Theologising with the Sacred 'Prostitutes' of South India : Towards an Indecent Dalit Theology /
:
"In Theologising with the Sacred 'Prostitutes' of South India, Eve Rebecca Parker theologises with the Dalit women who from childhood have been dedicated to village goddesses and used as 'sacred' sex workers. Parker uses ethnographic, anthropological, theological, hermeneutical and historical research and analysis in order to critically engage with the lived religiosity and daily struggles of the dedicated women, known as devadāsīs. In doing so, she works towards an Indecent Dalit Liberation Theology that challenges systems of oppression and cultures of impunity, including casteism, sexism, classism and a history of socio-political and religious marginalisation. The result is a profound theologising of struggle and resistance with the sexual narratives of the oppressed"--
:
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of St. Andrews, 2016. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004450080
9789004450073
Jain approaches to plurality : identity as dialogue /
:
In Jain Approaches to Plurality Melanie Barbato offers a new perspective on the Jain teaching of plurality ( anekāntavāda ) and how it allowed Jains to engage with other discourses from Indian inter-school philosophy to global interreligious dialogue. Jainism, one of the world's oldest religions, has managed to both adapt and preserve its identity across time through its inherently dialogical outlook. Drawing on a wide range of textual sources and original research in India, Barbato analyses the encounters between Jains and non-Jains in the classical, colonial and global context. Jain Approaches to Plurality offers a comprehensive introduction to anekāntavāda as a non-Western resource for understanding plurality and engaging in dialogue. "Building upon earlier work in this field without simply reduplicating it, Melanie Barbato's work delves deeply into the question of the relevance of Jain approaches to religious and philosophical diversity to contemporary issues of inter-religious dialogue, and dialogues across worldviews more generally. (...) This work is a most welcome contribution to the conversation." - Jeffery D. Long, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College . April 2017. Author of Jainism: An Introduction .
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004276765 :
0923-6201 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Untouchable Bodies, Resistance, and Liberation : A Comparative Theology of Divine Possessions /
:
In Untouchable Bodies, Resistance, and Liberation, Joshua Samuel constructs an embodied comparative theology of liberation by comparing divine possessions among Hindu and Christian Dalits in South India. Critiquing the problems inherent in prioritizing texts when studying religious traditions, Samuel calls for the need to engage in body and people centered interreligious learning. This comparative theological reading of ecstatic experiences of the divine in Dalit bodies in Hinduism and Christianity brings out the powerful liberative potential inherent in the bodies of the oppressed, enabling us to identify alternative modes of resistance and new avenues of liberation among those who are dehumanized and discriminated, and to find deeper and meaningful ways of speaking about God in the context of oppression.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004420052
9789004420038
The European encounter with Hinduism in India /
:
"In The European Encounter with Hinduism Jan Peter Schouten offers an account of European travellers coming into contact with the Hindu religion in India. From the thirteenth century on, both traders and missionaries visited India and encountered the exotic world of Hindus and Hinduism. Their travel reports reveal how Europeans gradually increased their knowledge of Hinduism and how they evaluated this foreign religion. Later on, although officials of the colonial administration also studied the languages and culture of India, it was - contrary to what is usually assumed - particularly the many missionaries who made the greatest contribution to the mapping of Hinduism".
:
"Originally published in Dutch as Aangenaam kennis te maken : De ontmoeting van Europeanen met het hindoeïsme in India by Uitgeverij Damon, Eindhoven." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004420076
Hope and otherness : Christian eschatology and interreligious hospitality /
:
In Hope and Otherness , Jakob Wirén analyses the place and role of the religious Other in contemporary eschatology. In connection with this theme, he examines and compares different levels of inclusion and exclusion in Christian, Muslim, and Jewish eschatologies. He argues that a distinction should be made in approaches to this issue between soteriological openness and eschatological openness. By going beyond Christian theology and also looking to Muslim and Jewish sources and by combining the question of the religious Other with eschatology, Wirén explores ways of articulating Christian eschatology in light of religious otherness, and provides a new and vital slant to the threefold paradigm of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism that has been prevalent in the theology of religions. "Jakob Wirén's study pushes forward the frontiers of three disciplines all at the same time: theology of religions; comparative religions and eschatology. (...) This is a challenging and important book." - Gavin D'Costa, University of Bristol, Professor of Catholic Theology, 2017 "This book explores of the status of religious others in Christian eschatology, and of eschatology itself as a privileged place for reflecting on religious otherness. Wiren mines not only Christian, but also Jewish and Muslim sources to develop an inclusive eschatology. Hope and Otherness thus represents an important contribution to both theology of religions and comparative theology." - Catherine Cornille, Boston College, Professor of Comparative Theology, 2017
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004357068 :
0923-6201 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Common words in Muslim-Christian dialogue : a study of texts from the common word dialogue process /
:
In Common Words in Muslim-Christian Dialogue Vebjørn L. Horsfjord offers an analysis of texts from an international dialogue process between Christian and Muslim leaders. Through detailed engagement with the Muslim dialogue letter A Common Word between Us and You (2007) and a large number of Christian responses to it, the study analyses the dialogue process in the wake of the Muslim initiative and shows how the various texts gain meaning through their interaction. The author uses tools from critical discourse analysis and speech act analysis and claims that the Islamic dialogue initiative became more important as an invitation to Muslim-Christian dialogue than as theological reflection. He shows how Christian leaders systematically chose to steer the dialogue process towards practical questions about peaceful coexistence and away from theological issues.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004358232 :
0923-6201 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religious pluralism and pragmatist theology : openness and resistance /
:
Inspired by pragmatism, this book addresses religious plurality with the aim of bringing forth how it may be approached constructively by Christian theology. Accordingly, not doctrine, but practices are focussed in its analyses of interreligious topics. Henriksen argues that engagement with the diversity of religious traditions should be grounded in openness towards the other, and resistance against making others similar to oneself. Accordingly, the book presents a theological approach where interaction between religious practitioners is considered a benefit and a necessity for the positive future of religious traditions. It will be of interest to anyone who is interested in the understanding of religious pluralism from the point of view of Christian theology.
:
Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004412347
Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and interreligious hermeneutics
:
Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Interreligious Hermeneutics: Ways of Seeing the Religious Other , edited by Emma O'Donnell Polyakov, examines the hermeneutics of interreligious encounter in contexts of conflict. It investigates the implicit judgments of Judaism and Islam that often arise in response to these conflicts, and explores the implications of these interpretations for relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Addressing antisemitism and Islamophobia through the tools of interreligious hermeneutics, this volume brings together three distinct discourses: the study of ancient and new tropes of antisemitism as they appear in today's world; research into contemporary expressions of fear or suspicion of Islam; and philosophical reflections on the hermeneutics of interreligious encounters.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004381674
Reimaging Zen in a Secular Age : Charles Taylor and Zen Buddhism in the West /
:
In Reimagining Zen in a Secular Age André van der Braak offers an account of the exciting but also problematic encounter between enchanted Japanese Zen Buddhism and secular Western modernity over the past century, using Charles Taylor's magnum opus A Secular Age as an interpretative lens. As the tenuous compromises of various forms of "Zen modernism" are breaking down today, new imaginings of Zen are urgently needed that go beyond both a Romantic mystical Zen and a secular "mindfulness" Zen. As a Zen scholar-practitioner, André van der Braak shows that the Zen philosophy of the 13th century Zen master Dōgen offers much resources for new hermeneutical, embodied, non-instrumental and communal approaches to contemporary Zen theory and practice in the West.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004435087
9789004435070
Contested Spaces, Common Ground : Space and Power Structures in Contemporary Multireligious Societies.
:
Spaces are produced and shaped by discourses and, in turn, produce and shape discourses themselves. 'Space' is becoming a significant and complex concept for the encounter between people, cultures, religions, ideologies, politics, between histories and memories, the advantaged and the disadvantaged, the powerful and the weak. As a result, it provides a rich hermeneutical and methodological inventory for mapping interculturality and interreligiosity. This volume looks at space as a critical theory and epistemological tool within cultural studies that fosters the analysis of power structures and the deconstruction of representations of identities within our societies that are shaped by power.
:
24 The Festival as Heterotopia in the City as Shared Religious Space. :
1 online resource (404 pages) :
9789004325807 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Critical Perspectives on Interreligious Education : Experiments in Empathy /
:
The editors of Experiments in Empathy: Critical Reflections on Interreligious Education have assembled a volume that spans multiple religious traditions and offers innovative methods for teaching and designing interreligious learning. This groundbreaking text includes established interreligious educators and emerging scholars who expand the vision of this field to include critical studies, decolonial approaches and exciting pedagogical developments. The book includes voices that are often left out of other comparative theology or interreligious education texts. Scholars from evangelical, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, religiously hybrid and other background enrich the existing models for interreligious classrooms. The book is particularly relevant at a time when religion is so often harnessed for division and hatred. By examining the roots of racism, xenophobia, sexism and their interaction with religion that contribute to inequity the volume offers real world educational interventions. The content is in high demand as are the authors who contributed to the volume. Contributors are: Scott Alexander, Judith A. Berling, Monica A. Coleman, Reuven Firestone, Christine Hong, Jennifer Howe Peace, Munir Jiwa, Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Tony Ritchie, Rachel Mikva, John Thatanamil, Timur Yuskaev.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004420045
9789004420021
Walking on the pages of the Word of God : self, land, and text among Evangelical volunteers in Jerusalem /
:
In Walking on the Pages of the Word of God Aron Engberg explores the religious language and identities of evangelical volunteer workers in contemporary Jerusalem. The volunteers are connected to Christian organizations which consider their work a natural consequence of the biblical promises to Israel and their responsibility to "bless the Jewish people". Relying on ethnographic data of the discursive practices of the volunteers, the book explores a central puzzle of Zionist Christianity: the narrative production of Israel's religious significance and its relationship to broader Christian language traditions. By focusing on the volunteers' stories about themselves, the land and the Bible, Aron Engberg offers a convincing account about how the State of Israel is finding its way into evangelical identities.
:
Originally published: Lund : Lund University, 2016. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004411890
Reaching for the sky : religious education from Christian and Islamic perspectives /
:
Young people have to make their own way in the world; they have to give meaning to and find meaning in their lives. This is the field of religious education, which is provided by parents, religious leaders, or teachers of religion and worldviews. One of the most important challenges is to educate children in their own religion, emphasizing that religion's tolerant and peaceful side and to teach children about the beliefs of other traditions. An even more important challenge is to teach them to live together in peace and justice. This volume deals with religious education in Christianity and Islam in specific countries. Scholars in religious education need to know more about the ways in which Muslims and Christians perceive and practice their respective forms of religious education and explore methods that help young people develop their religious identity in accordance with their tradition-and also meet with comrades from other traditions, as the two young Gambian and Dutch women shown on the cover do. This volume explores the field of Christian and Islamic education. Muslim and Christian scholars from Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Indonesia, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands describe various aspects of religious education at school, at home, in the mosque and church, via the media and in peer groups. The papers were presented and discussed at an authors' conference at VU University Amsterdam, organized in close collaboration between the staff of its Centre of Islamic Theology and other scholars in religious education, and the Islamic Universities League in Cairo. The authors describe actual processes of education, reflect on religious identity formation and respect for other people and the influences from home, school, mosque, and church, the media and "the street."
:
1 online resource (281 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401207584 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Looking beneath the surface : medical ethics from Islamic and Western perspectives /
:
Looking Beneath the Surface explores Arab-Islamic and Western perspectives on medical ethical issues: genetic research and treatment, abortion, organ donation, and palliative sedation and euthanasia. The contributions in this volume discuss the state of the (medical) art, the role of laws, counseling, and spiritual counseling in the decision-making process. The different approaches to the ethical issues, ways of moral reasoning, become clear in these contributions, especially the role of tradition for Islam and the importance of autonomy for the West. Beneath the differences, however, the reader will also discover common values, such as the role of dignity and the value of life, and similar practices. Some of the main differences are sociocultural in nature, rather than religious as such. Well-known experts in the fields of medicine and ethics have contributed to this volume from different religious and secular backgrounds. The book offers a carefully written introduction and final chapter on intercultural comparisons. Looking Beneath the Surface is more than a collection of writings on issues in medical ethics: it helps the reader to compare different paradigms of accountability and moral reasoning.
:
1 online resource (xv, 324 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789401209830 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Probing the depths of evil and good : multireligious views and case studies /
:
In the few years since the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, evil has become a central theme in the media and human consciousness: the evil of terrorism, the evil of secular culture, concern for poverty, and climate change... Yet different cultures and religious traditions have different ideas of what evil is and what its root causes are. Although there is no massive clash of cultures, many disagreements and also conflicts in the world arise from the deep differences in views of evil. This volume explores religious views of evil. Scholars from different religions and from various parts of the world describe how people probe the depths of evil-and by necessity that of good-from their own background in various worldviews. In their explorations, almost all address the need to go beyond morality, and beyond legalistic definitions of evil and of good. They point to the radical depths of evil in the world and in human society and reinforce our intuition that there is no easy solution. But if we can gain a better understanding of what people from other worldview traditions and cultures consider evil, we are that much closer to a more peaceful world.
:
1 online resource (377 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789401204620 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Fragile identities : towards a theology of interreligious hospitality /
:
Interreligious dialogue is one of the major challenges confronting contemporary theology. In particular, the so-called "dialogical tension" between openness and identity has been a central issue: Can one maintain one's religious identity without closing oneself off from the other? In general, Christian reflection on interreligious dialogue begins with a theological reflection on religious plurality that assumes that one cannot engage seriously in interreligious dialogue without a sound theology of religions. In this book Marianne Moyaert critically assesses the various models for a Christian theology of religions (exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, particularism) by asking how these models relate to the dialogical tension between openness and identity. She argues that we need to overcome the classical theological approach of religious plurality and move in the direction of a theological hermeneutics of interreligious hospitality. To that end she turns to the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, whose philosophical and hermeneutical insights can give a new turn to the discussion of the criteria, possibilities, and particularly the limits of interreligious dialogue.
:
"A different version of chapter six (201-19) originally appeared in Horizons: the journal fo the College Theology Society 36 (2009) ... and a shorter version of chapter six (219-32) in Exchange: journal of missiological and ecumenical research 37 (2008)"--Title page verso. :
1 online resource (352 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-339) and indexes. :
9789042032804 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Postcolonial Europe in the crucible of cultures : reckoning with God in a world of conflicts /
:
Over the past forty years Europe has grown as a global presence and today it plays an important role in a variety of ways: politically, socially, economically, and culturally. European theologians have no choice but to take cognizance of this fact and respond to the broad social challenges by clarifying their views on God and being a prophetic voice in cultural, political and social decision-making. The authors in this volume take up four main contemporary global challenges, id est globalization, violence, gender, and the environment, and the volume provides its readers with first-rate theological reflections in Europe. The articles offered here are the result of an intensive workshop held in Leuven in September 2004 and are sponsored by the European Commission and the VLIR, as part of a three-year study program on the understanding of God in Europe.
:
International conference proceedings. :
1 online resource (253 pages) :
9789401204699 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Where heaven and earth meet : the spiritual in the art of Kandinsky, Rothko, Warhol, and Kiefer /
:
Art has always been important for religion or spirituality. Secular art displayed in museums can also be spiritual, and it is this art that is the subject of this book. Many of the works of art produced by Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Anselm Kiefer are spiritual in nature. These works reveal their own spirituality, which often has no connection to official religions. Wessel Stoker demonstrates that these artists communicate religious insights through images and shows how they depict the relationship between heaven and earth, between this world and a transcendent reality, thus clearly drawing the contours of the spirituality these works evince.
:
1 online resource (x, 233 pages :) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401208185 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Interreligious hermeneutics in pluralistic Europe : between texts and people /
:
At the second major conference held in Salzburg in 2009 of The European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS), participants probed the broad theme of 'interreligious hermeneutics in a pluralistic Europe'. Due to the phenomenon of an increasingly plural Europe, questions arise about how we see each other's cultural heritage, religious traditions and sacred scriptures. Following the discussions that took place at the conference, this book focuses on the usage of texts in our global and mass media world, the possibility of 'scriptural reasoning', the theological comparison of selected topics from religious traditions by scholars belonging to multiple religions or interreligious communities of scholars, the pragmatics of using sacred texts in social contexts of family and gender, polemical attacks on the other's sacred text and the challenge to interreligious hermeneutics of the postcolonial deconstruction of religion by cultural studies. The future of interreligious hermeneutics is going to be complex. This book exhibits the multiple agendas - power, gender, postcolonialism, globalisation, dialogue, tradition, polemics - that will have a stake in these future debates.
:
Book inspired by discussions after the second conference of the European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies held in Salzburg, Austria, April 15-17, 2009. :
1 online resource (x, 449 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401200370 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Wrestling with God and with evil : philosophical reflections /
:
The fact of evil continues to raises questions - questions about the relationship between God and evil but also questions about human involvement in it. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is now time to see the existence of evil not just as a problem for belief in God; it is a problem for belief in humanity itself as well. For human involvement in evil is not simply a matter of coping with evil but also concerns the fact that humans themselves often seem to do wrong and evil inevitably. Human finitude, ignorance and the unforeseeable consequences of good intentions as well as of neglect can often lead to tragedy. This volume contains contributions from an equal number of male and female scholars in Western Europe and America. It contains discussions of thinkers like Kant, Kierkegaard, Barth, Weil, Levinas, Naber, Caputo and Johnson. It deals with issues like tragedy, finitude, critiques of Western culture, violence and God, and the question of whether theodicies are needed or are even honest. This volume offers an interesting survey of 'wrestling with God and evil' from a variety of perspectives in the philosophy of religion on both sides of the Atlantic.
:
International conference proceedings.
This volume is part of the project on The problem of evil in religious traditions: origins, forms and coping, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Vrije Universiteit and the exhibition "Religion & Evil" in the Tropenmuseum. :
1 online resource (240 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401204019 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.