If Zarathustra were to descend once again from the mountain, what would he make of the recent religious revival? Would he admit that he had been wrong, that “Deus absconditus” has now reappeared? Does this revival mean that the Enlightenment theory of religion was wrong? In view of the significance of religion, it is necessary to reassess that Enlightenment theory of religion and to inquire into the possible role jf religion in a reconstructed project of modernity. Yet, (...) to overestimate the importance of religion in the modern world can result in two extreme and equally unsatisfactory consequences. An unreconstructed secularism, assuming that the criticism of religion is not yet complete, would postulate again the criticism of religion as the premise and the primary task of critique. (shrink)

The First Islamic Reviver: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and His Revival of the Religious Sciences. By Kenneth Garden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 238. $65, £41.99. Al-Ghazālī’s Moderation in Belief: Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-iʿtiqād. Translated by Aladdin M. Yaqub. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013. Pp. xxvii + 311. $50, £35.

Al-Ghazālī on Condemnation of Pride and Self-Admiration : Book XXIX of the Revival of the Religious Sciences. Translated by Mohammed Rustom. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 2018. Pp. xxxvi + 190. £17.99.

The central thesis defended here is that modernity can best be understood as a struggle between two main traditions of thought: the Radical or “True” Enlightenment celebrating the world and life as creative and promoting the freedom of people to control their own destinies, and the Moderate or “Fake” Enlightenment which developed to oppose the democratic republicanism and nature enthusiasm of the Radical Enlightenment. While the Radical Enlightenment has promoted democracy, the central concern of the Moderate Enlightenment has been to (...) promote “possessive individualism” and the control of nature and people by discovering their laws of behaviour. While it has on occasion promoted religious tolerance and freedom of expression, the greater concern of the Moderate Enlightenment has always been defence of property rights and the power of those with property. It is argued here that process philosophy is the highest development of the philosophy of the Radical Enlightenment and needs to be appreciated as such if the Radical Enlightenment is to be revived and process philosophy advanced. (shrink)

Abstract. A possible consequence of the dialogue between science and religion is a revived religious humanism—a firmer grasp of the historical and phenomenological meanings of the great world religions correlated with the more accurate explanations of the rhythms of nature that natural science can provide. The first great expressions of religious humanism in the West emerged when Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars sat in the same libraries in Spain and Sicily, studying and translating the lost manuscripts of Aristotle (...) in the ninth and tenth centuries to understand his ethics, epistemology, and psychobiology. In our day, the science-religion dialogue—exemplified by interaction among psychology, spirituality, and psychotherapy—will best support such a revival if guided by the philosophical resources of critical hermeneutics (sometimes called hermeneutical realism) supplemented by William James's brand of phenomenology and pragmatism. Here, I develop primarily the contributions of Paul Ricoeur to hermeneutic realism and his unique ability to find a place for the natural sciences within hermeneutic phenomenology in his formula of understanding-explanation-understanding. (shrink)

The current research paper seeks to investigate how Evangelicals and Pietist, the most fervent of Protestants sought to ‘educate’ the masses outside the educational framework of ecclesiastical and state structures within the Hungarian Kingdom. More specifically the study intends to offer a concise overview of the history of Protestants who spread the gospel through the distribution of affordable Bibles, New Testaments and Christian tracts. It shows how various denominations worked together as well as directs attention to their theological outlook which (...) transcended ethnic boundaries. It is a well-known fact in mission and church history that such undertakings were carried out to stir revivalism. The study also throws light on how influential role the Scottish Mission as well as Archduchess Maria Dorothea played in stirring revivalism through the aforementioned means. The history of these kinds of endeavours, especially that of the most significant ones like the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society and Religious Tract Society has not been treated adequately by historians of religion and education, intellectual historians and social historians. This research output is a contribution to give an account of the multi-ethnic and transdenominational work of Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Slovaks and Romanians working for a common goal. (shrink)

Drawing on personal experience, the author discusses the vicissitudes of Jewish identity formation in the last two decades of Communist Poland and the first two decades which followed. He addresses the role of religion in the Jewish revival which occurred in that period, and sets it against other models of Jewish identity – Zionist, Yiddishist and assimilationist - on one hand, and the twin pressures of anti- and philosemitism in Polish society at large. This discussion is placed within the (...) broader framework of the Polish political transformation. He finally suggests that the survival and revival of the Jewish community in Poland offers a more general lesson for the continuation of Jewish peoplehood. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 1 Seiten: 264-268.

This article critically reflected on the insights of David Tacey in which he notes that there is currently a revival in post-secular spirituality in the West, but that its deep religious roots are lacking. What would be the implication of these trends for the South African religious landscape where traditional mainstream churches such as the Dutch Reformed Church are shrinking significantly? People often say yes to God, but no to the church. Some in the church may totally (...) renounce God. What lessons could be learned by the South African mainstream churches and theology if these trends in the West were taken into account? In this article a critical literature review was done and the study was structured as follows: In the first place, the implication of superdiversity, supermobility and the reality of a post-COVID-19 consciousness was discussed. Next we engaged in research by scholars in which it was shown that our time, at least in the West, is characterised by existential anxiety and uncertainty. Thirdly, we engaged in the insights of David Tacey in which he also argued the fact that the uncertainty of the time in which we live, often causes people to return to spirituality. Finally, the implication of these trends for the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa was reflected on. CONTRIBUTION: This research makes a contribution to the nature and scope of the journal, in that it finds that the rise in secular spirituality, in the context of anxiety and uncertainty in a post-COVID-19 world, provides an opportunity for the Dutch Reformed Church to find meaning and significance. (shrink)

_Global Religious and Secular Dynamics_ integrates European theories of modern secularization and theories of global religious revival as interrelated dynamics. Casanova contrasts the internal European road of secularization with the external colonial road of global interreligious encounters and the globalization of the secular immanent frame with the expansion of global religious denominationalism.

Ecology - unlike astronomy, physics, or chemistry - is a science with an associated political and ethical movement: the Green Movement. As a result, the ecological position is often accompanied by appeals to holism, and by a mystical quasi-religious conception of the ecosystem. In this title, first published in 1988, Andrew Brennan argues that we can reduce much of the mysticism surrounding ecological discussions by placing them within a larger context, and illustrating that our individual interests are bound with (...) larger, community interests. Using an interdisciplinary approach, which bridges the gap between the sciences, philosophy, and ethics, this is an accessible title, which will be of particular value to students with an interest in the philosophy of environmental science and ethics. (shrink)

As an eminent practical theologian, Don S. Browning watched religious belief and practice interact with the larger culture for a long time, especially in regard to issues of personal and family well-being. As Alexander Campbell Professor Emeritus of Ethics and the Social Sciences at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, he also lived in the midst of currents and controversies in academic philosophy, theology, and other disciplines. As a result, his work is distinguished by its alertness to (...) a variety of endeavors including medicine and the sciences.From the vantage point of his years of work and thought, Browning perceived that certain critical interactions, social and intellectual, are currently .. (shrink)

Some of the post-socialist countries of Europe experienced after the fall of communism what some called a religious revival. Anthropologists and sociologists alike were sure that they discovered serious evidence against the case of secularization theory. What unfortunately most of them failed to observe was the particular shape and form of this religious growth and the structural changes of the religious mentalities occurred in the process of transition from a closed, ideologically monopolized society, to a pluralistic (...) one. After more than half of a century of atheistic ideologization of the public sphere, Romania remains one of the most religious countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. The thesis of this article is that this fact is due to the lack of modernization of the Romanian social system both before and during the post-socialist period. (shrink)

The comparative study of Romanian and Hungarian Neopagan organizations with an ethnocentric or "Ethno-pagan" ideology is an exploratory research aimed at mapping the similarities and the differences between these religious minorities, with a highlight on their level of institutionalization, their core values and degree of political mobilization. Zalmoxian groups and organizations promote the revival of Romanian spirituality through a process of reconnection to its ancient, supposedly Dacian and Thracian roots; by the same token, Hungarian Shamanist movements are aimed (...) at recovering a supposedly lost spirituality, built-in into the deepest layers of Hungarian language and cultural practices. A web rhetoric analysis of these organizations is carried out in order to assess audience involvement, communication style and the use of multimedia tools to convey their messages. (shrink)

In a modern society arguably disenchanted with religion, numerous Western women are transfixing their reality by making God in their own image. This compelling phenomenon is known as ‘the Goddess Movement’: a non-centralised religious current of neo-pagan origin that reveres the Divine as feminine. The revival of Goddess worship in a vastly secular age which appears not to favour religious devotion is a peculiar occurrence and leads to the following question: Why are women returning to a previously (...) defunct spiritual practice? Building on the research scholars Paul Reid-Bowen and Janet L. Jacobs conducted on Western Goddess worship, as well as drawing on testimonies of Goddess followers, this article aims to elucidate the appeal the Goddess Movement holds for women. It argues that it represents a notable turn in female spirituality which demonstrates that images of feminine divinity offer women the opportunity to find meaningfulness, empowerment, and sexual or psychological healing. (shrink)

The question of the secularity of society still remains open, since scientists have proposed only cautious speculative answers, while every scientist understands that in the social sciences it is a sad experience of predictions, that history is random and therefore unpredictable and the future always remains fundamentally open. The process of transformation of postmodern society, the development of which is actively influenced by the current pandemy of COVID-19, entailed the revival of religious values ​​and the formation of a (...) qualitatively new religious consciousness. In connection with the rise in the social status of religious consciousness and the widespread dissemination of religious ideas, primarily at the everyday level, the analysis of individual religious consciousness as one of the ways to comprehend the world is of particular importance. The social nature of religious consciousness is manifested not only in the fact that religious values ​​are perceived as a kind of khanism of social regulation, but also in the fact that they serve as epistemological guidelines and often compete with scientific values. This determines the growing philosophical interest in the analysis of the epistemological functions of religion and secular reality, as well as the cognitive capabilities of religious consciousness, which is impossible without a consistent study of the methodological basis of religious knowledge. (shrink)

To renowned Buddhologist Heinz Bechert, Buddhist modernism was a manifestation of religious revivalism applied to the context of post-colonial society, bearing the following features which are relevant for the current discussion, amongst others: (1) an emphasis on Buddhism as a philosophy, rather than a creed or a religion; (2) an emphasis on ‘activism’ and setting great store by social work; (3) the claim by modernists that Buddhism has always included a social component described as a philosophy of equality…and that (...) a Buddhist society must be democratic; (4) the emergence of Buddhist nationalism; (5) a strong tendency towards the reassertion of women’s rights in contemporary Buddhism and attempts and actions taken to restore the order of nuns; (6) the emergence of a new type of Buddhist syncretism, viz., the combination of various Buddhist traditions (comp. 213-214, Bechert’s Obituary, 2011). (shrink)

The emergence of cognitive science over the past thirty years has stimulated new approaches to traditional problems and materials in well-established disciplines. Those approaches have generated new insights and reinvigorated aspirations for theories in the sciences of the socio-cultural (about the structures and uses of symbols and the cognitive processes underlying them) that are both more systematic and more accountable empirically than the recently available alternatives. Without rejecting interpretive proposals, projects in both the cognitive science of religion and in cognitive (...) archaeology seek to redress imbalances within those disciplines favoring the interpretive over the explanatory. (See Lawson and McCauley, 1990 and Renfrew, 1994a, respectively.) Both projects aim to reinvigorate scientific aspirations without reviving any sort of scientistic or explanatory exclusivism. Both have arisen, in part, in response to the science-bashing crusades that have enjoyed such prominence in both disciplines over the past twenty years. With the exception, perhaps, of linguistics, the influence of cognitive science has been as notable in archaeology and religious studies as it has been in any discipline in contemporary intellectual life. In both disciplines new sub-fields have begun to thrive, which take theoretical inspiration from cognitive science and, at least sometimes, deploy its findings and, in the case of the cognitive science of religion, even its methods in the course of testing their theories. This paper contains three sections. The first provides a framework for thinking about the constituents of culture as a means both for situating ritual and for considering its accessibility to cognitive and archaeological analysis. The second section outlines our theory of religious ritual competence and the ritual form hypothesis. The final section reviews the theory=s predictions about an assortment of properties of both individual religious rituals and religious ritual systems. It includes occasional speculations about some of the theory=s possible implications for some archaeological matters. A word of caution before we begin .. (shrink)

The author emphasizes the leading role of Kant's philosophy and neo-Kantianism in spreading the theory of natural law on Ukrainian territory. The article emphasizes that the idea of natural law was considered in the circles of the Ukrainian intelligentsia as a component of the general system of idealistic views. The intelligentsia was critical of positive law and called for the correction of its defects with the help of moral goals. The author compares rationalist and religious-ethical approaches to issues of (...) ethical origin and natural human rights. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the progressive growth and activity of various denominations, the controversial and turbulent processes of organizational development of religious and church life have become the object of close attention of sociologists and religious scholars. Statistical and sociological data have convincingly shown that the quantitative composition of religious communities and the number of existing denominations has increased ten times, that the religiosity of the Ukrainian population has become a mass phenomenon, and in the (...) public consciousness and public opinion there have been significant shifts in the credibility of the Church's religious values. As a result, an increasing number of scholars have firmly argued for the era of “religious revival” in Ukraine. (shrink)

It is part of a global trend today that new relationships are being forged between religion and society, between spirituality and materiality, giving rise to announcements that we live in a ‘postsecular’ or ‘desecularized’ world. Taking up two educational movements, the mindfulness movement in the West and the revival of Confucian education in China, this paper examines what and how postsecular orientations and sensibilities penetrate educational discourses and practices in different cultural contexts. We compare the two movements to reveal (...) a new quality of hybrid modernization in that they react, in different ways, to certain pathologies that are identified as consequences of secular modernity. Burnout syndrome, the sense of a spiritual void, but also the loss of a spiritual and cultural identity are being perceived as correlating to a one-sided push towards a modernity that emphasizes secular rationalization over mindfulness and Westernization over cultural particularity. The two case studies mark a critical insight on the present condition and limits of secularism and highlights the ongoing negotiations of values and modes of self-cultivation in schools. In an increasingly pluralistic world, the entanglement of the secular, spiritual, religious and wisdom traditions provides the opportunity to rethink education as a creative realm and an impossible possibility to re-engage the minds and lives of those in the hybrid pedagogical time. (shrink)