Selfhood and Sacrifice

Selfhood and Sacrifice
Author: Andrew O'Shea
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2010-06-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 144110576X

Selfhood and Sacrifice is an original exploration of the ideas of two major contemporary thinkers.

Martyrdom, Self-sacrifice, and Self-immolation

Martyrdom, Self-sacrifice, and Self-immolation
Author: Margo Kitts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2018
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0190656484

Suicide in the forms of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, or self-immolation is perennially controversial: Should it rightly be termed suicide? Does religion sanction it? Should it be celebrated or anathematized? At least some idealization of such self-chosen deaths is found in every religious tradition treated in this volume, from ascetic heroes who conquer their passions to save others by dying, to righteous warriors who suffer and die valiantly while challenging the status quo. At the same time, there are persistent disputes about the concepts used to justify these deaths, such as altruism, heroism, and religion itself. In this volume, renowned scholars bring their literary and historical expertise to bear on the contested issue of religiously sanctioned suicide. Three examine contemporary movements with disputed classical roots, while eleven look at classical religious literatures which variously laud and disparage figures who invite self-harm to the point of death. Overall, the volume offers an important scholarly corrective to the axiom that religious traditions simply and always embrace life at any cost.

The Motives of Self-Sacrifice in Korean American Culture, Family, and Marriage

The Motives of Self-Sacrifice in Korean American Culture, Family, and Marriage
Author: Chul Woo Son
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2014-01-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1625641605

The concept of self-sacrifice is highly important to Korean Americans. With hierarchy of age, social status, and gender-defined roles taking primacy over equality and justice, self-sacrifice becomes instrumental in maintaining family and social relationships. Unfortunately, in family relationships, sacrifice has more to do with submission and endurance than it does with sacrificial service that is redemptive and mutually beneficial. When self-sacrifice carries hidden motives--coercive responsibility, obligation, shame, guilt, or one's reputation--that "self-sacrifice" is not self-giving, neither serving nor being of mutual benefit. In this context, it is important to explore the attitudes and motives of self-sacrifice in Korean American families. In unlocking and exploring the dynamics of the theology and practice of self-sacrifice for Korean Americans, this book explores cultural virtues, marital relationships, gender inequality, domestic violence, and their theological implications. The author introduces a new approach and model with a proposal for a healthier and a more judicious understanding of self-sacrifice for Korean American family relationships. The element of "equal regard" as pertaining to self-sacrifice offers Korean Americans a refreshing hope in the perspective of familial relationships and a liberating casting-off of culturally and religiously imposed burdens. The Korean American family ought to be grounded on a love ethic of equal regard and place its value on mutuality, self-sacrifice, and individual fulfillment. When this is done, sacrificial love can be understood as justly appropriated for both husbands and wives, males and females, and parents and children. Thus, Christian teaching and theology may deliver a more transparent message of true agape and its liberating effects for the marginalized, especially women and children.

Sacrifice Imagined

Sacrifice Imagined
Author: Douglas Hedley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2011-09-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441110038

Sacrifice Imagined is an original exploration of the idea of sacrifice by one of the world's preeminent philosophers of religion. Despisers of religion have poured scorn upon the idea of sacrifice as an index of the irrational and wicked in religious practice. Nor does its secularised form seem much more appealing. One need only think of the appalling cult of sacrifice in numerous totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. Yet sacrifice remains a part of our cultural and intellectual 'imaginary'. Hedley proposes good reasons to think that issues of global conflict and the ecological crisis highlight the continuing relevance of the topic of sacrifice for contemporary culture. The subject of sacrifice has been decisively influenced by two books: Girard's The Violence and the Sacred and Burkert's Homo Necans. Both of these are theories of sacrifice as violence. Hedley's book challenges both of these highly influential theories and presents a theory of sacrifice as renunciation of the will. His guiding influences in this are the much misunderstood Joseph de Maistre and the Cambridge Platonists.

Sacrifice and Modern Thought

Sacrifice and Modern Thought
Author: Julia Meszaros
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013-10-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191634166

Sacrifice has always been central to the study of religion yet attempts to understand and assess the concept have usually been controversial. The present book, which is the result of several years of interdisciplinary collaboration, suggests that in many ways the fascination with sacrifice has its roots in modernity itself. Theological developments following the Reformation, the rediscovery of Greek tragedies, and the encounter with the practice of human sacrifice in the Americas triggered a complex and passionate debate in the sixteenth century which has never since abated. Contributors to this volume, leading experts from theology, anthropology, and literary and cultural studies, describe and discuss how this modern fascination for the topic of sacrifice has evolved, how it has shaped theological debate, the literary imagination, and anthropological theory. Individual chapters discuss in depth major theological trajectories, theories of sacrifice including those of Marcel Mauss and René Girard, and current feminist criticism. They engage with sacrifice in the context of religious and philosophical thought, works of literature and film. They explore different yet overlapping aspects of modernity's obsession with sacrifice. The book does not intend to impose a single narrative over all these diverse contributions but brings them into a conversation around a common centre.

Slaying the Mermaid

Slaying the Mermaid
Author: Stephanie Golden
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA)
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1999
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

Slaying the Mermaid addresses the great numbers of women of all ages who find themselves constantly disregarding their own well-being to put the needs of others first. Drawing on the experiences of a diverse array of women, Stephanie Golden examines the dichotomy between selfhood and sacrifice, enabling women to become conscious of self-defeating behavior. Using the image of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, the ultimate ideal of the self-sacrificing woman, Golden offers a new paradigm: in order to run with the wolves, you must first slay the mermaid. Slaying the Mermaid uncovers the mythic and archetypal roots of the need felt by women to sacrifice their personal potential for the good of others. This book will help women reclaim their energy, creativity, and identity, while rediscovering the original, empowering meaning of sacrifice as an expansive and self-fulfilling act.