A Secular Age

A Secular Age PDF Author: Charles Taylor
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674986911
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

A Secular Age

A Secular Age PDF Author: Charles Taylor
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674986911
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 889

Get Book

Book Description
The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Christians in a Secular Age

Christians in a Secular Age PDF Author: Mike Willis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781584273998
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
With the growth and tolerance of Islam and the attitude of everyone should be able to believe whatever they want to believe, it has become increasingly difficult to take a stand for the absolute truth as presented in God's word. What are Christians to do? This workbook helps answer this important question.

Jesuit Post

Jesuit Post PDF Author: Patrick Gilger
Publisher: Orbis Books
ISBN: 1608334481
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Drawn from the eponymous blog essays on faith, culture, and lives of Christian discipleship by young Jesuit priests and seminarians for young adult seekers.

Religious Difference in a Secular Age

Religious Difference in a Secular Age PDF Author: Saba Mahmood
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691153280
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
How secular governance in the Middle East is making life worse—not better—for religious minorities The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region. Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges this assessment by examining four cornerstones of secularism—political and civil equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal separation of private and public domains. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and Bahais—religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim country—Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy, bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse. Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in the Middle East and Europe. A provocative work of scholarship, Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges us to rethink the promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.

Christ Actually

Christ Actually PDF Author: James Carroll
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101609125
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
A New York Times bestselling and widely admired Catholic writer explores how we can retrieve transcendent faith in modern times Critically acclaimed and bestselling author James Carroll has explored every aspect of Christianity, faith, and Jesus Christ except this central one: What can we believe about—and how can we believe in—Jesus in the twenty-first century in light of the Holocaust and other atrocities of the twentieth century and the drift from religion that followed? What Carroll has discovered through decades of writing and lecturing is that he is far from alone in clinging to a received memory of Jesus that separates him from his crucial identity as a Jew, and therefore as a human. Yet if Jesus was not taken as divine, he would be of no interest to us. What can that mean now? Paradoxically, the key is his permanent Jewishness. No Christian himself, Jesus actually transcends Christianity. Drawing on both a wide range of scholarship as well as his own acute searching as a believer, Carroll takes a fresh look at the most familiar narratives of all—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Far from another book about the “historical Jesus,” he takes the challenges of science and contemporary philosophy seriously. He retrieves the power of Jesus’ profound ordinariness, as an answer to his own last question—what is the future of Jesus Christ?—as the key to a renewal of faith.

Calvinism for a Secular Age

Calvinism for a Secular Age PDF Author: Jessica R. Joustra
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 1514001470
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian, pastor, and politician, was well-known for having declared that there is "not a square inch" of human existence over which Jesus Christ is not its sovereign Lord. This principle is perhaps best reflected in Kuyper's writings on Calvinism originally delivered as the Stone Lectures in 1898 at Princeton Theological Seminary. These lectures reflecting on the role of the Christian faith in a variety of social spheres—including religion, politics, science, and art—have become a touchstone for contemporary Reformed theology. How might the lectures continue to inform the church's calling in a secular age? In this volume, Jessica Joustra and Robert Joustra bring together theologians, historians, scientists, and others to revisit Kuyper's original lectures and to critically consider both his ongoing importance and his complex legacy for today.

How (Not) to Be Secular

How (Not) to Be Secular PDF Author: James K. A. Smith
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802867618
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on.

Religious Freedom in a Secular Age

Religious Freedom in a Secular Age PDF Author: Michael F. Bird
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310538890
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Discover how to responsibly defend religious freedom for all without compromising your personal beliefs. Religious freedom is a bitterly contested issue that spills over into political, public, and online spheres. It's an issue that's becoming ever more heated, and neither of the global political polarities is interested in protecting it. While the political left is openly hostile toward traditional religion, the political right seeks to weaponize it. How can we ensure that "religious freedom" is truly about freedom of one's religion rather than serving an ethno-nationalist agenda? In Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, Michael Bird (New Testament scholar and author of Evangelical Theology) has four main goals: To explain the true nature of secularism and help us to see it as one of the best ways of promoting liberty and mutual respect in a multifaith world. To dismantle the arguments for limiting religious freedom. To outline a biblical strategy for maintaining a Christian witness in a post-Christian society. To encourage Christians to participate in a new age of apologetics by being prepared to defend not only their own believes but also the freedom of all faiths. While Bird does address the recent political administrations in the US, his focus is global. Bird—who lives in Melbourne, Australia—freely admits to his anxiety of the militant secularism surrounding him, but he also strongly critiques the marriage of national and religious identities that has gained ground in countries like Hungary and Poland. The fact is that religion has a lot to contribute to the common good. Religious Freedom in a Secular Age will challenge readers of all backgrounds and beliefs not only to make room for peaceable difference, but also to find common ground on the values of justice, mercy, and equality.

Faith Formation in a Secular Age

Faith Formation in a Secular Age PDF Author: Andrew Root
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 9780801098468
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A Top Ten Book for Parish Ministry in 2017, Academy of Parish Clergy The loss or disaffiliation of young adults is a much-discussed topic in churches today. Many faith-formation programs focus on keeping the young, believing the youthful spirit will save the church. But do these programs have more to do with an obsession with youthfulness than with helping young people encounter the living God? Questioning the search for new or improved faith-formation programs, leading practical theologian Andrew Root offers an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulates how faith can be formed in our secular age. He offers a theology of faith constructed from a rich cultural conversation, providing a deeper understanding of the phenomena of the "nones" and "moralistic therapeutic deism." Root helps readers understand why forming faith is so hard in our context and shows that what we have lost is not the ability to keep people connected to our churches but an imagination for how and where God could be present in their lives. He considers what faith is and what steps we can take to move into it, exploring a Pauline concept of faith as encounter with divine action. This is the first book in Root's Ministry in a Secular Age series.

Wisdom from Babylon

Wisdom from Babylon PDF Author: Gordon T. Smith
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830853278
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
What does it mean to provide leadership for the church in an increasingly secular context? When religion is privatized and secularism reigns in the public square, Christians are often drawn toward either individualist escapism or constant cultural warfare. But might this context instead offer a fresh invitation for the church to adapt and thrive? Gordon Smith is passionate about the need for capable, mature leaders to navigate and respond to a changing society. In this book, he draws on his extensive experience as a university president, pastor, and international speaker to open a multidisciplinary conversation about the competencies and capacities essential for today's leaders. After analyzing the phenomenon of secularization in the West and charting common Christian responses, Smith introduces four sources of wisdom to help guide us through this new terrain: the people and prophets of Judah during the Babylonian exile, the early church in its pagan environment, contemporary churches across the Global South, and Christian thinkers in post-Christian Europe. From these resources he identifies practices and strategies—from liturgy and catechesis to mission and hospitality—that can give shape to faithful, alternative communities in such a time as this. In cultures fraught with fear and division, Smith calls for leaders who can effect change from the margins, promote unity and maturity among Christians, and provide a non-anxious presence grounded in the presence of Christ. Educators, church leaders, and those seeking to understand the times will find this book to be an indispensable resource for cultivating distinctively Christian leadership.