Looking at how religious people approach death in the twenty-first century, this is a comprehensive study of the intersection of death and religion. It describes how people from a variety of faiths draw on and adapt traditional beliefs and practices as they deal with death in modern societies.

This comprehensive study of the intersection of death and religion offers a unique look at how religious people approach death in the twenty-first century. Previous scholarship has largely focused on traditional beliefs and paid little attention to how religious traditions evolve in relation to their changing social context. Employing a sociological approach, "Death and Religion in a Changing World" describes how people from a wide variety of faiths draw on and adapt traditional beliefs and practices as they deal with death in modern societies. The book includes coverage of newly emerging social and religious phenomena that are only just beginning to be analyzed by religion scholars, such as public shrines, the role of the media, spiritual bereavement groups, and the use of the Internet in death practices.

Beyond the Threshold is the first book to seriously consider the interplay between traditional world religions and metaphysical experiences in exploring the timeless question of what happens when we die. Christopher M. Moreman examines and compares the beliefs and practices of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, as well as psychic phenomena such as mediums and near-death experiences. While ultimately the afterlife remains unknowable, Moreman's unique, in-depth exploration of both beliefs and experiences can help readers reach their own understanding of the afterlife and how to live.

Religious beliefs have shaped the history of the world. Their effect can be seen in culture, philosophy and politics, and they have inspired people to serve others and to create great works of art, architecture and music. Yet differences in belief can cause bloodshed and war. Never before has it been more urgent to understand the great religions if we are to make sense of our 21st century world, its achievements and its conflicts. This new, revised edition of Beliefs That Changed the World tells the story of the major faiths from their earliest beginnings to their present day impact.

Death, Ritual and Belief, now in its third edition, explores many important issues related to death and dying, from a religious studies perspective, including anthropology and sociology. Using the motif of 'words against death' it depicts human responses to grief by surveying the many ways in which people have not let death have the last word, not simply in terms of funeral rites but also in memorials, graves, and in ideas of ancestors, souls, gods, reincarnation and resurrection, whether in the great religious traditions of the world or in more local customs. He also examines bereavement and grief, experiences of the presence of dead, near-death experiences, pet-death and the symbolic death played out in religious rites. Updated chapters have taken into account new research and include additional topics in this new edition, notably assisted dying, terrorism, green burial, material culture, death online, and the emergence of Death Studies as a distinctive field. Case studies range from Anders Breivik in Norway, to the Princess of Wales, and to the Rapture in the USA. A new perspective is also brought to his account of grief theories. Providing an introduction to key authors and authorities on death beliefs, bereavement, grief and ritual-symbolism, Death, Ritual and Belief is an authoritative guide to the perspectives of major religious and secular worldviews.

The Puritan Way of Death is more than a book about Puritans or about death. It is also about family, community, and identity in the modern world. Even before publication, eminent historians, sociologists, and religious scholars in the United States and Europea-among them, Gordon Wood, Philippe Ariès, William Clebsch, and Robert Nisbet-hailed it as a "pathbreaking, provocative, and exciting" work, a "terse, urbane, learned, clear, humane" volume.

The death awareness movement provides a new language for speaking about death and dying by stressing death, dying and bereavement as meaningful human experiences beyond their medical context. This movement appears secular and detached from religion, although its advocates embrace spirituality. However, is this separation from religion realistic? Death and Dying, Spirituality and Religions refutes that view and undermines the popular opposition between spirituality and religion. The death awareness movement is deeply indebted to popular Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as tribal religions for their ideas and images. Urging a thoughtful theological response, this book illustrates how such diverse religious legacies contribute to contemporary views of death and dying.