Safeguarding The Stranger

In our troubled world, protective hospitality is tragically necessary and requires informed shared action and belief on behalf of the threatened other. In Safeguarding the Stranger, Jayme R. Reaves argues that protective hospitality and its faith-based foundations, as seen in the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, merit greater theological attention. Reaves shows that the practice of protective hospitality in Christianity can be enhanced by a better understanding of Jewish and Muslim practices of hospitality, as well as of their codes and etiquettes related to honour. Safeguarding the Stranger draws on a contextual and political theological approach, informed by liberation and feminist theologies as viewed through the lens of a co-operative and complementary theological view, which is influenced by inter-religious, Abrahamic, and hospitable approaches to dialogue, forecasting the positive role that religions can play in resolving conflicts.

In an age when "collisions of faith" among the Abrahamic traditions continue to produce strife and violence that threatens the well-being of individuals and communities worldwide, the contributors to Encountering the Stranger--six Jewish, six Christian, and six Muslim scholars--takes responsibility to examine their traditions' understandings of the stranger, the "other," and to identify ways that can bridge divisions and create greater harmony.

This book advances an Abrahamic "asymmetric-mutual-substitutive" model of hospitality as a practical approach to establish peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians. The merits include its helpful survey of the four models of interfaith dialogue and its clear exposition of the dialogue of life; its constructive use of the philosophy of Levinas, particularly in supporting its vision of asymmetrical moral responsibility among Muslim and Christians; and its familiarity with an extensive philosophical literature on alterity, gift-exchange, and responsibility. The research also demonstrates strong command of the relevant Christian and Muslim scriptures and Catholic teaching on interfaith relations, in addition to a wide range of background material on African Ubuntu spirit, visible in Nigerian sociocultural and religious interdependent relations. Through a consistent engagement of these philosophical, ethical, and cultural dimensions, the Abrahamic theology of hospitality is ingeniously crafted to fill the age-old gap--mutual inability to deal with religious otherness. At once, the book provokes further scholarship inquiries on and around the identified concerns. Its commonness and concreteness, with the proposed respect for each other's faith commitment, further underscores its quality.

Law calls communities into being and constitutes the "we" it governs. This act of defining produces an outside as well as an inside, a border whose crossing is guarded, maintaining the identity, coherence, and integrity of the space and people within. Those wishing to enter must negotiate a complex terrain of defensive mechanisms, expectations, assumptions, and legal proscriptions. Essentially, law enforces the boundary between inside and outside in both physical and epistemological ways. Law and the Stranger explores the ways law identifies and responds to strangers within and across borders. It analyzes the ambiguous place strangers occupy in communities not their own and reflects on how dealing with strangers challenges the laws and communities that invite or parry them. As the book reveals, strangers are made through law, rather than born through accidents of geography.

As many black churches attempt to become welcoming spaces for LGBTQ people, preachers are navigating ways to develop sermons that are more inclusive and welcoming. Pastors and ministers can begin transforming their congregations to become extensions of Christ through preaching sermons about radical inclusive Christian hospitality (RICH). RICH preaching encourages its hearers to embrace those of the queer community as neighbors deserving of love, compassion, and healing.

Best-selling author Dr. Gregory L. Jantz offers hope and help for parents of teens. Adolescence is a frightening and complicated time – for teens and parents. Keeping the roller coaster of the teen years on track takes work and wisdom. Many parents simply don’t know where to start. With Dr. Jantz’s help they can stop worrying about the turbulence of adolescence and take action. With included resources, reflection questions, and guidance from a Christian perspective, parents learn how to become a port in the storm for their teenager, discovering the God-designed future and promise that awaits.