Our Passion For Justice

A collection of Heyward's essays, sermons, lectures, and liturgical poetry that reveals the prophetic depth of her commitment to social justice. Powerfully addresses the issues of racism, sexism, exploitation, and oppression from a feminist standpoint, insisting that the appropriate position for Christians is always on the side of justice.

This text argues that justice is a virtue which everyone shares - a function of personal character and not just of government or economic planning. It uses examples from Plato to Ivan Boesky, to document how we live and how we feel.

This valuable book explores how theology, ethics, and public policy are related in the thoughts and lives of Walter Rauschenbusch, John A. Ryan, and Reinhold Niebuhr--three individuals who have each had a great impact on Christian thinking about justice.

This collection of articles present a variety of broadly-Christian responses to issues such as sexuality and gender, sexuality and spirituality, gay and lesbian sexuality, sexuality and violence, sexuality and singleness, and the family.

"In Passionate for Justice, we find a compass that points us to the future, where we can each give voice and action to justice, equity, and life-giving community. Ida Wells would have had it no other way." —From the Foreword by Stacey Abrams, 2018 Democratic Nominee for Governor of Georgia Ida B. Wells was a powerful churchwoman and witness for justice and equity from 1878 to 1931. Born enslaved, her witness flowed through the struggles for justice in her lifetime, especially in the intersections of African Americans, women, and those who were poor. Her life is a profound witness for faith-based work of visionary power, resistance, and resilience for today’s world, when the forces of injustice stand in opposition to progress. These are exciting and dangerous times. Boundaries that previously seemed impenetrable are now being crossed. This book is a guide for the current state of affairs in American culture, enlivened by the historical perspective of Wells’ search for justice. The authors are an African-American woman and a child of white supremacy. Both have dedicated themselves to working, writing, and developing ministries oriented toward justice, equity, and mercy. This book can be used in all settings, but most especially in churches (pastors and other church leaders, study groups), seminaries, and universities.

This work is devoted to analyzing three major frames of justice--group justice, individual desert, and life affirmation--and their implications for social policy as well as their reflections in contemporary social policies.Pelton finds that all three frames of justice are reflected in the Bible and, later, the Koran. He contends that there is no evidence in the Bible of a genesis or development from one frame of justice to another. Rather, a sense of justice has existed in the human mind from time immemorial, with the three frames coexisting and manifesting themselves in both inter- and intra-group relations. The prominence of one frame over another at any particular point in history or in a particular geographical location is influenced by a variety of factors, though it is ultimately open to human choice. Pelton compares and contrasts the philosophies of nonviolence and liberalism in regard to the frames, and explores the relationships between principle, sentiment, reason, justice, and policy. He discusses social science's problematic relationship to justice in policymaking--for instance, how scholars have focused more on the effectiveness of policies, largely in terms of statistical outcomes reflecting aggregate data analyses, than on their justice. He goes on to explore in depth how frames of justice give direction to social policies, including those of genocide. Frames of Justice is an outstanding work that analyzes the question of justice and social policy, while simultaneously exploring the notion of desert in religion, philosophy, and legislation--especially within the context of the moral question of the relationship between means and ends--and contrasting it with the principle of life affirmation. Leroy H. Pelton is a professor in and former director of the School of Social Work, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and professor emeritus of the School of Social Work, Salem State College, Massachusetts. He is the author of The Psychology of Nonviolence, For Reasons of Poverty: A Critical Analysis of the Public Child Welfare System in the United States, and Doing Justice: Liberalism, Group Constructs, and Individual Realities, and the editor of The Social Context of Child Abuse and Neglect. He has also written numerous journal articles on psychology, social work, child welfare, and social policy.

This book explores the development of Christology by major white North American feminist theologians, placing the Christologies of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carter Heyward, Patricia Wilson-Kastner, and Marjorie Suchocki within the context of their overall theologies. Wondra further examines the meaning and importance of women's experience in feminist theology. This work is self-consciously located at the juncture of contemporary theology and contemporary feminist theory, and uses a conversational method to examine proposals in Christology that are aspects of more comprehensive/systematic feminist constructive theologies. Contents: Preface; Introduction; PART I: THE FEMINIST CHRISTOLOGICAL PROBLEM. Toward an Adequate Feminist Christology: Methodology. PART II: THE RELATION OF WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE TO CHRISTOLOGY. The Construction of Women's Experience in Feminist Theory and Theology; Resistance and Transformation as Religious Experience; The Relation of Women's Experience to Christology. PART III: TOWARD CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST CHRISTOLOGY. The Paradigmatic and Prophetic Christ; The Decisive Representation of Self-Giving Love; The Revelation of God to Us; Christ, Mutuality, and Justice; Wisdom-Logos Christology in Feminist Perspective; The Re-presentation of Renaissance and Transformation; Bibliography; Index.