Alternative Salvations Engaging the Sacred and the Secular

Bacon, Hannah & Wendy Dossett & Steve Knowles

ISBN 10: 1472579941 / ISBN 13: 9781472579942

Published by Bloomsbury Academic, 2015

About this Item

Text clean and tight; no dust jacket; 9.13 X 6.57 X 1.11 inches; 240 pages.

Seller Inventory # 219683

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Alternative Salvations Engaging the Sacred and the Secular
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1472579941
• ISBN 13: 9781472579942
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket As Issued

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Authors

Dr Hannah Bacon is Acting Head of Theology and Religious Studies and Associate Professor in Feminist and Contextual Theology at the University of Chester, UK.

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

Dr. Steve Knowles is Lecturer in Religion and Popular Culture at the University of Chester. He is currently researching in the area of religion and popular music and contemporary apocalyptic beliefs.