Category Archives: Book Chapters

Essay: Apocalypses and Mystical Texts: Investigating Prolegomena and the State of Affairs, by Pieter G. R. de Villiers

Posted on November 22, 2018 by

In this essay which introduces a volume of essays exploring the nature and origin of Jewish mysticism and its relation to Christian mysticism, Pieter de Villiers describes modern developments in the study of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and mystical texts.  … Continue reading →

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Essay: Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) and Contemporary Mystical Theology, by Andrew Prevot

Posted on March 28, 2018 by

Appearing in A Companion to Jesuit Mysticism, Andrew Prevot‘s essay argues for the presence of a mystical theology throughout much of Henri de Lubac’s writings even though he never devoted a work exclusively to it. Here is Prevot’s concluding paragraph: This … Continue reading →

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Essay: ‘Like a word still ripening in the silences’ Rainer Maria Rilke and the transformations of poetry, by Mark S. Burrows

Posted on February 22, 2018 by

In this essay, Mark Burrows, Poetry Editor of the SSCS journal Spiritus, explores Rilke’s focus on the role of the imagination in our inner transformation. Our fragmentary lives can be made whole through the power of the kind of archetypal … Continue reading →

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Essay: Rewilding Christian Spirituality: Outdoor Sacraments and the Life of the World, by Lisa E. Dahill

Posted on November 19, 2016 by

Lisa Dahill contributed this essay to the collection she co-edited with Jim B. Martin-Schramm, Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016; pp. 177-196). In it, she addresses the problem of “the disconnection between much of contemporary … Continue reading →

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Essay:The Intersection of Sacramentality and Materiality: Testimony, by Rebecca A. Giselbrecht

Posted on October 24, 2016 by

Prof. Giselbrecht’s essay which appears in Sacramentality and Materialty: Locating Intersections (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016, pp. 183-190), a volume she co-edited with Ralph Kunz, begins with reference to the verbal exclamations of Mary and Hannah when they experienced God’s Spirit opening their wombs. She … Continue reading →

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Essay: Interiority and Christian Spirituality: Why Our Inner Lives Are Not Quite as Inner as We Might Like to Think, by John Swinton

Posted on October 15, 2016 by

In this essay appearing in Sacrality and Materiality: Locating Intersections (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), John Swinton challenges readers to reconsider certain common terms used in the scholarship of spirituality. In an early paragraph, he writes: The approach I want to take is slightly different from … Continue reading →

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Essay: Embodied Knowing and the Unspeakable Sacred: Practice in Christian Spirituality, by Claire E. Wolfteich

Posted on October 1, 2016 by

In an essay appearing in Sacrality and Materiality: Locating Intersections (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), Claire Wolfteich proposes to expand scholarship in spirituality beyond the more common approach of studying texts to exploring spiritual practices. She writes I will address the theme of materiality and sacrality … Continue reading →

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