A theology of humanity through identity politics: reading the Book of Esther
Keywords:
Imago Dei, humanity, respect, identity politicsAbstract
Humanity obligates respect. To respect someone is to intend what the person intended that one intends. A daughter respected her father if if he intended that she rests regularly, then she does so with the correct motive. Jesus' Greatest Commandment, through the Worship of Yahweh identified via the First Commandment, interacts love with respect. If to love is to value the loved one's welfare, valuing it for its own sake differentiates a malignant form of love from one out of respect. From gender, through ethnicity and humanity, I bring out the theological insight from us being created in the image of God. Why respect? Because we are human. But why does humanity obligate respect? Because Yahweh commanded so. The vice of idolatry, ecologically, is constituted by self-disrespect - a form of worship that demeans and defiles oneself. That we are grateful to be Designed thus enlightens our life.
References
Bianchi, Enzo. 2008. God, where are you? S. Leslie (trans.). London: SPCK Publishing.
Clines, David. 1990. Reading Esther from Left to Right in The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in celebration of forty years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield. Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Press. 31-52.
Cheung, Wai Lok. 2024. A realist Daoism: reading the Zhuang-Zi with Lao Zi’s Daoist realism. Comparative Philosophy. 15(2):43-65. <https://doi.org/10.31979/2151-6014(2024).150207>
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