56 min listen
T. M. Luhrmann, "How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others" (Princeton UP, 2020)
T. M. Luhrmann, "How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others" (Princeton UP, 2020)
ratings:
Length:
65 minutes
Released:
Feb 18, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Tanya Luhrmann has spent much of her career as an anthropologist investigating the complex ways that people engage religion and the supernatural. In How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others (Princeton UP, 2020) she sets aside the question of what people believe and asks instead how they go about believing it: the rituals of prayer, offering, and confession that let them enter a different world, where the God or gods they believe in are truly present. Luhrmann writes that people learn to have “flexible ontologies”—accepting the reality of the divine in one context and setting it aside in another. She emphasizes the role of imagination, not because the gods they worship are imaginary, because connecting with the divine is a talent that can be developed. Her accounts range widely across many different religious traditions, looking for both commonalities and differences.
Jack Petranker is the Director of the Center for Creative Inquiry and the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist languages. He teaches programs in Full Presence Mindfulness and a wide range of Buddhist topics and practices.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion
Jack Petranker is the Director of the Center for Creative Inquiry and the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist languages. He teaches programs in Full Presence Mindfulness and a wide range of Buddhist topics and practices.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion
Released:
Feb 18, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
J. D. Bowers, “Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America” (Penn State University Press, 2007): Today we talk to J. D. Bowers of Northern Illinois University about his book Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007). Against the received wisdom, Bowers argues that American Unitarianism did not... by New Books in Religion