Religion as Metaphor

Religion as Metaphor
Author: David Tacey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351493809

Biblical stories are metaphorical. They may have been accepted as factual hundreds of years ago, but today they cannot be taken literally. Some students in religious schools even recoil from the "fairy tales" of religion, believing them to be mockeries of their intelligence. David Tacey argues that biblical language should not be read as history, and it was never intended as literal description. At best it is metaphorical, but he does not deny these stories have spiritual meaning. Religion as Metaphor argues that despite what tradition tells us, if we "believe" religious language, we miss religion's spiritual meaning. Tacey argues that religious language was not designed to be historical reporting, but rather to resonate in the soul and direct us toward transcendent realities. Its impact was intended to be closer to poetry than theology. The book uses specific examples to make its case: Jesus, the Virgin Birth, the Kingdom of God, the Apocalypse, Satan, and the Resurrection. Tacey shows that, with the aid of contemporary thought and depth psychology, we can re-read religious stories as metaphors of the spirit and the interior life. Moving beyond literal thinking will save religion from itself.

Modern Metaphors of Christian Leadership

Modern Metaphors of Christian Leadership
Author: Joshua D. Henson
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2020-01-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030365808

This book explores contemporary metaphors of leadership from a biblical or church historical perspective. It seeks to understand the cultural, social, and organizational metaphors from the Bible and the implications for contemporary organizations. Addressing issues such as communication, mentorship, administration, motivation, change management, education, and coaching, the authors explore concepts related to both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. This book will be a valuable addition to the leadership literature in showing how biblical leadership principles can be used in contemporary organizations.

Metaphors for God's Time in Science and Religion

Metaphors for God's Time in Science and Religion
Author: S. Happel
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2016-05-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1403937583

Metaphors for God's Time in Science and Religion examines the exploratory work of metaphors for time in astrophysical cosmology, chaos theory, evolutionary biology and neuroscience. Happel claims that the Christian God is intimately involved at every level of physical and biological science. He compares how scientists and theologians both generate stories, metaphors and symbols about the universe and asks 'who is the God who invents me?

Faith Metaphors

Faith Metaphors
Author: Group Publishing
Publisher: Group Pub Incorporated
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2001-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780764423017

Nothing compares to the power of a good object lesson to make a memorable point. Remember Jesus with the fish and loaves? The mustard seed? The inscription on the coin? And the point he made with each object? You sure do! Now you can make powerful points like that in every lesson, study or message you lead with Faith Metaphors. Book jacket.

The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature

The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature
Author: Massimiliano Tomasi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351228048

The first book-length study to explore the links between Christianity and modern Japanese literature, this book analyses the process of conversion of nine canonical authors, unveiling the influence that Christianity had on their self-construction, their oeuvre and, ultimately, the trajectory of modern Japanese literature. Building significantly on previous research, which has treated the intersections of Christianity with the Japanese literary world in only a cursory fashion, this book emphasizes the need to make a clear distinction between the different roles played by Catholicism and Protestantism. In particular, it argues that most Meiji and Taishō intellectuals were exposed to an exclusively Protestant and mainly Calvinist derivation of Christianity and so it is against this worldview that the connections between the two ought to be assessed. Examining the work of authors such as Kitamura Tōkoku, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Nagayo Yoshirō, this book also contextualises the spread of Christianity in Japan and challenges the notion that Christian thought was in conflict with mainstream literary schools. As such, this book explains how the dualities experienced by many modern writers were in fact the manifestation of manifold developments which placed Christianity at the center, rather than at the periphery, of their process of self-construction. The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese modern literature, as well as those interested in Religious Studies and Japanese Studies more generally.

God the What?

God the What?
Author: Carolyn Jane Bohler
Publisher: SkyLight Paths Publishing
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2008
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594732515

Challenge our common images of God by blowing the lid off conventional God-descriptors. "We do not have to let go of one sense of God to take up another. Neither do we need to go about challenging old metaphors. What is crucial is to find a metaphor--or two, or six--that creatively point toward what we believe." --from Chapter 1 Let Carolyn Jane Bohler inspire you to consider a wide range of images of God in order to refine how you imagine God to have and use power, and how God wills and makes divine will happen--or not. By tapping into your God-given ability to re-imagine God, you will have a better understanding of your own beliefs and how you, God and the world relate to each other. Wonderfully fresh and down to earth, Bohler uses playful images, moving stories and solid scholarship to empower you to break free of old habits and assumptions, whatever your faith tradition. She encourages you to explore new names for God that are not only more consistent with what you believe, but will also deepen and expand your experience of God. Think about ... God the Choreographer of Chaos God the Nursing Mother God the Jazz Band Leader God the Divine Blacksmith God the Divine Physical Therapist God the Team Transformer ... and more

Metaphor and Belief in The Faerie Queene

Metaphor and Belief in The Faerie Queene
Author: Rufus Wood
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 242
Release: 1997-08-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230379818

Rufus Wood contextualizes his study of The Faerie Queene through an initial discussion of attitudes towards metaphor expressed in Elizabethan poetry. He reveals how Elizabethan writers voice a commitment to metaphor as a means of discovering and exploring their world and shows how the concept of a metaphoric principle of structure underlying Elizabethan poetics generates an exciting interpretation of The Faerie Queene. The debate which emerges concerning the use and abuse of metaphor in allegorical poetry provides a valuable contribution to the field of Spenser studies in particular and Renaissance literature in general.

Pagans and Christians in the City

Pagans and Christians in the City
Author: Steven D. Smith
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467451487

Traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and other cultural developments in the United States wonder why they are being forced to bracket their beliefs in order to participate in public life. This situation is not new, says Steven D. Smith: Christians two thousand years ago faced very similar challenges. Picking up poet T. S. Eliot’s World War II–era thesis that the future of the West would be determined by a contest between Christianity and “modern paganism,” Smith argues in this book that today’s culture wars can be seen as a reprise of the basic antagonism that pitted pagans against Christians in the Roman Empire. Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City looks at that historical conflict and explores how the same competing ideas continue to clash today. All of us, Smith shows, have much to learn by observing how patterns from ancient history are reemerging in today’s most controversial issues.

Kierkegaard's Metaphors

Kierkegaard's Metaphors
Author: Jamie Lorentzen
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2001
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780865547315

Keirkegaard's Metaphors offers an explaination of a more accessible way to understand Kierkegarrd by analyzing his persistent use of metaphors.

God and the Creative Imagination

God and the Creative Imagination
Author: Paul Avis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2013-01-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1134609388

'A mere metaphor', 'only symbolic', 'just a myth' - these tell tale phrases reveal how figurative language has been cheapened and devalued in our modern and postmodern culture. In God and the Creative Imagination, Paul Avis argues the contrary: we see that actually, metaphor, symbol and myth, are the key to a real knowledge of God and the sacred. Avis examines what he calls an alternative tradition, stemming from the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth and Keats and drawing on the thought of Cleridge and Newman, and experience in both modern philosophy and science. God and the Creative Imagination intriguingly draws on a number of non-theological disciplines, from literature to philosophy of science, to show us that God is appropriately likened to an artist or poet and that the greatest truths are expressed in an imaginative form. Anyone wishing to further their understanding of God, belief and the imagination will find this an inspiring work.