This is the Ralph T.H. Griffith translation of the Atharvaveda. The Atharvaveda is a Vedic-era collection of spells, prayers, charms and hymns. There are prayers to protect crops from lightning and drought, charms against venomous serpents, love spells, healing spells and hundreds of verses, some derived from the Rig Veda, that are all very ancient.

The Yajur Veda is primarily comprised of prose mantras for worship rituals. An ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, it is a compilation of ritual-offering formulas that were said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions.

The Sama Veda, or Veda of Holy Songs, third in the usual order of enumeration of the three Vedas, ranks next in sanctity and liturgical importance to the Rig Veda, or the Veda of Recited Praise. Its Sanhita, or metrical portion, consists chiefly of hymns to be chanted by the Udgatar priests at the performance […]

An ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts known as the Vedas. There are just over one thousand hymns in the Rig Veda, made up of more than ten thousand verses.

Shawn Daggett is director of the Center for World Missions at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. Shawn served as a missionary to Bergamo, Italy, for ten years before teaching at Harding University. His focus is on missions history, anthropology and the New Testament.

Brian D. McLaren, founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Burtonsville, Md., is a central figure in the movement. He is a lightning rod among emerging thinkers because of his interest in the intersection of faith and progressive politics. His many books on the subject include the popular A New Kind of Christian: A Tale […]

Read a Beliefnet article about the differentiation between evangelicals and fundamentalists in their application of the “fundamentals” of faith to the modern world.

Read a Jan. 6, 2006 post about the three broad categories of the Emerging Church Movement– relevants, reconstructuralists and revisionists– and their different focuses and practices.

View the 12 Emerging Church characteristics on the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry’s post.