Science and Religion v Spirituality and Health v Character Development v Business and Spirituality
July 2006
Issue 23
The earthquakes, tsunami, and hurricanes of the past year have shown that faith-based and community organizations have the ability to step in and provide immediate assistance to victims—often while government agencies are in the midst of trying to organize a response. The potential for these organizations was apparent after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when so many Americans turned to religion in order to cope with fear and uncertainty. But even as faith-based organizations (FBOs) more fully realize the crucial role they have and look for specific ways to help, there are few, if any, guidelines for them. Furthermore, integrating their efforts with governmental agencies is fraught with difficulties.
In the Wake of Disaster: Religious Responses to Terrorism and Catastrophe, by Harold G. Koenig, M.D., provides the most detailed examination to date of what and how faith-based and community organizations can contribute in the aftermath of disasters and terrorism.
Koenig begins with an examination of the psychological and spiritual responses people have when disaster strikes, emphasizing the stages that victims go through. Understanding normal responses to trauma will help faith communities know where their help is needed most and what kind of help is needed as time goes on, he explains.
He provides details on how faith-based efforts can be coordinated at the local level. Disaster experts contribute their advice on who should lead such efforts in order to maximize the contributions of spiritually motivated individuals and religious communities. A disaster plan is presented, showing faith communities how they can ready themselves to ensure the survival of their own members as well as meet the needs of others. Koenig emphasizes the future impact that individuals and communities of faith can have in helping communities not only bounce back after disasters, but also become more resilient.
Too often, lack of cooperation from local and national
organizations, territoriality, competition, and other factors prevents FBOs
from fully contributing to disaster response efforts. Koenig offers specific
recommendations that
Please visit our Web site at www.templetonpress.org and click on the Look Inside feature to view a full table of contents.
In Wonder and Wisdom: Conversations in Science, Spirituality, and Theology, Celia Deane-Drummond explores the emotion of wonder and perceptions of wisdom, and shows how this process expands the dialogue between science and religion.
The discussion of wonder begins with its Indo-European roots. Its definition grows and changes with Aristotle, medieval writers, early Christians, and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers. By the eighteenth-century, Deane-Drummond notes, “wonder came to be linked with the ignorant rather than the sophisticated,” replaced in stature by curiosity, which was perceived as “the badge of the disinterested and dedicated scientist.”
Incorporating insights from Eastern and Western religious traditions, as well as Franciscan spirituality, Deane-Drummond shows how wonder opens wisdom to the dimension of the transcendent: “Wonder beckons us to a future that does not simply emerge out of our origin, but towards a new future that can only be best described in theological language.”
Deane-Drummond demonstrates that by weaving wonder and wisdom together, a deeper spirituality can surface that integrates theology and science. “If wisdom is the voice for theology at the boundary of science, so wonder reminds theology that science too offers its own wisdom that needs to be taken into account,” she comments.
Visit our Web site for more information about this book: http://www.templetonpress.org/
Chronic illness, suffering, and pending death often spur a cry or prayer for God’s intervention. But what happens when miracles do not happen?
In When Sickness Heals: The Place of Religious Belief in Healthcare, Dr. Siroj Sorajjakool explores the important developmental task that people go through when they are seriously ill. He draws on more than ten years of studies on health benefits in relation to spirituality and expounds on his theory that healing is primarily the function of meaning, and meaning transcends sickness and even death itself.
He proposes that most seriously ill people go through a transition that leads to changes in theological understanding and a movement from belief in a God of intervention to the God who remains with us up to and through the final moments of death.
A clear, distinct understanding of spirituality in clinical contexts is presented, with an argument for the role of meaning in the healing process, based on evidence that there may be healing even in the face of death. Sorajjakool presents an approach to spiritual assessment that incorporates the place of pain, miracles, and fantasy as forms of language that give insight into individuals’ spiritual developmental stages. He provides methods of spiritual care that speak to the soul, and emphasizes the need for the caregiver to be fully present in the life of those going through crisis. These methods of support and nurturing make transition a possibility.
Visit our Web site for more information about this book: http://www.templetonpress.org/
For more than 250 years, the New Thought movement has influenced the thinking of millions of people searching for spiritual truth in world religions and modern science. The New Thought movement seeks to help position the soul for ways of coping with daily living.
In New Thought, Ancient Wisdom, Glenn R. Mosley
chronicles the history of the movement, beginning with the influences of
Emanuel Swedenborg, Franz Mesmer, and more directly of Phineas Parkhurst
Quimby. He provides biographical sketches and the philosophies of those who
developed New Thought into a worldwide movement by establishing individual
movements, including Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, founders of Unity; Mary Baker
Eddy, founder of the Church of Christ; Malinda Cramer and Nona Brooks, founders
of Divine Science; and Emma Curtis Hopkins, the teacher of the founders of most
New Thought movements. There are also capsule portraits of those who founded
the
Mosley looks at the impact of the movement and its effect on millions throughout the world.
The book concludes with a review of the World Parliament of
Religions in
Visit our Web site for more information about this book: http://www.templetonpress.org/
Have you listened to a good book lately? Statistics show that the use of audio books is on the rise. An audio book is a recording of the contents of a book that is read aloud. It is usually distributed on CDs, cassette tapes, or digital formats (e.g., MP3 and/or Windows Media Audio). The term “audio book” has been synonymous with “books on tape” for roughly twenty years.
Templeton Foundation Press, through the Templeton Audio imprint, now has fourteen audio books available in CD format. All books are unabridged, which means that the audio books are word for word readings of the books.
Audio books are an alternative for people with poor vision, blindness, or any disability that makes it difficult to read a standard printed page. They can be loaded and listened to through home stereo systems, laptop or desk computers, car stereos, and even personal compact disc players.
They are a perfect companion while traveling or commuting. According to 2005 American Community Survey (ACS) data released earlier this year by the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans spend more than 100 hours commuting to work each year, with the overall national average at 24.3 minutes per one-way commute.
The audio books can be ordered the same way as our other
publications: through bookstores, on our Web site, by calling or faxing our
distribution center in
For more information or to listen to a sample of our audio books, please visit http://www.templetonpress.org/audio_books.asp
The Science and Religion Bookstore continues to add new
content periodically. Here you will be
able to peruse such books as Galileo,
Published by Harvard University Press is the book Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness by John S. Rigden. This book explains what distinguishes 1905 from all other years in the annals of science, and elevates Einstein above all other scientists of the twentieth century. This book invites us to learn about ideas that have influenced our lives in almost inconceivable ways and to appreciate Einstein’s status as the standard of greatness in twentieth-century science.
For a comprehensive listing of books published in the fields of science and religion, visit the online Science and Religion Bookstore. Here you will find more than 1,000 books published by more than 250 publishers. While you are there you will be able to access the online Research Library.
All books featured on the Science and Religion Bookstore are offered at a 20 percent discount. Visit today at: http://www.scienceandreligionbooks.org/
Harold G. Koenig, M.D.
“In medicine, we can expect machines to give us a lot of answers. But the questions our patients ask us, the biggest ones, call for a response, not from machines but from ourselves as fellow human beings. What are our greatest fears? What of our mortality? How much of life remains? Why are we being afflicted? Are we being, or will be, punished? Can we find comfort in the embrace of a greater, divine reality? Koenig shows in this small book that far from avoiding such questions, the doctor can readily engage with his/her patients with sensitivity and openness, and that whatever the clinical outcome, those in need will have had the solace and encouragement of being recognized and valued in their personhood. Doctors, too, will find that they are by no means excluded from the spiritual replenishment that such soul-to-soul contact invariably brings.”
—The Scientific and Medical Network,
Spring 2006
Thrift and Generosity
John M. Templeton Jr., M.D.
“The wonderful quotes in this book, along with the common sense simplicity of appreciating what your have and giving what you should, make this a very worthwhile book. I highly recommend it. If we all raised our children in this way, the world would certainly be a better place.”
—The
April 9, 2006
Full reviews may be found on our Web site at www.templetonpress.org.
The current best sellers for Templeton Foundation Press are listed below. The statistics are an accumulation of both domestic and foreign sales and are updated monthly.
Books
1. Spirituality in Patient Care
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=47
2. Hand of God, The
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=1
3. Ways and Power of Love, The
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=48
4. Street Saints
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=71
5. Faith and Mental Health
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=80
6. In the Wake of Disaster
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=84
7. Christianity and Process Thought
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=87
8. When Sickness Heals
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=85
Audio Books
1. Spiritual Investments
http://www.templetonpress.org/audio_books.asp
2. Spirituality in Patient Care
http://www.templetonpress.org/audio_books.asp
3. Noble Purpose
http://www.templetonpress.org/audio_books.asp
4. Love That Works
http://www.templetonpress.org/audio_books.asp
E-books
1. Unlimited Love
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=58
2. Spirituality in Patient Care
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=47
3. Research on Altruism and Love
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=59
4. Parish Nursing
http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=46
Templeton Foundation Press is pleased to provide an examination copy of textbooks to qualifying professors. Copies are limited to one copy per title per professor, for possible textbook use only.
For more information or to download the request form, please visit http://www.templetonpress.org/textbookexamination.asp
Books from Templeton Foundation Press are available at better bookstores and through our Web site at www.templetonpress.org. You may also order by calling our distribution center at 800-621-2736. Orders placed through our Web site receive a 20 percent discount.
Templeton Foundation Press
West
Email: tfp@templetonpress.org
TFP Newsletter is a periodic update from Templeton Foundation Press.
Do you know someone who would like to become a friend of the Press? Please forward this email to their attention or have them visit our Web site for easy registration.
To subscribe: http://www.templetonpress.org/friendsofthepress.asp
To unsubscribe or to change your email address, send an email to: pvergilio@templetonpress.org
©2006 Templeton Foundation Press. All rights reserved.