From Postmodernism to Postsecularism

From Postmodernism to Postsecularism PDF Author: Eric Walberg
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 0986036242
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
Eric Walberg's new book From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-emerging Islamic Civilization provides an overview of imperialism and colonialism in the Muslim world. It elaborates on the third of the Great Games addressed in his earlier work, Postmodern Imperialism, which traced the movement of history from the colonialism of the British and other empires, through the neocolonialism of the US empire, to the current Great Game marked by the revival of Islam. Walberg reviews the Islamic reform traditions from the 19th century on (deriving from Al-Afghani, Qutb) incorporating the Islamic critique of the West as well as the Sunni/ Shia, mainstream/ Sufi/ Salafi divisions. Then he addresses the twentieth century experience of Islamic states (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran), as well as the current dynamics of the Muslim world (Saudi, Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and now Egypt/ Tunisia/ Libya). Key actors and milestones in the struggle to free the Muslim world from the imperial yoke are discussed. While the Christian/Judaic surrender to capitalism led to Marxist secularism and the communist utopia, Walberg views the Islamic project as containing an alternative socio-economic orientation. This prevented the rise of capitalism/ imperialism in lands populated by Muslims, making them the losers in the technology race of the 19th-20th centuries, but the repository of a corrected vision of the rich lost values of the earlier monotheistic traditions. Here modernity and postmodernism are critiqued from both left and right, and Islam is discussed as both an alternative worldview and world order. However the contradictions of the Arab Spring may be resolved as the West continues its decline, Walberg projects how the understandings entrenched in Islamic civilization point toward a new-old civilizational alternative, one not derivative from the West, but indigenous to the developing world still under its heel.

After the Postsecular and the Postmodern

After the Postsecular and the Postmodern PDF Author: Anthony Paul Smith
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443820334
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 415

Book Description
Continental philosophy of religion has been dominated for two decades by “postsecular” and “postmodern” thought. This volume brings together a vanguard of scholars to ask what comes after the postsecular and the postmodern—that is, what is Continental philosophy of religion now? Against the subjugation of philosophy to theology, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion argues that philosophy of religion must either liberate itself from theological norms or mutate into a new practice of thinking in order to confront the challenges religion presents for our time. The essays do not propose a new orthodoxy but set the stage for new debates by reclaiming a practice of philosophy of religion that recovers and draws on the insights of a distinctly modern tradition of Continental philosophy, confronts the challenge of rethinking the secular in the light of the postsecular event, and calls for a move from strictly critical to speculative thought in order to experiment with what philosophy can do. This collection of essays is indispensable for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and theology, political questions regarding religion and in what contemporary speculative Continental philosophy has to add to philosophy of religion.

Dethroning God

Dethroning God PDF Author: Dr. Larry Ivan Vass
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 1512797278
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Postmodernism has spawned a dichotomy of relativistic views on whether God is sovereign or not and whether if He even exists at all. If everything is relative, how can God be sovereign, and how can Jesus Christ be the only way to God? What is right for you may not be right for me! Dethroning God is a book that defines postmodernity. It discusses the moral consequences of the ideas of philosophers from John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche to Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish; how parallelism influences intertextuality in the Bible; the cultural manifestations of late capitalism, postmodernism, and anthropology; how contextualization competes with globalization; and the postmodern and postliberal challenges to modern liberal Christian theology. Finally, it defines and explores the sovereignty of God, his sovereign will as Creator of all things, how postmodernity denies the sovereign will of God, how his sovereign will infringes on liberty, and what attitudes we should have toward the Creator of the universe. Doctor Vass rejected being a member of the Christian family for years. Being made alive has fostered a desire for Jesus Christ so fervently that Doctor Vass feels as though he has no option but to counter the culture that has for a hundred years tried to marginalize God and his redemptive work through his Son. There is a noticeable lack of theology today of proper doctrine and understanding of just who God is. Not only did He create all that there is, He owns and controls all that there is. Teaching and preaching abound on peripheral matters, but professing Christians are woefully deficient in understanding the nature and character of God and how secular beliefs impact what understanding Christians have. Doctor Vass earned his PhD in theology researching and writing on the reformed view of God in the postmodern world. The time has come to share this information with the world, especially the Christian world.

What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (The Church and Postmodern Culture) PDF Author: John D. Caputo
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 9781441200365
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
This provocative addition to The Church and Postmodern Culture series offers a lively rereading of Charles Sheldon's In His Steps as a constructive way forward. John D. Caputo introduces the notion of why the church needs deconstruction, positively defines deconstruction's role in renewal, deconstructs idols of the church, and imagines the future of the church in addressing the practical implications of this for the church's life through liturgy, worship, preaching, and teaching. Students of philosophy, theology, religion, and ministry, as well as others interested in engaging postmodernism and the emerging church phenomenon, will welcome this provocative, non-technical work.

David Foster Wallace and Religion

David Foster Wallace and Religion PDF Author: Michael McGowan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501345303
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
In the years since his suicide, scholars have explored David Foster Wallace's writing in transdisciplinary ways. This is the first book of its kind to discuss how Wallace understood and wrote about religion. At present, the scholarly community is sharply divided on how best to read Wallace on religious questions. Some interpret him to be a Nietzschean nihilist, while others see in him a profoundly spiritual, even mystical thinker. Some read Wallace as a Buddhist thinker, and others as a Christian existentialist. Involved at every level of this discussion are Wallace's experiences in Twelve Step recovery programs, according to which only a higher power can help one remove unwanted defects of character. The multifarious essays in this volume by literature, religion, and philosophy scholars in the Wallace community delve into Wallace's life and writings to advance the conversation about Wallace and religion. While they may disagree with one another in substantial ways, the contributors argue that Wallace was not only deliberate in his writings on religious themes, but also displayed an impressive level of theological nuance.

Transcendence and the Secular World

Transcendence and the Secular World PDF Author: Ingolf U. Dalferth
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161563294
Category : Decision making
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
On theological grounds, Ingolf U. Dalferth argues the case for taking a critical stance towards the current leave-taking of secularization and the fashionable proclamation of a new post-secular religious epoch. Right from the start, the Christian faith has made a decisive contribution to the secularization of the world, the criticism of religion, religions and religiosity. Christian faith is concerned with God's presence in all areas of life, often beyond the usual religious forms and in distinction towards them. The orientation towards this ultimate presence and therefore towards antecedent transcendence in the immanence of a secular world leaves the alternative between religious and non-religious life behind. In this work, the author examines the new distinctions which this Christian life orientation demands.

Multiple Modernities and Postsecular Societies

Multiple Modernities and Postsecular Societies PDF Author: Dr Kristina Stoeckl
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409472388
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
Engaging with the idea that the world reveals not one, but many routes to modernity, this volume explores the role of religion in the emergence of multiple forms of modernity, which evolve according to specific cultural conditions and interpretations of the 'modern project'. It draws upon case study material from Africa, The Middle East, Russia and South America to examine the question of whether modernity, democracy and secularism are universalistic concepts or are, on the contrary, unique to Western civilization, whilst considering the relationship of postsecularism to the varied paths of modern development. Drawing together work from leading social theorists, this critical theoretical contribution to current debates will appeal to sociologists, social theorists and political scientists, with interests in religion, secularization and postsecularization theory and transitions to modernity in the contemporary globalized world.

Polycentric World Order in the Making

Polycentric World Order in the Making PDF Author: Andrey Baykov
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811953759
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 658

Book Description
The world order is evolving toward polycentricity, producing its winners and losers, and driving up the global and regional demand for governance, security, justice, and ethics. The book offers a perspective of key Russian experts in international affairs on these transformations. On the global level it touches upon the issues of global governance, state transformation, phenomenology of globalization, international security, and international political economy. On the regional level it deals with issues of economic integration, energy security, сyber security, nuclear proliferation viewed from a perspective of Pacific Asia, East Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Post-Soviet Area.

The Postsecular Imagination

The Postsecular Imagination PDF Author: Manav Ratti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415480973
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
The Postsecular Imagination presents a rich, interdisciplinary study of postsecularism as an affirmational political possibility emerging through the potentials and limits of both secular and religious thought. While secularism and religion can foster inspiration and creativity, they also can be linked with violence, civil war, partition, majoritarianism, and communalism, especially within the framework of the nation-state. Through close readings of novels that engage with animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism, Manav Ratti examines how questions of ethics and the need for faith, awe, wonder, and enchantment can find expression and significance in the wake of such crises. While focusing on Michael Ondaatje and Salman Rushdie, Ratti addresses the work of several other writers as well, including Shauna Singh Baldwin, Mahasweta Devi, Amitav Ghosh, and Allan Sealy. Ratti shows the extent of courage and risk involved in the radical imagination of these postsecular works, examining how writers experiment with and gesture toward the compelling paradoxes of a non-secular secularism and a non-religious religion. Drawing on South Asian Anglophone literatures and postcolonial theory, and situating itself within the most provocative contemporary debates in secularism and religion, The Postsecular Imagination will be important for readers interested in the relations among culture, literature, theory, and politics.

Entertainment Theology (Cultural Exegesis)

Entertainment Theology (Cultural Exegesis) PDF Author: Barry Taylor
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 9781441206039
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
It's the end of the church as we know it. In a digitally connected world, people are seeking spiritual answers through pop culture. Instead of retreating, Christians must "rethink the sacred" and enter global conversations about God--in film, literature, TV, and music--or face extinction, argues Barry Taylor in Entertainment Theology. Taking snapshots from theology, cultural studies, sociology, and pop culture, Taylor explores a myriad of factors affecting religious life since the 1970s, including technology, fashion, celebrity, and global communications. He exhorts a move away from traditional Christian religion, proposing instead a manifestation of Christianity as a religion not of the past but of the present and the future. For scholars, seminary students, culture watchers, and emerging-church readers, Entertainment Theology offers thought-provoking hope for Christianity's future.