A Sacred Kingdom


Book Description

Drawing on the records of nearly 100 bishops' councils spanning the centuries, alongside royal law, edicts, and capitularies of the same period, this study details how royal law and the very character of kingship among the Franks were profoundly affected by episcopal traditions of law and social order.




Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier


Book Description

Best Book Award • Mormon History Association A brilliant young historian excavates the brief life of a lost Mormon city, uncovering a “grand, underappreciated saga in American history” (Wall Street Journal). In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park draws on newly available sources to re-create the founding and destruction of the Mormon city of Nauvoo. On the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois, the early Mormons built a religious utopia, establishing their own army and writing their own constitution. For those offenses and others—including the introduction of polygamy, which was bitterly opposed by Emma Smith, the iron-willed first wife of Joseph Smith—the surrounding population violently ejected the Mormons, sending them on their flight to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows how the Mormons of Nauvoo were representative of their era, and in doing so elevates Mormon history into the American mainstream.




Legends of the Lost Sacred Kingdom


Book Description

The Vhangona people, natives of the sacred kingdom of Mapungubwe, had embraced their mythological beliefs indoctrinated throughout generations. Traditional healers had used supernatural powers vested upon them by their ancestors to protect their monarchy from any calamities. However, the malevolent monster from the forbidden mountains had begun to terrorize the kingdom. Aristocrats and untouchables of the tribe convinced their great king that the monster could not be defeated. Regrettably, not even their powerful wizard and his waters of Babele could stand against the monsters wrath. Will they succeed in rescuing the missing girl captured by the monster? Their actions could put the entire kingdom on the verge of extinction. The monster could disguise itself, use her body to re-enter their land, and destroy their kingdom. As their last resort, the most decorated traditional healer and his explorers should find the untraceable fountains of Lunandau, the land of supernatural, home of the sacred white spirits. Great witchdoctors, nobles, and untouchables had embarked on a journey to Lunandau before, but there was yet a single person to return.




Overlord, Vol. 12 (light novel)


Book Description

The Sacred Kingdom has enjoyed a great many years without war thanks to a colossal wall constructed after a historic tragedy. They understand best how fragile peace can be. When the terrible demon Jaldabaoth takes to the field at the head of a united army of monstrous tribes, the Sacred Kingdom's leaders know their defenses are not enough. With the very existence of the country at stake, the pious have no choice but to seek help wherever they can get it, even if it means breaking taboo and parlaying with the undead king of the Nation of Darkness!




The Holy Roman Empire [2 volumes]


Book Description

Reference entries, overview essays, and primary source document excerpts survey the history and unveil the successes and failures of the longest-lasting European empire. The Holy Roman Empire endured for ten centuries. This book surveys the history of the empire from the formation of a Frankish Kingdom in the sixth century through the efforts of Charlemagne to unify the West around A.D. 800, the conflicts between emperors and popes in the High Middle Ages, and the Reformation and the Wars of Religion in the Early Modern period to the empire's collapse under Napoleonic rule. A historical overview and timeline are followed by sections on government and politics, organization and administration, individuals, groups and organizations, key events, the military, objects and artifacts, and key places. Each of these topical sections begins with an overview essay, which is followed by alphabetically arranged reference entries on significant topics. The book includes a selection of primary source documents, each of which is introduced by a contextualizing headnote, and closes with a selected, general bibliography.




The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom


Book Description

Occupying much of imperial China’s Yangzi River heartland and costing more than twenty million lives, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) was no ordinary peasant revolt. What most distinguished this dramatic upheaval from earlier rebellions were the spiritual beliefs of the rebels. The core of the Taiping faith focused on the belief that Shangdi, the high God of classical China, had chosen the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan, to establish his Heavenly Kingdom on Earth. How were the Taiping rebels, professing this new creed, able to mount their rebellion and recruit multitudes of followers in their sweep through the empire? Thomas Reilly argues that the Taiping faith, although kindled by Protestant sources, developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion whose conception of its sovereign deity challenged the legitimacy of the Chinese empire. The Taiping rebels denounced the divine pretensions of the imperial title and the sacred character of the imperial office as blasphemous usurpations of Shangdi’s title and position. In place of the imperial institution, the rebels called for restoration of the classical system of kingship. Previous rebellions had declared their contemporary dynasties corrupt and therefore in need of revival; the Taiping, by contrast, branded the entire imperial order blasphemous and in need of replacement. In this study, Reilly emphasizes the Christian elements of the Taiping faith, showing how Protestant missionaries built on earlier Catholic efforts to translate Christianity into a Chinese idiom. Prior studies of the rebellion have failed to appreciate how Hong Xiuquan’s interpretation of Christianity connected the Taiping faith to an imperial Chinese cultural and religious context. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom shows how the Bible--in particular, a Chinese translation of the Old Testament--profoundly influenced Hong and his followers, leading them to understand the first three of the Ten Commandments as an indictment of the imperial order. The rebels thus sought to destroy imperial culture along with its institutions and Confucian underpinnings, all of which they regarded as blasphemous. Strongly iconoclastic, the Taiping followers smashed religious statues and imperially approved icons throughout the lands they conquered. By such actions the Taiping Rebellion transformed--at least for its followers but to some extent for all Chinese--how Chinese people thought about religion, the imperial title and office, and the entire traditional imperial and Confucian order. This book makes a major contribution to the study of the Taiping Rebellion and to our understanding of the ideology of both the rebels and the traditional imperial order they opposed. It will appeal to scholars in the fields of Chinese history, religion, and culture and of Christian theology and church history.




Asian Sacred Natural Sites


Book Description

Nature conservation planning tends to be driven by models based on Western norms and science, but these may not represent the cultural, philosophical and religious contexts of much of Asia. This book provides a new perspective on the topic of sacred natural sites and cultural heritage by linking Asian cultures, religions and worldviews with contemporary conservation practices and approaches. The chapters focus on the modern significance of sacred natural sites in Asian protected areas with reference, where appropriate, to an Asian philosophy of protected areas. Drawn from over 20 different countries, the book covers examples of sacred natural sites from all of IUCN’s protected area categories and governance types. The authors demonstrate the challenges faced to maintain culture and support spiritual and religious governance and management structures in the face of strong modernisation across Asia. The book shows how sacred natural sites contribute to defining new, more sustainable and more equitable forms of protected areas and conservation that reflect the worldviews and beliefs of their respective cultures and religions. The book contributes to a paradigm-shift in conservation and protected areas as it advocates for greater recognition of culture and spirituality through the adoption of biocultural conservation approaches.




Sacred Garden


Book Description

About the Book Sacred Garden is about hope and healing to overcome challenges and live your best life. It teaches how to transform heartache to victory. This book includes powerful strategies that are well used in the field of psychology. It will help you discover the best of who you are. It describes revolutionary ideas for individual and collective transformation. It inspires spiritual growth through meditation and energy work. Sacred Garden is so relevant in a society saturated in trauma. It provides readers with mindful tools to cultivate peace, joy, and happiness. It includes personal and clinical examples of struggle and heartache matched with mindful methods to overcome. You will learn viable, lasting practices that lead to abundance. We create our destiny. We can enjoy the journey, delight in life, and be enchanted. Life is abundant and truly magical when we learn to be mindful and appreciate our many gifts. About the Author Amy Lynn has practiced in the field of psychology for over twenty years, helping thousands of patients find hope and healing. She is a proud mother of two incredible kids who now have amazing families of their own including all her wonderful grands! Amy runs a private practice in the heart of downtown Sioux City. She offers mindful meditation seminars and empowerment workshops worldwide. She has masters degrees in psychology, clinical mental health, and addictions therapy. She is a nationally certified professional counselor, a licensed psychotherapist, and a wellness coach in the areas of empowerment, personal discovery, and spiritual growth.




The Holy Bible


Book Description




Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire


Book Description

Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire recounts the history of an exceptional ninth-century religious outlaw, Gottschalk of Orbais. Frankish Christianity required obedience to ecclesiastical superiors, voluntary participation in reform, and the belief that salvation was possible for all baptized believers. Yet Gottschalk-a mere priest-developed a controversial, Augustinian-based theology of predestination, claiming that only divine election through grace enabled eternal life. Gottschalk preached to Christians within the Frankish empire-including bishops-and non-Christians beyond its borders, scandalously demanding they confess his doctrine or be revealed as wicked reprobates. Even after his condemnations for heresy in the late 840s, Gottschalk continued his activities from prison thanks to monks who smuggled his pamphlets to a subterranean community of supporters. This study reconstructs the career of the Carolingian Empire's foremost religious dissenter in order to imagine that empire from the perspective of someone who worked to subvert its most fundamental beliefs. Examining the surviving evidence (including his own writings), Matthew Gillis analyzes Gottschalk's literary and spiritual self-representations, his modes of argument, his prophetic claims to martyrdom and miraculous powers, and his shocking defiance to bishops as strategies for influencing contemporaries in changing political circumstances. In the larger history of medieval heresy and dissent, Gottschalk's case reveals how the Carolingian Empire preserved order within the church through coercive reform. The hierarchy compelled Christians to accept correction of perceived sins and errors, while punishing as sources of spiritual corruption those rare dissenters who resisted its authority.