Suchergebnisse

Human understanding of belonging is dynamic, vulnerable to one's situational context in place and time. Yet, underneath and throughout the poetry, parables, and promises of Jewish and Christian scripture is an immutable and timeless affirmation of the sanctity of the human being and human life, an affirmation that is often submerged below the political constraints made on social relationships. This article offers a glimpse into that permeating affirmation. It endeavors to demonstrate through a brief consideration of key scriptural texts how these Abrahamic traditions call adherents to go beyond a confined theology of welcome or hospitality to embrace a more radical, inclusive theology of belonging: a political theology that makes way for regarding the stranger as citizen, or, more perfectly, as a full and equal participant in community.

AbstractThis article explores the complex reality of religious freedom in post-war Iraq. It examines the constitutional parameters of religious freedom in a democratizing Iraq, while also demonstrating how the muddy realities of sectarian intolerance and violence continue to impede the realization of this essential liberty in "the land between two rivers."

From within a religious tradition as complex and divisive as Christianity, Muddathir 'Abd al-Rahim, professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, provides a resource-rich explication of human rights and duties in Islam. The difficult challenge for contemporary Hinduism-that being 'a recognition of plurality and distinctiveness on the one hand, and equality of human beings on the other'-is aptly illustrated in India's democratic Constitution, which calls for individual equality before the law and the freedom of religion; religious freedom for most Hindus, however, includes 'Karma and rebirth-and thus inequality at birth' (p. 175).

Tyler reviews The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam edited by J. Harold Ellens.

Tyler reviews Constraint on Trial: Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert and Religious Freedom by Gerrit Voogt.