Search Results (43)

Although he first published fiction during the fin de siècle with John Lane, publisher of The Yellow Book, Arthur Machen denied a Decadent heritage for his work; nonetheless, echoes of Decadent interests and imagery carried through his fiction long after the 1890s, through to his final novel, The Green Round. Decades later, M. John Harrison’s Viriconium series of novels and stories nodded to and wrestled with the Decadent legacy, while his interest in Machen became explicit with the short story “The Great God Pan” (the title taken from one of Machen’s most famous tales) and the novel The Course of the Heart, built from the earlier story. Harrison was an initiator of the New Weird literary tendency at the turn of the millennium, and one of the books central to that tendency is K.J. Bishop’s 2003 novel The Etched City, which openly drew on Decadent writings and on Harrison’s own use of Decadent material. Attending to writings by Machen, Harrison, and Bishop, we can see ways that Decadent aesthetics and imagery carried forward, finding a home a century later, not in the literary mainstream but in an experimental corner of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Full article

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 (ἐπιδημία) of Asclepius and the gods there. Since Jesus was honored, no one experienced any public help from the gods. Porphyry’s claim that Asclepius and the gods no longer dwelt in Rome resembles one of the elements of the ancient Roman ritual of evocatio, in which the tutelary deities were called out of a city by a Roman commander. It is only an analogy, since the Christians did not promise the tutelary deities that their images would be carried to their own city and given a cult, and they certainly did not make use of an obscure Roman military ceremony. Whether or not the ritual was practiced in the Imperium is not the central question of this article. Instead I wish to show that the implicit debate between Eusebius and Porphyry alludes to similar arguments between pagans and Christians in antiquity and that there are important analogies between Porphyry’s argument about the departure of Rome’s tutelary gods due to the presence of worship of the Christian deity in the city and the ritual of evocatio. Full article

The fourth-century historian Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, lived during the anti-Christian persecutions of the Roman emperor Maximinus Daia and believed fervently that Jesus Christ would imminently return to alleviate the suffering of God’s people. When Constantine the Great became emperor and converted to Christianity, the bishop’s disposition towards the ‘last things’ or end times, known as eschatology, suddenly changed to a belief that God’s kingdom had already been inaugurated in this emperor’s reign. In this way, Eusebius conflated Church and Empire into a single organism governed by the emperor on behalf of Christ. This article demonstrates that this disposition in fact emerged from the bishop’s problematic Christology. Heretofore, the concept of the Logos had been applied to Son of God as creator of the world and who assumed human nature as Jesus. However, Eusebius’ disposition towards the Logos was subordinationist and dissociative, thus paving the way for him to depict the emperor as an agent of, and inhabited by, the Logos in the eschatological working out of earthly affairs from the vantage point of the city of Rome. Eusebius therefore essentially replaced Christ’s eschatological agency in the usurpation of the Church by the eternal city that was ultimately recapitulated within Constantine himself, even after the latter had died. Full article

Groundwater resources in the Kou sub-basin of southwestern Burkina Faso play a critical role in supporting domestic water supply, agriculture, and industry in and around Bobo-Dioulasso, the second-largest city in Burkina Faso. This study synthesizes over three decades of research on groundwater vulnerability, recharge mechanisms, hydrochemistry, and residence time across the region’s sedimentary aquifers. The Kou basin hosts a complex stratified system of confined and unconfined aquifers, where hydrochemical analyses reveal predominantly Ca–Mg–HCO₃ facies, alongside local nitrate (0–860 mg/L), iron (0–2 mg/L) and potassium (<6.5 mg/L–190 mg/L) contamination. Vulnerability assessments—using parametric (DRASTIC, GOD, APSU) and numerical (MODFLOW/MT3D) models—consistently indicate moderate to high vulnerability, especially in alluvial and urban/peri-urban areas. Isotopic results show a deep recharge for a residence time greater than 50 years with deep groundwater dating from 25,000 to 42,000 years. Isotopic data confirm a vertically stratified system, with deep aquifers holding fossil water and shallow units showing recent recharge. Recharge estimates vary significantly (0–354 mm/year) depending on methodology, reflecting uncertainties in climatic, geological, and anthropogenic parameters. This review highlights major methodological limitations, including inconsistent data quality, limited spatial coverage, and insufficient integration of socio-economic drivers. To ensure long-term sustainability, future work must prioritize high-resolution hydrogeological mapping, multi-method recharge modeling, dynamic vulnerability assessments, and strengthened groundwater governance. This synthesis provides a critical foundation for improving water resource management in one of Burkina Faso’s most strategic aquifer systems. Full article

Ongoing discussions on creation care and agapeic ethic have paid less attention to the interplay between love, creation, waste management challenges, and mission. This paper, therefore, discusses a missional perspective of agapeic ethic as a ground norm for eco-theology and motivation for eco-care (especially proper waste management). An attempt is made to discuss the concept and dimensions of love and the nexus between love, creation, and missional purpose. This paper adopts a non-participant observation of refuse collection as carried out by refuse collectors, the waste disposal practices of people, and the waste handling and disposal practices of selected churches. This research was conducted across Port Harcourt City, Obio Akpor, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Oyibo, and Eleme municipal areas of Rivers State, Nigeria. The churches observed include Protestant Churches (Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Church of Nigeria that is Anglican Communion, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints); the Roman Catholic Church; Pentecostal Churches (such as Salvation Ministries Worldwide, Redeemed Christian Church of God, and Deeper Life Bible Church); and African Indigenous Churches (namely, the Christ Apostolic Church, Cherubim and Seraphim, and Celestial Church of Christ). The information gathered was critically analysed and used in measuring stakeholders’ disposition to and understanding of the research focus. Ecological liberation hermeneutics was adopted as an interpretative framework, while the eco-justice principles of interconnectedness and purpose were engaged to foreground the underlying issues in this study. This paper argued that Christians’ involvement in proper waste management, keeping both private and public spaces clean, is a morally and divinely imposed duty and a practical testimonial of their love for God, their fellow human beings, and non-human others. This is a fulfilment of the mission where Christian love (agape) serves as an ethical principle of inflicting ‘no harm’ to humans or non-human others. Full article

From 2020 to 2023, I spent 3 years as the Prior of the Community of St Cuthbert based at St Nics Church in central Durham. St Nics is a classic UK evangelical city-centre church with a beloved history of Bible teaching, market-square engagement, and mission. In 2019 the church leadership discerned an opportunity to refresh the church’s (and wider) practice of discipleship by launching the Community of St Cuthbert, and I was recruited as its Prior. This article gives an account of some of the strengths and weaknesses of this endeavour, focused particularly on four issues: the importance of a clear, positive and upbuilding ‘rule of life’ statement; the core issue of how a Rule of Life can facilitate widespread missional discipleship in a dispersed community model; the importance of a clear marker of membership in the Community (and the difficulties around developing one); and the potential (albeit largely unrealised) to use the Community of St Cuthbert model as a way of establishing new worshipping communities. My own retrospective reflection as Prior concludes with two convictions that may be of relevance to those considering such a ‘Community’: the nature and challenge of keeping the focus on God rather than on policing practices; and the ways in which such a re-energising of discipleship can offer an evangelical contribution to the life of the whole church, rather than being limited to self-described evangelical churches. Full article

This study reflects on aspects of the Pythagorean political philosophy and compares them to those of Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Fārābī’s thought. Both share a key assumption: excellent rulers must be political scientists who seek divine guidance to ensure the prevalence of reason over passions in public life while reconciling society with the harmony and wisdom of the cosmos. By imitating God’s perfection and incorporating divine wisdom into governance, virtuous rulers promote felicity, prosperity and peace within a city. We highlight al-Fārābī’s emphasis on the role of religion in enabling citizens to internalize the wisdom of the cosmos, thereby minimising the need for coercion in the pursuit of order and social concord. In addition, the populace leverages the superior knowledge of each governor while observing their behaviour. Thus, the people have a share in the exercise of political power. This insistence on the involvement of the populace in politics aligns with the concept of ‘political Prometheism’. Full article

This article provides a way to think through the division between religious and secular approaches to contemporary society through the use of rival myths. Myths are narrative structures that invite the interplay of language and the imagination, resulting in the creation of virtual realities and social imaginaries. Strong virtual realities were once premised on myths that guided the imagination to embrace an openness to mystery and the unknowable; however, current technological culture is predicated on a closed imagination that has led to worldwide despair. Religion was originally grounded in the virtual reality inspired by language and the capacity of language to distill and extract the “virtual” from the real. The ability of language to create a virtual reality created the capacity to think of a soul, as well as destinations for the soul. In the twentieth century, Freud found that the notion of “God” that was created had become problematic for humans and so created a modern myth that would provide a secular substitute. After providing a close reading of Freud’s governing myth for modern culture, showing how it inspires the imagination and the ways in which it falls short, this article concludes with an alternative myth—that of the Invisible City—proposed to inspire faith, hope, and love in our modern world. My approach relies on a depth psychological framework, which was formed to interrogate the nature of reality (relative to individuals and culture) at the intersection of myth, religion, language, and imagination. Throughout, I use a hermeneutic methodology, which is consistent with the initial mode of depth psychological exploration as well as the central role language plays in revealing the truth of a reality. This orientation enables an exploration of a deeper sense of virtual realities than what is deployed through current technology. Full article

The history of imperial dynasties in West Asia is replete with examples of remarkable urban foundations. Two notable instances are the Sasanian Ardašīr-xwarrah and the Abbasid Madīnat al-Salām, which can be classified as cosmic cities or heterotopias. This article examines the utopian foundations of these heterotopias. To this end, it analyzes four religious and imperial spaces: the representation of the earth and sky in the Zoroastrian cosmography, Yima’s Vara according to the Avestan texts, Ardašīr-xwarrah, and finally, Madīnat al-Salām. This investigation aims to ascertain the extent to which the spatial characteristics of each of these spaces have been utilized in the production of the subsequent architectural forms. Similarly, it examines the development of the cosmological and eschatological paradise in relation to the Achaemenian and Sasanian royal gardens. The theoretical framework of this study is based on Michael Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, which has been further developed by Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space. The conceptual metaphor theory offers a cognitive linguistic foundation for elucidating the projections of utopias and heterotopias onto one another. To this end, the article focuses on the conceptual metaphor GOD IS A KING. Full article

Girsu, the modern site of Tello (southern Iraq), represents one of the earliest known urban centres of the ancient world, along with Uruk, Eridu, and Ur. During the 3rd millennium BCE (3000–2000 BCE), Girsu was revered as the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic deity Ningirsu, who fought with supernatural beasts and made possible the introduction of irrigation and agriculture in Sumer. While much is known about the gods, their roles, and rituals inside the temples, there is little textual or archaeological evidence concerning the rituals that took place in the large open-air plazas adjacent to the temples. These areas within the sacred precinct were where the general population would gather to participate in festivals and ceremonies to honour the gods. To better understand the ancient cultic realm in southern Mesopotamia, an in-depth investigation of a favissa (ritual pit) discovered within the sacred precinct at Girsu was undertaken. The excavations recovered a large quantity of ceramics and animal remains that had been used for ritual purposes. Through the study of archaeological remains of cultic spaces at Girsu, information on ritual behaviour such as sacrificial animal slaughtering and consumption for the purpose of feasting, the types of libations provided to quench the thirst of the gods, and the distance travelled to take part in the annual festivals to pay homage to the patron god of their sacred city were explored. Analysis of the associated ceramics, cuneiform texts, and zooarchaeological remains (including stable isotope data), allowed a multi-faceted and integrative approach to better understand ceremonial behaviour and ritual feasting in this sacred city. New insights into communal and performative participation in ceremonies, especially by non-elite individuals, are generated. These data increase our knowledge not only of how Girsu’s citizens organised their sacred spaces and religious festivals, but also of how they behaved in order to satisfy the ever-demanding needs of their gods. Full article

This study aims to analyze, through religious hymns in the German-speaking area from the early 18th century, the influence that the Pietist theological movement, starting from Philipp Jacob Spener’s Pia Desideria, had on the centralization of the self in the Protestant religious world, through the introduction of personal feelings of love towards God. On the one hand, the origins of Pietism can already be traced back to the late 16th century in areas affected by the radical reforms of the Anabaptists. On the other hand, it is from the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century that this theological and spiritual movement destabilized orthodox Lutheranism in some symbolic cities of Protestant Germany, such as Frankfurt am Main, Halle, and the Duchy of Westphalia, up to Moravia. The extensive publication of hymnals and musical compendia for the use of individuals, lay groups (collegia pietatis), faith communities, and churches denotes a fervor and a desire to preach their way of “practicing” spirituality, which greatly contrasts with both orthodox Lutheranism and the prevailing rationalism in the religious and philosophical sphere in Germany of the mid-18th century. For the first time since the Reformation, Lutheranism saw the use, in the theology of the preached and sung Word, of personal feelings and emotions that connect the individual with God, who is made an object of individual as well as collective worship. This was one of the most significant accusations that came from the University of Wittenberg against Pietism, namely the shift of theological and spiritual focus from the centrality of God to the centrality of the self, which manifests its faith through the most intimate emotions and feelings. Through the analysis of some examples taken from hymnographic and theological production, centered on the individual feelings of the believer, this article focuses on how this influenced the religious revival movements that would pervade England and the United States of America for more than two centuries (from the First Great Awakening in the late 18th century to the Pentecostal movements of the 20th century), with a spotlight on Italian hymnody during the Risorgimento. Full article

Paul refers to peace twice in Phil. 4:7 and 4:9. This paper argues that the peace of God is a prefiguration of the eschatological peace to come in God’s world. It is be proposed that as Philippians is dealing with a social order (i.e., that of life in Christ) that is distinct from the dominant social order of the Roman empire or that of the colony of Philippi, political implications are at the very least a corollary of what Paul is writing to the Christ devotees in this city. The main points that will be argued are that peace is best understood as a key dimension for God’s upcoming new world that is already present “in Christ”. The Philippian community is called upon to stand firm in Christ (Phil. 4:1), which is, due to devotional and ethical practices, to result in the experience of God’s peace or the God of peace. This must be understood as both a present and a future reality. Accordingly, the Philippian community can be seen as prefiguring God’s future world by inhabiting this world now already in their communal life. Full article

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 study explores the previously overlooked influence of Qiu Jun, a renowned mid-Ming dynasty scholar, on Jesuit missionaries and Chinese Catholic believers. Although Qiu’s impact on Confucian scholars of the mid-to-late Ming period is well established, his role in shaping formalized Chinese ritual systems and Chinese Catholicism has received little attention. A closer examination of Jesuit missionaries’ translation of Confucian classics and Chinese Catholic texts from the late Ming and early Qing periods reveals that Qiu’s works were frequently cited, particularly in relation to the abolition of divine titles, the worship of Confucius, and the establishment of the City-god system. Qiu’s responses to these issues, informed by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s efforts to centralize power and establish authority in both secular and religious spheres, served as key references for mid-Ming reforms. Moreover, Jesuit fathers and Chinese Catholic adherents drew on Qiu’s perspectives in their writings to address various issues during the Chinese Rites Controversy. This research uncovers the profound impact of Qiu Jun’s ideas on the cultural exchange between China and the West in the 17th–18th centuries. Full article

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and why the term “Christendom”, despite its ambiguous historical connotations, can be taken into account in contemporary ecumenical ecclesiology. This will be performed through a linguistic, historical, and theological analysis of the term in question. Its uses in the literature and occurrences in the historical contexts have been reviewed. Particularly important in this case turned out to be St. Augustine’s work “The City of God”, excerpts of which shed light on some stereotypes that can place the term “Christendom” in merely political meaning. For correct discourse, one needs, on the one hand, an awareness of the traumas that the community of believers have gone through in the history of humanity along with the entire humanity, and on the other hand, the outright revolution that has taken place in post-conciliar theology. It seems that the term “Christendom” retains its relevance especially in the context of the conciliar images of the Kingdom of God and the theology of the Church of Christ. In another way then, “Christianity” reminds one of the Church’s rootedness in a particular place, time, and culture, providing a tool for the humble contextualization of ecclesiology in the history of humanity. Full article