Critical Terms for Religious Studies, Second Edition
A new edition of a classic resource--composed of twenty-three essays written specifically for this volume. First published nearly thirty years ago, Critical Terms for Religious Studies proved a vital resource for an emerging interdisciplinary conversation. We still use much of the same language in the study of religion, but fresh concerns have both changed the meaning of terms and given rise to new terms altogether. This edition consists of twenty-three entirely new essays that offer students and scholars alike the tools to historicize and evaluate the shifting role of familiar and emerging critical terms in religious studies. These are "critical terms" both because they are important in our cultural moment and because thinking through them reveals how religions are embedded in and shaped by material, social, economic, and political forces. A shared conviction unites contributors from a range of traditions and methodologies: a recognition that our world is saturated by the persistence of religious traditions as shape-shifting (not static or transcendent) forces of authority, as powerful today as ever before.
Hermeneutics of the Cave
This book proposes an intellectual focus on the Qur'anic recovery of meaning. Akel Ismail Kahera contends that the Qur'anic exegesis must be recognized if we are to understand its clear representation of the ontological situation, the primordial self, and the life universe from Islam's exegetical standpoint.
The Language of Science and Faith
Christians affirm that everything exists because of God--from subatomic quarks to black holes. Science often claims to explain nature without including God at all. And thinking Christians often feel forced to choose between the two.But the good news is that we don't have to make a choice. Science does not overthrow the Bible. Faith does not require rejecting science. World-renowned scientist Francis Collins, author of The Language of God, along with fellow scientist Karl Giberson show how we can embrace both. Their fascinating treatment explains how God cares for and interacts with his creation while science offers a reliable way to understand the world he made.Together they clearly answer dozens of the most common questions people ask about Darwin, evolution, the age of the earth, the Bible, the existence of God and our finely tuned universe. They also consider how their views stack up against the new atheists as well as against creationists and adherents of intelligent design.The authors disentangle the false conclusions of Christians and atheists alike about science and evolution from the actual results of research in astronomy, physics, geology, and genetics. In its place they find a story of the grandeur and beauty of a world made by a supremely creative God.