Longing For Justice

A timely and persuasive argument for Higher Education’s obligations to our democratic society, Longing for Justice combines personal narrative with critical analysis to make the case for educational practices that connect to questions of democracy, justice, and the common good. Jennifer S. Simpson begins with three questions. First, what is the nature of the social contract that universities have with public life? Second, how might this social contract shape undergraduate education? And third, how do specific approaches to knowledge and undergraduate education inform how students understand society? In a bold challenge to conventional wisdom about Higher Education, Simpson argues that today’s neoliberal educational norms foreground abstract concepts and leave the complications of real life, especially the intricacies of power, unexamined. Analysing modern teaching techniques, including service learning and civic engagement, Simpson concludes that for Higher Education to serve democracy it must strengthen students’ abilities to critically analyse social issues, recognize and challenge social inequities, and pursue justice.

Missio Alliance Essential Reading List Hearts Minds Bookstore's Best Books RELEVANT's Top 10 Books Englewood Review of Books Best Books When Soong-Chan Rah planted an urban church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his first full sermon series was a six-week exposition of the book of Lamentations. Preaching on an obscure, depressing Old Testament book was probably not the most seeker-sensitive way to launch a church. But it shaped their community with a radically countercultural perspective. The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Lament recognizes struggles and suffering, that the world is not as it ought to be. Lament challenges the status quo and cries out for justice against existing injustices. Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. It critiques our success-centered triumphalism and calls us to repent of our hubris. And it opens up new ways to encounter the other. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future. A Resonate exposition of the book of Lamentations.

Where is Jesus when we need him most? An influential pastor shares how despair can lead us to discover true hope and a deeper relationship with God, helping us emerge stronger and more joyful from times of crisis. “May this careful look at pain in the context of Jesus’s life open up avenues of discovery and healing.”—Mindy Caliguire, cofounder and president of Soul Care We all experience difficulties and hardships. But how can we learn to live richly in the midst of them? And even grow spiritually because of them? The answer is found in the hopeful humanity of Jesus. As the Son of God, Jesus wasn’t exempt from suffering, disappointment, or injustice. He lived in the real world as a real person. He wept for those he loved. He felt hunger and thirst. He endured temptation, betrayal, and ridicule. He died after being unjustly tortured. And somehow through it all, he embodied hope—by defeating death and opening a new world of life for us. In Echoing Hope, influential pastor and blogger Kurt Willems reveals how understanding the humanity of Jesus can radically transform our identity and empower us to step into our pain-filled world in a new way. Combining rich theological insight with personal stories and practices for response, he shows how we can overcome despair and encounter the beautiful potential of our lives.

Keller explores a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace.

Ronald Rolheiser makes sense of what is frequently a misunderstood word: spirituality. In posing the question "What is spirituality?" Father Rolheiser gets quickly to the heart of common difficulties with the subject, and shows through compelling anecdotes and personal examples how to channel that restlessness, that deep desire, into a healthy spirituality. This book is for those searching to understand what Christian spirituality means and how to apply it to their own lives. Rolheiser explains the nonnegotiables--the importance of community worship, the imperatives surrounding social action, the centrality of the Incarnation, the sustenance of the spiritual life--and how spirituality necessarily impacts every aspect of human experience. At the core of this readable, deeply revealing book is an explanation of God and the Church in a world that more often than not doubts the credibility of both.

To understand how people experience justice and security is a challenging task in times of unrest, marked by growing perceptions of insecurity, discrimination and uncertainty. The European project ALTERNATIVE aimed to understand justice and security experiences related to conflicts in intercultural settings, when citizens are given the means to actively contribute to these processes. This book relates how the project was set up as an action research through the concrete description of four action sites: social housing estates in Vienna, Austria; a small community in Hungary with a Roma population; three border towns in Serbia; and three communities in Northern Ireland. These four sites have been compared through an innovative methodology, which leads to a deeper understanding of the impact of participatory and restorative justice oriented processes, and - in a more general way - of what action research may entail in the criminological field. Bringing together researchers and case studies from around Europe, this book examines the scientific potential of action research as a methodology in criminal justice settings. This book is one of two volumes resulting from the work by a group of researchers in six European countries having cooperated intensively during four years in ALTERNATIVE, an action research project funded under the EU Seventh Framework Programme.

Amy Croft writes about her complicated childhood and fraught adulthood to bring to life the cultural chains operating in all aspects of the patriarchal society. She understands the pressures on women having worked in social services for the majority of her working life, and hopes that her story will encourage women to find their way out of outmoded patriarchal arenas and move toward a more matriarchal vision.