Studies in Religion and Theology – serie

Making the case for the relevance of pastoral care today, this book explores the role of pastoral care through the prism of music. Using musical analogies, the author provides a new way of understanding and practising pastoral care, grounded in practical theology. Challenging overemphasis on mission, he shows that pastoral care remains essential to the life of the church, especially when engaging with extreme situations such as dying, suffering or war, and considers the role of pastoral carers in the specific pastoral encounter and in the life of the church in general.

*Shortlisted for the Michael Ramsay Prize 2019*In this groundbreaking book, Jill Harshaw explores the spiritual experiences of people with profound intellectual disabilities with regard to their capacity to enjoy life-giving spiritual experiences in their own right.The author expertly argues that our thinking of spiritual life needs to start not with our assumptions about people who are unable to speak for themselves, but with what we can know about God. Stimulating a much-needed discussion, this book explains why we need to respect individuals with profound intellectual disabilities as spiritual persons, and stop seeing them simply as care-receivers or uncomfortable reminders of human vulnerability. Calling for a more critical approach in practical theology, this book invites a deeper, genuinely inter-disciplinary dialogue between new and traditional theological fields, and asks why, after more than 30 years of intellectual disability theology, the impact on church life remains minimal so that debates around the right to basic inclusion continue to dominate. The questions raised in this book not only move the discussion forward, but will spark a change on how the Church approaches inclusiveness.

In late 20th-century India, Christian-Hindu dialogue was forever transformed following the opening of Shantivanam, the first Christian ashram in the country. Mario I. Aguilar brings together the histories of the five pioneers of Christian-Hindu dialogue and their involvement with the ashram, to explore what they learnt and taught about communion between the two religions, and the wide ranging consequences of their work.The author expertly threads together the lives and friendships between these men, while uncovering the Hindu texts they used and were influenced by, and considers how far some of them became, in their personal practice, Hindu. Ultimately, this book demonstrates the impact of this history on contemporary dialogue between Christians and Hindus, and how both faiths can continue to learn and grow together.

Sleep occupies around one third of a person's life and is the subject of research across many disciplines. In this groundbreaking new monograph, Andrew Bishop explores sleep by creatively drawing on resources of the Christian tradition.Sleep is a subject which demands theological attention, because of the central place it occupies in contemporary reflection on what it is to be human. Offering original research, this book investigates sleep for the first time from a theological position, looking at all key questions that a theological treatment of sleep raises, including issues of identity and personhood, sleep and mortality, resurrection, and renewal and healing.