Toward a sociological theory of religion and health
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Driven by funding agencies, empirical research in the social scientific study of health and medicine has grown in quantity and developed in quality. When it became evident, in what is now a tradition of inquiry, that people's religious activities had significant health consequences, a portion of that body of work began to focus more frequently on the relationship between health and religion. The field has reached a point where book-length summaries of empirical findings, especially those pertinent to older people, can identify independent, mediating, and dependent variables of interest. Every mediating variable, even if considered as a "control" variable, represents an explanation, a small theory of some kind. However, taken in granular form, as it were, the multiple theories do not comprise mid-level theory, let alone a general theoretical framework. This volume seeks to move toward more general theoretical development.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004210844 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Globalized religion and sexual identity : contexts, contestations, voices /
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Globalized Religion and Sexual Identity reflects on the ways religion, gender and sexual identity are framed and regulated in multiple spheres across the globe. Controversies in the public arena regarding religion and sexual identity often construct these categories as inherently oppositional or already in conflict. As state policies regarding sexuality and sexual diversity develop, promoting inclusivity and non-discrimination, it is imperative to develop a more nuanced discussion regarding the relationship of religion/ideology to sexual diversity and sexuality. The goal of this volume is to explore religion and sexual identity from a range of countries across the globe, focusing on the theme of religious/ideological voices in state policies, such as same-sex marriage, identification, and education.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004271371 :
1573-4293 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Cosmopolitan dharma : race, sexuality, and gender in British Buddhism /
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Within Western Buddhism, practitioners are often assumed to be white and middle-class. Based in ground-breaking empirical research, Cosmopolitan Dharma: Race, Sexuality, and Gender in British Buddhism explores the stories of Buddhists from minority communities, through a rich analysis of their lived experiences. Smith, Munt and Yip explore their various contestations of dominant white and heteronormative cultures in Western Buddhism. Using cosmopolitanism as the theoretical lens, Cosmopolitan Dharma argues convincingly that the Buddhist ethos of human interconnectivity needs to be further developed to truly embrace the 'Other' of different kinds (not least Western Buddhism's own internal 'Others'). Cosmopolitan Dharma , through Buddhists' own narratives, explores how cultural politics from the ground up can offer a more inclusive philosophy and lived experience of spirituality.
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1 online resource (xv, 290 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 252-277) and index. :
9789004232808 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ideas on language in early Latin Christianity from Tertullian to Isidore of Seville /
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In Ideas on Language in Early Latin Christianity , Tim Denecker investigates, in a comprehensive and systematic way, the views held on the history, diversity and properties of language(s) by Christian Latin authors from Tertullian (b. c.160) to Isidore of Seville (d. 636). This historical period witnessed various sociocultural changes, affecting linguistic situations and the ways in which these were perceived. Christian intellectuals were confronted with languages other than Latin in the context of the propagation of faith, and in reflecting on language were bound to comply with the relevant biblical accounts. Whereas previous research has mostly focused on the (indeed vital) contribution of Augustine, the present study reveals the diversified and dynamic nature of linguistic reflection in early Latin Christianity.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004276659 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Transcendence and sensoriness : perceptions, revelation, and the Arts /
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Protestant theology and culture are known for a reserved, at times skeptical, attitude to the use of art and aesthetic forms of expression in a religious context. In Transcendence and Sensoriness , this attitude is analysed and discussed both theoretically and through case studies considered in a broad theological and philosophical framework of religious aesthetics. Nordic scholars of theology, philosophy, art, music, and architecture, discuss questions of transcendence, the human senses, and the arts in order to challenge established perspectives within the aesthetics of religion and theology.
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Description based upon print version of record. :
1 online resource (583 pages) : color illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004291690 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religious stories in transformation : conflict, revision and reception /
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In Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception , the editors present a collection of essays that reveal both the many similarities and the poignant differences between ancient myths in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and modern secular culture and how these stories were incorporated and adapted over time. This rich multidisciplinary research demonstrates not only how stories in different religions and cultures are interesting in their own right, but also that the process of transformation in particular deserves scholarly interest. It is through the changes in the stories that the particular identity of each religion comes to the fore most strikingly.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004334816 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religion in times of crisis /
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Religion is alive and well all over the world, especially in times of personal, political, and social crisis. Even in Europe, long regarded the most "secular" continent, religion has taken centre stage in how people respond to the crises associated with modernity, or how they interact with the nation-state. In this book, scholars working in and on Europe offer fresh perspectives on how religion provides answers to existential crisis, how crisis increases the salience of religious identities and cultural polarization, and how religion is contributing to changes in the modern world in Europe and beyond. Cases from Poland to Pakistan and from Ireland to Zimbabwe, among others, demonstrate the complexity and ambivalence of religion's role in the contemporary world.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource (pages) :
9789004277793 :
1061-5210 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Parables in changing contexts : essays on the study of parables in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism /
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"In Parables in Changing Contexts, new venues in the comparative study of parables are addressed by scholars of Judaism, New Testament, Buddhism and Islam. Essays cover parables in the synoptic Gospels, Rabbinic midrash, and parabolic tales and fables in the Babylonian Talmud. Three essays address parables in Islam and Buddhism. The volume shows how parables are suitably adapted in terms of form and rhetoric to enhance religious identity formation. Parables serve as media, as sensational forms making the sacred present, albeit encoded or riddled, in all cases invoking the listener's active interpretative participation and cultural imagination. Adapting a multidisciplinary approach to these gems of storytelling, parables in a particular way provide new insights in the cultures that produced them".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004417526
Narrative cultures and the aesthetics of religion /
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"Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion presents the aesthetics of narrative in religious contexts by approaching narrative acts as situated modes of engaging with reality, equally shaped by the immersive character of the stories told and the sensory qualities of their performances. Introducing narrative cultures as an integrative framework of analysis, the volume builds a bridge between classical content-based approaches to narrative sources and the aesthetic study of religions as constituted by sensory and mediated practices. Studying stories in conjunction with the role performative acts of storytelling play in the cultivation of the senses, the contributors explore the efficacy of storytelling formats in narrative cultures from Antiquity until today, in regions and cultures across the globe".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004421677
Religion and Time.
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The essays in this volume, all freshly written for this purpose, focus on the concept of time in the major religious traditions. Two essays prepare the methodological grounds - by elaborating the phenomenological and existential conceptions of time and their religious significance. The theme of time, so central to the religious point of view, offers a focal point for fruitful interreligious dialogue. The essays also demonstrate that the complexities of the understanding of time in any religious tradition no longer permit the use of familiar but outdated clichés.
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1 online resource. :
9789004378773
Wealth in the Dead Sea scrolls and in the Qumran community /
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This volume is concerned with exploring sectarian attitudes toward wealth and the economic practices that gave rise to and issued from those attitudes. An introductory chapter establishes the state of the question. Three subsequent chapters focus on major sectarian texts: the Damascus Document, the Rule of the Community, and 4QInstruction A. Other sectarian and non-sectarian texts that mention wealth are discussed in a fifth chapter, while archaeological evidence from the Qumran region and contemporary documentary texts are introduced in chapters seven and eight. Finally, ancient secondary testimony on Essene economic practices is discussed. The book breaks new ground in arguing for several biblical rationales for the practice of shared wealth. Its integration of archaeological and documentary evidence sheds surprising new light on the economic organization of the Qumran community.
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1 online resource (xxi, 672 pages, 10 pages of plates) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 541-571) and index. :
9789047400653 :
0169-9962 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Theological hermeneutics in the classical Pentecostal tradition : a typological account /
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In Theological Hermeneutics in the Classical Pentecostal Tradition: A Typological Account , L. William Oliverio Jr. accounts for the development of Classical Pentecostal theology, as theological hermeneutics, through four types: the original Classical Pentecostal hermeneutic, the Evangelical-Pentecostal hermeneutic, the contextual-Pentecostal hermeneutic, and the ecumenical-Pentecostal hermeneutic. Oliverio gives special attention to key figures in shaping Pentecostal theology and the underlying philosophical assumptions which informed their theological interpretations of reality. The text concludes with a philosophical basis for future Pentecostal theological hermeneutics within the contours of a hermeneutical realism that affirms both the hermeneutical nature of all theology and the implicit affirmation of realism within theological accounts.
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1 online resource (xvii, 383 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004231924 :
1876-2247 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religion, migration, and identity : methodological and theological explorations /
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Migration has become a major concern. The increase in migration in the 20th and 21st centuries has social, political and economic implications, but also effectuates change in the religious landscape, in religious beliefs and practices and in the way people understand themselves, each other and the world around them. In Religion, Migration and Identity scholars from various disciplines explore issues related to identity and religion, that people - individually and communally -, encounter when affected by migration dynamics. The volume foregrounds methodology in its exploration of the juxtaposition of religion, migration and identity and addresses questions which originate in various geographical locations, demonstrates new modes of interconnectedness, and thus aims to contribute to the ongoing academic discussions on mission, theology and the Christian tradition in general, in a worldwide perspective.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004326156 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence.
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Augustine's ideas of sinful desire, including its sexual manifestations, have fueled controversies for centuries. In Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence , Timo Nisula analyses Augustine's own theological and philosophical concerns in his extensive writings about evil desire ( concupiscentia, cupiditas, libido ). Beginning with a terminological survey of the vocabulary of desire, the book demonstrates how the concept of evil desire was tightly linked with Augustine's fundamental theological views of divine justice, the origin of evil, Christian virtues and grace. This book offers a comprehensive account of Augustine's developing views of concupiscence and provides an innovative, in-depth picture of the theological imagination behind disputed ideas of sex, temptation and moral responsibility.
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1 online resource (433 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004233447 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Coping with violence in the New Testament /
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Violence is present in the very heart of religion and its sacred traditions - also of Christianity and the Bible. The problem, however, is not only that violence is ingrained in the mere existence of religions with their sacred traditions. It is equally problematic to realise that the icy grip of violence on the sacred has gone unnoticed and unchallenged for a very long time. The present publication aims to contribute to the recent scholarly debate about the interconnections between violence and monotheistic religions by analysing the role of violence in the New Testament as well as by offering some hermeneutical perspectives on violence as it is articulated in the earliest Christian writings. Contributors include: Andries G. van Aarde, Paul Decock, Pieter G.R. de Villiers, Ernest van Eck, Jan Willem van Henten, Rob van Houwelingen, Kobus Kok, Tobias Nicklas, Jeremy Punt, Jan G. van der Watt, and Wim Weren.
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Proceedings of a conference held Jan. 21-23, 2008 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. :
1 online resource (x, 305 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004221055 :
1566-208X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Pentecostal aesthetics : theological reflections in a pentecostal philosophy of art and aesthetics /
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Pentecostals have not sufficiently worked out a distinctively Pentecostal philosophy of art and aesthetics. In Pentecostal Aesthetics: Theological Reflections in a Pentecostal Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics , with a foreword by Amos Yong, Steven Félix-Jäger corrects this by reflecting theologically on art and aesthetics from a global Pentecostal perspective, particularly through a pneumatic Pentecostal lens. Félix-Jäger contends that a Pentecostal philosophy of art and aesthetics must comply with the global, experiential, and pneumatocentric nature of the Pentecostal movement. Such a philosophy can be ontologically grounded in a relativistic theory of art. Theological reflections concerning the nature and purpose of art must then be sensitive to the ontological foundations secured thereof. In this fashion, Pentecostals can gain ample insight about the Spirit's work in today's contemporary artworld.
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1 online resource (ix, 224 pages) : chiefly color illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004291621 :
1876-2247 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religion and ethnocentrism : an empirical-theological study /
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Previous studies reveal that religion, despite its ideal of solidarity, hospitality and compassion, has been the primary origin of ethnocentrism. However, other researches dispute this sweeping claim by indicating several other factors that affect this complex relationship. This empirical-theological study is an endeavour to dig deeper into these factors by examining the extent to which a number of religious images which are culled from five religious themes, namely, God, Jesus, Spirit, salvation and church, contribute to ethnocentrism. It situates these religious attitudes within the framework of the Dutch civil religion, and the different reactions to it by contemporary Dutch catholic believers.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004193703 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Sacral Kingship / La Regalità Sacra : Contributions to the Central Theme of the VIIIth International Congress for the History of Religions (Rome, April 1955). Contributi al tem...
: 1 online resource. : Includes bibliographical references and index. : 9789004377950 : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The divine courtroom in comparative perspective /
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Contributors to The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective treat one of the most pervasive religious metaphors, that of the divine courtroom, in both its historical and thematic senses. In order to shed light on the various manifestations of the divine courtroom, this volume consists of essays by scholars of the ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, Talmud, Islam, medieval Judaism, and classical Greek literature. Contributions to the volume primarily center upon three related facets of the divine courtroom: the role of the divine courtroom in the earthly legal system; the divine courtroom as the site of historical justice; and the divine courtroom as the venue in which God is called to answer for his own unjust acts.
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Includes papers presented at a conference held "on February 5-6, 2012, the Leonard and Bea Diener Institute of Jewish Law and the Yeshiva University Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, 'The Divine Courtroom,' at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law." :
1 online resource (vi, 308 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004281646 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Typologie spatio-temporelle de l'ecclesia byzantine : la Mystagogie de Maxime le Confesseur dans la culture philosophique de l'antiquité tardive /
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This study addresses the philosophical context of the Mystagogy of Maximus the Confessor. It examines how the Byzantine monk integrates Neoplatonist topics when exposing one of the most important feature of his religious conception of the physical world or cosmology. The volume contains three chapters. The first one compares the purpose of the Mystagogy and the program of the philosophical training in late Antiquity. The second consists of two parts : (1) study of the use of the Aristotelian categories of 'when' and 'where' in the 'Ambiguum 10' of Maximus in order to analyse the status of ecclesiastical architecture and the nature of the liturgical 'synaxis' of the church (chapter 3); (2) study of the development of the categories of space and time in the works of the Neoplatonist Greek commentators of Plato and Aristotle such as Jamblichus, Proclus, Simplicius and Damascius. The third chapter offers the first extended examination of the metaphysical status of the 'ecclesia' and its dynamic activity compared to the metaphysical status of space and time required for the explanation of the Neoplatonist physical world system. Henceforth, the 'ecclesia' of the Mystagogy can be considered as the type of the providential action of God. This book provides many important new perspectives for reading the works of Maximus the Confessor, especially the Mystagogy, not only for theologians, but also for scholars interested in late Antique and Byzantine philosophy. Cette étude, consacrée au contexte philosophique de la Mystagogie de Maxime le Confesseur, examine comment le moine byzantin intègre certains concepts tirés du Néoplatonisme quand il expose les plus importantes lignes de sa conception religieuse du monde physique. Ce volume contient trois chapitres. Le premier compare l'objectif de la Mystagogie et le programme philosophique des écoles de l'Antiquité tardive. Le second comporte deux parties : (1) une étude de l'emploi des catégories 'quand' et 'où' dans l' Ambiguum 10 ' de Maxime avec pour objectif l'analyse du statut de l'architecture ecclésiale et l'analyse de la nature de la synaxe liturgique (chapitre 3); (2) une étude du développement des catégories de lieu et de temps dans les Oeuvres des Commentateurs néoplatoniciens de Platon et d'Aristote, tels Jamblique, Proclus, Simplicius et Damascius. Le troisième chapitre offre la première étude approfondie du statut métaphysique et dynamique de l' ecclesia compare au statut métaphysique du lieu et du temps requis par l'explication néoplatonicienne du monde physique. L' ecclesia de la Mystagogie sera ainsi considerée comme le type de l'action providentielle de Dieu dans le monde créé. Ce livre fournit une nouvelle perspective de lecture des Oeuvres de Maxime le Confesseur et devrait intéresser tant les théologiens que les scientifiques consacrant leurs travaux à l'Antiquité tardive et à la philosophie byzantine.
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1 online resource (ix, 215 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-211) and indexes. :
9789047406853 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.