bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
American Methodist Worship
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This book offers a comprehensive examination and analysis of American Methodist worship, tracing its evolution from John Wesley to the end of the twentieth century. Attention is paid to the officially approved liturgical texts of ten American Methodist denominations. Yet, these texts do not reveal the full complexity of Methodist worship – leaders of worship have always had the freedom to depart from the established forms, and some characteristically Methodist worship services were organized without official texts. Therefore, other sources are scrutinized to provide a broader assessment. This book draws upon personal diaries and journals, church and secular newspapers, and materials from local church archives, thus exposing the processes and influences – ecclesiastical, social, and cultural – that motivated Methodists to rethink their theology of worship and to reorganize their worship praxis. Such an approach permits consideration of the nontextual matters of liturgical space, choreography, and ritual performance. Methodist worship's interactions with the wider society and cultures are addressed, and an evaluation is made of how particular factors and developments evident in national life affected liturgy and the performance of worship in what may be identified as the “Americanization” of Methodist worship.
The Lord's Day
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Lord's Day worship in a Methodist congregation consisted of invariable components (“ordinary”) as well as variable components (“propers”). Invariable components that are spoken in the language or particular vocabulary of the people may include prayer, scripture readings, psalmody, preaching, creeds, and benedictions. Variable components may be linked with the Christian year, the denominational calendar, or civil and local celebrations. The selection of ordinary and propers, along with interpretations of the significance of Sunday, contribute to what it means to be Methodist on the Lord's Day.
The Great Festivals of the Mlinethodists
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Methodists developed several “peculiar” services of worship connected with admission and integration into, or maintenance of, the Christian (Methodist) community. These extraliturgical events, most of which were not original to the Methodists, included the love feast, watch night, renewal of the covenant, quarterly meeting, camp meeting, protracted meeting, and revival. Once identified as the “great festivals” of Methodism, these services eventually diminished in frequency, although they never entirely disappeared.
The Rites of Christian Initiation
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Tensions occur when a church practices infant baptism but also expects personal faith or even an experience of conversion from its members. Methodists in America struggled theologically with the meaning and purpose of baptism for both infants and adults, especially regarding the issues of original sin, baptismal regeneration, and the connection between baptism and church membership. The theological positions reached on the sacrament were often honed from controversies with other Christians, who pressed the Methodists regarding the subjects and modes of baptism. Methodist baptismal rites saw significant alterations, and new rites related to Christian initiation developed for membership, confirmation, and baptismal renewal.
Methodist Funerals
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Compared with marriage rites, Methodist burial rites and performances of funerals changed relatively slowly over two centuries. Such conservatism, however, masks the shifts in pastoral and theological understandings of bereavement, dying, death, resurrection, and eschatology that took place during that time among Methodists and within the wider society. These adjustments can be measured by the contents of funeral sermons, topics addressed in hymnals, changes in funerary customs for both the living and the dead, and alterations in the ritual text.
Devotion and Discipleship
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
From the earliest days, Methodists were exhorted to practice works of piety and works of mercy in order to nurture both inner religion and social holiness. These works of piety include family worship, public prayer (often manifested during the week as the “prayer meeting”), and fasting. The visitation of the sick and ministries of healing numbered among the means of caring for others. Eventually, these services of prayer and acts of discipleship, which were understood as essential occasions for worship and channels of grace, came to be regarded as no more than personal options.
Roles in Public Worship
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The leadership of Methodist worship has always involved men and women, lay and clergy, although there have been limitations placed upon certain categories of people at different times. Unordained preachers served Methodism from its beginnings, and laity has always had roles as class leaders, exhorters, stewards, stewardesses, and song leaders. Deaconesses assisted or led in worship to the extent that any layperson could. The principal liturgical ministers were the elders and, to a much more limited extent in terms of sacramental presidency, the deacons. The only distinct liturgical role of the general superintendent or bishop came at services of ordination.
American Methodist Worship
Authors: Tucker Karen B. Westerfield 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
More than a summary, the final chapter synthesizes the revisionary processes already examined and identifies particular factors that have contributed to the evolution of Methodist worship as a whole. On the one hand, Methodists were retrospective in ordering their worship and looking to their immediate past, to their founder John Wesley, and also beyond that to apostolic Christianity and to scripture. On the other hand, Methodists were prospective and strove to offer worship fitting for the present in order to maintain a viable community of faith for the ages yet to come. Both approaches reveal the Americanization of worship that was set in motion from the founding of the various Methodist denominations.
Introduction
Authors: Hopkins Steven Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
After an opening section that tells the story about Vedåntadeóika's encounter with Vishnu at Tiruvahândrapuram, and the saint‐poet's compositions in honor of that god in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Prakrit, this introductory chapter summarizes the main themes of the book. First, a overview of Vedåntadeóika, his historical context, his works in Sanskrit, Tamil, Prakrit and maïipravåöa (“jewels” and “coral”, a prose form that combines the Tamil and Sanskrit languages) and significance in his time as a kavi (poet), a “lion among poets and philosophers,” as a “master of all the arts and sciences,” and as a logician/debater/philosopher/poet who synthesized local/regional Tamil with pan‐regional Sanskrit. Other core issues include tensions in Vedåntadesika between the “poet” and “philosopher,” between intellectual and “emotional bhakti” and divine presence and absence, along with “holy seeing” (daróan) and the “body language” used to describe the “beautiful holy bodies” of Vishnu's temple icons in three south Indian shrines. Methodological framework of the study includes a detailed consideration of Sheldon Pollock's theories on Sanskrit cosmopolitanism along with the “vernacular cosmopolitan” in South Asia after 1300, along with John B. Carman's notions of complementary and contrasting polarities and A.K. Ramanujan's theories on varieties of reflexivity in Indian literature, with help from the semiotic theories of Charles Sanders Peirce on “iconic” and “indexical” signs. Introduction concludes with a detailed discussion of textual sources of Vedåntadeóika's Sanskrit and Prakrit stotras and Tamil prabandhams, and a reflection on translation.
Philosopher, Preacher, Poet
Authors: Hopkins Steven Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter focuses on Deóika's three‐fold contribution to South Indian religion and culture: as a philosopher, a theologian, and a poet. It surveys the milieux, both congenial and rival, in which went about his work, the sectarian debates, and the traditional and contemporary assessments of his work and its significance. Chapter One discusses in detail Vedåntadeóika in relationship to the work of Råmånuja and the Vióióìådvaita school of devotional Hinduism; his work in the area of nyåya or systematic logic; his association with the Vaìakalai or “Northern” School of àrâvaióïavism, his maïipravåöa writings and his relationships to the Çcåryas of the Teúkalai or “Southern” School; an account of the Vaìakalai and Teúkalai schisms and their western scholarly interpreters; the importance of two cities, Kåñcâpuram and àrâraígam, in the formation of these two schools and the importance of Kåñcâpuram to Vedåntadeóika's “cosmopolitanism.”
The final section focuses on theoretical issues central to the main subject matter of this study — and one of the most neglected areas of Vedåntadeóika's voluminous writings — his devotional poetry. Chapter tackles several key issues in South Indian bhakti literature, from religious devotion and the idea of the vernacular, poetry and commentary, and “viraha‐bhakti” (love in separation) and “emotionalism” in the work of Vedåntadeóika and other Çcåryas.
“The Fruits of Mukunda's Mercy”
Authors: Hopkins Steven Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter focuses on a few stanzas of two long Tamil prabandhams — the Mummaïikkêvai and the Navamaïimålai — that use elements of classical Tamil akam love poetry as they have been appropriated by the Çôvårs — especially by Nammåôvår — to evoke Deóika's experience of Devanåyaka Svåmi, the form of Vishnu at a sacred place where he is said to have spent 30 years of his life, Tiruvahândrapuram. Whereas Vedåntadeóika's praises of Varadaråja at Kåñcâ stress Vishnu's overall puõuam nature as awesome majestic king with his queens, at Tiruvahândrapuram, Devanåyaka (The “Lord of Gods”), no less “awesome,” is the intimate, “interior,” love mode of akam dominates. The devotional attitude in these Tamil verses is mirrored in Deóika's Sanskrit and Pråkrit poems to this same form of Vishnu. And while the Sanskrit and Prakrit hymns to Devanåyaka consciously make use of their own conventions of erotic love to convey his love of this form of God, his Tamil verses suitably mine what had become with the work of the Çôvårs, a ‘Tamil’ poetics of passionate, intimate religious love. The thematic close reading of stanzas from these two Tamil poems includes discussions of various female personae from the Tamil akam poetry, love and separation, divine absence and presence, Vishnu's beautiful body and the temple icon, the “eros of place,” love and bathing imagery (niråìal) in Vedåntadeóika and the female Çôvår Çïìåö and, most significantly, the theology of beauty (“beauty that saves”) that emerges from these poems.
Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity
Authors: McKim Robert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The religious ambiguity of the world has many aspects, one of which is the hiddenness of God. Theists have proposed a number of explanations of God's hiddenness. Some putative explanations contend that the advantages of God's hiddenness (“goods of mystery”) outweigh whatever benefits would result if God's existence and nature were clear to us (“goods of clarity”). Goods of mystery that have received a lot of discussion include human moral autonomy and the ability on our part to exercise control over whether we believe in the existence of God. The extent of the ambiguity that surrounds God's existence, and indeed all important religious matters, combined with our lack of an obviously correct and adequate explanation of this lack, suggest that, even if God exists, it is not important that people believe in God. Another central theme in the book is the significance of religious diversity for religious belief. The character of this diversity is such that it provides people who take a position on religious matters with reason to adopt the “Critical Stance” – which requires people in all the religious traditions to subject their religious beliefs to critical scrutiny and hold those beliefs in a tentative way.Some contend that religious faith requires complete confidence in what is believed but tentative belief actually is sufficient to sustain many forms of religious commitment.
God's Hiddenness and the Possibility of Moral Action
Authors: McKim Robert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Immanuel Kant, John Hick, and Richard Swinburne, among others, have presented versions of the claim that God must be hidden from us if we are to make morally significant choices. The proposal that an intimate and enduring personal relationship with God would reduce our moral autonomy is especially plausible. Less plausible is the claim that somewhat more evidence than we currently have for the existence of God would be morally harmful. While God's hiddenness cannot be explained adequately in terms of preserving our moral autonomy, there may be a good of mystery in this area that is capable of contributing to an adequate explanation. Especially promising is the idea that it is very valuable that we should be able to choose whether or not to harm others.
The Hiddenness of God and Arguments for Atheism
Authors: McKim Robert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
There have been a number of attempts to argue from the ambiguity that surrounds the existence of God to atheism. John Schellenberg offers one such argument: he proposes that a perfectly loving God would not permit nonbelief to be reasonable for anyone who is capable of a personal relationship with God. I contend that arguments of this sort are unconvincing.
The Hiddenness of God: Implications
Authors: McKim Robert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
If the goods of mystery outweigh the goods of clarity, there is some reason to doubt that any particular good of clarity, such as more people adopting theism here and now, is very important. Theists should acknowledge that it is unlikely that it is part of the goal of human life that we should here and now hold theistic beliefs. If any goods that are essential for human flourishing were dependent on our believing here and now in God's existence, then – if God exists – God would not remain hidden from human beings. For, if God exists, it would be easy for us to be provided with more evidence for the existence of God than we currently have.
Wounds Not Healed By Time
Authors: Schimmel Solomon 
Published: October 2003

AbstractWounds Not Healed By Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness examines the meanings of revenge, justice, forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation. In doing so, it draws on religious traditions, psychology, psychotherapy, moral philosophy, and the personal experiences of both perpetrators and of victims.Christianity, Judaism, and Islam call for forgiveness and repentance in our relations with others. Yet, there are significant differences between them as to when and whom to forgive. Is forgiving always more moral than refusing to forgive? Is it ever immoral to forgive? When is repentance a precondition for forgiveness, and what does repentance entail? Wounds Not Healed by Time explores these questions in diverse contexts, ranging from conflicts in a marriage and personal slights we experience every day to enormous crimes such as the Holocaust. The author also applies insights on forgiveness and repentance to the Middle East, postapartheid South Africa, interreligious relationships, the criminal justice system, forgiving God, and self‐forgiveness.Wounds Not Healed By Time also provides practical strategies to help us forgive and repent, preparing the way for healing and reconciliation between individuals and groups. “It is my belief,” Schimmel concludes, “that the best balm for the resentment, rage, guilt, and shame engendered by human evil lies in finding the proper balance between justice, repentance, and forgiveness.”
Introduction
Authors: Schimmel Solomon 
Published: October 2003

AbstractExamines the range of responses to the September 11, 2001 (9/11) act of terrorism on the World Trade Center, such as calls for revenge, justice, self‐criticism, repentance, and forgiveness. This is followed by a comparison of Jewish and Christian responses to requests for forgiveness made by perpetrators of atrocities in Nazi Germany and in South Africa. Concludes with the hope that the book will help bring us closer to the biblical vision of love founded on justice, compassion, and self‐transformation.
The Essence of Forgiveness
Authors: Schimmel Solomon 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Defines forgiveness, and contrasts it with related concepts, namely, to condone, to excuse, to justify, to exonerate, to forget, to atone, and to reconcile, providing concrete examples of each of these. Forgiveness can be an internal, therapeutic process of letting go of anger and resentment, or an interpersonal one of forgoing legal and/or moral claims the victim of an injury has on a perpetrator. The chapter compares and contrasts the views of Judaism and Christianity on whether a victim is morally obligated to forgive a perpetrator when the perpetrator does not repent of his or her misdeed. The trait of “forgivingness” is discussed and the relationship of the tendency to forgive with personality characteristics of being prone to guilt and to shame.
How to Forgive
Authors: Schimmel Solomon 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Discusses and illustrates three process models or psychotherapeutic approaches to teaching people how to forgive, developed by psychologists Robert Enright, Everett Worthington Jr., and Michael McCullough. These models emphasize the importance of cultivating the traits of empathy and of humility as essential to learning how to forgive. The chapter goes through each stage or phase of these models, and explains how they have been used in premarital, marital, and family counseling and therapy. While accepting most of the features of these approaches as valuable, the author critiques those aspects of them that presume certain Christian values which he considers to be morally or psychologically problematic, such as too little emphasis on justice and repentance in the models, and the goal of getting the victim to love the perpetrator of the injury to him, rather than merely to let go of the anger and resentment that he bears. The chapter concludes with a moving excerpt from the book “The Railway Man” by Eric Lomax, which describes the long psychological and spiritual journey of a British WW II POW who had been brutally tortured by his Japanese, towards forgiveness of the Japanese translator/interrogator who had been involved in the torture sessions and had spent all of the postwar years in remorse and repentance of, and vicarious restitution for his wartime misdeeds.
Repentance & Reconciliation
Authors: Schimmel Solomon 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter discusses the role that repentance can play in reconciliation between criminals and their victims, and between religious and ethnic groups that have experienced major, violent conflicts in which gross injustices have been committed. The ways in which repentance can facilitate reconciliation are illustrated and analyzed with respect to rehabilitated criminals, the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, Palestinian and other Arabs and Israeli Jews, and white Americans and African‐Americans. The importance in Judaism of reintegrating the repentant sinner back into the community is one model of how society in general, and groups, should treat perpetrators of evil and injustice who have undergone an authentic and transformative process of repentance. The chapter discusses ways of assessing the sincerity and durability of repentance, and the advantages to society and to groups in conflict of responding positively to overtures of reconciliation.
Epilogue
Authors: Schimmel Solomon 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The epilogue discusses the experience of South Africa and its Truth and Reconciliation Commission (T.R.C.) in attempting to avoid revenge and violence in the transition from white minority to black majority power in the 1990s. The author discusses the rationales given by advocates of the T.R.C. for its amnesty provisions, and the claims of opponents that the T.R.C. ignored the values of justice, accountability, and responsibility for one's misdeeds. The author concludes that we have much to learn from the efforts of South Africans to reconcile with a much lower level of rancor, vengeance, and violence that might have been anticipated given the history of apartheid injustices and human rights violations.
Introduction
Authors: Krawiec Rebecca 
Published: October 2003

AbstractI begin by giving a general description of Shenoute and what survives of his monastic literature. I then turn to the evidence of women's lives within that literature, focusing on 13 letter fragments that address the female community or individual female monks directly. I argue that the genre of this material requires a methodology similar to that of feminist studies of Paul, rather than solely comparing Shenoute to his contemporaries: both Shenoute and Paul wrote rhetorically complex letters that responded to actual events, indeed crises, in physically distant communities over which they wished to exert their authority. I then lay out the major arguments of the chapters that follow, which, after giving a narrative of the women's conflicts recorded in the letters, analyze the material through three lenses, namely, power, gender, and family. One central thesis links these three approaches: that Shenoute advocated a universal monasticism he defined in terms of purity of the body (both individual and communal), a purity that could result from properly disciplining the flesh by the spirit so that differences located in the flesh (gender, biological kinship, social status) would not affect monastic or ascetic practices
Women's Life in the White Monastery Under Shenoute
Authors: Krawiec Rebecca 
Published: October 2003

AbstractLays out the narratives and explores the issues of various periods of crisis that prompted Shenoute's letters to the female monks. The issue themselves are wide ranging: Shenoute's exercise of power over the female community; his insistence on the gender separation of the male and female monks, including forbidding visits among relatives even as Shenoute himself visited the female community; incidents of female homoeroticism; a debate over what constituted proper monastic duties and proper corporal punishment; gossip; disputes over the quality of clothing the women were producing for male monks, including Shenoute's; and complaints about the excessive nature of Shenoute's leadership. All these topics, even in their diversity and their focus on conflict, provided Shenoute with the opportunity to teach all the monks, male and female, how to lead a salvific life in the monastery.