This reader explores contemporary interest in spirituality in the United States. It traces the concept and presence of spirituality in the nation's past and explains the strong attraction to spiritual themes in the present, with attention to questions of definition, historical usage, and connection to religion. Twenty-seven selections pursue the difference and diversity among Americans in terms of their spiritual styles, here understood as modes of experiential knowledge. Catherine L. Albanese has organized these selections to reflect four approaches to spirituality: knowing through the body, or ritual-based spiritualities; knowing through the heart, or evangelical and emotionally toned spiritualities; knowing through the will, or prophetic and social-action spiritualities; and knowing through the mind, or metaphysically oriented spiritualities. Taken together, these essays make the argument that the spiritual is human-made, essentially religious, and surely not the same at all American times and places.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Indiana University Press
ISBN-13
9780253214324
eBay Product ID (ePID)
94872761
Product Key Features
Book Title
American Spiritualities: a Reader
Author
Catherine L. Albanese
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Alternative Belief Systems, Religious History, Mental Exercise, Christianity