2025 June - 146 articles
This study investigates how human will is articulated, negotiated, and reimagined within the discourses about Shamanism of Northeast China, with a particular focus on user-generated content from the Douyin platform (Chinese TikTok). Drawing on the da...
The so-called “octopus norm” was originally described by Pindar and Theognis. It represented the way in which a poet could adapt to contingent circumstances without abdicating his own sensibility, grasping what might be appropriate to say...
Over the last few decades, medieval theology and philosophy has undergone a profound transformation [...]
The Seven Masters of the Quanzhen 全真七子 sect served as central figures during the founding phase of Quanzhen Daoism and played key roles in the sect’s early development. Originally positioned as the “Northern Se...
In Turkish literature, hajj travelogues have been written since the 13th century, conveying Muslims’ experiences during the pilgrimage and explaining how to perform hajj. With the development and widespread use of the modern means of transporta...
This article explores the relationship between Ignatian obedience and evangelization through the complementary perspectives of Hans Urs von Balthasar and recent Jesuit General Congregations. It argues that obedience, traditionally viewed as submissio...
Through a critical analysis of one section of a 17th century Chinese manuscript, this article examines the formation of pragmatic identity of non-elite Roman Catholic Chinese converts, who simultaneously identified themselves as Confucians and Cathol...
The current article does not directly study the liturgical ritual as a set of gestures and forms of ceremonial behavior. Instead, it focuses on shedding light on the doctrinal content of many Mariological liturgical hymns, precisely the conceptual ba...
Muslim responses to Artificial Intellgence (AI) have so far focused mainly on how it challenges the human “mind”. This paper moves from the “mind” to the “heart”, which, in Islam, is not only a vessel of emotion bu...
Wittgenstein had significant religious impulses, from his early Notebooks to his late entries in Culture and Value. Christian religious texts seemed to him to articulate significant human experiences that were worthy of respect. Yet he found himself...
The expectations, plans and goals of future pastors are developed and consolidated during theological studies. These plans and expectations, and the career strategies based on them can have a decisive influence on how gender-based differences with re...
The site of Nabi Yaqin preserves an ancient tradition of Abraham’s prayer over Sodom. The landscape that stretches from the ridge of Nabi Yaqin facing east to the Dead Sea and the Jordan River serves as the backdrop for the formation of this tr...
In this paper, we reflect on difficulties connected with transitioning from one spiritual tradition to another. We consider Western New Animism, sometimes proposed as a remedy to the exploitative and anthropocentric values typical of Western Modernit...
In the name of God and profit, Jorge Álvares, the first Portuguese to set foot in China, arrived in 1513 and opened a new chapter for missionary work. One of the most significant forms of “Sino-Portuguese” decorative art, ivory scu...
This paper re-examines the story of Lu Xiujing’s 陆修静 (406–477) abandonment of his ailing daughter, as recorded in Daoxue zhuan 道學傳 (Biographies of the Adepts of the Dao, hereafter DXZ), to challen...
This study examines, within the broader context of historical and cultural influences from Byzantine and Western canonical traditions, the canonical and theological treatment of physical disabilities as impediments to the priesthood within modern Ort...
This article examines the contributions of Turkish screenwriter Ayşe Şasa (1941–2014) to Turkish cinema and visual culture through her engagement with Sufism and metaphysical themes. It explores how Şasa draws on esoteric Sufi co...
For the past three decades, Black Jews in France have made their presence manifest. These believers identify as African, West Indian, or biracial, and are either converts or native Jews. They may either assert their faith from within the institutions...
This study examines critical challenges associated with religious literacy in contemporary South Korea and educational approaches to address them. By analyzing data from the Religious Literacy Survey 2023 (n = 2022), we reveal that these paradoxical...
Religion played a pivotal role in shaping the political and cultural landscape of early China, particularly through the practice of relocating capitals (遷都). The relocation of capitals is an outstanding theme in early Chinese historiogr...
The topos of Vienna as the “stronghold of Christendom” emerged soon after the 1529 unsuccessful siege by the Ottomans. The city’s new strategic status not only spurred the building of new urban fortifications, it also stimulated the...
This article investigates how the Jewish leadership in early medieval Palestine employed religious elements to consolidate its power among Jewish communities across the Muslim world. It suggests that the Palestinian Academy in Jerusalem leveraged its...
The Religious Workforce Project is a Lilly Endowment-funded effort to map the nation’s changing Christian religious landscape. A quantitative component identifies broad US trends, while our qualitative work focuses on Christian congregations in...
This paper examines the Daoist stelae of the Northern Dynasties through the lens of Eliade’s religious theory, with particular focus on the transformation of profane objects into sacred ones and the transition of local believers from the profan...
The so-called “counterfeit monks and nuns” 僧尼偽濫 is regarded as an important reason for the “Huichang Persecution of Buddhism” 會昌滅佛, but it reflects the central views of t...
The Guyang Cave contains an extensive collection of late Northern Wei (late fifth to early sixth century) statue and stele combinations. While existing scholarship has recognized the exceptional nature of these statue–stele pairings, their syst...
This article examines Xinzeng Gegu yaolun 新增格古要論 (Expanded Essential Criteria of Antiquities), a connoisseurship manual compiled in 1460 by the mid-Ming official Wang Zuo 王佐. Drawing upon Cao Zh...
The liturgy of the Catholic Church adopts and reframes passages from Scripture in manifold ways. At times a passage is proclaimed or sung in the liturgy exactly as it appears in the Bible; at other times, a prayer or antiphon draws from one or more v...
In the 15th year of the Shunzhi reign (1658), Hengming Xingmei, the abbot of Guangji Monastery in Beijing, brought a letter issued by Zhang Jiamo, the Seal-holding official of the Personnel Department 司吏院掌印, to the...
This essay explores themes in monk–underworld stories from the early medieval to Song periods, shedding light on evolving monastic–lay relations. These tales typically follow an individual who visits the afterlife and returns to share the...
I start this paper by giving a general account of Wittgenstein’s relationship to the Bible, especially to the Old Testament. I will then examine those passages in his work where he explicitly refers to the Old Testament. It will turn out that a...
In the geopolitics of climate change the low-lying islands of Tuvalu are a ‘weak actor’. They are often referred to as the ‘canary in the mine’ concerning the planet’s future in the midst of a superwicked problem. The is...
From an outside perspective, it is not clear whether the Catholic Church is an active digital entity, or at least, it is not perceived as such. This paper analyses this issue. The methodology involved the monitoring of ecclesiastical Internet activit...
This article discusses the dominant understanding of the concept of repentance in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the original interpretation he offers of this religious idea. It explores how his interpretation...
The liturgical reforms of the mid-twentieth century had major impacts on not only the forms of liturgies in the Western church but also on liturgical theology. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, the Anglican province in the Unite...
In recent years, many academics have addressed the issue of the intersection of the fields of Biblical studies and Cultural studies. Many academic works have emphasized the importance of the Bible in the building of cultural narratives and the need t...
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the experience of loss and mourning, potentially increasing distress among bereaved individuals. This study aimed to assess this experience and examine the role of spirituality and religiosity in this c...
Salvation through Refinement (liandu 鍊度) is a distinctive Daoist rite aimed at rescuing the souls of the deceased from hell, enabling their rebirth, and ultimately facilitating their transcendence. The Golden Writings on the Great Achie...
The ecumenical movement’s basic purpose is to seek Christian unity. In facing the challenge of mission and ecumenism today, it is important to explicate how the ecumenical movement understands unity currently, and how the concept may have chang...
Opening the debate today about the original aims of the caliphate system and the importance of the relationship between religion and politics in the Islamic tradition might look outdated or fundamentalist in a negative sense. Effectively, in today&rs...
This paper aims to juxtapose bodhisattvas, awakened beings recognized in various Buddhist traditions and contemporary philosophies, as viewed through different lenses: as personified symbols, idealistic visions, mystical manifestations, naturalized s...
The Traditio Apostolica presents, within the context of Christian baptism, first the water baptism accompanied by a profession of faith, followed by prayer with the laying on of hands. The purpose of this initiation process is the forgiveness of sins...
This article examines the role of religion in Russia’s national security system through the lens of ontological security, assessing whether contemporary Russia is undergoing a process of desecularisation or, conversely, an intensified form of s...
This paper analyzes the Hindu concept of sevā—selfless service—as a theo-ethical practice that reconfigures the relationship between religion and economy, offering a snapshot of an Indian perspective on the convergence between postse...
Monastic life presents a contrast to many aspects of modern existence (the rule of ideology, consumerism, various forms of negativity, dominance of the virtual, forgetfulness). The following essay explores this contrast and its presence throughout th...
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders disrupted religious life across the United States, forcing congregations to rapidly adapt to unprecedented challenges. While existing research has explored the pandemic’s impact on ind...
This article investigates the phenomenon of missionary landscape photography with an eye to contributing to the field of environmental history. It uses photos made by Dutch missionaries in newly independent Nigeria between about 1960 and 1968. The mi...
Religious beliefs influence many behaviors and perspectives relevant to well-being and mental health. In Christianity, beliefs about how one attains salvation may be particularly relevant to psychology, but limited scholarship has considered cognitiv...
Eusebius transmits a fragment of Porphyry’s Contra Christianos in which the philosopher claimed that a disease or plague (νόσος) had seized the city for many years because there was no longer any sojourn (&...
This study examines how South Korea’s 1970s Protestant democratization movement embodied Hans Joas’s concept of the “sacralization of the person” during the authoritarian Yushin regime. Challenging binary narratives of human r...
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