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.

This volume examines a diverse set of spaces and buildings seen through the lens of popular practice and belief to shed light on the complexities of sacred space in America. Contributors explore how dedication sermons document shifting understandings of the meetinghouse in early 19th-century Connecticut; the changes in evangelical church architecture during the same century and what that tells us about evangelical religious life; the impact of contemporary issues on Catholic church architecture; the impact of globalization on the construction of traditional sacred spaces; the urban practice of Jewish space; nature worship and Central Park in New York; the mezuzah and domestic sacred space; and, finally, the spiritual aspects of African American yard art.

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools--from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and in-depth interviews with those who were on the front lines of Communist ideological campaigns, Victoria Smolkin argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. Smolkin shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the "sacred spaces" of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

Famous ancient stone monuments such as Stonehenge attract us because they surround sacred spaces filled with spiritual power. In Secrets of Sacred Space, Chuck Pettis reveals you can create similar sacred spaces of your own. You'll learn how to use the architecture of power to create earth and stone monuments that can help you find inner peace and renewal. Secrets of Sacred Space reveals how you can: ·Use geomancy, symbolism, numerology, and astronomical alignments to understand the ancient sacred sites and even design your own power places ·Easily perform dowsing with rods and pendulums to find water, ley lines, and earth energy lines to choose sacred sites and create your own sacred monuments ·Communicate with devas and other spiritual beings to discover a site's spiritual essence ·Design your sacred space in harmony with a site's spiritual essence ·Understand the powerful design cosmology of the Egyptian pyramids and other ancient monuments Sacred places of power move and enliven the soul. They take us to higher states of consciousness, inspire feelings of awe and wonder, and are places for retreat, self-renewal, and enlightenment. The making of the sacred space is as important, if not more important, than its use when complete. Building a sacred space — a cosmic monument — is a high form of meditation and the epitome of spiritual service. Discover the secrets of the earth and its special places when you read Secrets of Sacred Space.

Tom Rankin's black-and-white photographs explore the heartfelt religious expressions of African-Americans in the Mississippi Delta. No single institution in this region has had a more profound cultural impact than the countless African-American churches that accent the landscape. Landmarks to some, places of spiritual refuge to others, "home church" to devoted members, these sacred spaces have been planned, built, decorated, and maintained by local communities. They provide a sustaining force in both symbol and practice. The forty duotone plates in this book include landscapes with churches, church interiors, cemeteries, baptismal lakes and bayous, and black congregations. This is an elegant testimony to the persistence, creativity, and communal symbolism of the church and its affiliated expressions. In the accompanying text Rankin draws upon his interviews with preachers and church members and upon documentary recordings of church services. In the introductory essay Charles Reagan Wilson examines the symbolic meanings of sacred space and discusses the historical and cultural importance of the African-American church in the Delta.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, though quintessentially Mexican, inspires devotion throughout the Americas and around the world. This study sheds new light on the long-standing transnational dimensions of Guadalupan worship by examining the production of sacred space in three disparate but interconnected locations—at the sacred space known as Tepeyac in Mexico City, at its replica in Des Plaines, Illinois, and at a sidewalk shrine constructed by Mexican nationals in Chicago. Weaving together rich on-the-ground observations with insights drawn from performance studies, Elaine A. Peña demonstrates how devotees’ rituals—pilgrimage, prayers, and festivals—develop, sustain, and legitimize these sacred spaces. Interdisciplinary in scope, Performing Piety paints a nuanced picture of the lived experience of Guadalupan devotion in which different forms of knowing, socio-economic and political coping tactics, conceptions of history, and faith-based traditions circulate within and between sacred spaces.

Religion, Culture, and Sacred Spaces is a comparative exploration into the nature of the human relationship to physical space advancing the startling thesis that the human capacity for narrative and identity imbues landscapes with meaning and sacredness.