A "vastly entertaining" history of urban centers—from the ancient world to today ( Time).From the earliest example in the Ancient Near East to today's teeming centers of compressed existence, such as Mumbai and Tokyo, cities are home to half the planet's population and consume nearly three-quarters of its natural resources. They can be seen as natural cultural artifacts—evidence of our civic spirit and collective ingenuity.This book gives us the ec...

Drawing on many years of African experience, John Reader has written a book of startling grandeur and scope that recreates the great panorama of African history, from the primeval cataclysms that formed the continent to the political upheavals facing much of the continent today. Reader tells the extraordinary story of humankind's adaptation to the ferocious obstacles of forest, river and desert, and to the threat of debilitating parasites, bacteria and viruses unmatched elsewhere in the wo...

This is the story of the search for human origins - from the Middle Ages, when questions of the earth's antiquity first began to arise, through to the latest genetic discoveries that show the interrelatedness of all living creatures. Central to the story is the part played by fossils - first, in establishing the age of the Earth; then, following Darwin, in the pursuit of possible 'Missing Links' that would establish whether or not humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. John Reader...

This book argues that the discipline of practical theology needs to be re-shaped in the light of the impact of various influences created through the encounter with globalization. Essential to this is an engagement with the insights of other disciplines, e.g. sociology, politics, economics and philosophy. The content and authority of the Christian tradition is being challenged by the blurred encounters with more fluid lifestyles, alternative spiritualities and indeed other faiths as mediat...

SUDDENLY PANTHER AND HAMISH APPEARED AT THE SAME TIME DEMANDING WE HURRY UP AS BREAKFAST WAS BEEN SERVED. PANTHER JUMPED INTO MY ARMS AND SAID. “COME ON ADAM EVERYONE’S WAITING AND WE HAVE THINGS PLANNED FOR THIS MORNING, AND WHY IS IT YOU ARE ALWAYS THE LAST TO APPEAR.” “I AM SORRY BUT MARY AND I HAVE BEEN TALKING.” “YEAH, YOU’RE ALWAYS TALKING, CHATTER AND MORE CHATTER.” “THAT’S ENOUGH FROM YOU YOUNG MAN,” I SAID AS I DROPPED HIM ONTO THE CARPET WHEREBY HE AND HAMISH SCAMPERED INTO THE D...

John Young whom we now know is renamed Adam the Lonely joins his extended Family. After a few silent moments, Panther calls out and asks Adam a question. “What does immortal mean?” I answer, “living forever, incorruptible, I suppose.” Hamish calls out, “What’s that actually mean though.” “well, it means our bodies don’t decay or rot, we live forever like we do today in eternity.” “Then Adam, tell us why down on earth do earthlings bother about all the preaching associated with Gods and Dei...

John Young has just died without a shave. As he watches his family, a police sergeant, and the constable crowd around his lifeless body on his kitchen floor, John curiously observes all the action, unable to communicate. Moments later, his body is placed in the undertakers hearse where he has nothing to do but wonder if he will see his beautiful Burmese Mandalay, Panther, who has already passed to the other side.After John realizes he can communicate with other corpses and angels, ...

This book is about the relationships between technologies and the content of religious belief and practice. A number of models are now starting to emerge, but each of these depends on the theological or philosophical framework within which the debate is set. At at the same time, there are dilemmas operating at different ends of the spectrum. For example, at one end there is a tendency towards subsuming the digital within the divine, and at the other an instrumental stance relating to how t...

Many of us are concerned with the structures, systems and values that we meet on a day-to-day basis. We seem to be rushing headlong to a destination not of our choosing. How did we get here and what can we do about it? This book is the result of an exploration into the ideas of transformation. What does it mean to transform the way we live, to something that we value? In this book we take on the challenge of exploring a potential transformation in one professional field, that of engineerin...

This book presents theological reflections on the changing nature of church mission and Christian identity within a theology of 'blurred encounter' - a physical, social, political and spiritual space where once solid hierarchies and patterns are giving way to more fluid and in many ways unsettling exchanges. The issues raised and dynamics explored apply to all socially-produced space, thus tending to 'blur' that most fundamental of theological categories - namely urban vs. rural theology. ...

This book argues that identified weaknesses in recent theological engagement with New Materialism can be successfully addressed by incorporating insights from Relational Christian Realism. Central themes are those of the relational and the apophatic as they represent different but essential strands of a materialist theology. The relational refers to the work of Deleuze and its influence upon key New Materialist thinkers such as De Landa, Bryant, and Braidotti but supplemented from Relation...

A Philosophy of Christian Materialism offers a new religious engagement with the public sphere via means of interdisciplinary analysis and empirical examples, developing what the authors call a Relational Christian Realism building upon interaction with contemporary Philosophy of Religion. The book argues that the current discourse on public religion is inadequate in addressing the issues now to be faced, including: material religious practice in the sphere of education; the growth of alte...