Religion and Community in the New Urban America examines the interrelated transformations of cities and urban congregations. The authors ask how the new metropolis affects local religious communities and what role those communities play in creating the new metropolis. Through an in-depth study of fifteen Chicago congregations-Catholic parishes, Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques, and a Hindu temple, both city and suburban-this book describes congregational life...

These essays explore team-based parish leadership theologically, sociologically, and pastorally in a variety of cultures and circumstances. The result is an extended conversation, both practical and deeply reflective, emerging from the collaboration of theologians, social researchers, organizational development specialists, and pastoral ministers.Collaborative Parish Leadership draws on the experience, strengths, challenges, and insights of the long-term pastoral-academic partnershi...

Books of this importance and intelligence come along rarely. Wandering Beyond the Darkness is an absolute must-read for anyone who struggles with faith, love, and the continuum of life after death. Whether 19 or 90, we all search for understanding. For thousands of years, our religious and spiritual comprehension has been defined by a codified doctrine that was initially established by illiterate nomads living in tents. These now-faded cultures were attempting to provide some historical conse...

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell ...

The first collection of plays by one of the most moving and astonishing writers of the last 15 years. Though critics reflexively class his work as magical realism,” Rivera’s extravagant, original imagery always serves to illuminate the gritty realities and touching longings of our daily lives. Also includes: Each Day Dies with Sleep and Cloud Tectonics.

Counter to popular perceptions, contemporary American sociology is and promotes a profoundly sacred project at heart. Sociology today is in fact animated by sacred impulses, driven by sacred commitments, and serves a sacred project. Sociology appears on the surface to be a secular, scientific enterprise--its founding fathers were mostly atheists. Its basic operating premises are secular and naturalistic. Sociologists today are disproportionately not religious, compared to all Americans, an...

**Everyone’s talking about “community” these days. Arnold and Merton say it can be lived, too.In this time-honored manifesto,** Arnold and Merton add their voices to the vital discussion of what real community is all about: love, joy, unity, and the great “adventure of faith” shared with others along the way. Neither writer describes (or prescribes) community here, but they do provide a vision to guide our search.For both the uninitiated seeker and the veteran,

In recent years, terrorism has become closely associated with martyrdom in the minds of many terrorists and in the view of nations around the world. In Islam, martyrdom is mostly conceived as "bearing witness" to faith and God. Martyrdom is also central to the Christian tradition, not only in the form of Christ's Passion or saints faced with persecution and death, but in the duty to lead a good and charitable life. In both religions, the association of religious martyrdom with political te...

In recent years the concept of ‘diversity’ has gained a leading place in academic thought, business practice and public policy worldwide. Although variously used, ‘diversity’ tends to refer to patterns of social difference in terms of certain key categories. Today the foremost categories shaping discourses and policies of diversity include race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, sexuality and age; further important notions include class, language, locality, lifestyle and legal statu...

Some of Shanley’s sharpest comic writing in years… His intense engagement with questions of religion and ethics remains distinctive and invigorating.” - Charles Isherwood, New York TimesThere’s a deeper philosophical vein that the author mines, allowing his language to acquire the heft and timbre of a serious moral debate…We taste bitterness, but also much that is sweet.” - David Cote, TimeOut New YorkA postmodern morality play that’s as funny as it is ...

Without overlooking the role of coercive force in the maintenance (or overthrow) of social structures, Lincoln argues his thesis with rich illustrations drawn from such diverse areas as Platonic philosophy, the Upanishads of India, ancient Celtic banquets, professional wrestling, and the Spanish Civil War. This wide-ranging interdisciplinary study--which draws on works in history, semiotics, anthropology, sociology, classics, and indology--offers challenging new insights into the complex d...

A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious linesIn this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples. Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and...