In an age of terrorism and other forms of violence committed in the name of religion, how can religion become a vehicle for peace, justice, and reconciliation? And in a world of bitter conflicts-many rooted in religious difference-how can communities of faith understand one another? The essays in this important book take bold steps forward to answering these questions. The fruit of a historic conference of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars and community leaders, the essays address a fundamental question: how the three monotheistic traditions can provide the resources needed in the work...

This book, at the intersections of political sociology, political philosophy, and theology, reads the legacyof Bosnia as both a paradigm and an antiparadigm forthe human condition. The adjective Bosnian sums up anacceptance of the diversity of human attitudes towardthe world and toward God. Yet the Bosnian tradition ofaccepting the inevitability of, and thus the right to, differingChristologies among people who speak the samelanguage and share the same history has been reduced tothe antiparadigms of confessionalism, ethnicism, andultimately nationalism, which seeks either to expel or...

The Mosque is an extended meditation on a dimension of Islam unfamiliar to most Western readers. The mosque, Rusmir Mahmutcehajic argues, is not an analogue of the Christian church, not least because in Islam there is no priesthood and no institutionalized hierarchy. Rather, every Muslim is his or her own priest, and most religious obligations are performed in the home. The function of the mosque is thus dispersed throughout society and, indeed, throughout the natural world as well. The Arabic word from which English mosque derives means literally "place of prostration"--the place one...

From the beginning, the Abrahamic faiths--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--have stressed the importance of transmitting religious identity from one generation to the next. Today, that sustaining mission has never been more challenged. Will young people have a faith to guide them? How can faith traditions anchor religious attachments in this secular, skeptical culture? The fruit of a historic gathering of scholars and religious leaders across three faiths and many disciplines, this important book reports on the religious lives of young people in today's world. It's also a unique inventory of...

From the beginning, the Abrahamic faiths-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-have stressed the importance of transmitting religious identity from one generation to the next. Today, that sustaining mission has never been more challenged. Will young people have a faith to guide them? How can faith traditions anchor religious attachments in this secular, skeptical culture?The fruit of a historic gathering of scholars and religious leaders across three faiths and many disciplines, this important book reports on the religious lives of young people in today's world. It's also a unique inventory of...

This unique book offers a Catholic view of the Holy Land in the debate that rages among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Alain Marchadour and David Neuhaus, two biblical scholars and priests living in Jerusalem, clearly analyze the Promised Land-as concept, history, and contested terrain-in Catholic teaching and doctrine. They offer an analytical reading of the entire Christian Bible (Old and New Testaments) with reference to the idea of the Land promised by God. They explore early and medieval attitudes, especially with regard to the Holy Places and the Jewish people. Moving carefully to the...

What does Martin Buber mean, in I and Thou, by the claim that the one thing that matters is full acceptance of presence? An attempt to answer this question led the author on a journey of exploration through Buber's early writings, to reach a clarification of Buber's predialogical concept of God. She examines Buber's first major philosophical work: Daniel: Dialogues in Realization, drawing attention to inaccuracies in the available English translation. Buber's desire for presence, she finds, began with an overwhelming experience of absence. His search is for a presence that will not let him...

This rare and important contribution to the field of Islamic studies, philosophy, and comparative religion achieves a twofold objective. First, it draws from a broad and authoritative well of sources, especially in the domain of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism. The scholarship is impeccable. Second, it is an in-depth meditation on the relationship between love and knowledge, multiplicity and unity, the example of the Prophet Muhammed viewed as Universal Man, spiritual union, heart and intellect, and other related themes--conveyed in fresh, contemporary language. The book is as much a work of...

This book makes available in English important essays that mark the fortieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate). Surveying Vatican dialogues and documents, the essays explore challenging theological questions posed by the Shoah and the Catholic recognition of the Jewish people's covenantal life with God. Featuring essays by Vatican officials, leading rabbis, diplomats, and Catholic and Jewish scholars, the book discusses the nature of Christian-Jewish relations and the need to remember their...

The largest order of religious in the Roman Catholic Church, the Society of Jesus has been at the forefront of the Church's efforts at dialogue across religions. Understanding and improving relations between the Church and the Jewish people has been a major focus of the Holy See and the Society of Jesus for many years. This book, the fruit of a major conference on the history, nature, and dynamics of relations between Jesuits and contemporary Jewish life, brings together a rich, wide-ranging selection of essays by Jesuit scholars and pastoral leaders, a leading Jewish studies scholar, and a...