Hannah Bacon - Alternative Salvations: Engaging the Sacred and the Secular

Alternative Salvations

Also available from Bloomsbury

The Study of Religion , 2nd edition, George D. Chryssides and Ron Geaves

Christianity and the University Experience , Mathew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Rob Warner

Sacred and Secular Musics , Virinder S. Kalra

ALTERNATIVE SALVATIONS

Engaging the Sacred and the Secular

Edited by

Hannah Bacon, Wendy Dossett and Steve Knowles

Bloomsbury Academic

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

CONTENTS

Hannah Bacon, Wendy Dossett and Steve Knowles

Thomas J. Coleman III and Robert B. Arrowood

Wendy Dossett

Irene Ayallo

Hannah Bacon

Madeleine Castro

William Stephenson

Kornelia Sammet

Douglas Davies

Jenny Daggers

Paul Middleton

Wayne Morris

Emily Pennington

Kris Hiuser

Katja Stuerzenhofecker

Jon Hoover

Steve Knowles

Robert B. Arrowood is a graduate student working under Dr Ralph W. Hood, Jr. in the Psychology of Religion Lab at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He received his Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Tusculum College and is currently working on his Masters of Science in research psychology. His primary interests include Terror Management Theory, in which he seeks to examine the interaction between death awareness and religious orientation to affect worldview defence. Additionally, he seeks to examine death awarenesss influence on broader issues such as optimism, sexual interest and cognitive resources. He also has a general interest in social psychology and successful teaching practices.

Irene Ayallo is lecturer in Social Practice at Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand. Her research interests include gender studies, politics (political theories, political participation, social justice and human rights), HIV-AIDS care and prevention, political theology and marginalized groups.

Hannah Bacon is senior lecturer in Feminist and Contextual Theology at the University of Chester, UK. Her current research focuses on the theological dimensions of secular, commercial weight loss programmes and engages with ethnographic work she has conducted inside an organized weight loss group in the UK. She is the author of Whats Right with the Trinity? Conversations in Feminist Theology (Ashgate, 2009) and co-editor with Wayne Morris and Steve Knowles of Transforming Exclusion: Engaging Faith Perspectives (Continuum, 2011).

Madeleine Castro is senior lecturer in Interdisciplinary Psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her research interests include the sociology and psychology of paranormal or extraordinary experiences, contemporary spiritualties and methodology in the social sciences. Her most recent work focuses on the concept of transcendent experiences (outside of a religious context) as catalysts for personal transformation in contemporary society. She also co-directs a network for researchers interested in subjects such as the paranormal called Exploring the Extraordinary .

Thomas J. Coleman III is the director of the Ralph W. Hood Jr. Psychology of Religion Laboratory and a graduate student in the Research Psychology Master programme at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is an assistant editor for the journal Secularism & Nonreligion , and The Religious Studies Project. His current interests span research in cultural psychology, the cognitive sciences and the philosophy of science, focusing on theory of mind and folk psychology.

Jenny Daggers is associate professor in Christian theology at Liverpool Hope University, UK, where she teaches in the Department of Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies. Her research and teaching interests are in twentieth- and twenty-first- century theology, particularly as it relates to issues of gender in postcolonial and postmodern perspectives. Recent publications include Postcolonial Theology of Religions: Particularity and Pluralism in World Christianity (Routledge, 2013). She has also co-edited with Grace Ji-Sun Kim Christian Doctrines for Global Gender Justice (forthcoming Palgrave, 2015) and Reimagining with Christian Doctrines: Responding to Global Gender Injustices (Palgrave, Pivot, 2014). She is editor of Gendering Christian Ethics (CSP, 2012) and author of a number of articles on feminist theology, and women and Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Douglas Davies is director of the Centre of Death and Life Studies at Durham University, UK and author of The Mormon Culture of Salvation (Ashgate, 2000); A Brief History of Death (Blackwell, 2004), Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness (OUP, 2011) and jointly with Hannah Rumble Natural Burial: Traditional-secular Spiritualties and Funeral Innovation (Continuum, 2012). He has authored numerous other publications in theology and social anthropology, death studies and Mormonism. His research interests include contemporary death and funerary practices. He was president of the British Association for the Study of Religions 200912.

Wendy Dossett is senior lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Chester, UK. She was for a decade an associate director of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre and is now principal investigator of the Higher Power Project which explores spirituality among people in recovery through the Twelve Steps. She is co-editor with Chris Cook of Religion and Addiction: a special issue of Religions . She has worked in a Residential Drug and Alcohol Addiction Rehabilitation Centre. She is also author of numerous A-level textbooks in Buddhism and religious studies.

Kris Hiuser recently completed his PhD from the University of Chester, UK. His thesis considered the question of why God became human particularly addressing this question in the light of the topic of non-human animals and what ethical implications this has for humans. He has published journal articles on Gods covenantal relationship with non-human animals, the capacity of non-human animals to sin, and how they feature in the theology of Maximus the Confessor.

Jon Hoover is associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. His research focuses on the major medieval Muslim theologians Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and their subsequent reception. His publications include the book Ibn Taymiyyas Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism ; several articles on Ibn Taymiyyas and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyas views on creation, theodicy, universal salvation and Christians; and a number of essays on contemporary Christian Muslim relations.

Steve Knowles is senior lecturer in Religion and Popular Culture at the University of Chester, UK. His research interests include contemporary apocalyptic ideologies and Christian fundamentalism; sociology of risk; and religion and digital media. He is the author of Beyond Evangelicalism (Ashgate, 2010) and co-editor with H. Bacon and W. Morris of Transforming Exclusion: Engaging Faith Perspectives (Continuum, 2011).

Paul Middleton is senior lecturer in New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Chester. His research interests include violence and martyrdom in the ancient and modern world, constructions of early Christian identities and the Book of Revelation. He is the author of Radical Martyrdom and Cosmic Conflict in Early Christianity (T & T Clark, 2006) and Martyrdom: A Guide for the Perplexed (T & T Clark, 2011).

Wayne Morris is senior lecturer in contextual and practical theology and head of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Chester, UK. He is author of Theology without Words: Theology in the Deaf Community (Ashgate, 2008) and Salvation as Praxis: A Practical Theology of Salvation for a Multi-Faith World (Bloomsbury, 2014). His research interests include practical theologies of disability, religions and spiritualities and the rights of linguistic minority groups.