Religious Imagination Research Articles

Volitional imagining and religious dramatizing

ABSTRACT Prompted and resolved by acts of volitional imagining, dramatizing figures a situation in which actors share in having something important at stake such that imminently some of their actions will be momentous (making great differences) and fateful (defining of lives). Religious dramatizing does this very ambitiously. In amplifying the stakes of action there is a danger of being inappropriately dramatic, as in Don Quixote’s fantasies or Chicken Little’s ‘The sky is falling!’ But dramatization can be validated by successfully enacting the dramatic heightening of a situation, by conventionally instituting heights of importance, and by having convincing experiences of situations as dramatic. Kant worries about an inappropriately romantic dramatizing of the moral life; Lucretius warns that religious visionaries will make people crazy with fear of divine retribution. The issue is taken seriously within religious dramatizing. For example, apocalypticism seems to entail an irresponsible termination of care for continuing life. Correctives are offered by Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theory of ‘theo-drama’ and (Francis’s, 2015) encyclical ‘On Care for Our Common Home’. These examples show how the modulation of dramatizing is no less a religious concern than the dramatic heightening of human life.

The Forbidden Body: Sex, Horror, and the Religious Imagination

The Forbidden Body: Sex, Horror, and the Religious Imagination

Reforma sądownictwa w Izraelu: iskra, która doprowadziła do wojny 7 października

In the center of the Middle East, surrounded by millions of hostile Arabs, the best way to guarantee its existence Israel must project an image of an invincible power to deter its enemies from attacking. This is the main component of Israel’s security concept. However, On October 7, 2023, it seemed that Israel lost its deterrence when Hamas, joined by other Islamic terror groups, launched a surprise attack, including firing rockets, brutal raids of fighters, and kidnapping hostages. Although Israel has a strong and sophisticated army with technological superiority, the Islamic organizations felt confident launching the attack. This paper aims to explore the factors that encouraged Hamas and the Islamic resistance front to go on the attack. The October 7th attack came after ten turbulent months characterized by civil protests, strikes, and demonstrations of thousands of Israelis who struggled against the intentions of Netanyahu’s government to change the Judicial system. A study of public statements given by Islamic leaders can shed light on the mindset of radical Islamic organizations. The central claim is that Hamas and the Islamic groups perceived the civil struggle in Israel as the fulfillment of the religious vision written in the Quran. The conclusion is that Israel’s military power is not enough to maintain deterrence and project power toward Islamic organizations, but social cohesion is needed, too.

Religious imaginations: religious literacy as the reading of signs

ABSTRACT Drawing together Charles Taylor’s idea of the social imaginary and the semiotic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure, this article develops an account of religious literacy as the expansion of imagination. It argues that a conventional description of ‘world religions’ is reductive and essentialised, while the counteracting focus on instances of ‘lived religion’ fails to do justice to the organising power and scope of religious traditions. Both approaches draw on an imaginative framework of signs that shape the believer’s understanding of the world and their place within it. Religious literacy is an awareness of the key features and contours of these contrasting imaginative landscapes. Seeing religious traditions in these terms gives a better account of how they can be pathologized as they are drawn away from the mystical, analogical reading of signs that characterises any religious imaginary. To illustrate the theories set out, two contrasting examples of the Christian imagination are explored: American Christian Nationalism and the Forest Churches of Ethiopia.

Spiritual Quest of Ukrainian Thinkers of the 16th – Early 17th Centuries in the Context of the Doctrine of Theosis

Purpose. The main purpose of this research is to analyse and study the development of individual spirituality within the context of theosis doctrine in the religious-anthropological studies of Ukrainian philosophers from the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century. Theoretical basis. The basis of the research is determined by modern methodological approaches to examining the correlation between philosophical and religious visions regarding the representation of views on deification among representatives of contemporary global philosophical-religious thought, as well as among representatives of Ukrainian religious-philosophical thought of the 16th and early 17th century. Originality. The paper analyses the unique views of Ukrainian thinkers on the role of theosis in shaping individual spirituality. Conclusions. The spiritual development of individuals, according to contemporary religious-philosophical authors and Ukrainian thinkers from the 16th to the 17th centuries, consists of self-discovery and moral growth as a means of approaching God. This serves as the basis for understanding human sanctity and life purpose, where the path to God is linked with renouncing worldly desires and striving for union with Him. The state of theosis is perceived as a personal experience, a collaboration between humans and God. The primary purpose of asceticism is to attain grace, which leads to the transformation of will. The doctrine of theosis influences the formation of a theocratic idea in culture and expands the understanding of internal experience due to the pursuit of spirituality. Theosis is a transformation of anthropological reality that goes beyond natural limits. This process constitutes a stage of spiritual growth that involves cultivating fear of sin, self-observation, and overcoming passions. One of its key aspects is interpreting closeness to God as cooperation between humans and the Divine, crucial for realizing divine grace. Considering the question of theosis draws attention to the importance of spiritual values and the search for meaning in life, especially in complex and unpredictable circumstances accompanying military conflicts, which Ukraine is currently facing.

Symbolic Pollution and Religious Change: The Religious Imaginary of Anglo-Canadian Spiritual but Not Religious Millennials

Symbolic Pollution and Religious Change: The Religious Imaginary of Anglo-Canadian <i>Spiritual but Not Religious</i> Millennials

Anything is possible: Word of Life and utopian thinking during the revolutionary processes in Estonia, 1987–1991

ABSTRACT The late 1980s was a chaotic period in Soviet Estonia. The liberalization process of the Soviet Union brought about a sense of freedom and the possibility that Estonian people would finally have a say in the future of Estonia. This unexpected feeling of freedom formed the basis for various attempts to narrate a better society, including religious visions of a new Estonia. Several of the new religious movements that emerged during this period developed their own ideas about the future of Estonia, with some incorporating utopian perspectives. Although these movements had distinct views on the identity and independence of Estonia, their ideas have not yet been thoroughly researched. The aim of this article is to show how one of the movements, Word of Life, addressed these times of change, and to elaborate on what kind of utopias about Estonia are construed in the discourses.

Navigating the Intersections of Religion and Education Reflected in the Institutional Mission: Examining the Case of Dongguk University as a Buddhist-Affiliated Institution in South Korea

This study examines the ongoing impact of religiously affiliated private institutions on the dynamics of higher education in South Korea. To do so, this study pays attention to the case of Dongguk University as a renowned Buddhist-affiliated institution. By exploring the university’s institutional mission, educational goals, governance, symbolic representations, and curricula, this study illustrates the ways in which Dongguk University integrates its Buddhist identity into various facets of its educational framework. This study especially highlights the university’s ongoing efforts to reconcile its religious vision based upon Buddhism with its broader educational responsibilities to our society so as to educate well-rounded citizens who can creatively address contemporary challenges we now face. With an in-depth exploration of Dongguk University rooted in Buddhism, this study sheds light on the distinct characteristics of religiously affiliated private institutions and their influences on the educational landscape in South Korea. In doing so, this study offers valuable insights into the ways to examine the intersections between religions, education, and contemporary society. Such insights elucidate the critical roles of religions in our public life and their implications for the future of education in an era of unprecedented social, cultural, and technological changes.

Transubstantiation, Absurdity, and the Religious Imagination: Hobbes and Rational Christianity

Abstract This article evaluates the political implications of Thomas Hobbes’s extensive treatment of religion by taking up the motif of the Eucharist (and accompanying doctrine of transubstantiation) in Leviathan. Hobbes holds out transubstantiation as an exemplar of absurdity and an historical outgrowth of Christianity’s inauspicious meeting with pagan practices. At the same time, Leviathan contains allusions to eucharistic imagery in its narration of the generation of the “Mortal God,” the commonwealth, as the incorporation of a civil body. These conflicting sentiments are illustrative of a wider tension running through Hobbes’s thought. Although Hobbes’s repudiation of superstition is well-known, it stands in stark contrast to Leviathan’s treatment of Christianity as an exemplar of “true” religion. The varied allusions to eucharistic doctrine illustrate how proper use might be made of a persistent “natural religiosity.” Both in its consonance with reason and its political logic, Christianity remains a politically constructive expression of “power invisible.”

Network, Cryptography, and the Next World to Come: An Everlasting American Techno-millenarianism?

To understand the nexus between networked cryptography and American religiosity, it is essential to embed this inquiry within the broader context of religious imaginaries associated with communication networks in nineteenth-century North America and their evolution into the spiritual landscape of the twentieth century. Throughout United States history, network imaginaries have exerted a substantial influence, engaging in a continuous dialogue with the evolution of religious thought, attributing eschatological expectations to networks, and ascribing them with a profound sense of ultimate purpose and significance. This investigation finds its ultimate context within the early techno-libertarian communities of 1990s California, pivotal in shaping the design, development, and objectives of networked cryptography online, ultimately giving birth to cryptocurrencies and the blockchain protocol.

The Anvil, the Ascent, and Enoch

First Enoch, a pseudepigraphical work from the Second Temple period, contains visions of the natural and supernatural world that cause the visionary, Enoch, to understand anew the beyond-human world. Written during a time of environmental devastation, 1 Enoch can be a resource for helping today’s readers rewild our religious imaginations, our understanding of worship, and our relationship with nonhuman creation. This essay offers a reflection on how the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch and the author’s failed attempts to reach a mountain peak helped the author better understand the unseating of humanity as the center of creation as an experience of grace.

Images Above All: Richard Kroner and the Religious Imagination

AbstractThis essay returns to a largely forgotten achievement of mid-twentieth-century philosophical theology, Richard Kroner’s Culture and Faith (1951) and the “philosophy of faith” presented therein. It focuses on Kroner’s idea of religious imagination as the inspired medium of revelation. It considers implications of this idea with regard to religious epistemology and theological language. In doing so, it puts Kroner in conversation with John Caputo, Iain McGilchrist, and Kroner’s friend and colleague Paul Tillich.

Religious suasion: introduction to the special issue

AbstractIn this introduction, we outline a comparative tool for studying communicative ideologies and practices, which we call ‘religious suasion’. Developing a conversation about religious forms of ‘suasion’ is important because it provides a vocabulary for comparing parallel practices of religious influence across different religious communities, allowing for more nuanced understandings of what might commonly – and negatively – be termed ‘proselytizing’. The proposed analytical frame is not concerned with how the ‘convert’ might experience religious change, nor with how social and religious change unfolds on a grand scale. Rather, it interrogates and puts into dialogue multiple forms of discursive practice, demonstrations of virtue, and material forms of religion to reach beyond suasive strategies based on formal doctrines about religious propagation that tend to be associated with traditionally evangelistic religious communities, especially with Christianity. Focusing on the rhetorical strategies, religious imaginaries, and ethical evaluations that underpin how religious actors pursue change in others and in and of the world, ‘religious suasion’ contributes to the development of an anthropology of influence.

The Financial Millennium

As a financial technology with a millenarian attitude, cryptocurrencies were bound to produce their own heretics and schismatics. Communicating over Telegram channels, conference calls, symbol-laden images, and multi-hour YouTube videos, believers assert that Bitcoin and Ethereum are the exoteric forms of the hidden “chosen one”: XRP, a prominent but not industry-leading cryptocoin. For those who believe, XRP is one component of a total economic and social transformation under a set of secret laws about to be revealed. Elites will be brought low, believers will become rich, global financial infrastructure will be rebased in a jubilee, and miraculous technologies and beings will be disclosed. For many theorists, this monetary apocalypse is part of an explicitly Christian apocalyptic event. In this article, I draw on archives across a variety of formats to explain the evolution of an apocalyptic crypto sect and use these archives to reflect on the context and future of religious imaginaries in the blockchain space.

Revisiting Frederick Douglass and the Nineteenth Century Religious Imagination

Revisiting Frederick Douglass and the Nineteenth Century Religious Imagination

Heresia confucionista e imaginação religiosa: um estudo das interpretações de Mozi por missionários do protestantismo no século XIX

Abstract: Mozi first came to the English missionary Joseph Edkins’ attention in 1858 as a Confucian heretic. Subsequently, the Dutch missionary Johann Jakob Maria de Groot translated Mozi’s Funerary Doctrine, which has strong religious overtones. Protestantism missionaries were represented by Joseph and Groot, whose renderings of Mozi were replete with theological interpretations. Mozi was imagined as a religious canon, containing Christian doctrine, by the two missionaries who were keen to find commonalities between Mozi and Christianity. They also used Mozi’s status as a Confucian heretic to criticize Confucianism, the archenemy of Christianity. Through this religious imagination of Mozi, more missionaries and sinologists joined Mozi’s translation, and the journey of the canon’s transmission to the West started.

STUDI ISLAM MELALUI PENDEKATAN FENOMENOLOGI (TELAAH PEMIKIRAN ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL)

The approach to studying Islam by Charles J. Adams is divided into two main things, namely the normative or religious approach and the descriptive approach. The normative approach is an approach that is based on religious commitment, and still includes the subjective objectives of the reviewer and of course the results of the study will tend to be more subjective. The phenomenological approach that Schimmel applies in Islamic studies is a phenomenological approach that he knew from Friedrich Heiler. Implementation of this approach through systematic steps (techniques), namely examining first the phenomenon (the world of external manifestations of Islam) and then the deeper and deeper layers of human responses to God (the world of religious imagination and experience), to reach the deepest sacred essence of each religion, the center, the God, the Deus Absconditus (objective world of religion) and Schimmel has implemented it well through the intended steps.

Living Well Together in a Climate-Changed Future: Religious Imaginaries on the Cutting Edge of Genetic Technology

This essay focuses on the emotional and relational investments of scientists and others engaged in and supportive of genetic technologies used in conservation efforts, with particular attention to the different moral and religious imaginaries that fuel endeavors to save species threatened by climate change and extinction. I argue that two distinct visions and competing religious repertoires can be discerned in the secular landscape of genetic technologies deployed in coral restoration and de-extinction. Each endeavor brings forth its own forms of magic, myth- and meaning-making. At the heart of coral protection is the symbol of the holobiont, suggestive of cooperative endeavors, collective labor, networking, and distributed and embodied knowledge. Central to de-extinction imaginaries are motifs of individual competition, machine metaphors, “selfish” genetic components, and a spirit of entrepreneurial excitement and profiteering. The essay contrasts these two visions as competing accounts of relationality—or the lack thereof—and asks which religious and moral imaginaries we should embrace as we move into an era marked by intensified technological intervention and high-risk efforts to address the effects of climate change. I suggest that the values that drive de-extinction technologies are largely at odds with environmental and social goals of living well together, as humans and more-than-humans, in a present and future world transformed by climate change and species death.

Towards an ‘Eco-Theo-Logy’

Abstract The paper seeks to draw the contours of an “Eco-Theo-Logy” in the context of the unprecedented crisis of our Common Home and with special reference to Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on creation care. An “eco” theology would begin with the sense of awe and gratitude for Earth, our unique common planetary home blessed with the gift of life, and listen attentively to the growing “cry of the Earth and of the poor” (Laudato Si’, 49). Secondly, it seeks to articulate anew the theological understanding of an ‘in-carnate’ God, a God who enters human and cosmic vicissitudes and manifests in the pangs of creation. It also strives to a religious vision of the natural world as the “Gospel of creation”. Thirdly, it’s time to re-imagine the logos component of an eco-theo-logy, embracing an integral and relational approach, raising a prophetic theological voice in the face of profound inequalities and injustices that exist in our one common household, and adopting a decisively practice/action orientation.

The Poetry of the Tanatic Imaginary

The article studies the artistic representations of death in several poetic texts signed by Emilian Galaicu-Păun, Nicolae Popa, Dumitru Crudu, Leo Bordeianu, Irina Nechit, Marcela Benea, Alexandru Vakulovski. The tanatic imaginary is produced in a multitude of projections depending on the position of man towards the religious vision, through the prism of which death is only a release of the (immortal) soul from the body, from the matter that degrades and transforms into other vital structures, and with the profane perception, which defines the phenomenon as a complete end of the organism’s life cycle. The author especially researches the system of tanatic images formed through the artistic reconceptualization of the ideational relationship death-creation, intensively explored in contemporary Bessarabian poetry.