-PDF Download- The New Asceticism EBOOK

The New Asceticism

Author: Sarah Coakley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-11-05

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1441162240

Each chapter of The New Asceticism concentrates on a contentious issue in contemporary theology - the role of women in the churches, homosexuality and the priesthood, celibacy and the future of Christian asceticism - in an original thesis about the nature of desire which may start to heal many contemporary wounds. Professor Coakley is as familiar with the Bible and the Early Fathers as she is with the writings of Freud and Jung, and she draws heavily on Gregory of Nyssa's theology of desire in what she proposes. She points the way through the false modern alternatives of repression and libertinism, agape and eros, recovering a way in which desire can be freed from associations with promiscuity and disorder, and forging a new ascetical vision founded in the disciplines of prayer and attention.

Asceticism and the New Testament

Author: Leif E. Vaage

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 1135962243

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Fullness of Life

Author: Margaret R. Miles

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2006-06-01

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1597527521

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Margaret Miles here explores Christianity's understandings of the human body in the past and presents new concepts for the future. An enlightening investigation into how the body has been perceived through the ages, Fullness of Life offers surprising conclusions that historic Christian authors from Ignatius of Antioch to Thomas Aquinas, far from viewing the body in a negative way, have been overwhelmingly affirmative. Providing the basis for a greater appreciation of the human body as the focus of life and salvation, this unique work sheds a new light on what it means to be fully alive and fully human in the Christian tradition.

God, Sexuality, and the Self

Author: Sarah Coakley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 110743369X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginatively and spiritually. What emerges is a vision of human longing for the triune God which is both edgy and compelling: Coakley's théologie totale questions standard shibboleths on 'sexuality' and 'gender' and thereby suggests a way beyond current destructive impasses in the churches. The book is clearly and accessibly written and will be of great interest to all scholars and students of theology.

Beyond Pleasure

Author: Evert Peeters

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1845459873

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Asceticism, so it is argued in this volume, is a modern category. The ubiquitous cult of the body, of fitness and diet equally evokes the ongoing success of ascetic practices and beliefs. Nostalgic memories of hardship and discipline in the army, youth movements or boarding schools remain as present as the fashionable irritation with the presumed modern-day laziness. In the very texture of contemporary culture, age-old asceticism proves to be remarkably alive. Old ascetic forms were remoulded to serve modern desires for personal authenticity, an authenticity that disconnected asceticism in the course of the nineteenth century from two traditions that had underpinned it since classical antiquity: the public, republican austerity of antiquity and the private, religious asceticism of Christianity. Exploring various aspects such as the history of the body, of aesthetics, science, and social thought in several European countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Belgium), the authors show that modern asceticism remains a deeply ambivalent category. Apart from self-realisation, classical and religious examples continue to haunt the ascetic mind.

Western Asceticism

Author: Owen Chadwick

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 1881

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Students of church history and the monastic ascetic life will find this volume of much interest. Contained are three important documents of the early Christian Church: The Sayings of the Fathers, The Conferences of Cassian, and The Rule of Saint Benedict.Long recognized for the quality of its translations, introductions, explanatory notes, and...

Fullness of Life

Author: Margaret R. Miles

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2006-06-01

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1725217104

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Recovery of Wonder

Author: Kenneth Schmitz

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2005-04-28

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 0773572627

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

While acknowledging the significant gains modernity and post-modernity offer Western civilization in the areas of liberty and knowledge, Schmitz sees in their arguments a superficiality that does not bite to the bone. In The Recovery of Wonder he proposes we approach the world as a gift in order to regain the sense of wonder Shakespeare so eloquently recognized.

Theology as Ascetic Act

Author: Nathan G. Jennings

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781433109904

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Nathan G. Jennings's captivating study explores the ascetical logic of the various practices that Christians call theology. By establishing ascetic practice as coherent within the logic of Christian thought, Jennings argues that Christian theology itself, as an embodied Christian practice, is a type of and participant in Christian asceticism. Jennings establishes that the implications of such an understanding of Christian theology can be brought to bear on modern Christian scholarship in profound and transformative ways. With engagements and references that span a vast terrain from Patristic authors to modern systematic theologians, Theology as Ascetic Act: Disciplining Christian Discourse is a significant contribution to both modern Christian thought and the study of asceticism.

Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement

Author: John Behr

Publisher: Oxford Early Christian Studies

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9780198270003

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement examines the ways in which Irenaeus and Clement understood what it means to be human. By exploring these writings from within their own theological perspectives, John Behr also offers a theological critique of the prevailing approach to the asceticism of Late Antiquity. Writing before monasticism became the dominant paradigm of Christian asceticism, Irenaeus and Clement afford fascinating glimpses of alternative approaches. For Irenaeus, asceticism is the expression of man living the life of God in all dimensions of the body, that which is most characteristically human and in the image of God. Human existence as a physical being includes sexuality as a permanent part of the framework within which males and females grow towards God. In contrast, Clement depicts asceticism as man's attempt at a godlike life to protect the rational element, that which is distinctively human and in the image of God, from any possible disturbance and threat, or from the vulnerability of dependency, especially of a physical or sexual nature. Here human sexuality is strictly limited by the finality of procreation and abandoned in the resurrection. By paying careful attention to these two writers, Behr offers challenging material for the continuing task of understanding ourselves as human beings.