Dynamics Of Religion

Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today’s Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.

A signal contribution to the burgeoning field of comparative philosophy of religion, The Dynamics of Religion describes patterns of living faith in major world religions in a way which corrects misperceptions of them as archaic traditions trapped in the past. Packed with telling examples, this book shows how religions provide meaning and guidance for their followers; what the fundamental constituents of all religions are, including stories, symbols, solutions to the mystery of evil, and more; and how religions are dynamic processes that constantly change and adapt over time. The author concludes that truth comes not from the dogmatic retelling of any single master story, but from the dynamic interplay between stories old and new. What is distinctive in each tradition is not any single set of unchanging meanings but the character of the life lived. The Dynamics of Religion is exhilarating and essential reading for anyone interested in the way religion begins, structure themselves, and develop through time.

A signal contribution to the burgeoning field of comparative philosophy of religion, The Dynamics of Religion describes patterns of living faith in major world religions in a way which corrects misperceptions of them as archaic traditions trapped in the past. Packed with telling examples, this book shows how religions provide meaning and guidance for their followers; what the fundamental constituents of all religions are, including stories, symbols, solutions to the mystery of evil, and more; and how religions are dynamic processes that constantly change and adapt over time. The author concludes that truth comes not from the dogmatic retelling of any single master story, but from the dynamic interplay between stories old and new. What is distinctive in each tradition is not any single set of unchanging meanings but the character of the life lived. The Dynamics of Religion is exhilarating and essential reading for anyone interested in the way religion begins, structure themselves, and develop through time.

Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today’s Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.

One of the greatest books ever written on the subject, Dynamics of Faithis a primer in the philosophy of religion. Paul Tillich, a leading theologian of the twentieth century, explores the idea of faith in all its dimensions, while defining the concept in the process. This graceful and accessible volume contains a new introduction by Marion Pauck, Tillich's biographer.

Religion: Material Dynamics is a lively resource for thinking about religious materiality and the material study of religion. Deconstructing and reconstructing religion as material categories, social formations, and mobile circulations, the book explores the making, ordering, and circulating of religious things. The book is divided into three sections: Part One revitalizes basic categories—animism and sacred, space and time—by situating them in their material production and testing their analytical viability. Part Two examines religious formations as configurations of power that operate in material cultures and cultural economies and are most clearly shown in the power relations of colonialism and imperialism. Part Three explores the material dynamics of circulation through case studies of religious mobility, change, and diffusion as intimate as the body and as vast as the oceans. Each chapter offers insightful orientations and surprising possibilities for studying material religion. Exploring the material dynamics of religion from poetics to politics, David Chidester provides an entry into the study of material religion that will be welcomed by students and specialists in religious studies, anthropology, and history.