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Yao, Yu-shuang : Taiwan\u27s Tzu Chi as Engaged Buddhism: Origins, Organization, Appeal and Social Impact
No full textIt is many years since I have enjoyed an academic book so much as this one, or benefited so much from reading it. I had the good fortune to be invited by Global Oriental to read a manuscript submitted to them for publication. Since I do not know Chinese, and have no specialist knowledge of Chinese religion, I was disinclined to accept; but I was moved to do so by being told that the author, who lived in Taiwan, had spent nearly ten years looking for a publisher for this, her first book in English. For once, my virtue has been rewarded
‘Inhabiting a space on the outer edges of religious life’: The Radical Emergent Christian Community of Ikon
No full textWhat has come to be known as the ‘Emerging Church’ (or colloquially as the ‘emergents’) amounts to an innovating, if somewhat controversial contemporary Christian movement that attempts to be spiritually relevant in the contemporary cultural setting to both its adherents and those outside of its loosely demarcated boundaries. In this paper I overview one significant example of the movement’s more radical wing, the Belfast-based Ikon community in Northern Ireland. i The paper argues that, on the one hand, Ikon exemplifies the means by which a distinctly innovating and even intentionally provocative religious constituency endeavours to forge a juxtaposition within postmodernity. On the other, Ikon self-consciously attempts to avoid conforming to any typology and deliberately escape conceptualization, even underlining its own failures in what it aspires to be. The paper will indicate that the attempt to resist constricting characterizations is embedded in the very nature of the philosophical standpoints and theological leanings (such as they exist) embraced by the community as it seeks a unique but definitive Christian response to the challenges of postmodernity
The Suspension of Death. The Cryonic Utopia in the Context of the U.S. Funeral Culture
No full textThis article outlines the history of cryonics, starting with fictional novels and movies and the actual formation of the cryonic movement in the 1960s. Cryonics has been considered – by its advocates – to overcome religion by offering a technological way of immortality. Since cryonics never gained serious attention outside the United States it is promising to ask for the specific frame of American funeral culture as a condition for the emergence (and the limitations) of cryonics
Martin Repp: Hōnens religiöses Denken. Eine Untersuchung zu Strukturen religiöser Erneuerung
No full textThe title of this major new work by Martin Repp could be translated into English as “Hōnen’s Religious Thought; An Investigation into Structures of Religious Renewal”, and this title already says a great deal, quite precisely, about the approach which the author takes. First, the book is above all about the religious thought of the Japanese Buddhist Hōnen (1133-1212), and not mainly about his life or activities
”It’s all about loving your parents”. The Reflection of Tradition, Modernity and Rituals in Popular Indian Movies
No full textReligion and rational, disenchanted modernity have been judged by the sociology of religion mainstream to be a tense dichotomy in the course of the common process of secularization. Only a few theoreticians such as David Martin, Thomas Luckmann, Peter Berger and Rodney Stark have disagreed with this widespread assumption on the grounds that there is no clear empirical evidence that religion is in the process of disappearing from modern societies. On a global scale, theorists often connect this question of modernity and secularisation with the problem of fundamentalism
Daniel Chapelle: The soul in everyday life
No full textDer Verfasser ist Psychotherapeut und philosophisch-psychologisch orientierter Autor auf der Basis der amerikanischen tiefenpsychologischen Schulrichtung von James Hillman, deren zentrales Interesse mythische Stoffe sind, nach deren Mustern und nach deren Dynamik Menschen – wesentlich zeit- und kulturüberschreitend – auch heute leben. Joseph Campbell hat bereits in den 70er Jahren die Parole und das Programm formuliert: „Myths to live by“. Das Material, mit dem sich dieser Ansatz beschäftigt, stammt keineswegs nur oder zentral aus den religiösen Traditionen sondern genauso aus Mythologie und Literatur, aus Kunst und Philosophie
J. Gordon Melton: The Church of Scientology (Studies in Contemporary Religions)
No full textJ. Gordon Melton is a well-known expert on the smaller religious denominations and groups in the USA. His reference works (such as the famous ”Encyclopedia of American Religions”) form a good starting point for any kind of research into religious pluralism, and are useful tools even in Germany for looking into the background of groups which are active also in the USA. (For an overview of some of his more recent publications with extensive critical commentary see my study ”Lebende Religion dokumentieren: ein lexikographisches Gespräch mit J. Gordon Melton”, Theologische Literaturzeitung 125, 2000, pp. 695-712). Now Melton has written a short introduction to the Church of Scientology which is available as a separate booklet. As his major reference books are quite expensive, this smaller item forming part of a new series of similar introductions is welcome indeed. Melton´s approach is strictly non-apologetic and non-polemical, endeavouring to give a portrait of Scientology that active Scientologists would not have to consider unfair and biased. He has chapters on the birth of Scientology as a new religion, on Dianetics and Scientology as ”religious technologies”, on the organization of the Church of Scientology, and on the much-discussed question ”But is it a religion?”. 64 pages of text, some notes, some illustrations (mostly of buildings and not very useful) and a perhaps unduly select bibliography taken together give a first overview of what Scientology is about. To be read in less than two hours or so, the book is not aimed at the professional scholar of religion but at interested general readers without much prior former knowledge of the subject
A Letter from the Church of Scientology
No full textThis is a response to the article: The French and German versus American Debate over \u27New Religions\u27, Scientology, and Human Rights Stephen A. Kent, Edmonton (Canada) Published in MJR Vol.6, No.1 (January 2001)Wer einen Professorentitel trägt, geht bestimmte Verpflichtungen ein. Die wichtigste besteht darin, dass er gründliche, faire und ehrliche Arbeit leistet, ohne vorgefasste Meinungen als wissenschaftliche Schlussfolgerungen auszugeben. Es ist kaum vorstellbar, dass ein Gelehrter über den Judaismus schreiben würde, ohne jemals mit Menschen jüdischen Glaubens gesprochen zu haben. Auch würde ein Wissenschaftler wohl kaum eine Dissertation über Menschen lutherischen Bekenntnisses anfertigen, ohne jemals deren Gottesdienste besucht zu haben. Was würden Sie von jemandem halten, der behauptete, aufgrund seiner Gespräche mit exkommunizierten Kirchenmitgliedern fundierte Kenntnisse des Katholizismus zu besitzen? Wenn er zudem darauf beharren würde, dass der Umstand fehlender Informationen aus erster Hand nicht etwa ein Manko, sondern vielmehr ein Vorteil wäre, und er dennoch nur Negatives zu berichten wüsste, würden Sie ihn dann nicht zumindest für voreingenommen halten? Mit Sicherheit würden Sie Zweifel daran hegen, ob er der Vorstellung von einem unparteilichen Wahrheitssucher entspricht, die den Wissenschaftler traditionell charakterisiert.This is a response to the article: The French and German versus American Debate over \u27New Religions\u27, Scientology, and Human Rights Stephen A. Kent, Edmonton (Canada) Published in MJR Vol.6, No.1 (January 2001)A person who wears the label of "professor" assumes certain responsibilities. Foremost is that his work will be thorough, fair and honest, and free from preconceptions offered as conclusions. One can hardly imagine a scholar writing about Judaism, but not speaking to any Jews. Or doing a dissertation on the Lutherans, but never attending one of their services. What would you think of someone who claimed a close knowledge of Catholicism based on his conversations with excommunicates? And if he insisted that his lack of first-hand information was an asset, not a liability, and yet he had only negative things to say, you would probably label him biased, at least. Certainly, you would doubt his being the disinterested seeker after truth that is traditionally the mark of the scholar
Heikkilä-Horn, Marja-Leena: Santi Asoke Buddhism and Thai State Response
No full textThis book is a largely empirical study based on fieldwork carried out by its author in Thailand. It deals with a new movement in Thai Buddhism which has come into conflict with the state and with established forms of Buddhism. At the very least the work is an important contribution simply in being the first full-scale characterisation of the Asoke Buddhist movement. It gives a very plastic picture of the lives of its members, of their conceptual orientations and their ritual and economic behaviour. In this regard, there will be great satisfaction on the part of others working on Buddhism and other forms of religion in South-East Asia
Bernard Faure (aus dem Französichen übersetzt von Linde Birk): Buddhismus
No full textMit der Wissenschaft ist das so eine Sache: bleibt sie erhaben und unbefleckt in ihrem Elfenbeintürmchen, wird sie bestenfalls der Weltfremdheit und mangelnder Transparenz geziehen oder schlicht und ergreifend in der Öffentlichkeit nicht wahrgenommen; treten einzelne Gelehrte aus ihren Studierstuben heraus und versuchen, die Ergebnisse ihrer Forschung allgemeinverständlich unter das interessierte Laienpublikum zu bringen, setzen sie sich möglicherweise dem Spott ihrer Kollegen aus und ihre Reputation als seriöse Wissenschaftler aufs Spiel. Dieses Problem betrifft prinzipiell jede akademische Disziplin, die Kulturwissenschaften (leider immer noch irreführenderweise gemeinhin als Geisteswissenschaften bekannt) aber insbesondere. Zwar vermag auch kaum jemand so recht nachzuvollziehen, womit sich ein theoretischer Physiker oder ein Biochemiker konkret beschäftigen, aber die Naturwissenschaften verfügen über einen gewissen Vertrauensvorschuß hinsichtlich ihres Anwendungsbezuges. Wir wissen zwar nicht genau, was die Leute so treiben, am Ende wird aber schon etwas dabei herauskommen, was dem technologischen oder medizinischen Fortschritt dient