This book provides a new introduction to the study of Christian spirituality, exploring it through the human sciences and ranging from philosophy and hermeneutics to psychology, history, sociology and anthropology. Systematic and progressive, it introduces the key approaches and shows how they relate to the understanding, study and practice of spirituality. Covering a vast amount of ground - from traditional themes such as images of God, spiritual direction and pilgrimage to more contemporary issues, such as place and space, cyberspace and postcolonialism - the author takes an ecumenical, inclusive stance, allowing the book to be used in a wide variety of courses and across denominations.

These freshly translated documents cover the main trends of Christian spirituality from the second to the seventh centuries

The 'Spiritual Exercises' of Ignatius Loyola, composed in the 16th century, consist of a sequence of meditations on the life of Jesus aimed at promoting spiritual depth and discernment about how to live. In this work, Haight has set out to open this classic work to an audience encompassing all spiritual seekers.

Christian Spirituality and Ethical Life offers a helpful study of the place of the Spirit in John Calvin's theology. It also discovers a notion of the spiritual life in connection with ethical life. It thus overcomes the prevailing popular pictures about the theology of John Calvin in several significant ways, providing a refreshing alternative to the anemic spirituality so prevalent today. It can be stated confidently that Calvin was a theologian of the Holy Spirit in solidarity with the poor, standing in openness to others.

This book describes a method of therapy based upon the Christian spirituality and psychotherapy perspective developed by Dr. Richard York. This clinical theology perspective is a phenomenological approach that integrates spiritual, theological, and psychological concepts and was developed in large part through York's own experience of being relieved of depression and anxiety through interweaving of psychotherapy, prayer and meditation, spiritual direction, and the relationship with his Indwelling Spirit. Because human beings are the products of relationships, York critiques approaches to psychology premised upon the subject/object epistemology of empirical science that study human behavior. He suggests instead that a relational-ontology research method offers an approach superior to that of standard psychotherapy and uses experience in relationship as the fundamental concept in this clinical theology. Because people are prone to hurt themselves and others, York also argues that standard approaches to psychology need to develop a psychology of sin and evil, including some form of a Higher Power, as essential parts of the spiritual aspect of psychotherapy. York critiques Christian theologians for developing theology that seldom uses empirical data and that is irrelevant to the process of helping people heal and grow. He criticizes those pastoral ministers who moralize with people instead of listening to them as well as those who preach more about sin and suffering than God's presence and saving grace through the forgiveness of sins. While he acknowledges that most of his perspective is not new, York does offer a unique contribution to the field of psychotherapy through the concept of the Indwelling Spirit. He describes how the Indwelling Spirit works in psychotherapy and the various techniques to access it. He further argues that his experience as a gay psychologist is an essential aspect of his method because in being healed through his experience with his Indwelling Spirit he was able to define this experience for use in psychotherapy, an insight used by very few straight therapists. York challenges the notion of how a gay man who worships God regularly, found healing through a relationship with Christ in the Holy Spirit of God, and developed the concept of the Indwelling Spirit for psychotherapy, could be considered objectively disordered and intrinsically evil by the Roman Catholic Magisterium. Furthermore, York describes a new principle of moral theology for sexual relationships based on love rather than procreation and suggests seven research hypotheses to study the phenomenon of the Indwelling Spirit and the love that is exhibited in both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships.

"Lord, Teach Us to Pray"In "Christian Spirituality: A Historical Sketch," George Lane looks to the sources of the Christian spiritual tradition in order to establish a firm ground for a vital contemporary spirituality. Quoting the great Jesuit scientist and mystic Teilhard de Chardin, "Everything is the sum of the past; nothing is comprehensible except through its history," Lane examines the masters of Christian spirituality in their historical context. He shows why the hermits of the East, the monks of the West, Basil, Athanasius, Origen, Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Ignatius Loyola, Teilhard, and others were so influential in their time and why they have much to teach us today.

Organized chronologically, this original anthology features women authors on the themes of religion and spirituality. Writers include Julian of Norwich, Grace Mildmay, Anna Trapnel, Maria W. Stewart, and Anne Lamott.

This new collections of essays edited by Kyle Strobel and Jamin Goggin offers an evangelical hermeneutic for reading the Christian spiritual classics. Addressing the why, what and how of reading these texts, these essays challenge us to find our own questions deepened by the church's long history of spiritual reflection.

Written by leading scholars from around the world, the articles in this volume range from sin, Sufism and terrorism to theology in the 19th and 20th centuries, Vatican I and II and the virgin birth.

The author discusses the importance of the theological study of spirituality as necessary for interpreting one's Christian path in a pluralistic world.