Search Results (28)

Drawing from The Temple, a seventeenth-century volume of devotional poems written by George Herbert, this essay sets out to unfold how deliberately choosing constraint can lead to a spiritual experience. Beginning with a formal analysis of Herbert’s shape poem “The Altar” to demonstrate how form and content simultaneously create meaning in lyric poetry, the remainder of the essay focuses on Herbert’s most formally constrained poems: the sonnets. Using Herbert’s treatment of the sonnet form as evidence of deliberately choosing constraint, Herbert’s poetics transform our conceptual understanding of the elements that make up a Christian religious experience. Titled by the same words that provide the foundation for Christian spiritual experience, the sonnets “Prayer”, “Love”, and “Redemption”, among others, renew our understanding of religious experience by refocusing our attention via the constraints of the poetic form. By pairing together key religious concepts with the constrained attentive demands of poetry, Herbert’s sonnets challenge notions of passivity and call instead for a renewed understanding of the Christian experience. Characterized by the need for careful attention and neurological intensification—a specific quality of religious experience—Herbert’s sonnets become rooms, or perhaps, poetic chapels, where readers have the chance to experience the spiritual ultimacy of “something understood”. Full article

This paper examines the intersection of Confucianism and Buddhism as presented in the Nihon-ryōiki (NIH), focusing on the catechetical efforts of its Buddhist author to fuse these ethical traditions. A central concern of the text is the introduction of karmic law and rebirth, concepts that Buddhism imported from ancient India that were not fully accepted in Japanese society at the time of its composition. This study explains how many of the miracles described in the NIH are consistent with Confucian values, particularly in their emphasis on benevolence, compassion, and social duty. In this paper, I argue for synthesizing Confucian and Buddhist ethics in the NIH as universal values that underscore the importance of social harmony based on filial duty—the Confucian worldview underlying the NIH’s linking of personal conduct to the cosmic law of karmic retribution. Full article

The launch of ChatGPT in November of 2022 provides the rare opportunity to consider both what artificial intelligence (AI) is and what human experts are. In the spirit of making the most of this opportunity, we invite the reader to follow a suggestive series of “what if” questions that lead to a plausible settlement in which the human expert and the generative AI system collaborate pedagogically to shape the (human) religious studies student. (1) What if, contrary to the Baconian frame, humans reason primarily by exercising intellectual virtuosity, and only secondarily by means of rules-based inference? (2) What if, even though we train AI models on human-generated data by means of rules-based algorithms, the resulting systems demonstrate the potential for exercising intellectual virtuosity? (3) What if, by deprioritizing mechanistic and algorithmic models of human cognition while being open to the possibility that AI represents a different species of cognition, we open a future in which human and AI virtuosos mutually inspire, enrich, and even catechize one another? Full article

Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) was the first Westerner officially approved to reside in China. He promoted Chinese and Western cultural exchange, and he was especially noted for facilitating dialogue between Confucianism and Catholicism. His writings had an important impact in both China and Europe. During his sojourn preaching in China, Ruggieri not only wrote the Tianzhu shilu—the first catechism written in Chinese—but he was also the first Westerner to translate the Four Books into Western language and introduce them to Europe. Based on Ruggieri’s two translations of the Four Books—one translation into Spanish, and one into Latin—this article analyzes Ruggieri’s views of Confucius. In his translations, Ruggieri identified Confucius as a philosopher and a shengren, or saint, and he highlighted the status of Confucius in the Four Books. After analyzing Ruggieri’s treatments of Confucian concepts, this article discusses how Ruggieri’s translations imply that Confucianism had both rational and religious dimensions. After Ruggieri, other Jesuits who came to China gradually turned to emphasizing the rational aspects of Confucianism. Full article

In the debate over the theory and practice of the Spanish empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century, political, religious, and legal discourses differentiated conquered peoples and recent converts to Christianity from so-called “old Christians”, thereby creating distinct categories of Spanish subjects. In Spain itself, cultural markers like language, dress, and diet became the foundations of fiscal and legal differences, while normative codes were promulgated and negotiated across a range of documents, e.g., legal instruments, civic and ecclesiastical records, university debates, and juridical theory. Concomitant with this process, a set of Christian catechisms was produced in Spain, both before and after the promulgation of Tridentine reforms, that were directed especially at the converted morisco populations in Granada and Valencia. These catechisms were produced in Iberian Arabic and Romance languages and included instructions about how new converts from Islam should behave, as well as what they should believe in order to participate in liturgical activities and to be recognized as full members of the Christian community. This article examines the morisco catechisms produced in Spain between 1496 and 1566, as these documents are representative of a unique period in both the history of Latin Christianity and the burgeoning Spanish empire. Through the emergence of this corpus and against the backdrop of targeted legislation and new policies aimed at Arabic-speaking moriscos, first in Granada and later in Valencia, the ideological foundations constraining the morisco experience were forged. Full article

The depiction of Andean religion in the Comentarios reales de los incas (1609, 1617) has centered on Garcilaso de la Vega’s providential interpretation of Inca pagan governance and the influence of the Christian humanist traditions that he mastered as an adult in Spain. However, scholars have not adequately recognized his attention to the ecclesiastical debates regarding the persistence of Inca cult beliefs and practices in the colonial Andean society of his day. This paper examines a new source for understanding the chronicler’s portrayal of Inca religion, the catechisms and canon decrees of South America’s definitive post-Tridentine assembly, the Third Provincial Council of Lima (1582–1583), which established the Church’s official stance on the fundamental “idolatry” of Inca morality and ritual customs and the need for their extirpation. It will be argued that Garcilaso’s knowledge of natural and canon law provided the basis for his defense of the Incas’ religion and justice system and his criticisms of the anti-Inca tenor of the council’s directives on Andean custom and intercultural dialogue. The chronicler’s response to the council’s pronouncements on the ritual of penance, in particular, offers novel insights about the indigenous reception of the Church’s missionary regime within an orthodox and culturally-integrated vision for Andean Christianity. Full article

After the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the first groups of friars arrived in Mexico to Christianize the native inhabitants of Mesoamerica. This task was anything but easy, as explaining Christian doctrine to the Indigenous people posed both a linguistic and a theological challenge. The need to learn Indigenous languages and to prepare doctrinal materials dedicated specifically to the Christianization of this land was a task that might have seemed almost impossible to conduct in a short period of time, yet by the 1540s, the first printed catechisms (doctrinas) in Nahuatl began to appear. One of the earliest and broadest of these works is the 1548 Dominican Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Española y Mexicana, in which the friars attempted to explain all of the principles of Catholic theology to the Indigenous people. This paper analyses how through highly detailed descriptions and a meticulous choice of vocabulary, the authors strove to impart the tenets of Christian doctrine to the Nahuas in such a way as to make it both fully understandable and as unlikely as possible to be misinterpreted. It points to the sources on which the friars relied while writing the text. The article formulates a theory that the creation of the Doctrina Christiana would not have been possible without the participation of the native speakers of Nahuatl in the project, even though their role in writing the catechism would have had to be hidden from the religious authorities. The Indigenous authors served as cross-cultural bridges in the process of preparing the doctrinal materials. On the one hand, they could therefore help to explain crucial parts of the doctrine to the Indigenous audience. On the other hand, allowing Indigenous concepts to permeate the Christian discourse often led to the creation of ambiguity and provided a space of contestation that could influence the understanding of the Catholic concepts by the Indigenous audience. Full article

The aim of this study was to investigate the compounds in the hexane extract of Cirsium vulgare (Savi.) Ten. and to determine the antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidant activities of different extracts. The Cirsium vulgare (NGBB 7229) plant was collected from Turkey’s Trakya region. Crude extracts were obtained using different solvents. The chemical composition of Cirsium vulgare was determined in hexane extract using gas chromatography mass spectrometry. The antioxidant activities of the extracts were evaluated by Trolox equivalent antioxidant activity (TEAC), ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), cupric-reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC), the β-carotene bleaching method, and the determination of superoxide anion scavenging activities. The antibacterial activity was tested against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis, and Salmonella typhimurium, whereas the antifungal activity was tested against Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida parapsilosis, Candida krusei, Penicillium chrysogenum, and Aspergillus fumigatus by applying microdilution methods. A total of 41 bioactive compounds were identified using the GC–MS library. Terpenoids were found to be dominant (52.89%), and lup-20(29)-en-3-yl-acetate and lupeol were the most abundant terpenoids. The highest total flavonoid content (25.73 mg catechin/g) and antioxidant capacity were found in the methanolic extract. The highest antibacterial activity was detected against Bacillus subtilis in the ethyl acetate extract, and the highest antifungal activity was found against Candida krusei and Aspergillus fumigatus in the hexane extract. The observed antioxidant characteristics of the C. vulgare extracts could be attributed to the presence of flavonoids. The high antifungal activity of the hexane extract against all fungal strains can be attributed to its constituents, i.e., terpenoids. This study discloses the potential antioxidant and antimicrobial activities, including some bioactive components, of Cirsium vulgare and implies that Cirsium vulgare holds possible applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries as an antioxidant, antibacterial, and antifungal agent. Full article

Over the course of history, humans have had a deep need to express themselves not only through words but also through images. Furthermore, images and artworks have the potential to serve as a path to God. This article aims to explore the presence of images and artistic expressions in catechesis and their role in education and growth in faith throughout a person’s life. In this regard, the article is structured into three sections, also including an introduction and a conclusion. The first section elaborates on the power of imagery in today’s world, emphasising the human need to express oneself visually as well as verbally and highlighting the significance of all factors that contribute to the interpretation and understanding of images. The second section discusses catechesis, which serves the purpose of an individual’s education and growth in faith, emphasising various methods and ways of teaching in faith. This section also underscores the place and role of images and works of art in the history of the Church and in catechisms. Finally, the third section highlights the importance of aesthetic and artistic formation among all participants in catechesis, whereby the images and artworks are used to facilitate a better understanding and experience of the faith and its content in all its beauty. Full article

The growing political influence of evangélico Christians in traditionally Catholic Brazil has caught the attention of social and political scientists as well as theologians. Among others, the reasons for two-thirds of the mainly Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal electorate voting for Jair Messias Bolsonaro include a moral agenda concerning human sexuality and the “traditional family,” namely the rejection of abortion under any circumstance and same-sex marriage. This conservative agenda is shared in other countries and churches and shows as “traditionalist” (Benjamin Teitelbaum), especially in Brazil, the USA under Trump, and Russia. At the same time, other, more social aspects of Christian diaconia in caring for the integrity of the body are left aside, although they are foreseen in those churches’ declarations of faith and ethical catechisms. The 2019–2022 government’s blatant failure to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the appalling rise of hunger, and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest should give rise to what I call an “evangélico sense of shame” as a consequence of the incompatibility of many of the faith convictions of that part of the electorate with Bolsonaro’s stances and actions, retrieving shame as an ethical category. To this end, I analyze biblical notions and theological reflections on shame, as well as publications of evangélico churches with a focus on the largest of its churches in Brazil, the Assemblies of God. Thus, I intend to reclaim an integral diaconia for evangélico churches. Full article

It is clearly stated by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that provided education should not follow or consist of a means of catechism contrary to the religious or philosophical perceptions of the parents. Consequently, a specific negative claim is established: the state, through its educational policy, must refrain from transmitting information that is contrary to the philosophical and religious beliefs of the parents. In Greece, education policy is not neutral. It has a clear Christian orientation, primarily due to the constitutional establishment of the prevailing religion. It is not a constitutional paradox but a choice of the legislator based on cultural and social characteristics. This article aims to present an analysis of the effect of the constitutional establishment of the Christian faith in the national educational policy, which aims at the development of national and religious consciousness. Given that religious education is more freely formulated, the influence of the prevailing religion proves to be catalytic. In Greece, the catechism is preferred, according to the teachings of the prevailing religion. This choice makes it easier for parents to raise their children based on their beliefs, effectively reinforcing the fundamental right established by Article 2 of the additional protocol of the ECHR. Full article

Euterpe oleracea (açaí) fruit has approximately 15% pulp, which is partly edible and commercialized, and 85% seeds. Although açaí seeds are rich in catechins—polyphenolic compounds with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor effects—almost 935,000 tons/year of seeds are discarded as industrial waste. This work evaluated the antitumor properties of E. oleracea in vitro and in vivo in a solid Ehrlich tumor in mice. The seed extract presented 86.26 ± 0.189 mg of catechin/g of extract. The palm and pulp extracts did not exhibit in vitro antitumor activity, while the fruit and seed extracts showed cytotoxic effects on the LNCaP prostate cancer cell line, inducing mitochondrial and nuclear alterations. Oral treatments were performed daily at 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg of E. oleracea seed extract. The tumor development and histology were evaluated, along with immunological and toxicological parameters. Treatment at 400 mg/kg reduced the tumor size, nuclear pleomorphism, and mitosis figures, increasing tumor necrosis. Treated groups showed cellularity of lymphoid organs comparable to the untreated group, suggesting less infiltration in the lymph node and spleen and preservation of the bone marrow. The highest doses reduced IL-6 and induced IFN-γ, suggesting antitumor and immunomodulatory effects. Thus, açaí seeds can be an important source of compounds with antitumor and immunoprotective properties. Full article

During the American annexation of the Philippines, a classic English catechism designed in a question-and-answer format known as the Baltimore catechism became popular. Apparently, that said catechism served as the standard Catholic catechetical text (lingua franca) in the country from 1900 to the late 1960s. There is no single best method and approach in the ministry of catechesis. However, cultural appreciation of the people is essential to realize purposeful and meaningful catechesis. In the celebration of the Quincentenario of the arrival of Catholicism in the Philippines, it is a fitting tribute to recognize Fray Juan de Oliver, O.F.M. and revisit his Declaracion de la Doctrina Christian en Idioma Tagalog which he used from 1582 to 1591 when he was tasked to evangelize the locals of Balayan, Batangas during the early stages of the Catholic propagation in Luzon. The 188-page catechism attributed to de Oliver was all written in Tagalog which meant that he persevered in learning the local language to impart the Catholic teachings strikingly to the natives. Through historical and textual analysis, the proponent intends to reconstruct de Oliver’s adaptable and comfortable (gamay) methods and approaches of catechizing in a suitable way (hiyang) to the worldview, language, and culture of the locals. Likewise, de Oliver’s catechetical pedagogy may also serve as a pedagogical paradigm for priests, religious educators, and catechists in conducting contextualized catechesis. Full article

A survey of the history of medieval Kōyasan, an important mountain-based headquarters for esoteric Shingon Buddhism since the early ninth century, cannot omit significant developments in the worship of kami (tutelary and ancestral gods) from the end of the Heian period (794–1185) to the Muromachi period (1333–1573). A fundamental aspect of kami worship at Kōyasan was the regular offering to the kami (shinbōraku 神法楽) of mondō-kō 問答講 (catechism/dialogue form, or ‘question and answer’ ‘lectures’) and rongi (debate examinations in the form of mondō). The relationship between Buddhist scholarship and kami worship has not been fully elucidated and such will enrich understanding of both subjects. The identities and meanings of the two oldest kami enshrined at Kōyasan, Niu Myōjin 丹生明神 (also called Niutsuhime) and Kariba Myōjin 狩場明神 (also called Kōya Myōjin), were delineated in texts produced by scholar monks (gakuryo 学侶) during a period when the debates were re-systematized after a period of sporadicity and decline, so the precise functions of this cinnabar goddess and hunter god in the related ritual offerings deserve attention. In this paper I examine ideas about the Kōyasan kami that can be found, specifically, in the institution and development of these mondō and rongi 論義. Placing them in this context yields new information, and offers new methods of understanding of not only related textual materials, but also of the icons used in the debates, and the related major ceremonies (hōe 法会) and individual ritual practices (gyōbō 行法) that were involved. Given that the candidates of a major ritual debate examination—to be discussed—that has been practiced from the Muromachi period up to the present day are said to ‘represent’ kami, and are even referred to by the names of kami, the history of the precise relationship between the kami and the debates invites more detailed explanation that has so far been largely lacking in the scholarship. Full article

Withania aristata (Aiton) Pauquy, a medicinal plant endemic to North African Sahara, is widely employed in traditional herbal pharmacotherapy. In the present study, the chemical composition, antioxidant, antibacterial, and antifungal potencies of extract from the roots of Withania aristata (Aiton) Pauquy (RWA) against drug-resistant microbes were investigated. Briefly, RWA was obtained by maceration with hydro-ethanol and its compounds were identified by use of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The antioxidant activity of RWA was determined by use of ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). The evaluation of the antimicrobial potential of RWA was performed against drug-resistant pathogenic microbial strains of clinical importance by use of the disc diffusion agar and microdilution assays. Seven compounds were identified in RWA according to HPLC analysis, including cichoric acid, caffeic acid, apigenin, epicatechin, luteolin, quercetin, and p-catechic acid. RWA had excellent antioxidant potency with calculated values of 14.0 ± 0.8 µg/mL (DPPH), 0.37 ± 0.08 mg/mL (FRAP), 760 ± 10 mg AAE/g (TAC), and 81.4% (β-carotene). RWA demonstrated good antibacterial potential against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, with inhibition zone diameters ranging from 15.24 ± 1.31 to 19.51 ± 0.74 mm, while all antibiotics used as drug references were infective, except for Oxacillin against S. aureus. Results of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assay against bacteria showed that RWA had MIC values ranging from 2.13 to 4.83 mg/mL compared to drug references, which had values ranging from 0.031 ± 0.003 to 0.064 ± 0.009 mg/mL. Similarly, respectable antifungal potency was recorded against the fungal strains with inhibition zone diameters ranging from 25.65 ± 1.14 to 29.00 ± 1.51 mm compared to Fluconazole, used as a drug reference, which had values ranging from 31.69 ± 1.92 to 37.74 ± 1.34 mg/mL. Results of MIC assays against fungi showed that RWA had MIC values ranging from 2.84 ± 0.61 to 5.71 ± 0.54 mg/mL compared to drug references, which had values ranging from 2.52 ± 0.03 to 3.21 ± 0.04 mg/mL. According to these outcomes, RWA is considered a promising source of chemical compounds with potent biological properties that can be beneficial as natural antioxidants and formulate a valuable weapon in the fight against a broad spectrum of pathogenic microbes. Full article