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World Religions (world + religions)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

CHRISTIANITY AND WORLD RELIGIONS: DISPUTED QUESTIONS IN THE THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS by Gavin D'Costa

NEW BLACKFRIARS, Issue 1032 2010
STEPHEN BULLIVANT
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

"Demographic Futures for Christianity and the World Religions"

DIALOG, Issue 1 2004
By Todd M. Johnson
Abstract:, Since before 1970 Christian researchers have been tracking the massive demographic shift of Christianity to the Southern Hemisphere and noting the increasingly religious nature of populations around the world. At the same time, writers on the future of religion have been drawn to extreme portrayals of decline or revival of religion. However, the world's religious situation is replete with detailed information, drawn from enormous data collections on religious affiliation and questions about religion in government censuses. Quantitative tools, utilizing this information in the context of demography provide a more nuanced view of humankind's religious future. Demographic trends coupled with conservative estimates of conversions and defections envision over 80% of the world's population will continue to be affiliated with religions 200 years into the future. This religious future will have a profound influence on Christian theology, relations between religions, and the interaction between religion and politics. [source]

World Religions for Healthcare Professionals , Edited by Siroj Sorajjakool, Mark Carr, and Julius Nam

RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2010
Nathan Carlin
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions , Edited by Mu-chou Poo

RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2010
Dennis P. Quinn
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

Spirituality in the Land of the Noble: How Iran Shaped the World's Religions

THE MUSLIM WORLD, Issue 3 2004
Dale Bishop
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

PARADIGMS BEHIND (AND BEFORE) THE MODERN CONCEPT OF RELIGION

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2006
CATHERINE BELL
ABSTRACT This essay identifies five paradigms that are basic to understanding the historical emergence and uses of the generic idea of "religion" in the Christian cultures of Europe and America. The spread of this concept has been sufficiently thorough in recent centuries as to make religion appear to be a "social fact," to use Durkheim's phrase, rather than so many cultural expressions and different social practices. The supremacy of Euro-American culture,and an academy still saturated with Christian ideas,has enjoined other cultures and forms of religiosity to conform to this idea of religion; for these cultures contentment with the status quo can vie with the anxieties of influence, including "modernization." The key paradigms discussed are the following: Christianity as the prototype; religion as the opposite of reason; the modern formulation of "world religions"; the cultural necessity of religion; and critical analysis of the Western "construction" of religion. These paradigms demonstrate the limits on theoretical variety in the field, the difficulty in making real changes in set ways of thinking, and productive foci for interdisciplinary methods of study. [source]

Global Religious Transformations, Political Vision and Christian Witness,

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION, Issue 375 2005
Vinoth Ramachandra
From the nineteenth-century onwards religion has been, and continues to be, an important resource for nationalist, modernizing movements. What was true of Protestant Christianity in the world of Victorian Britain also holds for the nationalist transformations of Hindu Neo-Vedanta, Theravada Buddhism, Shintoism and Shi'ite Islam in the non-Western world. Globalizing practises both corrode inherited cultural and personal identities and, at the same time, stimulate the revitalisation of particular identities as a way of gaining more influence in the new global order. However, it would be a gross distortion to identify the global transformations of Islam, and indeed of other world religions, with their more violent and fanatical forms. The globalization of local conflicts serves powerful propaganda purposes on all sides. If global Christian witness in the political arena is to carry integrity, this essay argues for the following responses, wherever we may happen to live: (a) Learning the history behind the stories of ,religious violence' reported in the secular media; (b) Identifying and building relationships with the more self-critical voices within the other religious traditions and communities, so avoiding simplistic generalizations and stereotyping of others; (c) Actively engaging in the political quest for truly participatory democracies that honour cultural and religious differences. In a hegemonic secular culture, as in the liberal democracies of the West, authentic cross-cultural engagement is circumvented. There is a militant secularist ,orthodoxy' that is as destructive of authentic pluralism as its fundamentalist religious counterpart. The credibility of the global Church will depend on whether Christians can resist the totalising identities imposed on them by their nation-states and/or their ethnic communities, and grasp that their primary allegiance is to Jesus Christ and his universal reign. [source]

A Critique of Occidental Geist: Embedded Historical Culturalism in the Works of Hegel, Weber and Huntington

JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2006
FETHI AÇIKEL
Hegel's contribution to the philosophy of history is most clearly seen where he introduces a theory of historical development based on the secularisation of Christian cosmology. With Hegel, the Spirit (Geist), previously theologically understood, gradually becomes the embodiment of historical development. In the Hegelian vocabulary, the phenomenology of religion is formulated along with the theory of historical progress. In this article, I will argue that the question of historical development has been continuously elaborated in a culturalist fashion in works of Friedrich Hegel, Max Weber and Samuel Huntington as those scholars, through different intellectual traditions, essentialises the spiritual backgrounds of world religions and ties the phenomenology of religion with the philosophy of history in their historical analyses. This paper will argue that these scholars, by relying on the idealised images of religions and particularly of the Occidental Spirit, subtly elaborate the historical culturalist notion of development within Western thought. By arguing for an inherent link between religion and development, these scholars implicitly institutionalize a Eurocentric understanding of Western Christianity and the Occidental path of development within mainstream social theory. Be they philosophical (Hegel), sociological (Weber) or political (Huntington), the historical culturalism of these approaches shape our understanding of historical change, and ironically, instead of countering the excesses of crude materialism, they lead social theory into a form of Eurocentic historical culturalism. [source]

ETHICAL DEBATE OVER ORGAN DONATION IN THE CONTEXT OF BRAIN DEATH

BIOETHICS, Issue 2 2010
MARY JIANG BRESNAHAN
ABSTRACT This study investigated what information about brain death was available from Google searches for five major religions. A substantial body of supporting research examining online behaviors shows that information seekers use Google as their preferred search engine and usually limit their search to entries on the first page. For each of the five religions in this study, Google listings reveal ethical controversy about organ donation in the context of brain death. These results suggest that family members who go online to find information about organ donation in the context of brain death would find information about ethical controversy in the first page of Google listings. Organ procurement agencies claim that all major world religions approve of organ donation and do not address the ethical controversy about organ donation in the context of brain death that is readily available online. [source]

Re-Framing the Question: How Can We Construct a Theology of Religions?

DIALOG, Issue 4 2007
Ted Peters
Abstract:, The existing framework,the typology of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism,seems inadequate for resolving the dilemma Lutheran theologians confront: how to show respect for believers of the world's religions while still retaining the Christian commitment to mission. A substitute typology is proffered that distinguishes confessional exclusivism, confessional universalism, and supra-confessional universalism. The option of confessional universalism provides a path for affirming a specific religious commitment,that in Jesus Christ God has been revealed as gracious,that is universally applicable; yet, holders of this position can demonstrate respect for, and cooperate with, members of other religious traditions who see matters differently. [source]