A world travel to religious and spiritual sites. The book invites readers to embark on a spiritual journey through the history and the cultures of the world.
This account of holy sites and mysterious ruins aims to capture the spirit of the places themselves. It explains their myths and legends and shows their continuing importance down the ages. Part One examines over 100 key sites and shows how they came to be regarded as sacred and their subsequent history. The sites are divided geographically into sections, such as Africa and the Middle East, Europe and Australia, and the Pacific. Each of these areas is introduced by a hand-drawn map showing all of the sites described and other areas of interest, such as ancient burial grounds, temples and natural sites. Part Two is a map-based gazetteer of over 1000 sacred sites. The sites are plotted over 20 maps, which are then followed by listings giving information about each holy place. The maps show the location of each site and the period in which it was built or used.
"With humor and honesty, teacher Ken Barnes takes us on his journey from tending chickens to assisting in a kitchen to sweating in a steel mill and more. Stories of frustration, joy, and every emotion in between reveal the true direction of being a disciple of Christ: the way up is always down. Joy in serving comes not from excitement or recognition. It comes from following the example of Christ, the ultimate servant."--From back cover
Explores the history and archaeology of authentic and significant Biblical locations in the context of sound scriptural and theological scholarship. Intended as much for the armchair traveler as for visitors to the Holy Land, its unique gift is to bring the scriptural passages to life. Rather than simply referring the reader to Biblical chapter and verse, the author provides the full scriptural text with a matching visual. For those who have already visited the are, this book can help them relive the experience of a lifetime. For others it can serve as a vicarious pilgrimage.
Sacred places are not static entities but reveal a historical dynamic. This volume explores both the cultural developments that have shaped them and their varied multidimensional levels of significance.
Biblical scholar and seasoned pilgrimage guide Stephen J. Binz offers an up-to-date handbook for experiencing the sites of the Holy Land as a disciple of Jesus. Whether contemplating future travel, on the road of pilgrimage, savoring memories of a past trip, or journeying in mind and heart from an armchair, readers will explore the nature of pilgrimage and encounter the places of the Holy Land from a biblical, historical, meditative, and prayerful perspective. This guide will enable Christians to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, confident that their pilgrimage will be both an educational journey and a transforming spiritual experience. Full-color illustrations throughout!
Sacred Places is a book that looks at the biblical theology of place, exploring its central importance in Gods creation and mission. It takes its readers on an expository journey through place, from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem, discovering the pattern of placement, displacement, and replacement in life and faith. If you are a Christian seeking to understand the Bibles teaching on place and how that affects both our faith and lives in the world, then this book is for you. It will open your eyes to the central importance of place and give you direction on how you can apply a healthy understanding of place to your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ, making you a better place maker and dweller. The thesis of this book is that place is far more important than we ever could have imagined. I am specifically proposing that (1) places are sacred because of Gods decree and personal presence, (2) place plays a major role in Gods creative and redemptive purposes, and (3) Gods people are called to be both place makers and dwellers. Check out the official website of Author and Teacher C. J. Scott at humblemajesty.com Visit the Place Makers blog at placemakers.blog In association with Worldwide Mission Fellowship. Visit the website at wwmf.org
In Spaces for the Sacred, Philip Sheldrake brilliantly reveals the connection between our rootedness in the places we inhabit and the construction of our personal and religious identities. Based on the prestigious Hulsean Lectures he delivered at the University of Cambridge, Sheldrake's book examines the sacred narratives which derive from both overtly religious sites such as cathedrals, and secular ones, like the Millennium Dome, and it suggests how Christian theological and spiritual traditions may contribute creatively to current debates about place.
"Greene gives the reader a vivid sense of the Anlo encounter with western thought and Christian beliefs... and the resulting erasures, transferences, adaptations, and alterations in their perceptions of place, space, and the body." -- Emmanuel Akyeampong Sandra E. Greene reconstructs a vivid and convincing portrait of the human and physical environment of the 19th-century Anlo-Ewe people of Ghana and brings history and memory into contemporary context. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, early European accounts, and missionary archives and publications, Greene shows how ideas from outside forced sacred and spiritual meanings associated with particular bodies of water, burial sites, sacred towns, and the human body itself to change in favor of more scientific and regulatory views. Anlo responses to these colonial ideas involved considerable resistance, and, over time, the Anlo began to attribute selective, varied, and often contradictory meanings to the body and the spaces they inhabited. Despite these multiple meanings, Greene shows that the Anlo were successful in forging a consensus on how to manage their identity, environment, and community.
This extensive work explores the changing world of religions, faiths and practices. It discusses a broad range of issues and phenomena that are related to religion, including nature, ethics, secularization, gender and identity. Broadening the context, it studies the interrelation between religion and other fields, including education, business, economics and law. The book presents a vast array of examples to illustrate the changes that have taken place and have led to a new world map of religions. Beginning with an introduction of the concept of the “changing world religion map”, the book first focuses on nature, ethics and the environment. It examines humankind’s eternal search for the sacred, and discusses the emergence of “green” religion as a theme that cuts across many faiths. Next, the book turns to the theme of the pilgrimage, illustrated by many examples from all parts of the world. In its discussion of the interrelation between religion and education, it looks at the role of missionary movements. It explains the relationship between religion, business, economics and law by means of a discussion of legal and moral frameworks, and the financial and business issues of religious organizations. The next part of the book explores the many “new faces” that are part of the religious landscape and culture of the Global North (Europe, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada) and the Global South (Latin America, Africa and Asia). It does so by looking at specific population movements, diasporas, and the impact of globalization. The volume next turns to secularization as both a phenomenon occurring in the Global religious North, and as an emerging and distinguishing feature in the metropolitan, cosmopolitan and gateway cities and regions in the Global South. The final part of the book explores the changing world of religion in regards to gender and identity issues, the political/religious nexus, and the new worlds associated with the virtual technologies and visual media.