Comparative religion Books

Book SynopsisThis book examines conversion stories as told by people who have actually undergone a conversion experience, including experiences of apostasy. The stories reveal that there is not just one ""conversion story."" Scot McKnight and Hauna Ondrey show that ""conversion theory"" helps explain why some people walk away from one religion, often to another, very different religion. The book confirms the usefulness--particularly for pastors, rabbis, and priests, and university and college teachers--of applying conversion theory to specific groups. However, the book's sensitive detailing of the stories themselves makes conversion more than a theoretical occurrence; it makes the immediacy, and often the difficulty, of conversion both real and moving.Trade ReviewThis book stirs deep reflection on the faith journeys of courageous people. -Lewis Rambo, San Francisco Theological SeminaryTable of Contents Conversion: What Really Happens? 1 Leaving Church, Finding Freedom Anatomy of Apostasy 2 Leaving the Synagogue, Finding the Church When Jews Become Messianic Jews 3 Leaving Rome, Finding Wheaton Catholics Behaving Protestantly 4 Leaving Wheaton, Finding Rome The Improbable Conversion of Evangelicals to Catholicism Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWilderness is one of the most abiding creations in the history of religions. It has a long and seminal history and is of contemporary relevance in wildlife preservation and climate discourses. Yet it has not previously been subject to scrutiny or theorising from a cross-cultural study of religions perspective. What are the specific relations between the world’s religions and imagined and real wilderness areas? The wilderness is often understood as a domain void of humans, opposed to civilization, but the analyses in this book complicate and question the dualism of previous theoretical grids and offer new perspectives on the interesting multiplicity of the wilderness and religion nexus. This book thus addresses the need for cross-cultural anthropological and history of religions analyses by offering in-depth case studies of the use and functions of wilderness spaces in a diverse range of contexts including, but not limited to, ancient Greece, early Christian asceticism, Old Norse religion, the shamanism-Buddhism encounter in Mongolia, contemporary paganism, and wilderness spirituality in the US. It advances research on religious spatialities, cosmologies, and ideas of wild nature and brings new understanding of the role of religion in human interaction with ‘the world’.

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Book SynopsisBased on the author’s cross-regional fieldwork, archival findings, and critical reading of memoirs and creative works of Tibetans and Chinese, this book recounts how the potency of Tibet manifests itself in modern material culture concerning Tibet, which is interwoven with state ideology, politics of identity, imagination, nostalgia, forgetting, remembering, and earth-inspired transcendence. The physical place of Tibet is the antecedent point of contact for subsequent spiritual imaginations, acts of destruction and reconstruction, collective nostalgia, and delayed aesthetic and environmental awareness shown in the eco-religious acts of native Tibetans, Communist radical utopianism, former military officers’ recollections, Tibetan and Chinese artwork, and touristic consumption of the Tibetan landscape. By drawing connections between differences, dichotomies, and oppositions, this book explores the interiors of the diverse agentive modes of imaginations from which Tibet is imagined in China. On the theoretical front, this book attempts to bring forth a set of fresh perspectives on how a culturally and religiously specific landscape is antecedent to simultaneous processes of place-making, identity-making, and the bonding between place and people.

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Book SynopsisImages of books appear in art, advertising and commercial logos to symbolize learning, knowledge and wisdom. In religious and secular rituals around the globe, people carry, show, wave, touch and kiss books and other texts, as well as read them. Such images and rituals utilize the iconic dimension of texts. This volume is the first comprehensive survey of iconic books and texts. It traces their development and influence from ancient to modern times and compares their roles in multiple cultures and religious traditions. The twenty-two essays presented here are original, cutting-edge contributions to this new academic field, and will appeal to students and scholars across the study of religions, literature, book history, archives and libraries.Trade ReviewTogether the 22 essays in this volume creatively and effectively draw together different historical epochs, varied religious and cultural traditions and ritual practices, and diverse scholarly methodologies to create a finely woven tapestry depicting the enduring, transcultural, and mutually supportive significances of iconic books and texts. In addition to giving these previously published essays a wider audience, this collection will help foster meaningful cross-disciplinary conversation between readers interested in al aspects of the history of the book.Table of ContentsIntroduction James W. Watts I. Categorizing Iconic Books1. The Three Dimensions of Scriptures James W. Watts 2. "Winged Words": Scriptures and Classics as Iconic Texts William A. Graham, Harvard University 3. Talking about "Iconic Books" in the Terminology of Book History Deirdre C. Stam, Long Island University II. Images and Texts4. The Iconic Book: The Image of the Bible in Early Christian Rituals Dorina Miller Parmenter, Spalding University, Louisville, KY 5. Images to be Read and Words to be Seen: The Iconic Role of the Early Medieval Book Michelle P. Brown, School of Advanced Study, University of London 6. Looking at Words: The Iconicity of the Page S. Brent Plate, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 7. Between the Textual and the Visual: Borderlines of Late Antique Book Iconicity Zeev Elitzur, Israel Center for Excellence through Education, Jerusalem 8. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?): Further Reflections on the Buddhist Representation of Manuscripts Jacob Kinnard, Iliff School of Theology, Denver 9. The Tell-Tale Iconic Book M. Patrick Graham, Emory University III. Materials and Markets10. Mus h af and the Material Boundaries of the Qur'an Natalia K. Suit, University of North Carolina (PhD candidate) 11. The End of the Word as We Know It: The Cultural Iconicity of the Bible in the Twilight of Print Culture Timothy Beal, Case Western Reserve University 12. Iconic Books from Below: The Christian Bible and the Discourse of Duct Tape Dorina Miller Parmenter 13. Be-Witching Scripture: The Book of Shadows as Scripture within Wicca/Neopagan Witchcraft Shawn Loner, Syracuse University (PhD candidate) IV. Book Rituals14. Engaging with the Guru: Sikh Beliefs and Practices of Guru Granth Sahib Kristina Myrvold, Linnaeus University, Sweden 15. A Birthday Party for a Sacred Text: The Gita Jayanti and the Embodiment of God as the Book and the Book as God Joanne Punzo Waghorne, Syracuse University 16. Possession and Repetition: Ways in which Korean Lay Buddhists Appropriate Scriptures Yohan Yoo, Seoul National University 17. The Bible in British Folklore Brian Malley, University of Michigan V. Power and Scholarship18. The Pride and Prejudice of the Western World: Canonic Memory, Great Books and Archive Fever Karl Ivan Solibakke, Syracuse University 19. Indigenous "Texts" of Inhabiting the Land: George Washington's Wampum Belt and the Canandaigua Treaty Philip P. Arnold, Syracuse University 20. The Gospels as Imperialized Sites of Memory in Late Ancient Christianity Jason T. Larson, The Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, CT 21. Possessing the Iconic Book: Ben Sira as Case Study Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University 22. Ancient Iconic Texts and Scholarly Expertise James W. Watts

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Book SynopsisFrom false idols and graven images to the tombs of kings and the shrines of capitalism, the targeted destruction of cities, sacred sites and artefacts for religious, political or nationalistic reasons is central to our cultural legacy. This book examines the different traditions of image-breaking in Christianity and Islam as well as their development into nominally secular movements and paints a vivid, scholarly picture of a culture of destruction encompassing Protestantism, Wahhabism, and Nationalism. Beginning with a comparative account of Calvinist Geneva and Wahhabi Mecca, The Politics of Iconoclasm explores the religious and political agendas behind acts of image-breaking and their relation to nationhood and state-building. From sixteenth-century Geneva to urban developments in Mecca today, The Politics of Iconoclasm explores the history of image-breaking, the culture of violence and its paradoxical roots in the desire for renewal. Examining these dynamics of nationhood, technology, destruction and memory, a historical journey is described in which the temple is razed and replaced by the machine.Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations ix Note on Transliteration xi Acknowledgements xiii Introduction 1 PART I: THE PROTOTYPES 1 Calvinism and Iconoclasm 23 2 Wahhabism and Iconoclasm 59 PART II: THE CASES 3 The French Revolution and Iconoclasm 95 4 The Bourgeois City and Iconoclasm: Venice 111 5 World War Two and Iconoclasm 125 6 The Balkan Wars and Iconoclasm 145 7 Islamic Iconoclasm Today 165 Conclusion 179 Notes 185 Bibliography 219 Index of Key Names 233

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