Chris Deacy – författare

For over two thousand years, groups have arisen who have expected a deliverer to come and rescue them from a corrupt and chaotic world, and usher in a time of peace and stability. Groups of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and to a lesser extent Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, as well as people practising indigenous tribal religions have taken up this theme. With the approach of the year 2000, millennial fever is on the increase. People are excited, and sometimes afraid of change. Expectations that the dawn of the third millennium will be a time of social and spiritual upheaval, of natural disasters and even of the end of the world, are rife in many quarters. The contributors to this book explore the theme of the Coming Deliverer in different religious traditions, using insights drawn from religious studies, theology and anthropology. The authors of The Coming Deliverer brings together in one volume a wealth of scholarship and explore in clear, accessible language this fascinating, timely and ubiquitous theme.

Drawing on the event of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022 as a central case study, this book explores the way we navigate the relationship between nostalgia and religion.Focusing on the lived experiences of ‘ordinary people’ and in tandem with the ‘turn to the self’ discourse, Deacy suggests that our relationship with nostalgia illustrates the shift from objective and transcendent value-systems towards the domain of everyday experience, love and loss.This book revisits the way we understand religion and the secular, using the medium of popular culture, such as radio, film, TV and music to interrogate the ‘nostalgia-as-religion’ narrative. The interpersonal and social elements of nostalgia are explored, such as through the way radio fostered virtual communities and played a key role regarding national, religious and cultural memory during the mourning of the Queen.Attention is given to how nostalgia has evolved over time, and how it can be understood as a religious process which transforms our lives at a time of loss and contributes to an eschatological future.