This sweeping new anthology shows how religion has joined with and learned from movements for social justice, peace, and ecological wisdom. Liberating Faith surveys the entire range of religious social activism: from liberation theology and feminist religion to ecotheology and peace activism. It includes theology, social critique, position papers, denominational statements, manifestos, rituals, prayers, biographical accounts, and journalistic descriptions of real world struggles, beginning with a survey of ethical teachings from traditional sources. Following sections deal with "precursor" voices before the 20th century, Gandhi's exemplary vision, overviews of the connections between religion, society, and political movements, and impassioned accounts of particular issues. Containing voices from a multitude of traditions, national settings, and perspectives. Liberating Faith includes writings by Latin American liberation theologians and radical American religious activists, statements on social justice by the Pope and environmental morality by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch, religious critiques of collective and interpersonal violence, passionate denunciations of racism and quiet eloquence which demands that we all stand up for morality in dark times. Among the more than eighty authors are Thomas Berry, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abraham Heschel, Martin Luther King, Winona Laduke, Michael Lerner, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Judith Plaskow, Rosemary Ruether, and Vandana Shiva. An invaluable teaching resource and the definitive introduction to global religious social activism, this book offers a visionary alternative to both repressive fundamentalism and spiritless secularism.

Contributions by: Diane Ackerman, Nawal H. Ammar, Scott Appleby, Naim Stifan Ateek, Rich Barlow, Daniel Berrigan, Thomas Berry, Philip Berryman, Michael Bourdeaux, Stephen B. Boyd, Judy Chicago, Anne M. Clifford, James H. Cone, Harvey Cox, Dorothy Day, Michael Dodson, Nancy L. Eiesland, Asghar Ali Engineer, Mark Engler, Farid Esack, Anwar Fazal, Margaret Fell, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Ivone Gebara, Mahatma Gandhi, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Roger S. Gottlieb, Gustavo Gutierrez, Thich Nhat Hanh, Beverly W. Harrison, Stanley Hauerwas, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Carter Heyward, Jonna Higgins-Freese, Anita C. Hill, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Inbal Kashtan, Eric Katz, Stephanie Kaza, Rami G. Khouri, Martin Luther King, Winona LaDuke, The Dalai Lama, John Paul Lederach, Pope LeoXIII, Michael Lerner, John Locke, Joanna Macy, Mary John Mananzan, Stan McKay, Thomas Merton, Ti Wei Ming, Lucretia Mott, Reinhold Niebuhr, Henri Nouwen, Jim O'Grady, Judith Plaskow, Murray Polner, Walpola Rahula, Walter Rauschenbusch, Shamara Shantu Riley, Sheila Rowbotham, Rosemary Ruether, Fernando Pages Ruiz, Vandana Shiva, Sulak Sivaraksa, Dee Smith, Dorothy Soelle, Ronald J. Terchek, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Jeff Tomhave, Leo Treadway, Walter Wink, Elizur Wright, Theodore S. Wright