The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics

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Georgetown University Press, 9 oct. 2003 - 312 pagini

The Global Face of Public Faith addresses the hotly debated question of the role religion should play in politics in both the American and international contexts. It engages the fears that public religion threatens American democracy and could lead to a global clash of civilizations and new wars of religion. It analyzes how Christianity can attain common ground with other religious communities, thus becoming a force for peace and human rights. The separation of church from state need not mean the privatization of religion. Religious engagement in public life can strengthen civic life by encouraging active citizen participation that promotes both justice and peace. The question of religion and politics should thus become an argument about how faith becomes public, not whether it does. Religious communities, Christianity in particular, should be vigorous advocates of human rights, democratic governance, and economic development worldwide. In so doing, they will also become peacemakers.

David Hollenbach is a calm voice of reason in a chaotic world, with an eye that sees beyond national horizons to where human needs and human rights converge. He is convinced that religious traditions can find common ground—through the use of rights and rights language. The Global Face of Public Faith reinforces his commitment to confronting such issues as poverty and economic development, globalism, and interreligious dialogue. He focuses here on faith and the Catholic tradition in politics; the role of the church in American public life; and the wider issues of global challenges and ethics—in a search for a common set of moral standards and a international ethic through a commitment to universal human rights. While not denying the difficulties of forging such a consensus, he nonetheless sees the possibility for justice, and reasons for hope. And hope is something the world can always use.

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Pagini selectate

Cuprins

Faith in Public
3
Tradition Historicity and Truth
19
Virtues and Vices in Social 1nquiry
39
Social Ethics under the Sign of the Cross
54
Religion Morality and Politics in the United States
75
Religion and Political Life
99
Freedom and Truth
124
The Context of Civil Society and Culture
147
Politically Active Churches and Democratic Life
174
Christian Social Ethics after the Cold War
195
Human Rights and Development
218
Faiths Cultures and Global Ethics
231
BIBLIOGRAPHY
261
INDEX
279
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Pagina 7 - Any human society, if it is to be well ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that every human being is a person, that is, his nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. By virtue of this, he has rights and duties of his own, flowing directly and simultaneously from his very nature, which are therefore universal, inviolable and inalienable.
Pagina 212 - The individual today is often suffocated between two poles represented by the State and the marketplace. At times it seems as though he exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of State administration.
Pagina 30 - I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question 'Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?
Pagina 12 - For, from the beginning of her history, she has learned to express the message of Christ with the help of the ideas and terminology of various peoples, and has tried to clarify it with the wisdom of philosophers, too.
Pagina 82 - This can and should also be the moment in which the Roman Catholic Church in the United States assumes its rightful role in the culture-forming task of constructing a religiously informed public philosophy for the American experiment in ordered liberty.
Pagina 27 - Synod further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person, as this dignity is known through the revealed Word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed.
Pagina 212 - Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and skeptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this...
Pagina 210 - The State must contribute to the achievement of these goals both directly and indirectly. Indirectly and according to the principle of subsidiarity, by creating favorable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity, which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth.

Despre autor (2003)

David Hollenbach, SJ, holds The Margaret O'Brien Flatley Chair in Catholic Theology at Boston College and is the author of several books on ethics, including Catholicism and Liberalism and The Common Good and Christian Ethics.

Informații bibliografice