In 1965 the Second Vatican Council declared that God loves the Jews. Before that, the Church had taught for centuries that Jews were cursed by God and, in the 1940s, mostly kept silent as Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. How did an institution whose wisdom is said to be unchanging undertake one of the most enormous, yet undiscussed, ideological swings in modern history? The radical shift of Vatican II grew out of a buried history, a theological struggle in Central Europe in the years just before the Holocaust, when a small group of Catholic converts (especially former Jew Johannes Oesterreicher and former Protestant Karl Thieme) fought to keep Nazi racism from entering their newfound church. Through decades of engagement, extending from debates in academic journals, to popular education, to lobbying in the corridors of the Vatican, this unlikely duo overcame the most problematic aspect of Catholic history. Their success came not through appeals to morality but rather from a rediscovery of neglected portions of scripture. From Enemy to Brother illuminates the baffling silence of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, showing how the ancient teaching of deicide - according to which the Jews were condemned to suffer until they turned to Christ - constituted the Church's only language to talk about the Jews. As he explores the process of theological change, John Connelly moves from the speechless Vatican to those Catholics who endeavored to find a new language to speak to the Jews on the eve of, and in the shadow of, the Holocaust.

Relations between Christians and Jews over the past two thousand years have been characterised to a great extent by mutual distrust and by Christian discrimination and violence against Jews. In recent decades, however, a new spirit of dialogue has been emerging, beginning with an awakening among Christians of the Jewish origins of Christianity, and encouraging scholars of both traditions to work together. An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations sheds fresh light on this ongoing interfaith encounter, exploring key writings and themes in Jewish-Christian history, from the Jewish context of the New Testament to major events of modern times, including the rise of ecumenism, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the creation of the state of Israel. This accessible theological and historical study also touches on numerous related areas such as Jewish and interfaith studies, philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, international relations and the political sciences.

In 2005, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the longest civil war in African history. Stein Erik Horjen argues that although this second civil war was not a religious one, religion still played an important role in the conflict. Ensuring freedom of religion was a high priority for the SPLM and for the Sudanese churches, which were instrumental in preparing the ground for the 2005 agreement in the same way they had been in facilitating the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement in 1972. Focusing on the pivotal role of the Sudanese churches through a grassroots peace process called People to People, Horjen examines the churches' work in ensuring the success of the peace talks between the SPLM and the government sealed by the 2005 Peace Agreement. Taking up the role as the voice of the voiceless, the Sudanese churches challenged and criticized the military and political leaders in regards to abuses of power. In Reconciliation in the Sudans, Horjen details the tremendous suffering of the people during recurrent conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan. Understanding the history will allow the reader contextual insight into the latest conflict that erupted in South Sudan in 2013. The failure of including mechanisms for reconciliation in the CPA can be considered a main reason for this latest war.

The idea of a single devine being - God, Yahweh, Allah - has existed for over 4,000 years. But the history of God is also the history of human struggle. While Judaism, Islam and Christianity proclaim the goodness of God, organised religion has too often been the catalyst for violence and ineradicable prejudice. In this fascinating, extensive and original account of the evolution of belief, Karen Armstrong examines Western socitety's unerring fidelity to this idea of One God and the man conflicting convictions it engenders. A controversial, extraordinary sroty of worship and war, A HISTORY OF GOD confronts the most fundamental fact - or fiction - of our lives.

The relationship between Islam and feminism is complex. There are many Muslim scholars who fervently promote women's equality. At the same time, there is ambivalence regarding the general norms, terminology, and approaches of feminism and feminist theology. This ambivalence is in large part a product of various hegemonic, androcentric, and patriarchal discourses that seek to dictate legitimate and authoritative interpretations. These discourses not only fuel ambivalence, they also effectively obscure valuable possibilities related to interreligious feminist engagement. Divine Words, Female Voices is the follow-up to Jerusha Lamptey's 2014 book, Never Wholly Other, in which she introduced the idea of "Muslima" theology and applied it to the topic of religious diversity. In this new book, she extends her earlier arguments to contend that interreligious feminist engagement is both a theologically valid endeavor and a vital resource for Muslim women scholars. She introduces comparative feminist theology as a method for overcoming challenges associated with interreligious feminist engagement, reorients comparative discussions to focus on the two "Divine Words" (the Qur'an and Jesus) and feminist theology, and uses this reorientation to examine intersections, discontinuities, and insights related to diverse theological topics. This book is distinctive in its responsiveness to calls for new approaches in Islamic feminist theology, its use of the method of comparative theology, its focus on Muslim and Christian feminist theology in comparative analysis, and its constructive articulation of Muslima theological perspectives.

While the subject of Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian interaction is still not a traditional or systematic discipline, interest in the encounter of these two religions has grown considerably over the last decade. Historians, including historians of Islam and Christianity have always been interested in the civilizational meeting of the two religions, in conflict or in times of peace. This includes aspects of post-colonial studies, which incorporate cultural, literary and political writings which consider the intellectual and social ruptures in so much of the Islamic world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Theologians however have only recently begin to appreciate the amount of material which illustrates the extent to which Christians and Muslims wrote about one another's faith and spoke of each other in a variety of contexts in both polemical and eirenic terms. These resources serve to enrich the understanding of one's own faith and the changing historical relationship with the other. Today, Muslim-Christian is often understood as Islam/West where the Christianity and secularism are either conflated or Christianity subsumed within the larger cultural framework of the west. Either way, Islam is a foreign presence and its points of reference not easily assimilated in the narrative of a Judaeo-Christian West. Nevertheless this has created an interesting intellectual and scholarly dynamic in a wide range of disciplines. This includes ethics, politics, gender studies and the emergence of an `interfaith' literature which is increasingly used in scholarly as well as grass roots settings. The collection will comprise around sixty pre-published journal articles and some book chapters. Each volume will contain around 15 articles/chapters. The articles will be secondary sources analysing the works of individual Christian and Muslim scholars, so will not be extracts of primary material thought it is hoped that the majority will contain some primary material. Volume One will contain an Introduction to the whole collection. The volumes will provide a unique and rich reflection of Muslim-Christian encounter. This work will introduce the scholar and the student to the variety of approaches people of faith/no faith have taken to thinking about the two religions. The volumes will cover doctrine, interfaith practice as theory and lived realities and philosophical and literary themes and approaches.

This book explores how Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council, can influence inter-religious dialogue and understanding in the modern world. Although influential in religious, academic, and scholarly circles, it is relatively unknown outside these areas. The contributors remedy that deficit by highlighting the declaration's difficult historical and social context and the Church's evolving relationship with non-Christians. Contentious topics are examined such as the link between the Jewish people and the land and state of Israel, that questions the Catholic understanding of the relativity of national borders and identity, and the challenges posed to the Church's relationship with Islam by its prioritization of human rights and religious freedom for Christians and minorities in certain Muslim regimes. Given its scope, it is an ideal resource for graduate students and researchers in the fields of political science, international relations, religion, and minority studies.

This observant, witty book reveals the conventions that govern Muslim society - and charts the unwitting mistakes Westerners can makes when meeting Muslims. 'This book is for Christians venturing among Muslims,' explains Christine Mallouhi. 'It assumes that Christians will want to live honourable among Muslims for Christ's sake, and explores what that means...I am the Western wife of an Arab from a conservative Muslim family. My stories are from the shadow side of Muslim culture, which is invisible to most Westerners.' Her themes include: - status - the place of women - the veil - stereotypes - segregation and restrictions - family life - hospitality and witness

This edited volume offers solutions on the challenges of religious pluralisation from a European perspective. It gives special attention to interreligious dialogue and interfaith relations as specific means of dealing with plurality. In particular, the contributors describe innovative scientific approaches and broad political and social scopes of action for addressing the diversity of beliefs, practices, and traditions. In total, more than 25 essays bring together interdisciplinary and international research perspectives. The papers cover a wide thematic range. They highlight how religious pluralisation effects such fields as theology, politics, civil society, education, and communication/media. The contributors not only illustrate academic debates about religious diversity but they also look at the political and social scope for dealing with such. Coverage spans numerous countries, and beliefs, from Buddhism to Judaism. This book features presentations from the Herrenhausen Conference on "Religious Pluralisation - A Challenge for Modern Societies," held in Hanover, Germany, October 2016. This insightful collection will benefit students and researchers with an interest in religion and laicism, interreligious dialogue, governance of religious diversity, and religion in the public sphere.

This book is the first to critically analyze Buddhist-Muslim relations in Theravada Buddhist majority states in South and Southeast Asia. Asia is home to the largest population of Buddhists and Muslims. In recent years, this interfaith communal living has incurred conflicts, such as the ethnic-religious conflicts in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Experts from around the world collaborate to provide a comprehensive look into religious pluralism and religious violence. The book is divided into two sections. The first section provides historical background to the three countries with the largest Buddhist-Muslim relations. The second section has chapters that focus on specific encounters between Buddhists and Muslims, which includes anti-Buddhist sentiments in Bangladesh, the role of gender in Muslim-Buddhist relations and the rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya sentiments in Myanmar. By exploring historical fluctuations over time-paying particular attention to how state-formations condition Muslim-Buddhist entanglements-the book shows the processual and relational aspects of religious identity constructions and Buddhist-Muslim interactions in Theravada Buddhist majority states.

Il profeta islamico Maometto diede avvio a un programma teologico in forma teocratica. Poiche il Corano, in molti modi, si rivolge ai cristiani e agli ebrei e li invita a fare dichiarazioni, una risposta propriamente teologica e legittima e necessaria. Tenendo conto delle attuali ricerche scientifiche sull'Islam, questo libro tratta le fonti del Corano, le fondamentali caratteristiche del suo rapporto con l'ebraismo e la sua percezione di Gesu. Cio conduce ad una valutazione realistica dell'Islam e ad impulsi per una rinnovata autocomprensione cristiana. Il quarto capitolo presenta le affermazioni largamente sconosciute del filosofo ebreo Franz Rosenzweig e del teologo Joseph Ratzinger/Benedetto XVI sull'Islam che sono un aiuto decisivo per l'orientamento al di la della sottomissione.

The subject of religious diversity is of growing significance, with its associated problems of religious pluralism and inter-faith dialogue. Moreover, since the European Enlightenment, religions have had to face new, existential challenges. Is there a future for religions? How will they have to change? Can they co-exist peacefully? In this book, Keith Ward brings new insights to these questions. Applying historical and philosophical approaches, he explores how we can establish truth among so many diverse religions. He explains how religions have evolved over time and how they are reacting to the challenges posed by new scientific and moral beliefs. A celebration of the diversity in the world's religions, Ward's timely book also deals with the possibility and necessity of religious tolerance and co-existence.

This enlightening edited collection shows how migration shapes the lives of faith communities - and vice versa - through diverse prisms including diaspora, generational change, cultural conflict, conceptions of 'ministry' and artistic response. The contributors comprise writers, poets and artists from the three largest Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and beyond. They show how issues of migration are addressed through a variety of different media such as theological debate and shared community action, poetry and art. As issues of migration are an important factor in so many political and social debates, faith communities are looking for guidance on how to deepen their theological understanding of migration. This book helps them to reflect on their own practices and experiences, learn from their own traditions and engage in dialogue with diverse communities. *All royalties from book sales will be donated to The Helen Bamber Foundation - a UK-based charity that supports people who have survived extreme physical, sexual and psychological violence.*

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has promoted a Shi'a Islamic identity aimed at transcending ethnic and national boundaries. During the same period, Iran's Armenian community, once a prominent Christian minority in Tehran, has declined by more than eighty percent. Although the Armenian community is recognised by the constitution and granted specific privileges under Iranian law, they do not share equal rights with their Shi'i Muslim compatriots. Drawing upon interviews conducted with members of the Armenian community and using sources in both Persian and Armenian languages, this book questions whether the Islamic Republic has failed or succeeded in fostering a cohesive identity which enables non-Muslims to feel a sense of belonging in this Islamic Republic. As state identities are also often key in exacerbating ethnic conflict, this book probes into the potential cleavage points for future social conflict in Iran.

Seitdem John Hick durch seine pluralistische Position den Weg fur eine Annaherung der Religionen geschaffen hat, haben seine Werke viel Aufmerksamkeit von Anhangern und Kritikern erfahren. Dieses Werk setzt sich kritisch mit dem Lebenswerk Hicks auseinander, und vergleicht die Argumente fur seine Ansicht mit denen von Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Alvin Plantinga und Karl Rahner. Der Autor legt die Pramissen der vier Positionen offen, und macht deutlich, warum trotz aller berechtigten Kritik die pluralistische Position die plausibelste Antwort auf die Frage liefert, wieso es mehrere Religionen gibt, wenn laut dem NT (nur) Jesus Christus der Weg, die Wahrheit und das Leben ist.

This book explores the relationship between the distinctive Islamic beliefs (Ibadism) of Oman and how they define the experience of the church with regards to religious freedom. Oman is a nation with a long and glorious history of maritime trade, stretching from China and India to the East coast of Africa. From sultan to shopkeeper, farmer to craftsman, the citizens of Oman embrace a surprising diversity of cultural heritage ranging from Baluchi, Persian, Yemeni, and East African. Yet, there has hitherto been very little research about Christianity in this part of the world. Through the use of historical research, interviews and theological discourse, Andrew David Thompson analyzes and reveals the distinctive experience of the Church in Oman.

In Shoah Through Muslim Eyes, the author discusses her journey with Judaism as a Muslim. Her book is based on the struggle with antisemitism within Muslim communities and her interviews with Shoah survivors. Rejecting polemical myths about the Holocaust and Jews, Afridi offers a new way of creating understanding between the two communities through the acceptance the enormity of the Shoah. Her journey is both personal and academic: the reader can find nuances of her belief in Islam, principles of justice, and the loneliness of such a journey. The chapters discuss the Holocaust and how it was in truth unprecedented, interviews with survivors, antisemitism and Islamophobia, camps in Arab lands, and Islam and memory. Afridi includes newly-uncovered Muslim-Arab narratives that enhance our understanding of the reach of the Holocaust into Muslim lands under the Vichy and Nazi governments.

In Germany at the turn of the century, Buddhism transformed from an obscure topic, of interest to only a few misfit scholars, into a cultural phenomenon. Many of the foremost authors of the period were profoundly influenced by this rapid rise of Buddhism-among them, some of the best-known names in the German-Jewish canon. Sebastian Musch excavates this neglected dimension of German-Jewish identity, drawing on philosophical treatises, novels, essays, diaries, and letters to trace the history of Jewish-Buddhist encounters up to the start of the Second World War. Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Leo Baeck, Theodor Lessing, Jakob Wassermann, Walter Hasenclever, and Lion Feuchtwanger are featured alongside other, lesser known figures like Paul Cohen-Portheim and Walter Tausk. As Musch shows, when these thinkers wrote about Buddhism, they were also negotiating their own Jewishness.

In a context of scandal and precipitous decline, the Christian church cannot afford to do what it has always done, argues Eugene R. Schlesinger. It must return to its roots and clarify to itself and the general public what its nature and purpose are. Sacrificing the Church provides this clarity by returning to the church’s foundation: Jesus Christ and his crucifixion. It presents a vision of the church in which every aspect of the church’s life flows from and expresses the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This sacrifice is the basis of every ecclesial experience. It is the form and content of the church’s life, a life which shares in the eternal Trinitarian life of God. By Christ’s sacrifice we are introduced into the divine life, and therefore we must participate in it. This plays out in three key areas of the church’s life: its worship of God (Mass), its mission to the world (mission), and its efforts toward the unity of all people, beginning with divided Christians (ecumenism).

Western Christians in the twentieth century viewed Islam through a lens of social and political concerns that would have appeared novel to their medieval and early-modern predecessors. Concerns about the predicament of secular 'modernity' infused Christian discourse with distinct assumptions that shaped engagement with Islam in fundamentally new ways. J. N. D. (Norman) Anderson (1908-94), a highly influential British Christian scholar of Islam, embodied this new orientation in his commitment to 'modernise' Islam. Anderson's engagement with Islam as a missionary, intelligence agent, scholar of Islamic law and advisor to various Muslim governments, spanned multiple decades and continents. As well as shaping Western understandings of Islamic law and its application, he was involved in debates about the end of the British Empire and the transformation of Christian missions following formal decolonisation. Because of Anderson's location at the intersection of so many different debates concerning Islam, his life provides unique insights into the ways in which Christians reconfigured their response to Islam in the last century. Given Christianity's continued influence on British and American ideas about Islam, this study provides crucial insight into the persistent focus on 'modernising' and 'secularising' Islam today.

Der islamische Prophet Muhammad ist einst mit einem theologischen Programm in theokratischer Gestalt angetreten. Da der Koran Christen und Juden vielfach anspricht und zu Stellungnahmen auffordert, ist eine theologische Antwort legitim und notwendig. Der vorliegende Band behandelt unter Einbeziehung aktueller islamwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse die Quellen des Korans, die Grundzuge seines Verhaltnisses zum Judentum und sein Jesusbild. Daraus ergeben sich sowohl eine realistische Bewertung des Islam als auch Impulse fur ein christliches Selbstverstandnis. Das 4. Kapitel stellt die weithin unbekannten Sichtweisen des judischen Philosophen Franz Rosenzweig und des Theologen Joseph Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI. auf den Islam hin vor - als entscheidende Orientierungshilfe jenseits von Unterwerfung.

"Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East."-Robert Fisk, The Independent Today's headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi's Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this cliched portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the "ecumenical frame." He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world. Despite massive challenges and setbacks, and despite the persistence of colonialism and authoritarianism, this framework for coexistence has endured for nearly a century. It is a reminder that religious diversity does not automatically lead to sectarianism. Instead, as Makdisi demonstrates, people of different faiths, but not necessarily of different political outlooks, have consistently tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences.

Das geistliche Spiel des Mittelalters erfuhr wahrend der Reformationszeit massgebliche Veranderungen. Dennoch lebten Teile der mittelalterlichen Spieltradition auch in den geistlichen Dramen protestantischer Dramatiker fort, indem sie reflektierten Transformationsprozessen unterworfen wurden, die semantische Verschiebungen, Adaptionen und Modifikationen mit sich brachten. Die komparatistische und interdisziplinare Studie von Maximiliane Johanna Antonia Gurth beleuchtet vielfaltige Erscheinungsformen, Aspekte und Kontexte dieser Transformationen im protestantischen Drama des 16. Jahrhunderts und zeigt, wie die theologischen Bruche, inter- und binnenkonfessionelle Konflikte, aber auch transkonfessionelle Gemeinsamkeiten, uber interkonfessionelle Austauschprozesse immer wieder neu verhandelt wurden. Die Autorin untersucht und analysiert den Einfluss diskursiver und gesellschaftlicher Kontexte auf die konkrete Realisierung von Interkonfessionalitat im protestantischen Drama und entwirft einen neu perspektivierten Blick auf die kommunikative Interaktion der Konfessionen in der Reformationszeit.

This comprehensive volume brings together a distinguished editorial team, including some of the field's pioneers, to explore the aims, practice, and historical context of interfaith collaboration. Explores in full the background, history, objectives, and discourse between the leaders and practitioners of the world's major religions Examines relations between religions from around the world, moving well beyond the common focus on Christianity, to also cover over 12 major religions Features a wealth of case studies on contemporary interreligious dialogue Charts a long-term shift away from a competitive rivalry between belief systems, and a change in focus towards the more respectful, cooperative approach reflected in institutions such as the World Council of Churches Includes up-to-date commentary on the growing dialogue of recent years, written by some of the leading figures working in the field of interfaith discourse