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Bereavement is an ongoing process of negotiation and meaning-making in which widows and widowers make sense of the changed nature of their relationship with their deceased spouse. We analyzed the experiences of meaning in life among older widows and widowers (aged 65+) using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA; see Smith et al. in Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research, Sage, 2009), with the following question: How do widows and widowers search for meaning through continuing and/or transforming their bond to their deceased spouse? The results demonstrate that some of the widowed persons sought meaning through rituals or various means of after-death communication with their deceased spouses. Other participants transformed the bond, for example, through clearing out their deceased spouse’s belongings or a process of reconciliation. Many continued and transformed the bond simultaneously, which shows that negotiation of the relationship after the death of a spouse is an ongoing process in which both continuity and change are present. The experience of a violation of meaning in life affected the participants’ capacity to continue their bond with their deceased spouse.

Some philosophers and scientists have argued that we humans cannot be held morally responsible for anything. Invoking results of the neurosciences and the cognitive sciences, they argue that humans lack the kind of conscious control and awareness required for moral responsibility. For theological ethics and Christian theology as a whole, moral responsibility is indispensable. I will begin by outlining some empirical results that are invoked in support of moral responsibility skepticism. I will, then, examine the subsequent discussion and the question why conscious awareness is central to moral responsibility. Consciousness contributes to morally relevant control over action in multiple ways. I will briefly examine some accounts of conscious control that are resistant to the skeptical challenge. Although the empirical results might lead us to revise the degree and range of conscious control, there seems to be enough of it to ground many everyday practices of responsibility. I will conclude the article with some theological reflections.

This article argues that recent results of the cognitive sciences could make significant contributions to theological debates about free will, but they have been largely ignored by contemporary systematic and philosophical theologians. Recent work in cognitive psychology and moral psychology has to do with our intuitive and automatic patterns of reasoning in the domains of freedom and responsibility. This research will be relevant for many theological domains and has the potential to raise new issues and problems. The essay examines three such domains. First, the debate between intellectualist and voluntarist accounts of the will have been central in theology. Recent findings suggest that intellectualist accounts of the will have more intuitions on their side than has been previously assumed. Second, theologians have debated whether belief in free will is central for moral and political life. This question was pertinent during the Reformation when many of the reformers either rejected free will or presented truncated accounts of it. Recent results from moral psychology suggest that belief in free will has significant pro‐social and altruistic effects. Finally, the possible compatibility of divine determinism and free will is crucial for theological debates about sin, grace and God’s providence. Recent psychological results point in the direction of affirming that while most humans have strong intuitions about the incompatibility of free will and divine determinism, these might be based on a false inference. Finally, some new counterintuitive challenges about the manipulativeness of God are raised against the divine determinist position.

A person's mental illness burdens their spouse or partner in multiple ways and significantly increases the risk that the couple will divorce. However, scant research exists about the impact of the illness on spouses' experience of self and relationship commitment. The author investigates how 16 Finnish, heterosexual spouses and partners of people with mental illness make meaning out of their self and commitment, including the role of religion in this meaning making. The data was gathered through narrative, semi-structured interviews and analysed with a narrative approach. For these spouses and partners, sacrifice was central to meaning making. They drew on religion in marital sanctification, justification and coping. The results show the importance of mental health care in supporting the spouses' separateness from the relationship or as an avenue of expressing their commitment. This finding highlights the need to invest in couple-centred approaches to mental health care.

Two trends increasingly guiding the governance of Islam in Russia are political authoritarianisation and the global securitisation of Islam. Given that suspicions of loyalty so often configure in public discussions about Islam, Muslim leaders are compelled to continuously emphasise their patriotism. This article analyses recent mediated debates about Islam, in which the discursive boundary between ‘radical, non-traditional’ and ‘moderate, traditional’ Islam are being negotiated. The author argues that in the 2000s, the pressure to display loyalty has narrowed the scope of what is considered acceptable behaviour for Muslim leaders. Yet at the same time, these Muslim leaders cleverly adopt arguments and popular catchwords from the rhetoric of the political elite in order to emphasise the role of Islam in Russian society and tradition. In doing so, they seek to influence public discourse about Russian identity and defend the position of Muslims in the country.

Abstract: This paper has three aims. First, it provides the historical background necessary to understand the nature of academic systematic theology as it is currently being pursued in Nordic countries. Second, it questions whether the current methods of analytic theology are able to fulfill the desiderata of Nordic academic systematic theology. To this end, I suggest a specific methodological solution. Lastly, I assess if analytic theology can remain theological when using this methodology.

This study investigates worldview dialogue between 12 student teachers in Finland and in Turkey. The aim of the study is to explore the experiences of students engaged in virtual worldview dialogue. The research data consist of written emails and transcribed group discussions, which were analyzed using a content analysis approach. The findings indicate that dialogue is perceived through constructive complexity and that the students learned most from their own personal worldview. Differences between secular and religious worldviews were also negotiated, though some challenges were encountered. The study argues that tools for worldview reflexivity and worldview-related dialogue should be fostered in teacher education.

Summary In this article, we will use contemporary analytic tools to make sense of the main arguments in the classic debate on free will between Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Reformer Martin Luther. Instead of offering another exegesis of these texts, we put forward an analysis that links this historical debate with contemporary discussions on free will and grace in philosophical theology. We argue that the debate was ultimately about how three theological core claims are related to one another: the Anti-Pelagian Constraint (humans are incapable of willing any good, in order to come to faith), the Responsibility Principle (humans are morally responsible in the eyes of God) and human free will. Erasmus attacks Luther by arguing that the Responsibility Principle cannot be maintained without free will, while Luther responds by arguing that Erasmus must reject free will, because it is in conflict with the Anti-Pelagian Constraint. Luther is then left with the dilemma of justifying the Responsibility Principle without free will – a task, which in our estimation, fails. In the concluding section of the article, we point out some continuities and discontinuities between the contemporary debate and that of Luther and Erasmus.

The MT form of the saying of the wise woman in 2 Sam 20:18–19 presents multiple text-critical problems. Instead of “Let them inquire at Abel,” the LXX refers to “Abel and Dan.” The notion of the wise woman being “one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel” (NRSV) is grammatically difficult; the LXX reads differently: “what the faithful of Israel had established, had been abandoned.” This article seeks to bring textual criticism into discussion with an archaeological analysis, including a tradition-historical angle on the story, by: 1. Re-examining the textual evidence, with due consideration of the Septuagint; 2. Considering the archaeological findings of Iron Age sites at Tel Abel and Tel Dan; 3. Examining the textual and iconographic implications of the motif “woman on the wall;” and 4. Evaluating the plausibility of the historical settings implied in the story in light of the textual and archaeological evidence.

Contrary to earlier assumptions, not (only) is religion declining in modern societies, it is taking new roles in the complex development of (late) modern societies. In empirical studies on values, religiosity has been connected primarily to traditionalist value patterns that highlight stability, traditionality and security. This article, focusing on data collected from members of a renewal movement in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Finland (N = 529), addresses how the 10 universal values in Schwartz’s Value Theory relate to their religiosity and theological orientations. The results of the study imply that there are several religious value patterns, and not just one. Differences in theological orientation as well as other aspects of religious belief and participation proved to have an effect on the patterns. These findings open up new directions for the study of religion, spirituality and values.

Drawing on recent insights into textual authority, this article examines how the authoritativeness of the Jewish scriptures is manifested in 1 Clement. The article argues that the relationship between the letter and the writings it uses in its argumentation should be seen as a two-way process of mutual authorisation. Moreover, the article illuminates the interrelatedness of textual authority, scriptural argumentation and the legitimation of leadership and power. Thus, the analysis both contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions of scriptural authority and highlights the role of scriptural argumentation in the identity-building of early Christians.

Justin Barrett and Kelly James Clark have suggested that cognitive science of religion supports the existence of a god-faculty akin to sensus divinitatis. They propose that God may have given rise to the god-faculty via guided evolution. This suggestion raises two theological worries. First, our natural cognition seems to favor false god-beliefs over true ones. Second, it also makes us prone to tribalism. If God hates idolatry and moral evil, why would he give rise to mind with such biases? A Plantingian response would point to the noetic effects of sin. Such a response, however, would have to assume that God is restoring the minds of believers. This paper considers empirical reasons to doubt that such a process is taking place.

Summary This article considers the utility of a liturgical lens for locating and analyzing religion in the public sphere. Dominant paradigms in the study of religion tend to either dissolve the religious/secular distinction or base it on overly cognitive content. Drawing on the work of James K. A. Smith, the article outlines an approach which instead locates religion in embodied practices that shape human desire. I suggest the religious/secular binary is better conceptualized as a continuum in which liturgical intensity is the primary criterion of religiosity. A liturgical continuum better articulates the contested nature of public space and the religious aspects of political life.

In 2006, a Metal Mass—a regular Lutheran mass with accompanying metal music—was celebrated in Helsinki and created a controversy on several online forums. On the one hand, the focus was the appropriateness of metal music in the context of a Christian mass. On the other hand, the issue at stake was the appropriateness of Christianity in the context of metal music and culture. In this article, we concentrate on how the controversy over the boundaries of ‘good’ religion is constructed in discourse about the appropriateness of metal music in the context of a national church and its services. We argue that the controversy over the Metal Mass is a case of broader negotiation between the function and performance of religious actors in contemporary Finland, yet when it happens within a secularized context, the temporarily full pews turn out to be an anomaly rather than a sign of revival.

The effect of legislative changes on same-sex unions on people’s attitudes toward homosexuality is a fairly well-researched topic. There is less research on how state legislation on same-sex unions has affected churches’ attitudes and policies on registered partnership and same-sex marriage. In this paper we focus on attitudinal polarisation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF) in the matter of same-sex marriage and why there is a gap in the attitudinal development of the church and the society. The analysis is based upon six sets of representative surveys among the Finnish population, the employees of the ELCF and the elected officials of the ELCF between the years 2012–2017. Whereas the majorities (55%) among the Finnish population and among the ELCF members (54%) are already favourable to the idea that same-sex couples should have the right to marry in the church, the ELCF has not approved of it. This situation has polarised the ELCF from within. Empirical analysis shows that the reason for the discrepancy between popular opinion and the ELCF stance stems from the fact that ELCF decision makers are older and more religious than the general membership. However, the data also shows that even among the most religious, younger age groups are already more favourable towards the same-sex marriage. Therefore, it is likely that the polarisation will lessen over time as more and more religious people accept same-sex marriage.

The article focuses on Karl Marx’s notion of alienation and its application to questions of ecology. By contrasting this notion with its existential critique made by Paul Tillich, as well as to Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence, I demonstrate how the notion of alienation can be applied to non-human species as well. I will first describe the structure of alienation by examining the theory that Marx provided originally in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844; by relating alienation to slow violence, I will then show how alienation can be applied to various environmental and non-human spheres. Reflecting on this through Paul Tillich’s critique of Marx’s theory of alienation will enable me to consider the possibility of using theology to traverse teleology. By using Tillich’s nonteleological conception of theology, I will reconsider the idea of alienation from a standpoint which takes the existential condition of both humanity and non-humanity into deliberation. Finally, I will briefly bring Tillich and Marx into dialogue with contemporary thinkers, who have recently examined similar questions. This shows how the application of the theory of alienation allows us to re-examine various current dilemmas of inter-species encounters.

‘Witness’ belongs to the central vocabulary of contemporary ecumenism. Despite its ecumenically significant role the concept has not been defined in ecumenical dialogues, neither analysed in academic research. Already a rough mapping of dialogue documents shows that the concept is used in various ways and contexts but not in a coherent or conscious way. This article studies the meaning of ‘witness’ in two ecumenical documents issued by the World Council of Churches, ‘Together towards Life. Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes’ (2012) and ‘The Church: Towards a Common Vision’ (2013). Both documents see witness as the characteristically Christian way of participating in the mission of the Triune God but give it different roles in the life of the church.

Summary This paper explores pastoral care as a common task of all Christians in the light of theology and philosophy of love in contemporary Finnish Lutheran theology. Pastoral care is about taking care of one’s suffering neighbours, which theologically is about love. The so-called Finnish school of Luther studies considered Luther as a theologian of love. Finnish theological ethics has concentrated on interpretation of Luther’s theology. Luther’s concept of love has been reinterpreted by Risto Saarinen with the idea of gift and recognition. Following Saarinen, and Jaana Hallamaa’s ethical theory of agency, the paper illustrates how the Lutheran idea of love can be based on agency, gift giving and reciprocity and so be understood as praxis in terms of Christian life. To conclude, the question of what makes caring Christian in nature, or pastoral care in other words, is explored in the light of faith as trust.

This paper offers a systematic and critical exploration of contemporary theology of pastoral care in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in light of history of practice of care and Western cultural change. Currently pastoral care is characterized by therapeutic approach that aims to offer sincere help for earthly suffering and to promote the goods the individual chooses to reach for. This has been a drastic change from historical models from Luther to the early 20th century that were spiritual and paternalistic in nature. The therapeutic turn connects to the therapeutic culture that has set self-actualization as a central idea to determine Western cultural ethos. The therapeutic approach calls into question how the spiritual task of the church is carried out. The currently prevailing pastoral psychological theology of pastoral care proves to be problematic. The spiritual task of pastoral care should be relied on basic Lutheran theology of God as objective and not to be conditional on human mind. Yet the therapeutic aim should still be held as the basic approach of care.

Michel Foucault acknowledged that the Reformation was a pastoral battle and a reorganization of pastoral power. He did not, however, analyze Protestantism much further. This article broadens the scope of critical research on Protestantism, focusing on Lutheranism. Preaching is a fruitful way to overcome overemphasis on confession. In this endeavor I apply Foucault's concept of "master's discourse." I argue that while, in Lutheranism, conversion through comprehensive soul-searching is an individual matter, at the same time it relies on technologies aimed at a collective audience, such as preaching. Since preaching is divine speech, the Lutheran priest wields enormous spiritual power: the preacher is the truth-teller and the subject is required to listen to and internalize the proclaimed truth, instead of confessing their sins.

This article studies the experiences of same-sex couples in connection with a prayer ritual conducted over their registered partnerships and focuses on the pre-legal context of same-sex marriage in Finland. The aim is to analyze conformity and resistance in the participants’ understanding of personalized ritual through Grimes’s categories of language, space, time, and actors. The findings reveal that most of the rituals had both elements of resistance that was understood as following the same-sex culture and of conformity with heterosexual nuptial traditions. Double affiliation with Christian and gay culture produces complex forms of conformity and resistance. Personalization of the religious rituals was more important to the participants of the study than following heterosexual traditions. 25 Non

Is the liturgy local and contextual and growing from below, or is it controlled from above? Does the liturgy belong to the people and to the congregation, and are they allowed to use it in their own way? Or is the liturgy the property of the Church, which gives strict orders for its use? Is it powerful men and women, meaning those people with authority, and the institutions (for example, the Church Synod and the Bishops’ Conference) who define the methods and ways in which liturgy is enculturated? Or do the ways of inculturation involve development from below, from the common people, even the poorest and most humble believers, at the congregational level? The balance between these two aspects—top-down and bottom-up worship—has repeatedly shifted over the last three decades, and there have been tensions between them in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The goal of this essay is to clarify the reason for this confusing situation related to authority, fixed orders and the creative development of liturgical life.

This article presents a qualitative analysis of profeminist Islamic women public figures’ discourses in the abortion debate in Turkey in 2012. The aim is to reveal the possibilities and limitations of achieving an intersectional and egalitarian profeminist collaboration on the Islamic-secular axis in contemporary Turkey. Drawing on recent feminist scholarship on coalition politics, the article exposes the fluctuations of meaning and the shifting frames of reference in these women's narratives and relates this hybrid, dynamic narrative quality to profeminist Islamic women's unique social location. It also elaborates on the blockage points in these narratives that hinder coalitional ways of thinking. Within this frame, this article suggests that in a social and political context that has witnessed a striking upsurge of antifeminist gender politics in the last decade, the building of coalitional profeminist politics beyond the Islamic-secular divide can be facilitated by shifting the focus from the apparently irreconcilable character of ideological positionings and lived experiences toward coalitional rhetorical strategies and intermediary narrative lines in profeminist subjects’ accounts.

The aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between theory and practice and the role of theology in this discussion. The data is formed from writings of prominent scholars who are active in the International Association of Practical Theology (IAPT). The relationship between theory and practice is crucial when we try to answer what role theology has when studying practices. Nordic Practical Theology has traditionally studied pastoral care, liturgy and homiletics in the majority Lutheran contexts. However, today there is a need to expand to various faith communities and a wider variety of practices. This new research has to acknowledge the changed pluralistic context and how it challenges the role of religion/religions in the Nordic societies and how it challenges theological studies as well. Emerging topics in the Nordic context are connected with the pluralistic context in changing Nordic societies, with sexuality/gender as well as with issues connected with rituals. All of these topics connect practice and theory together and require deep theological reflection in which embodiment is acknowledged. My model, Theology of Encounter, is an example of theological reflection over a central religious practice of counselling.

This article explores how two seemingly contradictory global trends&mdash, scientific rationality and religious expressiveness&mdash, intersect and are negotiated in people&rsquo, s lives in Nordic countries. We focus on Finland and Sweden, both countries with reputations of being highly secular and modernized welfare states. The article draws on our multi-sited ethnography in Finland and Sweden, including interviews with health practitioners, academics, and students identifying as Lutheran, Orthodox, Muslim, or anthroposophic. Building on new institutionalist World Society Theory, the article asks whether individuals perceive any conflict at the intersection of &ldquo, science&rdquo, and &ldquo, religion&rdquo, and how they negotiate such a relationship while working or studying in universities and health clinics, prime sites of global secularism and scientific rationality. Our findings attest to people&rsquo, s creative artistry while managing their religious identifications in a secular, Nordic, organizational culture in which religion is often constructed as old-fashioned or irrelevant. We identify and discuss three widespread modes of negotiation by which people discursively manage and account for the relationship between science and religion in their working space: segregation, estrangement, and incorporation. Such surprising similarities point to the effects of global institutionalized secularism and scientific rationality that shape the negotiation of people&rsquo, s religious and spiritual identities, while also illustrating how local context must be factored into future, empirical research on discourses of science and religion.

Grief research on continuing emotional bonds between the deceased and the bereaved has mainly used concepts and theories developed in the Western world with a few exceptions from the Majority world as well. The concept of dividuality or multiple personhood of a bereaved person is used in various Asian societies. The aim of this chapter is to analyse what Davies means with his model and to evaluate the transcultural nature of it. The results of this chapter show that Davies stresses embodied rituals because the starting point of dividual personhood is the inner complexity of a person. Davies challenges a Western word-centred individual to reconstruct identity and find new meaning in life after bereavement. Dividual grief is a good beginning when searching for transcultural models of grief. It is, however, not based on first-hand empirical research on a specific culture, which makes the transcultural aspects in it very descriptive. I am waiting for practical theological colleagues from the Majority world to start formulating models of grief based on their own cultural backgrounds. Models that are strongly grounded in a specific culture are really needed in order to understand such a central theological topic., International Academy of Practical Theology. Conference Series, Vol 2 (2021): (De)coloniality and religious practices: liberating hope; edited by Valburga Schmiedt Streck, Júlio Cézar Adam and Cláudio Carvalhaes

Social reconciliation has received much attention in Christian churches since the late 1980s. Both the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway initiated reconciliation processes with the Saami (also &ldquo, Sami&rdquo, or &ldquo, S&aacute, mi&rdquo, ), the indigenous people of Northern Europe, at the beginning of the 1990s. As former state churches, they bear the colonial burden of having converted the Saami to Lutheranism. To make amends for their excesses in the missionary field, both Scandinavian churches have aimed at structural changes to include Saaminess in their church identities. In this article, I examine how the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway understand reconciliation in relation to the Saami in their own church documents using conceptual analysis. I argue that the Church of Sweden treats reconciliation primarily as a secular concept without binding it to the doctrine of reconciliation, making the Church&rsquo, s agenda theologically weak, whereas the Church of Norway utilizes Christian resources in its comprehensive approach to reconciliation with the Saami. This article shows both the challenges and contributions of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway to the hotly debated discussions on truth and reconciliation in the Nordic Saami context.

Given how central free will and moral responsibility are for theology, Christian theologians should not remain at the sidelines when scientists and philosophers debate recent empirical results about human agency. In this article, the core notion of free will is identified with the agent's cognitive ability to exert control over his or her actions thereby making moral responsibility possible. Then three scientifically inspired arguments for free will skepticism are outlined: the argument from eliminativism, the argument from determinism and the argument from epiphenomenalism. The remainder of the article explores novel responses to these arguments and draws some theological implications from them.

This paper proposes to reconsider agnosticism by taking a step onto a meta-level, investigating agnosticism not as an epistemic stance regarding the choice between theism and atheism, but as a stance toward the question concerning the cognitive meaningfulness and/or truth-aptness of religious discourse. It is argued that this &ldquo, meta-level&rdquo, meaning agnosticism may actually be an attractive articulation of a certain kind of religious attitude. While pragmatists like William James have claimed that (epistemic) agnosticism practically collapses into atheism, meaning agnosticism at the meta-level can in fact be a pragmatist position focusing on our human condition and its limits. Additional issues, such as the relations between agnosticism and the theodicism vs. antitheodicism debate regarding the problem of evil and suffering, are also briefly examined.

This chapter provides an overview of and discusses certain tendencies in contemporary discussions of religious freedom. In order to situate the topic in a broader theoretical framework, and to clarify the position adopted in the chapter, the chapter begins with some reflections about freedom as a philosophical concept. Thereafter, most of the chapter focuses on freedom in relation to religion and ambiguity and ambivalence in relation hereto, and on ‘freedom as stipulated in law’ as well as on how this law – mainly international human rights law – simultaneously constrains and enables religious life. Thus, the chapter focuses on the subjects of ‘codified freedom’ and freedom of religion rather than, for example, on freedom in a religious sense: that is, freedom as an existential category. The chapter discusses how international law grapples with the ambivalence and ambiguities of religious freedom today and tentatively explores why this is the case precisely now, and why this situation has arisen. It also comments upon the various scholarly responses to the situation that has arisen. In sum, the chapter contributes to providing an overview of the setting or framework within which issues of freedom to and from religion is currently discussed.

As a traditional theological issue and in its broader secular varieties, theodicy remains a problem in the philosophy of religion. In this remarkable book, Sami Pihlström provides a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering. He develops and defends an antitheodicist view, arguing that theodicies seeking to render apparently meaningless suffering meaningful or justified from a ‘God’s-Eye-View’ ultimately rely on metaphysical realism failing to recognize the individual perspective of the sufferer. Pihlström thus shows that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a re-evaluation of the problem of theodicy. With its strong positions and precise arguments, the volume provides a new approach which is likely to stimulate discussion in the wider academic world of philosophy of religion. Sami Pihlström is professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Helsinki. He has published widely on, e.g., the pragmatist tradition, the problem of realism, and the philosophy of religion. Vertaisarvioitu peerReviewed

This chapter employs the concept of religious literacy to examine the divorce practices of Finnish Muslims of Somali background and the roles mosques play in issuing religious divorces. Drawing on field-based research, we argue that Finnish Somalis, in their divorce practices, make use of both Islamic and civil state laws, adopting non-binary approach towards both systems. We problematize the essentialist notion of Islamic family law that is posited in opposition to secular state codes, which one often finds in public debates on Islam and family law. We examine, furthermore, how women’s unequal access to divorce (compared to men) in Islamic law works in the Finnish context. In relation to this, we shed light on the complexities of the role and authority of mosques in issuing religious divorces to women when their husbands do not consent. We note that women’s agency and access to divorce are not merely determined by the legal systems but also by the intersecting structures of power relations and resources in their lives. We conclude with some final reflections on the relevance of the concept of religious literacy with regards to our findings.

Building on general accounts of recognition and gift-exchange in the contemporary theory of recognition, this article examines the medieval philosophical psychology of gifts and love. It will show that medieval philosophically oriented theological texts, particularly the so-called spiritual literature, contain intricate discussions of the nature of the gift, as well as the dialogical formation of the self, both of which are central issues in modern recognition theories. The claim will be exemplified by an analysis of the spiritual treatise Soliloquium de arrha animae, or Soliloquy on the Betrothal-Gift of the Soul, by the twelfth-century theologian, Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141). The text manifests (1) the idea of the soul’s need to be individually loved; (2) the multilayered notion of the gift; and (3) various descriptions of the acts of recognition between the soul and God. Moreover, it serves as an example of a historical articulation of phenomena that have been interpreted in modern terms as a universal human need to be recognized individually as a person. Building on general accounts of recognition and gift-exchange in the contemporary recognition theory, this article examines the medieval philosophical psychology of gifts and love. It will show that medieval theologians like Hugh of St. Victor (d.1141) had intricate discussions about the nature of the gift, as well as the dialogical formation of the self, both of which are central issues in modern recognition theories. His treatise Soliloquium de arrha animae manifests the idea of the soul’s need to be individually loved; the multilayered notion of the gift; and various descriptions of the acts of recognition between the soul and God.

In this chapter, we examine statements of Finnish municipal election candidates regarding plans to build a “grand mosque” and cultural centre in central Helsinki. Despite proclaiming support for the universal freedom of religion, the candidates were hesitant to apply it to the mosque case. Opponents of the mosque project emphasized the Christian heritage of Finland and portrayed the proposed mosque as a channel through which foreign conflicts could enter Finnish society. The mosque was also opposed because it was seen as a “political” project instead of a “religious” one. The proponents of the mosque, in turn, considered it to be a “Muslim church” and therefore entitled to the same treatment as Christian houses of worship. The mosque was also seen as important to the local Muslim community, but very few candidates considered the possibility of the mosque (or Islam) making a positive contribution to the broader society. Besides identifying the key discourses, we reflect on them from a religious literacy perspective.

The article explores the effects increasing automation has on our conceptions of human agency. We conceptualize the central features of human agency as ableness, intentionality, and rationality and define responsibility as a central feature of moral agency. We discuss suggestions in favor of holding AI systems moral agents for their functions but join those who refute this view. We consider the possibility of assigning moral agency to automated AI systems in settings of machine-human cooperation but come to the conclusion that AI systems are not genuine participants in joint action and cannot be held morally responsible. Philosophical issues notwithstanding, the functions of AI systems change human agency as they affect our goal setting and pursuing by influencing our conceptions of the attainable. Recommendation algorithms on news sites, social media platforms, and in search engines modify our possibilities to receive accurate and comprehensive information, hence influencing our decision making. Sophisticated AI systems replace human workforce even in such demanding fields as medical surgery, language translation, visual arts, and composing music. Being second to a machine in an increasing number of fields of expertise will affect how human beings regard their own abilities. We need a deeper understanding of how technological progress takes place and how it is intertwined with economic and political realities. Moral responsibility remains a human characteristic. It is our duty to develop AI to serve morally good ends and purposes. Protecting and strengthening the conditions of human agency in any AI environment is part of this task.

This article compares discourses on religion and religious commitment of Muslim and Protestant background young people in the Finnish capital region. It is based on 12 interviews of 19 teenagers, which are analyzed following Fairclough's stages of discourse analysis. The analysis shows that the Muslim background youth position themselves as insiders, whereas most of the Protestant background youth distance themselves from religion, although not totally. The Protestant background youth position themselves as autonomous individuals somewhat consistently, whereas the Muslim background youth emphasize their autonomy only when talking about instructions given by the school. These differences are bound to affect classroom interaction.

Summary It is usually supposed that biological design arguments (where biological complex order is seen as evidence of a Creator) are made obsolete by Darwinian evolutionary theory. However, philosopher Alvin Plantinga and others have defended the continued possibility of a rational “design discourse”, in which biological order is taken as a sign of God’s purposeful action. In this article, I consider two objections to design discourse: (1) a theological objection to biological design based on the problem of natural evil, and (2) the evolutionary objection, according to which evolutionary theory removes the justification for any biological design perception. Whereas Plantinga’s own response utilizes the arguments of the Intelligent Design movement, I argue in favor of utilizing “design discourse” as part of a theistic evolutionist view.

Recent decades have witnessed a change in European governments’ policies from benign neglect to active management of religious diversity, where Islam is often seen as the most challenging for the European social order. However, the ways that this “management” is justified and undertaken varies from country to country and depends on the issues at hand. This paper will take up the issue of Islamic education in Finland and Ireland where it is incorporated into the public school system and where the state has taken an active role in order to control Islam in the field of education. The main argument of this article is that the “management” of Islamic education in both of the above-mentioned countries is ridden with contradictions arising from the difficulty to balance between an emphasis on particular national traditions, on the one hand, and public policies concerning religious diversity, on the other hand. Theoretically, the article will employ the perspective of multilevel governance which helps to widen the perspective from the state as a primary explanatory to different agents of the civil society in encountering religious diversity.

In this paper, we argue that Samuel Pufendorf's works on natural law contain a sentimentalist theory of morality that is Smithian in its moral psychology. Pufendorf's account of how ordinary people make moral judgements and come to act sociably is surprisingly similar to Smith's. Both thinkers maintain that the human desire for esteem, manifested by resentment and gratitude, informs people of the content of central moral norms and can motivate them to act accordingly. Finally, we suggest that given Pufendorf's theory of socially imposed moral entities, he has all the resources for a sentimentalist theory of morality.

This article examines the position of Joseph Ratzinger with regard to the classical question in the field of the theology of religions, the salvation of non-Christians. In criticism of a recent book by Ambrose Mong, it is argued that Ratzinger is not a soteriological exclusivist but an optimistic restrictivist inclusivist. As explained by Gavin D'Costa, restrictivist inclusivists allow for the salvation of non-Christians, though they do not regard non-Christian religions as salvific structures per se. While restricting the salvific activity of God to the human conscience or certain positive elements in non-Christian cultures, this kind of an inclusivist may still be a soteriological optimist, as proves to be the case with Ratzinger. Having examined the subjective and objective aspects of Ratzinger's inclusivism, namely the concepts of conscience and Stellvertretung (vicarious representation), the article shows that in the 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi the two lines of thought are combined by Pope Benedict XVI in a reinterpretation of the doctrine of purgatory, in such a way that 'the great majority' of people are believed to reach eternal salvation.

I argue that we should emancipate the problem of evil and suffering from theodicist assumptions that lead to a chronic non-acknowledgment of the sufferers’ experiential point of view. This also entails emancipating the problem of evil and suffering from the need to consider the so-called argument from evil. In the argument ‘from’ evil, evil and suffering are seen as pieces of empirical evidence against theism. This presupposes understanding theism as a hypothesis to be tested in an evidentialist game of argumentation. Such a presupposition already fails to acknowledge the depth and variety of both religious and nonreligious approaches to living with evil and suffering. One way of cashing out what moral antitheodicism amounts to is to analyze theodicism as a failure of recognizing others’ suffering. Furthermore, one way of cashing out what this mis- or nonrecognition amounts to is to analyze the unforgivability of evil. Focusing on recognition and forgiveness here can be understood as an attempt to...

The purpose of this article is to provide a broad overview and analysis of the evolution of natural theology in response to influential critiques raised against it. I identify eight main lines of critique against natural theology, and analyze how the defenders of different types of natural theology differ in their responses to these critiques, leading into several very different forms of natural theology. Based on the amount and quality of discussion that exists, I argue that simply referring to the critiques of Hume, Kant, Darwin, and Barth should no longer be regarded as sufficient to settle the debate over natural theology.

This article focuses on divorce among Somali Muslim migrants in Helsinki, drawing on a four- year qualitative study. I examine how divorce experiences are shaped by the transnational social fields inhabited by my interlocutors through family ties and relationships navigated across multiple national contexts. I show that the break-up of marriage is enabled by gendered shifts in my interlocutors’ access to resources and scope for agency within the context of transnationally-shaped marriages, accompanied by incongruence between spouses’ marriage goals and values. I trace these shifts and their underlying discourses. I argue that gender as a marker of difference and power is experienced in fluid and mixed ways as husbands and wives have differentiated claims to resources such as education, income, legal rights, and welfare provisions. These gendered experiences are also shaped by my interlocutors’ positioning within a new religious discourse that revisits Muslim spousal roles and rights, particularly men’s privileges and practices.

Purpose Recent decades have witnessed a rise in food charity provided by faith-based and other charitable agencies. Previous research has noted that besides material assistance, these occasions provide a social and communal event for many participants. The purpose of this paper is to examine this notion by exploring how the social organization of breadlines contributes to the social relationships between the food recipients and their experiences of these places as communities, and what qualities these communities eventually develop. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on ethnographic data from four breadlines in one Finnish city. The study approaches the breadlines as queues, that is, social systems that govern waiting, mutual order and access. Findings The social organization of queue practices mirrors the users’ experiences of the breadlines as communities with many concurrent faces: as communities of mutual surveillance and as demanding communities that call for skills and resources from the participants, as well as socially significant communities. The findings show how the practices of organizing charitable assistance influence the complex social relationships between charitable giver and recipient, and how the food recipients accommodate themselves to the situations and social roles available on a given occasion. Originality/value Analysing breadlines as queues and using qualitative data from the everyday assistance events gives voice to the experiences of food charity recipients and allows a more nuanced picture to be painted of the breadline communities than studies based merely on surveys or interviews.

The Reformation gave a strong impetus to a development which has made marriage and family the (Protestant) Christian norm and singleness the exception. This article examines ascetic ideals in early Christianity from the viewpoint of remarriage. While staying celibate was uncommon, the valorization of an ascetic lifestyle prevailed – as long as it represented “true” asceticism, based on free will, and not “heretical” asceticism, allegedly based on false grounds. It was not an easy task to harmonize some scriptural teachings to such ascetic tendencies. One of the problematic passages was the recommendation to let young widows remarry (1 Timothy 5:14). This article analyses reading strategies applied to this passage by three ascetically inclined authors, Tertullian, John Chrysostom and Epiphanius. In spite of their different geographical and historical situations and differences in their attitudes towards remarriage, their readings of this passage contain several similarities – along with some dissimilarities.

The chapter analyses two groups of Eastern Orthodox women in Finland and their relationship to the Mother of God. The analysis is based on sixty-two ethnographic interviews and nineteen written narratives. The focus is on two groups in two marginal contexts within Orthodoxy: women converted from the Lutheran Church and the indigenous Skolt Sámi women in northeastern Lapland (all cradle Orthodox). Both contexts reflect a broader ethno-cultural process of identity formation. The converted women tend to reflect on their image of the Mother of God in relation to their previous Lutheran identity, in which the Virgin Mary plays a marginal role. In Skolt Sámi Orthodoxy, the figure of the Mother of God is less accentuated than St Tryphon, their patron saint. The Orthodox faith and tradition in general have been central for the Skolts in the course of their traumatic history.

This article examines how the episcopal ministry and related concepts such as ‘episkopé’, ‘installation’ and ‘consecration’ are understood and used in Lutheran World Federation (LWF) statements on the Episcopal Ministry from 1983 to 2007. Over this time,some Lutheran churches entered into full communion with both episcopal and nonepiscopal churches. Some ecumenical partners were also invited to participate as active observers in the LWF process of drafting statements. Through the ecumenical work done and the comprehensive identity study undertaken by the LWF, the understanding of episcopal ministry in LWF documents has developed from a ‘Leuenberg-style’ general Protestantism to a ‘Porvoo-style’ understanding of episcopacy. This article examines how the episcopal ministry and related concepts such as ‘episkopé’, ‘installation’ and ‘consecration’ are understood and used in Lutheran World Federation (lwf) statements on the Episcopal Ministry from 1983 to 2007. Over this time, some Lutheran churches entered into full communion with both episcopal and non-episcopal churches. Some ecumenical partners were also invited to participate as active observers in the lwf process of drafting statements. Through the ecumenical work done and the comprehensive identity study undertaken by the lwf, the understanding of episcopal ministry in lwf documents has developed from a ‘Leuenberg-style’ general Protestantism to a ‘Porvoo-style’ understanding of episcopacy.

This article investigates how violence associated with religion, here namely Islam, functions as a trigger for public controversy in the Turku stabbings that took place in Finland in 2017. We begin by outlining the Lyotard-Habermas debate on controversy and compound this with current research on the digital public sphere. We combine cartography of controversy with digital media ethnography as methods of collecting data and discourse analysis for analysing the material. We investigate how the controversy triggered by violence is constructed around Islam in the public sphere of Twitter. We identify three discursive strategies connecting violence and Islam in the debates around the Turku stabbings: scapegoating, essentialisation, and racialisation. These respectively illustrate debates regarding blame for terrorism, the nature of Islam, and racialisation of terrorist violence and the Muslim Other. To conclude, we reflect on the ways in which the digital public sphere impacts Habermasian consensus- and Lyotardian dissensus-oriented argumentation.