Resisting Structural Evil

Resisting Structural Evil
Author: Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2013
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1451462670

Reorienting Christian ethics from its usual anthropocentrism to an ecocentrism entails a new framework that Moe-Lobeda lays out in her first chapters, culminating in a creative rethinking of how it is that we understand morally.

Resisting Structural Evil

Resisting Structural Evil
Author: Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2013-02-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1451426399

Ecojustice, social justice, and the Christian conscience ""This is a grand prophetic book motivated by love and focused on justicesocial justice, ecological justice, and dignity for 'the least of these.' Don't miss it!"" --Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary ""This book is a gift to all consumers looking for a way out of their addiction. Those of us (myself included) who know our excessive consumption is causing ecological and economic disasters should read Professor Moe-Lobedas new book. It is the best one-volume analysis of our moral dilemma I know of and, even better, it suggests principles and practices to help deal with it."" --Sallie McFague, Vancouver School of Theology ""Cynthia Moe-Lobeda's Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological and Economic Transformation takes the form of a powerful contribution to Christian ethics, but in fact it is also a major contribution to anyone in any religious or spiritual tradition who seeks to maintain both a commitment to God and to global healing and transformation. Easily accessible and charming in presentation, deep in its ability to confront difficult issues squarely and in a nuanced way, courageous in insisting that we see reality not only as it is but as it could be if we were willing to be ""unrealistic"" for a few moments, manifesting daring of thought combined with a pervasive humilitythis is a true classic of spiritual progressive consciousness, packed full of ideas that should be taught in every college and university and religious seminary, every church, synagogue, mosque and ashram!"" --Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine; Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives ""Cynthia Moe-Lobeda's book is one of the strongest statements yet to be made on the intricate connections between ecology and justice. The powerful stories and persuasive arguments lay the groundwork for the necessary transformations ahead. It will be a catalyst for change!"" --Mary Evelyn Tucker, Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University Key Features: Mapping the ethical terrain of an imperiled planet Convincingly showing how ecojustice relates to economic justice Rethinking Christian ethics in light of the ecological crisis The increasingly pressing situation of Planet Earth poses urgent ethical questions for Christians. But, as Cynthia Moe-Lobeda argues, the future of the earth is not simply a matter of protecting species and habitats but of rethinking the very meaning of Christian ethics. The earth crisis cannot be understood apart from the larger human crisiseconomic equity, social values, and human purpose are bound up with the planet's survival. In a sense, she says, the whole earth is a moral community. Reorienting Christian ethics from its usual anthropocentrism to an ecocentrism entails a new framework that Moe-Lobeda lays out in her first chapters, culminating in a creative rethinking of how it is that we understand morally. With this ""moral epistemology"" in place, she unfolds her notion of ""moral vision"" and applies it to the present situation in a full-fledged earth-honoring, justice-seeking Christian ethical stance.

Healing a Broken World

Healing a Broken World
Author: Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2002-08-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781451405477

Moe-Lobeda shows how the advent of globalization places a new horizon on the spiritual quest for religious experience. "Healing a Broken World" places spirituality and contemplative experience in relation to today's most-pressing problems.

Womanist Theological Ethics

Womanist Theological Ethics
Author: Katie Geneva Cannon
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0664235379

Writing across theological disciplines, nine African American women scholars reflect on what it means to live as responsible doers of justice. With some classic essays and some contributions published here for the first time, each chapter in this new volume in the Library of Theological Ethics series presents analytical strategies for understanding the story of womanist scholarship in the service of the black community. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.

The Structures of Virtue and Vice

The Structures of Virtue and Vice
Author: Daniel J. Daly
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 164712039X

A new ethics for understanding the social forces that shape moral character. It is easy to be vicious and difficult to be virtuous in today’s world, especially given that many of the social structures that connect and sustain us enable exploitation and disincentivize justice. There are others, though, that encourage virtue. In his book Daniel J. Daly uses the lens of virtue and vice to reimagine from the ground up a Catholic ethics that can better scrutinize the social forces that both affect our moral character and contribute to human well-being or human suffering. Daly’s approach uses both traditional and contemporary sources, drawing on the works of Thomas Aquinas as well as incorporating theories such as critical realist social theory, to illustrate the nature and function of social structures and the factors that transform them. Daly’s ethics focus on the relationship between structure and agency and the different structures that enable and constrain an individual’s pursuit of the virtuous life. His approach defines with unique clarity the virtuous structures that facilitate a love of God, self, neighbor, and creation, and the vicious structures that cultivate hatred, intemperance, and indifference to suffering. In doing so, Daly creates a Catholic ethical framework for responding virtuously to the problems caused by global social systems, from poverty to climate change.

Everyday Justice

Everyday Justice
Author: Julie Clawson
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2010-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1458766845

WHERE DOES YOUR CHOCOLATE COME FROM? DOES IT MAT TER IF YOUR COFFEE IS FAIR TRADE OR NOT? It matters - more than you might think. Julie Clawson takes us on a tour of everyday life and shows how our ordinary lifestyle choices have big implications for justice around the world. She unpacks how we get our food and clothing and shows us the surprising costs of consumer waste. How we live can make a difference not only for our own health but also for the well-being of people across the globe. The more sustainable our lifestyle, the more just our world will be. Everyday justice is one way of loving God and loving our neighbors. So don't panic. We can live more ethically, through the little and big decisions we make every day. Find out how.

Radical Reform

Radical Reform
Author: Tariq Ramadan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2009-02-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0195331710

In this new book, Tariq Ramadan argues that it is crucial to find theoretical and practical solutions that will enable Western Muslims to remain faithful to Islamic ethics while fully living within their societies and their time. He notes that Muslim scholars often refer to the notion of ijtihad (critical and renewed reading of the foundational texts) as the only way for Muslims to take up these modern challenges. But, Ramadan argues, in practice such readings have effectively reached the limits of their ability to serve the faithful in the West as well as the East. In this book he sets forward a radical new concept of ijtihad, which puts context -- including the knowledge derived from the hard and human sciences, cultures and their geographic and historical contingencies -- on an equal footing with the scriptures as a source of Islamic law.

Moral Blindness

Moral Blindness
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2013-04-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 074566962X

Evil is not confined to war or to circumstances in which people are acting under extreme duress. Today it more frequently reveals itself in the everyday insensitivity to the suffering of others, in the inability or refusal to understand them and in the casual turning away of one’s ethical gaze. Evil and moral blindness lurk in what we take as normality and in the triviality and banality of everyday life, and not just in the abnormal and exceptional cases. The distinctive kind of moral blindness that characterizes our societies is brilliantly analysed by Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis through the concept of adiaphora: the placing of certain acts or categories of human beings outside of the universe of moral obligations and evaluations. Adiaphora implies an attitude of indifference to what is happening in the world – a moral numbness. In a life where rhythms are dictated by ratings wars and box-office returns, where people are preoccupied with the latest gadgets and forms of gossip, in our ‘hurried life’ where attention rarely has time to settle on any issue of importance, we are at serious risk of losing our sensitivity to the plight of the other. Only celebrities or media stars can expect to be noticed in a society stuffed with sensational, valueless information. This probing inquiry into the fate of our moral sensibilities will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the most profound changes that are silently shaping the lives of everyone in our contemporary liquid-modern world.

Realm of Lesser Evil

Realm of Lesser Evil
Author: Jean-Claude Michea
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2009-07-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0745646212

Winston Churchill said of democracy that it was ‘the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ The same could be said of liberalism. While liberalism displays an unfailing optimism with regard to the capacity of human beings to make themselves ‘masters and possessors of nature’, it displays a profound pessimism when it comes to appreciating their moral capacity to build a decent world for themselves. As Michea shows, the roots of this pessimism lie in the idea – an eminently modern one – that the desire to establish the reign of the Good lies at the origin of all the ills besetting the human race. Liberalism’s critique of the ‘tyranny of the Good’ naturally had its costs. It created a view of modern politics as a purely negative art – that of defining the least bad society possible. It is in this sense that liberalism has to be understood, and understands itself, as the ‘politics of lesser evil’. And yet while liberalism set out to be a realism without illusions, today liberalism presents itself as something else. With its celebration of the market among other things, contemporary liberalism has taken over some of the features of its oldest enemy. By unravelling the logic that lies at the heart of the liberal project, Michea is able to shed fresh light on one of the key ideas that have shaped the civilization of the West.