Religion

Following the Jewish Enlightenment, many eighteenth-century Jews chose not to observe the religious laws and customs that had earlier marked them as culturally different from their Christian peers. As the Jewish population became increasingly assimilated, an ultraorthodox movement also emerged, creating a discrete identity for a group within the Jewish community that opted not to move toward the mainstream but instead to embrace the traditional laws.

By tracing the evolution of the approach of the Orthodox to their nonpracticing brethren, Adam S. Ferziger sheds new light on the emergence of Orthodoxy as a specific movement within modern Jewish society. In the course of this process, German Orthodoxy in particular articulated a new hierarchical vision of Jewish identity and the structure of modern Jewish society. Viewing Orthodox Judaism as no less a nineteenth-century phenomenon than Reform Judaism or Zionism, Ferziger looks at the ways it defined itself by its relationship to the nonobservant Jewish population. Ferziger argues that as the Orthodox movement emerged, it rejected the stance that the assimilated and nonobservers were deviant outcasts. Instead, they were accepted as legitimate members of a Jewish community, in which Orthodox Jews occupied the pinnacle, as the guardians of its tradition.

This book's contribution, however, moves beyond a historical study of Orthodox Judaism. The sociological methodology that Ferziger employs enables the reader to appreciate how other religious groups have sought to carve out their places within the mosaic of modern society.

In the years following the Russian Revolution, a bitter civil war was waged between the Bolsheviks, with their Red Army of Workers and Peasants on the one side, and the various groups that constituted the anti-Bolshevik movement on the other. The major anti-Bolshevik force was the White Army, whose leadership consisted of former officers of the Russian imperial army. In the received—and simplified—version of this history, those Jews who were drawn into the political and military conflict were overwhelmingly affiliated with the Reds, while from the start, the Whites orchestrated campaigns of anti-Jewish violence, leading to the deaths of thousands of Jews in pogroms in the Ukraine and elsewhere.

In Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920, Oleg Budnitskii provides the first comprehensive historical account of the role of Jews in the Russian Civil War. According to Budnitskii, Jews were both victims and executioners, and while they were among the founders of the Soviet state, they also played an important role in the establishment of the anti-Bolshevik factions. He offers a far more nuanced picture of the policies of the White leadership toward the Jews than has been previously available, exploring such issues as the role of prominent Jewish politicians in the establishment of the White movement of southern Russia, the "Jewish Question" in the White ideology and its international aspects, and the attempts of the Russian Orthodox Church and White diplomacy to forestall the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

The relationship between the Jews and the Reds was no less complicated. Nearly all of the Jewish political parties severely disapproved of the Bolshevik coup, and the Red Army was hardly without sin when it came to pogroms against the Jews. Budnitskii offers a fresh assessment of the part played by Jews in the establishment of the Soviet state, of the turn in the policies of Jewish socialist parties after the first wave of mass pogroms and their efforts to attract Jews to the Red Army, of Bolshevik policies concerning the Jewish population, and of how these stances changed radically over the course of the Civil War.

Written in Judeo-Arabic in eleventh-century Muslim Spain but quickly translated into Hebrew, Bahya Ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart is a profound guidebook of Jewish spirituality that has enjoyed tremendous popularity and influence to the present day. Readers who know the book primarily in its Hebrew version have likely lost sight of the work's original Arabic context and its immersion in Islamic mystical literature. In A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue, Diana Lobel explores the full extent to which Duties of the Heart marks the flowering of the "Jewish-Arab symbiosis," the interpenetration of Islamic and Jewish civilizations.

Lobel reveals Bahya as a maverick who integrates abstract negative theology, devotion to the inner life, and an intimate relationship with a personal God. Bahya emerges from her analysis as a figure so steeped in Islamic traditions that an Arabic reader could easily think he was a Muslim, yet the traditional Jewish seeker has always looked to him as a fountainhead of Jewish devotion. Indeed, Bahya represents a genuine bridge between religious cultures. He brings together, as well, a rationalist, philosophical approach and a strain of Sufi mysticism, paving the way for the integration of philosophy and spirituality in the thought of Moses Maimonides.

A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue is the first scholarly book in English about a tremendously influential work of medieval Jewish thought and will be of interest to readers working in comparative literature, philosophy, and religious studies, particularly as reflected in the interplay of the civilizations of the Middle East. Readers will discover an extraordinary time when Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinkers participated in a common spiritual quest, across traditions and cultural boundaries.

Through their teaching of early Christian history and theology, Elizabeth A. Clark contends, Princeton Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, and Union Theological Seminary functioned as America's closest equivalents to graduate schools in the humanities during the nineteenth century. These four Protestant institutions, founded to train clergy, later became the cradles for the nonsectarian study of religion at secular colleges and universities. Clark, one of the world's most eminent scholars of early Christianity, explores this development in Founding the Fathers: Early Church History and Protestant Professors in Nineteenth-Century America.

Based on voluminous archival materials, the book charts how American theologians traveled to Europe to study in Germany and confronted intellectual currents that were invigorating but potentially threatening to their faith. The Union and Yale professors in particular struggled to tame German biblical and philosophical criticism to fit American evangelical convictions. German models that encouraged a positive view of early and medieval Christianity collided with Protestant assumptions that the church had declined grievously between the Apostolic and Reformation eras. Trying to reconcile these views, the Americans came to offer some counterbalance to traditional Protestant hostility both to contemporary Roman Catholicism and to those historical periods that had been perceived as Catholic, especially the patristic era.

After a nearly two-thousand-year interlude, and just as Christian Europe was in the throes of the great Witch Hunt and what historians have referred to as "The Age of the Demoniac," accounts of spirit possession began to proliferate in the Jewish world. Concentrated at first in the Near East but spreading rapidly westward, spirit possession, both benevolent and malevolent, emerged as perhaps the most characteristic form of religiosity in early modern Jewish society.

Adopting a comparative historical approach, J. H. Chajes uncovers this strain of Jewish belief to which scant attention has been paid. Informed by recent research in historical anthropology, Between Worlds provides fascinating descriptions of the cases of possession as well as analysis of the magical techniques deployed by rabbinic exorcists to expel the ghostly intruders.

Seeking to understand the phenomenon of spirit possession in its full complexity, Chajes delves into its ideational framework—chiefly the doctrine of reincarnation—while exploring its relation to contemporary Christian and Islamic analogues. Regarding spirit possession as a form of religious expression open to—and even dominated by—women, Chajes initiates a major reassessment of women in the history of Jewish mysticism. In a concluding section he examines the reception history of the great Hebrew accounts of spirit possession, focusing on the deployment of these "ghost stories" in the battle against incipient skepticism in the turbulent Jewish community of seventeenth-century Amsterdam.

Exploring a phenomenon that bridged learned and ignorant, rich and poor, men and women, Jews and Gentiles, Between Worlds maps for the first time a prominent feature of the early modern Jewish religious landscape, as quotidian as it was portentous: the nexus of the living and the dead.

Virginia Burrus explores one of the strongest and most disturbing aspects of the Christian tradition, its excessive preoccupation with shame. While Christianity has frequently been implicated in the conversion of ancient Mediterranean cultures from shame- to guilt-based and, thus, in the emergence of the modern West's emphasis on guilt, Burrus seeks to recuperate the importance of shame for Christian culture. Focusing on late antiquity, she explores a range of fascinating phenomena, from the flamboyant performances of martyrs to the imagined abjection of Christ, from the self-humiliating disciplines of ascetics to the intimate disclosures of Augustine.

Burrus argues that Christianity innovated less by replacing shame with guilt than by embracing shame. Indeed, the ancient Christians sacrificed honor but laid claim to their own shame with great energy, at once intensifying and transforming it. Public spectacles of martyrdom became the most visible means through which vulnerability to shame was converted into a defiant witness of identity; this was also where the sacrificial death of the self exemplified by Christ's crucifixion was most explicitly appropriated by his followers. Shame showed a more private face as well, as Burrus demonstrates. The ambivalent lure of fleshly corruptibility was explored in the theological imaginary of incarnational Christology. It was further embodied in the transgressive disciplines of saints who plumbed the depths of humiliation. Eventually, with the advent of literary and monastic confessional practices, the shame of sin's inexhaustibility made itself heard in the revelations of testimonial discourse.

In conversation with an eclectic constellation of theorists, Burrus interweaves her historical argument with theological, psychological, and ethical reflections. She proposes, finally, that early Christian texts may have much to teach us about the secrets of shame that lie at the heart of our capacity for humility, courage, and transformative love.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was home to a rich cultural mix of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. At the end of the fifteenth century, however, the last Islamic stronghold fell, and Jews were forced either to convert to Christianity or to face expulsion. Thousands left for other parts of Europe and Asia, eventually establishing Sephardic communities in Amsterdam, Venice, Istanbul, southwestern France, and elsewhere.

More than a hundred years after the expulsion, some Judeoconversos—descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had converted to Christianity—were forced to flee the Iberian Peninsula once again to avoid ethnic and religious persecution. Many of them joined the Sephardic Diaspora and embraced rabbinic Judaism. Later some of these same people or their descendants returned to Iberian lands temporarily or permanently and, in a twist that Jewish authorities considered scandalous, reverted to Catholicism. Among them were some who betrayed their fellow conversos to the Holy Office.

In Souls in Dispute, David L. Graizbord unravels this intriguing history of the renegade conversos and constructs a detailed and psychologically acute portrait of their motivations. Through a probing analysis of relevant inquisitorial documents and a wide-ranging investigation into the history of the Sephardic Diaspora and Habsburg Spain, Graizbord shows that, far from being simply reckless and vindictive, the renegades used their double acts of border crossing to negotiate a dangerous and unsteady economic environment: so long as their religious and social ambiguity remained undetected, they were rewarded with the means for material survival. In addition, Graizbord sheds new light on the conflict-ridden transformation of makeshift Jewish colonies of Iberian expatriates—especially in the borderlands of southwestern France—showing that the renegades failed to accommodate fully to a climate of conformity that transformed these Sephardic groups into disciplined communities of Jews.

Ultimately, Souls in Dispute explains how and why Judeoconversos built and rebuilt their religious and social identities, and what it meant to them to be both Jewish and Christian given the constraints they faced in their time and place in history.

Augustine of Hippo is history's best-known Christian convert. The very concept of conversio owes its dissemination to Augustine's Confessions, and yet, as Jason BeDuhn notes, conversion in Augustine is not the sudden, dramatic, and complete transformation of self we likely remember it to be. Rather, in the Confessions Augustine depicts conversion as a lifelong process, a series of self-discoveries and self-departures. The tale of Augustine is one of conversion, apostasy, and conversion again.

In this first volume of Augustine's Manichaean Dilemma, BeDuhn reconstructs Augustine's decade-long adherence to Manichaeism, apostasy from it, and subsequent conversion to Nicene Christianity. Based on his own testimony and contemporaneous sources from and about Manichaeism, the book situates many features of Augustine's young adulthood within his commitment to the sect, while pointing out ways he failed to understand or put into practice key parts of the Manichaean system. It explores Augustine's dissatisfaction with the practice-oriented faith promoted by the Manichaean leader Faustus and the circumstances of heightened intolerance, anti-Manichaean legislation, and pressures for social conformity surrounding his apostasy.

Seeking a historically circumscribed account of Augustine's subsequent conversion to Nicene Christianity, BeDuhn challenges entrenched conceptions of conversion derived in part from Augustine's later idealized account of his own spiritual development. He closely examines Augustine's evolving self-presentation in the year before and following his baptism and argues that the new identity to which he committed himself bore few of the hallmarks of the orthodoxy with which he is historically identified. Both a historical study of the specific case of Augustine and a theoretical reconsideration of the conditions under which conversion occurs, this book explores the role religion has in providing the materials and tools through which self-formation and reformation occurs.

An introduction to the study of women in diverse religious cultures

While women have made gains in equality over the past two centuries, equality for women in many religious traditions remains contested throughout the world. In the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints women are not ordained as priests. In areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan under Taliban occupation girls and women students and their teachers risk their lives to go to school. And in Sri Lanka, fully ordained Buddhist nuns are denied the government identity cards that recognize them as citizens. Is it possible to create families, societies, and religions in which women and men are equal? And if so, what are the factors that promote equality?

Theory of Women in Religions offers an economic model to shed light on the forces that have impacted the respective statuses of women and men from the earliest developmental stages of society through the present day. Catherine Wessinger integrates data and theories from anthropology, archaeology, sociology, history, gender studies, and psychology into a concise history of religions introduction to the complex relationships between gender and religion. She argues that socio-economic factors that support specific gender roles, in conjunction with religious norms and ideals, have created a gendered division of labor that both directly and indirectly reinforces gender inequality. Yet she also highlights how as the socio-economic situation is changing religion is being utilized to support the transition toward women’s equality, noting the ways in which many religious representations of gender change over time.

Illuminates how religion has shaped Latino politics and community building

Too often religious politics are considered peripheral to social movements, not central to them. Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 seeks to correct this misinterpretation, focusing on the post–World War II era. It shows that the religious politics of this period were central to secular community-building and resistance efforts.

The volume traces the interplay between Latino religions and a variety of pivotal movements, from the farm worker movement to the sanctuary movement, offering breadth and nuance to this history. This illuminates how broader currents involving immigration, refugee policies, de-industrialization, the rise of the religious left and right, and the Chicana/o, immigrant, and Puerto Rican civil rights movements helped to give rise to political engagement among Latino religious actors. By addressing both the influence of these larger trends on religious movements and how the religious movements in turn helped to shape larger political currents, the volume offers a compelling look at the twentieth-century struggle for justice.

Explores the complex role that Black religious leaders play—or don’t play—in twenty-first-century racial justice efforts

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. along with many of his Black religious contemporaries courageously mobilized for freedom, ushering in the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. Their efforts laid the groundwork for some of the greatest legislative changes in American history. Today, however, there is relatively limited mass mobilization led by Black religious leaders against systemic racism and racial inequality. Why don’t we see more Black religious leadership in today’s civil rights movements, such as Black Lives Matter?

Drawing on fifty-four in-depth interviews with Black religious leaders and civic leaders in Ohio, Korie Litte Edwards and Michelle Oyakawa uncover several reasons, including a move away from engagement with independent Black-led civic groups toward white-controlled faith-based organizations, religious leaders’ nostalgia for and personal links to the legacy of the civil rights movement, the challenges of organizing around race-based oppression in an allegedly post-racial world, and the hierarchical structure of the Black religious leadership network, which may impede ministers’ work towards collective activism.

Black clergy continue to care deeply about social justice and racial oppression. This book offers important insights into how they approach these issues today, illuminating the social processes that impact when, how, and why they participate in civic action in twenty-first-century America. It reveals the structure and limitations of the Black religious-leader community and its capacity for broad-based mobilization in the post–civil rights era.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2023

Analyzes how American Muslim women assert themselves as religious actors in the US and beyond, using the Qur’an as a tool for social justice and community building

The Women’s Mosque of America (WMA), a multiracial, women-only mosque in Los Angeles, is the first of its kind in the United States. Since 2015, the WMA has provided a space for Muslim women to build inclusive communities committed to gender and social justice, challenging the dominant mosque culture that has historically marginalized them through inadequate prayer spaces, exclusion from leadership, and limited access to religious learning.

Tazeen M. Ali explores this congregation, focusing on how members contest established patriarchal norms while simultaneously contending with domestic and global Islamophobia that renders their communities vulnerable to violence. Drawing on textual analysis of WMA sermons and ethnographic interviews with community members, and utilizing Black feminist and womanist frameworks, Ali investigates how American Muslim women create and authorize new conceptions of Islamic authority. Whereas the established model of Islamic authority is rooted in formal religious training and Arabic language expertise, the WMA is predicated on women’s embodied experiences, commitments to social and racial justice, English interpretations of the Qur’an, and community building across Islamic sects and in an interfaith context.

Situating the US at the center rather than at the margins of debates over Islamic authority and showing how American Muslim women assert themselves as meaningful religious actors in the US and beyond, Ali’s work offers new insights on Islamic authority as it relates to the intersections of gender, religious space, and national belonging.

An antidote to the culture of fear that dominates modern life

From moral panics about immigration and gun control to anxiety about terrorism and natural disasters, Americans live in a culture of fear. While fear is typically discussed in emotional or poetic terms—as the opposite of courage, or as an obstacle to be overcome—it nevertheless has very real consequences in everyday life. Persistent fear negatively effects individuals’ decision-making abilities and causes anxiety, depression, and poor physical health. Further, fear harms communities and society by corroding social trust and civic engagement. Yet politicians often effectively leverage fears to garner votes and companies routinely market unnecessary products that promise protection from imagined or exaggerated harms.

Drawing on five years of data from the Chapman Survey of American Fears—which canvasses a random, national sample of adults about a broad range of fears—Fear Itself offers new insights into what people are afraid of and how fear affects their lives. The authors also draw on participant observation with Doomsday preppers and conspiracy theorists to provide fascinating narratives about subcultures of fear.

Fear Itself is a novel, wide-ranging study of the social consequences of fear, ultimately suggesting that there is good reason to be afraid of fear itself.

Provides an illuminating look at the diverse world of Black religious life in North America, focusing particularly outside of mainstream Christian churches

From the Moorish Science Temple to the Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine to the Commandment Keepers sect of Black Judaism, myriad Black new religious movements developed during the time of the Great Migration. Many of these stood outside of Christianity, but some remained at least partially within the Christian fold. The Black Coptic Church is one of these.

Black Coptics combined elements of Black Protestant and Black Hebrew traditions with Ethiopianism as a way of constructing a divine racial identity that embraced the idea of a royal Egyptian heritage for its African American followers, a heroic identity that was in stark contrast to the racial identity imposed on African Americans by the white dominant culture. This embrace of a royal Blackness—what McKinnis calls an act of “fugitive spirituality”—illuminates how the Black Coptic tradition in Chicago and beyond uniquely employs a religio-performative imagination.

McKinnis asks, ‘What does it mean to imagine Blackness?’ Drawing on ten years of archival research and interviews with current members of the church, The Black Coptic Church offers a look at a group that insisted on its own understanding of its divine Blackness. In the process, it provides a more complex look at the diverse world of Black religious life in North America, particularly within non-mainstream Christian churches.

A history of Catholic social thought

Many Americans assume that the Catholic Church is inherently conservative, based on its stances on abortion, contraception, and divorce. Yet there is a longstanding tradition of progressive Catholic movements in the United States that have addressed a variety of issues from labor, war, immigration, and environmental protection, to human rights, women’s rights, exploitive development practices, and bellicose foreign policies. These Catholic social movements have helped to shift the Church from an institution that had historically supported incumbent governments and political elites to a Church that has increasingly sided with the vulnerable and oppressed.

This book provides a concise history of progressively oriented Catholic Social Thought, which conveys the Catholic Church’s position on a variety of social justice concerns. Sharon Erickson Nepstad introduces key papal encyclicals and other church documents, showing how lay Catholics in the United States have put these ideas into practice through a creative and sometimes provocative political engagement. Nepstad also explores how these progressive movements have pressured the religious hierarchy to respond to pressing social issues, such as women’s ordination, conscription, and the morality of nuclear deterrence policies.

Catholic Social Activism vividly depicts how these progressive movements have helped to shape the religious landscape of the United States, and how they have provoked controversy and debate among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Although women constitute half of the Jewish population and have always played essential roles in ensuring Jewish continuity and the preservation of Jewish beliefs and values, only recently have their contributions and achievements received sustained scholarly attention. Scholars have begun to investigate Jewish women’s domestic, economic, intellectual, spiritual, and creative roles in Jewish life from biblical times to the present. Yet little of this important work has filtered down beyond specialists in their respective academic fields. Women and Judaism brings the broad new insights they have uncovered to the world.
Women and Judaism communicates this research to a wider public of students and educated readers outside of the academy by presenting accessible and engaging chapters written by key senior scholars that introduce the reader to different aspects of women and Judaism. The contributors discuss feminist approaches to Jewish law and Torah study, the spirituality of Eastern European Jewish women, Jewish women in American literature, and many other issues.
Contributors: Nehama Aschkenasy, Judith R. Baskin, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Harriet Pass Freidenreich, Esther Fuchs, Judith Hauptman, Sara R. Horowitz, Renée Levine, Pamela S. Nadell, and Dvora Weisberg.

How music makes worship and how worship makes music in Evangelical churches

Music is a nearly universal feature of congregational worship in American churches. Congregational singing is so ingrained in the experience of being at church that it is often misunderstood to be synonymous with worship. For those who assume responsibility for making music for congregational use, the relationship between music and worship is both promising and perilous – promise in the power of musical style and collective singing to facilitate worship, peril in the possibility that the experience of the music might eclipse the worship it was written to facilitate. As a result, those committed to making music for worship are constantly reminded of the paradox that they are writing songs for people who wish to express themselves, as directly as possible, to God.

This book shines a new light on how people who make music for worship also make worship from music. Based on interviews with more than 75 songwriters, worship leaders, and music industry executives, Shout to the Lord maps the social dimensions of sacred practice, illuminating how the producers of worship music understand the role of songs as both vehicles for, and practices of, faith and identity. This book accounts for the human qualities of religious experience and the practice of worship, and it makes a compelling case for how – sometimes – faith comes by hearing.

Explores the Christian Right’s fierce opposition to science, explaining how and why its leaders came to see scientific truths as their enemy

For decades, the Christian Right’s high-profile clashes with science have made national headlines. From attempts to insert intelligent design creationism into public schools to climate change denial, efforts to “cure” gay people through conversion therapy, and opposition to stem cell research, the Christian Right has battled against science. How did this hostility begin and, more importantly, why has it endured?

Antony Alumkal provides a comprehensive background on the war on science—how it developed and why it will continue to endure. Drawing upon Richard Hofstadter’s influential 1965 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Antony Alumkal argues that the Christian Right adopts a similar paranoid style in their approach to science. Alumkal demonstrates that Christian Right leaders see conspiracies within the scientific establishment, with scientists not only peddling fraudulent information, but actively concealing their true motives from the American public and threatening to destroy the moral foundation of society. By rejecting science, Christian Right leaders create their own alternative reality, one that does not challenge their literal reading of the Bible.

While Alumkal recognizes the many evangelicals who oppose the Christian Right’s agenda, he also highlights the consequences of the war on reality—both for the evangelical community and the broader American public. A compelling glimpse into the heart of the Christian Right’s anti-science agenda, Paranoid Science is a must-read for those who hope to understand the Christian Right’s battle against science, and for the scientists and educators who wish to stop it.

An introduction to the ways in which ordinary Muslim Americans practice their faith.

Muslims have always been part of the United States, but very little is known about how Muslim Americans practice their religion. How do they pray? What’s it like to go on pilgrimage to Mecca? What rituals accompany the birth of a child, a wedding, or the death of a loved one? What holidays do Muslims celebrate and what charities do they support? How do they learn about the Qur’an?

The Practice of Islam in America introduces readers to the way Islam is lived in the United States, offering vivid portraits of Muslim American life passages, ethical actions, religious holidays, prayer, pilgrimage, and other religious activities. It takes readers into homes, religious congregations, schools, workplaces, cemeteries, restaurants—and all the way to Mecca—to understand the diverse religious practices of Muslim Americans.

Going beyond a theoretical discussion of what Muslims are supposed to do, this volume focuses on what they actually do. As the volume reveals, their religious practices are shaped by their racial and ethnic identity, their gender and sexual orientation, and their sectarian identity, among other social factors. Readers gain practical information about Islamic religion while also coming to understand how the day-to-day realities of American life shape Muslim American practice.

Behind the scenes at a creationist theme park with a mission to convert visitors through entertainment

Opened to the public in July 2016, Ark Encounter is a creationist theme park in Kentucky. The park features an all-timber re-creation of Noah's ark, built full scale to creationist specifications drawn from the text of Genesis, as well as exhibits that imagine the Bible’s account of life before the flood. More than merely religious spectacle, Ark Encounter offers important insights about the relationship between religion and entertainment, religious publicity and creativity, and fundamentalist Christian claims to the public sphere.

James S. Bielo examines these themes, drawing on his unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the Ark Encounter creative team during the initial design of the park. This unique anthropological perspective shows creationists outside church contexts, and reveals their extraordinary effort to materialize a controversial worldview for the general public. Taking readers from inside the park’s planning rooms to other fundamentalist projects and diverse Christian tourist attractions, Bielo illuminates how creationist cultural producers seek to reach both their constituents and the larger culture.

The “making of” this creationist theme park, Bielo argues, allows us to understand how fundamentalist culture is produced, and how entertainment and creative labor are used to legitimize creationism. Through intriguing and surprising observations, Ark Encounter challenges readers to engage with the power of entertainment and to seriously grapple with creationist ambitions for authority. For believers and non-believers alike, this book is an invaluable glimpse into the complicated web of religious entertainment and cultural production.

Uncovers women's participation and impact on defining historical moments and themes of Christian traditions

Women in Christian Traditions offers a concise and accessible examination of the roles women have played in the construction and practice of Christian traditions, revealing the enormous debt that this major world religion owes to its female followers. It recovers forgotten and obscured moments in church history to help us to realize a richer and fuller understanding of Christianity.

This text provides an overview of the complete sweep of Christian history through the lens of feminist scholarship. Yet it also departs from some of the assumptions of that scholarship, raising questions that challenge our thinking about how women have shaped beliefs and practices during two thousand years of church history. Did the emphasis on virginity in the early church empower Christian women? Did the emphasis on marriage during the Reformations of the sixteenth century improve their status? These questions and others have important implications for women in Christianity in particular, and for women in religion in general, since they go to the heart of the human condition.

This work examines themes, movements, and events in their historical contexts and locates churchwomen within the broader developments that have been pivotal in the evolution of Christianity. From the earliest disciples to the latest theologians, from the missionaries to the martyrs, women have been instrumental in keeping the faith alive. Women in Christian Traditions shows how they did so.

2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
The ultra-Orthodox yeshiva, or Jewish seminary, is a space reserved for men, and for a focus on religious ideals. Fundamentalist forms of piety are usually believed to be quite resistant to change. In Yeshiva Fundamentalism, Nurit Stadler uncovers surprising evidence that firmly religious and pious young men of this community are seeking to change their institutions to incorporate several key dimensions of the secular world: a redefinition of masculinity along with a transformation of the family, and participation in civic society through the labor market, the army, and the construction of organizations that aid terror victims. In their private thoughts and sometimes public actions, they are resisting the demands placed on them to reject all aspects of the secular world.
Because women are not allowed in the yeshiva setting, Stadler’s research methods had to be creative. She invented a way to simulate yeshiva learning with young yeshiva men by first studying with an informant to learn key religious texts, often having to do with family life, sexuality, or participation in the larger society. This informant then invited students over to discuss these texts with Stadler and himself outside of the yeshiva setting. This strategy enabled Stadler to gain access to aspects of yeshiva life in which a woman is usually unable to participate, and to hear “unofficial” thoughts and reactions which would have been suppressed had the interviews taken place within the yeshiva.
Yeshiva Fundamentalism provides an intriguing — and at times surprising — glimpse inside the all-male world of the ultra-orthodox yeshivas in Israel, while providing insights relevant to the larger context of transformations of fundamentalism worldwide. While there has been much research into how contemporary feminism has influenced the study of fundamentalist groups worldwide, little work has focused on ultra-Orthodox men’s desires to change, as Stadler does here, showing how fundamentalist men are themselves involved in the formulation of new meanings of piety, gender, modernity and relations with the Israeli state.

Dating from the sixteenth century, there were hundreds of shtetls—Jewish settlements—in Eastern Europe that were home to a large and compact population that differed from their gentile, mostly peasant neighbors in religion, occupation, language, and culture. The shtetls were different in important respects from previous types of Jewish settlements in the Diaspora in that Jews had rarely formed a majority in the towns in which they lived. This was not true of the shtetl, where Jews sometimes comprised 80% or more of the population. While the shtetl began to decline during the course of the nineteenth century, it was the Holocaust which finally destroyed it.

During the last thirty years the shtetl has attracted a growing amount of scholarly attention, though gross generalizations and romanticized nostalgia continue to affect how the topic is treated. This volume takes a new look at this most important facet of East European Jewish life. It helps to correct the notion that the shtetl was an entirely Jewish world and shows the ways in which the Jews of the shtetl interacted both with their co-religionists and with their gentile neighbors. The volume includes chapters on the history of the shtetl, its myths and realities, politics, gender dynamics, how the shtetl has been (mis)represented in literature, and the changes brought about by World War I and the Holocaust, among others.

Contributors: Samuel Kassow, Gershon David Hundert, Immanuel Etkes, Nehemia Polen, Henry Abramson, Konrad Zielinski, Jeremy Dauber, Israel Bartel, Naomi Seidman, Mikhail Krutikov, Arnold J. Band, Katarzyna Wieclawska, Yehunda Bauer, and Elie Wiesel.

This is the first book published in the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies Series.

Shaw's excellent treatise is a must for anyone researching roots in Turkey or the Ottoman Empire . . . well organized. . . . [and] impressively researched.
—Dorot
Shaw points out many interesting facts of the symbiosis between Jews and Muslims as he traces the relationship of more than 600 years.
—Choice
Especially recommended for college-level students of Jewish history and culture.
—The Bookwatch
Over the course of the last 600 years, the existence of the Jews of western Europe was continually threatened. While many took refuge in the Eastern regions of Europe, particularly in Poland and Lithuania, many more found shelter in the dominions of the Ottoman empire and in the Middle East, where their reception was far more congenial.
This remarkable history, written by one of the world's foremost scholars of Turkish history, is the definitive account of Jewish life and history in this region. It is the story of the ideological and religious differences, and the hazardous but often successful cohabitation that characterized the life of the Jews of the Ottoman empire and, later, of Turkey.
Examining the economic, cultural, and religious contributions of the Ottoman Jewish community, Stanford J. Shaw, a master of Turkish history, here documents the role of Ottoman Jews in the early Zionist movement, in World War I, and in the Turkish War for Independence. His analysis of the structures of different Jewish communities, the relations between them, and the relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in this unique circumstance is engaging and incisive. As Shaw sifts through the centuries, it becomes apparent that the fortunes of the Ottoman Jews directly paralleled those of the Ottoman empire.
Shaw's extensive research in Ottoman, British, and French archives, as well as sources in Hebrew and Ladino, is supplemented by personal interviews with such major players as Haim Nahum Efendi, the last Grand Rabbi of the Ottoman empire, Rabbi David Asseo, Chief Rabbi of Turkey, and a number of prominent Turkish-Jewish scholars and businessmen.

Winner of the Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award for 2008
Sanctuary Cinema provides the first history of the origins of the Christian film industry. Focusing on the early days of film during the silent era, it traces the ways in which the Church came to adopt film making as a way of conveying the Christian message to adherents. Surprisingly, rather than separating themselves from Hollywood or the American entertainment culture, early Christian film makers embraced Hollywood cinematic techniques and often populated their films with attractive actors and actresses. But they communicated their sectarian message effectively to believers, and helped to shape subsequent understandings of the Gospel message, which had historically been almost exclusively verbal, not communicated through visual media.
Despite early successes in attracting new adherents with the lure of the film, the early Christian film industry ultimately failed, in large part due to growing fears that film would corrupt the church by substituting an American “civil religion” in place of solid Christian values and amidst continuing Christian unease about the potential for the glorification of images to revert to idolatry. While radio eclipsed the motion picture as the Christian communication media of choice by the 1920, the early film makers had laid the foundations for the current re-emergence of Christian film and entertainment, from Veggie Tales to The Passion of the Christ.

In this unique collection of essays, some of today’s smartest Jewish thinkers explore a broad range of fundamental questions in an effort to balance ancient tradition and modern sexuality

In the last few decades a number of factors—post-modernism, feminism, queer liberation, and more—have brought discussion of sexuality to the fore, and with it a whole new set of questions that challenge time-honored traditions and ways of thinking. For Jews of all backgrounds, this has often led to an unhappy standoff between tradition and sexual empowerment.

Yet as The Passionate Torah illustrates, it is of critical importance to see beyond this apparent conflict if Jews are to embrace both their religious beliefs and their sexuality. With incisive essays from contemporary rabbis, scholars, thinkers, and writers, this collection not only surveys the challenges that sexuality poses to Jewish belief, but also offers fresh new perspectives and insights on the changing place of sexuality within Jewish theology—and Jewish lives. Covering topics such as monogamy, inter-faith relationships, reproductive technology, homosexuality, and a host of other hot-button issues, these writings consider how contemporary Jews can engage themselves, their loved ones, and their tradition in a way that’s both sexy and sanctified.

Seeking to deepen the Jewish conversation about sexuality, The Passionate Torah brings together brilliant thinkers in an attempt to bridge the gap between the sacred and the sexual.

Contributors: Rebecca Alpert, Wendy Love Anderson, Judith R. Baskin, Aryeh Cohen, Elliot Dorff, Esther Fuchs, Bonna Haberman, Elliot Kukla, Gail Labovitz, Malka Landau, Sarra Lev, Laura Levitt, Sara Meirowitz, Jay Michaelson, Haviva Ner-David, Danya Ruttenberg, Naomi Seidman, and Arthur Waskow.

Reveals the significant and sometimes heroic roles rabbis have played in our nation's defense

Rabbi Elkan Voorsanger received the Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of Argonne. Chaplain Edgar Siskin, serving with the Marines on Pelilu Island, conducted Yom Kippur services in the midst of a barrage of artillery fire. Rabbi Alexander Goode and three fellow chaplains gave their own lifejackets to panicked soldiers aboard a sinking transport torpedoed by a German submarine, and then went down with the ship. American Jews are not usually associated with warfare. Nor, for that matter, are their rabbis. And yet, Jewish chaplains have played a significant and sometimes heroic role in our nation's defense.

The Fighting Rabbis presents the compelling history of Jewish military chaplains from their first service during the Civil War to the first female Jewish chaplain and the rabbinic role in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. Rabbi Slomovitz, himself a Navy chaplain, opens a window onto the fieldwork, religious services, counseling, and dramatic battlefield experiences of Jewish military chaplains throughout our nation's history.

From George Washington's early support for a religiously tolerant military to a Seder held in the desert sands of Kuwait, these rabbis have had a profound impact on Jewish life in America. Also striking are original documents which chronicle the ongoing care and concern by the Jewish community over the last 140 years for their follow Jews, including many new immigrants who entered the armed forces. Slomovitz refutes the common belief that the U.S. military itself has been a hostile place for Jews, in the process providing a unique perspective on American religious history.

Examines contemporary apocalyptic beliefs and their origins

From religious tomes to current folk prophesies, recorded history reveals a plethora of narratives predicting or showcasing the end of the world. The incident at Waco, the subway bombing by the Japanese cult Aum Supreme Truth, and the tragedy at Jonestown are just a few examples of such apocalyptic scenarios. And these are not isolated incidents; millions of Americans today believe the end of the world is inevitable, either by a divinely ordained plan, nuclear catastrophe, extraterrestrial invasion, or gradual environmental decay.

Examining the doomsday scenarios and apocalyptic predictions of visionaries, televangelists, survivalists, and various other endtimes enthusiasts, as well as popular culture, film, music, fashion, and humor, Daniel Wojcik sheds new light on America's fascination with worldly destruction and transformation. He explores the origins of contemporary apocalyptic beliefs and compares religious and secular apocalyptic speculation, showing us the routes our belief systems have traveled over the centuries to arrive at the dawn of a new millennium. Included in his sweeping examination are premillennial prophecy traditions, prophecies associated with visions of the Virgin Mary, secular ideas about nuclear apocalypse, the transformation of apocalyptic prophecy in the post-Cold War era, and emerging apocalyptic ideas associated with UFOs and extraterrestrials.

Timely, yet of lasting importance, The End of the World as We Know It is a comprehensive cultural and historical portrait of an age-old phenomenon and a fascinating guide to contemporary apocalyptic fever.

Ever since its appearance in Europe five centuries ago, the rosary has been a widespread, highly visible devotion among Roman Catholics. Its popularity has persisted despite centuries of often seismic social upheaval, cultural change, and institutional reform. In form, the rosary consists of a ritually repeated sequence of prayers accompanied by meditations on episodes in the lives of Christ and Mary. As a devotional object of round beads strung on cord or wire, the rosary has changed very little since its introduction centuries ago. Today, the rosary can be found on virtually every continent, and in the hands of hard-line traditionalists as well as progressive Catholics. It is beloved by popes, professors, protesters, commuters on their way to work, children learning their “first prayers,” and homeless persons seeking shelter and safety.
Why has this particular devotional object been so ubiquitous and resilient, especially in the face of Catholicism’s reinvention in the Early Modern, or “Counter-Reformation,” Era? Nathan D. Mitchell argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosary’s adaptability, it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to experience in the aftermath of the Reformation.
Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that after the Reformation Catholicism actually became more innovative and diversified rather than retrenched and monolithic. This innovation was especially evident in the sometimes “subversive”; visual representations of sacred subjects, such as in the paintings of Caravaggio, and in new ways of perceiving the relation between Catholic devotion and the liturgy’s ritual symbols. The rosary was thus involved not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith, but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary, and the concomitant devotion to the Virgin Mary with which it is associated, as a lens through which to better understand early modern Catholic history.

What do Jews think scripture is? How do the People of the Book conceive of the Book of Books? In what ways is it authoritative? Who has the right to interpret it? Is it divinely or humanly written? And have Jews always thought about the Bible in the same way?


In seventeen cohesive and rigorously researched essays, this volume traces the way some of the most important Jewish thinkers throughout history have addressed these questions from the rabbinic era through the medieval Islamic world to modern Jewish scholarship. They address why different Jewish thinkers, writers, and communities have turned to the Bible—and what they expect to get from it. Ultimately, argues editor Benjamin D. Sommer, in understanding the ways Jews construct scripture, we begin to understand the ways Jews construct themselves.

Winner of the 2001-2002 National Jewish Book Award, Reference
Winner, Best Reference Resource, 2001, Library Journal
Winner, Editor's Choice Award, Reference, 2001, Booklist
Winner, Best Reference Book, 2001, Association of Jewish Libraries

In three volumes, captures the people, habits, and customs of more than 6,500 Jewish communities in the early 20th century

New York University Press announces with pride the publication of a remarkable project, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust. Edited by Dr. Shmuel Spector and the late Dr. Geoffrey Wigoder and published in conjunction with Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Authority of Israel, the Encyclopedia represents the fruit of more than three decades of labor and stands as one of the most important and ambitious projects the Press has published. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel contributed the foreword.

Today throughout much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, only fragmentary remnants of once thriving Jewish communities can be found as evidence of more than two thousand years of vibrant Jewish presence among the nations of the world. These communities, many of them ancient, were systematically destroyed by Hitler's forces during the Holocaust. Yet each of their stories-from small village enclaves to large urban centers-is unique in its details and represents one of the countless intertwined threads that comprise the rich tapestry of Jewish history.

The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust captures these lost images. In three volumes, it chronicles the people, habits and customs of more than 6,500 Jewish communities that thrived during the early part of the twentieth century only to be changed irrevocably by the war. It clarifies precise locations of settlements based on documents and maps found in recently opened archives; it traces their development through history; it shares small details of everyday life-the culture, the politics, and the faith that inspired the people; and its photographs put faces on the immeasurable loss.

Based on decades of research at Yad Vashem, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust tells the story of thousands of Jewish communities in concise prose, illustrated with maps and poignant images of a world that can no longer be visited. The Encyclopedia is a rich source of information for students, teachers, genealogists and anyone interested in the pageant of Jewish life through the ages.

More information and sample text and photos available on the companion website: http://www.nyupress.org/jewishlife

Conventional wisdom says that integration into the global marketplace
tends to weaken the power of traditional faith in developing
countries. But, as Meera Nanda argues in this path-breaking book,
this is hardly the case in today’s India. Against expectations of
growing secularism, India has instead seen a remarkable intertwining
of Hinduism and neoliberal ideology, spurred on by a growing
capitalist class. It is this “State-Temple-Corporate Complex,”
she claims, that now wields decisive political and economic power,
and provides ideological cover for the dismantling of the Nehru-era
state-dominated economy.

According to this new logic, India’s rapid economic growth is attributable
to a special “Hindu mind,” and it is what separates the
nation’s Hindu population from Muslims and others deemed to be
“anti-modern.” As a result, Hindu institutions are replacing public
ones, and the Hindu “revival” itself has become big business, a major
source of capital accumulation. Nanda explores the roots of this
development and its possible future, as well as the struggle for secularism
and socialism in the world’s second-most populous country.

For many contemporary Jews, Israel no longer serves as the Promised Land, the center of the Jewish universe and the place of final destination. In New Jews, Caryn Aviv and David Shneer provocatively argue that there is a new generation of Jews who don't consider themselves to be eternally wandering, forever outsiders within their communities and seeking to one day find their homeland. Instead, these New Jews are at home, whether it be in Buenos Aires, San Francisco or Berlin, and are rooted within communities of their own choosing. Aviv and Shneer argue that Jews have come to the end of their diaspora; wandering no more, today's Jews are settled.
In this wide-ranging book, the authors take us around the world, to Moscow, Jerusalem, New York and Los Angeles, among other places, and find vibrant, dynamic Jewish communities where Jewish identity is increasingly flexible and inclusive. New Jews offers a compelling portrait of Jewish life today.

Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860—1920 draws on a wealth of archival material, much of which has never been published—or even read—to illuminate the ways in which Jewish girls’ adolescent experiences reflected larger issues relating to gender, ethnicity, religion, and education.
Klapper explores the dual roles girls played as agents of acculturation and guardians of tradition. Their search for an identity as American girls that would not require the abandonment of Jewish tradition and culture mirrored the struggle of their families and communities for integration into American society.
While focusing on their lives as girls, not the adults they would later become, Klapper draws on the papers of such figures as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah; Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Showboat; and Marie Syrkin, literary critic and Zionist. Klapper also analyzes the diaries, memoirs, and letters of hundreds of other girls whose later lives and experiences have been lost to history.
Told in an engaging style and filled with colorful quotes, the book brings to life a neglected group of fascinating historical figures during a pivotal moment in the development of gender roles, adolescence, and the modern American Jewish community.

Over the past generation, scholars have devoted increasing attention to the diverse forms that Jewish mysticism has taken both in the past and today: what was once called “nonsense” by Jewish scholars has generated important research and attention both within the academy and beyond, as demonstrated by the popular fascination with figures such as Madonna and Demi Moore and the growing interest in spirituality.



In Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah, leading experts introduce the history of this scholarship as well as the most recent insights and debates that currently animate the field in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. From mystical outpourings in ancient Palestine to the Kabbalah Centre, and from attitudes towards gender to mystical contributions to Jewish messianic movements, this volume explores the various expressions of Jewish mysticism from antiquity to the present day in an engaging style appropriate for students and non-specialists alike.

2015 Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award presented by the Stonewall Books Awards of the American Library Association


Muhsin is one of the organizers of Al-Fitra Foundation, a South African support group for lesbian, transgender, and gay Muslims. Islam and homosexuality are seen by many as deeply incompatible. This, according to Muhsin, is why he had to act. “I realized that I’m not alone—these people are going through the very same things that I’m going through. But I’ve managed, because of my in-depth relationship with God, to reconcile the two. I was completely comfortable saying to the world that I’m gay and I’m Muslim. I wanted to help other people to get there. So that’s how I became an activist.”







Living Out Islam documents the rarely-heard voices of Muslims who live in secular democratic countries and who are gay, lesbian, and transgender. It weaves original interviews with Muslim activists into a compelling composite picture which showcases the importance of the solidarity of support groups in the effort to change social relationships and achieve justice. This nascent movement is not about being “out” as opposed to being “in the closet.” Rather, as the voices of these activists demonstrate, it is about finding ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith and reclaiming Islam as their own.

Lone Star Muslims offers an engaging and insightful look at contemporary Muslim American life in Texas. It illuminates the dynamics of the Pakistani Muslim community in Houston, a city with one of the largest Muslim populations in the south and southwestern United States.

Drawing on interviews and participant observation at radio stations, festivals, and ethnic businesses, the volume explores everyday Muslim lives at the intersection of race, class, profession, gender, sexuality, and religious sectarian affiliation to demonstrate the complexity of the South Asian experience.

Importantly, the volume incorporates narratives of gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent, countering the presumed heteronormativity evident in most of the social science scholarship on Muslim Americans and revealing deeply felt affiliations to Islam through ritual and practice. It also includes narratives of members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America, of Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses, of community activists, and of radio program hosts.

Decentering dominant framings that flatten understandings of transnational Islam and Muslim Americans, such as “terrorist” on the one hand, and “model minority” on the other, Lone Star Muslims offers a glimpse into a variety of lived experiences. It shows how specificities of class, Islamic sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities and mediate racism, marginalities, and abjection.

Before Columbus, the Americas were populated by many indigenous cultures, with a great diversity of religions. After 1492, European governments and churches dominated religious life. While Roman Catholicism was the official religion, great religious hybridization occurred, mixing European, indigenous, and often African traditions into distinctly New World forms.
Latin American Religions provides an introduction through documents to the historical development and contemporary expressions of religious life in South and Central America, Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. A central feature of this text is its inclusion of both primary and secondary materials, including letters, sermons, journal entries, ritual manuals, and ancient sacred texts. These documents provide readers with direct access to the voices of adherents, enabling them to act as academic investigators, experiencing and interpreting the same texts on which historians draw. The documents are framed by substantive introductions which provide both historical context and theoretical insights for the study of these religions traditions and the ways in which they have developed over time.
From the religious traditions of the Mayas and Aztecs and of the African diaspora, to official and popular Catholicism, to liberation theology, the rise of Pentecostalism, and emerging trends and new religious movements in Latin America, this new work offers a concise overview of this fascinating field.

Child-molesting priests, embezzled church treasures, philandering ministers and rabbis, even church-endorsed pyramid schemes that defraud gullible parishioners of millions of dollars: for the past decade, clergy misconduct has seemed continually to be in the news.
Is there something about religious organizations that fosters such misbehavior? Bad Pastors presents a range of new perspectives and solidly grounded data on pastoral abuse, investigating sexual misconduct, financial improprieties, and political and personal abuse of authority. Rather than focusing on individuals who misbehave, the volume investigates whether the foundation for clergy malfeasance is inherent in religious organizations themselves, stemming from hierarchies of power in which trusted leaders have the ability to define reality, control behavior, and even offer or withhold the promise of immortality. Arguing that such phenomena arise out of organizational structures, the contributors do not focus on one particular religion, but rather treat these incidents from an interfaith perspective.
Bad Pastors moves beyond individual case studies to consider a broad range of issues surrounding clergy misconduct, from violence against women to the role of charisma and abuse of power in new religious movements. Highlighting similarities between other forms of abuse, such as domestic violence, the volume helps us to conceptualize and understand clergy misconduct in new ways.

2015 Smith/Wynkoop Book Award presented by the Wesleyan Theological Society

2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

During the Progessive Era, a period of unprecedented ingenuity, women evangelists built the old time religion with brick and mortar, uniforms and automobiles, fresh converts and devoted protégés. Across America, entrepreneurial women founded churches, denominations, religious training schools, rescue homes, rescue missions, and evangelistic organizations. Until now, these intrepid women have gone largely unnoticed, though their collective yet unchoreographed decision to build institutions in the service of evangelism marked a seismic shift in American Christianity.

In this ground-breaking study, Priscilla Pope-Levison dusts off the unpublished letters, diaries, sermons, and yearbooks of these pioneers to share their personal tribulations and public achievements. The effect is staggering. With an uncanny eye for essential details and a knack for historical nuance, Pope-Levison breathes life into not just one or two of these women—but two dozen.

Black theology tends to be a theology about no-body. Though one might assume that black and womanist theology have already given significant attention to the nature and meaning of black bodies as a theological issue, this inquiry has primarily taken the form of a focus on issues relating to liberation, treating the body in abstract terms rather than focusing on the experiencing of a material, fleshy reality. By focusing on the body as a physical entity and not just a metaphorical one, Pinn offers a new approach to theological thinking about race, gender, and sexuality.
According to Pinn, the body is of profound theological importance. In this first text on black theology to take embodiment as its starting point and its goal, Pinn interrogates the traditional source materials for black theology, such as spirituals and slave narratives, seeking to link them to materials such as photography that highlight the theological importance of the body. Employing a multidisciplinary approach spanning from the sociology of the body and philosophy to anthropology and art history, Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought pushes black theology to the next level.

An introduction to modern Paganism and its roots and history

The Pagan tradition celebrates the physical nature of life on earth, blending science with spiritual folklore. Considering the everyday world of food, health, sex, work, and leisure to be sacred, Pagans oppose that which threatens life such as deforestation, overdevelopment, and nuclear power and invoke ancient deities in this struggle for the well-being of the earth and its inhabitants.

Contemporary Paganism presents a broad-based introduction to the main trends of contemporary Paganism, revealing the origins and practical aspects of Druidry, Witchcraft, Goddess Spirituality and Magic, Shamanism, and Geomancy, among others. Making use of both traditional history and the movement’s more imaginative sources, Harvey reveals how Paganism and its central focus on individual and social lives is evolving and how this “new religion” perceives and relates to more traditional ones.

This updated and expanded new edition addresses recent developments among Pagans and includes a new chapter assessing continuing scholarly research about the religion.

Charles Manuel “Sweet Daddy” Grace founded the United House of Prayer for All People in Wareham, Massachusetts, in 1919. This charismatic church has been regarded as one of the most extreme Pentecostal sects in the country. In addition to attention-getting maneuvers such as wearing purple suits with glitzy jewelry, purchasing high profile real estate, and conducting baptisms in city streets with a fire hose, the flamboyant Grace reputedly accepted massive donations from his poverty-stricken followers and used the money to live lavishly. It was assumed by many that Grace was the charismatic glue that held his church together, and that once he was gone the institution would disintegrate. Instead, following his 1960 death there was a period of confusion, restructuring, and streamlining. Today the House of Prayer remains an active church with a national membership in the tens of thousands.
Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer seriously examines the religious nature of the House of Prayer, the dimensions of Grace’s leadership strategies, and the connections between his often ostentatious acts and the intentional infrastructure of the House of Prayer. Furthermore, woven through the text are analyses of the race, class, and gender issues manifest in the House of Prayer structure under Grace’s aegis.
Marie W. Dallam here offers both a religious history of the House of Prayer as an institution and an intellectual history of its colorful and enigmatic leader.

Christian filmmaking, done outside of the corporate Hollywood industry and produced for Christian churches, affected a significant audience of church people. Protestant denominations and individuals believed that they could preach and teach more effectively through the mass medium of film. Although suspicion toward the film industry marked many conservatives during the early 1930s, many Christian leaders came to believe in the power of technology to convert or to morally instruct people. Thus the growth of a Christian film industry was an extension of the Protestant tradition of preaching, with the films becoming celluloid sermons.

Celluloid Sermons is the first historical study of this phenomenon. Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke highlight key characters, studios, and influential films of the movement from 1930 to 1986—such as the Billy Graham Association, with its major WorldWide Pictures productions of films like The Hiding Place, Ken Curtis’ Gateway Films, the apocalyptic “end-time” films by Mark IV (e.g. Thief in the Night), and the instructional video-films of Dobson’s Focus on the Family--assessing the extent to which the church’s commitment to filmmaking accelerated its missions and demonstrating that its filmic endeavors had the unintended consequence of contributing to the secularization of liberal denominations.

Targeted and convicted by a broken justice system, Micheal Morisi was sent to prison for a crime that never even occurred—only to find Jesus in the “furnace” with him. 

It was Never About Justice is Michael Morisi’s story of the broken and corrupt the criminal justice system, and how to find Jesus in the deepest of pits. According to Morisi, anyone who seeks Christ will find him. He is always there, ready to walk with those who seek him.

Michael Morisi was charged with crimes that did not even happen and when he wanted to fight the charges, his Federal Public Defender told him: “Mike, you don’t understand. This case is not about truth, not about guilt or innocence and not about justice. You were targeted. And you either play the game, or this Prosecutor will make sure you go to prison for ten years for something you didn’t do. Just play the game and you’ll go home to your family, then write a book…you’ll make millions”

Sentenced to prison for a crime that never happened, Michael Morisi had a choice: be angry and let the injustice become his identity, or believe every word God said and seek His glory in one of the darkest places imaginable. Despite his eight months of prison—being locked up in a broken prison system, away from his young family—Morisi wouldn’t trade a minute, after all God did in and through him. Discover the truth of the Gospel and Morisi’s resilience in hardship in It was Never About Justice.

In this companion to his best-selling translation of the Bhagavad Gita, Easwaran explores the essential themes of this much-loved Indian scripture.

Placing the Gita in a modern context, Easwaran shows how this classic text sheds light on the nature of reality, the illusion of separateness, the search for identity, and the meaning of yoga. The key message of the Gita is how to resolve our conflicts and live in harmony with the deep unity of life, through the principles of yoga and the practice of meditation.

Easwaran grew up in the Hindu tradition and learned Sanskrit from an early age. A foremost translator and interpreter of the Gita, he taught classes on it for forty years, while living out the principles of the Gita in the midst of a busy family and community life.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna, the Lord, doesn’t tell the warrior prince Arjuna what to do: he shows Arjuna his choices and then leaves it to Arjuna to decide. Easwaran, too, shows us clearly how these teachings still apply to us – and how, like Arjuna, we must take courage and act wisely if we want our world to thrive.

Easwaran’s best-selling translation of this classic Buddhist text The Dhammapada is reliable, readable, and profound.

Dhammapada means "the path of dharma," the path of harmony and righteousness that anyone can follow to reach the highest good. The Dhammapada is a collection of verses, gathered probably from direct disciples who wanted to preserve what they had heard from the Buddha himself.

Easwaran's comprehensive introduction to the Dhammapada gives an overview of the Buddha's teachings that is penetrating, and clear – accessible for readers new to Buddhism, but also with fresh insights and practical applications for readers familiar with this text. His translation is based on the original Pali. Chapter introductions, notes and a Sanskrit glossary place individual verses into the context of the broader Buddhist canon.

Easwaran is a master storyteller, and the introduction includes many stories that make moving, memorable reading, bringing young Siddhartha and his heroic spiritual quest vividly to life. This faithful interpretation brings us closer to the compassionate heart of the Buddha.

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Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (PRE) is most famous for introducing into rabbinic tradition several legends about biblical figures not found in the classical rabbinic corpus of Talmud and Midrash. Modern scholarship considers the non-rabbinic legends in PRE an example of the survival of Second Temple literature within Jewish tradition. The present study, however, will attempt to explain the non-rabbinic material found in PRE as the result of the author’s adoption (and adaptation) of elements from the surrounding Christian and Muslim cultures rather than through the direct transmission of Second Temple works among Jews. This hypothesis will be tested through the examination of two works close to PRE in form and content, Jubilees (second century BCE) and the Cave of Treasures (sixth century CE). All three are examples of the "Rewritten Bible," which recount the history of ancient Israel independently of the biblical text. The study concludes that region, rather than religion, shaped the author’s presentation of the history of the ancient prophets and patriarchs

"Enki and the World Order," a Sumerian myth from the early second millennium BCE, depicts the god Enki's reconstitution of the Sumerian world after an unspecified catastrophe. The myth ends with a face-off between Enki and the goddess of love and war, Inana, who is dissatisfied with Enki's allotment of functions to the other goddesses.

This volume presents a critical edition of the 472-line Sumerian text, with introduction, translation and commentary, based on 25 published and unpublished manuscripts, mostly from Nippur in what is now southern Iraq. All the manuscripts, with one exception, have been collated, and there are many new fragments and joins to previously known tablets.

A rich study, with new research data, on eighteen Ptolemaic period sarcophagi housed in museums in Cairo, including the Grand Egyptian Museum

The individually designed anthropoid sarcophagi of the Ptolemaic period (ca. 330–30 BCE) offer a particularly rich and varied repertoire of hieroglyphic inscriptions and religious scenes. Being at the end of a long tradition of funerary literature, many of the epigraphs on these objects are variations or reinterpretations of older texts that have been circulated and transmitted over millennia.

Others are entirely new creations that provide insight into funerary beliefs of late ancient Egypt. The present volume is the second and last publication of a joint project between scholars from Cairo University and the University of Tübingen on Late and Ptolemaic period sarcophagi housed in the museums of Cairo. It includes the detailed publication of eighteen sarcophagi, which until now have only been known through brief descriptions. The facsimile drawings, detailed pictures, translations, and commentaries presented here will allow scholars to approach this corpus with a broad range of research questions.

Despite considerable scholarly efforts for many years, the last two decades of the Kingdom of Israel are still beneath the veil of history. What was the status of the Kingdom after its annexation by Assyria in 732 BCE? Who conquered Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom? When did it happen? One of the primary reasons for this situation lies in the discrepancies found in the historical sources, namely the Hebrew Bible and the Assyrian texts.

Since biblical studies and Assyriology are two distinct disciplines, the gaps in the sources are not easy to bridge. Moreover, recent great progress in the archaeological research in the Southern Levant provides now crucial new data, independent of these textual sources.

This volume, a collection of papers by leading scholars from different fields of research, aims to bring together, for the first time, all the available data and to discuss these conundrums from various perspectives in order to reach a better and deeper understanding of this crucial period, which possibly triggered in the following decades the birth of "new Israel" in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and eventually led to the formation of the Hebrew Bible and its underlying theology.

What if marriage could be everything one hoped it would be, and more?

In Radical Encounter, discover how marriage is far more than a promise between two people—it’s a divine tool God uses to transform hearts, reshape character, and reflect the love of Christ.

Drawing deeply from Scripture, personal testimony, and the insights of secure attachment theory, this marriage guidebook invites couples to see their relationship not as a problem to fix, but as a process of spiritual formation.

With biblical depth and raw honesty, Radical Encounter reveals how God meets his followers in the mess and beauty of married life—not just to change people’s circumstances, but to change them from the inside out. Whether someone is newlywed, struggling, or spiritually stagnant, this resource will help them

• Reframe conflict as an opportunity for Christlike growth
• Cultivate emotional safety and spiritual intimacy
• Let go of performance and embrace grace
• Build a resilient, gospel-rooted marriage that lasts

Marriage isn’t just about surviving. It’s about surrendering to a Savior who uses covenant love to write a story of redemption.

Radical Encounter will guide Christian couples into deeper trust, fuller love, and a marriage transformed by Jesus.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

The Psalms are some of the most cherished and powerful texts in the Bible, offering a timeless voice of prayer, praise and lament. With their poetic beauty and deep emotional resonance, the Psalms reflect the full range of human experience - joy, sorrow, hope and despair. From David's passionate expressions of longing and gratitude to the comforting assurances of divine presence, the Psalms speak to the heart, providing a spiritual anchor for those seeking peace and strength. For centuries, these sacred verses have been recited in times of celebration, mourning and everything in between, reminding us that we are never alone.

Discover peace, inspiration and timeless wisdom in The Little Book of Psalms. This beautifully compact collection brings together the most beloved Psalms, offering a daily source of comfort and reflection. Whether you're seeking solace, spiritual guidance or a deeper connection to your faith, this book provides a rich treasure of ancient prayers that continue to resonate with people of all walks of life. Perfect for personal devotion or as a thoughtful gift, The Little Book of Psalms will uplift your spirit, nourish your soul, and remind you of the enduring power of these sacred words. Keep it close for moments of prayer, reflection, and quiet meditation - wherever life takes you.

SAMPLE TEXT

"The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance."
C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

"My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms."
Dorothy Day

"Come, let us sing a psalm."
Martin Luther

Die Festschrift zu Ehren von Holger Strutwolf, dem Direktor des Instituts für Neutestamentliche Textkritik und des Bibelmuseums Münster, anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstages umfasst über 40 Beiträge von wissenschaftlichen Weggefährtinnen und Weggefährten, die das große und breit gefächerte Forschungsinteresse des Jubilars widerspiegeln. Neben Abhandlungen zu der alten Kirchengeschichte und der Patristik liegt der besondere Schwerpunkt auf dem Text des Neuen Testaments. Behandelt werden verschiedenen Fragen zu der handschriftlichen Überlieferung, dem Ausgangstext, der Entstehung der Varianten, der versionellen und patristischen Einflüsse, dem Textverständnis und den (digitalen) Methoden der Textedition.

Ein Vorwort, ein Schriftenverzeichnis des Jubilars sowie eine ihm gewidmete tabula gratulatoria komplettieren den Band.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume Three addresses marriage, baptism, minor holy days and the burial of the dead.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

In Volume 3, the Standing Commission on Liturgy takes up the Pastoral Offices outside of Christian Initiation in publications from 1958 and 1959. The concluding study is not a study at all, but a plea to General Convention in 1961 to allow Trial Use for the liturgies produced up to this point.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume Six presents new draft liturgies for the Eucharist, Daily Office, the Psalms and Pastoral Offices.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

Volume 6 contains the second group of draft liturgies presented to the General Convention of 1970. These studies provide liturgies for the Eucharist, Daily Office, the most used Psalms, and the Pastoral Offices.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume Eight presents the crowning study: an introduction and explanation of the new prayer book as a whole. 

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

Volume 8 completes the contents of the proposed prayer book and contains the crowning study--an introduction and explanation of the new prayer book as a whole. The Daily Offices materials are more of a completion than a revision and introduces a new Daily Office Lectionary; the other study completes the rites related to church structures. 

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume Nine presents options for inclusive and expansive liturgical language for God.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

Volume 9 comes 10 years after the ratification of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This study presents options for inclusive and expansive liturgical language for God and a framework for teaching about these liturgies and concepts to both children and adults.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of the Common Prayer — Volume Four revisits the Church Calendar and the Eucharist.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy.

The two studies in Volume 4 revisit two important subjects addressed in earlier work: the Calendar and the Eucharist. Notably, their publications in 1963 and 1966 address and incorporate important ecumenical developments resulting from the dramatic events of Vatican II (1962-1965).

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume Seven presents new prayers and Thanksgiving and a defense of proposed liturgical revisions.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy.

Volume 7 contains the Prayers and Thanksgivings--not seen before--and also a response to the skeptical reception by some of the proposed Christian Initiation materials. In addition to a new set of liturgies, a lengthy supplement explains and defends the new approach.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer returns to print — Volume Five concerns new draft liturgies presented to the Church’s general convention.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

Volume 5 contains the first group of draft liturgies presented to the General Convention of 1970. These studies provide liturgies for the Calendar, Christian Initiation, and the Ordinal.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume One concerns the core liturgy of the Church: Communion, Confession and the Eucharist.

The creation of the landmark 1979 American Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

The studies included in Volume One were published between 1950 and 1953, and address Christian Initiation, the Epistles and Gospels for reading at Holy Communion, Confession, and the Holy Eucharist.

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision the of Book of Common Prayer — Volume Two addresses the Litany and the Daily Office.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformations in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

In Volume 2 The Litany and Daily Office--including the Calendar-- are addressed, completing the chief elements of Anglican/Episcopal public worship. The materials here begin with the Litany study published in 1953; the others appeared in 1957.

"Muggeridge's masterpiece, the greatest achievement of his life as a writer."—The London Times

One of the most arrestingly insightful reflections ever written on the life, person, and teachings of Christ. 

In Jesus, the Man Who Lives, the celebrated British author Malcolm Muggeridge offers a meditation that was deemed by The London Times to be his “masterpiece, the greatest achievement of his life as a writer.” Muggeridge's portrait of Christ is at once deeply personal and universally accessible.

Beginning with the assertion that the “coming of Jesus into the world is the most stupendous event in human history,” Muggeridge provides astute commentary on the events of Christ’s life, his teachings, his parables, his prophecies, and his relationships. Along the way, he happily punctures many of the cherished myths held about Jesus—and about itself—by the modern, self-satisfied, largely post-Christian world. With his trademark honesty and wit, Muggeridge concludes that “either Jesus never was or he still is. I assert that he still is." 

This new, fiftieth-anniversary edition proudly reintroduces Malcolm Muggeridge’s profound spiritual meditation to a new generation of readers.

Takes seriously youths’ ownership of their sexual choices within purity culture

Gaining mass popularity in the mid-1990s with the True Love Waits rally on the Washington Mall, purity culture began as an urge from evangelical conservatives for Christian adolescents to publicly commit to practicing abstinence until marriage. Throughout this decade and the next, millions of evangelical teenagers performed their commitment to sexual purity by signing pledges and wearing purity rings.

This book examines the shaping of purity culture in the United States, looking specifically at the experiences of white youth. It shows that white girls and white queer youth were vulnerable to the purity movement, but that they were also complicit in its white supremacist oppressive structure. It makes the case that purity culture follows in the footsteps of other purity movements in the United States, and is very much tied to centuries of anti-Black racism and xenophobia in US social history, seeing white youth as in need of protection, usually from a racialized, sexualized other.

While other works have focused on the ways in which purity culture has victimized young people, Sawyer argues that their perceived status as victims lets them too easily off the hook. White youth have been afforded the privilege of participating in purity culture’s harmful behaviors without being called to account. Closely reading adolescents’ stories of growing up in purity culture, she uncovers youth as agents, participants, and beneficiaries of its white supremacist framing, even as they were still vulnerable to its harmful teachings.