House Of Prayer Research Articles

The Propaganda of Intolerance Act on Instagram: Multimodal Discourse Analysis on #patungbundamaria

The case of covering the Virgin Mary statue using a tarpaulin is one of the viral cases related to religious issues. The case involved an Islamic mass organization in Kulon Progo Yogyakarta and the owner of the Sasana Adhi Rasa prayer house, ST Yacobus. Some of the posts about the case use the hashtag #patungbundamaria. Hashtags, which intended originally to promote sculpture products, suddenly used to increase the reach of spreading issues. This is as an effort to carry out propaganda that has the potential to bring up a discourse of intolerance. This study aims to determine the form of multimodal discourse from the case of the closing of the Bunda Maria statue in Kulon Progo, as well as the propaganda formed. This research method uses a qualitative approach with a constructivist paradigm. The analysis technique is through multimodal discourse analysis. Researchers look at the use of multimodal text to build propaganda messages with the addition of hashtag modes. The results of this study indicate that the emergence of the issue of the Virgin Mary statue by using hashtags begins in the form of gray propaganda. This is because the data to raise this issue is still not valid due to pursuing posting speed. However, from the process of developing issues on social media, the message shift to white propaganda. In addition, netizens on Instagram have a concern in rejecting intolerance. They seek to suppress the emergence of intolerant discourse by providing comments that encourage tolerance between religious communities.

Langgar Lembaga Pendidikan Islam


 Langgar (prayer house) or often called mushollah. According to the 2018 KBBI, the word langgar is a small mosque that is usually used as a place of prayer or Quran recitation, but there are no Friday prayers in it. Langgar is the oldest Islamic institution in the field of education that has existed and developed in the Islamic community of our country. Langgar is an Islamic educational institution that was first established before the pesantren came into existence. Langgar has an educational element that makes up a system that includes caregivers, learners (students), goals, methods, materials, assessment. Langgar also has quite a broad position, namely helping the community solve problems in a forum and supporting the continuous learning process teaching Islam to Muslim citizens.
 Keywords: langgar, islamic institution

Presence in the Book

Presence in the Book Gerald Vizenor (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Native dream songs are forever in the clouds, and once more the empire wars are underway. The lilies and daffodils are in bloom, and at the same time we hark back to the stories of shamans that war never ends, since evil, envy, greed, and predatory vengeance never end. The last empire war started with a royal murder, and the next world war of resentments and revenge starts with the fiery purge of books and libraries. —Gerald Vizenor, Satie on the Seine: Letters to the Heirs of the Fur Trade (2020) "I AM IN THE BOOK," pronounced Edmond Jabès in The Book of Questions. "The book is my world, my country, my roof, and my riddle. The book is my breath and my rest. . . . I have followed a book in its persistence, a book which is the story of a thousand stories as night and day are the prow of a thousand poems. I have followed it where day succeeds the night and night the day, where the seasons are four times two hundred and fifty seasons," wrote Jabès. Native American authors are in the book and reveal the trouble and timely tease of books, or as Jabès commented, "the torment of the books." Natives are in three leagues of torment in the books, as the misnamed natives of discoverers, colonists, and counterfeit histories, the grandeur of the noble savage, and the critical tease and creative literary art by native authors. The gossip theories of race and betrayals of nations were denounced in the first books by native authors in the eighteenth century, and later ethnographic monographs were rightly mocked, and the rush of cultural models were deconstructed as ironic native stories of survivance. Cristoforo Colombo misnamed natives the Indians, and Amerigo Vespucci described natives as "worse than heathens; because we did not see that they offered any sacrifice, not yet did they have a house of prayer." Puritan John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared natives "enclosed no land, neither have they any settled habitations, nor any tame cattle." Critical literary memories are the future of books, the very nature and presence of printed books in the familiar world of libraries, timely ironies, and poetic perceptions of the colophon, deckle edge, and cover art. The reminiscences of printed books are not present in the future tense of computer technology or the algorithms of [End Page 43] artificial intelligence. The primary perceptions of the actual books are hardly realized on the internet or ebook readers. Click for larger view View full resolution "The books have voices. I hear them in the library," wrote Diane Glancy in Designs of the Night Sky. "I know the voices are from the books. Yet I know the old stories do not like books. Do not like the written words. Do not like libraries. The old stories carry all the voices of those who have told them. When a story is spoken, all those voices are in the voice of the narrator. But writing the words of a story kills the voices that gather in the sound of the storytelling. The story is singular then. Only one voice travels in the written words. One voice is not enough to tell a story. Yet I can hear a voice telling its story in the archives of the university library. I hear the books. Not with my ears, but in my imagination. Maybe the voices camp in the library because the written words hold them there. Maybe they are captives with no place else to go." Almost Browne, a native philosopher, always heard more than the voice of the author in a book. He heard the traces of dream songs, the seasons of hearsay, and the crowds of natives who created, enhanced, and mocked the books in libraries. Almost was born in the back of a rickety station wagon almost on the White Earth Reservation. Almost "signed and inscribed books in the name of Jesus Christ, Vine Deloria, Crazy Horse, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare" in the trickster novel Chair of Tears. "Many book buyers were curious about the...

The Value of Settlement Local Wisdom in Nagari Pariangan, West Sumatra Province

This research examines the concept and empirical basis of settlement and local wisdom. Settlements contain residential environments along with facilities and infrastructures to support functions. Local wisdom is local ideas that have good values or norms practiced and believed to be referenced in everyday life. This study observes the implementation of local wisdom in settlement management, which aims to assess the local wisdom contained in settlements Nagari Pariangan, Tanah Datar Regency, West Sumatra Province using a qualitative descriptive method. The novelty of this research reveals contextually the local wisdom of settlements in Nagari Pariangan, which has its characteristics, including Rumah Gadang and surau (prayer houses) owned by each suku (ethnic group), as well as tapian (banks) used for common purposes. Results of this study show that the values of local wisdom in settlements in Nagari Pariangan are manifested in the value of environmental conservation and social values, where these values are not fully maintained, and some have not been continued or implemented until now. To maintain the values of local wisdom can be continued it is necessary to provide learning to the younger generation and to activate the surau as a mean of learning and education.

A theological pastoral perspective to prayer ministry in Nigeria

This article examines prayer ministry in Nigeria from a theological pastoral perspective. The objectives of this study include (1) to assess prayer ministry in Nigeria; (2) to explore reasons for the boom in prayer ministries in Nigeria; (3) to assess the impact of the activities of prayer ministries in Nigeria. Existing literature have not adequately explored prayer ministry from a theological pastoral lens. In Nigeria, prayer ministries could be seen all over the place, with the intent of exploiting unsuspecting Nigerians. Religion has been so commercialised and commoditised to the extent that we now have “prayer consultants and contractors” whose task is to assist spiritually “weak” people to fast and pray for divine solutions to their problems. Their trademark is to see scary visions about their victims whom they will ask to go on fasting and intense prayers to ward off the looming danger on their lives or those of their family. If the victim says they do not have the strength for such a spiritual exercise, they will offer to help out for a fee. Oftentimes, the so-called vision is a figment of imagination of these fraudsters masquerading as men of God. This study was adopted content analysis through a phenomenological approach. Findings reveal that several of these prayer houses engaged in prayer merchandising, collecting money and material things from their victims, with the promise of prayer for them to gain spiritual and physical freedom. Also, there are reports of immoral activities such as rape happening there. Thus, Christian religious worship is long longer practiced in truth, and prayer houses no longer a place of righteousness, but a place of economic and material exploitationWith this study, Nigerians are better sensitised on how to prevent themselves from falling victim to religious fraud, and the church is also equipped on how to deal with a menace of this nature. The article concluded that a theological pastoral perspective of prayer ministry in Nigeria exposes how prayer houses have derailed and started extorting covertly and overtly from the unsuspecting members. The recommendations are discussed.

ECOLOGICAL ZONES AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN YENAGOA CITY OF BAYELSA STATE, NIGERIA

This study investigates the classification of socio-economic zones in Yenagoa city and its implication to development in the city. It is argued that emerging cities develop faster when classified into socio-economic zones. The study generated data from personal observations and an in-depth analysis of secondary data from relevant government publications, books, journals and commentaries. The city of Yenagoa was divided into six ecological zones: The Fast-Emerging Big Commercial Zone, the Medium and Small Commercial Zone, Government Residential and Planned Zone, Indigenous/Non-Commercial Zone, Medium/Low Residential Zone, and the Suburbs. The study looks at the proposed master plan for the State and the socio-economic implications of the lack of implementation of the Yenagoa city master plan. The findings show that Yenagoa is yet to attain a standard city status. This is evident in the dualism pattern of residence with buildings being incongruous and residential areas co-existing with prayer houses, social club sand schools. The study, therefore, recommends that the State government should make a conscious effort to implement and develop sustainable city development plans that will endure evenness if there is a change of Government. The government’s land allocation policy should be done by categorising the city into well-recognised zones that can be easily identified and not the inappropriate situations the city currently inhabits.

Реконструкция места памяти: Королевская старообрядческая моленная

This article is dedicated to a little studied problem of the 19th century Old Believers’ prayer houses localization on the cultural map of St. Petersburg. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is Pierre Nora’s theory of lieux de mémoire, which shows the process of memory revival in spite of the history of oblivion. An overview of the most significant loci in the history of a historical and cultural phenomenon of Old Believers’ Saint-Petersburg was undertaken. There were presented data from various sources casting light on the circumstances of the Old Believers’ Korolev Prayer House functioning and closure, based on the analysis of which an attempt to relate this significant site of memory in the cultural history of St. Petersburg to a specific building in urban sprawl was undertaken for the first time. Interdisciplinary culturological methodology makes it possible not only to verify the address of the prayer house, which has not been considered determined with adequate accuracy until now, but also to raise an issue of studying the cultural history of the Old Believer St. Petersburg at the Pushkin era.

Тихвинская старообрядческая богадельня во второй половине XVIII – первой половине XIX века

The article highlights the history of establishing and functioning of the Old Believer almshouse of the Pomorian congregation, operating in the city of Tikhvin since 1764. In some sources, it is called “monastery” and “skete,” as nuns lived there. The main sources used in the article are documents stored in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and in the Russian State Historical Archive; most are being thus introduced into scientific use. Among the identified documents are decrees and petitions related to the monastery establishing and its property acquisition in the 18th – early 19th century. The sources demonstrate the role of the Tikhvin Old Believer almshouse in maintaining ties with Old Believer spiritual centers in the Olonets gubernia, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. The skete housed locally revered relics: miraculous icons, relics of saints (some from Novgorod). Old Believers from other regions came to worship them, especially during the Tikhvin spring fair. There were active contacts between Tikhvin and Vygovskaya Old Believer community. The skete also promoted consolidation of the uezd inhabitants, gathering in Tikhvin to worship local shrines, to perform repentance, to make a prayer (nachala) for non-observance of the Old Believer rules, which was important for the priestless communities: thus, they returned to the community by the decision of the skete council of spiritual mentors. The article focuses on tragic closing of the prayer house and almshouse and its rearrangement into edinovertsy church. It happened during government repressions against the Old Believers in 1854. The Tikhvin Edinovertzy Church, founded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs official Yu. K. Arseniev, was the first in the Novgorod eparchy, antedating similar developments in the region. The success of this Ministry project sprang from readiness of the officials to forcibly take control of relics and locations sacred to the Old Believers (monastery’s revered icons, including those with relics, its cemetery with its prayer house, where the ancestors of the Tikhvin Old Believers were buried).

Palangos liuteronų bendruomenė nuo jos ištakų XIX a. pradžioje iki sovietinės okupacijos

The article describes the origins and development of the Palanga Lutheran congregation, from its formation at the beginning of the 19th century to its closure by the communist authorities in the early postwar years after the Second World War. The life of the affiliate in the parish of Rucava is discussed, as well as its attempts to build its own church in Palanga. The congregation’s life was particularly revitalised after the city was reunited with Lithuania in 1921. As an affiliate of the Kretinga parish, and supported by it and the Gustav-Adolf-Werk, it bought its own prayer house in 1928. The article describes ecclesiastical life in this period, the disastrous effects of the 1938 fire, when the congregation lost its place of worship, and the challenges it faced in the first years of the Soviet occupation.

Роль Емельяна Михайловича Ярославского в антирелигиозной кампании 1930-х гг. (на примере Саратовского Поволжья)

Based on archival materials, the author of the article analyzes the activities of the Union of Militant Atheists in the Saratov Volga region and the role of the leader of this organization in the 1930s. Examples of the activities of the organization are given, both within the framework of anti-religious agitation and propaganda of the communist ideology, and as an initiator of the closure of churches and prayer houses of all faiths. Emelyan Yaroslavsky is characterized as the main ideologist of state atheism. The practice of closing churches and prayer houses in violation of Soviet legislation, as well as the actions of party and Soviet structures that were contrary to the declared directives, are analyzed. Based on archival materials, the author of the article concludes that the authorities, having suspended the legal activities of all confessions in the Saratov Volga region by the beginning of the 1940s, could not suppress religious life, which took on new forms, and agitation and propaganda, including organizations of the Union of Militant Atheists, made a significant contribution to the formation of an atheistic worldview of the population.

«МАТЕРИАЛЬНАЯ РЕЛИГИЯ» КАК МЕТОД СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ АНТРОПОЛОГИИ И ПРОБЛЕМА ДОСТУПА ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЯ К «РЕАЛЬНОМУ» РЕЛИГИОЗНОМУ ОПЫТУ (ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ)

The methods of “material religion” elaborated in social anthropology and the materialistic (Marxist) approach to the study of religious life are methodologically different ways of turning our accustomed understanding upside down: the spiritual activity of Homo religiosus, acting as generating source, produces something material—sacred images, houses of prayer, and objects of worship. The method of material religion involves determining how the culturally specific sensory experience of the individual generates that which is interpreted by this individual, their fellow believers, and external observers—who usually receive accounts of such states in narratives—as actual religious experience. But behind what is read as a replica of the spiritual, disembodied world there is always the work of man, which, however, can be difficult to recognize in this quality. The Marxist materialist perspective, inevitably sharpened critically against religion as a typical ideology, seeks to find a basis for spiritual life in the economic conditions of human existence and society, which in this tradition of understanding human nature, are inevitably linked to labour. These two research traditions, which have the potential to enrich each other, remain in different segments of the academic field. One possible common ground for a collaborative project for these two perspectives is the study of infrastructural aspects of religious life. Another collaborative project could be the very work of social anthropologists who, using their bodies and intellect as their most accessible and potentially inalienable research tool, produce experiences comparable to those of believers and translate them into the terms of social science.

Jewish–Christian Interaction in Ethiopia as Reflected in Sacred Geography: Expressing Affinity with Jerusalem and the Holy Land and Comemorating the Betä Ǝsraʾel–Solomonic Wars

Affinity with the Holy Land, and especially with Jerusalem, is a common theme in the sacred geography of Abrahamic religions, expressed in prayer houses and holy sites. This theme was especially prominent in Solomonic Ethiopia, both among Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and among the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews). This article will examine expressions of affinity with Jerusalem and the Holy Land in Betä Ǝsraʾel holy sites and religious architecture, and shed light on the interreligious discourse related to such expressions, as well as other forms of interreligious discourse expressed by these two communities in sacred geography. This will demonstrate that in Solomonic Ethiopia, affinity with the Holy Land was a core element in expressing an Israelite identity. Both the Betä Ǝsraʾel and the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians saw themselves as the biological and spiritual heirs of the biblical Israelites, and this concept played a key role in shaping their sacred geography to allude to biblical sites and events. This will also demonstrate that, building upon a vocabulary with common features, the sacred geography and religious architecture of each community was a means to express its unique identity. As such, it provides insight regarding differences in religious concepts.

Jewish pre-burial houses in Silesian Voivodeship – state of preservation

For centuries synagogues, houses of prayer, Jewish cemeteries with pre-burial houses were an important element of the landscape of the cities located within current borders of the Silesian Voivodeship. Unfortunately not many examples of this heritage have survived to present day - on 64 Jewish cemeteries located within the borders of the Voivodeship only 15 Jewish pre-burial houses have survived, many of them in a very poor technical condition. The aim of the article is to present state of preservation of this extremely valuable architectural and cultural heritage. Presented research is the result of in situ studies conducted in 2018-2021.

“Almost Soviet Father”: An Experience of Microhistorical Research of Rural Confessional History in 1940s—1970s

The problem of the possibility of a fruitful study of the rural parish history of the Soviet period through microhistorical analysis is raised. For discussion, the experience of researching the fate of a small Old Believer community is proposed. Both archival documents and interview materials are used. The purpose of the publication is to show some factors of the reproduction of traditional religious culture on the Soviet collective farm of the 1940s—1970s and at the same time demonstrate the heuristic potential of combined archival and field work. The author focuses on the figure of a priest who managed to restore and strengthen his parish, despite the previous dispossession and destruction of the prayer house. The cohesion of the community, outstanding personal qualities, as well as the ability of believers to practically harmonize Christian and Soviet values became the conditions for his success is shown in the article. The adoption of Soviet cultural norms, excluding atheism, is considered in the work as the most important factor in the survival of the Old Believer community. The expediency of verifying the data of official Soviet documentation by referring to oral history is demonstrated in the study. It is pointed out that in the materials of the USSR civil servants devoted to confessional phenomena, strict facts could be combined with false interpretations.

Introduction and General

Introduction and General Fred W. Guyette, Christopher T. Begg, Richard A. Taylor, David A. Bosworth, and Victor H. Matthews 2521. [Scripture's Grand Story in the OT] Bryan Beyer and Bill Jones, Scripture's Grand Story through the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2022). Pp. xii + 273. $49. ISBN 9781666702460. This book is designed to be an introduction to the OT. The Bible has forty human authors, but one divine author and one central story. B. and J.'s book invites us into that story to embrace the life God designed for us. It is organized in four sections (1) The Torah: Genesis–Deuteronomy; (2) The Historical Books: Joshua–Esther; (3) The Poetical Books: Job to Song of Solomon; and (4) The Prophetic Books: Isaiah to Malachi. Each story in these books plays a part in the Bible's one central story, which is about Jesus. The first part of Genesis describes a wonderful Creation, but then there is a downward movement, morally and spiritually: The Fall, The Flood, and The Tower of Babel. God made a new start by forming a covenant with Abraham, the first of the patriarchs. In Exodus, God delivers his people from slavery in Egypt and through Moses. He gives them the Ten Commandments. Hundreds of years later, Jesus showed us what a life of perfect obedience to the commandments would look like. Joshua led God's people into the promised land, but after struggling against their enemies, they asked God for a king to lead them in battle. Saul was their first king, but his reign ended in spiritual failure. After David became king, he enjoyed political victories, spiritual victories, and military victories. But God rebuked David for his adultery with Bathsheba and the killing of Uriah, her husband. Next came King Solomon, who made a good beginning: he asked God for wisdom and built the temple as a house of prayer. But Solomon failed, too, after his foreign wives turned his heart away from the Lord. After Solomon, there was another trend downward, spiritually speaking. The one notable exception was Josiah, who did his best to lead the nation back to God, but he was killed in battle in 609 b.c. When Israel went into exile in Babylon, they cherished hope for a coming Messiah who would save them from their sins. Ezra and Nehemiah were among their leaders when they returned to the land of Israel, where they renewed their covenant with God. Among the prophets, it is Isaiah who has the most glorious vision of the coming Messiah, a suffering servant who would save the people from their sins. Among the minor prophets, Zechariah and Malachi have a profound sense of Messianic expectation, our great need for repentance, and God's mercy toward sinners—F.W.G. 2522. [Edom] Bradley L. Crowell, Edom at the Edge of Empire: A Social and Political History (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 29; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2021). Pp. xix + 488. Paper $75. ISBN 978-1-62837-306-6. The above volume combines biblical, epigraphic, archaeological, and comparative evidence to reconstruct the history of ancient Edom, Judah's neighbor to the southeast. With reference to material and linguistic evidence, extending from early Egyptian sources that recall conflicts with nomadic tribes to later Assyrian texts that reference compliant Edomite kings, C. offers alternative scenarios regarding Edom's transformation from a collection of nomadic tribes and workers in the Wadi Faynan into a later polity centered around the city of Busaya in the mountains of southern Jordan. This is the first book to incorporate the important evidence from the Wadi Faynan copper mines into a thorough account of ancient Edom's history which provides students and scholars of the ANE and the Hebrew Bible with a key resource. [Adapted from published abstract] C.'s volume comprises an introduction, followed by a total of 10 chapters, titled respectively (1) A Tale of Three Edoms; (2) The Material Culture of Iron Age Southwestern [End Page 938] Jordan; (3) Egyptian and Mesopotamian Sources for the History of Edom; (4) Iron Age Epigraphs from Edom; (5) Narrative Biblical Sources for the History of Edom...

Otwieranie żydowskich domów modlitwy – rozstrzygnięcia prawno-administracyjne i pragmatyka urzędnicza w guberni piotrkowskiej (koniec XIX – początek XX wieku)

Opening Jewish Houses of Prayer: Legal and Administrative Arrangements and Clerical Pragmatics in the Piotrków Governorate between the End of the Nineteenth and the Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries The article shows a revision of the religious policy of the administrative authorities of the Piotrków Governorate Government regarding the initiative of opening new Jewish prayer houses. This change of attitude is best illustrated by archival materials, mainly of the Administrative Department of the Piotrków Governorate Government, stored in the State Archive in Łódź. A detailed analysis of historical documents revealed the actual attitude of the tsarist civil authorities to Jews residing in this area. While a relatively tolerant approach to the needs of Jewish communities was observed at the end of the nineteenth century, governorate clerks rigorously blocked their progression at the beginning of the next century. The ways used to legally restrict the opening of new prayer houses and the Jewish administrative struggle with the official interpretation of the Russian Empire law are discussed in the article.

The State and Confessional Life in Kharkiv Region on the Eve of the Great Terror (1934 – the Middle of 1937)

The article is dedicated to religious life in Kharkiv region on the eve of The Great Terror and the influence of the Soviet state on it. The article analyzes the historiography of the issue under study, and concludes that despite the emergence of recent scientific works, which address various aspects of the functioning of individual religious denominations in Kharkiv region in the 1930s, the issue of reviving religious life in the region on the eve of The Great Terror unleashed by the totalitarian regime is still virtually out of sight of modern scientists and has not become an object of special study. Such processes as the believers’ reaction to the state’s activity, their resistance against the state’s oppression, the influence of the Constitution of 1936 on the religious circumstances, as well as the factors of religious life in Kharkiv province on the eve of the Great Terror have not been sufficiently studied yet. The article analyzes the conditions of religious denominations’ activity on the eve of the Great Terror. The influence of various factors on the revival of religious life is revealed. The different forms of manifestation of religious activity in Kharkiv region are elucidated. The article shows that the public discussion and adoption of the Constitution of 1936, which formally abolished the restrictions on the political rights of the clergy and proclaimed the freedom of conscience, resulted in increased activity of different groups of clergy and believers. The latter hoped for rapid normalization and liberalization of state-confessional relations. However, the revival took place in the situation when the previous practice of repression against members of various religious denominations and the closure of temples and prayer houses still continued. In these circumstances there were the different form of believers’ resistance and the defense of the religious rights which were decelerated by the laws. This activity of "the religious" did not go beyond the limits set by the current Soviet legislation and was generally aimed at ensuring freedom of conscience for citizens as proclaimed in the Constitution. In particular, this manifested itself in believers’ attempts to collect signatures to open churches closed (contrary to the existing law) by local authorities, and in numerous petitions and delegations to local and higher authorities, demanding that the prayer houses be returned to the religious communities. Religious communities actively also created various circles (choral singing, chess, etc.) in order to attract young people. There were appeals from the representatives of religious communities to consular offices of foreign countries for support against anti-religious harassment, etc. At the same time, the participation of believers (especially young people) in public worship and mass attendance of religious services, especially during church festivals, etc. intensified. The 1937 census revealed a high level of religiosity among the population (including the younger generation) which was conclusive proof of the failure of Stalin's “Godless Five-Year Plan.” Another important factor in stirring up religious life was the preparation and holding of elections to the Supreme Council of the USSR according to the new electoral laws, during which a fairly high level of self-organization of the clergy and believers were shown to the authorities, as well as their attempts to participate in the electoral race. It seriously frightened the nomenclature of the Soviet Communist Party, which perceived religion and the church as the institutions of the class enemies (according to their ideological paradigm). So they were regarding the state terror as the most effective method of struggle against the religion.

Being a Minority in a Moslem Neighborhood: Reflective Experience of a Buddhist Priest in Cemani Village

On Tuesday, 1st of October 2019 around 02.30 a.m., Amoghasiddhi Cetiya at Cemani Village, Grogol Subdistrict, Sukoharjo Regency, Central Java, Indonesia, was caught on fire for the second times. The carpet was scorched and the air-condition was fell-down. The crime was reported to the police, but the priest and his followers expect nothing but take it as a blessing in disguise that it’s the time for them to repaint and refurnish their prayer house. By applying interview, news research, limited participant observation and reflective-interpretive approach this paper tries to discuss and conclude that in order to be able to survive a religious minority group needs to equipt themselves with personal capacity such as high sense of tolerance, modesty, relenting attitude, and ignoring their rights to justice. Those are the challenges for religious minority groups to live in Indonesia, a country which is ethnically multicultural but ironically only six religions are sanctioned by the state with Islam as the one adhered by around 80% of the population. So then, discussing inter-faith relation will result in a bias conclusion as both majority and minority have their own syndromes. Feeling of fear or being threatened by the existence of something new is the syndrome for the majority, while relenting attitude as well as tendency not to demand their rights to with the fear that struggling for justice may lead to misfortune justice for the minority, as experienced by Meiliana of Tanjungbalai, North Sumatera. The Buddhist woman of Chinese ethnic was accused of committing blasphemy in July 2016 merely because she complaint the high volume of adzan prayer call from a neighbourhood mosque. Not only her house was then destroyed by a mob, but also more than tens of vihara in her town were set on fire. In April 2019 her appeal to Supreme Court was refused, so she has to serve 18 months jail sentence as verdicted. 

Case study: lost identity and the New Synagogue in Częstochowa: Architecture of the houses of prayer as contemporary places of non-memory in culturally homogeneous cities

Case study: lost identity and the New Synagogue in Częstochowa: Architecture of the houses of prayer as contemporary places of non-memory in culturally homogeneous cities

‘The city’s other face’: Postsecular feminism and the creation of sacred space by women in Kurdish Turkey

ABSTRACT Geographers have examined how sacred spaces are made spiritually meaningful through embodied practice. This paper brings together scholarship on post-secular feminism and geographies of religion to develop a theory of non-subversive power in the sacred space literature. This paper demonstrates how Kurdish women create sacred space through embodied Islamic mystical practices in Kurdish Turkey and how these practices carve out a space for creative existence within and alongside state and masculinist systems of power, not against. Using a post-secular feminist framing and building on conversations of power in the sacred space literature, we show how the formation of sacred space forms the feminine subject and constitutes an act of feminine agency. Specifically, we focus on two material and sacred sites: private communal prayer houses and public tomb sites used for communal petitions. In these spaces, women organize and lead collective and embodied meditations and petitions that centre their desires, concerns, and wishes in a common register to create, following Saba Mahmood, a ‘politics in unusual places’.