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This sweeping new anthology shows how religion has joined with and learned from movements for social justice, peace, and ecological wisdom. Liberating Faith surveys the entire range of religious social activism: from liberation theology and feminist religion to ecotheology and peace activism.

It includes theology, social critique, position papers, denominational statements, manifestos, rituals, prayers, biographical accounts, and journalistic descriptions of real world struggles, beginning with a survey of ethical teachings from traditional sources.

Following sections deal with "precursor" voices before the 20th century, Gandhi's exemplary vision, overviews of the connections between religion, society, and political movements, and impassioned accounts of particular issues.

Containing voices from a multitude of traditions, national settings, and perspectives. Liberating Faith includes writings by Latin American liberation theologians and radical American religious activists, statements on social justice by the Pope and environmental morality by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch, religious critiques of collective and interpersonal violence, passionate denunciations of racism and quiet eloquence which demands that we all stand up for morality in dark times.

Among the more than eighty authors are Thomas Berry, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abraham Heschel, Martin Luther King, Winona Laduke, Michael Lerner, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Judith Plaskow, Rosemary Ruether, and Vandana Shiva. An invaluable teaching resource and the definitive introduction to global religious social activism, this book offers a visionary alternative to both repressive fundamentalism and spiritless secularism.

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…[T]o ignore the classics is ultimately to weaken the very foundations of our society. - James Atlas, Book Wars

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

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Amazon.com
On the night of February 17, 1869, the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev went to bed frustrated by a puzzle he had been playing with for years: how the atomic weights of the chemical elements could be grouped in some meaningful way--and one that, with any luck, would open a window onto the hidden structure of nature. He dreamed, as he later recalled, of "a table where all the elements fell into place as required." His intuition that when the elements were listed in order of weight, their properties repeated in regular intervals, gave rise to the Periodic Table of the Elements--which, though much revised since, underlies modern chemistry.
Mendeleyev's discovery brackets Paul Strathern's learned and literate history of chemistry. He traces the origins of that science, as it is understood in the West, to the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who backed up his surmises about the nature of things with evidence and used arguments "entirely within the realm of this world." From Thales's day, Strathern takes us into the studies of Arabic-speaking scientists such as Avicenna and Al-Razi, who preserved classical science and added to it their own insights; introduces us to the medieval alchemists who in turn preserved the work of Islamic scholars while questing to discover the inner secrets of matter (and perhaps make a little gold in the bargain); and leads us into the early modern world of such greats as Lavoisier, Van Helmont, and Cavendish, who added rigorous methodology and important discoveries to that quest.

Strathern relates false steps and true breakthroughs alike, and his narrative is a pleasure to read. --Gregory McNamee

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The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

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If no one has read the book yet, I'd recommend "Man is the Measure" by Rueben Abel for next month. It's somewhat of an introduction to philosophy and is very comprehensive. I've just started it, so I'd be able to participate in any discussions of it.

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Did Martin Luther King's spiritual understanding of political struggle truly help the Civil Rights movement? Can breast cancer victims incorporate both spiritual wisdom and political action in their fight for life? Confronting questions that challenge the foundations of both politics and spirituality, Roger S. Gottlieb presents a brave new account of how religious ethics and progressive movements share a common vision of a transformed world.

In doing so, he offers a bold and eloquent affirmation: that authentic religion requires an activist, transforming presence in the political world, and that the moral and psychological insights of religion are indispensable resources in political struggles for democracy, human rights and ecological sanity. With original and compelling interpretations of Martin Luther King and the civil rights struggle, feminism, disability rights, the global environmental movement, and the fight for breast cancer, Joining Hands will alter the way spiritual seekers, political activists, and society as a whole think about the political role of religion and the spiritual component of politics.

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Deep ecology, a valuation of the ecosystem or the whole system of life that does not necessarily involve a god, serves as the focal point of the 13 religious essays featured in this collection. As the editors point out, deep ecology suggests a moral, political, and spiritual stance that challenges religions to respond, out of their specific traditions, to the complex phenomenon of environmental philosophy, religious cosmology, and public policy. Barnhill (intercultural and religious studies, Guilford Coll.) and Gottlieb (philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Inst.) excel at assembling disparate voices from a variety of world traditions, from Hinduism and Confucianism to Christian ecofeminism and New Age spirituality, and they present their concerns in a straightforward manner.

Some contributors struggle openly with deep ecology's issues, some find harmony, and others embrace ecocentrism over religion, hoping to locate a sense of the divine in the process. Overall, this is a satisfying discussion that showcases the complexities of thoughtful human engagement with our natural environment.

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Invoking the spirits of Dorothy Day, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr., Gottlieb (This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment) strives to shape a personal spirituality marked by social justice. Most often, he says, people associate spirituality with personal happiness and inner peace. The author notes that most methods of spiritual practice encourage individual growth and spiritual self-esteem. Yet, says Gottlieb, this turn inward spiritually detaches people from the problems of the world where they live their everyday lives.

Gottlieb argues that we must stop separating spirituality from social responsibility and instead recognize that our spirituality imbues all our political and social decisions. The author uses the massive evils of the Holocaust and the destruction of the environment to illustrate his thesis that religious people often separate the spiritual from the political. Urging spiritual seekers to identify resistance with spiritual fulfillment, Gottlieb asserts that in such an act "we encounter the face of God, awaken to the call of the Goddess, and realize our deepest connections to the mysteries of human life."

Gottlieb's brand of spirituality promotes the achievement of true peace and oneness with all of reality through embracing evil and pain. Gottlieb's pleas for a spirituality that overcomes and resists evil even as it embraces it are eloquent and passionate.

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