Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces

Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces PDF Author: Jon Pahl
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 160608397X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Christian historian Sidney Mead has observed: In America space has played the part that time has played in older cultures of the world. In Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces, Jon Pahl examines this provocative statement in conversation with what he calls the spatial character of American theology. He argues that places are always imaginatively constructed by the human beings who inhabit them. Sometimes this spatial theology works to our benefit; other times it poses spiritual risks. What happens when our banal clothing of the sacred violates our genuine need for comfort and intimacy? Or when we remember that the fleeting pleasures of a shopping trip or a Disneyland escape are designed to fill someone else's pocket rather than the spiritual emptiness in our own hearts? Pahl develops several ways to clothe the divine from within the Christian tradition. He introduces a theology of place that reveals aspects of God's character through biblical metaphors drawn from physical spaces, such as the true vine, the rock, and the living water. Accessible and thought provoking, this enlightening book provides a better grasp of our particularly American way of lending religious significance to spaces of all kinds.

Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces

Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces PDF Author: Jon Pahl
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 160608397X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Christian historian Sidney Mead has observed: In America space has played the part that time has played in older cultures of the world. In Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces, Jon Pahl examines this provocative statement in conversation with what he calls the spatial character of American theology. He argues that places are always imaginatively constructed by the human beings who inhabit them. Sometimes this spatial theology works to our benefit; other times it poses spiritual risks. What happens when our banal clothing of the sacred violates our genuine need for comfort and intimacy? Or when we remember that the fleeting pleasures of a shopping trip or a Disneyland escape are designed to fill someone else's pocket rather than the spiritual emptiness in our own hearts? Pahl develops several ways to clothe the divine from within the Christian tradition. He introduces a theology of place that reveals aspects of God's character through biblical metaphors drawn from physical spaces, such as the true vine, the rock, and the living water. Accessible and thought provoking, this enlightening book provides a better grasp of our particularly American way of lending religious significance to spaces of all kinds.

Empire of Sacrifice

Empire of Sacrifice PDF Author: Jon Pahl
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814768954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
It is widely recognized that American culture is both exceptionally religious and exceptionally violent. Americans participate in religious communities in high numbers, yet American citizens also own guns at rates far beyond those of citizens in other industrialized nations. Since September 11, 2001, U.S. scholars have understandably discussed religious violence in terms of terrorist acts, a focus that follows U.S. policy. Yet, according to Jon Pahl, to identify religious violence only with terrorism fails to address the long history of American violence rooted in religion throughout the country's history. In Empire of Sacrifice, Pahl explains how both of these distinctive features of American culture work together by exploring how constructions along the lines of age, race, and gender have operated to centralize cultural power across American civil or cultural religions in ways that don't always appear to be “religious” at all. Pahl traces the development of these forms of systemic violence throughout American history and focuses an intense light on the complex and durable interactions between religion and violence in American history, from Puritan Boston to George W. Bush's Baghdad.

Spaces for the Sacred

Spaces for the Sacred PDF Author: Philip Sheldrake
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801868610
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In Spaces for the Sacred, Philip Sheldrake brilliantly reveals the connection between our rootedness in the places we inhabit and the construction of our personal and religious identities. Based on the prestigious Hulsean Lectures he delivered at the University of Cambridge, Sheldrake's book examines the sacred narratives which derive from both overtly religious sites such as cathedrals, and secular ones, like the Millennium Dome, and it suggests how Christian theological and spiritual traditions may contribute creatively to current debates about place.

The New Religious Image of Urban America, Second Edition

The New Religious Image of Urban America, Second Edition PDF Author: Ira G. Zepp
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 0870814362
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The only book that deals with the religious dimensions of malls. First published in 1986, it has been updated and expanded to include a new chapter on airports and ballparks as forms of the mall, and it also now includes a critical response.

Religion and Popular Culture in America, Third Edition

Religion and Popular Culture in America, Third Edition PDF Author: Bruce David Forbes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520965221
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The connection between popular culture and religion is an enduring part of American life. With seventy-five percent new content, the third edition of this multifaceted and popular collection has been revised and updated throughout to provide greater religious diversity in its topics and address critical developments in the study of religion and popular culture. Ideal for classroom use, this expanded volume gives increased attention to the implications of digital culture and the increasingly interactive quality of popular culture provides a framework to help students understand and appreciate the work in diverse fields, methods, and perspectives contains an updated introduction, discussion questions, and other instructional tools

The New Religious Image of Urban America

The New Religious Image of Urban America PDF Author: Ira G. Zepp
Publisher: Christian Classic
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description


Sacred Space for the Missional Church

Sacred Space for the Missional Church PDF Author: William R. McAlpine
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1608994686
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Sacred Space for the Missional Church examines the strong link between the theology and mission of the Church and the spaces in which and from which that theology and mission are lived out. The author demonstrates that the built environment is not incidental or even subservient to mission. Rather it is a key player in the fulfillment and the communication of that mission. The book begins with a working definition of the missional church, underscoring the connection between God's mission (missio Dei) and the Church's mission. The reader is presented with historical and theological frameworks for sacred space, and reminded of the pivotal role of the built environment in the fulfillment of the mission of the Church. The design and construction of sacred spaces are shown to be fundamentally a theological exercise and not solely a matter of function, pragmatics and fiscal astuteness. The author questions the uncritical application of blanket statements such "form must follow function," and challenges the conviction that it does not matter where worship occurs, only that it occurs. The book addresses genuine concerns such as legitimizing the cost of church buildings and concludes with practical suggestions and essential questions that must be considered in posturing the built environment within the missional praxis of the Church.

Holy Places

Holy Places PDF Author: Nancy DeMott
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1566995477
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Building communicate. Stained glass windows, high altars, multi-purpose worship/gymnasium spaces, Plexiglas pulpits, padded pews--these and all other architectural elements say something about a congregation's theology and mission. They point to a faith community's beliefs about worship, identity, purpose, and more. From the stark simplicity of a Quaker meetinghouse to the splendor of a Romanesque Revival building, sacred spaces speak loudly. What they say can either reinforce a congregation's mission or detract from it. Holy Places is designed to be used by congregations who are involved in or are contemplating work on their facilities. This could include renovation, remodeling, expansion, or building. No matter how extensive the project, approaching the work with mission at the forefront is the key to having a final result that strengthens the congregation's ministry. The process outlined in this book--discern, decide, do--lets congregations begin where they are and provides the help they need to move to the next level.

The Sacred in the City

The Sacred in the City PDF Author: Liliana Gómez
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441183949
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
This book reflects the way in which the city interacts with the sacred in all its many guises, with religion and the human search for meaning in life. As the process of urbanization of society is accelerating thus giving an increasing importance to cities and the 'metropolis', it is relevant to investigate the social or cultural cohesion that these urban agglomerations manifest. Religion is keenly observed as witnessing a growth, crucially impacting cultural and political dynamics, as well as determining the emergence of new sacred symbols and their inscription in urban spaces worldwide. The sacred has become an important category of a new interpretation of social and cultural transformation processes. From a unique broader perspective, the volume focuses on the relationship between the city and the sacred. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, combining the expertise of philosophers, historians, architects, social geographers, sociologists and anthropologists, it draws a nuanced picture of the different layers of religion, of the sacred and its diverse forms within the city, with examples from Europe, South America and the Caribbean, and Africa.

Theology in Built Environments

Theology in Built Environments PDF Author: Sigurd Bergmann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351472380
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Built space is both a physical entity as well as a socially and historically constructed place. It constantly interacts with human beings, affecting their behavior, thinking, and feeling. Doing religious work in a particular environment implies acknowledging the surroundings to be integral to theology itself. The contributors to this volume view buildings, scriptures, conversations, prayers, preaching, artifacts, music and drama, and built and natural surroundings as contributors to a contextual theology. The view of the environment in which religion is practiced as integrated with theology represents not just a new theme but also a necessity if one is to understand religion's own depth. Reflections about space and place and how they reflect and affect religious experience provide a challenge and an urgent necessity for theology. This is particularly important if religious practitioners are to become aware of how theology is given expression in the existential spatiality of life. Can space set theology free? This is a challenging question, one that the editor hopes can be answered, at least in part, in this volume. The diversity of theoretical concepts in aesthetics, cultural theory, and architecture are not regarded as a problem to be solved by constructing one overarching dominant theory. Instead, this diversity is viewed in terms of its positive potential to inspire discourse about theology and aesthetics. In this discourse, theology does not need to become fully dependent on one or another theory, but should always clearly present its criteria for choosing this or that theoretical framework. This volume shows clearly how different modes of design in sacred spaces capture a sense of the religious.