God Loves Diversity and Justice: Progressive Scholars Speak About Faith, Politics, and the World
Author(s): Susanne Scholz (Editor), Pat Davis (Contributor), Maria A. Dixon (Contributor), Marc H. Ellis (Contributor), Victoria Fontan (Contributor), Serge Frolov (Contributor), Susanne Johnson (Contributor), Gordene MacKenzie (Contributor), Pamela J. Milne (Contributor), Qudsia Mirza (Contributor), Nancy Nangeroni (Contributor), Joerg Rieger (Contributor), Isam M. Shihada (Contributor), Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (Contributor), Sze-kar Wan (Contributor)
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication Date: 16 May 2013
Language: English
Print length: 248 pages
ISBN-10: 9780739173183
ISBN-13: 0739173189
Book Description
Both personal and scholarly in tone, this book encourages readers to think theologically, ethically, and politically about the statement that declares: “God loves diversity and justice.” The multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-disciplinary, and multi-gendered identities of the eleven contributors and two respondents deepen the conversation. It considers questions such as: Do we affirm or challenge this theological statement? Do we concentrate on “God” in our response or do we interrogate what diversity and justice mean in light of God’s love for diversity and justice? Alternatively, do we prefer to ponder the verb, to love, and consider what it might mean for society if people really believed in a divinity loving diversity and justice? Of course, there are no easy and simple answers whether we consult the Sikh scriptures, the Bible, the Qur’an, the movies, the Declaration of Human Rights, or the transgender movement, but the effort is worthwhile. The result is a serious historical, literary, cultural, and religious discourse that fends against intellectually rigid thought and simplistic belief systems across the religious spectrum. In our world in which so much military unrest and violence, economic inequities, and religious strife prevail, such a conversation nurtures theological, ethical, and political possibilities of inclusion and justice.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Fourteen scholars from a diversity of backgrounds, Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, white, African-American, Asian, believers and non-believers, struggle with this affirmation about God, love, diversity and justice and all agree that together we must work for a world that affirms diversity with justice. A book well worth pondering.
The title of this collection of provocative essays makes a bold statement, which most of the authors support with arguments from religious texts and skillful critical analysis, while others dispute or regard as beside the point. An underlying question here is the role religion plays in upholding justice and celebrating diversity, toward healing the wounds of our fragmented and ailing global community. Religious believer or not, the reader is challenged to think, and to take a stand for oneself.
About the Author
Joerg Rieger is distinguished professor of theology and holds the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies in the Divinity School and the Graduate Program of Religion at Vanderbilt University. He is also the founding director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt. He is the author of Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity (2022).Terra Schwerin Rowe is associate professor in the philosophy and religion department at the University of North Texas. She is co-director of the AAR seminar, Energy, Extraction, and Religion, on the steering committee of the academy’s Religion and Ecology unit, and a member of the Petrocultures Research Group. She is author of Toward a Better Worldliness: Economy, Ecology, and the Protestant Tradition (2017) and Of Modern Extraction: Experiments in Critical Petro-theology (2023).
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