Atheism Fundamentalism And The Protestant Reformation

Author : Liam Jerrold Fraser
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108427987
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Atheism, Fundamentalism and the Protestant Reformation written by Liam Jerrold Fraser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the idea that new atheism and Protestant fundamentalism have the same historical origin, and share a range of surprising beliefs.

Author : Brad S. Gregory
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 067426407X
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Unintended Reformation written by Brad S. Gregory and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a work that is as much about the present as the past, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces the way it shaped the modern condition over the course of the following five centuries. A hyperpluralism of religious and secular beliefs, an absence of any substantive common good, the triumph of capitalism and its driver, consumerism—all these, Gregory argues, were long-term effects of a movement that marked the end of more than a millennium during which Christianity provided a framework for shared intellectual, social, and moral life in the West. Before the Protestant Reformation, Western Christianity was an institutionalized worldview laden with expectations of security for earthly societies and hopes of eternal salvation for individuals. The Reformation’s protagonists sought to advance the realization of this vision, not disrupt it. But a complex web of rejections, retentions, and transformations of medieval Christianity gradually replaced the religious fabric that bound societies together in the West. Today, what we are left with are fragments: intellectual disagreements that splinter into ever finer fractals of specialized discourse; a notion that modern science—as the source of all truth—necessarily undermines religious belief; a pervasive resort to a therapeutic vision of religion; a set of smuggled moral values with which we try to fertilize a sterile liberalism; and the institutionalized assumption that only secular universities can pursue knowledge. The Unintended Reformation asks what propelled the West into this trajectory of pluralism and polarization, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past.

Author : James Simpson
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674043677
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Burning to Read written by James Simpson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evidence is everywhere: fundamentalist reading can stir passions and provoke violence that changes the world. Amid such present-day conflagrations, this illuminating book reminds us of the sources, and profound consequences, of Christian fundamentalism in the sixteenth century. James Simpson focuses on a critical moment in early modern England, specifically the cultural transformation that allowed common folk to read the Bible for the first time. Widely understood and accepted as the grounding moment of liberalism, this was actually, Simpson tells us, the source of fundamentalism, and of different kinds of persecutory violence. His argument overturns a widely held interpretation of sixteenth-century Protestant reading--and a crucial tenet of the liberal tradition. After exploring the heroism and achievements of sixteenth-century English Lutherans, particularly William Tyndale, Burning to Read turns to the bad news of the Lutheran Bible. Simpson outlines the dark, dynamic, yet demeaning paradoxes of Lutheran reading: its demands that readers hate the biblical text before they can love it; that they be constantly on the lookout for unreadable signs of their own salvation; that evangelical readers be prepared to repudiate friends and all tradition on the basis of their personal reading of Scripture. Such reading practice provoked violence not only against Lutheranism's stated enemies, as Simpson demonstrates; it also prompted psychological violence and permanent schism within its own adherents. The last wave of fundamentalist reading in the West provoked 150 years of violent upheaval; as we approach a second wave, this powerful book alerts us to our peril.

Author : James C. Ungureanu
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822945819
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition written by James C. Ungureanu and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the “conflict thesis” between science and religion—the notion of perennial conflict or warfare between the two—is part of our modern self-understanding. As the story goes, John William Draper (1811–1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) constructed dramatic narratives in the nineteenth century that cast religion as the relentless enemy of scientific progress. And yet, despite its resilience in popular culture, historians today have largely debunked the conflict thesis. Unravelling its origins, James Ungureanu argues that Draper and White actually hoped their narratives would preserve religious belief. For them, science was ultimately a scapegoat for a much larger and more important argument dating back to the Protestant Reformation, where one theological tradition was pitted against another—a more progressive, liberal, and diffusive Christianity against a more traditional, conservative, and orthodox Christianity. By the mid-nineteenth century, narratives of conflict between “science and religion” were largely deployed between contending theological schools of thought. However, these narratives were later appropriated by secularists, freethinkers, and atheists as weapons against all religion. By revisiting its origins, development, and popularization, Ungureanu ultimately reveals that the “conflict thesis” was just one of the many unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation.

Author : Alec Ryrie
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674243277
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unbelievers written by Alec Ryrie and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie’s alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present.” —Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, pointing to science and reason as the twin culprits, but in this lively, startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through the heart more than the mind. Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, he shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. As Protestant radicals eroded time-honored certainties and ushered in an age of anger and anxiety, some defended their faith by redefining it in terms of ethics, setting in motion secularizing forces that soon became transformational. Unbelievers tells a powerful emotional history of doubt with potent lessons for our own angry and anxious times. “Well-researched and thought-provoking...Ryrie is definitely on to something right and important.” —Christianity Today “A beautifully crafted history of early doubt...Unbelievers covers much ground in a short space with deep erudition and considerable wit.” —The Spectator “Ryrie traces the root of religious skepticism to the anger, the anxiety, and the ‘desperate search for certainty’ that drove thinkers like...John Donne to grapple with church dogma.” —New Yorker

Author : Edward T. Babinski
Publisher : Prometheus Books
ISBN 13 : 1615921672
Total Pages : 462 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Leaving The Fold written by Edward T. Babinski and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2003-06-30 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This riveting new collection offers testimonies of former fundamentalists who became disillusioned with their churches and left. Presenting more than two dozen personal journeys, this book gives a clear picture of what attracts a person to the fundamentalist faith and what can drive believers away from their religion. Photos throughout.

Author : Karen Armstrong
Publisher : Knopf Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307372952
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Case for God written by Karen Armstrong and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of A History of God and The Great Transformation comes a balanced, nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in human life and the trajectory of faith in modern times. Why has God become incredible? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Moving from the Paleolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the lengths to which humankind has gone to experience a sacred reality that it called God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. She examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. With her trademark depth of knowledge and profound insight, Armstrong elucidates how the changing world has necessarily altered the importance of religion at both societal and individual levels. And she makes a powerful, convincing argument for structuring a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age.

Author : Alain De Botton
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307907104
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion for Atheists written by Alain De Botton and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if religions are neither all true nor all nonsense? The long-running and often boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved forward by Alain de Botton’s inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are entirely false—but that it still has some very important things to teach the secular world. Religion for Atheists suggests that rather than mocking religion, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from it—because the world’s religions are packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. Blending deep respect with total impiety, de Botton (a non-believer himself) proposes that we look to religion for insights into how to, among other concerns, build a sense of community, make our relationships last, overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy, inspire travel and reconnect with the natural world. For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing some peculiar doctrines or doing away with a range of consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last, in Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton has fashioned a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

Author : Molly Worthen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190630515
Total Pages : 375 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Apostles of Reason written by Molly Worthen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this imaginative history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen offers a dramatic rethinking of the evangelical movement, arguing that it has been defined not by shared doctrines or politics, but by the struggle to reconcile head knowledge and heart religion in an increasingly secular America. -- Back cover.

Author : Liam Jerrold Fraser
Publisher : Saint Andrew Press
ISBN 13 : 1800830203
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mission in Contemporary Scotland written by Liam Jerrold Fraser and published by Saint Andrew Press. This book was released on 2021-10-08 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mission in Contemporary Scotland is the first book to fully examine the challenges and opportunities of Christian mission in contemporary Scotland. It covers all of the most important topics and questions engaging the church today, such as the reality of decline, the changing nature of domestic mission, the response of the Church to change, and the different models of mission that are being used today. Describing and analysing a wealth of concrete examples from a Scottish context, this study gives practical guidance to church leaders engaged in Fresh Expressions and church planting in a Scottish context. A major contribution of the book is to envisage ways in which the institutional Church can respond imaginatively to its secular and pluralist context. This is the first work of its kind and fills a significant gap in the market.