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For most of human history, religious beliefs and practices have been fundamental to how people have understood and interacted with the world around them. Religion helped shape the rhythm of life, work, and social relationships, imbibing them with meaning. If historians wish to understand people in the past, it is of utmost importance that we understand their lived religious experiences. Religion is likewise a fundamental part of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Indeed, the aim of this current thematic issue, Lived Religion in Premodern Northern Europe, is to introduce the concept of lived religion as an analytical tool to a wider audience in the hope of seeing more studies of lived religiosity, especially of the premodern Nordic region. In order to put this thematic issue into context, the development of lived religion as an analytical perspective is introduced and explored in this article. The historiography reveals that the concept originated in the attempt to come to grips with religious variation and move away from studies of the purely dogmatic and theological aspects of religion, as well as the dichotomies which arose from efforts to distinguish popular/elite religion. As a concept, lived religion was introduced by the 1990s as part of this effort, and first used by sociologists and anthropologists to understand contemporary religious expression. Gradually it has also been applied to understand historical contexts. In research published in English, it began to be widely used by the early 2000s, while in Nordic contexts it has mainly been Finnish researchers who have adopted and continued to develop the concept in studies about pre-modern religiosity in the past decade. This article discusses the different ways in which lived religion and its related concepts have been applied in research dealing with pre-modern religious experiences and with an especial focus on research in and about the Nordic countries. In general, lived religion is seen as something that individuals do by adopting different customs and practices and using them in accordance with their own needs and priorities, not just something they believe. It can be expressed physically in an individual's interactions with their material surroundings, as well as within social interactions and through language. Lived religion entails studying how people lived their religion, rather than about faith as an articulated internalization of theologically defined belief-systems. The focus is on religiosity anchored in bodily, intellectual, emotional, and everyday practices. The aim of this article and indeed the thematic issue is to emphasize that research on religiosity thrives best in a climate where many different perspectives are available: lived religion is just one of many useful concepts. We hope that we will see further research in which lived experiences of premodern religiosity - in all religious traditions-in the North are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines marginal notations in a 1492 copy of Passionael, a vernacular collection of the lives of saints. The copy, now known by its shelf-mark Syddansk Universitet RARA M15, was housed at the library of the Herlufsholm school for boys in the late eighteenth century. At various points around 1800, pupils at the school read and interacted with the book through marginal notations, just as they did with other books in the school library. The copy of Passionael contains interactions in three legends, two of which pertain to Scandinavian holy kings. The article interprets these interactions with religious stories as potential expressions of lived religion since these interactions 1) took place outside the control of an institution, 2) could have been shaped by the framework of that institution, and 3) the intended meaning remains obscure as it is the product of individual rather than institutional agency. By applying the theoretical lens of lived religion, the article argues that the figures in these Catholic stories would have been accessible and familiar to the Protestant pupils and that the responses to the versions of these stories encountered in Passionael could have a religious dimension. In order to offer an interpretation of how to understand these marginal notations as interactions with stories and, in turn, as expressions of lived religion, it is necessary to see which episodes in the stories the notations respond to and which forms the notations take. By examining to which parts of the text the notations respond, we see that these interactions are made at junctures and episodes that would be comprehensible to a Protestant audience, and we may thus understand these interactions as forms of religious expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the perspective of lived religion has drawn attention toward the everyday religious practices of the laity. In early-modern Europe, the realm of the sacred could be approached in different ways from within the mundane world, and religious practices were tightly intertwined with social life. In local communities, religious ideas and practices taught by the church in varying ways intermingled with traits from local religious traditions. This article examines the different ways of religious participation available to the rural inhabitants of late 17th century Eastern Finland, a part of the kingdom of Sweden during the early modern era. Applying the concept and approach of lived religion, the article analyses how Eastern Finnish peasants adjusted their religious practices to their individual circumstances. The article also examines different kinds of interaction and influences affecting the choices of the laity in the sphere of religion. The article is based on surviving court and visitation records from the province of Savo, a rural area where distances between households were often large and many people had to travel a long way to reach the nearest church. It is in the article emphasized that while physical distances and other factors such as infirmity could restrict one's ability to participate in religious activities at the parish church, the laity had different kinds of practices to choose from and they even created ways of religious participation for themselves. Religious practices could include participating in household feasts on holy days or bringing offerings to a devotional site near the household or in the forest. It is argued that while there were many traditional elements in the sphere of religion passed on to following generations, people also adopted and adapted new ideas in their everyday religious lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the island of Mallorca is well known for its beaches and mass tourism sector, a local pilgrimage tradition with deep roots in Catholicism is still thriving on the island; on the first weekend in August, thousands of people gather to make a nocturnal pilgrimage to a shrine at Lluc Mountain. Rather than focusing on the actual performance of the sacred journey or the culmination of its ritualised accomplishment, this case study explores the social and economic framing of the event orchestrated by actors from the local community, the church, the governmental sector, and other private and public stakeholders. The 50-kilometer-long Des Güell a Lluc a Peu event takes place in a context of voluntary engagement where local Mallorcans work together on handling the logistics and food supplies for the participants. I examine the explanations for both the success of this pilgrimage as well as the challenges that my empirical studies show that the pilgrimage is facing, by identifying the most central factors that govern its unfolding. Some of those exist between religious actions and adjacent commercial activities. Resource distribution and leadership play a role in the community that is under influence of a larger economy built by pilgrimage, from the small grocery stores to big capital market players such as the main sponsor, the Coca-Cola Company. The theoretical aspect of this pilgrimage study is inspired by Charles Taylor (2007) and his thoughts about the Age of Authenticity and the place of religion in contemporary society. It also draws on concepts about the religio-economic connections that take place on the periphery of pilgrimage and its related economic activities, as considered by Coleman and Eade (2018). I strive to identify connections between unnoticed religious, social, and material networks that are born out of the pilgrimage and distinguish how non-religious individuals link to the religious backdrop in new ways. Drawing on Coleman’s notions of pilgrimage as a ‘human activity’ in a wider sense (Coleman, 2021) this field work reflects on how and when connections in the religious and cultural field are formed. The methodology is based on ethnographic field work, qualitative interviews (Flick, 2009), and digital material, analysed through a lens of lived religion and everyday religion (Orsi, 2005, 2012; Ammerman, 2007). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En el presente estudio analizamos cómo las jerarquías eclesiásticas señalaron siempre el baile como una actividad pecaminosa y del todo condenable, y lo convirtieron en un signo más de alteridad religiosa, aun cuando amplias capas de la población cristiana lo habían adoptado ya como una parte más de su acervo cultural. El problema resultaba más grave cuando el pueblo incorporaba dichas danzas a las fiestas efectuadas en honor de los santos, lo cual, para los predicadores, suponía contaminar de idolatría estas solemnidades. Sin embargo, lo que para las autoridades de la Iglesia era una pervivencia del paganismo, para los fieles constituía una expresión más de su forma de entender la religión y se convertía en una manifestación más de la religiosidad popular ajena a la religión normativa; en otras palabras, se erigía como un componente imprescindible de la lived religion.

The public face of religion in Latin America is undergoing constant transformation, and its relocation in the public sphere is part of a broader process of cultural and social change. This contemporary religious scene is characterized by a plurality of voices generated not only by traditional ecclesiastical institutions, but also by diverse practices and discourses where mediatization processes play an important role. This paper will examine how urban believers—mainly Catholics and evangelicals—are reconstructing and negotiating their religious identity and belonging, as well as their interactions in everyday life as participants in wider social contexts beyond traditional religious institutions in Lima, Peru, South America. It addresses questions such as how mediatized religious practices shape and re-signify religious identity, and how mediated religion facilitates the creation of new meanings, forms, and approaches of public engagement. I will also discuss how lived religion shapes the communicative practices and strategies of believers who are living out their beliefs in ways that go beyond traditional sacred places and spheres of secularity. This paper is part of a research project called “The Transformation of Lived Religion in Urban Latin America: A Study of Contemporary Latin Americans’ Experience of the Transcendent.”

While late-modern people in contemporary western societies may be curi­ous about salvation and have questions regarding the hereafter, they clearly long to achieve human flourishing here and now. To obtain this goal, special prominence is given to the affective dimension, embodied spiritual practices and personal experiences. At the same time, the Church in the west continues to insist on prioritizing cognitive word-based pedagogies and offers merely a marginal emphasis on experiential bodily participation. This strategy that high­lights content over purpose has largely resulted in a diminished impact consid­ering the significantly changed religious landscape. Consequently, this paper intends to offer relevant insights from lived religion with its explicit emphasis on enacted theology as a communal source for catechetical instruction and the whole-body prioritization for a salvific encounter with God. Reflecting on these important aspects contributes to a more contextual and holistic understanding of how the Church can promote the good life now, while increasing its practical effectiveness in its traditional proclamation of God’s salvation for the world.

Often used as a tool for raising public awareness about issues that are deemed morally dubious, protests have a long and storied tradition in the history of social change in the United States. The recent ubiquity of protesting and counter-protesting in American public life has raised to the problem of false equivalency, leaving bystanders sometimes confused about how to evaluate the respective "protest" movements. In this piece, I briefly root the history and moral meaning of protest work in the Protestant Reformation and outline a set of questions that can serve as criteria for evaluating whether the moral work of contemporary protest movements is morally efficacious or morally destructive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the concept of inter-convictional approaches in relation to Muslims and dialogue particularly in Western, British contexts and considers what is gained when the lens 'inter-convictional' is used in dialogue. It draws on ethnographic and qualitative data to explore ideas of lived experience and inter-convictional dialogue in relation to Muslims and dialogue, in the UK. Ethnographic data from a variety of research projects is used in case studies of Muslim and non-Muslim dialogians 'coming to common terms' around three areas - Muslim women's agency; dialogue on university campuses; and Muslim-heritage children's faith needs in the British care system. This paper argues for enhanced societal reflection on what is shared in the 'everyday' and the 'ordinary' to enable a sociological, theological, and lived 'coming to common terms' through dialogue. Thus, this paper posits a new paradigm for dialogue, one that is predicated on lived experience and empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-nineteenth century movement towards Christianity in Chotanagpur in central India, the missionary Constant Lievens (1856–1893) played a pioneering role in the establishment of the Catholic Mission among the Adivasis (indigenous peoples). Through Lievens' legal advocacy, Adivasis not only adopted a faith, but also began to reclaim their lands and their indigeneity. Drawing on ethnographic research around the intercessory prayer for the beatification of Lievens, this paper analyses the present-day lived contestations of Adivasi Catholic identity-making. The paper argues that Adivasi Catholic identities are lived in contestation and continuous negotiation with their present realities, while also borrowing from the legacies of their own past struggles and their intermediaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Lived Catholicism seeks to step away from the normative forces of institutional expectations to explore Catholicism as it is found in the practices of daily life. It draws on the foundations of lived religion in recognising the importance of improvisation, negotiation, resistance and subversion in everyday religiosity. It foregrounds the voices and experiences of ordinary people to explore the places of Catholicism in their lives. However, if this emerging term is to find its place in the academy, it must stand up to rigorous critique from across the disciplines. Here specialists from the fields of sociology, anthropology, history and theology discuss the potential of Lived Catholicism to generate new categories of thinking in the study of Catholicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lived Catholicism proposes a new way to study being Catholic. Through a focus on individual experiences and practices, it seeks to unpack 'what sorts of people those who are baptised Catholic are becoming through their ordinary practices'. 1 Although many studies of Catholicism tell us what Catholics practice and believe, far fewer tell us why. This study of the Lived Catholicism of teenagers in the UK will explore what motivates them to go to Mass, how the Mass going relates to their wider Catholicity, and the surprising gaps that emerge. Connecting these experiences to those of previous generations shows how the methods of Lived Catholicism can begin to answer questions not previously asked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article explores the potential of combining material analysis with object-elicited memory work in order to explore the role of objects in lived religion. It presents a case study on two traditional cross pendants, a Dagmar Cross and a Huguenot Cross, and analyses the cultural-historical contexts of the two crosses, including their importance for specific national and religious memory communities. Furthermore, the memory work sections of the article foreground how the pendants were used as transgenerational gifts during a mixed-faith upbringing in a transnational family. The article argues that such a multidimensional approach is helpful for unfolding the potential meanings of religious objects in lived religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary spiritualties are often portrayed as a turn to a subjective and individualized form of religion, consisting of individually held truth claims or private peak experiences that are generated sporadically at retreats and workshops. The portrayal is ultimately related to a perception of everyday life in contemporary Euro-America as mundane, rationalized, and secular, but also the exclusion of practices centered on the body, the home and the everyday from what is deemed properly religious. This article explores the sacred technologies of the everyday among women in England who identify as Goddess worshippers. The purpose is to further the understanding of religion and the everyday, as well as the conceptualization of contemporary Goddess-worship as lived religion. Through examining narratives on the intersection between religion and everyday activities, the technologies of imbuing everyday life with a sacred dimension become visible. The sacred technologies imply skills that enable both imagining and relating to the sacred. The women consciously and diligently work to cultivate skills that would allow them to sense and make sense of the sacred, in other words, to foster a sense of withness through the means of a host of practices. I argue that the women actively endeavor to establish an everyday world that is experienced as inherently different from the secular and religious fields in their surroundings; hence it is not from disenchantment or an endeavor with no social consequences. The women’s everyday is indeed infused with different strategies where the body, different practices, and material objects are central in cultivating a specific religious disposition that ultimately will change the way the women engage with and orient themselves in the world.

Resumen El dossier que aquí presentamos trata del tema de la religión vivida (lived religion), y muestra resultados de investigaciones realizadas en tres ciudades latinoamericanas (Córdoba, Lima y Montevideo) y en una ciudad en el sur de Europa (Bilbao) y se coloca en el área de estudios sociológicos sobre la experiencia religiosa, la vida cotidiana, los procesos de autonomía y desinstitucionalización de la vivencia religiosa. Las lecturas y reflexiones abordadas en los textos presentados giran en torno a las implicancias de la religiosidad vivida en el protestantismo contemporáneo, las mismas que nos acercan a mirar las interacciones, narrativas y prácticas de los y las creyentes ligados al protestantismo evangélico en diálogo con los temas y dinámicas de la modernidad. Estos trabajos hacen una contribución valiosa al campo de los estudios sociológicos sobre la religión vivida, poniendo énfasis en el modo como lo/as creyentes seleccionan, adaptan, reinterpretan y hacen reapropiaciones de las prácticas y narrativas religiosas en la vida cotidiana, en un contexto de pluralización del campo religioso.

Hymns are commonly sung in the public space of worship. They often also function in other public as well as private spheres. Religious singing in public spaces forms bridges between personal faith, the church, and public Christianity, while at the same time also forming bridges to a pluralist, secular, and post-secular society. I depart from the premise that the singing of hymns in the public sphere constitutes a form of religion lived in public. When the singing is reflected upon and discussed in public, also in social media, it can be seen as a form of public theology. Aspects of the reception histories and narratives of hymns, functioning in the wider public sphere in various countries and in various contexts and times, are discussed with regard to the possible functions that the singing could fulfil in these contexts. It is shown that hymnody forms a part of the beliefs, self-concepts, values, symbols, identities, ideologies, instruments of power, sets of myths, and the collective cultural memory of people.

Forskning i irreligiøsitet (non-religion, sekularisering, ateisme etc.) vinder stadigt frem. Begrebet ‘det skandinaviske paradoks’ betegner det tilsyneladende modstridende faktum, at skandinaver forbliver medlemmer af deres nationale kirker, men i stadigt højere grad selv-identificerer som irreligiøse. Jeg introducerer til den hidtidige forskning begået i relation til henholdsvis irreligion og kulturreligion og argumenterer for, at vi mangler mere empiri for at kvalificere vores forståelse af disse fænomener. Jeg præsenterer derefter data fra en samling af 30 kvalitative interviews gennemført i Danmark som del af et forskningsprojekt, der delvist udbedrer manglen på data. Baseret på eksplorative analyser er det mit ønske at åbne for en debat omkring, hvordan vi opfatter og konceptualiserer irreligion, kristendom og kulturreligion i en moderne dansk kontekst. Jeg foreslår at vi, i stedet for at karakterisere individer ved hjælp af adskilte, fastforhandlede kategorier (som eksempelvis religiøs kontra irreligiøs), arbejder ud fra en forståelse af sådanne kategorier som mere dynamiske og kontekst-afhængige snarere end statiske og gensidigt udelukkende. Moderne tilgange til religion og irreligion har stadigt mere fokus på, hvordan (ir)religiøse identiteter, overbevisninger og praksisser er skiftende og situerede. Inspireret af disse tilgange argumenterer jeg for, at informanterne bevæger sig mellem forskellige identiteter afhængigt af, hvorvidt de eksempelvis udtrykker en individuel, irreligiøs identitet eller deltager i en kollektiv, kristen identitet og videre, at det er kombinationen af og muligheden for at oscillere mellem disse identiteter, vi kan betegne som kulturreligion og mere specifikt kulturkristendom i Danmark.

This paper proposes a new narrative of the life of nineteenth-century American Baptist missionary, activist, and scientist Adele Fielde. In the common historical narrative, her separation from the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU) after over twenty years of mission service in Siam and China marks her shift towards careers devoid of religious beliefs, in suffrage, activism, and science. Rather than perpetuating this deconversion narrative, I propose that she demonstrated continuity in her beliefs and interests, exercised through diverse careers and starting as a missionary. By looking to biographical accounts by her friends, colleagues, and later historians alongside her writing and life, I highlight her unorthodox Christian beliefs that motivated not only her missionary life but her later careers in science and activism in the US. Reframing Fielde’s life in this way offers a more realistic model of the intertwined beliefs and motivations of female missionaries, activists, and scientists in the nineteenth century.

The aim of this article is to present data from the first study using interviews with Swedish hajj pilgrims, conducted during 2016 and 2017 by the Institute for Language and Folklore, Gothenburg; the Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg; Södertörn University, Stockholm; and Gothenburg Univetsity. Among the questions asked within the framework of the project were, for example, how Swedish Muslims experience the hajj ; how they prepare for the trip to Saudi Arabia; how the pilgrimage is organized by Swedish Muslim organizations (e.g. hajj travel agencies); whether the pilgrimage is only perceived as a religious journey; and whether the intergroup conflicts and variations that exist among Muslims effect the hajj ? The last question will be addressed by focusing on how Swedish Ahmadiyya Muslims are affected by the fact that the Pakistani and Saudi states do not regard them as Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the formation of lived religiosity in the context of neoliberal transformation in Shenzhen, China. The concept of lived religion has been increasingly employed by geographers of religion to understand how religion is 'lived' and practised in the realms of everyday life. However, this approach has been somewhat misapplied in geography, where scholars have sought to map out the forms or legitimate spheres in which lived religiosity persists. This study argues against the epistemology that intentionally looks beyond institutions, beliefs and religious elites. Our empirical research draws on Christianity and the work/leisure practices of migrant workers in Shenzhen. We examine the ways in which migrant workers practise Christianity as a form of communal life and leisure to mediate the alienation inflicted by the neoliberal labour regime in their everyday lives. Simultaneously, this study focuses on how religious institutions create spaces to accommodate migrant workers' quest for everyday subjectivities. Additionally, new religious moralities arise as migrant workers apply Christian ethics to everyday work/leisure practices. This article not only shows how lived religious practices create inter-institutional spaces but also highlights the co-production of religious institutions and neoliberalism that establish 'structures of feeling' that condition the formation of lived religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore a 'lived discipleship' by determining whether and how contemporary communities of faith could implement the norms and principles reflected in the Emmaus narrative of Luke 24:13--35 within a plausible epistemological framework that might facilitate a fresh understanding of Christian followership as discipleship. This was done through an empirical case study using two focus groups as co-researchers, in order to actively listen to their respective understandings of lived theology in their unique South African contexts. The two focus groups consisted of (1) a contemporary Christian grouping of Afrikaans-speaking, active churchgoers situated in Hazeldean, a suburb in Pretoria East, Tshwane, Gauteng and (2) a contemporary Christian grouping of African, active churchgoers situated in Ivory Park, a suburb in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. This article concluded that Luke 24:13--35 nudged the co-researchers to re-evaluate their contemporary understanding of discipleship and moved them to additional and new perspectives in terms of practical expressions thereof that can be best described as 'lived followership'. A shift from perceiving Jesus in terms of an 'act to follow' by gaining the correct knowledge, to following Jesus as 'a performative act', a shift from 'theoretical knowledge' to 'heart knowledge'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lived religion is a reflection on the influence of religion on how people live their daily lives in the community, school, society, and other religious and social institutions. This paper investigates the practice of lived religion within the Nigeria youth ministry. Praxis entails what people do daily, oriented and guided by action, and not just theoretical knowledge or the dogma of a religious tradition or rituals. In investigating the youth ministry praxis in Africa (with a focus on the Nigerian context), this paper engages with Gregg and Scholefield, and Osmer’s pragmatic theological task, because the framework is action guided, thus investigates what youth ministry is actually doing among African youth.

In this article, I start from two public controversies involving the "evangelicals" and Bolsonaro during the Covid-19 pandemic to think about the heterogeneity of this religious segment and the disputes over the representation of Brazil as a Christian nation. I also demonstrate how ordinary religious acts, such as fasts, prayers, donations and social assistance had their political dimension highlighted, questioned and disputed by different actors in extraordinary times. I also suggest that the rupture caused by the new coronavirus has revealed the urgency to consider the different ways of living the religion beyond the big churches, including those digitally mediated. Finally, I argue that the observation of the daily practices of the faithful is fundamental to complex analyzes on believers and to accompany the transformations underway in the Brazilian religious field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, Swiss wine-crafting professionals (vignerons) have increasingly turned their attention toward a 'holistic' and ecosystemic understanding of their vineyards. Among them, a growing professional segment has engaged in an esoteric agronomy inspired by Rudolf Steiner: Biodynamics. This approach is illustrative of Bron Taylor's dark green religion applied to agronomy. This ethnographic study describes and analyzes how Swiss vignerons translate and adapt the legacy of Steiner in their everyday lives. After detailing how practitioners frame their engagement in this agronomy, the author distinguishes two processes in the translation and adaptation of Rudolf Steiner's insights: (a) secularization, which bridges the guidelines of biodynamics and common secular naturalistic ideas; and (b) spiritualization, which relies on supernaturalistic conceptions in line with 'expressive selfhood' and the quest for well-being. The author argues that these two processes do not stand in mutual opposition, but rather have been intertwined in Euro-American modernities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La propuesta tradicional sobre la cristianización del ámbito rural ha destacado el protagonismo del obispo como responsable del proceso desde las ciudades. La réplica más provocativa, sin embargo, considera que fueron los domini y no los obispos los promotores de los primeros edificios cristianos en el medio rural, actuando sin supervisión episcopal en una intervención calificada de «fisípara». Como vía para analizar los datos y hacer compatibles las fuentes, propongo el concepto de «lived religion» tomado de la sociología de las religiones que permite entender la variedad y riqueza de la implantación del cristianismo en el medio rural hispano.

This article aims to explore a ‘lived discipleship’ by determining whether and how contemporary communities of faith could implement the norms and principles reflected in the Emmaus narrative of Luke 24:13–35 within a plausible epistemological framework that might facilitate a fresh understanding of Christian followership as discipleship. This was done through an empirical case study using two focus groups as co-researchers, in order to actively listen to their respective understandings of lived theology in their unique South African contexts. The two focus groups consisted of (1) a contemporary Christian grouping of Afrikaans-speaking, active churchgoers situated in Hazeldean, a suburb in Pretoria East, Tshwane, Gauteng and (2) a contemporary Christian grouping of African, active churchgoers situated in Ivory Park, a suburb in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. This article concluded that Luke 24:13–35 nudged the co-researchers to re-evaluate their contemporary understanding of discipleship and moved them to additional and new perspectives in terms of practical expressions thereof that can be best described as ‘lived followership’. A shift from perceiving Jesus in terms of an ‘act to follow’ by gaining the correct knowledge, to following Jesus as ‘a performative act’, a shift from ‘theoretical knowledge’ to ‘heart knowledge’. Contribution: This article is a part of the Festschrift for Prof. Stephan Joubert. This article plays into similar creative interdisciplinary relationship as seen in the work of Prof. Joubert, by looking at the relationship between New Testament and Practical Theology in order to improve practices of faith that is rooted in a biblical understanding of Jesus.

This paper demonstrates how young people make sense of religion through local places in the urban context while moving from youth to young adulthood. We draw on in-depth interviews – including a mental map-making exercise – with twenty-four young Muslims (18–30) from a wide range of cultural backgrounds living in Metro Vancouver (Canada). Their narratives reveal young people 'live' religion in various local places and how spatialities of lived religion change over time. We highlight how making sense of religion is reflected in the changing meaning of the mosque and relates to the increased salience of places shared with young Muslims in which our participants negotiate religion in the context of their everyday lives in the city. While many studies on Muslim identities have established the complexities and dynamics of negotiating religion at specific local places, we argue for a focus on relations between lived religion at various local places over time. These spatiotemporal complexities are able to capture how making sense of religion is spatially and fluidly manifested in the urban context of Metro Vancouver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 has caused suffering on many levels and there is no doubt that the consequences will be felt for years to come. During the pandemic, people were also reminded that, throughout history, people have been subjected to immense suffering. The First World War (1914--1918) ended just over a hundred years ago. In this devastating war that "had to prevent all further wars", 22 million people died. In the year it ended, the Spanish Flu broke out and another 50 million people died. Perspectives on past events that adversely affected the lives of people might help people to interpret their own situation and see the present in a different perspective. One could ask: what sustains people in difficult times? What gives them courage? What gives them resilience and helps them through lockdowns? In this article, it is argued that faith, lived religion and rituals can give people new perspectives and that hymns, that is, songs of faith, play a significant role. A hymn of German origin, Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten, is presented as an example. The background to the origin of the text is given, whereafter the original German text and the Afrikaans translation, as well as the revised versions of the translation, are discussed critically. A futher discussion of the reception history of the hymn follows, showing its use during war and in two films, and how it could function as an illustration of lived religion. The writer of the hymn text, Georg Neumark (1621--1681), was born during a devastating war in Germany that lasted thirty years. In his early twenties, he travelled to Königsberg to study law, but was robbed of all his earthly possessions by highway robbers mugging the mail coach. He interpreted his difficult existential circumstances from the perspective of lived religion and wrote a hymn of comfort, a "Trostlied", Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten, encouraging himself and others by saying that one should let God be in control of one's life and that one could trust God. The text contains striking alliteration and assonance that lend a poetic quality to it. It is accompanied by a touching melody that Neumark composed for the text -- the only melody written by Neumark that is known. The text with seven stanzas was first published in Neumark's song collection Fortgepflanzter Musikalisch-Poetischer Lustwald (Jena, 1657) and has been translated into several languages. The English translation entitled If thou but suffer God to guide thee was done by Catherine Winkworth (1855, 1863). In 1931, GBA Gerdener translated it into Afrikaans. Six of the seven stanzas were retained in the first offficial hymnal in Afrikaans, Psalm- en Gesangboek (1944). The text was amended and drastically shortened to three stanzas for the second official hymnal, the Psalm- en Gesangboek (1978). More radical changes were made for the version published in the third and current official hymnal, Liedboek van die Kerk (2001). The original Afrikaans translation relied heavily on a Dutch translation by Abraham Rutgers (Liedboek voor de Kerken 1994:429). It reflected certain problems in the Dutch translation, but stayed true to the original German text. When the Afrikaans text was revised at various stages, however, the original German text and the texts on which the original was based, were not considered sufficiently. Significant features of the original text thus got lost, especially in the latest version in Afrikaans. It is argued, however, that certain aspects of the current text, coupled with aspects of the old text in Afrikaans that are still alive in the hymnic memory of people, and carried by the very fitting melody, could still sustain people in difficult times. The reception history of the hymn in contexts where the original text plays a strong role and also where translations close to the original are used, shows its use on various levels as part of the lived faith or lived religion of people. Besides being a source of comfort to civilian Germans during World War 1, the German version was also used for militaristic and patriotic purposes during the war. It plays a prominent role in two films -- Babette's Feast (1987), a Danish film, and Vaya con Dios (2002), a German film. The films illustrate that God's voice can be heard in songs of faith and that this hymn can open up broader perspectives, and give people a voice in difficult circumstances. In the films, the hymn expresses gratitude, love, community and trust. The hymn can remind people that God is present in dark days and in suffering and can give hope. It can remind people of God's love and indicate the path they need to follow. The performative power unleashed when singing the hymn, can transform people. It is argued that when the hymn is sung, space can open up and people be freed from their confinement, their lockdown and their shelters. They can sing, pray and follow God's way -- and in doing so, also comfort and support others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]