David Lonsdale - Böcker

Keeping Faith in Practice is an addition to SCM's growing Practical and Pastoral Theology list. Most books in this field are written by authors from various Protestant backgrounds. Catholic teachers in this field are frequently asked by colleagues for suggestions of Catholic resources, and find themselves at a loss. The central subject of this book is an exploration of how theology engages with the dimension of practice in the life of the Church and contemporary society and culture. The book covers the main focal points of a Catholic view of pastoral/practical theology - its foundations and different fields.

This book explores the ‘call’ of literature, for both writers and their audiences, and reflects on how literary works have informed and drawn from – and continue to inform and draw from – theology, philosophy and sacred scripture. Key questions addressed include the following: How do creative writers and critics conceive this call? What does it mean to speak of a ‘vocation’ to write and what have theologians and philosophers got to say on the matter? Is the spirit of literature always or necessarily an ‘angel of light’? Or is the call of literature a siren song? The essays by an international and interdisciplinary range of contributors discuss the work and testimony of writers from William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins and R.S. Thomas to James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Michel Houellebecq. Also examined are the ideas and influence of figures such as John Henry Newman, who wrote that the importance of literature stems from our very nature and God-given powers as human beings, especially language. This latest volume from The Power of the Word Project will be of interest to scholars from theology, philosophy and literature.

What is the role of spiritual experience in poetry? What are the marks of a religious imagination? How close can the secular and the religious be brought together? How do poetic imagination and religious beliefs interact? Exploring such questions through the concept of the religious imagination, this book integrates interdisciplinary research in the area of poetry on the one hand, and theology, philosophy and Christian spirituality on the other. Established theologians, philosophers, literary critics and creative writers explain, by way of contemporary and historical examples, the primary role of the religious imagination in the writing as well as in the reading of poetry.