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Books > Religion & Spirituality > General > Interfaith relations
The editors of Experiments in Empathy: Critical Reflections on
Interreligious Education have assembled a volume that spans
multiple religious traditions and offers innovative methods for
teaching and designing interreligious learning. This groundbreaking
text includes established interreligious educators and emerging
scholars who expand the vision of this field to include critical
studies, decolonial approaches and exciting pedagogical
developments. The book includes voices that are often left out of
other comparative theology or interreligious education texts.
Scholars from evangelical, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish,
religiously hybrid and other background enrich the existing models
for interreligious classrooms. The book is particularly relevant at
a time when religion is so often harnessed for division and hatred.
By examining the roots of racism, xenophobia, sexism and their
interaction with religion that contribute to inequity the volume
offers real world educational interventions. The content is in high
demand as are the authors who contributed to the volume.
Contributors are: Scott Alexander, Judith A. Berling, Monica A.
Coleman, Reuven Firestone, Christine Hong, Jennifer Howe Peace,
Munir Jiwa, Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Tony Ritchie, Rachel Mikva, John
Thatanamil, Timur Yuskaev.
This history celebrates the Catholic League, an ecumenical society
founded in 1913 to promote the unity of Christians and to encourage
the journey of all towards the visible unity of the whole Church.
It was founded by Anglicans who believed passionately that the
future of their Church lay in the reunion of all Christians in a
common Catholic and Apostolic faith in restored full communion with
the Successor of Peter in the see of Rome. Today, its members
include Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Eastern Catholic,
Free Church Christians who work together in pursuit of the League's
four objectives: - The promotion of fellowship among those who
profess the Catholic faith; - The union of all Christians with the
Apostolic See of Rome; - The spread of the Catholic faith; - The
deepening of the spiritual life.
Learning Interreligiously offers a series of about one hundred
short pieces, written online between 2008 and 2016. They are meant
for a wide range of readers interested in interreligious dialogue,
interreligious learning, and the realities of Hindu-Christian
encounter today, and are rich in insights drawn from teaching,
travels in America and India, and the author's research on sacred
texts. The author, a Catholic priest who has spent more than forty
years learning from Hinduism and observing religion as a plus and
minus in today's world, has much to share with readers. Some pieces
were prompted by items in the news, some go deeper into traditions
and probe the rich Scriptures and practices going back millennia,
some seek simply to provoke fresh thinking, and others invite
spiritual reflection. The book is divided into several parts so
that readers can focus on individual events that made the news or
on longer term and more concerted study. Familiar texts such as the
Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, the Qur'an, and key passages from
the New Testament will be considered for their spiritual
possibilities. Readers will find much here to learn from and
respond to as they too consider religion in today's world.
Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth are often taken to be two of the
greatest theologians in the Christian tradition. This book
undertakes a systematic comparison of them through the lens of five
key topics: (1) the being of God, (2) Trinity, (3) Christology, (4)
grace and justification, and (5) covenant and law. Under each of
these headings, a Catholic portrait of Aquinas is presented in
comparison with a Protestant portrait of Barth, with the
theological places of convergence and contrast highlighted. This
volume combines a deep commitment to systematic theology with an
equally profound commitment to mutual engagement. Understood
rightly and well, Aquinas and Barth contribute powerfully to the
future of theology and to an ecumenism that takes doctrinal
confession seriously while at the same time seeking unity among
Christians. Contributors: John R. Bowlin Holly Taylor Coolman
Robert W. Jenson Keith L. Johnson Guy Mansini, O.S.B. Amy Marga
Bruce L. McCormack Richard Schenk, O.P. Joseph P. Wawrykow Thomas
Joseph White, O.P.
Antisemitism is generally thought to derive from chimerical images
of Jews, who became the victims of these projections. Some
scholars, however, allege that the Jews' own conduct was the main
cause of the hatred directed toward them in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Olaf Blaschke takes up this provocative
question by considering the tensions between German Catholicism and
Judaism in the period of the "Kulturkampfe." Did Catholic
resentments merely construct "their" secular Jew? Or did their
antisemitism in fact derive from their perceptions of the conduct
of liberal Jewish "offenders" during a period of social stress?
Blaschke's deeper look at this crucial period of German history,
particularly as revealed in the Catholic and Jewish presses,
provides new and sometimes surprising insights.
Beginning with Catholic attitudes to the Act of Union, this work
traces various elements in the interrelationship between the
Catholic Church and the state in Ireland in the 19th century.
Catholicism's role in the Protestant state for most of the century
was tempered and conditioned by its relationship with the various
Protestant churches in the country. In the development of its
infrastructure, facilitating as it did along with other factors the
'devotional revolution', the church was in many ways dependent upon
Protestant financial help. The ironies and complexities of this
situation is a consistent theme in these essays. Although the
religion of the vast majority of the Irish people Catholicism, in
its institutional aspect, felt itself to be undervalued and
underappreciated by the Protestant state.Its dealings with the
state where tempered by its relative poverty and it dependence on
the state for various benefactions not least the generous provision
for Catholic clerical education. For the first time in the
historiography, some attention is paid to the relations between the
Catholic Churches in Ireland and England in an era when the future
cardinal Nicholas Wiseman attempted to pose as an unofficial
adviser to government on Irish and Vatican affairs, in
circumstances which caused resentment among Irish Catholic
churchmen.
This major collection of essays begins with a brief biography of
well-known Islam scholar Mahmoud Ayoub and a substantial
introduction by Ayoub to his study of Christianity and
Muslim-Christian dialogue. A bibliography of Ayoub's significant
publications is included. The essays are grouped into four
sections.
Earth, Empire and Sacred Text examines the Muslim-Christian
theology of creation and humanity, aiming to construct a dialogue
to enable both faiths to work together to preserve our planet, to
bring justice to its most needy inhabitants, and to contribute to
peace-building. Earth, Empire and Sacred Text opens with an
analysis of the influential shift from the Cartesian view of the
autonomous, disembodied self to a self defined in discourse,
community and culture. The "career" of Q. 2:30 (Adam's God-mandated
trusteeship) is then traced, from Islamic commentaries of the
classical period to writings of Muslim scholars in the modern and
postmodern periods. This is examined alongside the concept of human
trusteeship under God in Christian and Jewish writers. The book
concludes by highlighting the essential elements for a
Muslim-Christian theology of human trusteeship.
Surprising Bedfellows: Hindus and Muslims in Medieval and Early
Modern India argues that religious and cultural identities in
medieval and early modern India were marked by fluid and constantly
shifting relationships rather than by the binary model of
opposition that is assumed in so much scholarship. Building on the
pioneering work of scholars such as Cynthia Talbot and Brajadulal
Chattopadhyaya, these chapters seek to understand identity
perception through romances, historical documents, ballads and
historical epics, inscriptions and even architecture. The chapters
in this volume urge readers to reconsider the simple and rigid
application of categories such as Hindu and Muslim when studying
South Asia's medieval and early modern past. It is only by doing
this that we can understand the past and, perhaps, help prevent the
dangerous rewriting of Indian history.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1980, two Franciscan
Sisters teamed up with a Muslim professor of a local university to
begin a journey of dialogue, friendship, and activism that had a
lasting effect on their group and the community. They launched one
of the first "Islamic Christian" dialogues in the country, which
soon became internationally known. This book brings together their
stories of encounter and collaboration alongside those of other
interfaith actors. The initial Christian-Muslim dialogue inspired
the next generation of leaders to continue the work of building
trust and mutual understanding through educational programs and
social activism. The narratives presented here are based on
qualitative data and scholarly research. They are accompanied by
representative examples of the efforts aimed at cultivating spaces
for interfaith dialogue and interaction between and among people
from different faith traditions and backgrounds. This book offers
an overview and history of those interfaith efforts and
relationships.
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