Mending a Torn World: Women in Interreligious Dialogue
O'Neill, Maura
Orbis Books, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-5707-5726-6

Explores what happens when women of different faiths and varying positions on an ideological spectrum enter into both inter- and intra-religious dialogue on issues of concern to all.

The voices of women are typically excluded from dialogues between representatives of world religions. This exclusion has the additional effect of obscuring the very real diversity of women's perspectives within each tradition. This book remedies both forms of omission—highlighting the contributions of women in interreligious dialogue, while also exposing the significant differences between "conservative" and "progressive" voices within their respective traditions.

In a dialogue around issues of justice and peace, can these women find common ground? In part 1, Maura O'Neill attempts to understand the issues and explores the challenges to dialogue among Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist women. In part 2, she explores how the progressive-conservative divide within the various traditions complicates the project of dialogue. Disagreements on gender issues are endemic in every tradition, and in an age when every people and culture reels before the assaults of modernity, finding solutions is difficult. O'Neill does not pretend to solve these problems, but she brings new understanding and light to the search.