Searching For God In Britain And Beyond

When writer and media personality Malcolm Muggeridge unexpectedly converted to Christianity in the 1960s, fans around the world flocked to his devotional writings and television programs about his spiritual journey. Because Muggeridge was critical of institutional Christianity and initially refused to join a church, he inspired a special affinity in those who were disillusioned with mainstream religious authority. Readers from around the world sent him deeply personal letters describing their spiritual and religious lives, revealing their anxieties, doubts, and hopes about the future of Christianity. In Searching for God in Britain and Beyond David Reagles draws on nearly two thousand of these remarkable fan letters to explore the thoughts and feelings of ordinary Christians in a time of cultural and religious upheaval. In these candid letters, Muggeridge’s correspondents wrestled with their experiences of faith and doubt, the value of institutional religion, uncertainties about permissiveness in society, the proper role of Christian social activism, and the forces of secularism. For these fans and skeptics alike, reading and writing were a vital means of working out their religious identities and convictions amid the supposed decline of Christendom. Searching for God in Britain and Beyond provides a rare and fascinating glimpse into the inner worlds of ordinary Christians in the 1960s and 1970s, revealing how the secularization of postwar society felt to average people.

The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

Engaging narrative and provocative content come together in this mind-stretching and heart-challenging journey. Come with Kelly Monroe Kullberg on an intellectual road trip as The Veritas Forum explores the deepest questions of the university world and the culture at large. Discover that Veritas transcends philosophy or religion and instead brings us to true life.

In the late spring of 2008 the acclaimed Irish writer Nuala O' Faolain went on a national Irish radio programme to tell the Irish people that she was dying of cancer. She was frightened of death and of the short time left to her. Here was a spokesperson for a generation which now conjured up an abyss for itself, reviewing a culture she had inhabited and helped to create one last time. She believed neither in an afterlife nor in God. With Nuala O' Faolain's broadcast as his point of departure, Waters examines this trajectory of Irish Culture to this point of despair. How reasonable is it to believe in nothing? He explores a new language to excavate the journey of Irish society from what appeared to be profound in its traditional faith to this moment of what might easily have been taken as a moment of nihilistic clarity. What modern men and women suffer from in modern culture is the lack of an idea of the infinite and the eternal.

World-leading experts tackle challenging issues of science and faith. Here are 20 papers from the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, which is a UK educational charity, and a member of the Cambridge Theological Federation which is an affiliate of Cambridge University. In addition to academic research, the Institute engages in the public understanding of science and religion by means of courses, conferences, lectures, seminars and the media. The Faraday Papers provide the general reader with accessible and readable introductions to the relationship between science and religion, written by a broad range of authors who are expert in the field. They are intended to be read by those without a scientific background. Here they are collected for the first time into a single volume. Contributors include: Has Science Killed God? - Prof. Alister McGrath FRSA The Science and Religion Debate, an Introduction - Revd Dr John Polkinghorne KBE FRS Why Care for the Environment? - Prof. Sir John Houghton FRS Ethical Issues in Genetic Modification - Prof. John Bryant The Age of the Earth - Prof. Bob White FRS Creation and Evolution not Creation or Evolution - Prof. R.J. Berry FRSE

Apophatic theology, or negative theology, attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God. It is a way of coming to an understanding of who God is, which has played a significant role across centuries of Christian tradition but is very often treated with suspicion by those engaging in theological study today. This book seeks to introduce students to this oft-misunderstood form of spirituality. Beginning by placing apophatic spirituality within its biblical roots, the book later considers the key pioneers of apophatic faith and a diverse range of thinkers, including C. S. Lewis and Keats, to inform us in our negative theological journey. A final section explores what difference a negative theological approach might make to our practice and our liturgy.

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

Apocalyptic voices grow louder as we enter the new Millennium, promising dire consequences for the fate of humanity, our planet and our civilization. But theirs are not the only voices around. There are voices that are equally strong and full of hope, courage and conviction. Gerard Vanderhaar's voice is not apocalyptic, but prophetic and full of passion. He proposes a new direction, one that will lead to a more workable world - that of the Nonviolent Christ. Vanderhaar shows how figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and others have taken the example of the Nonviolent Christ as their guide for living and working justly and courageously in the world. He then offers suggestions for incorporating gestures of peace and words of compassion and justice into our daily dealings at home, at work, with difficult people, and as part of the political process. He also shows how our attitudes toward money, time and people can deeply influence our effectiveness in working for a better future.