A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed


Book Description

Race and privilege are issues that cry out for new kinds of attention and healing in American society. More specifically, we are being called to surface the dynamics of whiteness especially in contexts where whites have had the most power in America. The church is one of those contexts--particularly churches that have traditionally been seen as the stalwarts of the American religious landscape: mainline Protestant churches. Theologians and Presbyterian ministers Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Marcia Mount Shoop invite us to acknowledge and address the wounds of race and privilege that continue to harm and diminish the life of the church. Using Eucharist as a template for both the church's blindness and for Christ's redemptive capacity, this book invites faith communities, especially white-dominant churches, into new ways of re-membering what it means to be the body of Christ. In a still racialized society, can the body of Christ truly acknowledge and dress the wounds of race and privilege? Re-membering Christ's broken and betrayed body may be just the healing path we need. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }




A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed


Book Description

Race and privilege are issues that cry out for new kinds of attention and healing in American society. More specifically, we are being called to surface the dynamics of whiteness especially in contexts where whites have had the most power in America. The church is one of those contexts--particularly churches that have traditionally been seen as the stalwarts of the American religious landscape: mainline Protestant churches. Theologians and Presbyterian ministers Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Marcia Mount Shoop invite us to acknowledge and address the wounds of race and privilege that continue to harm and diminish the life of the church. Using Eucharist as a template for both the church's blindness and for Christ's redemptive capacity, this book invites faith communities, especially white-dominant churches, into new ways of re-membering what it means to be the body of Christ. In a still racialized society, can the body of Christ truly acknowledge and dress the wounds of race and privilege? Re-membering Christ's broken and betrayed body may be just the healing path we need.




Broken Body, Healing Spirit


Book Description

In the summer of 1995, Mary Earle returned from a vacation feeling refreshed and restored from her time away. A few days later, all that changed, when she was rushed to the emergency room with a case of acute and life-threatening pancreatitis. Being ill, she discovered, forces you to learn to live in whole new ways, ones often marked by limitation and fragility. As a priest and spiritual director, Earle began to explore ways in which her own prayer life might help her build a different relationship with her illness. Using the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, or sacred reading, she began to "read" her own illness, and discovered a way of befriending and helping to heal--if not cure--her body and her life. In Broken Body, Healing Spirit, Earle introduces this strategy to others who are hungry to find ways of living more fully despite chronic or serious illness or pain. Her practical, step-by-step approach to "reading the text of our illnesses," and learning to listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us will be of help to those who are currently suffering with disease or limitations, as well as to those who are caregivers and counselors.




The Betrayal of the Body


Book Description

The Betrayal of the Body is Alexander Lowen's pioneering study of the mind-body split. Lowen describes the way people deny the reality, needs, and feelings of their bodies. This denial leads to the development of the division between mind and body, creating an over-charged ego obsessed with thinking at the expense of feeling and being. This book illustrates the energetic factors behind the split, the factors that produce it, and the proven therapeutic techniques that are available to treat it. Lowen further explores the mind-body duality in the individual and its parallel duality and dysfunction in society between culture and nature, and between thinking and feeling.




Let the Bones Dance


Book Description

Minister and theologian Marcia Mount Shoop Offers an analysis of Reformed heritage---and an impassioned provocation that we live more adventurously. "Beautifully written and deeply felt. This work offers a vivid theology relocated in the flesh and blood of life's utter physicality. Finally a book to recommend when people ask about resources on bodies and theology!"---Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Pastoral Theology, The Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, Vanderbilt University "An incredibly compelling theological work. Bringing together a host of cutting-edge concerns that matter not simply to academic theologians, but to the lived life of faith, this project invokes the importance of bodies and their marking by gender, race, ethnicity, etc. Mount Shoop uses these now-familiar themes to break new ground by revealing the inadequacy of the overly verbal and cognitive character of Protestant worship and practice. It is groundbreaking."---Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Professor of Theology, Duke Divinity School, and author of Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church "Mount Shoop thiks in new ways about central theological concepts and dares to imagine a new church emerging out of them. She combines the intellectual vigor of an academic with the heart and soul of a pastor who understands what it means to lead a congregation. Happily, she writes like a poet. Let the Bones Dance is provocative, stimulating, and readable."---John M. Buchanan, pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois, and author of A New Church for a New World Contemporary Christian faith and practice tend to address spiritual, mental, and emotional issues but ignore the body. As a result, many believers are uncomfortable in their own skins. Mount Shoop addresses this "dis-ease" with a theology that is attentive to physical experience. She also suggests how worship services can more fully invite God to inhabit every part of a congregation---including their flesh-and-blood bodies.




The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body is the first comprehensive volume to feature multireligious cross-cultural perspectives on the body and embodiment. Featuring multidisciplinary approaches and methodologies from the humanities and the social sciences, it addresses the body and embodied religiosity in theological, ethical, and cultural contexts. Comprised of 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, the handbook is divided into four parts: Theology and Embodied Religiosity Gender, Sexuality, and Body Regulations Ritual and Performance Religion, Healing, and the Future of the Body Each part examines central issues, debates, and problems in relation to global belief systems, including embodiments of love, transfiguration, the secular body, disability, body language, maternal bodies, embodied emotions, celibacy, ecology and the body, reshaping the corporal body, initiation rites, physiology, Tantra, Reiki practice, religious experience, technological body modifications, and ethics and the body. Providing a breadth of rich and innovative research, it is a must-read for students and scholars in religious studies, theology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, and cultural and gender studies. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Wait—Is This Racist?


Book Description

A "Be-It-Yourself" Guide to Anti-racism for Churches and Church Leaders Whether you have been an ally for years or just recently opened your eyes to racial injustice, guiding your predominantly white church toward anti-racism is a daunting task. Where do you even begin? White churches especially feel an urgency to respond but at the same time suffer a sense of overwhelmingness and futility, as if no one action, sermon series, or service project will solve the problem of racism in America. And they're right. Instead, we must begin to look deeply at our organizations—our traditions, our ministries, our leadership, our ways of making decisions, our ways of interacting with the world beyond the church—to identify and address implicit biases and to discover how white pseudo-supremacy has been encoded into our way of "doing church." Wait—Is This Racist? is here to guide you and your church through this challenging and uncomfortable work. Intentionally interactive, practical, and biblically based, Wait—Is This Racist? guides church leaders and staff through an examination of all aspects of church life, including leadership, preaching and liturgy, music, small groups, buildings and grounds, and more, to help churches create an action plan that will take them toward not only becoming anti-racist but also actually doing anti-racist work. Offering educational tips, powerful stories, and insightful questions, anti-racism consultants Kerry, Bryana, and Josh will accompany you through this necessary work so that your church can truly become a justice-oriented organization that leans more fully into the kin-dom of God. Features: A clear audit of church operations and reasons why this work is so important Workbook-style questions at the end of each chapter A workable action plan for churches to implement what they have learned Tips, encouragement, and questions for BIPOC leaders in primarily white churches Helpful glossary of terms to aid general understanding




Liturgy and Ethics


Book Description

The connection between Christian ethics and liturgy has been on the research agenda for some decades now. Liturgy and Ethics addresses this issue departing from the particularity of the Reformed tradition and its potential for contributing to the discussion. The volume offers in-depth studies of how to understand God’s acting in worship, the centrality of justice, and the formative meaning of the liturgy, and relates these reflections to various moral issues and contemporary liturgical practices. In combining a specific theological approach with a broad disciplinary treatment of the topics this volume aims to push forward the scholarly discussion on liturgy and ethics in significant ways.




The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Cities


Book Description

Like an ecosystem, cities develop, change, thrive, adapt, expand, and contract through the interaction of myriad components. Religion is one of those living parts, shaping and being shaped by urban contexts. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Cities is an outstanding interdisciplinary reference source to the key topics, problems, and methodologies of this cutting-edge subject. Representing a diverse array of cities and religions, the common analytical approach is ecological and spatial. It is the first collection of its kind and reflects state-of-the-art research focusing on the interaction of religions and their urban contexts. Comprising 29 chapters, by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into three parts: Research methodologies Religious frameworks and ideologies in urban contexts Contemporary issues in religion and cities Within these sections, emerging research and analysis of current dynamics of urban religions are examined, including: housing, economics, and gentrification; sacred ritual and public space; immigration and the refugee crisis; political conflicts and social change; ethnic and religious diversity; urban policy and religion; racial justice; architecture and the built environment; religious art and symbology; religion and urban violence; technology and smart cities; the challenge of climate change for global cities; and religious meaning-making of the city. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Cities is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and urban studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as sociology, history, architecture, urban planning, theology, social work, and cultural studies.




Sacramental Presence


Book Description

Drawing on performance studies and sacramental and liturgical theology, Ruthanna B. Hooke develops a theology of proclamation grounded in the body’s experience of preaching. The author explores the claim that preaching is a sacramental event of communion with the triune God by comparing the steps involved in voice production with the fourfold shape of the Eucharist. This comparison yields a description of preaching as an event of self-offering that allows space for the humanity of the preacher and as an encounter with the Holy Spirit that is communal and prophetic. Preaching draws participants into Christ’s dying and rising, and hence into a mode of power known in vulnerability. Calling hearers into the eschatological event of the resurrection, preaching inherently moves toward proclamation on political and ethical issues. Hooke uses this theological framework to offer ways of preaching on environmental crisis and on racism. The author calls preachers to embodied engagement with preaching and describes a way for preachers to bear witness to Jesus Christ not only in the content of their proclamation, but in their way of being in the preaching event.