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The Babylon Complex: Theopolitical Fantasies of War, Sex, and Sovereignty

Erin Runions

Following allusions to Babylon in secular and religious discourse in the decade after 9.11, this book explores the complicated influence of the Bible on U.S. political thought. Babylon is a ... More

Following allusions to Babylon in secular and religious discourse in the decade after 9.11, this book explores the complicated influence of the Bible on U.S. political thought. Babylon is a surprisingly multivalent symbol in U.S. culture and politics. This composite biblical figure—taken from interpretive traditions about Babylon, Babel, and the Whore of Babylon—is variously used to celebrate diversity and also to condemn it, to sell sexuality and to regulate it, to worry about homogeneous tyrannical imperialism and to galvanize the “war on terror” and the war in Iraq. Babylon becomes so much a site of admiration and an object of vilification that the United States can be said to have a Babylon complex. This book shows that the Babylon complex contends with anxieties about the loss of political sovereignty in economic globalization, while encouraging the very market forces that undermine sovereignty. Shifting and contradictory allusions to Babylon reveal a theopolitically motivated biopolitics that tries to balance the drive for U.S. dominance with the countervailing moral ideals and forms of political subjectivity that further economic globalization and control the distribution of wealth. The centering and decentering impulses of Babylon and Babel give the composite figure the biblical authority to manage this tension and sustain U.S. empire. The book interrogates the interpretive moves by which the Bible gains its political authority and proposes instead other modes of reading that take the figure of Babylon as a catalyst for a detranscendentalized, queer, sublime, radically democratic polity.Less

Being-in-Creation: Human Responsibility in an Endangered World

Brian Treanor, Bruce Benson, and Norman Wirzba (eds)

What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosophical question, which underlies vast environmental crises, forces us to investigate the tension ... More

What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosophical question, which underlies vast environmental crises, forces us to investigate the tension between our extraordinary powers, which seem to set us apart from nature, even above it, and our thoroughgoing ordinariness, as revealed by the evolutionary history we share with all life. The contributors to this volume ask us to consider whether the anxiety of unheimlichkeit, which in one form or another absorbed so much of twentieth-century philosophy, might reveal not our homelessness in the cosmos but a need for a fundamental belongingness and implacement in it.Less

Between Dancing and Writing: The Practice of Religious Studies

Kimerer L. LaMothe

This book provides philosophical grounds for an emerging area of scholarship: the study of religion and dance. In the first part, the book investigates why scholars in religious ... More

This book provides philosophical grounds for an emerging area of scholarship: the study of religion and dance. In the first part, the book investigates why scholars in religious studies have tended to overlook dance, or rhythmic bodily movement, in favor of textual expressions of religious life. In close readings of Descartes, Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Kierkegaard, the book traces this attitude to formative moments of the field in which philosophers relied upon the practice of writing to mediate between the study of “religion”, on the one hand, and “theology”, on the other. In the second part, the book revives the work of theologian, phenomenologist, and historian of religion Gerardus van der Leeuw for help in interpreting how dancing can serve as a medium of religious experience and expression. In so doing, it opens new perspectives on the role of bodily being in religious life, and on the place of theology in the study of religion.Less

Beyond Violence: Religious Sources of Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

James L. Heft (ed.)

In an age of terrorism and other forms of violence committed in the name of religion, how can religion become a vehicle for peace, justice, and reconciliation? And in a world of ... More

In an age of terrorism and other forms of violence committed in the name of religion, how can religion become a vehicle for peace, justice, and reconciliation? And in a world of bitter conflicts—many rooted in religious difference—how can communities of faith understand one another? these chapters address a fundamental question: how the three monotheistic traditions can provide the resources needed in the work of justice and reconciliation. Rabbis Irving Greenberg and Reuven Firestone each examine the relationship of Judaism to violence, exploring key sources and the history of power, repentance, and reconciliation. From Christianity, philosopher Charles Taylor explores the religious dimensions of “categorical” violence against other faiths, other groups, while Scott Appleby traces the emergence since Vatican II of nonviolence as a foundation of Catholic theology and practice. Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia, discusses Muslim support of pluralism and human rights, and Mohamed Fathi Osman examines the relationship between political violence and sacred sources in contemporary Islam. By focusing on the transformative powers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the chapters in this book provide new beginnings for people of faith committed to restoring peace among nations through peace among religions.Less

Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress

Raymond A. Schroth

This book shows that the contentious mixture of religion and politics in the United States is nothing new. Four decades ago, Father Robert Drinan, the fiery Jesuit priest from Massachusetts, not only ... More

This book shows that the contentious mixture of religion and politics in the United States is nothing new. Four decades ago, Father Robert Drinan, the fiery Jesuit priest from Massachusetts, not only demonstrated against the Vietnam War, he ran for Congress as an antiwar candidate and won, going on to serve for ten years. This book includes research taken from magazine and newspaper articles and various archives and interviews with dozens of those who knew Drinan to bring forth here a life-sized portrait.Less

The Bread of the Strong: Lacouturisme and the Folly of the Cross, 1910-1985

Jack Downey

This study investigates the origins, development, and influence of a controversial retreat movement which emerged as a self-consciously countercultural response to the socio-religious revival in ... More

This study investigates the origins, development, and influence of a controversial retreat movement which emerged as a self-consciously countercultural response to the socio-religious revival in early twentieth-century Québec. The movement's founder and namesake, Onésime Lacouture, S.J., developed a redaction of the Ignatian Exercises that was heavily informed by his mystical experiences and ascetic theology. The retreat was wildly attractive to some, while others saw it as overly severe, possibly heretical. The retreat endured Lacouture's personal suppression, and migrated southward to the United States, nesting among sympathetic clergy constellated around Pittsburgh. Its most prolific advocate and apologist was a diocesan priest named John Hugo, who traded blows with antagonistic critics and was himself “exiled” to a series of suburban Pennsylvanian parishes. Hugo would proselytize the retreat tirelessly, and found an enthusiastic vessel in Dorothy Day—cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, candidate for sainthood, and an icon of contemporary radical Catholic activism. From a socially withdrawn contemplative movement—deeply opposed to mainstream Canadien assimilation into Anglo Canadian culture and the then-ascendant “social Catholicism”—the Lacouture retreat would morph into spiritual fodder for arguably the most radically socially engaged iteration of Roman Catholicism in North America. This book discusses the evolution of “Lacouturisme” and its impact on Catholic Worker theology within the contexts of the Christian ascetic tradition, Catholic engagements with “Modernism,” and spiritual transnationalism.Less

The Catholic Church and the Jewish People: Recent Reflections from Rome

Norbert J. Hofmann and Joseph Sievers

Philip A Cunningham (ed.)

This book makes available in fifteen chapters English essays that mark the fortieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian ... More

This book makes available in fifteen chapters English essays that mark the fortieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate). Surveying Vatican dialogues and documents, the chapters explore theological questions posed by the Shoah and the Catholic recognition of the Jewish people's covenantal life with God. Featuring essays by Vatican officials, leading rabbis, diplomats, and Catholic and Jewish scholars, the book discusses the nature of Christian–Jewish relations and the need to remember their conflicted and often tragic history, aspects of a Christian theology of Judaism, the Catholic–Jewish dialogue since the Shoah, and the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel. The book includes an essay by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and documents on the rapprochement between the Church and the Jewish people.Less

Catholic Social Learning: Educating the Faith That Does Justice

Roger Bergman

The canon for Catholic social teaching spreads to six hundred pages, yet fewer than two pages are devoted to Catholic social learning or pedagogy. This book begins to correct that gross imbalance. It ... More

The canon for Catholic social teaching spreads to six hundred pages, yet fewer than two pages are devoted to Catholic social learning or pedagogy. This book begins to correct that gross imbalance. It asks: How do we educate (lead out) the faith that does justice? How is commitment to social justice provoked and sustained over a lifetime? To address these questions, the book weaves what has been learned from thirty years as a faith-that-does-justice educator with the best of current scholarship and historical authorities. The book reflects on personal experience; the experience of Church leaders, lay activists, and university students; and the few words the tradition itself has to say about a pedagogy for justice. This book explores the foundations of this pedagogy, demonstrates its practical applications, and illuminates why and how it is fundamental to Catholic higher education. Part I identifies personal encounters with the poor and marginalized as key to stimulating a hunger and thirst for justice. Part II presents three applications of Catholic social learning: cross-cultural immersion as illustrated by Creighton University's Semestre Dominicano program; community-based service learning; and the teaching of moral exemplars such as Dorothy Day, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Archbishop Oscar Romero. Part III then elucidates how a pedagogy for justice applies to the traditional liberal educational mission of the Catholic university, and how it can be put into action.Less

The Catholic Studies Reader

James T. Fisher and Margaret M. McGuinness (eds)

This is a rare book in an emerging field that has neither a documented history nor a consensus as to what should be a normative methodology. Dividing this volume into five interrelated themes central ... More

This is a rare book in an emerging field that has neither a documented history nor a consensus as to what should be a normative methodology. Dividing this volume into five interrelated themes central to the practice and theory of Catholic Studies —Sources and Contexts, Traditions and Methods, Pedagogy and Practice, Ethnicity, Race, and Catholic Studies, and The Catholic Imagination—the editors provide readers with the opportunity to understand the great diversity within this area of study. Readers will find essays on the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic social teaching, as well as reflections on the arts and literature.Less

Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007

Avery Cardinal Dulles

The author of this book has written and lectured on a wide range of topics across his career, and for a wide range of audiences. Integrating faith and scholarship, he has created a ... More

The author of this book has written and lectured on a wide range of topics across his career, and for a wide range of audiences. Integrating faith and scholarship, he has created a rich body of work that, in the words of one observer, is “both faithful to Catholic tradition and fresh in its engagement with the contemporary world” Here are the talks the author has given twice each year since the Laurence J. McGinley Lectures were initiated in 1988, conceived broadly as a forum on Church and society. The result is a diverse collection that reflects the breadth of his thinking and engages with many of the most important—and difficult—religious issues of our day. Organized chronologically, the lectures are often responses to timely issues, such as the relationship between religion and politics, a topic he treated in the last weeks of the presidential campaign of 1992. Other lectures take up questions surrounding human rights, faith and evolution, forgiveness, the death penalty, the doctrine of religious freedom, the population of hell, and a whole array of theological subjects, many of which intersect with culture and politics. The life of the Church is a major and welcome focus of the lectures, whether they be a reflection on Cardinal Newman or an exploration of the difficulties of interfaith dialogue. The author responds frequently to initiatives of the Holy See, discussing gender and priesthood in the context of church teaching, and Pope Benedict's interpretation of Vatican II. He seeks to “render the wisdom of past ages applicable to the world in which we live”. For those seeking to share in this wisdom, this book will be a guide to what it means to be Catholic—indeed, to be a person of any faith—in a world of rapid, relentless change.Less