How do we talk meaningfully about the sacred in contexts where conventional religious expression has so often lost its power? Inspired by the influential work of David Jasper, this important volume builds on his thinking to identify sacrality in a world where the old religious and secular debates have exhausted themselves and theology struggles for a new language in their wake. Distinguished writers explore here the idea of the sacred as one that exists, paradoxically, in a space that is both possible and impossible: profoundly theological on the one hand, but also deeply this-worldly and irreligious on the other. This is a sacredness that is simultaneously 'present' and 'absent': one which encompasses – as Jasper himself characterises it – 'the impossible possibility of an absolute vision'. The book teaches us that the sacred assumes a renewed potency when fully engaged with the creativity that happens across religion, literature, philosophy and the arts.

A powerful new exploration of the sacred, from many distinguished theologians, that speaks to a postsecular context and its challenges.

These 14 essays by scholars who have worked with David Jasper in both church and academy develop original discussions of themes emerging from his writings on literature, theology and hermeneutics. The arts, institutions, literature and liturgy are among the subject areas they cover.

The Irish philosopher William Desmond is one of the most compelling and adventurous Christian thinkers of our time. The essays gathered here undertake a journey through the Bible with Desmond that ranges across biblical theology, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, political theory, and literary studies. Some of the essays examine the place of the Bible in Desmond's thought, considering his readings of the creation, the Abraham cycle, and the Beatitudes. Other essays bring Desmond's ideas to bear on broad questions that emerge from the Bible about philosophy and revelation, exegesis, theopoetics, eschatology, and tyranny. Still others bring Desmond into conversation with influential philosophers who engage (or conspicuously do not engage) the Bible, such as Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Tillich. Together, these essays show the rich possibilities of approaching the Bible with Desmond. All take their bearings from Desmond's "metaxological" approach, which does not seek to claim the final word, which attends to the text rather than simply imposing on it, and which allows for an ongoing dialogue. / Contributors: Ryan G. Duns, SJ / Caitlin Smith Gilson / Joseph K. Gordon / William Christian Hackett / Steven E. Knepper / Renee Kohler-Ryan / Andrew Kuiper / Brendan Thomas Sammon / Terence Sweeney / Ethan Vanderleek / Erik van Versendaal / Robert Wyllie

Jesus challenges us to live in him and continue living out the truth so that we claim our allegiance to Christ and live as disciples free from fear and from cultural customs that contradict the gospel message. This project has found that the lack of discipleship training among the Anyuwaa churches has resulted in a lack of understanding of what this ministry entails—teaching and making disciples. In addition, failure to embed elements of the Anyuwaa culture into the discipleship approach, and the persistence of certain elements of Anyuwaa life that run counter to gospel beliefs, has inflamed this crisis. Therefore, this book presents a call for the church to challenge the culture of syncretism and the fear of witchdoctors, to shift its paradigm and begin interpreting the gospel message, utilizing contextual elements but interpreting them through the lens of the gospel, calling people to embrace gospel values within their own cultural context. When we start interpreting strong cultural beliefs and traditions through the truth of the gospel, it is proof that we have come to the best discipleship approach, as we speak the truth of the gospel in the life our church and the hearts of our believers.

This book reconceives theology as a musical endeavour in critical tension with language, space and silence. An Overture first moves us from music to religion, and then from theology back to music – a circularity that, drawing upon history, sociology, phenomenology, and philosophy, disclaims any theology of music and instead pursues the music in theology. The chapters that follow explore the three central themes by way of theory, music and myth: Adorno, Benjamin and Deleuze (language), Derrida, Rosa and Nancy (space), Schelling/Hegel, Homer and Cage (silence). In overdubbing each other, these chapters work towards theology as a sonorous rhythm between loss and freedom. A Coda provides three brief musical examples – Thomas Tallis, György Ligeti, and Evan Parker – as manifestations of this rhythm, to show in summary how music becomes the very pulse of theology, and theology the very intuition of music. The authors offer an interdisciplinary engagement addressing fundamental questions of the self and the other, of humanity and the divine, in a deconstruction of modern culture and of its bias towards the eye over the ear. The book harmonizes three scholarly voices who attempt to find where the resonance of our Western conceptions and practice, musically and theologically, might resound anew as a more expansive music of theology.

This book is the first full-length study of the postsecular in African literatures. Religion, secularism, and the intricate negotiations between the two, codified in recent criticism as postsecularism, are fundamental conditions of globalized modernity. These concerns have been addressed in social science disciplines, but they have largely been neglected in postcolonial and literary studies. To remedy this oversight, this monograph draws together four areas of study: it brings debates in religious and postsecular studies to bear on African literatures and postcolonial studies. The focus of this interdisciplinary study is to understand how postsecular negotiations manifest in postcolonial African settings and how they are represented and registered in fiction. Through this focus, this book reveals how African and African-diasporic authors radically disrupt the epistemological and ontological modalities of globalized literary production, often characterized as secular, and imagine alternatives which incorporate the sacred into a postsecular world.

Known for her violent, startling stories that culminate in moments of grace, Flannery O'Connor depicted the postwar segregated South from a unique perspective. This volume proposes strategies for introducing students to her Roman Catholic aesthetic, which draws on concepts such as incarnation and original sin, and offers alternative contexts for reading her work. Part 1, "Materials," describes resources that provide a grounding in O'Connor's work and life. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," discuss her beliefs about writing and her distinctive approach to fiction and religion; introduce fresh perspectives, including those of race, class, gender, and interdisciplinary approaches; highlight her craft as a creative writer; and suggest pairings of her works with other texts. Alice Walker's short story "Convergence" is included as an appendix.

Bringing together empirical cultural and media studies of religion and critical social theory, Technologies of Religion: Spheres of the sacred in a post-secular modernity investigates powerful entanglement of religion and new media technologies taking place today, taking stock of the repercussions of digital technology and culture on various aspects of religious life and contemporary culture more broadly. Making the argument that religion and new media technologies come together to create "spheres"—environments produced by an architecture of digital technologies of all sorts, from projection screens to social networking sites, the book suggests that prior social scientific conceptions of religious worship, participation, community and membership are being recast. Using the case of the strain of American Christianity called "multi-site," an emergent and growing church-model that has begun to win favor largely among Protestants in the last decade, the book details and examines the way in which this new mode of religiosity bridges the realms of the technological and the physical. Lastly, the book situates and contextualizes these developments within the larger theoretical concerns regarding the place of religion in contemporary capitalism. Technologies of Religion: Spheres of the sacred in a post-secular modernity offers an important contribution to the study of religion, media, technology and culture in a post-secular world.

Beyond the Return of Religion: Art and the Postsecular explores the conceptual potential of the postsecular for investigations of (late) modern art and religion. Indicating a public co-existence and merging of religion and the secular, the postsecular is approached as an alternative to the return of religion narrative. Rather than framing artistic concerns with religion as a recurrence after temporary absence, Lieke Wijnia shows how the postsecular allows for seeing the interaction between art and religion as an enduring, albeit transforming relationship of mutual nature. Whereas secularization theories are intrinsically connected to modernity, the postsecular requires a pluralized perspective, covering the processes of secularization, diversification, and spiritualization. The postsecular reinforces the interconnectedness of these processes, which are, in turn, embodied in the concept’s interdisciplinary nature. While this book predominantly focuses on visual art and its institutional context of the museum, the postsecular has interdisciplinary relevance for broader artistic and academic disciplines.