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Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as essential to Christianity. This paper examines the evidence both for and against the view that Kierkegaard was a universalist and concludes that despite Kierkegaard's occasional references to the importance of the idea of eternal damnation to Christianity, there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, both in terms of the substance of his thought, including two unequivocal statements in his journals that he believed everyone would eventually be saved and in terms of his rhetorical style which prioritizes the effect his writings would have on the reader over the literal truth of the views they present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of universalism, which asserts that all will find salvation in the life to come, can be critiqued on the grounds that it appears to underplay the real and lasting significance of suffering and injustice in this life, potentially placing its adherents in an improper relation to suffering and sufferers. In this essay, I engage with this problem, first, through examining how Karen Kilby's critique of conceptual clarity might problematize the doctrine. I argue, however, in this essay's second part, that the conceptual clarity we might first see is not the full story of universalism. In seeking a fuller story, I approach universalism from the perspective of its practical implications, here borrowing from ideas explored by Simeon Zahl, taking up his call to attend to the concrete outworking of doctrine in human experience. Two possible 'affects' of universalism are suggested, which, in a third part, I argue might nurture in the believer a heightened sensitivity to the wrongness of death and the problem of sin. Universalism, examined from the perspective of its practical implications, problematizes in this life some of the suffering that it might appear to resolve in the next. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper argues that, despite appearance to the contrary, Kierkegaard's writings offer promising argumentational resources for addressing the problem of evil. According to Kierkegaard, however, in order to make use of these resources at all, one must necessarily be willing to shift the battleground, so to speak: from a third- to a genuine first-person perspective, namely the perspective of what Climacus dubs Religiousness A. All (yet also only) those who seek deliberate self-annihilation before God—a God in relation to whom they perceive themselves always in the wrong—shall discover the ideal that an unwavering and in fact unconditional thankfulness (namely, for being forgiven) is to be considered the only appropriate attitude towards God and as such both necessary and sufficient for coming to terms with evil and suffering, at least in the life of someone making that discovery. I will argue that Kierkegaard's (non-)pseudonymous writings provide reasons, at times unwittingly, for adopting the perspective of Religiousness A; however, I will also and ultimately argue that the principle of infinite thankfulness as a corollary of that perspective flounders when it comes to making sense of (the eschatological implications of) the suffering of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: This article investigates how seven literati of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties, whose works deal with geography and world history, interacted and negotiated with Jesuit narratives in Chinese on the "discovery" and evangelization of America. The main objective is to elucidate the differences and similarities between the two sides' perspectives on these events, highlighting the role that the encounter between the universalisms of Confucianism and Christianity played in these interpretations. Methodology: A textual, comparative and historical-contextual analysis is employed, framed by Nicolas Standaert and Pingyi Chu's theoretical perspectives on the Sino-Jesuit encounter as a case of cultural exchange. In it, knowledge was negotiated through the selection of textual elements and the restructuring of conceptual frameworks. In doing so, narratives about the "discovery" and evangelization of America in Chinese works are contrasted with Jesuit descriptions of these events and the contextual factors that determined both the creation of these narratives by the Jesuit mission in China and the reactions of Chinese scholars to them are investigated. Originality: This pioneering study examines the reception of early Chinese accounts of Euro-American contacts. It seeks to contribute to the field of Chinese and global intellectual history by discussing how a foundational event of the European worldview was re-signified from various perspectives by Chinese scholars interested in incorporating the «discovery» narratives into their works and integrating them into the path of Confucian universalism. Conclusions: The narratives about these events were discursive spaces where disputes and convergences between the civilizing projects of Christianity and Confucianism took place. The way in which Chinese scholars integrated them into their works reflects how the transmission of the Christian worldview was subjected to local frameworks that reinforced ethnocentric ideas. Inevitably, this led to the emergence of alternatives to European interpretations of American history in late imperial China. The latter challenged the European ethnocentric gaze, primarily grounded in the "discovery" and evangelization of America, and shows how Chinese scholars used their narratives to defend their civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines and defends an 'Integral Advaitic' theodicy that takes its bearings from the thought of three modern Indian mystics: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo. Their Integral Advaitic theodicy has two key dimensions: a doctrine of spiritual evolution and a panentheistic metaphysics. God has created this world as an arena for our moral and spiritual evolution in which evil and suffering are as necessary as good. The doctrine of spiritual evolution presupposes karma , rebirth, and universal salvation. The doctrines of karma and rebirth shift moral responsibility for evil from God to His creatures by explaining all instances of evil and suffering as the karmic consequence of their own past deeds, either in this life or in a previous life. The doctrine of universal salvation also has important theodical implications: the various finite evils of this life are outweighed by the infinite good of salvation that awaits us all. After outlining this Integral Advaitic theodicy, I address some of the main objections to it and then argue that it has a number of comparative advantages over John Hick's well-known 'soul-making' theodicy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the significance of Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's essay "In'ei raisan" in relation to the Kyoto School and its relevance to the critique of total transparency in the twenty-first century. Topics include the essay's challenge to universalist understandings of modernity, its connection to critical transparency studies, and the implications of total visibility and its impact on human agency and governance.

The paper looks at some of Anselm's major works that are united by a common 'theological program.' Its chief rule--to think of God "fittingly" and, namely, as the "being greater than which nothing can be conceived"--inspires not only Anselm's philosophical theology but also his atonement theory and moral philosophy. The paper suggests reevaluations of the Proslogion-argument (1) and of the philosophical background of Cur Deus homo (2) and proposes an alternative to Anselm's soteriology by reconsidering the possibilities of his concept of freedom (3). Anselm's definition--"the ability to preserve rectitude of the will for the sake of rectitude itself" (De libertate arbitrii)--provides the means to understand the Christian hope for universal salvation in a way that is not at odds with the notion of human freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The status of realism in Foucault, despite being insistently elaborated, remains elliptical - in part thanks to its association with a set of propositions we could call fictionalist. By reading the texts where Foucault addresses the interarticulation of fiction, universalism and facticity, the article proposes a non-realist reading of his work, which is marked by the refusal not of the real as an object, but of its ontological evidence. Initially, it presents the insufficiencies of the interpretations that demand an ontology, such as Paul Veyne's, as well as of those that replace it with the exceptionality of creation, such as Michel de Certeau's, and the most promising approach to the reading proposed by Giorgio Agambem.. Next, it examines in detail the question of literature as a methodological paradigm, especially in Foucault's references to the work of René Char. Finally, it shows in which sense the enunciation of archeogenealogy's discourse is closer to Fichte's (non)realism - in its unlikely encounter with Blanchot - than to Hegelian dialectics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James Cone's assertion that Christ is Black seems at odds with Karl Barth's retrieval of Kierkegaard's "infinite qualitative distinction" between God and creation. Both were concerned with the sociopolitical implications of theology. Barth saw the impulse to make some human capacity the prompt or measure of divine revelation as directly implicated in the rise of German nationalism, while Cone laboured to understand what the protestant liberalisms and neoorthodoxies of his graduate education could possibly mean for Black victims of White racism. In claiming that Christ is Black, did Cone not breach the infinite qualitative distinction between God and humans – is Cone's Black Christology triumphalist? I argue, rather, that Cone's Black Christology not only escapes the charge of triumphalism, but actually resists triumphalism more successfully than Barth's because of its grounding in Christ's incarnational identification with oppressed humanity within history; a grounding which implicates Cone's subject position without necessarily valorising it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay defends human rights as universal human rights. It argues that this does not imply uniformity, but opens up space for heterogeneity through equal rights for all. It also shows how universalism and particular specificity can be reconciled. To enable this, human rights practice requires cultivating the art of empathic listening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay articulates a structural feature and difficulty in the notion of universal humanism: the mechanism of inner exclusion. First, by discussing the historical paradigm of membership in "Israel," a conceptual–theoretical description of inner exclusion comes into view. There then follows a comparative analysis of inner exclusions in three discourses: schematic universal humanism, exemplified in the art installation United Bears, Kant's universal experience of sublime, and the Palestinian Talmud (PT) approach to the divine law. The PT model suspends the impulses of the universalization, let alone the unification of law. This suspension is excluded from within in Kant's universalism of a fully citable law. The applied result of this essay is that historical inclusion of the Jews in universal humanity ignores the conditions that enabled their exclusion from humanity in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Margery Kempe establishes the authority of her body and pleasures on the grounds of her "singularity," leading her to defend a stance on universal salvation from an expansive conception of Heaven that is surprising in its acceptance of sexual gratifications. Drawn in part from Richard Rolle's self-authorizing singularity that unites the term's meanings of both solitude and exceptionality, Kempe's term is fitted to the circumstances of her own social, worldly life. She presents her achieved solitude not as a turning away from the world, but instead as the world's rejecting her, and specifically her eccentricities. Her life story proposes that the more singular she is, the more people will resist her; and the more that people resist her, the more surely her singular life is confirmed as God-inspired. Her singularity thus brings about the will of God, and her singular life affirms her material body as a glorified body in a realization of Heaven on earth. From her embrace of singularity, Kempe discovers a revaluation of bodily pleasure and a reimagining of community that results in her insistence on a Kingdom of Heaven open to everyone, a community based on the celebration of singularities—however queer—rather than on conformity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opening lines of this article emphasize that lasting peace in the world can never be built on ephemeral human foundation but only on the unchangeable foundation of Jesus Christ. A biblical incentive for peace can be found in the Pauline concept of Christ’s reconciliation ministry/sacrifice as an act of new creation. This article underlines the Letter to the Ephesians, particularly the passage Ef 2,14-16, which is pertinent, given that besides emphasizing vertical reconciliation between God and men, it also emphasizes horizontal reconciliation between two hostile groups of Jews and Gentiles that results in the creation of a new being of the Church, that represents a new reconciled humanity in which the old ethnical and racial divisions that lead to conflict and wars to this very day diminish in value. The first part of the article underlines the meaning and origin of the important Greek expressions that are used to depict the process of the new creation, such as καινὴ κτίσις, »new creation«, in the authentic Pauline letters and καινός ἄνθρωπος, »new man, new humanity«, in the Letter to the Ephesians and in deutero-Pauline letters. There are three different applications of the motif of the new creation that are not necessarily mutually exclusive when applied to the individual convert, community of faith (the Church) and the entire world. There are two significant characteristics of the new creation: reconciliation and rejection of the worldly human standards in order to lead an authentic new life in Christ. The second part offers certain traits of the concept of peace and reconciliation in the Pauline literature with a special emphasis on two Greek terms employed to denote reconciliation: (ἀπο)καταλλάσσω, »reconciliation«, and ποιέω εἰρήνη, »to make or establish peace«. This chapter emphasizes the connection between the two connected motifs of the new creation and reconciliation. Once again, a special emphasis is given to the passage Eph 2,14-16, as it is the only Pauline and New Testament passage overall, in which the subject of creation is not God the Father, but Christ himself. The final third part addresses further meaningful characteristics of the imagery of the new creation, such as the development of the Pauline theology of reconciliation and vocabulary from individual and communal application in the authentic letters towards a wider application to the entire creation in the deutero-Pauline letters. Finally, the topic of reconciliation as an act of creation reminds us that in the Church, which remains the new creation of Christ, the first stage of God’s universal plan of salvation for the whole humanity and the entire creation has already been realized. In the light of the wars that are being waged at this moment and throughout the world, this means that we as Christians and as members of the Church, are invited to testify that God is the only true source of lasting peace that can only occur in Jesus Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines Saudek’s novel Diplomats (1921) from three perspectives: first, with regard to the (biographical) circumstances of its creation and publication; second, in the gradual development of its concrete form and fields of meaning; third, with an emphasis on the ways in which it was realized. The middle part of the study is the most dominant, evoking (in excerpts and comments) specific elements and constraints of Saudek’s novel structure — centred on the feminist intermingling of the story of Pygmalion with Christ’s (or apostolic) gestation, in accordance with a tendency of the period to bring together the national and universal horizons of salvation, and to confront the temporal connections and confrontations with stimuli from the outside world. To understand their present and future, the main protagonists of the novel are constructed as initiates in the art of graphology, able to identify the handwriting of famous writers. They believe, moreover, that they can recognize the ‘handwriting of history’: that is, the contours of what is to come. At the same time, they do not want to remain mere contemplative readers of this historical nature, and they go in search of someone who can change the course of the world to meet their ideal, namely that of a peaceful world. They find this in the figure of T. G. Masaryk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thus, Matarazzo continues, in Chapter Three, to look at conceptions of divine judgment in, what he labels, "optimistic soteriologies": those of Sergei Bulgakov, Hans Urs von Balthasar, J. A. T. Robinson, and Marilyn McCord Adams. In Chapter Five, Matarazzo makes an effort of crafting such a position as he suggests and outlines a concept of divine judgment described as a salvific event of "absolute recognition". In this well-written book, James Matarazzo invites the readers to a critical and constructive exploration of nothing less than the concept of divine judgment in Christian theology. [Extracted from the article]

David Bentley Hart has recently argued that universal salvation is a metaphysically necessary outcome of God's act of creating rational beings. A crucial premise of Hart's argument is a compatibilist view of free will, according to which God can determine human choices without taking away their freedom. This view constitutes common ground between Hart and the tradition of classical Thomism, which emphasizes the non‐competitive relation between human freedom and God's universal causality. Unfortunately, Thomistic compatibilism undermines the so‐called Free Will Defense, which is often considered to be the only viable way of responding to contemporary criticism of the doctrine of hell. Can the existence of hell be reconciled with God's goodness given a Thomistic conception of rational freedom? This question is of interest not only to followers of Aquinas but to anyone who rejects a 'zero‐sum competition' between freedom and grace, and who also believes that divine revelation confirms the possibility of perdition. The present article proposes an alternative to the Free Will Defense—called The Thomistic Autonomy Defense—which aims to block Hart's arguments for the necessity of universal salvation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores one of the great paradoxes of imperial China: the rise of religions that required qijia (family abandonment) in a society that privileged a patriarchal family system. Grounded in the case of Quanzhen Daoism, the article examines representations of qijia in poetry, hagiographies, inscriptions, and plays to explain the distinctive ways in which this nonscriptural tradition of renunciation configured its relationship with families. It demonstrates that there existed ambivalent, even contradictory, attitudes toward the issue of family, particularly that of parents, in different genres of Quanzhen texts. This ambivalence speaks to irreconcilable family-monastery tensions as the Quanzhen order transformed from a local movement with a few ascetic elites to a nationwide monastic order in the early thirteenth century. In thirteenth-century qijia narratives, Quanzhen apologists deployed flexible renderings of filial piety to validate personal and universal salvation—instead of familial salvation—as the principal goal of a Quanzhen monastic career. Neither the Quanzhen ideology nor its monastic institution truly addressed the interests of natural families. As such, the Quanzhen tradition contrasts sharply with the medieval Buddhism and Daoism, whose apologists conceptualized the family-monastery relations to harness the family interests to the needs of the churches. Despite posing a direct challenge to the patriarchal family system, Quanzhen Daoism developed into one of the two major Daoist schools after the thirteenth century. Its success resulted from the Quanzhen order's salvationist contribution to the crumbling northern Chinese society under Mongol conquest, as well as its initiatives producing texts to promote pro-Quanzhen narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theme of suffering is intimately tied to the possibilities of the blood as redemptive in theology. Potentially considered a universal pathway to salvation and racial transcendence for people of African descent, "Da Blood of Shesus" asks: Is there redeeming power in the blood for people of African descent? Turning to Womanist and lyrical theologians to postulate an African theological framework which explores redemptive suffering not glorified as inevitable and intricate to the historical Black experience and the church. Lyrical theologians affirm Jesus' redemptive power of the blood in Hip Hop portraying the ways in which the cross reveals the attributes of God. Womanist theologians challenge the "classical" interpretation of redemptive suffering, illuminating the ways it contributes to Black oppression and wretchedness. Arguably, Womanist and lyrical theologians conjointly point towards liberatory and alternatives to examine redemptive suffering for people of African descent by offering sites to scrutinize and nuance the blood as an indispensable pathway to redemption. An African theological perspective decenters the logics of anti-Blackness proposing suffering is inevitable to Black life and the historical Black experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While this article does not presume to answer the old question "Was Socrates of Constantinople a Novatian?", it does offer a hitherto-unnoticed observation that may bear on the question. Socrates, as has been noted, is very reticent to use the term "catholic" in describing the church in his Historia ecclesiastica. This is unlikely to be a stylistic quirk, as a comparison to the history of Sozomen shows. No one yet has connected his reticence to the Novatian Sympronian, who objects to the same term on theological grounds in letters exchanged with Pacian of Barcelona. Given Socrates' reluctance to use the term and Novatian's rejection of the same term, we may well have more evidence suggesting that Socrates was at the very least sympathetic not only to Novatians as a community but to their theological positions as well. In any case, the resistance of both Sympronian and Socrates to the notion of a "catholic" church stands in contrast to the usual interpretation of late antiquity as a period of growing universalism. The article also discusses whether it is even valid to ask whether Socrates was a Novatian or whether this question falls into less useful confessional dichotomies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Karl Rahner and Robert Barclay, God's offer of life extends to all and can be accepted apart from the expressed Christian faith. In sketching this phenomenon, Rahner and Barclay present substantially different models, detailing transcendence in the arena of history and the action of the inward Light, respectively. This paper addresses these idiosyncrasies while identifying a crucial area of agreement: the divine foundation of both propositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author critiques the book "Divine Democracy: Political Theology After Carl Schmitt" by Miguel Vatter. Topics include the author's doubt about the possibility of a democratic political theology on the grounds that Vatter would like to construct it, a discussion of the scientific and polemical meanings of Carl Schmitt's political theology and Vatter's claim that theorists are united by their common debt to an idea of divine democracy that rests on cultural legacy of Christian universalism.

The article presents the discussion on Patristics constituting a crucial resource for rethinking the practice and direction of systematic and philosophical theology in the modern (and postmodern) condition. Topics include crux of the debate about universalism concerning about reassessing the place of Origen in the history of Christianity; and constructive account of the incarnation and Christology calling the prologue to theology.

Cheng Xuanying's Expository Commentary to the Daode jing presents the Laozi as the origin of Daoism—a Daoism which, by his time in the seventh century, included many beliefs and concepts coopted from Buddhism. The commentary is representative of chongxuan xue (Twofold Mystery philosophy), which is characterized by the integration of Buddhist concepts and methods into the interpretation of the Laozi. Taking the integration of the Buddhist concept of the bodhisattva as universal savior of limitless compassion, this paper investigates the "why" and "how" of this cooption. The question of why Cheng Xuanying wanted to read the Daode jing as a testimony to Laozi and Dao being a compassionate, universal savior is addressed with a contextualization of the commentary in its time and location: early Tang Chang'an. Next, the paper discusses, in detail, the hermeneutic tools Cheng Xuanying used to achieve his reading. Cheng Xuanying integrated his commentary and the original text of the Laozi in a complex structure, combining the kepan technique, interlinear interpretation, and added structuring comments, in addition to what might be termed "strategic citations". This paper analyzes how he worked with these means to construct arguments and specific readings of the Laozi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his new book Divergent Religious Paths to Convergent End? Perspectives of Religious Studies and Sino-Christian Theology, Lai Pan-chiu addresses the issue of religious diversity. He raises a significant question, namely whether religions have a convergent ultimate end or not. To answer this question, he articulates a theory of multi-dimensional salvation. This article argues that Lai's theory effectively explains the complexities inherent to religious diversity. The theory claims that religions have some common soteriological goals, which nevertheless do not belong to the category of ultimate salvation. This theory however does not adequately answer the question of whether religions have a convergent ultimate end or not. Moreover, this article argues that, in terms of a Sino-Christian soteriology, Lai should further discuss whether Christianity and Chinese religions have a convergent end or not, especially given the inherent contrast between Christian monotheism and Chinese polytheism. This article also argues that Lai may incorporate other issues such as multi-dimensional salvation, universal salvation, and the ethics of hope into his discussion, so as to explore the possibility that religions have a convergent ultimate end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In God's Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism, we argue that for every version of the doctrine of hell there is a version of the doctrine of universal salvation that, granted traditional Christian teachings, is more philosophically defensible. This article explores whether a parallel case can be made for preferring universalism to annihilationism. While assuming for the sake of this article that the chief arguments for favouring universalism over the doctrine of hell, developed in God's Final Victory, are strong, we argue that a comparably strong parallel case for favouring universalism to annihilationism can indeed be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342-ca. 1416) was a fourteenth-century English mystic. She received sixteen private revelations from God. In the Thirteenth Showing, God revealed that "sin is necessary, but all shall be well." This paper explores and develops the theme of universal salvation in Julian's Revelations of Divine Love. It introduces the readers to her reflections on God's manifestations, with the focus on God's compassion for all creation. In view of the dynamic tension between Julian's visions of all shall be well and the teachings of the Catholic Church on human sin and the eternal fire of hell, two developments are presented. First, reference is made to the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) for a deeper comprehension of Julian's reflection on sin, bearing in mind the different contexts of Julian and Augustine. Then, this paper brings Julian's loving and joyful trust in the love of God for all things into dialogue with the contemporary calls of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) and Karl Rahner (1904-1984) for Catholics to hope for universal salvation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work seeks to illustrate the relationship that exists between the spirituality of Latin American origin, developed by the foremost theological authors, with the category of culture of encounter promoted by Pope Francis. Specifically, I would like to develop the hypothesis that there is a coincidence between the category "culture of encounter" with the most characteristic and recognized theological-spiritual roots of Latin American theology. By means of its emphasis on the mystery of the incarnation and the reign of God, a process that led her to discover not only the dignity of the excluded, and the preferential option for the poor as a guarantee of the universal offer of salvation, but also a certain understanding of others that allows them to appreciate themselves as neighbors is achieved. Characteristics that contribute to the task of Christians with other citizens in the construction of the common good, peace, integration and justice--facets that constitute some of the elements of the culture of encounter. To this end, I systematize the contributions of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Segundo Galilee, Jon Sobrino, Leonardo Boff, José María Vigíl and Ignacio Ellacuría, based on their most characteristic texts where they explain the spiritual foundation of their analyses, which are indeed biblical. These authors developed a theological-spiritual foundation that demonstrated a relationship between contemplation and commitment, enabling the recognition of the Other (movement of God in his Incarnate Son and the sending of the Spirit) and of the others (movement towards the various Latin American presences) in their concrete cultural reality. This process supported their understanding of the other/different as neighbor. Enabling the other/diverse to not be shifted into adversary, or stranger, but understood rather as a valid interlocutor. In this way, there developed in the theological-pastoral reflection of Latin America a spiritual underpinning that allows the disciples not only to enter into dialogue, but also to go out to meet the other who is seen as neighbor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching ecumenism in the context of global Christianity raises the question of how to approach the themes of "catholicity" and "conciliarity." This article addresses some of the challenges and possible paths in relation to this topic. At a time when universalism is often (and rightly) denounced, can or should there be room for a sense of the church's universality or catholicity? Or is universality always an instrument in the service of hegemonic (mostly Western) quests for domination? The paper seeks to show how universality entails a mutual, ongoing dialogue in which all parties involved may set the agenda and contribute. This connects to conciliarity or synodality, a much‐discussed theme in Roman Catholicism, in the Orthodox world, and among Protestant churches worldwide. The article presents some of the challenges the churches have been and are facing as they seek to become more authentically synodal churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When did the first genocide take place in history? In theory, a universal crime transcends time and space. In practice, the moral imagination demands a specific origin story. In this article, I explain how and why Raphael Lemkin chose to locate genocide's archetypal origins in the early Christian martyrdom at the hands of the ancient Romans. That choice emerged from a dramatic public confrontation with Catholic antisemitism in interwar Poland. Haunted by the charge of Jewish moral parochialism, after the war Lemkin fashioned a cosmopolitan narrative for his discovery of genocide. Today, scholars are consumed by debates about the historical and conceptual relationship between the Holocaust and other genocides. Yet we cannot move forward in that endeavor until we retrieve Lemkin's Polish Jewish past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postcolonial theories announce an "exit": the departure from the West as the world's centre of gravity and from Eurocentric hegemonic claims of superiority, turning away from the universal, and placing unheard voices at the centre – those who are excluded from academic, public, and political discourse. Such stories and histories of the margins do not simply represent "other" stories from the "periphery." Rather, the stories of the margins are constitutive for the history of Europe and the invention of European modernity. Today's manifestations of global Christianity are no exception to these dynamics. There are various models of alternative universalisms and conceptions of unity, where the crucial questions are: who defines the unity of the churches and has the monopoly over interpretation and – related to this, but a little more radically – whether such a formulation of unity must necessarily repeat Western grammar or whether there are not entirely other grammars and epistemologies of unity. Postcolonial theories and postcolonial practices in particular offer promising perspectives in dealing with these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the influence of German thought on Baron Friedrich von Hügel's philosophy of religion. It mentions activities of the British scholar in the networks of Catholic modernism are placed within the broader framework of the international discussion on religion around 1900. It also mentions religious universalism was shaped to a great extent by the encounter of German intellectuals from a liberal Protestant background.

Modern Neo-Confucianist Tang Chun-I paid great attention to Nicholas Berdyaev’s Theosis with his concept of “God-man” as the core. In Tang’s eyes, Berdyaev combined humanism with religion, which stood in opposition to the traditional belief in God-man isolation, and thus affirmed the universal value of humanity. It is close to Tang’s own Confucian humanism. However, on the other hand, Berdyaev failed to fully affirm human value, and clung to Jesus as the one and only mediator of salvation, which some might think tends to the theory of exclusive salvation. Tang’s interpretation also differs somewhat from Berdyaev’s understanding of freedom, God-man (and Man-god), humility and universal salvation. He also omitted Berdyaev’s eschatological frame of Theosis. Tang’s interpretation is originated from his idea of the immanent transcendence of human, which is due to his insistence on the Confucian theory of the original goodness of human nature, plus his adoption and transformation of both Kant’s and Hegel’s philosophies. Tang’s understanding and interpretation is constituted by the grounding myth of ontotheology. Moreover, the criticism of Tang from Chinese Christians was also confined to onto-theology. Therefore, the Christian-Confucian dialogue needs to overcome these different understandings of onto-theology in order to deconstruct the dualism of transcendence and immanence. Only in this way might Theosis gain its methodological significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Pillar and Ground of the Truth Pavel Florensky presents an account of hell, or 'Gehenna', that synthesises two seemingly irreconcilable claims: that God will save all people, and that some people will reject God forever. In insisting that both claims are true, and by recasting standard categories of final judgement, purgation and human identity, Florensky produces a novel contribution in contemporary debates about hell and universalism. I begin by surveying his account, then address two key interpretive questions raised by his critics, and conclude by situating his account within modern western conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on universalism that is one of the clearest trends in theology over the last two centuries. Topics include considered that universalist turn raises significant questions, even for those "infernalists" who take it as axiomatic that some number of creatures meet eternal misery such as questions about the purpose of God's creation, the scope of his providence and the place for a pocket of everlasting rebellion and un-love within God's creation.

Background/Context: Since the 1980s, the International Baccalaureate (IB) has gained popularity as an alternative to traditional public curricula, which public discourse frames as ill-equipped to prepare students for today's global market economy. Within this set of discourses, the IB emerges as a pedagogical tool for producing a new kind of "international" student who transcends the limitations of the traditional public school student. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Using the IB's high school music curriculum, known as the Diploma Programme (DP), as an entry point, this article examines the kind of "international" student that the IB claims to produce. Research Design: Informed by Foucault's notion of discursive subjectification, this study examines how the diploma music curriculum fabricates a particular kind of person: the diploma music student. Although the IB takes this subject position for granted, this study rests on the premise that diploma music students only become "thinkable" as such within certain sociohistorical conditions. Data Collection and Analysis: I engage with a set of official IB documents designed to inform the practice of DP music teachers. I approach this literature as a power-laden dispositive of knowledge production. I examine statements that relate to the construct of the diploma music student based on both the possibilities they afford and the meanings they preclude. I pay special attention to how this curriculum fabricates divisions, distinctions, and comparisons. Findings/Results: I argue that the IB's conception of the diploma music student as an independent thinker, an internationally minded person, and an individual committed to creating a better world reflects three cultural theses that coalesced during the European Enlightenment: the notions of reason, the nation, and progress. Through their recurrent treatment as "truth claims," these tropes become naturalized. They enable the IB's notion of the diploma music student to emerge discursively as neutral and universal. Conclusions/Recommendations: By pointing out some of the onto-epistemic systems that undergird the IB's conception of the diploma music student, I do not suggest that the IB should completely abandon those constructs. However, this curriculum's portrayal of modern Euro-American ways of being and thinking as universal is incompatible with its stated claims of ontological and epistemic universality and inclusivity. Alternatively, I suggest engaging with various ways of being and reasoning substantially and respectfully. In addition, it would be pertinent to consider how each onto-cosmo-epistemological system relates to other systems and the students vis-à-vis ongoing power-knowledge dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on what might be in the current situation recognised as the task entrusted by God to the Church to carry it out. The topic will be approached in the following way: Starting from the title of the Theological Pastoral Week, The Church in the World of Crises and Human Suffering, that contains the syntagm »in the world of crises« (plural), the first part of the article, titled -- 'The Church in the Times of Crises' -- analyses some aspects of the crisis of the Western civilisation that the Church and Christians encounter today. This part also discusses the Church in terms of its crisis of fundamental meaning/mission and the crisis of practical faith (orthopraxis). The central part of the article, that also somewhat encompasses the second part of the title of the Theological Pastoral Week that refers to »human suffering«, thematises 'Humanity That Is Wounded and in Need of Redemption'. The mission and task of the Church is, therefore, discussed in the light of the theological truth that the human being is a being in need of redemption. The category of redemption signifies personal, social political, and global salvation. The Church is the universal sacrament of salvation/redemption, not only for Catholics and Christians, but for the whole world. In view of the ecclesiology of Pope Francis, the Church is the »Church of exodus«, going forth like a »field hospital« to the periphery of wounded humanity and human existence. The third, final part of the article, titled 'Crisis is an Opportunity for What?', reflects on ways in which the Church can be a sign and means of God's salvation in today's world of crises and human suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reassesses António Vieira's views on New Christians and Jews. Rather than presenting a reductive portrait of Vieira's philosemitism as merely empathic, positive, and tolerant, I argue that his supportive attitudes included some enduring negative ideas of Jewishness. An analysis of Vieira's pro-converso and prophetic writings (including his Inquisition trial) show that his more ambivalent and dialectical perceptions were ultimately grounded on a theological-political interpretation of Paul's Judeo-Gentile universalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, a new strategy in wildlife conservation was announced: so-called "rhino impact bonds," designed to support the conservation of African black rhinos, with the ultimate aim of establishing a global "conservation debt market." This essay takes this development in the financialization of wildlife conservation as an object lesson in the mutual imbrication of guilt, debt, and the (non)human in the age of the Anthropocene. To this end, it traces a theoretical trajectory that explicitly frames the figure of "Man" in terms of Schuld, starting with Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. The essay takes Nietzsche's "sovereign individual" to refer not to the human species as a whole but rather a specific "genre" of the human, namely what Sylvia Wynter calls homo oeconomicus. In "overrepresenting" himself as the paradigmatic human, this figure has established capital accumulation as the goal of all human life. From here, the essay turns to Walter Benjamin's characterization of capitalism as a religion whose ultimate aim is not salvation but universal debt/guilt, and finally to Adorno's account of nature conservation as domination. The rhino bonds represent the logical consequence of this trajectory, namely the expansion of the principle of universal debt to the entire natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a time in the 1960s it seemed as if one domain in which the global south's enthusiastic struggle to arrogate the mantle of universalism as an exercise in "worldmaking" was the transformation of international law. Though this struggle was ultimately circumvented by great power politics and newer forms of international law and organization, it was a crucial moment. The introductory prosopographical survey that follows seeks to recapture the consensus of a set of northern and southern international lawyers in the 1960s who saw potential in the project of transforming their field to register the aims of a new epoch – the aims of postcolonial states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moltmann proposes an ‘open universalism’ that overstresses the goodness of God and hence God’s obligation to redeem all of humanity, irrespective of human reciprocity. This leads to his consequent conception of salvation that seems to underplay the traditional understanding of sin and repentance. The purpose of this article is to explore Moltmann’s version of universalism in the light of sin and repentance and to propose that universalism could be a viable doctrine if it is considered not as an automatic rendering but as ‘conditional universalism’ that demands reciprocal response (even post mortem) in terms of human repentance. For this purpose, Gregory of Nyssa’s idea of universalism will be utilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rosenzweig's account of Islamic universalism might lead us to question the extent of that universalism itself. In the context of Islam, it is widely understood that the possibility of redemption is available to "righteous" believers. But what about the world as a whole, the world beyond the realm of righteous believers? These questions have not elicited straightforward responses, as Muslim theologians have long debated the question of who exactly can be saved and admitted into paradise and God's mercy. In the present essay, I consider certain influential Muslim theological approaches to the topic of world redemption, or universal salvation, with a focus on Sunni thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the spread of the Bahá'í religion—known in Chinese as Datong jiao 大同教)— as a form of religious cosmopolitanism in Republican China (1912–1949). Originating in Iran, its spread to China can be traced to links with the Ottoman empire, British Palestine, the United States, and Japan. By tracking the individuals, connections, and events through which knowledge of the Bahá'í movement spread in China, our study reveals an overlapping nexus of networks—intellectual reformers, liberal Christians, Esperantists, Confucian modernizers, redemptive society activists, and socialists—that shared cosmopolitan ideals. The Bahá'í connections thus serve as a thread that reveals the influence of a unique 'cosmopolitan moment' in Republican China, hitherto largely ignored in the scholarly literature on this period, which has focused primarily on the growth of modern Chinese nationalism. Leading nationalist figures endorsed these movements at a specific juncture of Asian colonial modernity, showing that nationalism and cosmopolitanism were seen as expressions of the same ideal of a world community. We argue that the sociology of cosmopolitanism should attend to non-secular and non-state movements that advocated utopian visions of cosmopolitanism, map the circulations that form the nexus of such groups, and identify the contextual dynamics that produce 'cosmopolitan moments' at specific historical junctures and locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]