Sacred Dissonance

Sacred Dissonance is a thought-provoking study exploring the distinctions between religious identities and cultural boundaries of Jews and Christians. Opposing the notion that all faiths are the same, Anthony Le Donne (a New Testament scholar) and Larry Behrendt (a Jewish lawyer) offer introspective essays on topics such as neighborhood relations, hospitality, and the Holocaust—and provide a model for addressing a difficult past and challenging present.

Moving beyond the all-too-common shallow recognition of differences, Sacred Dissonance: The Blessing of Difference in Jewish-Christian Dialogue explores the essential distinctions between religious identities and the cultural boundaries between Jews and Christians. Co-authored by colleagues deeply committed to their respective faiths--one a Jewish lawyer, one a Christian New Testament scholar--this book stands in opposition to the notion that all religions are basically the same, an idea commonly put forward in many secular circles or among those who follow personally appointed folkways rather than traditional religions. Through deeply introspective essays on topics as personal as neighborhood relations and hospitality, and as difficult and sweeping as the Holocaust, Sacred Dissonance challenges the notion that a passive and self-contained approach to religious distinction will bring about peaceful coexistence. In candid conversations between the authors, every section of Sacred Dissonance models the ways in which conversation can be the means of both addressing a difficult past and a challenging present. In the course of exploring the ways in which Jews and Christians can speak to one another, Le Donne and Behrendt show that Christianity can become a "pro-Jewish" religion, Judaism can become a "pro-Christian" religion, and communities of faith can open space for others, rather than turning them away, even without breaking down the differences between them.

The Routledge Handbook of Religious and Spiritual Tourism provides a robust and comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the literature in this growing sub-field of tourism. This handbook is split into five distinct sections. The first section covers past and present debates regarding definitions, theories, and concepts related to religious and spiritual tourism. Subsequent sections focus on the supply and demand aspects of religious and spiritual tourism markets, and examine issues related to the management side of these markets around the world. Areas under examination include religious theme parks, the UNESCO branding of religious heritage, gender and performance, popular culture, pilgrimage, environmental impacts, and fear and terrorism, among many others. The final section explores emerging and future directions in religious and spiritual tourism, and proposes an agenda for further research. Interdisciplinary in coverage and international in scope through its authorship and content, this will be essential reading for all students, researchers, and academics interested in Tourism, Religion, Cultural Studies, and Heritage Studies.

Every culture on earth has at one time or another danced. From tribal times forward people have danced to socialize, express themselves creatively, and promote societal unity. The borders that separate us came much later in human development. It is time to return to our roots and dance, dance, dance. That is because dance has the unique ability to unite a person’s mind, body, and soul. In his capacity as a touring bassist, Jimi Calhoun witnessed thousands upon thousands of people lose themselves in dance. Suddenly, ethnic, racial, and religious differences disappear. Borders, on the other hand, divide religious communities, races, and nations. Human conflict is perpetuated by these boundaries. What is written within these pages will show you ways to dance across divisions by means of a choreography of altruism. This is a book that invites you to dance to the rhythms of grace that result in true harmony and unity.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.

Two verses about Moses in the Bible have been the subject of debate since the first century. In Exodus 33:20, God tells Moses that no one can see God and live, but Numbers 12:8 says that Moses sees the form of the Lord. How does one reconcile these two opposing statements? Did Moses see God, and who gets to decide? The Christian Moses investigates how ancient Christians from the New Testament to Augustine of Hippo resolved questions of who can see God, how one can see God, and what precisely one sees. Jaeda Calaway explains that the decision about whether and how Moses saw God was not a neutral exercise for an early Christian. Rather, it established the interpreter's authority to determine what was possible in divine-human relations and set the parameters for the nature of humanity. As a result, Calaway argues, interpretations of Moses' visions became a means for Jews and Christians to jockey for power, allowing them to justify particular social arrangements, relations, and identities, to assert the limits of humans in the face of divinity, and to create an Other. Seeing early Christians with new eyes, The Christian Moses reassesses how debates on Moses' visions from the first through the fifth centuries were, in reality, debates on the boundaries of humanity.

This volume explores the fraught relationship between Futurism and the Sacred. Like many fin-de-siècle intellectuals, the Futurists were fascinated by various forms of esotericism such as theosophy and spiritualism and saw art as a privileged means to access states of being beyond the surface of the mundane world. At the same time, they viewed with suspicion organized religions as social institutions hindering modernization and ironically used their symbols. In Italy, the theorization of "Futurist Sacred Art" in the 1930s began a new period of dialogue between Futurism and the Catholic Church. The essays in the volume span the history of Futurism from 1909 to 1944 and consider its different configurations across different disciplines and geographical locations, from Polish and Spanish literature to Italian art and American music.