Download PDF: RV Hoelle, Hanukkah in America By Dianne Ashton New York: New York University Press, 2013. 343 pages. $29.95. Hanukkah is one of the least important festivals in the Jewish religious calendar, yet it is one of the two holidays celebrated
Download PDF: RV Green, Redeeming a Prison Society By Amy Levad Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014. 233 pages. $39.00. The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Disproportionately incarcerating African Americans, Latinos, and the
Download PDF: RV Grace, Be Still and Know By Norris J. Chumley Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. 156 pages. $29.00. “If ever there was a need for peace, the time is now” (79). Simultaneous to the writing of this book, the author
Download PDF: Myers, Beyond Border Raids In her recent book, Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline, Bonnie Miller-McLemore presents a helpful and compelling case for a more inclusive theology that draws explicitly from the disciplines of practical theology. She argues
Download PDF: RV Brooks, Staging Faith By Craig Prentiss New York: New York University Press, 2013. 167 pages. $25.00 Craig R. Prentiss offers a refreshing text exploring the intersection of religion and artistic production in African American culture. Operating under the
Download PDF: Bender, Hallucinations * Editors’ Note: This essay is part of the Roundtable on Ethnography and Religion. Are field methods good for every religious studies scholar? Robert Orsi argues that we all need to learn how to do fieldwork in
Download PDF: Orsi, Doing Religious Studies * Editors’ Note: This essay is part of the Roundtable on Ethnography and Religion. This method does not satisfy us. It is a priori. It does not derive its concepts from experience—or at least
Download PDF: Five Issues In It has been five years since the idea of Practical Matters began, not on the website screen, but rather in the imaginations of graduate students who observed an important convergence of interests between scholars of religious practices and
Download PDF: RV Mahn, I Was and I am Dust By David Mellott Virgil Michel Series, ed. Don Saliers. Collegeville, MN: Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009. 174 pages. $29.95 When undergraduate students exploring a religion major come to my office, I find myself
Download PDF: Hucks, Perspectives in Lived History Abstract For scholars trained in the discipline of religion and open to researching across disciplinary boundaries, the social science method of ethnography affords unique access to the lived dimensions of human experience and practice.
Download PDF: RV McDonald, Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice By Mary Clark Moschella Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2008. 270 pages. $19.80. Designed to complement a ten-week long semester course on “pastoral research” in either a master of divinity program or doctorate
Download PDF: Martin and Whitmore, Reflections on Intersections Welcome to the third issue of Practical Matters. In this issue, we highlight Ethnography and Theology. In the “doing” of theology, a turn to ethnography is gaining momentum. Many scholars of religion who did
Download PDF: Thomas and Wright, Appreciative Interest in the Religious Lives of Young People In their study of youth and vocation, Dori Grinenko Baker and Joyce Ann Mercer notice a disturbing tendency among adults to view adolescence as an ever-expanding transitional
Download PDF: Goto and Levad, Engaging Imagination The inaugural issue of Practical Matters on the theme of “Imagination” began with a seemingly simple statement in our call for submissions: “Without imagination, human beings could neither come to know their world as
Download PDF: Campbell and Mote, Introducing Practical Matters Welcome to Practical Matters. In this journal you will find digital scholarship that utilizes the capacities of the internet to ask and provoke new questions about religious practices and practical theology. You will