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Religions, Volume 16, Issue 2

2025 February - 163 articles

Cover Story: This study demonstrates that Mesopotamian epistemology and hermeneutics were still influential and that cuneiform was still read in the Near East when the Gospels of John and Thomas were written. It explores the Thomas/Twin motif in the two Gospels, which is significant in both, from the perspective of cuneiform culture and presents its groundbreaking findings. Based on the analysis, logia in the Gospel of Thomas corroborate the tradition that the Gospel is a product of (Western) Mesopotamia. The results therefore challenge recent scholarship on the subject. In addition, they bring to light previously overlooked sources that the Fourth Evangelist exploited to develop his Gospel's symbolism, esotericism, and theological narrative, suggesting that in its use of Mesopotamian sources, John resembles Revelation. View this paper
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Articles (163)

  • Article
  • Open Access
4 Citations
8,657 Views
30 Pages

19 February 2025

The Franciscan presence in China is one of the first expressions of the Chinese encounter with Christianity. Despite the significant number of preserved documents and archives, research on the Franciscans in China is still limited. Furthermore, previ...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,235 Views
11 Pages

19 February 2025

Black Theology of Liberation, particularly in South Africa, has always been for Black people in the world and produced theological reflections through the lens of Black people. In the evolving scholarship on BTL, there has been challenges in its midd...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue African Voices in Contemporary and Historical Theology)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,792 Views
15 Pages

19 February 2025

“If there is no space in our faith communities where children can participate in theological work, how can children create a theology that will liberate them?” R.L. Stollar asks in his book, The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Worship Music and Intergenerational Formation)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,572 Views
15 Pages

19 February 2025

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the interface between mental health and areas formerly viewed as unrelated (the arts, philosophy and religion). In this article, I zoom in on the ways in which central texts and insights from the Daoist c...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Going Beyond Comparative Ethics: Post-Comparative Ethics in Philosophic and Religious Traditions)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,424 Views
24 Pages

19 February 2025

This study clarifies the religious traditions underlying the façade-type clay architectural models unearthed from ancient Western Asia by analyzing their iconography apropos each period. The façade-type models considered in this study a...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
4,676 Views
16 Pages

18 February 2025

The epistle to the Ephesians, like other Christian texts, teaches that life in the new creation, although not yet fully manifest, is already powerfully and sufficiently available to the church. However, this epistle uniquely has the predominant descr...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resurrection and New Creation in Ephesians)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
7,995 Views
30 Pages

18 February 2025

Contrary to popular notions of a perpetual antagonism between ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Islam’, played out on Indian soil over the centuries, this article examines the relatively recent origins of a Hindu–Muslim conflict in South...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Humanities/Philosophies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
8 Citations
4,665 Views
18 Pages

18 February 2025

This article comprehensively analyzes the conceptual and methodological differences between tafsīr and fiqh, two core disciplines in Islamic scholarship, emphasizing their respective relationships with the Qur’ān. The study employs a...

  • Article
  • Open Access
3,069 Views
18 Pages

18 February 2025

This article reconsiders literature’s capacity to express and evoke spiritual experiences by turning to William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience, especially his discussion of mysticism and his suggestion that poetry can bring...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Imagining Ultimacy: Religious and Spiritual Experience in Literature)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,848 Views
15 Pages

18 February 2025

The concept of hope has varied in meaning from ancient Greece to the present day. Often understood as an expectation or an illusion, hope seems to greatly determine the way human beings live and think about their existence. It is precisely in this co...

  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
6,698 Views
14 Pages

18 February 2025

The article explores the role of religion in shaping societal norms, arguing that religion, alongside law and ethics, plays a critical role in regulating social life. It emphasizes the interdependence of various regulatory systems—religious, et...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Systematic Theology and Social Ethics: On the Unity of Theory and Praxis)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,630 Views
17 Pages

17 February 2025

Cognitive warfare is a matter of concern due to its impact on people’s minds and decision-making. The manifestation of wars and the deliberate attempts of nations to use AI technologies to their advantage in outsmarting people’s minds can...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Theologies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,149 Views
14 Pages

17 February 2025

This study explores the transformative potential of the traditional Korean concept of uri (we) and the Confucian principle of ren (compassion and resistance), integrated with the biblical tradition of lament, as a theological framework for addressing...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preaching in Multicultural Contexts)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,507 Views
20 Pages

17 February 2025

From his election, it was clear that Pope Francis advocated for the poor and the protection of creation. However, both areas are linked to ethical aspects of the economy. This paper demonstrates that although new aspects of Catholic economic ethics e...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Continuity and Discontinuity: From Pope John Paul II to Pope Francis and Beyond)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2,605 Views
18 Pages

17 February 2025

Martyrdom in the sixteenth-century French and Swiss Reformations has long been an exciting area of research for scholars. However, the subject has almost exclusively been studied through large collections called the “martyrologies” or thr...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Swiss Reformation 1525–2025: New Directions)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
4,329 Views
36 Pages

17 February 2025

Votive offerings are one of the most common devotional practices in Hindu temples of Kerala and are today resorted to by an ever-growing number of worshippers seeking divine help in times of need. As this article will show, these offerings are deeply...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
3,216 Views
18 Pages

17 February 2025

On the 60th anniversary of the publication of Paul VI’s encyclical Ecclesiam suam, dedicated to the issue of dialogue, we propose an analysis of this document focused on interreligious dialogue. We will identify the relationship between the enc...

  • Article
  • Open Access
3,297 Views
10 Pages

17 February 2025

The impact of the Reformations, in Switzerland and elsewhere, on the regulation of sexuality has been extensively researched in recent decades. Laws against adultery and premarital fornication were strengthened and promulgated, leading to the decline...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Swiss Reformation 1525–2025: New Directions)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2,020 Views
13 Pages

16 February 2025

The Autobiography of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque recounts her many visions, ecstasies, and sufferings as she became God’s messenger, initiating the highly successful modern form of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Reading the Autobiography tod...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Imagining Ultimacy: Religious and Spiritual Experience in Literature)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2,776 Views
11 Pages

16 February 2025

From young children to elders in the community, the Holy Spirit’s empowering presence is indiscriminate of age, ability, gender, culture, or status. Many communities continue to wrestle with the pastoral and practical implications of welcoming...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Worship Music and Intergenerational Formation)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,538 Views
14 Pages

16 February 2025

In a modern world dominated by individualism, reproduction has become a difficult choice for individuals. The traditional reasons for reproduction have lost their appeal. For individuals, the meaning of reproduction has become a question. Confucian u...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Multiple Images and Forms of Classical Confucian and Daoist Ethics for Living)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2,812 Views
12 Pages

16 February 2025

Despite a succession of advances and setbacks observed here and there, the suppression of regular religion in the age of revolution represented a definitive and irreversible process of the ascendancy of new social groups and classes and, at the same...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dissolutions of Monasteries)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1,799 Views
16 Pages

15 February 2025

This paper draws from the author’s direct experience with material care, adaptation, renewal, and disposal made while working within Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist practitioner communities as a museum professional, conservator, and object-based...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Materiality and Private Rituals in Tibetan and Himalayan Cultures)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,216 Views
14 Pages

15 February 2025

This article explores two cases of architectural conversion within the TESEO project: the transformation of a Catholic church into an Orthodox church in Trento and the adaptation of a farmstead into a Buddhist temple in the Molin Valley, Trentino. Th...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions, Cultural Memory and Heritage in the City: Reassembling a Plural Scenario)
  • Article
  • Open Access
5 Citations
4,390 Views
17 Pages

Educating for Diversity: Intercultural and Inter-Religious Sensitivity in Early Childhood and Primary School Teachers in Training at the University of Barcelona

  • Carolina Quirós Domínguez,
  • Valeria De Ormaechea Otarola,
  • Mónica Ferré Tobaruela and
  • Núria Lorenzo Ramírez

14 February 2025

This study analyses the development of intercultural and interreligious sensitivity in pre-service teachers on the Early Childhood and Primary Education degrees at the University of Barcelona. Using a mixed approach, the research combines the collect...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
5,141 Views
16 Pages

14 February 2025

This article draws upon doctoral case study data from two Protestant Christian churches to examine how contemporary worship music-making practices can reinforce and solidify the musical tastes, dispositions, and tendencies of particular demographics....

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Worship Music and Intergenerational Formation)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,286 Views
22 Pages

14 February 2025

Roman Bordun’s twenty-first century photograph The Apartment After the Artillery Bombardment. Heat resistant Ceramic Vase. Irpin [Ukraine]. June 2022 uses light to express the Christian paradox of suffering that leads to redemption and eternal...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Theologies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1,934 Views
17 Pages

14 February 2025

After criticizing the three traditional proofs of divine existence in the first Critique, Kant fills this void with an apologetic argument based on his practical philosophy. However, this moral–religious project has long been charged with vario...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Humanities/Philosophies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
6,002 Views
36 Pages

14 February 2025

The following article aims at highlighting the theurgical tendencies in the teachings of the great Andalusī Muslim mystic Muḥyī l-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (560/1165–638/1240). By “theurgy” is meant the influe...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2,458 Views
10 Pages

14 February 2025

The God on Mount Sinai is the most widely used figure in Christian Negative Theology, with Dionysius Areopagita being its most famous interpreter. As Denys Turner described in his work The Darkness of God, the Dionysian God dwelling in the darkness h...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medieval Theology and Philosophy from a Cross-Cultural Perspective)
  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,340 Views
19 Pages

14 February 2025

This essay is about the uses of martyrdom works in Spain and among Elizabethan English Catholics with special reference to their beatification cause by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. There are two related points in this essay. First, Spanish...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Politics: Interactions and Boundaries)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
2,898 Views
12 Pages

14 February 2025

Teachers require well-formed characters to practise their profession. Following previous research on the role of virtue in teachers’ professional practice, the author argues that teachers require patterns of wise action. Based on Aristotle&rsqu...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Theologies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2,105 Views
19 Pages

13 February 2025

Richard Hooker’s (1553–1600) magisterial defense of the Elizabethan Church, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, argued cogently for the authority of natural law and tradition in determining the constitution and practice of the national...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
5,080 Views
26 Pages

13 February 2025

In Vietnam, as in other parts of Asia, rural communities establish ritual markers that delineate the social spacetime in which communal existence takes shape and meaning. These ritual markers evolve according to the socio-economic, political, and eco...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious and Theological Interactions in East Asia: Issues, Channels and Impact)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
4,643 Views
17 Pages

13 February 2025

Scholars have acknowledged that much of the early support for the anti-Christian movement in Shanghai and Beijing in 1922 came from radical individuals and organizations with ties to the Communists, anarchists, and the Guomindang left, but little att...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Expressions of Chinese Christianity in Texts and Contexts: In Memory of Our Mentor Professor R. G. Tiedemann (1941–2019))
  • Article
  • Open Access
2,569 Views
12 Pages

13 February 2025

This article contains some proposals for the development of pastoral care and spiritual formation of men, which might be a response of the Church in Poland to widespread secularisation. I justify this need and some theoretical aspects of men’s...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
3,289 Views
32 Pages

12 February 2025

Suicide is a significant public health issue and a leading cause of death amongst those aged 15 to 29, making it particularly relevant in the university context, where many students fall within this age range. Universities are motivated to promote st...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,510 Views
38 Pages

12 February 2025

The Santa Faz Pilgrimage, with over 600 years of history and as Spain’s second most significant pilgrimage, is at a critical point due to urbanization and inadequate planning. This study explores revitalizing and enhancing the historical Santa Faz ro...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pilgrimage Routes, Sacred Places, and Contribution to Territories’ Sustainable Development)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1,903 Views
11 Pages

12 February 2025

Hearing the word ‘death’ applied to oneself is a remarkably sobering experience. This is particularly true when the ‘one’ being referred to is a Pentecostal, a theologian, and a friend of Martin Luther. Reading Luther with Pen...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cancer and Theology: Personal and Pastoral Perspectives)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,734 Views
10 Pages

12 February 2025

This article embarks on a profound theological journey through the sacred Scriptures, illuminating Jesus Christ as the central figure of the entire biblical narrative. It posits that the ultimate purpose of preaching, emphasized in this discourse, is...

  • Article
  • Open Access
4,148 Views
19 Pages

12 February 2025

The remarkable growth of Catholicism and Protestantism in Korea has garnered significant attention in the history of Asian missions. However, their relationship has predominantly been characterized by persistent conflicts and competition, with limite...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Conflict and Coexistence in Korea)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3,978 Views
17 Pages

12 February 2025

In pre-Song Chinese thought, the afterlife, or the subterranean realm was a sacred space distinctly separate from the world of the living, an extension of the political–religious–cultural order of the Chinese empire. Even after the introd...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue On the Problem of Hell: Comparative Historical and Philosophical Perspectives)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,965 Views
12 Pages

12 February 2025

This study explores the concept of resilience within the teachings of Popes Benedict XVI and Francis, comparing these with established psychological resilience theories by Ungar and Holling. Through a comprehensive analysis of documents sourced from...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Continuity and Discontinuity: From Pope John Paul II to Pope Francis and Beyond)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,777 Views
9 Pages

11 February 2025

There are two main options for translating λόγος Logos in Chinese versions of John 1:1. One is to use 道Tào, which in this context means Wisdom and Creative Principle; the other is to use 言 Y&aacut...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Interreligious Dialogue: Philosophical Perspectives)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
9,309 Views
28 Pages

11 February 2025

This study examines the origins and symbolic meanings of the iconography of Vaiśravaṇa, which gained prominence in East Asia during the 200 years after the 8th century, through the lens of royal imagery as both a devotee and protector. As...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
2,701 Views
12 Pages

11 February 2025

Quantitative methodologies using questionnaires are widely utilised across the health and social sciences, including when assessing difficult-to-measure constructs such as existential, spiritual, or religious constructs. The validity of the questionn...

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences)
  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,994 Views
16 Pages

10 February 2025

The demise of apartheid as a political policy of institutionalized racism and the advent of the so-called “New South Africa” based on constitutional democracy presented a huge, almost impossible, challenge of forgiveness and reconciliatio...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue African Voices in Contemporary and Historical Theology)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
3,604 Views
17 Pages

10 February 2025

During the Chosŏn period (1392–1910) and the colonial period (1910–1945), in Korean Buddhism, Buddhist monks’ and nuns’ monastic experiences were influenced not only by the existing social norms but also by the androcentr...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Un-glossing East Asian Buddhism: Gender, Sangha and the State in the Early-Modern Era)

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Religions - ISSN 2077-1444