New Books In Religion

Maimonideanism, the intellectual culture inspired by Maimonides’ writings, has received much recent attention. Yet a central aspect of Maimonideanism has been overlooked: the formal reception of the Guide of the Perplexed through commentary. In Rewriting Maimonides: Early Commentaries on the Guide of the Perplexed (de Gruyter, 2018), Igor H. De Souza offers a comprehensive analysis of six early philosophical commentaries, written in Italy, Spain, and France, by some of Maimonides’ most loyal followers. The early commentaries represent the most creative period of exegesis of the Guide. De Souza’s analysis dispels the notion that the tradition of commentary on the Guide is monolithic. Rather, De Souza’s study illuminates how each commentator offers distinctive readings. Challenging the hierarchy of text and commentary, Rewriting Maimonides studies commentaries on the Guide as texts in their own right. De Souza approaches the form of commentary as a multifaceted cultural practice. Employing historical, philosoph

In Opening Kailasanatha: The Temple in Kanchipuram Revealed in Time and Space (U Washington Press, 2020), Padma Kaimal deciphers the intentions of the monument’s makers, reaching back across centuries to illuminate worldviews of the ancient Indic south. By focusing on the material form of the complex—the architecture, inscriptions, and sculptures, along with the spaces they carve out that guide light, shadow, sound, and footsteps—Kaimal offers insights that complement what surviving texts tell us about Shaiva Siddhanta ideas and practices, providing a rare opportunity to walk in the distant past. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, online educator, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Heathenry, a modern movement drawing on pre-Christian pagan religions, has become associated with the violent, racialized politics of the alt-right. Less well known is the fight to make heathenry — and the progressive values it can promote — inclusive and open to all. Guests: Robert Schreiwer, Heathen activist, founder of the Heathen tradition of Urglaawe, Manager of Huginn’s Heathen Hof and Heathens Against Hate, and Steer of the Troth (2016-2019 and again in 2020). Founder of In-Reach Prison Services. Michael Strmiska, associate professor in global studies at SUNY-Orange and author of Modern Paganism in World Cultures. Lauren Crow, co-host of the Heathen History podcast. Ben Waggoner, co-host of the Heathen History podcast. Thomas Engelmann, outreach specialist at Life After Hate’s ExitUSA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Ayyaz Gulzar, journalist and Catholic youth leader in Pakistan, describes the challenges and persecutions the Church faces in the Islamic Republic, which includes the county’s blasphemy laws. He also talks about the many successes and joys he has seen—and some surprises, for example Muslim women praying the ‘Hail Mary’ for Our Lady’s help during childbirth. We recorded this conversation during the floods of the summer of 2022 which have been described as the worst in the country’s history. Articles by Ayyaz Gulzar in UCA News (Union of Catholic Asian News): Caritas Pakistan Jesus Youth, Pakistan, Facebook Page Here is an excerpt from the National Geographic documentary, Inside the Vatican, that shows the humility, wisdom, and charm of Cardinal Joseph Coutts whom Ayyaz described in our interview Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as ‘Shepherd. ’ Is this theme part of the Gospel’s divine Christology? Wayne Baxter, by exploring shepherd imagery in the Hebrew Bible and the literature of Second Temple Judaism, answers, ‘Yes!’  Tune in as we speak with Wayne Baxter about his recent book, Divine Shepherd Christology in the Gospel of Matthew (Fortress Academic, 2022). Wayne Baxter is professor of New Testament and Greek at Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member

Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the US for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable society. (Part Two of Two) Guests: Elizabeth Bruenig, Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist and Professor at Georgetown University Dan McKanan, Professor at Harvard Divinity School Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Danielle Bean talks about everyday mysticism and learning to listen for God in her book, Whisper: Finding God in the Everyday. God is there in our daily tasks and especially in our daily relationships. She also talks about the special role that women play in the Catholic Church – the feminine genius – from the Virgin Mary to today’s busy moms. Both of these threads are a delightful continuation of our earlier discussion about St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Little Way (with Heather King and Lauren Nelson, on episodes 04 and 05, respectively). Whisper: Finding God in the Everyday, from Ascension Press Girlfriends podcast The Gist TV show on Catholic TV Heather King on Almost Good Catholics, episode 04: Divine Intoxication A Discussion about Alcoholism, Grace, Sainthood, and Women in the Church. Lauren Nelson on Almost Good Catholics, episode 05: The Little Way Making Friends with the Saints. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium mem

Southern Italy was conquered by the Norman Hauteville dynasty in the late eleventh century after over five hundred years of continuous Byzantine rule. At a stroke, the region's Greek Christian inhabitants were cut off from their Orthodox compatriots in Byzantium and became subject to the spiritual and legal jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic popes. Nonetheless, they continued to follow the religious laws of the Byzantine church; out of thirty-six surviving manuscripts of Byzantine canon law produced between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, the majority date to the centuries after the Norman conquest. James Morton's Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy (Oxford UP, 2021) is a historical study of these manuscripts, exploring how and why the Greek Christians of medieval southern Italy persisted in using them so long after the end of Byzantine rule. The first part of the book provides an overview of the source material and the history of Italo-Greek Christianity. The second part examines the development of

Jeremy Christiansen’s autobiography, From the Susquehanna to the Tiber, tells the story of his happy Mormon upbringing, the questioning of his faith, and his ultimate pilgrimage to the Catholic Church. The journey was a thorough investigation into 200 years of Mormon History and 2000 years of the foundations of the Christian Church. It was a long adventure and one that shook his family and marriage. Jeremy Christiansen’s book (Sandman Books website): From the Susquehanna to the Tiber. Jeremy Christiansen on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Asking Better Questions of the Bible: A Guide for the Wounded, Wary, and Longing for More (Nav Press, 2023), written by Marty Solomon was published by Nav Press in 2023. In this insightful book, Solomon takes us on a journey reminding us that questions are not only good, but they are necessary for a rich faith experience. Too often when we come to the Bible, questions make us uncomfortable. But questions are often a good thing. When we stop viewing the Bible through the lens of our own agendas and ask the questions the Bible is asking, something extraordinary happens. We form a new and deeper way of thinking about Scripture and understanding the Bible. As we do, we move further into the depths and mystery of God. Asking Better Questions of the Bible is a journey into the original conversation of the inspired Text. In it, Marty Solomon (a host of The BEMA Podcast and the founder of the BEMA Discipleship ministry, a branch of Impact Campus Ministries) explores all the different portions of Scripture, examining

Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the US for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable society. Guests: Elizabeth Bruenig, Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist and Professor at Georgetown University Dan McKanan, Professor at Harvard Divinity School Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

According to a famous prophetic report, “Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them.” What does “imitation” here mean? Rather, what does this statement really mean at all, and how have Muslims historically understood it? How did this simple report become a doctrine in the Islamic tradition? What does this hadith mean for Muslims today, in an increasingly interreligious atmosphere and especially for those living in the West or in other non-Muslim-majority contexts? Finally, why do humans invest so much in being different and displaying their difference from those they declare as an ‘other’?  These and many other questions are answered in Youshaa Patel’s exciting book The Muslim Difference: Defining the Line between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present, published in 2022 with Yale University Press. The book explores the issue of difference and frames the hadith as significant to Muslim interreligious encounters, showing that ideas and examples of imitation—and Muslims’ understanding of t

Father Joseph Horn explains the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where it comes from, how it works, and what many of us don’t know about it. At its inception, the Sacrament of Confession was offered only once in a lifetime! And even today it seems that some Catholics avoid the sacrament because of confusion about guilt; yet it is through Reconciliation that their guilt is entirely washed away. Fr Joe also explains mortal and venial sins, and how the Sacrament of the Eucharist removes the latter every week. St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California Father Joe’s talk about Reconciliation for Theology on Tap Confession scene from The Godfather Part III (1990) Comic scene from The Mask of Zorro (1998) Bishop Barron’s remarks on etymology of ‘Reconciliation’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In his new book, theologian Matthew Thomas takes on the big question of what the Apostle Paul means when he talks about "Works of the Law" -- as opposed to Grace -- in terms of Justification, addressing a long-standing debate between biblical scholars and using second-century sources to adjudicate the question. The stakes of the faithful, and what it means to be a Christian for the first-century Jews who founded the religion, could not be higher, especially when St. Peter slid back into the observation of Mosaic custom. This is Matthew Thomas’s third appearance on AGC: you can also hear him in episodes 02 and 03. The episode that we refer to with Fr. Greg Boyle is episode 17. Matthew Thomas’s faculty website at DSPT. Matthew Thomas’s book, Paul’s “Works of the Law” in the Perspective of Second-Century Reception. Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 02: Who Wrote the Bible? Sorting out the History of the Bible We Have. Matthew Thomas on Almost Good Catholics, episode 03: The Gospels in the Earl

Ever since early scientists began experimenting with immortality elixirs in the middle ages, religion has been influencing transhumanism. Now, we’re beginning to see transhumanism influencing religion. Guests Calvin Mercer, Professor of Religious Studies at East Carolina University Meghan O’Gieblyn, writer Blaire Ostler, Director and Former President of the Mormon Transhumanist Association Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

For many centuries, Hindu temples and shrines have been of great importance to South Indian religious, social and political life. Aside from being places of worship, they are also pilgrimage destinations, centres of learning, political hotspots, and foci of economic activities. In these temples, not only the human and the divine interact, but they are also meeting places of different members of the communities, be they local or coming from afar. Hindu temples do not exist in isolation, but stand in multiple relationships to other temples and sacred sites. They relate to each other in terms of architecture, ritual, or mythology, or on a conceptual level when particular sites are grouped together. Especially in urban centres, multiple temples representing different religious traditions may coexist within a shared sacred space.  Temples, Texts, and Networks: South Indian Perspectives (HASP, 2022) pays close attention to the connections between individual Hindu temples and the affiliated communities, be it within

Though we are all one—“there is neither Jew nor Greek,” St. Paul wrote to the Galatians—each of us brings a particular heritage to the mosaic of God’s universal pilgrim church on Earth. Father Maurice Nutt helps us understand and celebrate the special contribution of African Americans in the Catholic Church. Father Maurice is a redemptorist priest and former director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans, an apostolate that celebrates and connects Black Catholicism in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa. And, as fewer Americans are embracing the vocation of the priesthood, more pastors are coming to us from other countries, which brings both cultural opportunities and challenges. In addition, Fr. Maurice tells us about his friend and mentor, Sister Thea Bowman, and the case he and others are making for her sainthood. Father Maurice’s spiritual direction ministry The case for Sr Thea Bowman’s canonization Sr Thea Bowman addressing the US Conference of Ca

Between the Buddhist doctrine of ‘emptiness,’ the Jewish idea of Ayin, and the quantum mechanical zero-point energy of a vacuum, it turns out there’s quite a lot to be said about Nothing. Guests Janet Gyatso, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School Daniel Matt, Scholar of Jewish Mysticism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

I asked Bishop Don Hying of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, about mysticism and evangelization. He describes Christianity as unique among the world’s religions because “the universal, mysterious, all-powerful, invisible God humbled himself to become one of his creatures,” a baby, in fact, shivering in the night; and so, paradoxically, the Christian experience of God as both transcendent and imminent. A mystic must go on the journey from our limited ideas about God to stand before Him in prayer. Bishop Hying draws on the experiences and teachings of mystics from long ago and also from the present day as he explains this idea. He also talks about his own life and vocation. Bishop Hying’s recent letter on violence Bishop Hying’s article on St. Junípero Serra and vandalism of public monuments Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr., “Junípero Serra: Saint or Sinner” from 1989 Chris Odyniec’s article (p. 10) on St. Junípero Serra's canonization by Pope Francis in 2015 Learn more about your ad choices. V

Carlos Eire, author of The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila: A Biography (2019) and professor of medieval and early modern European history and religion at Yale University, discusses the life of St. Teresa and mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain. He also talks a bit about his immigration to the United States as a child refugee from Cuba in the 1960s; his commentary and scholarship has earned him the title of “enemy of the state” in today’s communist Cuba. ·      Here is Professor Eire’s faculty webpage at Yale University. ·      Here are books by Carlos Eire available from Amazon.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion