The idea of desacralization has become almost commonplace, attributing to the word the rejection of what is sacred. One might think that it is strictly connected to theology and its system, or suppose that it implies the relationship human beings have with anything that can express a denial of the spiritual part of life. The concept of desacralization has numerous meanings, either from a philosophical or a literary viewpoint. The scholars' investigation of Dynamics of Desacralization has made this collection of essays rich and varied, revealing new worlds the different authors have created. What they do is to narrate various types of desacralization interrogating the nature of novels, poems or works of art; certain aspects of being are revealed through various expressions, engaging the multiple levels and the meaning of desacralization providing an articulation and interpretation of it.

The first classics in human history—the early works of literature, philosophy, and theology to which we have returned throughout the ages—appeared in the middle centuries of the first millennium bce. The canonical texts of the Hebrew scriptures, the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle, the Analects of Confucius and the Daodejing, the Bhagavad Gita and the teachings of the Buddha—all of these works came down to us from the compressed period of history that Karl Jaspers memorably named the Axial Age. In The Axial Age and Its Consequences, Robert Bellah and Hans Joas make the bold claim that intellectual sophistication itself was born worldwide during this critical time. Across Eurasia, a new self-reflective attitude toward human existence emerged, and with it an awakening to the concept of transcendence. From Axial Age thinkers we inherited a sense of the world as a place not just to experience but to investigate, envision, and alter through human thought and action. Bellah and Joas have assembled diverse scholars to guide us through this astonishing efflorescence of religious and philosophical creativity. As they explore the varieties of theorizing that arose during the period, they consider how these in turn led to utopian visions that brought with them the possibility of both societal reform and repression. The roots of our continuing discourse on religion, secularization, inequality, education, and the environment all lie in Axial Age developments. Understanding this transitional era, the authors contend, is not just an academic project but a humanistic endeavor.

Tarantella, a genre of Southern Italian folk music and dance, is an international phenomenon--seen and heard in popular festivals, performed across the Italian diaspora, even adapted for New Age spiritual practices. The boom in popularity has diversified tarantella in practice while setting it within a host of new, unexpected contexts. Incoronata Inserra ventures into the history, global circulation, and recontextualization of this fascinating genre. Examining tarantella's changing image and role among Italians and Italian Americans, Inserra illuminates how factors like tourism, translation, and world music venues have shifted the ethics of place embedded in the tarantella cultural tradition. Once rural, religious, and rooted, tarantella now thrives in settings urban, secular, migrant, and ethnic. Inserra reveals how the genre's changing dynamics contribute to reimagining Southern Italian identity. At the same time, they translate tarantella into a different kind of performance that serves new social and cultural groups and purposes. Indeed, as Inserra shows, tarantella's global growth promotes a reassessment of gender relations in the Italian South and helps create space for Italian and Italian-American women to reclaim gendered aspects of the genre.

Ambient Sufism is a study of the intertwined musical lives of several ritual communities in Tunisia that invoke the healing powers of long-deceased Muslim saints through music-driven trance rituals. Richard C. Jankowsky illuminates the virtually undocumented role of women and minorities in shaping the ritual musical landscape of the region, with case studies on men’s and women’s Sufi orders, Jewish and black Tunisian healing musical troupes, and the popular music of hard-drinking laborers, as well as the cohorts involved in mass-mediated staged spectacles of ritual that continue to inject ritual sounds into the public sphere. He uses the term “ambient Sufism” to illuminate these adjacent ritual practices, each serving as a musical, social, and devotional-therapeutic niche while contributing to a larger, shared ecology of practices surrounding and invoking the figures of saints. And he argues that ritual musical form—that is, the large-scale structuring of ritual through musical organization—has agency; that is, form is revealing and constitutive of experience and encourages particular subjectivities. Ambient Sufism promises many useful ideas for ethnomusicology, anthropology, Islamic and religious studies, and North African studies.

We are living through a digital revolution which already touches every area of life and will continue to shape the future in as yet unforeseen ways. Digital technologies are an ordinary part of daily life, and yet they also present an unprecedented challenge to Christians to articulate a biblical, theological framework to navigate times of rapid change. The work of the French theologian Jacques Ellul is a theological time-bomb primed for times like these. Accounts of Ellul's career often divide off his sociology and theology, but this book argues that Ellul conceived a single project of bringing technology into confrontation with the Word of God, tackling the phenomenon he named technique, the pursuit of maximal power and efficiency implicit in the technological enterprise, with a profound depth of biblical and ethical insight. Centering himself on the apocalypse or revelation of Jesus Christ in history, Ellul offers a monumental, timely (though far from flawless) contribution to contemporary ethical debates about the uses and abuses of technologies. His work blazes a trail that Christians and all concerned for the future would do well to follow, as we avoid both the naivety of "technological neutrality" and the dread of "technological determinism."

Using formal assessment instruments in counseling and psychotherapy is an efficient and systematic way to obtain information about clients and to subsequently tailor a counseling approach most likely to serve clients optimally. The more information a counselor obtains during the initial interview and first sessions, the more likely the client will be deeply understood by the counselor, which in turn increases the likelihood that an appropriate course of counseling will be taken, and ultimately leading to a more successful outcome. The Integral Intake is an idiographic, biographical, multidimensional assessment instrument based upon the Integral Psychology pioneered by Ken Wilber. From the perspective of Integral theory, comprehensive and holistic conceptualization of clients seeking counseling and psychotherapy includes knowledge of four distinct perspectives (quadrants) of each client: the client’s experience (the individual viewed subjectively/from within), the client’s behavior (the client viewed objectively/from without), the client’s culture (the client’s system viewed subjectively/from within), and the client’s social system (the client’s system viewed objectively/from without). The intake form is designed to provide the practitioner with a range of background information that can then be used to more quickly and effectively formulate a counseling/treatment approach. The assessment form and accompanying materials will be included on a downloadable resource, formatted to be printed and reproduced for use with each new client. The book will provide an overview of the Integral Psychology model, describe the development of the assessment form and its use, and provide general guidelines for the evaluation of responses and planning for an appropriate counseling approach. A series of case examples, based on actual completed intake forms, will provide insight into the use of the Integral Intake.

The critical role of Europe in the music, personalities, and analysis of jazz

N. T. Wright's magnum opus Paul and the Faithfulness of God is a landmark study on the history and thought of the apostle Paul. This volume brings together a stellar group of international scholars to critically assess an array of issues in Wright's work. Essays in Part I set Wright in the context of other Pauline theologies. Part II addresses methodological issues in Wright's approach, including critical realism, historiography, intertextuality, and narrative. In Part III, on context, scholars measure Wright's representation of early Judaism, Greek philosophy, paganism, and the Roman Empire. Part IV turns to Wright's exegetical decisions regarding law, covenant, and election, the "New Perspective," justification and redemption, Christology, Spirit, eschatology, and ethics. Part V at last speaks to the implications of Wright's work for the church's theology, sacraments, and mission, and for global responsibility in a "postmodern" age. The volume includes a critical response from Wright himself.

Examines the first principles of the perennial philosophy or ancient wisdom tradition as expressed in the writings of its great exponents, Rene Guenon and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, and offers a critique of the West from the standpoint of traditional principles.