The New Visibility of Religion: Studies in Religion and Cultural Hermeneutics (Continuum Resources in Religion and Political Culture) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184706132X ISBN 13: 9781847061324

Publisher: Continuum, 2008

Synopsis

Since the late 1980s sociologists have been drawing our attention to an international surge in the public visibility of religion. This has increasingly challenged two central aspects of modern western European culture: first, the assumption that as we became more modern we would become more secularised and religion would disappear; and secondly, that religion and politics should occupy radically differentiated spheres in which private conviction did not exert itself within the public realm. The new visibility of religion is not simply a matter of what Keppel famously called 'The Revenge of God', that is, the resurgence of Christian, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism. Religion is permeating western culture in many different forms from contemporary continental philosophy, the arts and the media, to the rhetoric of international politicians.

This collection of essays brings together a unique collection of voices from theology, aesthetics, social and political science, philosophy and cultural theory in an exploration of four major aspects of this new visibility of religion: the revision of the secularisation thesis, the relationship between religion and violence, the new re-enchantment of reality and the return of metaphysics. The exploration is conducted through essays by and interviews with figures at the forefront of reflecting upon this major cultural shift and its implications. It is distinctively multidisciplinary, examining the phenomenon of the rise of religion in Western Europe from a number of interrelated perspectives.

About this title

About the Author:

Graham Ward is Professor of Contextual Theology and Ethics at the University of Manchester, UK.Michael Hoelzl is Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Manchester, UK.

Review:

Mention —Book News, February 2009

'Useful not only for theologians but also for scholars in religious studies and cultural analysis.' (Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparitive Religion)

Mention –Book News, February 2009

'Useful not only for theologians but also for scholars in religious studies and cultural analysis.' (Sanford Lakoff)

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 184706132X
• ISBN 13: 9781847061324
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Ward Graham, Hoelzl Michael