Sarum College logo
  • Learning
    • Short Courses
    • Exploring Theology
    • Prospective Students
    • Postgraduate Study & Research
      • Postgraduate study in Theology, Imagination & Culture
      • Postgraduate Study in Christian Spirituality
      • Postgraduate study in Theology, Ministry and Mission
    • Theology, Imagination & Culture
    • Christian Spirituality
    • Bible & Sacred Texts
    • Human Flourishing
    • Leadership Learning
    • Spiritual Direction
    • Private Stays, Retreats, Study Breaks and Sabbaticals
    • Library
      • Guide to Library Services
    • Learning Resources
  • Ministry
    • Ordination
      • Undergraduate Award
      • Postgraduate Award
      • Rural ministry
      • Parish-based pioneer ministry
    • Licensed Lay Ministry / Readers
    • Independent Study
  • Hospitality
  • Courses & Events Diary
  • Get in touch
Sarum College logo
  • About Us
    • Our People
    • Governance
    • Work with us
  • Safeguarding
  • News
  • Donate
  • Learning
    • Short Courses
    • Exploring Theology
    • Prospective Students
    • Postgraduate Study & Research
      • Postgraduate study in Theology, Imagination & Culture
      • Postgraduate Study in Christian Spirituality
      • Postgraduate study in Theology, Ministry and Mission
    • Theology, Imagination & Culture
    • Christian Spirituality
    • Bible & Sacred Texts
    • Human Flourishing
    • Leadership Learning
    • Spiritual Direction
    • Private Stays, Retreats, Study Breaks and Sabbaticals
    • Library
      • Guide to Library Services
    • Learning Resources
  • Ministry
    • Ordination
      • Undergraduate Award
      • Postgraduate Award
      • Rural ministry
      • Parish-based pioneer ministry
    • Licensed Lay Ministry / Readers
    • Independent Study
  • Hospitality
  • Courses & Events Diary
  • Get in touch

Love as common ground for human flourishing

Home News Love as common ground for human flourishing

Does God’s love serve as a good model for human love?

Dr Eleanor McLaughlin addresses this question in her contribution to Love as Common Ground, a newly published book of inter-faith essays on love in religion edited by Paul S Feddes.

The book explores how the study and practice of love creates a common ground for different faiths and different traditions within the same faith. For the contributors, the context of ‘common ground’ is a place of encounter with the divine where it is possible to consider together the meaning of the love and to work together to enable human flourishing.

In her chapter, “Tensions within the Study of Love in Religion”, McLaughlin draws on Jewish and Christian scholarship to ask whether it is ever helpful to use God’s love as a model for human love. Tackling questions around divine and human agency, Trinitarian relationality, and our motivations in welcoming the divine other and the human other, McLaughlin argues that any theological investigation of love cannot remain abstract, but necessarily leads to ethical action.

This book emergea from the Project for the Study of Love in Religion, Regent’s Park College, Oxford, which aims to create a space in which different traditions of love converge, from Islam, Judaism, and the Christianity of both East and West. Contributors use exegesis of ancient texts, theology, accounts of mystical experience, philosophy, and evolutionary science of the human to explore themes of love in religion. Insights about human and divine love that emerge include its nature as a form of knowing, its sacrificial and erotic dimensions, its inclination towards beauty, its making of community and its importance for a just political and economic life.

The Project for the Study of Love in Religion, in collaboration with The Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, The Caritas Centre, Brescia University, USA, presents an online colloquium on Loving the Planet.

This event includes the launch of Love as Common Ground and brings together a wide range of international scholars from all over the world to discuss differing perspectives on religion, love and interfaith engagement as it pertains to loving the planet. Prof. Melissa Raphael, an external tutor at Sarum College, is a contributor to the online event. Raphael is Professor Emerita in Jewish Theology, University of Gloucestershire, teaching Modern Jewish Thought at Leo Baeck College, London.

Loving the Planet will be held online, Tuesday, 23 November 2021, 3pm – 9.30pm GMT (9am – 3.30 pm CST)

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required: Register for this free event

Previous postNext post
Sarum College logo

Get in touch

  • info@sarum.ac.uk
  • 01722 424800

Find us on maps

  • Sarum College, 19 The Close, Salisbury, SP1 2EE, UK

Stay in the know

Sign up to our newsletter

Learning

  • Prospective Students
  • Theology, Imagination & Culture
  • Christian Spirituality
  • Bible & Sacred Texts
  • Exploring Theology
  • Human Flourishing
  • Leadership Learning
  • Spiritual Direction
  • Learning Resources

Postgraduate study & research

  • Postgraduate Study in Christian Spirituality
  • Postgraduate study in Theology, Imagination & Culture
  • Postgraduate study in Theology, Ministry and Mission
  • Library

Ministry

  • Ordination
  • Licensed Lay Ministry / Readers
  • Independent Study
  • Parish-based pioneer ministry
  • Postgraduate Award
  • Rural ministry
  • Undergraduate Award

The College

  • About Us
  • Travel to Sarum College
  • Our People
  • Governance
  • Hospitality
  • Private Stays, Retreats, Study Breaks and Sabbaticals
  • Work with us

Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy|Accessibility

© 2023 Sarum College|Registered Charity No. 1161253|Company No. 9510356|Sarum College's trading subsidiary is Sarum College Services Ltd, Company No. 1931038|Website by blue bee

Sign up to our newsletter

Fill in and submit the form below and we'll add you to our mailing list for news about Sarum College.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.