacy of George Leslie Mackay: An Interdisciplinary Study of Canada’s First Presbyterian Missionary to Northern Taiwan (1872 – 1901),Hardback,978-1-4438-3454-4,34.99,"George Leslie Mackay (1844–1901), the famous Canadian Presbyterian missionary who came to northern Formosa (Taiwan) in 1872 and preached specifically with aborigines in mind, is the subject of an interdisciplinary study by seven independent scholars interested in the nineteenth-century imperial project and Christian mission to China. Importantly, Mackay’s mission defies such binary opposites as East and West: the missionary a conduit of an earlier Scottish-Canadian spirituality adapted to Taiwan that allowed converts to appropriate the Presbyterian faith on their own terms; the mission field in which he operated  a “biculture” of foreign initiative and aboriginal agency working hand in hand. Mackay’s ordination of aboriginal ministers, giving us the Northern Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT), was a bold departure from the imperial, Anglo-Canadian, Presbyterian norm. So, too, his marriage to a Taiwanese slave-girl, Chhang-mia, and the arranged interracial marriages that he performed between select Chinese ministers and female Taiwanese graduates (which included his two daughters). Mackay’s missionary writing and famous autobiography From Far Formosa—a fine specimen of the nineteenth-century heroic memoir genre—is notable for its defense of both gender and racial equality, and despite its unmistakable patriarchal leanings. Mackay’s repudiation of Darwinism and belief in an early type of creation science therein also locates the so-called “Barbarian Bible Man” opposite such virulent, racist theorizing as Social Darwinism and Eugenics. He was a dentist not an abortionist. A relative unknown to most Western scholars of religion, Mackay is Taiwan’s most famous native son, represented on the national stage in 2008 as a sky god and Taiwanese animistic deity of supernatural power and political influence par excellent. Although a product of the colonial times in which he lived, post-colonial scholars who ignore Mackay, his life and legacy, clearly do so at some peril.



","“The first book of its kind on the fascinating and pivotal Victorian figure of George Leslie Mackay, this volume contains a rich interdisciplinary conversation on the history, context, and legacy of Mackay and his mission. The contributors root Mackay within complex transnational networks of ideas, people, organizations, and cultures. Scholars of multiple disciplines will find this book helpful to contextualize and understand the life and lifework of George Leslie Mackay.”
—Benjamin E. Zeller, American Religion, Brevard College, Brevard, North Carolina, USA

“Clyde Forsberg has expertly edited this collection of essays from a range of able scholars from different disciplines. Collectively they provide a valuable insight into Mackay’s life, background, and legacy, and the Taiwanese cultural background in which he worked. . . . The essays are scholarly, yet readable, and deserve to be read by all who have an interest in Christian mission or Taiwanese history and culture.”
—Dr. G. D. Chryssides, Contemporary Religion, European Research Institute, University of Birmingham, UK

“George Leslie MacKay may have been the most important little-known Canadian in Chinese history. This volume ensures that he will no longer be overlooked. It reveals how much this pioneering Presbyterian missionary from Ontario contributed to the transformation and modernization of Taiwan. Thanks to this collection of scholarly articles, MacKay will finally get the attention he deserves.”
—Don Baker, Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Canada

“A fresh introduction to one of Canada’s truly exemplary 19th century pioneer missionaries, the eight original essays in this volume are each worth the price of the book.” 
—Jonathan J. Bonk, International Association for Mission Studies, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

“A real treasure of scholarship about a man whose life and career are crucial in order to understand not only Christian missions to China but also Christian efforts to overcome racism and discrimination.”
—Massimo Introvigne, Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), Torino, Italy

“Clearly, with this book, Clyde Forsberg renders a dynamic contribution to a new generation of scholarship and creates a study that raises meaningful questions furthering international awareness of the history of Christianity in Taiwan.”
—Ann Heylen, International Taiwan Studies and Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, National Taiwan Normal University

“These essays boldly advance the study of Mackay and clearly show why he is such a central figure in recent Taiwanese history. They fill in a too-often ignored gap in the history of Christianity in East Asia. These essays address a significant range of issues concerning the history of religion, transnationalism, missiology and biography. I predict the book will also guide many in setting out the agenda for future studies of religion in Taiwan given the vast range of new questions these works propose about the relationship of cultures in a colonialist milieu.”
—Chris Hartney, East Asian Studies, University of Sidney, Australia

“This is a fascinating collection of essays about a fascinating Presbyterian in the classic tradition of nineteenth-century Scottish missionaries, albeit that it was from Canada that George Leslie Mackay set sail in 1872 for Taiwan, or Formosa as it was then known. Referred to as the Black Bearded Barbarian, Mackay was a true polymath, embodying a vast array of skills and talents, not least being his ability to master Chinese within five months. With his Bible in one hand and a pair of forceps for extracting teeth in the other, Mackay was intent not merely on saving the natives’ souls, but also on promoting their health and education, peppering the island with churches, hospitals, schools and colleges that, frequently bearing his name, flourish to this day. Approaching the life and times of this remarkable and influential man from a number of perspectives and disciplines, Clyde Forsberg has edited a book that will be enjoyed by students of history, missiology, theology, religious studies and, indeed, by members of the general public. And Mackay certainly deserves to be remembered – not least for his wonderfully life-affirming motto: “Rather burn out than rust out”.”
—Professor Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion, London School of Economics


",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-02-01,Edward Dutton,Culture Shock and Multiculturalism: Reclaiming a Useful Model from the Religious Realm,Hardback,978-1-4438-3526-8,39.99,"It used to be widely accepted amongst anthropologists that when they conducted fieldwork with foreign cultures they experienced something called ‘culture shock.’ This book will argue that ‘culture shock’ is a useful model for understanding an important part of human experience. However, in its most widely-known form, the stage model, ‘culture shock’ has been heavily influenced by the same anti-science, latter-day religiosity that has become so influential more broadly: Multiculturalism.

This book will examine culture shock through the model of ‘religion.’ It will show how the most well-known model of culture shock – so popular amongst business consultants, expatriates, international students and travelers – has become a means of promoting and sustaining this replacement religion which includes everything from dogmatism and fervour to conversion experience. By so doing, it will aim both to better understand culture shock and to show how it can still be useful, if divorced from its implicitly religious dimensions, to broadly scientific scholars. It will also suggest how anthropology itself might be stripped of its ideological infiltration and returned to the realm of science.
","“Dr Dutton has a deep knowledge of his field. Methodically, he is extremely thorough and aware of all possible pitfalls, always seeking a theoretical perspective from which he can analyze. In Culture Shock and Multiculturalism, his perspective, examining culture shock through the prism of religion, is surprising and he actualizes a clear scholarly problem. The book examines questions which are extremely important to all those conducting scientific work. For example, what happens to scholars who produce science outside the fashionable in-group that dominates contemporary anthropological scholarship? This book will provoke a crucial debate about the influence of postmodern scholarship in anthropology as well as providing a highly original analysis of an à la mode concept.”
– Prof. Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, Åbo Akademi, Finland

“In Culture Shock and Multiculturalism, Edward Dutton develops a thoroughly plausible and mutually consistent and interlocking set of explanations and analyses to account for the ‘shocks’ and dislocations engendered by Multiculturalism. He makes a compelling case for the efficaciousness of stereotypes in human survival and even has the temerity to point out that the view that all cultures are equal and its supporting ideological infrastructure are somewhat vulnerable to scientific, empirical investigation. Truly shocking!”
– Dr Frank Ellis, Author of Political Correctness and the Theoretical Struggle
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-02-01,"Joy Schmack, Matthew Thompson and David Torevell with Camilla Cole",Engaging Religious Education,Paperback,978-1-4438-3667-8,24.99,"This book is the first to bring together a number of essays which deal directly with the crucial topic of ‘engagement’ in Religious Education. But it also breaks new ground by creating a dialogue with the world of ethics. Here readers will find fresh insights relevant to the 21st century. 

Contributors, all committed to excellence in Religious Education, include school teachers, sixth form tutors and those working in higher education. Addressing central issues in the debate from a range of theoretical and methodological positions, the book raises important questions about how we might understand and promote positive ‘engagement’ at the present time. Primarily, it has one aim in view: to make Religious Education a more stimulating and enjoyable experience for all those involved.



",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-02-01,Mickey Abel,Open Access: Contextualizing the Archivolted Portals of Northern Spain and Western France within the Theology and Politics of Entry,Hardback,978-1-4438-3564-0,39.99,"Open Access: Contextualizing the Archivolted Portals of Northern Spain and Western France within the Theology and Politics of Entry explores the history, development, and accrued connotations of a distinctive entry configuration comprised of a set of concentrically stepped archivolts surrounding a deliberate tympanum-free portal opening. These “archivolted” portals adorned many of the small, rural ecclesiastical structures dotting the countryside of western France and northern Spain in the twelfth century. Seeking to re-contextualize this configuration within monastic meditational practices, this book argues that the ornamented archivolts were likely composed following medieval prescriptions for the rhetorical ornamentation of poetry and employed the techniques of mnemonic recollection and imaginative visualization. Read in this light, it becomes clear that the architectural form underlying these semi-circular configurations served to open the possibilities for meaning by making the sculptural imagery physically and philosophically accessible to both the monastic community and the lay parishioner. Pointing to an Iberian heritage in which both light and space had long been manipulated in the conveyance of theological and political ideologies, Abel suggests that the portal’s architectural form grew out of a physical and social matrix characterized by pilgrimage, crusade, and processions, where the elements of motion integral to the Quadrivium sciences of Math, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music were enhanced by a proximity to and cultural interaction with the Islamic courts of Spain. It was, however, within the politics of the Peace of God movement, with its emphasis on relic processions that often encompassed all the parishes of the monastic domain, that the “archivolted” portal, with its elevated porch-like space, are shown to be the most effective.
","“With Open Access, Mickey Abel establishes a paradigm-shift in our understanding of hundreds of small, rural church façades of eleventh- and twelfth-century western France and northern Spain. The portals of these façades have concentrically-stepped archivolts surrounding a deliberately tympanum-free portal opening, and previously have been dismissed as merely decorative. Abel contextualizes and unlocks the complexities of these compositions and convincingly elucidates the profound meanings of these façade designs, distinguishing them from the narrative ‘Grand Tympanum’ portals traditionally valued as the ultimate in Romanesque architectural sculpture. Chapters reveal and build understanding through the application of medieval prescriptions for the rhetorical ornamentation of poetry, analyses of liturgical practice – especially micro-pilgrimage processions – and the presentation of sculpture as visual text. Abel reveals how these archivolted portals articulate non-corporal concepts through time/space/action; she demonstrates the activation of architecture through human movement, from regional landscape through the doorway to the altar and the divine presence; and she provides fresh insight into contemporaneous philosophical, political, and social organization. Through her incremental explanation of physical elements and their theoretical foundations, these church portals are made accessible and comprehensible for readers not only with words but also through extensive and detailed photographs.”
– Janet Snyder, PhD, School of Art and Design, College of Creative Arts, West Virginia University

“In this perceptive, interdisciplinary study, Dr Abel focuses her scholarly analysis on a ubiquitous but often neglected group of medieval artworks: the archivolted portals of Romanesque churches in southern France and northern Spain. Their lack of tympana has caused scholars to label them as merely decorative without any narrative focus. Dr Abel masterfully demonstrates how that perceived lack, the void at the center of the doors and their physical openness, opened them in turn to a variety of different interpretations and receptions. In this rich, reception-based analysis, Dr Abel focuses on the cognitive skills a medieval viewer would bring to his or her experience of these church entrances, highlighting the spatial and temporal dimensions of a viewer’s experience, and the kinetic, dynamic reception of portal sculpture that changed over time. She also effectively demonstrates the archivolted portal’s multivalence, weaving together in a skillful synthesis the various roles these portals might have played as memory devices, locations of micro-pilgrimage and religious contemplation, and statements of territorial possession and corporate affiliation. The emptiness of the door’s space provided a blank page on which medieval viewers could inscribe a variety of religious, mnemonic, judicial, political, and economic associations. This comprehensive and well-structured study shows, then, that the Romanesque archivolted portal required no master key to unlock its iconographic significance; rather, the medieval viewer activated the meanings for the door in an ongoing and dynamic process that addressed contemporary needs, interests, and realities.”
– Karen Rose Mathews, PhD, Department of Art and Art History, Miami University
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-02-01,Paolo Diego Bubbio and Paul Redding,Religion After Kant: God and Culture in the Idealist Era,Hardback,978-1-4438-3518-3,39.99,"After a period of neglect, the idealist and romantic philosophies that emerged in the wake of Kant’s revolutionary writings have once more become important foci of philosophical interest, especially in relation to the question of the role of religion in human life. By developing and reinterpreting basic Kantian ideas, an array of thinkers including Schelling, Hegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Hölderlin and Novalis transformed the conceptual framework within which the nature of religion could be considered. Furthermore, in doing so they significantly shaped the philosophical perspectives from within which later thinkers such as Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Wagner and Nietzsche could re-pose the question of religion. This volume explores the spaces opened during this extended period of post-Kantian thinking for a reconsideration of the place of religion within the project of human self-fashioning.
","“. . . German thought from Kant to Nietzsche has had an immense impact on philosophy . . . Its impact on religious practice and theology has probably been even greater. Religion After Kant: God and Culture in the Idealist Era gives us a fresh look at a philosophical movement that has also meant so much to the wide-ranging religious public.”
– Terry Pinkard, Georgetown University

“In recent decades the relations of religion with politics and philosophy have become more complex and tense than confident Enlightenment triumphalists of the mid-20th century could have imagined. We need better modes of thinking about religion. This volume of essays offers new perspectives on 19th century thinkers such as Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Wagner, and others. These are serious philosophical and historical essays, but they also give those thinkers a new urgency. In these essays the history of philosophy is not a museum where we can see extinct species, but a resource where we can find unexpected novelty in reading older thinkers and helpful new directions for our own reflections on today’s concerns and tensions.”
– David Kolb, Bates College
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-04-01,Kipton E. Jensen,Parallel Discourses: Religious Identity and HIV Prevention in Botswana,Hardback,978-1-4438-3718-7,34.99,"Animated by the belief that public health programs in Botswana, or other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, would be more effective if those who designed and implemented them possessed a better understanding of existing ethno-medical as well as religious beliefs and cultural practices, Parallel Discourses provides a revised topology of religious identity in Botswana and then shows why it is important to disaggregate or otherwise distinguish between diverse faith-based communities – from traditional African religions and African Independent Churches to mainline Christian denominations and Muslim communities – when designing or implementing faith-based HIV prevention programs. It also describes the identity politics at work within various faith communities as well as between the faith sector and public health officials. And while it may be true that there have existed parallel if not competing discourses on HIV and AIDS in Botswana, between the public health sector and the faith sector or between traditional healers and allopathic physicians, each with their own paradigms of authority and evidence, these strands of discourse are, as suggested throughout this book, amenable to a dialogical rapprochement. Interweaving parallel discourses on HIV and AIDS is itself instrumental to the implementation of increasingly effective HIV prevention programs, enhanced HIV diagnostic capacities and better care for PLWHA (People Living with HIV and AIDS). Though these essays focus on the many obstacles to collaboration between faith communities and the public health sector in Botswana, they also suggest common ground for increasingly collaborative and effective faith-based HIV prevention interventions.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-05-01,Jan-Olav Henriksen and Tage Kurtén,"Crisis and Change: Religion, Ethics and Theology under Late Modern Conditions",Hardback,978-1-4438-3749-1,39.99,"A common basis for the project on which this volume is based is that one cannot understand religion and ethics without paying attention to the different contexts in, and by means of which, these cultural elements are expressed. This approach makes both religion and ethics liquid, and allows us to see them as based on specific contingencies rather than as expressions of some essential features.

The changing societal and cultural conditions in late modern Western societies pose new challenges for established religion, theology and ethics: Not only does religion itself appear to be in some kind of crisis, but also many of the established ways of understanding and doing religion, theology and ethics appear obsolete, inadequate or dated. Against such a backdrop, the articles in the present volume represent attempts to rethink theology and religion with regard to these late modern conditions.

The volume is the result of a joint undertaking of two research groups, one based in Åbo, Finland, and the other in Oslo, Norway, which have since 2006 focused on exploring the contextual character of theology in understanding both Christian belief and Christian ethics.

The challenge of the idea that Christianity appears in new ways – and in “new” contexts, and of investigating what that means, is pursued in various ways.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-05-01,Charles S. Kraszewski,"Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism and Paganism in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz",Hardback,978-1-4438-3761-3,39.99,"In the midst of a multi-national comparative study of modern Catholic poets, Charles S. Kraszewski was more than a little surprised at the difficulty he encountered in finding a representative poet from that ostensibly most Catholic of European nations, Poland. With but two guiding criteria in mind – the poet had to be possessed of a Catholic world view and have a significant impact on the development of modern poetry – it seemed that Polish poets were either very good . . . or Catholic. Then, in 2004, during the funeral of the Nobel Prize winning poet Czesław Miłosz, it was revealed that the poet had written a recent letter to the Pope, declaring his intent, in his later writings, to express a Catholic viewpoint.

This was a surprising admission, given the rather heterodox reputation that characterized the poet during his long lifetime. Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism and Paganism in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz is the fruit of Kraszewski’s research into the religious themes expressed in the poetry of the great bard. Beginning with his earliest published poems and continuing through the posthumously printed collections, the book is a careful consideration of the religious claims set forth in Miłosz’s works, which range from orthodox Christianity, through dualism and gnostic thought, with a healthy dose of pagan appraisal of the wonder of the natural world.

In response to the question “Was Miłosz a Catholic poet?” Kraszewski first attempts to define that category, on the basis of Catholic core beliefs, and later, in a comparative discussion of indubitably Catholic greats, such as T. S. Eliot, Jan Zahradníček, and Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau. Although for the sake of clarity he focuses only on the poems, and not the prose works, of Czesław Miłosz, the answer to the question is made all the more difficult by the very personal lyrical “I” adopted by Miłosz in his poetic practice. Which “I” is speaking, when Manichean thought is expressed, and which “I” is it, that invokes the saints at moments of temptation? Whatever the answer to these questions may be, Irresolute Heresiarch is successful in highlighting the wide range, and complex nature, of one of the most influential and important poets of our time.
","“There is a strange contrast between the tenor of much of the poetry of Czesław Miłosz, and his concern at least towards the end of his life ‘to write poetry that should not depart from Catholic orthodoxy.’ In his ground breaking book Dr Kraszewski considers by careful analysis of the poet’s works whether he succeeded. However, the book’s importance goes beyond this particular poet. By considering Miłosz’s poetry in the context of three other writers who were both modern (in the literary sense of the word) and whose work was recognizably Catholic, Kraszewski addresses the general question of Catholicism and modern (or modernist) poetry in general, and thus provides criteria for other scholars to follow.” 	
– Rev. Janusz A. Ihnatowicz, STD, Professor Emeritus of Theology, University of Saint Thomas; Poet, recipient of the 2011 Literary Award of the Union of Polish Writers in Emigration

“Charles Kraszewski’s Irresolute Heresiarch is a deeply probing, erudite, and splendidly written exploration of the complex nature of Czesław Miłosz’s attitudes toward Christianity and Catholicism in the entire body of his poetry. While respectful of Miłosz’s achievement and legacy, Kraszewski is not a blind worshipper as others who have written on him. He lays bare his inconsistencies, contradictions, and weaknesses as a poet, and as a Catholic, and demonstrates how these have shaped his views of man, God, and Christ. Enriched by his thorough knowledge of the Catholic tradition, Kraszewski is well equipped to deal with so central an issue as the belief that despair lies at the very foundation of Miłosz’s poetic creation. Irresolute Heresiarch abounds in meaningful and enlightening references to other poets from Dante to the postmoderns. In an excellent concluding chapter, Kraszewski places the Polish Nobel Prize laureate in the context of such other Catholic modern poets as T. S. Eliot, the Czech Jan Zahradníček, and the Québécois Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, and shows how the persistent presence of anti-Christian themes in his poetry differentiates Miłosz from these other poets. For anyone interested in a revealing yet balanced understanding of one of the great poets of our age, Irresolute Heresiarch – its title well chosen – is must reading.”
– Harold B. Segel, Professor Emeritus of Slavic Literatures and of Comparative Literature, Columbia University
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-05-01,Stephen Theron,New Hegelian Essays: Seid   Umschlungen   Millionen,Hardback,978-1-4438-3754-5,44.99,"The essays here in fact form one essay, a connected whole demonstrating Hegel’s overcoming of the traditional religious dualisms, thus enabling Christian doctrine to be inserted, by a leap in interpretation, into the metaphysical tradition. This is chiefly effected via the various internal contradictions, laid bare in Hegel’s dialectical logic, in such pairs as natural and revealed, inside and outside, nature and grace, individual and universal. An overview of this is offered in the Preface. The first essay shows how religious apologetic cannot simply hold back from this deep penetration of religion’s mysteries in philosophical form. The next one sets forth Hegel’s account of revelation. We then pause for general consideration of Hegel’s absolute idealism as the philosophical form. This leads to a comparison with Aristotelian-Thomistic epistemology. After that we change direction somewhat to investigate the driving desire behind such investigations; a little biographical colouring is called into play. Quite naturally a treatment follows of happiness in relation to rationality, continuous with the author’s earlier treatments of the theme of happiness. This has now set the stage for a general comparison of theology and philosophy. Which of these is being exercised here? Grace in relation to nature follows naturally as the next subject.

After this there follows a kind of commentary upon Hegel’s choice of Being and his justification for taking Being as starting-point for his Science of Logic. We then pass to consider logical relations generally and in particular Identity, which leads naturally into rational treatment of Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and, after that, Incarnation, “Signs and Sacraments” and some of the at first sight odder manifestations of piety, viewed now philosophically. This is followed by consideration of Religion in relation to both Philosophy and Freedom. To illuminate the vision yet more we end with commentaries upon Hegel’s text, first that on “The Subjective Notion as Notion” and why it is called that, second upon his Introduction to the third part of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, namely, “The Philosophy of Spirit”.

Porphyry called the ancient Jews “a nation of philosophers”. He saw them as something more than a religious sect. The claim here – Hegel’s claim –  is that Christians are called to the perfection of both religion and philosophy in a “wisdom that comes from above” as perfecting the habit of faith. Religion, Hegel said, is for all men and women, and hence children; as it might seem, philosophy is not. Yet we have in most religions a tradition of “mysticism”, viewed either as an addition or, it is widely held, as the full accomplishment of the life of grace. Now there is more than an analogy between Hegel’s speculative philosophy and speculative mysticism, just as one might say of Augustine, Anselm, Eckhart and a host of others. In harmony with this, Hegel claims that speculative reason corresponds with our most ordinary thought processes. Thus, there is no technical philosophical language. To read Hegel, therefore, he says himself, is to participate in a philosophical Gottesdienst or divine “service”; one which as wholly spiritual bypasses the apparatus, it might seem, of Church and sacraments, whether or not these be deemed necessary. To this participation the text here presented invites, as sober presentation and not merely interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-05-01,John Andrew Morrow,Religion and Revolution: Spiritual and Political Islām in Ernesto Cardenal,Hardback,978-1-4438-3767-5,39.99,"Religion and Revolution provides a comprehensive study of spiritual and political Islām in Ernesto Cardenal, the great Latin American poet, priest, and revolutionary. The work studies the relationship between Thomas Merton and Ṣūfism, Cardenal’s connection to spiritual Islām, as well as the Ṣūfī sources cited in his Cosmic Canticle. The work equally examines the impact of political Islām on his ideology, focusing particularly on his trip to Iran during the very triumph of the Islāmic Revolution. Using Cardenal’s “Interlude of the Revolution in Iran” as a starting point, the work provides a vivid and detailed description of the early days of the revolution as well as the ties between the Islāmic Republic of Iran and the Latin American left.
",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-06-01,Dennis Gaffin,Running with the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion,Hardback,978-1-4438-3891-7,39.99,"Running with the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion is a unique account of the living spirituality and mysticism of fairyfolk in Ireland. Fairyfolk are fairyminded people who have had direct experiences with the divine energy and appearance of fairies, and fairypeople, who additionally know that they have been reincarnated from the Fairy Realm. While fairies have been folklore, superstition, or fantasy for most children and adults, now for the first time in a scholarly work, highly educated persons speak frankly about their religious/spiritual experiences, journeys, and transformations in connection with these angel-like spirit beings.

Set in academic and popular historical perspectives, this first scholarly account of the Fairy Faith for over a hundred years, since believer Evans-Wentz’s 1911 published doctoral dissertation The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, integrates a participatory, “going native” anthropology with transpersonal psychology. Providing extensive verbatim interviews and discussions, this path-breaking work recognizes the reality of nature spirit beings in a Western context.

Through intensive on-site fieldwork, the PhD cultural anthropologist author discovers, describes and interviews authentic mystics aligned with these intermediary deific beings. With an extensive introduction placing fairies in the context of the anthropology of religion, animism, mysticism, and consciousness, this daring ethnography considers notions of “belief”, “perception”, and spiritual “experience”, and with intricate detail extends the focus of anthropological research on spirit beings which previously have been considered as locally real only in indigenous and Eastern cultures.
","“Gaffin’s book, enlightened by very recent studies made by other practitioners of religions or holy ways of life, is of great value because it is by a practitioner/scholar of fairyhood and because the field is only sparsely covered in our time. Gaffin shows that his type of fieldwork is appropriate to the evanescent subject matter, fairies: I deeply respect his method here.

We see the difference between these figures and those in straight Chrisitianity. We badly need the fairies’ lightening up, humor, and love of fun. Here is a profound critique of Jung, who termed his spirit figures ‘archetypes’ – which is a word that doesn’t work – and who reckoned always from inside of the person, the individual, not seeing that a great many of us have indeed had visitations from outside ourselves.

This book plays on the leading edge of anthropology, using a relatively humble theme, the personal experiences of a group of people. But for those familiar with spirituality, the book has made a great advance. The innocence of the phenomenon, showing no binding laws or exclusivisms, no structures, is of the very stuff of spirituality. We have now learned about a beautiful new country which grows naturally in its own right. Fascinating.

This book will be immensely popular and most definitely appealing and useful across disciplinary boundaries, to audiences in religious studies departments, anthropology, art, psychology, medicine, Celtic studies, and philosophy.”
– Edith Turner is a distinguished anthropologist who teaches at the University of Virginia. She is known for her fieldwork in Africa with her late husband, Victor Turner, and for her more recent work among the north Alaskan Inupiat. She is the author of numerous books and articles including Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy; the autobiography Life of an Anthropologist; The Hands Feel It: Healing and Spirit Presence Among a Northern Alaskan People and the groundbreaking article “The Reality of Spirits”. She is an Associate of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

“This is an important work, a careful analysis of the nature of belief in a realm of the supernatural dismissed as childish or superstition by adherents to mainstream religions. It is well-written and well-argued: and packed with data. There is a definite need for this kind of study in anthropology today.

Gaffin quotes recent statements of other mainstream respected scholars in different social science disciplines in support of his approach. I would say that his work fits squarely within this important but under-represented realm of the anthropological study of human experience.

Gaffin’s recognition and admission that he has crossed over into a realm which his professional colleagues eschew, renders his study the more important. He experiences what probably a majority of the world’s people experience – indeed, what is fundamentally human, and the subject of increasing neurological research today. He knows that his attempt to objectively analyze his beliefs is professionally risky, yet he boldly does so, convinced that such analysis is important. And I agree.

This study is valuable, it is well-organized and well-written, and it can be an important contribution to anthropological understanding. Anthropology desperately needs more such careful detailed examinations of the development of beliefs in extraordinary phenomena. The psycho-neuro-bio-cultural processes by which people come to a ‘supernatural’ experience are insufficiently described in anthropology, and here is where Gaffin’s book can make an important contribution.

An important project, very well conceptualized, well constructed, and well-written.”
– Phillips Stevens, Jr. is a Professor of Anthropology and Religion at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. Author of numerous works, he is the editor of the 2011 four volume Anthropology of Religion: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies (Routledge) and contributor to the Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivals.
",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-07-01,Suzanne Bray and William Gray,"Persona and Paradox: Issues of Identity for C.S. Lewis, his Friends and Associates",Hardback,978-1-4438-3966-2,39.99,,,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-07-01,Nelia Hyndman-Rizk,Pilgrimage in the Age of Globalisation: Constructions of the Sacred and Secular in Late Modernity,Hardback,978-1-4438-3904-4,39.99,"This edited collection brings together a series of ethnographically grounded studies on sacred and secular pilgrimage in the age of globalisation from around the world. Pilgrimage is explored as a distinctive form of mobility in late modernity, which emphasises inner transformation. Thus, the studies in this volume show how pilgrimage unifies physical and metaphysical mobility into a holistic project of self-realisation through motion.

","“Nelia Hyndman-Rizk engages thoughtfully and constructively with the ‘mobility turn’ in social sciences and what light this can throw on pilgrimage’s distinctiveness as a form of mobility in ‘late-modern’ conditions. The chapters complement this approach through their explorations of the global and transnational flows of people, ideas and information and how those flows engage with local social, cultural/religious and political structures and processes. The volume also helps us to look beyond particular regions to the connections between regions around the world. Since most of the contributors have been trained in anthropology they engage productively in the analytical models which have shaped the anthropological study of pilgrimage and to which I have had the good fortune to contribute through my collaboration with Michael Sallnow and Simon Coleman. I am sure readers will find this volume not only informative but also intellectually stimulating. It makes a welcome contribution to our understanding of this multi-facetted, complex and global phenomenon.”
– John Eade, University of Roehampton/University College London

",Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-08-01,Jenny Daggers,Gendering Christian Ethics,Hardback,978-1-4438-4005-7,39.99,,,Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2012-08-01,Tamer Balci and Christopher L. Miller,The Gülen Hizmet Movement: Circumspect Activism in Faith-Based Reform,Hardback,978-1-4438-3989-1,49.99,,,Cambridge Scholars Publishing