Pentecostalism is a movement within Christianity placing special emphasis on a believer's personal encounter with God through the Holy Spirit. It is arguably the world's fastest-growing form of religion. While exact figures are uncertain, there may now be as many as 500 million Pentecostals. Closely related to other forms of ""born-again"" Christianity (Evangelical and Charismatic), Pentecostalism has been described as a religion ""made to travel."" From the outset it has been a strong missionary movement, and has been oriented towards recruitment and expansion. Research into this...
Pentecostalism is a movement within Christianity placing special emphasis on a believer's personal encounter with God through the Holy Spirit. It i...
The last few years have seen a remarkable surge of popular interest in the topic of atheism. Books about atheism by writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have figured prominently in bestseller lists and have attracted widespread discussion in the media. The ubiquity of public debates about atheism, especially in conscious opposition to the perceived social threat posed by faith and religion, has been startling. However, as Gavin Hyman points out, despite their prevalence and popularity, what often characterizes these debates is a lack of nuance and sophistication. They can be...
The last few years have seen a remarkable surge of popular interest in the topic of atheism. Books about atheism by writers like Richard Dawkins and C...
Academic analyses of religious phenomena have often placed an emphasis on beliefs and ideologies and prioritized the understanding of religious symbols over the material of symbolization. Through the ethnographic analysis of a variety of contemporary religious forms, Making Spirits questions the presumed separation of spirit and matter, and sheds light on the relational dynamics between spiritual and material domains, on the mechanisms and techniques through which they 'make' each other. Such reciprocal interactions and transformations between the spiritual and the material are evident across...
Academic analyses of religious phenomena have often placed an emphasis on beliefs and ideologies and prioritized the understanding of religious symbol...
Christianity, Judaism and Islam have sometimes been more closely identified not for what they offer to save the world but for what they bring to destabilize it. It is one of the depressing paradoxes of religion, supposedly a force for good, that it is all too frequently the occasion for conflict instead of peace, generosity and better treatment of one's neighbor. The contributors to this volume start from the premise that there is a price to be paid by the 'sons of Abraham': whether Jews, Muslims or Christians. And that is the cost of learning how to be brothers through mutual and attentive...
Christianity, Judaism and Islam have sometimes been more closely identified not for what they offer to save the world but for what they bring to desta...
The eruption of violent sectarianism in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003 brought the question of Sunni-Shi'i relations in the country to the forefront of the international public agenda. Empowerment of the Shi'i majority for the first time in the history of modern Iraq and the emergence of a factious political system strengthened the popular belief that contemporary Shi'ism is inherently sectarian. Challenging this widely accepted consensus and providing a more ecumenical depiction of Islam, Elisheva Machlis here assesses the relationship between sectarianism and universalism in Shi'i...
The eruption of violent sectarianism in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003 brought the question of Sunni-Shi'i relations in the country to the for...
The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our times. She was an outsider, in multiple senses, defying the usual religious categories: at once atheistic and religious; mystic and realist; skeptic and believer. She speaks therefore to the complex sensibilities of a rationalist age. Yet despite her continuing relevance, and the attention she attracts from philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies, spirituality and beyond, Weil's reflections can still be difficult to grasp, since they were...
The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our time...
The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our times. She was an outsider, in multiple senses, defying the usual religious categories: at once atheistic and religious; mystic and realist; sceptic and believer. She speaks therefore to the complex sensibilities of a rationalist age. Yet despite her continuing relevance, and the attention she attracts from philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies, spirituality and beyond, Weil's reflections can still be difficult to grasp, since they were...
The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our time...
The term 'jihad' has come to be used as a byword for fanaticism and Islam's allegedly implacable hostility towards the West. But, like other religious and political concepts, jihad has multiple resonances and associations, its meaning shifting over time and from place to place. Jihad has referred to movements of internal reform, spiritual struggle and self-defence as much as to 'holy war'. And among Muslim intellectuals, the meaning and significance of jihad remain subject to debate and controversy. With this in mind, Twenty-First Century Jihad examines the ways in which the concept of jihad...
The term 'jihad' has come to be used as a byword for fanaticism and Islam's allegedly implacable hostility towards the West. But, like other religious...
