Yet five hundred years ago the world was very much enchanted. It was a world where God existed and the devil was real. It was a world full of angels and demons. It was a world of holy wells and magical eels. But since the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the Enlightenment, the world—in the West, at least—has become increasingly disenchanted.
While this might be taken as evidence of a crisis of belief, Richard Beck argues it's actually a crisis of attention. God hasn't gone anywhere, but we've lost our capacity to see God.
The rising tide of disenchantment has profoundly changed our religious imaginations and led to a loss of the holy expectation that we can be interrupted by the sacred and divine. But it doesn't have to be this way. Hunting Magic Eels shows us that with attention and an intentional, cultivated capacity to experience God as a living, vital presence in our lives, we can cultivate an enchanted faith in a skeptical age. This new paperback edition includes a foreword from Sean Palmer as well as updated content throughout.
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781506487670
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: 1517 Media
Publication Date: 03-05-2024
Pages: 250
Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)
About the Author
Richard Beck is professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, where he also lives. He is a popular blogger and speaker. He is the author of several books, most recently Trains, Jesus, and Murder: The Gospel according to Johnny Cash and Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise. His published research also covers topics as diverse as the psychology of profanity and why Christian bookstore art is so bad. Beck leads a Bible study each week for inmates at a maximum-security prison.
Table of Contents