-
Invisibly Visible: Alan Glass’s Gnosopoetics Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Kristoffer Noheden
The Canadian-Mexican artist Alan Glass's early work Ouverture prochaine (1962; Fig. 1) is deceptively simple in its construction, comprising a black wooden box glazed and sealed with red wax. The glass pane has been painted white with clearly visible circular motions, creating the appearance of turbulent clouds, swirling winds, or an intricately adorned curtain about to part, as though confirming the
-
A Much Needed (More Than Just A) Translation of the Mishnah Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Michail Kitsos
THE OXFORD ANNOTATED MISHNAH: A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE MISHNAH WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTESEdited by Shaye J. D. Cohen, Robert Goldenberg, and Hayim Lapin. 3 Volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 2023 Pp. xvi + 2585; list of figures. Hardcover, $680.00; Paperback, $85.00. This is the latest English translation of the first written document of rabbinic Judaism with which the rabbinic movement
-
Thinking about John Thinking about Cognitive Scientists Thinking about Religion Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-10-08 Gabriel Levy
NEUROMATIC: OR, A PARTICULAR HISTORY OF RELIGION AND THE BRAINBy John Lardas Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. xv + 426. Paper $32.50. I have so many questions for John about his book, I can't possibly get to all of them in this space. Presently, I am going to try to be as critical as possible and play a bit of devil's advocate. I focus on the part of the book I know quite intimately
-
Blurring the Lines Between “Good” and “Bad” Religion: John Modern's Neuromatic Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-10-08 Jessica Johnson
NEUROMATIC: OR, A PARTICULAR HISTORY OF RELIGION AND THE BRAINBy John Lardas Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. xv + 426. Paper $32.50. “In the MRI I experienced the invisible tendrils of discourse…a particularly powerful construction of the social. For in the MRI I became aware of my paranoia, mindful of how theories of information, feedback, and self-organization…frame the social
-
My Neuromatic Cut-Up Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-10-08 William Robert
NEUROMATIC: OR, A PARTICULAR HISTORY OF RELIGION AND THE BRAINBy John Lardas Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021 . Pp. xv + 426. Paper $32.50. The offering I've brought into this ritual scene is a cut-up. It's a dialogic cut-up: of quotations from Neuromatic and questions from me. The scanning mechanism that I am is, I suspect, calibrated interrogatively. Neuromatic had my synapses firing
-
Recovering Mongolian Agency from the Shadow of the Qing: Inner Asian Polymaths and the Remaking of Faxian's Journey Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-10-08 Sangseraima Ujeed
IN THE FOREST OF THE BLIND: THE EURASIAN JOURNEY OF FAXIAN'S RECORD OF BUDDHIST KINGDOMSBy Matthew W. King. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Pp. 312. Paperback, $40.00; Hardcover, $160.00; E-Book, $39.99. This review of King's new book examines the themes of nationalism, centers, and frontiers presented in this book in the context of Buddhist identity and translation alongside questions of
-
Augustine for the Ages: The Political Implications of Hope Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-10-08 Matthew H. Young
A COMMONWEALTH OF HOPE: AUGUSTINE'S POLITICAL THOUGHT. By Michael Lamb, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022 Pp. xiii + 431. $39.95. In Book 2 of his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo makes a stunning admission: As a teenager, the future bishop had once robbed his neighbor. Seeing a heavily laden pear tree—though its fruits were no finer than those they had access to in their own gardens—Augustine
-
Review of Indigenous Research and Methodologies Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-07-14 Celia Deane-Drummond
APPLYING INDIGENOUS RESEARCH METHODS. Edited by Sweeney Windchief and Timothy San Pedro. London: Routledge, 2019 . Pp. 166. $54.95. INDIGENOUS METHODOLOGIES: CHARACTERISTICS, CONVERSATIONS, AND CONTEXTSBy Margaret Kovach. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021 . Pp. 313. $32.95. Windchief and San Pedro's edited volume focuses on how methods are applied in research, with a sharply critical
-
What Theology and Science (and Ethics and Technology) Can Learn from Indigenous Scholars Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-07-14 Brian Patrick Green
DECOLONIZING METHODOLOGIES: RESEARCH AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLESBy Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 3rd Edition. London: Bloomsbury, 2022 Pp. 344. Paper, $25.60. DECOLONIZING RESEARCH: INDIGENOUS STORYWORK AS METHODOLOGYEdited by Jo–Ann Archibald Q'um Q'um Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun Lee–Morgan, Jason De Santolo. London: Bloomsbury, 2022 Pp. 288. Paper, $26.95.
-
A Life Scientist’s Review of Chilisa's Indigenous Research Methodologies Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-07-14 Arvin M. Gouw
INDIGENOUS RESEARCH METHODOLOGIESBy Bagele Chilisa. 2nd ed., Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2020 . Pp. xxiv + 368. $45.00. Chilisa has significantly updated her popular textbook on Indigenous research methodologies, which first appeared eight years prior to the publication of this second edition. This textbook is intended to be used by advanced undergraduate, master's, and beginning early doctoral students
-
A Window into an Indigenous Theology: A Book Review of Woodley's Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2023-07-14 Arvin M. Gouw
INDIGENOUS THEOLOGY AND THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW: A DECOLONIZED APPROACH TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINEBy Randy S. Woodley, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022 Pp. xiii + 142. Paperback $21.99. This refreshing book provides readers a peek into what indigenous theology could look like within Christianity. Before diving into the content, I want to take note of the preface and the book's overall structure. It
-
Minding the Gap: Why Epistemological Rectitude Doesn't Lead to Political Emancipation Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Sohaib Khan
METAMODERNISM: THE FUTURE OF THEORYBy Jason Ananda Josephson Storm. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021.Pp. xiii + 328. Hardcover, $63.80, Paper $26.68.
-
Metamodernism and the Study of Religion: An Introduction Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-12-23 Brian Collins, Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm
Starting in the late 1980s, discussions of “postmodernism” and “postmodernity” were often seen as crucial to the study of religion. Aside from the manifold explicitly “postmodern” theological projects of philosophers of religion and theologians such as John D. Caputo, works like Ernest Gellner's Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (Routledge, 1992) and David Lyon's Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern
-
A Response to Sovereignty and the Sacred in Three Parts Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-12-20 Brian Collins
SOVEREIGNTY AND THE SACRED: SECULARISM AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF RELIGIONBy Robert Yelle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019 Pp. x + 270. $35.00. I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to Robert Yelle's noteworthy new book Sovereignty and the Sacred, especially since I have thought a lot recently about the subject matter, having published in 2020 a book about the mythology of the Hindu
-
GEHEIMNIS UND VERBORGENES IM MITTELALTER: FUNKTION, WIRKUNG UND SPANNUNGSFELDER VON OKKULTEM WISSEN, VERBORGENEN RÄUMEN UND MAGISCHEN GEGENSTÄNDEN [THE SECRET AND THE HIDDEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES: FUNCTION, EFFECT AND AREAS OF TENSION OF OCCULT KNOWLEGDE, HIDDEN SPACES, AND MAGICAL OBJECTS]. Edited by Stephan Conermann, Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, and Miriam Quiering. Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-04-28
The boundaries between the public and the hidden often run along the boundaries of religious, political, social, and scientific systems. According to the editors of this impressive multidisciplinary volume, mysteries of secret knowledge, secret places, and secret objects have functions that impact the configuration of society and culture. Academic examination of such secrets allows conclusions to be
-
Eros in the Classroom or Toward a Pedagogy of the Impossible: Bataille and the Academic Study of Religion Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Jeremy Biles
-
Between Ecstasy and Abjection: Black Studies and the Excessive Sacred Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Joseph Richard Winters
-
-
Rotten Grid: Notes on Collage Occasioned by the Work of Ryan M. Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Jeremy Biles
-
-
Against the Proper Subject of the Summit: The Colonial Limits of Bataille’s “General Economy” Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Danube Johnson
-
-
Bataille’s Paleolithic Detour: Reinventing the Sacred for the Twenty‐First Century Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Michèle Richman
-
Sacrifice, Heterology and the Sacred Festival Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Rebecca Reynolds
-
To whom …. An open letter to my colleagues, with reference to the contents of this issue Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Jeremy Biles
-
Hugh B. Urban on Netflix’s Osho Documentary Wild Wild Country. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-15
Documentary Reviewed WILD WILD COUNTRY Directed by Maclain Way and Chapman Way; Duplass Brothers Productions, 2018. Six episodes. RT 403 Min. Hugh B. Urban is a professor of religious studies and South Asian studies at Ohio State University. He is the author of numerous books, including Zorba the Buddha: Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement (2015), Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics
-
Richard Kent Evans on the MOVE documentary Let the Fire Burn Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-15
Documentary Reviewed LET THE FIRE BURN. Directed by Jason Osder. George Washington University, 2013. Richard Kent Evans is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Haverford College and the Project Coordinator for the Political Theology Network. He is the author of MOVE: An American Religion (Oxford University Press, 2020).
-
Bernard Doherty on Scientology Documentaries and Docuseries. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-15
Documentaries Reviewed GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE PRISON OF BELIEF. Directed by Alex Gibney. HBO, 2015. LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH. Produced by Eli Holzman. TV Series. The Intellectual Property Corporation, 2016–2019. Bernard Doherty is currently Course Director in the School of Theology and a Research Fellow for the Centre for Public and Contextual Theology at Charles Sturt University
-
Reza Aslan on his CNN series Believer Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-15
Documentary Reviewed: BELIEVER CNN, 6 episodes, 2017. Reza Aslan holds a BA in religious studies from Santa Clara University, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD in sociology from the University of California-Santa Barbara and currently teaches creative writing at the University of California-Riverside. He is the author of No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (Random
-
Diana Tumminia on the Unarius Academy of Science Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-15
Diana Tumminia is retired from California State University, where she taught Social Psychology, Social Theory, and Women’s Studies. She wrote When Prophecy Never Fails (Oxford University Press, 2005) and co-authored A Study of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness: Religious Innovation and Cultural Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) with James R. Lewis. She also edited Alien Worlds: Social and Religious
-
Kevin Kennedy about filmmaking in the Unarius Academy of Science Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-16
Kevin Kennedy has been a Unarius student since 1976. He has been instrumental in producing, directing, designing sets, filming, and participating in various Unarius video productions, many of which have aired on public access stations throughout the US. Currently, Kevin teaches a class in the Psychology of Consciousness at the Unarius Academy of Science and operates an art business, which he co-owns
-
Filmography of NRMs in Documentary Films Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-13
Aliens from Spaceship Earth 1977 Director, Don Como; Subject: Various; RT 70 min Description: Though dated, this documentary is notable for its on-screen narration and soundtrack by Donovan and rare footage of Sai Baba, Yogi Bhahan, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Guru Maharaj Ji, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Ram Dass and Father Yod, and devotees. Includes Cybil Shepard, Martin Landau, “Chicago 7” activist Rennie
-
On Brian Collins’ Robert Eisler and the Magic of the Combinatory Mind Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-06 Bruce Rosenstock
ROBERT EISLER AND THE MAGIC OF THE COMBINATORY MIND: THE FORGOTTEN LIFE OF A 20TH-CENTURY AUSTRIAN POLYMATH. By Collins, Brian. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pages, xiv + 157 pages. Hardcover, $59.99. Collins’s book is the first full-length study of the brilliant if eccentric Austrian-Jewish polymath, Robert Eisler. Eisler was comfortable, and made a name for himself, within a number
-
Whose Liberty? Which Freedom? Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-03 Emily G. Wenneborg
LIBERTY FOR ALL: DEFENDING EVERYONE’S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN A PLURALISTIC AGE. By Walker, Andrew T.. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 258. Paper, $19.99 Robert P. George, in his Foreword to Andrew T. Walker’s Liberty for All: Defending Everyone’s Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age, reminds us (referencing Alasdair MacIntyre) that we all come from some particular perspective and tradition
-
New Black Equation: A Review on Spirit in the Dark Body: Black Queer Expression of the Im/material by Elyse Ambrose Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2021-12-10 Jé Exodus Hooper
The legend of the pious student: …[A] student [asked], “Professor, does darkness exist?” The professor responded, “Of course it does.” The student replied, “Once again you are wrong, sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is, in reality, the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. Isn’t this correct? Dr. Elyse Ambrose, emerging photographer, black queer ethicist, and educator
-
PSYCHE AND SOUL IN AMERICA: THE SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY OF ROLLO MAY. By Robert H. Abzug. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xii+406 Hc. $34.95. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Rollo May was one of the United States’ most influential psychologists in the mid-twentieth century. This biography explores May’s life amid changing social conditions, including the rise of feminism, protests against racial injustice and the Vietnam War, and challenges by some to a perceived determinism in classical psychoanalysis. After graduating from Oberlin, May became a high school teacher in
-
THE DICTIONARY OF PAN-AFRICAN PENTECOSTALISM, VOLUME 1: NORTH AMERICA. Edited by Estrelda Y. Alexander. Eugene: Cascade, 2018. Pp. xiii + 461. Paper, $65.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
The first of multiple projected volumes, this distinctive and much-needed dictionary contains entries on persons—most of which are accompanied by pictures—organizations, and events. Some of the entries on major figures overlap with those in other dictionaries that cover broader subject matters, and the most important contribution of this volume is its inclusion of figures that usually do not find a
-
WOMEN IN PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC MINISTRY: INFORMING A DIALOGUE ON GENDER, CHURCH, AND MINISTRY. Edited by Margaret English de Alminana and Lois E. Olena. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Pp. xxii + 410. Paper, $95.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Written about women and (almost exclusively) by women, this book deserves a wide reading. Some essays cover biblical and historical ground that has been tread before, but they complement well the chapters that stand out for their originality—each making this a handy single-volume reference tool to women in global pentecostalism, complete with extensive bibliographic information. The most striking reflections
-
THE LETTERS OF HENRY MARTYN: EAST INDIA COMPANY CHAPLAIN. Edited by Scott D. Ayler. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2019. Pp. xvi + 596. Hardcover, $165.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
The Rev. Henry Martyn was a heroic figure of early Nineteenth-century mission, a genius of a young man who landed in India and stated, “Now let me burn out for God,” and after six hectic years in which he was involved in translating the New Testament into Urdu and Persian, he did indeed “burn out,” dying young of tuberculosis while en route from Persia back to England. While there have been other collections
-
JOHN THE THEOLOGIAN AND HIS PASCHAL GOSPEL: A PROLOGUE TO THEOLOGY. By John Behr. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 404. Hardcover, $125.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Behr explores how three sets of readers understood the message of John’s Gospel, a message that pointed to Christ crucified and risen, a message that impacted Christian teaching and practice. The first set of readers are those from the patristic era. The second set is historical critics of the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries. The final reader is Michael Henry, a French philosopher of religion
-
FULL OF YOUR GLORY: LITURGY, COSMOS, CREATION. Edited by Teresa Berger. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 432. Paperback, $39.95. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
These essays arose from a Yale University Institute of Sacred Music conference on the ways that Christian liturgy has helped, and can still help, Christians understand their relationship to the natural world and the imperative for them to care for it. They approach the topic with methodological diversity and examine texts as diverse as the Hebrew scriptures up to church statements made this decade
-
WONDROUSLY WOUNDED. THEOLOGY, DISABILITY, AND THE BODY OF CHRIST. By Brian Brock. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019. Pp. xix + 371. Cloth, $59.95. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
In this interdisciplinary masterpiece, Brock integrates patristic history and theology, biblical exegesis, and Christian ethics to deliver an impressive achievement on disability studies. He writes seamlessly in conversation with contemporary medical ethicists and, at the same time, narrates the intimate relationship with his son Adam, who has Down syndrome and autism. Brock confronts societal reductions
-
SCRIPTING PENTECOST: A STUDY OF PENTECOSTALS, WORSHIP, AND LITURGY. Edited by Mark J. Cartledge and A. J. Swoboda. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xi + 251. Hardcover, $140.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
This unique and extraordinary collection of essays helps correct the misunderstanding that any Christian worship is altogether non-liturgical, even pentecostal worship. Taken together, the contributions establish the existence of implicit liturgical forms in various instantiations of global pentecostalism, past and present—forms like preaching, singing, sacraments, and prayer. One particular strength
-
NARRATIVES AND NUMBERS: EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF PENTECOSTAL AND CHARISMATIC CHRISTIANITY. By Mark J. Cartledge. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Pp. x + 221. Paper, $68.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
A compilation of essays published previously by a leading scholar of empirical theology of pentecostals-charismatics, this book is a cohesive call for theologians who specialize in things theoretical to make us of social-scientific research and statistical studies. Because the chapters are taken from the breadth of Cartledge’s career to date, they sketch the trajectory of his own development in the
-
PENTECOSTALS IN THE 21ST CENTURY: IDENTITY, BELIEFS, PRAXIS. Edited by Corneliu Constantineanu and Christopher J. Scobie. Eugene: Cascade, 2018. Pp. x + 265. Paper, $53.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
I know of no better single volume of this size written by different authors for introducing academic pentecostal theology. The essays can be read collectively for exposure to a range of theological topics in pentecostal perspective. Some of them can also be read as succinct statements of their authors’ more extensive contributions elsewhere to specific topics—for example, V.-M. Kärkkäinen on the christological
-
CUÉNTAME: NARRATIVE IN THE ECCLESIAL PRESENT. By Natalia Imperatori-Lee. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2018. Pp. xxiii + 166, $35.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
In his prize-winning book, El Hablador (The Storyteller), Mario Vargas Llosa holds that storytelling is more than entertainment—and is indeed primordial and even lifesaving. Imperatori-Lee echoes this sentiment about the importance of story and argues that it is essential in identifying the Church. She offers a narrative ecclesiology as an alternative to the abstracted, top-down doctrinal conceptions
-
METAPHYSICS IN THE REFORMATION: THE CASE OF PETER MARTYR VERMIGLI. By, Silvianne Aspray. British Academy Monograph. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. pp. xi + 164; $80.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Over the last 15 years, there has been an increased interest in the metaphysical and philosophical foundations of the Reformation. Many scholars have been challenging the traditional narrative which sees Reformed theology grounded upon Nominalism. In this book, the fruit of her doctoral dissertation, Aspray proposes what she sees as a more appropriate method for analyzing the philosophical foundations
-
THE WAY OF THE CROSS: SUFFERING SELFHOODS IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PHILIPPINES. By Julius Bautista. Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019. Pp. 138. Hardcover, $68.00; Paper, $28.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Unfamiliar viewers may be shocked upon seeing devoted Filipinos/as in the region of Pampanga, Philippines undergo physically exhausting and utterly painful ritual practices during Holy Week. Seeing ritual performers self-flagellate or get nailed to the cross, they may wonder why the performers of these Passion rituals willingly undergo such extensive physical suffering. Interdisciplinary in scope,
-
HE DESCENDED TO THE DEAD: AN EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY OF HOLY SATURDAY. By Matthew Emerson. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2019. Pp. xx + 251. Paper, $30.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar’s account of Christ’s Holy Saturday descent to the dead has been employed by some theologians, but others have questioned its faithfulness to Scripture and the Roman Catholic magisterium. Emerson attempts to develop a careful theology of Holy Saturday that is both deeply engaged in Scriptural, Patristic, Catholic, and Orthodox sources and that resonates
-
READING WITH FEELING: AFFECT THEORY AND THE BIBLE. Edited by Fiona C. Black and Jennifer L. Koosed. Semeia Studies, 95. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2019. Pp. vii + 225, $35.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
The goal of this compilation is to introduce the reader to affect theory and the development of affect criticism as an approach to reading the Bible. Even more, the volume has an affective goal, to inspire and provoke curiosity regarding the possibilities that affect theory opens for biblical interpretation. In this goal, the editors and contributors succeed. Most essays begin with an introduction
-
TRADITIONAL CHURCHES, BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANITY, AND PENTECOSTALISM: RELIGIOUS MOBILITY AND RELIGIOUS REPERTOIRES IN URBAN KENYA. By Yonatan N. Gez. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Pp. xiv + 358. Hardcover, $119.99. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
This tour de force in anthropology of religion is based on the author’s fieldwork. Gez investigates Christians in Kenya who simultaneously participate in multiple church traditions, a reality that he contends the 2009 census data does not adequately take into account in its report on religious adherents. In search of more accurate data, Gez devises the category of “repertoire,” a way of describing
-
WELCOMING FINITUDE: TOWARD A PHENOMENOLOGY OF ORTHODOX LITURGY. By Christina M. Gschwandtner. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 308. Hardcover, $75.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Using the classical work of Husserl and Heidegger, as well as recent French phenomenology after the “theological turn” of Lacoste, Marion, and Falque, Gschwandtner explores how phenomenological analysis can provide insight and understanding about the working of Christian liturgy. In addition, those methods challenge grander theological claims that some make about liturgy’s ability to “transport” believers
-
THE MEDIEVAL LUTHER. Edited by Christine Helmer. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck 2020. Pp. vii + 301. Hardcover, €99.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
The scholarly career of influential reformation historian Heiko Oberman demonstrated that despite Luther’s commitment to the study and authority of Scripture, Luther’s theological work often deployed medieval philosophy and its methods, sometimes for innovative purposes. That argument led Oberman to reject the Twentieth-century German Luther Renaissance claim that Luther’s theology provided the foundation
-
LUTHERAN THEOLOGY: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. By Paul R. Hinlicky. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020. Pp. xiv + 183. Paper, $25.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
The book’s dedication to the Institute of Lutheran Theology and its polemics against theological discourse in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America show Hinlicky’s ideological proclivities. However, the book is a learned and largely balanced account of Lutheran theology’s transformations and tensions, starting with Luther’s theology of the cross and chronicling Lutheranism’s journey from confessionalism
-
HOMELAND INSECURITY: A HIP HOP MISSOLOGY FOR THE POST-CIVIL RIGHTS CONTEXT. By Daniel White Hodge. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. Pp. xi + 286. Paper, $27.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
This volume provides a humbling and inviting approach to learning how to develop appropriate ways to reach those whom some contemporary Christians consider to be “spiritually lost.” Hodge travels down the challenging path of many of his predecessors within the Christian African-American community. He discusses the pervasive influence, as well as denial, of White Supremacy within North American Anglo-Christianity
-
THE GLORY OF THE SPIRIT IN GREGORY OF NYSSA’S ADVERSUS MACEDONIANOS: COMMENTARY AND SYSTEMATIC-THEOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS. By Piet Hein Hupsch. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, 163. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. vii + 408. $166.00 Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Adversus Macedonianos was written by Gregory of Nyssa in response to the accusations of the Pneumatomachi, who claimed that the Holy Spirit was not of equal divinity with the Father and Son. In an adapted version of a doctoral dissertation, Piet Hein Hupsch offers an approachable yet expertly thorough commentary and synthesis of the work. Providing both the original Greek and a fresh translation into
-
COME, LET US EAT TOGETHER: SACRAMENTS AND CHRISTIAN UNITY. Edited by George Kalantzis and Marc Cortez. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. Pp. 252. Paper, $26.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Originating from the 2017 Wheaton Theology Conference, these essays address the sacraments in light of their wider ecclesiological context and their ecumenical implications. Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Pentecostal thinkers contribute biblical, historical, and theological reflections. The chapters are encouraging, in part because the impetus for a project on topics traditionally associated with
-
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN THE PLURALISTIC WORLD. By Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019. Pp. xx + 684. Hardcover, $60.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
In the preface to this extraordinary text, the author aptly describes it as a “user-friendly” condensation of his more technical five-volume “A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World” (reviewed in RSR 40:4, 205; 41:1, 12-13; 45:1, 49). The purpose of this volume is to cover the topics that would ordinarily be covered in a traditional systematic theology textbook but also to go beyond
-
THE RECEPTION OF VATICAN II. Edited by Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 469. Paper, $36.95. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Studies of what happened at the Second Vatican Council and of competing interpretations of the “spirit” of the Council abound. The contributors to this collection share the view that the renewal brought by the Council is characterized more by continuity with the past than by discontinuity. The editors describe the contributors as part of a third generation of interpreters of the Council, the students
-
THE DEVIL’S REDEMPTION: A NEW HISTORY AND INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM, 2 VOLS. By Michael J. McClymond. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. Pp. xxiv + xii + 1325. Paper, $90.00. Religious Studies Review Pub Date : 2022-01-19
Destined to become for many years the standard English-language, historical-theological introduction to Christian universalism, McClymond’s monumental tome covers the periods of pre-Christian Jewish and Graeco-Roman traditions up to the time of publication. Besides a topical introduction, an opening synthesized overview, and a concluding chapter that evaluates recurring themes, the rest of the presentation