Suffering Religion

In a diverse and innovative selection of new essays by cutting-edge theologians and philosophers, Suffering Religionexamines 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 meaningThemes covered include*philosophy's own failure to treat suffering seriously, with special reference to the Jewish traditio*Martin Buber's celebrated interpretations of scriptural sufferin*suffering in Kristevan psychoanalysis, focusing on the Christian theology of the cros*the pain of childbirth in a home setting as a religiously significant choic*Gods primal suffering in the kabbalistic traditio*Incarnation as a gracious willingness to suffer.