Pagan Mysticism
Paganism as a World Religion
As a non-dogmatic religion, paganism is a spiritualty that is variously interpreted in terms of nature worship, this-worldliness, the valuing of the physical, and multiple understandings of the sacred. Like most religions, pagan spirituality also entertains the experience of mystical ecstasy as an intense state of psycho-spiritual consciousness that radically diverges from ordinary waking awareness. This volume addresses two fundamental questions, namely: “how do the world’s religions understand the mystical and its pursuit?”, and “how and why does paganism offer something different?” Proverbially, the mystical quest is an ultimate human…
How do the world’s religions understand the mystical, and how does paganism offer something different? This volume explores the re-emergence of pagan thought, a nature-based spirituality that challenges the obsolete and unlocks new forms of transpersonal emancipation.
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The Glory of the ‘Byzantine’-Ottoman Continuum
Romanity, God's Neighbourhood on Earth
This is the story of Ecumenical Romanity (ʽΡωμαιοσύνη/Rûmîyâne) – a story that has remained hidden from the eyes of the world, physical and metaphysical, for too long. Romanity concerns Supraness, God’s own mode of Being, which is His by nature and belongs to His cohabitants by His uncreated divine Energy, Glory or Operations. Roman Ecumenicity, or else, the ‘Byzantine’-Ottoman Continuum, was born of the historically enacted theophilosophical commensurability between Roman Christianity (Orthodoxy, intimately related to the Reality of ἡ τῶν πάντων ἑνότης (the unity of all being/existents)) and the central…
This is the hidden story of Ecumenical Romanity, the ‘Byzantine’-Ottoman Continuum. It reveals the profound philosophical and religious unity between Roman Christianity, Islamic Sufism, and Judaism—a historical reality long opposed by the West.
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Members of the animal kingdom are characterized by many similarities and patterns, such as: two eyes, two ears, one mouth and four limbs. They also have many obvious differences in habits and in what they survive upon; some are herbivores, while others are carnivores. The design of the human body is a marvelous mystery. Humans are characterized by having legs for walking, and arms and hands for skillful work. They have a sophisticated sensory system that can distinguish heat from cold and identify fine movements and distances. The human brain…
The design of the human body is a marvelous mystery. The brain has a unique creative ability, but what is truly amazing is the integrated function of the body’s different systems. This book explores these unique features, revealing the wisdom behind such a well-designed creature.
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The Rise of Protestantism in Modern Korea
A Sociological Perspective
Combining sociological, historical and comparative approaches, this book examines one of the most striking aspects of South Korea, specifically the emergence of Protestant Christianity as the largest contemporary religion in the country. What is extraordinary about the religion’s “success” is that its growth has been achieved in 130 years since 1884 and that it took place in a country with a rich oriental tradition, replete with shamanism, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. The text critically demonstrates the socio-anthropological perceptive of the Korean Peninsula, making it a great resource for scholars and…
This book unpacks the extraordinary rise of Protestant Christianity as South Korea’s largest religion. In just 130 years, it eclipsed ancient traditions like Buddhism and Confucianism. A vital resource for students of religion, history, sociology, and culture.
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This book provides a new, functional equivalent translation of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, along with a full and eminently readable commentary on the letter. It interprets Paul’s letter in relation to its historical and cultural environment, with due attention to its unique occasion. The commentary clarifies Paul’s ways of defending himself against the attacks of a number of Corinthian Christians who preferred other missionaries to Paul, the founder of the Christian community in Corinth. It also elucidates his attempts to persuade all his readers in Corinth to keep…
This book provides a new translation and readable commentary on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. It interprets the letter in its historical context, clarifying Paul’s defense of his ministry and his arguments on marriage, spiritual gifts, love, and the resurrection.
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This collection of essays challenges the traditional patriarchal approach to sacred literature by highlighting gender parity in sacred texts and envisioning the rise of the matriarchy in the future. The authors redefine Biblical Greek words like malakoi and arsenokoitai used in condemnation of homosexuality, and Qur’anic words like darajah and qawwamun, used for establishing patriarchy. One author reexamines the role of the Nepalese Teej festival of fasting and worship of the god Shiva in promoting male hegemony in Hinduism. Other papers examine passages like Proverbs 31:1-31, the stories of Sarah…
This collection of essays challenges patriarchal readings of sacred texts. By redefining key terms in the Bible and Qur’an and reexamining global traditions, it uncovers gender parity and argues that as societies evolve, so must our understanding of faith and gender roles.
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Pāli and Buddhism
Language and Lineage
This book is a collection of essays on the history and evolution of the Pāli language, which preserves the earliest record of the Buddha’s teaching. Although only the Pāli record has survived, it argues that the Buddha also taught in several of the indigenous languages of northern India, including Dravidian, probably Munda and possibly others. Pāli was derived from a koiné or common language for inter-dialect communication between the different dialects spoken by the Indo-Aryan immigrants, but was also strongly influenced by the languages of the indigenous peoples, Dravidian and…
Pāli preserves the earliest record of the Buddha’s teaching. This book argues the Buddha was multilingual, teaching not only in the common Indo-Aryan tongue but also in indigenous languages, revealing their profound impact on the structure and vocabulary of Pāli itself.
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Jesus and the Ioudaioi
Reading John’s Gospel with Jewish People in Mind
John’s Gospel is a particularly difficult text for Jewish-Christian relations. It has been described as both deeply embedded in the Judaism of its day whilst simultaneously giving the strongest sense of separation between Judaism and Christianity. Arguably the most problematic verse is John 8:44, where Jesus tells “the Jews” that they are of “their father, the devil.” This verse, as well as other parts of the Fourth Gospel, have been used to justify anti-Semitism for centuries. Cognisant of this shameful history, how should Christians read John’s Gospel with the Ioudaioi…
John’s Gospel is a difficult text for Jewish-Christian relations. Both deeply embedded in the Judaism of its day and a source of separation, its verses have been used to justify anti-Semitism. How should Christians read John with the Ioudaioi in mind? This book offers strategies.
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Pāli, the Language
The Medium and Message
What language did the Buddha speak? Scholars think it was Pāli, or something very close to it. This book argues that the medium in which the Buddha spoke is just as important as the message. It answers the question, “how does the sonic content of Pāli carry the Buddha’s message, complement and enhance it?” Pāli is based on an oral, vernacular language of the people, full of natural idioms and colloquial expressions. It is the opposite of Sanskrit, the formal, abstract, liturgical language of Brahmanism. In its conversational directness, harmony…
This book argues that the medium in which the Buddha spoke is as important as the message. Unlike formal Sanskrit, Pāli is an oral, musical language of the people. It reveals how its sonic content carries and enhances the Buddha’s practical philosophy for ending suffering.
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Peace Journeys
A New Direction in Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Research
This collection of essays presents the very latest research on the peace-building dimension of sacred and secular journeys at individual, societal, regional and global levels. Not since the 1980s has there been any concerted effort to explore the potential of such journeys in helping to bridge the divide that separates people of diverse ethnicities, religions and cultures. This volume gathers together empirical studies, regional analyses, and personal reflections from four continents and twelve countries, including Sri Lanka, Syria, Ethiopia, and Indonesia, which highlight the potential of religious tourism and pilgrimage…
This collection of essays explores the peace-building potential of sacred journeys. Gathering studies and personal reflections from four continents, it highlights how religious tourism and pilgrimage can bridge divides and promote interfaith solidarity, dialogue, and inner peace.
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Daesoon Jinrihoe in Modern Korea
The Emergence, Transformation and Transmission of a New Religion
East Asian nations shared a similar environment of modernisation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. None had been colonised under Western imperialism, but all of them commonly became subjected to new authorities, whether directly or indirectly. This change of the political landscape also challenged religious communities, as many new religious movements (NRMs) emerged to satisfy the spiritual needs of local people in overcoming the hardship of transition. This book presents the unique case of a native Korean NRM which successfully survived, transformed, and was transmitted even into…
In an era of hardship, new religious movements (NRMs) emerged in East Asia. This book presents the unique case of Daesoon Jinrihoe, a native Korean NRM which successfully survived and transformed. It offers insight that such groups can thrive in a digital era, not just disappear.
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The benefits of the digital age are huge. Our lives have been transformed, both in the developed and the undeveloped world. However, this transformation has its dark side. The same powerful technologies have enabled cultural or religious grooming to flourish, unmoderated social ‘influencing’ to have free reign, fake information to spread, and sophisticated hackers to create destabilizing international mayhem. What place does the Church have in all this? How does it respond? What about the master philosophers of the neo-Platonic age, whose wisdom, borne of the great philosopher himself, was…
The digital age promised connection but delivered chaos, fake news, and manipulation. How must the Church respond? Drawing on timeless wisdom, these vital essays forge a path through the digital wilderness.
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This ground-breaking volume explores the relatively new academic field of Bnei Anousim studies (also referred to as descendants of New Christians, Conversos, or Marranos), whose Jewish ancestors in Iberia were forcibly converted to Catholicism from 1391 through to the fifteenth century. Chronologically, this book focuses on the eighteenth century, a later period of Inquisition activity marked by the Portuguese Inquisition’s relentless attacks against the Jewish “heresy” and the resultant mass exodus of New Christians from Portugal to Brazil. Several chapters concern the contemporary phenomenon of descendants of these New Christians…
This volume explores the descendants of Iberian Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism. Focusing on the 18th-century exodus from Portugal to Brazil, it examines the contemporary search for Jewish roots. After centuries, how authentic is their lost Sefardi heritage?
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Most people don’t realize Charles Dickens has a biblical foundation. Each of the spirits that appear in A Christmas Carol directly correlates with an Advent lesson that is found in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Perhaps that is what attracts Christians to the story of A Christmas Carol. Every Advent Christians revisit this old Victorian moral story with its images of snow covered English cobblestone streets, the sentimentally portrayed ragged poor, and its familiar story line doesn’t seem to grow tiresome through the years. We revisit this…
This Christian devotional uses A Christmas Carol to teach the ancient Advent lessons of Hope, Faith, Peace, Love and Joy. As you travel through Ebenezer’s redemptive journey, you are invited to examine how Christ is born in your past, present and future.
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Honour killing, as it is widely understood, is the cold-blooded murder of a woman or a man involved with her, by the male members of her household in order to cleanse the reputation of the family, clan, community or tribe. This violent tradition in the name of religion, custom and culture continues to be carried out in a significantly large part of the world. The majority of people still believe that honour killings happen for reasons such as marriage from choice or a love affair of a kinswoman, rape, a…
Through twenty-six testimonies from those involved in honour killings (killers, victims, and the falsely accused), this important study reveals the malign intentions and agendas behind such acts and explores the dangerous point at which culture, crime and discrimination coalesce.
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Saint John Henry Newman
Preserving and Promulgating His Legacy
This volume of essays, sponsored by the Newman Association of America, serves to identify, preserve, and promote the legacy of John Henry Newman. It argues that eleven major elements of Newman’s life and work speak to us today, and, in fact, are very important resources for believers in their confrontation with the challenges of an increasingly secular world. They also resonate loudly to a church in crisis both internally and externally in its confrontation with that world. Ten authors, included among them some of the world’s most noted Newman scholars,…
This volume of essays argues that John Henry Newman’s legacy is a vital resource for believers confronting a secular world and a church in crisis. Noted scholars address faith, knowledge, education, and relationships, offering much to ponder for all readers.
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From Something to Nothing
Jewish Mysticism in Contemporary Canadian Jewish Studies
Jewish mysticism approaches God as no-thing or nothing, reflecting Judaism’s traditional identification of God as incorporeal. Whereas technical philosophical language often employed to discuss Jewish mysticism has a tendency to ward off otherwise interested readers, this study sufficiently breaks down the technical language of Jewish mysticism in its various expressions to allow a beginner to benefit from what may otherwise be indescribable and only approached by consideration of what is not rather than what is. Integral to the title, From Something to Nothing, is the concept that God cannot be…
This study breaks down the technical language of Jewish mysticism, where God is approached as no-thing. Memorializing scholar Zalman Schachter Shalomi, it provides a spectrum of topics, allowing beginners to explore this ultimate reality of nothingness.
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Accountability and Leadership in the Catholic Church
What Needs to Be Improved
The Catholic church is many things: a sign and instrument of Christ; a gathering of flawed human beings; a mystery. It is, in some ways, unlike any other organization in the world; yet it is, nevertheless, an organization: as St John Henry Newman observed, “it has developed according to the laws under which combinations of men develop.” Over the past century, a body of knowledge has emerged concerning how to create “healthy”, effective organizations. This volume innovatively applies this knowledge to the church, identifying ways in which its organizational life…
The Catholic church is an organization, but its structure is failing. A leadership gap above the bishops allows an unaccountable curia to illegitimately run the church. Applying modern organizational knowledge, this book proposes a new role for cardinals and a restructured curia.
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The Rise of the Prophet Muhammad
Don't Shoot the Messenger
They say you can judge a person by the friends he keeps, but the focus of this book comes, in part, from the enemies of the Prophet Muhammad. Viewed by some as one of the most influential figures in history, he continues to polarise people. This book is written for people of all faiths and none who are curious as to how an illiterate orphan born in 570 emerged from the desert sands of Arabia to become a great political, military and religious leader. His importance to today’s 1.8 billion…
How did an illiterate orphan from the Arabian desert become one of history’s most influential—and polarizing—figures? This book explores the rise of a prophet, commander, and statesman whose legacy continues to shape our world.
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This book reveals how the images Bede Griffiths OSB Cam used for God are richly embedded with concepts ancient and new, making them especially relevant for our current times. It prompts insight into the great deposit of wisdom and scholarship that was his source, and will benefit those interested in religious imagery, gender equality, monastic life, interfaith dialogue, evolution of consciousness, practical theology and spirituality, and integral thought. Led by Christ, “the Golden String,” Griffiths made the sea-change from Great Britain to India, promoting “the marriage of East and West,”…
This book reveals how Bede Griffiths’ images for God are relevant for our times. Led by Christ, Griffiths promoted “the marriage of East and West,” the essential value of the feminine, and interreligious dialogue, all grounded in his motto to “always go beyond.”
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