Suffering Religion

Suffering Religion Suffering besets us in diverse ways. Is any speaking about suffering too complicit with suffering? Is it the task of religion to justify our pain, or even to deny it? Or does religion offer images, theories and practices that understand God to suffer with humanity? Does God choose to suffer? Can theology arm us to resist suffering? In a diverse and innovative selection of new essays by cutting-edge theologians, scholars of religion, and philosophers, Suffering Religion examines one of the most primitive but challenging questions to define human experience— why do we suffer? As a theme uniting very different religious and cultural traditions, the problem of suffering addresses issues of passivity, the vulnerability of embodiment, the generosity of love and the complexity of gendered desire. Interdisciplinary studies bring different kinds of interpretations to meet and enrich each other. Can the notion of goodness retain meaning in the face of real affliction, or is pain itself in conflict with meaning? Themes covered include: • • • • • • philosophy’s own failure to treat suffering seriously, with special reference to the Jewish tradition; Martin Buber’s celebrated interpretations of scriptural suffering; suffering in Kristevan psychoanalysis, focusing on the Christian theology of the cross; the pain of childbirth in a home setting as a religiously significant choice; God’s primal suffering in the kabbalistic tradition; incarnation as a gracious willingness to suffer. With contributions by the editors and Graham Ward, Pamela E. Klassen, Steven Kepnes, and Cleo McNelly Kearns, Suffering Religion brings together the most exciting and provocative new discourses in a significant but often neglected field of study. Robert Gibbs is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, and the author of Why Ethics? Signs of Responsibilities (2000). Elliot R. Wolfson is the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and Director of the Program in Religious Studies at New York University. He has written extensively on Jewish mysticism, and has won American Academy of Religion and National Jewish Book awards for Through the Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (1994). H Suffering Religion Edited by Robert Gibbs and Elliot R. Wolfson London and New York First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. Selection and editorial matter © 2002 Robert Gibbs and Elliot R.