In Honest Patriots, renowned public theologian and ethicist Donald W. Shriver, Jr. argues that we must acknowledge and repent of the morally negative events in our nation's past. The failure to do so skews the relations of many Americans to one another, breeds ongoing hostility, and damages the health of our society. Yet our civic identity today largely rests on denials, forgetfulness, and inattention to the memories of neighbors whose ancestors suffered great injustices at the hands of some dominant majority. Shriver contends that repentance for these injustices must find a place in our political culture. Such repentance must be carefully and deliberately cultivated through the accurate teaching of history, by means of public symbols that embody both positive and negative memory, and through public leadership to this end. Religious people and religious organizations have an important role to play in this process. Historically, the Christian tradition has concentrated on the personal dimensions of forgiveness and repentance to the near-total neglect of their collective aspects. Recently, however, the idea of collective moral responsibility has gained new and public visibility. Official apologies for past collective injustice have multiplied, along with calls for reparations. Shriver looks in detail at the examples of Germany and South Africa, and their pioneering efforts to foster and express collective repentance. He then turns to the historic wrongs perpetrated against African Americans and Native Americans and to recent efforts by American citizens and governmental bodies to seek public justice by remembering public injustice. The call for collective repentance presents many challenges: What can it mean to morally master a past whose victims are dead and whose sufferings cannot be alleviated? What are the measures that lend substance to language and action expressing repentance? What symbolic and tangible acts produce credible turns away from past wrongs? What are the dynamics-psychological, social, and political-whereby we can safely consign an evil to the past? How can public life witness to corporate crimes of the past in such a way that descendents of victims can be confident that they will never be repeated? In his provocative answers to these questions Shriver creates a compelling new vision of the collective repentance and apology that must precede real progress in relations between the races in this country.
The author of this text examines how former enemies learn to live together in peaceful political association despite their suffering at each other's hands. He seeks to reclaim the concept of forgiveness from personal and religious realms and restate its significance in political life.
Abingdon Pillars of Theology is a series for the college and seminary classroom designed to help students grasp the basic and necessary facts, influence, and significance of major theologians. Written by noted scholars, these books will outline the context, methodology, organizing principles, primary contributions, and key writings of people who have shaped theology as we know it today. Dr. Donald Shriver tells us that H. Richard Niebuhr wrote about God in a serious yet joyous exploration. This book summarizes Niebuhr's faith journey as seen through the lens of his major works. While Neibuhr did mean to move his readers to think, struggle, argue, and even pray, he expected nothing less from himself. It is the hope of the author that by reading this book, readers will be better prepared to travel a path of their own.
In Honest Patriots, renowned public theologian and ethicist Donald W. Shriver, Jr. argues that we must acknowledge and repent of the morally negative events in our nation's past. The failure to do so skews the relations of many Americans to one another, breeds ongoing hostility, and damages the health of our society. Yet our civic identity today largely rests on denials, forgetfulness, and inattention to the memories of neighbors whose ancestors suffered great injustices at the hands of some dominant majority. Shriver contends that repentance for these injustices must find a place in our political culture. Such repentance must be carefully and deliberately cultivated through the accurate teaching of history, by means of public symbols that embody both positive and negative memory, and through public leadership to this end. Religious people and religious organizations have an important role to play in this process. Historically, the Christian tradition has concentrated on the personal dimensions of forgiveness and repentance to the near-total neglect of their collective aspects. Recently, however, the idea of collective moral responsibility has gained new and public visibility. Official apologies for past collective injustice have multiplied, along with calls for reparations. Shriver looks in detail at the examples of Germany and South Africa, and their pioneering efforts to foster and express collective repentance. He then turns to the historic wrongs perpetrated against African Americans and Native Americans and to recent efforts by American citizens and governmental bodies to seek public justice by remembering public injustice. The call for collective repentance presents many challenges: What can it mean to morally master a past whose victims are dead and whose sufferings cannot be alleviated? What are the measures that lend substance to language and action expressing repentance? What symbolic and tangible acts produce credible turns away from past wrongs? What are the dynamics-psychological, social, and political-whereby we can safely consign an evil to the past? How can public life witness to corporate crimes of the past in such a way that descendents of victims can be confident that they will never be repeated? In his provocative answers to these questions Shriver creates a compelling new vision of the collective repentance and apology that must precede real progress in relations between the races in this country.
Abingdon Pillars of Theology is a series for the college and seminary classroom designed to help students grasp the basic and necessary facts, influence, and significance of major theologians. Written by noted scholars, these books will outline the context, methodology, organizing principles, primary contributions, and key writings of people who have shaped theology as we know it today. Dr. Donald Shriver tells us that H. Richard Niebuhr wrote about God in a serious yet joyous exploration. This book summarizes Niebuhr's faith journey as seen through the lens of his major works. While Neibuhr did mean to move his readers to think, struggle, argue, and even pray, he expected nothing less from himself. It is the hope of the author that by reading this book, readers will be better prepared to travel a path of their own.
In this, Don Shriver’s fifteenth book, the socially involved ethicist and former president of Union Theological Seminary reveals some of the challenging experiences and ideas that have informed his work. In a book both personal and honest, Shriver reflects on the nature and importance of books, music, education, war, friends, marriage, political conflict, and his tenure at Union. The essays as a whole represent exemplary theological work by showing how biblical images and themes provided Shriver with both a lens for interpreting his era and a perspective from which to anticipate the future. A dominant theme of his work has been the dynamics of forgiveness in human society and the meaning of forgiveness, beyond personal life, in the relations of groups and nations. A final essay, a letter to the great-grandchildren he will never meet, articulates the positive and hopeful message of this wide-ranging collection. For readers already familiar with his local-to-global efforts spanning ecumenical, racial, economic, and political justice issues, the book offers new insights into how Shriver’s life experiences have impacted his work. For those not yet familiar with that work, the collection offers an intimate introduction to Shriver’s passions for theology, history, and social justice, particularly in the American South, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, and East Asia
This handbook provides thorough introductory articles on important themes in Christian theology. Along with cross-references and select bibliographies, it is an indispensable reference source. The Handbook consists of 148 topical entries arranged alphabetically. Instead of a Table of Contents, a "Routes For Reading" page suggests related entries, and cross-referencing makes 'surfing' this volume easier than ever.
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