Religions, Volume 12, Issue 8

This study was conducted to quantitatively assess the architectural data stemming from 70 buildings usually considered as bent-axis temples, a type of Mesopotamian temple mainly constructed from 2900 to 2300–2200 BC. The study reviews, region-by-regi...

Critiques of ecologically harmful human activity in the Anthropocene extend beyond life and livelihoods to practices of dying, death, and the disposal of bodies. For members of the diffuse ‘New Death Movement’ operating in the post-secular West today...

This article examines the Puja Tri Sandhya, a Balinese Hindu prayer that has been broadcast into the soundscape of Bali since 2001. By charting the development of the prayer, this paper summarizes the religious politics of post-independence Indonesia...

The question, who is an African? in the context of understanding African identity has biological, historical, cultural, religious, political, racial, linguistic, social, philosophical, and even geographical colourations. Scholars as well as commentat...

This article examines Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People for insight into the intersection of theological anthropology and ecological theology. Set in the wake of a man-made ecological crisis, Sinha’s novel probes the definition of humanity, the int...

Chalcolithic religious practice at the site of Çadır Höyük (central Anatolia) included the insertion of ritual deposits into the architectural fabric of the settlement, “consecrating” spaces or imbuing them with symbolic properties. These deposits ar...

My article explores how Catholicism interacts with various forces and players in the local and political arena since it migrated into Bailu, China. My argument is based on extensive fieldwork done at two seminaries and one church there. I have shown...

The erosion of metaphysics that began in Modernity has led to the discredit of the whole project of natural theology as a means to reach God, establish the classical divine attributes, and account for divine action. After the deconstruction of classi...

Drawing on three key elements in Lonergan’s thought—emergent probability, the triad of progress/decline/redemption, and the law of the cross—this paper explores the struggle to remake some sense of wholeness in an era of serve ecological decline and...

As a subfield in the study of religion and music, the theology of music is generally understood in Western terms. Yet to fully encompass the rich heritage of music in world religions, the theology of music must welcome non-Western traditions. After i...

In recent years, the institution of marriage in Muslim Central Asia has undergone profound transformations in terms of religious dynamics, migration patterns, and the impact of globalization. In Kazakhstan between 2014 and 2019, every third marriage...

This paper develops a model that advances our understanding of how social enterprises respond to the complexity of a constellation of multiple, often competing goals, referred to here as institutional logics. Introducing a religious logic to the reco...

A close analysis of the text of Gen. 2:8–15, pertaining to the Garden of Eden, shows the structural differences between said text and others from ancient mythologies that mention or describe a paradise. Likewise, that analysis suggests that the data...

The perpetual public display of successful mass mobilization and pilgrimage has become a pillar of papal soft power. During the 20th century, the papacy had repeatedly demonstrated its ability to use new technologies for public communication, media c...

This article discusses the place of God in the poetic system of Aleksandr Vvedensky. Vvedensky’s famous pronouncement on his “poetic critique” is more throughgoing than Kant’s critical enterprise, and invites a comparison between the movement of Kant...

The literature on martyrdom has not, so far, systematically analysed a constitutionally secular state’s extensive use of religion in propagating martyrdom narratives by using state-controlled religious institutions. This paper addresses this gap in m...

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced all spheres of life. It has an impact on the education of children and youth. The authors’ research focused on religious education during the pandemic by the Roman Catholic Church in Poland in the Śląskie Voivodes...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emerged within the Mauritian landscape in the early 1980s after the arrival of foreign missionary work. With a population of Indian, African, Chinese, French heritage, and other mixed ethnicities, Mauri...

Theological education continues to be subject to rapid social and technological change, which is further exacerbated by the recent global pandemic. Practical theology as a discipline continues to grow, being well placed methodologically to engage wit...

This article investigates the relationship between homophily, the tendency for relationships to be more common among similar actors, and social capital in a social network of religious congregations from eight counties encompassing and surrounding a...

The incorporation of creative assignments in the form of digital stories and artistic assignments in undergraduate and graduate World Religions courses has resulted in positive feedback from the students, and these courses were considered the favorit...

In the reinscribing of white supremacy in the United States, the contemporary university as a place of exclusion presents a problem of religion. Approaching religion as “the search for depth” and addressing the “techno-myths” of betterment, longevity...

This paper aimed to introduce the Konstanz Method of Dilemma Discussion KMDD^® as one of the most effective methods that are designed to foster moral competence and, therefore, to promote tolerance and equality, regardless of cultural background, reli...

Organ donation is a widely debated issue in Islamic scholarship. Muslim jurists, however, have produced a substantial amount of evidence supporting its legality. Despite this, previous research has revealed that Muslim communities around the world ar...

This paper explores how atheism relates to national pride. Previous research reports the strong positive relationship between religiosity and national pride. Inversely, it can be assumed that atheists feel less national pride. Whether this assumption...

Over recent decades, Venerable Daehaeng has increasingly become a subject of academic research, much of which has been sponsored by her own followers in an effort to reinforce the legitimacy of her teachings and her authenticity as a Korean seon mast...

The people collectively named the Lycians in modern scholarship are the best represented of the western Anatolian first millennium BC cultures in terms of philological, historical, and archaeological data. This article seeks to better understand the...

In ancient Mesopotamia, the functions of the temple were manifold. It could operate as an administrative center, as a center of learning, as a place of jurisdiction, as a center for healing, and as an economic institution, as indicated in both textua...

What might it mean to “wear the good?” This question arises from a dominating trend in contemporary spaces where objects such as clothing are employed to communicate desires and demonstrate ethical commitments to social causes, political institutions...

At the end of his famous book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem points to the important role stories have played in Hasidism, the latest phase in Jewish Mysticism, and he closes his lectures with the following story: When the Baal She...

Phenomenology holds great promise yet underdeveloped potential for ritual studies and liturgical theology. As phenomenology has indeed taken a “theological turn” and the contentiousness of such an approach abates, questions remain as to what insights...

Since independence, Islamic civil society groups and intellectuals have played a vital role in Indonesian politics. This paper seeks to chart the contestation of Islamic religious ideas in Indonesian politics and society throughout the 20th Century,...

Beginning with the anthropology of Teilhard de Chardin, this paper explores the need to reimagine education in light of an evolutionary cosmos. Teilhard understood the human person as deeply involved in the meaning-making processes of the cosmos, and...

This article examines the situation of religion in the context of contemporary neoliberalism. I argue that neoliberalism is a symptom of a fatal crisis in modern liberalism, which is brought about by geophysical planetary limits to growth. The concep...

The perception of Persia in Judaean/Jewish texts from antiquity contributed to the construction of a Judaean/Jewish identity. Genesis 14 gives an example of this; in it, Abra(ha)m wages war with a coalition headed by King Chedorlaomer of Elam. The ar...

The task of this article is to articulate the everyday power of liturgy by clarifying the transcendental significance of ritual action. The paper makes three major claims: first, that liturgical practices function transcendentally, and therefore alte...

Zhi Qian (支謙, fl. ca. 220–257 CE), a prolific Yuezhi-Chinese translator of Indian Buddhist scriptures into Chinese, is widely known for his broad range of styles and terminology. For several decades, his translation activities and his legacy in the h...

This article relates the transmission history of a single Samaritan text and its fascinating trajectory from a Samaritan legend into early modern rabbinic tradition, and on to nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish studies circles. It focuses...

This article reviews five recent contributions to the field of New Testament theology. More accurately, three NT theologies will be examined alongside two biblical theologies, given that some regard NT theology as inherently deficient apart from OT t...

In this paper, we want to address how the educative growth of children’s spirituality within religious education can be better understood through Dewey’s theory of valuation. We would like to draw attention to the link between an education for authen...

This study investigated the quarrel between the pro-and anti-constitutionalist jurists following the establishment of the first National Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran and the drafting of the first constitution in 1906. A group of shi῾ite jur...

One of the reasons for the spread of the Western Hare Krishna movement is that it offers several alternatives for the practice of religion: devotees can be full-fledged members of the church in congregations located in complex urban or in simple rura...

Pentecostalisation is one of several contentious issues in the Catholic Church. While charismatic experience is welcome and refreshing, it is also connected with various spiritual and pastoral abuses, which is very concerning. When set in the context...

On the mountainous crest of the Apennines are several buildings comprising the monastic site of La Verna where St. Francis received his stigmata in 1224. Described in 1493 as another Jerusalem in the West, the monastery’s Chiesa Maggiore, Santa Maria...

Elia Benamozegh (born—1823 in Livorno and died—1900 in Livorno)—philosopher, biblical exegete, teacher at the Rabbinical College—was an original and fruitful thinker. At a time when the Jewish kabbalah, or esoteric tradition, was considered by the pr...

Multiple forces vie to control the narratives of the Lingsar festival, a major annual event initiated about 350 years ago that uniquely brings together the indigenous Muslim Sasak and the migrant Hindu Balinese on Lombok, an island east of Bali in In...

This article puts political philosopher Judith Butler in conversation with Gandhi, on the topic of nonviolent resistance. More particularly, we compare them on a systematic philosophical level. Although we focus on Gandhi’s more activist side, by del...

Agunah activism, a flagship struggle of Religious-Zionist feminism, links gender politics, Jewish-Orthodox politics, and national Israeli politics. This qualitative study focuses on agunah activists’ strategies and conceptions of change, highlighting...

The aim of this article is to show that the intercultural way of education, which includes the interreligious dimension, is a fundamental way to create and maintain conditions for coexistence in a multicultural society. The background of this claim i...

Despite its ludic appearance, “The adventure Don Quixote had with a dead body” (part I, chapter XIX) is one of the most complex pieces of Cervantes’ famous novel. In the midst of a dark night, the Manchegan knight errant confronts an otherwordly proc...