As experiences of suffering continue to influence the responses of identity groups in the midst of violent conflict, a way to harness their narratives, stories, memories, and myths in transformative and non-violent ways is needed. From Suffering to Solidarity explores the historical seeds of Mennonite peacebuilding approaches and their application in violent conflicts around the world. The authors in this book first draw out the experiences of Anabaptists and Mennonites from the sixteenth-century originsthrough to the present that have shaped their approaches to conflict transformation and inspired new generations of Mennonites to engage in relief, development, and peacebuilding to alleviate the suffering of others whose experiences today reflect those of their ancestors. Authors then explore the various peacebuilding approaches, methods, and initiatives that have emerged from this Mennonite narrative and its preservation and dissemination in subsequent generations. Finally, the book examines how this combined historical sensitivity and resulting peacebuilding theory and practice have been applied in violent conflicts around the world, noting both successes and challenges. Ultimately, From Suffering to Solidarity attempts to answer a question: How can arobust historical infrastructure be used to inspire empathetic solidarity with the Other and shape nonviolent ways of transforming conflict to thrust a stick in the spokes of the cycle of violence?

This book delineates a vision that moves beyond a politics of divisiveness toward a new way of constructing lives together throughout the world. Sturm's "politics of relationality" is an alternative to classical liberalism and cultural conservatism. It calls for mutual respect and creative dialogue, promoting a principle of justice as solidarity. Sturm develops a radically reconstructive approach to a wide range of social issues: human rights, affirmative action, property, corporations, religious pluralism, social conflict, and the environment. Solidarity and Suffering: Toward a Politics of Relationality is infused with a spirituality of compassion, suggesting that, in their core meanings, justice and love coalesce.

They have a dream - a dream of a world where everything and everybody can be bought and sold, a world run efficiently by managers, a world where 'freedom' means the free market. Maurice Glasman argues that this dream is an unrealisable utopia - or a nightmare if put into practice. He takes the management-speak cliches of the New Right, and New Labour alike and turns them on their head: managers are not efficient, they are a barrier to work and production; 'liberal democracy' - which now means the free market and the strong state - should be turned upside down, with democracy at the level of the economy and liberalism at the level of the state. Drawing on the work of Karl Polanyi, Glasman argues that there is no need to surrender solidarity and human rights to the march of the managers and the market. There is another tradition, represented by the labour movement and the Catholic church in West Germany, which defended democracy in the workplace and reined back the savageries of capitalism. It was the tradition that Solidarity in Poland could have looked to after 1989, instead of allowing itself to be hijacked by the New Right and statist communitarianism. Unnecessary Suffering examines this tradition and issues a call that cries out that human beings and the environment cannot, should not, and will not be treated as commodities.

Jesus in Solidarity with His People: A Theologian Looks at Mark works from two premises. The first is that the Gospel of Mark is, from beginning to end, an Easter story. And the second is that the category of solidarity provides a contemporary key for understanding Mark's message about Jesus' life and mission. The book argues that the spiritual effectiveness of Mark's story will be determined largely by how much the reader is willing to live, like Jesus, in solidarity with God's people. The opening chapter surveys the range of theological matters that the text invites us to think about. Subsequent chapters return to those issues as they appear in the Gospel text.

Rebecca Todd Peters argues for an ethic of solidarity as a new model for how people of faith in the first world can live with integrity in the midst of global injustice and shape a more just future. Solidarity Ethics seeks to address the economic and social structures of our globalized context. Peters argues for a concrete ethics rooted in the Christian tradition of justice and transformation deeply informed by solidarity and relationality. Utilizing these theologically rich resources, an ethics of relational reflection, action, and construction is provided as an avenue for building viable strategies for social transformation.

This book brings together philosophers, social psychologists and social scientists to approach contemporary social reality from the viewpoint of solidarity. It examines the nature of different kinds of solidarity and assesses the normative and explanatory potential of the concept. Various aspects of solidarity as a special emotionally and ethically responsive relation are studied: the nature of collective emotions and mutual recognition, responsiveness to others’ suffering and needs, and the nature of moral partiality included in solidarity. The evolution of norms of solidarity is examined both via the natural evolution of the human “social brain” and via the institutional changes in legal constitutions and contemporary work life. This text will appeal to students, scholars, and anyone interested in the interdisciplinary topic of social solidarity.

WINNER of the 2015 ICA Outstanding Book Award This path-breaking book explores how solidarity towards vulnerable others is performed in our media environment. It argues that stories where famine is described through our own experience of dieting or or where solidarity with Africa translates into wearing a cool armband tell us about much more than the cause that they attempt to communicate. They tell us something about the ways in which we imagine the world outside ourselves. By showing historical change in Amnesty International and Oxfam appeals, in the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, in the advocacy of Audrey Hepburn and Angelina Jolie as well as in earthquake news on the BBC, this far-reaching book shows how solidarity has today come to be not about conviction but choice, not vision but lifestyle, not others but ourselves – turning us into the ironic spectators of other people’s suffering.

Planetary Solidarity brings together leading Latina, womanist, Asian American, Anglican American, South American, Asian, European, and African woman theologians on the issues of doctrine, women, and climate justice. Because women make up the majority of the world's poor and tend to be more dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods and survival, they are more vulnerable when it comes to climate-related changes and catastrophes. Representing a subfield of feminist theology that uses doctrine as interlocutor, this book ask how Christian doctrine might address the interconnected suffering of women and the earth in an age of climate change. While doctrine has often stifled change, it also forms the thread that weaves Christian communities together. Drawing on postcolonial ecofeminist/womanist analysis and representing different ecclesial and denominational traditions, contributors use doctrine to envision possibilities for a deep solidarity with the earth and one another while addressing the intersection of gender, race, class, and ethnicity. The book is organized around the following doctrines: creation, the triune God, anthropology, sin, incarnation, redemption, the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology, and eschatology.