Description
Dreyer (religious studies, Fairfield U.), Burrows (history of Christianity, Andover Newton Theological School) and contributors examine spirituality as an academic discipline. They establish foundations and methods, and examine the self-implicating nature of the study of spirituality, including the role of personal practice and approaches to themes such as materiality and symbolism. Other topics include interpreting traditions, including interpreting commentary on mysticism and mystical language, spiritual healing, including the environmentally sensitive, and considering the aesthetic within the spiritual in images and entities outside of language. The volume closes with commentary on new directions. It contains a list of further reading but does not include an index. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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The birth of an academic discipline is a rare event. Even more extraordinary is academia's acknowledgment that spirituality has scholarly as well as personal dimensions. Inquiry and dialogue are the essence of this new discipline, as it paves the way toward a deeper understanding of what it means to be human within the Christian faith.The twenty-five essays in this volume, originally published in either the Christian Spirituality Bulletin or Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, offer groundbreaking explorations of Christian spirituality. Arranged under five broad headings, these essays create an insightful dialogue on the questions, methods, and critical approaches implemented by the discipline's top scholars. Topics addressed include the particular intellectual and methodological challenges presented by spirituality as an academic discipline, the self-implicating nature of the study of spirituality, historical perspectives, theological implications, healing as a function of spirituality, and the relationship between aesthetics and spirituality-art and spirit. Scholars working on either broad or focused themes in spirituality will benefit from this clear and accessible presentation of the salient aspects of the discipline. In their insight and historical and methodological content, these essays provide valuable tools for students and teachers of spirituality and related fields, in their insight and historical and methodological content. This volume speaks to all who practice and study spirituality from any religious or secular perspective, encouraging reflective and open dialogue with one of humanity's major religious traditions.Contributors: J. Matthew Ashley, Thomas Berry, Mark S. Burrows, Douglas Burton-Christie, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Lisa E. Dahill, Elizabeth A. Dreyer, Mary Frohlich, Belden C. Lane, Elizabeth Liebert, E. Ann Matter, Bernard McGinn, Meredith B. McGuire, Mark McIntosh, Barbara Newman, Walter H. Principe, Don E. Saliers, Sandra M. Schneiders, Philip F. Sheldrake, Jon Sobrino, Wendy M. Wright
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