Religions, Volume 9, Issue 6

Once one of the most popular Catholic pilgrimage sites in England, The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, now under the care of the Anglican Church, operates as a site of devotion, but it also operates as a site of memory. In this essay, I will argue...

This qualitative study employs the framework of Schlossberg’s Transition Theory to offer readers an introduction into recently-conducted research on ex-felons transitioning into, through, and out of higher education within the context of the Co...

Religion and politics in Latin America maintain a close relation that, along with a historical background in European colonization, remains in force through both being institutionalized in some political parties or ideologies, and diluted in the soci...

This special issue of Religions, entitled “Transforming Encounters and Critical Reflection: African Thought, Critical Theory, and Liberation Theology in Dialogue”, brought together diverse international scholars and experts to think toget...

The Religions special issue, “Transforming Encounters and Critical Reflection: African Thought, Critical Theory, and Liberation Theology in Dialogue,” addresses the concern over the present postcolonial context in which African persons an...

In recent decades, there has been an explosion in the growth of Pentecostal churches in Ghana, many of which preach that belief in God will translate into material wealth for both men and women. While some have argued that women in these churches are...

This paper provides a review of the literature that assesses the relationship between religion and crime. Research on the relationship between religion and crime indicates that certain aspects of religion reduces participation in criminal activity. A...

Drawing on the work of Webb Keane and Joel Robbins in the anthropology of Christianity, furnished with the influential work of Charles Hirschkind in the anthropology of Islam, and the ethnographic studies of Tom Wagner and Mark Jennings on Pentecosta...

Mass shootings in the United States have generated significant media coverage and public concern, invigorating debates over gun control. Media coverage and academic research on gun control attitudes and reactions to mass shootings have paid little at...

This essay lays the elaborate textile of feminist discourse alongside the equally rich fabric of contemporary female Buddhist monasticisms, taking note of places the latter has pulled threads from the former, but also pointing out the ways in which f...

This paper builds upon my earlier studies in interpreting interculturally how the Kashmiri nondual Śaiva thinkers Upaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020 CE) in their Pratyabhijñā philosophical theology respond to and reinterpret the...

The recent debate on the notorious Anselmian proof of God’s existence, usually called the “ontological argument”, is placed within an analytic approach, since Alvin Plantinga revisited this argument beginning in the sixties and espe...

This paper focuses on the crucial role played by Ifa Fuyū, the “father of Okinawan studies,” in articulating ideas related to Okinawan-Japanese identity. Starting with a brief overview of Ifa’s life and work, especially his pioneeri...

Although some research has suggested means of promoting spiritual development in higher education, no systematic studies or literature reviews have been conducted to know what sources are most used for the spiritual growth of university students. Thi...

The Japanese Buddhist clergy’s collaboration with the Japanese war machine during the Fifteen Year War (1931–1945) is notorious. Yet the struggles of ordinary lay Buddhist youths during World War II remain less publicized. This article ex...

The connection between spirituality and wellbeing, including its benefits for physical and mental health, has been recognized in the Eastern cultures for a very long time, although the sharp division between science and religion has caused, for the m...

This article analyzes new monastic efforts to engage with systemic inequality in the United States and South Africa, arguing for the importance of the concept of friendship to new monastic social justice efforts. Growing in popularity during the 2000...

Although prior research tends to show that religion has a salutary effect on mental health and a preventive effect on crime, studies explaining the religious effect, particularly those on offenders, have been limited. To address the issue, we examine...

In a large population cohort of Australian men, we previously observed that stressful life events were associated with increased suicidal ideation (SI). Many stressful life events, such as relationship breakdown and financial difficulties, occur freq...

The history of conflict between New York City’s Irish Americans and east European Jews dates back to the close of the 19th century. They disputed over jobs, union memberships, housing, and frequently over politics. These conflicts crescendoed e...

This article examines the Pure Land Buddhist thinker Shinran (1173–1263), from whose teachings the Shin Buddhist tradition emerged. Shinran’s ideas provide an alternative model for considering moral judgments and issues related to violenc...

This article revisits the question, first introduced by feminist scholars in the mid-1990s, about whether sexual practices within Buddhist tantra (heterosexually conceived) are empowering or exploitative to women. The purpose here is to complicate th...

This article explores part of the process of passing a law in the Lebanese Parliament on 1 April 2014 called “Law on the protection of women and other members of the family from domestic violence,” also known as the ‘Protection Law&...

The article argues for a theology of decolonial reconstruction to aid the Ministry of National Guidance and Religious Affairs (MNGRA) in its search for a new political vision for Zambian society. The MNGRA was established in 2017 by President Edgar C...

In our qualitative study of urban youth living in the West of Scotland, we argue that religion and spirituality give personal sustenance and hope from which a process of desistance can emerge. Religious worship offers a ‘site’ for undermining reoffen...

In his biblical commentary, R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1090–1164) occasionally voices the contention that the language, culture, and life-style of the Muslim world are capable of contributing to our understanding of contemporary aspects of biblica...

As is the case with other constitutionally protected rights, the freedom of religion is not unlimited nor without restriction or constraint. Rather, the courts have long held that the state may have legitimate reasons for placing reasonable restricti...

This study explores the long-term impact on recidivism of the engagement of over 300 women prisoners with humanist, spiritual and religious ways of making meaning during their incarceration. Prison chaplains and community volunteers in the Oregon Dep...

As the verse chosen as a title for this article emblematically shows, esoteric movements have consistently used secrecy as a literary topos in their oral and written cultural expressions for a number of purposes. Scholars of South Asian religions, es...

The issue of ineffability constitutes a significant challenge in the philosophy of religion. In this paper, I first argue that it is difficult to see how the traditional approach, which I call ‘the metaphysical approach’, can address this...

In the literature on religion in games, two broad types of religion have been depicted: on the one hand, historical religions—Christian, Muslim and Buddhist narratives, tropes and symbols—and, on the other hand, fiction-based religion, re...