Progress and Religion was perhaps the most influential of all Christopher Dawson's books, establishing him as an interpreter of history and a historian of ideas.

The acclaimed climate futurist examines our unquestioning faith in progress, and its limits in the face of peak oil and climate change. Since the Industrial Age began, scientific and technological progress has been nothing short of miraculous. As a result, progress itself has become the new religion of the West. Our faith in it is so complete that many of us ignore the perils of peak oil and climate change, believing that our lab-coated high priests will surely bring forth yet another miracle to save us all. Unfortunately, progress as we've known it has been entirely dependent on the breakneck exploitation of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. As the age of this cheap, abundant energy draws to a close, progress is grinding to a halt. Unforgiving planetary limits are teaching us that our blind faith in endless exponential growth is a dangerous myth. After Progress addresses this looming paradigm shift, exploring the shape of history from a perspective on the far side of the coming crisis. With a startling examination of the role our belief systems play in our collective fate, John Michael Greer makes a persuasive argument for seeking new sources of meaning, value, and hope for the era ahead.

Until recently, policy-makers and academics generally saw religion as something that would disappear as countries made economic progress. But we now know that this rarely happens in fact. People in most countries continue to look at the world through the prism of religion even when they develop modern lifestyles. Religion and Development looks at the ways in which a religious worldview influences processes of development. Its great originality is that it does not concentrate primarily on religious institutions and organisations but on religious ideas themselves. In the final resort, it is people's ideas that motivate them. Their worldview stimulates them to act in specific ways. Religion is a dimension of life that often lies behind qualities such as social trust and cohesion that are vital to development. This is of growing importance in a world where technocratic visions of development have lost their way. For communities where religious belief is accepted as a fact of everyday life, religion constitutes a major resource. It can be employed by people who want to destroy society as well as those who want to build it. The contributors to this book explore how religious resources can be harnessed for development. Many of the world's people believe that the material advancement of both individuals and communities is inseparable from their spiritual improvement. The essays in this volume take this point of view seriously.

Featuring comprehensive updates and additions, the second edition of Understanding Theories of Religion explores the development of major theories of religion through the works of classic and contemporary figures. • A new edition of this introductory text exploring the core methods and theorists in religion, spanning the sixteenth-century through to the latest theoretical trends • Features an entirely new section covering religion and postmodernism; race, sex, and gender; and religion and postcolonialism • Examines the development of religious theories through the work of classic and contemporary figures from the history of anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and theology • Reveals how the study of religion evolved in response to great cultural conflicts and major historical events • Student-friendly features include chapter introductions and summaries, biographical vignettes, a timeline, a glossary, and many other learning aids

While orthodox religion by its very nature is conservative, philosophy at its best is inherently radical. It challenges authority, tradition, and the whole idea of "dogma." For this reason, philosophy of religion can be explosively controversial. It is bound to disturb those who peddle incontrovertible truth and fascinate those who seek spiritual truth and are willing to follow the argument wherever it leads. This volume is designed for such seekers. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers of religion to explore and debate radical new ideas about religion, God, and ultimate reality. Four related questions are addressed: How might religion make progress? Is life after death a real possibility? Must a perfect God be motivated by our well-being? What alternatives are there to traditional theism and materialist atheism? The book begins with a vision for the field of philosophy of religion and ends with a capstone chapter that touches on all of the topics debated in the other chapters. The addition of chapter overviews, annotated suggestions for further reading, and annotated guides to three additional controversies make it an ideal textbook in addition to being an important source for scholars and seekers of all kinds.

In The Future of Religion and the Religion of the Future, Theodore John Rivers explores the changing relationship between technology and religion. Rivers draws upon his expertise in the fields of medieval and religious history to discuss how the promotion of Christianity and monasticism in the Middle Ages began a process that has lent religious undertones to the way in which we interact with modern technology. Rivers ultimately suggests that the growing presence of technology makes it a likely candidate for the next religious form, competing with all the major religions in place today.