The Meaning of Life in the World Religions

Edited by Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin

Paperback | ISBN 1-85168-200-7 | 352 pages | £14.99 | $23.95

This volume draws together the essays of such eminent scholars as John Hick, Huston Smith, Ninian Smart and Keith Ward. From Christianity to Confucianism, it offers original perspectives on the meaning of life in the various world religions and will be welcomed both by students and general readers alike.

Introduction
Part I: The religious perspective
Religion and the question of meaning: Keith Ward
The nature of religion: multiple dimensions of meaning:Ninian Smart

Part II: Meaning and Western religion

How Christianity secures life's meanings:Philip L. Quinn
To increase Torah is to increase life:Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert
Broadcasting the word: prophet, preacher, and saint in Islam:F.E. Peters
Part III: Meaning and Asian religion
A Hindu view of life:Julius Lipner
Life force in Jainism and Yoga:Christopher Key Chapple
The meaning of life in Buddhism:Masao Abe
Confucianism: how to serve the spirits and the gods:John Berthrong
Part IV: Love, relationships, and religion
Eros and meaning in life and religion:Joseph Runzo
Love and longing in devotional Hinduism:Nancy M. Martin
Mindfulness and meeting the great bliss queen:Anne C. Klein
Haitian Vodou: the distinct self and the relational world:Karen McCarthy Brown
Part V: Global views
The meaning of life in the world's religions:Huston Smith
The religious meaning of life:John Hick
The world as God's body:Sallie McFague
The Editors:
NANCY M. MARTIN received her MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School and her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. An Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Chapman University, she is a historian of religion with expertise in Asian religions, gender issues, and comparative mysticism. Involved in extensive fieldwork in Rajasthan, her research focuses on devotional Hinduism, women's religious lives, and the religious traditions of low-caste groups in India. She is the recipient of a Graves Award for the Humanities and is currently completing a book on the sixteenth-century saint Mirabai, entitled Mirabai Manifest: The Many Faces of a Woman Poet-Saint in India.
JOSEPH RUNZO received his MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Michigan and MTS in philosophical theology from Harvard Divinity School. He is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Chapman University and Life Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He is the recipient of five National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships and Awards. Working in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology, and ethics, he has published five books: Reason, Relativism, and God, Religious Experience and Religious Belief, Is God Real?, Ethics, Religion and the Good Society, and World Views and Perceiving God.Ethics in the World Religions
Edited byJoseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin

Paperback | ISBN 1-85168-247-3 | 400 pages | £14.99 | $23.95This latest addition to the Oneworld Library of Global Ethics and Religion contains articles from some of the world's greatest philosophers and scholars of religion on the role played by religious ethics in today's society. Lively, engaged and thought-provoking, these informative essays consider religion from an applied point of view, considering such issues as what we can learn from Confucianism, and Feng Shui, about ecological awareness; what Buddhism has to say about organ transplants; and - controversially - Islam's approach to gender issues.

Introduction: Inter-religious understanding: Nancy M. Martin
Part I: Religion and ethics
Being religious and doing ethics in a global world :Joseph Runzo
Religion and the possibility of a global ethics: Keith Ward
Religious moral diversity and relationships: James Kellenberger
Part II: Ethics and religion in the west
Doing the right and the good: fundamental convictions and methods of Jewish ethics: Elliot N. Dorff
Islamic ethics and gender issues:Zayn Kassam
The evolutionary self in Christian and philosophical perspectives: Nathan Tierney
The leveling of meaning: Christian ethics in a culture of unconcern: Philip Rossi, S.J.
Part III: Ethics and religion in Asia
Hindu ethics and dharma:Pushing the boundaries of personal ethics: the practice of Jaina vows: Christopher Key Chapple
Practices of perfection: the ethical aim of Mahayana Buddhism :Dale S. Wright
Confucianism: concern and civility:John H. Berthrong
Part IV: Ethical issues across religious traditions
"That was then": debating nonviolence within the textual traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam :Daniel L. Smith-Christopher
From agape to organs: religious difference between Japan and America in judging the ethics of the transplant :William R. LaFleur
Dogged loyalties: a classical indian intervention in care ethics:Vrinda Dalmiya
Part V: Global views of religious ethics
Christian social ethics in a global context :Brian Hebblethwaite
Confucian cosmology and ecological ethics: qi, li, and the role of the human :Mary Evelyn Tucker
Multiplism: a Jaina ethics of toleration for a complex world: C. Ram-Prasad