James S Bielo's Books

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

By: James S Bielo

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Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

By: James S Bielo

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introductory text organized around key issues that all anthropologists of religion face. This book uses a wide range of historical and ethnographic examples to address not only what is studied by anthropologists of religion, but how such studies are approached. It addresses questions such as: How do human agents interact with gods and spirits? What is the nature of doing religious ethnography? Can the immaterial be embodied in the body, language and material objects? What is the role of ritual, time, and place in religion? Why is charisma important for religious movements? How do global processes interact with religions? With international case studies from a range of religious traditions, suggestions for further reading, and inventive reflection boxes, Anthropology of Religion: The Basics is an essential read for students approaching the subject for the first time.

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192

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Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317542827

ISBN 13

9781317542827

Words Upon the Word

An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study

By: James S. Bielo

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Words Upon the Word

An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study

By: James S. Bielo

James S. Bielo draws on over nineteen months of ethnographic work with five congregations to better understand why group Bible study matters so much to Evangelicals and for Evangelical culture. Through a close analysis of participants' discourse, Bielo examines the defining themes of group life--from textual interpretation to spiritual intimacy and the rehearsal of witnessing. --from publisher description.

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198

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NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814791220

ISBN 13

9780814791226

Emerging Evangelicals

Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity

By: James S. Bielo

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Emerging Evangelicals

Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity

By: James S. Bielo

The Emerging Church movement developed in the mid-1990s among primarily white, urban, middle-class pastors and laity who were disenchanted with America’s conservative Evangelical sub-culture. It is a response to the increasing divide between conservative Evangelicals and concerned critics who strongly oppose what they consider overly slick, corporate, and consumerist versions of faith. A core feature of their response is a challenge to traditional congregational models, often focusing on new church plants and creating networks of related house churches. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, James S. Bielo explores the impact of the Emerging Church movement on American Evangelicals. He combines ethnographic analysis with discussions of the movement’s history, discursive contours, defining practices, cultural logics, and contentious interactions with conservative Evangelical critics to rethink the boundaries of “Evangelical” as a category. Ultimately, Bielo makes a novel contribution to our understanding of the important changes at work among American Protestants, and illuminates how Emerging Evangelicals interact with the cultural conditions of modernity, late modernity, and visions of “postmodern” Christianity.

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238

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NYU Press

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ISBN 10

0814789560

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9780814789568

Words Upon the Word

An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study

By: James S. Bielo

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Words Upon the Word

An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study

By: James S. Bielo

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198

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NYU Press

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ISBN 10

0814791220

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9780814791226

Emerging Evangelicals

Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity

By: James S. Bielo

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Emerging Evangelicals

Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity

By: James S. Bielo

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238

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NYU Press

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ISBN 10

0814789544

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9780814789544

Materializing the Bible

Scripture, Sensation, Place

By: James S. Bielo

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Materializing the Bible

Scripture, Sensation, Place

By: James S. Bielo

What happens when the written words of biblical scripture are transformed into experiential, choreographed environments? To answer this question, anthropologist James Bielo explores a diverse range of practices and places that “materialize the Bible,” including gardens, theme parks, shrines, museums, memorials, exhibitions, theatrical productions, and other forms of replication. Integrating ethnographic, archival, and mass media data, case studies focus primarily on U.S. Christianity from the late 19th-century to the present. Composed as 20 short chapters that may be read in any order, the book is divided into three sections. Section I, “Variations on Replication,” analyzes examples that recontextualize elements from the (actual or imagined) biblical past. Section II, “The Power of Nature,” turns to the natural world associated with Christian scripture and how it is mobilized as a privileged media. Section III, “Choreographing Experience,” examines lived interactions with the affordances of materializing the Bible. Bielo argues that materializing the Bible works as an authorizing practice to intensify intimacies with scripture and circulate potent ideologies. Performed through the sensory experience of bodies, physical technologies, and infrastructures of place, Bielo illustrates how this phenomenon is always, ultimately, about expressions of power.

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289

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Bloomsbury Publishing

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ISBN 10

1350065056

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9781350065055

Ark Encounter

The Making of a Creationist Theme Park

By: James S. Bielo

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Ark Encounter

The Making of a Creationist Theme Park

By: James S. Bielo

Opened in July 2016, Ark Encounter is a creationist theme park in Kentucky. It features a re-creation of Noah's ark, built to full scale to creationist specifications drawn from Genesis, as well as exhibits that imagine the Bible's account of life before the flood." --Back cover.

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236

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NYU Press

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ISBN 10

1479842796

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9781479842797

Ark Encounter

The Making of a Creationist Theme Park

By: James S Bielo

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Ark Encounter

The Making of a Creationist Theme Park

By: James S Bielo

Behind the scenes at a creationist theme park with a mission to convert visitors through entertainment Opened to the public in July 2016, Ark Encounter is a creationist theme park in Kentucky. The park features an all-timber re-creation of Noah's ark, built full scale to creationist specifications drawn from the text of Genesis, as well as exhibits that imagine the Bible’s account of life before the flood. More than merely religious spectacle, Ark Encounter offers important insights about the relationship between religion and entertainment, religious publicity and creativity, and fundamentalist Christian claims to the public sphere. James S. Bielo examines these themes, drawing on his unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the Ark Encounter creative team during the initial design of the park. This unique anthropological perspective shows creationists outside church contexts, and reveals their extraordinary effort to materialize a controversial worldview for the general public. Taking readers from inside the park’s planning rooms to other fundamentalist projects and diverse Christian tourist attractions, Bielo illuminates how creationist cultural producers seek to reach both their constituents and the larger culture. The “making of” this creationist theme park, Bielo argues, allows us to understand how fundamentalist culture is produced, and how entertainment and creative labor are used to legitimize creationism. Through intriguing and surprising observations, Ark Encounter challenges readers to engage with the power of entertainment and to seriously grapple with creationist ambitions for authority. For believers and non-believers alike, this book is an invaluable glimpse into the complicated web of religious entertainment and cultural production.

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238

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NYU Press

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ISBN 10

1479852953

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9781479852956

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

By: James S Bielo

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Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

By: James S Bielo

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192

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Routledge

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1317542827

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9781317542827

Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil

Theology and Practice

By: Christopher B. James

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Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil

Theology and Practice

By: Christopher B. James

Defying predictions of the inevitable decline of Christianity in the US, Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil presents the untold story of new churches springing up in Seattle, one of the most post-Christian cities in the nation.

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369

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

0190673648

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9780190673642

Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion

By: James W. Watts

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Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion

By: James W. Watts

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE AS A SCRIPTURE IN HISTORY, CULTURE, AND RELIGION The Bible is a popular subject of study and research, yet biblical studies gives little attention to the reason for its popularity: its religious role as a scripture. Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion integrates the history of the religious interpretation and ritual uses of biblical books into a survey of their rhetoric, composition, and theology in their ancient contexts. Emphasizing insights from comparative studies of different religious scriptures, it combines discussion of the Bible’s origins with its cultural history into a coherent understanding of its past and present function as a scripture. A prominent expert on biblical rhetoric and the ritualization of books, James W. Watts describes how Jews and Christians ritualize the Bible by interpreting it, by expressing it in recitations, music, art, and film, and by venerating the physical scroll and book. The first two sections of the book are organized around the Torah and the Gospels—which have been the focus of Jewish and Christian ritualization of scriptures from ancient to modern times—and treat the history of other biblical books in relation to these two central blocks of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. In addition to analyzing the semantic contents of all the Bible’s books as persuasive rhetoric, Watts describes their ritualization in the iconic and expressive dimensions in the centuries since they began to function as a scripture, as well as in their origins in ancient Judaism and Christianity. The third section on the cultural history and scriptural function of modern bibles concludes by discussing their influence today and the controversies they have fueled about history, science, race, and gender. Innovative and insightful, Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion is a groundbreaking introduction to the study of the Bible as a scripture, and an ideal textbook for courses in biblical studies and comparative scripture studies.

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388

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

1119730376

ISBN 13

9781119730378

Materializing the Bible

Scripture, Sensation, Place

By: James S. Bielo

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Materializing the Bible

Scripture, Sensation, Place

By: James S. Bielo

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289

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Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350065064

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9781350065062

Landscapes of Christianity

Destination, Temporality, Transformation

By: James S. Bielo,Amos S. Ron

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Landscapes of Christianity

Destination, Temporality, Transformation

By: James S. Bielo,Amos S. Ron

How do Christians make relationships with land central to their faith? How have the realities of materiality, geography, and ecology shaped Christian territories of belonging and theologies of territory? What social-economic-political conditions surround exchanges between religion and nature? This book explores how Christianity intersects with nature to create unique religious landscapes. Case studies range from the Mormon Trail across the USA completed by thousands every year, to the Catholic devotional cult of and shrine to St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Contributors examine the entangled forms of agency between nature and culture that are at work as Christians produce, consume, experience, imagine, inhabit, manage, and struggle over formations of land. Focusing on Christian engagements with land forms in the early 21st century, this book advances the spatial turn in the study of religion, contributes to the anthropology of religion and the study of global Christianities, as well as our understanding of the relationship between Christianity, space and place.

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281

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Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350062901

ISBN 13

9781350062900

The Bible Reading of Young Evangelicals

By: Ruth H. Perrin

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The Bible Reading of Young Evangelicals

By: Ruth H. Perrin

Young evangelicals in Britain often find themselves at odds with an increasingly secular society, and yet the tradition persists and in some places flourishes. Sociological studies into the faith of this demographic group are rare, yet there is much to be explored as to how their faith functions and how it compares to other groups globally. Similarly, given the privilege evangelicals afford the biblical text, how young believers engage with the ancient Scriptures they understand to be ""the word of God"" is particularly significant. This work addresses that core question. How do young evangelicals make sense of the Bible today? Based on qualitative data gathered from three diverse evangelical churches it compares the reading priorities, ordinary hermeneutics, and theological concerns of young adults. Presenting age-related focus groups with challenging biblical narratives, the study compares strategies for negotiating the texts based on age, gender, and churchmanship. It provides a unique insight into the realities of Bible reading and the faith of ""Generation Y"" and gives food for thought not only to those with scholarly interests, but also those with a pastoral concern to shape and sustain the Christian faith of young adults in Britain and beyond. ""It is common knowledge that evangelical Christians take the Bible seriously. A question often overlooked is: how is it read? How do evangelicals find meaning in Biblical passages and how do they negotiate emerging tensions between the text and their cultural identities? This is a study that examines evangelical Biblicism not just as a theological priority but also as a social experience. Ruth Perrin has produced an innovative study, based on careful empirical research among young adult members of evangelical churches in the UK. This is a fascinating volume, full of fresh insights into how young Christians deal with the scriptures they place at the center of their faith."" --Mathew Guest, Reader in the Sociology of Religion, Durham University ""Many people have many theories about how and why young people do or do not read the Bible but these theories are all too often based on anecdote. Here at last is a serious piece of research that reflects deeply on the subject and is based on in-depth research with young people. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to encourage young people in their reading of the Bible."" --Paula R. Gooder, Theologian in Residence, Bible Society ""Ruth Perrin has charted new waters with this challenging and detailed study of the Bible reading habits of young Christians. She sets out to show how a generation of young people are interpreting the scriptures and making sense of the faith for themselves. For the academic this book is part of a growing literature on the ethnography of biblical reception. It is also an essential read for anyone working with young adults and in student ministries."" --Pete Ward, Professor, St. John's College Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University ""This is a really important book addressing the fundamental question of how younger evangelicals read the Bible and engage with deeper questions of faith. It is thorough and convincing, allowing participants' voices to be heard alongside Perrin's intelligent analysis of their engagement. It is a compelling read, and, given that this is a largely missing demographic from our churches, I commend it to all church leaders, especially those who seek to engage with this generation."" --Mark Tanner, Warden, Cranmer Hall, Durham University ""The importance of young evangelicals in the leadership of church and society, both present and future, should not be underestimated and consequently what they actually believe is of both academic and pastoral concern. Ruth Perrin's ground-breaking research gives both new data and insightful interpretation to help us all in this task."" --David Wilkinson, Principal, St. John's College; Professor of Theology and Religion,

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264

Published Date

ISBN 10

1498293441

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9781498293440

Book's by James S Bielo

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

Words Upon the Word

Words Upon the Word

Emerging Evangelicals

Emerging Evangelicals

Words Upon the Word

Words Upon the Word

Emerging Evangelicals

Emerging Evangelicals

Materializing the Bible

Materializing the Bible

Ark Encounter

Ark Encounter

Ark Encounter

Ark Encounter

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics

Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil

Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil

Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion

Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion

Materializing the Bible

Materializing the Bible

Landscapes of Christianity

Landscapes of Christianity

The Bible Reading of Young Evangelicals

The Bible Reading of Young Evangelicals

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