Belief In Salvation Research Articles

Alliance of Ummah in Rural Areas: A New Perspective on Islamic Populism in Indonesia

Islamic populism in Indonesia is perceived as an alliance of the people on behalf of the ummah in urban areas, against the ruling elites who enjoy the promises of peace and prosperity more than capitalism, modernism and democracy. This paper though intends to disclose the Islamic populism in rural areas through the power of capital and symbols as part of the cultural heterogenity between alliances in rural areas and large cities that simply focuses on political power. This research embraces the socio-cultural approach by applying the theory of generative structuralism penned by Pierre Bourdieu in order to analyze the resistance of cultural heterogenity by invigorating the cultural reproduction and symbols dominance to thwart the ummah alliance in urban areas. The results of this research show that the Islamic populism in rural areas upholds the belief in salvation, peace and unity, by reinforcing the cultural heterogenity among the congregations on various bases. In spite of domestication process in Islamic populism by the ruling elite, the ummah alliance in rural areas cannot be triggered due to their firm belief in salvation, which differs from the Islamic populism in large cities where a symbol of injustice of the bourgeoisie and the ruling elites prevails. The Islamic populism in rural areas has caused the failure of Islamic populism in large cities since their main discourse solely considers the middle class, in contrast to the Islamic populism in rural areas that might may welcome both the middle class and the lower class.

The Best of All Possible Worlds and the Christian Thesis of the Corruption of the World

Leibniz’s claim that we live is the best of all possible worlds is in contradiction with our experience, which is why we tend to maintain that the world would become better if at least some of its properties and characteristics were different. Leibniz criticized such an approach and argued that every attempt at changing the world would make it worse, or even impossible. His claim seems to be in contradiction with the Christian belief that our world is contaminated with sin, but it will be renewed in the end to become the reality of salvation, i.e. the best of all possible realities. This article puts forward two arguments: (1) Leibniz’s claim is not in contradiction with the Christian belief in salvation; (2) Leibniz’s claim is in contradiction with the human experience of the world because it is a result of an intellectual speculation based on the false assumption that the structure of the human mind adequately corresponds to the mind of God.

„Mein Gott, mein Gott, zu dir erhebe ich mich in der Früh‟ – Zwei Psalmpassagen in Inschriften aus Tyros und in der patristischen Tradition

A revision of several painted inscriptions discovered in a late antique chamber tomb in Tyre shows that they recorded verses from two Psalms (3, 6 and 62, 2-3), both not otherwise attested epigraphically. The article subsequently examines how these verses were received and interpreted in early Christian literature and by the Greek Fathers of the Church: The popular verse 6 of Psalm 3, with its reference to sleep and awakening, was understood by most—but not all—commentators as a reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The less famous first verses of Psalm 62 were usually just read as an expression of the longing for God. The juxtaposition of these two Psalms, which share the liturgical role of Morning Psalms, suggests that the verses from Psalm 62 as well as the one from Psalm 3 were understood as referring to the resurrection and used to express the deceased’s belief in salvation.

"Use alone": Usefulness and Revision in George Herbert's The Temple

"Use alone":Usefulness and Revision in George Herbert's The Temple Amanda Taylor Izaak Walton's The Life of George Herbert (1670) includes the story of Herbert's deathbed instructions concerning the handling of his poetic works. Herbert tells Mr. Duncon: Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master; in whose service I have now found perfect freedom; desire him to read it; and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it; for I and it are less than the least of God's mercies.1 This incident identifies a tension between public and private work that informs Herbert's intense interest in the use of his poetry for the aid of others. In "The Church-porch," he begins by justifying his role as "Verser" because "A verse may find him, who a sermon flies" (l. 4).2 Given this uniquely persuasive quality of verse and Herbert's ongoing desire to help others, I will argue that the need to be useful drives Herbert's poetic endeavors and process of revision. For Herbert, the desire to be useful, to write a book that could "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul," is doubly heard; it is a plea to be actively useful - to others, to God, to himself - and it is also an utterance describing a passive state of being use-full,3 a state in which there is no space for anything but use. While it is possible to be a poet, preacher, publican, and so on, while also being useful, it is also possible to inhabit one of those roles without being useful. To be use-full reverses the identificatory labels, placing one's position secondary to one's condition as used, a paradoxical state similar to the sacrificed Christ who at the moment of the [End Page 78] crucifixion when most passively used was also the most actively useful to humanity. While this distinction seems insignificant at first, Herbert's concerns regarding usefulness and productivity seep into every aspect of critical discussion concerning his poetry because his ideas about usefulness instantiate a type of self that is inextricably bound to Protestant theology's view of grace and works.4 Martin Luther's "Preface to the Romans" unites works and faith even while asserting that works can in no way merit salvation: "Hence, the man of faith, without being driven, willingly and gladly seeks to do good for everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of hardships, for the sake of the love and glory of the God who has shown him such grace. It is impossible, indeed, to separate works from faith."5 For Luther, then, works naturally arise as a result of receiving God's grace, but these works in no way merit that grace. However, "the search for visible proofs of election" often leads to "a doctrine of works"6 because proof or evidence can be read as both resulting from grace or as working in the same manner as the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words, good works occurred and (presumably) salvation occurred; therefore, good works caused salvation. While this subtle reversal appears consistent with Luther's point that good works follow from faith (since good works happen either way), in fact, it threatens to undermine the entire notion of salvation by grace. Hence, good works - which are measured by their usefulness and come from a productive person - may be a site of both assurance and anxiety for the believer who may ask him or herself if the works are genuine products of grace or subconsciously motivated efforts to win salvation.7 For Herbert, his works of preaching and poetry occupy a similarly vexed position because of his belief in salvation by grace. Critics have focused on this vexed position in discussing the self and its agency in Herbert's poetry. Richard...

PANTHEISM RECONSTRUCTED: ECOTHEOLOGY AS A SUCCESSOR TO THE JUDEO‐CHRISTIAN, ENLIGHTENMENT, AND POSTMODERNIST PARADIGMS

Abstract.The Judeo‐Christian, Enlightenment, and postmodernist paradigms have become intellectually and ethically exhausted. They are obviously failing to provide a conceptual framework conducive to eliminating some of humanity's worst scourges, including war and environmental destruction. This raises the issue of a successor, which necessitates a reexamination of first principles, starting with our concept of God. Pantheism, which is differentiated from panentheism, denies the existence of a transcendent, supernatural creator and instead asserts that God and the universe are one and the same. Understood via intuition, modern cosmology, and other natural sciences, it offers an alternative worldview that posits the divine and sacred nature of the universe/creation. By asserting the fallacy of the creator/creation dichotomy and any attempts to anthropomorphize or personalize God, pantheism precludes hubris stemming from erroneous notions of divine favoritism. The links between Judeo‐Christianity and the Enlightenment are traced and a case made that the latter has resulted in the equally erroneous and hubristic notion of human ascendancy to a Godlike status, with the concept of progress providing a secular version of the Christian belief in salvation. By reestablishing the natural sciences’metanarrative, even as it asserts the divinity of the material universe, pantheism simultaneously demotes postmodernism and reconciles science with religion. Pantheism provides a theological foundation for deep ecology and also stakes out a viable third position in relation to the ongoing dispute between advocates of intelligent design and the scientific establishment.

A profile of the belief in Jesus and salvation among the Afrikaans speaking Christian youth

This article is based on the results of a large-scale empirical-theolo-gical research project on “Religion and Human Rights among South African Youth.” Using the extensive database of this project, the article focuses on the results on the images of Jesus and the belief in salvation of Grade 11 learners. The results present a profile of the pluralistic and diverse scale of nuances in the belief structures of Christian teenagers. The results of the English-speaking private school learners are placed alongside the results of the Afrikaans speaking public school learners in order to obtain a more prolific picture of the belief of the Afrikaans speaking youth. The effect their belief in salvation has on their views regarding human rights is also examined. The results challenge the preacher to think dialectically and hermeneutically in a new age and context.

Human Rights: a Channel for Salvation?

In the light of many severe social-economic and health problems many South Africans today experience a situation of helplessness and despair. In the face of these problems we ask whether there is a better solution than leaving the country and starting a new life elsewhere. If Christianity still has anything to say regarding these social-economic problems it must be the belief in salvation - salvation from a situation of helplessness and despair. The belief in salvation should appeal to and inspire people and therefore trigger change-oriented action. But does it happen in practice? To gain insight into this question we did empirical research among two groups of youths: a group of grade 11 students at some private (Catholic and Anglican) schools, and a group of grade 11 students at Afrikaans-medium public schools whom we investigated in a comprehensive survey research project, about their belief in God's salvation in the past, present and future, as well as in his salvation in both their personal relations and local and global communities. The question is whether this belief has an effect on their human rights culture, which theoretically can be positive or negative, or lead to no effect at all. The conclusion of this research is that their belief in divine salvation has a non-exclusive, differentiated positive effect. The effect is non-exclusive, because other religious factors like an open type of religious socialisation, ritual praxis and church participation, and more especially non-religious factors like gender, home language, political and cultural orientations also have an effect, sometimes even a stronger effect. The effect is differentiated, because only their belief in God's salvation in their personal life and their own communities has a positive effect on their human rights attitudes, whereas the other modes of God's salvific activity have a clearly ambivalent (positive/negative) effect or even no effect at all.

Rescue for the dead: the posthumous salvation of non-Christians in early Christianity

Christianity is a religion of salvation in which believers have always anticipated some type of post-mortem bliss. This belief in salvation for the faithful has usually meant non-salvation for others. The Christian imagination in the West has usually drawn a sharp boundary at death, on the principle that, if someone did not join up with the saved community during this life, joining it after death would be impossible. In this book, Jeffrey Trumbower examines how and why death came to be perceived as such a firm boundary of salvation. Analyzing exceptions to this principle from ancient Christianity, he finds that the principle itself was slow to develop and not universally accepted in the Christian movement's first four hundred years. In fact, only in the West was this principle definitively articulated, due in large part to the work and influence of Augustine.

On Human Altruism: The Discrepancy between Normative and Factual Conclusions

Altruism is a successful meme in many human cultures, i.e. self-sacrifice in various forms is held in high regard. In philosophy, being is often seen as equivalent to being altruistic; selfishness is often pitted against altruism, usually without being specified. In spite of the fact that social behaviour can be divided into more categories than these two, the duality between selfishness and is often retained in normative statements also by evolutionary biologists. Many biologists since Darwin (1871) have discussed ethics in an evolutionary framework, and there are several lines of reasoning. First, in some of the literature the main purpose has been to try to explain the occurrence of various phenomena, from actions to sensibilities to rules and systems (e.g. Darwin 1871, Fisher 1958, Trivers 1971, Wilson 1975, Dawkins 1976, Alexander 1987). There are also authors who, like Huxley (1894), regards ethics, the moral process, as separate and antagonistic to evolution, the cosmic process The purpose of the present article is to investigate the evaluation of made by some influential thinkers in evolutionary biology, and to compare this evaluation with their factual conclusions. Our aim is not to criticize these authors, which we admire for their contribution to the understanding of evolutionary processes, but to scrutinize some normative statements in order to shed light on the influence of conventional altruistic ethics. Our main point in the article is that works contrary to reciprocity/cooperation, and that by promoting altruism, the opportunity for reciprocity to work is impaired. This reasoning is based on the following premises: 1) humans have a built-in capacity to act in a manner, but also a built-in capacity to cheat and to manipulate others (e.g. Trivers 1971, 1985), 2) direct and indirect learning will affect the degree to which individuals cooperate or cheat, and normative values and rules for behaviour are part of that learning. If normative values and rules have no effect on behaviour, normative ethics is truly empty: statements without influence. During the last decades theoretical and empirical work in evolutionary biology has produced a coherent explanation of social behaviour (Hamilton 1964, Williams 1966, Trivers 1971, 1985, Wilson 1975), the main conclusion being that the evolution of apparent is due to the effect, on either or potential reciprocators, of selfish genes (Dawkins 1976). Thus, in the following we define as an act that is costly for an actor, that does not benefit kin, and where there is no reasonable expectation of reciprocation. Thus, we exclude reciprocal altruism and kin altruism from Several writers have noted the confusion around the term altruism, caused by a use of the term in both a broad and a specific sense, as well as the need to make a clear distinction. For instance, Ruse (1989) uses with and without quotation marks to denote in a broad and strict sense, respectively. Less confusing is the use of terms like ascetic altruism (Lopreato 1981) and promiscuous altruism (Hardin 1993) suggested for in the specific sense. As mentioned we have preferred to just call it (cf. Bronstein 1994) and let other subgroups like kin altruism and reciprocal altruism do without the term Reciprocal is a self-contradiction. That way we avoid the problem pointed out by Trivers (1971, p. 35): Models that attempt to explain altruistic behavior in terms of natural selection are models designed to take out of altruism. Some workers have questioned the existence of strict Wilson (1979), for instance, questions the of Mother Theresa this because of her belief in salvation through Christianity and good deeds (pp. 172-173). If human behaviour is viewed from the per-

Blessed Assurance: Beliefs, Actions, and the Experience of Salvation in a Carolina Baptist Church

Based on fourteen months of research in a Southern Baptist congregation in rural South Carolina, Blessed Assurance investigates a central paradox in evangelical salvation. How, in the context of world, can one know that one is saved, or born again, by the grace of Jesus Christ? Through ethnographic and linguistic analyses, M. Jean Heriot examines the specific means that believers use to construct the paradox of salvation itself and how they seek practical resolutions. Her explorations encompass a variety of intriguing questions. What is the basis of the equation between belief in salvation and commitment to the church? How does the pastor use the sermon to urge the congregation to be saved and to manifest that salvation through action? What are the implications of the altar call, which asks members to enact their beliefs in a ritually charged atmosphere? How do congregation members try to live conversion day to day? In seeking answers to these questions, Heriot offers a wealth of insightful vignettes drawn from the people and situations she observed during her field research. What makes this study unique is Heriot's focus on the everyday processes by which believers construct the reality of salvation in their social world. She shows how, through the power of words (especially the Word of God) and through the ritual enactment of faith messages Sunday after Sunday, believers construct a worldview that makes salvation central to their identity. At the same time, she uncovers the cultural dilemmas that make the goal of salvation so elusive.

The Medieval Marquee: Church Portal Sculpture as Publicity

The complexity of movie marquees is well‐known to those who frequent films with the avidity of the penitent seeking heaven. Thesymboliccontent of a marquee that has the name of the late John Wayne in The Searchers is subtly but forcefully apparent; we know what values are contained i n the lean and lone figure of Wayne, and behind him the values in Hollywood as transmitted through John Ford, the director. So it is with the “medieval marquee,” the Church portal sculpture, as Charles Altman makes clear, with the Church proclaiming its values, as it shores up the common people's belief in salvation and ensures the status quo of a class structure. The Church in the Middle Ages, according to Altman, is theentrepreneur, just as the film industry today mediates public taste with its seductive appeal; in both instances, it is the “well‐planned marquee” which lures its customers inside.

The Place of Nature in the City of Man

Unparalleled urban growth is pre-empting a million acres of rural lands each year and transforming these into the sad emblems of contemporary urbanism. In that anarchy which constitutes urban growth, wherein the major prevailing values are short-term economic determinism, the image of nature is attributed little or no value. In existing cities, the instincts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century city builders, reflected in the pattern of existing urban open space, have been superseded by a modern process which disdains nature and seems motivated by a belief in salvation through stone alone. Yet there is a need and place for nature in the city of man. An understanding of natural processes should be reflected in the attribution of value to the constituents of these natural processes. Such an understanding, reflected in city building, will provide a major structure for urban and metro politan form, an environment capable of supporting physiolog ical man, and the basis for an art of city building which will enhance life and reflect meaning, order, and purpose.

A Study on the Unity of Spiritual Capacity and Belief in Salvation

A Study on the Unity of Spiritual Capacity and Belief in Salvation