New Books In Religion

Today’s book is: Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials (Scribner, 2024), by Dr. Marion Gibson, which explores the global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate a pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has profoundly shaped human history. Some of them are famous like the Salem witch trials, and some lesser-known, like the 1620s witch trial on Vardø island, Norway, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; the last witch trial in France in 1731, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; and a trial in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft was feared, then decriminalized, and then reimagined as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, political conspiracy and individual resistance. Offering a striking, dramatic journey unspooling o

Pagan Religions in Five Minutes (Equinox, 2024) provides an accessible set of essays on questions relating to Pagan identities and practices, both historically and in contemporary societies as well as informative essays on different Pagan groups, such as Druidry, Wicca, Heathenry and others. The book includes answers to a range of questions such as: How many Pagans are there? What do Pagans believe? Is Paganism a real religion or is it just made-up? Is Satanism a type of Paganism? Do all Pagans celebrate the solstices? Why is it written "Pagan" and other times "pagan"? Do they have sacred texts? Is Druidry the indigenous religion of Europe? What does the pentagram symbol mean? Can anyone be a witch? Are Pagans anti-Christian?  The book also covers issues with terminology, including the labelling of ancient, non-Western and indigenous groups as 'pagan', common assumptions and misconceptions about Pagans, and more. Each essay is by a leading scholar in the field, offering clear and concise answers along with su

In an era where congregations are shrinking and fewer people engage with faith communities, Michael Plekon's book Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today (Wipf and Stock, 2024) offers a timely exploration of both the challenges and opportunities facing modern Christian ministry. Through detailed analysis, Plekon traces the factors behind congregational decline while also highlighting inspiring stories of parishes that have successfully reimagined themselves for contemporary times. Our conversation today exemplifies what contemporary theological discussions should encompass - a profound dialogue about the relevance of Christian theology in our time, acknowledging both trauma and pain, while exploring the tremendous opportunity Christianity can offer each of us. This is more than just a book discussion - it's a sustained meditation on the vocation, lives, and work of pastors in our changing times. Michael Plekon is a unique voice in contemporary religious scholarship, bridging academic theology and

An illuminating history of religious and political controversy in nineteenth-century Bengal, where Protestant missionary activity spurred a Christian conversion “panic” that indelibly shaped the trajectory of Hindu and Muslim politics. In 1813, the British Crown adopted a policy officially permitting Protestant missionaries to evangelize among the empire’s Indian subjects. The ramifications proved enormous and long-lasting. While the number of conversions was small—Christian converts never represented more than 1.5 percent of India’s population during the nineteenth century—Bengal’s majority faith communities responded in ways that sharply politicized religious identity, leading to the permanent ejection of religious minorities from Indian ideals of nationhood. Mou Banerjee details what happened as Hindus and Muslims grew increasingly suspicious of converts, missionaries, and evangelically minded British authorities. Fearing that converts would subvert resistance to British imperialism, Hindu and Muslim criti

In 1980, Charles Wetli---a Miami-based medical examiner and self-proclaimed “cult expert” of Afro-Caribbean religions---identified what he called “excited delirium syndrome.” Soon, medical examiners began using the syndrome regularly to describe the deaths of Black men and women during interactions with police. Police and medical examiners claimed that Black people with so-called excited delirium exhibited superhuman strength induced from narcotics abuse. It was fatal heart failure that killed them, examiners said, not forceful police restraints.  In Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease (Duke University Press, 2024), Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús examines this fabricated medical diagnosis and its use to justify and erase police violence against Black and Brown communities. Exposing excited delirium syndrome’s flawed diagnostic criteria, she outlines its inextricable ties to the criminalization of Afro-Latiné religions. Beliso-De Jesús demonstrates that it is yet a further example

The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible. A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety.

The Reformations, both Protestant and Catholic, have long been told as stories of men. But women were central to the transformations that took place in Europe and beyond. What was life like for them in this turbulent period? How did their actions and ideas shape Christianity and influence societies around the world? In Women and the Reformations: A Global History (Yale University Press, 2024), renowned scholar Dr. Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks explores the history of women and the Reformations in full for the first time. Dr. Wiesner-Hanks travels the globe, examining well-known figures like Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth I, and Anne Hutchinson, as well as women whose stories are only now emerging. Along the way, we meet converts in Japan, Spanish nuns in the Philippines, and saints in Ethiopia and America. Dr. Wiesner-Hanks explores women’s experiences as monarchs, mothers, migrants, martyrs, mystics, and missionaries, revealing that the story of the Reformations is no longer simply European—and that women played a vita

What does it mean that God hears? Can a God who is "pure act" be affected in such a way? What does this mean for those whom God hears? Who are those people? Join Benjamin Phillips as he asks such questions of Charles Helmer IV, author of The Lord Who Listens: A Dogmatic Inquiry into God as Hearer (Brill, 2024). More about the book: In The Lord Who Listens, Charles C. Helmer IV draws on Holy Scripture and the theology of Karl Barth to offer a theological intepretation of God's hearing. Prioritizing this neglected biblical theme, Helmer develops a theological grammar for speaking of God's hearing that maintains a strong creator-creature distinction and then proceeds to demonstrate the profound implications God's hearing has for the doctrines of anthropology, Christology and, thus, for understandings of the gospel. In contrast to passibilist-liberationist strategies, God's hearing is argued to furnish existentially and theologically superior resources for those who cry out to be heard by God. Learn more about yo

The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptia

Given the continued challenges that face the higher education job market in the Humanities in North America, this multi authored volume offers (i) a critical assessment of the current situation of Humanities doctoral students, early career scholars, and those now working in doctoral degree-granting institutions in the U.S. along with (ii) concrete proposals for a way forward. In turn, these proposals (iii) are the starting point for constructive reflections by faculty now working in leading American doctoral programs. The aim for the volume is therefore to initiate and then move forward a conversation among future, current, and recent graduate students as well as those who train them concerning the content, process, and purpose of acquiring advanced research skills in the early twenty-first century university.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

This is my second conversation with Paul Zucarelli who died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and the faith of his family. Since his resurrection, he has been serving God as a lay evangelist. In the earlier interview, we talked about his new book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church: An Inconvenient Truth, in which he made a strong case for the authority of the Roman Catholic church. This time we are talking about his first book, Faith Understood: An Ordinary Man's Journey to the Presence of God. He tells us about his experience of death, purgatory, and the light of the face God; he also describes his return to our breathing world and the power of faith and intercessory prayer. Bishop Olmsted, the doctors, and Paul’s wife, Beth, and his son, Michael, recall his death and return in a short video. Paul’s first book, Faith Understood: An Ordinary Man's Journey to the Presence of God. Paul’s second book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church. Paul’s

The metaphor of New Jerusalem has long been used to justify dueling narratives of America as the land of freedom with open gates and the walled city closed to all except those whose names are written in the book of life.  In Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration (Yale University Press, 2024), Yii Jan Lin explores the idea of America as the New Jerusalem from early European exploration and colonization; through the waves of Chinese immigration and exclusion; the open gates envisioned by Ronald Reagan in his Farewell Address; and the present day rhetoric about closing the wall at the southern border and the characterization of migrants as diseased and dangerous.  Yii-Jan Lin traces the use of this metaphor in newspapers, political speeches, sermons, cartoons, and novels throughout American history to portray a shining, God-blessed refuge and it's simultaneous opposite, where the unwanted are defined as unworthy for entry. Lin shows Revelation’s apocalyptic logic at

On July 22, 1847, a group of about forty refugees entered the Salt Lake Valley. Among them were three enslaved men, two of whom shared the religion, Mormonism, that had caused them to flee. The valley was also home to members of the Ute tribe, who would sometimes barter captive women and children to Spanish colonizers. Thus, the question of whether the Latter-day Saints would accept or reject slavery in their new Zion confronted them on the day they first arrived. Five years later, after Utah had become an American territory, its legislature was prodded to take up the question then roiling the nation: would they be slave or free? George D. Watt, the official reporter for the 1852 legislative session, reported debates and speeches in Pitman shorthand. They remained in their original format, virtually untouched, for more than one hundred and fifty years, until LaJean Purcell Carruth transcribed them. In this eye-opening volume This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebe

Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways. Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this change and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity (University of California Press, 2022) illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston L

Flat-World Fiction: Digital Humanity in Early Twenty-First-Century America (University of Georgia Press, 2021) Dr. Liliana Naydan analyses representations of digital technology and the social and ethical concerns it creates in mainstream literary American fiction and fiction written about the United States in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. In this period, authors such as Don DeLillo, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Joshua Ferris, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mohsin Hamid, Thomas Pynchon, Kristen Roupenian, Gary Shteyngart, and Zadie Smith found themselves not only implicated in the developing digital world of flat screens but also threatened by it, while simultaneously attempting to critique it. As a result, their texts explore how human relationships with digital devices and media transform human identity and human relationships with one another, history, divinity, capitalism, and nationality. Dr. Naydan walks us through these complex relationships, revealing how authors show through their fiction t

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! h

Indian Philosophy and Yoga in Germany by Owen Ware (Routledge, 2024) takes the reader on a tour through the reception of Yoga philosophies in nineteenth-century German and the early twentieth century. European luminaries like Schlegel, Hegel, von Günderrode, Schelling, Humbolt, and Müller all engaged with works like the Bhagavad Gītā and Yogā Sūtras, though in very different ways, some reading yogic thought as entailing a threatening nihilism, others lauding it as superlatively philosophical. Ware shows how their responses to Indian thought illuminates our understanding of post-Kantian philosophy and its anxieties over pantheism indebted to Spinoza. He concludes with two chapters on a range of Indian scholars from Swami Vivekananda to K. C. Bhattacharyya, exploring how their work engages with this history of European readings, grappling with themes of freedom, morality, and devotion in yoga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://n

The advance of technology has revolutionized nearly everything in our world, bringing changes which have led to much confusion regarding faith and practice. Here, Rabbi Gil Student stands as a pioneer with his online periodical Torah Musings, which explores timely issues of faith and meaning in the contemporary world based on classic Jewish texts. His recent book, Articles of Faith (Kodesh Press, 2024), marks the twentieth anniversary of his in-depth analyses of controversial topics of Jewish belief in Torah Musings. Join us as we speak with Rabbi Gil Student about his book, Articles of Faith. Rabbi Gil Student is the Editor of TorahMusings.com, a leading website on Orthodox Jewish scholarly subjects, and Director of the Halacha Commission of the Rabbinical Alliance of America. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mounta

Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately wanted were impossibly opposed. Tormented by her attraction to women and trapped in a loveless arranged marriage, she found herself unable to conform to her religious upbringing and soon, she made the difficult decision to walk away from the world she knew, which she details in Kissing Girls on Shabbat: A Memoir (Atria, 2024). Sara’s journey to self-acceptance began with the challenging battle for a divorce and custody of her children, an act that left her on the verge of estrangement from her family and community. Controlled by the fear of losing custody of her two children, she forced herself to remain loyal to the compulsory heteronormativity baked into Hasidic Judaism and married again. But after suffering profound loss and a shocking sexual assault, Sara decided to finally be completely true to herself. Kissing Girls on Shabbat is not only a love letter to G

Although once marginalized in the field of psychotherapy, spirituality and religion have now become established ethical considerations in clinical research and practice. Drawing from diverse spiritual and religious backgrounds, this book offers clinical guidance for addressing a vast variety of traditions and complex diversity considerations in psychotherapy. Spiritual Diversity in Psychotherapy: Engaging the Sacred in Clinical Practice (APA, 2021) uses strategies and in-depth case descriptions to serve as a guide for therapists and clinical professionals to effectively integrate spirituality and religion into clinical practice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion