The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set (...) the stage for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)

By tracing the trajectory of his own personal and professional life, the author provides a perspective on how intellectual and religious or spiritual growth, while often seemingly at odds with each other, can nonetheless advance in a mutually enhancing manner. The historical conflict between literature and science is briefly outlined as a parallel to that between religion and science, and the importance of metaphor as a common element in all three fields is explored. Emphasis is placed on metaphor (...) as a means of challenging absolutism, encouraging humility, and promoting a sense of wonder about the universe. (shrink)

This book contains ten excellent essays on symbolism, its nature and function in art, society, religion, science, and psychoanalysis. Six of the essays were originally in 1958 in a special issue of "Daedalus"; of the remainder there is a selection from Whitehead's Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect, and three original contributions of value, of which Erich Kahler's essay on "The Nature of Symbolism" is outstanding.--J. A. B.

This paper critically discusses D. Z. Phillips’ use of literary works as a resource for philosophical reflection on religion. Beginning by noting Phillips’ suggestion, made in relation to Waiting for Godot , that the possibilities of meaning that we see in a literary work can reveal something of our own religious sensibility, I then proceed to show what we learn about Phillips from his readings of certain works by Larkin, Tennyson, and Wharton. Through exploring alternative possible readings, I argue (...) that, although Phillips’ discussions are of considerable philosophical interest, they undermine his claim to be deploying a purely contemplative hermeneutical method. (shrink)

This article aims to draw a theoretical framework to discuss the role of religion in utopia's appeal to transcendence in Turkish literature. This aim entails interrogating the intricate relation between utopia and religion in order to demonstrate how religious discourse functions as a transcendent organizing principle in Turkish utopian vision. The employment of religious discourse in utopia often generates problematic moments in which utopia attains a transcendent position and comes closest to its sibling term, dystopia. This article (...) seeks to identify and describe this position of transcendence in Turkish utopia by resorting to Deleuzian distinction between the two types of utopia: “utopia of transcendence,” oriented toward authoritarianism, and “utopia of immanence,” oriented toward revolution. In so doing, it will engage with three early works from the Second Constitutional Period, Ruşeni Barkın's Müslümanların Gaye-i Hayâliyesi, İsmail Gaspıralı's Darürrahat Müslümanları, and Molla Davudzade's Rüyada Terakki ve Medeniyet-i İslamiyeyi Rü‘yet. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre a relação entre religião e literatura a partir poética mística de Adélia Prado. Apresentarei brevemente alguns métodos que exploraram e ainda exploram essa aproximação. Também mostrarei a estreita relação entre mística e poesia e como ela se apresenta na obra de Adélia Prado. Essa estreita relação permite-nos nomear a obra de Adélia Prado de poética mística e é a partir dessa noção que será feita uma leitura teológica na poética da mineira de Divinópolis, (...) destacando as reflexões sobre importantes aspectos para a tradição teológica cristã e para a existência humana em geral que emergem da sua poesia. A conclusão do percurso é que a poética mística de Adélia Prado é profundamente marcada por uma caminhada rumo à iluminação mística, o que nos permite dizer que se trata de uma canção que celebra a vida em seus mais diferentes aspectos, afirmando o corpo como lugar de encontro com Deus. Palavras-chave : Adélia Prado. Religião. Literatura. Mística. Poesia.This article reflects on the relationship between religion and literature in the mystical poetry of Adelia Prado. Some methods that have explored such relationship will briefly be presented. This paper also aims to explore the close relationship between mysticism and poetry and how it is presented in the work of Adelia Prado. This close relationship helps us to make a theological study of the poetry of Adélia and also allows us to highlight some insights on important aspects of her poems for Christian Theology e for human being. In sum, the mystical poetry of Adélia Prado is deeply influenced for a path towards mystical enlightenment, which allows us to say that her work is a like a song that intends to celebrate life in its different aspects, highlighting the human body as the place where the human being finds God. Keywords: Adélia Prado. Religion. Literature. Mystical. Poetry. - DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2012v10n25p120. (shrink)

Partimos dos eixos propostos por José Carlos Barcellos no artigo “Literatura e teologia” para enquadrar a fortuna crítica que se elevou em torno de Franz Kafka quanto à relação entre sua literatura e a temática religiosa. O primeiro eixo lida com a perspectiva de que a literatura se apresente como uma teologia não teórica, nele analisamos a configuração de Kafka como um cabalista de acordo com Scholem. No segundo, sob a ótica de que a teologia está presente na literatura, observamos (...) a crítica de Anders aos investimentos apologistas que diagnosticam em Kafka uma teologia positiva. O terceiro eixo enfoca a literatura como “lugar teológico” e por ele discutimos com Brod e Moller sobre a possibilidade de visualizar a literatura de Kafka como signatária da mesma esperança que se encontra nestes analistas. Já o quarto eixo trata de uma interpretação mais focada no aspecto humano, assim como a leitura interpretativa de Heller. Por último é apresentado o método da analogia estrutural de Kuschel como uma possibilidade de respeitar as peculiaridades de cada uma das áreas envolvidas. Por meio deste levantamento procuramos defender a manutenção da tensão entre literatura e religião como a melhor forma de respeitar tanto uma quanto a outra. Palavras-chave: Literatura. Religião. Teologia. Franz Kafka. José Carlos Barcellos.We assumed the positions proposed by José Carlos Barcellos in the article “Literature and theology” to frame the criticism which revolves Franz Kafka and the relation between his literature and religion. The first position deals with the perspective which considers literature as a non-theoretical theology. Based on that, we analyze the configuration of Kafka as a cabalist, according to Shcolem. In the second position, under the point of view that theology is present in literature, we observed Ander’s criticism of the apologist investments which diagnosed a positive theology in Kafka. The third aspect focuses on literature as a “theological place”, and based on it we discuss with Brod and Moller about the possibility of seeing Kafka’s literature as holder of the same hope found on those analysts. The fourth point approaches an interpretation focused on the human aspect, as Heller’s interpretative reading. Finally, it is presented Kuschel’s method of structural analogy as a possibility of respecting the peculiarities of each area involved. Through this survey we tried to defend the maintenance of the tension between literature and religion as the best way to respect both of them. Keywords : Literature. Religion. Theology. Franz Kafka. José Carlos Barcellos. - DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2012v10n25p157. (shrink)

The personality of Metropolitan Bartolomeu Valeriu Anania has been extremely complex, first of all due to the various domains of his work - literature, essays, art history, theology and biblical theology -, and secondly due to his relation to politics, especially his connections with the Legionary Movement and with Communism. Despite having been incarcerated as a political prisoner in some of Bolshevik Romania's famous prisons (Jilava, Pitești, Aiud), Bartolomeu Valeriu Anania is still accused of having collaborated with the political (...) police of Ceaușescu's regime, Securitatea . The present text analyses the writer's work in order to explain the relationship between religion, literature, and politics, stressing both their connections, as well as his journey from being a writer to being the theologian commenting on and revising the translation of the Holy Scripture. The analysis is therefore oriented towards Valeriu Anania's literary works, namely his poetry, prose, and theatre, so as to underline its religious background, be it either theological or alluding to Romanian popular religiosity; furthermore, it focuses on his theology, from icon to biblical theology, stressing the associations with literature and the importance of literary workmanship. Finally, based on the cultural analyses which unveil his deep affection for the Romanian spirituality and considering several politically controversial episodes of his biography, the text will attempt to argue in favour of the lack of sufficient and reliable evidence that could prove his collaboration with the political police of Communist Romania. (shrink)

This masterful work on Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason explores Kant's treatment of the Idea of God, his views concerning evil, and the moral grounds for faith in God. Kant and Religion works to deepen our understanding of religion's place and meaning within the history of human culture, touching on Kant's philosophical stance regarding theoretical, moral, political, and religious matters. Wood's breadth of knowledge of Kant's corpus, philosophical sharpness, and depth of reflection sheds light (...) not only on Kant, but also on the fate of religion and its relation to philosophy in the modern world. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 5, Page 1029-1030, September 2022.

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III.

This book focuses on how we perceive, know and interpret culture across disciplinary boundaries. The study ranges from the Bible and classical works to those by and about men and women in Europe, the Americas and beyond of Native, African, European and different backgrounds.

The only complete study of Buber as a political thinker. Shed new light upon Buber's I Thou, while also attempting to understand Buber's Zionist thought and activity in a new and fresh manner.

This state of the art collection offers fresh perspectives on why intersections between literature, religion, and ethics can address the fault lines of modernity and are not necessarily the cause of modernity's 'faults.' From a diverse cohort of scholars from around the world, with appointments in comparative literature and other disciplines, the essays suggest that the imagined hegemony of a Judeo-Christian Western project is neither exclusively true nor productive. However, the essays also suggest that elements of the (...) Western religious traditions are important vectors for understanding modernity's complicated relationship to the past. (shrink)

_Religion and the Rise of Modern Culture_ describes and analyzes changing attitudes toward religion during three stages of modern European culture: the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Romantic period. Louis Dupré is an expert guide to the complex historical and intellectual relation between religion and modern culture. Dupré begins by tracing the weakening of the Christian synthesis. At the end of the Middle Ages intellectual attitudes toward religion began to change. Theology, once the dominant science that had (...) integrated all others, lost its commanding position. After the French Revolution, religion once again played a role in intellectual life, but not as the dominant force. Religion became transformed by intellectual and moral principles conceived independently of faith. Dupré explores this new situation in three areas: the literature of Romanticism ; idealist philosophy ; and theology itself. Dupré argues that contemporary religion has not yet met the challenge presented by Romantic thought. “This beautifully crafted essay by Louis Dupré makes an original contribution to our understanding of the emergence and development of modernity, which dispensing with religion as a governing discourse and form of life, nonetheless attempts to find a place for it in a world sufficiently depleted of meaning and value as to require reenchantment. It supplements Dupré’s two magisterial texts on the topic of the modernity covering the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, and whets the appetite for the forthcoming volume on Romanticism. Deep learning is worn lightly in this marvelously readable book.” —_Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame_ “A stunning synthesis of Dupré's magisterial intellectual history of modernity and his distinctive and important philosophy of religion.” —_David Tracy, emeritus, The University of Chicago Divinity School_ “Louis Dupre's literate and sweeping review of the fate of religious faith in modern culture will help contemporary readers, who share his closing yearning for ways in which ‘transcendence can be recognized again,’ to appreciate why many of us find a postmodern climate—for better or worse—more conducive to fulfilling that desire. For his dramatic depictions of modernity teach us how different is the culture in which we now live.” —_David Burrell, CSC, Hesburgh Professor Emeritus in Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame_. (shrink)

Staying for an answer : the untidy process of groping for truth -- The same, only different -- The unity of truth and the plurality of truths -- Coherence, consistency, cogency, congruity, cohesiveness, &c. : remain calm! don't go overboard! -- Not cynicism, but synechism : lessons from classical pragmatism -- Science, economics, "vision" -- The integrity of science : what it means, why it matters -- Scientific secrecy and "spin" : the sad, sleazy story of the trials of remune (...) -- Truth and justice, inquiry and advocacy, science and law -- Trial and error : the Supreme Court's philosophy of science -- An epistemologist among the epidemiologists -- Fallibilism and faith, naturalism and the supernatural, science and religion -- The ideal of intellectual integrity, in life and literature -- After my own heart : Dorothy Sayers's feminism -- Worthwhile lives -- Why I am not an oxymoron -- Formal philosophy? : a plea for pluralism. (shrink)

This essay explains the rationale behind a series of reviews on interactions between knowledge and values, science and religion, in different countries or regions around the world. The series will run in Zygon for the whole of 2015 and beyond. In the literature, it may seem that discussions in the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom are typical of the issues, but they need not be. David Livingstone showed that the reception of evolution differed, (...) even among Calvinists in different countries. Thus, rather than an export model, we should take time to learn from scholars rooted in different contexts how in their situation issues on knowledge and values arise and are dealt with. In this interplay of global processes and local contexts, indicated with the term glocalization, we should be alert to the migration of concepts and the transformations that ideas undergo. (shrink)

Landscape, Religion, and the Supernatural presents a summa of current and classic theorizing on religion and the supernatural in relationship to the land and develops this theorizing further by confronting it with a rich set of folkloristic and historical data. Focusing on the themes of "time and memory", "repeating patterns", "identity formation", "morality", "labor", "playfulness and adventure", "power and subversion", "sound", "emotions", "coping with contingency", "home and unhomeliness", as well as "nature and environment", the book engages with a (...) broad range of theoretical concepts and approaches from the interdisciplinary field of landscape theory and the study of religions. It brings this theorizing into dialogue with the rich culture of local storytelling and landscape-related traditional beliefs of the Strandir district of the Icelandic Westfjords. In this rural region, landscape-related traditions have been collected since the early nineteenth century and continue to be important to this day. Confronting this rich heritage with the insights of landscape theory both in and beyond the study of religions allows important new contributions to theorizing landscape and religion, especially when it comes to considering the perspectives on landscape held by rural populations rather than the urban upper classes that have stood in the focus of research to date. The example of the Icelandic Westfjords shows the extreme richness of religious and supernatural approaches to the landscape that can be developed in rural communities, and how they are significantly and characteristically different from the urban perspectives of literature and the arts. (shrink)

What is philosophy and literature? It is (or at least ought to be) a truth universally acknowledged that this is a question to which there are no easy answers. Does philosophy and literature constitute a subdiscipline of philosophy, as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of science, and even philosophy of religion do? Alternatively: ought it constitute a subdiscipline of philosophy if it does not already do so? What is the nature of the relationship between philosophy and (...) class='Hi'>literature and literary and philosophical studies? Where might its limits be located? These are some of the important questions that intellectuals who have worked in this field from its inception have sought to address. The answers yielded thus far by their combined efforts, however, have been unsatisfying. The purpose of this essay therefore is to attempt to shed further light on the nature of the field of philosophy and literature and its limits, with the accompanying hope that, as philosophy and literature gains in coherence, rigor, and organization, its credibility as a field will be raised in some modest measure among my philosophical colleagues. (shrink)

Patients belonging to ethnic, racial, and religious minorities have been all but excluded from the legal academy's on-going conversation about informed consent. This article repairs that egregious omission. It begins by observing the narrowing of ethical justifications that underlie our informed consent law, tracing the ethical literature from the ancients to modern formulations of autonomy-centered models. Next, this article reviews the vast body of empirical data available in social science literature, that demonstrates how distinct from the autonomy model (...) the broad range of values and priorities held by patients from racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups is. The conclusion that informed consent's focus on the western notion of autonomy affirmatively harms minority patients is inescapable. The article concludes by offering a fiduciary model of informed consent law that could improve the quality of health care for more than 100 million minority patients, potentially at risk under current law while also regulating the informed consent procedure and practice in a way that will bring balance and justice to all American patients and providers. (shrink)

Psychologists' emerging interest in spirituality and religion as well as the relevance of each phenomenon to issues of psychological importance requires an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of each construct. On the basis of both historical considerations and a limited but growing empirical literature, we caution against viewing spirituality and religiousness as incompatible and suggest that the common tendency to polarize the terms simply as individual vs. institutional or ′good′ vs. ′bad′ is not fruitful for future research. Also (...) cautioning against the use of restrictive, narrow definitions or overly broad definitions that can rob either construct of its distinctive characteristics, we propose a set of criteria that recognizes the constructs' conceptual similarities and dissimilarities. Rather than trying to force new and likely unsuccessful definitions, we offer these criteria as benchmarks for judging the value of existing definitions. (shrink)

Drawing on findings from the study of prejudice and prejudice reduction, we identify a number of mechanisms through which religious communities may influence the intergroup attitudes of their members. We hypothesize that religious participation could in principle either reduce or promote prejudice with respect to any given target group. A religious community’s influence on intergroup attitudes will depend upon the specific beliefs, attitudes, and practices found within the community, as well as on interactions between the religious community and the larger (...) social environment in which it is embedded. Basing our proposals on findings from the literature on prejudice formation and prejudice reduction allows us to outline useful directions for future studies of religion and prejudice. (shrink)

The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including humans are the end product of a long, slow, natural process of evolution rather than the miraculous creation of an all-powerful God--is one of the truly momentous cultural events in Western Civilization. Darwinism as Religion is an innovative and exciting approach to this revolution through creative writing, showing how the theory of evolution as expressed by Darwin has, from (...) the first, functioned as a secular religion. Drawing on a deep understanding of both the science and the history, Michael Ruse surveys the naturalistic thinking about the origins of organisms, including the origins of humankind, as portrayed in novels and in poetry, taking the story from its beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century right up to the present. He shows that, contrary to the opinion of many historians of the era, there was indeed a revolution in thought and that the English naturalist Charles Darwin was at the heart of it. However, contrary also to what many think, this revolution was not primarily scientific as such, but more religious or metaphysical, as people were taken from the secure world of the Christian faith into a darker, more hostile world of evolutionism. In a fashion unusual for the history of ideas, Ruse turns to the novelists and poets of the period for inspiration and information. His book covers a wide range of creative writers - from novelists like Voltaire and poets like Erasmus Darwin in the eighteenth century, through the nineteenth century with novelists including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and H. G. Wells and poets including Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and on to the twentieth century with novelists including Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, William Golding, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan and Marilynne Robinson, and poets including Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay and Philip Appleman. Covering such topics as God, origins, humans, race and class, morality, sexuality, and sin and redemption, and written in an engaging manner and spiced with wry humor, Darwinism as Religion gives us an entirely fresh, engaging and provocative view of one of the cultural highpoints of Western thought. (shrink)

Kierkegaard is often viewed in the history of ideas solely within the academic traditions of philosophy and theology. The secondary literature generally ignores the fact that he also took an active role in the public debate about the significance of the modern age that was taking shape in the flourishing feuilleton literature during the period of his authorship. Through a series of sharply focussed studies, George Pattison contextualises Kierkegaard's religious thought in relation to the debates about religion, (...) culture and society carried on in the newspapers and journals read by the whole educated stratum of Danish society. Pattison brings Kierkegaard into relation to not only high art and literature but also to the ephemera of his contemporary culture. This has important implications for our understanding of Kierkegaard's view of the nature of religious communication in modern society. (shrink)

Despite numerous chief executive officers (CEOs) citing their religious convictions as the primary guiding framework for their decision-making, leadership behavior, business philosophy, and motivation to contribute to society, the impact of CEOs’ religious convictions is relatively limited in the business literature. However, the widespread yet potentially ambiguous impact of CEO religiosity, encompassing both a CEO’s religious denomination and level of religiosity, on individual, organizational, economical, and societal levels remains a neglected area of research. This gap is attributed to challenges (...) in conceptualizing and measuring this multifaceted construct, with existing research scattered and predominantly confined to the ethics domain. Notably, this oversight is significant given the pivotal role that CEOs, as primary decision-makers, play in organizational dynamics. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a systematic literature review of 50 articles focused on CEO religiosity, seeking to enhance the understanding of personal religion in the business world. Through an analysis of publication trends, methodological approaches, theoretical frameworks, and empirical findings, the review not only offers insights for future research and theorizing but also proposes a conceptual framework for understanding and advancing CEO religiosity research. Additionally, this review identifies specific areas warranting further investigation, thereby highlighting existing research gaps and providing explicit starting points for future research. Through these contributions, this article provides a blueprint for future research on CEO religiosity and holds significant implications for management practice. (shrink)

In the years shortly before and after the publication of his classic _Truth and Method_ (1960), the eminent German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer returned often to questions surrounding religion and ethics. In this selection of writings from _Gesammelte Werke_ that are here translated into English for the first time, Gadamer probes deeply into the hermeneutic significance of these subjects. Gadamer raises issues of importance to ethicists and theologians as well as students of language and literature. In such outstanding essays (...) as "Kant and the Question of God," "Thinking as Redemption: Plotinus between Plato and Augustine," and "Friendship and Self-Knowledge: Reflections on the Role of Friendship in Greek Ethics," Gadamer discusses the nature of moral behavior, ethics as a form of knowing, and the hermeneutic task of mediating ethos and philosophical ethics with one another. (shrink)

Some Victorian evolutionary thinkers, such as James Frazer, theorised that humanity’s mental stages are characterised by magic, followed by religion, culminating in science. Put another way, the notion of humanity’s encounter with the sacred in society will eventually retreat, giving way to secular conditions, and that science and rationality would triumph as a more persuasive means of satisfying human needs. In this first foray in explorations on spirituality and religion, this article asks what the fundamental differences between (...) class='Hi'>religion and spirituality are, and will examine the aspects of spirituality that are freely accessible and freely chosen and that are uneasy with religion, by looking at some of the constructed borders that result in religion becoming narrow, rigid, prescriptive and less attractive. The article then examines how the phenomenon of spirituality is creating new paradigms of consciousness. It draws on the literature on religion, spirituality, sociology and anthropology, and concludes that religion will not go away despite the efforts of secularisation. (shrink)

Discussions of the sources for Levinas’s philosophy have tended to focus on Greece and the Bible to the neglect of his Russo-Lithuanian cultural heritage. Almost no work has been done examining the impact of Russian literature on Levinas’s thinking. The present essay seeks to overcome this neglect by examining the influence that Dostoyevsky in particular exerted on the development of Levinas’s philosophy. I am aware that the notion of “influence” is philosophically vague, and not something whose truth can easily (...) be ascertained. Might there be nothing more than simply a confluence between the thinking of Dostoyevsky and that of Levinas? Could it be that Levinas was attracted to the work of Dostoyevsky because he found there what he was already looking for? Although Levinas credits Dostoyevsky with introducing him to philosophy, it would be facile to draw the conclusion that St. Petersburg occupies as important a place in Levinas’s intellectual itinerary as Athens or Jerusalem. Dostoyevsky provided neither an ontology nor any of the “pre-philosophical experiences” (EI 24) on which, according to Levinas, all philosophical thought rests. But he did give Levinas a way to think about art, religion, and, most importantly of all, ethics after the Holocaust, an event that more than any other, according to Levinas, demonstrated the absolute failure of philosophical theodicy. It was Dostoyevsky, I submit, rather than the Bible, the Greeks, or Kant who taught Levinas that the moral imperative, addressed to the singular existing individual, supersedes the religious imperative, whose validity is placed in question by the suffering of innocents and the absence of the all-powerful and providential God of theism. (shrink)

This book examines the reception of the works of the baron d'Holbach throughout francophone Europe. It insists that d'Holbach's historical importance has been understated, argues the case for the existence of a significant 'Christian Enlightenment', and much more.