Religion

In Contemporary Mormonism Claudia Bushman, a third-generation Mormon and recognized religious scholar, sets out to explore the faith through a look at the everyday lives of modern Mormons. By some accounts, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fourth largest religious denomination in the United States, but many Americans'' only knowledge of the faith is through media highlighting unusual events and practices in the life of the church. Contemporary Mormonism provides a critical look at what it really means to be Mormon today, as well as an historical background of the faith''s founding and development. Bushman offers readers a vivid look into the lives of contemporary Mormons-their beliefs, rituals, and views on issues such as race, social class, gender, and sexual orientation. She also analyzes issues facing the Mormon church in the future, including missionary work and the public face of the church. Contemporary Mormonism provides information essential to understanding not only the Mormon faith today, but also how this rapidly growing denomination fits in the American religious landscape.

Focusing on the people and events that have shaped Roman Catholicism in the United States, this work introduces readers to a vital American community. Beginning with a narrative history of Catholics and Catholicism in America, it addresses the problems in the Church, women's roles, and responses to terrorism and war.

Reuven Leigh provides the first in-depth introduction to the pioneering philosophy of Rabbi Shalom Schneersohn. Bringing him into dialogue with key continental philosophers Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva, this book reveals how Schneersohn's views anticipated many prominent themes in 20th-century thought. Shalom Schneersohn (1860-1920) was the fifth Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. He was a traditional, kabbalistic thinker and yet, beyond mysticism, he wrote extensively on speech, gender and the body. So why is he not better known? Leigh begins by uncovering and contesting numerous scholarly assumptions that have operated to exclude traditional rabbinic thinkers from contemporary philosophical debates. Seeking to correct this, this book offers a close reading of Schneersohn's 1898 discourses. With the disruption of traditional binary structures being the dominant theme pervading Schneersohn's work, Leigh challenges Levinas' controversial ideas on the feminine. Examining Schneersohn on language, too, he highlights how Derridean deconstruction involves a more positive approach to presence that was already anticipated in the writings of Schneersohn. And from the disruption of the hierarchy of signification to the semiotic aspect of language and the maternal body, this book demonstrates how Schneersohn foreshadows a number of Kristeva's central philosophical concerns. A wide-ranging and inclusive volume, The Philosophy of Rabbi Shalom Schneersohn demonstrates not only how forward-thinking Schneersohn's ideas were a century ago, but how relevant they still are today.