Browse results
Abstract
Generation Z (Gen Z) comprises current adolescent culture, bringing with them a generational worldview lens for topics such as: suffering, success, identify formation, and social justice. Gen Z values safety, has a heart for the outcasted, and is forming identity around successes and accomplishments. This article seeks to ground Gen Z with a piece of historical Christian faith and teaching, applying the fourth-century teachings of John Chrysostom to today’s Gen Z. Much like Chrysostom’s audience, Gen Z views suffering and hardship as punitive and to be avoided. Chrysostom’s teaching provides a fuller understanding of suffering, equipping his audience, and today’s Gen Z, with a mode for building resilience through thanksgiving. Chrysostom taught on the importance of charity, which allows Gen Z to engage their generational values for tolerance and acceptance in the Kingdom of God.
Abstract
The English writer John Michell (1933–2009) occupied a significant position within British alternative religion. Michell’s manifold books revolve around his life-long aim to re-enchant the English landscape and launch a new golden age. Michell was a devoted Traditionalist and is widely considered the founding father of the vast field of British Earth Mysteries. Associated groups embrace speculative theories of the earth, claiming the existence of telluric (dragon) energies. As Michell’s impact on such groups is widely acknowledged, within the context of Earth Mysteries, this article centers on cerealogy and the Dragon Environmental Network as examples in exploring Michell’s discursive and enduring influence.
Abstract
In feminist research on religion, women and gender, the concepts of “lived religion” as well as “agency as doing religion” take a prominent place. Both include an intersubjective and mostly partial perspective. However, against the background of current developments concerning a global religious right, the paper argues for the inclusion of a critical perspective through the methodology of a double critique that includes both an analysis of power relations that marginalize women in religious groups and an analysis of women’s reproduction of gendered as well as racialized power relations. This argument is embedded in the complexity of post-secular feminist research including research on women, gender and religion, feminist critiques of secularism (and of anti-Muslim discourses), feminist, queer and trans theologies, and research on the religious right and their anti-feminist politics. The paper suggests to take feminist theologies and feminist spiritualities/religious practices as reference point for such an analysis.
Abstract
Aḥob of Qatar is a late 6th-century East Syriac biblical commentator whose cosmology has not previously been studied. Aḥob’s cosmology is preserved in two parts in several late 19th-century Denḥa-Grigor Commentary (first half of the 9th century?) manuscripts: one part is a scholion connected to Psalm 104 and the other part is a diagrammatic illustration (in four related witnesses), which portrays five levels of heaven as envisioned by Aḥob. This paper introduces and presents Aḥob’s cosmology in six parts: 1) an exploration of the authorship of the original version of the diagrammatic illustration, 2) an analyzed study of the rare word
Abstract
Up to this point, the function of St. Elijah’s cult in the royal ideological system in medieval Serbia during the Nemanjić dynasty (1166–1371) has not been adequately researched. This paper adopts the idea that descriptions of episodes from this Old Testament prophet’s life were masterfully adapted in the Serbian religious medieval literature for the purpose of constructing a few essential elements of the local ruling ideological norms. In addition to a brief overview of the church history of the central Balkans from the 7th to the early 13th century, which conditioned the late and partially finished Christianization of this area, the political and religious doctrines on which the rulers based their legitimacy during this period are explicated. The emphasis was on the concept of dynastic sanctity, which manifested itself not only through the systematic canonization of local rulers and church dignitaries of the Serbian church which was established in 1219 but also through the sacralization of the geographical space of the Serbian state and the long-lasting pursuit of total evangelization of its population. Numerous religious texts were written for this purpose, mostly hagiographies, which serve as the fundamental historical source for this research. By referencing St. Elijah’s God-pleasing monastic deeds and his puritan fight for “Christian” virtues when interacting with the secular leaders or pagans, the actions of his medieval counterparts are explained, justified, or even glorified, in a language understandable to numerous readers of the Bible and patristic literature across the Serbian realm.
Abstract
With Christian Smith’s consent, research was conducted at a life Conference (Christian & Missionary Alliance’s national youth conference, July 2013) using a modified version of Christian Smith’s and Lisa Pearce’s interview instrument, used in the National Study of Youth & Religion (). Approximately two thousand life Conference attendees (close to 400 youth leaders and 1600 students) participated in the research, though this study reports only on the adolescent responses. Frequency measures and multiple regression analyses provide evidence that adolescents’ religiosity appears to be positively associated with pro-social beliefs and behaviors and negatively associated with pop-culture-religiosity (zombies, vampires, good witches, etc.) beliefs. Single items and scales represented the religiosity variable and the associations of these varying measures of religiosity to dependent variables were compared and contrasted. Implications for issues that may need more or less focus in the classroom with future youth leaders will be discussed.
Abstract
Amongst the complex changes in youth, religious development is also particularly salient. This paper analyzes what is the meaning of religion in youth and what are the possible stress factors that one might encounter when upholding a religious worldview in today’s world. The participants of this study were 41 grade 9 students (ages 15–16) attending four different Finnish Christian schools. The results reveal that religion plays a significant role in the lives of the youth. Furthermore, personal faith functioned as a resource in multiple ways, enabling the youth to experience their life as meaningful. Moreover, according to the youth, a personal religious worldview enabled them to find hope, comfort and strength in different life situations. However, religion was also experienced as a stress factor causing challenges in life, such as being subjected to bullying and discrimination. Still, even then the youth viewed religion as an essential part of their life.
Abstract
Since the 2000s there has been a group of prominent scholars in China embracing the political views of Carl Schmitt. They are aware of the dangerous side of his thought but have provided reasonable analysis in relation to the Chinese social situation. Outlining their discussions, this article will depict the phenomenon with a focus on Schmitt’s controversial political theology. That will be compared with the thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Although their political alignments were opposed to each other, the theoretical structure of their thinking reveals striking similarities. This article will thus articulate the theological reasons that allow for the differences between their ideas and actions and will produce a reflection on the contemporary situation in China. It is not due to the theoretical structure, but to the image of the sovereign embraced, that the stances of the two thinkers differed. From this we may draw implications from a public theological discussion for constructing a democratic society in the context of China.