Religious Works Research Articles

Mapping Muslim Chaplaincy: An Analytic Review of Publications between 1989 and 2023

Abstract This article analyses the emergent field of Muslim chaplaincy research by reviewing English-language publications in this growing area of professional religious work, especially in Europe and the United States. After presenting the method of our enquiry, we provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the literature reviewed. We then focus on three key topics in Muslim Chaplaincy Studies that derive from our quantitative and qualitative research. These are: the training of Muslim chaplains, which is strongly linked to professionalisation, the vocabulary and sources that underpin Muslim chaplaincy and, finally, the significance of the increasing involvement of Muslim women in this area of professional religious work and leadership. Having identified exactly 100 publications related to the development of Muslim chaplaincy, many of them arising from empirical research, serious practitioner reflections located in peer-review publications, and a small number of articles that are explicitly devoted to methodological considerations, we are suggesting in this article that a distinctive sub-field of Muslim Chaplaincy Studies can now be identified.

PELATIHAN MANAJEMEN DALAM MENCIPTAKAN LINGKUNGAN KERJA YANG KONDUSIF DAN RELIGIUS DI KANTOR CAMAT RAMBUTAN, BANYUASIN

This community service aims to improve the quality of the work environment at the Office of the Sub-District Head of Rambutan, Banyuasin through management training emphasizing the creation of a conducive and religious work atmosphere. The training is designed to span three days, covering planning, implementation, and evaluation. On the first day, the focus is on planning and preparation, including coordination with relevant parties, determining training materials and speakers, and logistical arrangements. The second day constitutes the core of the training, where participants receive instruction on productivity, religious values, and strategies for optimizing productivity in a conducive and religious work environment. This session also includes group discussions and practical exercises to apply the learned concepts. The third day involves training evaluation and policy formulation to ensure the sustainability of training outcomes. The expected outcomes of this training include improved mental well-being and work motivation among employees, reduced stress levels, and the establishment of a more harmonious and blessed work culture. Leaders with high ethics and empathy are expected to foster a positive organizational culture, enhance interpersonal relationships among employees, and advance the quality of public services. Expected outputs from this initiative include comprehensive documentation of training materials, an evaluative report, participant certificates, and a clear follow-up plan. This documentation will serve as a reference for future training sessions and educational resources. Through this training, it is anticipated that employees at the Office of the Sub-District Head of Rambutan will better appreciate religious values in their daily work, enhance teamwork among colleagues, and contribute to improved public services oriented toward community welfare

Improving positive work behavior of back office employees at sharia microfinance institutions with involvement in religious work life to anticipate fraud

Improving positive work behavior of back office employees at sharia microfinance institutions with involvement in religious work life to anticipate fraud

Lived Experiences of Domestic Violence and Coping Strategies among Female Secondary School Teachers in Uganda

This study investigated about lived experiences of domestic violence and coping strategies among female secondary school teachers in Uganda. The study employed qualitative approach within 23 secondary schools in Kitgum District. While through snowball sampling the study targeted all female teachers in these schools, who are victims of domestic violence, only 20 teachers who agreed to participate became the sample of the study. Furthermore, all the 23 head teachers of these schools participated in the study through purposive sampling. Data collection took place through in-depth interviews and data analysis took place through the thematic approach. While some of the domestic violence cases that took place include being beaten, tortured and injured, the victims used multiple ways to cope with the situations. The study recommends faith-based interventions as potential remedy for women who face domestic violence through deploying religious workers like school chaplains or other appropriate religious person to give support to such victims. The study further recommends supportive policy frameworks mainstreamed on tools for empowering female teachers and head teachers on support system for female teachers affected by domestic violence to allow them supportive work environment as well as provision of guidance and counselling experts in schools to provide similar services.

Biography, Works and Literary Personality of Mele Telheyê Şerefkî

Mele Telheyê Şerefkî, one of the literary scholars of Kurmanji literature, has not been the subject of an academic research so far with his biography, works and literary personality. Only a few of his poems were in the possession of a few local madrasah teachers. Apart from this, there was no information about him in the literature. Therefore, we identified this situation as a research problem and in order to introduce him with his biography, works and literary personality, we prepared our questions and entered the field of study. During the research process, we saw Şerefki and met him face to face. We asked him our questions and recorded his voice. We collected information several times through interviews, one of the qualitative research techniques. Later, we obtained his manuscript works and studied them. As a result of the research, we found out that this scholar studied in the madrasa environment of Diyarbakır and Batman region since the 1960s under the famous mudarrises of the region and received his madrasa icazet from Mele Mûsa, the scholar of Diyarbakır Cimikan Madrasa. He started to write poems in Turkish, Arabic and Kurmanji from his early youth. Since he was the son-in-law of Şêx Xalidê Zengokî and his family benefited from his religious works in Kurmanji, he was influenced by him in terms of religious literature. However, since he studied in various madrasas in Diyarbakır and Batman, he started to write Kurmanji poetry with the reflex and attitude of Mele Şêxmus (Cegexwîn) and Mele Ebdurrehmanê Muşî (Durre). Şerefkî wrote a poetic mawlid, two divans, a poetic autobiography and a prose biography in Kurmanji, as well as several poems in Arabic and Turkish. Until now, none of these works have been published and researchers of Kurmanji literature have not been aware of him. The theme of his poetry is usually national sentiments, but there are also many poems that deal with the values of Islam.

Then the Lord said, 'Let there be natural light': The naturalness preference in Tibetan Buddhists’ evaluations of light

The naturalness preference refers to the tendency of individuals to perceive natural items as inherently superior, healthier, or more desirable compared to artificial or synthetic alternatives. Previous research has provided evidence that this cognitive bias is also operative in people's appraisal of light. Here, we took advantage of a testbed in Tibetan areas to examine the hypothesis that religious work may moderate individuals' assessment of different light sources. Drawing upon the exclusive utilization of daylight in the printing practices of the Buddhists at the Dege Sutra-Printing House, we postulated that they would exhibit a stronger preference for natural light compared to their fellow Buddhists. Consistent with our hypothesis, Study 1 found that printers demonstrated a heightened inclination towards natural light compared to other Tibetan Buddhists, despite their shared commitment to the religion. In a field study (Study 2), printers exhibited a greater propensity to choose a decoration scheme featuring natural light resources when compared to other Tibetan Buddhists. Across both studies, our findings indicated that perceptions of the morality and sacredness of light explained the differences between groups. Together, these findings highlight the important role of religious work when examining phenomena related to the evaluation of natural and artificial elements.

The Literary Works of the Gentlemen of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal: Politics, Religion and Print

The Gentlemen of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal worked at the ecclesiastical heart of the English court. Their religious beliefs, when discussed by historians and musicologists, are usually characterised as ranging from crypto-Catholic conformity to the a-confessionalism of individuals keen to survive seismic religious change. This article revises orthodox images of the Gentlemen of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal as religious ‘conservatives’ drawn to royal employment by the ceremonialism of services, and instead emphasises their energetic theological interests and the strength of Protestant doctrinal opinion among their ranks. Their striking construction of public identities in printed religious works also illustrates the ways in which a group of ‘middling’ courtly churchmen and singing-men negotiated their own identities alongside and against that of their place of employment. 1 1 This article was awarded proxime accessit in the Court Historian Essay competition, 2023. The author also thanks Dr Alexandra Gajda, Dr Ellen Patterson, Professor Peter McCullough, Ms Helena Rutkowska, the attendees of the IHR Tudor-Stuart seminar and the reviewers at The Court Historian for their helpful comments and suggestions at various stages of this research. This work was funded by the AHRC and Merton College, Oxford.

Serving toward Release

Abstract Autonomy is not universally considered the basis of agency in all cultural and historical contexts, nor is it always seen as a prerequisite to “freedom” and “liberation,” standing in conceptual opposite to coercion. In Caribbean Hindu contexts, the notion of service (sevā) as a form of (religious) work is aimed at decentering and dissolving the self for ultimate release from worldly suffering. Historically, regarding post-indenture Suriname and Guyana, some social actors understood godnas—the tattoos of especially senior Hindu women who identified as descendants of Indian indentured laborers—as a means of capacitating women and female bodies toward this goal by allowing them to conduct religious work. Some women with these tattoos considered godnas as voluntary and enabling. Their interpretations diverged from contemporary discourse, which links these tattoos to a presumed compulsory Hindu tradition that subjugated wives to husbands and in-laws. These varied assessments along a continuum of coercion and voluntariness highlight a continued focus on the conceptual binary that (un-)freedom obscures other relevant aspects of the (indentured) workers’ experiences. It runs the risk of reproducing Eurocentric notions of freedom, coercion, and work/labor, shrouding the pertinence of spiritual capital and (religious) rewards in analyses of coercive practices and structural violence.

Explaining the distinction between religious and political activism in Islamism: evidence from the Tunisian case

AbstractTunisia's Islamist movement Ennahda has announced a separation of political and religious work, apparently reinforcing a “post-Islamist” argument that Islamic parties have left behind religious mobilization. However, the boundary between religious and political fields is highly porous. We ask why the distinction between religious and political activism remains a point of ambiguity within Islamism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 48 men and women who participated in the movement in the 1970s and 1980s in Tunis and Sousse, we develop a microlevel explanation of Islamist mobilization. We argue that religious and social Islamist activism is replete with political intent, which worked through three mechanisms: a counter-hegemonic ideology, an activist engagement in social transformation, and a formal organization. These findings add empirical insights to the case of Ennahda, provide leverage in explaining the politicization of Salafist movements, and underscore the legacy of asymmetric party capacities in shaping outcomes in a democratic transition.

中国特色宗教工作自主知识体系的生成与演化研究

Abstract: The practice of religious work with Chinese characteristics promotes the emergence of religious work literature, which is the context of the evolution of religious work, the contextual evolution of textual value, historical value, theoretical value and practical value given by the changes in historical situations, and constantly promotes the creation of the artistic conception of the autonomous knowledge system of the macro structure, mesolevel and meso-mode of religious work. Based on the literature on religious work, this paper reviews the arduous process of religious work with Chinese characteristics, refines the essence, summarizes the experience, deeply explains the meaning of the times in the construction of an independent knowledge system of religious work, and deepens the “living” of religious work texts, the “proof” of history, and the “meaning” of reality.

Spiritualism and spiritual surgeries

In this article we will present Spiritism as a religion and the work of “spiritual surgery” as a healing activity, forming a peculiar type of gift system. To do this, we will use bibliographical research and field analysis, showing the activities and experience of the healing medium João Berbel, resident in Franca – SP and who works in spiritual surgery practices. In this sense, we will give conceptual emphasis to the idea of ​​the leader's charisma, combined with the recognition of the gift system as an important factor in Kardecist spiritualism, forging the exchange of non-equivalent values ​​within the logic of giving, receiving and reciprocating. At the Instituto de Medicina do Além, the research site, activities such as lectures are carried out; studies on doctrine; disobsession work; training and recreational activities with children, in addition to the aforementioned spiritual surgery. The latter is based on the belief that the medium carries out, in partnership with his mentor (a spirit), religious work, as in the case of João Berbel and his mentor Dr. Ismael Alonso, who was a doctor in the city of Franca in the 20th century. In this sense, we made use of reports from the center's collaborators, collected through semi-structured interviews, as well as the use of Weber's theories on the idea of ​​charisma and Marcel Mauss's gift system.

Global coronavirus vaccination campaign: The role of religious workers in vaccine distribution, public mobilization and the eradication of nationalism.

Throughout history, the world has faced numerous health challenges and outbreaks, but through the dedication of medical professionals, solutions have been found. Despite this, the emergence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) has presented a new and dangerous threat. Nevertheless, with unwavering commitment, health experts have triumphantly discovered a remedy. The study aimed to examine how religious workers worldwide could contribute positively to ensuring the fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, addressing vaccine hesitancy, encouraging people to get vaccinated, and preventing vaccine nationalism. Our study employed a refined qualitative content analysis methodology to categorize factual information and pave the way for subsequent policymakers. We meticulously curetted the most trustworthy secondary data sources and utilized them to analyze the study. The content analysis reveals that religious workers played an active role in the global coronavirus vaccination drive by working towards better vaccine distribution, encouraging people to get vaccinated and countering hesitation and nationalism. In light of the discoveries, it would be prudent for policymakers to engage religious workers in advancing the cause of public health, regardless of whether the health matters are localized, national, or global in scale. This strategy has the potential to be both alluring and convincing.

Solving the "Religious Problem": The Great Leap Forward of "Religious Work" and Protestant Communities in Pingyang, Wenzhou in 1958

Abstract: Chinese Christians have long held that the central government sought to eliminate religion in the Wenzhou region of Zhejiang Province in 1958 and even attempted to promote the Wenzhou experience nationally. Yet, to this day, details of the plight that religious communities endured in Wenzhou during the Great Leap Forward remain obscure. This article examines the origins, development, and after-math of the local campaign to solve the "religious problem" in Wenzhou in 1958, focusing on the experience of Protestant communities in Pingyang County. I argue that the antireligious movement in Wenzhou during the Great Leap Forward was not a central initiative. Instead, what happened was that local state agents seized the opportunity offered by the Great Leap Forward to crush religious communities, especially Christian communities, with which they had long had tensions. The result was an antireligious movement that went far beyond what the central government had originally envisioned.

Hedonist and Theologist Narratives in French Baroque Poetry and Spiritual Verses by the English Metaphysicals: Poetising Author’s Experience vs Sacralising Privy Feelings

In the poetic diversity of Western European Baroque, the worldview was dominated by the search for unity in the contradictions of existence, which almost always immersed the man in a theological context. This is especially evident in the works by the seventeenth-century English Metaphysicals, whose unique style is considered from the perspective of the European continental poetic tradition. At the same time, appealing to French Baroque poetry as a specific literary phenomenon compared to Donne’s school in England is determined by the historical and creative process that produces individual strategies of poetising an author`s experience vs sacralising privy feelings. The article discusses the originality of the means of poetic expression of worldview principles in French Baroque poetry and English metaphysical school, which are expressed in close connection with the author’s paradigms of hedonistic-religious vs spiritual vision of reality. These means are actualised at the image-plot and structural levels that determine the methodology based on conceptual approaches to comparative analysis with elements of hermeneutic, imagological, stylistic, and cultural-historical methods. The article emphasises that the profound considerations about the origins of the universe in love poems with hedonistic motives bring the works of the French authors (Théophile de Viau) closer to the verses of the English ones, who discuss serious issues of human existence, religion, world order, etc. (A. Marvell) even in love poems. The religious works of the French poets (d’Aubigné, de Sponde, La Ceppède) contrast with metaphysical ideas about the transcendent world (J. Donne, G. Herbert, F. Quarles, Н. Vaughan) precisely by interpreting the Baroque themes of the transience of earthly existence, imperfection of human being, that are represented defectively from the perspective of style. Metaphysical tension and emotional release of the most secret movements of the soul raise the spiritual verses to the level of contemplative poetry.

XIX a. antrosios pusės Prūsijos Lietuvos protestantų knygos su giesmių melodijomis skaitmenimis

In Prussian Lithuania, several religious works were published in Lithuanian in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the melodies of hymns were marked not in the traditional way, but in numbers and other conventional graphic symbols. The introduction of numerical notation should be linked to Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s (1746–1827) pedagogical attitudes and changes in the educational system of the Kingdom of Prussia. These changes were driven by changing attitudes towards the education of young people from the lower social stratum. Elementary schools and teachers’ seminaries were paying more attention to the musical education of young people. The aim of this article is to identify, register, and describe the hymnbooks of Prussian Lithuanian schools and surinkimai (home-prayer service) as well as other Protestant books published in Prussian Lithuania in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the melodies of hymns are given in numbers. The article presents the reconstruction of a number of melodies and their transcription in modern musical notation. The melodies reconstructed are those to which the compilers of the books added musical explanations.

Lambert ten Kate en de fysicotheologie

This contribution discusses the work of the Dutch dilettante linguist Lambert Ten Kate (1674–1731), the first scholar to describe the system of Ablaut. It is claimed that ten Kate, who was also active as an amateur naturalist and writer-translator of religious works, took the same approach to all his research. This is a physicotheological view. Physicotheology is a school of theology that emerged at the end of the 17th century and remained popular well into the 18th century, which sought to gain knowledge about God through experimental research and which tried to prove his greatness, omnipotence and wisdom on the basis of hard facts which resulted from experimental research. Ten Kate’s important linguistic works should be seen in this context as an attempt to prove that a thorough analysis of the apparently chaotic language facts would reveal the system behind them. This system has been instilled into man by God and mankind has built it up through his reason.

RELIGIOUS VIEWS RELATED TO EDUCATION IN THE EPIC NOVEL BY M. AUEZOV “The Way of Abay”

Religious views, religious motifs and other artistic means in the works of M. Auezova has notyet been fully studied. A big problem is that there are still no fundamental studies on this topic, let aloneseveral scientific articles and monographs. This is also an indicator that we have not fully mastered the fieldof musicology. The reason for this is M. Auezov was probably under the influence of the religious censorshipof his time. However, it is impossible to notice religious attitudes and practices in the creative heritage of thewriter and scientist. An example of this is the abundance of religious and educational details in the epic novel«The Way of Abay». Despite the importance of this epic novel in Kazakh literature, the work has not been fullystudied from this point of view. The article analyzes the attitude of Abay and the society in which he livedto religious education, enlightenment in modern times, and science in M. Auezov’s epic novel «The Way ofAbay». The author considers the reason for the misunderstanding Abay by the heroes around him, who soughtto simultaneously study science, education of the East and the West and propagandized it for others. The maincharacter of the work, Abai’s religious views and understanding, his education and training, his conversion totrue Islam, his attitude towards the Muslim religion in the country, his critical attitude towards it are filteredfrom all sides. The analysis also pays attention to religious works and provides comparative analysis. Theepic-novel provides excerpts from contradictory reflections between characters related to education, and theconclusion is summarized by thoughts cited from the verses of the Quran and the hadith of the prophet.

Dostoevsky in Nagoya: The XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society

For five days, the Japanese city of Nagoya became the world’s Dostoevsky capital. The XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society (IDS) was held here on August 24–28, 2023 For the first time since the establishment of the IDS in 1971, it took place in Asia. This happened despite the pandemic and the aggravation of international problems and thanks to the great efforts of the organizers from Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, who carefully thought out the program of the event, as well as of the Symposium participants from all over the world, who represented several research generations and scientific schools and demonstrated a variety of approaches to the study of scientific biography and creative work of the classic of Russian and world literature. The XVIII Symposium was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the novel “Demons,” the most political and religious work of the great Russian writer, published in 1871–1872. Therefore, the main focus of the Symposium was “"Demons" in their time and 150 years later.” The participants of the scientific forum paid considerable attention to the topic “Dostoevsky in art (music, cinema, theater, painting).” Among other topical issues of modern Dostoevsky studies, the following were considered at the Symposium: new methods of studying the writer’s work, including those related to the development of Digital Dostoevsky, problems of poetics and textual criticism of his legacy, new biographical studies and archival materials, Dostoevsky in the works of M. M. Bakhtin and, of course, Dostoevsky’s reception in Asia and the influence of his ideas and images on Asian culture and literature. The final event of the Sympo-sium was the round table “Dostoevsky and modern Japanese writers,” at which popular prose writers Fuminori Nakamura, Risa Wataya and Keiichiro Hirano spoke. Each of them spoke about the influence of the Russian writer’s work on his texts and discussed the incredible popularity of Dostoevsky’s ideas in today’s world. This article provides an overview of the reports, cultural events and the main results of the XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society in Nagoya.

Demotic Papyrus Hamburg 39 (inv. no. 35.2806): A New Religious Text from Roman Egypt

Summary This article offers the first edition of a Demotic papyrus fragment of early Roman date and of uncertain, probably Fayumic, provenance in the collection of the Hamburg State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky. The fragment preserves parts of two columns of a hitherto unattested enigmatic religious work, for which mostly only distant and short parallels can be found in the evidence currently available to us in any of the Egyptian languages and scripts used in the Late and Graeco-Roman Periods. The only relatively close parallel that we are aware of is a slightly modified form of a sentence that occurs in the composition known as ‘The Great Decree Issued to the Nome of the Silent Land’. The vocabulary and the meagre parallels suggest that we may be catching a glimpse of a previously unknown work of Osirian religious literature. This article provides a general introduction, a transcription and translation of the text, as well as a commentary.

History, Hagiography and Religious Works: The Writings of William of Malmesbury and his Date of Birth

History, Hagiography and Religious Works: The Writings of William of Malmesbury and his Date of Birth