Dust that Breathes: Christian Faith and the New Humanisms

This is an insightful and masterly look at the challenges and possibilities for Christian life in the contemporary world. Schweiker investigates Christianity′s relevance in the global age and discusses how we can and ought to orient the life of faith.

Schweiker begins with an exploration of the big religious themes of modern life, including religious identity in global times, the role of conscience, and current versions of humanism. He also engages some prominent contemporary philosophers and theologians who clarify the nature of faith by developing and contrasting it with ideas from other thinkers on shared topics of reflection. The book goes on to reflect on the themes of integrity, and theological and ethical perspectives of ′life′. The final section returns to the theme of ′religious humanism′ with discussions of important recent work on Christian humanism.

Dust that Breathes is unique in its appreciation of the ambiguity of religion, in its representations of the highest human achievements and the very worst of human actions. Schweiker concludes that a Christian outlook on life is still relevant, proposing an approach to Christian existence which is fully engaged with shared human concerns, and yet one which can meet the practical challenges and possibilities of the global age.

Preface.

Introduction.

Part I: Topics.

1. The Specter of Religious Identity.

2. Humanizing Religion.

3. Conscience and Spiritual Conviction.

4. Metaphors of the Soul.

5. Voices of Neohumanism.

6. The Christ of Christian Humanism.

Part II: Thinkers.

7. Human Only Human?

8. Goodness and Fictive Persons.

9. Reverence for Life –– The Spirit of Life.

10. Sovereign Expressions of Life.

11. Ecstatic Humanism.

12. On Christian and Theological Humanism.

Index.

William Schweiker is the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chicago and he is the Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. His many books include Responsibility and Christian Ethics (1995), Power, Value and Conviction: Theological Ethics in the Postmodern Age (1998), Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics: In the Time of Many Worlds (Wiley–Blackwell, 2004), and Religion and the Human Future (with David Klemm, Wiley–Blackwell, 2008). Schweiker has published numerous articles and award–winning essays, and has edited and contributed to six volumes, including Humanity Before God: Contemporary Faces of Jewish, Christian and Islamic Ethics (2006), and The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (Wiley–Blackwell, 2004, 2008).