The evidence is everywhere: fundamentalist reading can stir passions and provoke violence that changes the world. Amid such present-day conflagrations, this illuminating book reminds us of the sources, and profound consequences, of Christian fundamentalism in the sixteenth century. |
James Simpson - Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents
Thomas G. Plante Ph.D. – Contemplative Practices in Action: Spirituality, Meditation, and Health
Contemplative practices, from meditation to Zen, are growing in popularity as methods to inspire physical and mental health. Contemplative Practices in Action: Spirituality, Meditation, and Health offers readers an introduction to these practices and the ways they can be used in the service of well being, wisdom, healing, and stress reduction. |
The Old Testament in Byzantium (Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia)
This volume contains selected papers from a December 2006 Dumbarton Oaks symposium that complemented an exhibition of early Bible manuscripts at the Freer Gallery and Sackler Gallery of Art titled “In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000.” Speakers were invited to examine the use of the Greek Old Testament as a text, social practice, and cultural experience in the Byzantine Empire. Not only are reminiscences of the Old Testament ubiquitous in Byzantine literature and art, but the Byzantine people also revered and identified with Old Testament role models. The Old Testament connected Byzantium not only with its Christian neighbors but with Jewish and Muslim peoples as well. This widespread phenomenon has never received systematic investigation. The Old Testament in Byzantium considers the manifestations of the holy books in Byzantine manuscript illustration, architecture, and government, as well as in Jewish Bible translations and the construction of Muhammad’s character. |
Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy
Jon D. Mikalson examines how Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers described, interpreted, criticized, and utilized the components and concepts of the religion of the people of their time - practices such as sacrifice, prayer, dedications, and divination. The chief concepts involved are those of piety and impiety, and after a thorough analysis of the philosophical texts Mikalson offers a refined definition of Greek piety, dividing it into its two constituent elements of `proper respect' for the gods and `religious correctness'. He concludes with a demonstration of the benevolence of the gods in the philosophical tradition, linking it to the expectation of that benevolence evinced by popular religion. Download |
M. D. Faber – Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process
Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process was written, its author says, to alert readers to the role of infantilization in the Judeo-Christian tradition generally and in Christian rite and doctrine particularly. Because religion plays such an important role in so may lives, it is essential to understand the underlying appeal and significance of religious doctrines. |
Bruce Vaughn, Emma Chanlett-avery, Thomas Lum, Mark Manyin, Larry Niksch - Terrorism in Southeast Asia
Since September 2001, the United States has been concerned with radical Islamist groups in Southeast Asia, particularly those in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore that are known to have ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Southeast Asia is a base for past, current, and possibly future Al Qaeda operations. For nearly fifteen years, Al Qaeda has penetrated the region by establishing local cells, training Southeast Asians in its camps in Afghanistan, and by financing and cooperating with indigenous radical Islamist groups. Indonesia and the southern Philippines have been particularly vulnerable to penetration by anti-American Islamic terrorist groups. Members of one indigenous network, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), with extensive ties to Al Qaeda, are known to have helped two of the September 11, 2001 hijackers and have confessed to plotting and carrying out attacks against Western targets.These include the deadliest terrorist attack since September 2001: the 12 October 2002, bombing in Bali, Indonesia, that killed approximately 200 people, mostly Westerners. On 9 September 2004, a suicide bombing attack thought to be the work of JI struck the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, killing 10 and wounding around 200. In October 2005, three suicide bombers exploded bombs within minutes of one another in Bali, killing more than 20 people. These attacks suggest that JI remains capable of carrying out relatively large-scale plots against Western targets, despite the arrest or death of hundreds of JI members, including most of its known leadership.To combat the threat, the Bush Administration has pressed countries in the region to arrest suspected terrorist individuals and organisations, deployed over 1,000 troops to the southern Philippines to advise the Philippine military in their fight against the violent Abu Sayyaf Group, launched a Regional Maritime Security Initiative to enhance security in the Straits of Malacca, increased intelligence sharing operations, restarted military-military relations with Indonesia (including restoring International Military Education and Training [IMET]), and provided or requested from Congress over $1 billion in aid to Indonesia and the Philippines. The responses of countries in the region to both the threat and to the U.S. reaction generally have varied with the intensity of their concerns about the threat to their own stability and domestic politics.In general, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines were quick to crack down on militant groups and share intelligence with the United States and Australia, whereas Indonesia began to do so only after attacks or arrests revealed the severity of the threat to their citizens. That said, many governments view increased American pressure and military presence in their region with ambivalence because of the political sensitivity of the issue with both mainstream Islamic and secular nationalist groups. Indonesia and Malaysia are majority Muslim states while the Philippines and Thailand have sizeable, and historically alienated and separatist-minded, Muslim minorities. |
The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change, 1510-2010
Some blame the violence and unrest in the Muslim world on Islam itself, arguing that the religion and its history is inherently bloody. Others blame the United States, arguing that American attempts to spread democracy by force have destabilized the region, and that these efforts are somehow radical or unique. Challenging these views, The Clash of Ideas in World Politics reveals how the Muslim world is in the throes of an ideological struggle that extends far beyond the Middle East, and how struggles like it have been a recurring feature of international relations since the dawn of the modern European state. |
The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism
Forty-seven percent of the American people, according to a 1991 Gallup poll, believe that God made manas man is nowin a single act of creation, and within the last ten thousand years. Ronald L. Numbers chronicles the astonishing resurgence of this belief since the 1960s, as well as the creationist movement's tangled roots in the theologies of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Adventists, and other religious groups. Even more remarkable than Numbers's story of today's widespread rejection of the theory of evolution is the dramatic shift from acceptance of the earth's antiquity to the insistence of present-day scientific creationists that most fossils date back to Noah's flood and its aftermath, and that the earth itself is not more than ten thousand years old. Numbers traces the evolution of scientific creationism and shows how the creationist movement challenges the very meaning of science. Download |
Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal, Volume 2, Medical and Therapeutic Events
The book examines miracles of body, mind, and spirit, presenting the most recent research and writing on these uncommon events, aiming to bring hard science to some of the most persistent and peculiar phenomena associated with the human race. |