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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $111.50

Format:
Paperback
448 pp.
11 b&w plates, 138 mm x 216 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199288762

Publication date:
April 2006

Imprint: OUP UK


God and Enchantment of Place

Reclaiming Human Experience

David Brown

David Brown argues for the importance of experience of God as mediated through place in all its variety. He explores the various ways in which such experiences once formed an essential element in making religion integral to human life, and argues for their reinstatement at the centre of theological discussions about the existence of God. In effect, the discussion continues the theme of Brown's two much-praised earlier volumes, Tradition and Imagination and Discipleship and Imagination, in its advocacy of the need for Christian theology to take much more seriously its relationship with the various wider cultures in which it has been set. In its challenge to conventional philosophy of religion, the book will be of interest to theologians and philosophers, and also to historians of art and culture generally.

Readership : Scholars and students of religion, theology, philosophy of religion, and cultural studies; clergy and lay people interested in the relation between culture and religion.

Introduction
1. Sacrament and Enchantment: Re-conceiving the Sacramental
2. The Place of Encounter: Icons of Transcendence and Renaissance Immanence
3. The Natural World: Mediated Experience and Truth
4. Placement and Pilgrimage: Dislocation and Relocation
5. Competing Styles: Architectural Aims and Wider Setting
6. The Contemporary Context: House and Church as Mediators
7. Widening the Perspective: Mosque and Temple, Sport and Garden

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David Brown is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity, University of Durham.

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Special Features

  • Puts forward a controversial claim about the importance of experience of place as a way of reinvigorating the debate about the existence of God
  • Covers a wide range of topics, from architecture and landscape art to gardens, sports venues, and urban planning
  • Discusses the ancient world, Hinduism, and Islam as well as Christianity