Church in the Wild: Evangelicals in Antebellum America
Author: Brett Malcolm Grainger File Type: pdf div id=iframeContent dir=autobA religious studies scholar argues that in antebellum America, evangelicals, not Transcendentalists, connected ordinary Americans with their spiritual roots in the natural world.bWe have long credited Emerson and his fellow Transcendentalists with revolutionizing religious life in America and introducing a new appreciation of nature. Breaking with Protestant orthodoxy, these New Englanders claimed that God could be found not in church but in forest, fields, and streams. Their spiritual nonconformity had thrilling implications but never traveled far beyond their circle. In this essential reconsideration of American faith in the years leading up to the Civil War, Brett Malcolm Grainger argues that it was not the Transcendentalists but the evangelical revivalists who transformed the everyday religious life of Americans and spiritualized the natural environment.Evangelical Christianity won believers from the rural South to the industrial North this was the true popular religion of the antebellum years. Revivalists went to the woods not to free themselves from the constraints of Christianity but to renew their ties to God. Evangelical Christianity provided a sense of enchantment for those alienated by a rapidly industrializing world. In forested camp meetings and riverside baptisms, in private contemplation and public water cures, in electrotherapy and mesmerism, American evangelicals communed with nature, God, and one another. A distinctive spirituality emerged pairing personal piety with a mystical relation to nature.AsChurch in the Wildreveals, the revivalist attitude toward nature and the material world, which echoed that of Catholicism, spread like wildfire among Christians of all backgrounds during the years leading up to the Civil War.ReviewWhile we sometimes attribute an enlightened ecology to the New England Puritans, [Grainger] shows how the many millions of evangelicals of the same period had a similar sensibility. The book shows what an approach to religion that strays from the titanic intellectuals and texts can do. In lieu of a rereading of Thoreau, Grainger offers us a fine-grained account of the hymns, sermons, and poetry that constituted the commonsense worldview of a people. James G. Chappelb, Boston ReviewbGraingerdemonstrates in his trenchant debut that the American spiritualist origin story of Transcendentalists seeking the divine in the woods and fields doesnt hold upReaders of American history and Christian theology will enjoy Graingers history, and fans of Emerson and Thoreau will find much to intrigue and challenge them. Publishers Weekly This elegant book uncovers the vital piety at the heart of modern nature spirituality. Grainger provides a deeply intellectual and profoundly feeling portrait of evangelical romanticism. Kathryn Lofton, author of Consuming Religion Brett Graingers Church in the Wild is tremendously exciting work, both in the stories it tells and the ways it tells them. Grainger shows the impossibility of separating theology and devotion, learned discourse and popular practice, andeven more fundamentallyevangelical Christianity and the myriad other religious and secular domains from which it acquires new vocabularies, concepts, and practices. Amy Hollywood, author of Acute Melancholia and Other Essays Church in the Wild makes the surprising revelation that nineteenth-century evangelicals were key to the spiritualization of nature in the United States. This is an extraordinary book about the American desire to find God in the natural world. Catherine Brekus, author of Sarah Osborns World The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America In this extraordinary book, Brett Grainger writes beautifully about how antebellum evangelicals saw field, forest, and stream as suffused with the immediate presence of Christ. Church in the Wild convincingly argues that nature spirituality was as much an everyday practice for evangelicals as Bible piety. Readers will come away from this profound reinterpretation with a changed understanding of evangelicals as practitioners of outdoor worship, natural theology, and vital piety. Lincoln A. Mullen, author of The Chance of SalvationAbout the Author bBrett Malcolm Grainger bis a scholar of American religion and an award-winning journalist. He is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University and the author of In the World but Not of It One Familys Militant Faith and the History of Fundamentalism in America.
Author: Nilüfer Göle
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For many in the West, Islam has become a byword for terrorism. From 911 to the attacks in France and Belgium, our headlines have been dominated by images of violence and extremism tied to radical Islam. At the same time, as the Western world struggles to cope with the growing crisis of Middle Eastern refugees, many of whom are Muslim, there is a concern over howor whetherMuslims will integrate into Western society. The fear is that Muslims who fail to assimilate will be branded as outsiders, creating segregated communities that might provide a fertile breeding ground for jihadists. Such reductive narratives, however, fail to take into account the actual lives of most Muslims living in the West, choosing to focus on a minority of violent extremists. In The Daily Lives of Muslims, Nilufer Gole provides an urgently needed corrective to this distorted image of Islam. The Daily Lives of Muslims engages with members of Muslim communities in twenty-one cities across Europe where controversies over integration have arisen, from the banning of the veil in France to debates surrounding Sharia law in the United Kingdom. In doing so, Gole brings the voices of this neglected majority into the debate and uncovers a sincere desire among many Muslims to participate in the public sphere, a desire which is too often stifled by Western insecurity and attempts to suppress the outward signs of religious difference. This is a timely and urgently needed perspective on an issue that is likely to remain in public debate for many years to come. **
Author: David MacGregor
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One reader has called this study, first published in 1984, easily the best book on the relation of Hegel to Marx. With spirited argument, MacGregor demonstrates that Hegelian logic suited Marxs purpose so well because it already contained the unique elements that later appeared in Marxs social theory, including the notions of surplus value and the transition to communism. The most exciting thing about the book is the clear demonstration that the mature Marx gets ever closer to Hegel, and is increasingly indebted to him. In short, the author gives us a new Hegel and a new Marx. In a manner both original and penetrating, MacGregor shows that dialectical logic is pre-eminently social logic, a reconstruction in thought of social relationships and social structure. Central to the work is the examination of the Philosophy of Right, in which Hegel delineated a theory of modern capitalist society. MacGregor provides a compelling analysis of Hegels importance for Lenin and a strong caveat that contemporary Marxism ignores Hegel to its own peril. MacGregor establishes that Hegels absolute idealism is founded on a theory of the dialectics of labour similar to Marxs historical materialism. Another significant discovery elucidates Hegels concept of poverty as the missing link which joins Marxs formulation to classical liberal theory. **
Author: Yossef Rapoport
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About a millennium ago, in Cairo, an unknown author completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features, and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000. Lost Maps of the Caliphs provides the first general overview of The Book of Curiosities and the unique insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought. Opening with an account of the remarkable discovery of the manuscript and its purchase by the Bodleian Library, the authors use The Book of Curiosities to re-evaluate the development of astrology, geography, and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Their account assesses the transmission of Late Antique geography to the Islamic world, unearths the logic behind abstract maritime diagrams, and considers the palaces and walls that dominate medieval Islamic plans of towns and ports. Early astronomical maps and drawings demonstrate the medieval understanding of the structure of the cosmos and illustrate the pervasive assumption that almost any visible celestial event had an effect upon life on Earth. Lost Maps of the Caliphs also reconsiders the history of global communication networks at the turn of the previous millennium. It shows the Fatimid Empire, and its capital Cairo, as a global maritime power, with tentacles spanning from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley and the East African coast. As Lost Maps of the Caliphs makes clear, not only is The Book of Curiosities one of the greatest achievements of medieval mapmaking, it is also a remarkable contribution to the story of Islamic civilization that opens an unexpected window to the medieval Islamic view of the world. **
Author: Michael Hunter
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In Confucius Beyond the Analects, Michael Hunter challenges the standard view of the Analects as the earliest and most authoritative source of the teachings
Author: Michael Shermer
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As author of the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things and How We Believe, and Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer has emerged as the nations number one scourge of superstition and bad science. Now, in The Borderlands of Science, he takes us to the place where real science (such as the big bang theory), borderland science (superstring theory), and just plain nonsense (Big Foot) collide with one another. Shermer argues that science is the best lens through which to view the world, but he recognizes that its often difficult for most of us to tell where valid science leaves off and borderland science begins. To help us, Shermer looks at a range of topics that put the boundary line in high relief. For instance, he discusses the many theories of everything that try to reduce the complexity of the world to a single principle, and shows how most fall into the category of pseudoscience. He examines the work of Darwin and Freud, explaining why one is among the great scientists in history, while the other has become nothing more than a historical curiosity. He also shows how Carl Sagans life exemplified the struggle we all face to find a balance between being open-minded enough to recognize radical new ideas but not so open-minded that our brains fall out. And finally, he reveals how scientists themselves can be led astray, as seen in the infamous Piltdown Hoax. Michael Shermers enlightening volume will be a valuable aid to anyone bewildered by the many scientific theories swirling about. It will help us stay grounded in common sense as we try to evaluate everything from SETI and acupuncture to hypnosis and cloning. httparchive.orgdetailsborderlandsofsci00mic_hoo
Author: Richard Roman
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The crucible of North American neoliberal transformation is heating up, but its outcome is far from clear. Continental Crucible examines the clash between the corporate offensive and the forces of resistance from both a pancontinental and a class struggle perspective. This book also illustrates the ways in which the capitalist classes in Canada, Mexico, and the United States used free-trade agreements to consolidate their agendas and organize themselves continentally. The failure of traditional labor responses to stop the continental offensive being waged by big business has led workers and unions to explore new strategies of struggle and organization, pointing to the beginnings of a continental labor movement across North America. The battle for the future of North America has begun. **
Author: Hunt Janin
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In medieval and Renaissance Europe, mercenaries--professional soldiers who fought for money or other rewards--played violent, colorful, international roles in warfare, but they have received relatively little scholarly attention. In this book a large number of vignettes portray their activities in Western Europe over a period of nearly 900 years, from the Merovingian mercenaries of 752 through the Thirty Years War, which ended in 1648. Intended as an introduction to the subject and drawing heavily on contemporary first-person accounts, the book creates a vivid but balanced mosaic of the many thousands of mercenaries who were hired to fight for various employers.