Journal articles on the topic 'Amidah (Prayer)'

The prayer of the Syrian theologian Aphrahat in Demonstratio 23.53-59 displays at least seven analogies with the Jewish prayer Amidah. Textual analysis suggests that there are more instances of Jewish influence in this prayer. In this study it is considered plausible that Jewish prayers from the period after 70 AD or 135 AD, have found a way into the Christian liturgy of Syriac-speaking Persia through Jewish proselytes. It is probable that the borrowing took place in the short period between the outbreak of the persecutions in 340 under the Persian king Shapur II and the writing of Demonstratio 23 in 345.

Abstract This essay explores two questions: How is the Bible received and expressed in classical rabbinic Jewish liturgy? What is the implication for the understanding and interpretation of Jewish prayer, given the role of the Bible in the liturgy? We will review the prevailing theories of the Bible’s reception in the liturgy and classify the different forms of this reception. We will then explore the implications for interpretation of liturgy by analyzing a piece of the daily Jewish liturgy—the first blessing of the amidah.

AbstractSchechter appreciated the significance of his liturgical finds in the Genizah but important contributions were carlier made in Oxford by Adolf Neubauer, and his nephew, Adolf Büchler. Publication of such fragments progressed in Europe, and leading figures were Ismar Elbogen and Jacob Mann. In the U.S.A., Louis Finkelstein attempted to reconstruct the "original" Second Temple versions of the amidah and the grace after meals. More recently, Naphtali Wieder has analysed hundreds of fragments that permit comparisons of the Palestinian and Babylonian rites while Ezra Fleischer has questioned Joseph Heinemann's theory about the existence of equally valid alternatives of the standard prayers in the talmudic period, and produced a major monograph on Eretz-Israel customs. Note should be taken of variant methodologies, of the contributions of younger scholars, and of new theories inspired by a century of Genizah finds. One of the remaining questions, being dealt with by Reif, assesses how the physical medium has affected the development of content. Recent research traces how the single leaf evolved into the codex, how the private individual became the professional scribe, and how brief and provisional notes turned into formal, and virtually canonized, prayer-books.

In the early custom of Ashkenaz, on the Shabbat preceding the beginning of the month, the coming of the new month (Rosh Ḥodesh) would be announced after the reading from the Torah and before the Torah scroll was returned to the synagogue's Holy Ark. The ritual included reciting the paragraph beginning with the words mi she-‘asah nissim (may He who performed miracles) and continuing with an announcement of the timing of Rosh Ḥodesh. In the second half of the eighteenth century, an addition to the liturgy appeared before the Mi She-‘asah Nissim section: a passage beginning yehi raẓon (may it be Your will) that the Babylonian Talmud relates was recited daily by the sage Rav following the Amidah prayer. This article suggests some reasons for the addition of the passage, traces the spread of the practice of its recitation among Ashkenazic communities, and concludes with an examination and explanation of two apparently erroneous additions to the Yehi Raẓon formula.

Amidst a suffocating drought, a young, cloistered nun, Angela, experiences desires that draw her out of her convent to adventures, including a tarantella and collective sexual experience of dubious consent, that unsettle her and seem to reorient her relationship to Christ, direct her attention to the Madonna and ask the latter to end the drought in a prayer that is apparently answered.

The Jewish prayer “Birkat ha-Minim” (“Blessing on the heretics”), 12th benediction of Amida, attracts attention not only of Jewish Liturgy researchers, but it is also an important plot in the history of Jewish-Christian relations in ancient period. Throughout the 20th century “Birkat ha-Minim” was read in the context of anti-Judean passages of the New Testament’s books and early Christian polemic treatises. Such works often include New Testament references to the excommunication of the Christ’s followers from the synagogue (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2). On the other side, for 2nd–3rd centuries’ Christian authors “Blessing” was one of the reasons for the emergence of anti-Jewish sentiments in the Christians’ environment. However, in recent times, a number of scholars, after more than a hundred years break, conducted a paleographic and textual analysis of the most currently known manuscripts, containing the text of the prayer, and published number of its versions, accompanied by a new critical apparatus. These publications have radically changed the understanding of this blessing. For this reason, all previous works either require rethinking or completely outdated. Although recent research allows us more accurately determine the time and place of the creation of manuscripts containing prayer, there is still no consensus on what purpose it was created and who should be understood by the term “Minim”. In addition, to what extent we can link “Birkat ha-minim” with the New Testament passages about excommunication Christ’s followers from the synagogue.

AbstractIn his work Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Brennan Breed argues that texts are nomads which – existing without original form and without original context – have no homeland to claim as their own. Their entire history has been marked by unpredictable movement and variation. He therefore proposes that the study of reception history should primarily be an exploration of the potentiality of textual meanings. The suggestion that meaning progresses without relationship to hermeneutical antecedents, however, runs contrary to Gadamer’s assertion that the contemporary effect (Wirkung) of a text always exists in unity with its historical effects. Following Gadamer, the reception historian may still explore hermeneutical potentiality – but does so with a sense of historical consciousness. In this light, the nature of a biblical text may be more suitably characterized by the metaphor of an emigrant rather than that of a nomad. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of these divergent metaphors in our attempt to define both the nature of biblical texts and the task of the reception historian. Our test case will be the early interpretation history of the Lord’s Prayer. Given that the original form and context of this prayer are irretrievable, Breed’s theory is applicable in many respects. Yet it will also be seen that in the early reception history of the Lord’s Prayer there are also patterns of synchronic continuity. Amidst diverse agendas of theology and praxis, we find that interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer were consistently rooted in an inherited conceptualization of Jesus Christ – what we will call a canonical remembrance of his life and proclamation.

Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews with faith leaders in the UK (including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Sikhism), we examine the diverse ways religious groups reorient religious life during COVID-19. Analysing the shift to virtual and home-based worship, we show the creative ways religious communities altered their customs, rituals, and practices to fit a new virtual reality amidst rigid social distancing guidelines. This study offers a distinctive comparative perspective into religious creativity amidst acute social change, allowing us to showcase notable differences, especially in terms of the possibility to fully perform worship online. We found that whilst all faith communities faced the same challenge of ministering and supporting their communities online, some were able to deliver services and perform worship online but others, for theological reasons, could not offer communal prayer. These differences existed within each religion rather than across religious boundaries, representing intra-faith divergence at the same time as cross-faith convergence. This analysis allows us to go beyond common socio-religious categories of religion, while showcasing the diverse forms of religious life amidst COVID-19. This study also offers a diverse case study of the relationship between religions as well as between religion, state, and society amidst COVID-19.

Although a vast body of poetry celebrates the natural world and addresses issues concerning the environment, it can be overlooked in the discourses of environmental activism. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the unique contributions that poetry makes to a thoughtful, and in this case, theological, engagement with our present environmental crises. Here, we create a conversation between two poets of two different religious traditions. Cheyenne poet Lance Henson’s poem “we are a people” reimagines humanity’s self-conception in light of earthly interconnectedness from the perspective of his own Native American spiritual sensibilities. Christian poet Wendell Berry’s poem “Sabbaths IV” (1983) relocates our understanding of Sabbath beyond its liturgical designations and practices, asking us to attend to “the true world’s Sabbath”. We offer close readings of these two poems that mark the distinctions that emerge from and interact with their respective theological visions, but also where they find common ground. Through this work of reading literature theologically, we argue that these poems both refine our attentiveness to the earth as the site of religious import and consequence, and call upon readers to enact other ways of being in the world amidst the climate catastrophe that are inspired by faith and spirituality.

Over the course of the last few months, we have seen how structural racism has compounded the impact of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the United States, resulting in disparate rates of infection and death. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how the consequences of deeply entrenched inequities are fatal to BIPOC communities, whether death is a result of the novel coronavirus or the everyday violence of structural racism that manifests as poor health outcomes. We examine the formation of the Community Health Board Coalition (CHBC), a BIPOC-led organization in Washington state, to show how 15 communities have organized for health and healing amidst the collective trauma associated with COVID-19. We note that biopower—literally power over life, the unspeakable—and slow violence have been normalized and escalated in our communities. The use of an antiracist lens and decolonial practices have assisted us in our survivance (survival and resistance). We use autoethnography and testimonio as decolonial theory and method to give voice to individual and collective experiences that brought us to our roles as CHBC founding members and inaugural cochairs.

This study explored the role of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in addressing the scourge of cultism in Rivers State. Views were elicited from 16 informants from different parts of the state. Using a descriptive narrative approach, the study revealed that youth unwillingness to work and unemployment were ranked highest among the factors responsible for the menace of cultism in Rivers State. Prayers and occasional enlightenment are the major roles FBOs (e.g. congregations) have played in addressing the menace amidst setbacks such as complicity of politicians, lack of fund and lack of cooperation from parents and local chiefs in some communities in the state. The implications of the findings for FBOs, youths and family are discussed.

Antiquity records few more cruel twists of fate than that which met the two-time former consul and conqueror of Macedon, L. Aemilius Paullus, on his return to Rome in 167 B.C. The great victory at Pydna the year before had finally removed the major rival to Roman power on the Greek mainland, and the riches generated in the campaign were such as to permit the abolition of direct taxation at Rome. The grant of a triumph should therefore have marked the acme of an already distinguished public career. Amidst this pomp, however, there intervened the worst of private disasters. For, a few days before the triumph, Paullus lost one of the two young sons born to him from his second marriage, and, only a few days after, the second died as well. The general responded with a notably dignified speech in which he recalled his prayer prior to the campaign, that the gods should reserve any intended catastrophe for his house alone and not for the state, and gave thanks for their having granted him his wish.

This exploratory study examined the relationship between coping strategies of 136 African-American mothers, their exposure to community violence, and their interpersonal victimization. It is suggested that the disproportionate victimization of African-American women produces a cumulative triple threat for those who live amidst conditions of community violence in the following manner: a) exposure through daily living in the midst of unpredictable community violence; b) exposure to violence from witnessing violence in the neighborhood; and c) exposure to violence from disproportionately high rates of personal victimization. The findings suggest that coping strategies are used differentially as a function of the amount of violence within the social context, and the education and financial resources of the mothers. Mothers who live in lower-violence areas with college education preferred activism as a coping strategy, whereas those in high-violence areas with comparable incomes and education preferred reliance on prayer and instituting safety practices. Coping strategies differed based on whether mothers had been physical victims and witnesses to violence or had no personal experience with violence. This study lays the groundwork for a model of exploring the impact of the cumulative effects of violence on African-American mothers parenting in urban America.

The epistle of James provides a window into a messianic movement that is beginning to develop into a community of faithful amidst a larger Hellenistic socio-cultural environment. It presents a series of exhortations crossing the spectrum of life situations audiences encounter as they settle into community together. Throughout the instruction, a foundational moral code is presupposed through which the author constructs the requisite worldview. Further, James speaks to this community through the full authority of ‘the name of the Lord’ and understands himself as both servant and teacher in this new life in light of the coming of that Lord (1:1; 3:1; 5:7–9). The last fourteen verses of the epistle offer a final essay on the need to stand fast through perseverance and prayer, as well as a summary statement of the goal of the entire effort. The formation of the community engenders a new action arising from the ‘implanted word’ that will produce a ‘kind of first fruits’ of God’s creatures who lead the way of salvation (1:18, 21; 5:19–20). The concluding injunction indicates that this way is tantamount to eschatological restoration.

Abstract After Independence in 1984, the Sultanate of Brunei declared Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB) as the official state ideology. Translated as “Malay Islamic Monarchy,” this ideology is primarily interpreted through the Islamic lens and encompasses all sectors of the society. Facing the COVID-19 crisis, the government took quick and Shari’a-driven measures to contain the further import and propagation of the virus. How did faith intertwine with healthcare policy amidst COVID-19? Our ethnographic survey traces the origin of the virus in the country and the major reactions of the Islamic government in time of emergency. This archaeology of COVID-19 in the Sultanate should not ignore both the disciplinary trust in place in Brunei as well as individual reactions and ways to rely on religious materials (such as self-care healing practices, expressions of piety or calamity-releasing prayers) to eradicate the virus or protect people from it.

While religious belief is not a dominant theme in Levi’s Holocaust writing, over the course of a forty-year writing career this longstanding nonbeliever offers a number of thoughtful reflections on God, faith, and the Holocaust. The first half of my paper examines the Jewish identity of the young Levi, as well as the isolated thoughts on God, faith, and religion found in Survival in Auschwitz (1947). While that early work deliberately focuses on day-to-day exigencies amidst the unrelenting struggle for existence at Auschwitz-Monovitz, it still raises provocative questions about prayer and belief in the context of the Holocaust. In his later writing and interviews, Levi digs deeper and with greater frequency into matters concerning God and the Holocaust. From the recurring charge of “blasphemy” to his career-long characterization of his unlikely survival as a matter of simple luck rather than Divine Providence, my paper goes on to examine the later Levi’s increasingly subtle reflections on matters related to God and the Holocaust. Finally, I look at the later Levi’s repeated insistence that the years of persecution brought with them a newfound understanding of himself as a Jew. By examining his thoughts on how his Auschwitz imprisonment simultaneously confirmed his nonbelief and inaugurated his self-conception as a Jew, my paper demonstrates that Levi’s scattered reflections on God, faith, and the Holocaust are both challenging and well worth our careful, continued study.

This contribution investigates the inner dimensions of contemplation and the dynamics of the spiritual process. It focusses on six paradigms taken from the Christian tradition: It firstly discusses the contemplative reader that is characterized by the interpretation of signs, read in a protected space, seeking understanding, but at the end leading to the “other” reading, brought about by the divine-human dialogue. The second type of contemplation refers to “the contemplative warrior” which is about contemplative transformation that provides a spiritual defence mechanism against destructive demonic forces. This type of contemplation is practiced by the desert monks. The article then analyses a third contemplation in terms of the Biblical characters of Mary and Martha who represent two different, but unified positions of the contemplative way. The fourth paradigm belongs to the field of modernity: it is about contemplation in discernment that reflects the desire to discern the will of God amidst as a time of doubting and uncertainty. There is, in the fifth paradigm, contemplation in presence. In this part, Brother Lawrence is presented as an example: His concept of contemplation is living in the presence of the Lord in a simple act of love and being loved. The final paradigm is prophetic contemplation, of which Titus Brandsma is an example. He had Elijah as model of inspiration and as an exemplar for imitation. For him this Elijahan contemplation is unified in three layers. The first layer is the ideal of contemplation, the second one is the realization of this ideal in a life of prayer, the third one is the liturgy of hours.

Lumbini is so far unrecognized for its importance and significance by placing all attention to it as Siddhartha Gautam’s (Buddha) birth place. It is this very place where all three schools of Buddhism — Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana come together. Buddha’s message of peace and harmony is practiced in daily life by the local inhabitants professing different religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Ancient Kapilvastu covers such a wide area that it has become a goldmine for archaeologists for far and wide to have an opportunity to study civilizations and cultures which date back the pre Christian Era. United Nations Secretary General U Thant spearheaded the development of present Lumbini with help from an International Committee for the Development of Lumbini which he formed and saw that the task of a Master Plan for Lumbini was given to one uniquely qualified architect Kenzo Tange, a person with a vision. With many changes and adjustments from the original Master Plan, Lumbini is fast losing its luster by the construction of physical structures that hardly conform to the bylaws written during the approval of the Master Plan. Yet by the sheer strength of Buddha himself Lumbini retains its un-parallel beauty, serenity, tranquillity, and universality. Lumbini has reached this stage of development amidst several unwarranted controversies and mismanagement, but not all is lost. Lumbini can offer three distinct services to humanity as Buddha would have wanted: Guide those who believe in Buddha as God as they can find the almighty in every inch of the Sacred Garden; Lessen the pains and sufferings of others who seek to have a better life through meditation and prayers; and create a congregation of peace lovers who are in search of peace for themselves, their communities, their countries and the whole world.

The article explores the image of the Ukrainian orthodox priest of the beginning – middle of the 20th century by analyzing the literary works of Liubov Vasyliv-Baziuk, a contemporary Canadian writer of the Ukrainian origin. Liubov Vasyliv-Baziuk was born and brought up in Western Ukraine in the family of an orthodox priest. For this reason the idea of love for the Ukrainian church, which has been plundered and destroyed for centuries is one of the leading in the authoress’ works. The struggle of the Orthodox Church for the right to exist, establish, and expand itself on the Ukrainian lands fills Vasyliv-Baziuk’s creative heritage. Living amidst high morality principles, surrounded by sacred literature as well as priests, bishops, and metropolitans, Vasyliv-Baziuk couldn’t help absorbing the most precious and valuable from the spiritually close people. Her father was an example of sacrificial love, devoted service to God and people, and readiness for self-abnegation for the sake of his neighbor. It is because of this that the Orthodox priest is depicted in Vasyliv-Baziuk’s books as a completely positive character and is represented through a set of chronological events in the way the authoress perceives them. The created image of a Ukrainian priest is collective; it is not based on one character, rather on several. It is composed of features of priest Yosyp, Liubov’s father, Archimandrite Serafym, her grandfather, who took monastic vows after his wife’s death, priest Vasyl Varvariv, her uncle, priests Hlib and Marko, Metropolitan Ilarion, and others, who appear on the pages of the books «They served Church and the Ukrainian people», «In the whirl of the totalitarian regimes», and «The roads of life». The wholeness of a character is designed as a totality of its constituents which in their turn represent everyday life of the character, his social activity, inner world etc. After a thorough analysis of the works by Liubov Vasyliv-Baziuk we have come to a conclusion that the image of the priest is composed of the following constituents: parish priest, priest-confessor, priest-prayer, priest-educator, priest-parent, priest-patriot, priest-diplomat, priest-opinion leader, and priest-manager. Each constituent has been described in the article and confirmed by citations from the literary works. Not all the characters of the priests whom we come across in the books possess all the above components, but collectively they create an integral image of the priest. The authoress succeeds in reaching the objective portrayal of the then clergy’s life and creating in the readers’ minds an ideal image of the Ukrainian Orthodox priest, who has an educational potential and can be a worthy example to follow.

Neuf expériences ont été réalisées à la station expérimentale du Pradel (Sud-Est de la France) de 1991 à 2000 sur la conduite au pâturage des chèvres laitières hautes productrices (800-1100 kg de lait/chèvre/an) et en particulier sur le type de pâturage à adopter (pâturage tournant ou continu), les conditions de la mise à l’herbe et la stratégie de complémentation afin d’évaluer leurs effets sur les performances laitières (production et composition du lait). Deux expériences comparant pendant 3 ans et 100 jours respectivement deux systèmes d’alimentation, en chèvrerie ou au pâturage, ont montré que le pâturage couvre plus de 50% des besoins énergétiques des chèvres et que les productions laitières et les taux butyreux et protéique ne sont jamais significativement différents entre les deux conduites. Dans une troisième expérience aucune différence significative n’a été observée sur la production et la composition du lait de chèvres conduites pendant 100 jours au printemps en pâturage tournant ou en pâturage continu à surface identique et sur ces couverts végétaux comparables. Une quatrième expérience de 120 jours a permis de montrer qu’une mise à l’herbe précoce (début Mars) permet une meilleure production laitière qu’avec une mise à l’herbe plus tardive, vers le 31 Mars. Quatre expériences d’une durée de 12 à 16 semaines ont comparé différents niveaux de complémentation des chèvres au pâturage. L’augmentation de l’apport d’aliment concentré améliore de façon limitée la production laitière, en particulier au dessus de 0,8 kg de concentré/jour/chèvre. Avec de l’herbe de très bonne valeur alimentaire, cette augmentation est de 10 g de lait/100 g de concentré ajouté alors qu’elle est de 40 g avec de l’herbe à un stade plus avancé. La composition du lait est très peu modifiée par l’apport de concentré. Une dernière expérience de 100 jours et certaines expériences précédentes ont précisé les effets de la composition de l’aliment concentré. La nature des sources azotées (protéines peu ou fortement dégradables dans le rumen) influence plus la production laitière que celle des sources énergétiques (amidon vs fibre et matière grasse). Ainsi une production de lait de 1000-1100 kg par an peut être obtenue avec un système alimentaire où le pâturage couvre une part importante des besoins énergétiques totaux des chèvres (50 à 75% environ). Pour cela il est nécessaire que le potentiel génétique des chèvres le permette, que la durée journalière de pâturage soit suffisante (10-11 heures par jour), que les apports de fourrages distribués à l’auge soient très limités ou supprimés, que ceux d’aliments concentrés soient limités à environ 0,8 kg/chèvre/jour et surtout qu’une gestion du pâturage basée sur des contrôles journaliers et des observations précises soit mise en place avec rigueur par l’éleveur.

In behalf of our family, allow me to start by thanking each and everyone’s offering of support and prayers. Indeed, we are having a most difficult time facing this loss. We desperately try and search for answers hoping to appease the hurt. I remember during his last days, Papa turned to his Bible and one of his favorite chapters was from Psalms: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10), a passage that I have come across to dwell on. Most of you probably received Dr. Jesus Co’s passing in shock. Unbeknownst to you, we have been dealing with his illness for about six months. And we know there are unending questions about the how, when and even why, but kindly indulge me in giving you a glimpse into his journey. Jess, as his friends endearingly called him has been most passionate about his work. He cared deeply for his patients. He was so articulate and well-versed and could talk about anything under the sun. Papa had a voracious appetite in reading and learning not limited to his field. He challenged us into healthy debates in all of our specialties -gastroenterology, pediatrics and especially ENT, but unfortunately he was no match for my mom’s showbiz knowledge. He was an avid sportsman as well- in golf and lately, one of his other loves, fishing. My dad’s happiest moments would be spending time with his grandchildren teaching them how to fish. I could go on endlessly with this tribute for he excelled in various endeavors. But let me just share with you that he was first and foremost a family man. He was the eldest of 10 children hailing from Binalonan, Pangasinan. His brothers and sisters addressed him as “manong” for he was almost like the head of their family since “angkong” died. I remember my aunts and uncles visiting often and heeding his advice. As my mom’s better half, he doted on her. Their lives were so much intertwined and the best way to describe it is through their favorite love song- “I can’t stop loving you.” Surely, there are precious moments that only the two of them will treasure. It must have been a pleasant surprise to him that the stork delivered four girls. He instilled in us to strive for excellence and accept defeat as a stepping stone. One of my fondest recollections of when I was younger was losing a dog- back then it seemed like such a tragedy. I was inconsolable and amidst my cries he tenderly imparted a pearl of his many wisdoms about life’s reality: There will be challenges and battles to bear and sometimes our best recourse is to be silent. For God is strong when we are at our weakest. It was heartbreaking to see him physically deteriorate but despite this, he pursued his dedication for his work and kept his dignity in times of suffering. We earnestly pray that beyond our words we were able to provide him with comfort and ease his pain. Certainly, we would want to focus only on the joys of his life as it is painful to recall how tirelessly he fought and tried to overcome his sickness. His strength, character and unwavering faith carried him through until he eventually succumbed to the Lord’s calling. Friends and family, let us celebrate how Dr. Jesus Co has inspired us to persevere and trust wholeheartedly in the Lord. We can be still and be at peace in the knowledge that God’s grace will suffice and take care of all our needs. Thank you.

That there is a growing focus and elaboration of prayers in the Old Testament scholarship on the postexilic biblical writings suggests that such prayers received an authoritative status in postexilic Yehud. Firstly, this paper argues that not only did the remembrance of the story of Israel confer an authoritative status to Nehemiah 9:6�37, it also served the purpose of casting a hopeful and prophetic imagination of a liberated community in Yehud. Secondly, it is argued in this paper that the prayer of Nehemiah 9:6�37 shaped the identity of the Jews in Yehud amidst socio-economic injustices. This identity was linked to the patriarch Abraham (cf. Neh 9:7�8), to the liberation of the Jews from Pharaoh under the leadership of Moses (cf. Neh 9:9�15, 21), to the possession of the Promised Land (cf. Neh 9:22�25), to the caution about the consequence of disobedience to Yahweh � the exile (cf. Neh 9:16�21, 26�30)- and to the demise of the kingdom in the Babylonian exile (cf. Neh 9:31�37). On the whole, it is argued in this paper that the prayer of Nehemiah 9:6�37 was composed and transmitted with the view to remember and construct the identity of the Jews in postexilic Yehud.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Not only does this article explore the religious aspect of Nehemiah 9:6�37, it equally investigates the socio-economic and political undertones in the text in order to determine the context from which the penitential prayer emerged. It is argued here that in the postexilic Yehud context, Nehemiah 9:6�37 served to remember and construct the identity of the Jews.Keywords: Nehemiah; story of Israel; identity construction; prayer; prophetic imaginations; socio-economic injustice

Much of the Jewish legal tradition deals with business ethics. This paper focuses on an overlooked precept: ensuring price stability. There is a tendency to trivialize the law mandating that prices be kept low and affordable, but in the wake of the 2020 world pandemic, these laws are more important than ever. Indeed, very few people are aware that the ninth blessing of the ancient Amida (also known as shemoneh esrei) prayer, established by the 120 members of the Great Assembly in the 5th century BCE, is a prayer for divine protection against individuals who would raise prices unjustly. This paper illustrates the importance of this law and provides interesting stories and examples of individuals who protected the public against hoarders. Ethical leaders have an obligation not to take advantage of vulnerable members of the public by price gouging.

Religion/spirituality has been known to be an essential part of human life. Besides supporting life challenges, spirituality does give structure, meaning and the needed understanding of day-to-day life issues. Studies confirm the hugely positive results that spirituality has on human health, especially in enhancing total well-being and quality of life. This benefit is particularly seen in the life of the elderly. For these older persons, spiritual disciplines like prayers, scriptures and music have been identified as helpful resources for their healthcare. It becomes a worrying situation when these persons who are naturally inclined to spirituality do not get these resources as a compliment to their care in an organized manner in Ghana. This issue occasioned an investigation that sought to harness the potentiality of some of these spiritual disciplines as a resource in complimenting the health of the elderly. In this paper, through SPSS, data generated from the questionnaires were chronologically arranged thematically. An empirical analysis followed which takes cognizance of interviews with healthcare personnel in Agogo Presbyterian Hospital. The result showed that there is evidence of spirituality among the aged when they are in a state of ailment. Their unflinching source of hope, strength and peace in God is made manifest amidst the discomfort that characterizes being aged coupled with ill health. Religious doctrines also affect health and health behaviour via an exposition of the scriptures during devotions at the hospital. Music ministered to the sick aged was also found to bring a feeling of nostalgia while reducing their level of anxiety. The study revealed that when the aged are devoted to prayer, it raises their level of optimism. Doctors, therefore, need to focus on emotional conditions for better health outcomes. The paper concluded by making a case for an integration of spirituality/religion into the healthcare plan of the aged. This will see clinicians giving room to aged religious/spiritual preferences to be considered as part of their therapy in Ghana. Keywords: Aged, Health, Spirituality, Prayer, Music, Scriptures

The situation of geriatric caregiving may seem easy in the eyes of many if the carers are regularly compensated. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of geriatric informal caregivers through the phenomenological approach to qualitative research. Typically, tasks in the household, at school or in the workplace are complicated by the simultaneous participation and involvement as a student or as a government employee. Thematic analysis of the transcripts showed that investing on priorities determine which tasks have to be accomplished first, and which comes next. All of the participants described the support extended by their family members, classmates/workmates, and the community people as both material and non-material which include emotional and moral support in the form of prayers, sympathy, and words of inspiration and motivation. Material support is through food, goods, medicine, and money. These efforts are vital contributions to them by providing constant assurance of support on finances, spiritual guidance, positive emotional upliftment, and errands-made-easier assistance.

There’s no reason to think that Jesus wouldn’t have Facebooked or twittered if he came into the world now. Can you imagine his killer status updates? Reverend Schenck, New York, All Saints Episcopal Church (Mapes) The fundamental problem of religious communication is how best to represent and mediate the sacred. (O’Leary 787) What would Jesus tweet? Historically, the quest for sacred connections has relied on the mediation of faith communication via technological implements, from the use of the drum to mediate the Divine, to the use of the mechanical clock by monks as reminders to observe the canonical hours of prayer (Mumford). Today, religious communication practices increasingly implicate Web 2.0, or interactive, user-generated content like blogs (Cheong, Halavis & Kwon), and microblogs like “tweets” of no more than 140 characters sent via Web-based applications like text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, or on the Web. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s latest report in October 2009, 19% of online adults said that they used a microblogging service to send messages from a computer or mobile device to family and friends who have signed up to receive them (Fox, Zickuhr & Smith). The ascendency of microblogging leads to interesting questions of how new media use alters spatio-temporal dynamics in peoples’ everyday consciousness, including ways in which tweeting facilitates ambient religious interactions. The notion of ambient strikes a particularly resonant chord for religious communication: many faith traditions advocate the practice of sacred mindfulness, and a consistent piety in light of holy devotion to an omnipresent and omniscient Divine being. This paper examines how faith believers appropriate the emergent microblogging practices to create an encompassing cultural surround to include microblogging rituals which promote regular, heightened prayer awareness. Faith tweets help constitute epiphany and a persistent sense of sacred connected presence, which in turn rouses an identification of a higher moral purpose and solidarity with other local and global believers. Amidst ongoing tensions about microblogging, religious organisations and their leadership have also begun to incorporate Twitter into their communication practices and outreach, to encourage the extension of presence beyond the church walls. Faith Tweeting and Mobile Mediated Prayers Twitter’s Website describes itself as a new media service that help users communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to the question, “What are you doing?” Some evangelical Christian groups harness these coincident messaging flows to create meaningful pathways for personal, intercessory and synchronised prayer. Using hashtags in a Twitter post creates a community convention or grouping around faith ideas and allows others to access them. Popular faith related hashtags include #twurch (Twitter + church), #prayer, #JIL (Jesus is Lord) and #pray4 (as in, #pray4 my mother). Just as mobile telephony assists distal family members to build “connected presence” (Christensen), I suggest that faith tweets stimulating mobile mediated prayers help build a sense of closeness and “religious connected presence” amongst the distributed family of faith believers, to recreate and reaffirm Divine and corporeal bonds. Consider the Calvin Institute of Worship’s set up of six different Twitter feeds to “pray the hours”. Praying the hours is an ancient practice of praying set prayers throughout certain times of the day, as marked in the Book of Common Prayer in the Christian tradition. Inspired by the Holy Scripture’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17), users can sign up to receive hourly personal or intercessory prayers sent in brief verses or view a Tweetgrid with prayer feeds, to prompt continuous prayer or help those who are unsure of what words to pray. In this way, contemporary believers may reinvent the century-old practice of constant faith mediation as Twitter use helps to reintegrate scripture into people’s daily lives. Faith tweets that goad personal and intercessory prayer also makes ambient religious life salient, and preserves self-awareness of sanctified moments during normal, everyday activities. Furthermore, while the above “praying the hours” performance promotes a specific integration of scripture or prayer into individuals’ daily rhythms, other faith tweets are more focused on evangelism: to reach others through recurrent prayers or random inspirational messages sent throughout the day. For instance, as BBC News reports, religious leaders such as Cardinal Brady, head of Ireland’s Catholic Church, encourage parishioners to use Twitter to spread “the gift of prayer”, as they microblog their daily prayers for their friends and family. Cardinal Brady commented that, “such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another and remind us those who receive them that others really do care" (emphasis mine). Indeed, Cardinal Brady’s observation is instructive to the “Twitness” of faithful microbloggers who desire to shape the blogosphere, and create new faith connections. “JesusTweeters” is a faith-based social networking site, and a service which allows users to send out messages from any random tweet from the Bible Tweet Library, or their own personal messages on a scheduled basis. The site reports that over 500 members of JesusTweeters, each with an average of 500 followers, have signed up to help “spread the Word” worldwide through Twitter. This is an interesting emergent form of Twitter action, as it translates to more than 2.5 million faith tweets being circulated online daily. Moreover, Twitter encourages ‘connected presence’ whereby the use of microblogging enables online faith believers to enjoy an intimate, ‘always on’ virtual presence with their other congregational members during times of physical absence. In the recently released e-book The Reason Your Church Must Twitter, subtitled Making Your Ministry Contagious, author and self-proclaimed ‘technology evangelist’ Anthony Coppedge advocates churches to adopt Twitter as part of their overall communication strategy to maintain relational connectedness beyond the boundaries of established institutional practices. In his book, Coppedge argues that Twitter can be used as a “megaphone” for updates and announcements or as a “conversation” to spur sharing of ideas and prayer exchanges. In line with education scholars who promote Twitter as a pedagogical tool to enhance free-flowing interactions outside of the classroom (Dunlap & Lowenthal), Coppedge encourages pastors to tweet “life application points” from their sermons to their congregational members throughout the week, to reinforce the theme of their Sunday lesson. Ministry leaders are also encouraged to adopt Twitter to “become highly accessible” to members and communicate with their volunteers, in order to build stronger ecumenical relationships. Communication technology scholar Michele Jackson notes that Twitter is a form of visible “lifelogging” as interactants self-disclose their lived-in moments (731). In the case of faith tweets, co-presence is constructed when instantaneous Twitter updates announce new happenings on the church campus, shares prayer requests, confirms details of new events and gives public commendations to celebrate victories of staff members. In this way, microblogging helps to build a portable church where fellow believers can connect to each-other via the thread of frequent, running commentaries of their everyday lives. To further develop ‘connected presence’, a significant number of Churches have also begun to incorporate real-time Twitter streams during their Sunday services. For example, to stimulate congregational members’ sharing of their spontaneous reactions to the movement of the Holy Spirit, Westwind Church in Michigan has created a dozen “Twitter Sundays” where members are free to tweet at any time and at any worship service (Rochman). At Woodlands Church in Houston, a new service was started in 2009 which encourages parishioners to tweet their thoughts, reflections and questions throughout the service. The tweets are reviewed by church staff and they are posted as scrolling visual messages on a screen behind the pastor while he preaches (Patel). It is interesting to note that recurring faith tweets spatially filling the sanctuary screens blurs the visual hierarchies between the pastor as foreground and congregations as background to the degree that tweet voices from the congregation are blended into the church worship service. The interactive use of Twitter also differs from the forms of personal silent meditation and private devotional prayer that, traditionally, most liturgical church services encourage. In this way, key to new organisational practices within religious organisations is what some social commentators are now calling “ambient intimacy”, an enveloping social awareness of one’s social network (Pontin). Indeed, several pastors have acknowledged that faith tweets have enabled them to know their congregational members’ reflections, struggles and interests better and thus they are able to improve their teaching and caring ministry to meet congregants’ evolving spiritual needs (Mapes).Microblogging Rituals and Tweeting Tensions In many ways, faith tweets can be comprehended as microblogging rituals which have an ambient quality in engendering individuals’ spiritual self and group consciousness. The importance of examining emergent cyber-rituals is underscored by Stephen O’Leary in his 1996 seminal article on Cyberspace as Sacred Space. Writing in an earlier era of digital connections, O’Leary discussed e-mail and discussion forum cyber-rituals and what ritual gains in the virtual environment aside from its conventional physiological interactions. Drawing from Walter Ong’s understanding of the “secondary orality” accompanying the shift to electronic media, he argued that cyber-ritual as performative utterances restructure and reintegrate the minds and emotions of their participants, such that they are more aware of their interior self and a sense of communal group membership. Here, the above illustrative examples show how Twitter functions as the context for contemporary, mediated ritual practices to help believers construct a connected presence and affirm their religious identities within an environment where wired communication is a significant part of everyday life. To draw from Walter Ong’s words, microblogging rituals create a new textual and visual “sensorium” that has insightful implications for communication and media scholars. Faith tweeting by restructuring believers’ consciousness and generating a heightened awareness of relationship between the I, You and the Thou opens up possibilities for community building and revitalised religiosity to counteract claims of secularisation in technologically advanced and developed countries. “Praying the hours” guided by scripturally inspired faith tweets, for example, help seekers and believers experience epiphany and practice their faith in a more holistic way as they de-familarize mundane conditions and redeem a sense of the sacred from their everyday surrounds. Through the intermittent sharing of intercessory prayer tweets, faithful followers enact prayer chains and perceive themselves to be immersed in invariable spiritual battle to ward off evil ideology or atheistic beliefs. Moreover, the erosion of the authority of the church is offset by changed leadership practices within religious organisations which have experimented and actively incorporated Twitter into their daily institutional practices. To the extent that laity are willing to engage, creative practices to encourage congregational members to tweet during and after the service help revivify communal sentiments and a higher moral purpose through identification and solidarity with clergy leaders and other believers. Yet this ambience has its possible drawbacks as some experience tensions in their perception and use of Twitter as new technology within the church. Microblogging rituals may have negative implications for individual believers and religious organisations as they can weaken or pervert the existing relational links. As Pauline Cheong and Jessie Poon have pointed out, use of the Internet within religious organisations may bring about an alternative form of “perverse religious social capital building” as some clergy view that online communication detracts from real time relations and physical rituals. Indeed, some religious leaders have already articulated their concerns about Twitter and new tensions they experience in balancing the need to engage with new media audiences and the need for quiet reflection that spiritual rites such as confession of sins and the Holy Communion entail. According to the critics of faith tweeting, microblogging is time consuming and contributes to cognitive overload by taking away one’s attention to what is noteworthy at the moment. For Pastor Hayes of California for example, Twitter distracts his congregation’s focus on the sermon and thus he only recommends his members to tweet after the service. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, he said: “If two people are talking at the same time, somebody’s not listening”, and “You cannot do two things at once and expect you’re not going to miss something” (Patel). Furthermore, similar to prior concerns voiced with new technologies, there are concerns over inappropriate tweet content that can comprise of crudity, gossip, malevolent and hate messages, which may be especially corrosive to faith communities that strive to model virtues like love, temperance and truth-telling (Vitello). In turn, some congregational members are also experiencing frustrations as they negotiate church boundaries and other members’ disapproval of their tweeting practices during service and church events. Censure of microblogging has taken the form of official requests for tweeting members to leave the sanctuary, to less formal social critique and the application of peer pressure to halt tweeting during religious proceedings and activities (Mapes). As a result of these connectivity tensions, varying recommendations have been recently published as fresh efforts to manage religious communication taking place in ambience. For instance, Coppedge recommends every tweeting church to include Twitter usage in their “church communications policy” to promote accountability within the organisation. The policy should include guidelines against excessive use of Twitter as spam, and for at least one leader to subscribe and monitor every Twitter account used. Furthermore, the Interpreter magazine of the United Methodist Church worldwide featured recommendations by Rev. Safiyah Fosua who listed eight important attributes for pastors wishing to incorporate Twitter during their worship services (Rice). These attributes are: highly adaptive; not easily distracted; secure in their presentation style; not easily taken aback when people appear to be focused on something other than listenin; into quality rather than volume; not easily rattled by things that are new; secure enough as a preacher to let God work through whatever is tweeted even if it is not the main points of the sermon; and carried on the same current the congregation is travelling on. For the most part, these attributes underscore how successful (read wired) contemporary religious leaders should be tolerant of ambient religious communication and of blurring hierarchies of information control when faced with microblogging and the “inexorable advance of multimodal connectedness” (Schroeder 1). To conclude, the rise of faith tweeting opens up a new portal to investigate accretive changes to culture as microblogging rituals nurture piety expressed in continuous prayer, praise and ecclesial updates. The emergent Twitter sensorium demonstrates the variety of ways in which religious adherents appropriate new media within the ken and tensions of their daily lives. References BBC News. “Twitter Your Prayer says Cardinal.” 27 April 2009. ‹http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8020285.stm›. Cheong, P.H., A. Halavis and K. Kwon. “The Chronicles of Me: Understanding Blogging as a Religious Practice. Journal of Media and Religion 7 (2008): 107-131. Cheong, P.H., and J.P.H. Poon. “‘WWW.Faith.Org’: (Re)structuring Communication and Social Capital Building among Religious Organizations.” Information, Communication and Society 11.1 (2008): 89-110. Christensen, Toke Haunstrup. “‘Connected Presence’ in Distributed Family Life.” New Media and Society 11 (2009): 433-451. Coppedge, Anthony. “The Reason Your Church Must Twitter: Making Your Ministry Contagious.” 2009. ‹http://www.twitterforchurches.com/›. Dunlap, Joanna, and Patrick Lowenthal. “Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence.” Journal of Information Systems Education 20.2 (2009): 129-135. Fox, Susannah, Kathryn Zickuhr, and Aaron Smith. “Twitter and Status Updating" Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2009. Oct. 2009 ‹http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Twitter_Fall_2009_web.pdf›. Jackson, Michele. “The Mash-Up: A New Archetype for Communication.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14.3 (2009): 730-734. Mapes, Diane. “Holy Twitter! Tweeting from the Pews.” 2009. 3 June 2009 ‹http://www.nbcwashington.com/.../Holy_Twitter__Tweeting_from_the_pews.html›. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, 1934. Patel, Purva. “Tweeting during Church Services Gets Blessing of Pastors.” Houston Chronicle (2009). 10 Oct. 2009 ‹http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6662287.html›. O’Leary, Stephen. ”Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64.4 (1996): 781-808. Pontin, Jason. “Twitter and Ambient Intimacy: How Evan Williams Helped Create the New Social Medium of Microblogging.” MIT Review 2007. 15 Nov. 2009 ‹http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/19713/?a=f›. Rice, Kami. “The New Worship Question: To Tweet or Not to Tweet.” Interpreter Magazine (Nov.-Dec. 2009). ‹http://www.interpretermagazine.org/interior.asp?ptid=43&mid=13871›. Rochman, Bonnie. “Twittering in Church, with the Pastor’s O.K.” Time 3 May 2009. ‹http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1895463,00.html›. Schroeder, Ralph. “Mobile Phones and the Inexorable Advance of Multimodal Connectedness.” New Media and Society 12.1 (2010): 75-90. Vitello, Paul. “Lead Us to Tweet, and Forgive the Trespassers.” New York Times 5 July 2009. ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/technology/internet/05twitter.html›.

The Akans of Ghana are traditionally accustomed to celebrating different rituals which are enshrined in their cultural life. Libation pouring, which accompanies the celebration of great rituals, amidst the subsidence of the sound of music and dance, can display a special art in religion. The primary objective of this paper is to examine libation as a ritual experience, and in so doing to draw attention to its art forms and relevance as regards the psychological significance for the Akan society which practises it. What beliefs connect the pouring of libation in Akan society? What are the occasions for practising this ritual? Are there some distinctions in the artistic prayer of libation? These questions lead directly to the proposition which states that libation is able to generate some forms of religious experience. It is then argued that libation ritual has psychological consequences beneficial to the group and the individual who privately engages in it.

BANGKOK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2004 According to official figures, over 50,000 tickets were sold at the 1st Bangkok International Film Festival in 2003. This year, only some 30,000 seats were taken, a sizable drop despite the massive budget of US$5 million, an improved film programme and a change of manage­ment: Craig Prater is now Executive Director and Jennifer Stark is Programme Director. Altogether, some 150 Thai and international films and digital videos from more than 24 countries were presented. The Festival (22 Jan to 2 Feb 2004), also saw the 1st Bangkok Film Market amidst the festival's glam, glitz, pomp and star-gazing. The opening film honour went to The Siam Renaissance by former experimental filmmaker Surapong Pinijkhar (Tawipop, Thailand, 2003). This stylish and fantastical blending of The Double Life of Veronique and Frequency stars the exotically pretty Florence Vanida F. as a Paris-based archivist who moves back in time to...

Diyarbakır Great Mosque is a community building located in the district of Cami-i Kebir in the northwest of the traditional city area surrounded by walls. The building on Gazi Street opposite Hasan Pasha Han is inside the road, and the eastern entrance overlooks a square which very likely corresponds to the old forum of the city of Amida. Surrounded by the streets to the North and West, the South overlooks the traditional Sipahi Bazaar. Around the full court near the square of the building, in the south there are: Hanafis section, Shafis section, northern vestibule, Mesudiye Madrasa and its southern portico, a traditional house, and a lavatory. To the east, there is a library, which used to be apparently a timing room (muvakkithane) and an entrance to the East (Eastern Maksurah). To the west, in the Western portico (Western Maksurah), that also includes the Western entrance, there is a Qur'anic school. The octagonal and pointed pyramidal coned fountain, built during the Ottoman period, and the prayer hall and pool, which were raised with several steps, form the other units in the spacious courtyard. In the north of the courtyard, we can find the portico of Mesudiye Madrasa. There is also a solar clock in front of the northern vestibule. The aims of this study are: ● introducing the excavations in the Diyarbakır Great Mosque Western Maksurah and explaining the reasons of these excavations; ● presenting the results of these excavations; ● giving information on the excavation findings; ●explaining the importance of research excavations in restoration works. The evaluations made for the preservation of the excavation findings, which were deemed necessary during the restoration works in the great Mosque, will also be explained in this study.

This study focused on the lived experiences of children with incarcerated mothers, how they cope with their present situation, and the insights they can share with other children who are going through the same experiences they have. This study used the qualitative phenomenological method of research to explore in-depth the experiences, coping strategies, and personal insights which can be shared by the participants. The research study purposely identified seven individuals from ages 15-21, for the in-depth interview who are all residents of the Municipality of Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur. The results show that the children-participants struggled so much in their daily endeavors as they felt the impact of living without their mother. They were forced to deal with worries, sadness, and even quitting from studies and going into vicious life. However, amidst everything they were able to cope and continue to live as they turned adversities to optimism, uphold mental health, and strengthened their faith in God. Faith in God, prevent prayers, optimism and resiliency were the coping strategies employed by the participants with some efforts to look for alternative sources of income to augment the family’s income and do better in their studies. The insights shared by participants are to remain positive always, to keep a strong faith in God, and always bear in mind that there is always light and hope after the pain and sorrow.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0909/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)“I must plunge again and again in the water of doubt” (Wittgenstein 1e). The Holy Grail in the phenomenology of religion (and, to a lesser extent, the sociology of religion) is a definition of religion that actually works, but, so far, this seems to have been elusive. Classical definitions of religion—substantive (e.g. Tylor) and functionalist (e.g. Durkheim)—fail, in part because they attempt to be in three places at once, as it were: they attempt to distinguish religion from non-religion; they attempt to capture what religions have in common; and they attempt to grasp the “heart”, or “core”, of religion. Consequently, family resemblance definitions of religion replace certainty and precision for its own sake with a more pragmatic and heuristic approach, embracing doubt and putting forward definitions that give us a better understanding (Verstehen) of religion. In this paper, I summarise some “new” definitions of religion that take this approach, before proposing and defending another one, defining religion as non-propositional and “apophatic”, thus accepting that doubt is central to religion itself, as well as to the analysis of religion.The question of how to define religion has had real significance in a number of court cases round the world, and therefore it does have an impact on people’s lives. In Germany, for example, the courts ruled that Scientology was not a religion, but a business, much to the displeasure of the Church of Scientology (Aldridge 15). In the United States, some advocates of Transcendental Meditation (TM) argued that TM was not a religion and could therefore be taught in public schools without violating the establishment clause in the constitution—the separation of church and state. The courts in New Jersey, and federal courts, ruled against them. They ruled that TM was a religion (Barker 146). There are other cases that I could cite, but the point of this is simply to establish that the question has a practical importance, so we should move on.In the classical sociology of religion, there are a number of definitions of religion that are quite well known. Edward Tylor (424) defined religion as a belief in spiritual beings. This definition does not meet with widespread acceptance, the notable exception being Melford Spiro, who proposed in 1966 that religion was “an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated super-human beings” (Spiro 96, see also 91ff), and who has bravely stuck to that definition ever since. The major problem is that this definition excludes Buddhism, which most people do regard as a religion, although some people try to get round the problem by claiming that Buddhism is not really a religion, but more of a philosophy. But this is cheating, really, because a definition of religion must be descriptive as well as prescriptive; that is, it must apply to entities that are commonly recognised as religions. Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, proposed that religion had two key characteristics, a separation of the sacred from the profane, and a gathering together of people in some sort of institution or community, such as a church (Durkheim 38, 44). However, religions often reject a separation of the sacred from the profane. Most Muslims and many Calvinist Christians, for example, would insist strongly that everything—including the ostensibly profane—is equally subject to the sovereignty of God. Also, some religions are more oriented to a guru-pupil kind of relationship, rather than a church community.Weber tried to argue that religion should only be defined at the end of a long process of historical and empirical study. He is often criticised for this, although there probably is some wisdom in his argument. However, there seems to be an implicit definition of religion as theodicy, accounting for the existence of evil and the existence of suffering. But is this really the central concern of all religions?Clarke and Byrne, in their book Religion Defined and Explained, construct a typology of definitions, which I think is quite helpful. Broadly speaking, there are two types of classical definition. Firstly, there are substantive definitions (6), such as Tylor’s and Spiro’s, which posit some sort of common “property” that religions “have”—“inside” them, as it were. Secondly, functionalist definitions (Clarke and Byrne 7), such as Durkheim’s, define religion primarily in terms of its social function. What matters, as far as a definition of religion is concerned, is not what you believe, but why you believe it.However, these classical definitions do not really work. I think this is because they try to do too many things. For a strict definition of religion to work, it needs to tell us (i) what religions have in common, (ii) what distinguishes religion on the one hand from non-religion, or everything that is not religion, on the other, and (iii) it needs to tell us something important about religion, what is at the core of religion. This means that a definition of religion has to be in three places at once, so to speak. Furthermore, a definition of religion has to be based on extant religions, but it also needs to have some sort of quasi-predictive capacity, the sort of thing that can be used in a court case regarding, for example, Scientology or Transcendental Meditation.It may be possible to resolve the latter problem by a gradual process of adjustment, a sort of hermeneutic circle of basing a definition on extant religions and applying it to new ones. But what about the other problem, the one of being in three places at once?Another type identified by Clarke and Byrne, in their typology of definitions, is the “family resemblance” definition (11-16). This derives from the later Wittgenstein. The “family resemblance” definition of religion is based on the idea that religions commonly share a number of features, but that no one religion has all of them. For example, there are religious beliefs, doctrines and mythos—or stories and parables. There are rituals and moral codes, institutions and clergy, prayers, spiritual emotions and experiences, etc. This approach is of course less precise than older substantive and functional definitions, but it also avoids some of the problems associated with them.It does so by rethinking the point of defining religion. Instead of being precise and rigorous for the sake of it, it tries to tell us something, to be “productive”, to help us understand religion better. It eschews certainty and embraces doubt. Its insights could be applied to some schools of philosophy (e.g. Heideggerian) and practical spirituality, because it does not focus on what is distinctive about religion. Rather, it focuses on the core of religion, and, secondarily, on what religions have in common. The family resemblance approach has led to a number of “new” definitions (post-Durkheim definitions) being proposed, all of which define religion in a less rigorous, but, I hope, more imaginative and heuristic way.Let me provide a few examples, starting with two contrasting ones. Peter Berger in the late 1960s defined religion as “the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as humanly significant”(37), which implies a consciousness of an anthropocentric sacred cosmos. Later, Alain Touraine said that religion is “the apprehension of human destiny, existence, and death”(213–4), that is, an awareness of human limitations, including doubt. Berger emphasises the high place for human beings in religion, and even a sort of affected certainty, while Touraine emphasises our place as doubters on the periphery, but it seems that religion exists within a tension between these two opposites, and, in a sense, encompasses them both.Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church and arch-nemesis of the conservative Anglicans, such as those from Sydney, defines religion as like good poetry, not bad science. It is easy to understand that he is criticising those who see religion, particularly Christianity, as centrally opposed to Darwin and evolution. Holloway is clearly saying that those people have missed the point of their own faith. By “good poetry”, he is pointing to the significance of storytelling rather than dogma, and an open-ended discussion of ultimate questions that resists the temptation to end with “the moral of the story”. In science (at least before quantum physics), there is no room for doubt, but that is not the case with poetry.John Caputo, in a very energetic book called On Religion, proposes what is probably the boldest of the “new” definitions. He defines religion as “the love of God” (1). Note the contrast with Tylor and Spiro. Caputo does not say “belief in God”; he says “the love of God”. You might ask how you can love someone you don’t believe in, but, in a sense, this paradox is the whole point. When Caputo says “God”, he is not necessarily talking in the usual theistic or even theological terms. By “God”, he means the impossible made possible (10). So a religious person, for Caputo, is an “unhinged lover” (13) who loves the impossible made possible, and the opposite is a “loveless lout” who is only concerned with the latest stock market figures (2–3). In this sense of religious, a committed atheist can be religious and a devout Catholic or Muslim or Hindu can be utterly irreligious (2–3). Doubt can encompass faith and faith can encompass doubt. This is the impossible made possible. Caputo’s approach here has something in common with Nietzsche and especially Kierkegaard, to whom I shall return later.I would like to propose another definition of religion, within the spirit of these “new” definitions of religion that I have been discussing. Religion, at its core, I suggest, is non-propositional and apophatic. When I say that religion is non-propositional, I mean that religion will often enact certain rituals, or tell certain stories, or posit faith in someone, and that propositional statements of doctrine are merely reflections or approximations of this non-propositional core. Faith in God is not a proposition. The Eucharist is not a proposition. Prayer is not, at its core, a proposition. Pilgrimage is not a proposition. And it is these sorts of things that, I suggest, form the core of religion. Propositions are what happen when theologians and academics get their hands on religion, they try to intellectualise it so that it can be made to fit within their area of expertise—our area of expertise. But, that is not where it belongs. Propositions about rituals impose a certainty on them, whereas the ritual itself allows for courage in the face of doubt. The Maundy Thursday service in Western Christianity includes the stripping of the altar to the accompaniment of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me”), ending the service without a dismissal (Latin missa, the origin of the English “mass”) and with the church in darkness. Doubt, confusion, and bewilderment are the heart and soul of this ritual, not orthodox faith as defined propositionally.That said, religion does often involve believing, of some kind (though it is not usually as central as in Christianity). So I say that religion is non-propositional and apophatic. The word “apophatic”, though not the concept, has its roots in Greek Orthodox theology, where St Gregory Palamas argues that any statement about God—and particularly about God’s essence as opposed to God’s energies—must be paradoxical, emphasising God’s otherness, and apophatic, emphasising God’s essential incomprehensibility (Armstrong 393). To make an apophatic statement is to make a negative statement—instead of saying God is king, lord, father, or whatever, we say God is not. Even the most devout believer will recognise a sense in which God is not a king, or a lord, or a father. They will say that God is much greater than any of these things. The Muslim will say “Allahu Akhbar”, which means God is greater, greater than any human description. Even the statement “God exists” is seen to be well short of the mark. Even that is human language, which is why the Cappadocian fathers (Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Naziansus) said that they believed in God, while refusing to say that God exists.So to say that religion is at its core non-propositional is to say that religious beliefs are at their core apophatic. The idea of apophasis is that by a process of constant negation you are led into silence, into a recognition that there is nothing more that can be said. St Thomas Aquinas says that the more things we negate about God, the more we say “God is not…”, the closer we get to what God is (139). Doubt therefore brings us closer to the object of religion than any putative certainties.Apophasis does not only apply to Christianity. I have already indicated that it applies also to Islam, and the statement that God is greater. In Islam, God is said to have 99 names—or at least 99 that have been revealed to human beings. Many of these names are apophatic. Names like The Hidden carry an obviously negative meaning in English, while, etymologically, “the Holy” (al-quddu-s) means “beyond imperfection”, which is a negation of a negation. As-salaam, the All-Peaceful, means beyond disharmony, or disequilibrium, or strife, and, according to Murata and Chittick (65–6), “The Glorified” (as-subbuh) means beyond understanding.In non-theistic religions too, an apophatic way of believing can be found. Key Buddhist concepts include sunyata, emptiness, or the Void, and anatta, meaning no self, the belief or realisation that the Self is illusory. Ask what they believe in instead of the Self and you are likely to be told that you are missing the point, like the Zen pupil who confused the pointing finger with the moon. In the Zen koans, apophasis plays a major part. One well-known koan is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Any logical answers will be dismissed, like Thomas Aquinas’s statements about God, until the pupil gets beyond logic and achieves satori, or enlightenment. Probably the most used koan is Mu—Master Joshu is asked if a dog has Buddha-nature and replies Mu, meaning “no” or “nothing”. This is within the context of the principle that everything has Buddha-nature, so it is not logical. But this apophatic process can lead to enlightenment, something better than logic. By plunging again and again in the water of doubt, to use Wittgenstein’s words, we gain something better than certainty.So not only is apophasis present in a range of different religions—and I have given just a few examples—but it is also central to the development of religion in the Axial Age, Karl Jaspers’s term for the period from about 800-200 BCE when the main religious traditions of the world began—monotheism in Israel (which also developed into Christianity and Islam), Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Confucianism and Taoism in China, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. In the early Hindu traditions, there seems to have been a sort of ritualised debate called the Brahmodya, which would proceed through negation and end in silence. Not the silence of someone admitting defeat at the hands of the other, but the silence of recognising that the truth lay beyond them (Armstrong 24).In later Hinduism, apophatic thought is developed quite extensively. This culminates in the idea of Brahman, the One God who is Formless, beyond all form and all description. As such, all representations of Brahman are equally false and therefore all representations are equally true—hence the preponderance of gods and idols on the surface of Hinduism. There is also the development of the idea of Atman, the universal Self, and the Buddhist concept anatta, which I mentioned, is rendered anatman in Sanskrit, literally no Atman, no Self. But in advaita Hinduism there is the idea that Brahman and Atman are the same, or, more accurately, they are not two—hence advaita, meaning “not two”. This is negation, or apophasis. In some forms of present-day Hinduism, such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as the Hare Krishnas), advaita is rejected. Sometimes this is characterised as dualism with respect to Brahman and Atman, but it is really the negation of non-dualism, or an apophatic negation of the negation.Even in early Hinduism, there is a sort of Brahmodya recounted in the Rig Veda (Armstrong 24–5), the oldest extant religious scripture in the world that is still in use as a religious scripture. So here we are at the beginning of Axial Age religion, and we read this account of creation:Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal.Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.All that existed then was void and form less.Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.(Rig Veda Book 10, Hymn 129, abridged)And it would seem that this is the sort of thought that spread throughout the world as a result of the Axial Age and the later spread of Axial and post-Axial religions.I could provide examples from other religious traditions. Taoism probably has the best examples, though they are harder to relate to the traditions that are more familiar in the West. “The way that is spoken is not the Way” is the most anglicised translation of the opening of the Tao Te Ching. In Sikhism, God’s formlessness and essential unknowability mean that God can only be known “by the Guru’s grace”, to quote the opening hymn of the Guru Granth Sahib.Before I conclude, however, I would like to anticipate two criticisms. First, this may only be applicable to the religions of the Axial Age and their successors, beginning with Hinduism and Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and early Jewish monotheism, followed by Jainism, Christianity, Islam and so on. I would like to find examples of apophasis at the core of other traditions, including Indigenous Australian and Native American ones, for example, but that is work still to be done. Focusing on the Axial Age does historicise the argument, however, at least in contrast with a more universal concept of religion that runs the risk of falling into the ahistorical homo religiosus idea that humans are universally and even naturally religious. Second, this apophatic definition looks a bit elitist, defining religion in terms that are relevant to theologians and “religious virtuosi” (to use Weber’s term), but what about the ordinary believers, pew-fillers, temple-goers? In response to such criticism, one may reply that there is an apophatic strand in what Niebuhr called the religions of the disinherited. In Asia, devotion to the Buddha Amida is particularly popular among the poor, and this involves a transformation of the idea of anatta—no Self—into an external agency, a Buddha who is “without measure”, in terms of in-finite light and in-finite life. These are apophatic concepts. In the Christian New Testament, we are told that God “has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong…, the things that are not to shame the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27). The things that are not are the apophatic, and these are allied with the foolish and the weak, not the educated and the powerful.One major reason for emphasising the role of apophasis in religious thought is to break away from the idea that the core of religion is an ethical one. This is argued by a number of “liberal religious” thinkers in different religious traditions. I appreciate their reasons, and I am reluctant to ally myself with their opponents, who include the more fundamentalist types as well as some vocal critics of religion like Dawkins and Hitchens. However, I said that I would return to Kierkegaard, and the reason is this. Kierkegaard distinguishes between the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. Of course, religion has an aesthetic and an ethical dimension, and in some religions these dimensions are particularly important, but that does not make them central to religion as such. Kierkegaard regarded the religious sphere as radically different from the aesthetic or even the ethical, hence his treatment of the story of Abraham going to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son, in obedience to God’s command. His son was not killed in the end, but Abraham was ready to do the deed. This is not ethical. This is fundamentally and scandalously unethical. Yet it is religious, not because it is unethical and scandalous, but because it pushes us to the limits of our understanding, through the waters of doubt, and then beyond.Were I attempting to criticise religion, I would say it should not go there, that, to misquote Wittgenstein, the limits of my understanding are the limits of my world, whereof we cannot understand thereof we must remain silent. Were I attempting to defend religion, I would say that this is its genius, that it can push back the limits of understanding. I do not believe in value-neutral sociology, but, in this case, I am attempting neither. ReferencesAldridge, Alan. Religion in the Contemporary World. Cambridge: Polity, 2000.Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa of Christian Teaching”. An Aquinas Reader. ed. Mary Clarke. New York: Doubleday, 1972.Armstrong, Karen. The Great Transformation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.Barker, Eileen. New Religious Movements: a Practical Introduction. London: HMSO, 1989.Berger, Peter. 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