This book demonstrates that the United States, whether we like it or not, is a theolegal nation - a democracy that simultaneously guarantees citizens the right to free expression of belief while preventing the establishment of a state religion.

Why Were the Teachings of the Original Christians Brutally Suppressed by the Roman Church?• Because they portray Jesus and Mary Magdalene as mythic figures based on the Pagan Godman and Goddess• Because they show that the gospel story is a spiritual allegory encapsulating a profound philosophy that leads to mythical enlightenment• Because they have the power to turn the world inside out and transform life into an exploration of consciousnessDrawing on modern s...

Max Bornstein’s epic account of a poor Jewish boy born in 1920s Poland is breathtaking in scope. Not quite two when he immigrates to Canada, he returns to Europe in 1933, the year that Adolf Hitler came to power. Barely surviving as a stateless refugee in 1930s Paris, he manages to escape as France falls to the Nazis only to be interned in a Spanish concentration camp. Rich in details of pre-war life in Poland, France and Canada and life for Jewish refugees in wartime Britain, If Home ...

A groundbreaking new theory of religionReligion remains an important influence in the world today, yet the social sciences are still not adequately equipped to understand and explain it. This book builds on recent developments in science, theory, and philosophy to advance an innovative theory of religion that goes beyond the problematic theoretical paradigms of the past.Drawing on the philosophy of critical realism and personalist social theory, Christian S...

The subject of the People, based on thematic studies conducted by Fernando D'Amico, and Jacques Wisman, is proposed in this book as a themed walk through the passages of Scripture from the Old and New Testament. The biblical text (KJV) is presented deliberately devoid of additional comments to offer an immediate and direct perception of the selected track.The thematic reading of the biblical text opens to the reader as a fascinating experience that allows him to benefit in a short t...

This book presents findings from research into one of the world's most influential Islamic movements, the Gülen Movement, from the perspective of social transformation through adult education. At the core of research questions lies how the movement enrolls volunteers from all walks of life and transforms them to adopt its aims at the expense of their individual ideals. The book reveals the socio-psychological mechanisms that make such transformation possible by looking at how followers int...

This resounding defence of the principles of free expression revisits the Satanic Verses uproar of 1989, as well as subsequent incidents such as the Danish cartoons controversy, to argue that the human right of free speech is by no means so secure that it can be taken for granted.

Drawing on international and multidisciplinary expertise, this pioneering edited collection analyzing Islam in contemporary Ethiopia challenges the popular notion of a 'Christian Ethiopia' imagined as the century-old, never colonized Abyssinia, isolated in the highlands and dominated by Orthodox Christianity.

In the wake of 2001, terrorism laws and their policing have been charged with eroding civil liberties and discriminating against Muslim and ethnic minority peoples. Traces of Terror: Counter-Terrorism Law, Policing, and Race goes further and asks how counter-terrorism reproduces the social relations of race: what police and legal practice, what knowledge and what power makes over-policing normal. Based on field work in Australia, this book investigates the effects of counter-terro...

The ninth and tenth centuries witnessed the establishment of a substantial network of maritime trade across the Indian Ocean, providing the real-life background to the Sinbad tales.An exceptional exemplar of Arabic travel writing, Accounts of China and India is a compilation of reports and anecdotes about the lands and peoples of this diverse territory, from the Somali headlands of Africa to the far eastern shores of China and Korea.Traveling eastw...

This volume contributes towards to developments in the study of religion that illuminate the plural nature of religious change in modern Britain. It makes a critical intervention in British studies of religion by bringing the analytical insights of material culture, to bear on religion in the British World.

Sustaining a Hindu universe at an everyday life level requires an extraordinary range of religious specialists and ritual paraphernalia. At the level of practice, devotional Hinduism is an embodied religion and grounded in a materiality, that makes the presence of specific physical objects (which when used in worship also carry immense ritual and symbolic load) an indispensable part of its religious practices.Traditionally, both services and objects required for worship were provid...