Disagreeing Virtuously

Disagreement is inevitable, particularly in our current context, marked by the close coexistence of conflicting values and perspectives in politics, religion, and ethics. How can we deal with disagreement ethically and constructively in our pluralistic world? In Disagreeing Virtuously Olli-Pekka Vainio presents a valuable interdisciplinary approach to that question, drawing on insights from intellectual history, the cognitive sciences, philosophy of religion, and virtue theory. After mapping the current discussion on disagreement among various disciplines, Vainio offers fresh ways to understand the complicated nature of human disagreement and recommends ways to manage our interpersonal and intercommunal conflicts in ethically sustainable ways.

This book develops an inductive risk account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. The riskiness of different people’s methods for forming religious beliefs is shown central both to understanding fundamentalist orientation and to concerns that philosophers and theologians share for “ownership” of risk in people’s faith ventures.

In today's highly charged social and political environment, we often don't know how to talk well with others--especially with people whose backgrounds differ from our own. C. Christopher Smith, coauthor of the critically acclaimed and influential Slow Church, addresses why conversation has become such a challenge in the 21st century and argues that it is perhaps the most-needed spiritual practice of our individualistic age. Smith likens practicing conversation to the working of the human body. Bodies are wondrous symphonies of diverse, intricate parts striving for our health, and our health suffers when these parts fail to converse effectively. Likewise, we must learn to converse effectively with those who differ from us in the body of Christ so we can embody Christ together in the world. In community, we learn what it means to belong to others and to a story that is bigger than ourselves. Smith shows how church communities can be training hubs where we learn to talk with and listen to one another with kindness and compassion. The book explores how churches can initiate and sustain conversation, offers advice for working through seasons of conflict, suggests spiritual practices and dispositions that can foster conversation, and features stories from several congregations that are learning to practice conversation.

Receptive Ecumenism asks not what other churches can learn from us, but 'what can we learn and receive with integrity from our ecclesial others?' Since the publication of Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism (OUP, 2008), this fresh ecumenical strategy has been adopted, critiqued, and developed in different Christian traditions, and in local, national, and international settings, including the most recent bilateral dialogue of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III). The thirty-eight chapters in this new volume, by academics, church leaders, and ecumenical practitioners who have adopted and adapted Receptive Ecumenism in various ecclesial and cultural contexts, show how Receptive Ecumenism has grown and matured. Part One demonstrates how Receptive Ecumenism itself is capable of being received with integrity into very different ecclesiologies and ecclesial traditions. In Part Two, this approach to transformative ecumenical learning is applied to some recurrent ecclesial problems, such as the understanding and practice of ministry, revealing new insights and practical opportunities. Part Three examines the potential and challenges for Receptive Ecumenism in different international settings. Part Four draws on scripture, hermeneutics, and pneumatology to offer critical reflection on how Receptive Ecumenism itself implements transformative ecclesial learning. Addressing the 70th Anniversary of the World Council of Churches, Archbishop Justin Welby, said that 'One of the most important of recent ecumenical developments has been the concept of "Receptive Ecumenism"'. This volume provides an indispensable point of reference for understanding and applying that concept in the life of the Christian churches today.

In "Reconciling Theology", leading thinker on Anglicanism and ecumenism Paul Avis focuses on the perennial Christian issues of argument, debate, polemic and conflict, on the one hand, and dialogue, search for common ground, working for agreement and harmony, on the other. Exploring the tension and interaction between them in a range of contexts in modern theology and the Church, Avis offers a rigorous but accessible vision of church which moves beyond the usual dichotomy of liberal or orthodox.

This volume collects papers that were presented at the 34th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium 2011 in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. They focus on five key debates in contemporary epistemology: Does the term “to know” vary its meaning according to features of the contexts in which it is uttered? What role may “epistemic virtues” play in our cognitive activities? What is the surplus value of having knowledge instead of mere true belief? What is the structure and significance of testimonial knowledge and belief? And when is disagreement rational, especially if it occurs among “epistemic peers”? In addition, a section is devoted to novel discussions of the work of Wittgenstein. Papers by A. Beckermann, E. Brendel, W. Davis, C. Elgin, S. Goldberg, J. Greco, A. Kemmerling, H. Kornblith, M. Solomon, M. Williams, and many others.

Navigating Post-Truth and Alternative Facts: Religion and Science as Political Theology is an edited volume that explores the critical intersection of “religion-and-science” and our contemporary political and social landscape with a tailored eye towards the epistemological and hermeneutical impact of the “post-truth society.” The rise of the post-truth society has specific importance and inherent risk for nearly all academic disciplines and researchers. When personal beliefs regarding climate change trump scientific consensus, research projects are defunded, results are hidden or undermined, and all of us are at a greater vulnerability to extreme weather patterns. When expertise itself becomes suspect, we become a nation lead by fools. When data is overcome by alternative facts and truth in any form is suspect, where is the space for religious and/or scientific scholarship? The central curiosity of this volume is “what is the role of religion and science scholarship in a post-truth society?” This text explores truth, lies, fear, populism, politics, faith, the environment, post modernity, and our shared public life.

Taking It to the Streets: Public Theologies of Activism and Resistance is an edited volume that explores the critical intersection of public theology, political theology, and communal practices of activism and political resistance. This volume functions as a sister/companion to the text Religion and Science as Political Theology: Navigating Post-Truth and Alternative Facts and focuses on public, civic, performative action as a response to experiences of injustice and diminishments of humanity. There are periods in a nation’s civil history when the tides of social unrest rise into waves upon waves of public activism and resistance of the dominant uses of power. In American history, activism and public action including and extending beyond the Women’s Suffrage, the Million Man March, protests against the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, Boston Tea Party, Black Lives Matter, the Stonewall Rebellion are hallmarks of transitional or liminal moments in our development as a society. Critical periods marked by increases in public activism and political resistance are opportunities for a society to once again decide who we will be as a people. Will we move towards a more perfect union in which all persons gain freedom in fulfilling their potential or will we choose the perceived safety of the status quo and established norms of power? Whose voices will be heard? Whose will be silenced through intimidation or harm? Ultimately, these are theological questions. Like other forms of non-textual research subjects (movement, dance, performance art), public activism requires a set of research lenses that are often neglected in theological and religious studies. Attention to bodies, as a category, performance, or epistemological vehicle, is sorely lacking so it is no wonder that attention to the mass of moving bodies in activism is largely absent. Activism and public political resistance are a hallmark of our current social webbing and deserve scholarly attention.