The first comprehensive examination of the Catholic Church’s role in the genocide against the Tutsi and its attempts at reconciliationFrom April to July 1994, more than a million people were killed during the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Tutsi men, women, and children were slaughtered by Hutu extremists in churches and school buildings, and their lifeless bodies were left rotting in these sacred places under the deep silence of church authorities. Pope Fra...

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive--and provocative--answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the mos...

Joseph Ratzinger rates relativism as the greatest challenge of the Church today. What he describes is not a new phenomenon but his theology highlights its origins and magnitude. Stanley Hauerwas fights the same battle on the Protestant side. This book attempts to discover and streamline their deliberations, showing their meeting points and where they differ, and remedies they offer to combat the crisis. It seeks to argue out the best response to relativism that can most appropriately benef...

Although Rwanda is among the most Christian countries in Africa, in the 1994 genocide, church buildings became the primary killing grounds. To explain why so many Christians participated in the violence, this book looks at the history of Christian engagement in Rwanda and then turns to a rich body of original national- and local-level research to argue that Rwanda's churches have consistently allied themselves with the state and played ethnic politics. Comparing two local Presbyterian pari...

We learn who we are as we walk together in the way of Jesus. So I want to invite you on a pilgrimage. Rwanda is often held up as a model of evangelization in Africa. Yet in 1994, beginning on the Thursday of Easter week, Christians killed other Christians, often in the same churches where they had worshiped together. The most Christianized country in Africa became the site of its worst genocide. With a mother who was a Hutu and a father who was a Tutsi, author Emmanuel Katongole is uniquel...

In this collection of his writings, Pope Benedict XVI speak to the important relationships between the environment, Catholic social teaching, and theology.During his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly drew attention to the environment. He spoke of preserving it, such as his address concerning the Amazon rainforest and his letter regarding the Arctic, and of distributing its vital resources—such as water—more equitably. Benedict led by example wh...

This is a collection of fifteen provocative essays by a cadre of international authors that examine the nature and shape of the Communion today; the colonial legacy; economic tensions and international debt; sexuality and justice; the ecological crisis; violence and healing in South Africa; persecution and religious fundamentalism; the church amid global urbanization; and much more.

Iconoclast David F. Noble traces the evolution and eclipse of the biblical mythology of the Promised Land, the foundational story of Western Culture. Part impassioned manifesto, part masterful survey of opposed philosophical and economic schools, Beyond the Promised Land brings into focus the twisted template of the Western imagination and its faith-based market economy.From the first recorded versions of “the promise” saga in ancient Babylon, to the Zapatistas’ rejection ...

How did a culturally diverse world church emerge in our local neighborhoods and backyards? Rather than an accidental coincidence, diversity in our country, neighborhoods and pews was intentionally brought about through the Spirit’s prompting of historical events. The jubilee of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) reminded us how the Catholic Church opened her doors to the world, while the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 revealed how the U.S. opened her shores to migrants arou...

Joint Venture/s is a term used in the business world to describe two or more business enterprises that join hands and consolidate their management, operations, and labor force to increase their productivity, to offer a more diversified array of products, to increase their profitability, and be a more successful business enterprise in service to their employees and society at large. But it is not simply a matter of joining economic forces and resources. There has to be synergy, compatibilit...

What human ends are served by our economic policies? To whom is what “owed” in our country today? Is there an acceptable argument for just wars – or for the proliferation of nuclear weapons? In the final years of the Reagan era, The U.S. Catholic bishops emerged as articulate sources of dissenting wisdom, publicly testing our foreign and domestic policies against the principles of morality and humanity. With the same succinct style of Liberation Theology, Phillip Berryman analyzes...

A pivotal figure in the ecumenical movement and in world Christi- anity during the last 50 years, Philip Potter brought charismatic personality, moral energy and prophetic insight to his leader- ship of the World Council of Churches in a time of religious and socio-political turmoil. An invaluable historical and theological resource, this anthol- ogy captures those qualities in the most complete collection of Potter’s writings to date, high- lighting his landmark speeches, preaching, and B...