Robert Fuller
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195167962
- eISBN:
- 9780199850150
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167962.003.0024
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The influence of secularization has been greater in the field of medicine than in most any other area of modern cultural life. It is for this reason that contemporary fascination with alternative ...
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The influence of secularization has been greater in the field of medicine than in most any other area of modern cultural life. It is for this reason that contemporary fascination with alternative healing systems that postulate the power of “subtle energies” is of particular interest to the cultural historian. Practitioners of therapeutic touch, acupuncture, traditional chiropractic, and various other forms of “energy medicine” all espouse belief in healing powers recognized by neither the religious nor the scientific traditions that have historically dominated Western cultural thought. The popularity of contemporary “energy medicine” testifies to how fully the American metaphysical tradition has filtered into the vocabulary with which middle-class Americans interpret their lives. The beliefs (doctrines) and practices (rituals) that constitute alternative healing systems enable persons to establish an interior connection with sacred powers that go well beyond the conceptual worlds of either orthodox science or orthodox religion. This chapter also discusses chiropractic medicine, the holistic health movement, and New Age energy healing.Less
The influence of secularization has been greater in the field of medicine than in most any other area of modern cultural life. It is for this reason that contemporary fascination with alternative healing systems that postulate the power of “subtle energies” is of particular interest to the cultural historian. Practitioners of therapeutic touch, acupuncture, traditional chiropractic, and various other forms of “energy medicine” all espouse belief in healing powers recognized by neither the religious nor the scientific traditions that have historically dominated Western cultural thought. The popularity of contemporary “energy medicine” testifies to how fully the American metaphysical tradition has filtered into the vocabulary with which middle-class Americans interpret their lives. The beliefs (doctrines) and practices (rituals) that constitute alternative healing systems enable persons to establish an interior connection with sacred powers that go well beyond the conceptual worlds of either orthodox science or orthodox religion. This chapter also discusses chiropractic medicine, the holistic health movement, and New Age energy healing.
Joseph W. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199765676
- eISBN:
- 9780199315871
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765676.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
This book tells the story of pentecostals' changing healing practices in the United States since the early 1900s. While early believers' attracted attention due to their widespread rejection of ...
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This book tells the story of pentecostals' changing healing practices in the United States since the early 1900s. While early believers' attracted attention due to their widespread rejection of mainstream medicine and their overt spiritualization of disease and its cure, later generations of pentecostals and their charismatic successors made significant modifications to the healing paradigms that they inherited. Claims of dramatic divine intervention never disappeared, yet strident denunciations of the medical profession often gave way to “natural” healing methods associated with scientific medicine, natural substances, and to a certain degree psychology. As evidence of the success of adherents' retooled approaches to healing, by the turn of the twenty-first century figures such as the pentecostal preacher T. D. Jakes appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, other healers marketed their books at mainstream retailers such as Wal-Mart, and some developed lucrative nutritional products that sold online and in health food stores across the nation. By chronicling adherents' embrace of competitors' healing practices, including alternative healing methodologies rooted in a “metaphysical” tradition in American religion, the book illuminates pentecostals' dramatic transition from a despised minority to major players in the world of American evangelicalism and mainstream American culture. In exploring the interconnections, resonances, as well as continued points of tension that that existed throughout the movement's history between adherents and some of their fiercest rivals, the book also reveals how even the earliest pentecostals never were quite as distinct from their competitors in the American healing marketplace as it may have first appeared.Less
This book tells the story of pentecostals' changing healing practices in the United States since the early 1900s. While early believers' attracted attention due to their widespread rejection of mainstream medicine and their overt spiritualization of disease and its cure, later generations of pentecostals and their charismatic successors made significant modifications to the healing paradigms that they inherited. Claims of dramatic divine intervention never disappeared, yet strident denunciations of the medical profession often gave way to “natural” healing methods associated with scientific medicine, natural substances, and to a certain degree psychology. As evidence of the success of adherents' retooled approaches to healing, by the turn of the twenty-first century figures such as the pentecostal preacher T. D. Jakes appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, other healers marketed their books at mainstream retailers such as Wal-Mart, and some developed lucrative nutritional products that sold online and in health food stores across the nation. By chronicling adherents' embrace of competitors' healing practices, including alternative healing methodologies rooted in a “metaphysical” tradition in American religion, the book illuminates pentecostals' dramatic transition from a despised minority to major players in the world of American evangelicalism and mainstream American culture. In exploring the interconnections, resonances, as well as continued points of tension that that existed throughout the movement's history between adherents and some of their fiercest rivals, the book also reveals how even the earliest pentecostals never were quite as distinct from their competitors in the American healing marketplace as it may have first appeared.
Richard L. Velkley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226852546
- eISBN:
- 9780226852553
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226852553.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter illustrates and discusses the significant affinities possessed by Heidegger and Strauss. For Heidegger it was the question of Being that had been overlooked by the metaphysical tradition ...
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This chapter illustrates and discusses the significant affinities possessed by Heidegger and Strauss. For Heidegger it was the question of Being that had been overlooked by the metaphysical tradition as it concentrated on the characterization of beings rather than on Being as the ground of disclosure of beings. After the 1920s, Heidegger’s thought grew into a more Greek and less biblical effort to rethink the central question of philosophy. The problem of revelation engaged Strauss at the start as well. He was a committed Zionist in the 1920s but troubled by the attempts to fuse Jewish orthodoxy with rationalism in the Jewish Enlightenment and in its romantic-nationalist successor, Zionism. Strauss became convinced that the modern rationalist critique of biblical orthodoxy, as espoused by its greatest exponent, Spinoza, rested on a merely asserted and unproven superiority of reason to revealed truth.Less
This chapter illustrates and discusses the significant affinities possessed by Heidegger and Strauss. For Heidegger it was the question of Being that had been overlooked by the metaphysical tradition as it concentrated on the characterization of beings rather than on Being as the ground of disclosure of beings. After the 1920s, Heidegger’s thought grew into a more Greek and less biblical effort to rethink the central question of philosophy. The problem of revelation engaged Strauss at the start as well. He was a committed Zionist in the 1920s but troubled by the attempts to fuse Jewish orthodoxy with rationalism in the Jewish Enlightenment and in its romantic-nationalist successor, Zionism. Strauss became convinced that the modern rationalist critique of biblical orthodoxy, as espoused by its greatest exponent, Spinoza, rested on a merely asserted and unproven superiority of reason to revealed truth.
Geoffrey Bennington
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853239567
- eISBN:
- 9781846314179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853239567.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter presents reflection by Geoffrey Bennington regarding his concept on ‘time’ or ‘the moment’ in the sense of when the time is ripe or the moment to when it is supposed to be grasped or ...
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This chapter presents reflection by Geoffrey Bennington regarding his concept on ‘time’ or ‘the moment’ in the sense of when the time is ripe or the moment to when it is supposed to be grasped or seized. Bennington engages the notion of the right time using two methods: the metaphysical tradition and the irruptive or interruptive temporality of the moment in its intempestive arrival. The reflection uses references to the Christian tradition which affirms the Ecclesiastes view that everything under heaven has a purpose and abides by the metaphoric of ripeness and fruition. Bennington concludes by indicating that the purpose of this reflection is not to fold back the complex thought that time is ‘merely literary problematic, but it must be refuted on all attempts’.Less
This chapter presents reflection by Geoffrey Bennington regarding his concept on ‘time’ or ‘the moment’ in the sense of when the time is ripe or the moment to when it is supposed to be grasped or seized. Bennington engages the notion of the right time using two methods: the metaphysical tradition and the irruptive or interruptive temporality of the moment in its intempestive arrival. The reflection uses references to the Christian tradition which affirms the Ecclesiastes view that everything under heaven has a purpose and abides by the metaphoric of ripeness and fruition. Bennington concludes by indicating that the purpose of this reflection is not to fold back the complex thought that time is ‘merely literary problematic, but it must be refuted on all attempts’.
Robert L. Nadeau
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780199942367
- eISBN:
- 9780197563298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199942367.003.0004
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
In the dream of earth, Thomas Berry makes the following comment about the environmental crisis: “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. We are in ...
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In the dream of earth, Thomas Berry makes the following comment about the environmental crisis: “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective.” The intent in this book is to tell the new story that could greatly enhance the prospect of resolving the environmental crisis. One of the frame tales for this story is science. On the most obvious level, scientific knowledge has gifted us with an understanding of the causes of this crisis and how it can be resolved. What is not so obvious is that this knowledge has also revealed that the old stories about political and economic reality are badly in need of revision. The old story is imaged on the conventional globes that sit in classrooms, government offices, libraries, and home offices like the one in which I am writing this book. On these globes, boundaries between nation-states are marked with dark lines, and the regions or territories governed by these states are painted different primary colors. The parts (nation-states) are separate and discrete entities, the whole (planet earth) is static, and the sum of the parts constitutes the whole. In the geopolitical reality imaged on these globes, seven billion people live within the borders of sovereign nation-states and construct their identities based on diverse cultural narratives about nationalism, ethnicity, political ideology, and religious beliefs and practices. The only source of political power in this reality is the sovereign nation-state, and these states endlessly compete with one another for the capital and scarce natural resources needed to sustain and grow their national economies. The new story is imaged in the digital photographs and videos taken by earth-orbiting satellites that environmental scientists use to study the complex web of interactions between human and environmental systems.
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In the dream of earth, Thomas Berry makes the following comment about the environmental crisis: “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective.” The intent in this book is to tell the new story that could greatly enhance the prospect of resolving the environmental crisis. One of the frame tales for this story is science. On the most obvious level, scientific knowledge has gifted us with an understanding of the causes of this crisis and how it can be resolved. What is not so obvious is that this knowledge has also revealed that the old stories about political and economic reality are badly in need of revision. The old story is imaged on the conventional globes that sit in classrooms, government offices, libraries, and home offices like the one in which I am writing this book. On these globes, boundaries between nation-states are marked with dark lines, and the regions or territories governed by these states are painted different primary colors. The parts (nation-states) are separate and discrete entities, the whole (planet earth) is static, and the sum of the parts constitutes the whole. In the geopolitical reality imaged on these globes, seven billion people live within the borders of sovereign nation-states and construct their identities based on diverse cultural narratives about nationalism, ethnicity, political ideology, and religious beliefs and practices. The only source of political power in this reality is the sovereign nation-state, and these states endlessly compete with one another for the capital and scarce natural resources needed to sustain and grow their national economies. The new story is imaged in the digital photographs and videos taken by earth-orbiting satellites that environmental scientists use to study the complex web of interactions between human and environmental systems.