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Looking at the experience of Holocaust survivors and of survivors of child abuse, this work asks disturbing questions why God permits victimization of the innocent.
Judaism is often described as a religion that tolerates, even celebrates arguments with God. In Pious Irreverence, Dov Weiss has written the first scholarly study of the premodern roots of this distinctively Jewish theology of protest, examining its origins and development in the rabbinic age (70 CE-800 CE).
While atheists such as Richard Dawkins have now become public figures, there is another and perhaps darker strain of religious rebellion that has remained out of sight--people who hate God. In this revealing book, Bernard Schweizer looks at men and women who do not question God's existence, but deny that He is merciful, competent, or good. Sifting through a wide range of literary and historical works, Schweizer finds that people hate God for a variety of reasons. Some are motivated by social injustice, human suffering, or natural catastrophes that God does not prevent. Some blame God for their personal tragedies. Schweizer concludes that, despite their blasphemous thoughts, these people tend to be creative and moral individuals, and include such literary lights as Friedrich Nietzsche, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, Rebecca West, Elie Wiesel, and Philip Pullman. Schweizer shows that literature is a fertile ground for God haters. Many authors, who dare not voice their negative attitude to God openly, turn to fiction to give vent to it. Indeed, Schweizer provides many new and startling readings of literary masterpieces, highlighting the undercurrent of hatred for God. Moreover, by probing the deeper mainsprings that cause sensible, rational, and moral beings to turn against God, Schweizer offers answers to some of the most vexing questions that beset human relationships with the divine.
This fascinating memoir begins with the author leaving his home in California at the age of nineteen to enter a seminary on the outskirts of Rome. The seminary has a resident "saint" who is later discovered to be far more human than spiritual. The author struggled to be faithful to his commitment by suppressing his emotional needs, and thought about changing his life, but eventually ended up at the North American College, the premier American seminary at the Vatican. Sexual identity became an issue for him and many other within the seminary walls. This identity crisis reflected a greater conflict between the spiritual and the human: could he be a truly spiritual person while he was at war with himself? Mark Tedesco entered the seminary in 1978, was ordained in 1988 and served in the priesthood until 1994. But he slowly began to realize that in order to be a complete person, he would have to leave the priesthood and find his own way. He finally understood what it meant to embrace all of his past, all of his experiences, both good and bad. He came to accept that the flesh and the spirit do not have to be at war. This is the engrossing story of the one man's struggle with himself and the church, resulting in a redemptive happiness and peace. It deals with such questions as the search for meaning, spirituality versus humanity, faith in God and being gay. It is very timely, especially now that the Vatican has begun to investigate gays in seminaries.
This volume engages the work of Walter Brueggemann, most of which has been published by Fortress Press. The volume centers on the character of God in the text of the Old Testament as a site of theological tension and even ambivalence. Biblical faith never experiences God as entirely above the fray but rather as entangled in history, astonishingly transformative, and impinged upon by the voices of the suffering. Brueggemann's monumental Theology of the Old Testament addresses this fact with great theological insight and rigor, and the internationally renowned biblical scholars writing here engage and extend his insights into the "unsettled Character . . . at the center of the text."
The #MeToo movement has revealed sexual abuse in every sphere of society, including the church. But all too often, churches have been complicit in protecting abusers, reinforcing patriarchal power dynamics, and creating cultures of secrecy, shame, and silence. Disclosing candid stories of abuse, pastor and survivor Ruth Everhart offers God's hope to survivors while shining a light on the prevalence of sexual misconduct within faith communities.
People who helped exterminate Jews during the shoah (Hebrew for "holocaust") often claimed that they only did what was expected of them. Intrigued by hearing the same response from individuals who rescued Jews, David R. Blumenthal proposes that the notion of ordinariness used to characterize Nazi evil is equally applicable to goodness. In this provocative book, Blumenthal develops a new theory of human behavior that identifies the social and psychological factors that foster both good and evil behavior. Drawing on lessons primarily from the shoah but also from well-known obedience and altruism experiments, My Lai, and the civil rights movement, Blumenthal deftly interweaves insights from psychology, history, and social theory to create a new way of looking at human behavior. Blumenthal identifies the factors — social hierarchy, education, and childhood discipline — that shape both good and evil attitudes and actions. Considering how our religious and educational institutions might do a better job of encouraging goodness and discouraging evil, he then makes specific recommendations for cultivating goodness in people, stressing the importance of the social context of education. He reinforces his ideas through stories, teachings, and case histories from the Jewish tradition that convey important lessons in resistance and goodness. Appendices include the ethical code of the Israel Defense Forces, material on non-violence from the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center, a suggested syllabus for a Jewish elementary school, and a list of prosocial sources on the Web, as well as a complete bibliography. If people can commit acts of evil without thinking, why can’t even more commit acts of kindness? Writing with power and insight, Blumenthal shows readers of all faiths how we might replace patterns of evil with empathy, justice, and caring, and through a renewed attention to moral education, perhaps prevent future shoahs.
Thy Nature & Thy Name is Love brings leading scholars into dialogue over points of convergence and divergence between Wesleyan and process theologies.
This controversial analysis of creationism examines the arguments put forward to support the acceptance of a literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation, and presents counterarguments from a scientific viewpoint. Also critically examines the material that many creationists use to support their beliefs. Includes a bibliography. The author is professor of geology at the University of Melbourne.