Sociology Religion

In the course of caring for the ill or dying, health care professionals are sometimes the only ones available to provide spiritual comfort to their patients. In our modern pluralistic society, where patients could come from any number of religious traditions, it can often be difficult to find exactly the right words in these situations.

Many books have been written on the Jesus People movement in the United States, but what about its impact in the United Kingdom? When Jesus Met Hippies explores how this counter-cultural movement of Christians found its own expression in the United Kingdom, reshaping the lives of individuals along with the life and mission of the new and existing churches across the nation.

As someone who has a foot in both the Western and Arabic worlds, Amal set out to explore the lives of Arab women both in Australia and the Middle East, travelling to the region and interviewing more than 60 women about feminism, intimacy, love, sex and shame, trauma, war, religion and culture. Beyond Veiled Cliches explores the similarities and differences experienced by these women in their daily lives - work, relationships, home and family life, friendships, the communities they live in and more.

Like many places, West Michigan has a long history of religious diversity. People of many faiths have lived in the community for years on end. Yet unlike many places in the US, their interfaith journey has been cultivated with purpose and intention, filled with thoughtful dialogue, and nourished by a curiosity to learn about one another.

What if all the bad news you've been hearing about Christians isn't true? Here are some facts that may surprise you: Evangelicals are more respected by society today than they were 20 years ago. Divorce rates of Christian couples are lower than those of nonbelievers. The percentage of young people who attend church has held steady over the past 20 years. All these statements are true, yet we’ve been told the opposite time and time again. Why is the church being misled?

Night delivers a litter of eight puppies in a poor neighborhood in Springfield, Tennessee, the week before Melissa Armstrong first meets her. As a volunteer for a local nonprofit, Melissa has experience with strays and plans to rescue Night and her litter within days. But nothing goes as planned. For the next six months, Melissa and a ragtag cast of characters try to trap the mutt with nets, catchpoles, spring traps, cheeseburgers, hot dogs stuffed with Benadryl, and the dog’s crying puppies. They fail so many times that Melissa is on the brink of giving up.

For our ancestors, collective intelligence was a normal part of life. We see it today as the mysterious force that enables flocks of birds, swarms of bees, and schools of fish to function together in perfect synchrony, communicating and cooperating at some undetectable level. At its most subtle, it’s an instantaneous knowing, shared by members of a group, of the wisest course of action that will benefit all.

Raised without religion, Adam Leith Gollner was struck by mankind's tireless efforts to cheat aging and death. In a narrative that pivots between profundity and hilarity, he brings us into the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality. From a Jesuit priest on his deathbed to antiaging researchers at Harvard, Gollner - sorting truth from absurdity - canvasses religion and science for insight, along with an array of cults, myths, and fringe figures.

The mysterious art of magic has been a source of wonderment since before the time of Christ. Ranging from the supernatural practices of "black" magic to demonstrations of dazzling illusion, magic has been called on to conjure the evil eye, burn villages to the ground, and slice women in half. From the astrology of the three wise men to David Blaine's "stunts", Robert Ralley delves into this magical underworld and illuminates the dangerous balance between illusion, fraud, and wickedness that still exists today.

In The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn, Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler tell the story of 19th-century Brooklyn's domination by upper- and middle-class Protestants with roots in Puritan New England. This lively history describes the unraveling of the control they wielded as more ethnically diverse groups moved into the "City of Churches" during the 20th century.

Gerade in einer Zeit voller Umbrüche und Veränderungen suchen viele Menschen Halt und Orientierung in esoterischen Welterklärungsmodellen. Horoskope verraten, was die eigene Zukunft bringen wird. Der spirituelle Heiler wird zur Leitfigur. Der Esoterikmarkt boomt! Ist der Glaube an unsichtbare Kräfte, die unser Leben in die richtige Bahn lenken sollen, nur eine harmlose Spinnerei? Oder bringt der Esoterik-Trend gefährlichere Risiken mit sich, als es auf den ersten Blick erscheinen mag? Die Bestseller-Autorinnen klären auf.

As Christian: The Politics of a Word in America shows, for many American Christians, concepts like liberty and equality are rooted in the transcendent claims about human nature that Christianity offers. Democracy, equality under the law, and other basic principles of American government are seen as depending on the Christian faith's sustenance and support. Yet despite this presumed consensus, differing Christian beliefs have led to dispute and disagreement about what American society and government should look like.

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other.

What is the RSS’ imagination for India? If India becomes a Hindu Rashtra, what will be the place of Muslims and other faiths in it? How big is the RSS project of history writing? Will Hindutva override caste politics? And what is the RSS view of social issues pertaining to the changing nature of family, the rights of people with different sexual orientations and the third gender? These contentious questions are just a few of the myriad political and social issues that Sunil Ambekar, a high-ranking pracharak, analyses in his book, The RSS: Roadmaps for the 21st Century.

In Still Off-Base About Race by Dr. Michael Reynolds, you will dive deep into the elaborate (and often chilling) history behind the fight for racial justice in America. From a pastor’s perspective, Dr. Reynolds enables you to take a look at the hardships and pain African Americans have suffered - and are currently suffering - in our nation.

Police shootings and protests have filled the news in recent years, leaving us with no illusions that America is free of racial problems. Skin and Blood invites us to look honestly at both White sins and Black sins…and to look hopefully at the red blood of Jesus, which is their only cure.

The End Is Near helps parents find exactly what they want to do with their life once their kids are grown. Amie Eyre Newhouse combines her 24 years as a registered nurse helping patients make extraordinarily difficult medical decisions with her personal experience of surviving breast cancer and childhood trauma, along with her own journey from full-time parent to empty nester together, in order to help parents find their life’s purpose beyond parenting.

I want to put before you, if I can in these three lectures, a certain view of the world, and of the way in which that world is guided and directed. As this meeting is a public meeting, there is one statement I think that I ought to make, which it would not be necessary to make, if it were composed of members of the Theosophical Society. It is important to remember that in the Theosophical Society we have no authority on matters of opinion.

Beneath our culture's obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to free themselves from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion. Drawing on an extensive random survey of 1,200 men and women across the United States, Matthew Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post here shed new light on how Americans wake up to the reality of divine love and how that transformative experience expresses itself in concrete acts of benevolence.

Those people. Their issues. The day's news and the ways we treat each other, overtly or subliminally, prove we are not yet living in post-racial America. It's hard to talk about race in America without everyone very quickly becoming defensive and shutting down. Sandhya Jha addresses the hot topic in a way that is grounded in real people's stories and that offers solid biblical grounding for thinking about race relations in America, reminding us that God calls us to build Beloved Community.