Sensing Sacred: Exploring the Human Senses in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care

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Sensing Sacred is an edited volume that explores the critical intersection of religion and body through the religious lens of practical theology, with an emphasis on sensation as the embodied means in which human beings know themselves, others, and the divine in the world. The manuscript argues that all human interaction and practice, including religious praxis, engages body through at least one of the human senses (touch, smell, hearing, taste, sight, kinestics/proprioception). Unfortunately, bodyand, more specifically and ironically, sensationis eclipsed in contemporary academic scholarship that is inherently bent toward the realm of theory and ideas. This is unfortunate because it neglects bodies, physical or communal, as the repository and generator of culturally conditioned ideas and theory. It is ironic because all knowledge transmission minimally requires several senses including sight, touch, and hearing. Sensing Sacred is organized into two parts. The first section devotes a chapter to each human sense as an avenue of accessing religious experience; while the second section explores religious practices as they specifically focus on one or more senses. The overarching aim of the volume is to explicitly highlight each sense and utilize the theoretical lenses of practical theology to bring to vivid life the connections between essential sensation and religious thinking and practice.

Reviews

Without neglecting bodily ethics and the right use of power relations, the authors in this volume offer a way to revalue the whole body in pastoral theology, utilizing both western and non-western traditions as foundations for reclaiming the five senses in pastoral practicea balancing act well accomplished. -- Pamela Cooper-White, Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor of Psychology and Religion, Union Theological Seminary in New York
In a field that often makes the mistake of dealing in polarities (e.g. individual v. society, subject v. object, psyche v. body), this volume unites them, arguing that the body mediates personal, cultural,social,andreligiousexperiences, and thus must be taken seriously as a site ofknowing and healing.Ifpractical theologians are to understand human being more fully, we mustcontend with physicality. This collection of essays invites readers into thiscomplex work oftaking embodied selves seriously, and encourages us to value themas loci of wisdom and theological insight. -- Barbara McClure, Brite Divinity School

Author Bio

Jennifer Baldwin is adjunct professor at Elmhurst College, executive director and clinician at Grounding Flight Wellness Center, founder and executive director of Vertical Exploration Foundation, and senior editor of Vertical Exploration Journal.