Religious Experience and Its Transformational Power


Book Description

The author approaches the phenomenon 'religious experience' through a qualitative study in which young, urban people from Europe and the USA are empirically examined. It becomes clear that individuals themselves are constructive agents of experience and theology. Religious experience manifests itself as a transformative perspective of hope in the lives of young people. The study ends with a plea for a theology from below, based on liberation theology and feminist theories, in which contextual perspectives are central to practical theological theorising.




Religious Experience and Its Transformational Power


Book Description

The author approaches the phenomenon 'religious experience' through a qualitative study in which young, urban people from Europe and the USA are empirically examined. It becomes clear that individuals themselves are constructive agents of experience and theology. Religious experience manifests itself as a transformative perspective of hope in the lives of young people. The study ends with a plea for a theology from below, based on liberation theology and feminist theories, in which contextual perspectives are central to practical theological theorising.




The Power of Stillness


Book Description




The Transformative Power of Faith


Book Description

The Transformative Power of Faith examines how and why some people, particularly those coming out of highly self-destructive, violent, and antisocial backgrounds who appear beyond repair, experience profound personal transformation through conversion to strong faith. Illustrated by stories of converts who came out of serious drug addiction, gangs, and poverty through adherence to a demanding faith, Erin Dufault-Hunter argues for a narrative approach to conversion. This holistic theoretical perspective offers an alternative epistemological stance to reductionistic models sometimes perpetuated among social scientists and religious ethicists alike. In this study, the narrative lens gives vision of the religious "Other" a depth and complexity too often lacking. Such an approach allows a deeper understanding of the dynamics of personal transformation in ways that make sense of psychological and social factors without ignoring so-called "spiritual" ones.




Women's Work


Book Description

In Women’s Work: The Transformational Power of Faith-Based Community Organizing, Susan L. Engh draws on her own experiences and those of twenty-one other women who work in the field of faith-based community organizing to describe how women have been transformed by their participation in organizing, and how they have been agents of transformation in congregations, denominations, organizations, and the public arena. This book provides a basic description of faith-based community organizing through the first-person perspectives of a diverse array of women.




Mission in Crisis


Book Description

»Mission in crisis« – this diagnosis makes immediate sense in view of the rapid decline of European Christian churches. However, there is a great deal of controversy as to what exactly this crisis consists of, what its actual causes are and what dynamics the crisis discourse itself exhibits. The contributions in this volume were held on an international conference that took place from November 25–27, 2022 at the University of Zurich. They pursue these questions from a mission-theological perspective and seek to open up new perspectives for the future of the church in both secular and plural societies. With contributions from: Heike Breitenstein, John G. Flett, Ralph Kunz, Sabrina Müller, Stefan Paas, Henk de Roest, Stefan Schweyer, Patrick Todjeras, Graham Tomlin, Benno van den Toren, and Henning Wrogemann. [Mission in der Krise. Über eine unerledigte Aufgabe der Kirche] »Mission in der Krise« – diese Diagnose leuchtet im Blick den rapiden Niedergang europäischer christlicher Kirchen unmittelbar ein. Allerdings ist heftig umstritten, worin genau diese Krise besteht, was ihre eigentlichen Ursachen sind und welche Dynamik der Krisendiskurs selbst aufweist. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes stammen von einer internationalen, vom 25.–27.11.2022 an der Universität Zürich abgehaltenen Tagung. Sie gehen diesen Fragen in missionstheologischer Perspektive nach und suchen neue Perspektiven für die Zukunft von Kirche in ebenso säkularen wie pluralen Gesellschaften zu eröffnen.




Liminal Reality and Transformational Power


Book Description

Liminal Reality and Transformational Power explores, draws together, and integrates the many facets of liminality, and informs our understanding of liminal phenomena in the world. Through anthropology, sociology, theology, neurology and psychology, Carson correlates exterior transitions with their corresponding intra-psychic movements and points toward useful methods that contribute to personal and social transformation. In this revised edition, Carson has recognised the resurgence of liminality, and addresses the social transitions that are prevalent today in communities around the world. He examines the identity of the 'liminal' person and highlights the role of ritual leaders and religious professionals as they guide people through liminal time and space. Carson's work greatly contributes to an expanded understanding of the complex dimensions of religious leadership and provides useful insight into our intra-psychic processes during the significant transitional stages in life.




Sick Souls, Healthy Minds


Book Description

James believed that philosophy was meant to articulate, and help answer, a single existential question, one which lent itself to the title of one of his most famous essays: "Is life worth living?" Through examination of an array of existentially loaded topics covered in his works-truth, God, evil, suffering, death, and the meaning of life-James concluded that it is up to us to make life worth living. He said that our beliefs, the truths that guide our lives, matter-their value and veracity turn on the way they play out practically for ourselves and our communities. For James, philosophy was about making life meaningful, and for some of us, liveable. This is the core of his "pragmatic maxim," that truth should be judged on the bases of its practical consequences. Kaag shows how James put this maxim into use in his philosophy and his life and how we can do so in our own. .




Critical Theory and New Materialisms


Book Description

Bringing together authors from two intellectual traditions that have, so far, generally developed independently of one another – critical theory and new materialism – this book addresses the fundamental differences and potential connections that exist between these two schools of thought. With a focus on some of the most pressing questions of contemporary philosophy and social theory – in particular, those concerning the status of long-standing and contested separations between matter and life, the biological and the symbolic, passivity and agency, affectivity and rationality – it shows that recent developments in both traditions point to important convergences between them and thus prepare the ground for a more direct confrontation and cross-fertilization. The first volume to promote a dialogue between critical theory and new materialism, this collection explores the implications for contemporary debates on ecology, gender, biopolitics, post-humanism, economics and aesthetics. As such, it will appeal to philosophers, social and political theorists, and sociologists with interests in contemporary critical theory and materialism.




Six Ways of Being Religious


Book Description

The book proposes the hypothesis that six generic ways of being religious may be found in any large-scale religious tradition such as Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism: sacred rite, right action, devotion, shamanic mediation, mystical quest, and reasoned inquiry. These are recurrent ways in which, socially and individually, devout members of these traditions take up and appropriate their stories and symbols in order to draw near to, and come into right relationship with, what the traditions attest to be the ultimate reality.