
Contents
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Introduction Introduction
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Axial Insights of the World Religions Axial Insights of the World Religions
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Medieval Empires Medieval Empires
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Western Christendom Western Christendom
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The Jewish Diaspora The Jewish Diaspora
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Islam Islam
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Confucianism Confucianism
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Buddhism Buddhism
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The Modern Transformation The Modern Transformation
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The Horizon of Universal Progress and Its Challenge to Religious Traditions The Horizon of Universal Progress and Its Challenge to Religious Traditions
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Suggested Reading Suggested Reading
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Works Cited Works Cited
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30 Religion and Inequality
Get accessRichard Madsen is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, San Diego. His numerous books include Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan.
William M. Sullivan, co-author of Habits of the Heart, was senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation, and currently at the New American Colleges and Universities.
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Published:23 January 2024
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Abstract
The growth of economic inequality poses severe challenges, not only to the stability of global economic and political systems, but also to the health and viability of the social fabric of contemporary societies. Inequality is therefore a moral and spiritual as well as a technical economic problem. This chapter asks what resources the great world religions—Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Confucianism—can bring to the crises occasioned by inequality. Two major problems stand in the way of effective religious engagement with the problem. First, the mindset that sees progress as ‘growth’ does not admit moral or religious concerns as legitimate policy issues. Second, the world religions themselves, though they descend from movements for universal human dignity of the axial age of the first millennium bce, often remain embedded in premodern, unequal social visions. How might they reinterpret their heritage to speak effectively to the present situation?
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