Books in the Advancing Studies in Religion series

Reimagining Leonard Cohen and the Apostle Paul as spiritual siblings, Prophets of Love offers an introduction to some of the latest scholarship on Paul, combatting centuries of Christian anti-Judaism, and sheds new light on the biblical worldviews and language underlying every line of Cohen's poetry.

"Evangelical Christianity is known for its defence of traditional Christian teachings and resistance to liberalizing trends. Many Western evangelicals themselves do not yet realize how their faith is being reshaped by the modern zeitgeist. Caught in the Current explores how and why Western evangelicals are changing. Church attendance is declining, conservative moral positions are unpopular, and young people are drifting away from the faith. Evangelism is avoided, so few are joining congregations. Yet these surface changes are only symptoms of a more profound shift that church leaders have not fully apprehended. Drawing upon 125 interviews with British and Canadian clergy and active laity, Sam Reimer argues that evangelicals have been deeply influenced by a post-Christian culture that has rejected institutional religious authority and embraced self-spirituality. As individual evangelicals struggle to navigate these waters, and to distance themselves from politicized evangelicalism in the United States, they are caught between conformity and resistance, between faithfulness to church moral teachings and accommodation of secular values. Many are responding by turning inward to define their Christian beliefs for themselves. The ironic result is that the decline of institutional religious authority is not happening just in Western culture, but within evangelical churches as well. Caught in the Current is an insightful and nuanced assessment of how British and Canadian evangelicals are navigating a post-Christian culture, often in ways that are distinct from how their counterparts in the United States approach it."--

Every contemporary institution has had to confront the ever-evolving technologies of the digital age. Focusing on the Catholic Church, Sacred Cyberspaces reveals how old conflicts over power, influence, and legitimacy within religious organizations unfold on the internet, shedding light on the future of religious life in the new millennium.

Relation and Resistance explores the stories and lives of racialized women connected with religious diaspora communities in Canada. Contributors from across disciplines show how these women are conceptualizing traditions in transformative ways, challenging prevailing assumptions about diasporic religion as nostalgically entrenched in the past.

A compelling account of the ways that prayer shows up in public healthcare.