In a diverse and innovative selection of new essays by cutting-edge theologians and philosophers, Suffering Religion examines one of the most primitive yet challenging questions to define human experience - that of why we suffer. As a theme uniting very different religious and cultural traditions, the problem of suffering presents us with conflicts of agency versus passivity, of degradation versus enrichment and of deprivation versus excess. Can the notion of goodness retain meaning in the face of real affliction, or is pain itself in conflict with meaning? And who decides that we must suffer, anyway? Themes covered include: Philosophy's own failure to treat suffering seriously, with special reference to the Jewish tradition Martin Buber's celebrated interpretations of scriptural suffering Suffering in Kristevan psychoanalysis, focusing on the Christian theology of the cross The practise of ritualistic home-birth, informed by religious convictions Gods Primal suffering in the Kabbalistic tradition