Critical spirituality is a way of naming a desire to work with what is meaningful in the context of enabling a socially just, diverse and inclusive society. Critical spirituality means seeing people holistically, seeking to understand where they are coming from and what matters to them at a fundamental level; the level that is part of the everyday but also transcends it. What is important in critical spirituality is to combine a postmodern valuing of individual experience of spirituality with all its diversity with a critical perspective that asserts the importance of living harmoniously and respectfully at an individual, family and community level. Human service professionals currently wrestle with the gradually increasing expectation to work with spirituality often without feeling capable of undertaking such practice. Some work with people experiencing major trauma or change such as palliative care or rehabilitation where people ask meaning of life questions to which they feel ill equipped to respond. Others work with individuals, families and communities experiencing conflict about spiritual issues. Increased migration and movement of refugees increases contact with people for whom spirituality is central. Such experiences raise a number of issues for existing professionals as well as students: what do we mean by spiritual? How does this relate to religion? How do we work with the spiritual in ways that recognise and value difference, without accepting abusive relationships? What are the limits to spiritual tolerance, if any? This book explores these issues and addresses the dilemmas and challenges experienced by professionals. It also provides a number of practical tools such as possible questions to ask to assess for spiritual issues; to see spirituality as part of a web of relationships.

Presents a guide to finding meaning and a purpose in life, providing advice about relationships, commitment, personal responsibility, and spiritual connections.

This book comprises fifteen research articles primarily based on the discipline of Indian and Buddhist Studies. The collection is designed to propose a Buddhist philosophy of religion--that the insight of Prajna and Sunyata initiates a future religion which is freed both from conflict between reasoning and believing, and from goal-oriented cycles of life. It addresses transformation from the conflict-ridden quest for a supreme being, to the search for a non-theistic nature of spirituality that provides a foundation for universal human happiness and salvation. For the discipline of Buddhist Studies, this collection also demonstrates the productive value of drawing upon cross-cultural and cross-racial literary sources and traditions.

Critical spirituality is a way of naming a desire to work with what is meaningful in the context of enabling a socially just, diverse and inclusive society. Critical spirituality means seeing people holistically, seeking to understand where they are coming from and what matters to them at a fundamental level; the level that is part of the everyday but also transcends it. What is important in critical spirituality is to combine a postmodern valuing of individual experience of spirituality with all its diversity with a critical perspective that asserts the importance of living harmoniously and respectfully at an individual, family and community level. Human service professionals currently wrestle with the gradually increasing expectation to work with spirituality often without feeling capable of undertaking such practice. Some work with people experiencing major trauma or change such as palliative care or rehabilitation where people ask meaning of life questions to which they feel ill equipped to respond. Others work with individuals, families and communities experiencing conflict about spiritual issues. Increased migration and movement of refugees increases contact with people for whom spirituality is central. Such experiences raise a number of issues for existing professionals as well as students: what do we mean by spiritual? How does this relate to religion? How do we work with the spiritual in ways that recognise and value difference, without accepting abusive relationships? What are the limits to spiritual tolerance, if any? This book explores these issues and addresses the dilemmas and challenges experienced by professionals. It also provides a number of practical tools such as possible questions to ask to assess for spiritual issues; to see spirituality as part of a web of relationships.

Critical Realism and Spirituality contextualizes, delineates, explores and critiques the turn to spirituality and religion in critical realism, which has been under way since the mid-1990s, as well as telling its story. It provides incisive discussion and anaysis of the following broad questions: How does critical realism allow and facilitate the resolution of problems in the area of comparative religion? Can it help you to justify your own faith or belief? What are the implications of the new philosophy of meta-Reality for traditional religious studies and how we organize and conduct our lives? A range of distinguished critical realists, theological critical realists and scholars working with related approaches (Roland Benedikter, Roy Bhaskar, Terry Eagleton, Mervyn Hartwig, Alister McGrath, Markus Molz, Jamie Morgan, Andrew Wright and others) bring their talents to bear on this task. While their personal beliefs span the whole spectrum from theism to atheism, they are united by the desire to open up a space for dialogue of one kind or another (intra-faith, inter-faith and/or extra-faith), promoting mutual understanding, respect and the unity and capability for collective emancipatory action on a global scale that humanity is so sorely in need of. This book is therefore, essential reading for students and academics alike in Religous Studies, Theology and Philosophy.

The Critical Journey, at its core, is a description of the spiritual journey: our response to our faith in God with the resulting changes that follow. In this book, authors Janet O. Hagberg and Robert A. Guelich address the following issues: the struggle to find meaning and wholeness the crisis of values and identity at mid-life the quest for self-actualization the healing of early religious experiences questions about the spiritual journey Their goal is to help us understand where we are on our individual faith journeys and also appreciate where others are in theirs. The Critical Journey does not reveal exactly how or when we need to move along in our personal pilgrimages, nor does it offer formulas for spiritual growth. Rather, it describes six phases of the spiritual journey and illustrates how people act and think while in these stages. This is an excellent guide for those who are wrestling with their faith and wondering how others have resolved their "dark nights of the soul." Here is an answer for those who have wondered why everyone doesn't respond in the same manner to the message of the Gospel.

A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a remarkable resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop music and videos, one cannot escape the pivotal role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping selves, societies, and cultures. Following in the very successful tradition of Critical Terms for Literary Studies and Critical Terms for Art History, this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight. These essays adopt the approach that has won this book's predecessors such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a critical term, explores the issues raised by the term, and puts the term to use in an analysis of a religious work, practice, or event. Moving across Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Native American and Mayan religions, contributors explore terms ranging from experience, territory, and image, to God, sacrifice, and transgression. The result is an essential reference that will reshape the field of religious studies and transform the way in which religion is understood by scholars from all disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and literary studies.