Sacred Modes of Being in a Postsecular World

How do we talk meaningfully about the sacred in contexts where conventional religious expression has so often lost its power? Inspired by the influential work of David Jasper, this important volume builds on his thinking to identify sacrality in a world where the old religious and secular debates have exhausted themselves and theology struggles for a new language in their wake. Distinguished writers explore here the idea of the sacred as one that exists, paradoxically, in a space that is both possible and impossible: profoundly theological on the one hand, but also deeply this-worldly and irreligious on the other. This is a sacredness that is simultaneously 'present' and 'absent': one which encompasses – as Jasper himself characterises it – 'the impossible possibility of an absolute vision'. The book teaches us that the sacred assumes a renewed potency when fully engaged with the creativity that happens across religion, literature, philosophy and the arts.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Andrew W. Hass; Part I. Jasper's Sacred Mode of Being: 1. The sacred opening Andrew W. Hass; 2. A sacramental world: Refiguring the sacred and the secular in David Jasper's 'Sacred' trilogy Paul S. Fiddes; 3. Sacred thinking? Thinking theologically with David Jasper and Paul Gauguin Mattias Martinson; Part II. Theology's Cultural Mode of the Sacred: 4. Theology as literature, rhetoric and ideology Graham Ward; 5. Hope in the sacred community Werner G. Jeanrond; 6. The advent of the nothing Thomas J.J. Altizer; Part III. Culture's Theological Mode of the Sacred: 7. The interdisciplinary nature of literature and theology Yang Huilin; 8. William Blake as leitourgos Christopher Rowland; 9. Bodies dead or alive? Intermediality, ambiguity, and the politics of dying Mieke Bal; 10. The desert is in the words we speak George Pattison; Afterword David Jasper.

About the Author :
Andrew W. Hass is Reader in Religion at the University of Stirling. He works at the intersections of religion, theology, philosophy, art and hermeneutics. He is General Secretary of the International Society of Religion, Literature and Culture, and was a founding member of Critical Religion Association. For many years he was in addition Executive Editor of the journal Literature and Theology. His books include Auden's O and Hegel and the Art of Negation.

Review :
This is a high-quality volume that will be widely read. It brings together accomplished contributors who have produced uniformly original and exciting work. All of the contributions are written according to very high standards of lucidity and rigour, and it contains some really interesting developments of the notion of the sacred in theological thinking that I feel sure will continue to be cited and discussed for quite some time to come. Daniel Whistler, Royal Holloway This volume assembles high-calibre contributions from an impressive, international group of theologians at the top of their profession writing on an important subject: the place of the sacred in the post-secular world. I greatly admire what this volume accomplishes in contributing to a number of significant debates. Eric Ziolkowski, Lafayette College