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Between the end of World War I and the Mecca World Muslim Congress of 1926, Soviet officials and Indian Muslim thinkers imagined the possibilities of a post-imperial world through the Hijaz. The All-India Khilafat Committee (AIKC; established 1919), an organization led by prominent Indian Muslim thinkers, and the Soviet Union promoted competing projects to protect the Hijaz, home to some of Islam's holiest shrines, against European imperialism. Yet, far from limiting themselves to the question of who should rule the Hijaz, the AIKC and the Soviet state engaged in broader debates about religious and social difference, sovereignty, and minority rights. Whereas the AIKC imagined the Hijaz as an international Muslim republic and a place of refuge for Muslims worldwide, Soviet officials contended that the political future of Muslims should only be settled within the framework of ethno-territorial nation-states. Ironically, the programs of both the AIKC and the Soviet state denied the right of self-determination to Hijazis themselves, leaving the region's inhabitants to choose between two forms of external oversight: a Soviet-supported Saudi ethno-territorialism or limited domestic autonomy under the management and inspection of an international Muslim Council. With very few exceptions, past scholarship on the Hijaz in this period has analyzed the region's political fortunes through Saudi statecraft or European colonial influence. However, Soviet and Indian Muslim experimental engagement with the Hijaz ultimately proved just as crucial to the consolidation of Saudi governance over the region. The article arrives at these novel insights by bringing rare Soviet archival documents together with the Urdu proceedings of the AIKC's delegation to the Hijaz, as well as Arabic sources from the period in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the seventh and final chapter, "A God Who Responds", Luhrmann concludes her study by asking 'what happens when faith practices kindle a god or spirit into feeling real? Thus, Luhrmann argues that "prayer's most powerful and consequential feature" (154) is its capacity to make God feel real and sustain a believer's relationship with an invisible other. What Luhrmann is interested in is the appearance of reality to religious practitioners, and Luhrmann would argue that, even if gods and spirits I are i real, they still must appear I as i real to individuals in order to make a difference. [Extracted from the article]

The importance of the Reformation to the political, social and cultural history of the Low Countries in the sixteenth century certainly justifies the appearance of Kooi's book, which is the first English-language synthesis of its kind. Kooi demonstrates that before the onset of the Reformation, the Low Countries was a distinctly devout region, and not one necessarily more disturbed by calls for religious renewal than elsewhere in Europe. As Christine Kooi points out in her admirable new synthesis of religious change in the sixteenth-century Low Countries, the early Netherlandish Reformation was marked by violent state repression. [Extracted from the article]

The difference between PC and Reformed epistemology appears to be that religious seemings (the I sensus divinitatis i ) are experiences which provide prima facie justification but also tend to be formalizable - and even ought to eventually be formalized - into arguments for theism. I will not here summarize every chapter but will focus on the aspects of the book that seem most relevant to instructors and to the state of the debate in religious epistemology. [Extracted from the article]

Firstly, Hampton makes an incontrovertible case for Reformed conformity as a distinct and coherent tradition in the early Stuart Church while carefully articulating its distinctiveness in historical-theological context. In chapters vi-viii Hampton examines the Reformed conformist understanding of what conformity entailed in relation to eucharistic theology, episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer. As a result, proper attention to English Reformed Conformity further undermines an overly narrow conception of the Reformed tradition as a whole (p. 308). [Extracted from the article]

Tolerance underlies many contemporary controversies, yet theorists and political scientists study it in strikingly different ways. This article bridges the gap by using recent developments in political theory to enrich empirical research and extend the study of tolerance to contexts beyond liberal democracies, such as authoritarian regimes. Our recommendations challenge dominant liberal-democratic frameworks by emphasizing variation across the (1) objects of tolerance; (2) possible responses to difference; and (3) sources of tolerance. We then illustrate the promise of our recommendations with three theoretically informed experiments inspired by historical debates about religious conversion. Our results suggest a marked 'convert effect' across not only contemporary religious but also secular political divides, with the same difference in terms of content viewed as less tolerable when resulting from conversion than when given or ascribed. The research demonstrates the benefits of greater dialogue across political theory and political science, while shedding light on a central question of tolerance today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a series of doctrinal disputations held in early Islamic Egypt, and known through the Hodegos of Anastasius of Sinai (fl. c. 670–c. 700). Using the text's prosopographical and contextual cues, it argues that these disputations occurred in the 680s, in the aftermath of Constantinople's Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/1), the decisions of which had thrown the Chalcedonian Christians of the caliphate into conflict and schism. In 686, it is argued, Anastasius had confronted the famed Edessene and Severan Athanasius bar Gūmōyē before the Marwānid prince 'Abd al-'Azīz at Fusṭāṭ, and there been defeated. That defeat is indicative of the new-found position of the Egyptian Severan Church, which now flourished under Marwānid patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leo x's brief Cum nuper , which authorised Cardinal Cajetan to put Luther on trial but did not restrict debate between them, was sent not on 11 September 1518, as has been generally believed, but on 2 November. It referred to a lost brief countermanding the order of 23 August for Luther's arrest: this brief instead offered a safe conduct to Rome. However, Luther's abrupt departure from Augsburg prevented this offer from being made. Exsurge Domine (1520), which convicted Luther without trial on inflated charges of heresy, made the false claim that he had rejected an invitation to Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient polemicists claim that apocryphal texts contributed to the enduring popularity of the Origenist “heresy” in fourth- and fifth-century Egypt. The anchorite Sopatrus associates “apocryphal literature” with “discussions about the image,” shorthand for Origenist debates over the loss of the image of God in humanity, and urges his hearers to avoid both apocryphal books and the theological controversy they incite. In his festal letter of 401 CE, the archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria rails against Origenist teaching and urges Christians throughout Egypt to reject “Origen's evils” and disregard “Scriptures called ‘apocrypha.’” Shenoute's association of Origenist themes with “apocryphal books” in I Am Amazed demonstrates that non-canonical writings continued to occupy a central position in Origenist theological debates well into the fifth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Is it possible to invent a science that sets the rules for an ethical, logical and effective debate? Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (died in the first half of the 14th century), a logician and Ḥanafī jurist thought it possible. He undertook the task of developing a general theory of scientific discussion that had a tremendous success and impact on Muslim scholarship. Ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara, as he called it, is a set of ethical and logical principles, taken from Aristotelian logic and Islamic law. His major treatise Risālat Ādāb al-baḥth, initiated a new discipline in which dozens of treatises, commentaries and glosses were written. In my contribution, I will shed light on this neglected science, describe its structure, expose its functions and highlight its significance for the development of debates and intellectual dialogues in the later medieval Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A broad consensus exists among modern scholars that the role of the devil in Socrates's ‘Historia Ecclesastica’ is limited and that he explains the origins of religious controversy in terms of human causation. This paper argues that the modern consensus requires revision based on the devil's role in chapter i.22 on Manichaeism and on the correspondences between that chapter and the presentation of heresies elsewhere in the ‘History’. If this interpretation of those correspondences is accepted, it should further nuance perceptions of Socrates's approach to heresies and his reputation for ‘tolerance’, while also highlighting his use of religious polemic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Jain leaders faced a series of religious questions at the royal Mughal court. At the request of their imperial Muslim hosts, Jain representatives discussed aspects of both Islam and Jainism on separate occasions, including the veracity of Islam, whether Jains are monotheists, and the validity of Jain asceticism. The Mughals sometimes initiated these conversations of their own accord and at other times acted on the prompting of Brahmans, who had political and religious interests at stake in encouraging imperial clashes with Jain leaders. Jain authors recorded these exchanges in numerous Sanskrit texts, which generally remain unknown to Mughal historians and Sanskrit scholars alike. I examine the Jain accounts of these cross-cultural debates and expound their political, religious, and intellectual implications. These engagements showcase how the Mughals negotiated religious differences with diverse communities in their kingdom. Furthermore, the Sanskrit narratives of these dialogues outline complex theological visions of how Jain beliefs and practices could thrive within a potentially hazardous Islamicate imperial order. More broadly Jain and Mughal discussions provide rich insight into key developments in religious precepts and local identities in early modern India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In his account of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides tells us that in 435 b.c. the Epidamnians decided to transfer their allegiance from Corcyra to Corinth in accordance with the Delphic oracle, whereupon the Corinthians agreed to support Epidamnus against their own colony Corcyra. One of the reasons given is that the Corinthians hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt for their mother city, as ‘in their common festivals they would not allow them the customary privileges of founders, at their sacrifice they did not give priority to Corinthians [as other colonies did]’ (οὔτε γὰρ ἐν πανηγύρεσι ταῖς κοιναῖς διδόντες γέρα τὰ νομιζόμενα οὔτε Κορινθίῳ ἀνδρὶ προκαταρχόμενοι τῶν ἱερῶν ὥσπερ αἱ ἄλλαι ἀποικίαι). Precisely what the dispute was and what the word προκατάρχεσθαι means have not been convincingly explained by commentators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the overlapping histories of the French Catholic Church and the public sphere in the 17th century. The article focuses on how religious debates in 17th century France were conducted though the publication of letters. The author examines how this practice was designed to avoid making the church into a public forum. The relationship between the world of letters and publishing and the ecclesiastic and church-centered realm is examined. Topics discussed in the letters include predestination, Jansenism, and morality.

In this article, I provide a preliminary analysis of Buddhist–Muslim coexistence in the Songkhla Lake area in southern Thailand as it unfolds on the margins of a violent conflict in the Deep South (Patani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces). I argue that in the Songkhla Lake area, social, religious, economic and political alliances are reflected in multi-religious ritual traditions that have the potential to transcend cultural difference or manage difference constructively. The article then analyses the transformation of multi-religious coexistence and concludes that the revitalisation of Theravada Buddhism and Islam results in the uneasy coexistence of old and new practices and in a dialectic of sharing and competition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gender ideologies have been shown to be an important element in creating national identity. The settler population of early colonial Queensland was largely drawn from Protestant England and Scotland, and Catholic Ireland. In the process of social formation, Anglican men contributed to building a Protestant hegemony that strove to marginalise the Irish Catholic part of the population. In doing so they bracketed Tractarianism with Catholicism in an attempt to assert the essentially Protestant nature of Anglicanism. This paper explores three debates that took place in the public domain in the period 1855–65, and their impact on the local Anglican community and on social formation in the fledgling colonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the execution of his father Charles I in January 1649, the exiled king Charles II pursued various political, military, and diplomatic strategies to recover his kingdoms. Proclaimed king of Ireland and Scotland, Charles II adopted the traditional view of monarch–subject relations and expected the loyalty of his subjects and their devotion to his restoration. The recent experiences of war and regicide, however, had changed the ways in which Irish and Scottish subjects determined the nature and degree of allegiance owed to the king. In Ireland and Scotland, subjects placed their own interests above the royalist cause. Tensions in Ireland among Catholics and between Catholics and Protestants tested the bonds of loyalty to Charles II, and Scottish Covenanters circumscribed the king's authority and imposed strict conditions upon their political and military support. Moreover, Charles II's position of exile exacerbated existing tensions within his kingdoms. While Charles I experienced the withdrawal of his subjects' allegiance and strove to recover that loyalty, as an exiled king Charles II struggled to gain the allegiance of his kingdoms and to secure loyalty in the face of religious tension, geographic distance, failing war efforts, and conflicting interests among his subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2005, Tia Kolbaba published an article in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies entitled 'On the closing of the churches and the rebaptism of Latins: Greek perfidy or Latin slander?' In it she argued that reports of Greek closure of Latin churches and rebaptism of Latins in the early 1050s were fabricated. This is in line with a strand of scholarship which plays down the provocative aspects of Greek activity in precipitating the crisis of 1054. This paper argues against that strand of scholarship, insisting instead that the sources contain sufficient evidence to indicate that Greek behaviour can indeed be interpreted as provocative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an in-depth response to criticisms made by J. R. Ryder to the author's article from the 2005 volume of the journal regarding the events of the Great Schism of 1054 in Byzantium. The author highlights four major arguments brought up by Ryder, including accusations of "playing down the provocative aspects of Greek activity," questions of the conclusiveness of his research, and inconsistencies regarding accounts of the re-baptism of Latin Christians in the article. The author replies to each accusation in turn, ceding some points and defending others.

The article offers an analysis of the public debate on priestly marriage, conducted in the last decades of the eleventh century. This was the first debate on the subject in six hundred years, erupting in the context of the reform movement. Although the theme of priestly marriage was mentioned in the Carolingian period as well as in the tenth and first half of the eleventh century, it was the anonymous defence of clerical marriage, the Epistola de continentia clericorum, that gave rise to a wide-ranging public debate. The article examines this debate in terms of the argumentative approaches used by the participants, the aim being to emphasise an important undercurrent in the understanding of priestly marriage contrary to the official - or Gratian - view on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholars have come increasingly to recognise the considerable influence of early modern Catholic writers upon the historiography of the English Reformation, a crucial aspect of this influence has received scant attention: the impact of Catholic polemical writings upon perceptions of the Reformation. This article will examine a particularly striking and important example of the effects of Catholic polemic, the attacks on the calendar of martyrs included in editions of John Foxe's Acts and monuments. It will describe how these attacks merged with traditions of anti-Puritanism to create a stereotype of the Marian martyrs as being poor, from the lowest social classes, uneducated and disrespectful of authority to the point of rebellion. These attacks also laid the foundation for the myth, still prevalent today, that many of the Marian martyrs were guilty of Trinitarian or sacramentarian heresies which would have led to their condemnation as heretics even under a Protestant regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the history of the McMahon murders of 1922 in Northern Ireland, events which are typically thematically connected to the larger sectarian violent conflicts of the Irish partition and illustrated as a precursor to the Troubles. Details are given outlining the specific events and circumstances surrounding the murder of six catholic civilians by Protestant police forces in Belfast, suggesting that contrary to popular historical memory, the events were actually unique and not stereotypical of the region's political violence.

While allowing for polysemy, scholars seem mostly averse to ambiguity, as in the π...στις Xριστo... debate; but, it would seem,without engaging with ancient semantic theory. There the model of 'naming' and so of evoking an otherwise unspecified mental impression, predominates. Meaning is taken to lie in the mind, not in the word or words that are hoped to evoke it, as is also shown in ancient discussions of metaphor, allegory, and paraphrase. Connotations of individual words are rarely distinguished, rarely if ever purged. We are not justified in expecting verbal precision where our ancient authors will neither have attempted it nor will their hearers have expected it; nor, indeed, domodern psycholinguists appear to find space for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the Greek constructions present in the Bible, related to the debate of faithfulness of Jesus Christ. These phrases reportedly have ambiguities inherent within them, not only in terms of composition, but also in terms of syntax. Several extracts that are relevant to the debate are also presented.

This article is a study of how Augustine's ethics of belief shaped his arguments against unbelief and its legacy in using coercion to settle disputes. After considering the arguments for belief presented by Augustine, the article studies how these were shaped by his understanding of the problem of evil and how the Fall influenced free will. What is noted to be of benefit in Augustine is that he offers arguments in favor of belief, and is convinced that he has shown unbelief to be based on unsound reasoning. By way of contrast, a number of theologians (such as Tertullian, John Calvin, and those under the heading of Reformed Epistemology) are considered who do not believe that arguments are necessary to support belief or reject unbelief. These are contrasted with Augustine and it is argued that they have significant shortcomings in this respect. However, the article concludes that Augustine could have gone farther in supporting the claim that it is clear that God exists, and his own shortcomings have been used to justify coercion in religious belief. If common ground is to be achieved this problem must be corrected and an adequate foundation for clarity must be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious intolerance that nowadays feeds a number of current conflicts leads us to rethink our modern conception of toleration, which emerged from the theological and philosophical debates accompanying or thrown up by the doctrinal controversies and politico-religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. It is defined by respect for distinct orders: that of conscience and that of the law, private and public, faith and reason. It bears the mark of religion and theology and relates to the idea of human dignity which was given its ethical foundation in the 18th century by Kant's doctrine of autonomy. Current events teach us that still today people kill and persecute in the name of faith, in the name of God, in the name of religion, because they have a different opinion or belief. If toleration, child of the Enlightenment and critical reason, has not definitively gained the upper hand in a rational, technical world, we need to ask whether it is not because we have neglected faith. To conclude from the distinction between reason and faith that they are antagonistic has not led to uprooting the human spirit's intolerance. Might we have forgotten that peace is also the business of religion? What should we expect, what should we hope for from dialogue between religions? Could faith be the antidote to intolerance? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reflection on the book of John Cottingham entitled "The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value." It explores the idea behind the philosophy of religion which is claimed as an area of study that is difficult to unfold and philosophers find it difficult to work. It states that Cottingham is among those who think philosophers tend to approach religious controversies with an inadequate methodology. According to Cottingham, there are regions of thought, particularly with regards to religion, which people can only explore with the aid of emotional sensitivity and immersion in practices.

Erasmus's writings on marriage, such as the Praise of Marriage, the Institution of Christian Marriage, and several of the Colloquies, have long been studied from a social-intellectual perspective that focuses on their role within theological debates of the time. This article proposes a different approach by stressing the literary and rhetorical aspects by which these texts seek to influence a reader in his or her 'matrimonial praxis." Through the combination of an effective rhetoric of intimacy with the characteristics of literary dialogue, Erasmus creates a mimetic discourse aimed at conveying models of conjugal life to be imitated by future readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between religious debate and constitutional conflict in the 1590s, focusing on the status of ecclesiastical law and the right of the church courts to impose ex officio oaths upon English subjects. It argues that Richard Cosin, a client of Archbishop Whitgift and the leading apologist for the government's use of ex officio oaths, used the issue to make a series of aggressive and controversial assertions of state power. These theoretical claims did not involve sovereignty or the powers of the monarch — the issues usually addressed by historians of political thought — but rather the much more theologically charged question of the line between public authority and private conscience. As such, Cosin and his supporters transformed the raw materials of conformity and anti-puritanism into a view of the state and its coercive powers that seemed to threaten both the common law and the Elizabethan regime's own claims that it did not make ‘windows into men's souls’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a critical but appreciative response to the emerging theology and proposed theological method of Stanley J. Grenz. It is appreciative of the way that Grenz is helping evangelicals face the fact that they should be more engaging of the broader theological discussions regarding method if it is to avoid becoming hopelessly irrelevant, both within and beyond evangelicalism. At the same time it is critical of the apparent ambiguity in Grenz's proposals for a revised theological method and its resulting theology. The article reflects on the prior work of Grenz but employs his most recent book, Beyond Foundationalism, co-authored with John R. Frank and published by Fortress Press in 2001. In the final analysis the author takes a cautious approach to Grenz's proposals due to the fact that there seems to be an ambiguous understanding of postmodern culture, an uncritical acceptance of a social trinitarian basis for community and a somewhat conflicted understanding of foundations for theology, understood as `(post)foundationalism'. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The question concerning conflicting truth claims so often at the center of theological discussions of religious pluralism has not shown signs of resolution insofar as the debates have proceeded from within the framework of propositional discourses. Among other reasons, this is in part due to the inadequacies of language to capture and communicate transcendental realities, in part due to the variety of interpretative systems associated with the religions, and in part due to religious truths claims as inviting inhabitation and practical embodiment rather than just describing objective realities. The thesis proposed here is that a pneumatological approach to the diversity of religions provides hitherto untapped resources for the theological understanding of religious truth. Building on the narrative of Pentecost in Acts 2, it is suggested that the Spirit's being poured out upon all flesh enables us not only to register the values of particular and distinct claims to truth, but also to engage such truths in some ways `from the inside'. This preserves the otherness of the religious other even while enabling interreligious dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the urgent needs of the church these days is to understand the ecclesial significance of controversy. To put it more plainly, we need to remember that conflict in the church is not necessarily a matter of revolt against and defence of a settled solution, but a God-given means of discovering what it is we actually believe. This is how the formulations of the classical creeds occurred: as questions arose, often far more bitterly and violently than in our own day, theological argument gradually found out its own rhythms and norms, and the figure hidden in the mass of as yet undifferentiated or half-articulated belief began to be made visible. So where controversy arises over matters not very fully dealt with so far in the history of our traditions, we should expect to learn something about both our methods and the substance of belief as the debate unfolds -- whatever middle-term resolutions it comes to, and whatever long-term expression of 'orthodoxy' is agreed upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a case study of the religious accommodation and political authority in an Alsatian community in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, France from 1648 through 1715. Discussion of the territorialisation of religious difference at Sainte-Marie; Changes in the political and demographic balance; Invasion by the Catholic Church.

Probes the nature, form and historical development of the Jewish tradition of holy argument. Parallelism and contrasts between Jewish argument with God and the enterprise of the philosophy of religion; Paradox associated with process theology.

The article presents front cover of the journal "Harvard Theological Review" along with information on editors and table of contents on topics including theological hermeneutics, theological controversy on Christian literature, and Islam.

The article presents back covers along with table of content for the journal "Harvard Theological Review" on topics including theological controversy related to Christian literature, Naassene, and Islam.