Alternative Salvations Engaging the Sacred and the Secular [Paperback]

By considering transformative ideas and experiences which are explicitly articulated or implicitly structured in languages of religion and spirituality,Alternative Salvationsprobes concepts including 'religious', 'secular', 'spiritual', 'post-Christian', and 'post-secular', providing a series of studies which question the functionality of these broad categories.

Part one draws on contemporary salvation narratives showing how current cultural forms, social practices and secular discourses are influenced by, or are interpreted through, the lens of religious and theological accounts of salvation. Examples include twelve step recovery programs, drug culture, and public policy surrounding HIV-AIDs in Kenya. Although outside traditional religious contexts, the contributors show ways in which they are not free from religious symbolism. Part two explores alternative accounts of salvation rooted in religious traditions. Established orthodoxies are confronted by contemporary critical questions, for example about gender, the status of animals, and the political dimensions of salvation.

By contributing new perspectives and unique case studies,Alternative Salvationsprovides a deliberate challenge to easy binaries which often underpin contemporary and traditional discourses of salvation.

Introduction

PART I: Contemporary Salvation Narratives
1. Only We Can Save Ourselves: An Atheist 'Salvation', Thomas J. Coleman (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA) and Robert B. Arrowood (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA)
2. Reflections on the Language of Salvation in Twelve Step Recovery, Wendy Dossett (University of Chester, UK)
3. Public Policy Dialogue as a Salvation Practice for Women and Youth living with HIV in Kenya, Irene Ayallo (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
4. Dieting for Salvation: Becoming God by Weighing Less? Hannah Bacon (University of Chester, UK)
5. Spontaneous Transcendent and TransformatlÃñ