Religion and rights : The Oxford Amnesty lectures 2008 / edited by Wes Williams.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Williams, Wes, editor.

Series:

Oxford Amnesty lectures.

The Oxford Amnesty lectures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human rights--Religious aspects.

Human rights.

Religious tolerance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 161 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK ; New York : Manchester University Press : distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book addresses the relationship between human rights and religion. The original blurb for the Oxford Amnesty Lectures of 2008 invited speakers and audiences to ponder arguments for the God-given source of human rights. The book explains how biblical inspiration (both Old and New Testament) fuelled the anti-slavery protests and later the civil rights movement in the United States. It develops the particular relevance, for arguments over human rights within Islam, of the writings of the medieval philosopher Muhammad al-Ghazali who justified an openness towards constructive engagement with other traditions. The book shows where the philosophical worldviews that inform the religion of Islam and the rights discourse may be distant from each other. It illustrates the challenge of taking the real world of human practice seriously while avoiding simplistic arguments for pluralism or relativism. The book focuses on Simon Schama's evocation of the religious fervour which helped feed the long struggles for liberation among American slave communities. It discusses the understanding of human rights in the Roman Catholic tradition. The book also shows that the Christian experience of Pentecost and what it means to learn to speak as well as understand another's language, is a continuing resource God has given the church to sustain the ability to suffer as well as respond to those who suffer for the long haul. The book argues that moral progress consists in the universalisation of Western liberal democracy with its specific understanding of human rights.

Contents:

Rights and religion : spaces for argument and agreement / Wendy James

Race, faith and freedom in American and British history / Simon Schama

Response to Simon Schama / Matthew Spooner

Pentecost : learning the languages of peace / Stanley Hauerwas

Response to Stanley Hauerwas / Pamela Sue Anderson

Human rights in the Roman Catholic tradition / Charles E. Curran

Response to Charles E. Curran / Nicholas Bamforth

Worldviews and universalisms : the doctrine of "religion" in Islam and the idea of "rights" in the West / Hisham A. Hellyer

Response to Hisham A. Hellyer / Chris Miller

Terror and religion / Ronald Dworkin

Response to Ronald Dworkin / John Tasioulas

Can human rights accommodate pluralism? / Chantal Mouffe

Response to Chantal Mouffe / Stuart White

Symposium : freedom of belief, freedom from belief. The tolerance policy : way out or compromise? / Asma Jahangir; Religion and rights / A. C. Grayling; Freedom and human rights / John Pritchard; The right to believe / Andrew Brown; Out with "religion": a novel framing of the religion debate / Emma Cohen.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 May 2026).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-7190-9521-2

OCLC:

960166195