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Apocalyptic expectations of Armageddon and a New Age have been a fixture of the American cultural landscape for centuries. With the approach of the year 2000, such millennial visions seem once again to be increasing in popularity. Stephen O'Leary sheds new light on the age-old phenomenon of the End of the Age by proposing a rhetorical explanation for the appeal of millennialism. Using examples of apocalyptic argument from ancient to modern times, O'Leary identifies the recurring patterns in apocalyptic texts and movements and shows how and why the Christian Apocalypse has been used to support a variety of political stances and programs. The book concludes with a critical review of the recent appearances of doomsday scenarios in our politics and culture, and a meditation on the significance of the Apocalypse in the nuclear age. Arguing the Apocalypse is the most thorough examination of its subject to date: a study of a neglected chapter of our religious and cultural history, a guide to the politics of Armageddon, and a map of millennial consciousness.
In the twenty-first century, religious life is increasingly moving from churches, mosques and temples onto the Internet. Today, anyone can go online and seek a new form of religious expression without ever encountering a physical place of worship, or an ordained teacher or priest. The digital age offers virtual worship, cyber-prayers and talk-boards for all of the major world faiths, as well as for pagan organisations and new religious movements. It also abounds with misinformation, religious bigotry and information terrorism. Scholars of religion need to understand the emerging forum that the web offers to religion, and the kinds of religious and social interaction that it enables. Religion...
This volume provides an up-to-date introduction to the diverse ways the Bible is being interpreted by scholars in the field.
What is the state of Christianity today, and what might it look like in the future? In the West, the story for a long time has revolved around decline and the loss of monopoly status, but how are these shifts changing the practice of Christianity or individual belief? Similarly, the rapid growth of Christianities in the Global South has been well reported, but the continuing complex intersections of mission Christianity with indigenous religions are less well known. Large-scale flows of people across increasingly fluid borders mean that not only does immigration sometimes significantly boost Christian numbers in a given country, but that different forms of Christianity shift traditional reli...
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This important book challenges the idea that religious fundamentalism can adequately be understood as a paranoid, xenophobic faith. It demonstrates instead how it draws upon a long tradition of evangelical and millenialist scripture in its engagement with issues at the spiritual and ethical core of postmodernity in the United States. The author examines the varieties of fundamentalism as they appear in prophecy, sermon, film and fiction. In its wide-ranging consideration of the rhetoric of the New World Order, the literature of prophecy, Cold War films, television evangelism, cross-border texts, and post-nationalist writing, Fundamentalism in America provides a vital and compelling account of the present state of religious and nationality identity in the United States.
Residing at the intersection of constructive theology and critical social theory, this book provides a resource for both students and clergy to reinterpret Christian theology and re-imagine Christian faith in the twenty-first century. The author seeks “to encourage and equip Christian faith communities to move beyond the decades-long stalemate over human sexuality and gender identity” because “Queer gifts emerge in Christian communities when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people no longer feel compelled to justify their presence in those communities.” Useful in both seminary classrooms and in congregational settings, the book is a contribution to the still-emerging field of queer theology, translating the rigors of scholarly research into transforming proposals for faith communities.
War Trials tells the gripping and in-depth true story of a British soldier’s role in the drowning of an Iraqi teenager in May 2003, the devastating investigation and resulting court martial. This narrative non-fiction tracks the soldier’s life from tight-knit broken family home in Merseyside through deadly urban conflict in the Middle East, to a different battle fought against PTSD while he awaited a military tribunal back in the UK. The military court case in 2006 marked the first of its kind relating to the Iraq war and a case that opened the flood gates of multiple investigations and inquiries into the conduct of soldiers overseas. Based upon rigorous new research, this book’s untol...
Constructing Antichrist engages readers with the question: what does Paul have to do with the Antichrist? Integrating new scholarship in apocalypticism and the history of exegesis, this book is the first longitudinal study of the role of Paul in apocalyptic thought