Search

Copyright of Humanities Journal of University of Zakho (HJUOZ) is the property of Humanities Journal of University of Zakho and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At a time when more and more large sections of the population, at least in the Western world, live etsi Deus non daretur, while elsewhere God is invoked in a fundamentalist manner, as a justification for violence, it is not pointless to ask what is the relationship between God and action, that is, between religion and morality. Are God and goodness connected? Can there be morality without God? Is religion necessary to ground moral duty? The article attempts to answer these very topical questions through a succinct analysis of Häring's The Law of Christ. After analyzing the relationship between religion and morality in the work in question, two later works are mentioned that show a certain evolution in Häring's thinking in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the construction of the personality cult of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the deceased leader of the Islamic State (IS) organization that ruled large territories in Iraq and Syria in the mid to late 2010s. Examining a range of IS primary sources, I argue that al-Baghdadi sought to develop a distinct personality cult by cultivating auras of holiness and mystique around his personae. While he flaunted putatively exceptional religious leadership credentials, it is al-Baghdadi's use of communication strategies and technologies for projecting his personality cult that distinguishes his case and this study. Al-Baghdadi sought to strategically mystify himself by rarely appearing in public and largely avoiding visual self-revelation in the media messages he released. Ultimately, given his defiance of regional and international powers and his group's notoriety, al-Baghdadi's low visibility and self-enigmatization worked to his advantage by generating much interest about him among supporters and the global media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Res Humanitariae is the property of Res Humanitariae and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Theology / Roczniki Teologiczne is the property of Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawla II and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The year 1643 saw the publication of Listy swięteo oyca Partheniusza do Piotra Mohily, which came out of the printing press of the Polish-language department of the Kyiv Lavra. In the Letters Parthenius -- a relatively unknown patriarch of Constantinople -- discusses Confessio Fidei -- a succinct confession of faith published in Geneva in 1629 under the name of Cyril Lucaris -- an Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and opponent of the union. As Confessio is clearly Calvinist is spirit, Parthenius refutes Lucaris' authorship and imposes an anathema on the genuine author of Confessio and its propagators. The recipient and a probable translator of Letters is Peter Mohyla -- a distinguished Metropolitan of Kyiv, author of the first Orthodox catechism and founder of the Mohyla Collegium. The paper addresses the issue of the Letters, in particular their Polish translation and the identity of the translator but does so against the broader background of the circumstances occasioned by the emergence of the contentious Confessio and the Orthodox Church's ultimate reaction to its emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the literary connection between the laws of cult centralization and animal slaughter in Lev. 17 and Deut. 12.20–27. After establishing a set of criteria for determining the literary connection between two texts, the author compares and analyzes the textual evidence in Lev. 17 and Deut. 12.20–27. This study concludes that the connection between the two passages may not be one of literary dependence of one text upon the other as has been widely assumed by many scholars. Instead, even though both texts attempt to deal with the same socio-religious issues, they may have been literarily independent of each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study challenges the popular assumption that the prophetic understanding of the role of cult in the religion of Ancient Israel was essentially different from the Priestly source. First, it re-evaluates and outlines the role of certain basic cultic concepts (namely sacrifice, impurity and holiness) from the Priestly source, and then applies them to the text of Isa 1, especially to the so-called cult-critical v. 10-17. No serious discrepancy emerges; in fact, reading Isa 1 through the lenses of the Priestly source seems to be more intelligible. Therefore, to label this text as cult-critical is simply wrong. The currently in vogue dialectic negation approach to this and similar texts (emphasizing ethics over cult) is also misleading. Judging by Isa 1, the prophet understood cult essentially just like the priests. He was well aware of the grave danger when mixing it with impurity caused by sinful behaviour. His passionate cry for ethics and overall purity resulted from this concept of cult and from his desire to maintain the presence of the Holy One of Israel in her midst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the linguistic landscape (LL) of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and shows how this religious site contains within it different domains, each with their own LL and preferred mediums of display. We illustrate this by exploring the LL of five domains within the mosque: Holiness, Education, Workplace, Local Governance and the Public Sphere. We show how Arabic is omnipresent across the domains. In the Holiness domain, we can sense both the permanence of Islam through the Classical Arabic inscriptions on the architecture and the transient nature of the pilgrim's passage through their postings of temporary stickers. In other domains, monolingual signs in Modern Arabic co-exist with monolingual English signage. While the medium of the Arabic signage varies to convey different types of messages, the status of English on monolingual signage is singular, displayed through temporary medium alone. In domains that permit multilingual signage, electronic signs convey equivalent messages in multiple languages, a reflection of the diverse linguistic backgrounds of the pilgrims and the fleeting nature of their pilgrimage. The findings point to the importance of religious sites as LLs and the need to consider language and medium in their overall construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the turn of the 19th century and in the early 20th century, the sacred (Durkheim, Mauss, Callois), holiness/the holy (Söderblom, Otto) and the numinous (Otto) emerged as key terms in the nascent field of religious studies. These terms set up a discursive space for the study of religion that acknowledged its reality and relevance for modern societies and individuals, but that proceeded independent of confessional theologies and sought to transcend Western-Christian ethnocentrism. By providing a close reading of the works of the above-mentioned scholars, in particular Durkheim, this article revisits the emergence of these terms. In particular, it looks at the different ways in which the sacred, the holy and the numinous were related to religion. The article discusses some differences between the scholars of the sacred and the scholars of the holy in terms of their agendas, aims, and preconditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at four different scholarly perspectives on ‘sacred’ – the ineffable sacred, the experienced sacred, the polarized sacred and the contextualized sacred – in order to draw out their implicit presuppositions about meaning. The first two stances presuppose that meaning depends on what bits of language areabout(referentialism), and the other two stances presuppose that meaning depends on relationsbetweenbits of language (holism). The article concludes three things: these prominent views of ‘sacred’ rest on usually implicit or unrecognized assumptions about the nature of meaning; some of those assumptions explain why certain theories are contentious and problematic and others ground more promising and productive approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reflects on Agamben’s formulation of the sacred within the political order of the West, contrasting this with the Durkheim/Bellah view of the sacred/profane opposition, and then presenting two arguments that reduction of the sacred to the political is insufficient, one a form of biological reductionism that seeks to locate the sacred within the common, biological nature of human life itself, the other an abductive argument for human transformation in terms of what Sloterdjik has called ‘vertical tension.’ This argument turns out to be one for locating holiness in the very notion of life itself that I wish to ground in the idea of social cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this essay, I will argue that a political theology of human work can provide the sacramental principle underlying the theology of labor. This principle could complement the foundations of Catholic social teaching, since the sacramental aspects of work have not been made very explicit in the ethical framework of the Church's theology of work. The view of labor as the active participation in God's future is an important aspect of such a theology. In order to serve as a foundation for faith-based labor organizing, I will claim that it needs to be complemented by a sacramental view of labor as art, a labor-aesthetic that undergirds a labor-ethic, in which labor itself becomes a sign and instrument of the way the Church becomes God's work in the world. First, I will sketch an outline of some of the major positions on labor in modern Catholic theology. Then, I will draw on the writings of the British poet and painter David Jones to explore a sacramental view of human work, arguing that a sacramental view of work could support the Church's social criticism of laborer's circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cioran's existentials are derivable and intelligible from nothingness with which the Roman philosopher substitute the transcendence. Nonsense of life not purely abstract notion, but a sensitive transcription of absurdity, translates to experience vertigo. This is the refutation par excellence of vertical position of the man, the specific difference to animality. Through the experience vertigo, Cioran links essence absurd lack of end which implied analytically the definition of abyss. Source ontological absurdity is located in corrosive activity of temporality. Cioran makes a difference in degree of boredom banal psychological and metaphysical boredom. The essence of boredom is the void that erases differences and content of things, becoming a foreshadowing of chaos. The most acute boredom remains ascetic boredom, acedia.Boredom monastic is a sterile stagnation of being a eleatics reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Humanitarica Universitatis Saulensis is the property of Acta Humanitarica Universitatis Saulensis and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Researchers have not yet done an adequate job of reverse engineering the complex cultural concepts of religion and spirituality in a way that allows scientists to operationalize component parts and historians of religion to consider how the component parts have been synthesized into larger socio-cultural wholes. Doing so involves two steps: (1) distinguishing between (a) the generic elements that structure definitions and (b) the specific features used to characterize the generic elements as "religious" or "sacred" and (2) disaggregating these specific features into more basic cognitive processes that scientists can operationalize and that historians can analyze in situ. Three more basic processes that interact on multiple levels are proposed: perceiving salience, assessing significance, and imagining hypothetical, counterfactual content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1944 and 1964, Romanian Orthodox Christians were imprisoned in large numbers, for political reasons. They have been regarded not as individual victims, nor just as members of a particularly vulnerable group targetted in a political climate of ‘scientific atheism’, but in a theological and eschatological light, as part of a cosmic conflict between good and evil. Within the overall context of imprisonment, this article examines the USSR-inspired ‘re-education’ programme, carried out primarily on Orthodox students in Piteşti prison, 1949–1951, to produce the New Man for the new communist era, and the Orthodox group, Rugul Aprins [The Burning Bush], active from 1943 to 1948 and from 1955 to 1958. This group was deeply rooted in the monastic life, first at Antim Monastery, Bucharest, then more widespread, involving Orthodox monastics, theologians, intellectuals from many walks of life and students from a variety of disciplines, many of whom were imprisoned, some to the point of death. The communist New Man emerges as a walking parody of the Christian vision of the human person; in both the above groups, martyrdom appears as enigma, for extant evidence attests to holiness and maximal human freedom attained by many, in the most extreme suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Christian theology, Pietism denotes a form of Christianity that rejects mediation in favor of the Holy Spirit's direct, unmediated infusion of grace into the human heart. In this article, I contend that this reading of Pietism is deeply flawed. Drawing on recent scholarship, I show that Pietism, especially in its Methodist, Wesleyan-holiness and Pentecostal forms, embraces and promotes mediation through a wide range of places, materials, persons and practices. From a Pietist perspective, God's holiness precludes presumption, not mediation per se. It also leads Pietists to underscore the significance of waiting for the Christian life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpreters approach the problems generated by the exhortation in Hebrews 12:14-17, that believers should strive for peace and holiness, and avoid the apostasy of Esau, in a variety of ways but with limited success. At issue are: the structural relationship between the pericope and its surrounding passages, the identity of the μετα παντων of Hebrews 12:14a, the conceptual links between its clauses, and the literary role of Esau. Given the manner in which the author employs the Old Testament throughout the epistle, the solution to these problems is likely to be derived from identifying the passage's Old Testament background. This article proposes that themes from the Jacob-Esau saga and their interpretations by the prophets echo in the background of the passage. Hebrews, it argues, has interpreted episodes in the exile of Jacob to Mesopotamia and return to Bethel as prefiguring the migration of the people of God to Mount Zion. Believers who apostatise will be following the bad example of Esau. This interpretation has the advantages of fitting the socio-historical context behind Hebrews, accords with the argument of Hebrews 12, and sheds light on the identity of the μετα παντων. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Religion & Culture / Religija ir Kultura is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lusitania Sacra is the property of Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos de Historia Religiosa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lusitania Sacra is the property of Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos de Historia Religiosa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lusitania Sacra is the property of Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos de Historia Religiosa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The phenomenon of the import and local spread of miraculous images in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) is discussed using the approach of phenomenology of religion in this article. The main problem is how active and conscious movement of import interact with the devotion to the wholly other, the holiness. In the first part of the article it is noted that this paradox is not exclusively related to the context of the 17-18th centuries GDL. This is a much broader issue which has already been discussed by various religion researchers in different aspects. The particular chosen sources (legends of the origin of miraculous images and books of miracles) was a good material to specify the abstract categories and to find new distinctions. It emerged that the import of holiness can be explained in two ways. On one hand, the transferring of the hierophany is not just travelling from one geographical point to another but also movement in the sacrum-profanum plane. Thus various tensions and taboos emerge which could be explained using oppositions of self-other and active-passive. The models which were discussed in the article (the so-called *forest legends*, donation, reproduction, liberation) tried to justify the active movement of import and highlight the initiative of the Other. On the other hand, the content of the miracle books, which tells us about the local spread of the cult and the establishment of the miracle field, showed that the paradox of the import of holiness lies in the phenomenon of miracle itself. What is more, this paradox is the condition of the surviving of the miracle field. There is a permanent strain in the consciousness of the religious person because of the strange experience of the wholly other, the inexplicable and the wish to articulate somehow this experience. The import of the holiness in this context is not only the particular cultural phenomenon but also a symbolic expression of the interrupted intentionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation between theology and spirituality, the need for an answer to modernity and the struggle for stressing the unity of both faith and Christian life, are the basis for the theological and spiritual principles of the renewal of Christian spirituality in Vatican II. The Christian is understood from the mysteries of Jesus Christ and the Trinity, in the Church and in the world. From the mystery of Christ, spirituality is illuminated in three main aspects: in the communion with God (Dei verbum and Sacrosanctum concilium); in the universal call to holiness and apostolic mission (Lumen gentium and Apostolicam actuositatem); and in the spirituality that's lived within the world and for the world's transformation (Gaudium et spes). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses changes in doctrine and structure within the denomination Brethren in Christ Church from 1980 to 2010. Topics include the denomination's pacifist beliefs, its teaching regarding personal holiness in relation to the Holiness movement, and its rejection of a strict position on eschatology. Also noted are the church's teachings regarding divorce and remarriage, changes in organizational structure in response to numerical growth, and the role of traditional Anabaptist doctrines in the church.

The biblical concept of holiness continues to be a subject of debate among scholars, in several respects. These include the basic meaning of ..., the relationship between holiness and danger, and the morality or amorality of the holy. This article offers a fresh examination of these issues. In addition, the article assesses the significance of the fact that the root ... is almost totally absent from the book of Genesis. While aspects of holiness are anticipated in Genesis and intimated by several characters, the lethal danger presented by the holy enters the biblical world only in the book of Exodus, where it is intimately connected to Yahweh's taking on the role of Israel's exclusive divine suzerain. After this change is discussed in general terms, two specific events which illustrate this difference are examined, one which takes place before the initial mention of holy ground in Exodus 3 and one which occurs shortly after. In each instance God attacks the person to whom he appears. In the first case, the patriarch Jacob successfully wrestles a blessing out of God. In the second, Yahweh seeks to kill Moses (or one of his sons). This article concludes by examining the ways in which scholars have attempted to explain the theological differences between Genesis and later books. Such explanations must take into account the new character traits Yahweh displays after Genesis, including the relationship between his deadly wrath and his need to guard his prerogatives as the holy and jealous divine king to whom everything under heaven belongs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An inventory that measures emotions towards God (EtG) proves to be valid. The inventory consists of 16 items that cover emotions that subjects most likely experience in relation to God. The factorial structure of the inventory is described, and the inventory is validated by exploring correlations with a number of conceptually close and remote variables. The results show that the EtG is a short and valid measure with two orthogonal factors (positive and negative emotions) that represent the psychological valence of different emotions towards God. Each factor is comprised of three inter-correlated components that refer to specific emotional qualities that are related to corresponding theological issues. The two main scales have sound psychometric properties and show discriminant and convergent validity and are moderately associated with conceptually related constructs, like dispositional affect and experiential dimensions of religiosity. They do not correlate with distant constructs such as personality dimensions. The EtG is a feasible instrument that can be used to screen basic emotional tendencies towards God. The dimension of negative emotions towards God is of special interest because of its low correlation with general religiosity and potential use in counselling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wesleyan-Holiness Churches that emerged in Australia after the Second Word War encountered considerable opposition from other Evangelicals who distrusted their brand of perfectionism. The explicitly American origin of these Churches was both the cause of their exclusion and at the same time a mechanism for their survival. The emergence of the Holiness denominations in Australia is not an example of American cultural and religious imperialism. Rather it has been a creative partnership between likeminded Evangelical Christians from two modern nations sharing a general cultural and social similarity and a common set of religious convictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the theology of religious experience by Biblical-experimental foundations of American theologian Jonathan Edwards from 1720–1723. It mentions that Edwards provides the concept of nature of true religion and pursuit of holiness. It also mentions that Christians have struggled with discerning, describing, and authenticating true religious experience.

The Holy Spirit is vitally and dynamically involved in the sanctification of individuals and their faith-communities. An examination of the Pauline terms and texts reveal that sanctification through the Spirit includes: 1) God's Provision in his gracious call, 2) The Process of sanctification in Christian growth in moral purity and love, 3) The Consummation at the Parousia. To that end, we will provide brief historical and theological arguments as to how the Spirit works in sanctification, primarily within the holiness Pentecostal traditions. Often, various writings highlight one aspect to the neglect of other emphases. The paper argues for the comprehensive role of the Spirit in the past event, present experience, and future hope of the people of God and argues for a consistency between the three activities related to sanctification, including the essential element of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents an analysis on the themes and motives of the book "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo. The book tells about the experience of goodness and sacred. The author argues that Hugo does not necessarily suggest sacredness according to the order of religion, but he portraits the sacred according to everyone's belief.

The article examines how black religious leaders or the Black Pentecostal preachers seek a new basis for religious community in the U.S. It was stated that the revival of Azusa became the mythical point of origin for worldwide Pentecostalism. It was claimed that Diaspora and transnationalism entered into the analysis of the possibilities for black global culture. Ida Robinson, a woman Pentecostal leader, understands the difference in the connection between region and cities. Moreover, it examines cultural and physical boundaries of the Black Pentecostals in the state which they held a circumscribed citizenship.

This article explores Louise Erdrich's use of the saints' lives as a subtext in The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Erdrich repeatedly rewrites central stories from the medieval canon of saints, creating in effect a kind of hijacked hagiography. This revision questions the relationship between the Catholic religion and Ojibwe beliefs, presenting the encounter between Catholicism and Anishinabe less as a straightforward conflict and more as a complex web of borrowings, reappropriations, and transformations. Because the saints offered models for holy living, Erdrich also challenges the role of imitation in constituting identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the version of sanctity represented by Catherine of Siena. Expression of her right to activity in the public sphere as Christ's agent and a guardian of the church; Revelation of Catherine's adopted didactic methods in her works; Clarification on the unique orientation of the heart; Citation of extended metaphors that appeared in her writings.

In this article and those that follow, we suggest that sacred matters represent a vital interest for the psychology of religion. We note that people can perceive virtually any aspect of their lives as having divine character and significance. Furthermore, people can sanctify objects theistically as a manifestation of their images, beliefs, or experiences of God and nontheistically by investing objects with qualities that characterize divinity. We discuss several implications of sanctification for human functioning: people invest a great deal of time and energy in sacred matters; people go to great lengths to preserve and protect whatever they perceive to be sacred; sacred aspects of life elicit spiritual emotions; sanctification offers a powerful personal and social resource that people can tap throughout their lives; and the loss of the sacred can have devastating effects. We conclude with a call for further studies of sacred matters and specific directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]