The relationship between religion and modern culture remains a controversial issue within Christian theology. Using the concept of “cultural modernity,” Francis Ching-Wah Yip reconstructs Paul Tillich’s interpretation of modernity and shows that Tillich’s notion of theonomy served to underscore the problems of modernity and to develop a response.

Paul Tillich and Religious Socialism: Towards a Kingdom of Peace and Justice argues that the Kingdom of God—the reign of God over all human affairs via God’s manifestations in love, power, and justice—can be fragmentarily achieved through a religious socialism that creatively integrates the early Tillich’s socialist thinking with later insights throughout Tillich’s theological career and with contemporary developments in just peacemaking. The resulting religious socialism is defined by economic justice and a recognition of the sacred reality in all human endeavors. It employs Christianity to furnish the necessary depth for warding off materialism and affirming the spiritual dimension of both labor and acquiring material goods. The unbridgeable Marxist chasm between expectation and reality is bridged through new being, already historically inaugurated in the Christhood of Jesus. New being is fundamentally oriented toward bringing justice to the poor, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized. It affirms the individual and equal value of all persons and thus, in Kantian terms, promotes a kingdom of intrinsically worthwhile ends rather than a kingdom of instrumentally worthwhile means of things.

The Political Theology of Paul Tillich explores the political theology of one of the foremost thinkers of the 20th century, Paul Tillich, whose life and scholarship were decisively shaped by his experiences during World War I, his resistance to the rising scourge of Nazism in Germany, and his subsequent immigration to the United States. Tillich’s discerning analysis of fascism, grounded in his socialist commitments, and his continuing efforts to write theology in correlation with culture, make his voice a crucial one for contemporary political theology. The contributors to this volume represent different generations, social and cultural locations, and nationalities Together, they explore Tillich’s early work on religious socialism and its lingering presence in his later systematic theology, bring him into dialogue with liberation theologies, apply his thought to contemporary political concerns, and show the significance of his method of correlation for theological scholarship that engages culture, thereby presenting a case for the continued relevance of Tillich for political theology.

This is the first anthology to trace broader themes of religion and popular culture across time and theoretical methods. It provides key readings, encouraging a broader methodological and historical understanding. With a combined experience of over 30 years dedicated to teaching undergraduates, Lisle W. Dalton, Eric Michael Mazur, and Richard J. Callahan, Jr. have ensured that the pedagogical features and structure of the volume are valuable to both students and their professors. Features include: - A number of units based on common semester syllabi - A blend of materials focused on method with materials focused on subject - An introduction to the texts for each unit - Questions designed to encourage and enhance post-reading reflection and classroom discussion - A glossary of terms from the unit's readings, as well as suggestions for further reading and investigation. The Reader is suitable as the foundational textbook for any undergraduate course on religion and popular culture, as well as theory in the study of religion.

The decline of religion in the Western world used to be regarded as a direct consequence of development, and it was assumed that this would also occur in the global South once the same levels of economic development had been reached. The current flourishing of religion in the global South and the increased awareness of its significance in the global North prove that religion continues to play a crucial role. In those contexts where religion frames reality, development cannot ignore religion. This collection of essays by scholars and development practitioners from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin and North America explores the fascinating interface between religion and development as well as the negative and positive potential of religion in development. With contributions by Karel Th. August, Michael Biehl, Carlos Bonilla, Theresa Carino, Andreas Heuser, Eberhard Hitzler, Lindora Howard-Diawara, Martin Junge, Rebecca Larson, Michael Martin, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Johnson Mbillah, Ambrose Moyo, Kenneth Mtata, Samuel Ngun Ling, Kjell Nordstokke, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, Claudia Warning abd Vítor Westhelle.

In Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert, Fred Dallmayr challenges the "desert character" of modern culture. Political and economic corruption, incessant warmongering, spoliation of natural resources, and, above all, mindless consumerism and greedy self-satisfaction are all symptoms of what he contends is an expanding wasteland or desert where everything creative and nourishing decays and withers. Through an alternative interpretation of Nietzsche's saying "the desert grows," this book calls for spiritual renewal, invoking in particular four prominent guides or pathfinders in the desert: Paul Tillich, Raimon Panikkar, Thomas Merton, and Pope Francis. What links all four guides together is the view of spiritual life as an itinerarium, a pathway along difficult and often uncharted roads. Dallmayr begins by drawing a connection between Nietzsche's characterization of the desert in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the present culture of consumerism, in which a nearly-exclusive emphasis on productivity, efficiency, profitability, and the transformation of everything valuable into a useful resource prevails over all other goals. He also draws attention to another sense of "desert," namely, as a place of solitude, meditation, and retreat from affliction. Aptly defined, it becomes a place where spirituality arises from a painful "turning-about": a wrenching effort to extricate human life from the decay of late modernity. Spirituality is not a possession or property but rather the contemplation and radical mindfulness that we develop through engaged practices as we search for pathways to recovery. Spirituality becomes critical in the dominant political and cultural wasteland because it provides a bond linking humanity together. In the spirit of global ecumenism, Spiritual Guides also includes a discussion of Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist forms of spirituality. This book will interest students and scholars of philosophy, political theory, and religion.