RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY
Jehovah’s Witnesses A New Introduction
George Chryssides An unbiased introduction to an often misunderstood religious community. Outlining the origins and history of Jehovah's Witnesses, this book explains key beliefs and practices. It explores what is involved in being a Witness – congregational life, lifestyle, rites of passage, understandings of the Bible, and prophetic expectations. It examines the various processes and consequences of leaving the organisation, controversies which have arisen in the course of its history, and popular criticisms. The book also discusses the likelihood of reforms within the organisation, such as its stance on blood transfusions, the role of women, and new methods of meeting and evangelising in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. George D. Chryssides is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at York St John University, UK.
January 2022 208 pages • 234 x 156mm 9781350190894 Bloomsbury Academic
Entering the Twofold Mystery On Christian Conversion
Erik Varden A book about the insight, comfort, and direction our troubled age can find in monastic wisdom. Erik Varden published The Shattering of Loneliness in 2018. Now, he helps us interpret the signs of the times, convinced that the perennial experience of monks and nuns has much to teach us. Varden invites us to consider what makes a monk. He takes us on a pilgrimage through the Church’s year, drawing on Scripture, tradition and literary and religious figures of our time. Varden lets the reader discover the generous breadth and depth of a monk’s outlook on life. In doing so, he provides inspiration, enjoyment and enlightenment in equal measure. Erik Varden is a monk and bishop. Born in Norway, he was a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, before entering Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire, UK.
January 2022 272 pages • 216 x 135mm 9781472979476 Bloomsbury Continuum Rights sold: Spanish
Mediating Catholicism
Religion and Media in Global Catholic Imaginaries
Edited by Eric Hoenes del Pinal, Marc Loustau and Kristin Norget The first book to focus specifically on the ethnographic study of Catholicism and media. In ethnographic detail, this book examines how Catholics around the world consume, produce, and engage with media technologies in their religious lives. Chapters demonstrate how people engage with the Catholic mediascape, analysing the social, cultural, and political processes that underlie Catholic media and mediatisation. Case studies examine Catholic practices in North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, South-East Asia, and Africa, providing a truly comparative, de-centred representation of global Catholicism. Eric Hoenes del Pinal is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA. Marc Loustau is Visiting Lecturer in Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, USA. Kristin Norget is Associate Professor of Anthropology at McGill University, Canada.
April 2022 • 10 mono illus 256 pages • 234 x 156m 9781350228177 Bloomsbury Academic Series: New Directions in the Anthropology of Christianity
The Origin of Sin
Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity
David Konstan Traces the vocabulary around 'sin' in classical and biblical texts, to argue for a new definition that was superseded by the later Christian traditions. Taking a close look at the religious texts of Classical antiquity and the Bible, this book reveals the original meaning for 'sin' that was changed in later Christian interpretations. Through close philological examination of the words for 'sin' in these texts, it traces their usage over the centuries in four chapters showing that the usual modern definition of sin has closer links to Graeco-Roman ideas of (pagan) religious violations than to that found in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University, USA.
February 2022 216 pages 234 x 156mm 9781350278592 Bloomsbury Academic
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