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The worship of baetyls in antiquity is well documented in the Near East and the Mediterranean, archaeologically as well as historically. While such practices were also common in South‐East Arabia, the archaeological information on it is still very limited. A boulder carved with a 'trident' (a mark familiar from local Abiel coin issues), which came to light at the site of Mleiha, has a circular cavity on the side similar to those visible on stones and on an eagle statue from contemporary ed‐Dur. This association suggests a religious context for the Mleiha petroglyph and, thus, a possible identification as a baetyl. The archaeological evidence for stone worship and associated cult practices from the SE‐Arabian Mleiha/PIR A‐C period (3rd century bce–3rd century ce) is reviewed and compared with ethnographic parallels and information from, among other sources, the Kitāb al‐aṣnām (Book of Idols) by Hishām ibn al‐Kalbī (737–819 ce). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines issues relating to women's participation in religious cults at the local level in the fifteenth century. The research is based on the collections of Krakow's miracles. This analysis aims to show the social and cultural background to women's participation in local worship, their religious practices, and also their place in social and family structure. Research shows that women were engaged and active, which translated into the development of local cults. Local worship allowed women to fulfil their religious needs without major disturbances in their daily lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building upon evidence supporting the co‐occurrence of behavioural addictions, this study delved into the relationship between social media doomscrolling and celebrity worship among university student social media users in Iran and the United States. Objectives were threefold: (a) provide psychometric support for the Social Media Doomscrolling Scale (SMDS), (b) examine psychological correlates of doomscrolling and celebrity worship, and (c) explore the relationship between doomscrolling and celebrity worship. The SMDS demonstrated good psychometric properties in the US sample, like the original study of the SMDS conducted in an Iranian sample. Doomscrolling showed a positive association with future anxiety and a negative association with psychological well‐being in both US and Iranian samples. Celebrity worship was positively linked with future anxiety in the Iranian and US samples. A positive correlation emerged between doomscrolling and celebrity worship in both the US and Iranian samples. This cross‐cultural study offers preliminary evidence for the co‐occurrence of two emerging media‐related behavioural addictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the worship of Dr José Tomás Sousa Martins, a 19th‐century physician revered as a lay saint and healer in Portugal, attracting devotees from diverse backgrounds. Some devotees come in search of healing and leave votive offerings at his statue in front of the NOVA Medical School in Lisbon. Others view him as a spirit guide who manifests through mediums in Umbanda practices and the healing rituals of the Spiritualist Christian temples of the Vale do Amanhecer in Brazil. Dr Sousa Martins bridges the domains of spirituality and biomedicine. This article explores the materiality of devotional practices through the circulation of things and images and the intersection of therapeutic itineraries in shaping places of worship. It examines how healing is sought through devotion during health crises, emphasizing the importance of the senses and religious and diagnostic images in devotees' healing narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to plural person theory, a group of close friends can act together not just distributively, as separate individuals all at once, but also corporately, as a nonmetaphorical plural person supervening on the friends. This article proposes that the Spirit is a plural person in precisely this sense. Modeling the Spirit as a plural person not only secures the Spirit's personhood and full divinity; it also provides a new conceptual scheme for interpreting the relationship between divine grace and human agency along non‐competitive lines. What is more, it makes sense of existing Christian practices, including Ignatian contemplation, evangelical quiet time, and Quaker waiting worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After major adversity, some people rely on their religious faith and networks for comfort, support, and material goods and services. Consistent with this behavior are findings that adversity has a positive causal effect on the importance of religion in people's lives. Using a large high‐frequency US dataset, we estimate the causal effects of natural disasters on stated religious importance and attendance at religious services. Effects are identified by comparing changes in outcomes over time within counties affected by a natural disaster with changes over time in other counties from the same state. We find that most estimates are near‐zero in magnitude; for the full sample, for subgroups defined by religious affiliation, demographics, and income, and for different disaster types. However, significant negative effects are found immediately postdisaster, suggesting a short‐term crowding‐out effect in which recovery activities limit time for worship. This explanation is supported by a finding that people are less "well rested" in the first weeks postdisaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much discussion of 'negative theology' seems to assume that it is simply a policy of not making strong truth‐claims about God, even of refusing the positive content of revelation. This essay proposes a typology of negative theologies—grammatical, qualificatory, metaphysical and descriptive—looking at the various points from which negation may arise as an appropriate strategy for adequate or truthful speech about the divine, and seeks to locate these varieties within a spiritual and ecclesial practice, at the heart of which is a commitment to 'the acceptance of a future', the recognition of the unfinished nature of language. This is compared with the understanding of language presupposed in creative linguistic work, to suggest that negative theology is best understood not as the expression of a 'fear of closure' but as a kind of 'poetics' that seeks to do full justice to the act of worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to discuss the areal extent and spatial structure of neighborhood, called tol, which possibly demarcate urban tissue with respect to worship of the deity and funerary acts. Bhaktapur is known as one of the historical cities of the World Heritage Site in Kathmandu Valley. The analysis firstly focuses on the dwelling distributions that have the common votary area of the guardian deities' temples/shrines and the use of the same crossing for funerary acts. Then, the authors compare those dwelling distribution with the areal extent of tols to find out how tol boundaries were formed. This result will be a precondition to conduct further examination on historical urban formation in the coming paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ramadan is a time when Muslims experience an increased connection to God and an increased sense of belonging through communal acts of worship, but Muslim women are often excluded from many acts of worship due to religious restrictions while they are menstruating. This study innovatively applies concepts of "religious citizenship" and women's "triple roles" drawn from lived religion and feminist literature to a new context of Muslim women and their everyday practices. Based on research with more than 60 culturally diverse Melbourne Muslims who kept anonymous diaries before, during, and after Ramadan 2021, this analysis shows how Muslim women's understandings of religious belonging and connection in Ramadan are shaped by their own reconfigured approaches to worship and socialization alongside their everyday workload. It provides a unique opportunity to investigate the invisible challenges faced by Muslim women in worship and devotion during Ramadan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the concept of 'Generous Orthodoxy'. It argues that the phrase focuses the task of theology on the worship of God, and its significance in spiritual formation. It also works to enable the church's witness by engaging with the realities of the world from the perspective of credal orthodoxy. The words 'Generous' and 'Orthodoxy' each illuminate the other, in that true orthodoxy is generous, and generosity is a vital part of true orthodoxy. Such an orthodoxy can only be maintained with a robust doctrine and experience of the Holy Spirit as the Church's principle of unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic diversity that developed parallel to the Islamization of Anatolia from roughly the 12th century onwards and was called dervish religiosity, is often defined by its inattentive and indifferent attitude toward Shari'a, although some of its other features are mentioned more or less. However, in this dervish‐based religiosity, it draws attention that both the perception of Shari'a and some other religiosity practices are more related to the tawhid beliefs in pantheistic sense. This paper aims to analyze how both dervish religiosity and folk religiosity, which developed largely under its influence, are shaped through some mystical thoughts and spiritual experiences such as 'identification with God', 'immanence of God in man' and 'the human divinity'. The folk piety, which appears to be shaped within the framework of faith in saints, including high respect and various types of veneration that neglect the norms of Islamic worship, will be seen in relation to the pantheistic thoughts, as reflected in the understanding of seeing man as the qibla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic provided perhaps the perfect storm to shake up American religion. Congregations closed for a time, the majority offered services online, and people seemed willing to engage with web worship. Moreover, the country was as divided as ever, polarized around the most divisive president in the modern era. In this research note, we focus on data from the middle of the peak of the pandemic (October 2020) to assess the degree to which individuals shopped for new congregations, the degree to which politics and church closures motivated that search, and whether congregational leaving grew during this period. Congregational leaving is perhaps a third greater than normal and shopping appears much higher than normal. Notably, shoppers are not necessarily leavers, and political differences play a role, particularly in the decision to leave among marginal members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hailed as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology," Gary Snyder frequently depicts various goddesses derived from both the Eastern culture and the Western culture in his works. The resurrection of the divine feminine imagery in his poetic and prose works reflects his consciousness of Goddess worship. This essay, from a diachronic perspective, examines Snyder's Goddess worship and argues that his psychological journey to ecofeminism is roughly divided into three phases: androcentrism, feminism, and ecofeminism. It aims to reveal the transformative process and how it has led to Snyder's acceptance of ecofeminism; the essay will also demonstrate the internal causality between his worship of the Goddess and his ecological consciousness. The psychological changes of Snyder's reverence for the Goddess, in a way, mirror the historical evolution of gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the sacred and the level of sacrifice in the works of French intellectual Georges Bataille. Topics discussed include a two-fold effect of the ouroboric nature of discursive life, the first article of Bataille for the literary review "Acéphale," and his search for the sacred outside of the traditional forms of religion.

This study examines Ali Ahmad Bakathir's unique vision in terms of the theme of love, as a subject whose treatment varies according to the ideology and philosophy of the writers. On the basis of Islamic ideals, Sallamat Al‐Qass introduces a strange relationship between an ascetic worshiper, Abdurrahman, and the woman singer, Sallama; the two fall in love and hope for reunion if not in this world, then in the hereafter. This contrasts the stories of platonic love such as Romeo and Juliet which ends tragically and shows the possibility of reconciliation between the contradictory worlds of religion and art as well. In contrast to many love stories, love in Bakathir's novel not only changes the lover's view of the world positively and reconciles it with religion, but it also refines his poetry talent and makes him more active, more humane, and God‐fearing. The reconciliation reaches the point of accepting singing as an incentive to worship. The conclusion refutes the allegations of religious hardliners who take a contrary attitude and claim that love and singing are forbidden. Bakathir himself may have had the same experience encountered by his character Abdurrahman, as his novel seems to reflect the experience of such emotions from an Islamic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on Russian culture in the epoch of Cultural Minister Vladimir Medinskii. Topics include state financing where the priority being big-budget projects corrupting filmmakers; incorporating the elements of both Orthodoxy and militaristic glamour marking the birth of the new religion and culture; and visiting tourists seeing the complex as a museum rather than as a place of worship.

The Lutheran Church‐Missouri Synod in the United States has a significant, extensive, and winsome history of work with migrant communities. This work includes various parachurch organizations designed for resourcing, social care, and evangelistic witness, aligning with the synodical mission of "Witness, Mercy, and Life Together." Nevertheless, migrant influence on worship practices within LC‐MS congregations can be very minimal. There are a few examples of congregations that have achieved a kind of acculturation or juxtaposition of migrant and local worship practices, and even fewer that are cultivating a kind of inculturation of worship rituals and practices. Using the framework of inculturation and intercultural hermeneutics, this article will seek to highlight the opportunities of congregations within the LC‐MS to cultivate a new sense of worship and community. This new sense of communal worship recognizes the migrant not just as welcome guest but as full participant in "Witness, Mercy, and Life Together," sharing the stewardship and leadership of rituals, practices, songs, and other ceremonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the question of whether modern theologians can adopt pro‐Nicene theology on the basis of modern biblical studies. It argues that under two hermeneutic assumptions (identified as the canon principle and inspiration principle), key data assessed in the Christological monotheism debates provides warrant for pro‐Nicene defenses of consubstantiality. Three features of Athanasius's Contra Arianos are explored in dialogue with modern biblical scholarship to defend this claim: Athanasius's variegated mediatorial Christology, his emphasis on Christ as preeminent mediator, and his appeals to cultic worship of Christ in the New Testament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Our research objective is to work with leaders of houses of worship in the local community to assess options for the physically reopening of places of worship. Method: This study consists of two parts. The first part consists of working with a leader of a house of worship to formulate a decision process based on the priorities of the organization and its physical size and population. The second part involves the modeling of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) virus spread within a physical space to provide the leadership of the house of worship an estimate of the outcomes of deciding on various courses of action. The model is a modification of a standard virus model developed for the NetLogo programming environment. Results: The team worked with a large local church in Pennsylvania to physically reopen a worship service. Based on the questionnaire data, the congregation did not prefer the strongest form of the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus mitigation (mask wearing and social distancing) but favored either mask required and no social distancing or masks optional and social distancing. The team simulated conditions representative of the church and found that social distancing is the key factor to mitigate spread. Conclusion: Given the preferences of the congregation, our simulation results suggested that one of the favored options would likely yield a large number of infections (>10% in a scenario with an asymptomatic carrier). This information was provided to the leadership to guide their decision‐making for the coming months as poor weather will rule out outdoor worship as a viable option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts and wars often occur, with devastating consequences in society. Attaining reconciliation is a challenging task, especially if each side in the conflict articulates its identity in terms of victimhood through education, history, and memories. Can theology offer an adequate answer and help overcome conflicts and bring forgiveness? Each time we serve the liturgy, we are reminded to remember the future and remember Christ's ultimate forgiveness. In that sense, worship as a communal and God‐oriented event can remind us of our mission, which is participation in God's salvific work. This paper offers some theological insights as guidelines for Christians and their respective communities to pursue. Hopefully, theology will prove its ability and strength to foster reconciliation and unity in a suffering world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worship is the core activity of American congregations and the primary way people experience religion collectively in the United States. We use data from the National Congregations Study (NCS), notably including data from the fourth wave, collected in 2018–19, to examine two key trends in worship practices among American religious congregations. First, the trend toward more informal and enthusiastic worship identified in earlier NCS surveys continues into 2019. Showing no signs of having reached a plateau, a more informal worship style has increased in prevalence across every major American religious tradition. Second, recently developed communication technologies have permeated congregations' worship services in ways that change the collective experience. Collected on the eve of the COVID‐19 pandemic, NCS‐IV data on worship and technology provide a baseline for future examinations of worship changes caused by the pandemic, and a window into congregations' technological preparedness for a world in which it is not safe to gather. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although religious worship was banned during the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–79), spiritual practices are once again flourishing in Cambodia. These include both the practices of the majority Buddhist population and a small but visible Cham Muslim minority. While popular Buddhism in Cambodia today incorporates the legacies of Hinduism and animism in the country, the majority of Cham Muslims have adopted a more orthodox version of Islam due to the influence of global proselytization. This article argues that these dominant strains of religious practice divergently train conscious attention in habitual patterns, cultivating different orientations of intentionality among Khmer Buddhist and Cham Muslim Khmer Rouge survivors. The patterns of attention encouraged by current religious practices shape the narrative organization of memory as survivors engage in an NGO‐sponsored form of psychotherapeutic "testimonial therapy." As my ethnographic findings demonstrate, these divergent narrative constructions and their public performance reinforce different relational experiences of selfhood and engagement with supernatural others among Cambodian Buddhists and Muslims, with significant implications for perceived social belonging in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical developments within the anthropology of Christianity have shifted away from conceptualising the uptake of Pentecostal‐charismatic Christianity in polarised terms of rupture versus continuity towards more inclusive, dynamic interpretations that appreciate both underlying cultural synergies alongside deeply felt projects of personal and collective moral and spiritual transformation. Drawing upon Marshall's concept of 'resonant rupture', I explore how a series of interconnected revivals that occurred in many places throughout Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea resonated with pre‐existing elements of indigenous religion and cosmology. At the same time, however, I show that, although a broad conjuncture between tradition and Pentecostal‐charismatic Christianity existed, the events that constituted these movements were understood by revival participants as unequivocally Christian, innovative and radically new, thus revealing the simultaneous processes of resonance and rupture at work. In support of my argument I focus upon reports of religious intensification during this formative period from three different ethnographic settings, namely, Malaita, Solomon Islands, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea and the Min culture area, Papua New Guinea, respectively. All of the examples vividly exemplify Melanesian Christians absorbing existing religiosity into their new worship while at the same time imposing a radical change on the level of asserted meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses role of the Church in providing healthcare and sacramental life during COVID-19 pandemic. Topics discussed include attempting to spiritualize this pandemic as being the will of God either as punishment or an opportunity to repent is dangerous, Lutheran worship is primarily about God coming to us through the means of grace, and maintaining both physical and social distancing can lead to isolation, which can make the health situation worse.

This article examines the role of houses of worship as institutions where individuals acquire civic skills that can be deployed for political participation in the world's largest Muslim‐majority democracy: Indonesia. Drawing on participant observation and interviews in Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic religious communities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, this article investigates three questions: (1) What opportunities exist for individuals worshipping in Indonesian churches and mosques to develop and practice civic skills as part of their religious engagement? (2) Does civic skill opportunity vary across religious denominations? and (3) What factors might explain variation across different religious settings? The study shows that mosques offer fewer prospects for their worshippers to develop civic skills than do churches. These denominational differences can be explained by a house of worship's management practices, which are shaped by its degree of autonomy, style of worship, and the relative size of the religious denomination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the worship of Sri Ramakrishna's photograph provides insight into how a photograph becomes a sacrament—its status transformed from mundane to metaphysical. Sri Ramakrishna's image generates highly contemplative and interior experiences for his devotees. During the aarati worship service, the photograph is phenomenal. It is encountered on levels of bodily sensation that are the very substance of devotional activity—touching, tasting, hearing, smelling, and seeing. In particular, it is the act of devotional singing that finally renders the living presence of the photograph into something that can be experienced. The aarati hymns not only contain expressions of worship and faith. The very act of singing and making sound brings an immediacy to the experience of the living presence of Sri Ramakrishna's photograph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Orthodox tradition does not reject the material world, but takes on material elements from the creation, and through the divine worship it offers them eucharistically to God. Through this practice, it cultivates a different ethos for humanity: the ethos of respect toward the creation, restraint of egoistic overconsumption, and awareness of personal responsibility, not only for the protection and preservation of the environment, but also for the "salvation of the whole world." This paper discusses "The Use of Plants in the Worship of the Orthodox Church," an experiential educational programme that starts with a focus on the symbolic import of plants used in the worship of the church, but goes far beyond to include the significant role of the flora in the ecosystem. This programme focuses on understanding the relationship of the church with the material world as well as the relationship of the human person with herbal ecosystems and the problems that arise due to human intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higton's book serves as an exploration of Christian doctrine without contemporary parallel or equal. As the word "life" in its title indicates, this book seeks to locate Christian doctrine in the dynamic and complex web of practices and contexts that mark the totality of Christian existence, rather than seeking an abstracted essence that captures the whole or privileges one particular mode or expression. The first part, composed of just three chapters, attends to the book's two leading questions from within Higton's own worshipping context of the Church of England. [Extracted from the article]

The author discusses the stand of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on communion and worship in the light of Covid-19. Topics discussed include technologically-mediated communion which some called virtual or online communion, key doctrines and shared affirmations, and important questions including how technology can support the church in being the body of Christ in the world and how technology is helping the congregation to be the body of Christ.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who would like to reflect theologically on the question: how do the arts in Christian worship form individuals and communities? Another strength of this book is its comprehensive coverage of arts; it examines not only the arts traditionally considered as "liturgical art" such as musical, visual, and architectural arts but also the arts whose use in liturgy has been controversial, such as dance. Taylor calls each congregation's particular way of praising God its "mother tongue" and its new practices of the arts in worship its "adjectival tongues". [Extracted from the article]

John Paul Heil has written extensively on the concept of worship in various NT texts (such as the Pauline corpus and the letter to the Hebrews), and in this latest volume, he turns his attention to the Matthean Gospel to unpack and explore Matthew's appropriation of the theme. As such, Jesus is portrayed as a teacher of worship - he teaches his disciples how to pray and how to offer ritualistic worship to God; he himself also offers a model of "ethical worship", manifesting how his disciples should live as God desires. Indeed, the book closes with the claim that Matthean worship is ultimately characterized by "compassionate mercy to all" (p. 174), and thus Heil seems to highlight, prioritize even, this ethical dimension. [Extracted from the article]

As religions migrate from their native contexts, they adopt new languages for their communication. Additionally, in the 21st century, digital media is being used for religious practices such as ritual worship, sermons and discourses. This article focuses on the case of Hinduism in the US diaspora where the Hindu community (unlike its native counterpart in India) uses the English language and the digital media for the Hindu religious practices. In particular, this article discusses the ways in which the use of the English language and digital media is more conventionalized in the context of discussion about religion (in the discourses of satsang), as opposed to the experience of religion (for example, in puja 'worship ritual'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbols are communicative tools with performative functions in all cultures. Apart from their decorative functions, non‐Christian symbols adopted into Christianity have had a tremendous impact on Christian life since the early times, especially in liturgical practices. Through Western missionary activities, Ghana inherited Christian biblical‐liturgical art as has been developed in the home countries of the missionaries. However, since the 1960s Adinkra symbols have been incorporated into Christian worship and theology, receiving attention within secular and religious circles because of their communicative potential. On the religious level, some churches have adopted them as logos or incorporated them into architectural designs and liturgical art. This paper seeks to investigate what motivates various missions to choose particular Adinkra symbol(s) and what they hope to achieve with them. Furthermore, it attempts a theological reflection on the communicative potential of artefacts in Ghanaian Christianity as a response to the “Great Commission. “We approach the subject from a historical, contextual, and theological perspective, using selected Roman Catholic and Methodist churches in Ghana as case studies. The study employed unstructured in‐depth interviews and photo elicitations to trace the relationship between visual arts and religion, with particular emphasis on Christian visual arts and how they have informed Christianity in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The destruction of "Babylon", so luridly presented in the final section of Revelation, is not the impending destruction of Rome but the recent destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The popular idea of apocalyptic writing in New Testament times is that these pseudonymous texts were written to encourage Jews or Christians under persecution, to assure them of God's continuing care and to promise speedy release from oppression. The distinguished Australian author of this book points out that there is no evidence that John was exiled or persecuted on Patmos; he could equally well have been there for a missionary opportunity. [Extracted from the article]

The sacramental and liturgical texts in The Annotated Luther series (volumes 1 and 3) reflect Luther's ongoing concern for the faith life of the people. They also give us an insight into Luther's own struggle to find words (and, of course, practices) that reflect the fundamental insight of the Reformation: justification by faith alone. Luther refused to abandon ritual or a strict liturgical order even though it can so easily become, in the minds and hearts of believers, a work they must do. The freedom of the gospel does not dispense us from a liturgical order or from participation; in fact, for Luther, that freedom compels us to worship! This tension can be found within these writings as Luther searches for new words and redefines and/or reorients other words to express a spirituality of justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that interaction ritual ( IR) theory provides a temporal and interactional point of origin from which to trace an influential IR chain that became a deciding factor in the unification of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove under federal control within present-day Yosemite National Park. The emotions generated by the rituals of Roosevelt's and Muir's camping trip in May, 1903 in the short term, however, failed to result in a lasting consensus on ideology. This is a point that Roosevelt's lack of support for Muir in the subsequent controversy over the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley clearly documents. A video abstract is available at [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author shares reflections on an approach to Hindu-Muslim dialogue based on his reading of the advice of theologian and Hindu reformer Bhaktivinoda Thakur. He relates his experience as a child of parents who are Hindu Indian immigrant where he grew up with an awareness of the Muslim as the most problematic and closest religious. It explores dialogue as frequently framed as the worship service's antipode, where worship evokes ideas of fidelity and rigidity to tradition.

The article presents an approach to Hindu-Islamic comparative theology. It examines the conclusive views and opinions of historian Sayyid Manezir Ahsan G&#012B;len&#012B; on the sort of issues and academic engagement he wished to highlight for Hindu-Muslim relations. It discusses the crux of the Quranic teachings as Tawhid, proclaiming emphatically the only worship of the Exalted Lord.

ABSTRACT This essay is about a group of neo-Pentecostal evangelists who decided to represent their church in the New York Dance Parade, which they regarded as an opportunity to promote worship as the true purpose of art and engage in spiritual warfare. Their participation was predicated on a distinction between 'performance' and 'ministry,' privileging the latter. I argue that upholding this distinction in the immersive context of a secular festival required a process of intensive ritualization, involving physical and spiritual preparations and symbolic boundary maintenance. I further argue that anthropological perspectives on such instances of public religion should seek to account for how ritual forms produce and are shaped by the effects of what I call proximation, a condition of 'closeness' between categories of activity otherwise regarded as separate and autonomous (e.g., religion and the arts). The concept is a means to explore how religious ministries are influenced by ostensibly external factors and the need to manage them, and by the various opportunities, tensions, and moral associations that arise when ritual strategies evoke comparisons with secular genres and domains. The proximations of religion highlight the ethnographic significance of ideal-typical categories and spheres, including their potential to intersect, which is a byproduct of how they have been differentiated. [ Christianity, ritual, performance, evangelicalism, secularism] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores on the migration history particularly the religious institutions in Germany. It highlights the availability of social care and legal advice for the immigrants and refugees, who worship in the churches. It also cites the influence of cultural preconceptions and theological prerogatives to the perceptions of immigrant churches in the country.

Historians often have difficulties understanding contrary figures who deviated from mainstream practices and beliefs. In the case of Claudius of Turin, who because of his iconoclasm has been pictured as a proto-Protestant, this image of a solitary was partly his own creation. Claudius liked to present himself as a truth-teller, defending God's honour and the unity of the church against all kinds of evils. This article uses the case of Claudius and the response of Dungal, one of his learned opponents, like him connected to the royal court, to reflect on the role of self-styling in early medieval debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a variety of concepts of the divine in the eastern and western theological and philosophical traditions. There is, however, not enough reflection on the logic behind concepts of God and their justification. I clarify some necessary and sufficient conditions any attempt to explicate a concept of God has to take into account. I argue that each concept of God is a cypher for a particular worldview and distinguishes three types of justification frequently used to bestow content on particular concepts of God: philosophical, theological, and scientific. I turn to four fundamental models of the God-world relation and argue that the most promising concept of God is panentheistic, on which the universe is essentially divine but is not exhaustive of the divine being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how religious beliefs and practices influence the reception of international relief and development aid in impoverished communities. Specifically, I explain how Nicaraguan recipients' prayers both enhance and constrain their ability to assert themselves as 'empowered' actors during aid interactions. Data come from observations and interviews over a two-year period with 81 Nicaraguans in communities that receive aid from Christian development organizations. Compared to secular constructions of aid interactions, prayers provide space for Nicaraguans to position themselves as influential actors effecting change for themselves or their families. Through prayers, recipients portray themselves as influencing the actions of more powerful parties, including God and potential donors. They also pray for donors' well-being, thereby offering spiritual reciprocity for material gifts. However, the same prayers that empower individuals at the interpersonal level constrain their ability to envision transformation of social structures. These findings shape understandings of prayer as aligning actions, of the moral and social dimensions of receiving care from strangers, and of the complex and contradictory ways religious practices influence discourses of empowerment and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used a mixed methods approach-including ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and a survey-to study two innovative Christian contemplative worship services housed in a mainline Protestant congregation in a midwestern city. These services employed boundary-blurring practices designed to attract the 'de-churched'-those who had been involved in a Christian congregation in the past but who had at some point disengaged from organized religion. Though attracting some formerly de-churched participants, these services were far more successful in attracting several other constituencies united by their liberal theology and by a preference for loose connections. We argue that these worship services are best understood as thriving communities of sustained spiritual practice where contemplative rituals sacralize both theistic and extra-theistic, Christian and non-Christian, symbols and beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ancient Babylonian poem known by its modern title ' Babylonian Theodicy' is written in a dialogue form between two men. They exchange views on the meaning of worship of the gods and its benefit. Although the poem does not specify their identities, judging from the contents, it seems that the protagonists are based on ancient scribes or temple scholars. It is very likely that they were also the intended audience of this poem. The first protagonist, customarily called 'the sufferer', repeatedly bewails his unrewarded devotion to the gods and unmerited plight. Apparently, his worldview was moulded by the traditional Mesopotamian belief: various Sumero-Babylonian didactic texts teach that, for demonstrating piety by means of prayers, gifts, libation and offerings, the gods will reward people with health and wealth. These ancient precepts also warn people of possible divine punishments for neglecting cultic obligations. The sufferer of the Babylonia Theodicy presents his plight and the richness of the godless as the proof of the senselessness of piety. On the other hand, the second protagonist, apparently an older and more learned man than the sufferer, advocates worship of the gods. He asserts that, unlike wild animals, humankind is capable of acknowledging the divine and, through rituals, can gain insights into the divine wisdom, no matter how incomprehensible the gods' decisions might seem. He also teaches that the true reward for one's piety is not wealth but divine grace. Judging from the fact that the sufferer eventually accepts the friend's position, it is very likely that, unlike previously suggested by various scholars, its author actually identified himself with the second protagonist, the friend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legacy of one ancient Arabian people, the Nabataeans, is rich in material remains: the rock-carved monuments of Petra, their delicately crafted pottery vessels, and huge desert cisterns and aqueducts, to name only a few. Unlike their neighbors to the north in ancient Judea, the Nabataeans did not leave a written history of themselves, and what is known about them is mainly derived from non-Nabataean sources: the reports of Greeks and Romans and the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus. Our knowledge of the religion of the Nabataeans must be pieced together from fragmentary historical and epigraphic evidence as well as the mute evidence provided by the archeological record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study measures the effect of regular worship attendance at age 17 on total years of schooling by age 25, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Expanding on previous work, this study estimates differences in the impact of worship attendance by race and family income status using propensity score matching. Individuals who frequently attend religious services complete .69 more years of schooling than similar individuals who do not frequently attend services. There are significantly greater returns to attendance for low-income youth and no significant difference in returns by religious affiliation. These findings suggest that religious observance provides greater benefits for low-income individuals or perhaps provides resources high-income individuals have access to elsewhere. Moreover, this study extends previous work by examining a more recent and nationally representative sample of youth and by using methods that allow for greater causal inference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a commentary on Rosemary Gordon's paper, 'Masochism: the shadow side of the archetypal need to venerate and worship', with a suggestion for an alternative interpretation of masochism as a part of a sado-masochistic couple. Gordon postulates an archetypal need to venerate and worship that can be hidden in the shadow and distorted in such practices as sexual masochism. Her paper also offers several avenues of exploration for further studies in connection with the phenomenon of masochism, including sexual perversion ('paraphilia'), chronic psychological victimhood, PTSD and traumatology, religious extremist behaviour such as self-flagellation, transformation in the individuation process and numinous experience. An extension of her hypothesis to include religious problems of modernity is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]