This book considers the situation of intersex people who have faced erasure in the areas of science, law, culture, and theology due to the assumption that all humans are either 'female' or 'male.' Centered in interviews conducted with German intersex Christians, this book argues that moving from a paradigm of sexual dimorphism to sexual polymorphism will help promote the full humanity and flourishing of intersex people by creating a world where intersex individuals are no longer coerced and/or forced to undergo non-consensual, medically unnecessary treatment, no longer experience human rights violations because of their lack of legal protection, no longer feel inhuman and Other due to epistemic injustice that stems from socio-cultural norms and stereotypes, are no longer told they are not made in God's image as a result of a sexually dimorphic understanding of Genesis 1:27, and no longer feel excluded and invisible in worship services that do not recognize them. This combination of the practical and the spiritual allows for a reconsideration of the medical treatment and pastoral care that should be available to intersex people. This book will be helpful to those in the disciplines of science, law, culture, and theology, particularly those in gender and theological studies and those already in and studying for lay and ordained ministry.

This book advances that history by exploring stories, images and discourses across a worldwide range of geographical, cultural and confessional contexts. Its twelve authors not only enrich our understanding of the significance of the contextual method, but also produce a new range of original ways of doing theology in contemporary situations. The authors discuss some prioritised thematic perspectives with an emphasis on liberating paths, and expand the ongoing discussion on the methodology of theology into new areas. Themes such as interreligious plurality, global capitalism, ecumenical liberation theology, eco-anxiety and the anthropocene, postcolonialism, gender, neo-pentecostalism, world theology, and reconciliation are examined in situated depth. Additionally, voices from Indigenous lands, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe and North America enter into a dialogue on what it means to contextualise theology in an increasingly globalised and ever-changing world. Such a comprehensive discussion of new ways of thinking about and doing contextual theology will be of great use to scholars in Theology, Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, Political Science, Gender Studies, Environmental Humanities, and Global Studies.

Constructing Moral Concepts of God in a Global Age focuses on what people say and think about God, rather than on arguments about God's existence. It advances a theological method, or step-by-step approach to explore and reframe personal convictions about God and the worldviews shaped by those convictions. Since a moral God is more likely to foster a moral life, this method integrates an ethical check to ensure that understandings of God and their associated worldviews are validly moral. The proposed method builds on the work of twentieth-century theologian Gordon Kaufman during the Kantian phase of his work. It anticipates a person-like God who hears prayers, loves without end, and comforts in times of hardship. To accommodate today's pluralistic and globalized world, the ethical check integrated in the method is a widely collaborative and vetted global ethic, the Parliament of the World's Religions "Declaration Towards a Global Ethic." This volume of constructive philosophical theology is written for seminary students, educators, clergy, study groups, and anyone interested in delving more deeply and systematically into understandings of God, whether their own or those of others.

This book provides extensive and critical engagement with some of the most recent and compelling arguments favoring abortion choice. It features original essays from leading and emerging philosophers, bioethicists and medical professionals that present philosophically sophisticated and novel arguments against abortion choice.

To take a journey, travelers must know where they are, where they are going, and how to get there. Moral theology examines the same three truths. The Christian Moral Life is a handbook for moral theology that uses the theme of a journey to explain its key ethical concepts. First, humans begin with their creation in the image of God. Secondly, the goal of the journey is explained as a loving union with God, to achieve a share in his eternal happiness. Third and finally, the majority of the book examines how to attain this goal. Within the journey motif, the book covers the moral principles essential for attaining true happiness. Based on an examination of the moral methodology in the bible, the book discusses the importance of participating in divine nature through grace in order to attain eternal happiness. It further notes the role of law, virtue, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in guiding and transforming humans into friends of God, who participate in his happiness. Following this section on moral theology in general, the book analyzes the individual virtues to give more concrete guidance. The entire project builds upon the insights of great Christian thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, Therese of Lisieux, and John Paul II, to uncover the moral wisdom in scripture and to show people how to be truly happy both in this life and the next. This book will be of great interest to undergraduate students of moral theology, priests and seminarians, parents and teachers seeking to raise and to form happy children, and anyone interested in discovering the meaning of true happiness.

To take a journey, travelers must know where they are, where they are going, and how to get there. Moral theology examines the same three truths. The Christian Moral Life is a handbook for moral theology that uses the theme of a journey to explain its key ethical concepts. First, humans begin with their creation in the image of God. Secondly, the goal of the journey is explained as a loving union with God, to achieve a share in his eternal happiness. Third and finally, the majority of the book examines how to attain this goal. Within the journey motif, the book covers the moral principles essential for attaining true happiness. Based on an examination of the moral methodology in the bible, the book discusses the importance of participating in divine nature through grace in order to attain eternal happiness. It further notes the role of law, virtue, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in guiding and transforming humans into friends of God, who participate in his happiness. Following this section on moral theology in general, the book analyzes the individual virtues to give more concrete guidance. The entire project builds upon the insights of great Christian thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, Therese of Lisieux, and John Paul II, to uncover the moral wisdom in scripture and to show people how to be truly happy both in this life and the next. This book will be of great interest to undergraduate students of moral theology, priests and seminarians, parents and teachers seeking to raise and to form happy children, and anyone interested in discovering the meaning of true happiness.

This work details the theological sources and moral significance of the life and work of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790). The panel of contributors deepens our understanding of Adam Smith in his religious and theological context and the significance of this understanding for contemporary moral, economic, and political challenges to modern social life. The chapters cover a broad range of disciplinary and historical concerns, from Smith's view of providence and his famous "invisible hand" to the role of self-interest and benevolence in Smith's social and economic thought. A better appreciation for the moral and theological dimensions of Smith's thought provides not only a better understanding of Smith's own context and significance in the Scottish Enlightenment but also promises to assist in meeting the perennial challenges of properly connecting economic realities to moral responsibility. The book is of interest to advanced students and scholars of the history of economic thought, historical and moral theology, intellectual history, political science, and philosophy.

In crafting racial visions of the modern world, European thinkers appropriated the Christian doctrine of providence, constructing the idea of European humanity's rule over the globe on the model of God's rule over the universe. As a powerful ordering theory of the relationship between God and creation, time and space, self and other, the doctrine served as an intellectual framework for the theorization of whiteness, as the male European subject replaced Jesus Christ as the human being at the center of world history. Through an analysis of the work of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Barth, and James H. Cone, God, Race, and History examines this subversion of the Christian doctrine of providence, as well as subsequent attempts within modern Protestant theology to liberate the doctrine from its captivity to whiteness. It then develops a constructive political theology of providence in conversation with Delores S. Williams and M. Shawn Copeland, discerning Jesus Christ at work through the Holy Spirit in the struggles of ordinary, overlooked, and oppressed human creatures to survive and to carve out a flourishing life for themselves, their communities, and their world.

In Anton Boisen: Madness, Mysticism, and the Origins of Clinical Pastoral Education, Sean J. LaBat provides a critical re-assessment of Anton Boisen's life and work. Based in thorough archival research, LaBat argues that Boisen, who suffered from intermittent severe mental illness, was a creative visionary, a mystic who re-imagined pastoral care and envisioned possibilities for the institutionalized other than shame and stigma. He shows how Boisen elucidated new possibilities in patient-centered health care, community care for the mentally ill, and reconciliation and dialogue between religion and science. Boisen explored the borderland of madness and mysticism, illness and inspiration, and practiced an interdisciplinary approach to his craft that is surprisingly modern and more relevant to the practice of medicine and the practice of religion than ever before.

The book combines intellectual, cultural and social history to address a major area of encounter between Christianity and British culture: the world of leisure. This book traces the rise and fall of the evangelical movement, the powerhouse of Victorian religion, via its preoccupation with pleasure. Victorian evangelicalism demonstrated an ability to excite the affections but also a corresponding suspicion of worldly pleasures. Suspicion developed into hostility, and a movement premised on freedom became coercive and alienating. The crisis of Victorian religion began. It is generally held that the mid-Victorian turn to recreation and sport solved the problem, 'justifying God to the people' through cricket, cycling and football. This book argues otherwise - that the problem of pleasure was inflamed by the ecclesiastical remedy. The problem of overdrawn boundaries between church and world gave way to a new and subtle confusion of gospel and culture. Historians have praised the mood of engagement but the costs were profound. In fact, sport became the perfect vehicle for that humanistic, 'unmystical' morality that defines the secularity of the twentieth century. Secularisation did not wait for the Dionysian rebellions of the 1960s: it emerged - almost a hundred years earlier - in the Victorian transformation of religion into ethics. Central to the process was the problem of pleasure. DOMINIC ERDOZAIN is Lecturer in the History of Christianity, King's College London

Ratified by the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993 and expanded in 2018, "Towards a Global Ethic (An Initial Declaration)," or the Global Ethic, expresses the minimal set of principles shared by people-religious or not. Though it is a secular document, the Global Ethic emerged after months of collaborative, interreligious dialogue dedicated to identifying a common ethical framework. This volume tests and contests the claim that the Global Ethic's ethical directives can be found in the world's religious, spiritual, and cultural traditions. The book features essays by scholars of religion who grapple with the practical implications of the Global Ethic's directives when applied to issues like women's rights, displaced peoples, income and wealth inequality, India's caste system, and more. The scholars explore their respective religious traditions' ethical response to one or more of these issues and compares them to the ethical response elaborated by the Global Ethic. The traditions included are Hinduism, Engaged Buddhism, Shi'i Islam, Sunni Islam, Confucianism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Indigenous African Religions, and Human Rights. To highlight the complexities within traditions, most essays are followed by a brief response by an expert in the same tradition. Multi-Religious Perspectives on a Global Ethic is of special interest to advanced students and scholars whose work focuses on the religious traditions listed above, on comparative religion, religious ethics, comparative ethics, and common morality.

This book reflects on three broad themes of Confucian-Christian relations to assist in the appreciation of the church's theology of mission. While the themes of this volume are theological in orientation, the dialogue is engaged in from an interdisciplinary approach that prioritises the act of listening. Part I surveys the historical background necessary for an adequate understanding of the contemporary Confucian-Christian dialogues. It examines the history of Confucian-Christian relations, explores the Chinese Rites Controversy, and delineates the contemporary task of indigenizing Christianity by Sino-Christian theologians. Part II compares elements in the Confucian and Christian traditions that exemplify the epitome and fullness of spiritual development. It discusses the Confucian practice of rites (li), interrogates how the noble or exemplary person (junzi) competes, and outlines the Confucian understanding of sageliness (shengren). Lastly, Part III examines different aspects of the church's engagements with the world outside of itself. It advocates for a Confucian-Christian hermeneutic of moral goodness, attends to the Confucian emphasis on moral self-cultivation, proposes that Confucian virtue ethics can shed light on Christian moral living, and offers a Confucian-Christian understanding of care for mother earth. This book is ideally suited to lecturers and students of both Christian studies and Confucian studies, as well as those engaged in mission studies and interfaith studies. It will also be a valuable resource for anyone interested in comparative religious and theological studies on Christianity and Confucianism.

This book is a pneumatological reflection on the use and abuse of the Spirit in light of the abuse of religion within South African Pentecostalism. Both emerging and well-established scholars of South African Pentecostalism are brought together to reflect on pneumatology from various approaches, which includes among others: historical, biblical, migration, commercialisation of religion, discernment of spirits and human flourishing. From a broader understanding of the function of the Holy Spirit in different streams of Pentecostalism, the argument is that this function has changed with the emergence of the new Prophetic churches in South Africa. This is a fascinating insight into one of the major emerging worldwide religious movements. As such, it will be of great interest to academics in Pentecostal Studies, Christian Studies, Theology, and Religious Studies as well as African Studies and the Sociology of Religion.

What happens when two intelligent and highly informed fictional college students, one strongly pro-choice and the other vigorously pro-life, are asked to put together a presentation on abortion? Their conversations over five days - friendly but lively, charitable but clear - are captured in this book. Through these dialogues, students and other interested readers are introduced to the difficult moral issues of abortion. In Chapter 1, readers learn about Roe v. Wade and other relevant legal cases. Chapter 2 covers basic, philosophical issues such as: What is a person? Are fetuses persons? Is fetal potential morally relevant? How shall we define the moral community? Chapter 3 introduces students to Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral" and also the metaphysical issues of personal identity and its relevance to abortion. Chapter 4 covers Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion", including objections and responses to the argument from bodily autonomy. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at abortion in hard cases, such as in cases of rape, fetal disability, non-viable pregnancies, and sex-selection; the chapter also includes a conversation on fathers and abortion. With a Foreword by Laurie Shrage, topics headings in the margins, and an annotated bibliography, Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion is an easy-to-use volume and valuable resource for anyone interested in a fair and clear-headed approach to one of the most contentious moral issues of our time.

What happens when two intelligent and highly informed fictional college students, one strongly pro-choice and the other vigorously pro-life, are asked to put together a presentation on abortion? Their conversations over five days - friendly but lively, charitable but clear - are captured in this book. Through these dialogues, students and other interested readers are introduced to the difficult moral issues of abortion. In Chapter 1, readers learn about Roe v. Wade and other relevant legal cases. Chapter 2 covers basic, philosophical issues such as: What is a person? Are fetuses persons? Is fetal potential morally relevant? How shall we define the moral community? Chapter 3 introduces students to Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral" and also the metaphysical issues of personal identity and its relevance to abortion. Chapter 4 covers Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion", including objections and responses to the argument from bodily autonomy. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at abortion in hard cases, such as in cases of rape, fetal disability, non-viable pregnancies, and sex-selection; the chapter also includes a conversation on fathers and abortion. With a Foreword by Laurie Shrage, topics headings in the margins, and an annotated bibliography, Dialogues on the Ethics of Abortion is an easy-to-use volume and valuable resource for anyone interested in a fair and clear-headed approach to one of the most contentious moral issues of our time.

By its very nature, the ideals of religion entail sin and failure. Judaism has its own language and framework for sin that expresses themselves both legally and philosophically. Both legal questions - circumstances where sin is permissible or mandated, the role of intention and action - as well as philosophical questions - why sin occurs and how does Judaism react to religious crisis - are considered within this volume. This book will present the concepts of sin and failure in Jewish thought, weaving together biblical and rabbinic studies to reveal a holistic portrait of the notion of sin and failure within Jewish thought.

This book examines the current use of digital media in religious engagement and how new media can influence and alter faith and spirituality. As technologies are introduced and improved, they continue to raise pressing questions about the impact, both positive and negative, that they have on the lives of those that use them. The book also deals with some of the more futuristic and speculative topics related to transhumanism and digitalization. Including an international group of contributors from a variety of disciplines, chapters address the intersection of religion and digital media from multiple perspectives. Divided into two sections, the chapters included in the first section of the book present case studies from five major religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism and their engagement with digitalization. The second section of the volume explores the moral, ideological but also ontological implications of our increasingly digital lives. This book provides a uniquely comprehensive overview of the development of religion and spirituality in the digital age. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of Digital Religion, Religion and Media, Religion and Sociology, as well as Religious Studies and New Media more generally, but also for every student interested in the future of religion and spirituality in a completely digitalized world.

This volume examines the relationship between Christian legal theory and the fields of private law. Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in private law theory, and this book contributes to that discussion by drawing on the historical, theological, and philosophical resources of the Christian tradition. The book begins with an introduction from the editors that lays out the understanding of "private law" and what distinguishes private law topics from other fields of law. This section includes two survey chapters on natural law and biblical sources. The remaining sections of the book move sequentially through the fields of property, contracts, and torts. Several chapters focus on historical sources and show the ways in which the evolution of legal doctrine in areas of private law has been heavily influenced by Christian thinkers. Other chapters draw out more contemporary and public policy-related implications for private law. While this book is focused on the relationship of Christianity to private law, it will be of broad interest to those who might not share that faith perspective. In particular, legal historians and philosophers of law will find much of interest in the original scholarship in this volume. The book will be attractive to teachers of law, political science, and theology. It will be of special interest to the many law faculty in property, contracts, and torts, as it provides a set of often overlooked historical and theoretical perspectives on these fields.

This book offers a compelling new interpretation of James' moral philosophy: an "ethics of responsible self-fashioning." James' performative writing style articulates this conception by showing how moral inquiry serves both social and personal transformation. James the social moral philosopher seeks to create an inclusive moral order through expansion of sympathetic concern among those committed to different ideals. James the existential moral philosopher defends the right to adopt hope-grounding metaphysical beliefs which encourage strenuous moral action in the face of evil and suffering. The power of James' ethics is demonstrated by its application to current discussions about the status of marginalized nonhuman animals and that of the cognitively disabled. William James and the Moral Life is of interest to a wide variety of ethicists and has special appeal to scholars and advanced students in moral philosophy, social philosophy, pragmatism, and American philosophy.

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Offering a fresh and coherent argument, the book will be relevant to scholars of Christian theology, biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion.

As the sequential stages of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic have unfolded, so have its complexities. What initially presented as a health emergency, has revealed itself to be a phenomenon of many facets. It has demonstrated human creativity, the oft neglected presence of nature, and the resilience of communities. Equally, it has exposed deep social inequities, conceptual inadequacies, and structural deficiencies about the way we organize our civilization and our knowledge. As the situation continues to advance, the question is whether the crisis will be grasped as an opportunity to address the deep structural, ecological and social challenges that we brought with us into the second decade of the new millennium. This volume addresses the collective sense that the pandemic is more than a problem to manage our way out of. Rather, it is a moment to consider our broken relationship with the natural world, and our alienation from a deeper sense of purpose and meaning. The contributors, though differing in their diagnoses and recommendations, share the belief that this moment, with its transformative possibility, not be forfeit. Equally, they share the conviction that the chief ground of any such reorientation ineluctably involves our collective engagement with both ecology and theology.

Recently, psychologists and neurobiologists have conducted experiments taken to show that human beings do not have free will. Many, including a number of philosophers, assume that, even if science has not decided the free will question yet, it is just a matter of time. In The Experimental Approach to Free Will, Katherin A. Rogers accomplishes several tasks. First, canvasing the literature critical of these recent experiments (or of conclusions drawn from them) and adding new criticisms of her own, she shows why these experiments should not undermine belief in human freedom - even robust, libertarian freedom. Indeed, many of the experiments do not even connect with any philosophical understanding of free will. Through this discussion, she generates a long list of problems - ethical as well as practical - facing the attempt to study free will experimentally. With these problems highlighted, she shows that even in the distant future, supposing the brain sciences to have advanced far beyond where they are today, it will likely be impossible to settle the question of free will experimentally. She concludes that, since philosophy has not, and science cannot, settle the question of free will, it is more reasonable to suppose that humans do indeed have freedom. Brings together, and adds to, criticisms of recent experiments (or conclusions drawn from them) which supposedly show that human beings do not have free will Analyzes recent experiments supposedly related to human freedom through the lens of a philosophically informed portrait of a robust, libertarian free choice Develops a long list of problems - both practical and ethical - facing the experimental study of human freedom Proposes a thought experiment set in a distant future of advanced brain science to show that it is likely impossible for science ever to settle the question of free will.

This is a timely and relevant volume, considering the many manipulations and enhancements upon our ideas of reality in the 21st century The book explores how and why we deny, manipulate, convert, or enhance reality The book argues that examining the many ways in which we manipulate, deny, convert or enhance our realities can give us an idea of how to deal with reality, which in turn can provide us with a blueprint for how to live responsibly The book brings together an international team of contributors to discuss contemporary issues such as fake news, propaganda, virtual reality, theatre as real life and reality TV This book draws on examples from vast fields such as film studies, sociology, the social sciences and medicine This volume will appeal to scholars and upper-level students in the areas of communication and media studies, comparative literature, film studies, economics, English, international affairs, journalism, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theatre

This book explores the role of Catholic peacebuilding in addressing the global mining industry. Mining is intimately linked to issues of conflict, human rights, sustainable development, governance, and environmental justice. As an institution of significant scope and scale with a large network of actors at all levels and substantial theoretical and ethical resources, the Catholic Church is well positioned to acknowledge the essential role of mining, while challenging unethical and harmful practices, and promoting integral peace, development, and ecology. Drawing together theology, ethics, and praxis, the volume reflects the diversity of Catholic action on mining and the importance of an integrated approach. It includes contributions by an international and interdisciplinary range of scholars and practitioners. They examine Catholic action on mining in El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Philippines. They also address general issues of corporate social responsibility, human rights, development, ecology, and peacebuilding. The book will be of interest to scholars of theology, social ethics, and Catholic studies as well as those specializing in development, ecology, human rights, and peace studies.