Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred


Book Description

This book examines science fiction's relationship to religion and the sacred through the lens of significant books, films and television shows. It provides a clear account of the larger cultural and philosophical significance of science fiction, and explores its potential sacrality in today's secular world by analyzing material such as Ray Bradbury's classic novel The Martian Chronicles, films The Abyss and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also the Star Trek universe. Richard Grigg argues that science fiction is born of nostalgia for a truly 'Other' reality that is no longer available to us, and that the most accurate way to see the relationship between science fiction and traditional approaches to the sacred is as an imitation of true sacrality; this, he suggests, is the best option in a secular age. He demonstrates this by setting forth five definitions of the sacred and then, in consecutive chapters, investigating particular works of science fiction and showing just how they incarnate those definitions. Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred also considers the qualifiers that suggest that science fiction can only imitate the sacred, not genuinely replicate it, and assesses the implications of this investigation for our understanding of secularity and science fiction.




Biblical Themes in Science Fiction


Book Description

What does a first-generation female robot have in common with the biblical figure of Eve? Or an intergenerational spaceship with Noah’s ark? If a computer compiles a deceased person’s photographs and digital activities into a virtual avatar, is that a form of resurrection? Such seemingly unlikely scenarios are common in science fiction—and science fiction writers often draw on people, places, and events from biblical texts, assuming that audiences will understand the parallels. Biblical Themes in Science Fiction is a journey from creation to apocalypse where contributors Frank Bosman, Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, Krista N. Dalton, Tom de Bruin, James F. McGrath, Kelly J. Murphy, Steven J. Schweitzer, Jason A. Staples, Nicole L. Tilford, Christine Wenderoth, and Jackie Wyse-Rhodes trace biblical themes as they appear in contemporary science fiction, including Doctor Who, Lilith’s Brood, The Handmaid’s Tale, Battlestar Galactica, and Fallout 3. Essays are supplemented by images and key science fiction sources for diving deeper into how the Bible influenced writers and creators. An afterword considers the imaginative impulses common to both science fiction and biblical texts.




Theology and Star Trek


Book Description

After Star Trek: Enterprise concluded in 2005, Star Trek went on hiatus until the 2009 film Star Trek and its sequels. With the success of these films, Star Trek returned to the small screen with series like Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds. These films and series, in different ways, reflect cultural shifts in Western society. Theology and Star Trek gathers a group of scholars from various religious and theological disciplines to reflect upon the connection between theology and Star Trek anew. The essays in part one, “These are the Voyages,” explore the overarching themes of Star Trek and the thought of its creator, Gene Roddenberry. Part two, “Strange New Worlds,” discusses politics and technology. Part three, “To Explore and to Seek,” focuses on issues related to practice and formation. Part four, “To Boldly Go,” contemplates the future of Star Trek.




Journal of Moral Theology, Volume 10, Issue 2


Book Description

Introduction David Cloutier and Robert Koerpel “But from the begining it was not so”: The Jewish Apocalyptic Context of Jesus’s Teaching on Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage John W. Martens Historical Theology and the Problem of Divorce and Remarriage Today David G. Hunter Saint John Henry Newman, Development of Doctrine, and Sensus Fidelium: His Enduring Legacy in Roman Catholic Theological Discourse Kenneth Parker The Risk of Tradition: With de Certeau toward a Postmodern Catholic Theory Philipp W. Rosemann Tradition as Given: Eucharist, Theological Pugilism, and Eschatological Patience Jonathan Martin Ciraulo Interpreting Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia in Light of the Incarnation Nicholas J. Healy, Jr. Beyond the Law-Conscience Binary in Catholic Moral Thought David Cloutier and Robert Koerpel Inculturating through the Lens of Liberation: John Mary Waliggo and the Renewal of Catholic Tradition in Africa J.J. Carney Gnoseological Concupiscence, Intersectionality, and Living Truthfully: Insights into How and Why Moral Theology Develops Kathryn Lilla Cox The Challenge of Technology to Moral Theology Paul Scherz Book Reviews Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister, Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy Kent J. Lasnoski Marie Dennis, ed., Choosing Peace. The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence Margaret R. Pfeil Kevin Flannery, Action and Character According to Aristotle: The Logic of the Moral Life Michael Bolin Richard Grigg, Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred Kim Paffenroth Elizabeth T. Groppe, ed., Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart: Cultivating a Sacramental Imagination in an Age of Pornography Matthew Sherman Matthew Hanley, Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: Current Practices and Ethics Gina Maria Noia Theodora Hawksley, Peacebuilding and Catholic Social Teaching Caesar A. Montevecchio Albert de Mingo Kaminouchi, Brother John of Taizé, trans., An Introduction to Christian Ethics: A New Testament Perspective Thomas P. Scheck Han-Luen Kantzer Komline, Augustine on the Will: A Theological Account J. M. Stewart Matthew Levering, Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance Steven J. Jensen Matthew Levering, Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage: Human Marriage as the Image and Sacrament of the Marriage of God and Creation Timothy P. O’Malley Marcus Mescher, The Ethics of Encounter: Christian Neighbor Love as a Practice of Solidarity Jessica Wrobleski Kelley Nikondeha, Defiant: What the Women of Exodus Teach us About Freedom Patricia Sharbaugh Michael S. Sherwin, OP, On Love and Virtue: Theological Essays James W. Stroud Janet E. Smith, Self-Gift: Essays on Humanae Vitae and the Thought of John Paul II John Sikorski




Destruction, Ethics, and Intergalactic Love


Book Description

Destruction, Ethics, and Intergalactic Love: Exploring Y: The Last Man and Saga offers a creative and accessible exploration of the two comic book series, examining themes like nonviolence; issues of gender and war; heroes and moral failures; forgiveness and seeking justice; and the importance of diversity and religious pluralism. Through close interdisciplinary reading and personal narratives, the author delves into the complex worlds of Y and Saga in search of an ethics, meaning, and a path resonant with real-world struggles. Reading these works side by side, the analysis draws parallels and seeks common themes around the four central ideas of seeking and making meaning in a meaningless world; love and parenting through oppression and grief; peacefulness when surrounded by violence; and the perils and hopes of diversity and communion. This timely and thoughtful study will resonate with scholars and students of comic studies, media and cultural studies, philosophy, theology, literature, psychology, and popular culture studies.




The Forbidden Body


Book Description

"Throughout history, the religious imagination has attempted to control nothing so much as our bodies: what they are and what they mean; what we do with them, with whom, and under what circumstances; how they may be displayed-or, more commonly, how they must be hidden. Religious belief and mandate affect how our bodies are used in ritual practice, as well as how we use them to identify and marginalize threatening religious Others. This book examines how horror culture treats religious bodies that have stepped (or been pushed) out of their 'proper' place. Unlike most books on religion and horror, This book explores the dark spaces where sex, sexual representation, and the sexual body come together with religious belief and scary stories. Because these intersections of sex, horror, and the religious imagination force us to question the nature of consensus reality, supernatural horror, especially as it concerns the body, often shows us the religious imagination at work in real time. It is important to note that the discussion in this book is not limited either to horror cinema or to popular fiction, but considers a wide range of material, including literary horror, weird fiction, graphic storytelling, visual arts, participative culture, and aspects of real-world religious fear. It is less concerned with horror as a genre (which is mainly a function of marketing) and more with the horror mode, a way of storytelling that finds expression across a number of genres, a variety of media, and even blurs the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. This expanded focus not only deepens the pool of potential examples, but invites a much broader readership in for a swim"--




Theology and Horror


Book Description

Scholars of religion have begun to explore horror and the monstrous, not only within the confines of the biblical text or the traditions of religion, but also as they proliferate into popular culture. This exploration emerges from what has long been present in horror: an engagement with the same questions that animate religious thought – questions about the nature of the divine, humanity's place in the universe, the distribution of justice, and what it means to live a good life, among many others. Such exploration often involves a theological conversation. Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination pursues questions regarding non-physical realities, spaces where both divinity and horror dwell. Through an exploration of theology and horror, the contributors explore how questions of spirituality, divinity, and religious structures are raised, complicated, and even sometimes answered (at least partially) by works of horror.




‘Cult’ Rhetoric in the 21st Century


Book Description

Examining contemporary understandings of the term 'cult', this book brings together scholars from multiple disciplines, including sociology, anthropology and religious studies. Focusing on how 'cult rhetoric' affects our perceptions of new religious movements, the contributors explore how these minority groups have developed and deconstruct the language we use to describe them. Ranging from the 'Cult of Trump' and 'Cult of COVID', to the campaigns of mass media, this book recognises that contemporary 'cult rhetoric' has become hybridised and suggests a more nuanced study of contemporary religion. Topics include online religions, political 'cults', 'apostate' testimony and the current 'othered' position of the study of minority religions.




Religion and Outer Space


Book Description

Religion and Outer Space examines religion in and on the final frontier. This book offers a first-of-its-kind roadmap for thinking about complex encounters of religion and outer space. A multidisciplinary group of scholarly experts takes up some of the most intriguing scientific, spiritual, trade/commercial, and even military dimensions of the complex entanglements of religion and outer space. Attending to the historical reality that the interconnections between religion and the heavens are as old as religions themselves, the volume starts with an examination of "outer space" elements in the most sacred writings of the world’s religions. It then explores some of the religious questions inevitable in this encounter, analyzing cultural constructions (both literary and actual) of religion and outer space. It ends with examinations of the role of religion in the very real and very present business of space exploration. What might motivate the spread of religion (or at least fantasies of religion in its myriad possibilities) into new interior and exterior dimensions of the cosmos? Only the future will tell. Religion and Outer Space is essential reading for students and academics with an interest in religion and space, religion and science, space exploration, religion and science fiction, popular culture, and religion in America.




Sacred Helix


Book Description

A story about how faith still plays an important part in our lives, no matter how evolved and high tech man becomes. As intelligent as man is, can a person really know about their true selves. Sometimes we don't know ourselves or others as we think we do until there comes that moment in our lives. Sometimes we fall into the trap of judging others too quickly when we should look much deeper.