Description
This volume brings together scholars of religion to identify and examine conceptions and interpretations of dignity within different religious and philosophical perspectives (including Catholicism, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Islam, and Humanism) and their applications to contemporary issues of conflict (gendered violence, religious violence, racial violence, immigration, ecology, and religious peacemaking). The book also includes response chapters that clarify and refine these interpretations from interfaith perspectives. The book offers recommendations for advancing the conversation about dignity within and among traditions and for addressing urgent global issues and threats to dignity. It offers a comparative framework constituted by seven questions: What sources justify dignity's existence, nature, and purpose? What is the relationship between the divine and human dignity? What is the relationship between dignity and the human body? Is dignity vulnerable or invulnerable to moral harm? Is dignity inherent or attained? Is dignity universal and equal? Is dignity practical? Through its systematic, comparative, interdisciplinary, and practical dimensions, the book redresses lacunae in contemporary theological, philosophical, and ethical discourses on dignity. Contributors: Matthew R. Petrusek, Jonathan Rothchild, Darlene Fozard Weaver, Kristin Scheible, Karen B. Enriquez, Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, Christopher Key Chapple, David P. Gushee, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Zeki Saritoprak, William Schweiker, Hille Haker, Nicholas Denysenko, Terrence L. Johnson, William O'Neill, Victor Carmona, Dawn Nothwehr, OSF, and Ellen Ott Marshall
