Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030365
Authors: Halim Rane Debbie Bargallie Troy Meston
Islam was an important factor in the decolonisation of Muslim countries from European colonial rule during the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Muslims are among the migrant-settler populations of Australia, Canada, the United States, and other British colonial states that continue to dispossess and disenfranchise Indigenous populations. This article contributes to the debate on “decolonising Islam”. It contends that covenants with God and between people in Islam’s pre-eminent sources, the Qur’an and sunnah, are antithetical to colonialism and reinforce a praxis-orientated decolonial–Islamic agenda. This article focuses on three aspects of decolonisation, addressing: (1) supremacist ideology; (2) human existence and coexistence; and (3) claims of entitlement. Using Australia as the primary case study, it examines Islamic obligations towards Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial states, emphasising the potential of covenants to promote mutual recognition and dialogue towards redressing injustices and building respectful coexistence.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030363
Authors: Annette Daniela Haussmann Olivia Lea Odrasil Stefanie Wiloth Esther Hinz Patricia Kerl Jonathan Mylius Kathrin Ackermann
Demographic change in aging societies makes it urgent to ask how care can be understood as a social task. This is where the concept of caring communities comes in, which understands care as a task of many, indeed, of society as a whole, and aims to offer mutual care in communities. While the concept has been described in theory many times, empirical studies are rare. In pluralistic Western societies, the church as an institution is becoming less important while spirituality and spiritual needs are increasing in prominence. These processes of secularization run parallel to a growing interest in spirituality and an individualization of religion. Nonetheless, church congregations have always offered a place of mutual care and lived religion that functions as a network and social resource. So far, the role of spirituality in church-related caring communities has not been sufficiently addressed. In an exploratory qualitative study of three church-related caring communities in Germany, we focus on the target group of caring relatives, of whom we interviewed nine. The results show that church-related caring communities provide important spiritual resources and rely on the basis of shared values that are closely connected to Christian convictions. However, the different understandings of care and spirituality point to the relevance of discussing the often preliminary motives and values of care. Especially in plural societies, the discourse on plural values for mutual care is important and can form a basis for caring practices such as spiritual and pastoral care. Opportunities and places to discuss and debate different and shared values underlining care practices are necessary. The potential of spiritual and pastoral care in church-related caring communities is important and needs to be further strengthened.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030364
Authors: E. Trey Clark
Teaching preaching effectively in the twenty-first century requires instructors to engage a multiplicity of pedagogical approaches. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of homiletical literature that surveys diverse pedagogical paradigms and practices directly related to preaching. This article takes a step toward filling this void. Specifically, the author argues that embracing varied preaching pedagogical paradigms and practices is essential to foster a more holistic, contextually sensitive, and liberative approach to the formation of preachers. The first part of the article examines three major contemporary homiletical pedagogical approaches that attend to the formation of preachers in interrelated yet distinct ways: teacher-centered, learner-centered, and learning-centered preaching pedagogy. In the second section, building on place-based educational theory, a new paradigm is explored that the author calls place-centered preaching pedagogy. To explicate this paradigm, the article briefly considers four homileticians who, in different ways, reflect aspects of this pedagogy in their teaching: HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Frank A. Thomas, Richard W. Voelz, and Leah D. Schade. The third section offers an assessment of place-centered preaching pedagogy by examining its strengths, weaknesses, and areas for future research. The article ends with a conclusion that revisits the primary aims of the essay and calls for further exploration of the subject.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030362
Authors: Mingli Chen
Nowadays, scholars expect to measure religiosity in different ways, but these measurements run counter to the purpose for which “religiosity” was originally coined, which was to be highlighted and differentiated from “religion” under the “the crisis of modernity of religion”; so, this important concept should be redefined. However, the redefinition and analysis of religiosity needs to include the contribution of religious studies, thus correcting the bias of sociology of religion towards sociology, as well as the reflection on pluralism of religions. Among them, thinking about Buddha nature can provide a valuable reference for the redefining of “religiosity”. First of all, the discussion of Buddha nature can provide a philosophical and value-level supplement to the understanding of “religiosity”, making the originally flattened empirical interpretation three-dimensional; secondly, the reflection on Buddha nature influenced by Chinese culture can provide oriental wisdom for the definition of religiosity. For example, Chineseized Buddhist thought incorporates the traditional Chinese understanding of human nature. On the basis of the discussion of Buddha nature, it can be seen that “religiosity” has different emphases in different religions, but there are still areas of consistency under these different understandings and expressions. Thus, the redefinition of “religiosity” should both reflect these consistencies and address the reasons for the inconsistencies through a hierarchical division. Since the redefinition of “religiosity” is not only conducive to inter-religious dialogue, but also relates to the answer to a series of important questions, such as the prediction of the future of religions, its meaning needs to be updated in accordance with the changes in the times.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030361
Authors: Suzanne M. Coyle
Theological/spiritual reflection in psychotherapeutic practice has increased in recent years. Approaches for reflection and integration vary depending on the practitioner’s spiritual and theoretical beliefs. The integrative approach utilized in this paper is derived from a phenomenological perspective of the author, who was schooled in pastoral theology and later family therapy. Considering the pastoral theologian Seward Hiltner’s perspectival approach, this integrative approach creates a conversational method, integrating the client’s concerns with specific narrative therapy interventions or practices and the theological/spiritual concepts of immanence–transcendence. Finally, this case study’s methodology offers constructive questions that clinical practitioners can apply to specific psychotherapy approaches as well as theological concepts.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030360
Authors: Steven G. Smith
Interreligious engagement (IE) has been experienced and theorized mainly as the pursuit of a shared respectful awareness of the beliefs, practices, and social experiences of multiple religious communities. In rare instances, it has been possible to create architecture specifically to foster IE, as in the “tri-faith” Abrahamic campus in Omaha and the Berlin House of One. The theme is: Here we are, accepting that we share the world. Another form of IE that deserves to attract more interest is multireligious collaboration in civic work (addressing homelessness, urban blight, illiteracy, etc.). Some adherents of the intrinsically cosmopolitan “world” religions are actively cosmopolitan to the extent of seeking this engagement. The theme is: Let us share the work of the world, including sharing our religiously inflected processing of what the practical issues facing us are. There is a new initiative of this sort in my city, Jackson, Mississippi, named (from M. L. King) the “Beloved Community”. An architectural thought experiment may prove helpful in articulating the ideals for such an endeavor. What would be the physical desiderata for its headquarters? Let us imagine a new downtown building, The Meeting, dedicated to housing meetings where mixed religious groups learn about civic issues and coordinate efforts to address them. Full interreligious sharing of a space seems to require a neutral design lacking any definite religious inspiration. But there are nonsectarian ways to create an appreciably special, non-ordinary space, as in courtrooms and classrooms. Could a civic IE headquarters be special, expressive of practical optimism, and contain a sufficient religious allusion to qualify as a “next-to-sacred space” in which religious actors felt supported in the civic extension of their religious lives? I offer suggestions for discussion, including (1) a pavilion-style building suggestive of being set up for a special purpose—not soaringly grandiose but with a vertical feature such as a central roof lantern; (2) at least one major porch, with benches and tables; (3) an outside water fountain with public water supply (a historical allusion to the Islamic sabil); (4) inside, right-sized meeting rooms around the glass-walled periphery; (5) a big “living room” lounge in the center, usable for larger meetings, with access to a kitchen, and with a big project board for tracking work completed and work in hand next to a large map of the city; (6) a moderate descent of several steps into each meeting room so that there is a feeling of commitment in attending a meeting and a sense of challenge in going forth from one; (7) otherwise a main floor levelness and openness facilitating movement in and out, as in a train station; and (8) upstairs small offices for religious and other qualifying organizations. Answering the aesthetic and practical questions these suggestions raise takes us into imagining civic IE more concretely.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030359
Authors: Soraya Khodamoradi Carl Ernst
This article addresses the question of how early modern Sufis dealt with yoga. Some scholars have argued that a movement of Sufi reform occurred in South Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, representing a shift towards legal Islam, which would call for the rejection of non-Islamic practices. This explanation overlooks the rhetorical construction of Sufi claims of spiritual status and shariʿa legitimacy, and it fails to distinguish eighteenth-century examples from the very different reform movements created in the nineteenth century in response to European colonialism. This article considers as a case study Nala-yi ʿAndalib (“The Nightingale’s Lament”), the central text produced by the pre-colonial founder of the “pure Muhammadi path,” Muhammad Nasir ʿAndalib (d. 1758), with the help of intertextual references to the masterpiece of his son, Khwaja Mir Dard (d. 1785), ʿIlm al-kitab (“Knowledge of the Book”). The consequence of their evaluation of yoga was not the systematic rejection of non-Islamic practices, but a guarded acknowledgement of their efficacy within a framework that used Indic references as a straw man for intra-Islamic debates.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030358
Authors: Aizaiah G. Yong
This paper centers on the godfather of the civil rights movement, Howard Thurman, and his most influential work, “Jesus and the Disinherited”, as a pre-eminent text into early 20th century intercultural philosophy. Building upon Kipton Jensen’s analysis in “Howard Thurman: Philosophy, Civil Rights, and the Search for Common Ground”, this presentation will reframe Howard Thurman’s unique philosophy as one that integrates spirituality, interculturality, and critical social analysis. It is well known that Thurman’s treatise on the oppressed was carried in the pocket of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the civil rights movement for the ways it empowered nonviolent resistance for those marginalized by the dominant culture of the United States, which was (and still is) built on racism, military violence, and class-based oppression. This paper advocates that Thurman came to his philosophical conclusions through deep engagement with various cultural and philosophical traditions, most notably the Hindu spiritual–political paradigm of Mahatma Gandhi, and sought to harmonize these insights for African Americans in the USA. By investigating the intercultural foundations of “Jesus and the Disinherited”, this paper will encourage scholars to explore how interculturality enriched Thurman’s philosophy and how this fostered a more expansive vision of community in pluralistic societies. This article traces the roots of the development of “Jesus and the Disinherited”, looking back to presentations Thurman gave as early as 1922, concluding with the publication of his book in 1949. And via this study, we will see the progression of Thurman’s ideas and the impacts interculturality had on his philosophy and vision for social justice.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030357
Authors: HyeRan Kim-Cragg
In developing an Earth-bound homiletics, three homiletical movements are suggested: engaging Scripture, engaging global and local situatedness, and engaging the Indigenous worldview of “all my relations” by tapping into Indigenous knowledge. These three movements need not take place in any chronological order, nor should they be seen as a hierarchy. Rather, they are complementary and interconnected. The author, before articulating these movements, offers reasons for why the topic of the climate crisis is not preached on and then addresses the challenge of selecting biblical texts, delineating the strengths and weaknesses of using the lectionary readings versus a preacher’s individual choices. The article further addresses the danger of biblical literalists who deny global warming. Each homiletical movement will be elaborated using actual sermons as concrete examples of Earth-bound homiletics.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030356
Authors: Isaac Calvert Sabrina Bengtzen Jessica Ashcraft
This article presents pedagogic principles prescribed in the text of the Doctrine and Covenants, a foundational book of scripture from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Following a qualitative, thematic analysis of the text, we organized the data into seven themes: character of God as a teacher, learning as the pursuit of truth, attributes of a teacher and learner, warnings in seeking light and truth, learning methods, teaching methods, and non-compulsory teaching and learning. Most noteworthy among these themes is the text’s description of learning as the pursuit of embodied ontological truth and the fundamental questions it raises about the nature of compulsion in learning.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030355
Authors: Seth P. Hart
While popularly known for his works of literature and poetry, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe viewed his lesser-known scientific pieces as his most enduring achievement. I will argue that Goethe’s unique scientific methodology is informed by a metaphysical commitment to a form of Platonism and that Goethe provides an intriguing alternative paradigm that unifies science, philosophy, theology, and ethics. I begin by demonstrating how Goethe’s concept of the Urphänomen offers a Platonic conception of natural beings. I then briefly outline how this alternative scientific approach ultimately derives from his Platonic commitments. Next, I demonstrate the ethical and spiritual implications of Goethean science, establishing that Goethe’s approach bridges the divide between our scientific endeavors and spiritual formation. There is, then, a continued relevance for Goethe in conversations regarding ecological ethics and our perception of nature.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030354
Authors: Marta Kołodziejska Sławomir Mandes Katarzyna Rabiej-Sienicka
This article investigates how cultural context and theological ideas shape the integration of digital media in religious practices. Focusing on Poland and Northern Ireland/The Republic of Ireland, we explore the diverse strategies employed by religious institutions in utilizing digital media. The study centers on the Catholic Church, analyzing its responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in different cultural contexts. Examining various denominations specific to each country, we highlight the role of theological assumptions in shaping the use of digital platforms within religious contexts. This comparative analysis provides insight into the complex interplay between culture, theology, and technology, contributing to the understanding of how religious institutions adapt to societal changes and navigate the digital landscape. Our findings reflect the theological controversies of shifting religious practices and services to digital media, and point to the non-voluntary aspect of adjusting to the pressures of deep mediatization in both cultural contexts.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030353
Authors: Anderson José Machado De Oliveira
This article conducts an analytical overview of the controversies and acts that resulted in the formation of a native clergy in Portuguese America. The analysis is limited to the secular clergy and the ways by which descendants of Africans and Indians were incorporated into this segment of the Church. The author addresses the way parts of these groups developed strategies to access the priesthood, seeking to escape subaltern positions and consolidating processes of social mobility.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030352
Authors: Trang T. D. Nguyen
This study explores how images of the past have been deployed to set up current arrangements of leadership and institutional identity by considering the career and teachings of Thích Thanh Từ in connection with his “revived” Buddhist tradition in Vietnam. Promoted as a continuation of the unique and pure Vietnamese Buddhist meditation tradition and associated with the Vietnamese national identity, the contemporary Trúc Lâm (Bamboo Grove) is a pride of many Vietnamese Buddhists. The original Trúc Lâm is claimed to be founded by the heroic King-turned-monk Trần Nhân Tông in the thirteenth century. The tradition was supposedly transmitted through the next two generations and died out. In the twentieth century, a Southern Vietnamese monk, Thích Thanh Từ (1924–), who had quit Pure Land (Tịnh Độ, C. Jingtu淨土) Buddhism to self-learn and practice meditation, decided to reinvent the medieval Trúc Lâm tradition and became the founder of the contemporary Trúc Lâm. Despite growing up during French colonization and American war, Thanh Từ was not politically involved; instead, he focused on setting up new monasteries, taught meditation, and discouraged his followers from political and social engagement. This paper examines how successful Thích Thanh Từ and his disciples are in popularizing Trúc Lâm in Vietnam, given that the majority of Vietnamese Buddhists follow Pure Land devotional practices. More importantly, it describes how Thích Thanh Từ combines the teachings attributed to Trần Nhân Tông and two Chinese Chan masters, Huike慧可 (the Second Patriarch) and Huineng惠能 (the Sixth Patriarch), to form Trúc Lâm’s philosophical views and meditation techniques. With the clear-cut distinction between the delusional mind of sentient beings and the perfect mind of enlightened beings, Thích Thanh Từ presents the goal of Trúc Lâm practice as attaining the state of no-thought and sharpening it to perfection to perceive the “buddha nature” (phật tính, S. buddhadhātu, C. foxing 佛性) understood as the pure mind of nonduality and nonform. Outlining that process, he emphasizes the importance of “sudden awakening” (đốn ngộ, C. dunwu 頓悟) followed by “gradual cultivation” (tiệm tu, C. jianxiu 漸修). His meditation manual for ordinary practitioners with no experience of sudden awakening contains key techniques of (1) stabilizing the mind by counting and then observing breaths, (2) recognizing the “true mind” (chân tâm, C. zhenxin真心) through practicing “no abiding in thoughts” (biết vọng không theo), “no mind for the externals” (đối cảnh vô tâm), “no dualistic discrimination” (không kẹt hai bên), and then proceeding to the stage of permanently abiding in the nature of true mind. These meditation methods are pertinent to Trúc Lâm’s view that all phenomena that emerge via speculative thoughts are unreal and illusory, and that only the true mind is real. The first section of this paper explores historical connections between Vietnamese and Chinese forms of Buddhism, shedding light on why Trúc Lâm embraces Thiền Tông, which is transmitted from Chinese Chan zong, and how Thích Thanh Từ builds connections between Thiền Tông and the Vietnamese national identity. The second section focuses on Thích Thanh Từ’s own life story, on how he practiced meditation and suddenly experienced “unlearned wisdom” (trí vô sư/vô sư trí, C. wushi zhi無師智,an alternative term for true mind and buddha nature as a result of his practice) and how he succeeded in spreading the “revived” Trúc Lâm. With the first two sections as a background, in the third section, this paper explores Thích Thanh Từ’s views and practices and critically analyzes those views and practices in the conclusion. Overall, I argue that Thích Thanh Từ’s instructions on meditation are closely intertwined with his view of reality, which in turn is based on the mainstream Chan zong ideas.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030351
Authors: Helen McLaren Renee Taylor Emi Patmisari Carla McLaren Michelle Jones Mohammad Hamiduzzaman
Muslims living in non-Muslim countries may experience marginality, which has associations with exclusion, poor socio-emotional health, higher rates of family violence, and poor quality of life. Faith-based strategies have the potential to bridge the gaps and improve the outcomes for these communities. We undertook a reflective evaluation of the individual and group interventions of a Muslim start-up NGO, Community Development, Education and Social Support Inc. (CDESSA) (Adelaide, SA, Australia). Qualitative data were generated via dialogue, storytelling, and making connections with meaning based on observations of the lived experiences of the narrators. The analysis involved revisiting, reordering, refining, and redefining the dialogue, and conscious framing around a theoretical model of community cultural wealth. The results showed the growth of family and community engagement in CDESSA’s support and intervention activities, commencing with a small religious following in 2021 and growing to more than 300 Muslims regularly joining together for faith, health, welfare, and social wellbeing activities. Reflections on the dimensions of aspirational, navigational, social, familial, ethnoreligious, and resilient forms of community cultural wealth showed that the range of individual and group interventions, involving religious leaders, contributed to improving health and wellbeing, thereby growing community capital as a mechanism for strengthening families in this community.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030350
Authors: Matthieu Felt
Visits to the palace of the sea god are a recurring theme in premodern Japanese narratives, and comparing these stories across time periods reveals shifting perceptions of the supernatural world. The earliest sources for narratives of travel to the palace of the sea god in Japan date from the eighth century, most notably in the stories of Luck of the Mountain and Urashima Tarō. In these stories, the descriptions of the sea god’s palace, the relationship of the sea god to the natural world, and even the location of the palace were tied to eighth-century understandings of kingship, weather, and geography. Later adaptations of these stories incorporate features of Buddhist geography, Chinese architecture, Buddhist narrative motifs, and even an alternative vision of supernatural time. These alterations occurred because the eighth-century narratives required adaptation to fit a new political, social, and religious reality. This comparison demonstrates that our vision of the supernatural world is inextricably tied to our understanding of the natural. When our fundamental grasp of the nature of reality changes, our imagination of the supernatural transforms in turn.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030349
Authors: Aizaiah G. Yong
In many ways, the cascading effects of the age of the Anthropocene have accelerated life as we know it towards a certain kind of reckoning, which has only been exacerbated amidst the global inequities present within the COVID-19 pandemic. Trauma studies, as an interdisciplinary field, has recently been linked to the experience of despair at both personal and collective levels. Yet, trauma scholars are increasingly amenable to diverse forms of spirituality and its perspectives as core to the work of addressing suffering in the world, especially for marginalized communities as ways to access the wisdom of bodies, thoughts, emotions, and cultural/spiritual longings. Moving further in this direction, a practical theology which bridges trauma studies with Christian spirituality (and the emphases on spiritually rooted social action and the centrality of the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete: helper, counsellor, advocate, and comforter) is timely. This paper imagines how contemporary trauma care approaches might be supported by emergent forms of Christian spirituality enabling greater posttraumatic growth and resiliency and subsequently how this can renew the practice and study of Christian spirituality.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030348
Authors: Peter Iver Kaufman
Augustine’s position on civic spectacles should be evaluated in connection with his fears about a resurgence of paganism in late Roman North Africa. Notwithstanding contemporary claims that those fears were cover for early fifth-century prelatical efforts to manage commercial and political culture, evidence suggests that paganism in North Africa survived and was seductive.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030347
Authors: Seyeom Kim
As the proliferation of new variations of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) continues to increase, it is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. Indeed, we are living in a world of interrelating and overlapping pandemics—a syndemic. A syndemic accelerates the polarization of access to health care, financial support, and education opportunities in marginalized communities, and the polarization breeds social injustice, violence, and ignorance. What, then, is the Gospel the Church proclaims for those who have experienced the pandemic and are now facing a syndemic? As part of a liturgical response, this paper proposes preaching as a praxis of the ecclesiological Gospel. The ecclesiological Gospel is a term I suggest to highlight the contextual, sacramental, and communal aspects of the Gospel. Highlighting God’s holistic work for salvation represented in baptism and the eucharist, the ecclesiological Gospel yearns to form a church that baptizes people in diversity, that severs evil interconnections, and that welcomes people to the table of hospitality that forms a new covenantal relationship. This paper examines the concept of a syndemic and its significance for preaching in marginalized communities. It contrasts a holistic Gospel perspective with a narrow view, proposes preaching as praxis of the ecclesiological Gospel, and illustrates its application within a particular context in responding to syndemic conditions. I hope this work offers a chance to reorient the meaning of the Gospel and the identity of the Church for people living in fear, grief, and hopelessness, while encouraging them with the unwavering hope revealed in Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030345
Authors: Dennis P. Bray
One insight at the heart of embodiment research is that the particular, material human body is the nexus of two loci: as an integration of sensory apparatuses, the body is the receptive locus of the world; at the same time, the body is the locus of responsive engagement with the world. Working from the framework of embodiment, this essay is a theological exploration of the arts, with particular attention given to the artist. The first half details two controlling ideas about the nature of embodiment and the arts: (i) the arts are necessarily embodied, and (ii) the Christian artist is in Christ’s body. Here I examine how the artwork and the artist are necessarily embodied—the body is the horizon on which the arts are possible. With these two controlling ideas in hand, the second half of the essay considers three implications: (i) the artist works in and for the church; (ii) the arts are a gift of the Holy Spirit; and (iii) the arts are a place where the church experiences the Spirit’s working. These implications yield, among other insights, the finding that Christ’s body is horizon on which the Christian arts are possible.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030346
Authors: Ryan K. McAleer
The trans-phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas has helped expose the totalising dynamic that has marked much of Western philosophy. The quest for a unity of knowledge in the truth assimilates any hint of otherness into more of the same. Plurality becomes a source of violence and dissent regarded as decay. Levinasian perspectives, however, and recent developments in magisterial teaching in the Roman Catholic Church point to a more ethical approach that can begin to escape the dialectic binary of the same and the other and so help avoid static conceptions of truth and unity. Religious truth and ecclesial unity, in other words, are explored in this paper for their ethical–dialogical quality. Indeed, the asymmetrical priority of dissent within this dialogical approach offers positive soteriological significance for the church rather than seeing dissent as a threat. Such an approach can enable the church to take plurality and diversity seriously in the current context.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030344
Authors: George Y. Kohler
The essay outlines a four-phase triage process made by a fictive Talmudic rabbi working on an equally fictive hospital COVID-19 ward. The rabbi bases his decision on four different Talmudic texts, proceeding one by one, with each text building on the preceding one, until he is ready to allocate his scarce medical resources to one of the patients, thus being forced to deny them to others. Along the way, the paper will examine how this Talmudic reasoning can also be applied to the patient, or even a potential patient, clarifying the demands of the individual’s ethical responsibility to avoid triage situations in the first place through social distancing and even more so through getting vaccinated. The paper argues that the rabbi has a number of Talmudic tools at hand that make his decision easier, not because he strictly follows Jewish law, but because of the rich experience standing behind Jewish legal traditions, making a universally valid ethical justification of difficult decisions possible. The essay proposes that including such theological material in triage guidelines would help make those decisions more acceptable in the long run, especially for societies in which religious traditions still play a certain role in the cultural consciousness.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030343
Authors: Junyang Ye
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Catholic missionaries in China adopted the strategy of cultural accommodation and engaged in extensive interactions with Chinese literati and the general population in order to integrate into Chinese society. They left numerous writings in the Chinese language, objectively promoting cultural exchanges between the East and the West. This article focuses on the pharmacological work Bencao Bu (本草補, Supplement to Chinese Materia Medica) by Spanish Franciscan Pedro de la Piñuela (石鐸琭, Shi Duolu, 1650–1704). The article argues that, in addition to questioning whether the works in Chinese left by missionaries have contributed to the progress of Chinese society in science, medicine, humanities and other aspects, we should also explore the process of encounter between two different cultures. Although Bencao Bu did not significantly advance Chinese medicine, la Piñuela incorporated elements of Chinese culture into the book and made an initial attempt to apply Chinese medical concepts in diagnosis and treatment. Furthermore, the book not only introduced certain Western scientific knowledge and pharmaceutical techniques but also could be considered the epitome of the global exchange of botanical knowledge and medical experiences, promoting mutual understanding between different parts of the world. This underscores the cultural significance beyond religious purposes found in Bencao Bu as well as other scientific and cultural works by missionaries during the Ming and Qing periods in China.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030342
Authors: Mourad Laabdi Aziz Elbittioui
Over the past half-century, the study of Islam in the Muslim world has been preoccupied with three global projects: maqāṣid al-sharīᶜa (the higher objectives of revealed law), al-wasaṭiyya al-islāmiyya (Islamic moderation), and aslamat al-maᶜrifa (Islamization of knowledge). Of these three, the latter has been the most substantial enterprise due to its ambitious work plan, extensive scope, and far-reaching influence. However, in recent decades, the Islamization of knowledge project has undergone significant developments culminating in its reformulation as ‘knowledge integration’ (al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī). This paper traces and analyzes the key manifestations of this notable transformation. Firstly, it surveys the various contexts of eschewing the concept of ‘Islamization’ and adopting ‘integration’. Secondly, it examines the conceptualization of the construct of ‘al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī’ within pre-modern and contemporary Islamic contexts. Thirdly, it investigates the practical implementation of knowledge integration with a special focus on the domain of higher education. The question that brings all three sections together is whether the knowledge integration model embodies a true paradigm shift or is a mere name change while bearing on the old rationale and approach of Islamization. The present paper argues that, under the banner of al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī, a shift from an internally focused intellectual effort to one that envisions new opportunities for epistemological renewal is recognizable at the individual level. However, institutionally, the application of this paradigm is still pending full and effective realization.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030341
Authors: Meredith O. Hope Ann W. Nguyen Robert Joseph Taylor Linda M. Chatters
Spirituality is a significant cultural strength and resource for Black emerging adults. Numerous studies show that increasing numbers of emerging adults tend to identify themselves as being spiritual but not religious. However, no studies to date have identified the demographic correlates of spirituality for Black emerging adults from different ethnic groups (i.e., African American and Black Caribbean). Data from the National Survey of American Life were used to identify the demographic correlates of two indicators of spirituality (e.g., self-rated spirituality and subjective spirituality) among African American and Black Caribbean emerging adults using linear regression. For African Americans, being a woman predicted both greater self-rated spirituality and subjective spirituality. However, among Black Caribbeans, men rated spirituality higher in importance than women. African Americans who reported higher educational attainment tended to report higher levels of self-rated spirituality and subjective spirituality. Romantic status for Black Caribbeans, whether they had no romantic involvement or a current romantic partner, was associated with lower self-ratings of spirituality. Unmarried cohabitating individuals in both ethnic groups tended to report lower levels of self-related spirituality. Unemployment for Black Caribbeans was associated with lower subjective spirituality. Findings are of interest to those who serve and work with Black emerging adults.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030339
Authors: Gal Sofer
Recent advancements in studying the Ars Notoria, notably through Julian Véronèse’s critical edition, have provided insights into its manuscripts and various interpretations. This progress sets the stage for exploring a less examined area: the Jewish reception of the Ars Notoria, a topic ripe for investigation in the current scholarly landscape. This article explores the Jewish engagement with this Christian text, particularly through its Hebrew translation Melekhet Muskelet, as well as a notable discovery that links the Ars Notoria’s notae to the Kabbalistic ten sefirot. This connection suggests an early Jewish interest in this Christian magical text. The study, using textual and visual analysis, offers insights into the interplay between medieval Jewish Kabbalah and Christian magical texts, underscoring the need to reevaluate their mutual influences during the 13th and 14th centuries.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030340
Authors: Sabine Wolsink
The Dutch intellectual Allard Pierson (1831–1896) is often considered to be an example of secularism. In 1865, he resigned as a minister from the Dutch Reformed Church in order to promote true humanity in society at large. This article explores how Pierson’s true humanity can be considered as an ultimate concern (Tillich) or a religion without religion (Caputo) by reading him through the lens of John D. Caputo’s thinking. Both Caputo and Tillich developed a non-institutional and undogmatic understanding of religion, in which religion is related to a universal human love, passion, or ultimate concern that is not necessarily linked to a religious institution or doctrine. After an elaboration of Caputo’s religion without religion, the article discusses Pierson’s thinking in the context of nineteenth-century theological modernism and debates on the modernist’s right to stay in the church. Then, Pierson’s reasons for his resignation and his true humanity are examined. It becomes clear that Pierson did not choose secularism over religion, but rather surpassed the religious-secular divide by a focus on our common human nature. Being human was more important than being Christian, which exemplifies the late-nineteenth-century move from a theistic Christianity towards a humanistic religiosity or humanism.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030338
Authors: Kathleen M. Self
This article offers a pedagogical approach to introducing undergraduate students to hagiology by comparing medieval sanctity to modern celebrity. The bodies of saints and celebrities are important loci for the transmission of sanctity or celebrity from a person to the public and for the continuity of identity. Examples include St. Faith, St. Cuthbert, Kim Kardashian, and Marilyn Monroe. Using a comparative method allows students who are non-religious to better apprehend the unfamiliar practices and beliefs around the cult of saints and relics.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030337
Authors: Christine Schliesser
With 85% of this planet’s population adhering to a religion, faith communities are the largest transnational civil society actors in the world. This accords them a major role in societal processes, aincluding current global challenges as spelled out in the 17 SDGs, the core of the Agenda 2030. After decades of neglect, recent years have seen a rise in interest in the role of religion in the public agenda. Academics, policymakers and practitioners alike increasingly acknowledge the significance of faith actors for the SDGs. Key terms such as “Common Home”, shared by faith and secular actors, already indicate their mutual relevance. At the same time, there is a lack of religious literacy in recognizing and interpreting religious dimensions in a given development context. This paper therefore seeks to shed light on the often nebulous “religious factor” in the SDGs in two consecutive steps. At first, the historical part traces the rise of religion in development. In the second step, an analytical part then provides a seven-dimensional model to enhance religious literacy and to provide a better understanding of both the potential and the problems of religion in the global quest for implementing the SDGs.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030336
Authors: Anderson Fabian Santos Meza
This article aims to approach Sanjuanist mysticism from a queer perspective. It is not a monolithic apology to queer people, nor a treatise on mystical interpretation, but an effort to recognize and validate the spiritual experience of LGBTIQ+ people. It takes some mystical passages from St. John of the Cross that help to read the experience of queer life in a mystical key. With this, the potential of mysticism to combat those phobic, segregating, and unjust ideologies that mistreat so many people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity dissidence is manifested. Although it is problematic, talking about this is an act of epistemic, sociocultural, and religious justice.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030333
Authors: Keping Wu
Northwest Yunnan is nested in the border areas of Tibet, Myanmar, and Southwest China. The religiously and ethnically diverse region has astonishingly seen a lack of “conflict”, as is often assumed in regions of ethnic and religious differences. This paper argues that there is an organic form of pluralism through frequent inter-ethnic and inter-religious marriages, multi-lingual daily interactions, and strategic ethnicity registrations. Ethnic and religious boundaries are made permanently or temporarily permeable through the celebration of boundary-crossing rituals such as weddings and funerals and other shared experiences such as collective labor and migrant work. Despite an increasingly strong push to be integrated into the state power through various top-down developmental projects, minority peoples here still use kinship, collective rituals, and other shared experiences to foster group formation that is fluid, porous, and malleable, instilling empathy and obligation as the basis of this pluralistic borderland society. This organic form of pluralism presents an alternative to the nation as the standard modern form of community. This paper ultimately argues that this specific type of plurality requires us to think beyond the normative liberal notions of religious tolerance and diversity that are still promoted within the frame of the exclusivist nation-state.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030335
Authors: Agnieszka Marek Tomasz Lisiecki
Prayer in human life enables directing attention to God and a transcendent goal beyond Earthly life. Singing has been present in the life of Israel since the oldest times, which is proved on the pages of the Holy Scriptures, in the Books of Exodus and Psalms. In the New Testament, there is a lot of encouragement to sing the glory of God in psalms and songs, as well as praising God Most High in Revelation. The Catholic Church is concerned with the quality of liturgical music through a number of recommendations and requirements defining the pieces that may become a part of the liturgy. Liturgical choir singing is a special form of common prayer. The aim of the present paper is to examine the effect of prayer by choral singing on human flourishing. The aim was achieved by analyzing recommendations of the Church on liturgical music, presenting the assumptions of the theoretical model investigating the effect of art on human flourishing, and then conducting empirical studies. Sixteen in-depth interviews were carried out with members of fourteen choirs. There were four groups of respondents according to their gender and family status. All obtained codes were organized into five main themes with four subcategories. They confirmed the assumptions of the model presented in the theoretical part and made it possible to identify the effect of choral singing on the performers’ health and the improvement of their skills. In addition, they showed a direct relation between prayer and spiritual well-being when singing in a choir, a coherence of activities with values as well as the striving for happiness.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030334
Authors: Luz Imelda Acedo Moreno
This paper aims to show a way of approximating between liturgical studies and sacramental theology, trying to undo a too formal separation between the two sciences. The paramount cause is to be found at the request of Sacrosanctum Concilium, starting from the link between the two to achieve a greater and more fruitful participation of those faithful to the sacraments. In the words of Card. Ratzinger, this request has not been fully met. The dichotomy and relationship between the notions of theoria and praxis in both sciences are presented as the need for a solid foundation or philosophical frame of reference with a metaphysical or realistic background, attending to the problems raised by the International Theological Commission in the document on “The Reciprocity between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy” (1999). The pathway is open, some solutions are proposed, and an attempt is made to show the importance of this subject for the understanding of man himself and his Christian life.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030332
Authors: Christopher Jensen
This paper explores the potentially fruitful interplay between a set of practical and theoretical approaches developed to teach post-secondary students about accounts of dreams and of exemplars, in cases where these phenomena have been deemed significant by specific religious discourse communities. Incorporating insights from his participation in the Comparative Hagiology group, the author suggests—in particular—that the expanded perspective on hagiography proposed by Rondolino, Hollander, and others can serve as a fruitful vantage from which to survey both of these phenomena in the classroom, revealing some intriguing correspondences between them. The author concludes by proposing some ways that the comparative hagiological classroom could be a particularly productive learning environment, and one that directly addresses some of the challenges of contemporary post-secondary education (from both the instructors’ and students’ perspectives).
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030331
Authors: Jaroslaw Kozak Stanislaw Fel
This article aims to analyze the correlations between the level of religiosity and emotional responses to artificial intelligence (AI). In these times marked by the growing penetration of artificial intelligence into people’s everyday lives, it is important to identify the sociocultural determinants of attitudes towards this increasingly dynamically developing technology. A significant element of society’s cultural mosaic is religiosity, and, as such, it undoubtedly has an effect on emotional responses to AI. This is a reason to investigate how religions and religiosity impact attitudes towards AI. The study used Welch’s analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare university students’ emotional reactions to AI across religiosity levels, which allowed for identifying significant differences in the levels of emotions such as fear, sadness, and anger between irreligious, religious, and indifferent groups. Significant differences in emotional responses to AI were found between individuals with different religiosity levels. Compared to irreligious and indifferent students, the religious ones more often showed intense emotions, such as fear and anger. The results indicate the need to include the issues of religion and religiosity in the process of designing and implementing AI. This may contribute to a greater acceptance of this technology in a society of individuals with different levels of religiosity. Understanding the effect of religiosity on the response to AI is also of considerable importance for the development and implementation of ethically responsible AI solutions, which should take account of the diversity of individuals’ beliefs and value systems.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030330
Authors: Mujadad Zaman
This paper asks the question, ‘What does Islamic education mean for the 21st century university?’ To begin with, the paper addresses the modern university as an institution facing numerous challenges, which can be conceived of by understanding the nature of the ‘academic imagination’. In so doing, this argument draws on the fundamental elements of thought itself by foregrounding imagination as a primary route by which knowledge is conceived, created and disseminated. At root, it is an argument that suggests that to understand the university is to apprehend its imaginative functions. ‘Problems of the imagination’ are thereafter defined as ‘depth perception’, ‘vertigo’ and ‘paralysis’, respectively. In light of these challenges, the rise of Centers of Islamic Theology in Germany, and Islamic education as a discipline in particular, are considered as uncharted paths towards a discussion of the dilemmas of contemporary academia. Methodologically, the paper is a philosophical reflection on the role of the future of the university and the place of Islamic Theology and Islamic education therein. As such, use of the contemporary literature on higher education, as well as classical works on Islamic education, shall be employed for the purposes of the argument. In so doing, this paper turns the normative discussion of contemporary Islamic education on its head: from how we may make room for such education in the modern university, to consider how its presence may help the institution and its imaginative conundrums.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030329
Authors: Zhenru Zhou Luke Li
Buddhist Utopian vision shaped the art of Pure Land; so did many other factors, including the actual locale. Taking Mogao Cave 172 as the main case study, this article deciphers a visual paradigm of a Pure Land painting and cave in Dunhuang (Gansu, China) from the high Tang period (710–780 CE). By analyzing the visual contents and compositions, the painting medium, the cave spaces, and the cliff site, this study investigates the ways in which the architectural images and spaces in Cave 172 helped to convey the invitation to Pure Land. A close reading of the Western Pure Land painting in Cave 172 reveals the spatial construct of the Buddhist paradise that encouraged a transformative viewing experience. A situated visual analysis of Cave 172 with its auxiliary cave and neighboring caves illustrates the historical procedure in which Pure Land imageries were further integrated with the architectural spaces of caves and cave suites. As this study demonstrates, strategies of spatial layering, self-symmetry and scaling, and plastic and multimedia practices of cave-making enhanced the situatedness of the utopian vision.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030328
Authors: Cristina Expósito de Vicente
The biblical account of Salome has been marked throughout history by two main themes: on the one hand, the princess’s dance in front of the main rulers of Galilee, and on the other hand, the request for the head of John the Baptist to King Herod, instigated by his mother Herodias. The reading of this passage has been strongly marked by the different patriarchal exegetical approaches, which have modulated the reception of both female characters being traceable through the visual and literary arts, to the point of taking on the concept of femme fatale. Really, in both moments Salome is the executor of the actions, not as a result of her capacity for agency, but due to her influenceable character. Through a critical–historical analysis of the biblical passage, Herodias and Salome emerge with characteristics quite different from what 19th-century Art History inherited. The methodology of feminist rhetorical criticism allows for an approach to the visual re-imaginings of this biblical passage that have shaped the iconography of these two figures. The field of visual arts, particularly the production of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, will be the great receptacle for the genesis of the fatality and assimilation of these female biblical figures.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030327
Authors: Zhiyuan Pan
Initiated by Vincent Lebbe in 1920, the Belgian Catholic project for Chinese students was a harbinger of inculturation. Contrary to the impression that the Catholic Church reacted slowly to the demand of indigenisation in the early twentieth century, this article demonstrates that a project specifically designed for Chinese students had already been prepared for this purpose back in Belgium. In other words, through the fostering of intercultural understanding and personal contacts between students abroad and home communities, the Belgian Catholic project became part of the Leuven school’s missiological initiative, which was meant to realise Church implantation in mission countries. In order to maximise the contacts between young Chinese intellectuals and the Belgian Catholic milieu, Lebbe and his associates strategically anchored their cause into the allocation of the Sino-Belgian Indemnity Scholarship, despite stiff competition. The Catholic efforts to encourage a sense of unity evoked sympathy in Belgian society towards China, and in time contributed to charitable support for war victims at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War. Though originally driven by evangelical purposes and ideological challenges, the spirit of inculturation gave rise to an awareness of human solidarity, a legacy worthy of a true apostolate.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030326
Authors: Shulei Hu Jingyi Wang Xiaojin Zhang
The literature on clientelism, the informal exchange of benefits for political support, has proliferated over the last three decades. However, the existing literature largely ignores the role of religion in shaping clientelism in contemporary politics. In particular, few attempts have been made to explore the relationship between religious ideology and clientelism at the party level: How does political parties’ religious ideology impact their clientelist linkages with citizens? This study uses cross-national data of parties in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from the V-Party database (1970–2019) to answer this question. Our findings reveal that religious parties are more clientelist than secular parties in the MENA. Particularly, parties’ ties with social organizations mediate the relationship between religious ideology and clientelism. This study extends the literature on the impact of religion on informal political institutions by focusing on the ideology and linkage strategy of political parties in the MENA.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030325
Authors: Matthew C. Ogilvie
This paper will explicate ways in which Aboriginal Australian economy can inform, augment, and vindicate Catholic social teaching and related scholarship on work, the use of technology, and leisure. Collaterally, Aboriginal Australian economy gives an example of what could happen if key parts of Catholic social teaching were to be implemented concretely. That is, we can argue that Aboriginal economy gives an indication of what a society would be like if it adopted these parts of Catholic social teaching.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030324
Authors: Søren Lorenzen
Pursuing marital partners far from home can be a complicated endeavor, and the motives to travel for a companion can be a combination of pushes from one’s locality and pulls toward something new. In the Hebrew Bible, several narratives concern pursuing a partner far from home, but the motives of the person traveling have not seen much scholarly attention. In this contribution, the entangled motives are traced in three select narratives (Judg 14; Gen 24; Tob) that each represents a specific category of pursuing a partner. Samson pursues a known partner, Isaac and his family pursue an unknown partner, and Tobias unknowingly pursues a partner. These three narrative categories are explored utilizing the framework of actor-network theory to tease out the entangled human and non-human actants that affect the motives and the pursuit itself. This contribution reveals that motives are always entangled in more extensive networks, agency is distributed among various actants, and no pursuit of a companion in the Hebrew Bible is exactly like another.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030323
Authors: Carlos Piccone-Camere Véronique Lecaros
This paper navigates the complex roles that the Catholic Church assumes in fragile democracies, exploring whether it functions as an influencer, a moral guide, or a judge in shaping public policies and societal values using the Peruvian context as a focal reference. The authors begin by providing an overview of the global religious landscape, highlighting the diverse and polarized trends within the ecclesial institution. In the second part of this paper, this study delves into the homilies of two influential Peruvian prelates, Mgr. Cipriani and Mgr. Castillo, representing opposing theological currents within the Catholic Church, offering a pertinent exploration of how religious institutions engage with evolving international and local trends in the context of democracy.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030322
Authors: Benjamin A. Roberts
Preaching provides a nourishment that both satisfies and creates hunger. The church is a place of preaching, as well as a subject, an object, and a recipient of preaching. In the multidimensional ecclesial–homiletical relationship, proclamation affirms and enhances ecclesial identity, ponders and interprets the received word of the sacred scriptures, offers challenge and consolation, inspires missionary and cultural extension, celebrates holiness, and proclaims temporal and eschatological hope. These six characteristics offer a lens for homiletical exploration and evaluation. The sermons of Óscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, provided critical nourishment for the people of his country and beyond. This article provides a brief overview of the biographical, pastoral, and theological details of Romero’s life. It then places the six characteristics of the ecclesial–homiletical relationship as a pulpit canopy over a selection of his sermons, revealing the abundant homiletical feast for the church. The preaching ministry of this shepherd nourished his flock through effective and creative engagement with scriptural, magisterial, theological, political, and cultural sources. Óscar Romero shines as an exemplar of homiletical proclamation for ecclesial nourishment.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030321
Authors: Manuel Zarzo
Very little is known about the chalice used by Jesus of Nazareth at the Last Supper. The first Christians used a cup of blessing for the Eucharistic celebration (1Cor 10:16), which insinuates that Jesus used a ritual cup. An exegetical study of the synoptic gospels reveals that this ritual dinner was celebrated in the home of a wealthy disciple of Jesus, who would have lent him the most valuable cup of blessing owned by the family. Hence, it is unlikely that this cup was made of common and cheap materials, such as ceramic or wood. The only mention of this cup in the early centuries is due to St. John Chrysostom, who states (ca. 395 AD) that it was not made of silver. However, its veracity is not reliable due to the lack of earlier comments. In recent decades, archaeological excavations in the Holy Land have revealed that, at the time of Jesus, the use of vessels carved in limestone was common in Jerusalem for ritual practices in the domestic sphere because they were considered unsusceptible to impurity. This fact suggests that the chalice of the Last Supper might have been a valued cup of carved stone, which is consistent with the use of such bowls in the Hellenistic–Roman period among the aristocratic classes.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030320
Authors: Zhengfu Chen
The Miao (Hmong) community in Southwest China, deeply entrenched in a religious belief system acknowledging the omnipresent spiritual essence and venerating ancestor worship, perceives life as a harmonious blend of the “soul” and the “body”, intricately interwoven and mutually reinforcing. Within this cultural milieu, shamanism and healing practices form an inseparable nexus, epitomizing a worldview characterized by the harmonious coexistence of gods, spirits, ancestors, ghosts, and shamans. This study scrutinizes the syncretism employed by the Miao to address illness, bridging shamanic practices and scientific treatments with religion, ritual, and local knowledge. Through methodologies such as autoethnography, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, the research explores a Miao woman’s healing journey, synthesizing shamanic traditions with scientific interventions to reveal the nuanced interplay between traditional customs, environmental influences, and health beliefs. Despite encountering challenges like limited healthcare access and high costs, numerous Miao people seek assistance from shamans, underscoring the community’s resilience in navigating the intricate interrelationship between traditional practices and modern healthcare systems. By emphasizing the significance of syncretism, this study contributes to a nuanced understanding of how the Miao seamlessly integrate shamanic practices with scientific treatments, fostering improved intercultural communication and cultivating culturally sensitive healthcare practices, ultimately enhancing the overall well-being of the Miao community.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030319
Authors: Claudia Liebelt
Dedicated to the memory of Pnina Werbner, this essay revisits Werbner’s ethnographic and conceptual work on the relationship between diaspora and religion through a close reading of her book on Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims and her later engagements with the concept of diaspora with respect to religion and the background of her work on African and Filipino labour diasporas in the West. It argues that many of Werbner’s insights remain pertinent today, not least because in many European contexts Muslim-background citizens and non-citizens remain excluded from full belonging and are still forced to engage in constant perspectival manoeuvring similar to Werbner’s earlier interlocutors. While the notion of diaspora has lost much of its earlier conceptual verve, in its Werbnerian reading, I argue, it may still offer a scholarly tool for analysing the multiple imaginations, belongings, and ambiguities of migrants’ and religious minorities’ self-representations and complex lives.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030318
Authors: Natalia Pilarska Hanna Liberska
The present study aims to test the importance of belonging to religious communities to the frequency of using religious strategies for coping with stress, taking into account the moderating role of identity status and gender. This study used Polish adaptations of two questionnaires: The Religious Coping Questionnaire and the Dimensions of Identity Development Scale. Participants in this study were adolescent and young adult Polish Catholic girls and boys, belonging and not belonging to religious communities. The survey was carried out using the pencil–paper method on a sample of 407 young people with varying degrees of involvement in religious practice. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that the frequency of using positive religious coping strategies differs significantly between groups of people belonging to and not belonging to a religious community. As a result of the study, the interaction of the variable belonging to a religious community and the variable identity status in deciding on the frequency of using positive religious strategies for coping with stress was recognized (F = 2.448; p = 0.033). However, the interaction of these variables with gender did not reach the level of statistical significance (F = 0.655; p = 0.658). Multiple regression analysis indicates that the identity dimension Identification with Commitment explains 14.7% of the frequency of using the Cooperation with God strategy. Belonging to religious communities is significant for the frequency of use of selected religious coping strategies and the intensity of all dimensions of identity development. The results of the statistical analysis showed that identity status is a moderator of the relationship between belonging to religious communities and the intensity of positive religious coping strategies. It was found that the frequency of use of religious coping strategies and the intensity of identity dimensions differed between Polish Catholic girls and boys.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030317
Authors: Amber Bowen
In his 1843–1844 Upbuilding Discourses on patience, Søren Kierkegaard makes the claim that one gains one’s soul in patience. Philosophically speaking, this claim seems to be a meshing together of two unrelated topics: the virtue of patience, which usually falls under moral philosophy, and the topic of the soul, which belongs to metaphysics or religious discourse. Rather than interpreting Kierkegaard’s talk about the soul as merely poetic or religious rather than properly philosophical, in this essay I attempt to take his connection between the virtue of patience and the constitution of the person seriously. I do so by arguing that the constitutive elements of the Kierkegaardian self can be understood hermeneutically as a proto-fundamental ontology. I then identify how Kierkegaard describes the virtue of patience in distinctly hermeneutical terms not as qualities or traits that adhere to the person but as a particular way of inhabiting space and time in relation to God. In patience, the self remains rooted in the present, bearing the weight of the loss and lack therein, while maintaining an anticipatory openness toward the future—a future that ultimately only God can provide. Patience, I conclude, is a way of being in time that is necessary at the constitutive level of the hermeneutical self.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030316
Authors: H. H. Drake Williams
Social identity theory has provided a fresh lens that can be used to look at Paul’s letters. Prototypes provide a helpful means to examine social identity and ethics in communities, as suggested by Warren Carter. In 1 Corinthians, Jesus Christ is presented as a prototype, although the Corinthians did not meet him. Collective memory theory has also provided a means to look at recollections of the person of Jesus recorded in the New Testament. While the number of recollections of Jesus that his recipients had is still open to question, this study finds Bauckham’s approach to the memory of Jesus in Paul to be the most sustainable. Studies by Dale Alison and Richard Burridge provide a general picture of ideas in the Synoptic tradition. When the fruits of prototype studies are combined with the collective memory of Jesus, it provides fresh insight into Paul’s commandment to imitate Jesus Christ, which was issued in 1 Cor 11:1. The fruits of these combined methods reveal the influence of the life of Jesus in the commands to look after the weak brother, abstain from idol feasts, and to do everything to God’s glory. Through the recollection of the lifestyle of Jesus, Paul recalibrates the Corinthian behavior so that it agrees with the prototype.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030315
Authors: Paul Gareth Weller
The COVID-19 pandemic presented what, on both global and national levels, has arguably so far been the most extensive health, economic and social challenge of the 21st century. Responding to this challenge, it soon became clear that, while having a vital role in the contextual provision of necessary services, public authorities also needed to engage with organizations in the voluntary, community sector, including Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs). This article presents and discusses and analyzes a digest of research and resource evidence from the beginning of 2020–to the end of 2023 concerning the organizational, financial and human contributions of and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on, in particular, Christian FBOs in Great Britain. It goes on to analyze these contributions and impacts within the analytical framework of what it calls a wider “Christian ecology” as the context within which such FBOs live, to which they contribute, and, as argued by this review, apart from which they cannot be properly understood. Finally, in exploring some of the lessons to be learned from the evidence and analysis presented, the article identifies and considers some key opportunities and issues that arise at the interface between the work of (especially, but not only, Christian) FBOs and the structures and processes of the governmental powers-that-be.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030314
Authors: Michael F. Wandusim
The Africanisation of Christianity in Africa is closely linked to the availability of the Bible in African mother tongues. However, mission-led Bible translation in Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not solely the work of European missionary linguists. Africans, such as Ludwig Adzaklo of the Bremen Mission, played essential roles in this process. Nevertheless, African translators like him were considered as mere Sprachgehilfe (language assistants) to the missionaries and not as co-translators. After a postcolonial analysis of archival data on the translation of the Old Testament into Ewe by Ludwig Adzaklo and Jakob Spieth, this study argues that Adzaklo was not just Spieth’s Sprachgehilfe but a co-translator on the project. Being referred to as Spieth’s Sprachgehilfe was a colonial-missionary label that denied Adzaklo’s agency in mission-led Bible translation in Africa. Therefore, the study suggests that Adzaklo should be viewed as an early Ewe mother-tongue Bible translator in the history of West African Christianity.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030313
Authors: Xiaochun Hong
Notwithstanding the considerable attention that Chinese Bible translations have attracted, some important theological issues have been ignored for a long time, one of which is anthropology. The present article focuses on the Chinese rendering of terms in this category. From the attempts in the first three Catholic versions, the Western theory of soul introduced by Matteo Ricci began to influence the connotation of ling 靈 in Chinese biblical texts, though anima and spiritus had not been distinguished in these renditions. Robert Morrison’s version, though heavily dependent on Jean Basset’s translation, was also indebted to Emmanuel Diaz and Louis A. de Poirot in its dichotomous anthropology, developing a ling–rou 靈–肉 (lit. spirit–flesh) dichotomous discourse with his conceptualization of ling 靈. Initiated by the “second generation” of Protestant Bible translators, the renderings of pneuma/ruach and sarx/basar took the indigenized approach that culminated in the Delegates’ Version of the Bible. With the assistance of some Chinese scholars in completing this version, Medhurst launched a dialogue between Christian anthropology and Chinese traditional outlooks of human beings by emphasizing the concepts of shen 身 and xin 心, which had long-lasting popularity in later versions of the Chinese Bible.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030312
Authors: Mitch Thiessen
This essay presents a certain defense of Hegel’s doctrine of Incarnation. For Hegel, the logic of the Incarnation constitutes not only the highest insight of religion and theology but, arguably, the key to philosophy itself, as the perfected self-knowledge of the absolute. Such knowledge is what Hegel calls “absolute knowing”, and marks the absolute reconciliation of the knowing subject and its object, substance, or in other words: of the domains of, as it were, historical knowledge and eternal truth. Hegel discovers in the Christian doctrine of Incarnation the logic of this very reconciliation of history and eternity: truth, or the absolute, coincides with the subject’s knowledge of it, which not only includes but privileges the historical “dismemberment” involved in such knowing. Only in Christianity does God dismember himself, or become historical—sacrifice himself, die—in order to know and become himself. But this “death of God” is for Hegel the very meaning of modern subjectivity. For this reason, or if Hegel is right, the Hegelian subject constitutes the sole way in which the desire of philosophy—namely, for the other that truth is—can keep itself from becoming incoherent after the death of God. It is not merely that Hegel’s doctrine of the subject remains valid despite the death of God; rather, the Hegelian subject, whose logic is incarnational and for this reason founds itself on the “death of God”, stands as the sole coherent articulation of this event, even and especially in its Nietzschean guise.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030306
Authors: Shaowei Wu
The Buddhist sangha played a crucial role in ancient China, exerting significant influence on its society through religious identity and cultural knowledge. However, not all members of the monastic community were literate. The Tang Dynasty introduced an examination system that assessed monks’ proficiency in reciting Buddhist scriptures, determining their eligibility for ordination. Simultaneously, efforts to remove unqualified monks and nuns provided an opportunity to estimate the literacy rate within the monastic community. A statistical analysis of the literacy rate offers a novel perspective for understanding the evolution of Buddhism, the intricate relationship between religion and politics, and the role of the monastic community in local society during the Tang Dynasty.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030310
Authors: Nadia Iermakov Nehemia Stern
This article analyzes the contribution of women to the Soviet Union’s Jewish movement. We argue that an assessment of the personal stories of Jewish female activists in the former Soviet Union reveals a uniquely meaningful impact on the exodus of Jewry from the Soviet Union, the image of the Soviet Jewish struggle in the international arena, and the establishment of a human rights movements in its support. We explore who these women were, their personal identities, and through what factors they became so successful as prominent leaders in their communities as well as within international organizations. More broadly, by highlighting the link between women’s human rights activities and personal life stories, this article emphasizes a more nuanced analysis concerning the complexity of heroism within national freedom movements through its impact on their careers, mental health, and future destinies.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030311
Authors: Kevin M. Vander Schel
Friedrich Schleiermacher is often credited with playing a foundational role in the development of the modern concept of religion. His epoch-making Speeches on religion, published in 1799 amidst the widespread social and intellectual upheaval of the Sattelzeit, present a novel description of religious feeling and religious communication, which mark a turning away from the rationalistic treatments of religion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which served as both inspiration and foil for scholars of religion throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This essay suggests a reading of Schleiermacher’s Speeches that is organized around two interrelated claims. First, the text does not proceed as speculative philosophical treatise aiming to establish an overarching theory of religion but as a critical dialogue that inquires into the distinctive particularity of religion and religious expression. Second, religious piety, as depicted in the Speeches, is not found in the isolated inwardness of individual experience but in coordinated tension with sociality, in communications of religious feeling that are bound together with a living apprehension of the world. On this account, religion for Schleiermacher, though rooted in feeling and self-consciousness, is nonetheless no private affair; it is realized within the developing complex of social and historical living.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030309
Authors: Ayman Agbaria
This essay proposes a novel approach to religious education, one that stands in stark contrast to the often rigid and dogmatic nature of traditional religious instruction. The proposed approach seeks to cultivate deep awareness within students regarding their inherent limitations and their role as entrusted stewards in the grand design of God. It encourages students to move away from the temptation of godlike aspirations, such as the pursuit of boundless power and knowledge, instead positioning life on Earth as a divine destiny offering opportunities for growth, learning, and realizing one’s God-given potential. This form of religious education embraces doubt, uncertainty, and ambiguity, recognizing them as sources of motivation and meaning in a profound journey of faith. Inspired by John Hick’s and Abdolkarim Soroush’s works, this approach transcends traditional religious literacy, focusing on an encounter with the transcendent noumenal Real, and it is characterized by a sense of speechless awe, wonder, and astonishment before the riddles of existence and the beauty of the world. Ultimately, this essay underscores the importance of approaching religion as a system of relationships rather than as an ideology with all-encompassing answers.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030308
Authors: Wu Guo
As an indigenous religion of China, Taoism has always been regarded as “Za Er Duoduan” 雜而多端 (Miscellaneous and Multifaceted), just as a famous scholar Ma Duanlin 馬端臨 (1254–1340) said in the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) [...]
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030307
Authors: Mairéad Nic Craith Ullrich Kockel Mary McGillicuddy Amanda Carmody
This essay takes initial steps on a journey with an Irish eco-spiritual philosopher, the late John Moriarty. As a gateway into his broader oeuvre and way of thinking, we explore Moriarty’s image of the Christian mystical Easter journey—the Triduum Sacrum—as a vision for humanity and the planet. After briefly reviewing his spiritual biography, we consider Moriarty’s re-framing of the story as a journey to the bottom of a symbolic Grand Canyon, a mystical trail beyond historical time to a primordial unity before the evolution of the species. There, the total integration of the natural ecumene is experienced. For Moriarty, this journey leads not only into the past, but prefigures a pilgrimage that everyone can—and should—take. Analyzing primarily his own writing, we highlight the intercultural roots and ecumenical connections of Moriarty’s work, which draws extensively on spiritual traditions and contemporary debates from across the world. On that basis, we sign-post directions for further research into a potential post-Christian ecology as a new way of thinking about the earth and our role on it, based on an attitude of Gelassenheit.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030305
Authors: Zhaoquan He Xiaorong Meng
Wang Lingguan is a significant deity in Chinese Daoist beliefs and folk worship. His belief’s formation and proliferation are rooted in specific spatial contexts. This paper introduces a spatial perspective to provide a fresh interpretation of Wang Lingguan’s belief, examining it through the lenses of ritual, temple, and geography. In Daoist rituals that bridged sacred and secular spaces, Wang Lingguan emerged as Sa Shoujian’s protector, manifesting his divine power to devotees. For the purposes of ritual simplification and spatial solidification, believers constructed Daoist Temples as emblems of sacredness and reimagined Wang Lingguan as the protector of these temples in their design. The active involvement of the Ming royal family in building Daoist Temples significantly contributed to establishing regional belief centers for Wang Lingguan. During the Qing Dynasty, although Wang Lingguan’s royal patronage waned, his belief spread across most of China, becoming more localized and secularized. The dynamic interplay of ritual, temple, and geographical factors illuminates the establishment, dissemination, and evolution of Wang Lingguan’s belief throughout China.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030304
Authors: Teofil Cristian Tia Smaranda Adina Cosma Horatiu Vasile Borza
Investigating the later stages of life, this study aims to outline a specific personal context shaped during this phase, approached from various perspectives: theological, medical, psychological, and social, each highlighting distinct challenges. Theologically, the focus is on the afterlife and preparation for meeting the Righteous Judge. Medically, the emphasis is on health deterioration, culminating in the cessation of bodily existence. Psychologically, the study mentions the decline in cognitive functions, anxiety, and depression. Social aspects include isolation, marginalization, adaptation to change, and the loss of loved ones. Considering the impact of these factors on human life, this research examines to what extent the Sacrament of Communion, from an Orthodox perspective, offers answers to all these challenges. Based on a qualitative research method (content/thematic analysis) of liturgical texts using MAXQDA software, the study focuses on the prayers preceding and following this Sacrament. It highlights the complex nature of the Sacrament of Communion, its multiple faces, and its extended benefits, as well as the risks of partaking without proper preparation. The results provide arguments for the significance the Orthodox Church grants to the mystical union between man and God in the Sacrament of Communion, also emphasizing the importance of an authentic spiritual life.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030303
Authors: Karmen Turčinov
The maritime pilgrimage of Our Lady of Tarac in the Kornati islands, Dalmatia, Croatia, is held on the first Sunday in July. The culture of these island communities is based on a patriarchal system that implies gender inequality. This cultural order has an impact on the construction of gender and religious identities in children and adults when they participate in pilgrimages. The basic methodological approach of the paper is autoethnography. The author concludes that the model of cryptomatriarchy along with the dominant patriarchy well explains well the role of women/mothers and grandmothers in the context of the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage also serves as a framework for transferring gender roles to children.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030302
Authors: Folkart Wittekind
Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s thinking is part of the Sattelzeit, in which the foundation for the modern use of important concepts is laid. The stages of Fichte’s philosophy and his various theories of religion and Christianity reflect attempts to determine the function of religion in a modern society. Important is the philosophical foundation of religion, which is transformed from a moral theology based on Kant to a unified theory of the philosophy of mind. Fichte thus offers an alternative to Hegel and Schelling. This alternative has only been taken up in Protestant theology at a small number of points, but all the more intensively.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030301
Authors: Crystal Hollis
Historic graffiti offer new and interesting insights into late medieval and early modern English society. This paper will show the value of studying these inscriptions by discussing two churches constructed in the late medieval period in Suffolk, England, with drawings of two figures that potentially represent the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. These drawings are similar and yet quite different in their quality and execution, and they possibly relate to lost medieval imagery within the building. These images may also have been created in response to various iconoclastic movements that occurred as part of the Reformation as well as after it. This paper seeks to encourage further study on the relationship between historic graffiti and local history by observing the connection between the late medieval parish churches of Lidgate and Stradishall and their respective figural drawings by suggesting that graffiti serve a larger purpose than idle drawing or doodling and instead are valuable pieces of evidence about parish life and values.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030300
Authors: Katarina Pejovic
This article will place the rituals of the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) for the acquisition of a supernatural assistant (paredros) into conversation with broader late antique debates surrounding the place of daimones within the celestial hierarchy. In considering the writings of Plotinus, Plutarch, Porphyry, and Iamblichus, it will survey points of contention surrounding questions of appropriate and inappropriate displays of ritual power, as facilitated by intermediary spirits who act as intercessors between humanity and the divine. Through analyzing the metaphysical underpinnings of the nature of the paredros, as variously articulated within the rituals for their conjuration within the Greek Magical Papyri, it will contextualize the aims of the ritualist against the backdrop of Iamblichus’ theurgy in pursuit of mastery of—and intimate, transcendent communion with—the fundamental numinous nature of the world. In doing so, this article argues that Iamblichus’ theurgy and the paredros rituals of the PGM ultimately grasp towards similar soteriological goals using different ritual methodologies; both seeking to elevate the incarnated body of the ritualist into a higher level of spiritual attainment through direct confrontation with the powers of nature.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030299
Authors: Sixing Chen
A growing number of Protestant missionaries engaged in vernacular education in the late nineteenth century. To meet the demands of the new era, Christian church education faced challenges not only in its curriculum design but also in the way it presented new knowledge. Previous studies have focused on church education at the tertiary level while overlooking the elementary level. This article discusses vernacular church education and vernacular textbooks at the elementary level in the late Qing, with specific reference to Youxue baoshen yaoyan 幼學保身要言 (The Human Body for Children). It argues that the demand for spreading new knowledge urged Protestant missionaries to compile vernacular textbooks and present Western knowledge in the local settings. Vernacular church education should be regarded as the precursor of indigenous education proposed by the late Qing Court. The local dialect, Cantonese in this case, bridged the linguistic gap between new terms and children’s cognition and became an effective means of presenting new knowledge. Vernacular textbooks had an unparalleled significance in the cultural sphere of dialect writing, since the language of textbooks could drastically influence the writing and reading habits of the young generation and further influence people’s attitudes towards dialects and dialect literature.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030298
Authors: María Elvira Mocholí Martínez
The Middle Ages was the period in which most of the iconographic types of the Christian tradition were formed and solidified [...]
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030297
Authors: Jörg Dierken
Religion is one of the central themes of the young Hegel. This is where intellectual problems arise, the treatment of which led him to discover his speculative way of thinking. Starting in the footsteps of Kant’s ethicotheology, Hegel quickly realized that religion cannot be a vehicle for introducing autonomous morality. Under titles such as love and life, he then develops a kind of Spinozist thinking of unification of everything, including the finite and the infinite. However, it turns out that the quasi-divine performance of unity cannot be thought of as such, since thinking is bound to discursive forms of reflection that are always mediated through differences. As soon as the religious performance of unity is to be thought of, it slips away from the form of reflection. This problem can be solved if, on the one hand, the differential form of thinking is brought into a self-application and, on the other hand, difference itself is put into the performance of unity, even if it is named as absolute. The former becomes the nucleus of the figure of negation characteristic for Hegel’s speculative thinking; the latter leads to an understanding of the absolute as spirit, which, according to its self-being, which encompasses difference, is always for the other and is known by the other. Religion brings this to mind in the form of imagination, according to Hegel’s later concept of religion.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030296
Authors: Oren Golan Nakhi Mishol-Shauli
While religious dogma and science are often viewed at odds, scientific knowledge is increasingly integrated into religious journalism. This challenges the epistemic tenets that underlie the worldviews of religious readers. In this study, we aim to investigate the role of religious journalists as science gatekeepers and, more specifically, uncover their ethos in advocating science communication to their audience, amid widespread ambivalence. To this end, we focus on the ethical gaze of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews in Israel. An enclaved religious group that has a history of challenging scientific precepts and has of late demonstrated various levels of ambivalence and resistance to scientifically inspired policies made during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 Haredi editors, radio and print/online journalists, engaged with science reporting before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings unveil several ethical facets employed by Haredi journalists: care, community, professionalism, and religion. The findings also outline the interaction between professional, religious, and communal codes of conduct, as they play out in bounded mediascapes. Accordingly, religious journalists’ role breaches traditional boundaries as they respond and strive to integrate multiple sources of knowledge for what they see as the betterment of their devout readers.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030295
Authors: Thierry Meynard
During their Canton exile (1666–1671), European missionaries wrote an impressive number of reports and letters which have not been systematically studied until now. After presenting a detailed analysis of the institutional background of the 25 missionaries who arrived in Canton, we analyze the first internal reports about the Calendar Case. Then, we discuss three important Jesuit works by Gabiani, Grelon and Rougemont, who attributed the crisis to the opposition of the Manchus to Christianity. The distrust of the Canton Jesuits towards the Manchus throws a new light into the approach of Christianity towards politics and religion in China.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030294
Authors: Ionuț-Adrian Drăguleasa Amalia Niță Mirela Mazilu Emilia Constantinescu
Vâlcea County in the South-West Oltenia Region, Romania, has a great diversity of tourist destinations and boasts an impressive number of monasteries, churches and places of worship. This research aims to comprehensively investigate how tourists perceive the main reasons for visiting religious settlements and the frequency in Vâlcea County, situated in the South-West Oltenia Region, by employing a two-stage methodology to understand the interplay of demographic variables, travel behaviors and individual motivations, while utilizing GIS and SPSS for spatial and quantitative analysis. The two stages are: (1) the analysis of the specialized literature to identify the motivations, beliefs and tourists’ perceptions regarding religious tourism and pilgrimage and (2) statistical analyses and interviews with internal stakeholders (residents), which present their tourist and religious perspective on Vâlcea County. The research questions aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the intricate interplay between demographic variables, travel behaviors and individual motivations within this distinctive context. The research significantly contributes to furthering our understanding of the behavior of participants in religious tourism and pilgrimage in Vâlcea County, highlighting that certain variables, such as gender, education level and occupation, may or may not significantly impact their preferences and choices. Geographical Information System (GIS) software was used to map the study area and, at the same time, the main places of worship that were visited by tourists. The SPSS (version 15.0) program was used to investigate and analyze the quantitative research data. The results reveal that, in Vâlcea County’s religious tourism and pilgrimage, gender, age and education level do not significantly impact travel choices or visit durations. However, occupation emerges as a crucial factor influencing transportation preferences, while respondents’ place of origin shows no significant association with the presence of accompanying individuals during religious visits. The current research was limited by its focus on a single case study of Vâlcea County in the South-West Oltenia Region and the scarcity of previous studies on religious tourism and pilgrimage in Vâlcea County.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030293
Authors: Tadeusz Sierotowicz
The paper addresses the question of the identity of theology of science, fostering its interpretation as an intertextual narration. The starting point is the consideration of the domain of theology of science, which is viewed as a third domain of truth, according to Hans Urs von Balthasar. An analysis of the Swiss theologian’s perspective on this subject and the concept of God’s unknowability presents a strong counterargument to the claim that the natural sciences serve as a locus theologicus. Theology of science, nonetheless, exists and is engaged in a lively dialogue between science and theology, encompassing both the Revelation of God and the natural world or the Bible and the Book of Nature. What kind of discourse is this? This question concerns the position of theology of science within the field of science, specifically its objectivity and rigour, according to Evandro Agazzi’s analogical notion of science. Both the Bible and the Book of Nature ensure the objectivity of theology of science, while its rigour is established by the narrative paradigm. Therefore, theology of science can be seen as an intertextual narrative that engages both the Bible and the Book of Nature. The narrative paradigm of theology of science is subsequently elucidated, with particular emphasis on its cognitive aspects, narrative reasoning, the corresponding verification method, and Jewish corrective. The conclusion outlines a special task for theology of science in the modern age.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030292
Authors: Terry Pouono
Christianity is the main religion in the Pacific Islands, and what is unique about Christianity in the Pacific is that religion cannot be separated from everyday life experiences. This is because the worship and veneration of a divine source is the foundation of Pacific cultures and worldviews. In the Samoan context, faith in the Christian God is not only a rational activity but a concrete, practical experience embracing the physical and emotional manifestation of one’s faith in God. This essay is a contextual theology paper examining the significance of applying authentic expressions of the gospel from a Samoan cultural worldview while acknowledging Christian traditions passed down by Western missionaries of the 19th century. Faith in God, without good works, is impossible in the Samoan context. This is because service to God and one another is imperative to social cohesion and prosperity. The physical manifestation of one’s faith through active, committed service to the church ministry is a sign of good faith, evident through excessive monetary offerings, responsibility for fulfilling specific roles in the ministry and a commitment to all church programs. The Samoan cultural nuance of community and service helps form an authentic expression of Samoan Christian identity.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030291
Authors: Shilpi Pandey
This paper focuses on the discourse on Muslim women’s rights in India, aiming to trace how policies concerning Muslim women affect their constitutional rights to equality and non-discrimination. In doing so, this paper explores a colonial continuity of policies in the post-independence era and the subsequent governments. The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive and nuanced discussion on Muslim women’s rights in light of their historical evolution, the existence of personal laws, and the ongoing debates on a Uniform Civil Code. This article concludes that Muslim women continue to struggle for their rights to equal citizenship at the intersection of gender, religion, colonialism, and secularism.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030290
Authors: Khader I. Alkhouri
The study of the psychology of religion encompasses various aspects of human experiences and beliefs, including the influence of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). This article aims to examine the impact of AI on religious practices and rituals, highlighting its potential to reshape how individuals engage with spirituality. By exploring AI-powered religious applications, virtual communities, and online services, we seek to understand the transformation of traditional religious practices and raise important questions about authenticity, inclusiveness, and the role of technology in the psychology of religious contexts. Moreover, ethical considerations and challenges arising from the integration of AI into religion will be addressed. As researchers delve into this intersection, it is crucial to strike a balance between technological advancements and preserving the fundamental aspects of spirituality, personal growth, and genuine human connection. This article contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the potential implications of AI in the realm of religious experiences, calling for further exploration of its ethical dimensions and unintended consequences. Ultimately, understanding the influence of AI on the psychology of religion prompts us to reflect on the nature of spirituality, belief formation, and the human experience itself.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030289
Authors: Lixin Li Aixia Ni
In the early Qing dynasty, the Jesuit missionary Louis de Poirot’s (He Qingtai 賀清泰, 1735–1814) Chinese rendition of the Bible, Guxin Shengjing (The Ancient and New Testament) (古新聖經), reshaped the figure of Abraham. Contrary to the depiction by Chinese Jews of the era, de Poirot portrayed Abraham as a sage, resonating with the traditional Chinese concept of the “five cardinal relationships” (rulers to subjects, fathers to sons, husbands to wives, among siblings, and between friends), and an exemplar of virtue and faith, devoid of human flaws. Key differences emerged in translating Abraham’s name, religious stature, and national identity, influenced by distinct belief systems, attitudes towards Confucian culture, and political dynamics. Analyzing these Catholic and Jewish perspectives on Abraham enhances our understanding of the Bible’s contextualization and informs contemporary religious localization.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030288
Authors: WH Chong
From its inception, Chinese Christianity has involved speaking in “tongues”, across cultures, about the person and work of Jesus Christ. This article presents a contextual original-language exegesis of the Apostle Paul’s use of the word γλῶσσα (glōssa) or 方言 (fangyan) in 1 Corinthians 12–14 and seeks to understand this contested lexeme in light of the multilingual reality of both the “diasporic” Christian church in first-century Corinth and the diasporic Chinese Christian church today. It is argued that understanding Paul’s instructions regarding γλῶσσα/方言 within the context of a multilingual Christian worship culture strengthens the definition of γλῶσσα as languages used and understood among inhabitants of first-century Corinth. This reading, while not rejecting the possibility of an “angelic language” (tianshide huayu 天使的话语), may offer a more fruitful application for those who shape and participate in the multilingual worship culture of the diasporic Chinese Christian church today.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030287
Authors: Rito Baring Peb Hinojales Villacrucis Jake T. Barcenas Noel Arsolon Maria Antonette Dandan Jojit Foronda Milver Legitimas Loreto Pancho Josefina Bernados Ranara Dwight Jimenez Ypanto Jessica Magallon-Avenido
A relevant Religious Education needs to confront the life-threatening global issues humanity faces today. The present study investigates how Catholic Life Formation (CLF) through religious instruction may predict environmental attitudes among students in Cebu City, Philippines. This study analyzes how the following variables may influence Christian environmentalism: students’ reception of CLF inputs, Catholic Social Teachings (CST) perceptions, and students’ beliefs and environmental responses (STB) from a sample of 491 Grade 12 SH students of a private university in Cebu, Philippines. This descriptive quantitative survey used ordinal logistic regression to test our model. We adopted a two-step procedure to gather data: First, an open-ended interview was used to tease the themes and viewpoints of students. Second, incorporating the qualitative output from the interviews, a survey was conducted using a researcher-made self-report paired with the Christian Environmentalism Scale (CES) to describe student attitudes toward the environment. The findings are discussed with respect to Religious Education and CLF environmental advocacy.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030286
Authors: Christine S. VanPool
Medio Period (AD 1200 to 1450) Casas Grandes shamans used tobacco and possibly other entheogens to initiate trance states that allowed their spirits to travel across the cosmos. These trance experiences involved a sense of vertigo and soul flight that is cross-culturally common and occurs with tobacco-based nicotine intoxication. The Medio Period shamans also relied on and interacted with other-than-human persons during their travels, including macaw- and serpent-linked deities, as well as animated objects designed to participate in their shamanic journeys. The animated objects included Playas Red and Chihuahuan Polychrome pottery effigies of humans, macaws, and snakes with shamanic themes that represented the spirit world. I propose these pots were animate “pot-people” created for shamanic rituals. They were created with unusual designs including painted images and incised patterns that emphasized the spinning/vertigo that was central to the shamans’ soul flight experience. In some cases, the pots were literally spun, as evidenced by the distinctive wear patterns on their bases. The shamanic designs on the pots that reflected the upper and lower worlds, the depiction of spinning in the pottery decorations, and the literal spinning of some pots reflected the sympathetic and mimetic magic that linked them to the spirit world. They were imbued with the liminal nature of the creatures they depicted, and the symbolic and occasional literal emphasis on spinning would allow them to enter into a shamanic trance in a manner similar to their human counterparts. They, thus, were designed to enter into ASC in a manner that paralleled their human counterparts.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030285
Authors: Douglas Ferreira Barros Glauco Barsalini
This article intends to examine debt as a basilar political–theological device acting in favor of the neoliberal ethos. The Papal Encyclical Laudato Si affirms in paragraph 52 that debt today serves the control over the poor peoples in the world. In this article we demonstrate how debt can be seen as a political–theological device that works as an instrument of this specific ethos, aligned with neoliberal principles. We intend to show how these elements are related using three analytical movements. In the first, we present how we understand political theology as a critical reflection about the forms of political power. We observe that power, in its form and in the way it operates, replicates the theological–political power status prior to modernity, operating an excluding inclusion machinery. In the second movement, we analyze the political theology machinery that impacts individuals in the operation of an “excluding inclusion”. Under the political–theological machinery, individuals, groups, or populations are considered as a part of the machinery; they are included because they are incorporated in the new organism as they are excluded from their original content—language, ethos, culture, and their constitution as subjects. Then, in the third, we present the notion of the device, explicitly, a device constituted by a web of odd components and flexible relations that, when isolated as independent elements, act in the subject’s formation. In these terms, debt as a device of the political–theological machinery works to form individuals; it is a device that operates the excluding inclusion to make subjects more and more adapted to the market rules and habits. The very sense of debt in the post-productive era is challenged. We present how the possible exits from this machinery involve not only the debate on the forgiveness of foreign debts, but also how they are intrinsically linked to the creation of a new ethos, new ways of life created by relations outside the orbit of debt control. The conclusion intends to show how necessary it is to restore to people new forms of control over a way of life that is not regulated and ruled by debt. The methodology employed analyzes arguments that originated from works and articles concerning this theme.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030281
Authors: Petra Valovičić
The Catholic pilgrimage from Sali (island of Dugi Otok, Croatia) to the island of Piškera is embedded in the historical connections between these two locations, as Piškera was inhabited by fishermen from Sali for nearly three centuries. While sailing through the archipelago that no longer belongs to them, the pilgrims from Sali sing. During Mass, they perform a sung liturgy rooted in polyphonic folk singing; after Mass, the singing usually continues up until they depart. In this article, I argue that this community embodies its presence in the archipelago and creates a certain atmosphere through singing, while simultaneously inscribing meaning into the pilgrimage itself.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030284
Authors: Shichang Zhao Jun Jing
In the face of death, different ethnic groups have unique coping ways. The physical care and spiritual care for the dying can demonstrate the diversity and particularity of ethnic cultural thought. Taking two villages in the interlaced residential areas inhabited by Han, Tibetan, and Hui ethnic groups in Linxia and Wuwei of Gansu Province as examples, this paper focuses on the presentation and significance of multi-ethnic cultural integration in the process of end-of-life care, with a focus on spiritual care. One main point of this paper is that, although hospice care in the modern medical sense is not really implemented in the vast rural areas of China, local end-of-life care, based on the village medical system and religious rituals, equally plays an important role. This is mainly manifested through the implementation of the Narcotics Card System and the widespread spiritual care. The second main point of this paper is that the form of end-of-life care, which embodies the integration of ethnic cultures, contains a certain degree of nursing functions, while taking into account the spiritual care needed by the dying and the grief consolation needed by the bereaved family. Considering the lack of spiritual care and bereavement management in China’s medical space, the religious approaches to end-of-life care, as delineated in this study, could serve as a source of inspiration for the country’s efforts to integrate hospice services into its healthcare system. In short, compared with Western forms of hospice care, in which modern medicine constitutes the main body, China’s local end-of-life care is more reflected in the diversity and integration of spiritual care for the dying.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030283
Authors: Jonathan Martin Ciraulo
This article explores Maurice Blondel’s (1861–1949) later notion of the “cycloid” of thought, particularly as this helps us to understand his earlier work L’Action (1893). The aim is to demonstrate how Blondel incorporates aspects of the Christian faith, particularly the Eucharist, into his philosophy without abrogating his “method of immanence”. In particular, the article shows how Blondel saw attention to the Christian spirit as essential to the development of a metaphysics that attends both to finite actions and to the action of God, actus purus.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030282
Authors: Ismail Lala
Kafka explores many elements in ‘Jackals and Arabs’ that are found in the Judeo-Christian tradition of Gog and Magog, the Alexander Romance, and the Qur’anic story of Dhu’l-Qarnayn. A comparative analysis of these works reveals Kafka’s criticism of the Zionist movement. Kafka rejects Zionist exceptionalism and separatism through the narrator’s rejection of the jackals’ cause. Kafka’s jackals are compared to Gog and Magog, who are portrayed as corruptors of the land in the aforementioned texts. The categorisation of corruptors of the land is significant because this reverses Zionist claims of a profound connection to the land, which Kafka, likewise, reverses when the jackals claim that the desert is their home from which the Arabs should be removed. Zionist avowals of Arab backwardness are countered by Kafka as he makes the Arabs superior, which is also how the indigenous population are depicted in the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions since they are contrasted with the barbarity of Gog and Magog. Finally, the Zionist trope of the European Jewish hero who flees persecution is inverted by Kafka who confers on the narrator a quasi-prophetic/royal status similar to that of Dhu’l-Qarnayn and Alexander the Great.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030280
Authors: Shinhyung Seong
This study explores the ways in which a ban on ancestral rites influenced Korean Christianity. Ancestral rites are religious ceremonies that form the most critical social basis of Joseon, a Confucian society. First, the Korean Catholic Church was the first to oppose ancestral rites. Catholics created a new social and ethical resonance in Joseon society but had to endure tremendous persecution. Second, Protestantism was introduced when Joseon society was the most confused. Protestant missionaries banned ancestral rites, and Korean Protestants accepted them. Gradually, they interpreted it and embodied it in their faith. The ban on ancestral rites contributed to the formation of Korean Christianity. This laid the foundation for Christian social ethics and Hyo (孝, Xiao (Chinese pronunciation), filiality) theology. It has expanded into various fields, such as systematic theology, biblical studies, practical theology, and liturgical practice. Thus, this study examines how the ban on ancestral rites in Korea had a profound impact on the contextualization of Korean Christianity.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030279
Authors: Julian Schott
The religious worldview of the mantranaya (esoteric Mahāyāna or Vajrayāna) can arguably be seen as rooted in the perspective that reality (tattva) is to be self-experienced (svasamvedya) through contemplative practices, serving as both their means (upāya) and expression (caryā). The tantric path-model of Padmavajra’s Guhyasiddhi, an exegetical text in the Guhyasamāja tradition, supposedly enables individuals to rapidly realize reality, a state also referred to as mahāmudrā or other, within a single lifetime. This path-model describes a transformation leading to the revelation of ultimate realization leaving behind conventional means. These two levels correspond to two stages, the stage of arising (utpattikrama), serving as the foundation for the stage of the arisen (utpannakrama). While the first stage is like a supporting framework giving rise to the correct view, in the second stage, the practitioner cultivates the view that has arisen. The practices of the latter stage eventually become inseparable from the view itself, meaning they are practical expressions of the view exemplified in doctrines like unmattavrata and other forms of observances integral to the mahāmudrā doctrine. Thus, contemplative practices and the established worldview mutually inform each other in a reciprocal relationship. Simultaneously, this system of practice and view continues to influence and shape religious practices and rituals as they are transmitted, e.g., through teacher–disciple lineages (guruparaṃparā). In this paper, I will explore this relationship through the critical edition and annotated translation of Guhyasiddhi’s first chapter by Padmavajra (ca. late 8th and early 9th century), in which a clear exposition of the relationship in question is presented. My analysis of it, thus connecting the work to more general Buddhist concepts, follows a two-level framework, that is, the well-known two-fold system of conventional/implicit (a) and definitive/explicit (b), which can be seen as equivalent to utpatti- (a) and utpannakrama (b). The efficiency of promoted practices accords with the practitioner’s correct assessment of tattva which, following Padmavajra, is the basis for engagement in tantric practices per se. The first part provides the analysis, given in 1.1–1.5, of Padmavajra‘s system and is based on the second part, the annotated translation (2.1) and critical edition (2.2) of Padma-vajra’s Guhyasiddhi chapter one.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030278
Authors: Ali Mostfa
This article presents the innovative endeavor by Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābrī and Nasr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd in interpreting the Qurʾān through a humanistic lens. Their approach marks a pivotal shift, viewing the Qurʾān as a dynamic text that actively engages with the human interpreter. This human-centric perspective underpins their hermeneutical method, which employs lexicography, philology, and semantics to unearth the layered meanings within the Qurʾānic narrative. The article delves into the nuances of their methodologies, drawing parallels and distinctions, and underscores their profound impact on modern Qurʾānic hermeneutics.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030277
Authors: Saiping An
This article explores the reception and transformation of Ippen 一遍 (1234–1289)’s religious tenets and practices by Enju Kato 加藤円住 (1919–2021) and his temple, Shōjōkō-ji 清浄光寺. While Enju Kato asserts that his life has been dedicated to adhering and enacting Ippen’s concept of “renunciation”, he has reinterpreted this concept based on his personal experiences and comprehension. Second, Enju Kato and Shōjōkō-ji have inherited some of Ippen’s religious practices yet adapted these to align with contemporary settings. This article presents a case study discussing the acceptance and transformation of doctrines and practices of Jishū 時宗 in the contemporary era, which has been overlooked by academia thus far.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030275
Authors: Jeanne Halgren Kilde
Interfaith or multifaith chapels are so ubiquitous now in the United States—present in colleges and universities, hospitals, shopping malls, and airports—that their development as a distinct architectural form is often taken for granted. Yet that development in the mid-twentieth century was complex and even fraught. Taking a religious studies approach, this article examines the development of three early examples—the Chapel of the Four Chaplains, the Brandeis University chapels, and the MIT Chapel—to reveal the gradual movement, conceptual and architectural, toward a viable space serving many religions. While the former two examples proved unsuccessful in their goal of establishing a shared interfaith space due to their reliance on an understanding of religion as discrete traditions that resulted in exclusivist incompatibilities, the latter example moved beyond the emphasis on traditions to advance an unconventional, phenomenological understanding of religion as individual experience and spiritual life, and by doing so successfully achieved the goal of creating a space amenable to practitioners of many traditions, or none. Further, this article demonstrates how architecture functioned as a constitutive component in the developmental and popularization of this fresh understanding of religion and religious experience.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030276
Authors: William Lane Craig
This paper inquires into the nature of God’s relationship to space. It explores two different views, one that God transcends space or exists aspatially and the other that God exists throughout space and so is spatially extended. It seeks to adjudicate the debate between these competing perspectives by weighing the principal arguments for and against each view.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030274
Authors: Eva Ouwehand
Literature about bipolar disorder and religion is scarce and primarily encompasses studies with a quantitative design. Results of such studies do not lead to unambiguous conclusions about the relation between bipolar disorder and religion that could be applied in clinical practice. The main focus of this article will be on the domain of religious experiences/religious delusions and hallucinations as explored in two recent PhD studies regarding mixed methods and qualitative research, conducted in the Netherlands and in Canada. In the narrative review of the two studies, the occurrence of different types of religious experiences and various explanatory models of patients to interpret them are presented. The interpretation of religious experiences, often related to mania, proves to be an intense quest, and often a struggle for many patients, whereby fluctuations in mood, course of the illness, religious or philosophical background, and the reactions of relatives and mental health professionals all play a role. Patients combine various explanatory models, both medical and religious/cultural, to interpret their experiences and these may fluctuate over the years. The two studies are placed in the context of literature about bipolar disorder and various aspects of religion to date. Finally, the challenges for future research and the implications for clinical practice will be outlined.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030273
Authors: Sheng Zeng Rui Zhou
This study focuses on the relationship between mixed religions and family donations in China as the object of analysis, where individual donations are primarily in the form of family contributions. Although there is considerable research on the relationship between religion and individual donations, the academic community has yet to clarify the connection between mixed religions and family donations. Based on the large-scale survey data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies, this study employs econometric models such as probit and tobit models to examine the relationship. To mitigate endogeneity and enhance the robustness of the conclusions, this research also conducts instrumental variable analysis and robustness analysis. The study finds that the influence of mixed religions on family donations is greater than that of non-mixed religions, but this influence is more pronounced in families with higher donation levels. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that mixed religions have a greater impact on donations in families headed by individuals aged 41–59, females, those with no religious affiliation, residents of urban areas, and families in the western and northeastern regions. Furthermore, the impact of mixed religions on family donations is higher only when there is a combination of one or three religions. Additional analysis indicates that households with lower educational attainment, non-Party members, individuals suffering from illnesses, and unmarried females are more likely to choose mixed religions.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030272
Authors: Samantha Gilmore
This article asserts that the particularly personal nature of Lutheran preaching compels preachers to be personally present with the words they proclaim and the people in front of them as they give them the gift of the gospel. Lutheran preaching prioritizes and drives toward the explicit proclamation of Christ crucified that declares Christ’s promises to be true “for you.” This is personal. The gospel is proclaimed not in general for all, but for each. The preacher gives the gospel to the people in front of them, just as the bread and cup are given to the people in Holy Communion. Such an intimate task invites an intimate presence. After unpacking the term “personally present,” this essay outlines three interrelated elements of Lutheran preaching that reveal the importance of the presence of the preacher, and a few words are offered to suggest ways in which these learnings may be of interest to those of other traditions. Finally, four exercises are provided to help homileticians foster this presence in their students and to assist preachers in fostering this presence during their preaching preparation.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030271
Authors: Małgorzata Gruchoła Małgorzata Sławek-Czochra Robert Zieliński
This article attempts to describe Poles’ attitudes towards AI in the development of Christian prayer as a technology supporting prayer practices. Four research questions were formulated: 1. Do the frequency of prayer and engagement in religious practices influence the attitudes of Poles towards prayer programs/applications based on AI technology? 2. Does believers’ age affect Poles’ attitudes towards prayer programs/applications based on AI? 3. Does believers’ place of residence affect the attitude of Poles towards AI-based prayer programs/applications? 4. Do current users of the prayer-supporting applications plan to continue using it, and are new believers considering using it in the future? Research hypotheses were adopted to verify the research problem, with the first, second, and third being positively verified. H1: The higher the level of prayer frequency and engagement in religious practices of respondents, the more conservative the attitude towards prayer programs/applications based on AI; H2: The age of respondents differentiates the attitudes of Poles towards prayer programs/applications. H3: The respondents’ place of residence differentiates Poles’ attitudes towards prayer programs/applications. H4: Most AI users plan to continue such usage in the future, while new practitioners will appear.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030270
Authors: Jane Lee Sinden Lisa Devall-Martin
The emotional, physical, and spiritual health of athletes continues to be a concern at all levels of sport. With respect to emotions and health, previous studies have sought to understand the role of normalization of emotion on elite female rowers’ decisions to train regardless of their health. This research demonstrated how athletes may be persuaded to accept that emotions are negative, irrational, and weak, and this may play a significant role in subsequent unhealthy behaviours. In turn, these findings have generated further explorations into a more comprehensive emotion education for all athletes, which have focused on athletes’ emotional awareness and spiritual growth. The present paper provides theoretical, educational, and practical insight into the areas of emotion and spiritual development. In doing so, it presents a conceptual model for sport chaplains, coaches, and/or sport advocates for educating and mentoring the emotional and spiritual formation of athletes.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030269
Authors: Hugo Gonçalves Dores
From the beginning of European overseas expansion in the fifteenth century, religious missions occupied an important place in the internal organisation of colonial empires. Their contribution to the ideological structuring of imperialism and the interaction with local populations is undeniable. With the emergence of the new imperialism and the scramble for Africa (after the 1870s), the missions, often anticipating the colonial political and administrative presence, enhanced their role as advocates of Europe’s “civilising mission”, above all through the education of the colonised peoples. For Portuguese decision-makers, the religious missions, with a multi-century tradition, had an important role in defending territorial claims overseas and promoting the empire’s nationalisation. However, the lack of national missionaries, Christianity’s inter-confessional competition in the nineteenth century and the emergence of international legal rules protecting missionary activities hindered Portugal’s strategies. Using sources from several archives (in Lisbon, the Vatican, and elsewhere) to emphasise the role of a transnational missionary staff and the international law of missions, this text intersects these aspects, examining their convergence in the controversial case of the exit and replacement of Jesuit missionaries in Mozambique in 1910–1911, to demonstrate the need to look at the missionary issues in the Portuguese overseas domains from perspectives that go beyond nation and empire.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030268
Authors: Mengxue Wei
In response to the trend of information technology development, religions in China are undergoing a process of mediatization. This study takes the popular Chinese animated films Ne Zha: Birth of the Demon Child (哪吒之魔童降世) (2019) and New Gods: Yang Jian (新神榜: 杨戬) (2022) as research cases of mediatization of religion and conducts a focused study of the respective protagonists Ne Zha (哪吒) and Yang Jian (杨戬), both prominent figures in Chinese religious and folk traditions. Through text analysis and empirical research on the two movies and their fans, this study examines how religion is being mediatized in contemporary China in the transformation to Religion 2.0 or a type of amalgamation of real- and virtual-world practices that enact a relationship with the divine, and how this shapes identity formation for fans, who are mostly young individuals in their teens and twenties. This research argues that to obtain permission for dissemination in mainstream media and thrive in the cultural context of China, religion chooses to assume the form of media products that can bypass scrutiny that forbids “supernatural phenomena” and aligns with the mainstream ideology. It has to be a “contributory religion” that contributes to the “revitalization” of national spirit and inherited Chinese culture, not a potential “superstitious” threat to the Marxist orthodoxy. In the context of official promotion of atheism and the regulation of public discourse, animated films with themes adapted from traditional mythological and religious stories, such as Ne Zha: Birth of the Demon Child and New Gods: Yang Jian, have become a major cultural form through which people in China engage with religious symbols and narratives. The enormous success of the two movies resulted in a large population of young fans. Influenced by these films, their fans have developed an egoistic religious perspective rather than assimilating the religious or cultural messages contained in the movies. These fans may experience solace and a call to faith to some extent in their consumption of the movies, but they selectively enhance religious literacy that only meets their personal needs. Interest in divine individuals far outweighs interest in or loyalty to the religious doctrine or sect itself. Pilgrimages are undertaken to fulfill personal fantasies, and the promotion of the divine is aimed at vying for influence within fan communities. The second part of this study examines the activities of the fans that I argue are characteristic of the age of Religion 2.0.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030267
Authors: Monika Sidor
This article presents the role of selected motifs of prayer depicted in the works of first-wave Russian emigrants in the creation of a certain type of national mythology. The starting point of the considerations is a reflection on the status of emigrant literature at the time of its creation, during the period of political changes in the Soviet bloc, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and today. From the beginning, émigré literature has served as a certain treasury of images and symbols, which are treated as necessary elements for maintaining the national identity of emigrants. The article presents selected motifs from the works of Ivan Shmelev’s The Year of the Lord and Pilgrimage, and Boris Zaitsev’s Saint Sergius of Radonezh, showing prayer as an element of ritual, as a collective request, and as an act of deep contact with God. The analysis of the selected examples shows that regardless of the literary form, narrative perspective, or the way the subject was presented, the writers showed prayer motifs in a patriotic context, while mythologizing pre-revolutionary Russia and bringing the idea of “Holy Rus” to life. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been an increased interest in emigrant literature, and the ideas contained therein have proven to be very important for the formation of the new national consciousness of Russians. Today, due to another political change in Russia and its political isolation, émigré literature is of renewed importance in Russian circles. The writers whose works are discussed in this study are regarded as the main Orthodox writers of the twentieth century, and the image of praying Russia is again the basis for building a new national identity. The study concludes with the observation that the value of emigrant literature should be studied in the context of the time of its creation.
]]>Religions doi: 10.3390/rel15030264
Authors: Wen Zhao
The Jesuit missionary in Fujian, Giulio Aleni, ingeniously integrated Christian teaching concerning the soul into the traditional Chinese understanding of human nature. He adeptly reconciled the Christian notion of the soul, created by God, with the neo-Confucian belief in human nature bestowed by heaven. However, during the late Ming period, Chinese Buddhist thinkers held a contrasting perspective rooted in the Buddha-nature theory. According to this theory, Buddha-nature is intrinsic to every sentient being, devoid of a Creator. This fundamental discord in the understanding of human nature sparked intense debates between Jesuit missionaries and Buddhists in the Fujian–Zhejiang regions. These debates probed intricate themes, ranging from the ontological origin of nature to the associated soteriology surrounding human nature, as well as the hierarchical relationships between humans and other sentient beings.
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