New Books In Religion

Many people search for heavenly bliss on earth, allured by all the world has to offer. In Paradiso, the third volume of his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, Dante corrects our lack of vision, showing us that heavenly paradise is more real and fulfilling than anything we have experienced or even dreamt of here on earth. Tune in as we speak with Father Paul Pearson about his recent book Spiritual Direction from Dante: Yearning for Paradise (Tan Books, 2022),  as we explore Dante’s Paradiso as an invitation to eternal happiness. Father Paul Pearson was ordained to priesthood in 1985 and serves as Dean of Saint Philip’s seminary run by the Oratorians in Toronto. 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 Redemp

Dr. Chris Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts from Oklahoma Baptist University, a Master of Theology from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the sole religious studies professor at Washburn University.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The culture of mainstream American childhood is vastly different than the culture of Orthodox Jewish childhood - which is itself a rich and varied landscape of texts, music, toys, and more, with nuanced shadings from one sect of Orthodox Judaism to the next. In Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhoods: Personal and Critical Essays (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022), Dainy Bernstein has collected a treasury of essays examining the artifacts of Orthodox Jewish childhood and how they influence a child's developing view of the wider world - and their inner world. Interviewees: Dainy Bernstein holds a PhD in English and a Certificate in Medieval Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center and teaches college composition, medieval literature, and children's and Young Adult literature at Lehman College, CUNY. Goldie Gross earned a bachelor’s degree in art and business from Baruch College and earned a master’s degree in the history of art and archeology at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University Yehudis Keller earned a BA i

Dr. Michael Coogan is lecturer on Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Harvard Divinity School and the director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum. He is the author of God and Sex, The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, and numerous textbooks on the Old Testament. He joined me on the phone to talk about his brand new book, God’s Favorites: Judaism, Christianity, and the Myth of Divine Chosenness, out from Beacon Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

For five hundred years, Latina/o culture and identity have been shaped by their challenges to the religious, socio-economic, and political status quo, whether in opposition to Spanish colonialism, Latin American dictatorships, US imperialism in Central America, the oppression of farmworkers, or the current exploitation of undocumented immigrants. Christianity has played a significant role in that movement at every stage. Robert Chao Romero, the son of a Mexican father and a Chinese immigrant mother, explores the history and theology of what he terms the "Brown Church." In his book Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity (InterVarsity Press, 2020), Romero considers how this movement has responded to these and other injustices throughout its history by appealing to the belief that God's vision for redemption includes not only heavenly promises but also the transformation of every aspect of our lives and the world. Walking through this history of activism and faith, reader

In his sparkling and politically urgent new book Fear in Our Hearts: What Islamophobia Teaches Us About America (NYU Press, 2021), Caleb Elfenbein shows with precision and panache the discursive, institutional, and political conditions and processes that have normalized anti-Muslim hate in the United States, especially over the last two decades. How does fear for a caricatured and dehumanized religious minority become an entrenched part of public discourse? Elfenbein engages and answers this question through a painstaking analysis of a range of actors and discourses across the political spectrum that have contributed to establishing Islamophobia as a formidably pernicious form of violence. In our conversation, we discuss the key themes and arguments of this book that is ideally suited to be taught in various undergraduate courses, especially the introductory Islam course and Islam in North America. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focus

The three stages of keeping Sabbath—a full day of uninterrupted practice—is tied to the natural cycle of the sun’s setting, rising, and setting again. In his recent book, Stop, Look, Listen, Nehemia Polen invites readers to move beyond a mere cessation of technology and business, to explore and embrace the beautiful sacred gift of the Sabbath, Shabbos. Tune in as we speak with Nehemia Polen about his newly released book, Stop, Look, Listen: Celebrating Shabbos Through A Spiritual Lens. Nehemia Polen is Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. He received his talmudic education at Ner Israel Rabbinical College, earned a degree in mathematics at Johns Hopkins University (honors), and wrote his doctoral dissertation at Boston University under the direction of Elie Wiesel. Dr. Polen teaches and publishes on Tanakh, especially Vayikra/Leviticus, as well as early Rabbinic literature. His other works include The Holy Fire and The Rebbe’s Daughter, which won a National Jewish Book Award

Analysts and pundits from across the American political spectrum describe Islamic fundamentalism as one of the greatest threats to modern, Western-style democracy. Yet very few non-Muslims would be able to venture an accurate definition of political Islam. Fully revised and updated, Mohammed Ayoob and Danielle N. Lussier's The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in Muslim Societies (U Michigan Press, 2020) thoroughly analyzes the many facets of this political ideology and shows its impact on global relations. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Despite the Talmud being the richest repository of medical remedies in ancient Judaism, this important strain of Jewish thought has been largely ignored – even as the study of ancient medicine has exploded in recent years. In a comprehensive study of this topic, Jason Sion Mokhtarian recuperates this obscure genre of Talmudic text, which has been marginalized in the Jewish tradition since the Middle Ages, to reveal the unexpected depth of the rabbis' medical knowledge. Medicine in the Talmud: Natural and Supernatural Therapies Between Magic and Science (U California Press, 2022) argues that these therapies represent a form of rabbinic scientific rationality that relied on human observation and the use of nature while downplaying the role of God and the Torah in health and illness. Drawing from a wide range of both Jewish and Sasanian sources – from the Bible, the Talmud, and Maimonides to texts written in Akkadian, Syriac, and Mandaic, as well as the incantation bowls – Mokhatarian offers rare insight into ho

What happens when the written words of biblical scripture are transformed into experiential, choreographed environments? To answer this question, anthropologist James Bielo explores a diverse range of practices and places that “materialize the Bible,” including gardens, theme parks, shrines, museums, memorials, exhibitions, theatrical productions, and other forms of replication. Integrating ethnographic, archival, and mass media data, case studies focus primarily on U.S. Christianity from the late 19th-century to the present. In Materializing the Bible: Scripture, Sensation, Place (Bloomsbury, 2021), Bielo argues that materializing the Bible works as an authorizing practice to intensify intimacies with scripture and circulate potent ideologies. Performed through the sensory experience of bodies, physical technologies, and infrastructures of place, Bielo illustrates how this phenomenon is always, ultimately, about expressions of power. Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’

Richard G. Marks's book Jewish Approaches to Hinduism: A History of Ideas from Judah Ha-Levi to Jacob Sapir (12th-19th Centuries) (Routledge, 2021) explores past expressions of the Jewish interest in Hinduism in order to learn what Hinduism has meant to Jews living mainly in the 12th through the 19th centuries. India and Hinduism, though never at the center of Jewish thought, claim a place in its history, in the picture Jews held of the wider world, of other religions and other human beings. Overall the volume constructs a history of ideas that changed over time with different writers in different settings. It will be especially relevant to scholars interested in Jewish thought, comparative religion, interreligious dialogue, and religion in India. 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

Inventing Secularism: The Radical Life of George Jacob Holyoake (McFarland, 2021), by Ray Argyle is the first modern biography of the founder of Secularism, describing a transformative figure whose controversial and conflict-filled life helped shape the modern world. Jailed for atheism and disowned by his family, Holyoake came out of an English prison at the age of 25 determined to bring an end to religion’s control over daily life. Ever on the front lines of social reform, Holyoake has been hailed for having won “the freedoms we take for granted today.” With Secularism again under siege, Argyle argues that Holyoake’s vision of a “virtuous society” rings today with renewed clarity. Ray Argyle is the author of eleven books, including five biographies, three political histories, a memoir, and a novel of Victorian Canada. He’s worked as a journalist, a publishing executive, and a communications consultant, with articles appearing in Canada’s major newspapers, as well as magazines such as Reader’s Digest, France

In Sorcery or Science? Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022) Ariela Marcus-Sells examines two Sufi Muslim theologians, known as Kunta scholars, who rose to prominence in the western Sahara Desert in the late eighteenth century. Sīdi al-Mukhtār al-Kuntī (d. 1811) and his son and successor, Sīdi Muḥammad al-Kuntī (d. 1826), influenced the development of Sufi Muslim thought in West Africa. Through textual analysis of their devotional aids, such as prayers and magic squares, we are provided a picture of their understanding of “the realm of the unseen” and the resulting practices of the “sciences of the unseen.” Marcus-Sells captures how Kunta scholars engaged with contested Sufi and Islamic praxis that contained cosmology, metaphysics, magic, sorcery, and occultism. The study also contextualizes these magical and Sufi practices within social and political context of the Saharan desert, such as Transatlantic slavery, while mapping the broader l

Dr. Giulia Evolvi is the author of Blogging My Religion: Secular, Muslim, and Catholic Media Spaces in Europe, out now from Routledge. Evolvi is a Research Associate at the Centrum für Religionswissenshaftliche Studien (CERES) in Germany and she manages the Religion and Materiality Focus Group for the Käte Hamburger Kolleg project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Saudi global export of an ultra-conservative strand of Islam and its impact on Muslim countries and communities across the globe has been a hotly debate topic for more than two decades. The rise of jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and their attacks in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa fuelled the debate, particularly since the September 11, 2001, strikes in New York and Washington. Critics of Saudi Arabia charge that Wahhabism and Salafism, the ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam associated with the kingdom, created the theological and ideological incubator and the breeding ground for jihadism. Wahhabism and the World, Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Global Influence on Islam (Oxford UP, 2022) edited by Peter Mandaville constitutes one of the few, if not the first comprehensive, impassionate interrogations of the impact on the faith of Saudi financial and other support for the global spread of what Mandaville calls Saudi religious transnationalism and is more colloquially ref

Today I speak with Alejandro Nava about his new book, Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop (U Chicago Press, 2022). This book explores an important aspect of hip-hop that is rarely considered: its deep entanglement with spiritual life. The world of hip-hop is saturated with religion, but rarely is that element given serious consideration. In Street Scriptures, Alejandro Nava focuses our attention on this aspect of the music and culture in a fresh way, combining his profound love of hip-hop, his passion for racial and social justice, and his deep theological knowledge. Street Scriptures offers a refreshingly earnest and beautifully written journey through hip-hop’s deep entanglement with the sacred. Nava reveals a largely unheard religious heartbeat in hip-hop, exploring crosscurrents of the sacred and profane in rap, reggaeton, and Latinx hip-hop today. Ranging from Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Lauryn Hill, Cardi B, and Bad Bunny to St. Augustine and William James, Nava examines the ethical-politi

Howard Mortman's book When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill (Cherry Orchard, 2020) is about the rabbis. It’s an unprecedented examination of 160 years of Jewish prayers delivered in the literal and figurative center of American democracy. With exhaustive research written in approachable prose, it uniquely tells the story of over 400 rabbis giving over 600 prayers since the Civil War days―who they are and what they say. Few written works examine the tradition of prayers in government. This new angle will appeal to students and lovers of American history, Congress, American Jewish history, and religion. It’s a welcome, important addition to our understanding of Congress and Jewish contribution to America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

An interdisciplinary collection in the new field of environmental humanities, Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religions, Ontologies, and Practices (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021) brings together Chinese environmental ethics, religious ontology, and religious practice to explore how traditional Chinese religio-environmental ethics are actually put into social practice both in China’s past and present. It also examines how Chinese religious teachings offer a wealth of resources to the environmental project of forging new ontologies for humans co-existing with other living beings. Different chapters examine how: Buddhist ontology avoids anthropocentrism, fengshui (Chinese geomancy) can help protect the landscape from economic development, popular religion organizes tree-planting, ancient dream interpretation practices avoided constructing the possessive individual subjectivity of modern consumerism, Buddhist rituals and ethics promoted compassion for animals and modern recycling, Confucian ancestor rituals and tomb

Elijah is a zealous prophet, attacking idolatry and injustice, championing God. He performs miracles, restoring life and calling down fire. When his earthly life ends, he vanishes in a whirlwind, carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot. Was this a spectacular death, or did Elijah escape death entirely? The latter view prevailed. Though residing in heaven, Elijah revisits earth--to help, rescue, enlighten, and eventually herald the Messiah. Because of his messianic role, Jews open the door for Elijah during each seder--the meal commemorating liberation from slavery and anticipating final redemption. Tune in as we speak with Daniel C. Matt about his recent book, Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation. PLEASE NOTE: For a limited time, anyone can order the title at a 25% discount with free shipping, by using the code ELIJAH during checkout, at this link. Also here are several video links related to Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation: 1) A conversation about Becoming Elijah between Daniel Matt and Bar

Sean Michael Wilson is an award-winning Scottish graphic novel/comic book writer. He has written more than 30 books, published by a variety of US, UK and Japanese publishers and translated into 12 languages. His books are of two broad types: 'western' style graphic novels, including original story ideas and various books on social issues; and a unique line of manga style books on Japanese themes, unmatched by any other English language comic book writer. His latest book is an adaptation of the Tao Te Ching in collaboration with Cary Kwok and William Scott Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion