ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an analytical overview of different approaches to teaching comparative religious ethics, proposing that one in particular, the hermeneutical-dialogical approach, is more adequate and persuasive than the others. It also provides a typology for construing different modes of interreligious relationship and thus for understanding the diversity of types of interreligious moral dialogue. The chapter examines the connections between human rights and religious traditions by first forging a historicist and pragmatic re-visioning of human rights in the international context and then demonstrating how even apparently resistant and unpromising traditions can affirm these rights. The chapter probes the resonances and differences between Islam and reformed Christianity in their respective teachings on war and statecraft as well as contemporary religious critiques from both traditions of the secular state.
