Situating the church within the context of post-World War II globalization and the Cold War, American Catholicism Transformed draws on previously untapped archival sources to provide deep background to developments within the American Catholic Church in relationship to American society at large. Shaped by anti-communist sentiment and responsive to American cultural trends, the Catholic community adopted "strategies of domestic containment," stressing the close unity between the Church and the "American way of life." A focus on the unchanging character of God's law as expressed in social hierarchies of authority, race, and gender provided a public visage of unity and uniformity. However, the emphasis on American values mainstreamed into the community the political values of personal rights, equality, acceptance of the arms race, and muted the Church's inherited social vision. The result was a deep ambivalence over the forces of secularization. The Catholic community entered a transitional stage in which "those on the right" and "those on the left" battled for control of the Church's vision. International networking, reform of religious life among women, international congresses of the laity, the institutionalization of the liturgical movement, and the burgeoning civil right movement positioned the community to receive the Vatican Council in a distinctly American way. During the Second Vatican Council, the American bishops and theological experts gradually adopted the reforming currents of the world-wide Church. This convergence of international and national forces of renewal - and resistance to them - says Joseph Chinnici, will continue to shape the American Catholic community's identity in the twenty-first century.

Is it ever acceptable to lie? This question plays a surprisingly important role in the story of Europe's transition from medieval to modern society. According to many historians, Europe became modern when Europeans began to lie--that is, when they began to argue that it is sometimes acceptable to lie. This popular account offers a clear trajectory of historical progression from a medieval world of faith, in which every lie is sinful, to a more worldly early modern society in which lying becomes a permissible strategy for self-defense and self-advancement. Unfortunately, this story is wrong. For medieval and early modern Christians, the problem of the lie was the problem of human existence itself. To ask "Is it ever acceptable to lie?" was to ask how we, as sinners, should live in a fallen world. As it turns out, the answer to that question depended on who did the asking. The Devil Wins uncovers the complicated history of lying from the early days of the Catholic Church to the Enlightenment, revealing the diversity of attitudes about lying by considering the question from the perspectives of five representative voices--the Devil, God, theologians, courtiers, and women. Examining works by Augustine, Bonaventure, Martin Luther, Madeleine de Scudery, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and a host of others, Dallas G. Denery II shows how the lie, long thought to be the source of worldly corruption, eventually became the very basis of social cohesion and peace.

Depuis plus de trois decennies, les eveques de la CENCO contribuent a l'edification de la paix en RDC, pays en proie a une crise socio-politique recurrente. Cet ouvrage montre, a partir de l'analyse de huit discours politiques de la CENCO, l'impact et la pragmatique de ces discours dans la construction de la paix. Par une approche interdisciplinaire integrant l'analyse du discours, l'etude poursuit des enjeux theoriques et pratiques: saisir le fonctionnement discursif du discours et apprehender les ressources rhetoriques pour persuader les destinataires a batir la paix; montrer que le discours a une visee pragmatique adossee a un nouveau systeme de valeurs. L'etude ouvre un horizon ethique pour la transformation de la societe congolaise: elle promeut l'emergence d'un nouvel homme congolais comme un sujet ethique. Edifier un Congo paisible, juste et prospere, requiert la refondation morale de la societe par une responsabilite citoyenne et une solidarite soutenue par des Congolais; une ethique de la fraternite et une ethique de coherence adossee a l'ethique de verite. Bien documente sur les questions ethiques, ce livre peut aider les chretiens en general, le grand public et la communaute de recherche et de discussion en ethique theologique, sociale et politique.

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.

The Bonhoeffer Legacy: Australasian Journal of Bonhoeffer Studies is a fully refereed academic journal aimed principally at providing an outlet for an ever expanding Bonhoeffer scholarship in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific region, as well as being open to article submissions from Bonhoeffer scholars throughout the world. It also aims to elicit and encourage future and ongoing scholarship in the field. The focus of the journal, captured in the notion of 'Legacy', is on any aspect of Bonhoeffer's life, theology and political action that is relevant to his immense contribution to twentieth century events and scholarship. 'Legacy' can be understood as including those events and ideas that contributed to Bonhoeffer's own development, those that constituted his own context or those that have developed since his time as a result of his work. The editors encourage and welcome any scholarship that contributes to the journal's aims. The journal also has book reviews.

Even the most casual contemporary observer of Christianity must recognise that the notion of Christian community being identifiable through the mutual love of its members (John 13:35) is difficult to reconcile with the schismatic reality of current ecclesial life. Nonetheless, disagreement remains an ethical subject neglected by theologians. A Theology of Disagreement: New Testament Ethics for Ecclesial Conflicts examines how New Testament texts inform Christian approaches to disagreement. Drawing on New Testament themes, the book explores the nature of an ethic of disagreement, and its practical implications for the church's public theological witness, as well as its liturgy

Although the religious and ethical consideration of food and eating is not a new phenomenon, the debate about food and eating today is distinctly different from most of what has preceded it in the history of Western culture. Yet the field of environmental ethics, especially religious approaches to environmental ethics, has been slow to see food and agriculture as topics worthy of analysis. This book examines how religious traditions and communities in the United States and beyond are responding to critical environmental ethical issues posed by the global food system. In particular, it looks at the responses that have developed within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, and shows how they relate to arguments and approaches in the broader study of food and environmental ethics. It considers topics such as land degradation and restoration, genetically modified organisms and seed consolidation, animal welfare, water use, access, pollution, and climate, and weaves consideration of human wellbeing and justice throughout. In doing so, Gretel Van Wieren proposes a model for conceptualizing agricultural and food practices in sacred terms. This book will appeal to a wide and interdisciplinary audience including those interested in environment and sustainability, food studies, ethics, and religion.

For thousands of years the Jewish tradition has been a source of moral guidance, for Jews and non-Jews alike. As the essays in this volume show, the theologians and practitioners of Judaism have a long history of wrestling with moral questions, responding to them in an open, argumentative mode that reveals the strengths and weaknesses of all sides of a question. The Jewish tradition also offers guidance for moral conduct by individuals, communities, and countries and shows how to motivate people to do the good and right thing. The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality is a collection of original essays addressing these topics-historical and contemporary, as well as philosophical and practical-by leading scholars from around the world. The first section of the volume describes the history of the Jewish tradition's moral thought, from the Bible to contemporary Jewish approaches. The second part includes chapters on specific fields in ethics, including the ethics of medicine, business, sex, speech, politics, war, and the environment.

This work focuses on divine command, and in particular the theory that what makes something obligatory is that God commands it, and what makes something wrong is that God commands us not to do it. Focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, eminent scholar John E. Hare explains that two experiences have had to be integrated. The first is that God tells us to do something, or not to do something. The second is that we have to work out ourselves what to do and what not to do. The difficulty has come in establishing the proper relation between them. In Christian reflection on this, two main traditions have emerged, divine command theory and natural law theory. Professor Hare successfully defends a version of divine command theory, but also shows that there is considerable overlap with some versions of natural law theory. He engages with a number of Christian theologians, particularly Karl Barth, and extends into a discussion of divine command within Judaism and Islam. The work concludes by examining recent work in evolutionary psychology, and argues that thinking of our moral obligations as produced by divine command offers us some help in seeing how a moral conscience could develop in a way that is evolutionarily stable.

Discerning the Good in the Letters and Sermons of Augustine turns to the vast collection of moral advice found in Augustine's letters and sermons, mining these neglected and highly illuminating texts for examples of Augustine's application of his own moral concepts. It focuses on letters and sermons in which Augustine offers concrete advice on how to interact with the various goods relevant to social and political life. A special set of goods reappears throughout the letters and sermons, namely sexual intimacy and domestic life, power and public office, and wealth and private possessions. Together, these goods form the central topics of this book. Joseph Clair highlights that the most revealing cases are those in which an individual must choose between competing goods, and cases in which an individual's role and role-specific obligations inform their decisions. Such cases uncover the nimbleness of Augustine's moral reasoning in action-an artful blend of scriptural interpretation, virtue theory, and sensitivity to the circumstances of individual lives. He reveals that Augustine's understanding of the goods constitutive of social and political life is deeply indebted to the Stoic and Peripatetic doctrine of oikeiosis, or "social appropriation". The colorful, personal, and practical details found in these writings provide a window onto Augustine's moral reasoning not available in his more theoretical treatments of the good, and the concrete cases often illustrate the human significance of properly discerning the good. Beyond providing one of the first analyses of these ethical writings, this work contributes a new sense of Augustine's ethics-both in terms of the range of questions he addresses and the manner in which he treats them.

Der Islamische Staat in Syrien und im Irak, die Massaker von Boko Haram in Nigeria - immer neue religioes motivierte Terrorakte rufen weltweite Betroffenheit hervor, auch unter glaubigen Menschen. Weder Bibel noch Koran rechtfertigen einfach jegliche Gewalttat oder Krieg im Namen Gottes, wenn man sich mit Sprache und Sinn dieser Texte kritisch auseinandersetzt. Der Tagungsband der 16. OEkumenischen Sommerakademie Kremsmunster 2014 dokumentiert Vortrage mit unterschiedlichem konfessionellen, religioesen und weltanschaulichen Hintergrund. Sie alle beschaftigen sich mit der Thematik religioes motivierter Gewalt aus der Perspektive der Philosophie, der Praktischen Theologie und Religionspadagogik, der Religions-, Bibel- und Islamwissenschaft. Zu Wort kommen auch Reprasentanten der Friedensarbeit im Militar, in christlichen Vereinigungen und in der kirchlichen Pastoral.

In his sharp, observant book, Stan Goff grapples with a problem crucial to modern Christian values. The sanctification of war and contempt for women are both grounded in a fear that breeds hostility, a hostility that valorises conquest and murder. In 'Borderline', Goff dissects the driving force behind the darkest impulses of the human heart. The un-Christian history of loving war and hating women are not merely similar but two sides of the same coin, he argues, in an 'autobiography' that spans two millennia of war and misogyny. 'Borderline' is the personal and conceptual history of an American career army veteran transformed by Jesus into a passionate advocate for nonviolence, written by a man who narrates his conversion to Christianity through feminism.

Buddhism points out that emphasizing individuality and promoting the greatest fulfillment of the desires of the individual conjointly lead to destruction. The book promotes the basic value-choices of Buddhism, namely happiness, peace and permanence.

Happiness research convincingly shows that not material wealth but the richness of personal relationships determines happiness. Not things, but people make people happy. Western economics tries to provide people with happiness by supplying enormous quantities of things and today's dominating business models are based on and cultivates narrow self-centeredness.But what people need are caring relationships and generosity. Buddhist economics makes these values accessible by direct provision. Peace can be achieved in nonviolent ways. Wanting less can substantially contribute to this endeavor and make it happen more easily. Permanence, or ecological sustainability, requires a drastic cutback in the present level of consumption and production globally. This reduction should not be an inconvenient exercise of self-sacrifice. In the noble ethos of reducing suffering it can be a positive development path for humanity.

Europaweit bestehen verschiedene Praktiken, aber auch Debatten uber die Legalisierung moeglicher Formen "aktiver" Sterbehilfe. Umso bedeutsamer ist es, dass Christen auf Grund ihres schoepfungsmassigen Menschenbildes und eines umfassenden Lebensschutzes fur eine menschenwurdige Sterbebegleitung eintreten, die sich an den Grundsatzen der Leidminderung, Zuwendung und Fursorge orientiert und jede Form auch "nur" einer Unterstutzung der Selbsttoetung ablehnt. Ein Problem stellt dabei die gesellschaftliche Tabuisierung des Lebensendes und Todes dar. So intensiv Grenzfragen der Medizinethik medial diskutiert werden, so sehr wird das konkret erfahrbare Lebensende aus der OEffentlichkeit verdrangt. Daher stellte sich die 14. OEkumenische Sommerakademie 2012 in Kremsmunster der Gesamtthematik menschlicher Endlichkeit im Horizont der Hoffnung auf ewiges Leben. In dem Tagungsband werden die kontroversen Vortrage dokumentiert, mit denen sich die ReferentInnen vor unterschiedlichem konfessionellen oder weltanschaulichen Hintergrund als Vertreter von Medizin, Soziologie, Rechtsphilosophie und Strafrecht dem Dialog mit ReprasentantInnen von philosophischer Ethik, Moraltheologie, Systematischer Theologie und kirchlicher Pastoral stellten.

Zunehmend wird Religion als ein stoerender Faktor fur das gesellschaftliche Zusammenleben wahrgenommen. Dennoch enthalten Religionen eigene Ressourcen, die Autonomie des Politischen zu achten. Diese Ressourcen werden in dem Band prazise beschrieben. Dabei spielt der Toleranzbegriff eine erhebliche Rolle. Toleranz beschreibt nicht nur das Verhaltnis der Religionen zu Andersdenkenden, sondern auch umgekehrt das Verhaltnis nicht-religioeser Personen und Institutionen zu den Religionen. Dabei enthalt der Toleranzbegriff mehrere ethische Paradoxien, die eine theologische Interpretation erforderlich machen. Ohne eine theologische Bestimmung bleibt Toleranz ein widerspruchliches Konzept fur das friedliche Zusammenleben. Diese These wird auf prinzipieller und praktischer Ebene begrundet.

Ambrose of Milan (340-397) was the first Christian bishop to write a systematic account of Christian ethics, in the treatise De Officiis, variously translated as "on duties" or "on responsibilities." But Ambrose also dealt with the moral life in other works, notably his sermons on the patriarchs and his addresses to catechumens and newly baptized. There is a vast modern literature on Ambrose, but only in recent decades has he begun to be taken seriously as a thinker, not just as a working bishop and ecclesiastical politician. Because Ambrose was one of the few Latin Christian writers in antiquity who knew Greek, another major area of Ambrose scholarship has been the study of his sources, notably the Jewish philosopher Philo, and Christian writers such as Origen of Alexandria. In this book, Warren Smith examines the neglected biblical, liturgical and theological foundations of Ambrose's thought on ethics. Earlier studies have found little that was distinctively Christian in Ambrose's image of the virtuous person. Smith shows that though, like the pagans, Ambrose emphasized moderation, courage, justice, and prudence, for him these characteristics were shaped by the church's beliefs about God's salvific economy. The courage of a Christian facing persecution, for example, was an expression of faith in Christ's resurrection and the church's eschatological hope. Eschatology, for Ambrose, was not pagan wisdom clothed in pious language, but the very logic upon which virtue rests.

Die Frage nach der Erfahrbarkeit des Religioesen gehoert am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts fur viele zu den brennenden Fragen im Blick auf Glaube und Religion. Einer jener grossen Denker, welche die Erfahrungsdimension des Glaubens am scharfsten in den Blick genommen haben, ist ohne Zweifel Kardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Die Studie stellt sich die Aufgabe, Newmans Reflexion uber religioese Erfahrung, Glaubenserfahrung und Theologie systematisch zu durchdringen und kritisch darzustellen. Im Licht heutiger Wissenschaft zeigt sie, dass der "Kirchenlehrer der Moderne" auch in dieser Hinsicht vieles zu sagen hat: (eigene) Erfahrung und (kirchliche) Dogmatik, Affektivitat und Vernunft, Subjektivitat und Objektivitat mussen keine Gegensatze sein.

Palliative Care ist eine Antwort auf grundlegende Fragen der modernen Medizin: Wie weit wollen, sollen oder mMedizin: Wie weit wollen, sollen oder mussen wir Leben erhalten, verlangern und verbessern, wenn es von unheilbarer Krankheit, Alter oder Sterben begrenzt wird? Was wird fur ein der menschlichen Wurde und Freiheit gerecht werdendes Leben und Sterben gefordert? Ist alles medizinisch Machbare zu tun, oder widerspricht dies persoenlichen und gesellschaftlichen Vorstellungen von einem guten Leben und Sterben? Und dort, wo die heutige Medizin an ihre Grenzen stoesst, wie gehen wir mit dem Leiden und Sterben um? Welche Bedurfnisse stehen in diesen Situationen im Vordergrund? Wie kann ihnen fur moeglichst alle entsprochen werden? Was ist wesentlich in der Beziehung, in Haltung und Verhalten zueinander zwischen jenen, die unheilbar krank sind, die gehen mussen, vielleicht wollen, und jenen, die sie in dieser Situation betreuen und begleiten? Das Buch "Ethik in der Palliative Care" gibt Antworten auf diese Fragen, indem es umfassend die historischen, medizinischen, ethischen und theologischen Hintergrunde von Palliative Care beschreibt und ihren Stellenwert im Schweizer Gesundheitssystem dokumentiert.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew speaks to a contemporary world about, human rights, religious tolerance, international peace, environmental protection, and more. In the World, Yet Not of the World represents a selection of major addresses and significant messages as well as public statements by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, "first among equals" and spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. The Patriarch is as comfortable preaching about the spiritual legacy of the Orthodox Church as he is promoting sociopolitical issues of his immediate cultural environment and praying for respect toward Islam or for global peace. As the documents reveal, the tenure of the Ecumenical Patriarch has been characterized by inter-Orthodox cooperation, inter-Christian dialogue and interreligious understanding. He has traveled more extensively than any other Orthodox Patriarch in history, exchanging official visitations with numerous ecclesiastical and state dignitaries. In particular, because he is a citizen of Turkey and the leader of a Christian minority in a predominantly Muslim nation, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's personal experience endows him with a unique perspective on religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue. These documents are drawn from his prominent leadership roles as primary spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian world and transnational figure of global significance - influential roles that become more vital each day. Published together here for the first time, the writings reveal the Ecumenical Patriarch as a bridge builder and peacemaker. One of his catchphrases is "War in the name of religion is war against religion." Over the past eighteen years, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's inclination and intention have been to address the most difficult issues facing the world-the deep and increasing mistrust between East and West, the decay and widening destruction of the natural environment, as well as the sharp divisions among the various Christian confessions and diverse faith communities-whether on religious, racial, or cultural levels. He regards being a servant of reconciliation as a primary obligation of his spiritual ministry to. This book reveals the powerful influence of a spiritual institution from the unique perspective of a Christian leader in the world, and yet not of the world. Some of the topics covered: oFaith and freedom oRacism and fundamentalism oMutual respect and tolerance oEcology and poverty oHuman rights and freedom oRacial and religious discrimination oChurch and state oTerrorism and corruption oFreedom of conscience oEurope, Turkey and the world oReligion and politics oChristians and Muslims oChristians and Jews