Religious Reflections on the Human Body

Religious Reflections on the Human Body
Author: Jane Marie Law
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1995-02-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780253115447

"It provides imaginative and thought-provoking... coverage of the ways in which religious thought and practice construct understandings of the human body." -- Journal of Asian Studies "Drawing on a remarkably diverse set of studies discussing the major Western religious traditions (including Islam) and East and South Asian traditions, the book challenges easy theorization of 'the body in religion.'... an excellent source book for college-level comparative religion courses... " -- Bruce Mannheim, University of Michigan "... an important study that... should be of considerable interest to the general student of the history and phenomenology of religions." -- Muslim World Book Review The first cross-cultural and interdisciplinary survey on the relationship between religious practice and ideology and the human body.

Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices

Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices
Author: Anna Fedele
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2011-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0857452088

Social scientists and philosophers confronted with religious phenomena have always been challenged to find a proper way to describe the spiritual experiences of the social group they were studying. The influence of the Cartesian dualism of body and mind (or soul) led to a distinction between non-material, spiritual experiences (i.e., related to the soul) and physical, mechanical experiences (i.e., related to the body). However, recent developments in medical science on the one hand and challenges to universalist conceptions of belief and spirituality on the other have resulted in “body” and “soul” losing the reassuring solid contours they had in the past. Yet, in “Western culture,” the body–soul duality is alive, not least in academic and media discourses. This volume pursues the ongoing debates and discusses the importance of the body and how it is perceived in contemporary religious faith: what happens when “body” and “soul” are un-separated entities? Is it possible, even for anthropologists and ethnographers, to escape from “natural dualism”? The contributors here present research in novel empirical contexts, the benefits and limits of the old dichotomy are discussed, and new theoretical strategies proposed.

Religious Reflections on the Human Body

Religious Reflections on the Human Body
Author: Jane Marie Law
Publisher:
Total Pages: 314
Release: 1995
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780253209023

Presenting an exploration of twentieth-century Hopi religious history and cultural change, this book focuses on the interplay between Hopi myth and history, timelessness and the experience of time, continuity and change. Using a historical-analytical framework, it incorporates the Hopi understanding of myth and prophecy.

Theology of the Body Explained

Theology of the Body Explained
Author: Christopher West
Publisher: Gracewing Publishing
Total Pages: 558
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780852446003

Christopher West makes John Paul II's theology of the body available for the first time to people at all levels within the Christian community. Love, sexuality, and human flourishing are inseparable. Those who doubted this will find West's book a transforming experience, and those who have been wounded will find liberation and peace. A wonderful education on the meaning of being human. Christopher West teaches the theology of the body and sexual ethics at St John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. He is also visiting faculty member of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Melbourne, Australia.

A Christian Exploration of Women's Bodies and Rebirth in Shin Buddhism

A Christian Exploration of Women's Bodies and Rebirth in Shin Buddhism
Author: Kristin Johnston Largen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2020-10-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498536565

Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism inherited many negative doctrines around women’s bodies, which in some early Buddhist texts were presented as an obstacle to rebirth, and a hindrance to awakening in general. Beginning with an examination of these doctrines, the book explores Shin teachings and texts, as well as the Japanese context in which they developed, with a focus on women and rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. These doctrines are then compared to similar doctrines in Christianity and used to suggestion fruitful avenues of Christian theological reflection.

Perceiving the Divine through the Human Body

Perceiving the Divine through the Human Body
Author: T. Cattoi
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2011-11-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 023033976X

Cattoi and McDaniel present a selection of articles on the role of the body and the spiritual senses - our transfigured channels of sensory perceptions - in the context of spiritual practice. The volume investigates this theme across a variety of different religious traditions within Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism.

The Body of Faith

The Body of Faith
Author: Robert C. Fuller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 022602511X

The postmodern view that human experience is constructed by language and culture has informed historical narratives for decades. Yet newly emerging information about the biological body now makes it possible to supplement traditional scholarly models with insights about the bodily sources of human thought and experience. The Body of Faith is the first account of American religious history to highlight the biological body. Robert C. Fuller brings a crucial new perspective to the study of American religion, showing that knowledge about the biological body deeply enriches how we explain dramatic episodes in American religious life. Fuller shows that the body’s genetically evolved systems—pain responses, sexual passion, and emotions like shame and fear—have persistently shaped the ways that Americans forge relationships with nature, to society, and to God. The first new work to appear in the Chicago History of American Religion series in decades, The Body of Faith offers a truly interdisciplinary framework for explaining the richness, diversity, and endless creativity of American religious life.

Being God’S Beloved

Being God’S Beloved
Author: Adrian D. van Breda
Publisher: WestBow Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2014-10-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1490853359

Many of us struggle to come to grips with the idea that God loves us. We may know it and believe it in our heads, but getting that into our hearts and into our lives is not easy. Sometimes what we have learned about God makes it even harder to really know that we are Gods beloved. Being Gods Beloved will lead you through forty reflections on what it means to be beloved of God, combining deep spirituality, thoughtful Bible study, and warm pastoral care. The reflections lead you on a journey from before creation, through the Old Testament, into the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and on to the presence of the Holy Spirit. It tells the great love story of God for the Creation over thousands of years. Providing fresh insights into well-known passages, making thoughtful use of word studies, and inviting us to think creatively about God in relation to the world, this book will immerse you in an awareness of Gods love.

Spirit, Soul, Body

Spirit, Soul, Body
Author: Cyprian Consiglio
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2015-01-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814635822

A perennial problem for spiritual traditions of all sorts is dualism—either a positing of a false distance between the Divine and the created or a rejection of creation and the human body. Many contemporary spiritual seekers have sensed this problem and sought to remedy it through myriad solutions drawn from various spiritual traditions and secular wisdom, both Eastern and Western. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam, explores Christianity’s contribution to the discussion. He offers a revisioning and rearticulation of this teaching, based on the prophetic seminal work of Bede Griffiths, toward a practical and integral spirituality that reverences all aspects of our being human—spirit, soul, and body.