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The article explores the revitalization of the concept of nature within contemporary theology, emphasizing its dynamic, evolving interpretations beyond traditional philosophical constraints. Topics include the integration of animist perspectives into Christian theology, reinterpretations of incarnation as a cross-species concept, and the rejection of rigid hierarchies in favor of a more fluid understanding of nature's role in spiritual discourse.

Studies on time and timing in language often adopt psychological or cognitive perspectives. This work aims to study the relationship between time, religion, and family discourse. An interactional sociolinguistic approach was used to collect data from spontaneous family interactions to study how religious activities govern how family members in Saudi Arabia organize their day and simultaneously how different times of day are organized though religious activities. This study draws on Gordon's study of family discourse, Van Leeuwen's concepts of timing and Goffman's concept of framing to investigate how family members organize their time in what can be referred to as religio-temporal framing and religio-social synchronization, and how this plays a role in the co-construction of Muslim identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to explore the meaning of secularism among the tertiary educated young people and to understand their perception on related issues. This paper follows mixed methods, namely convenience surveys and content analysis of credible secondary sources. From the findings, it is interesting to see that many of them opine about having 'state religion' besides 'secularism' as a basic constitutional principle (61.9%/38.1%). They believe in equal treatment for all minority religions, while at the same time they share their perception of giving priority to 'Islam' as the dominant religion (57.1%), which could be labelled ' paradoxical '. This article argues that the ideological perception is going into transition among the young people in Bangladesh with the transition of socio-economic context, which is different from the previous linear understanding of pro-secular and anti-secular dynamics. This paper also provides some pragmatic way outs from young people on how to secure the rights of minority religions in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As representatives of the chief global peacemaking body, United Nations (UN) mediators are often deployed to conflict contexts where religion is important to warring parties. However, religion is largely absent from the academic and policy literature on UN mediation. In response, this study systematically explores the place of religion in UN mediation policy. To consider the extent to which religious issues, actors, values, norms, and identities inform the work of UN mediators, I thematically analyse all publicly available UN mediation guidance resources. I find that religion holds a more meaningful position in UN mediation than the literature suggests, and that the UN has taken positive steps to promote religious sensitivity among its mediators. However, the guidance is less clear as to how religion matters in conflict spaces, and my analysis reveals that religion tends to be understood in a tribal and depoliticized way. This view offers a reductive reading of the multiple and complex roles that religion plays across conflict environments, which may limit the success of UN peacemaking efforts. My findings highlight the importance of adequately understanding the role of worldviews and normative dispositions in spaces where the UN mediates, including, but not limited to, religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

aims to clarify the truth of the question in its essence and importance, clarify the location of the question and the limits of the mind, show the status of the question in the circle of interaction and work, reveal the breadth of the question and its openness to realistic fields. And future prospects. The study used the descriptive, analytical, deductive approach. The scientific architecture of this study consists of an introduction and four chapters: the first chapter: the question (essence and importance). The second chapter: the question (reason and limits) The third chapter: the question (interaction and function). The fouth chapter: Question (scope and outlook). Its most prominent results were: that questioning is an original and fundamental driver of science and knowledge, indispensable in the making of life and biology, and that the mind has limits defined by law and nature, and has no entry into the absolute unseen, neither by obligation nor curiosity, and that questioning includes what is imposed and what is rejected, and that the purpose of science is work, not science for itself, and that time is real by investing it in science and civilizational advancement based on religion, values, science, and work, and that the most important questions of the era are knowing the present and anticipating the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the exploration of Akhtaruzzaman Elias's novel Khwabnama through its depiction of time and place, challenging conventional narratives about partition and religion. Topics include the novel's critique of nationalist and postcolonial expectations, its engagement with the treatment of women in Muslim society, and its commentary on historical and political crises in Bangladesh during the 1990s.

Among the many distinct experiences of cancer is the experience of the parent who watches their child become pale and drained of energy in the weeks preceding diagnosis. The journey from there to the oncology ward is one that can be adequately described as increasingly claustrophobic. It is all one-way traffic from flourishing life to the abyss. Perhaps being a parent makes one even more prone to the universal human tendency to find fault with oneself where there is only the blind force of nature at work. Whatever dark alleyway that self-destructive sentiment emerges from to ambush the optimist, it is certainly an effective hiding place from which to cause them to stumble. The child slips inexorably out of the parent's grasp. The notion of parental protection is no haven. Yet the blindness of nature unwittingly tips the scales. In the narrowest of narrow places, the human organism responds with homeostatic resilience. Whether death is near or far in this place is unknown. In the moment of constriction, however, the child and its parent respond with that most irreducible of passions, the will to live. The human spirit emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naomi Goldenberg's model of religion as a "vestigial state" is an excellent interrogation of how religion interacts with the state. To Goldenberg, religions traditionally functioned in the same manner as nation-states before being conquered and delineated as semi-autonomous institutions under the larger secular apparatus. However, I argue in this paper that Goldenberg's "vestigial state" fails to account for the dynamism that religions have in their relationships to the state. I propose seeing religions as "alternative authorities", which can be subordinate, cooperative, or hostile to the secular state. These perspectives as an alternative authority are seen best in the evolution of American fundamentalism and Christian nationalism, whose adherents have historically distinguished themselves from the state while simultaneously engaging in the effort to reshape it. In looking at how these movements develop, we understand that religions are constantly evolving in how to achieve and maintain power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prophet Elijah took over the role of the Slavic pre-Christian god Perun as a weather god among the East and South Slavs in the period of syncretism just after the Christianization. We can find several examples of this in the twelfth-century Primary Chronicle or Tale of Bygone Years. However, unlike other characters from the Old Testament, Elijah was not honored with extensive translations of full apocryphal works, except for a group of Church Slavonic apocryphal fragments. Nonetheless, some original works devoted to the prophet Elijah were composed, such as the encomium attributed to St. Clement of Ohrid (9th–10th c.) or the Chants from the Orthodox Soul devoted to the Apocalyptic role of the prophet (15th c.). Along these lines, we will compare the latter with the extant apocryphal fragments in order to establish the possible influence of the apocryphal works, as well as identify original Slavic motifs that could date back to the pre-Christian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Mystery" is a term with divergent meanings in the religious and secular worlds. This term bears history in the philosophical and theological worlds. The meaning of the term includes concepts of secrecy, mysteriousness, incomprehensibility, and transcendence on the one hand and its connection with religious rituals on the other hand. This nature of the term recommends that we re-read its original meaning. This article tries to understand the connection of this term with archaic religious rituals based on mimetic theory. This article finds that the mysteriousness behind the archaic religious rituals is related to the scapegoat mechanism. The hidden process of deification in primitive religions and cultures is the reason behind the meaning of the term mystery. Using mimetic theory as a tool, this article asserts that only "revealed mysteries" remain in human history following the Christ-event and defines mystery as a process of deification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motif of travel has always been popular, and the metaphor of life as a path remains extremely powerful. Both seem to be especially important within Christian culture because of the image of Christ the Wanderer, who "has no place to lay his head", an image that influenced the growing popularity of pilgrimages and religiously motivated wandering. The latter became particularly widespread in Russian culture and resulted in numerous representations of wandering people in Russian art and literature. In my article, I focus on literary representations of wanderers in the oeuvre of Nikolai Leskov, whose works are abundant with these types of characters. I argue that the writer portrays his wanderers as ambivalent eccentrics who combine elements characteristic of diverse types of travelers, both religious and secular. To prove my hypothesis, I combine traditional literary analysis of Leskov's texts with the examination of cultural and religious practices of Russian wandering. As I demonstrate, the complexity and multifacetedness of the writer's wanderers correspond with Russian reality, where the boundary between pilgrims and vagrants was also blurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western thinkers have often seen Confucianism as unique in that it does not fit well into standard categories of either religion or philosophy. In terms of how this difficulty is reflected in academia, it seems that Confucianism is simultaneously both a religion and a philosophy, and neither. This paper attempts to begin a discussion of a related issue, which has been relatively underappreciated; namely, how does Confucianism attempt to convince people to be Confucian? Restricting our discussion to the Analects, we can find appeals to a belief which seem almost religious, rational arguments which seem philosophical, and a host of other methodologies that may help to convince readers to follow the Confucian way. The discussion of the Analects is cursory here, and only a few passages will be discussed in a general manner. We will contrast this with a general outline of approaches to convincing people found in two-world theories, which can help to illuminate the uniqueness of the Analects, especially when it is read as a one-world perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond the once dominant secularization thesis that anticipated the decline of religion in the modern era, the academic study of religion has in recent decades revisited secular as one of the factors that shape religion and religions in the globalized world. Against this theoretical backdrop, in this article, I use the case of South Korea to explore how secular and religion interact in contemporary global society. It focuses on describing the postcolonial reformulation of secularity and the corresponding transformation of religious diversity in Cold War South Korea. The Japanese colonial secularism rigidly banning the public and political engagement of religion was replaced by the flexible secular-religious divide after liberation of 1945. The porous mode of secularity extensively admitted religious entities to affect processes of postcolonial nation-building. Religious values, interests, and resources have been applied in motivating, pushing, and justifying South Koreans to devote themselves to developing the national community as a whole. Such a form of secularity became a critical condition that caused South Korea's religious landscape to be reorganized in a vertical and unequal way. On the one hand, Buddhist and Christian populations grew remarkably in the liberated field of religion, while freedom of religion was recognized as a key ideological principle of the anticommunist country. On the other hand, folk beliefs and minority religious groups were often considered "superstitions", "pseudo religions", "heretics", or even "evil religions". With the pliable secularity at work, religious diversity was reconfigured hierarchically in the postcolonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Italiana is the property of EGEA S.p.A and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The worship of baetyls in antiquity is well documented in the Near East and the Mediterranean, archaeologically as well as historically. While such practices were also common in South‐East Arabia, the archaeological information on it is still very limited. A boulder carved with a 'trident' (a mark familiar from local Abiel coin issues), which came to light at the site of Mleiha, has a circular cavity on the side similar to those visible on stones and on an eagle statue from contemporary ed‐Dur. This association suggests a religious context for the Mleiha petroglyph and, thus, a possible identification as a baetyl. The archaeological evidence for stone worship and associated cult practices from the SE‐Arabian Mleiha/PIR A‐C period (3rd century bce–3rd century ce) is reviewed and compared with ethnographic parallels and information from, among other sources, the Kitāb al‐aṣnām (Book of Idols) by Hishām ibn al‐Kalbī (737–819 ce). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qaryatum dhāt Kāhilim ('the City of [the god] Kahl') is the Ancient South Arabian name of the modern site of Qaryat al‐Fāw. This compound refers to the tutelary deity of the city, in this case, a god called Kahl. However, the identity of this Kahl is obscure. Who is this god that makes his appearance in history towards the end of the second half of the first millennium bc? Despite his name being recorded in various texts and inscriptions on numerous objects that confirm his role as the city's patron god, scant information exists regarding his attributes or sphere of influence. Nonetheless, clues on some of his characteristics can be gleaned from coins bearing his likeness. This serves as a springboard for exploring potential connections with iconographies seen in petroglyphs, statues and paintings from the region, suggesting that Kahl may fit within the archetype of the smiting or menacing god, a prevalent motif in the broader Eastern Mediterranean region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short review summarizes the roles and behavioral responses of local communities towards wildlife conservation in Ethiopia. The inherent practices of local communities in their long‐held traditional and cultural setups give them an important role in conservation successes. Traditional wildlife conservation practices in Ethiopia are not well documented and have likely been heavily eroded due to changes in governmental regimes, each with different ideologies, the introduction of modern lifestyles and religions, and ethnic and cultural diversities. Local communities contribute a lot to wildlife conservation when they are allowed to participate in fighting illegal wildlife trafficking operations. The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in Ethiopia is still a comparatively new phenomenon with a low scientific profile. The roles of local people both in the IWT and in prevention and conservation efforts remain undocumented, and research into these is at an early stage. Several studies have indicated the alienation of the local community and their subsequent antagonistic responses towards conservation efforts in different parts of Ethiopia. Eviction of indigenous people, benefit denial, unequal benefit sharing, and interactions with wildlife and human‐wildlife conflicts are the major factors fueling the resentment of local communities towards wildlife and their conservation. Thus, wildlife conservation in Ethiopia needs impartial studies and practical improvement to understand and address these human dimensions and inform more effective conservation and IWT prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the generational shifts in identification with Buddhism from the perspective of young Chinese Indonesians. The study combines quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to collect data from 257 respondents spanning three generations (grandparents, parents, and children) across 10 provinces in Indonesia. The findings indicate a general trend of generational decline in Identification with Buddhism among Chinese Indonesians. Identification with Buddhist symbols declines most rapidly, while recognition of Buddhist behavioural patterns shows the least decline. The alignment with Buddhist values and perceptions initially changes slowly but accelerates in decline over time. Additionally, there is a negative correlation between Buddhist identity and emotional engagement, reflecting complex intergenerational dynamics. The analysis also reveals significant effects of regional differences, community relationships, and familial occupational backgrounds on the decline in levels of Identification with Buddhism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Few studies to-date have explored the intersection(s) of Islam and human sexuality. This paucity translates into poorly-equipped educators and clinicians who would otherwise be positioned to help young adults navigate contemporary Western culture(s). The qualitative investigation presented here engaged eight Muslim university students via key informant interviews. Principal topics covered included sexuality, religion, family, social media, friends, and culture(s). Thematic analyses followed an iterative data reduction method that was guided by a feminist lens, with particular attention to equity and power foci. Participants shared struggles and successes with integrating their Muslim identities in a Western world. They described how, by reinterpreting elements of the Quran and through self- and family- differentiation, it was (is) possible to embrace Islam in a manner that feels personally pious and sexually healthy. Research-, education-, and clinical- implications are presented in conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the history of how Buriat and Kalmyk believers in late Imperial Russia sought to change the way their religion was referred to. They submitted a petition to the Russian government in 1904, requesting to be called Buddhists instead of "Lamaites." While their first request was granted, officials refused to officially recognize their religion as Buddhism. The article examines the historical and cultural context of this issue and argues that it was not just a bureaucratic matter, but a result of complex processes within Buddhist communities in Russia. The authors also discuss the broader context of Asian Buddhist modernism and its influence on Buriat political activism. [Extracted from the article]

In the book called The Place of Mas̲h̲hūr Sunnah in the Religion written by Mehmet Ali Yargı, Ḥanafī theory of mas̲h̲hūr k̲h̲abar is analysed. The matter is examined under four chapters regarding different perspectives. In the first chapter, the quality of Sunnah is examined. In the second chapter, the relation between mas̲h̲hūr Sunnah and Qur’an is examined. The third chapter examines the relation of mas̲h̲hūr sunnah to other sunnah and k̲h̲abar types, and the fourth chapter analyses the relation of mas̲h̲hūr Sunnah to raʾy and ḳiyās. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the interactive effects of world society and cultural diversity on the gender gap in political empowerment. Focusing on the Women's Share of Seats in National Parliaments (WSSNP) and the Gender Gap in Political Empowerment (GGPE) Index as two main outcome variables, the analyses use a growth curve approach to estimate nations' trajectories of gender political inequality and explain them by time-invariant and time-varying independent variables. Overall, the results suggest that nations' level of embeddedness in the world society, measured by the political globalization index of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute, closes the gender gap in political empowerment. Nevertheless, more culturally diverse societies, in terms of the level of religious fractionalization, are more susceptible to the equalizing impacts of globalization on the gender gap in political empowerment. Conversely, culturally homogenous nations appear to show some level of resistance to adopting the gender-equitable values prompted by world culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrival and spread of Christianity along with the Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. This has an impact on the notion that Christianity is a colonial religion for "pribumi" Muslims in Indonesia. This article aims to offers the topic of Onesimus as Philemon's brother in Paul's letter to Philemon as a solution to conflict the religiousness between Christianity and Islam. The approach of this article is a postcolonial perspective, where building change from society tends to be positioned on the "two poles" or binary into a society that integrates with each other and rubs off between communities that are local, communal, and global simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of migrant minorities in Europe has long been characterized by a turn to identity politics. This turn has had two shortcomings: First, it often conflates religion, ethnicity, and nationality, resulting in what I call "categorical astigmatism". Consequently, migrants find themselves lumped into categories they would not primarily identify with. Second, despite its importance in the lived experiences of migrants, class is treated as a "non-identity" and intra-migrant class differences do not get the attention they deserve. Building on these two criticisms, in this article, I first employ Bourdieu's theory of "classification struggles" to conceptualize "categorical astigmatism" and make a plea for categorical clarification. I then suggest the theory of intersectionality as a way out, highlighting the importance of class and its intersection with other markers of difference. Empirically, the paper builds on interviews with migrants from Turkey and Syria in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the topic of worship and the importance of worshiping the correct God. It emphasizes that worship should be centered on God and not driven by personal gain or desires. The article also discusses the commandments and how they reflect God's nature and requirements for worship. It concludes that true worship involves acknowledging God's worth and fully devoting oneself to Him. Additionally, the text highlights the importance of the Trinity in worship and emphasizes that worship should be focused on God and His infinite worth. [Extracted from the article]

Muslim religion has strict rules to determine what kinds of foodstuffs, and under what circumstances, are deemed appropriate for consumption. Fishes are not an exception to this rule and features such as body shape or the presence and conspicuousness of scales dictate whether certain species are acceptable or rejected. In this paper, an overview of the Iberian ichthyoarchaeological record from Muslim sites is presented to ascertain whether differences with Christian sites existed in terms of these characters and to what extent these allow one to take fish assemblages as cultural proxies of archaeological deposits. In the case of coastal (production) sites, we also consider whether the peculiarities a given fish assemblage exhibit reflect instead certain environmental features such as the biotopes where a given local fishery operated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study used longitudinal person-centered analyses to understand how parent religiosity, parenting styles, and parent-adolescent sex communication interact in predicting adolescent sexual risk-taking over time. The sample included 681 adolescents and their parents (Mage = 15, at wave 5) from Waves 5 and 6 of the Flourishing Families Project. Variables capturing parent religiosity, parenting styles, and parent-adolescent sex communication were used as class indicators in a latent profile analysis. Three classes emerged: (1) Non-religious Authoritative families, (2) Religious Authoritarian families, and (3) Religious Authoritative families. The Non-religious Authoritative and Religious Authoritarian families did not significantly differ on later adolescent sexual risk-taking (controlling for prior sexual risk-taking), while the Religious Authoritative families had adolescents with significantly lower subsequent sexual risk-taking. These results demonstrate the complex ways in which religion, parenting, and sex communication interact in predicting adolescent sexual risk-taking. Thus, both the content and process of sexual socialization may be important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have consistently shown that LGBTQ individuals are at increased risk for several mental and physical health challenges including suicidality. The relationship between religion and LGBTQ well-being in general and LGBTQ suicidality specifically has increasingly been the subject of scholarly investigation. This systematic review examines all peer-reviewed articles included in the EBSCO PsycInfo database since 2000 that examined the relationship between religiosity and LGBTQ suicide (50 studies in all). These studies reveal a complex relationship that is nuanced and, at times, contradictory. Overall, 65% identified at least one religiosity-related predictor as a risk factor for LGBTQ suicidality, 41% identified at least one religiosity-related predictor as a protective factor against suicidality, while 53% found no associations between religiosity-related predictors and suicide risk. However, when specifically examining religious affiliation/denomination, salience, or beliefs and behaviors, typically, religiosity was either protective or unassociated with LGBTQ suicidality. This held particularly true for studies that had population-based samples, employed control variables and included comparison groups, thus enhancing their generalizability. The one religiosity-related predictor that was almost universally identified as a risk factor was when an individual felt conflicted between their religious and sexual-gender identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raising timely and urgent questions about the forms, scope and boundaries of religious authority and practice, this article offers novel ways for the study of secularities and secularisms in contemporary African societies. In recent scholarly debates on secularity, Africa has been marginal. Part of the reason, it was suggested was that African ways of being in, and knowing, the world lay outside the religious-secular divide. We contest such positions. Secularism was clearly part of modernists colonial ideologies that called for the eradication of African beliefs described as backward and irrational. We find that the colonial encounter had a powerful historical impact, essentializing and othering African societies as marked by holistic indigenous cultures rather than differentiated religions. We suggest that the complex interplay of different African and European cultures has simultaneously shaped the social construction and historical development of multiple secularities. We propose that the concept of multiple secularities provides creative avenues to rethink religion, political authority and belonging. We consider secularities as contested arrangements of religious and other spheres whose dynamics include processes of de-differentiation and de-secularization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the relationship between religion and nationhood among contemporary Lithuanian migrants in Norway. The central puzzle is the lack of an open national feeling in the religious setting. However, academic literature has well documented the tight connection between the Catholic Church and Lithuanian nationhood. Interpreting the empirical data from qualitative interviews and participant observations through the lens of everyday nationalism, I argue that seeming lacklustre national sensibilities among Lithuanian Catholics do not signal Catholicism's demise as the vehicle for reproducing Lithuanian nationhood. Instead, it is an expression of the resilience of banal forms of nationalism reproduced via the institutional framework of the Catholic Church and the practices of the clergy and laity. I suggest that the case of Lithuanian Catholics in Norway intimates the need for a more nuanced approach to the concept of individual agency as opposed to a strict agency vs. banality dichotomy in everyday nationhood scholarship. Scrutinising habitual, banal forms of nationhood, together with the conscious ones, is pivotal in comprehending the complex relationship between religion and nationalism in empirical cases where visible displays of national sensibilities may be subtle but nonetheless meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign policy objectives can be achieved through religious institutions as a form of soft power. However, empirical evidence on this form of soft power is limited. In this study, we provide rigorous empirical evidence of electoral influence through the channel of religious institutions. To test the efficacy of this channel of influence, we study the Chinese government's attempts to influence Taiwanese elections through religious institutions. By leveraging spatial regression methods, we demonstrate that Mazu temples influence electoral behavior through a localized process. The density of urban Mazu temples in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, which are subject to influence from China, is associated with an increase in vote share for the pro-China party in their neighborhoods. However, the influence on voters in urban and village areas is not homogeneous. In contrast to urban temples, the relationship between village Mazu temples and the electoral results is insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of the Turkish and Irish republics took place nearly simultaneously, under the influence of the nationalist movement. This study discusses the cultural foundations of nationalism that emerged during the independence struggles and the necessity of transferring them to children in comparison. In particular, it is claimed that nations that have fought for independence want to create myths about these difficult times, immortalize them with works such as poetry, stories, and novels, and then pass them to the next generations. This study indicates that although they have different languages, religions, and traditions, these two countries tell fairy tales and epics for children in almost the same period for the same purposes. To illustrate this, two folk narratives of both cultures were compared in this study. In conclusion, these comparisons show that the Irish and Turkish nationalist movements exercise their freedom to 'conceive themselves' and hope to benefit somewhat from reflecting this on children's literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces readers to a case study of ethnic Kazakhs in Mongolia. The main goal was to identify the institutional factors that are likely to systematically influence Kazakhs' integration or division in Mongolia's larger society. Therefore, the study focuses on key institutional structures behind the politics of representation, education system, religious institutions and national identity. It draws on official data, surveys and interviews focusing on Kazakhs in Mongolia. The findings suggest that current institutional settings are likely to contribute to structural inequalities and social tensions. Consequently, indicating a need to support orientation toward tolerance at the larger society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this editorial of the Journal for Individual Psychology, the psychoanalytic identity and the challenges for the next generation of psychoanalysts are discussed. It is emphasized that analysts should maintain distance from topics such as religion, politics, and societal changes, while still interacting with the world and being good practitioners. The article emphasizes that the identity as an analyst becomes difficult when times are turbulent and the external world contains so much dynamism. The issue is dedicated to the emergence of newly licensed colleagues and showcases examples of how art becomes real and creates identity. The texts provide insights into the work of therapists and are intended to serve as inspiration and a glimpse into the work of those who wish to follow in their footsteps. [Extracted from the article]

The target article discusses the definition of "esotericism" within the study of Western esotericism. The authors argue that previous definitions have been rigid and propose fluid definitions that can be applied with flexibility and complementarity. They briefly mention global approaches but do not engage with them extensively. The article also explores the role of agency and prototypes in defining esotericism, with a focus on Islamic esotericism or al-bāṭiniyya. The authors' approach is criticized for sidelining non-European agency and for taking a normative view of Western esotericism. The article concludes by discussing the author's own research on al-bāṭiniyya as an Islamic prototype of esotericism and proposing four principles of Islamic esotericism. [Extracted from the article]

Africa is considered to be the second largest continent of the world—only subsequent to Asia. However, its intellectual and cultural contributions to the world remain among the least influential, if not the most undermined, particularly when one considers the written records about the continent and its people as sources and generators of knowledge. Much of what is known of Africa is anchored in the perceptions and attitudes of missionaries, merchants, and historians who occupied the continent due to foreign religious persuasions, commerce, or some biographical accounts of the continent and its people that aided and advanced the undertakings of colonisers in subduing the Africans. In such a context, the African narrative was told from an otherly view, with the main objects of reconnoitring being treated as spectators. For this reason, the essence of the indigenous religions of Africa was destabilised. Using document analysis as a methodological approach, this study critically reflects on neo-colonialism as a system that thwarted the development of indigenous religions of Africa; shows how such a system eroded indigenous religions, such as the San, Ibibio, and Basotho religions; and offers a reformist approach in which the emancipation of indigenous religions of Africa may be based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the histories of both colonial and postcolonial Malawi, there have been cases of religious-related violence, both in its physical and non-physical forms. Such cases have led to the deaths of the "perpetrators" of violence and 'innocent' believers, destruction of property, prison detentions, and even the forced removal of citizens from the country. This paper analyzes two case studies, one in which private citizens perpetrated the violence, led by a preacher called John Chilembwe, of the Providence Industrial Mission (PIM), challenging British colonial authorities during the second decade of the twentieth century. In the second case, the focus is on the independent Malawi government, which used violence against members of the Jehovah's Witness (JW) religious sect from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, owing to the Witnesses' disassociation from the demands of the secular state. Using data primarily drawn from various archives and other published studies, this paper argues that the use of 'religious-based violence' is not just a domain 'reserved' for those experiencing oppression, exclusion, and marginalization. Rather, authoritarian governments, like the one that emerged in postcolonial Malawi and other parts of Africa, also resorted to using 'religious-based violence' to serve as a tool for eliminating 'non-conforming' religious sects and organizations. In doing so, this paper contributes to the various fields of scholarship, including the relationship between religion and violence in modern Africa and the dynamics and operations of the state in both colonial and postcolonial Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to illustrate the dialogues on the issues of theodicy in late Ming Fujian. The Catholicism that entered China in the late Ming dynasty had a competitive relationship with indigenous religions in terms of their meaning systems. Catholicism emphasized the omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence of God, which created tensions and contradictions with the reality of phenomena such as the suffering of good people and the existence of evil. In the late Ming period, scholars, believers, and missionaries in the Fujian region engaged in deep exchanges and dialogues on theodicy, reflecting the significant attention and consideration given to the problem of evil. This paper first analyzes the dialogues on theodicy between the Fujian scholar Ye Xianggao (1559–1627) and the missionary Giulio Aleni (1582–1649). Next, it explores the discussions on the problem of evil between ordinary believers in the Fujian region and Giulio Aleni in their daily lives. Finally, it examines how anti-Catholics used the problem of evil to criticize Catholicism, and it also identifies the characteristics and impacts of Catholic theodicy in the late Ming and early Qing periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a reconsideration of the physio-psychological dimension of the notion of asceticism in Nietzsche in the light of classical Daoist philosophy. Nietzsche famously criticises the nihilistic ascetic ideal for negating the body-self (Leib-Selbst) in the Christian religion as well as in Socratic metaphysics. Nietzsche critiques the metaphysical language that presupposes an opposition between the good (as the useful) and the evil (as the useless). However, the Nietzschean ascetic person who says yes to life remains mostly conceptual within the philosophical framework where physio-psychology stands as the superior form of thinking. To contrast such asceticism that bears traces of Greek Stoicism and Epicureanism, I argue that Zhuangzi's self-cultivating practices such as mind-fasting (xinzhai 心齋) can be incorporated into the Nietzschean physio-psychological notion of asceticism that goes beyond askesis with Stoic and Epicurean therapeutic connotations, given that both Zhuangzi and Nietzsche are more concerned with cultivating a lived body rather than purifying souls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper reads Okey Ndibe's Foreign Gods Inc. (2014) as a postcolonial postsecular novel in which the concepts of religious appropriation and capitalism as a faux religion are used to explore the commodification of indigenous gods. I draw on Rebekah Cumpsty's theory of postcolonial postsecular literature, Liz Bucar's idea of religious appropriation and Michael Löwy's argument that capitalism is a type of religion. These three positions frame my reading of the novel's concerns with religion, Western capitalism and transnationality in ways that, as I argue, represent Western capitalism as a type of religion that the novel's protagonist aspires to be part of, despite Western capitalism's exclusionary standards. Foreign Gods Inc., the novel's eponymous store, is guided by an American capitalist agenda that commodifies non-Western cultural symbols and artefacts for an elite clientele, disregarding these artefacts' original cultural significance. Indigenous religions and their artefacts are appropriated in the West and made to conform to its capitalist religiosity. As a postcolonial postsecular novel, Foreign Gods Inc. acknowledges and subverts the binaries between the religious and the secular. It does so by exploring the worship of indigenous gods on one hand, and detailing their commodification on the other. Religious appropriation thus occurs alongside Western capitalism's potential as a substitute religion. This relationship may be explained by postsecularist ideas that argue that the sacred and secular are interconnected in postcolonial literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article was to examine the views of Theodoret of Cyr in his Ecclesiastical History on the ideology of victory and to compare them with the concept expressed by his predecessor, Eusebius of Caesarea, to whom he claimed to be a continuator. The author showed that for Theodoret military victories in confrontation with pagan enemies had a sacred aspect and proved the truthfulness of the Christian religion and the power of the God of the Christians, the ally of the Christian rulers, and on the other hand the falsity of the beliefs of the followers of traditional cults. The author also pointed out Theodoret’s dependence on Eusebius. For according to both, the ideology of victory had three dimensions: military, martyr and doctrinal, related to the war waged by the evil spirit against God and came down to winning victories in the name of Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]