David H. Breaux: Action for Compassion

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 2019

Comparing three concepts of mercy, compassion, and love, this essay describes, first, with Kasper, divine mercy or compassion as a central attribute of God's love, calling for the same human response to suffering. Second, with Metz, it situates compassion within a political theology, but develops it further as central concept of ethics. Third, with Nussbaum, the essay understands compassion and love as a bridge between political norms of justice and the social realities of injustice and indifference. In the second part, the essay takes up the political-theological lens of historical reason; it interprets compassion for justice as a practice of critical witnessing and resistance, and transformative solidarity. It upholds the anamnetic theology of God's compassion and mercy as the ultimate divine gift of justice, to be remembered in the face of forgetting and indifference.

Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 2019

Clinical Ethics, 2013

In some popular and political discourse, 'compassion' is commonly conceived as a simple or 'given' aspect of the world. And yet public discussion also focusses on whether 'compassion' has gone wrong in some way, suggesting that there might be various more or less satisfactory versions of compassion. At the same time, some thinkers doubt whether compassion should any longer be expected of those working in healthcare. This article draws on philosophical and theological resources to argue that the conceptual context which forms compassion is crucial for determining the ethos healthcare. The discussion explores three themes -politics, suffering and responsibility -which must be addressed in order to understand what is wrong with compassion, to identify lines of future investigation and to develop possible remedies.

Leaven, 2012

‘Achieving Global Justice, Security and Sustainability: Compassion as a Transformative Method.’ CADMUS 4(5):30-37.

This paper first examines the geopolitical trends of the post-Cold War era. The main features of this period are an escalating crisis of democratic institutions, extreme economic inequality with a concomitant lack of justice and compassion, and a rising sense of disenchantment with politics. This in turn has increased the appeal of nativist populism, especially among downwardly mobile middle classes. This crisis of political economy coincides with a severe and rapidly escalating global ecological crisis. In response, the author calls for a new paradigm of international cooperation wherein principles of justice and compassion are applied as a practical method to solve the key challenges of our times in an effective and inclusive manner, arguing that business-as-usual is not a viable alternative for survival.

Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development, 2021

Thousands of people make a private choice each year to invest some of their savings in an investment instrument that returns at best 2% interest, in order to help capitalize small-scale financial institutions that serve people who otherwise have no access to financial services. These investments, through Oikocredit and other nonprofit intermediaries, have become a major source of capital for microfinance lending. Most such capital is now raised through commercial investment funds, but the initiative came from a faith-based NGO, Oikocredit, which continues to be an important source of capital for small microfinance institutions that cannot attract commercial funds. Public policy is not the only arena available to FBOs and their supporters, and this chapter examines some of the other actions that faith-based groups encourage. In the United States, delegations of volunteers undergo training each year for an unusual and risky kind of international travel. They join Christian Peacemaker Teams and travel to places where civilians are at risk of violence-Palestine, Syria, immigration sites on the Aegean Sea, Colombia-to "support and amplify the voices of local peacemakers who risk injury and death by waging nonviolent direct action to confront systems of violence and oppression…" (emphasis in original) (Christian Peacemaker Teams, 2020). More routinely, a growing number of consumers make a choice while shopping that they intend as an act of

Compassion in contemporary philosophy is a rare jewel. Not only because contemporary philosophy is modeled on argument and competition, but the word ‘compassion’ itself rarely makes an entrance. Instead, philosophers have tended to speak of altruism, and its opposite, egoism. But I would suggest that our age is sorely in need of reengaging with the idea of compassion. This paper gives a review of the philosophical idea of altruism, and then considers how the faith traditions might inform a contemporary reengagement with the practice of compassion. The paper was written for an address to a lay audience at a philosophy event.

Japanese Journal of American Studies

2015

What is the right response to the tide of refugees? We would affirm life and not death; we would seek to offer hospitality and not hostility-yet all these are in fact reacting to the symptoms rather than treating the causes. Peace on earth can be our only goal. When every person is free to live, worship and bring up children without being afraid of a bomb, bullet or curfew. How wonderful if the only reason for travelling across the world were the desire to learn, rather than the need to escape. For years after WWII, my mother, who lived in London during the Blitz, would visibly jump and shrink if she heard a low flying aircraft or a loud bang. For years, too, she stored bags of sugar and tins of meat in our attic 'just in case'. The effects of war are deep and damaging; and war can take place in our own families and neighbourhoods; in our homes and relationships. Can we dare to invite the Prince of Peace into our hearts and embrace his call to non-violence? This issue of bmj is offered to us by the Baptist Peace Fellowship, to stimulate our thinking on a variety of issues about peace and the offence of violence in our midst. I pray that it will help us as we approach Remembrance Sunday, and give us new food for thought and prayer in an increasingly violent and complex world. SN