Religions

This issue of Religions serves as a modest invitation to consider a big claim, namely, that if we want to address the most pressing challenges of the 21st century, interreligious collaboration is required [...]

In his article 'Epistemic Injustice and Religion', Ian James Kidd raises the possibility that some epistemic injustices might be deep. To spell out exactly what might be involved in deep epistemic injustices, especially those involving religious worldviews, an obvious place to look is Wittgenstein's work on religion. Careful reflection on Wittgenstein's remarks in the 'Lectures on Religious Belief' and his late work collected in On Certainty will have implications for how we are to understand the relationships between belief and evidence and for the ways in which we might enrich our hermeneutical sensitivities, and so Wittgenstein's remarks are helpful for understanding epistemic injustices more generally. This paper will focus on epistemic injustices involving Islamophobia since Islamophobia has, so far, been given little attention in the literature on epistemic injustice.

In recent years, the debate on non-religion has gained prominence in the sociology of religion, making it one of the most interesting areas for further reflection on (post)secularization. Drawing on the key works on the subject, this article adopts a postsecular, religion-related field, constructivist approach, with the main aim of understanding the diverse sector that is included within non-religion. This study uses a multimethod approach, focusing on the preliminary findings of a qualitative fieldwork on non-religion in Spain. The presentation and discussion of the results will be structured around two main axes: (a) an analysis of the growth of non-religion in Spain through three dynamics (irreligion, areligion, and hybridization) and (b) an exploration of the complexity and plurality of non-religion, paying particular attention to the blurred boundaries between religion and non-religion in the Spanish nones. Through both axes, the present research will challenge the idea that the rise of non-religion is merely a confirmation of ’religious decline’ and seek to understand it as a nuanced process in which the redefinition of the religious and spiritual also plays an important role, with implications for the postsecular debate and discussions of secularization, social theory, and sociological analysis.

The East Asian world has shared both universal characteristics and regional particularities, forming a Buddhist cultural area for more than 1500 years. One of the main features of East Asian Buddhism is a “state–Buddhist link”. This article will focus on the early modern period, and on the periphery, Korea and Japan, rather than the center, China. If we can identify the attributes of the institutional connection between the state and Buddhism in this peripheral area of the East Asian world, and in a period when Buddhism was less prominent than before, we can understand it as a long-term universal characteristic of East Asian Buddhist cultures. In this article, I have tried to locate the common ground between Japanese and Korean Buddhism in the early modern period at two points: the change in the perception of Buddhism in the early modern period and the mechanism of the relationship between the state and Buddhism. The common ground here is that there is a movement in the two countries to break away from the negative perception of Buddhism in the early modern period and approach its historical reality. In terms of the mechanism of the relationship between the state and Buddhism, the Edo period saw the implementation of the temple parish system, which linked temples and people in each region, allowing the shogunate to indirectly control the people, while each sect was able to establish financial stability and thus its sectarian identity. In late Chosŏn, the institutionalization of the monk state service allowed the state to utilize the monk labor force and the surplus goods of the temples, and in return, the Buddhist community was allowed to rather peacefully exist in Confucian society. This shows that there was a close relationship between the two. There are many differences between Japanese and Korean Buddhism in the early modern period, but they share the characteristics of state Buddhism, where the state and Buddhism were institutionally related. The mechanism of the win–win relationship between the state and Buddhism can be understood as a universal characteristic of East Asian Buddhist history beyond Japan and Korea in the early modern period.

This article examines the interplay between Jewish and Muslim identities in German public discourse, focusing on their roles as placeholders in constructing contemporary German identity. It argues that discussions of Judaism, antisemitism, and the Israel–Palestine conflict often serve as projection surfaces for national self-perception, neglecting the complexities of Jewish and Muslim lived realities. Drawing on critiques by Elad Lapidot and Jean-Claude Milner, the article explores how the exclusion of heteronomous identities—grounded in divine law—exposes the structural limitations of modern liberal societies. It highlights the substitution of traditional Jewish identity with a liberal-compatible version in German discourse, while simultaneously framing Muslims as the “new Other”. This text calls for Jewish and Muslim communities to challenge the narratives that marginalize and instrumentalize them, advocating for solidarity to address shared challenges and enrich pluralistic democratic frameworks.

This essay elucidates Chronicles’ puzzling presentation of Yhwh’s position in the universe. While Chronicles affirms Yhwh’s sole authority, it also describes his presence among other deities. Instead of seeing this as a tension, this essay argues that the book serves a didactic function, warning against syncretism. Ancient Israelites’ beliefs, recorded in the Hebrew Bible, often replaced God’s position with idols or served them simultaneously while professing their trust in Yhwh, despite his explicit prohibition against other gods. The Yehud community found itself in a similar situation, facing Persian influences. Under these circumstances, the book attempts to bridge the gap between the readers’ learned knowledge and intuitive understanding so they may acquire an appropriate perception of Yhwh. Readers of Chronicles who possess adequate knowledge of authoritative texts are expected to heuristically deduce that they cannot worship Yhwh and other gods simultaneously; thus, they should turn away from idols and devote themselves solely to God. Through this process, Chronicles reinforces Yhwh’s uniqueness and encourages the post-exilic community to align their worship with monotheistic devotion.

Embodied, enactive cognition, which is also embedded or emplaced cognition and extended cognition through tools, including language, presents various challenges to the standard model of the cognitive science of religion. In its focus on unconscious brain mechanisms, the standard model downplays or eliminates religious meaning as epiphenomenal or illusory. It often denies that religion, once present, is adaptive or admits as adaptive only costly signaling. It regards humans’ perceptions of their environments as representations, mistaking an environment as determinate before cognition occurs. This support for indirect perception makes no sense given its emphasis on the need for sensing possible threats to survival. As brain mechanisms of individuals do all the heavy lifting, the model regards culture and its influence as nonexistent or insignificant. This stance denies how the social constitutes a huge part of our embodied preobjective and tacit engagement with the world, as well as socio-cultural realities, including religion, as self-organizing systems. The neglect of embodiment extends to its take on supernatural agents as allegedly disembodied minds. The standard model overlooks how ordinary rituals promote bonding through group presence, synchrony, and endorphin production and how some rituals increase knowledge of a particular natural environment, thus overlooking how religion can be adaptive.

French political scientist Olivier Roy maintains that the West is undergoing a ‘crisis of culture’. The crisis derives from a process of ‘deculturation’ where superficial, deterritorial subcultures become the basis for shared understanding, rather than values. Roy maintains that this is a ‘dehumanising’ process. This paper seeks to understand by what means the West might recover a culture. This question demands understanding the concept itself, including its relationship to things material and transcendent. Drawing on the work of the 20th century Jesuit priest and theologian Henri de Lubac, as well as contemporary theologians like John Milbank and Carmody Grey, the paper will base its conclusions on the idea that nature and grace are correlative terms, and culture is not opposed to either. Such a conclusion, however, requires a certain religious logic that is rare in current philosophical discourse. A catholic understanding of the human can help to weave back nature, grace and culture into a proper relationship which does not isolate the natural from the supernatural, and informs the remaking of a culture shaped by Christian humanism.

In the pursuit of an authentic Christian experience, particularly among young people, it is essential to focus on reconfiguring what constitutes a true Christian identity. This entails a deep immersion in the lived experience of faith, with particular emphasis on the liturgical encounter, along with the signs and symbols employed in the experience. In the face of innumerable challenges partly precipitated by contemporary society and culture, such an engagement can foster a genuine experience of Christian life, encouraging young people to embrace authenticity while maintaining a focus on core beliefs and identity markers as they are lived and experienced. Consequently, the liturgical experience enhances the mystagogical journey, allowing young people to reflect on their identity as active participants in the faith. This intentional focus enables them to perceive faith as a true and defining marker of their identity as Christians.

The interdisciplinary study of Daoism and literature can be broadly categorized into three main approaches: analyzing literary works as sources of Daoist material, examining Daoist scriptures as literary texts, and exploring the influence of Daoist beliefs on writers. This paper proposes a new perspective that complements these existing frameworks: by examining Daoist scriptures, we can better assess whether certain literary expressions or rhetorical devices were innovative or simply widespread conventions among writers of a particular period. Using the works of Lu Xiujing 陸修靜 (406–477 CE) as a case study, this paper builds on Haun Saussy’s argument that the use of “fragrance” as a rhetorical device to modify virtue—often surprising to modern scholars—was, in fact, a familiar trope for ancient Chinese writers. However, the paper critiques Saussy’s reliance on the works of the famous poet Qu Yuan 屈原 (c. 342–278 BCE) as evidence. Unlike Qu Yuan, who was primarily a literary figure, Lu Xiujing, as a Daoist scholar, frequently employed metaphors related to smell and taste to express abstract moral or doctrinal concepts. For Lu and his contemporaries, such expressions were not regarded as remarkable literary techniques but rather as conventional modes of discourse. This suggests that, at least in early medieval China, such rhetorical usage among writers was not seen as novel but as commonplace.

Drawing on patristic sources and modern Orthodox authors, this paper explores the paradoxes of the heart as the deepest and most hidden place of the human being. The heart can be both the highest and deepest point of an encounter with God, as well as the highest and deepest place of the secret self. The paper describes the difficulty of searching for the place of the heart in the context of the philosophies of interiority, subjectivity, and self and examines the spatial metaphors involving the centrality of the heart. The paper also considers the dynamics of purification, which places the heart at the crossroads between purifying the body and achieving the transparency of intellect through divine illumination. The heart is revealed as the coincidence of dispassion (apatheia) and the purest and most intense charity (agape), which means regaining the purity of desire (oriented to God). As a space of both hiddenness and revelation, the heart invites an apophatic anthropology.

While most Christians might imagine the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as a single event, for the author of Ephesians, the resurrection is a continuing event of cosmic proportions. In a very real way, the Epistle to the Ephesians is an extended reflection on the ongoing multidimensional cosmic consequences and transformations that result from the death of Jesus and his resurrection, whose impact not only affects the macrocosm in which Christ sits triumphantly at the right hand of God, “far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion” (Eph 1: 20–22), but also the microcosm of the Church, “his body, the fullness of the one who fills the universe in every way” (1: 23), transforming those who compose the smallest microcosm, the baptized who form a Christian household and who, gathered at table to share Eucharist (5: 17–6: 9), are “seated with Christ in the heavenly places” (2: 6), already participating in the eternal Messianic banquet. This is to say that, for this author, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the catalyst for an ongoing and ever more evolving “new creation” of humanity and, indeed, the entire cosmos, with “Christification”—the full maturation into the divine “Christ nature” (Eph 4: 13, 15–16) as the telos or goal for the whole universe (Eph 1: 10).

The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM, by Stroebe and Schut) is a well-known framework in contemporary grief research and counselling. It depicts how mourners oscillate between various tasks and reactions. There is a need to engage more with the intense feelings of loss (Loss-Oriented tasks), but also with other things in life and other parts of the adjustment process after a loss (Restoration-Oriented tasks). This interdisciplinary article applies the framework to ecological grief and extends it to collective levels. While the DPM has been broadened to family dynamics, many subjects of grief are even more collective and require mourning from whole communities or societies. Religious communities can play an important role in this. This article provides a new application called the DPM-EcoSocial and discusses the various tasks named in it, which are ultimately based on the grief researcher Worden’s work. The particularities of ecological grief are discussed, such as the complications caused by guilt dynamics, climate change denial, attribution differences about climate disasters, and nonfinite losses. Grief and grievance are intimately connected in ecological grief, and (religious) communities have important tasks for remembrance, mourning, and witness. The collective processes can lead to meaning reconstruction, transilience, and adversarial growth. (Part of the Special Issue: Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief, Edited by Dr. Michael Hogue)

Within the analytical framework of sociorhetorical (or, socio-rhetorical) interpretation (SRI), this paper explores a sustained rhetography of James 1:1–18. It begins with a brief examination of visual elements in James through the lens of ancient ekphrasis, which offers a nuanced understanding of the social and cultural texture of the letter. Since the letter of James (especially 1:1–18) contains sporadic images that reflect ekphrastic tradition (rather than long, elaborate ekphrasis), a new approach is needed to understand its visual-rhetorical effects. Therefore, rhetography in SRI (especially cinematographic and editing techniques, such as shot types, shot transitions, and continuity editing with crosscutting shots) is introduced to the text. This sociorhetorical reading of James 1:1–18 helps readers understand the visual-rhetorical strategy of the text. This manifests in various ways: (a) displaying contrasting figures close-up (positive, less positive, and negative) to emulate or avoid; (b) portraying negative figure(s) in precarious situations through vivid similes that elicit emotional responses; and (c) envisaging eschatological consequences, thus making the invisible visible. The movement and sequence of the shots can effectively direct the letter’s audience/viewer toward a wise and unwavering life in the diaspora.

Denise Ferreira da Silva’s recent work, Unpayable Debt, makes a provocative intervention into current debates over and struggles for global justice in the wake of colonialism and in view of contemporary neo-colonial forces of extractive violence. Ferreira da Silva argues that only the return of the total value of the land and labor of the formerly enslaved and colonized would suffice to repay the debt owed to them by the global economy. Yet, such a debt is both unlimited in space and unrestricted in time, since that stolen land and expropriated labor are the very materiality of the global economy, past and present. For Ferreira da Silva, only a truly “raw materialist” apprehension of the scope of this debt, one which appreciates its elemental and cosmic composition, can enable decolonial justice to be conceived or achieved. In this paper, after outlining the arguments of Unpayable Debt, I elaborate Ferreira da Silva’s sense of the elemental stakes of global justice, extending and elaborating her thought through a reading of the recent afro-futurist film Neptune Frost (2021).

The Inferno highlights many categories of sins and varieties of pains yet it has another unifying theme. From the earliest descriptions of Christian monastic discipline to the Benedictine Rule and beyond, “inner death” inspired contemplatives to confront the hell that awaits them if they succumb to pride, give way to sloth (acedia), or lack humility. Scholastic theologians (e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure) developed the notion, and mendicant preachers brought it to laypeople like Dante Alighieri. Inner death has ironic force in the Inferno because it contradicts the inscription on the gates of hell: “Abandon all hope you who enter”. Yes, one must abandon all hope upon entering hell unless, through the cultivation of inner death, one does so “nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (midway in the journey of our life—Singleton), while alive. Here is the irony; here is inner death. If living persons contemplate the consequences in hell of their faults in life, they transcend them and escape.

The expansion of empires and colonial rule significantly shaped the movement of religious communities, practices, and institutions across borders. This article examines the intersections of empire, colonialism, and religious mobility with a view to exploring how colonial administrations facilitated, restricted, or co-opted religious movements for governance and control. Religious actors—such as missionaries, clerics, traders, and diasporic communities—played roles in transnational exchanges, carrying faith traditions across imperial networks while simultaneously influencing local spiritual landscapes. The study situates religious mobility within the broader framework of colonial power structures and analyzes how missionary enterprises, religious conversions, and statesponsored religious policies were used to consolidate imperial control. It also considers how indigenous religious movements navigated, resisted, or transformed under colonial rule. The case studies include Christian missionary networks in British and French colonies, the movement of Islamic scholars across the Ottoman and Mughal empires, and the role of Buddhism in colonial southeast Asia. These examples highlight the role of religion not just as a tool of empire but as a vehicle for indigenous agency, resistance, and syncretic transformation. This article explores the transnational mobility of religious artifacts, sacred texts, and pilgrimage networks, demonstrating how colonial expansion altered religious landscapes beyond political boundaries. The study critically engages with postcolonial perspectives to interrogate how colonial legacies continue to shape contemporary religious diasporas and global faith-based movements.

Historically, bell towers have been religious and architectural symbols in the landscape that summoned the faithful to celebrations and fulfilled a crucial territorial significance task. This function was assumed by the towers of some universities. The real need of the University Francisco de Vitoria to build a bell tower for its new chapel and to be significant both for its campus and the city is the pretext to investigate the need for this element in the current context through an academic exercise with architecture students. Traditionally, the religious autority proposed a concrete celebration space. In this case, architecture students were commissioned to propose a contemporary response for the new bell tower of their university campus through a Design Workshop. The workshop result raises interesting questions about what the architecture of a bell tower should be like in the XXI century, the relationship with public space, the construction of a landmark on an urban scale, the need to respond to both the city and the immediate environment at its different scales, the obsolescence of elements such as clocks or bells, and, above all, the relevance of symbols and the way that architecture raises questions in the contemporary landscape.

Analysts of American politics have given only modest attention to the way religious factors shape public attitudes toward foreign policy, including the use of US military force. The Cooperative Election Studies from 2008 to 2022 provide an excellent data source for such analysis. Attitudes toward different uses of the military are well measured and the massive sample permits examination of even small ethnoreligious groups. We find that American religious groups vary greatly on overall willingness to use the military but also respond in distinctive-and predictable-ways to each type of intervention. Although religious influences differ somewhat by racial group and are partly mediated by ideology and partisanship, they often play an independent role, even under stringent statistical controls for other variables commonly found to influence public attitudes.

This article addresses preconditions and possibilities for ecumenism in secularised societies. In doing so, it draws attention to the complex nature of the secularisation process. On the one hand, this process involves a positive demand for freedom from religious compulsion in social life, which finds its basis in the Gospel’s liberating message. On the other hand, it carries negative consequences such as the elimination of various aspects of religiosity from social life. Some scholars have emphasised that Christian Churches themselves are partly at fault in this regard. As a result of their historical disintegration and lack of unity, the Churches are losing credibility and weakening the efficacy of their evangelising mission. Under conditions of secularisation, ecumenism becomes particularly relevant and should take on a new dynamic in relations between the Churches, which see secularisation’s effects in an exodus of believers and a loss of relevance in social life. From a normative point of view, only a reconciled Christianity can give credibility to the Churches’ evangelising mission and counteract secularisation’s negative effects.

This article explores the evolution of Jewish–Christian dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church, focusing on the theological and pastoral contributions of three post-Vatican II Popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Beginning with the transformative Nostra Ætate declaration of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), this study examines how each Pope uniquely advanced Jewish–Christian relations through doctrinal development, symbolic gestures, and interreligious dialogue. John Paul II’s performative theology emphasized reconciliation and outreach, significantly enhancing Jewish–Christian relations through groundbreaking gestures and public declarations. Benedict XVI sought to deepen the theological foundations of Jewish–Christian dialogue, integrating it into broader Roman Catholic theology while navigating challenges of reception due to his intellectual style. Francis emphasized relational warmth, shared ethical commitments, and a theology of reconciliation, fostering a more inclusive and dialogical approach to interreligious engagement. By analysing the continuities and discontinuities in the approaches of these three Popes, this article highlights the dynamic interplay between theology, symbolism, and pastoral care in advancing Jewish–Christian relations, offering a comprehensive overview of a pivotal era in interreligious dialogue.

This paper examines the appearance of published West Semitic spellings of the name of the deity commonly referred to as Asherah. In light of new evidence from the Bronze Age Amorite sources, as well as the complete publication of the inscriptions at Kuntillet ʿAjrud, a review of the analysis and discussion concerning the identification of the deity is undertaken. The purpose will be to ascertain the significance of the witness of epigraphic Hebrew texts at Kuntillet ʿAjrud and Khirbet el-Qom in light of earlier Bronze Age evidence, the biblical attestations, the conceptualization of deity, and the understanding of Iron Age epigraphic Hebrew spellings of the feminine singular suffix, as well as pronominal suffixes. The more complete availability of textual witnesses provides a foundation on which to argue the degree of continuity across more than a thousand years of the appearance of the deity in the West Semitic world.

Little work has been done to investigate Jonathan Edwards’ use of the Christian Scripture in his Freedom of the Will. This study looks to address this gap in the literature, arguing that Edwards’ exegesis of the Christian Scriptures plays an indispensable role in his overall argument in his Freedom of the Will, and provides a new avenue for understanding this critical text in his corpus and the nature of Edwards’ exegesis generally.

The case study of Mr. K is used to illustrate how the God representation in transference and countertransference can be identified and treated. The focus of the paper is on the implications of the representation of God for both the patient and the psychotherapist. It is argued that the ability to manage the dynamics of transference and countertransference is the basis for dealing with religious expressions in a tactful and considerate way. We follow the treatment of Mr. K, someone with a borderline personality organisation with paranoid features, from a psychodynamic frame of reference. Aggressive and religious themes emerged in the treatment. Both the working relationship and the representation of God were characterised by aggressive and desperate control. Once the working relationship had survived the storms of aggression, the patient was able to trust the therapist with his God representation and clarify how the God representation played a role in regulating his aggression. The therapist was able to accept the patient’s distress and to express that he needed support. As therapy progressed, the therapist was able to make it clear to Mr. K that his aggression was necessary to keep him away from the debilitating feeling of total abandonment. The patient began to use the therapist; that is, he began to benefit from what the psychotherapist was offering him.

This article traces the strengthening of Muslim movements in Jordan, emphasizing the period that marked the beginning of the regional upheaval (2011). It aims to examine whether and how this strengthening affected religious, national, and political identities. The article examines the interrelationships between the Hashemite regime and the Salafi movements in Jordan during and after the Arab Spring. This examination shows that there was a deterioration, aggravation, and erosion in these relations, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, also an understanding on the part of the regime that despite this the Salafis are interested in taking part in the Jordanian political game. In this discourse between the Salafi movements and the regime, we will also examine whether the movements sought to change the regime’s nature and, thus, the nature of society in Jordan from a Hashemite national identity to a Salafi identity. The article is based on secondary and primary sources that unfold a fascinating picture of dialectics and dialog between the ideological extremes of democracy and Islam. The main findings are that these processes, during and after the Arab Spring, tend to contain religious groups that will also participate in politics, out of recognition of the supremacy of the law of the state, which is not necessarily religious.