Alternative Salvations Engaging the Sacred and the Secular

by Bacon, Hannah; Dossett, Wendy; Knowles, Steve

• ISBN13: 9781472579942
• ISBN10: 1472579941
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-12-17
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

By considering transformative ideas and experiences which are explicitly articulated or implicitly structured in languages of religion and spirituality, Alternative Salvations probes concepts including 'religious', 'secular', 'spiritual', 'post-Christian', and 'post-secular', providing a series of studies which question the functionality of these broad categories.

Part one draws on contemporary salvation narratives showing how current cultural forms, social practices and secular discourses are influenced by, or are interpreted through, the lens of religious and theological accounts of salvation. Examples include twelve step recovery programs, drug culture, and public policy surrounding HIV-AIDs in Kenya. Although outside traditional religious contexts, the contributors show ways in which they are not free from religious symbolism. Part two explores alternative accounts of salvation rooted in religious traditions. Established orthodoxies are confronted by contemporary critical questions, for example about gender, the status of animals, and the political dimensions of salvation.

By contributing new perspectives and unique case studies, Alternative Salvations provides a deliberate challenge to easy binaries which often underpin contemporary and traditional discourses of salvation.

Author Biography

Hannah Bacon is Deputy Head of Theology and Religious Studies and Senior Lecturer in Feminist and Contextual Theology at the University of Chester, UK.

Wendy Dossett is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Chester, UK.

Steve Knowles is Senior Lecturer in Religion and Popular Culture at the University of Chester, UK.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
PART I: Contemporary Salvation Narratives
2. Atheistic Conceptions of Salvation, Gregory A. Barker (University of Wales, Trinity St David's, UK)
3. Reflections on the Language of Salvation in Twelve Step Recovery, Wendy Dossett (University of Chester, UK)
4. Public Policy as Salvation Practice: Women and Young People with HIV-AIDS in Kenya, Irene Ayallo (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
5. Theology and Dieting: Salvation Through Thinness Alone? Dr Hannah Bacon (University of Chester, UK)
6. Spontaneous Transcendent and Transformative Experiences in Everyday Life, Madeleine Castro (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
7. Timothy Leary and Secular Salvation, Dr William Stephenson (University of Chester, UK)
8. Religious Doctrines in Group Discussions on Ideas of the Afterlife: What Do You Think Comes after Death? Dr Kornelia Sammet (Universität Leipzig, Germany)
9. Salvation, Death and Nature as Grace, Professor Douglas Davies (University of Durham, UK)
PART II: Re-Reading Traditions
10. The Shaping of Christian Life and Action: Whose Salvation? Dr Jenny Daggers (Liverpool Hope University, UK)
11. 'Unlock Paradise with your own blood': Martyrdom and Salvation in Christianity and Islam, Paul Middleton (University of Chester, UK)
12. Christian Salvations in a Multi-Faith World: Challenging the “Cult of Normalcy”, Wayne Morris (University of Chester, UK)
13. Overcoming the Binaries of Gendered Constructions of Salvation, Emily Pennington (University of Chester, UK)
14. Animals and Universal Redemption: All Dogs Go to Heaven, Kris Hiuser (University of Chester, UK)
15. Teaching Practical Theology with Grace, Katja Stuerzenhofecker (University of Manchester, UK)
16. A Medieval Muslim Argument for Universal Salvation, Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham, UK)
17. Risk and Rapture: Signs of the Times or Signs of the End of the Times, Steve Knowles (University of Chester, UK)
Bibliography
Index