Paul Brockelman is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of New Hampshire.
Summary
This book explores what is meant by claims of religious understanding and truth. It argues that at the end of
the twentieth century we are undergoing a revolution in our thinking about ourselves and our place in nature, and
that the worldview pervading modern culture is dissolving because it has marginalized and hindered authentic religious
understanding and practice. It has spiritually degraded and destroyed the natural environment upon which it depends.
The book describes how this situation developed, and proposes an alternative postmodern, narrative concept of religious
understanding that may help us to transcend these spiritual and ecological problems. This model of religious truth
explores a new cosmological story that has emerged over the past twenty-five years. It is a story that will enrich
and deepen our spiritual experience while helping us cope with possibly the most disastrous and dangerous consequence
of modernity--the present worldwide ecological crisis.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part I. The Historical Story
1. From Myth to Modernity
2. A Postmodern Story about Human Understanding
Part II. The Heart of the Matter
3. The Narrative Self
4. Mythology and the Narrative Interpretation of Life
5. Faith: Living the Story
6. Narrative Knowledge and Religious Truth
