In recent decades, a novel right-wing nationalist and
populist tendency has emerged on a global scale, frequently framing
Christian identity as one of its central pillars. This article explores the relationship between right-wing populism and Christianity, by addressing how populism considers the role of religion on the one hand, and how Christianity position itself in relation to populism on the other hand, with a specific focus on Pope Francis’s social thought Although the relationship between right-wing populism and Christianity appears to be ambivalent, the response of Pope Francis, as elaborated in the encyclical _Fratelli Tutti_, is not. In the section entitled “A Better Kind of Politics,” the distinction between the “popular” and “populist leader” is employed as a hermeneutical tool to investigate current political developments. Furthermore, it enables us to respond to the allegation that Francis himself could be considered a populist, as some claim, referring to his alleged affinities with the political culture associated with Peronism. In his interpretation of the notion of political love as delineated in _Fratelli Tutti_, Francis leaves us with a legacy regarding the ethical response of Christians to populism, promoting instead a “culture of encounter” and a “better kind of politics.”
This paper is designed to explore the transformation of church spiritual life in the digital era and the implications of digital religion for Christian religious education. Digital religion is a phenomenon that arises due to the rapid development of technology. Digital religion presents religious interactions in the digital space. Digital religion also changes the spiritual life of the congregation where worship celebrations, transmission of religious messages and pastoral care also experience significant changes. Through a descriptive qualitative approach, the author tries to explore how digital religion has implications for Christian religious education including transforming the spiritual life of the congregation. The author argues that churches, church leaders and Christian educators need to prepare themselves to equip congregants and learners about this digital religion phenomenon. This paper offers a practical attitude for church leaders and Christian educators to prepare themselves in facing digital religion so that the spiritual life of the congregation can be optimized properly.AbstrakTulisan ini dirancang untuk menelusuri transformasi kehidupan rohani jemaat dalam era digital dan implikasi digital religion terhadap pendidikan agama Kristen. Digital religion merupakan fenomena yang muncul dikarenakan perkembangan teknologi yang sangat pesat. Digital religion menghadirkan interaksi-interaksi keagamaan di ruang digital. Digital religion juga mengubah kehidupan rohani jemaat dimana perayaan ibadah, transmisi pesan keagamaan dan pastoral juga mengalami perubahan yang signifikan. Melalui pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif, penulis mencoba untuk mengeksplor bagaimana digital religion memberikan implikasi terhadap pendidikan agama Kristen termasuk mentransformasikan kehidupan rohani jemaat. Penulis menyatakan bahwa gereja, pemimpin gereja dan pendidik Kristen perlu mempersiapkan diri untuk memperlengkai jemaat dan peserta didik tentang fenomena digital religion ini. Tulisan ini menawarkan sebuah sikap praktis bagi pemimpin gereja dan pendidik Kristen untuk mempersiapkan diri dalam menghadapi digital religion agar kehidupan rohani jemaat dapat teroptimalisasi dengan baik.
Admittedly, the commonest instinct of human beings after the Fall is to run from the Creator and wear masks while hiding behind all kinds of appearances (like false religion, “good” deeds, and/or good intentions). Despite this (or perhaps for this reason precisely), God, in his all-knowing wisdom, has ordained honesty and the idea of living in transparency (by the Light of his Word) to heal and repair the broken relationship with him. This means that we, as humans, must be completely open with Yahweh first and foremost, but also with ourselves, admitting our faults to ourselves rather than ignoring them. Honesty with God, in other words, means renouncing all attempts to justify, minimize, or even deny the grievousness of our sin (otherwise said, renouncing all masks and the appearance of human “goodness”) so that we might be not just forgiven, but also cleansed, healed and restored (at least partially, until the “completeness” comes). Thus, based on the biblical premise that transparency is the best shield against deceit and self-deceit, this article discusses five practical applications that the habit of being completely transparent with ourselves – but, most importantly, with God – develops in our Christian walk of faith.
The realization of character education is a shared responsibility of both parents and educational institutions. Higher education as an integral educational facility has a responsibility to develop aspects of character. This is because character is an important domain in forming a student's personality as a whole. In this way, students can grow cognitively, affectively and psychometrically. The Faculty of Education, Pelita Harapan University has a profile of students who are competent, have character, have a calling as Christian teachers (Calling), and have compassion (compassion). To realize this profile, it must be supported by the professionalism of lecturers with the characteristics of having a loving spirit like the good Samaritan and a spirit of self-emptying of Christ in serving. The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between lecturer professionalism and student Christian character. The results of this research will provide an overview, evaluation, and input to build Christian character in a sustainable manner. The method used in this research is a correlative quantitative method. The research results show that lecturer professionalism is significantly related to students' Christian character. The research results show that there is a correlation between lecturer professionalism and student Christian character of .537. Thus, it can be concluded that the correlation between lecturer professionalism and student Christian character is in the strong category. The test results show the significance value (p = .000) is smaller than 0.05. This means that there is not enough evidence to accept the proposed hypothesis (reject Ho). Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant correlation between lecturer professionalism and student Christian character.
BAHASA INDONESIA ABSTRACT: Perwujudan pendidikan karakter merupakan tanggung jawab bersama antara orang tua dan institusi pendidikan. Perguruan tinggi sebagai salah satu sarana pendidikan yang tidak terpisahkan memiliki tanggung jawab untuk mengembangkan aspek karakter. Hal ini dikarenakan karakter merupakan domain penting dalam membentuk kepribadian mahasiswa secara utuh. Dengan demikian, mahasiswa dapat berkembang secara kognitif, afektif dan psikomotorik. Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan Universitas Pelita Harapan memiliki profil mahasiswa yang kompeten, berkarakter, memiliki panggilan sebagai guru Kristen (Calling), dan memiliki belas kasih (compassion). Untuk mewujudkan profil tersebut, harus didukung oleh profesionalisme dosen dengan ciri-ciri memiliki semangat mengasihi seperti orang Samaria yang baik hati dan semangat mengosongkan diri seperti Kristus dalam melayani. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui hubungan antara profesionalisme dosen dengan karakter kristiani mahasiswa. Hasil penelitian ini akan memberikan gambaran, evaluasi dan masukan untuk membangun karakter kristiani secara berkelanjutan. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode kuantitatif korelasional. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa profesionalisme dosen berhubungan secara signifikan dengan karakter kristiani mahasiswa. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat korelasi antara profesionalisme dosen dengan karakter kristiani mahasiswa sebesar 0,537. Dengan demikian, dapat disimpulkan bahwa korelasi antara profesionalisme dosen dengan karakter Kristen mahasiswa berada pada kategori kuat Hasil uji t menunjukkan nilai signifikansi (p=.000) lebih kecil dari 0.05. Hal ini berarti tidak terdapat cukup bukti untuk menerima hipotesis yang diajukan (tolak Ho). Dengan demikian, dapat disimpulkan bahwa ada hubungan yang signifikan antara profesionalisme dosen dengan karakter kristiani mahasiswa.
Christianity, Practical religion. The Christian life
Rodzina chrześcijańska, oprócz wspólnoty parafialnej i seminarium duchownego, jest podstawowym środowiskiem rozpoznawania i kształtowania powołania kapłańskiego. Wychowuje i towarzyszy osobie powołanej na wszystkich etapach jej formacji. Postępująca w Polsce sekularyzacja, połączona z rosnącym indywidualizmem i relatywizmem, sprawia, że należy przypominać i propagować chrześcijański model rodziny. Zgodnie z zamysłem Bożym jest ona zbudowana na przymierzu małżeńskim,
całożyciowej wspólnocie mężczyzny i kobiety, która prowadzi do zrodzenia i wychowania potomstwa. Odkrywanie i formowanie powołania kapłańskiego dziecka dokonuje się na drodze realizacji podstawowych zadań rodziny chrześcijańskiej, którymi są: tworzenie wspólnoty osób, służba życiu, udział w rozwoju społeczeństwa, uczestnictwo w życiu i posłannictwie Kościoła. W rodzinie dziecko uczy się wartości ludzkich i chrześcijańskich oraz doświadcza, że powołanie kapłańskie rodzi się z inicjatywy Boga i jest dziełem Jego miłości.
Research on Marxism as a religious movement has primarily focused on its theological implications. Building on this work, this article instead examines the practical aspects of revolutionary Marxism as a religious experience during the Latin American Cold War, and compares it to two other non-Christian religious traditions, Judaism and Umbanda. Drawing on secret police records, memoirs and oral history interviews, this article explores the influence of Judaism, Marxism and Umbanda on the anti-dictatorship activism of Alfredo Syrkis. Through an analysis of Syrkis’s life history, it assesses his conversion from liberal anticommunism to revolutionary Marxism, his participation in Marxist proselytising as a high school activist and his political activity in the clandestine Marxist organisation Revolutionary Popular Vanguard (VPR), highlighting group dynamics that were comparable to millenarian movements. It also considers the importance of other religious traditions in Syrkis’s life, including Judaism, the religion of his parents that equipped him with valuable social ties, and Umbanda, a syncretic Afro-Brazilian religion that Syrkis turned to during times of extreme anxiety in the armed struggle. This article argues that the religious traditions of Judaism, revolutionary Marxism and Umbanda influenced Syrkis’s political activism in both complementary and competing ways. While none of these traditions were able to command Syrkis’s undivided loyalty, collectively they informed the terms of his engagement with and disengagement from the Brazilian armed struggle against military rule. By analysing Syrkis’s life history through the lens of religion, this article broadens the study of cultures of militancy during Latin America’s Cold War.
In the academic sphere, the relationship between the state and religion is a significant topic of discussion. The separation of the state and religion can lead to the failure of citizens. Every religious activity must comply with state regulations. The importance of the house of worship is an essential teaching of every religion. Therefore, state intervention in religious life is necessary to ensure harmony in the state. This study used a qualitative descriptive method to provide an overview of Christian attitudes as citizens in the nation and state. There are three points that need to be applied in the life of diverse states. First, relevance is essential. A Christian must be relevant in the context of the Indonesian nation, actively participate in the state, and have practical political knowledge. Therefore, every Christian and church must comply with the regulations set by the Indonesian state. Second, engagement is crucial. In the incarnate ministry, there is an emphasis on engaging with people and living a Christ-like life. This model of ministry must apply to the church’s ministry and mission. It means every Christian must contextualize the state’s life without compromising on sin. Third, tolerance is significant. Christians must view differences as a gift from God in the nation and state. They should not force their teachings on others. They should prioritize religious moderation and make Christian values and the 1945 Constitution the basis of religious, state, and social life. Good citizens should have nothing to fear, and if they are not responsible to the state, then they are not responsible to God.
ABSTRACT The last several decades have witnessed the topic of wisdom gaining momentum in the field of positive psychology. In this study, we focus on the potentially important role of religion/spirituality, specifically beliefs about God, as a mediating mechanism underlying the relationship between practical wisdom and depression among older adults. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of older adults from the 2013 wave of the Religion, Aging, and Health Survey (n = 1,497), our results show that practical wisdom is associated with lower depressive symptoms. We also document that three God-related constructs, God-mediated control, trust in God, and gratitude towards God each partially explained the relationship between wisdom and well-being. Taken together, Christian conceptions of God as a personal, divine being, the ultimate attachment figure who is an unconditional source of love and support for believers, may be a target of older adults who have cultivated practical wisdom.
Abstract The aim of this paper is to contribute to debate on Hegel's conception of the relationship between religion and philosophy by proposing that it can be a read as a division of labour between Christian religion and speculative philosophy. This reading allows us to understand better Hegel's idea that religion and philosophy have the same content in two different forms. I distinguish between the institutional and the intrapersonal dimensions of Hegel's claim of a division of labour between religion and philosophy. I then turn to a critique of Hegel's philosophy of religion by showing how David Friedrich Strauss's concluding dissertation from The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined can call our attention to some internal tensions within Hegel's conception. Although Strauss's interpretation does not present an insurmountable objection against Hegel's conception of a division of labour, it can help to illuminate to what extent Hegel oversimplified the practical implications that his conception might have for the priest's attempt to continue his instruction to the members of his community.
This study used a mixed methods approach to understand the ways in which religion and quality of life (QoL) are associated in later life in Ireland. Longitudinal quantitative data from 2112 Christian women aged 57 and over at baseline (2009–10) participating in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), as well as qualitative data from semi-structured interviews from 11 Christian women aged 65 and over in 2018, were used. The quantitative data showed an association between lower religiosity and lower QoL. Qualitative data supported an effect of religious involvement on QoL although certain aspects of being religious in Ireland were accompanied by distress. The data suggested that the relationship between religious attendance and higher QoL could be driven by multifactorial pathways, including psychological, social, and practical benefits.
Microbiology’s ecological turn, as it shifts its gaze from the individual microbe to the entanglement and ubiquity of microbial life, is transforming conceptions of human nature and disease in the sciences and humanities. Both the fields of Christian theological anthropology and medical anthropology are tuning in to these microbiological shifts for their reformative possibilities. Meanwhile, practical resistance to these shifts in recent pandemic responses suggest that forces greater than just the “pure science” of microbiology are informing attachments to hyper-modern or Pasteurian epidemiologies and radically independent, buffered views of the self. This essay explores the roots of such resistance. It investigates the interplay of shifts in theological anthropology and disease theories. Cultural anthropology and critical studies offer accounts of epidemiology’s fraught relationship to a history of colonialism, racialization, and vilification of pathogens and pathogenicized humans. This essay adds a theological analysis of the historical entanglement of perspectives on disease and Christian doctrine, which bears on the present pandemic response. It illuminates the ways some Christians “benefit” from germ theory’s influence. Germ theory interrupts key Christian doctrine (especially theodicy) that makes Christian theology resistant to relational accounts of being human. Germ theory’s theological reshaping of Christian teaching may also encourage the current resistance to more relational pandemic responses known as One Health strategies. While reformative and more realistic possibilities of emergent and entangled multispecies accounts of humanity’s microbiality are ample and apt, they must account for the ways in which microbiology has never been epidemiological without also being colonial and theological. In other words, this essay explores the smallest and most reviled “animals” in relationship to Christian conceptions of sin, contagion, and evil as groundwork for engaging humanity’s micro-animality and diseases’ relational aspects. To conclude, I offer four modest suggestions.
Atheistic natural scientists propagate a normative materialistic view of the universe, where God as creator is superfluous. Much effort is being expended to bring into disrepute any notion of extraneous control over the laws of nature. The idea of the universe and everything in it as an ongoing ‘cosmic accident’ is presented as the only truth. This is in stark contrast to recent scientific discoveries in disciplines such as biochemistry and palaeontology. In this article, the most recent developments in the fields of intelligent design and the anthropic principle will be interrogated to demonstrate that the reformed faith in God as Creator is credible and that the notion of creation as God’s general revelation to humankind is increasingly being accepted by the natural scientific community.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
Many reformed church orders, which reflect the Dort Church Order of 1619, albeit revised, still apply its subdivision into these four chapters: firstly, offices (dienste); secondly, general assemblies (samekomste); thirdly, doctrine, sacraments and other ceremonies (leer, sakramente en seremonies); and fourthly, church discipline (kerklike tug). This article focuses on the composition of church orders. The research question is the following: How are reformed church orders composed and what it the ecclesiological or juridical rationale behind this composition? This article contains paragraphs on the composition and the ecclesiological legitimisation of the Dort Church Order of 1619 and its predecessors, the reformed churches in the East-Indies (Batavia), the Algemeen Reglement of 1816, the Reformed Church Order of 1951, the church order of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands of 2004, and the major shift from the perspective of canon law to reformed church polity. Reformed church orders contain both doctrinal and disciplinary regulations in relation to three notae ecclesiae of a reformed church. However, there is more at issue than the theological nature of the composition of the Dort Church Order and its successors, namely their relation to the Institutes of Justinian.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
This article describes the discipline of missiology and mission over the last century since Edinburgh 1910 followed by two world wars to Edinburgh 2010, as a long walk to obedience – a walk in discerning God’s will. Even in biblical times, mission as spreading the gospel to those who do not yet believe in the Trinitarian God, was under scrutiny from within and outside the church (cf. Ac 10-11, 15 and Galatians). Throughout history until today it was never different. This article looks at the development of mission over the last 100 years from a Western (mainline missionary churches – MMCs) perspective. The development of missiology as a subject and theological discipline will be described along the lines of some of the mission conferences. Attention will be given to the following questions: What does it mean to b eobedient to the mission calling in a broken and traumatised world? Is there a credible way of redeeming mission and missiology from its own past?
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life