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 22.8 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 4.6 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the first half of 2024).
- Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.
Impact Factor:
0.7 (2023)
Latest Articles
Soul-Life: Richard Jefferies’ Mystical Vision of Nature
Religions 2024, 15(8), 910; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080910 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
This paper examines Richard Jefferies’ contribution to the study of nature mysticism. I argue that the study of nature mysticism can be utilized as a valuable source of insight to cultivate a more ecocentric response to the ecological crisis. Historically, the study of
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This paper examines Richard Jefferies’ contribution to the study of nature mysticism. I argue that the study of nature mysticism can be utilized as a valuable source of insight to cultivate a more ecocentric response to the ecological crisis. Historically, the study of mysticism in the West has been shaped by a monotheistic bias that tends to marginalize the teachings of nature mystics. I seek to redress this lacuna in the field by calling attention to the understudied teachings of the English mystic and author, Richard Jefferies. I claim that Jefferies’ spiritual autobiography, The Story of My Heart ([1883] 2014) presents a compelling vision of nature mysticism that challenges the reader to reflect critically on conventional understandings of God, body, and time/being. Most significantly, I argue that Jefferies concept of “soul-life” can be interpreted as an ontological category characterized by an intellectual and moral sensitivity towards the wonders of nature. Jefferies believed that the cultivation of soul-life is transformative and key to unlocking the full potential of our relationship to the earth and each other.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mysticism and Social Justice)
Open AccessArticle
Bioethics and the Human Body
by
Ursula Plöckinger and Ulrike Ernst-Auga
Religions 2024, 15(8), 909; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080909 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
We discuss the concept of a ‘body’, the individual body as the lived experience of the body, the social body, shaped by the tensions between the demands of a social/moral order and the egocentric drives, and the body politic, as an institutionalized
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We discuss the concept of a ‘body’, the individual body as the lived experience of the body, the social body, shaped by the tensions between the demands of a social/moral order and the egocentric drives, and the body politic, as an institutionalized and disciplined body. We describe the body as it was perceived in Classical Greek Antiquity at the time when the Hippocratic Oath was first conceived, and any changes that may have occurred by Late Antiquity, using the concept of a body-world as represented by everyday life, the arts, politics, philosophy, and religion. This ‘recreated’ body-world elucidates how a person of Classical or Late Antiquity perceived her/his body via their ‘lived-in’ world and relates it to medical and philosophical thinking about the body as well as to concepts of health and disease. We demonstrate how the institutional structures of the Roman Empire and the Church influenced the way a body was understood, how the administrative and governmental needs led to the first developments of Public Health, and how the Christian understanding of the body as the body and spirit of Christ changed the attitude towards suicide, euthanasia, and abortion. These changes are reflected in the understanding of bioethical thinking and affected the interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences)
Open AccessArticle
Between “Jing 敬” and “Cheng 诚”: A Linguistic Study of the Internalization Process in the Pre-Qin Confucian Ethical System
by
Cong Li
Religions 2024, 15(8), 908; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080908 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
From a semantic viewpoint, “Jing 敬” emphasizes an attitude of external respect and adherence to ritual propriety, whereas “Cheng 诚” signifies the true alignment between one’s internal attitudes and external actions. An exploration of “Jing” and “Cheng” in The Analects, The Great
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From a semantic viewpoint, “Jing 敬” emphasizes an attitude of external respect and adherence to ritual propriety, whereas “Cheng 诚” signifies the true alignment between one’s internal attitudes and external actions. An exploration of “Jing” and “Cheng” in The Analects, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, and The Works of Mencius from a linguistic perspective reveals the following: In the ethical system of The Analects, “Jing” represents an attitude towards others, and “Cheng” is rarely mentioned, with personal morality anchored in the social order; in The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, “Jing” is seldom discussed, while “Cheng” is emphasized as a requirement for individuals, highlighting the intrinsic nature and spontaneity of personal morality; The Works of Mencius, while inheriting Confucius’s concepts, also adopts the ideas from The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean and reinterprets “Jing” internally, achieving a unity between personal morality and social ethics. The shift from “Jing” to “Cheng” and the reinterpretation of “Jing” reflect the concentrated embodiment of the internal reconstruction of the Pre-Qin Confucian ethical system.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ethical Concerns in Early Confucianism)
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Open AccessArticle
How Useful Is the Christian Theology of Religions? Critical Questions from a Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology Perspective
by
Henning Wrogemann
Religions 2024, 15(8), 907; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080907 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
This contribution to the literature regarding the Christian theology of religions presents a critical view from the outside, a meta-reflection primarily from a religious studies perspective considering the conditions and contexts of academic theology on the one hand, and lived interreligious relationships on
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This contribution to the literature regarding the Christian theology of religions presents a critical view from the outside, a meta-reflection primarily from a religious studies perspective considering the conditions and contexts of academic theology on the one hand, and lived interreligious relationships on the other, which are all-too-easily ignored in works of the theology of religions. First, some newer approaches to the theology of religions will be mentioned before critical questions will be addressed from a religious studies perspective. These are observations in discourse theory, the sociology of religion, religious economics and spatial theory. This is followed by observations from the perspective of intercultural theology, which examine approaches to the theology of religions with regard to phenomena within the Pentecostal movement, discursive constellations in Muslim majority societies and cultural–religious aspects within Indian society. Finally, the “theology of interreligious relations” will be proposed as a corrective to the shortcomings of the ordinary theology of religions.
Full article
Open AccessArticle
Buddhism’s Knotted Thread (結縷法): Indian Origins and Chinese Adaptations
by
Gang Yang
Religions 2024, 15(8), 906; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080906 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
The Buddhist “Knotted Thread” originates from the ancient Indian practice of venerating sacred threads. In Indian culture, sacred threads symbolize identity and status and possess functions such as exorcism, healing, disaster prevention, blessing, protection, and divination. Initially, Buddhism opposed the use of sacred
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The Buddhist “Knotted Thread” originates from the ancient Indian practice of venerating sacred threads. In Indian culture, sacred threads symbolize identity and status and possess functions such as exorcism, healing, disaster prevention, blessing, protection, and divination. Initially, Buddhism opposed the use of sacred threads by its followers. However, as Buddhism evolved, it began to adopt this and other practices. Buddhist threads could be monochromatic or multicolored, with five-colored threads (五色縷) having significant cultural connections to China. In Buddhism, the five colors typically consist of four primary colors (四本色; blue, yellow, red, and white) plus an additional color. The difference between the Buddhist and traditional Chinese five colors lies in the selection of the fifth color. The five-colored threads in Buddhism have various combinations, such as blue, yellow, red, white, and black; blue, yellow, red, white, and purple; and blue, yellow, red, white and green. With Buddhism’s spread into China, to align with traditional Chinese notions of five colors, the Buddhist five-colored threads gradually standardized to blue, yellow, red, white, and black. The evolution of the Buddhist five-colored threads reflects the cultural exchange between India and China.
Full article
Open AccessArticle
Apostolate through Books: The Translation Practice by Catholicism during Late Ming and Early Qing
by
Yafeng Li, Jingmin Fu and Jiyun Huang
Religions 2024, 15(8), 905; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080905 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
Catholicism during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties is the most fascinating chapter in the development history of Christian culture in China. Apostolate through books emerged as a prominent method of Sino-West cultural exchange during that time. Apostolate through books by Catholicism
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Catholicism during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties is the most fascinating chapter in the development history of Christian culture in China. Apostolate through books emerged as a prominent method of Sino-West cultural exchange during that time. Apostolate through books by Catholicism was realized by means of translation practice, leading to a notable religious influence. Based on this perspective, this paper discusses the history and connotation of apostolate through books, particularly focusing on the characteristics of apostolate through books by Catholicism during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. In achieving this, this research shows the translation motivation and translation effect of apostolate through books during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes that the translation practice of apostolate through books by Catholicism has laid a good foundation for the sinicization and acceptance of Catholicism in China, highlighting the relationship between apostolate through books by Catholicism and the sinicization of Christian culture, so as to enlighten the internationalization of religious culture.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Texts, Interpretations, and Reception Histories in Chinese Christianity)
Open AccessArticle
The Pilgrim’s Progress or Regress? The Case of Transhumanism and Deification
by
Kimbell Kornu
Religions 2024, 15(8), 904; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080904 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
Transhumanism presents a view of human progress by transcending the human, regarding finitude and suffering to be fundamental problems that must be overcome by radical bioenhancement technologies. Recent theologians have compared Christianity and transhumanism as competing deifications via grace and technology, respectively. Ron
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Transhumanism presents a view of human progress by transcending the human, regarding finitude and suffering to be fundamental problems that must be overcome by radical bioenhancement technologies. Recent theologians have compared Christianity and transhumanism as competing deifications via grace and technology, respectively. Ron Cole-Turner is a cautious yet optimistic interpreter of the relationship between Christian deification and transhumanism, regarding them, on the one hand, to be incompatible based on self-centeredness vs. kenosis, while on the other hand, they can be compatible through a robust theology of creation and transfiguration such that creative human efforts via technology will be an active agent in transforming the world in glory. In this way, Christian transhumanism offers a vision of human progress in deification that transfigures creation through technology. In this paper, I challenge this proposal. I wish to show how transhumanism in any stripe, whether secular, Christian, or other, is fundamentally incompatible with Christian deification for two reasons: (1) incompatible views of progress and (2) incompatible views of human agency in deification. I will address each in turn. I then propose that human progress is infinite growth in the love of Christ. Finally, I suggest how a view of human agency affects how we think about suffering as a means to human progress.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Humanities/Philosophies)
Open AccessArticle
A Reception of Pauline Ideas Shaped by a Jewish Milieu: The Case of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies
by
Karin Hedner Zetterholm
Religions 2024, 15(8), 903; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080903 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
This essay focuses on the reception of Pauline ideas in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, commonly dated to the early fourth century. At first, the claim that the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies contain Pauline ideas may seem surprising, since the Homilies are commonly considered “Jewish Christian” and
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This essay focuses on the reception of Pauline ideas in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, commonly dated to the early fourth century. At first, the claim that the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies contain Pauline ideas may seem surprising, since the Homilies are commonly considered “Jewish Christian” and thus anti-Pauline. However, new readings of Paul generated by the “Paul within Judaism” perspective, along with new insights on the Homilies, reveal that the latter work seems to contain Pauline ideas not preserved in other receptions of Paul. The Homilies share with Paul the following traits and ideas: (1) like Paul, the Homilies distinguish between Jews and non-Jews (the term “Christian” never appears) and, like Paul, the Homilies’ teachings about law address gentiles and prescribe a kind of Judaism for them; (2) gentiles must adapt to a Jewish lifestyle and keep the commandments that the Torah prescribes for non-Israelites; (3) Jews and Jesus-oriented gentiles together make up the people of God (called theosebeis in the Homilies), but the distinction between them remains. They have equal status in the eyes of God but differences in their observance of the law remain. An important point where the Homilies deviate from Paul is their insistence that Jews do not necessarily need Jesus. For the Homilies, Jesus is primarily the teacher of gentiles, and they envision two parallel paths to salvation: Moses for Jews and Jesus for gentiles. This essay suggests that the Homilies’ understanding of ideas that we recognize as Pauline developed in a milieu marked by the presence of non-Jesus-oriented (rabbinic) Jews.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Paul among Jews and Christians: Redescribing the “Jewishness” of Paul and His Receptions)
Open AccessEssay
Perceiving God: The Spiritual Senses in Bonaventure’s Mystical Theology
by
Attila Puskás
Religions 2024, 15(8), 902; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080902 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
This essay examines the distinctive features; unchanging basic elements and changing emphases of Bonaventure’s interpretation of the spiritual senses based on four works selected from different periods of his life and considered significant for the subject. In the first chapter, I analyse the
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This essay examines the distinctive features; unchanging basic elements and changing emphases of Bonaventure’s interpretation of the spiritual senses based on four works selected from different periods of his life and considered significant for the subject. In the first chapter, I analyse the relevant passages of Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Book of Sentences; in the second the De reductione artium ad theologiam; in the third the Breviloquium; and in the fourth the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. The objects of investigation are as follows: the correlation between the acts of spiritual senses and their object; the basis of the hierarchical order of spiritual senses; the relationship between spiritual senses; mental excesses and mystical transit; and the relation to Dionysian mystical theology.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Varieties of Revelation: Scripture, Theology, and Philosophy in the Perspective of Divine Disclosure)
Open AccessArticle
“I Did Not Come to China for That!”: Intersections of Mission Work, Marriage, and Motherhood for Southern Baptist Women in China at the Turn of the 20th Century
by
T. Laine Scales
Religions 2024, 15(8), 901; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080901 - 26 Jul 2024
Abstract
The private writings of two Southern Baptist women missionaries in China are analyzed to deepen our understanding of women’s perspectives on their daily lives. After reviewing secondary research on married and single women’s work in China, the author uses primary source examples from
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The private writings of two Southern Baptist women missionaries in China are analyzed to deepen our understanding of women’s perspectives on their daily lives. After reviewing secondary research on married and single women’s work in China, the author uses primary source examples from family letters and diaries to illustrate differences in responsibilities and opportunities for single and married women, and how motherhood changed their relationship to their work even further. Requirements for “homemaking”, and a “civilizing mission” expected of married women, increased pressure on missionary wives. Single women, arriving in larger numbers in the early 20th century, were able to focus only on the mission work and accomplish more. The success and productivity of single women further marginalized married women, particularly those with children, who could not keep up with their single counterparts in the mission work. By exploring these two exemplars we can draw an even more nuanced picture of the many ways Baptist women missionaries negotiated their callings in light of their family status.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reclaiming Voices: Women's Contributions to Baptist History)
Open AccessArticle
The God Who Is Visible to All: Healing and Sun Worship in Śrīvidyā Tantra
by
Maciej Karasinski
Religions 2024, 15(8), 900; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080900 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to discuss sun worship and healing practices in Samayācāra Śrīvidyā, a Hindu tantric tradition. Thus, I use anthropological and philological perspectives to show how the contemporary Samayācāra Śrīvidyā guru of Śrī Lalitāmbikā and his disciples redefine healing
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The aim of this paper is to discuss sun worship and healing practices in Samayācāra Śrīvidyā, a Hindu tantric tradition. Thus, I use anthropological and philological perspectives to show how the contemporary Samayācāra Śrīvidyā guru of Śrī Lalitāmbikā and his disciples redefine healing and use sun-related meditations to energize and rejuvenate the human body. This paper shows how contemporary Tantric religiosity is multidimensional in nature and promises protection from disease and an overall better quality of life. Conversely, I endeavor to show how the Śrī Lalitāmbikā temple combines solar healing with tantric practices that lead to a reconnection with the divine and offer the ultimate dimension of healing, i.e., spiritual immortality.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion, Spirituality and Medicine: Insights into Contemporary Perspectives)
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Open AccessArticle
Death, Rebirth, and Pilgrimage Experience in Aelius Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi
by
Georgia Petridou
Religions 2024, 15(8), 899; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080899 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
The close conceptual links between symbolic death, rebirth, and pilgrimage are widely known to modern sociologists and anthropologists and can be observed in several modern pilgrimage traditions. This study argues that the same connections can already be detected in Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi,
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The close conceptual links between symbolic death, rebirth, and pilgrimage are widely known to modern sociologists and anthropologists and can be observed in several modern pilgrimage traditions. This study argues that the same connections can already be detected in Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi, “the earliest detailed first-person account of pilgrimage that survives from antiquity”. In terms of methodology, this article follows recent scholarly work on ancient lived religion perspectives and religiously motivated mobility that favours a broader understanding of the notion of pilgrimage in the Greek-speaking world. Rutherford, in particular, has produced a plethora of pioneering studies on all aspects of ‘sacred tourism’ experience in various media including documentary papyri, inscriptions, and graffiti. This chapter builds further on Rutherford’s work and focuses on Aristides’ accounts of his visits to smaller, less-well known healing centres. The main aim is to demonstrate how Aristides’ pilgrimage experience to the healing temple of Asclepius at Poimanenos or Poimanenon (a town of ancient Mysia near Cyzicus) is wholly recast and presented in terms of travelling to the sacred site of Eleusis, one of the most important cultural and religious centres of the Roman Empire in the Antonine Era. Thus, Aristides’ pilgrimage experience to Poimanenos is successfully reframed as a mystic initiation that marks the death of the previous ill self and the birth of the new, enlightened, and healthy self.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Travel and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean)
Open AccessArticle
A Caged Bird in a Communist Pavilion: Chao Tzu-chen and the Remolding of Yenching University’s School of Religion, 1949–1951
by
Peter Kwok-Fai Law
Religions 2024, 15(8), 898; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080898 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
This article examines church–state relations in the early period of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by scrutinising the thoughts and the administration of Chao Tzu-chen—a prominent Chinese Christian leader—at Yenching University’s School of Religion and its successor organisation. This article largely relies
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This article examines church–state relations in the early period of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by scrutinising the thoughts and the administration of Chao Tzu-chen—a prominent Chinese Christian leader—at Yenching University’s School of Religion and its successor organisation. This article largely relies on the archives of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, delving into Chao’s psychological conflicts and the role of the Anglican churches in Chao’s plan for the separation of the School of Religion from the university. It argues that Chao Tzu-chen’s self-contradictions in his public versus private expressions after 1949 signify his disillusionment in fostering the convergence between Christianity and Communism, as demonstrated in his dilemma regarding church–state relations. Although Chao tried to adapt to the new political order by urging Chinese churches to offer practical and concrete social services, he continued his independent, critical theological reflections on the indigenisation of Christianity, as reflected in his private portrayal of the incompatibility between Christianity and Communism, and in his close connection with foreign churches in his fund-raising campaign. Moreover, apart from highlighting the importance of the Hong Kong Anglican church in financially supporting the Yenching School of Religion, this article seeks to contribute to academic research of Chinese higher education in the 1950s through examining how the Chinese Communist Party’s remolding of the School put an end to the emerging public sphere of a civil society. It reveals that this liberal Christian institute, which lost its control over curriculum design and the right to accept foreign funds, was quickly converted into a government-funded, socialist theological college in service of two masters: the Party and the Church.
Full article
(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))
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Open AccessArticle
Loss in Light of the Last Things: Christianity, Eschatology, and Grief in Inside Out
by
Matthew John Paul Tan
Religions 2024, 15(8), 897; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080897 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
With reference to the film Inside Out, we show how Christian eschatology helps us understand the personal experience of grieving loss, generated by capital’s demands for labor hypermobility and its resultant disjunctures in a person’s biography. Inside Out cinematically portrays, in seemingly
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With reference to the film Inside Out, we show how Christian eschatology helps us understand the personal experience of grieving loss, generated by capital’s demands for labor hypermobility and its resultant disjunctures in a person’s biography. Inside Out cinematically portrays, in seemingly unremarkable moments, an inbreaking of a redemptive eschatological moment. We organize our case around two eschatological themes, those of judgement and death. The first section links a person’s affective experience, the structures that generate those experiences, and the last things; we make our case using Merleau-Ponty’s account of the intervolved body and Affect Theory’s relationship to Foucauldian power. The second section investigates what becomes of loss and restoration when they are refracted eschatologically, using Guardini’s idea of biographical death, Critical Theory’s conception of the Messianic, and Bonaventure’s conception of the convergence of opposites. We ultimately propose that, seen in the light of the last things, grieving over loss and its opposite, the restoration of what was lost, converge into one and the same thing. A third section will circle back to Inside Out and highlight the contours of the restoration of that which was lost in light of the two eschatological themes above.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief)
Open AccessArticle
‘This Is the Greatest Thing a Man Can Do’: Vocational Journeys of Recently Ordained Catholic Priests in Australia
by
Stephen Bullivant
Religions 2024, 15(8), 896; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080896 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
In many Western countries, the Catholic Church (like several others) is currently suffering a vocations crisis. Australia is no exception. Each year, dioceses see more priests retire, die, or leave the priesthood than new ones are ordained. For this reason, it is becoming
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In many Western countries, the Catholic Church (like several others) is currently suffering a vocations crisis. Australia is no exception. Each year, dioceses see more priests retire, die, or leave the priesthood than new ones are ordained. For this reason, it is becoming increasingly mission-critical for dioceses to understand better the vocational journeys of those men who do become priests. These are also, of course, groups of considerable sociological interest: what motivates them to do (and become) something so countercultural? This article presents the main findings from a qualitative research project exploring the vocational journeys of recently ordained (i.e., within the past ten years at the time of the study) priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney, New South Wales.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences)
Open AccessArticle
A Prolegomenon to the Visual Language of Dance in Gandhāra
by
Ashwini Lakshminarayanan
Religions 2024, 15(8), 895; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080895 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
Pre-modern Indian subcontinent provides a treasure trove of art historical data in the form of stone sculptures and reliefs to study dance. While significant steps towards understanding the literary and visual language of dance have been made, artistic production from Gandhāra (the ancient
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Pre-modern Indian subcontinent provides a treasure trove of art historical data in the form of stone sculptures and reliefs to study dance. While significant steps towards understanding the literary and visual language of dance have been made, artistic production from Gandhāra (the ancient region broadly covering the northwestern part of the subcontinent) largely remains absent in scholarly discussions. Ancient Gandhāra readily lends itself to a global approach as an active participant alongside the so-called ancient Silk Roads connecting the Mediterranean regions with China. Furthermore, as part of the Buddhist pilgrimage routes, Gandhāra also developed ties with Buddhist sites located further east and participated in the spread of Buddhism to China. Within this context, this article discusses the most common dance depicted in Gandhāran art to understand how artists represented dance in the static medium. Using this dance as an illustration, this article also argues that the iconographic conventions of the Gandhāran artistic repertoire for dance are shared outside the region, notably in Kizil, which is located alongside the northern branch of the Silk Roads.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Localization, Globalization and Glocalization: Paradigm Shifts in the Study of Transmission and Transformation of Buddhism in Asia and Beyond)
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Open AccessArticle
’Srī Gurugītā: A Sanskrit Devotional Text and Musical Yogic Practice
by
Brita Renée Heimarck
Religions 2024, 15(8), 894; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080894 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
This article investigates the Sanskrit hymn, ´Srī Gurugītā, from a scholarly, scriptural, historical, and ethnographic standpoint. Mystical yogic concepts such as chaitanya-shabda (Consciousness–sound) and shravana samadhi (absorption through reading or listening to holy texts) are introduced in the context of Gurugītā recitation.
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This article investigates the Sanskrit hymn, ´Srī Gurugītā, from a scholarly, scriptural, historical, and ethnographic standpoint. Mystical yogic concepts such as chaitanya-shabda (Consciousness–sound) and shravana samadhi (absorption through reading or listening to holy texts) are introduced in the context of Gurugītā recitation. The history of diverse lineages that practice Gurugītā recitation and several historical dimensions of svadhyaya (long-text chanting) and namasankirtana (short chants) are briefly introduced, and the works of Jeremy Morse and Antonio Rigopoulos are closely considered. This article deals with the significant elements of yogic awakening referenced within the Gurugītā text and the goal of liberation cited therein. Many scholars have researched Hinduism, Tantra, Bhakti yoga, and devotion. This article investigates musical devotion in the context of yogic communities dedicated to Gurugītā recitation with the aim of experiencing the inner Self. The democratization and dissemination of this practice have global dimensions.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Musicology of Religion: Selected Papers on Religion and Music)
Open AccessArticle
Porous Secularity: Religious Modernity and the Vertical Religious Diversity in Cold War South Korea
by
Kyuhoon Cho
Religions 2024, 15(8), 893; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080893 - 25 Jul 2024
Abstract
Beyond the once dominant secularization thesis that anticipated the decline of religion in the modern era, the academic study of religion has in recent decades revisited secular as one of the factors that shape religion and religions in the globalized world. Against this
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Beyond the once dominant secularization thesis that anticipated the decline of religion in the modern era, the academic study of religion has in recent decades revisited secular as one of the factors that shape religion and religions in the globalized world. Against this theoretical backdrop, in this article, I use the case of South Korea to explore how secular and religion interacted in contemporary global society. It focuses on describing the postcolonial reformulation of secularity and the corresponding discursive and organizational transformation of religious diversity in Cold War South Korea. The Japanese colonial secularism rigidly banning the public and political engagement of religion was replaced by the flexible secular-religious divide after liberation of 1945. The porous mode of secularity extensively admitted religious entities to affect processes of postcolonial nation-building. Religious values, interests, and resources have been applied in motivating, pushing, and justifying South Koreans to devote themselves to developing the national community as a whole. Such a form of secularity became a critical condition that caused South Korea’s religious landscape to be reorganized in a vertical and unequal way. On one hand, Buddhist and Christian populations grew remarkably in the liberated field of religion, while freedom of religion was recognized as a key ideological principle of the anticommunist country. On the other hand, folk beliefs and minority religious groups were often considered “superstitions”, “pseudo religions”, “heretics”, or even “evil religions”. With the pliable secularity at work, religious diversity was reorganized hierarchically in the postcolonial society.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion, Liberalism and the Nation in East Asia)
Open AccessArticle
Aristotle Meets Augustine in Fourteenth-Century Liège: Religious Violence in the Chronicon of Jean Hocsem
by
Chase Padusniak
Religions 2024, 15(8), 892; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080892 - 24 Jul 2024
Abstract
As William Cavanaugh has remarked, the scholarly notion of religion “should often be surrounded by scare quotes. Its flexibility and occasional nebulousness make evaluating its role in conceiving of, effecting, and justifying violence even more difficult. At the same time, it sticks around
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As William Cavanaugh has remarked, the scholarly notion of religion “should often be surrounded by scare quotes. Its flexibility and occasional nebulousness make evaluating its role in conceiving of, effecting, and justifying violence even more difficult. At the same time, it sticks around and remains a vital category of contemporary analysis. What if getting behind the Wars of Religion—the period to which Cavanaugh traces the emergence of his “myth of religious violence”—could plant the seeds for a new paradigm in understanding the relationship between religion and violence? In this article, I analyze the Chronicon of Jean Hocsem, a fourteenth-century canon from Liège. Untranslated into English and rarely written about, Hocsem’s text offers an unexpectedly political perspective on this question. Combining insights from Augustine’s City of God as well as Aristotle’s Politics and basing his ideas on his own experience of nearly constant conflict, Hocsem develops the idea that class antagonisms and human frailty make violence—especially political violence—inevitable. He takes this approach within a polity ruled by a prince-bishop, though one he would not have thought of as “religious”. Hocsem’s solutions are thus avowedly political. His pessimism about such questions leads to an emphasis on mitigating violence through the institution of proper socio-political structures. This reading of Hocsem and his politicizing of the question of violence opens new possibilities for scholars, further calling into question any easy relationship between the modern categories of “religion” and violence.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions and Violence: Dialogue and Dialectic)
Open AccessArticle
Adab al-Qāḍi: Shared Juridical Virtues of Judaic and Islamic Leadership
by
Neri Y. Ariel
Religions 2024, 15(8), 891; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080891 - 24 Jul 2024
Abstract
This paper argues for proximity between the two branches of a jurisprudential–adjudicative genre: manuals for judges or the etiquette for the judgeship. I wish to demonstrate that the proximity, lexicography, ways and tools of argument, etc., are founded upon a meta-legal stratum that
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This paper argues for proximity between the two branches of a jurisprudential–adjudicative genre: manuals for judges or the etiquette for the judgeship. I wish to demonstrate that the proximity, lexicography, ways and tools of argument, etc., are founded upon a meta-legal stratum that contains kalam theology. In this paper, I will elaborate on the genre and its discovery, define some basic principles for the field of discussion, and provide textual examples of the proximities between the two branches of the genre based on pre-legal or meta-halachic demands. I suggest a preliminary result here and lay the groundwork for further research in the future: The criteria for the appointment of the true judge sketch out his idealized personality. He is more than an administrator of the judicial bureaucracy: he is a guide for the legally perplexed peoplehood, both in Judaism and Islam.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Islam and the West)
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