Journal of religious culture = Journal für Religionskultur
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88
After years and years of persecution, we can say that the continuing and all-embracing revival of church life of the Russian Orthodox Church is going on and the general tendency to the development of all aspects of her diocese, parish and social activities is becoming more and more vivid. There have been some most important events – landmarks of starting the new epoch of Russian Orthodox Church: 1988 – Celebration of the Festival of Thousand Years of Baptizing Rus. 2000 – The Archpriests Council: Canonization of the Tsarist Family of Nicolas II; Attitude to the other Christian Confessions; Social Doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are 128 dioceses now (instead of 67 ones in 1989) and 19000 parishes (instead of 689 ones in 1989) in the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. ...
86
This paper is conceived from a secular perspective, and designed to address three elements identified in the call for papers: “Pluralistic tendencies”, their counterpart of “exclusivist attitudes”, and “creating an ethos of inter-religious harmony”. I choose to tackle these aspects by (a) exploring the meaning of religion, (b) addressing a specific attitude often corresponding to religion, namely religious fervour, and (c) assessing the validity and instrumentality of facilitating a universalist education as a tool to defuse “mistrust and hatred among various faith-communities”. The following paper is intended to serve only as a preliminary discussion guidance paper.
78
In this article we dealt with the relations between the state and religion / Islam and its interpreters i.e., the ulama, their needs each other. As a case, with an original source, we focused on the time of the Mahmud II (1808-1839) The Ottoman reforms of the nineteenth century is reconciliation between Islam and Western civili-sation. In this process the ulama played key role by commenting Islam accordance with the need of the age or of the Ottoman Empire. The reformers, chiefly the Sultan and his close friends needed the support of the ulama to legitimate their reform programmes In this crucial stage the head of the ulama the Shaykhulislam, used his own religious knowledge and influence, derived from his office by writing a treatise to persuade the masses to accept the reforms. Applying the traditional virtue literature on the Ottoman dynasty he presented in this pamphlet one of the Western-minded Ottoman sultans as an ideal caliph-sultan. This attitude helped to transform the middle-aged Ottoman political structure and society into modern ages in Western line.
77
Islam, the Muslim traditions and the ulama in Central Asian societies are becoming increasingly important for assessing the situation in and around the region. To understand of the post Soviet Muslim republics it is nec-essary to know the Islamic heritage of the Soviet Union, i.e. the Islamic understanding and interpretation of Soviet official ulama which still influence the mind of the people and the contemporary Central Asian ulama. The official ulama were endeavouring to reconcile Islam with science and progress and to guarantee its survival in a modern environment, they served by an extremely energetic effort to preserve Islam at least in purity and integrity as religion and national sentiment and to prevent it from relapsing into deprivation and ignorance. The most important official Muslim religious figure, the Mufti of Tashkent Z. Babakhan interpreted Islam as a bulwark of progress, disseminator of knowledge, the religion of peace and friendship; portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a “democrat, reformer and revolutionary, even a socialist”; reconciliation with socialism and communism.
75
A fresh look at the understanding of charity : with special reference to the present Indian practice
(2005)
The discussion of this paper is divided in two parts: Present understanding of Charity and a fresh look at the understanding of Charity particularly with a reference to the present Indian practice. As the major religious and theological perspectives specially from the Christian and the Islamic point of views are being dealt by other presentations in this seminar, therefore, the discussion here is limited only first, to the dictionary based linguistic meaning of Charity as understood in three main English speaking contexts and then (second), the Charity as practised in the Indian context. The new and revised deluxe edition of the Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unbridged Dictionary of the English Language has given the following meanings of Charity: 1)charitable actions, as almsgiving or performing other benevolent actions of any sort for the needy with no expectation of material reward: to devote ones life to charity, 2)something given to a person or persons in need; aims: she asked for work not charity, 3) a charitable act or work 4) a charitable fund, foundation, or institution: He left his estate to one of his charities, 5) benevolent feeling, esp. towards those in need or in disfavour: she looked so poor that we fed her out of charity, and 6) Christian love; agape 1 Cor. 13. The Chamber English Dictionary, the meanings of Charity gives as: universal love (N.T.): the disposition to think favourably of others, and do them good almsgiving: a usu. non profit-making foundation, institution, or cause, devoted to caring for those in need of help etc. According to Concise Oxford Dictionary Charity means: an organisation set up to provide help and raise money for those in need, the voluntary giving of money those in need, tolerance in judging others and love of humankind, typically in Christian context. These three set of meanings of Charity, represent the three English regions or contexts: American (Webster), Scottish (Chamber) and English (Oxford). The common important element in all for these three is, the Christian understanding of Charity, because all the three directly have referred to the Biblical usages of Charity in some forms. Here for the discussion of this paper, one can also add that even these usages are limited to the contextual understanding of the English world. Because language is also considered as an vehicle of a culture. But it is true that even the English speaking persons from the non-English world particularly of the Southern countries, (where English rulers have ruled in the past), understand the meaning of Charity more or less in the above sense only. ...
72
The Dalai Lama, in exile since 1959 in Hindu majority India, has continuously been taking a firm stand on giving importance to an inter-religious dialogue and interaction. He has made it absolutely clear that Buddhism represents just one of the many religious ways open for mankind. Nonetheless, he has always referred to the bond shared between Buddhism and Hinduism as a very special one and has experienced it as a religious tie. Both these religious streams belong to what is known as Bharatiya or Indo-genous Dharma. The Dalai Lama does not restrict his care for nurturing this common bond to a mere academic talk. In fact he has been taking active part in promoting this kind of inter-religious dialogue and has been showing a fiery political commitment as well. He thus took active part in the second World Hindu Congress organized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held in Prayag-Allahabad in the year 1979. According to official reports, the organizers in their welcome speech for the Dalai Lama were frank enough to admit that 2500 years ago, the Kashi Pandits (Kashi also known as Varanasi) had stopped Siddharta Gautama Buddha from entering the Vishwanath temple. It was also mentioned that for all these years, there has never been any letup in the conflict between Sanatani Hindus and Bauddhas, despite the fact that later on Shakya Muni was rewarded the status of avatara by Hindus. The fact that these very Kashi Pandits had invite one of the highest religious authorities of Buddhism - the Dalai Lama- to this congress should be seen as "a positive step towards reconciliation." The Dalai Lama was thus pleasantly surprised to see that the highest rung of the religious body of Hindus publicly acknowledged the divine status of Siddharta Gautama Buddha and recognized the presence of the Dalai Lama as a valuable contribution towards the reconciliation between the two religious streams. ...
71
Dialogue has become a fashionable word in the theological circles for quite some time now. However, there is a need to review what has been achieved so far. If it is significant, we should then review how much religious tension has been reduced so far. If it is not much, why has there been no progress. In this note I will deal with the issues relating to Hindu-Christian dialogue. I am using Christianity only as a reference point, and the issues raised do have a wider context as well. As far as Hindu-Christian dialogue is concerned, I am of the opinion that there has been hardly any progress all these years. Many academics and theologians have been involved in the exercise so far. The whole literature, over a long period of time, seems to follow a familiar pattern – a discussion on the theory of the dialogue, what should be included in a dialogue, who should and should not be involved in a dialogue, and ends with a lament that there is so very little progress. The problem, according to me, is that the dialogue does not even consider a need to discuss what is the basic difference between Hinduism and Christianity, and an inquiry into whether these come in the way of communal harmony. A dialogue is really not necessary if we are to discuss only what is similar between the two systems. ...
70
Untouchability and inter-caste relations in rural India : the case of southern Tamil villages
(2004)
Justice and equality are the two subjects often talked about by most of the nationalists and leaders of various political and ideological streams across the world including India. India was at the fore-front in condemning racial discrimination particularly apartheid and also the influence of super powers) on the internal affairs of independent nations. Her commitment to secure its citizens' freedom, justice, equality and fraternity is reflected in the very preamble of the Indian Constitution. Towards achieving these challenging goals, special provisions have also been made in the Constitution to protect and promote the interests of the most oppressed section of Indian society - traditionally known as Untouchables and Constitutionally as the Scheduled Castes. These provisions are expected to alter the given unjust distribution of power (political and economic) and status (social) among different sections of people and thereby transform India into an egalitarian society. Given India's unequivocal commitment to secure its citizens these noble ideals - particularly the most exploited and pilloried section of India -, we shall attempt here to understand Indian villages, which host over 80 per cent of the Indian population, from the point of view of whether or not these villages patronise the institution of caste which is in contravention of these ideals or whether there are these little republics ideal for realising the said goals and thus to be preserved as they are as claimed by many social reformers including Mahatma Gandhi. In the process, we shall also address the question of how caste has remained unchanged, how it controls social interaction between higher and lower caste groups and accordingly perpetuates unequal control over power and status. And most importantly we shall also understand whether all the Scheduled Castes (lower castes) treat their members as equals or there is hierarchy, discrimination and practice of untouchability even among them.
69
Religious Anthropology studies the origins, evolution and functions of religions. The discipline researching religious beliefs and rituals comparatively with cross-cultural perspectives tries to enlighten the belief world of the mankind. Religion, as a term, can be defined as "believing as well as worshipping to the supernatural powers and/or beings by the individual who are emotionally or consciously devoted to them" (Örnek 1988: 127). There have been a number of theories so far which try to bring an explanation to the origins and the evolution of religion. In these theories, Fetishism, cults of nature, animism, Totemism, dynamism, Manism, magic, polytheism, monotheism as well as certain physiological phenomena have been particularized as evolutionary stages and forms of belief (Evans-Pritchard 1998: 124). All of these theories have the perspective of so called "progressive" and / or "unilinear" that maintain a religion which has reached ongoing stages and that communities which have developed from primitiveness to civilization. They argue that there has only been one single line of progress, and all of the communities are bound to go through the same evolutionary stages.
68
As for the relation between Islam and pluralism, it seems a little bit complicated. There are some verses in The Koran for pluralism and at the same time we have some verses against. Among the sayings of Prophet Muhammad like the some Koranic verses, we came across with something good and bad for non-Muslims in special contexts. By another saying, we find both positive and negative statements for Jews and Christians in different circumstances. Muslim scholars the complexity still exists. We find both positive and negative stances. So it is difficult to see a standard or official view on this issue. However, we should point out that Islam recognizes all the sacred (Semitic) books and their messages. It accepts all prophets of that traditions. It defines itself as the last and perfect religion of Semitic tradition and states that no other religion will be accepted from anybody else other then itself. It criticizes both the Jews and Christians especially about their failure to uphold the Oneness of God, tawhid, and to preserve the authenticity of their scripture from interventions. This exclusivist aspect of Islam as many conservative scholars formed with putting together some evidences from the Koran is generally accepted by Muslims.
65
I would like to begin my presentation with the quotation of the first sentence of Shafii’s Trea-tise er-Risala, the first work which has been reached us until now, concerning foundation of Islamic jurisprudence. “Praise be to God gratitude for one of His favors can only be paid through another favor of him. And this favor generates favor to be bestowed, wherefore, one should feel obliged continuously to pay gratitude to God for each favor.” It is possible to conceive that Mercy (al-Rahma), the common expression of all favors granted by the Almighty Creature of human beings, has two salient characteristics: one is vertical that is with regard to the Creator and creatures, and the other is horizontal that is concerning hu-man relations among themselves as well as with other creatures. When the concept of Mercy is evaluated in perspective of God-human being relations in the existing world, it indicates that God’s favors, without discrimination, are granted to all human beings. ...
62
First, why I have avoided to use in this paper the expression ‘the Composite Culture’, which even is used in our Constitution of India to describe unified one culture of our country.1 It is because such a demand is not only against one of the basic realities of our Indian way of life, it also goes against the divine will, which was and is behind this created world with different shades and colours. In this regard the following observation made by Dr. Ram Singh is also noteworthy: It is debatable issue whether there is a separate entity called “composite culture” of India, or it is merely the interaction of various cultures which, instead of resulting into an integrated culture, are still in a position to maintain their separate identities. Beside what Dr. Ram Singh says, the reality is that multi or pluralism is part of our Indian or even Asian way of life. It is quite a different thing, if some of us are not willing to accept this truth. But it is still there, in the form of multi-cultures, multi-languages, multireligions and multiethnicities. Therefore the question of ‘composite culture’ is not only debatable, but also a doubtful principle, unless we are willing to take it as an eschatology reality. I do not intend to deal with this point in detail here, because of the time factor. But we may be able to come back to this question of ‘composite culture, in our discussion if you will wish to do so. ...
50
The historian has to safeguard the strangeness of the past. Therefore, religio-historical research has to scrutinise the reconstruction of the real history of religions by religious ideologies of the present. Very often religious ideologies fall back to the past in order to get an alleged legitimacy for their actual am-bitions; however, for that purpose they have to model or falsify the past according to their present ideo-logical needs. One of the outstanding examples of such an ideologisation of history of religion is the modern view of Buddhism. Developed by the Western colonialist Indology this ideology portrayed and still is portray-ing Buddhism as an rationalist-atheistic, anti-brahmanical, anti-caste and egalitarian religion - in con-trast to Hinduism which is caricatured as idolatrous, casteistic and brahmanised. The aim of such an ideological interpretation is to demonstrate the alleged Western modernity of Buddhism and the alleged obscurantism of Hinduism. The target of that ideological aggression was the Hinduism. In order to exploit the wealth of India the Western colonialists needed the weakening of the Hindu self-consciousness; therefore they favoured an Indology which produced an not existing Indian Buddhism as an alleged modern alternative to the alleged primitive religion of the 'Hindoos'. Playing the Buddhism against the 'Hindoos' the colonialist attempt to defame the vast majority of the Indian people was very successful. Even Indian religious intellectuals and leaders (i.e. the secularists or the Neo-Buddhists1) are sharing and supporting that colonialist view still today. We want to dispute these asserted positions by empirico-historical reasons. First we will discuss the early Buddhism, than Ashoka's reform program of the dharma and at last the historio-graphical dilemmata of scholars sharing the colonialist ideology of Buddhism. ....
49
The origin of the religious experience, says Vivekananda, is man's instinctive urge to transcend the sensual world. He believes that man is a compound of two fundamental ele-ments: sense arid mind. While through the senses he receives impressions of the objective world, he cannot remain satisfied with his senses, simply because he wants to go beyond them. Therefore, through his mind, at certain moments he transcends the limitations of the senses. But he also transcends the power of reasoning. He then comes face to face with the facts which he could never have sensed, could never have reasoned out. According to Vivekananda, this fact is the main basis of all the religions of the world. ...
46
Charity has a long tradition in the Christian religion. From the early beginning there was some organized charity. In the Acts of the Apostles we read about socalled diakonoi being responsible for the needy Christians. During the whole church history there was the rule that 1/3 of the tithe, the decima pars, the religious tax, had to be spend for the poor people of a parish. Of course, there was much misuse of that portion; the tithe became private and the new owners of the tax mostly living far away were not interested in supporting the poor people. Yet, the Christian people organized additional charity. It is very important to see that religious mentality was very helpful for that ...
44
The people of Braj1 are attracted by the Holy in many ways. But nowhere is its attraction per-ceived as strongly as in the public performances of the lilas of Krisna – the lilanukaranas. Although by their aesthetic constitution these dramatic performances are a mixture of song, theater and dance, they do not belong to the genre of folkloric entertainment, for in their very essence they are revelations of the Holy. Thus in Braj the Holy is not at all considered a nirguna entity concealing itself from the world. On the contrary, it reveals itself plainly and unmistakably. This revelation is fully authentic because in its essence the Holy is saguna, i.e. possessed of form. This, however, further means that the lilanukarana do not present something mundane as sacred, nor do they present a 'substitute religion' – for they offer the experience of the Holy moving among and with the lilanukarana, as their equal, freely and naturally, without fear of touch by the creature. And this unconcern for possible worldly contamination allows the Brajbasis to meet the Holy without fear, and in intimate friendship.
36 b
The basic argument the canonical and apocryphic theologies of the South Indian Tamil Shrivaishnavas grow worm over since centuries is the question: Has God set into motion the process of salvation in order to save mankind - the anthropocentric tradition is teaching -, or in order to save himself, the way a theocentric soteriology would teach. To answer this question we have to examine particularly the theocentric religion of salvation because it was held apocryphic by the anthropocentic orthodoxy and has therefore to be reconstructed from sources that are all concealed anthropocentrically. ...
33
When Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu was touring South India, He spent the four months during the rainy season called Caturmasya in Shri Rangam at the house of Vyenkata Bhatta, the chief priest of the Ranganatha Temple. His son, Shri Gopala Bhatta, was then able to serve the Lord to his heart's con-tent. Being pleased by his devotion, Shri Caitanya gave him initiation and ordered him to go to Vrin-davana after the disappearance of his parents. There he should remain with Rupa and Sanatana doing bhajana and writing books. - At the age of thirty, after the death of his parents, Gopala Bhatta, left for Vrindavana. When Lord Caitanya heard that Gopala Bhatta Goswami had arrived in Vrindavana and had met Shri Rupa and Sanatana Goswami, He was very pleased. At that time Mahaprabhu had already visited Vrindavana. Although Rupa and Sanatana had gone to visit him in Puri, Gopala Bhatta never received any invitation to go. ...
32
Among the World religions Sikh religion comparatively is young. Numerically also the followers of Sikh religions are not large. According to the Census of India in the grand total of India's population i.e. 6659, 2879, 8491, the total number of Sikhs is 13,078. 146 out of which 8,937.210 are living in the Panjab province of India and the remaining 4,1409936 are scattered in the rest of the country.[1] These figures do not include the Sikhs living in other countries like the U.K., Canada, USA and other Western and Eastern countries. As these fig-ures show percentwise Sikhs are less than 2%, but they are having a special place among their country people an account of their special characteristics i.e. very hard workers, technicalminded, adventurous nature and willing to embrace all kinds of work. Because of their adventurous and enthusiastic nature, today they are found almost all over the world. On account, of visible insignia given by Sikhs' tenth Guru which includes uncut hair (and use of turban) makes the Sikhs' presence felt in any place. - In this brief study of Sikh religion I will be limiting myself only with one area. I will be looking from the historical perspectives how the Sikh religion came into existence and its growth during the period of 1469 AD - 1703 AD. This period is the most important, because - all the development of Sikh religion belongs to this era only. ...
28
1. Introduction and intentions. 2. Aspects of Christianity. 2.1. Jesus Christ. 2.1.1. Titles; 2.1.2. Character and mission 2.2. The Bible. 2.3. Criticism. 2.4. Bhaktivedanta Swami. 2.4.1. Comparison with Jesus; 2.4.2. Devia-tions. 3. Final summary. 4. Sources 1. Introduction and intentions The Vaishnava News Network (VNN; Internet-address: http://www.vnn.org/) is a "network of collaborating Vaishnavas worldwide providing the world Vaishnava community with news and forums of communication", offering its news service free of charge. Founded in 1997 by an international group of Vaishnavas it calls itself an "independent, comprehensive and universal informa-tion source and communication center". Anyone can participate, i.e. write arti-cles for the VNN which does not censor any news "as long as it conforms with the VNN Standards of Publication." VNN tells the virtual community about the theological background that, "al-though primarily founded by students of A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami, (it) holds no partiality whatsoever towards any group or divisions of any Vaishnava school" and "is not affiliated, dominated, funded or controlled by any particular Vaishnava organization or group other than its correspondents, senior editors and staff". It is aligned with the philosophical path delineated by their spiritual preceptors in line with the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, known as Gaudiya Vaishnavism." In this essay different views of Christianity of several correspondents, senior editors and other staff members of VNN shall be treated. The text sources of the investigation were confined in time to one calendary year (1998). All relevant writings published by VNN can be looked up by means of the VNN internal search engine, concentrating on the key words "Jesus Christ", "Christianity" and "Bible". The results in this piece of work will be compared steadily to the scriptures of the Bengal Swami Abhay Caranaravinda Bhaktivedanta (1896-1977), briefly called "Bhaktivedanta Swami" or with the honorary title "Srila Prabhupada", mainly because of his predominant and fundamental influence on the modern Vaishnava community, not only in the western world of this outgoing 20th cen-tury. Especially Bhaktivedanta Swami's conception of an inter-religious dia-logue with the Christian faith will be taken into consideration. With that the author wants to examine the execution of his plans, the extent of possible changes and the seriousness performed by Bhaktivedanta Swami's pu-pils resp. by ISKCON devotees introduced after his death.