To Come to a Better Understanding examines the intercultural (mis)understandings between medicine men and Jesuit priests during a five-year dialogue on the Rosebud Indian Reservation from 1973-1978.
A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) comprises John Locke’s mature thoughts on religious toleration. In it, Locke offers three political arguments against state religious coercion. He argues that it ...is impossible, impermissible, and inadvisable for the civil magistrate to enforce ‘true religion,’ which Locke defines as the ‘inward and full persuasion of the mind’ (Works, 6:10). Notwithstanding the various internecine conflicts within Christianity, conflicts which motivated Locke’s concern with toleration, all of the many-splendored sects of Christianity nonetheless share the notion that orthodoxy (correct belief) is required for salvation. Since the early days of Christianity, orthodoxy has represented the lowest-common-denominator obligation of adherents to Christianity. Locke’s political arguments in the Letter, at least in their first instance, assume an orthodox definition of “true religion.” This is likewise true of those who have either defended or criticized Locke’s arguments in the secondary literature. In contrast to Locke and his commentators, we will argue that the dominant characterization of “true religion” globally and throughout history does not concern correct religious belief as much as it concerns correct religious practice, or orthopraxy. Even though it has not received as much attention in the literature, Locke does discuss orthopraxy–what he calls ‘outward worship’–at length in the second half of the Letter (Works, 6:29-39). We will demonstrate how versions of all three political arguments for toleration can be redeployed to constrain the power of the magistrate within an orthoprax conception of true religion.
Martyrs have a special status in every religion. They are "heroes" who give their lives for their ideals. Their death acquires a symbolic meaning and its own story within their own religious ...tradition. There is no fixed definition of 'the' martyr, in every time and situation people give it its own meaning. However, the death of the martyr is always shocking and creates a deep duality. In Dan liever dood!, experts address how we deal with martyrdom in the traditions of the five major world religions. What is meant by ""martyrdom"" in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism? And in the secular world? Where does this talk of 'martyrs' come from, and how is their martyrdom valued?
The Protocol of the Gods is a pioneering study of the
history of relations between Japanese native institutions (Shinto
shrines) and imported Buddhist institutions (Buddhist temples).
Using the ...Kasuga Shinto shrine and the Kofukuji Buddhist temple,
one of the oldest and largest of the shrine-temple complexes, Allan
Grapard characterizes what he calls the combinatory character of
pre-modern Japanese religiosity. He argues that Shintoism and
Buddhism should not be studied in isolation, as hitherto supposed.
Rather, a study of the individual and shared characteristics of
their respective origins, evolutions, structures, and practices can
serve as a model for understanding the pre-modern Japanese
religious experience. Spanning the years from a period before
historical records to the forcible separation of the
Kasuga-Kofukuji complex by the Meiji government in 1868, Grapard
presents a wealth of little-known material. He includes
translations of rare texts and provides new, accessible
translations of familiar documents.
This study introduces a new dataset on world religions. The World Religion Project consists of (a) a systematically developed classification of major world religions and religious families within ...major world religions, which enabled (b) the collection of data on the distribution of the population of all states in the international system across these religious categories, over the period of 1945-2010, and (c) a set of methods to reconcile among conflicting data from multiple sources, to deal with missing data, and to integrate multiple figures for a given observation. In the present study we discuss the significance of the World Religion Project, its internal logic and the development of the religion tree system of classification, and the data collection and data management process. We then provide a number of descriptive statistics about national, dyadic, regional, and global distributions of world religions, as well as some preliminary relationships between the religious similarity of states and their regime type, alliance patterns, and propensity to conflict. We discuss the potential contribution of this dataset to the study of the relationship between religion and international conflict and cooperation.
Thirty professors gathered for a 2017 National Endowment in the Humanities summer institute, "The Challenges of Teaching World Religions," to confront complexities and nuances, hegemonies and ...political intrigue, hypocrisies and paradoxes-as these and other challenges play out in the present state of Religious Studies. This is the story of one participant's attempt to practically apply often abstract or esoteric expertise in the 101 classroom. Modern comparative religious study is modeled on biology, which presumes an unchanging essence. However, World Religions professors must accept that religions change and vary, so beyond the inception of founding texts and principles, in an existential sense, there is no stable essence in lived traditions. Therefore "religion" can never be essentialized into an undisputed whole, so "religions" should best be kept as a plural. As an example for World Religions pedagogy, NEH participants scrutinized blindspots that became visible with greater exposure to the diversity (political, historical, experiential, ritualistic, creedal) within each religious tradition, especially as they are actually practiced by various adherents, so hearing from a range of guest speakers, visiting sites, and using a range of World Religions textbooks modeled a twenty-first century pedagogy for teaching World Religions without the monocular "having the right answer" syndrome. Seeing religion not only as a path of wisdom, but also as an exercise of power, seminar participants examined the invisible assumptions of hegemonies, and made imaginative leaps to the experiential reality of selected world religions-all the while, having epistemological humility.
A purpose of this article is expressing the very interesting issues concerning the ritual sphere of big religions of world. In particular it concerns diet provisions referring to food of the ...animal origin. Principles of the religion determine in this situation, what kind of food is allowed to the consumption. Is a question, whether it is possible to separate the religion from the vegetarianism? Religions differ from themselves. However they agree as for the need for the moral behaviour and ethic. A charity and sympathizing towards the poor one are core values. These values are valued highly by all religions of world.
The World Religions Paradigm (WRP) remains popular in classrooms despite its embedded problems that scholars have recognized for decades. The primary ways of responding to those problems have been ...either to continue teaching the WRP out of convenience or to reject it, removing World Religions courses from a curriculum completely. Using Jonathan Z. Smith’s six rules on teaching an undergraduate religion course from his essay “Approaching the College Classroom” in On Teaching Religion (2012), the redesign of World Religions at Nebraska Wesleyan University (NWU) represents an important alternative. A model for those who recognize the problems with the WRP but who do not want to (or cannot) stop teaching the topic altogether, the NWU World Religions pilot course finds a way to do both, advocating for not only the continued offering of World Religions courses but the promotion of critical thought and self-reflection among students while doing so.
The World Religions Paradigm (WRP) has long served as the predominant framework for teaching Religious Studies globally and in South Africa. However, criticisms of the WRP highlight its tendency to ...marginalize non-Christian, non-Western, and non-white perspectives. This article examines these critiques in the context of South Africa, particularly in light of the events of 2015–2016, when the #MustFall movement sought to raise and address issues of decolonization. This article will argue that South Africa provides a pertinent example of the need to re-evaluate pedagogical choices in Religious Studies education by emphasizing the importance of context in re-shaping the curriculum.
Вопреки существующему мнению о том, что кочевники Южного Урала, покинув Magna Hungaria, пришли на новую Родину как язычники и шаманисты, материалы исследований последних лет убеждают, что население ...урало-казахстанских степей задолго до своего исхода было втянуто в культурно-религиозную орбиту мировых религий. Очагом этого влияния явились кочевые империи Центральной Азии. В кочевой среде оно нашло свое отражение в разнообразных изобразительных формах торевтики. До недавнего времени в описании этих образов присутствовали абстрактные орнаменты. В этой связи целью и задачами настоящего исследования являются проведение стилистического анализа этого изобразительного ряда и дальнейшее идентифицирование образов, связанных с пантеоном манихейских традиций. Основным методом исследования является сравнительно-интерпретационный анализ стилистических изобразительных традиций. При этом основной упор сделан на находки из Уелгинского погребального комплекса, также приводится широкий круг подтверждающих аналогий из памятников Урала (Ишимбаевские курганы, Редикор, Баяновский могильник, Шадринские находки), Восточного Казахстана (Зевакинский могильник) и Поднепровья (Субботцевский могильник). Стилистические линии содержат целый ряд манихейско-несторианских и манихейско-буддийских образов: крестообразные накладки из Уелгинского могильника являются яркими аналогиями несторианских крестов, обнаруженных в тюркских столицах Семиречья (Суяб, Невкет и др.), буддийско-индуистский символ на круглых серебряных накладках с изображением богини плодородия Парвати; несторианско-христианский символ Христа с поднятым двуперстием на обломке накладки из Уелгов и на щитке пряжки из Субботцевского могильника; буддийский сюжет в виде образа многорукого Авалоки на пряжке из Ишимбаевских курганов и из клада Редикор; и, наконец, основной манихейский символ связан с элементами растительного орнамента, изображающего цветы, плоды и ветви Древа жизни, которым в манихейское время являлась смоква (инжир, фига), а также образы парных птиц. Этими изображениями изобилует большая часть орнаментированных накладок, серег и медальонов, найденных в Уелгинском могильнике. Приведенная символика и взаимосвязь с манихейскими признаками указывает на глубокое проникновение этих представлений в культурную религиозную среду южноуральских кочевников. Дальнейший поиск и развитие этих изобразительных форм обусловил возникновение особых изобразительных традиций среди кочевого населения от Урала до Карпатской котловины.
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