This volume of the Building Bridges Seminar, Power: Divine and Human, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, comprises pairs of essays by Christians and Muslims which introduce texts for dialogical study, plus the actual text-excerpts themselves.This new book goes far beyond mere reporting on a dialogical seminar; rather, it provides guidance and materials for constructing a similar dialogical experience on a particular topic. As a resource for comparative theology,

Prayer: Christian and Muslim Perspectives is a rich collection of essays, scriptural texts, and personal reflections featuring leading scholars analyzing the meaning and function of prayer within their traditions. Drawn from the 2011 Building Bridges seminar in Doha, Qatar, the essays in this volume explore the devotional practices of each tradition and how these practices are taught and learned. Relevant texts are included, with commentary, as are personal reflections on prayer b...

Sin, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation: Christian and Muslim Perspectives is a collection of essays and scripture passages studied at the 2014 Building Bridges seminar.Thoughtful and provocative, the book begins with the complete texts of the opening lectures by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and Jonathan A. C. Brown and contains essays by Christoph Schwöbel, Ayman Shabana, Susan Eastman, Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Philip Sheldrake, and Asma Afsaruddin. Peppered throughout with relevant...

Civility offers a thoughtful response to one of the most significant social challenges and public problems that we face in contemporary society, particularly in the Western world. The book identifies and discusses the critical public-social values and virtues that we need to focus upon and actively to promote to counter these problems and, overall, to develop a healthy human society. To achieve an effective, inclusive, and just society we must, first, reframe how we understand 'po...

2023 Catholic Media Association First Place Award, MysticismIn A World Transfigured: The Mystical Journey, Philip Sheldrake demonstrates the importance of the mystical dimension of religious belief and practice. Using the words of the great theologian, Karl Rahner, Sheldrake makes the case that the Christian of the future will be either a mystic or nothing at all. In our contemporary world, this judgment applies equally to other religions as well....

'Spirituality' is a word that is used increasingly these days yet it is often ill-defined. What exactly is spirituality? Is it distinct from religion and can we separate it from beliefs and traditions? Does spirituality mainly focus on spiritual experiences and practices or is it something more? This book suggests that, while there may be common features in the use of the word, 'spirituality' is not a single reality. Different 'spiritualities' reflect particular religious or philosophical ...

Desire is at the heart of what it is to be human. The power of desire, while embodied and sensuous, is God-given and the key to all human spirituality. Humanity is blessed with a deep longing that is infinite in extent and can only ultimately be satisfied in God. Befriending Our Desires portrays the intimate connection between desire and the spiritual journey. Drawing on Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Christian spiritual classics (with some reference to Buddhist spirituality), p...

In The Spiritual Way: Classic Traditions and Contemporary Practice,Philip Sheldrake aims to make the wisdom of Christian spirituality better known to contemporary readers. After an introductory chapter on the foundations of Christian spirituality, Sheldrake describes its diverse riches through the centuries in terms of five distinctive types of Christian spiritual wisdom, illustrated by a rich selection of classical examples. The five types are “The Way of Discipline,” “The Contem...

This multiauthor book celebrates the bicentenary of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), founded by St. Eugène de Mazenod, and arises from an international conference on French spiritual traditions hosted by the Oblates in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2016. More broadly, this book aims to make available to a wide readership the riches of the important family of French spiritual traditions originating between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries—not least the emphasis on ...

It has been suggested that 'spirituality' has become a word that 'can define an era'. Why? Because paradoxically, alongside a decline in traditional religious affiliations, the growing interest in spirituality and the use of the word in a variety of contexts is a striking aspect of contemporary western cultures. Indeed, spirituality is sometimes contrasted attractively with religion, although this is problematic and implies that religion is essentially dogma, moralism, institutions, buildi...

It has been suggested that 'spirituality' has become a word that 'can define an era'. Why? Because paradoxically, alongside a decline in traditional religious affiliations, the growing interest in spirituality and the use of the word in a variety of contexts is a striking aspect of contemporary western cultures. Indeed, spirituality is sometimes contrasted attractively with religion, although this is problematic and implies that religion is essentially dogma, moralism, institutions, buildi...

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrar...