Hermeneutics and Social Transformation


Book Description

"In a South African context ... condemning apartheid is not enough. To make a non-racial, democratic, inclusive society viable and enduring, much more is required ? of which creative and imaginative theological thinking is not the least. Fundamental theological values and their implications for all the facets of society must be thought through ? not as an academic exercise, but as a grass-roots undertaking ? and the greatest challenge is to act in terms of this new understanding of society." - Bernard Lategan, Some implications of the family concept in New Testament texts




Homo Interpretans


Book Description

Leading contemporary philosopher Johann Michel offers an innovative reflection on the human being. The book presents an interdisciplinary study that engages philosophy, sociology and anthropology, offering a systematic analysis of the phenomenon of interpretation.




Mysticism and Social Transformation


Book Description

Where do Mysticism and and political action meet? How does faith empower its adherents to resist oppression? What are the origins of authentic contemporary mysticism? From the thirteenth-century Franciscan movement to African American mystics, this wide-ranging volume of essays considers exemplars of Christian mysticism (including Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, the Quakers, and the Society of Friends) whose practices and influence brought about social change. Linking major conceptual issues and social theory, the essays examine the historical impact of mysticism in contemporary life and argue for a hermeneutical approach to mysticism in its historical context. The contributors look at how mystical empowerment can serve as a catalyst for expressing compassion in acts of justice and long-term social change. We learn how Sojourner Truth and Rebecca Cox Jackson, driven by mystical experiences to take up lives of preaching, faced the same misogynistic religious environments as did women mystics throughout history, which has submerged this key area of women’s experience. The final two essays describe the development of socially engaged Buddhism in Asia and America and the mystical roots of deep ecology.




Conflict Transformation and Social Change in Uganda


Book Description

Drawing on the concept of hermeneutics the book argues that the successes and setbacks of conflict transformation in Teso can be understood through analyzing the impact of memory, identity, closure and power on social change and calls for a comprehensive effort of dealing with the past in war-torn societies.




Theology and the Church


Book Description

Analyzes Cardinal Ratzinger's stand against liberation theology, argues that there is no connection between the movement and Marxism, and explains why the movement is important




Narratives and Social Change


Book Description

This book is an important contribution to narrative research and highlights how narratives can produce social change. The author demonstrates this through an analysis of concepts like future, uncertainty and risk, both in terms of individual impact and as collective forms of social life. The book reconstructs the relationships between future, uncertainty and risk through everyday how narratives exert power over individual and social life by influencing individual or collective decisions and choices. Narratives also change future prospects, thus producing social change. Some of the examples the author draws out for discussion are - in specific - the narration of the migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea, and the narration of the pandemic emergency from COVID-19. The result of different narratives has been the emergence of new ideologies and of a complex series of dynamics in which the local ends up becoming global and vice versa. Highly topical and interdisciplinary in its approach, this book is of interest to researchers and students of the sociology of culture and communication, media and communication studies, social and cultural psychology and cultural anthropology.




Religion and Social Transformations


Book Description

This title was first published in 2002: Religion and Social Transformations examines the reciprocal relationship between religion, modernity and social change. The book focuses on the world's three major missionary religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. It explores how these three traditions are responding to some of the most challenging issues associated with globalization, including the role of religion in the fall of Communism; the tension between religion and feminism; the compatibility of religion and human rights; and whether ancient religions can accommodate new challenges such as environmentalism. The five textbooks and Reader that make up the Religion Today Open University/Ashgate series are: From Sacred Text to Internet; Religion and Social Transformations; Perspectives on Civil Religion; Global Religious Movements in Regional Context; Belief Beyond Boundaries; Religion Today: A Reader




Catholic Moral Theology and Social Ethics


Book Description

Proposing a new method for moral theology, Christina Astorga seeks to recast our understanding of the discipline by drawing from the faith vision of the entire theological enterprise, including scripture, dogmatic theology, social ethics, and spirituality.




Translational Hermeneutics


Book Description

This volume presents selected papers from the first symposium on Hermeneutics and Translation Studies held at Cologne in 2011. Translational Hermeneutics works at the intersection of theory and practice. It foregrounds both hermeneutical philosophy and the various traditions -- especially phenomenology -- to which it is indebted, in order to explore the ways in which the individual person figures at the center of the mediating process of translation. Translational Hermeneutics offers alternative ways to understand the process of translating: it is a holistic and strategic process that enhances understanding by assisting the transmission of meaning in and across multiple social and cultural contexts. The papers in this collection accordingly provide a preliminary outline of Translational Hermeneutics. Gathered together, these papers broach a new discipline within Translation Studies. While some essays explain the theoretical foundations of this approach, others concentrate on practical applications in diverse fields, for example literary studies, and postcolonial studies.




Pluralisation and social change


Book Description

Die Pluralisierung des Religiösen, die ein besonders prägnantes Kennzeichen gegenwärtig stattfindender gesellschaftlicher Wandlungsprozesse ist, stellt eine enorme Herausforderung für viele Akteure in Kirche, Zivilgesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik dar. Das Ziel dieses Buches ist es, den Begriff der religiösen Pluralisierung zu schärfen, indem er am Beispiel konkreter religiöser Phänomene und Praktiken entfaltet wird. Der Band umfasst Beiträge zu zwölf Themenfeldern, die für die praktisch-theologischen Diskurse in Südafrika und in Deutschland prägend und gegenwärtig von hoher Relevanz sind (Armut und Reichtum, Bildung, Schwellenriten und Passagen, Gesundheit, Religiöse Vergemeinschaftungen und die Zukunft der Kirche, Lebensanfang und Lebensende, Medienwandel, Migration und Interkulturalität, Populismus und Radikalisierung Religion und Wissen, Umgang mit Vergangenheit, Zusammenleben). Mit diesem dialogischen Verfahren wird ein Beitrag zu einer kontextuellen Theologie geleistet, die Theologie wesentlich als Gespräch versteht. Die Pluralisierungsthematik hält Impulse für eine kreativ-konstruktive Gestaltung von Pluralität im Sinne eines theologisch reflektierten Pluralismus bereit, die für Kirche und Gesellschaft im 21. Jahrhundert wegweisend sein kann.