This popular textbook has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect recent global developments, whilst retaining its unique and compelling narrative-style approach. Using ancient stories from diverse religions, it explores a broad range of important and complex moral issues, resulting in a truly reader-friendly and comparative introduction to religious ethics. - A thoroughly revised and expanded new edition of this popular textbook, yet retains the unique narrative-style approach which has proved so successful with students
- Considers the ways in which ancient stories from diverse religions, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the lives of Jesus and Buddha, have provided ethical orientation in the modern world
- Updated to reflect recent discussions on globalization and its influence on cross-cultural and comparative ethics, economic dimensions to ethics, Gandhian traditions, and global ethics in an age of terrorism
- Expands coverage of Asian religions, quest narratives, the religious and philosophical approach to ethics in the West, and considers Chinese influences on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen Buddhism, and Augustine’s Confessions
- Accompanied by an instructor’s manual (coming soon, see www.wiley.com/go/fasching) which shows how to use the book in conjunction with contemporary films
Table of Contents:
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Part I Religion, Ethics, and Stories of War and Peace 1
1 Religion, Ethics, and Storytelling 3
Storytelling: from Comparative Ethics to Global Ethics 4
Religion: the Sacred and the Holy 9
The Deep Structures of the Sacred and the Holy and Their Mediations 19
The Awakening of Ethical Consciousness: the Power of Religious Stories, East and West 20
The Great Religious Stories of the World – an Overview 30
A Postscript on Religious Language 36
Questions for Discussion 39
Sources 40
2 Stories of War and Peace in an Age of Globalization 41
Tales of Madness: from Auschwitz to Hiroshima 42
Auschwitz and Hiroshima: the Formative Religious Events of the Postmodern World 45
Techno-Bureaucratic Rationality and the Demise of Ethical Consciousness 51
Doubling and the Myth of Life through Death: the Spiritual Logic of Mass Death in the Twentieth Century 56
The Way of All the Earth: Global Ethics and Tales of Divine Madness 63
Questions for Discussion 72
Sources 73
Part II War and Peace: Ancient Stories and Postmodern Life Stories 75
Introduction: Ethics after Auschwitz and Hiroshima 77
3 Gilgamesh and the Religious Quest 85
The Story of Gilgamesh 86
Urbanization, Doubling, Death, and the Possibility of Ethical Reflection 91
The Quest – the Way of the Virtues 94
Questions for Discussion 99
Sources 99
4 The Socratic Religious Experience: from the Birth of Ethics to the Quest for Cosmopolis 100
The Story of the Trial of Socrates 101
The Socratic Invention of Ethics – the Way of Doubt 105
The Polis and the Quest for Cosmopolis: the Classical Era 109
The Story of Augustine’ s Confessions – Faith as a Surrender to Doubt 116
The Augustinian-Kantian Quest for a Global Ethic 126
Questions for Discussion 135
Sources 136
5 Hindu Stories – Ancient and Postmodern 137
Cosmic Story: the Myth of Liberation 138
Formative Story: Arjuna and Krishna 143
Life Story: Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Way of Brahmacharya 148
Comparative Reflections: the Paradoxes of War and Peace 159
Questions for Discussion 163
Sources 164
6 Buddhist Stories – Ancient and Postmodern 165
Formative Story: Siddhartha 166
The Cosmic Story Revised: the Myth of Liberation 173
Life Story: Thich Nhat Hanh, the Way of Mindfulness and the Dao of Zen 181
Comparative Reflections: Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh 196
Postscript: the Virtues of the Quest in Gilgamesh, Augustine, and Siddhartha 199
Questions for Discussion 203
Sources 203
7 Jewish Stories – Ancient and Postmodern 205
Cosmic Story: the Myth of History 206
Formative Story: the Audacity of Job 213
Life Story: Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Way of Audacity 223
Comparative Reflections: Heschel, Gandhi, and Thich Nhat Hanh 229
Questions for Discussion 232
Sources 233
8 Christian Stories – Ancient and Postmodern 234
Formative Story: Jesus of Nazareth 235
The Cosmic Story Revised: the Incarnation of the Word 242
Life Story: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Way of the Cross 247
Comparative Reflections: King, Heschel, Gandhi, and Thich Nhat Hanh 257
Questions for Discussion 260
Sources 260
9 Islamic Stories – Ancient and Postmodern 262
Formative Story: Muhammad 263
Cosmic Story: Further Revisions of the Myth of History 269
Life Story: Malcolm X and the Way of Pilgrimage 275
Comparative Reflections: Just War or Non-Violence? – Malcolm X’s Argument with the Gandhian Tradition 286
Questions for Discussion 295
Sources 296
Part III The Path to Global Ethics – the Way of All the Earth 297
Introduction 299
10 Feminist Audacity and the Ethics of Interdependence 300
The Feminist Challenge to the Myths of Life through Death 301
The Feminist Alternative: Interdependence and the Ethics of Care 305
Life Story: Joanna Macy and Buddhist Ecofeminism 311
Life Story: Rosemary Ruether and Christian Ecofeminism 316
Conclusion 324
Questions for Discussion 325
Sources 326
11 Cosmopolis: the Way of All the Earth 327
Globalization and the Story of Babel: from Ethnocentrism to Interdependence 327
Ecofeminism: from the Social Ecology of Conscience to the Social Ecology of Justice 330
The Way of All the Earth 343
Questions for Discussion 347
Sources 348
Index of Names and Terms 349
Index of Subjects 355
About the Author :
Darrell J. Fasching is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida where he has previously served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and as Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. His published books include The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima (1993) and The Coming of the Millennium (1996). He is also a co-author (with John Esposito and Todd Lewis) of World Religions Today (2006) and Religion and Globalization (2008).
Dell deChant is Senior Instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Religious Studies at the University of South Florida. He is the author of a number of titles, including Religion and Culture in the West: A Primer (2008), and The Sacred Santa: Religious Dimensions of Consumer Culture (2002).
David M. Lantigua is a Ph.D. candidate in Moral Theology/Christian Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. He is a contributor to Hispanic American Religious Cultures (2009), and has published in Aporia, undergraduate philosophy journal. For the spring of 2011 he has received a grant for dissertation research in Salamanca, Spain, to investigate the topics of religious rights, just war, and the limits of toleration among sixteenth-century Spanish theologians and jurists.
