Confronting Religious Absolutism PDF Download
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| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 150 |
| Release | : 2016-10-27 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498228852 |
Download Confronting Religious Absolutism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy provide the conceptual foundations of theocracy, which is to say religiously-based totalitarianism. These absolutist doctrines emerge for the very first time among the Victorians: they are not ancient beliefs at all. They appear in the 19th century, right alongside secular varieties totalitarian thought, and in response to all the same cultural anxieties. Reactionary religious leaders used these doctrines to oppose scholarly conclusions in geology and evolutionary biology. That much everyone knows. What's not as well known is the fact that their principal target was Christian-humanist biblical scholarship, an unbroken 500-year tradition of inquiry undertaken primarily by Christian clergy and seminary faculty. The alternative to faith-based totalitarianism is faith based upon the imagination, our most sophisticated cognitive skill. Faith rooted in the moral imagination does not depend upon abject deference to an array of rigid doctrines and improbable claims. Wallace contends that faith is best understood as a creative process, and religion is best understood as a multi-media art (and originally the Mother of all arts). The arts convince, they do not command. They persuade, they do not prove. The arts provide humane resources whereby we grapple with life's deepest mysteries. Symbolism, like quantum mathematics, is a tool for grappling with inescapable paradox at the heart of reality. It is an ancient strategy for articulating what we discover at the elusive mind-body interface.
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 150 |
| Release | : 2016-10-27 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498228844 |
Download Confronting Religious Absolutism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy provide the conceptual foundations of theocracy, which is to say religiously-based totalitarianism. These absolutist doctrines emerge for the very first time among the Victorians: they are not ancient beliefs at all. They appear in the 19th century, right alongside secular varieties totalitarian thought, and in response to all the same cultural anxieties. Reactionary religious leaders used these doctrines to oppose scholarly conclusions in geology and evolutionary biology. That much everyone knows. What's not as well known is the fact that their principal target was Christian-humanist biblical scholarship, an unbroken 500-year tradition of inquiry undertaken primarily by Christian clergy and seminary faculty. The alternative to faith-based totalitarianism is faith based upon the imagination, our most sophisticated cognitive skill. Faith rooted in the moral imagination does not depend upon abject deference to an array of rigid doctrines and improbable claims. Wallace contends that faith is best understood as a creative process, and religion is best understood as a multi-media art (and originally the Mother of all arts). The arts convince, they do not command. They persuade, they do not prove. The arts provide humane resources whereby we grapple with life's deepest mysteries. Symbolism, like quantum mathematics, is a tool for grappling with inescapable paradox at the heart of reality. It is an ancient strategy for articulating what we discover at the elusive mind-body interface. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
| Author | : Mary Fulbrook |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 228 |
| Release | : 1983-11-17 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780521276337 |
Download Piety and Politics Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book presents a fresh historical and theoretical analysis of religion and politics in early modern Europe.
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 108 |
| Release | : 2016-03-28 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498228828 |
Download Confronting Religious Violence Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Confronting Religious Violence: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination tells the tale of Christian theocracy in the West. Who converted whom was never entirely clear: the empire did stop feeding people to the lions for public entertainment; but Christianity was theologically corrupted by its official role in legitimating empire-as-usual. That theological corruption led to crusades, inquisitions, torture, and so forth. And it leaves us with a major question: is God violent? More dangerously yet: is violence our only option in response to wrongdoing? Are we morally obligated to injure those who have injured others, to kill those who have killed others? If theocracy is a terrible idea, what is the proper relationship between church and state? We can't say that the state is never morally accountable at all. Furthermore: despite constitutional separation of church and state, hard-right Christian fundamentalism continues to play a culturally significant role in advocating military action abroad and supporting state violence at home. There is a lot at stake in reclaiming the systematic nonviolence and moral imagination of Jesus of Nazareth.
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 109 |
| Release | : 2015-10-27 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498225403 |
Download Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Writing in part for secular humanists, non-Christians, and ex-Christians, Wallace locates the beginning of religious vilification of LBGTQ Americans: these attacks recycle earlier, equally reactionary political opposition to racial desegregation and equal rights for women. Then, step by step, she lays out three major flaws in the religious argument against gay marriage. First, it derives from Plato and Greco-Roman sexual anxieties, not from Jesus. Second, opposition to gay marriage takes Bible verses out of context, ignoring their roots in Iron Age biology, sexual politics in the classic era, and pagan ritual practices. Third and most importantly, this opposition reflects an inadequate moral theology based on a denial of contemporary science and social science. Then and only then does she offer her own concept of marriage as a morally rooted, creative process, laying out common ground easily shared by Christian humanists and secular humanists alike. Her nimble, accessible account, richly leavened by personal stories, will facilitate new conversations and alliances among all those, believers and nonbelievers alike, who affirm the moral dignity of gay marriage. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 138 |
| Release | : 2016-07-05 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498228747 |
Download Confronting Religious Denial of Science Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Confronting Religious Denial of Science: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination traces the cultural backstory of contemporary conflicts between biblical literalists who oppose evolution and "New Atheists" who insist that religion is so pernicious it should be outlawed, if not exterminated. That's a clash of fundamentalisms. It's a zero-sum game derived from high Victorian misunderstanding of both religion and science. The God whom science supposedly replaces is the Engineer Almighty sitting at his keyboard, controlling every event on earth. But that's not a viable concept of God. Far better, Wallace argues, to understand Christianity in Clifford Geertz's terms as a system of symbols that both constitutes a worldview and, according to David Sloan Wilson, encourages prosocial behavior. That reframing makes it possible to reclaim what biblical scholars have said for decades: the miracles of Jesus were confrontational symbolic actions. They contradicted the political status quo in colonial Palestine, not the laws of biology. Prayer, she explains, is not magical thinking. It's a creative, highly disciplined introspective process, most familiar to many people in forms like mindfulness meditation. Wallace offers an intriguing exploration of issues that believers seldom discuss in ways that make sense to the religiously unaffiliated. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 138 |
| Release | : 2016-07-05 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1532603509 |
Download Confronting Religious Denial of Science Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Confronting Religious Denial of Science: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination traces the cultural backstory of contemporary conflicts between biblical literalists who oppose evolution and "New Atheists" who insist that religion is so pernicious it should be outlawed, if not exterminated. That's a clash of fundamentalisms. It's a zero-sum game derived from high Victorian misunderstanding of both religion and science. The God whom science supposedly replaces is the Engineer Almighty sitting at his keyboard, controlling every event on earth. But that's not a viable concept of God. Far better, Wallace argues, to understand Christianity in Clifford Geertz's terms as a system of symbols that both constitutes a worldview and, according to David Sloan Wilson, encourages prosocial behavior. That reframing makes it possible to reclaim what biblical scholars have said for decades: the miracles of Jesus were confrontational symbolic actions. They contradicted the political status quo in colonial Palestine, not the laws of biology. Prayer, she explains, is not magical thinking. It's a creative, highly disciplined introspective process, most familiar to many people in forms like mindfulness meditation. Wallace offers an intriguing exploration of issues that believers seldom discuss in ways that make sense to the religiously unaffiliated.
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 140 |
| Release | : 2016-05-23 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498228887 |
Download Confronting Religious Judgmentalism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Come to church or go to hell. That's religious bullying. It's judgmentalism. And it's a theological distortion, a distortion insisting that shame and self-loathing are morally appropriate. In Christian humanist tradition, God is not some cosmic judge eager to smite all of us for our sinfulness. God is compassion. We are cherished by God beyond our wildest imagining. We are called to radical hospitality, not to crass judgmentalism. So where does this religious judgmentalism come from? It is the heritage of medieval theocracy: a violent, vindictive God of command and control was far more useful politically than a God of compassion, hospitality, and forgiveness. It comes from literal-minded misreading of the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, a story about shame, not disobedience. And it comes from political success in exploiting deep-seated liabilities in the American soul: we spend our lives trying to "prove ourselves," a hopeless task. There's an alternative. In the Christian humanist tradition, authentic moral judgment is rooted in conscience as a creative process. Morality is an art demanding both rigorous consideration of the facts and thoughtful introspection. Conscience properly understood and thoughtfully practiced is an antidote to shame, incessant self-criticism, and chronic self-doubt.
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 92 |
| Release | : 2015-10-27 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1498225411 |
Download Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Writing in part for secular humanists, non-Christians, and ex-Christians, Wallace locates the beginning of religious vilification of LBGTQ Americans: these attacks recycle earlier, equally reactionary political opposition to racial desegregation and equal rights for women. Then, step by step, she lays out three major flaws in the religious argument against gay marriage. First, it derives from Plato and Greco-Roman sexual anxieties, not from Jesus. Second, opposition to gay marriage takes Bible verses out of context, ignoring their roots in Iron Age biology, sexual politics in the classic era, and pagan ritual practices. Third and most importantly, this opposition reflects an inadequate moral theology based on a denial of contemporary science and social science. Then and only then does she offer her own concept of marriage as a morally rooted, creative process, laying out common ground easily shared by Christian humanists and secular humanists alike. Her nimble, accessible account, richly leavened by personal stories, will facilitate new conversations and alliances among all those, believers and nonbelievers alike, who affirm the moral dignity of gay marriage.
| Author | : Catherine M. Wallace |
| Publisher | : Wipf and Stock Publishers |
| Total Pages | : 122 |
| Release | : 2016-03-28 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 149822881X |
Download Confronting Religious Violence Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Confronting Religious Violence: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination tells the tale of Christian theocracy in the West. Who converted whom was never entirely clear: the empire did stop feeding people to the lions for public entertainment; but Christianity was theologically corrupted by its official role in legitimating empire-as-usual. That theological corruption led to crusades, inquisitions, torture, and so forth. And it leaves us with a major question: is God violent? More dangerously yet: is violence our only option in response to wrongdoing? Are we morally obligated to injure those who have injured others, to kill those who have killed others? If theocracy is a terrible idea, what is the proper relationship between church and state? We can't say that the state is never morally accountable at all. Furthermore: despite constitutional separation of church and state, hard-right Christian fundamentalism continues to play a culturally significant role in advocating military action abroad and supporting state violence at home. There is a lot at stake in reclaiming the systematic nonviolence and moral imagination of Jesus of Nazareth. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
