Description: In Bringing the Sacred Down to Earth, Corinne Dempsey offers a comparative study of Hindu and Christian, Indian and Euro/American earthbound religious expressions. She argues that official religious, political, and epistemological systems tend to deny sacred access and expression to the general populace, and are abstracted and disembodied in ways that make them irrelevant to if not neglectful of earthly realities.
Review Quotes: "Bringing the Sacred Down to Earth advocates compellingly for the enduring validity of the comparative method in religious studies. Through four fascinating, ethically engaged examples of cross-cultural and trans-historical comparison, Dempsey provides ample evidence that this approach can yield rich insights. Among the most stimulating is Dempsey's argument that religion is most empowering and fosters human flourishing most effectively not when it projects abstract utopias, but when it arises out of and informs people's messy, on-the-ground lived experiences."--Eliza F. Kent, author of Converting Women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India