After the Gulf War and amidst the ongoing “peace process,” this timely book speaks to the need to address the deeper issues of Israel and Palestine—issues that concerned Jews, Arabs, and Christians must face if the legitimate rights of the Palestinians and the moral integrity of the State of Israel are to survive the rush to a “new world order” in the Middle East.
When a life is on the line, love has to wait. Doesn't it? After a devastating professional embarrassment, Cory Lance has been banished from the courtroom. As part of her penance, she volunteers with an organization that works to free the wrongly convicted, and soon she's saddled with a case certain to set her up for another big defeat. To top it off, she's battling a strong attraction to her client's sister, a woman with unreasonable expectations. Serena Washington has learned to compartmentalize the negative pieces of her past, except for one—her brother, Eric, who is on death row for a murder he insists he didn't commit. Loyalty drives her to enlist help from an organization with a reputation for unparalleled success, but Serena's optimism is shaken when she learns the attorney assigned to the case has a reputation for cutting corners. Her whole world is shaken when she begins to fall in love with her.
At its heart, liberation theology is a modern theology of resistance to the oppression imposed by colonialist and post-colonialist systems and even by churches that cooperate with secular centers of power to oppress the poor and disadvantaged. It is a grassroots social justice theology, a cri de cœur, that seeks to give spiritual succor and hope to those living in seemingly hopeless circumstances. Palestinians--a people whose suffering has largely been forgotten by the world since Israel's establishment and who are most often stereotyped as extremists and enemies of Israel with no legitimate claim to their own homeland--are among the world's most marginalized populations. The small Palestinian Christian community, an indigenous population descended from Jesus's first followers, has created a liberation theology for the Palestinian context that reaches out to its own Christian faithful and their Muslim compatriots. This is a nonviolent political-theological resistance that follows Jesus's teaching that God is present with all God's children and heeds Jesus's gospel injunctions to comfort the suffering and "let the oppressed go free." For Palestinians, their very survival in the land is resistance to Israel's efforts to remove them, and liberation theology sustains their resistance. Jesus was the first liberation theologian.
Liberation theology emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed. As a part of Christian theology, liberation theology has been most frequently associated with the Catholic Church in Latin America. This groundbreaking work seeks to identify how the theological concepts of liberation theology might be manifested within other world faith traditions. This is thus the first book that attempts to find a "common ground" for liberation theology across religions. All of the contributors are scholars who share the religion or belief system they describe. Throughout, they endeavor to articulate liberationist concepts from the perspective of those who have been marginalized.
"Beyond the immediate issues of politics and economics lie the larger and deeper realities of history and fidelity. As a Jew I am asking in these essays traditional religious questions in light of our present circumstances: What does it mean to be Jewish after the Holocaust and the consolidation of our empowerment in Israel/Palestine? Coming from a situation of oppression, what does it mean for Jewish history and theology to continue oppressing the Palestinian people? Has our empowerment in Israel brought us the freedom we so urgently needed, or has our abuse of power in Israel brought us a new enslavement and ghettoization which we did not seek, but now pursue almost blindly? Can we be healed of our trauma of Holocaust by finalizing the trauma of the Palestinian people which we as Jews have inflicted? At the lighting of the Shabbat candles, shall we bless our endeavor and thank God for making us into a warrior people?" --From the Introduction
A reinterpretation of thinkers from Benjamin and Rosenzweig to Simone Weil and Derrida Judaism and Modernity: Philosophical Essays challenges the philosophical presentation of Judaism as the sublime ‘other’ of modernity. Here, Gillian Rose develops a philosophical alternative to deconstruction and post-modernism by critically re-engaging the social and political issues at stake in every reconstruction.
Speaking from their respective disciplines in the humanities, theology, and education, thirteen Holocaust scholars -- both Jewish and Christian -- candidly address the challenges, risks, and possibilities embedded in the discouraging, long-lasting Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They also sharply critique the use of Holocaust terminology or imagery by the modern-day combatants -- on either side -- as trivialization of a unique and devastating event. Anguished Hope casts a powerful vision for a more peaceful future in the Middle East.Contributors: Rachel N. Baum David Blumenthal Margaret Brearley Britta Frede-Wenger Myrna Goldenberg Peter J. Haas Henry F. Knight Hubert Locke David Patterson Didier Pollefeyt Amy H. Shapiro
The T&T Clark Handbook of Political Theology is a comprehensive reference resource informed by serious theological scholarship in the three Abrahamic traditions. The engaging and original contributions within this collection represent the epitome of contemporary scholarship in theology, religion, philosophy, history, law, and political science, from leading scholars in their area of specialization. Comprised of five sections that illuminate the rise and relevance of political theology, this handbook begins with the birth of contemporary “political theology,” and is followed by discussions of historical resources and past examples of interaction between theology and politics from all three Abrahamic traditions. The third section surveys the leading figures and movements that have had an impact on the discipline of political theology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and the contributors then build on previously discussed historical resources and methods to engage with contemporary issues and challenges, emphasizing interreligious dialogue, even while addressing concerns of relevance to a particular faith tradition. The volume concludes with three essays that look at the future of political theology from the perspective of each Abrahamic religion. Complete with select bibliographies for each topic, this companion features the most current overview of political theology that will reach a broader, global audience of students and scholars
One of the Best Books of 2017: National Public Radio, San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness "Remarkable . . . Captivating . . . Rachlin is a skilled storyteller." --New York Times Book Review "A gripping legal-thriller mystery . . . Profoundly elevates good-cause advocacy to greater heights--to where innocent lives are saved." --USA Today "A crisply written page turner." --NPR A gripping account of one man's long road to freedom that will forever change how we understand our criminal justice system During the last three decades, more than two thousand American citizens have been wrongfully convicted. Ghost of the Innocent Man brings us one of the most dramatic of those cases and provides the clearest picture yet of the national scourge of wrongful conviction and of the opportunity for meaningful reform. When the final gavel clapped in a rural southern courtroom in the summer of 1988, Willie J. Grimes, a gentle spirit with no record of violence, was shocked and devastated to be convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. Here is the story of this everyman and his extraordinary quarter-century-long journey to freedom, told in breathtaking and sympathetic detail, from the botched evidence and suspect testimony that led to his incarceration to the tireless efforts to prove his innocence and the identity of the true perpetrator. These were spearheaded by his relentless champion, Christine Mumma, a cofounder of North Carolina's Innocence Inquiry Commission. That commission--unprecedented at its inception in 2006--remains a model organization unlike any other in the country, and one now responsible for a growing number of exonerations. With meticulous, prismatic research and pulse-quickening prose, Benjamin Rachlin presents one man's tragedy and triumph. The jarring and unsettling truth is that the story of Willie J. Grimes, for all its outrage, dignity, and grace, is not a unique travesty. But through the harrowing and suspenseful account of one life, told from the inside, we experience the full horror of wrongful conviction on a national scale. Ghost of the Innocent Man is both rare and essential, a masterwork of empathy. The book offers a profound reckoning not only with the shortcomings of our criminal justice system but also with its possibilities for redemption.
