"Did Martin Luther King's spiritual understanding of political struggle truly help the civil rights movements? Can breast cancer victims incorporate both spiritual wisdom and political action in their fight for life? Tackling such questions that shake the core of our political and spiritual foundations, Roger S. Gottlieb presents a brave new account of how religious ethics and progressive movements share a common vision of a transformed world.

In doing so, he offers a bold and eloquent affirmation: that authentic religion requires an activist, transforming presence in the political world, and that the moral and psychological insights of religion are indispensable resources in political struggles for democracy, human rights, and ecological sanity.

With original and compelling interpretations of Martin Luther King and the civil rights struggle, feminism, disability rights, the global environmental movement, and the fight against breast cancer, Joining Hands will alter the way spiritual seekers, political activists, and society as a whole think about the political role of religion and the spiritual component of politics."--BOOK JACKET.