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 Dir...

Although Buddhism is one of the religious traditions best known for asserting rebirth, the history and scope of Buddhist approaches to the idea has not received comprehensive treatment—until now. This first-ever guide to ideas and practices surrounding rebirth in Buddhism covers the historical context for the Buddha’s teachings on the topic, explains what Buddhists believe is actually reborn and w...

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.support...

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 t...

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 o...

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 reli...

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...

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...

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 Societie...

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...

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 Midd...

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 ethnog...

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...

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), influ...

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 Sup...

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 ov...

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 atte...

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 an...

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, e...

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....

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,...

In Neuromatic: Or, a Particular History of Religion and the Brain (U Chicago Press, 2021), religious studies scholar John Lardas Modern offers a sprawling examination of the history of the cognitive revolution and current attempts to locate all that is human in the brain, including spirituality itself. Neuromatic is a wildly original take on the entangled histories of science and religion that lie...

In the early twentieth century, Khunu Lama journeyed across Tibet and India, meeting Buddhist masters while sometimes living, so his students say, on cold porridge and water. Yet this elusive wandering renunciant became a revered teacher of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. At Khunu Lama’s death in 1977, he was mourned by Himalayan nuns, Tibetan lamas, and American meditators alike. The many surviving st...

"I've been a philosopher for all my adult life and the three most profound books of philosophy that I have ever read are Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Songs." This is the opening line of Peter Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life: Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Songs (Ignatius Press, 2016). He reflects that there are ultimately only three philosophies of life and each one is represented by one of...

In Frontier Religion: The Mormon-American Contest for the Meaning of America, 1857-1907 (U Utah Press, 2019) Konden Smith Hansen examines the dramatic influence these perceptions of the frontier had on Mormonism and other religions in America. Endeavoring to better understand the sway of the frontier on religion in the United States, this book follows several Mormon-American conflicts, from the Ut...