Alienation and Connection
Suffering in a Global Age
Contributions by Mark Davies, Dion Angus Forster, Lisa M. Hess, Theodore W. Jennings, Joerg Rieger, Elaine A. Robinson, Jeremy William Scott, Sandra F. Selby Edited by Lisa R. Withrow
Not available to order
Publication date:
25 October 2011Length of book:
192 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739137055
Alienation and Connection challenges social, cultural, and economic constructs that perpetuate alienation through suffering and powerlessness. The authors, representing Wesleyan backgrounds in this volume, all hold concern for a suffering world, believing that socioeconomic systems, prescribed roles, stereotypes, or power differentials cannot dictate normative destinies for persons or for living systems. Each writer calls for movement from suffering to surviving to thriving in the midst of discussions about how alienation, in a variety of contexts, can be transformed into connection and reconnection through intentional shifts in circumstance and human agency. A hermeneutic of healing and justice focused on human relationship with the environment, economic and social systems that disconnect and reconnect, socio-cultural and economic constructs that divide or heal, encountered difference that brings opportunity, and various manifestations of personal pain that can turn to hope, provides a significant, realistic alternative to suffering and alienation. Meaningful connection to each other and to the earth through the alleviation of suffering provides hope for the integrity and future of humankind and the healing of the planet. This book is an offering to those who are called to work for change and a challenge to those who do not believe that change should or could happen. Alienation is not the final word. Connection and hope can prevail.
Alienation and Connection provides a highly valuable array of Wesleyan philosophical and theological approaches that offer to equip us for the struggles that lie ahead of us as a global community. This volume adds compelling, well-crafted, therapeutic approaches to the growing literature of theologies for the healing of the nations of the earth.