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The article explores history of prophecy, politics, and the U.S. Embassy in Israel. Topics discussed include U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital; Christian Zionists, who have been attacked as theologically dogmatic; and ways in which the president's change of policy on Jerusalem is a cynical partisan gesture calculated to gratify his conservative Christian base.

This text is guided by the hypothesis that the Catholic Church teaching and gender studies operate on distinct epistemological assumptions in formulating the human nature notion, and its analytical force transcends academic speculation and theological realms. This argument is based on the analysis of some some approaches to the comprehension of nature in gender studies and pontifical documents. Far from being merely an epistemological clash, the political relevance of the gender category and its intrinsic relationship with feminism emerges. Moreover, we discuss how scientific and doctrinal lexicons slide into a society where there is a political confrontation between two movements: feminism and anti-gender campaigns, the latter with transnational dimensions that surpass the conservative groups of Christianity that lead them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecumenism is a 20th century concept that cannot be directly transposed in the everyday reality of the Desert Fathers, but the authority of the desert ascetics is still crucial to the monastic milieu of the Orthodox Church as well as other denominations. For this very reason, the present paper intends to investigate the stories recorded in the alphabetical collection of the Egyptian Paterikon in order to understand to what extent they may actually offer a guide to the complex relations with the Other. How do these stories illustrate denominational or even religious alterity? What types of rapports can one identify therein? Rejection? Separation? Acceptance of the other's difference? These are all legitimate questions and their significance is amplified in the context of our times -- a period in which we see an increase in fundamentalist movements and tendencies, including in the Orthodox community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For at least the past four decades, the Christian Right's political advocacy has epitomized morality politics in the US. In recent years, however, the Christian Right has transformed how it approaches various moral and cultural issues, appealing to the language and process of political rights. This reframing of cultural concerns has coincided with the declining cultural status of conservative Christianity. This article analyzes three issue areas--abortion, free speech, and religious freedom--documenting how conservative Christianity has altered its approach to public politics, coming to embrace individual rights language and arguments over and above common morality. The article also analyzes the whether this growing rights talk has contributed to extending support to the rights of others, finding mixed results. As conservative Christians have embraced the rights commitment for themselves, there has been a corresponding growth of political tolerance for others. At the same time, there remain prominent challenges to supporting pluralistic politics. While questions about the commitment to pluralism remain, the evolution of the Christian Right's cultural style of politics has important implications, as the last vestige of communitarian politics routinely engages politics using the language of liberalism. Moral politics are now routinely rights politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The universal prominence of religion is substantiated by the craving for transcendence - an essential characteristic of human existence. Yet, as the times are changing, religion must keep evolving in order to maintain its authority and bolster its influence over the society that produced and cultivated it. Thus, in the United States, for instance, evangelism - the cardinal impulse of Christianity, has been able to stay on top of the waves of change that are rocking our globalized world by putting both the modern principles of economics and the perks of technologically mediated communication in the service of revivalism. Starting from Sandu Frunză's take on the crisis of institutionalized religion and using Aurel Codoban's 'weakened transcendence' concept and his model of communication contingent on seduction and manipulation, in order to explore some examples of faith-based marketing aimed at various age groups, this paper sets out to evaluate the strategies of religious evangelism that account for its success in the case of American Christian Fundamentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the evangelical framework for business ethics is important, since business evangelicals are well positioned to exercise considerable future influence. This article develops the context for understanding evangelical business ethics by examining their history, theology and culture. It then relates the findings to evangelical foundations for business ethics. The thesis is that business ethics, as practiced by those in the evangelical community, has developed inductively from a base of applied experience. As a result, emphases on piety, witnessing, tithing, and neighborliness, important foundations in the evangelical model for business ethics, have resulted in a multitude of applied ethical strategies. This operative ethics model is then evaluated, particularly in regarding to its limited focus on the fundamental purposes and structures of business. The article concludes with several recommended sources which can enrich the evangelical tradition of business ethics, suggesting many resources from the Reformed Christian tradition as well as other ideas from contemporary Protestant and Catholic thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the efforts of the National Council of Churches in Brazil to endorse the document 'Christian witness in a multi-religious world' and to implement its recommendations in the practice of churches in Brazil. The reception of the document is placed into the historical development of the ecumenical movement in Brazil since an important conference in 1962 in Recife, Brazil, and the impact the Second Vatican Council had in the Latin American country. The focus is then on how the religious plurality in the country started to be perceived. Three examples follow showing how fundamentalist Christian groups oppose other religious expressions in the country and how the churches united in the council are challenged by the spirit of witnessing in respect to embrace pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a view to the Europe-wide phase of tension and crisis affecting Christian churches in general and the Catholic Church in particular, the article reflects on the notion and content of 'Catholicism.' These reflections take two main directions. First, they argue for a differentiated understanding of the notion of Catholicism, its many variations, and the historical phenomena that it is applied to in their own specific historical contexts. Second, they aim to reformulate the term 'Catholicism' in order to do justice both to the historical variety and the recent processes of change, while also making it possible to describe and investigate the lasting importance - both for the Church and society at large - of a Catholicism that is worldly and internally pluralistic. What is critical is to comprehend analytically the difference between the institutionalized Church and Catholicism in a pluralistic sense (this is especially true for liberal societies). In this way, the Church can be saved from an overextension of its religious or clerical authority, let alone the temptations of fundamentalism and anti-modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the way that members of a political milieu of the New Christian Right in Norway reason about an alliance between local and global forces to open the borders to Muslim immigrants as part of a plot to remove Christianity from Norwegian society or weaken its influence. The context for the research is the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, which made these topics politically and culturally salient. The article looks at how this milieu understands the most important elements in the alleged plot against Christianity: the Labour Party, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), Muslim immigrants, and the Church of Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of the article believes that the Bible on which Christianity builds, and Evangelical Protestantism in particular, does not represent a full or comprehensive model of sexual ethics. Basically, it deals with body and sexuality temporarily and fragmentarily, and a deeper reflection on these issues is residual. The attitude to the body and sexuality present today in cultures that grew out of (or processed by) Judeo-Christian tradition is the result of later (re)interpretations. Therefore, it does not originate from the biblical text itself, but from the cultural, social and historical conditions of its interpreters. The pessimistic and negative post-Augustian anthropology created in Western (Latin) Christianity was undertaken by Protestantism. Within it, however, it underwent a kind of diversification. On the one hand, the body was still radically harassed, especially against all sorts of „lusts". On the other hand, sex and sexuality were dedemonized by placing them in the context of a romantic marriage bond. Thus, the apotheosis of virginity and celibacy in Catholicism was undermined. The material for the analysis are guides written from a religious and confessional perspective. Their function is to distribute ideas and reproduce attitudes represented by Evangelical communities. The stylistic and rhetorical means used by the authors, including metaphors, show a positive attitude towards human sexuality and sex as an act. However, this approach has some restrictions. They result from the patriarchal order, which is considered to be divine and complementary anthropology. Sex and sexuality are locked in a heterosexual, monogamous and romantic marriage space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project, which examines support for Trump, fundamentalist childrearing, and the social trance, assesses how Donald Trump won and maintains his presidency against the opposition of more than half of the country. Focusing on Christian fundamentalists and those influenced by them, it is suggested that support for Trump is sustained by a network of conservative groups, institutions, and individuals charged with molding and coordinating religious and political interests to maintain and extend GOP governance. Psychohistorically, it is argued that conservative voters, especially fundamentalist Christians, are immersed in a group-trance that sustains the Trump presidency. The dynamism and rudimentary components for the trance originate in childhood, when children are traumatized by biblical teachings and the utilization of corporal punishment. It is asserted that the response to trauma is the formation of social alters, which are mobilized into group-fantasies and harnessed in adulthood for the benefit of conservative political interests. At the macro level, the article argues that fundamentalist religion propagandizes believers with the Big Lie, a group-fantasy that Donald Trump is an emissary of God; with God in control, Christians need not worry. At the micro level, the Big Lie succeeds because fundamentalist parents' childrearing practices create authoritarian personalities, who obey authority and are susceptible to trance induction. Such individuals are thus easily-influenced targets for manipulation by the network of institutions that promote and support Donald Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents with strong conservative Christian religious beliefs may view their son or daughter’s lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) orientation disclosure as a family crisis, and as a result, may seek out support and direction from a Licensed Christian Mental Health Practitioner (LCMHP). The counsel that the LCMHP provides, and a parent’s subsequent responses to his or her disclosing son or daughter, can have substantive and enduring positive or negative impacts on the youth’s physical and mental health. While it is known that parents can become more accepting of their LGB-oriented son or daughter, the processes by which greater acceptance occurs for conservative Christian parents has yet to be fully examined. The present study employed an interpretative phenomenological analysis research methodology to garner a greater understanding of the conservative Christian parental acceptance phenomena that occurs within the context of a therapeutic engagement between parents and an LCMHP. Providing a greater understanding of the processes and meanings associated with this phenomenon will provide LCMHPs with information that could assist them in helping conservative Christian parents to better navigate their relationship with their LGB-oriented son or daughter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the relationship between brain activity and religious fundamentalism, this study explores whether fundamentalist religious beliefs increase responses to error-related words among participants intolerant to uncertainty (i.e., high in the need for closure) in comparison to those who have a high degree of toleration for uncertainty (i.e., those who are low in the need for closure). We examine a negative-going event-related brain potentials occurring 400 ms after stimulus onset (the N400) due to its well-understood association with the reactions to emotional conflict. Religious fundamentalism and tolerance of uncertainty were measured on self-report measures, and electroencephalographic neural reactivity was recorded as participants were performing an emotional Stroop task. In this task, participants read neutral words and words related to uncertainty, errors, and pondering, while being asked to name the color of the ink with which the word is written. The results confirm that among people who are intolerant of uncertainty (i.e., those high in the need for closure), religious fundamentalism is associated with an increased N400 on error-related words compared with people who tolerate uncertainty well (i.e., those low in the need for closure). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey examines some works published in Germany for the anniversary of the Reformation. Alongside numerous biographies of Luther as a ‚Christian‘, often accompanied by illustrations used to communicate to the faithful the principles of Reformed theology, these include works that take a broader approach, examining the Reformation not just as a European and specifically German issue, but also tackling its effects in areas outside Europe. Many of the studies considered here share some significant features: the question of the significance of the Reformation and Protestantism today and, on the other hand, the issue of whether or not the critical study of the enormous impact, including on a political level, of the end of Christian unity in Europe may help us to understand some of the features of contemporary religious fundamentalism. Italian historiography has also tackled the issue of the Reformation, both with biographies of Luther and with valid attempts to reflect on the consequences of the Reformation in Italy, overcoming traditional historiographical interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the birth and growth of scientific creationism in South Korea by focusing on the lives of four major contributors. After creationism arrived in Korea in 1980 through the global campaign of leading American creationists, including Henry Morris and Duane Gish, it steadily grew in the country, reflecting its historical and social conditions, and especially its developmental state with its structured mode of managing science and appropriating religion. We argue that while South Korea’s creationism started with the state-centered conservative Christianity under the government that also vigilantly managed scientists, it subsequently constituted some technical experts’ efforts to move away from the state and its religion and science through their negotiation of a new identity as Christian intellectuals (chisigin). Our historical study will thus explain why South Korea became what Ronald Numbers has called “the creationist capital of the world.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the contribution of the chronotope as an analytic category in studies of Christian conversion, applying it to postsocialist religious changes in the Russian Arctic. Looking through basic categories of human experience--space and time--the article focuses on the comparative analysis of the two missionary movements working in northwestern Siberia--neo-Pentecostalism and Baptism. The article examines postsocialist Evangelical missionary movement among the Nenets people who live in the Polar Ural tundra. The Nenets tried out multiple faiths on the emerging religious spectrum, choosing in the end fundamentalist Baptism. The article elaborates on possible conditions that made Christian fundamentalism appealing in this part of the Arctic. I suggest that Nenets historical experience as a colonized periphery of the Russian state, particularly the Soviet experiments with space and time, have bridged Nenets social expectations and a radical form of Evangelical Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship argues that beliefs in biblical literalism might keep conservative Protestants out of STEM. Two of the groups that are most underrepresented in STEM, black Americans and Latinos, are also two of the most religious populations in the United States, and specifically overrepresented in theologically conservative Christian traditions. Yet, prior work also suggests that churches help promote positive educational outcomes. To interrogate the potential relationship between STEM educational aspirations and religious faith, we explore how black and Latino Christians perceive the potential impact of science education on religious faith. Analysis of 40 interviews reveals that both black Americans and Latinos have concerns about science teachers being biased. Yet, the groups differ in their assessment of the danger of anti-religious bias. Black Americans put confidence in the Christian community to incubate children from harm to their faith; therefore, they believe the effect of science education on religious faith is either neutral or positive. Latinos, however, raise concerns about the authority of science educators, rather than science curriculum. Overall, the results shift the conversation on conservative religion and science education from solely discussing content to exploring issues of bias and authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several conservative Christian activists have complained of increasing hatred directed towards them and a majority of Christians today believe that persecution against them has increased in the United States. To date there has not been an empirical assessment of whether there are increasing levels of anti-Christian animosity with two groups as representative of conservative Christians: Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Levels of anti-Christian hostility has not significantly risen over the past few decades, however those with this hostility have become wealthier. Furthermore, there has not been a coalescing or lessening of support for conservative Christians by other Christians, as seen in the persistent level of mildly negative score by progressive Christians. One may envision hostility against conservative Christians in the twentieth century as something possessed by highly educated progressives with cultural influence but little ability to punish conservative Christians economically. The ability to threaten conservative Christians’ material well-being and the lack of support of conservative Christians by other Christians augments those with hostility towards conservative Christians in the twenty-first century. Conservative Christians are incorrect asserting that Christian hostility recently dramatically increased but may be correct in asserting that they face more problems due to that hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Instead of viewing racial eugenics, modernist religion and prescriptions for social engineering as discourses tangential to the evolution constructs propounded by top scientists in the build‐up to the Scopes trial, this article considers how the American Association for the Advancement of Science's committee on evolution intertwined all of these threads by the early nineteen‐twenties. Committee members aimed their evolution models at broad public audiences even as they tried to fulfill the American Civil Liberties Union's request to provide a scientifically‐sound view of evolution to help combat Protestant fundamentalism in the build‐up to the trial. Racialist eugenics was essential to their multi‐layered evolution constructs, as were key religious ideas particular to Protestant modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies a modern Essene movement based in the United States for its unusual merging of New Age practice with Christian fundamentalism with ancient history. By harkening back to the mystical religions of the ancient Mediterranean, these modern Essenes are able to engage in syncretistic practices while claiming to preserve the traditions of the ancient Essenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including Christian fundamentalism; Jungian psychology; and Gnosticism.

This article surveys the distinct role South Asian Christianity played in the modern ecumenical movement. It explores how the longevity, vitality, and diversity of Christianity in South Asia, coupled with the pluralistic ethos and inter-religious context of the region, provided a conducive atmosphere for the ecumenical movement to take root in the early decades of the 20th century. The article argues that while there were outstanding ecumenical thinkers and path-breaking church unity efforts in the region, what was most important was the emergence of new theological trends that reverberated across the ecumenical world, such as Dalit theology, tribal theology, and Urban and Rural Mission. While discussing these developments from a historical perspective, this article also tries to identify contemporary issues and challenges in these areas. Today, as the forces of religious nationalism, sectarianism, and fundamentalism are gaining ground in South Asia, the task before us is to realize anew the meaning of ecumenism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]