Customer Reviews

Joining Hands: Politics And Religion Together For Social Change

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Joining Hands is an outstanding critical analysis of the issues of politics, religion, and their interaction together with regards to ethical considerations and progressive political movements.

The book's author, Roger S. Gottlieb, is a professor of philosophy at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is also the author of "Marxism: 1844-1990: Origins, Betrayal, Rebirth", "A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and Protecting the Earth", and "This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment".

In Hands, Gottlieb explores the nature of politics and religion as they relate to ethics and the socially active person.
In particular, Gottlieb argues (convincingly) that religious institutions and spiritual traditions have much to learn from secular politics (an argument fairly well understood by most) and also that secular political movements have a lot to learn from religion.

To illustrate how religion can "teach" politics, Gottlieb discusses a number of religious traditions including Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism and shows how the strength of spiritual belief can an important asset to socially progressive political movements.
I believe that this argument is an important and powerful one. Nearly every intellectual with whom I have discussed ethics knows the arguments about how religion can learn from secular politics (and indeed this point is well made in Hands). However, most have never considered Gottlieb's second point that religion can "teach" secular politics, and the point is made well in Hands.

In the first half of the book, Gottlieb outlines the main argument of his book and provides a critical analysis of many ethical writers in order to illustrate his point. His discussions are fair and honest-he credits each author for their strengths as well as their weaknesses with regards to his focus (the relationship of religion to politics and politics to religion), and does well to distinguish his personal beliefs and biases from those of others and from objective, certifiable data. Whether or not you agree with Professor Gottlieb's argument, his discussion of ethics, religion, and politics in Hands is well worth reading.

I recommend this book, in general, to anyone who is interested in the study of ethics. I particularly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topics of social movements and/or the (important) role of religion in our modern-day world.
Also, because of the insightful and well-written chapters on breast cancer and disabilities, the civil rights movement, and the environmental movement, I would also recommend this book to anyone interested in studying any of these topics in specific, and, in general, to anyone interested in getting an perspective on some current ethical considerations and political movements.