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Foreword Religion Meets Poverty: Intersectional Conversations, Complexities, and Challenges This book brings together and creates intersectional conversation between religious thinking on poverty and on addressing poverty, nonreligious para- digms, and theories that explain poverty and practices and strategies for achieving the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG), set in 2000, to “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.” The interim goal of halving this by 2015 was, according to the United Nations, achieved five years early. Yet, the goal of totally eradicating extreme poverty, if achieved, would not end all poverty (see chapter 1 on types of poverty). Few would argue that poverty is no longer a major humanitarian concern. This book stands at the crossroads of a number of academic disciplines—theology, religious studies, develop- ment and postcolonial studies and economics—and perhaps suggests that “comparative religions analysis” still has a place in theological thinking (see chapter 2), although some regard comparative religion as passé, tending to force data to fit preconceived Christian-rooted notions. Several chapters refer to the MDGs and to ways of analyzing and measuring poverty as well as to scriptures and classical and contemporary writing on poverty within the world’s religions. Other UN documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and several international conventions, are also cited. Since the middle of last century, many people engaged in interfaith rela- tions have advocated moving beyond theological discourse into what has been called the dialogue of life and of common action. This involves working together to establish more just societies around shared values. When the World Council of Churches published Guidelines on Dialogue in 1979, it stated, Common activities and experiences are the most fruitful setting for dia- logue on issues of faith, ideology and action. It is in the search for a just