Religion and Society

A Choice Significant University Press Titles for Undergraduates, 2005-2006

This history of the African AIDS epidemic is a much-needed, accessibly written historical account of the most serious epidemiological catastrophe of modern times. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History answers President Thabo Mbeki's provocative question as to why Africa has suffered this terrible epidemic.

While Mbeki attributed the causes to poverty and exploitation, others have looked to distinctive sexual systems practiced in African cultures and communities. John Iliffe stresses historical sequence. He argues that Africa has had the worst epidemic because the disease was established in the general population before anyone knew the disease existed. HIV evolved with extraordinary speed and complexity, and because that evolution took place under the eyes of modern medical research scientists, Iliffe has been able to write a history of the virus itself that is probably unique among accounts of human epidemic diseases. In giving the African experience a historical shape, Iliffe has written one of the most important books of our time.

The African experience of AIDS has taught the world much of what it knows about HIV/AIDS, and this fascinating book brings into focus many aspects of the epidemic in the longer context of massive demographic growth, urbanization, and social change in Africa during the latter half of the twentieth century. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History is a brilliant introduction to the many aspects of the epidemic and the distinctive character of the virus.

Argues that applied bioethics should embrace utilitarian decision analysis, thus avoiding recommendations expected to do more harm than good.

Governments, health professionals, patients, research institutions, and research subjects look to bioethicists for guidance in making important decisions about medical treatment and research. And yet, argues Jonathan Baron in Against Bioethics, applied bioethics lacks the authority of a coherent guiding theory and is based largely on intuitive judgments. Baron proposes an alternative, arguing that bioethics could have a coherent theory based on utilitarianism and decision analysis. Utilitarianism holds that the best option is the one that does the most expected good. Decision analysis provides a way of thinking about the risks and trade-offs of specific options. Like economics, utilitarian decision analysis makes predictions of expected good in complex situations, using data when possible, and focusing human judgment on the issues relevant to consequences. With such a guiding theory, bioethics would never yield decisions that clearly go against the expected good of those involved, as some do now.

Baron discusses issues in bioethics that can be illuminated by such analysis, including enhancements to nature in the form of genetics, drugs, and mind control; reproduction; death and end-of-life issues, including advance directives, euthanasia, and organ donation; coercion and consent; conflict of interest and the reform of internal review boards; and drug research. Although Baron opposes current practice in bioethics, he argues that by combining utilitarianism and decision analysis, bioethics can achieve its aims of providing authoritative guidance in resolving thorny medical and ethical issues.

For at least a generation, the debate over the morality of euthanasia and assisted suicide and their legalization has been going strong. We are all well aware of the main arguments for and against them, and their general profiles are widely known. In fact, in some instances there appear to be signs of weariness along the battle lines, with little hope of any decisive advance by either side... i.e., a stalemate. In Aiming to Kill, Biggar attempts to review as judiciously as possible the main lines of argument for and against the moral and legal permissibility of euthanasia and assisted suicide. He aspires to negotiate a way through to a mature judgment by taking account of the three basic elements of the controversy--the value of human life, the morality of acts of killing, and the fear of slippery slopes--and running a coherent argument through all of them. Biggar does not pretend to be neutral in the discussion, but rather is open to both sides of the argument and presents them in this manner.

Synopsis: James Atwood contends that the thirty thousand gun deaths America suffers every year cannot be understood apart from our national myth that God has appointed America as "the trustee of the civilization of the world" and even "Christ's light to the nations." Because these purposes are noble, and we are supposedly a good and trustworthy people, violence is sometimes "required" and gives license to individuals to carry open or concealed weapons, which "save lives" and can even be "redemptive." Atwood, an avid hunter, cautions that an absolute trust in guns and violence morphs easily into idolatry. Having spent thirty-six years as a Presbyterian pastor fighting against the easy access to firearms, one of which took the life of a friend, he uses his unique experience and his biblical and theological understanding to graphically portray the impact guns have on our society. He documents how Americans have been deceived into believing that the tools of violence, whether they take the form of advanced military technology or a handgun in the bedside stand, will provide security. He closes with a wake-up call to the faith community, which he says is America's best hope to unmask the extremism of the Gun Empire. Endorsement: "Atwood knows that guns are not just weapons, but symbols, and not only symbols, but idols that demand enormous sacrifice in American lives. This book gets at both the depth and meaning of this on-going tragedy. As a gifted organizer and thinker, Atwood then unveils the inspiring theological bases of an awakening to gun violence [prevention] that has already begun in some cities and congregations." --Christian Iosso, Coordinator of Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy "When it comes to tackling the plague of gun violence in the U.S., no one 'walks the walk' with more integrity than Atwood. He has devoted his life to saving lives from gun violence by increasing awareness and challenging popular myths about guns. He now gives us a much needed theological undergirding for our work to end the violence." --John W. Wimberly Jr., Pastor of Western Presbyterian Church "Gun violence destroys families everyday in America. Atwood presciently shows how our weak gun laws result from treating guns as if they were religious idols. By unpacking the theological significance of policies that allow for unfettered access to firearms, he makes a compelling argument that people of faith have a religious and moral duty to fight for stronger gun laws." --Joshua Horwitz, Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence "Atwood's fervent account of the multiple costs of gun violence and the need to restrain it is of urgent and timely importance. This book is a challenge to Christians to lead the way in unmasking the peculiar American obsession with guns. It illuminates the origins of that obsession and recounts a distressing record of statistics and broken laws, all in a compelling theological framework." --David Little, Harvard Divinity School "This is the book I've been waiting for. Atwood's analysis is deeply theological, and I hope it will bring conversations in our churches about idolatry, faithfulness, and the violence that has become so interwoven into our culture. Read this book for an exploration of your own acquiescence to the gun culture, and then study it with your book club or church group to begin planning the revolution that will stand up to the gun industry." --Rick Ufford-Chase, Executive Director of Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Author Biography: James E. Atwood is Pastor Emeritus of the Trinity Presbyterian Church of Arlington, Virginia, from which he retired in 1999. He lives in Springfield, Virginia. He is presently the Chairperson of Heeding God's Call of Greater Washington, a faith-based ecumenical movement that encourages gun shops to adopt a code of conduct that deters illegal purchasing and the trafficking of handguns.

Gibson Winter explores the complex reality of violence in America that includes a bloody history and the quest for power and money as indicators of self-worth. He exposes the rage and the sense of powerlessness stemming from poverty, the anguish felt by young people and the pain caused by easy access to drugs and weapons. Winter examines the role of religioun in American life, with an emphasis on the various movements that seek to assuage the gnawing hunger within the American soul.

American Grace is a major achievement, a groundbreaking examination of religion in America.

Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation's religious landscape has been reshaped.

America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion. The result has been a growing polarization--the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars.

American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans.

Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life. Among them:

- Between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith;

- Roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives;

- Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage;

- Even fervently religious Americans believe that people of other faiths can go to heaven;

- Religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans: more generous with their time and treasure even for secular causes--but the explanation has less to do with faith than with their communities of faith;

- Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today.

American Grace promises to be the most important book in decades about American religious life and an essential book for understanding our nation today.

For Americans entering the twenty-first century, it is the best of times and the worst of times. Material wealth is at record levels, yet disturbing social problems reflect a deep spiritual poverty. In this compelling book, well-known social psychologist David G. Myers asks how this paradox has come to be and, more important, how we can spark social renewal and dream a new American dream.

Myers explores the research on social ills from the 1960s through the 1990s and concludes that the materialism and radical individualism of this period have cost us dearly, imperiling our children, corroding general civility, and diminishing our happiness. However, in the voices of public figures and ordinary citizens he now hears a spirit of optimism. The national dialogue is shifting--away from the expansion of personal rights and toward enhancement of communal civility, away from efforts to raise self-esteem and toward attempts to arouse social responsibility, away from "whose values?" and toward "our values." Myers analyzes in detail the research on educational and other programs that deal with social problems, explaining which seem to work and why. He then offers positive and well-reasoned advice, suggesting that a renewed social ecology for America will rest on policies that balance "me thinking" with "we thinking."

Shows how economics functions as the dominant religion in America today

In this provocative book Scott Gustafson argues that economics functions in our current global culture as religions have functioned in other cultures. He describes and analyzes the rituals, pilgrimage sites, myths, prophets, sacraments, and mission of Economics to show how the Economy is our de facto God. Discussing such topics as debt, economic terrorism, globalization, and money as the Economy's sacrament, Gustafson's At the Altar of Wall Street encompasses a broad sweep of history, philosophy, culture studies, economic ideas, and religion in its trenchant analysis.

In a fast-paced, complicated, and evermore dangerous world it is easy to become self-absorbed and consumed with our own problems. There is one place, however, where we put our self-centered concerns aside, and our deep, common humanity is profoundly touched. That place is where sick children dwell.

It is no less difficult--and perhaps even more difficult in many ways--for physicians who have chosen to attend to the health and well-being of gravely ill or dying children. Margaret Mohrmann has devoted most of her professional life to them, and in Attending Children she shares the remarkable education those children and their families have given her. Her narratives are both painful and hopeful, tragic and funny, full of remarkable characters and sometimes bizarre families.

Mohrmann has sifted through her thirty years as a pediatrician, and with poignancy, humor, and uncompromising honesty, she shares her sometimes stumbling but always deeply caring journey through a land where, sometimes, small hands have to be let go too soon. She introduces us to not only the physical challenges she, her colleagues, and her patients encounter, but the spiritual ones as well.

Attending Children is a unique experience as Mohrmann takes the reader on a doctor's rounds over many years to meet the faces and the struggles, the heartaches and the joys of being a pediatrician. In the case of Margaret Mohrmann and her patients, no one could ask for better teachers.

John Gorenfeld's Bad Moon Rising takes readers into the chilling Washington underworld of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, whose cult-like Unification Church calls him the True Father. Whether claiming endorsements from George Washington, pronouncing Jesus obsolete or dictating sex positions to his followers, Moon has pursued loopy schemes for decades. For the first time, Bad Moon Rising tells the full story of the reverend's coronation in U.S. Senate offices in 2004; his quest to become world leader; his founding of a media empire with the creation of The Washington Times and purchase of United Press International; and his unlikely influence on the GOP propaganda machine, financing the stories that make Fox News Channel. Although Beltway conservatives rarely acknowledge their embarrassing patron, Gorenfeld is not afraid to follow the money to famous names and shameful secrets, revealing a hidden saga of political corruption, lost souls, and megalomania.

Professionals today wield an enormous public power. Collectively, their decisions affect the patient's plight, the client's fate, the student's future, the city's scape, the Earth's sustainability, the worker's fair treatment, and the durability of institution's great and small. Yet professionals do not perceive themselves as power wielders. They feel beleaguered, marginal, insufficiently appreciated, often under siege. Thus they tend to obscure for themselves their obligation to the common good. This book explores eight professions as they struggle with their double identity--as a means to livelihood and as a common calling in the spirit of public service. An interpretation of American culture emerges from its pages, as social critic William May opens up the ways in which each profession answers to something deep in the American spirit.