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Desire, Agency and the Divine in Catullus and Contemporary Philosophy
Diversity, Difference, and Otherness: African American Experience in Contemporary Black Liberation Theology

Journal Description

Religions

Religions is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal on religions and theology, published monthly online by MDPI.

Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, AHCI (Web of Science), ATLA Religion Database, Religious and Theological Abstracts, and other databases.
Journal Rank: CiteScore - Q1 (Religious Studies)
Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 26.7 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 4.8 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the first half of 2026).
Recognition of Reviewers: Reviewers whose reports are timely and of high quality receive an APC discount voucher for a future publication in an MDPI journal. Become a reviewer.
Journal Cluster of Human Thought and Cultural Expression: Culture, Histories, Humanities, Languages, Literature and Religions.

Impact Factor: 0.6 (2025)

Imprint Information Journal Flyer Open Access ISSN: 2077-1444

Latest Articles

15 pages, 249 KB

Open AccessArticle

Toward a Theological Ethic of Creaturely Listening: Animal Theology in an Age of AI

by Daniela Rizzo

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1100; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091100 (registering DOI) - 19 Sep 2026

Advances in artificial intelligence are creating new possibilities for interpreting the communicative lives of non-human animals, prompting fresh ethical and theological questions about how such technologies ought to be received. This article develops a theological ethic of creaturely listening, arguing that the significance [...] Read more.

Advances in artificial intelligence are creating new possibilities for interpreting the communicative lives of non-human animals, prompting fresh ethical and theological questions about how such technologies ought to be received. This article develops a theological ethic of creaturely listening, arguing that the significance of AI-assisted animal communication lies less in its technical capabilities than in the moral formation it demands of those who employ it. Rather than treating communication as a problem of translation alone, the article contends that listening is a spiritual practice requiring humility, attentiveness, and solidarity with vulnerable creatures. To this end, it proposes three complementary practices that shape Christian engagement with emerging technologies: listening as a theological virtue, fasting as a discipline that interrupts the commodification of animals, and Sabbath as a practice of creaturely liberation that resists instrumentalization and cultivates receptive attention. Together, these practices offer a constructive theological framework for evaluating AI-assisted animal communication, suggesting that the Church’s primary task is not to discover new creaturely voices but to become a community capable of hearing (and responding to) the voices that have always been present. Listening becomes the primary moral orientation through which Christians discern and respond to the communicative claims of other creatures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Creative Eco-Theology: Responding to the Ecological Crisis of Creation)

17 pages, 290 KB

Open AccessArticle

“Redemption Is Not Impossible”: The Dialectical Vitalism of Witold Gombrowicz

by Piotr Sadzik

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1099; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091099 (registering DOI) - 19 Sep 2026

This article argues that the notion of redemption constitutes a central, yet largely overlooked, organizing principle of Witold Gombrowicz’s oeuvre. Taking as its point of departure Gombrowicz’s statement that “redemption is not impossible,” it reconstructs his literary project as a sustained exploration of [...] Read more.

This article argues that the notion of redemption constitutes a central, yet largely overlooked, organizing principle of Witold Gombrowicz’s oeuvre. Taking as its point of departure Gombrowicz’s statement that “redemption is not impossible,” it reconstructs his literary project as a sustained exploration of the possibility of rescuing singular life from the forces that constrain and petrify it. Drawing on modern theories of messianicity, particularly the works of Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, and Agata Bielik-Robson, the article interprets Gombrowicz’s writings through the category of messianic vitalism. It argues that Gombrowicz develops a secular and immanent conception of redemption, understood not as transcendence beyond the world but as the renewal of life within finite existence itself. Through readings of Trans-Atlantyk, Pornography, Operetta, and the Diary, the article demonstrates how Gombrowicz repeatedly stages conflicts between life and death, singularity and collective identity, while seeking forms of liberation from social, political, and symbolic domination. By situating Gombrowicz within broader debates on messianicity and modern literature, the article reveals the redemptive horizon that underlies his dialectical vision of life. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Messianicities in Literature and Messianicity of Literature)

21 pages, 14496 KB

Open AccessArticle

Pictorial Perspective: The Sinicization and Dissemination of Christian Stories Through Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie During the Late Ming Dynasty

by Houhan Wang and Yun He

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1098; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091098 (registering DOI) - 19 Sep 2026

Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie 天主降生出像经解 was published to justify the “complementing Confucianism and replacing Buddhism” strategy and to establish illustrative Christian storytelling that preserves the design and art style of Nadal’s Evangelica historiae imagines, thus marking an important step in Sinicizing and [...] Read more.

Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie 天主降生出像经解 was published to justify the “complementing Confucianism and replacing Buddhism” strategy and to establish illustrative Christian storytelling that preserves the design and art style of Nadal’s Evangelica historiae imagines, thus marking an important step in Sinicizing and disseminating these Christian narratives to Chinese audiences during the Late Ming period. From this perspective, this article explores Giulio Aleni’s decisions when writing Jingjie, particularly focusing on compilation by replication, re-compositing, and re-design to preserve Western Christian storytelling while incorporating necessary Chinese elements. It further clarifies Evangelica historiae imagines and Vita D.N. lesu Christi as the primary visual and storytelling references, respectively. A map of Jerusalem was included as it relates to Chinese historical documentation. Moreover, through this exploration, Jingjie is further compared with Evangelica historiae imagines and Song Nianzhu Guicheng 诵念珠规程 to examine the transformation of Christian stories through Chinese and Western imagery, thus distinguishing two different transformation approaches to Chinese Christian storytelling (i.e., the retelling of Christian stories for Chinese audiences), serving as a complement to prior related studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chinese Christianity and Knowledge Development—2nd Edition)

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23 pages, 1200 KB

Open AccessArticle

Missionary Lexicography as Knowledge Infrastructure: Wilhelm Lobscheid’s English and Chinese Dictionary (1866–1869) and Knowledge Circulation in East Asia

by Ying Xiong

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1097; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091097 (registering DOI) - 19 Sep 2026

Research on Christianity in modern China has largely focused on missionaries, churches, and Chinese Christians, while the knowledge infrastructures created through missionary activity have received less attention. Taking Wilhelm Lobscheid’s four-volume English and Chinese Dictionary (1866–1869) as a case study, this article combines [...] Read more.

Research on Christianity in modern China has largely focused on missionaries, churches, and Chinese Christians, while the knowledge infrastructures created through missionary activity have received less attention. Taking Wilhelm Lobscheid’s four-volume English and Chinese Dictionary (1866–1869) as a case study, this article combines conceptual history, language-contact history, and global history to examine missionary lexicography as a medium of knowledge production and circulation. It argues, first, that the dictionary emerged from institutional networks linking missionary societies, schools, printing presses, colonial education, and local linguistic resources. Second, through the reuse of inherited concepts, the formation and reorganization of modern terminology, and localized definitions, the dictionary mediated scientific, institutional, theological, and social vocabularies rather than simply transferring them. Third, its reception and adaptation in Japan contributed to multidirectional conceptual circulation within East Asia, although different terms followed distinct trajectories. The article proposes “missionary lexicographical knowledge infrastructure” as a historically grounded analytical concept and outlines a research roadmap that moves from individual missionaries to institutional networks, from evangelization to knowledge production, and from linear diffusion to translingual and regional circulation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Drawing a Roadmap for Research on the History of Christianity in Modern China)

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23 pages, 1250 KB

Open AccessArticle

Playing with Spheres: Religion, Play, Games, and Sport in the Philosophy of Peter Sloterdijk

by Kenny Selamatan

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1096; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091096 (registering DOI) - 18 Sep 2026

This article approaches the study of religion and play from the philosophy of Peter Sloterdijk. Sloterdijk offers a spatial and immersive account of play that explains its psychosocial effects of “relief” against the burdens of existence and work, its excesses and luxury against [...] Read more.

This article approaches the study of religion and play from the philosophy of Peter Sloterdijk. Sloterdijk offers a spatial and immersive account of play that explains its psychosocial effects of “relief” against the burdens of existence and work, its excesses and luxury against necessity and lack, and its two-model structure of a fictive belonging. This is accomplished by looking closely at Sloterdijk’s philosophy of immunology or spheres. Through this investigation, Sloterdijk’s model of the sphere illustrates that games and sport are not isolated phenomena with regard to play but are rather complex extensions of the original play-sphere. From this original play-sphere, religion may develop into structured play (a game) or a professionalised game (sport). For Sloterdijk, religion can be conceived as a playful symbol which allows humans to overcome their gravitas by means of pampering or uplift. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Creativity)

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28 pages, 495 KB

Open AccessArticle

“Images”, Limits and Heart/Mind (Xin 心): The Cognitive Boundaries of “Image” and Its Path of Transcendence in the Study of Yijing

by Haowei Li

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1095; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091095 (registering DOI) - 18 Sep 2026

This study examines the cognitive limits of “image” (xiang 象) in the Yijing and the path of human transcendence that emerges from the recognition of these limits. The concept of “image” has been widely discussed by scholars in different fields, but there [...] Read more.

This study examines the cognitive limits of “image” (xiang 象) in the Yijing and the path of human transcendence that emerges from the recognition of these limits. The concept of “image” has been widely discussed by scholars in different fields, but there is not yet sufficient and satisfactory systematic work on the cognitive limits of “image” as a unified philosophical and religious concern. Building upon the Yijing text, later commentaries, and conceptual analysis, this study argues that the Yijing’s discourse on “image” articulates three perspectives. Firstly, “observing ‘images’” (guan xiang 觀象) reveals that cognitive incompleteness is not a human failing but a real expression of the cosmos’s open, dynamic, and incomplete nature, based on the cosmological principle of “the inscrutability and unfathomability”. Second, “establishing ‘images’ to fully express and exhaust meaning” opens a positive path of understanding within finitude through the analogical openness of “image”. Unlike fixed conceptual definitions, it operates through resonance and contextual adaptation, allowing for the constant incorporation of new meanings. Third, in “attaining meaning and forgetting ‘images’” and the realization of the heart/mind (xin 心), human beings can transcend cognitive limits in an existential unity with the dao of Heaven: a state that is described as “virtue in harmony and match with Heaven and Earth” in the Wenyan 文言. The study concludes that the “image” of the Yijing is not simply a cognitive instrument, but the very medium through which human finitude is both acknowledged and transcended. It thus offers a unique philosophical outlook, in which the recognition of limitation is the very condition for the possibility of transcendence. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Yijing's Cosmology–Divination–Ethics Continuum: The Sacred Intercourse of Yin-Yang and the Manifestation of Tian-Di)

16 pages, 324 KB

Open AccessArticle

Immanent Transcendence and the Basic Character of Confucianism from the Perspective of Modern New Confucianism

by Sixi Sui and Shaolei Wang

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1094; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091094 (registering DOI) - 17 Sep 2026

“Immanent Transcendence” is a landmark concept put forward by modern New Confucian scholars including Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan, which delineates the fundamental ideological character of Confucianism as a religious system. Today, this concept has transcended the intellectual context of modern New Confucianism [...] Read more.

“Immanent Transcendence” is a landmark concept put forward by modern New Confucian scholars including Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan, which delineates the fundamental ideological character of Confucianism as a religious system. Today, this concept has transcended the intellectual context of modern New Confucianism and become a prevalent paradigm for characterizing the features of Confucianism and even traditional Chinese culture. Nevertheless, this widely accepted notion has sustained persistent and in-depth critiques. Three major critical approaches have taken shape in academic circles revolving around the theory of immanent transcendence, all centering on the relationship between Heaven and humanity. This paper intends to respond to these critiques. By reviewing the main debates, it focuses on the Heaven–human relationship—the central theme of the theory of immanent transcendence—and, by introducing Zhu Xi’s mode of thinking, offers a theoretical defense of the legitimacy of the concept of “immanent transcendence”, pointing out that it is a signature concept that can be used to describe the basic intellectual character formed in the development of Confucianism by the Song–Ming period. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religionizing Confucianism: Ritual, Transcendence, and Social Formations in East Asia)

14 pages, 979 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Apian Universe in Eastern Christian Hymnography

by Dragoş Boicu

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1093; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091093 - 17 Sep 2026

Despite the considerable scholarly attention devoted to Byzantine hymnography in recent decades, its content remains insufficiently explored. While most research has focused primarily on its historical development and liturgical function, the present study examines one of the many recurring themes found in the [...] Read more.

Despite the considerable scholarly attention devoted to Byzantine hymnography in recent decades, its content remains insufficiently explored. While most research has focused primarily on its historical development and liturgical function, the present study examines one of the many recurring themes found in the lyric compositions preserved in the principal Byzantine hymnographic anthologies—the Octoechos, the Triodion–Pentecostarion, and the Menaia. The subject under consideration is somewhat unconventional, centering on the apian universe and the poetic imagery conveyed through the troparia and stichera that constitute the Byzantine liturgical offices. The aim of this paper is to document the hymnographic passages in which this imagery occurs and to examine the extent of the apian imaginary, together with the ideas and the message employed by such poetic images. Although references to apian imagery are relatively few within the corpus of the main Byzantine hymnographic collections that continue to be used liturgically today, these images (comparisons, epithets, metaphors, and personifications) build a coherent and relatively unitary symbolic system, through which apian vocabulary was employed to express the abstract realities of spiritual life in terms that were both vivid and readily intelligible to Christians of the first millennium—but not only them. Full article

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38 pages, 31796 KB

Open AccessArticle

Miϑra and His Mąϑra: Jesus as the Eschatological Fulfillment of the Mazdean Final Saošiiaṇt in John’s Prologue

by Gad Barnea

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1092; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091092 - 17 Sep 2026

The Gospel of John is geographically associated with Judea and Anatolia—regions that, throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods, formed part of the frontier with the Iranian world. Anatolia preserved important Mazdean traditions well into the Common era, while the budding miϑra cult established [...] Read more.

The Gospel of John is geographically associated with Judea and Anatolia—regions that, throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods, formed part of the frontier with the Iranian world. Anatolia preserved important Mazdean traditions well into the Common era, while the budding miϑra cult established itself in Judea around the time the Fourth Gospel was actively being elaborated—most notably at Caesarea Maritima, where an early Christian community coexisted with the party responsible for one of the earliest Mithraea (ca. 80 CE). This article reexamines the Johannine Prologue against the backdrop of Mazdean traditions, such as miϑra’s emergence in the Roman world as δημιουργός, the concept of the incarnate mąϑra (“divine utterance”), and, especially, the Mazdean eschatological figure of the final saošiiaṇt (restorer of creation)—notions that were integrated by the Johannine community through a process of interpretatio Iohannica to articulate its Christology. Rather than influences from Mithraism, which was at the time in its infancy, or direct textual dependence on Mazdean sources, the article appeals to a convergence of geographical, archaeological, chronological, theological, and linguistic evidence for a shared religious environment where the Johannine Prologue creatively assimilated a coherent network of Mazdean concepts into a thoroughly Jewish theological framework. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Johannine Scholarship: Texts, Contexts, and Trajectories)

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21 pages, 283 KB

Open AccessArticle

Orificially Olaudah: Eschatological Feasting, Gastronomical Rhetoric, and Abolitionism in Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative

by Ryan Furlong

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1091; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091091 - 17 Sep 2026

Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African: Written by Himself is gastronomically surprising. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slave narratives leaned on the rhetorical powers of eating and drinking to stir up sentimental feeling and moral [...] Read more.

Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African: Written by Himself is gastronomically surprising. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slave narratives leaned on the rhetorical powers of eating and drinking to stir up sentimental feeling and moral disgust among anglophone publics hungry to consume eyewitness accounts of slavery. But Equiano uniquely sets the table for readers by critiquing the British slave trade for its consumptive logics and cannibalistic desires through diverse metaphors, rhetoric, and scenes related to eating and drinking—particularly in a theological key. Equiano’s autobiography thematizes his antislavery polemics through a rival feasting of interracial love and freedom in his climactic conversion to Methodist Christianity: the love feast. Contra readings that locate Equiano’s love-feasting in the history of the early church or his boyhood past of Igbo ritual and commensality, I argue Equiano spotlights this fellowship meal as an eschatological foretaste of an interracial kingdom to come. God, as Equiano indicates, condemns the slave trade and racial injustice from the future—not the past or even the present—allowing Equiano to consume, and appeal to, a Christian faith that promised, for himself and his race, a place at God’s eternal table. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meeting at the Crossroads: Understanding the Intersection of Rhetoric, Race, and Religion)

24 pages, 328 KB

Open AccessArticle

Theology as a Critical Interface: Transversal Rationality Across AI Ethics and Posthumanist Accounts of the Human

by Doru Negricea

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1090; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091090 - 17 Sep 2026

This conceptual-theological study asks how J. Wentzel van Huyssteen’s postfoundationalist notion of transversal rationality can enable theology to function as a critical interface across AI ethics and posthumanist accounts of the human. Here, “critical interface” names a site of reciprocal scrutiny rather than [...] Read more.

This conceptual-theological study asks how J. Wentzel van Huyssteen’s postfoundationalist notion of transversal rationality can enable theology to function as a critical interface across AI ethics and posthumanist accounts of the human. Here, “critical interface” names a site of reciprocal scrutiny rather than a claim that theology supplies an exclusive moral vocabulary: technical, ethical, posthumanist, and theological claims are compared, translated, and tested while retaining their distinctive forms of reasoning. Using a conceptual-hermeneutical method, the study brings major theological interlocutors into conversation with scholarship on AI ethics, education, governance, and posthumanism. Higher education serves as the principal heuristic case, while the framework is intended to address broader AI-mediated contexts. The article argues that theology should neither withdraw into disciplinary isolation nor claim authority over technical questions; rather, it can contribute cross-contextual normative judgment concerning human dignity, epistemic autonomy, personhood, responsibility, and the common good. The analysis develops four interconnected implications: a theological anthropology of human uniqueness that resists functional reduction; a distinction between technological collaboration and communion; a public-theological response to post-truth and algorithmic mediation; and a model of responsible technological stewardship grounded in oikonomia. The article does not claim that theology uniquely discovers norms unavailable to non-theological ethics. Its original contribution is to show how transversal rationality makes the different grounds and anthropological assumptions of these norms mutually accountable within a four-part theological-ethical framework. Full article

17 pages, 25581 KB

Open AccessArticle

Thick Signs: Amplifying God-Sensation in Vrindavan

by Atreyee Majumder

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1089; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091089 - 17 Sep 2026

The divine currency of Radha-Krishna, the couple god, travels across the sacred geography of the Braj in northern India via a robust sign economy. In this article, I draw from my ethnographic narratives to demonstrate three domains of sign-form generation of the name-words [...] Read more.

The divine currency of Radha-Krishna, the couple god, travels across the sacred geography of the Braj in northern India via a robust sign economy. In this article, I draw from my ethnographic narratives to demonstrate three domains of sign-form generation of the name-words of Radha-Krishna: visual, aural/verbal, and ritual/performative. I argue that an elaborate sign economy is required to sustain an intangible God-sensation by translating it into palpable, mundane, earthly forms. Not only does the sign-form thrive as a fusion between the real and the sign, but it also strengthens and comes to mirror the God-intuition in the hearts of the devotee public. This endless, repetitive, creative sign economy constitutes what I call “thick signs”: indelible, weighty, dense, sticky sign-forms that imbue the physical world with a significant layer of divine currency that forms a pathway for intensified God-sensation that keeps God alive in the mundane, earthly world. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Arts, Spirituality, and Religion—2nd Edition)

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17 pages, 265 KB

Open AccessArticle

Soul Sisters: Unique Partners in the New Monastic Recovery of Ancient Christian Forms of Life

by Evan Bradford Howard

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1088; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091088 - 16 Sep 2026

As Christians have explored the Christian life through history, they have found themselves recovering not only ancient spiritual practices, but also practice-encompassing forms of life. One ancient set of forms is known as “monasticism”, an arrangement by which some choose to live an [...] Read more.

As Christians have explored the Christian life through history, they have found themselves recovering not only ancient spiritual practices, but also practice-encompassing forms of life. One ancient set of forms is known as “monasticism”, an arrangement by which some choose to live an alternative lifestyle for the sake of following the gospel of Jesus. While the recovery of monastic life has recently received attention by Protestants, there is a need for helpful models of interpreting the traditional into appropriate expressions today. This paper suggests that the history of American women religious displays just this kind of interpretation: a “life-hermeneutic” which looks back, around, and forward. In this paper, I will present a portrait of American women religious, particularly with regard to two critical periods of life-hermeneutic challenge: the 19th century and the decades following the Second Vatican Council. I describe their life-hermeneutical “looks” in each situation. Finally, I will consider how Protestants today might recover the heritage of women’s circles in contemporary new monastic experiments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Christian Spirituality: Ancient Foundations, Modern Expressions)

9 pages, 169 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Priesthood of the Pew: Call and Response as the Fulfillment of the Reformation’s Liturgical Ideal

by Philmont Devon Bostic

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1087; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091087 - 16 Sep 2026

The Protestant Reformation championed the priesthood of all believers, an ideal envisioning a participatory and intelligible liturgy unmediated by a specialized clerical class. However, in an increasingly consumeristic and hyper-individualistic Western culture, contemporary Protestant worship often devolves into a spectator event that silences [...] Read more.

The Protestant Reformation championed the priesthood of all believers, an ideal envisioning a participatory and intelligible liturgy unmediated by a specialized clerical class. However, in an increasingly consumeristic and hyper-individualistic Western culture, contemporary Protestant worship often devolves into a spectator event that silences the laity. Employing a Black practical theological method, this paper decenters European historical lenses, positioning the lived praxis of the African American sanctuary as the primary theological text. By examining the roots of hush harbor meetings, the broader liturgical practices of song and prayer, and the homiletical techniques of figures like A.M.E. Zion Bishop James Walker Hood, this study argues that the Black Church tradition of call-and-response serves as the organic and prophetic fulfillment of the sixteenth-century liturgical ideal. The dialogical nature of Black worship dismantles professionalized passive liturgy, grants marginalized worshippers divine somebodiness, and actively actualizes the priesthood of all believers by transforming the congregation into a liberated, vocal collective. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Worship in the 16th-Century Reformation: Theology and Practice)

11 pages, 225 KB

Open AccessArticle

Friendship as a Costly Gift: A Theological Account of Ecclesial Power, Role-Based Asymmetry, and Boundary Work

by Chloe Lynch

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1086; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091086 - 15 Sep 2026

Friendship–leadership constitutes an innovative and theologically grounded praxis of ecclesial influence that may, under specific conditions, function within role-based power asymmetries. Locating friendship–leadership within a broader typology of power, this paper develops this kenotic mode of influence as power exercised with others and [...] Read more.

Friendship–leadership constitutes an innovative and theologically grounded praxis of ecclesial influence that may, under specific conditions, function within role-based power asymmetries. Locating friendship–leadership within a broader typology of power, this paper develops this kenotic mode of influence as power exercised with others and for their good. The particular pragmatic challenge posed by asymmetry inherent in professionalised roles of ecclesial leadership is then addressed through an account of boundary work as the discernment of contextualised rules of art by which friendship–leadership may remain attentive to extant power dynamics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reimagining Ministry: Formation, Leadership, and Innovation for the 21st Century)

10 pages, 203 KB

Open AccessEditorial

Positive Psychology and Psychology of Religion and Spirituality—Going Beyond the WEIRD Sample

by Adam Anczyk, Halina Grzymała-Moszczyńska and Anna M. Maćkowiak

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1085; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091085 - 15 Sep 2026

The psychology of religion and spirituality and positive psychology are, of course, two distinct subdisciplines [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion, Spirituality, Well-Being and Positive Psychology)

17 pages, 348 KB

Open AccessArticle

Visual Symbols, Ethical Negotiation, and the Sovereignty of Memory: The Cinematic Representation of Christianity in Nanjing Massacre Films

by Xiaotong Wang and Cong Wang

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1084; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091084 - 15 Sep 2026

This article examines the changing cinematic functions of Christian imagery, religiously inflected space, and theological language in films about the Nanjing Massacre. Missionaries, Christian schools, hospitals, and relief workers form part of the historical archive on which these films draw, but cinema reorganizes [...] Read more.

This article examines the changing cinematic functions of Christian imagery, religiously inflected space, and theological language in films about the Nanjing Massacre. Missionaries, Christian schools, hospitals, and relief workers form part of the historical archive on which these films draw, but cinema reorganizes that archive through framing, sound, performance, genre, and narrative focus. Combining historical film theory with a dialogical theology-and-film approach, the article traces how refuge, conscience, sacrifice, and witness become visible, and how moral agency is distributed among foreign rescuers, perpetrator-witnesses, Chinese victims, and civilian custodians of evidence. Films from 1987 to 1995 established a grammar of bodily suffering, ruined urban space, archival authentication, and temporary shelter. John Rabe and City of Life and Death (2009) redirected moral attention toward rescue and perpetrator conscience, while The Flowers of War (2011) placed church architecture, clerical performance, sacred music, and substitutionary sacrifice at the center of its visual world. Dead to Rights (2025) relocates witnessing to a photographic studio where Chinese civilians develop, preserve, and transmit evidence. The article argues that Christianity functions as a historically grounded but shifting cinematic resource whose sacred functions and witnessing authority are repeatedly redistributed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Film in the 21st Century: Perspectives and Challenges)

20 pages, 442 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Spiritual Roots of Sustainable Consumption Among Muslim Consumers: Environmental and Health Consciousness as Mediating Pathways

by Hızır Hacıkeleşoğlu, İbrahim Avcı and Muhammet Enes Vural

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1083; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091083 - 15 Sep 2026

Research on sustainable consumption has largely emphasized secular motivations, leaving the psychological role of spirituality/religiosity underexplored within Muslim societies. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the relationship between spirituality and sustainable consumption behaviors (SCBs) among Muslim consumers in Türkiye, with environmental and health [...] Read more.

Research on sustainable consumption has largely emphasized secular motivations, leaving the psychological role of spirituality/religiosity underexplored within Muslim societies. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the relationship between spirituality and sustainable consumption behaviors (SCBs) among Muslim consumers in Türkiye, with environmental and health consciousness examined as parallel mediating mechanisms. Data were collected from 414 adult Muslim consumers through an online survey and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural path analysis via Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 4). The empirical findings indicate that spirituality is significantly and positively associated with sustainable consumption behaviors both directly and indirectly. Environmental consciousness emerged as a numerically stronger mediating pathway than health consciousness in the relationship between spirituality and sustainable consumption. Notably, when both mediators are included in the model, the direct path from spirituality to sustainable consumption behaviors becomes non-significant, consistent with a full-mediation pattern in the estimated model, in line with the value–attitude–behavior hierarchy. These results suggest that spirituality’s association with consumption decisions is, within the estimated model, transmitted through intervening attitudinal states. The study suggests that sustainable consumption initiatives in Muslim contexts can be meaningfully strengthened by integrating eco-friendly practices with consumers’ underlying spiritual and religious values. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Eco-Spirituality: Intersections of Faith, Nature, and Ethics)

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17 pages, 245 KB

Open AccessArticle

Between Buffet-Style Islam and the Complete-Package Islam: The Indonesian Ulama Council Balancing Moderation and Orthodoxy

by Erni Budiwanti and Levi Geir Eidhamar

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1082; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091082 - 15 Sep 2026

Since the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed an intensified public role for religious authority alongside the consolidation of democratic institutions. Within this transformed political landscape, the Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) is tremendously influential, serving as a government [...] Read more.

Since the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed an intensified public role for religious authority alongside the consolidation of democratic institutions. Within this transformed political landscape, the Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) is tremendously influential, serving as a government advisory body. This article approaches the MUI through the continuum between buffet-style Islam and complete-package Islam. “Buffet-style” refers to approaches where believers selectively interpret and practice Islam according to their individual choices. In contrast, complete-package Islam emphasises a holistic understanding of Islam where religious doctrine functions as an integrated system under recognised religious authority. Rather than treating these tendencies as segregated extreme poles, the article argues that they exist along a continuum continuously negotiated within Indonesian Islam. Viewed within this framework, the MUI’s trajectory reveals a striking paradox. Fatwas against pluralism and Ahmadiyya reflected strong commitments to doctrinal orthodoxy and boundary-making authority. Simultaneously, the rise in religious moderation has increasingly positioned the MUI within state-sponsored discourses of tolerance and harmony. By situating the MUI within this continuum, the article examines how it negotiates the tensions between doctrinal authority and religious moderation and the extent to which this negotiation shapes the governance of pluralism in democratic Indonesia. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences)

1 pages, 170 KB

Open AccessCorrection

Correction: Hung (2025). Is Emptiness Non-Empty? Jizang’s Conception of Buddha-Nature. Religions 16: 184

by Jenny Hung

Religions 2026, 17(9), 1081; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17091081 - 15 Sep 2026

In the original publication (Hung 2025), (Yin Shun 1992b) was incorrectly cited [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Humanities/Philosophies)

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