Compassion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Affective Labor ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Unique Position

This chapter introduces themes of care, kindness, compassion, civic action, social justice, and faith-based assistance within the context of contemporary Russian society. The chapter presents the ethnographic field site of Moscow’s faith-based assistance community and sets the stage for the book’s larger discussion about the ways in which members of this community link their acts of assistance with performances of civic action and possibilities for understanding faith as a form of affective labor that produces future-oriented results. The discussion is contextualized within details about Russia’s contemporary political and economic situation, including the unique position of non-Orthodox Christian communities within the country’s religious and social justice spheres.

Conclusion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Compassionate Care ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Affective Labor ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Future

This final chapter returns to the original themes of the book by considering how members of Moscow’s community of religiously affiliated assistance providers grapple with the uncertainties that they encounter on a daily basis, with specific attention to how members of this community struggle to maintain both the human and the humane in their social justice work. As the experiences documented here show, within the faith-based context, assistance encounters are never fully oriented either to the objective pole of human rights or to the subjective pole of compassion and empathy. As such, these struggles reveal that the future-oriented optimism made possible by the affective labor of faith belies the inherent precarity of faith. Yet it is this precarious state that makes possible the intersubjectivity of compassionate care, whereby those who provide assistance and those who receive it engage one another fully as humans.

Faith in a Secular Humanism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Shared Spaces ◽  
Secular Theology ◽  
Care And Justice

This chapter presents the concept of a “secular theology of compassion.” Through a discussion of the ways in which Moscow’s religious communities cooperate to forge common cross-denominational interests through social justice projects, the chapter considers how clergy, staff, and volunteers in religiously affiliated welfare programs separate their personally held religious beliefs and theological philosophies from the larger ethical values that guide their work. Of particular concern are the political, spiritual, and ethical negotiations that take place between Russia’s Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian communities as they strive to pursue shared goals of social justice while maintaining their respective histories and communities. Their collective efforts demonstrate how ethical values of empathy, care, and justice traverse, confuse, and even transcend religious/secular distinctions and provide opportunities for new shared spaces and practices of religiosity and compassion.

scholarly journals Orthodox Christian Bulgarians Coping with Natural Disasters in the Pre-Modern Ottoman Balkans

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
Raymond Detrez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
World View ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Ottoman Balkans

Premodern Ottoman society consisted of four major religious communities—Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and Jews; the Muslim and Christian communities also included various ethnic groups, as did Muslim Arabs and Turks, Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs who identified, in the first place, with their religious community and considered ethnic identity of secondary importance. Having lived together, albeit segregated within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for centuries, Bulgarians and Turks to a large extent shared the same world view and moral value system and tended to react in a like manner to various events. The Bulgarian attitudes to natural disasters, on which this contribution focuses, apparently did not differ essentially from that of their Turkish neighbors. Both proceeded from the basic idea of God’s providence lying behind these disasters. In spite of the (overwhelmingly Western) perception of Muslims being passive and fatalistic, the problem whether it was permitted to attempt to escape “God’s wrath” was coped with in a similar way as well. However, in addition to a comparable religious mental make-up, social circumstances and administrative measures determining equally the life conditions of both religious communities seem to provide a more plausible explanation for these similarities than cross-cultural influences.

The Smiles of the Blind

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wafaa EL Sadik ◽  
Rüdiger Heimlich
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Young People ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Literacy Rate ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
First Time

This concluding chapter focuses on the events that happened since the start of the Tahrir Revolution in January 2011. Egypt now have a new president, a new constitution, new parties, and new coalitions. For the first time in their history, Egyptians were allowed to vote, and—no matter which way they voted—they were dissatisfied with the result. The country is politically divided. The only thing that unites people is their dissatisfaction. Indeed, everything is in short supply—most of all patience. The Egyptians took to the streets for bread, freedom, and social justice. Egypt's economic situation also worsened. The author witnessed the exodus of educated young people and the migration of intellectuals to America. Moreover, the literacy rate is sinking lower and lower as children and young people are neglected.

Placing Faith in Development: How Moscow's Religious Communities Contribute to a More Civil Society

Slavic Review ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Development Organizations ◽  
Alternative Vision

The development-oriented work of Moscow's religious communities is examined in this article, with a focus on how a core group of faith organizations present themselves as offering an alternative vision of intervention and improvement that seeks to protect Russian citizens from what proponents suggest are the shortcomings of previous democratizing and civil society ventures. Staff and supporters within Moscow's faith-based assistance sphere contend that religiously affiliated assistance organizations are successful, not only because they parallel secular development programs in promoting values and practices of capitalism, democracy, and global human rights, but more importantly because they also claim to move beyond these approaches to tend to the well-being and transformation of the entire human being. Consequentiy, proponents argue that faith-based organizations are more attuned to values of humane treatment and civility, thereby making them better positioned to build a new Russian society that brings citizens and the state together in productive and caring relationships. Ultimately, this attention to the perspectives and ideals of religiously oriented development organizations provides a different vantage point for reconsidering the promises and consequences of Russia's neoliberal and democratizing transformations.

La Fe en Acción: Faith-Based Activism, Immigration Reform, and Structural Vulnerability

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-60
Author(s):  
Ryan I. Logan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Structural Vulnerability ◽  
Immigration Reform ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Activist Movements ◽  
Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Abstract Religious conviction has played a prominent role in many activist movements throughout the United States. In this article, I detail one social justice organization’s enactment of activism called la fe en acción (faith in action). This approach was nuanced from being simply “activism” but one that, according to participants, was more strategic and longer lasting. La fe en acción served as the central strategy utilized by this organization in order to garner public and political support for comprehensive immigration reform. A crucial component within this approach included the sharing of testimonios (testimonials) of participants. While this form of activism was intended to garner the participation of all people—including undocumented immigrants—for some, structural vulnerability hindered their ability to participate. Overall, I explore the positive and negative aspects of this approach as elaborated from data gathered during attempts to garner support for comprehensive immigration reform in 2013.

Ekklesial Work: Toward A Feminist Public Theology

2006 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary P. Carbine
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Feminist Theology ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Executive Orders ◽  
Faith Based

Religion is deeply implicated in contemporary U.S. public life, as demonstrated in the increasing analysis of faith in any given presidential, congressional, or judicial candidate's political viewpoints; in ongoing presidential executive orders that approve government support and funding for faith-based initiatives; and in the continued lobbying by religious groups about a variety of moral and social justice issues such as euthanasia and immigration, to name a sample of recent flashpoint issues. What role do religious claims play in U.S. public life? How does Christian theology help clarify that role? What is the particular contribution of Christian feminist theology to understanding and rethinking that role?

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