The challenge of methodic quality has haunted scholars in the human and social sciences since the end of the nineteenth century with the explosive and public success of the natural sciences and their precision and aim of controlling nature. The discussion has been dominated by the quest for proper scientific concepts and methods comparable to those employed in the natural sciences. This book discloses the limits of scientific concepts and methods, and the failure of approaches in the human sciences emulating the scientific procedures in the natural sciences, notably the cognitive science of religion, to articulate religious life in its actuality. The author demonstrates on the basis of his own field research conducted among Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka and Orthodox monks and pilgrims on the Holy Mountain of Athos in Greece how preconceptions and historical belongingness determine interpretation. He argues that in the human sciences words matter more than concepts and propositions, and elucidates how words are revelatory of the authenticity of being, when the attitude adopted is that the view of the encountered other might be right. In the conclusion the author identifies the methodic characteristics of hermeneutic reflection and proposes an analytic model for the human sciences that enables scholars to articulate the authenticity of actual life in words that reach the other.

Inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, these essays are the fruit of a series of seminars sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies and the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. With a special focus on the works of John Paul II (especially Veritatis Splendor and Fides et Ratio), the authors bring to light a host of considerations that set the work of his pontificate within the illuminating light of the living intellectual tradition.

Ethics after Auschwitz? Primo Levi's and Elie Wiesel's Response demonstrates how, after their horrific experiences in Auschwitz, both Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel could have deservedly expressed rage and bitterness for the rest of their lives. Housed in the same barracks in the depths of hell, a dark reality surpassing Dante's vivid images portrayed in The Inferno, they chose to speak, write, and work for a better world, never allowing the memory of those who did not survive to fade. Why and how did they make this choice? What influenced their values before Auschwitz and their moral decision making after it? What can others who have suffered less devastating traumas learn from them? "The quest is in the question", Wiesel often tells his students. This book is a quest for hope and goodness emerging from the Shoah's deepest "night".

The Principle of Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought: Implications for Social Justice and Civil Society in Nigeria provides a theoretical and practical framework for a just vision of society. It focuses on how support for individuals and social groups in Nigeria can foster the building of their communities through the practice of social justice. Social justice will ensure the building of trust across ethnic lines, challenge corruption, encourage accountability and servant leadership, protect minority tribes from larger ones, and promote grassroots self-help tribal, communal, religious, and non-governmental associations as agents of positive social change and development. These dynamics interact within a healthy federal structure that respects its constituent parts for the common good. This volume is recommended as a graduate text for courses in theology, religious education, and social philosophy, and for all interested in promoting the common good.

Becoming a Mensch is a "user's guide" to becoming a better person, taking readers through a process of personal growth by means of modern-day vignettes that draw upon the Talmud's ancient wisdom. By examining character traits such as "kindness and compassion," "self-mastery and self discipline," and "humility and flexibility," readers of any or no faith learn what it takes to become a "mensch" -- a decent and honorable human being. Readers are introduced to the greatest sages of the Talmudic era and many modern masters of ethical behavior. Becoming a Mensch is not only a guidebook for personal growth -- it is also a useful guide for parents who want to foster the ethical development of their children.

Linking the decline in Church authority in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries with the increasing respectability of fiction, Carol Stewart provides a new perspective on the rise of the novel. The resulting readings of novels by authors such as Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, Frances Sheridan, Charlotte Lennox, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, William Godwin, and Jane Austen trace the translation of ethical debate into secular and gendered terms. Stewart argues that the seventeenth-century debate about ethics that divided Latitudinarians and Calvinists found its way into novels of the eighteenth century. Her book explores the growing belief that novels could do the work of moral reform more effectively than the Anglican Church, with attention to related developments, including the promulgation of Anglican ethics in novels as a response to challenges to Anglican practice and authority. An increasingly legitimate genre, she argues, offered a forum both for investigating the situation of women and challenging patriarchal authority, and for challenging the dominant political ideology.

Ethics of Compassion places central themes from Buddhist (primarily) and Christian moral teachings within the conceptual framework of Western normative ethics. What results is a viable alternative ethical theory to those offered by utilitarians, Kantian formalists, proponents of the natural law tradition, and advocates of virtue ethics. Ethics of Compassion bridges Eastern and Western cultures, philosophical ethics and religious moral discourse, and notions of acting rightly and of being virtuous. This book will be of interest to anyone who has been introduced to the discipline of ethics. It will be useful for undergraduate courses in philosophical and religious ethics.

Conjugal Chastity in Pope Wojtyla explains how Karol Wojtyla, philosopher, theologian, and Pope, tried to show how the sexual act, within the context of marriage, is an expression of love. After explaining how love as goodwill is the foundation of conjugal love, the correct relationship between love and justice is clarified. The negative dimension of the personalistic norm of Wojtyla is then critically examined. Conjugal love is explained in terms of conjugal beneficience based on conjugal benevolence. This love leads to total self-giving in each conjugal act. The procreative meaning of the conjugal act seems to be its most formal element (the soul of the act, so to speak); the unitive element is described as an essential property of this act, something which necessarily flows from the conjugal act which is open to life. Chastity is the virtue that allows sexuality to be integrated into a love which is truly personal and reflects Trinitarian Love.

Bioethics, Law, and Human Life Issues: A Catholic Perspective on Marriage, Family, Contraception, Abortion, Reproductive Technology, and Death and Dying draws on the Magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church to outline a Catholic response to a host of controversial issues related to human life. Scarnecchia lays out a Catholic moral theology based on the writings of Pope John Paul II and Thomas Aquinas, and he then applies those Christian moral principles to today's most contentious ethical issues, including reproductive technology, embryo adoption, contraception, abortion, family and same-sex marriage, and euthanasia and assisted suicide. This review of Catholic moral principles brings together an in-depth consideration of the central human life issues of our day with abundant reference to the Church's social teaching and to contrasting positions of today's leading ethicists.

What could it mean, in terms of strengthening multilateral diplomacy, if the UN, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union, and other regional diplomatic frameworks engaged more creatively with a religious perspective? In this ground-breaking volume it is argued that international organisations, backed by governments, can and should use their convening power to initiate new, multi-layered frameworks of engagement, inclusive of the representatives of religion. This can make multilateralism more fit for purpose and have a major impact over time on our planetary future. The book is divided into an introduction and six chapters: Towards a culture of encounter inclusive of the world's religious traditions Structural questions in 21st-century diplomacy Knowing what we ought to know: the issues that face 21st-century diplomacy Towards the global objective of a common peace for humanity Understanding how change happens The diplomacy of the two standards The development of new frameworks of engagement A brief outline is offered of what an all-European initiative - an agora for Europe - might look like if, in the 2020s, there were the political will to inaugurate a European regional process reflecting the orientation and methodology proposed in the book. Combining cutting-edge research and reflection, with concrete recommendations for academics, religious actors, policy makers, and practitioners, this concise and accessible volume helps to build bridges between these oftentimes separated spheres of engagement. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003053842, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Religion, Politics and Cults in East Africa is the first major, original, and extensive research-based study of the apocalyptic and doomsday Catholic Marian Movement and its Benedictine monastic moral and religious practices, including vows of poverty, celibacy, obedience, daily contemplation in silence, and hard work. The Marian Movement is presented within the cultural, historical, political, and religious context of the East African Revival Movement, the Anglican Balokole Movement, Alice Lakwena's Holy Spirit Movement, Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and other religio-political liberation movements, including the Maji Maji, the Mau Mau, and Nyabingi Liberation Movement. The Marian Movement was locally known as "Abanyabugoto" and "The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God". It began in 1989 as a Catholic women's Marian devotional and moral reformation movement, founded and headed by Keledonia Mwerinde. Faced with African cultural patriarchy and male-dominated Catholic Church hierarchy, Mwerinde recruited Joseph Kibwetere and the Rev. Fr. Dominic Kataribabo to serve as the public face of the Marian Movement. In response to Catholic hierarchy's opposition and persecution, Fr. Kataribabo designed a theology of ritual sacrifice, atonement, and martyrdoms for the devout Marian Catholics, who were devotees of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He martyred the Marian devotees in March 2000, in order to transform them into Mary's saints, and to liberate their souls and send them to heaven, where they would instantly attain eternal life, lasting peace, and happiness.

Religion, Politics and Cults in East Africa is the first major, original, and extensive research-based study of the apocalyptic and doomsday Catholic Marian Movement and its Benedictine monastic moral and religious practices, including vows of poverty, celibacy, obedience, daily contemplation in silence, and hard work. The Marian Movement is presented within the cultural, historical, political, and religious context of the East African Revival Movement, the Anglican Balokole Movement, Alice Lakwena's Holy Spirit Movement, Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and other religio-political liberation movements, including the Maji Maji, the Mau Mau, and Nyabingi Liberation Movement. The Marian Movement was locally known as "Abanyabugoto" and "The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God". It began in 1989 as a Catholic women's Marian devotional and moral reformation movement, founded and headed by Keledonia Mwerinde. Faced with African cultural patriarchy and male-dominated Catholic Church hierarchy, Mwerinde recruited Joseph Kibwetere and the Rev. Fr. Dominic Kataribabo to serve as the public face of the Marian Movement. In response to Catholic hierarchy's opposition and persecution, Fr. Kataribabo designed a theology of ritual sacrifice, atonement, and martyrdoms for the devout Marian Catholics, who were devotees of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He martyred the Marian devotees in March 2000, in order to transform them into Mary's saints, and to liberate their souls and send them to heaven, where they would instantly attain eternal life, lasting peace, and happiness.

One of the most profound, deeply affecting questions we face as human beings is the matter of our mortality--and its connection to immortality. Ancient animist ghost cultures, Egyptian mummification, late Jewish hopes of resurrection, Christian eternal salvation, Muslim belief in hell and paradise all spring from a remarkably consistent impulse to tether a triumph over death to our conduct in life.
In After Lives, British scholar John Casey provides a rich historical and philosophical exploration of the world beyond, from the ancient Egyptians to St. Thomas Aquinas, from Martin Luther to modern Mormons. In a lively, wide-ranging discussion, he examines such topics as predestination, purgatory, Spiritualism, the Rapture, Armageddon and current Muslim apocalyptics, as well as the impact of such influences as the New Testament, St. Augustine, Dante, and the Second Vatican Council. Ideas of heaven and hell, Casey argues, illuminate how we understand the ultimate nature of sin, justice, punishment, and our moral sense itself. The concepts of eternal bliss and eternal punishment express--and test--our ideas of good and evil. For example, the ancient Egyptians saw the afterlife as flowing from ma'at, a sense of being in harmony with life, a concept that includes truth, order, justice, and the fundamental law of the universe. "It is an optimistic view of life," he writes. "It is an ethic that connects wisdom with moral goodness." Perhaps just as revealing, Casey finds, are modern secular interpretations of heaven and hell, as he probes the place of goodness, virtue, and happiness in the age of psychology and scientific investigation.
With elegant writing, a magisterial grasp of a vast literary and religious history, and moments of humor and irony, After Lives sheds new light on the question of life, death, and morality in human culture.

In Aesthetic Genesis, the author argues for a reversal of the most fundamental tenet of phenomenology-namely, that all consciousness is intentional (that is, directed toward an object). Mitscherling suggests, as a new "Copernican hypothesis," that intentionality (i.e., directionality) gives rise to consciousness. This book describes not only the origin, or "genesis," of human cognition in sensation, but also the genesis of sensation from intentional structures belonging to nature itself. A phenomenological examination of our experience leads to the conclusion that the two sorts of being generally recognized by contemporary science and philosophy-that is, material being and ideal being-prove ontologically inadequate to account for this experience. Mitscherling rehabilitates the pre-modern concepts of "intentional being" and "formal causality" and employs them in the construction of a comprehensive phenomenological analysis of embodiment, aesthetic experience, the interpretation of texts, moral behavior, and cognition in general.

Grace Jantzen was an internationally-renowned feminist philosopher of religion whose work has transformed the way we think about the interactions between religion, culture and gender in Western culture. Jantzen's aim was to 'redeem the present' via a critique and reconstruction of staple concepts of the Western imaginary. This unique book brings together many of Grace Jantzen's colleagues and former students in a wide-ranging exploration of her enduring influence, ranging across philosophy of religion, to literature, psychoanalysis, theology, ethics and politics. Part I assesses the ramifications of Jantzen's affirmation that Western culture must 'choose life' in preference to a prevailing symbolic of violence and death. Part II explores some of the key voices which contributed to Jantzen's understanding of a culture of flourishing and natality: Quaker thought and practice, medieval mysticism and feminist spirituality. Further essays apply elements of Jantzen's work to the politics of disability, development and environmentalism, extending her range of influence into new and innovative areas.

Grace Jantzen was an internationally-renowned feminist philosopher of religion whose work has transformed the way we think about the interactions between religion, culture and gender in Western culture. Jantzen's aim was to 'redeem the present' via a critique and reconstruction of staple concepts of the Western imaginary. This unique book brings together many of Grace Jantzen's colleagues and former students in a wide-ranging exploration of her enduring influence, ranging across philosophy of religion, to literature, psychoanalysis, theology, ethics and politics. Part I assesses the ramifications of Jantzen's affirmation that Western culture must 'choose life' in preference to a prevailing symbolic of violence and death. Part II explores some of the key voices which contributed to Jantzen's understanding of a culture of flourishing and natality: Quaker thought and practice, medieval mysticism and feminist spirituality. Further essays apply elements of Jantzen's work to the politics of disability, development and environmentalism, extending her range of influence into new and innovative areas.

The first basic thesis of Anti-Roman Cryptograms in the New Testament: Hidden Transcripts of Hope and Liberation is that the Jesus of history and his earliest and closest followers during his lifetime and during the decades after he had been crucified by the Romans had not only a deep longing for eternal life with God beyond the limits of this world, but also a strong desire for liberation from Roman political, economic, and social oppression. The second basic thesis of Anti-Roman Cryptograms in the New Testament is that within the Christian Scriptures there are more hidden transcripts, coded messages (anti-Roman cryptograms) of hope and liberation, for « freedom now within this life, than we have realized throughout most of the history of interpretation. Hidden transcripts of hope and liberation are coded so that oppressed people are able to communicate to their fellow oppressed people in ways in which their message and their intent are shielded from the perceptions of their oppressors. These messages by the Jesus of history and by the writers of New Testament and related literature use the language of faith, of salvation, of Deity, and of adversaries of Deity, giving words that are commonly used by the oppressed people new and double meanings. Within interaction with other scholars who are publishing studies of hidden transcripts, this book is an analysis of hidden transcripts within each of the New Testament documents. The book is designed to be used in New Testament Studies courses at undergraduate and/or graduate levels, by study groups, and by all persons who desire a more adequate understanding of the Jesus of history, his closest followers, and their oral and written communications during the first three centuries C.E.

Engaging variously with the legacy of Paul L. Lehmann, these essays argue for a reorientation in Christian theology that better honours the formative power of the gospel to animate and shape doctrine and witness, as well as ethical and political life. The authors explore key themes in Christian theology and ethics - forgiveness, discernment, responsibility, spirituality, the present day tasks of theology and the role of faith in public life - making plain the unabated importance of Lehmann's work at this juncture in contemporary theology. The internationally recognized contributors draw crucial connections between the gospel of reconciliation, the form of Christian theology and witness, and the challenges of contemporary ethical and political reflection. This book demonstrates why this close friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and author of Ethics in a Christian Context and The Transfiguration of Politics continues to influence generations of theologians in both the English-speaking world and beyond.

This is a book for anyone seeking a way out of deadlock in Church conflict situations. In employing a contemplative approach to the conflict in the Anglican Communion, it shows how relationships can be rebuilt with affection leading to trust. The author argues for reconciliation which comes with a renewed awareness of the dynamic activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church's life of communion. The present conflict has blocked this activity, stifling the Church's intellectual life by reducing it to a matter of issue-driven politics which have seriously undermined its relationships. The book offers the Anglican Communion the possibility of renewing its life together in a deeper and more apophatic encounter with God in which the certainties which divide it are set aside while the Church rediscovers the genuine bonds of affection which, until now, have held it together. This, it argues, is the work which needs to be undertaken before a Covenant is put in place if the Anglican Communion is to continue to reveal the Gospel in ways which are meaningful for a constantly changing and fragmented world.

Pro-Justice Ethics: From Lament to Nonviolence is an original work within Christian social ethics and is based upon the civil rights movement, the philosophy of non-violence, and the biblical lament tradition. The author formulates the justice imperative as an ethic of duty and defines justice as an act of protesting, preventing, and remedying injustices that cause human suffering. Formally, injustice is the violation of fairness, equality, and dignity, but in its primal form injustice is child abuse. Birth and death are discussed from a justice perspective beyond the dichotomy of pro-life and pro-choice. Special attention is devoted to the injustices of globalization, international human rights abuses, and corporate violations of the natural rights of water in the earth commons.

Morality and religion: intimately wed, violently opposed, or something else? Discussion of this issue appears in pop culture, the academy, and the media often generating radically opposed views. At one end of the spectrum are those who think that unless God exists, ethics is unfounded and the moral life is unmotivated. At the other end are those who think that religious belief is unnecessary for and even a threat to ethical knowledge and the moral life. This volume provides an accessible, charitable discussion that represents a range of views along this spectrum. The book begins with a lively debate between Paul Kurtz and William Lane Craig on the question, Is goodness without God good enough? Kurtz defends the affirmative position and Craig the negative. Following the debate are new essays by prominent scholars. These essays comment on the debate and advance the broader discussion of religion and morality. The book closes with final responses from Kurtz and Craig.

Cynthia Hess offers a thoughtful reconstruction of Christian nonviolence through an examination of both theological and theoretical works. She shows how contemporary understandings of violence and the human person challenge traditional views of nonviolence as pacifism and the refusal of military violence. Hess begins with an analysis of the extensive writings on nonviolence by John Howard Yoder, one of the foremost twentieth-century thinkers on this subject. She then seeks to deepen his view by probing the insights of trauma scholars who explore the powerful and lasting effects of traumatic violence on individuals and communities. These scholars often maintain that many survivors continue to hold the reality of traumatic violence within their bodies and minds, so that it becomes part of them as they move through time. In light of this claim, Hess argues that Christian nonviolence must move beyond pacifism to directly address the problem of internalized violence. In conversation with resources in Yoder's work as well as feminist theory and trauma studies, she analyzes an often-overlooked dimension of religious nonviolence: the creation of communities in which traumatized persons can survive and flourish. With its highly interdisciplinary character, this book presents a fresh perspective on Christian nonviolence that not only challenges traditional views but also reclaims the centrality of nonviolence for contemporary Christian theology and practice.

Ethics of Compassion places central themes from Buddhist (primarily) and Christian moral teachings within the conceptual framework of Western normative ethics. What results is a viable alternative ethical theory to those offered by utilitarians, Kantian formalists, proponents of the natural law tradition, and advocates of virtue ethics. Ethics of Compassion bridges Eastern and Western cultures, philosophical ethics and religious moral discourse, and notions of acting rightly and of being virtuous. This book will be of interest to anyone who has been introduced to the discipline of ethics. It will be useful for undergraduate courses in philosophical and religious ethics.

Human language is the only proper tool through which man's intelligence is capable to attain the truth of reality. In deciphering the truth of reality, however, the human intelligence can establish a twofold meaning of things, namely, 'meaning-content' and 'meaning-value'; the former concerning the objectivity of beings, the latter expressing the existential dimensions of human subjectivity. In his philosophy of man and his axiology of human behavior, Karol Wojtyla tries to keep a balance between the objective and subjective truth of man conceived as a person. But, considering human nature as it is found in each and every individual person, Wojtyla tries to establish a synthesis between the language that expresses the truth of man's beingness in his/her objectivity, and the language that unfolds various existential values of one's own unique subjectivity. In view of the twofold language of meaning, Karol Wojtyla was able to synthesize the traditional metaphysics of being with the contemporary axiology of human moral experience and behavior.

Morality and religion: intimately wed, violently opposed, or something else? Discussion of this issue appears in pop culture, the academy, and the media_often generating radically opposed views. At one end of the spectrum are those who think that unless God exists, ethics is unfounded and the moral life is unmotivated. At the other end are those who think that religious belief is unnecessary for_and even a threat to_ethical knowledge and the moral life. This volume provides an accessible, charitable discussion that represents a range of views along this spectrum. The book begins with a lively debate between Paul Kurtz and William Lane Craig on the question, Is goodness without God good enough? Kurtz defends the affirmative position and Craig the negative. Following the debate are new essays by prominent scholars. These essays comment on the debate and advance the broader discussion of religion and morality. The book closes with final responses from Kurtz and Craig.