Christian historian Sidney Mead has observed: In America space has played the part that time has played in older cultures of the world. In Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces, Jon Pahl examines this provocative statement in conversation with what he calls the spatial character of American theology. He argues that places are always imaginatively constructed by the human beings who inhabit them. Sometimes this spatial theology works to our benefit; other times it poses spiritual risks. What happens when our banal clothing of the sacred violates our genuine need for comfort and intimacy? Or when we remember that the fleeting pleasures of a shopping trip or a Disneyland escape are designed to fill someone else's pocket rather than the spiritual emptiness in our own hearts? Pahl develops several ways to clothe the divine from within the Christian tradition. He introduces a theology of place that reveals aspects of God's character through biblical metaphors drawn from physical spaces, such as the true vine, the rock, and the living water. Accessible and thought provoking, this enlightening book provides a better grasp of our particularly American way of lending religious significance to spaces of all kinds.

It is widely recognized that American culture is both exceptionally religious and exceptionally violent. Americans participate in religious communities in high numbers, yet American citizens also own guns at rates far beyond those of citizens in other industrialized nations. Since 9/11, United States scholars have understandably discussed religious violence in terms of terrorist acts, a focus that follows United States policy. Yet, according to Jon Pahl, to identify religious violence only with terrorism fails to address the long history of American violence rooted in religion throughout the country’s history. In essence, Americans have found ways to consider blessed some very brutal attitudes and behaviors both domestically and globally. In Empire of Sacrifice, Pahl explains how both of these distinctive features of American culture work together by exploring how constructions along the lines of age, race, and gender have operated to centralize cultural power across American civil or cultural religions in ways that don’t always appear to be "religious" at all. Pahl traces the development of these forms of systemic violence throughout American history, using evidence from popular culture, including movies such as Rebel without a Cause and Reefer Madness and works of literature such as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Handmaid's Tale, to illuminate historical events. Throughout, Pahl focuses an intense light on the complex and durable interactions between religion and violence in American history, from Puritan Boston to George W. Bush’s Baghdad.

Building communicate. Stained glass windows, high altars, multi-purpose worship/gymnasium spaces, Plexiglas pulpits, padded pews--these and all other architectural elements say something about a congregation's theology and mission. They point to a faith community's beliefs about worship, identity, purpose, and more. From the stark simplicity of a Quaker meetinghouse to the splendor of a Romanesque Revival building, sacred spaces speak loudly. What they say can either reinforce a congregation's mission or detract from it. Holy Places is designed to be used by congregations who are involved in or are contemplating work on their facilities. This could include renovation, remodeling, expansion, or building. No matter how extensive the project, approaching the work with mission at the forefront is the key to having a final result that strengthens the congregation's ministry. The process outlined in this book--discern, decide, do--lets congregations begin where they are and provides the help they need to move to the next level.

Sacred Space for the Missional Church examines the strong link between the theology and mission of the Church and the spaces in which and from which that theology and mission are lived out. The author demonstrates that the built environment is not incidental or even subservient to mission. Rather it is a key player in the fulfillment and the communication of that mission. The book begins with a working definition of the missional church, underscoring the connection between God's mission (missio Dei) and the Church's mission. The reader is presented with historical and theological frameworks for sacred space, and reminded of the pivotal role of the built environment in the fulfillment of the mission of the Church. The design and construction of sacred spaces are shown to be fundamentally a theological exercise and not solely a matter of function, pragmatics and fiscal astuteness. The author questions the uncritical application of blanket statements such "form must follow function," and challenges the conviction that it does not matter where worship occurs, only that it occurs. The book addresses genuine concerns such as legitimizing the cost of church buildings and concludes with practical suggestions and essential questions that must be considered in posturing the built environment within the missional praxis of the Church.

Christian historian Sidney Mead has observed: "In America space has played the part that time has played in older cultures of the world." In Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces, Jon Pahl examines this provocative statement in conversation with what he calls the "spatial character" of American theology. He argues that places are always imaginatively constructed by the human beings who inhabit them. Sometimes this spatial theology works to our benefit; other times it poses spiritual risks. What happens when our banal "clothing of the sacred" violates our genuine need for comfort and intimacy? Or when we remember that the fleeting pleasures of a shopping trip or a Disneyland escape are designed to fill someone else's pocket rather than the spiritual emptiness in our own hearts? Pahl develops several ways to "clothe the divine from within the Christian tradition." He introduces a theology of place that reveals aspects of God's character through biblical metaphors drawn from physical spaces, such as the true vine, the rock, and the living water. Accessible and thought provoking, this enlightening book provides a better grasp of our particularly American way of lending religious significance to spaces of all kinds.

Built space is both a physical entity as well as a socially and historically constructed place. It constantly interacts with human beings, affecting their behavior, thinking, and feeling. Doing religious work in a particular environment implies acknowledging the surroundings to be integral to theology itself. The contributors to this volume view buildings, scriptures, conversations, prayers, preaching, artifacts, music and drama, and built and natural surroundings as contributors to a contextual theology. The view of the environment in which religion is practiced as integrated with theology represents not just a new theme but also a necessity if one is to understand religion's own depth. Reflections about space and place and how they reflect and affect religious experience provide a challenge and an urgent necessity for theology. This is particularly important if religious practitioners are to become aware of how theology is given expression in the existential spatiality of life. Can space set theology free? This is a challenging question, one that the editor hopes can be answered, at least in part, in this volume. The diversity of theoretical concepts in aesthetics, cultural theory, and architecture are not regarded as a problem to be solved by constructing one overarching dominant theory. Instead, this diversity is viewed in terms of its positive potential to inspire discourse about theology and aesthetics. In this discourse, theology does not need to become fully dependent on one or another theory, but should always clearly present its criteria for choosing this or that theoretical framework. This volume shows clearly how different modes of design in sacred spaces capture a sense of the religious.

Making Peace In and With the World: The Gülen Movement and Eco-Justice is a representative study and working analysis of contemporary Islamic thought on eco-justice. It cuts through problems facing humanity today, ranging from inequality and violence in the smaller globalized world to “the end/death of nature” as signaled by various environmental and ecological crises. Addressing these problems, this volume sheds light on two dimensions of peace in the earth community – making peace between differing human communities, and making peace between humanity and nature. The phrase Eco-Justice in this volume signifies this dual reality, thereby offering a unique and insightful view that justice in the world must go hand in hand with ecological justice if “peace” is to be made. With its dual foci of peace, this volume contributes to multi-disciplinary academic areas. It adds to a burgeoning field of religious ecology, by exploring the dynamics at play in the interaction between religion, human communities and nature, and by providing natural scientific works with considerable theoretical, philosophical and ethical implications. This volume also corresponds to studies in the interdisciplinary field of “war and peace.” Since it deals centrally with the question of religion and eco-justice, this volume challenges assumptions of exclusivist religion, religion-oriented violence and the religion-based “Clash of Civilizations.” The contributors of this volume from diverse academic backgrounds take Gülen and the Gülen movement as the case study. Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is one of the most significant Islamic theologians in the contemporary world, and his inspired Gülen movement is the fastest growing Islamic civic movement worldwide. This volume provides a key reference to studies in Gülen and his movement for new discussions and criticisms. And, by taking this figure and his movement as a case, it reveals a new dimension of peace among differing human communities and between humanity and nature.

The connection between popular culture and religion is an enduring part of American life. With seventy-five percent new content, the third edition of this multifaceted and popular collection has been revised and updated throughout to provide greater religious diversity in its topics and address critical developments in the study of religion and popular culture. This edition also adds to the end of each chapter new the pedagogical tools of discussion questions and key term glossaries.

Violence and Dystopia is a critical examination of imitative desire, scapegoating and sacrifice in selected contemporary Western dystopian narratives through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory. The first chapter offers an overview of the history of Western utopia/dystopia with a special emphasis on the problem of conflictive mimesis and scapegoating violence, and a critical introduction to Girard’s theory. The second chapter is devoted to J.G. Ballard’s seminal novel Crash (1973), Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) and Rant (2007), and Brad Anderson’s film The Machinist (2004). It is argued that the car crash functions as a metaphor for conflictive mimetic desire and leads to a quasi-sacrificial crisis as defined by Girard for archaic religion. The third chapter focuses on the psychogeographical writings of Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd. Walking the streets of London the pedestrian represents the excluded underside of the world of Ballardian speed. The walking subject is portrayed in terms of the expelled victim of Girardian theory. The fourth chapter considers violent crowds as portrayed by Ballard’s late fiction, the writings of Stewart Home, and David Peace’s GB84 (2004). In accordance with Girard’s hypothesis, the discussed narratives reveal the failure of scapegoat expulsion to restore peace to the potentially self-destructive violent crowds. The fifth chapter examines the post-apocalyptic environments resulting from failed scapegoat expulsion and mimetic conflict out of control, as portrayed in Sinclair’s Radon Daughters (1994), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003), and Will Self’s The Book of Dave (2006).

In a series of pioneering studies, this book examines the creation—and the conflict behind the creation—of sacred space in America. The essays in this volume visit places in America where economic, political, and social forces clash over the sacred and the profane, from wilderness areas in the American West to the Mall in Washington, D.C., and they investigate visions of America as sacred space at home and abroad. Here are the beginnings of a new American religious history—told as the story of the contested spaces it has inhabited. The contributors are David Chidester, Matthew Glass, Edward T. Linenthal, Colleen McDannell, Robert S. Michaelsen, Rowland A. Sherrill, and Bron Taylor.