Climate change is a global issue with diverse regional impacts threatening the survival of both human and non-human species. While the academic discourse on climate change predominantly focuses on macro-level studies, it often neglects the vital role of local environmental practices and the perspectives of affected communities. This paper presents insights from ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the Bishnoi community in Khejarli Village, Jodhpur, in the Thar Desert of India. This study utilizes participant observations, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and case studies to explore local environmental knowledge and practices aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change. Findings reveal the Bishnois’ deep-rooted relationship with nature and the pivotal role of religious beliefs in shaping their conservation efforts. Since the 15th century, the Bishnois have been committed to protecting local species, such as plants and animals, which has been crucial for sustaining the desert ecosystem and combating climate change. Moreover, their religious teachings and principles have helped conserve values among younger generations, ensuring a lasting culture of environmental stewardship. This paper supports integrating micro-level ethnographic studies into global climate change dialogues, urging the recognition of local knowledge as an essential resource for addressing contemporary environmental challenges.
In the burgeoning field of ecotheology, scholars have been compelled to propose typologies to introduce and categorize existing but diffuse ecotheological insights. Taking ecotheology as a particular epistemic theology, I argue for an alternative way of typologizing that entails meticulously examining the extent to which ecotheologians engage with competing epistemes, namely “postcolonial typology”. To illustrate, I will examine a range of ecotheological works from a postcolonial nation, Indonesia. I present three groups of ecotheologies: the “expansionist”, the “tribalist”, and the “essentialist” approaches (or strategies). The expansionist group extends or expands the systematic theology formerly introduced by European missionaries during the colonial period as a way to ecologize their theology. The tribalist approach prioritizes retrieving and incorporating local or tribal wisdom. Finally, the essentialist group focuses on identifying categorical frameworks that may signify “Indonesianness”, which involves a “strategic” choice of essentialism that yields to a national or transtribal theological cohesion. In the end, I will also note one pedagogical implication of employing postcolonial typology.
The abundance of ritual descriptions in the Gospel of Mark suggests a discourse about ritual between the narrator and early audiences of the Gospel. The prominence of the ritual of baptism at the beginning (Mark 1:9–11) and anointing at the end (16:1–8), and the recurrence of themes introduced in Jesus’s baptism at turning points in the Gospel (9:2–8; 10:38–39; 15:38–39) suggest broader ritual—and specifically baptismal—significance in the narrative. Recent changes helpfully differentiate narrative- and performance-critical interpretive approaches as text-oriented (narrative) and audience-oriented (performance), but these hermeneutical methods also work in concert. This article combines cognitive studies of narrative immersion with observations about the role of ritual in group identity formation and the impartation of religious traditions to analyze the narration of ritual acts in Mark. Giving attention to the use of internal focalization and description of bodily movements in ritual narrations, this article argues that depictions of rituals in Mark involve the audience in ways that deliver audience-oriented interpretations through text-oriented means. This analysis shows how Mark’s ritual narrations are conducive to evoking the audience’s experience of baptism, familiar to audience members as described in the undisputed Pauline epistles, the only descriptions of the rite that clearly antedate the composition of Mark. Publicly reading these narrated rituals creates an audience experience that neither requires the performance of the ritual in the context of the reading event nor an “acting out” of the ritual depicted in the narrative to create a participatory, communal experience of the text.
The point of departure for this essay, which reflects on the religious, anthropological and ethical meaning of the act of blessing, is the multifaceted tradition of all kinds of blessings in the Catholic faith community, both in a sacramental and non-sacramental context. To properly understand the act of blessing, it is necessary to outline the existential and religious background of the blessing as an experience and condition. Starting from the general biblical background of blessing as an earthly reality, attention is paid to the transition from the implicit to the explicit religious meaning of blessing as a gift. Subsequently, the act of blessing in its bi-dimensional modality, namely as word and gesture, receives the necessary attention. This is accomplished by a shift from a theological to a philosophical understanding; this is anthropological and existential understanding of blessing. First, the specificity of the blessing as a language event is examined. Then, the bodily and possibly material form of the act of blessing is explored phenomenologically. Thus, it will appear that what is specifically Christian also has universal significance, is literally “catholic”, that is, “kat’ holon”, meaningful “for everyone”. Last but not least, consideration is given to the “power” of the act of blessing, both its “founding” power and the risk of magical derailment.
For Korean women, the Japanese colonial period was a transitional period in which Confucian patriarchal culture still prevailed, but some options for a social identity outside the home as “new women” were beginning to emerge. In this era, Sot’aesan, the founder of Wŏn Buddhism, put forward the teaching of “equal rights for men and women” as one of the core doctrines of Wŏn Buddhism and opened the way for many women to find their true selves through Buddhist teachings and practices. This path was that of becoming a <i>kyomu</i> (Wŏn Buddhist ordained clerics). By analyzing the biographies of the first 146 female <i>kyomus</i>, this paper sheds light on how these devotees were transformed from women with no identities outside the home into Buddhist masters or mothers of the world.
Ida Zahara Adibah, Gaffar Mu'aqaffi, Kevin Ali Sesarianto
The emergence of mobilised mass movements, demanding prosperity and the elimination of injustice, has emerged in various parts of the world, without exception in the Middle East and Indonesia. This movement was dominated by educated middle-class youth, sparked the term ummah, and then formed unique solidarity to protest against the government of his country. A new concept is needed by paying attention to the novelty of these characteristics, considering the old populism concept is not relevant enough to explain it. This paper seeks to raise the concept of New Islamic Populism to answer this deficiency. Furthermore, the Al-Mukmin Ngruki Islamic Boarding School (PPIM), the Islamic boarding school often associated with terrorism, is used as the object of research to show the evolution of populism. This study uses qualitative methods and data collection techniques in the form of interviews and literature studies. This study found
that both santri and ustaz PPIM have aspirations and characteristics, as
shown by the New Islamic Populism movement.
This article examines the broad, encyclopaedic ambit of the scholarly information contained in the ninth-century <i>Old English Martyrology</i>. Martyrologies generally serve as para-liturgical resources outlining the contours of the liturgical year and the biographies of the saints commemorated throughout its course. However, the <i>Old English Martyrology</i>, the earliest European example of a vernacular, prose martyrology, adapts the genre into a more multivalent, scholarly handbook that instructs and informs its users—generally, practitioners of the liturgy—in a variety of topics. Subjects covered in the text include geography, language, hagiography, temporal reckoning, computus, astronomy, cosmology, meteorology, science, liturgy, and learning of a general Christian nature pertaining to the saints and the liturgical year. The present volume considers the impact of liturgy upon various facets of medieval intellectual, cultural, religious, political, and social life. The article at hand considers how the liturgical year is used as the framework around which instruction, edification, and general ecclesiastical learning might be imparted. While liturgical texts generally constitute formulae to be enacted by practitioners, para-liturgical resources provide background information that is germane to the liturgy, the liturgical year, and ecclesiastical life. This article begins with an examination of the development of the kalendar of the saints and the genre and form of the martyrology. It moves on to examine the different types of scholarly learning contained in the <i>Old English Martyrology</i>, the purpose of such details for the professional religious user, and what this information tells us about the text’s application. Overall, this article considers the <i>Old English Martyrology</i> as an interdisciplinary manual dealing with liturgy, the liturgical cycle of the saints, and the subjects it impinges upon.
A silkworm deity was a Trade God worshipped by the court and the folk, and was also a spiritual symbol of sericulturists in medieval China. Images of the silkworm deity in ancient Chinese art are important relics of material heritage for studying culture and ritual activities in medieval China. This paper investigates images of silkworm worship from the Han Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty to distinguish between their use by the court and the folk. This paper explores the gradual personification of the silkworm deity in medieval China, as well as the differences in the identity of the silkworm deity connected to the varying status of worshipers and the functions of the silkworm deity. It is proposed that silkworm deity worship is evidence of a tendency toward polytheism, and has a variety of identities and unified functions under the trend of continuous integration of three major religions and folk religion. The worship of the silkworm deity has the characteristics of hybridity, integrated and patriarchal, as well as the social edification and practical functionality caused by the different mentality of official and folk silkworm deity worship in medieval China.
This article examines the model for mainstreaming religious moderation for the millennial generation that is vulnerable to the movement for religious exclusivity. The religious spirit of the millennial generation has been coloured by extreme legal-formal thoughts and views that have implications for the existential destruction of religious moderation values and the growth of intolerance. This article focuses on studying Gerakan Siswa Moderat (GSM)/ the Moderate Student Movement initiated by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Lumajang Regency to create religious moderation activators among madrasah students. Retrieval of field data used a qualitative model. Data collection was carried out using observation techniques and presented in descriptive writing to describe the phenomena, situations and conditions that took place during the launch of the GSM program. The research results show that although madrasah students are vulnerable to exposure to radicalism and tolerance due to natural factors that are part of the digital age, those who are members of GSM become agents as well as ambassadors for driving religious moderation in three actions at once, i.e. linking past and present religious awareness, being an adhesive for collective religious identity, and being a communicator of narratives and religious messages that are intact, tolerant and peaceful. The strengthening was conducted through a moderation school program and interfaith dialogue.
Este texto foi publicado na revista World Faith Insights 26, 1990, p. 7-16 e é a transcrição de uma palestra proferida pelo teólogo e filósofo catalão Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010). Por se tratar de uma transcrição fiel da linguagem oral, nosso desafio nesta tradução foi adequar o texto à linguagem escrita sem, no entanto, perder os traços característicos do palestrante e autor.
This article explores questions about chatbots in particular and artificial intelligence (AI) in general from a Pauline, that is, a Christian theological perspective. It does so in a way that focuses on a particular scene in the New Testament: Paul in the Athenian Areopagus, considering an altar to an “unknown God,” quoting Greek poets and philosophers, and sharing curious theology as he dialogues with Stoic and Epicurean thinkers (Acts 17:16–34). By examining the sociohistorical nuances of this scene and their philosophical and theological implications, this article shows how the altar Paul considers philosophically and theologically becomes the focal point for an important dialogue about apocalyptic ends, or ideas about who we are, where we are going, and who or what is responsible for that who‐ness and where‐ness. In turn, this can teach us how to ask practical questions, which can uncover the unsuspected apocalyptic ends represented by, or even contained within, common technological objects such as chatbots.
Türkiye düşünce hayatının en kadim konularından birisi “Doğu-Batı” meselesidir. Osmanlı modernleşmesinin başlangıcından günümüze kadar bu mesele bir şekilde akademi dünyasının gündemini meşgul etmektedir. Konuyla ilgili hiç azımsanmayacak bir literatürün ortaya çıktığını söylemek mümkündür. Bundan sonraki süreçte de farklı bağlamlarda ve zeminlerde bu konu tartışılmaya devam edecektir. Çünkü doğu-batı meselesi her şeyden önce modernleşme hikayemizin temel belirleyenlerinden birisi olarak karşımızda durmaktadır. Fakat doğu-batı dikotomisini aşmaya yönelik çabalarında var olduğunu ifade etmek gerekir. İbrahim Kalın’ın 2016 yılında yayımlanan Ben, Öteki ve Ötesi adlı eseri, böyle bir çabayı yansıtmaktadır. Uzun süredir İslam ve Batı ilişkisinin farklı boyutlarına yönelik çalışmalar yapan Kalın Ben Öteki ve Ötesi adlı eseri ile “Doğu-Batı” meselesini analiz etmek için kullanılan kavram setlerini yeniden düşünmeyi ve bu meseleye dair daha özgün bir bakış açısı getirmeyi önermektedir. Bu anlamda eser eleştirilmeye, tartışılmaya ve geliştirilmeye müsait bir şekilde Türkiye’de sosyal bilim ile uğraşanların ilgisine sunulmaktadır.
Communication. Mass media, Religions. Mythology. Rationalism
This paper is a theological approach to the religious world of Dostoevsky. One of the most important themes for theology in the twentieth century – and indeed at all times – is the connection between anthropology and theology. In the past, this connection was formulated from the perspective of metaphysics and ethics, using knowledge as a guiding principle. In Dostoevsky, the thread that connects the anthropological with the theological is the religious dimension, which is not limited simply to man the creature’s relationship with God the Creator, but involves the totality of existence. We will present the great models of religious existence that appear in Dostoevsky's work and his vision of paganism, focusing on the analysis of The Possessed. It is a theological re-reading of Dostoevsky from the prism of the relationship between religion and revelation, using elements of the phenomenology of religion. Dostoevsky's perspective is particularly related to contemporary theology, because it emphasizes the experiential-existential dimension of religion, and highlights the impossibility of a supposedly areligious Christian existence.
Philosophy of religion. Psychology of religion. Religion in relation to other subjects, Communication. Mass media
O presente artigo se propõe discutir a revelação na dimensão do humano. Nesse sentido, parte do pressuposto de que tanto no protestantismo histórico quanto no pentecostalismo tal dimensão, e as contingências que daí derivam, não foram devidamente consideradas, na medida em que ambas as tradições recorrem a uma suposta “garantia da pureza” da revelação. No protestantismo, tal garantia fora buscada nas Escrituras, na medida em que ao evocar a autoridade das Escrituras, os reformadores acreditavam poder garantir a integridade da revelação, dentro de um suposto “ambiente higienizado”; no pentecostalismo, essa suposta segurança fora afiançada pelo Espírito, afinal, alimenta-se da forte expectativa de um encontro pessoal com Deus, que em sua imediaticidade supostamente garantiria a pureza da revelação. Assumindo as limitações e subjetividade humanas inerentes ao processo de recepção da revelação, propõe-se, portanto, uma revelação que se dê nos limites da história; uma revelação que se dê nos limites da linguagem; e uma revelação que se dê nos limites da vulnerabilidade humana.
Essayism or essayism is one of the largest and most authoritative currents of pre-Christian Judaism. According to the texts of Flavius, the essays, after the Pharisees and Sadducees, were the third "philosophical school" or "sect" within Judaism at that time.73 to say something like a secret order. And what characterized the essays in general was their remoteness from the people, their conscious secrecy, the system of rigid admission to membership, and strict religious discipline. And while in the religious literature the search for the origins of Christianity in the environment of the Pharisees, not to mention the Sadducees, is unpopular, then the Essenic version of the origin of the religion of Christ is quite common. The first who tended to such a point of view were the English deists and French encyclopedists (late XVII - XVIII centuries). Later, this version was supported by German rationalists, especially Wachter and Steidlin.