A new ethics for understanding the social forces that shape moral character. It is easy to be vicious and difficult to be virtuous in today's world, especially given that many of the social structures that connect and sustain us enable exploitation and disincentivize justice. There are others, though, that encourage virtue. In his book Daniel J. Daly uses the lens of virtue and vice to reimagine from the ground up a Catholic ethics that can better scrutinize the social forces that both affect our moral character and contribute to human well-being or human suffering. Daly's approach uses both traditional and contemporary sources, drawing on the works of Thomas Aquinas as well as incorporating theories such as critical realist social theory, to illustrate the nature and function of social structures and the factors that transform them. Daly's ethics focus on the relationship between structure and agency and the different structures that enable and constrain an individual's pursuit of the virtuous life. His approach defines with unique clarity the virtuous structures that facilitate a love of God, self, neighbor, and creation, and the vicious structures that cultivate hatred, intemperance, and indifference to suffering. In doing so, Daly creates a Catholic ethical framework for responding virtuously to the problems caused by global social systems, from poverty to climate change.

Conventional wisdom holds that attempts to combine religion and politics will produce unlimited violence. Concepts such as jihad, crusade, and sacrifice need to be rooted out, the story goes, for the sake of more bounded and secular understandings of violence. Ted Smith upends this dominant view, drawing on Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, and others to trace the ways that seemingly secular politics produce their own forms of violence without limit. He brings this argument to life--and digs deep into the American political imagination--through a string of surprising reflections on John Brown, the nineteenth-century abolitionist who took up arms against the state in the name of a higher law. Smith argues that the key to limiting violence is not its separation from religion, but its reconnection to richer and more critical modes of religious reflection. Only political theology can keep secular politics secular. A historical and theoretical intervention, "Weird John Brown" is also a constructive theological proposal for rethinking the nature, meaning, and exercise of violence, both human and divine.

Spirituality in Dark Places explores the spiritual consequences and ethics of modern solitary confinement. Jeffreys emphasizes how solitary confinement damages our spiritual lives, focusing particularly on how it destroys our relationship to time and undermines our creativity. Solitary inmates experience profound temporal dislocation that erodes their personal identities. They are often isolated from music, art, and books, or find their creativity tightly controlled. Informed by experiences with inmates, chaplains, and employees in the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Jeffreys also evaluates the ethics of solitary confinement, considering but ultimately rejecting the argument that punitive isolation justifiably expresses moral outrage at heinous crimes. Finally, Jeffreys proposes changes in solitary confinement in order to mitigate its profound damage to both prisoners and human dignity at large.

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 detailed study of how, according to Thomas Aquinas, God's Holy Spirit is continuously at work in and through humanity's moral activity. Jack Mahoney, SJ, documents from Aquinas's interpretation of scripture his portrait of the Holy Spirit in action, showing that for Aquinas, "the grace of the Holy Spirit" was a matter of the "prompting" or instigation (instinctus) of the Holy Spirit, who "drives" God's children in their decisions (Romans 8:14) and enlightens their minds through the "law of the Spirit of life" (Romans 8:2). Mahoney examines Aquinas's descriptions of various biblical characters responded in the Spirit to personal moral choices and dilemmas, sometimes in unexpected ways, and how the same can happen today, especially in the light of biblical and Aristotelian teaching on the flexible application of general moral rules in varying circumstances. He elaborates the three "constants" that serve for Aquinas as criteria for authenticating the Spirit's dynamic presence in people's moral activity. Finally, Mahoney shows that the overarching structure of Aquinas's thought on the Holy Spirit's role is the deployment in history of God's all-embracing wisdom, "ordering all things well" (Wisdom 8:1).

Is the legal protection that is given to the expression of Abrahamic religious belief adequate or appropriate in the context of English medical law? This is the central question that is explored in this book, which develops a framework to support judges in the resolution of contentious cases that involve dissension between religious belief and medical law, developed from Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC). This framework is applied to a number of medical law case studies: the principle of double effect, ritual male circumcision, female genital mutilation, Jehovah's Witnesses (adults and children) who refuse blood transfusions, and conscientious objection of healthcare professionals to abortion. The book also examines the legal and religious contexts in which these contentious cases are arbitrated. It demonstrates how human rights law and the proposed framework can provide a gauge to measure competing rights and apply legitimate limits to the expression of religious belief, where appropriate. The book concludes with a stance of principled pragmatism, which finds that some aspects of current legal protections in English medical law require amendment.

Attitudes towards science, medicine and the body are all profoundly shaped by people's worldviews. When discussing issues of bioethics, religion often plays a major role. In this volume, the role of genetic manipulation and neurotechnology in shaping human identity is examined from multiple religious perspectives. This can help us to understand how religion might affect the impact of the initiatives such as the UNESCO Declaration in Bioethics and Human Rights. The book features bioethics experts from six major religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism. It includes a number of distinct religious and cultural views on the anthropological, ethical and social challenges of emerging technologies in the light of human rights and in the context of global bioethics. The contributors work together to explore issues such as: cultural attitudes to gene editing; neuroactive drugs; the interaction between genes and behaviours; the relationship between the soul, the mind and DNA; and how can clinical applications of these technologies benefit the developing world. This is a significant collection, demonstrating how religion and modern technologies relate to one another. It will, therefore, be of great interest to academics working in bioethics, religion and the body, interreligious dialogue, and religion and science, technology and neuroscience.

In a unique epistolary style, authors Murray Stein and Elena Caramazza share their rich and reflective conversations surrounding the themes of temporality, shame, and evil through letters, essays, and email correspondence. Ignited by Wolfgang Pauli's "The Piano Lesson," Stein and Caramazza study the function of temporality and consider the importance of shame and evil to this relationship. In this book Stein shows how Pauli, as a result of his contact with C.G. Jung and analytical psychology, embarked on a thought experiment to merge two currents of scientific thought: quantum physics and depth psychology. In his work of active imagination "The Piano Lesson," Pauli playfully brings together the former, which supplies a causal explanation of the mechanics of the material world, and the latter, which supplies an approach to meaning. The problem of how to merge the two currents in one language is presented in Pauli's symbolic solution, piano music, which combines the black and white keys in a single harmony. This music symbolizes a unified theory that combines the explanations of causality and the meaning delivered by synchronicity. Presenting an original approach to synchronicity and dis-synchronicity, this interdisciplinary and innovative exchange concludes with a script written by Murray Stein, inspired by Pauli, as well as an afterword by influential Jungian scholars. This book will be a key reference for undergraduate and postgraduate courses and seminars in Jungian and post-Jungian studies, philosophy, psychoanalytic studies, psychology, and the social sciences.

Recent research in the humanities and social sciences suggests that individuals who understand themselves as belonging to something greater than the self-a family, community, or religious or spiritual group-often feel happier, have a deeper sense of purpose or meaning in their lives, and have overall better life outcomes than those who do not. Some positive and personality psychologists have labeled this location of the self within a broader perspective "self-transcendence." This book presents and integrates new, interdisciplinary research into virtue, happiness, and the meaning of life by re-orienting these discussions around the concept of self-transcendence. The essays are organized around three broad themes connected to self-transcendence. First, they investigate how self-transcendence helps us to understand aspects of the moral life as it is studied within psychology, including the development of wisdom, the practice of moral praise, and psychological well-being. Second, they explore how self-transcendence is linked to virtue in different religious and spiritual traditions including Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Finally, they ask how self-transcendence can help us theorize about Aristotelean and Thomist conceptions of virtue, like hope and piety, and how this helps us to re-conceptualize happiness and meaning in life.

An inclusive and innovative account of religious ethical thinking and acting in the world. Rather than merely applying existing forms of philosophical ethics, Religious Ethics defines the meaning of the field and presents a distinct and original method for ethical reflection through comparisons of world religious traditions. Written by leading scholars and educators in the field, this unique volume offers an innovative approach that reveals how religions concur and differ on moral matters, and provides practical guidance on thinking and living ethically. The book's innovative method--integrating descriptive, normative, practical, fundamental, and metaethical dimensions of reflection--enables a far more complex and nuanced exploration of religious ethics than any single philosophical language, method, or theory can equal. First introducing the task of religious ethics, the book moves through each of the five dimensions of reflection to compare concepts such as good and evil, perplexity and wisdom, truth and illusion, and freedom and bondage in various theological contexts. Guides readers on understanding, assessing, and comparing the moral teachings and practices of world religions Applies a disciplined, scholarly approach to the subject of religious ethics Explores the distinctions between religious ethics and moral philosophy Provides a methodology which can be applied to comparative ethics for various religions Compares religious traditions to illuminate each of the five dimensions of ethical and moral reflection Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method will help anyone interested in the relation between religion and ethics in the modern world, including those involved in general and comparative religion studies, religious and comparative ethics, and moral theory.

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.

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.

The ethical treatment of non-human animals is an increasingly significant issue, directly affecting how people share the planet with other creatures and visualize themselves within the natural world. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics is a key reference source in this area, looking specifically at the role religion plays in the formation of ethics around these concerns. Featuring thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors, the handbook is divided into two parts. The first gives an overview of fifteen of the major world religions' attitudes towards animal ethics and protection. The second features five sections addressing the following topics: Human Interaction with Animals Killing and Exploitation Religious and Secular Law Evil and Theodicy Souls and Afterlife This handbook demonstrates that religious traditions, despite often being anthropocentric, do have much to offer to those seeking a framework for a more enlightened relationship between humans and non-human animals. As such, The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, theology, and animal ethics as well as those studying the philosophy of religion and ethics more generally.

Mark J. Cartledge argues that the contemporary church can be empowered in its engagement with issues in public life through reading specific New Testament texts that focus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. This book provides a Spirit-empowered approach to church praxis that is located within the discourse of public theology. In this construction, the church is called to "walk alongside" the world in critical companionship for the sake of the common good of all people. What this looks like is explored by means of four specific themes: poverty and health care, race and ethnicity, and sex trafficking and domestic violence. Finally, Cartledge proposes that the church engage with society by "being truthful with love." This posture provides the integrating center for the life of the church and its mission in the world.

In recent years the sexual abuse of children in religious institutions has gripped the Western world, as churches, governments and civil society attempt to come to terms with the magnitude of widespread historical abuses. Questions continue to be asked about why it is that perpetrators were able to offend repeatedly and with impunity; what is it about institutions that facilitate or foster abuse; and why have survivors of abuse often been treated inadequately by diverse national and international justice and political systems throughout the last century? This volume makes a significant contribution to international understandings of the vexed and sensitive 'wicked problem' of child sexual abuse in religious institutions. The chapters in this volume are written from a range of feminist disciplinary responses, including law, criminology, anthropology and history. Together, they provide important historical context for the current social and political interest in clerical sex crimes. They examine political and legal avenues for redress for survivors of these crimes and critically examine the ways in which church cultures position clergy and clergy offenders in relation to victims. The chapters originally published in a special issue of the Australian Feminist Law Journal.

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.

Every day, we do commonplace things and interact with ordinary people without giving them much thought. This volume offers a theological guide to thinking Christianly about the ordinary nature of everyday life. Leading ethicist Brent Waters shows that the activities and relationships we think of as mundane are actually expressions of love of neighbor that are vitally important to our wellbeing. We live out the Christian gospel in the contexts that define us and in the routine chores, practices, activities, and social settings that give ordinary life meaning. It is in those contexts that we discover what we were created for, to be, and to become.

Combining Catholic Social Teaching, feminist and African liberation theology, and the social sciences, Joseph Loic Mben, SJ, develops a contextual gendered African Christian social ethic that addresses the oppression and marginalization of working women in Sub-Saharan Africa. He focuses primarily on African women from working and poor classes living in either in urban or rural settings, particularly in Cameroon, and thus shows the necessity of inflecting Catholic Social Teaching along the differential of gender.

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.

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.

When King looked over into the promised land and tried to discern how we would get there, he called the poor to lead the way. The Poor People's Campaign was part of a political strategy for building a movement expansive enough to tackle the enmeshed evils of racism, poverty, and war. In Freedom Church of the Poor: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign, Colleen Wessel-McCoy roots King's political vision solidly in his theological ethics and traces the spirit of the campaign in the community and religious leaders who are responding to the devastating crises of inequality today.

The Promise of Religious Naturalism explores religious naturalism as a distinctly promising form of contemporary religious ethics. Examining how religious naturalism responds to the challenges of recent religious transformations and ecological peril worldwide, author Michael Hogue argues that religious naturalism is emerging as an increasingly plausible and potentially rewarding form of religious moral life. Beginning with an introduction of religious naturalism in the larger context of religious and ethical theories, the book undertakes the first extended study of the works of religious naturalists Loyal Rue, Donald Crosby, Jerome Stone, and Ursula Goodenough. Hogue pays particular attention to the ethical components of religious naturalism in relation to religious pluralism and ecological issues.

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.

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.

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.