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"'Education systems are failing their societies' is the message often conveyed by families and young people to governments and media today. The dismal state of a country's education system is said to be a reflection of the condition of the society it is meant to serve. What are we teaching young people today? Do we understand what they need to learn for their ultimate well being? In traditional societies, education was the means by which knowledge of the Divine Principle and its relation to the human soul was transmitted to young generations. Addressing a theme rarely discussed in philosophical and educational circles, this unique volume attempts to rediscover the truths and values engrained in traditional education systems. Some of the articles also go to the heart of the woes of modern public education systems."--Publisher's website.
This book provides a critical feminist analysis of the Korean Protestant Right’s gendered politics. Specifically, the volume explores the Protestant Right’s responses and reactions to the presumed weakening of hegemonic masculinity in Korea’s post-hypermasculine developmentalism context. Nami Kim examines three phenomena: Father School (an evangelical men’s manhood and fatherhood restoration movement), the anti-LGBT movement, and Islamophobia/anti-Muslim racism. Although these three phenomena may look unrelated, Kim asserts that they represent the Protestant Right’s distinct yet interrelated ways of engaging the contested hegemonic masculinity in Korean society. The contestation over hegemonic masculinity is a common thread that runs through and connects these three phenomena. The ways in which the Protestant Right has engaged the contested hegemonic masculinity have been in relation to “others,” such as women, sexual minorities, gender nonconforming people, and racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
Prayer: Christian and Muslim Perspectives is a rich collection of essays, scriptural texts, and personal reflections featuring leading scholars analyzing the meaning and function of prayer within their traditions. Drawn from the 2011 Building Bridges seminar in Doha, Qatar, the essays in this volume explore the devotional practices of each tradition and how these practices are taught and learned. Relevant texts are included, with commentary, as are personal reflections on prayer by each of the seminar participants. The volume also contains a Christian reflection on Islamic prayer and a Muslim reflection on Christian prayer. An extensive account of the informal conversations at the seminar conveys a vivid sense of the lively, penetrating, but respectful dialogue that took place.
The notion of adab is at the heart of Arab-Islamic culture. Born in the crucible of the Arabic and Persian civilization, nourished by Greek and Indian influences, this polysemic notion could cover a variegated range of meanings: good behavior, knowledge of manners, etiquette, rules and belles-lettres and finally, literature. This collection of articles tries to explore how the formulations and reformulations of adab during the first centuries of Islam engage with the crucial period of the first great spiritual masters, exploring the importance of normativity, but also of transgression, in order to define the rules themselves. Assuming that adab is ethics, the articles analyse the genres of S...
This book examines the historical development of the blessing of waters and its theology in the East, with an emphasis on the Byzantine tradition. Exploring how Eastern Christians have sought these waters as a source of healing, purification, and communion with God, Denysenko unpacks their euchology and ritual context. The history and theology of the blessing of waters on Epiphany is informative for contemporary theologians, historians, pastors and students. Offering important insights into how Christians renew Baptism in receiving the blessed waters, this book also proposes new perspectives for theologizing Christian stewardship of ecology in the modern era based on a patristic liturgical synthesis. Denysenko presents an alternative framework for understanding the activity of the Trinity, enabling readers to encounter a vision of how participants encounter God in and after ritual.
Many people in the ancient world saw human life as deeply connected with the great cycles of nature: the rising and setting of the sun, the changing of the seasons, the death and rebirth of vegetation. In the same way that other patterns in nature repeat at regular intervals, they believed that human history also goes through cycles in which significant events repeat, and are likely to happen again in the future at predictable times. A penetrating study into the history of astrology, ancient religion,secret societies and the evolution of consciousness, 2012 and the Shift of Ages: A Guide to the End of the World is sure to be an invaluable resource in navigating a time of difficult transitions. Table of Contents 1. The Hopi Way 2. Aztec Migration Path 3. Mayan Timekeeping 4. Cosmic Cycles 5. Universal Religion 6. The Path of the Sun 7. The Master of Animals 8. Egyptian Mysteries 9. Mesopotamia the Far-Away 10. The Divine Harmony 11. The Zoroastrian Dawn 12. Mithras the Rejuvenator Epilogue: The Return of the King
Bringing together a team of scholars from the diverse fields of geography, literary studies, and history, this is the first volume to study water as a cultural phenomenon within the Russian/Soviet context. Water in this context is both a cognitive and cultural construct and a geographical and physical phenomenon, representing particular rivers (the Volga, the Chusovaia in the Urals, the Neva) and bodies of water (from Baikal to sacred springs and the flowing water of nineteenth-century estates), but also powerful systems of meaning from traditional cultures and those forged in the radical restructuring undertaken in the 1930s. Individual chapters explore the polyvalence and contestation of m...
This insightful autobiographical account details one man’s relationship with a spiritual master and how it led to a deep spiritual understanding of human life. The 96-year-old author, a respected British scholar, recounts the lessons learned from the Sufi sage, including the answers to profound questions such as Do religions contradict one another? What is the spiritual significance of tears and laughter? How does the Divine play a part in such simple acts? Do civilizations embody spirituality? and How is the Quranic definition of the afterlife related to Sufism? An appendix in memory of Dr. Lings includes tributes from Huston Smith and Wendell Berry, photos from Doctor Ling's, and excerpts from major obituaries.
Abrahamic scriptures serve as cultural pharmakon, prescribing what can act as both poison and remedy. This collection shows that their sometimes veiled but eternally powerful polemics can both destroy and build, exclude and include, and serve as the ultimate justification for cruelty or compassion. Here, scholars not only excavate these works for their formative and continuing cultural impact on communities, identities, and belief systems, they select some of the most troubling topics that global communities continue to navigate. Their analysis of both texts and their reception help explain how these texts promote norms and build collective identities. Rejecting the notion of the sacred realm as separate from the mundane realm and beyond critical challenge, this collection argues—both implicitly and sometimes transparently—for the presence of the sacred within everyday life and open to challenge. The very rituals, prayers, and traditions that are deemed sacred interweave into our cultural systems in infinite ways. Together, these authors explore the dynamic nature of everyday life and the often-brutal power of these texts over everyday meaning.
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