Addresses the revised CCEA Religious Ethics specification for GCE Religious Studies and covers Units AS 7 and A2 7. Covers the foundations, principles and practice of ethics and its application in society and explores both religious and non-religious ethics, and compares/contrasts them. Tasks and questions provided throughout. Includes material on other aspects of human experience. Contents: 1 Deontological Approaches to Moral Decision Making 2 Teleological Approaches to Moral Decision Making 3 Life and Death Issues 4 Developments in Bioethics 5 Moral Theory 6 Global Rights (1): The Nature of Rights 7 Global Rights (2): Sexual Identity and Gender Justice 8 Global Issues (1): War and Peace 9 Global Issues (2): Justice, Law and Punishment 10 Synoptic Assessment: Conscience, Freedom and Tolerance Bibliography Glossary Index

Value and Vulnerability brings together scholars of many religions-including Catholicism, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Islam, and Humanism-to identify and examine conceptions and interpretations of dignity within different religious and philosophical perspectives and their applications to contemporary issues of conflict, such as gendered, religious, and racial violence, immigration, ecology, and religious peacemaking. Value and Vulnerability also includes response chapters that clarify and refine these interpretations from interfaith perspectives. Through this volume, Matthew R. Petrusek and Jonathan Rothchild offer recommendations for advancing the conversation about dignity within and among traditions and for addressing urgent global issues and threats to dignity. Together, Petrusek, Rothchild, and the contributors create a comparative framework constituted by seven questions: What sources justify dignity's existence, nature, and purpose? What is the relationship between the divine and human dignity? What is the relationship between dignity and the human body? Is dignity vulnerable or invulnerable to moral harm? Is dignity inherent or attained? Is dignity universal and equal? Is dignity practical? Through its systematic, comparative, interdisciplinary, and practical dimensions, Value and Vulnerability fills in the gaps in contemporary theological, philosophical, and ethical discourses on dignity. Contributors: Matthew R. Petrusek, Jonathan Rothchild, Darlene Fozard Weaver, Kristin Scheible, Karen B. Enriquez, Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, Christopher Key Chapple, David P. Gushee, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Zeki Saritoprak, William Schweiker, Hille Haker, Nicholas Denysenko, Terrence L. Johnson, William O'Neill, Victor Carmona, Dawn Nothwehr, OSF, and Ellen Ott Marshall.

In the context of the rise of reactionary politics across the globe, this book seeks new ways of developing solidarity across religious, political and economic differences. Drawing on an increasingly influential Christian theological movement, postliberalism, it claims that the dominance of liberal, secular rationality has blinded people to the fundamental role of transcendence and myth in developing solidarity. The result is either atrophy, or a retrenching in divisive myths of faith, race, nation or economic status. Liberalism is now a dominant force across the globe. But its resonance in the Anglo-Saxon West, from which it originates and has been most fully realized, is relatively underexplored. The book thus follows two simultaneous lines of enquiry. Firstly, a genealogical study of social scientific and policy iterations of the relationship between belief and solidarity in the Anglo-Saxon West, placing postliberal theory into dialogue with the sociology and anthropology of religion, politics and economics. Secondly, it draws from original ethnographic research with groups in London, UK, that seek to develop solidarity in the face of deep-seated difference. By bringing a new way of framing these contentious debates about contemporary society, this research offers tools for more productive conversations around religious and political topics, in particular concluding with a clear policy proposal. It is, therefore, a useful resource for both academics of theology and religious studies, political philosophy, sociology and anthropology; and for politicians, policy makers and practitioners hoping to develop solidarity in the modern world.

The major humanitarian crises of recent years are well known: the Shoah, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the massacre in Bosnia, and the tsunami in Southeast Asia, as well as the bloody conflicts in South Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan. Millions have been killed and many millions more have been driven from their homes; the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has reached record levels. Could these crises have been prevented? Why do they continue to happen? This book seeks to understand how humanity itself is in crisis, and what we can do about it. Hollenbach draws on the values that have shaped major humanitarian initiatives over the past century and a half, such as the commitments of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, as well as the values of diverse religious traditions, including Catholicism, to examine the scope of our responsibilities and practical solutions to these global crises. He also explores the economic and political causes of these tragedies, and uncovers key moral issues for both policy-makers and for practitioners working in humanitarian agencies and faith communities.

This book focuses on the themes of border violence; racial criminalization; competing hermeneutics of the sacred; and State-sponsored modes of desacralizing black and brown-bodied people, all in the context of the US-Mexico borderlands. It provides a much-needed substantive response to the State's use of sacrilization to justify its acts of violence and offers new ways of theologizing the acceptance of the "other" in its place. As a counter-hermeneutic of the sacred, the ultimate objective of the book is to offer an alternative epistemological, theoretical and practical framework that resacralizes the other. Rejecting the State-driven agenda of othering border-crossers, it follows Gloria Anzaldua's healing move to the Sacred Other and creates a new hermeneutic of the sacred at the borderlands. One that resacralizes those deemed by the State as the non-sacred human other anywhere in the world. This is an important and topical book that addresses one of the key issues of our time. As such, it will be of keen interest to any scholar of Religious Studies and Liberation Theology as well as religion's interaction with migration, race and contemporary politics.

This book presents the gospel as a sensemaking tool to critically examine five areas of personal leadership effectiveness, namely desire, identity, dignity, motive, and ambition. Every tipping point in changing the world for the better always involves leadership. Yet history also illustrates that even formidable leaders are prone to derailment and failures. Contrary to the popular idea that leaders need to enhance their self-efficacy to be effective, the focus of self is misguided because the self is the epicenter of the leadership problem. The author posits that the preoccupation with the self (and consequently, unbelief in the gospel) is the fundamental reason why leaders are blinded by power and control, create their own performance treadmill, live for the approval of others, and have myopic ambitions for things of this world. Drawing on biblical insights and scholarly research, the leadership principles outlined in the book and their street-level applications will equip both novice and seasoned leaders to begin and end well.

Aristide: A Theological and Political Introduction examines the theological ideas, democratic ideals, and moral vision of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It also explores how his theology has influenced his politics of solidarity and social activism on behalf of the working class and the poor in Haiti, and the implications for those living on the margins of society. The book seeks to answer three questions: what is the relationship between theology, ethics, and social activism and transformation in the writings of Aristide? What is the relationship between (political) theology and defensive violence in Aristide's thought in the struggle for democracy and human rights in Haiti? Or can a theology of peace and a theology of bellicosity and violence coexist? Celucien L. Joseph also considers Aristide's efforts to foster democratic change, development, and human flourishing in the context of Haitian society.

When tragedy strikes a community, it is often unexpected with long-lasting effects on the people left in its wake. Too often, there aren't adequate systems in place to aid those affected in processing what has happened. This study uniquely combines practical theology, pastoral insight and scientific data to demonstrate how Christian congregations can be helped to be resilient in the face of sudden devastating events. Beginning by identifying the characteristics of trauma in individuals and communities, this collection of essays from practitioners and academics locates sudden trauma-inducing tragedies as a problem in practical theology. A range of biblical and theological responses are presented, but contemporary scientific understanding is also included in order to challenge and stretch some of these traditional theological resources. The pastoral section of the book examines the ethics of response to tragedy, locating the role of the minister in relation to other helping agencies and exploring the all-too-topical issue of ministerial abuse. Developing a nuanced rationale for good practical, pastoral, liturgical and theological responses to major traumas, this book will be of significant value to scholars of practical theology as well as practitioners counselling in and around church congregations.

The book evaluates on-going ethical conversations to learn how emotional communication is received, teachings are internalized, and a religious world-view is brought to life. Exploring how religious values saturate people's consciousness to induce subtle shifts in moral and ethical sensibilities, this book is about people's practices that illuminate how Islam is lived. Based on fieldwork conducted in Ankara between 2010 and 2016, the study enquires into people's ethical, religious, and moral motivations through the use of the ethnographic method and "thick description". Conversations and interviews with officials, community leaders, students, entrepreneurs, professionals, and blue-collar workers were subjected to close scrutiny to foreground societal change and churning. To capture perspectives absent or deliberately overlooked in mainstream public discourse and scholarship, fieldwork was conducted in locations ranging from homes, offices, and university dorms to the shrines of saints. In listening closely to how people talk about their religious practices, the book addresses the question of how Islamic subjectivities are being forged in Turkey. The study unveils how people are pushed to re-think old practices and attitudes in the process of reinterpreting Islam in light of contemporary concerns. Filling a gap in the literature where micro-level, grounded analyses of culture and society are relatively rare, this book is a key resource for readers interested in the anthropology of religion and gender, ethnography, Turkey, and the Middle East.

Luxury. The word alone conjures up visions of visions of attractive, desirable lifestyle choices, yet it also faces criticism as a moral vice harmful to both the self and society. Engaging with ideas from business, marketing, and economics, The Vice of Luxury takes on the challenging task of naming how much is too much in today's consumer-oriented society. David Cloutier's critique goes to the heart of a fundamental contradiction. Though overconsumption and materialism make us uneasy, they also seem inevitable in advanced economies. Current studies of economic ethics focus on the structural problems of poverty, of international trade, of workers' rights -- but rarely, if ever, do such studies speak directly to the excesses of the wealthy, including the middle classes of advanced economies. Cloutier proposes a new approach to economic ethics that focuses attention on our everyday economic choices. He shows why luxury is a problem, explains how to identify what counts as the vice of luxury today, and develops an ethic of consumption that is grounded in Christian moral convictions.

Ranking Faiths: Religious Stratification in America discusses how religion shapes access to power, privilege, and prestige in the U.S., both historically and today. James D. Davidson and Ralph E. Pyle dispel the idea that the U.S. was founded on the principle of religious equality for all, documenting how religion has been a factor in the allocation of power from the colonial period through the present. From the time of the earliest settlements in America through today, the book demonstrates that some religious groups have had more access to economic, political, and social rewards than others, and they have benefitted from laws and customs that have maintained religious inequality over time. While a few religious groups, such as Catholics and Jews, have experienced significant upward mobility over time, the social status of most has remained remarkably static over time. The book shows how religious inequalities developed, highlight where they remain in society today, and discuss what Americans can and should do about it.

In the post-Soviet period morality became a debatable concept, open to a multitude of expressions and performances. From Russian Orthodoxy to Islam, from shamanism to Protestantism, religions of various kinds provided some of the first possible alternative moral discourses and practices after the end of the Soviet system. This influence remains strong today. Within the Russian context, religion and morality intersect in such social domains as the relief of social suffering, the interpretation of history, the construction and reconstruction of traditions, individual and social health, and business practices. The influence of religion is also apparent in the way in which the Russian Orthodox Church increasingly acts as the moral voice of the government. The wide-ranging topics in this ethnographically based volume show the broad religious influence on both discursive and everyday moralities. The contributorsa reveal that although religion is a significant aspect of the various assemblages of morality, much like in other parts of the world, religion in postsocialist Russia cannot be separated from the political or economic or transnational institutional aspects of morality."

This book traces the development of religious comedy and leverages that history to justify today's uses of religious humor in all of its manifestations, including irreverent jokes. It argues that regulating humor is futile and counterproductive, illustrating this point with a host of comedic examples. Humor is a powerful rhetorical tool for those who advocate and for those who satirize religious ideals. The book presents a compelling argument about the centrality of humor to the story of Western Christianity's cultural and artistic development since the Middle Ages, taking a multi-disciplinary approach that combines literary criticism, religious studies, philosophy, theology, and social science. After laying out the conceptual framework in Part 1, Part 2 analyzes key works of religious comedy across the ages from Dante to the present, and it samples the breadth of contemporary religious humor from Brad Stine to Robin Williams, and from Monty Python to South Park. Using critical, historical, and conceptual lenses, the book exposes and overturns past attempts by church authorities, scholars, and commentators to limit and control laughter based on religious, ideological, or moral criteria. This is a unique look into the role of humor and comedy around religion. It will, therefore, appeal to readers interested in multiple fields of inquiry, including religious studies, humor studies, the history of ideas, and comparative literature.

This book shows how Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI mandated many confused, inconsistent, and misguided policies on clerical sexual abuse; actions that ultimately hindered the implementation of effective reforms to alleviate the crisis that has enveloped the Catholic Church for the last two decades. It also examines the possibility of authentic change by articulating the positive outreach of Pope Francis to the victims of abuse, his attempts at institutional atonement, as well as his struggles to implement systematic actions for the protection of young people.

Partiality and Justice in Nursing Care examines the conflicting normative claims of partiality and impartiality in nursing care, looking in depth at how to reconcile reasonable concerns for one particular patient with equally important concerns for the maximisation of health-related welfare for all with relevant nursing-care needs, in a resource-limited setting. Drawing on moral philosophy, this book explores how discussions of partiality and impartiality in moral philosophy can have relevance to the professional context of clinical nursing care as well as in nursing ethics in general. It develops a framework for normative nursing ethics that incorporates a notion of permissible partiality, and specifies which concerns an ethics of nursing care should entail when balancing partialist and impartialist concerns. At the same time, Nordhaug argues that this partiality must also be constrained by both principled and context-sensitive assessments of patients' needs, as well as of the role-relative deontological restriction of minimising harm, something that could be mitigated by institutional and organisational arrangements. This thought-provoking volume is an important contribution to nursing ethics and philosophy.

This international volume provides a comprehensive account of contemporary research, new perspectives and cutting-edge issues surrounding religion and spirituality in social work. The introduction introduces key themes and conceptual issues such as understandings of religion and spirituality as well as definitions of social work, which can vary between countries. The main body of the book is divided up into sections on regional perspectives; religious and spiritual traditions; faith-based service provision; religion and spirituality across the lifespan; and social work practice. The final chapter identifies key challenges and opportunities for developing both social work scholarship and practice in this area. Including a wide range of international perspectives from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Malta, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA, this Handbook succeeds in extending the dominant paradigms and comprises a mix of authors including major names, significant contributors and emerging scholars in the field, as well as leading contributors in other fields of social work who have an interest in religion and spirituality. The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Spirituality and Social Work is an authoritative and comprehensive reference for academics and researchers as well as for organisations and practitioners committed to exploring why, and how, religion and spirituality should be integral to social work practice.

This book, first published in 1957, was the first in English to provide a full and clear introduction to one of the most significant of Indian gods, and stresses his supreme role in Indian religion and art. The book relates the full Krishna story, explaining his role in Indian religion, and traces the history of Krishna in Indian painting. There are 39 plates of Indian pictures, each accompanied by a commentary by the author, revealing a wealth of subtle and poetic detail.

This book, first published in 1968, is a collection of twenty-five lectures by Swami Prabhavananda, the outstanding scholar and translator of Hindu scriptures. They present a direct and pragmatic approach to spiritual life, and a clear guide to Hinduism.

This book, first published in 1968, comprises five articles on the immortality of the soul. According to Hindu tradition this immortality cannot be proved by the scientific method of reasoning - it is based upon scriptural evidence and on the direct experience of enlightened souls. These articles examine the Hindu tradition and provide reasoned support to the scriptures and experiences.

The first book to use the Catholic theological tradition to explore the importance of free time, The Fullness of Free Time addresses a crucial topic in the ethics of everyday life, providing a useful framework for scholars and students of moral theology and philosophy as well as anyone hoping to make their free time more meaningful.

Hinduism and Christianity are different in structure and approach - but have a great deal in common in matters relating to ethics. This book, first published in 1969, is the first systematic and detailed work which attempts to bring out both the differences and similarities. The author selects some of the fundamental problems of philosophical ethics, such as the moral law - its authority and sources, moral effort and human freedom, moral failure and responsibility - and explores the respective answers of Hinduism and Christianity.

This book, first published in 1933, was the first text on the general Hindu attitude to art. It sums up under the wider title of the Hindu view of art all such considerations - religious, philosophic, sociological, aesthetic and technical - as might be helpful for the understanding of Indian art.

Religious thinkers in the Christian theistic tradition have tried to resolve the problem of evil-how a wholly good and omnipotent God could allow there to be evil-by offering a theodicy. This book considers three traditional theodicies and the objections they have elicited: Leibniz's best of all possible worlds theodicy, the free will theodicy, and an Irenaean type of theodicy. It also considers metatheodicies and limited theodicies. However, this book departs from traditional religious thinking by presenting and treating religious approaches to evil that do not confront evil through the religious problem of evil. Primary among the three religious approaches to evil that are presented is the approach of Job-like belief. Such an approach embodies Job's acceptance of evil as what God has given, expressed in his rhetorical "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2.10). The various elements of Job-like belief that are internally required for its approach to evil are critically examined, and it is seen how a Job-like approach to evil neither seeks nor requires a resolution to the problem of evil. The other two religious approaches to evil, as opposed to the problem of evil, are the effort to lessen evil in the world and the practice of forgiveness, both of which are compatible with each other and with a Job-like acceptance of evil, with which they can be combined. Also treated in this book are mystery and God's goodness. Accompanying every theodicy is mystery (in its religious sense as that which is beyond human understanding), and the experience of the mystery of God's goodness shining through the world and through evil is embodied in Job-like belief.

Originally published in 1937. This book addresses the importance of the theory of values that rests on a general metaphysical understanding founded on a comprehensive view of all aspects of the world. The author speaks against the absolutist theories with a realistic one encompassing a theory of space and time and considering value as an object of immediate intuition. These great philosophical questions feed into discussions of the philosophy of religion and of science. Garnett distinguishes between spiritual and other values on the ground that the spiritual values are not subjective to satiety, while other values are. He contends that our knowledge of mind is as direct and reliable as our knowledge of the physical world. This is an important early book by an influential 20th Century thinker.

Veils and veiling are controversial topics in social and political life, generating debates across the world. The veil is enmeshed within a complex web of relations encompassing politics, religion and gender, and conflicts over the nature of power, legitimacy, belief, freedom, agency and emancipation. In recent years, the veil has become both a potent and unsettling symbol and a rallying-point for discourse and rhetoric concerning women, Islam and the nature of politics. Early studies in gender, doctrine and politics of veiling appeared in the 1970s following the Islamic revival and 're-veiling' trends that were dramatically expressed by 1979's Iranian Islamic revolution. In the 1990s, research focussed on the development of both an 'Islamic culture industry' and greater urban middle class consumption of 'Islamic' garments and dress styles across the Islamic world. In the last decade academics have studied Islamic fashion and marketing, the political role of the headscarf, the veiling of other religious groups such as Jews and Christians, and secular forms of modest dress. Using work from contributors across a range of disciplinary backgrounds and locations, this book brings together these research strands to form the most comprehensive book ever conceived on this topic. As such, this handbook will be of interest to scholars and students of fashion, gender studies, religious studies, politics and sociology.