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Althoughworship of the relics of the Buddha — and its corollary, st?paworship — is a widespread feature of Buddhist devotional practice among both lay Buddhists and monks, there is in some quarters a view that, while recommended to lay followers, it is forbidden to monks. This controversy started very early after the Buddha’s parinibb?na and has reverberated throughout the centuries till the present time. Its source is in the Mah?parinibb?na Sutta, and it stems from the ambiguity (...) in the meaning of the compound sar?ra-p?j? in the Buddha’s reply to?nanda’s two questions concerning the actions to be taken after the Master’s death with respect to his body. The resolution of the controversy depends on a correct understanding of the nature of the Buddha’s replies to the two questions. This paper analyses the relevant passages of the sutta and the way they have been translated, correctly or incorrectly, into Western languages and into Chinese, and finally arrives at a solution derived entirely from within the text of the Mah?parinibb?na Sutta itself. (shrink)

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Various strands of religious thought distinguish veneration fromworship. According to these traditions, believers ought toworship God alone. Toworship anything else, they say, is idolatry. And yet many of these same believers also claim to venerate—but notworship—saints, angels, images, relics, tombs, and even each other. But what's the difference? Tim Bayne and Yujin Nagasawa (2006: 302) are correct that “it seems to be extremely difficult to distinguish veneration fromworship.” Many have argued (...) throughout history that veneration collapses intoworship and that those who venerate saints or icons are guilty of idolatry. In this essay, we distinguishworship from veneration in two stages. First, we give a formal account of their difference. Drawing from St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749 AD), we argue thatworship is a determinate of the determinable veneration. Second, we give more substantive accounts of both that explain their differences and similarities. Drawing again from St John, we argue that acts of veneration andworship signify subordination. Their difference, however, lies in the fact thatworship alone requires absolute subordination. (shrink)

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Whether churches should be demolished, rebuilt, restored or preserved is a contentious issue. Some hold that the needs of a present worshipping community should take precedence over antiquarian or aesthetic interest, others that we owe a debt to the ages. Arguments mirror those between developers and environmentalists. It is argued here that it is not abstract rights that matter, but a sense of history, and of the sacred. Church buildings and landscapes are to be maintained not as museum pieces but (...) as living elements of a humane piety. (shrink)

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The article examines a fundamental problem in classical Jaina philosophy, namely, the ontological status of dead matter in the hylozoistic and at the same time dualistic Jaina worldview. This question is of particular interest in view of the widespread contemporary Jaina practice of venerating bone relics and stūpas of prominent saints. The main argument proposed in this article is, that, from a classical doctrinal point of view, bone relics of renowned ascetics are valuable for Jainas, if at all, because of (...) their unique physical attributes, rather than the presumed presence of the deceased in the remains as posited in much of the extant literature onrelicworship across cultures. The specific focus of the article are Jaina and non-Jaina explanations of the qualities of special matter in terms of karmic and natural processes of transformation. (shrink)

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In a relatively little-known interview, conducted by Thomas Bertonneau, Girard remarks that with Heidegger there is an aspect he "would almost call aworship of the old sacred," something that struck him as "pretty scary … sinister." But, almost in the same breath, Girard continues, "And yet there can be no doubt that Heidegger is a genius."1This doubled attitude to Heidegger, where on the one side the German philosopher is basically a hostilerelic of the archaic sacred, and (...) on the other he has contributed something of genius to contemporary thought, has not been sufficiently examined among Girardians. The default position seems to be a dismissal on account of the former and an unwillingness to engage in respect... (shrink)

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Exopraxis—a term for religious practices in places ofworship associated with a religion not one’s own—is often associated with heteropraxis, a term for unorthodox religious practices. Heteropraxes, which may be shared by members of more than one religion, can diverge so widely from the orthopraxy and even orthodoxy of a dominant religion that government authorities will make strenuous attempts to suppress them. In Muslim Turkey, a growing proportion of the supporters of Sunni orthodoxy regard the veneration of certain trees, (...) stones, natural springs, and resting places of saintly persons and relics as forms of idolatry, heresy, or superstition. Alevi heteropraxis at such sites of wild piety are often accompanied by Sunni exopraxis. Heteropraxis and exopraxis do not everywhere or completely overlap, argues this introduction to a cluster of articles on exopraxis, but exopraxis is generally tolerant of, if not drawn to, heteropraxis. (shrink)

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Shifting attention away from the direct experience of the divinity's anthropomorphic representation deemed essential to the concept of "iconic presence", this article focuses instead on medieval worshipers' distant encounter with sacred places. It considers silhouettes on the horizon and the echo of bells, presenting the indirect evidence that these phenomena can evoke the holy presence in ways comparable to those of images or sculptures. The paper first analyzes the medieval believer's landscape understood as a multisensory experience in which beliefs, emotions, (...) myths, memory, reactions, and motion combined to play an essential role. It asserts that, in the Middle Ages, an apotropaic force emanated from a faraway church, conveying the presence of paradise and angelic powers. These powers could take an even more specific form, which the article demonstrates by following the steps of medieval travelers approaching the shrine at Mont-Saint- Michel. The tidal island stood, to the medieval imagination, as a sacred, paradisiacal mountain, as the last watch protecting the worshiper from the sea's vast wilderness, and as Saint Michael's haven. While Saint Michael's powers already manifested themselves to the faithful from afar, his presence grew stronger upon reaching the tidal island. This intensification derived from not only the saint's relics held in the church, but also from the horizon of sea and sky spread before the medieval traveler standing on the mountain. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eucharistic Adoration:Veils for VisionEmmanuel Perrier O.P.Translated by Amy Christine DevaudTo the Virgin of the AnnunciationEucharistic adoration is an eminently personal form of prayer.1 Not in the sense that each one of us could fill this time spent in the presence of the Lord with what he or she wants; if this were to be the case, there would be no adoration at all, since it would simply be a (...) matter of meeting oneself and one's ideas about God. Eucharistic adoration is a personal prayer in the sense that the adorer welcomes in his soul the divine person of the eternal Son, through the vision of the human body united to the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary, just as this body is offered by faith in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Therefore, what is crucial to this meeting is that prayer be guided by the truth of the Eucharistic mystery and not by the feelings of the adorer, even less by the introspection of himself while adoring. In presenting the theological foundations of Eucharistic adoration, the following pages have a threefold goal: to enlighten beginners about the very things which shape this prayer; to help those who are progressing in their adoration to align it to the vision of the Word who became flesh; and [End Page 397] to accompany and support those who are more advanced in putting into words what they are already experiencing.After having specified the foundations of Eucharistic adoration, we will address the themes that sustain it in the same order in which the soul welcomes the mystery of the Word become flesh. This is an order that can be followed as steps to take during a time of adoration. One will then take care to allow enough time for each step. But it may be more relevant to focus on a limited number of themes, or even on a single one. We will be careful to ensure that we do not neglect any of the themes presented throughout the various meditations for adoration.The Hope of VisionEucharistic adoration begins and is consumed in vision, in the gaze toward the Body of Christ in his sacrament. God has accustomed us to listen to him, ever since he began to speak to Abraham, to Moses, to David, through the prophets. The Law begins with this commandment: "Hear now, O Israel!" To hear the Word is to welcome it, to put it into practice, and in doing so, to let it bear fruit within us. But seeing God is quite different.In the days of Christ, the central part of the Temple in Jerusalem, one of the wonders of the world, had two rooms, one called the Holy Place and the other called the Holy of Holies. The entrance to each room was obstructed by a huge curtain (see Exod 26:31–32). The priests usually celebrated their services behind the curtain of the Holy Place. However, they did not enter the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God among men (see Exod 29:43–46), which sheltered, before its destruction (probably in 587 BC), the Ark of the Covenant containing the tables of the Law given at Sinai, as well as arelic of the manna, the bread that came down from heaven to feed the people of Israel during the Exodus (see Heb 9:4). Only once a year the High Priest would cross the veil of the Holy of Holies to stand in the presence of God and pronounce the Name above all names, in remembrance of God's encounters with Moses:Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose up, and every man stood at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of to the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, all the people would rise up andworship. … The Lord used to speak with Moses... (shrink)

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An exceptional work of early medieval art, the reliquary of Sainte Foy in Conques is the perfect object for understanding the notion of "iconic presence" around the year 1000. Bernard of Angers wrote his well-known Liber miraculorum to promote the cult of this particular saint. The book is one of many of its genre, but Bernard's approach is unique in the way it describes the reception of Sainte Foy's reliquary. Bernard tries to distinguish between relics and reliquary, but his text (...) makes clear that, for the faithful, reality was different: the reliquary can take on the saint's own holiness. A second fundamental element also emerges from the Liber miraculorum: it is movement that releases the saint's full power – both the reliquary's movement and that of the pilgrims who come toworship in Conques. This dual mobility reaches its climax during the nights of incubatio before the statue of Sainte Foy. Candlelight animates her entire person, and the light reflected in her eyes mirrors the motion of the faithful prostrating themselves before her. An object or an image thus becomes, more than ever, a presence. (shrink)

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Informed by a provocative exhibition at the Louvre curated by the author, _The Severed Head_ unpacks artistic representations of severed heads from the Paleolithic period to the present. Surveying paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Julia Kristeva turns her famed critical eye to a study of the head as symbol and metaphor, as religious object and physical fact, further developing a critical theme in her work--_the power of horror_--and the potential for the face to provide an experience of the sacred. Kristeva considers (...) the head as icon, artifact, and locus of thought, seeking a keener understanding of the violence and desire that drives us to sever, and in some cases keep, such a potent object. Her study stretches all the way back to 6,000 B.C.E., with humans' early decoration andworship of skulls, and follows with the Medusa myth; the mandylion of Laon (a holyrelic in which the face of a saint appears on a piece of cloth); the biblical story of John the Baptist and his counterpart, Salome; tales of the guillotine; modern murder mysteries; and even the rhetoric surrounding the fight for and against capital punishment. Kristeva interprets these "capital visions" through the lens of psychoanalysis, drawing infinite connections between their manifestation and sacred experience and very much affirming the possibility of the sacred, even in an era of "faceless" interaction. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This essay considers hagiography as a spatial-theological genre emerging, so to speak, from the crypts of Christian martyrs where liturgical celebrations commemorate their paradoxical witness to the Paschal mystery, whereby the faithful gain eternal life through temporal death. Later the virtues and miracles of holy men and women, such as ascetics, bishops, mystics and founders of religious communities, are recounted in vitae intended for liturgical offices and contemplative reflection. (...) The relics of these saints are a site for the construction of religious identity and a locus of pilgrimage, as the faithful gather in the churches where the bodily remains are located. Often miracle accounts, collected soon after the death of the saint, are accompanied by miracles at the tomb thereby initiating or furthering the process of veneration and canonization, whence the relics are subsequently transferred to a prominent place within the church, such as the area near the altar. Miracle stories are a constant in liturgical legends, and the vitae of Saint Francis are no exception.In the case of Francis of Assisi, canonization and construction are contemporaneous, since Thomas of Celano's official legend, the Life of Saint Francis, is presented during the initial building phase of the sepulcher basilica. The Paschal paradox of the miraculous, evident in the spatial localization of transcendent power, informs Celano's hagiographical account of miracles in his first text, as well as in the later Legend for Use in the Choir, the Remembrance of the Desire of the Soul, and the Treatise on Miracles. Bonaventure's subsequent conceptualization of Francis's dream body in the Journey of the Soul into God and literary reorganization of the miracle stories in the Major Life, and the absence of Francis's reliquary remains in the Minor Life, dislodges the miraculous from sepulchral stone and regional locales into textual space, which is located in a narrative history but freed from the spatial constraints of ecclesial edifices and geographical locations. As a result, the thaumaturgical founder of Celano's narratives, whose wonders in life and death find a spatial locus in Italy and, particularly, at the basilica tomb, is replaced by the stigmatized Francis. He is the central miracle of Bonaventure's narratives, and readily present anywhere – albeit mediated by the General Minister's own memory – in prayer. This essay posits that this "transitus" of Francis from miracle worker to abiding miracle, especially noticeable in Celano's Legend for Use in the Choir and Bonaventure's Minor Life, is best understood when the performative nature of liturgical legends in sacred space is recognized.1. Choir Legends, Sacred Space and Performative IdentityChoir legends are primarily conceived, composed, and received as spatial texts, ritually performed in a designated sacred space and season. Their ritual context is the Liturgy of the Hours, where believers enter into a dialogical exchange with the divine, grounded in the paradox of the Paschal mystery. Choir legends are unique witnesses to a particular communal image of a saint, whose life of virtue and miraculous deeds is recounted within the dynamics of liturgical prayer and the dominant cultic-cultural identity. Given their essential status withinworship, these biographical texts assume a level of iconicity not shared by non-liturgical documents. Specifically intended for communal contemplation and not the promulgation of the saint's cult throughout the universal church, choir legends are similar to opaque windows opening inward on a secluded courtyard of those gathered to recount their family story. While the narrative is accessible to all those who gaze through the aperture and listen attentively, the locus of intent is within the religious community. When the community members – or at least influential leaders – no longer espouse this "prayed" likeness of their father or mother figure, a new image may be constructed, and the previous choir legend is supplanted or even suppressed by another legend that reflects the revised cultural-theological identity. Evidence of this process is found among second.. (shrink)

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In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a number of new relics and other holy objects enriched the cultic landscape of Venice. The many pilgrims gathering at the lagoon before embarking for the Jerusalem and Palestine regarded these sacred items as foreshadowing the devotional experience they expected to have in the Holy Land. San Marco came to figure in this expectation only gradually: even if many visitors manifested their admiration for the basilica’s beauty and its sacred treasures, not until the fifteenth (...) century did San Marco’s specific “holy topography”, an internal network of holy attractions, take shape. Based on recent evidence, the present article describes the emergence of new forms ofworship for a number of holy icons, namely the Cristo del Capitello, the Virgin Aniketos, and the Nicopea. (shrink)

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Michiel Wielema: The March of the Libertines. Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church (1660–1750).ReLiC: Studies in Dutch Religious History. Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2004; pp. 221. The Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century is famous for having cultivated an extraordinary climate of toleration and religious pluralism — the Union of Utrecht supported religious freedom, or “freedom of conscience”, and expressly forbade reli- gious inquisition. However, despite membership in the state sponsored Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church not being compulsory, the freedom (...) to gather andworship, or “to air anti-Christian or atheistic opinions” was little tolerated “within” the organized structure of the church, which functioned more as “an exclusive organisation for those willing to submit freely to certain confessional canons and to the disciplinary author- ity of the church’s governing bodies” (10): the consistories, classes, and synods. Those not prepared to submit to Reformed doctrine were free to leave the church without fear of any legal or political repercussions. However, for those not prepared to leave for reasons of personal belief, matters turned out to be quite different. Because the Reformed Church enjoyed full State protection, matters of doctrinal conflict could well evolve into political affairs. And, contrary to the Union of Utrecht, religious inquisition was in some cases actually applied with political approval for “heretics” within the Reformed Church. The main focus of The March of the Libertines is an investigation of this obvious tension. (shrink)

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La importancia de Montserrat como santuario se puede medir no sólo por la extensión de su culto, sino también como centro irradiador de modelos narrativos. La leyenda de Garí fue elaborada en el medievo por los benedictinos y proviene de dos fuentes conocidas: el eremita tentado y la historia del hombre salvaje. En ella se aúnan legados de origen oriental y europeo. El hallazgo de la imagen se suma más tarde a esta narración, lo que pone de manifiesto cómo se (...) van hilvanando las leyendas, su proceso de elaboración: 1º una leyenda de fundación del monasterio santuario como la de Garí. En 2º lugar una leyenda de origen de culto a una imagen. La leyenda mariana de Montserrat forma parte de la cultura devocional dedicada a ciertos santos y a san Miguel, así como también al culto a las imágenes. (shrink)

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The article reviews about esoteric symbolism of the tree of life in shamanic cultures and oriental traditions including classical Hindu and Buddhist systems, together with various esoteric and indigenous traditions. The very idea of the tree of life, in indigenous cultures, which is often called the ‘world tree’ or ‘shamanic tree’, is connected with human illumination process in the form of mystical or ecstatic experience gained through the process of the self-realization. These various forms of mystico-religious experiences could be found (...) in many religious traditions, considered to be cross-cultural phenomena. The author made an attempt to make a classification of chakras and energetic structure of the human body according to cross-cultural analysis of various cultures. (shrink)

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In the article, a scientific explanation is given about the origin of the white shamanism according to Buryatia and Mongolian shamanic traditions and the very shamanic esotericism of Tengerism, precisely its connection with Indo-Iranian cultural tradition and the tradition of the Indus Valley civilization, with D.N. Dugarov’s explanation based on his historical and archaeological research.

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The pilgrimage of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux and her parents, Louis and Zelie Martin, was to begin in Sydney on 2 February and conclude in Perth on 10 May 2020. This article will outline the original purpose of the pilgrimage, the planning and logistical challenges involved, some of the responses from participants, and how the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic severely curtailed the proposed itinerary.

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The book is structured around the life story of the Buddha, starting with traditions about relics of previous buddhas and relics from the past lives of the Buddha Sakyamuni.

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Bertrand Russell famously argued that causation is not part of the fundamental physical description of the world, describing the notion of cause as “arelic of a bygone age”. This paper assesses one of Russell’s arguments for this conclusion: the ‘Directionality Argument’, which holds that the time symmetry of fundamental physics is inconsistent with the time asymmetry of causation. We claim that the coherence and success of the Directionality Argument crucially depends on the proper interpretation of the ‘ time (...) symmetry’ of fundamental physics as it appears in the argument, and offer two alternative interpretations. We argue that: if ‘ time symmetry’ is understood as the time -reversal invariance of physical theories, then the crucial premise of the Directionality Argument should be rejected; and if ‘ time symmetry’ is understood as the temporally bidirectional nomic dependence relations of physical laws, then the crucial premise of the Directionality Argument is far more plausible. We defend the second reading as continuous with Russell’s writings, and consider the consequences of the bidirectionality of nomic dependence relations in physics for the metaphysics of causation. (shrink)

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The human loss of the sense of sacred has been driven by a mechanization of the world that privileges the mundane and the material. Yet the earliest surviving history of the human mind reveals a widespread, embodied human faculty for perception of the cosmos and an intimate human relation to the cosmos. This history hints of an origin story that may be partly recovered by sacred relics of human prehistory.

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Wannenwetsch shows howworship challenges the deepest antagonisms in political thought and social practice through careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions ofworship. Particularworship practices are examined for their ethical and political significance.

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CHAPTER I Introduction A. RABBINICWORSHIP AND HALAKAH Rabbinicworship is personal experience and yet it is governed by Halakah, law. ...

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Combines text with colorful photographs to chronicle the species of animals and plants that are biological relics of a bygone era.

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Althoughworship has a pivotal place in religious thought and practice, philosophers of religion have had remarkably little to say about it. In this paper we examine some of the many questions surrounding the notion ofworship, focusing on the claim that human beings have obligations toworship God. We explore a number of attempts to ground our supposed duty toworship God, and argue that each is problematic. We conclude by examining the implications of this (...) result, and suggest that it might be taken to provide an argument against God's existence, since theists generally regard it is a necessary truth that we ought toworship God. (shrink)

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David Gauthier and Edward McClennen have claimed that it could be rational to form an intention to A because it maximizes utility to intend to A, and that acting on such an intention could be rational even if it maximizes utility not to A. Michael Bratman has objected to this way of thinking, claiming that it is equivalent to the familiar rule-utilitarian mistake of rule-worship. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, so long as one is aware (...) at the time of forming an intention to A that it maximizes utility not to A, then acting on that intention need not be ruleworship, but the result of a rational refusal to reconsider an issue which has already been adequately considered. (shrink)

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A personal reflection on the meaning ofworship and the 'worthiness' of God.

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The existence of big bangrelic neutrinos—exact analogues of the big bangrelic photons comprising the cosmic microwave background radiation—is a basic prediction of standard cosmology. The standard big bang theory predicts the existence of 1087 neutrinos per flavour in the visible universe. This is an enormous abundance unrivalled by any other known form of matter, falling second only to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photon. Yet, unlike the CMB photon which boasts its first (serendipitous) detection in the (...) 1960s and which has since been observed and its properties measured to a high degree of accuracy in a series of airborne/satellite and ground based experiments, therelic neutrino continues to be elusive in the laboratory. The chief reason for this is of course the feebleness of the weak interaction. At present, the observational evidence for their existence rests entirely on cosmological measurements, such as the light elemental abundances, anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background, and the large-scale matter power spectrum. In this paper we argue that Direct Detection ofrelic neutrino background is indeed impossible by any means, because of two chief reasons: (a) there was no such thing of cosmic singularity, hence the hot big bang/primeval atom model was based on false premises (quantum birth assumption); (b) the neutrino existence itself is not unquestionable, in particular if we consider a realism view of vector potential, A, in classical electrodynamics. (shrink)

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Eamonn Callan; Faith,Worship and Reason in Religious Upbringing, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 183–193, https://do.

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In what ways might medieval believers' physical experience of holy sites have contributed to and altered or reshaped those sites' cultic physiognomy? This paper offers three case studies: the Hodegon monastery in Constantinople, the church of Our Lady of Montserrat near Barcelona, and the holy circuits of Mount Sinai. At these sites – where the faithful encountered a spring's healing water, a mountainous landscape, and a network of memorial places – the original cultic focus came over time to be partly (...) or thoroughly supplanted by images deemed to possess specificworship-worthiness. The analysis raises questions about the extent to which the expectation or desire to see, enhanced by hard physical exertion, might have encouraged medieval pilgrims to single out, distinguish, and give shape to figurative objects, a process that deepened the sensory, visual experience of site-bound holiness. (shrink)

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Might God have a body? The overwhelming answer from within Christian orthodoxy is a resounding “No”. A concept of God adequate for sophisticated theism must, it is held, involve the notion of incorporeality: any being which had a body would, on that ground alone, be disqualified as a contender for the title “God” irrespective of other considerations.Part of the reason forth is insistence on God's incorporeality is that God is held to be the being who is supremely worthy of (...) class='Hi'>worship. Now, if God were embodied in the manner that the Greek gods were conceived to be, it is alleged that such a “Zeus-like” deity would not be worthy ofworship. Therefore either we must dismiss all thought of an embodied God, it is urged, or else we must cease toworship him, thus in effect dismissing Christianity. And there is an additional ingredient: if we choose the former course, and declare the doctrine of the incorporeality of God, then although we preserve the concept of a God who is worthy ofworship, we preserve it at a very great cost. (shrink)

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People of faith, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition,worship corporately at least as often, if not more so, than they do individually. Why do they do this? There are, of course, many reasons, some having to do with personal preference and others having to do with the theology ofworship. But, in this paper, we explore one reason, a philosophical reason, which, despite recent work on the philosophy of liturgy, has gone underappreciated. In particular, we argue that corporate (...)worship enables a person to come to know God better than they would otherwise know him in individualworship. (shrink)

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This article examines two arguments that aworship-worthy agent cannot commandworship. The first argument is based on the idea that any agent who commandsworship is egotistical, and hence notworship-worthy. The second argument is based on Campbell Brown and Yujin Nagasawa's (2005) idea that people cannot comply with the command toworship because if people are offering genuineworship, they cannot be motivated by a command to do so. One might then argue (...) that aworship-worthy agent would have no reason to issue a command toworship. I argue that both these arguments fail. (shrink)

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Branka Arsi shows that Thoreau developed a theory of vitalism in response to his brother s death. Through grieving, he came to see life as a generative force into which everything dissolves and reemerges. This reinterpretation, based on sources overlooked by critics, explains many of Thoreau s more idiosyncratic habits and obsessions.".

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CHAPTER I Introduction A. RABBINICWORSHIP AND HALAKAH Rabbinicworship is personal experience and yet it is governed by Halakah, law. ...

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In this article, I consider how recent work on the philosophy of group-agency and shared-agency can help us to understand what it is for a church to act inworship. I argue that to assess a model’s suitability for providing such an account, we must consider how well it handles cases of non-paradigm participants, such as those with autism spectrum disorder and young infants. I suggest that whilst a shared-agency model helps to clarify how individuals coordinate actions in cases (...) of reading or singing liturgy, it does not handle non-paradigm cases well and so cannot be considered a suitable model of group liturgical action. Instead, I suggest that a model of groupagency, in which a plurality of action types can contribute to the actions of a group as a whole, is better suited to explaining a church’s actions inworship. (shrink)

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The notion of biological function is fraught with difficulties—intrinsically and irremediably so, we argue. The physiological practice of functional ascription originates from a time when organisms were thought to be designed and remained largely unchanged since. In a secularized worldview, this creates a paradox which accounts of functions as selected effect attempt to resolve. This attempt, we argue, misses its target in physiology and it brings problems of its own. Instead, we propose that a better solution to the conundrum of (...) biological functions is to abandon the notion altogether, a prospect not only less daunting than it appears, but arguably the natural continuation of the naturalisation of biology. (shrink)

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Following the centenary year of the publication of the first edition of Karl Barth’s Der Römerbrief, this article attempts to look at what a contemporary South African audience could potentially learn from Barth’s reading of Romans 12. This article begins with a few preliminary remarks on the reading of Barth in both apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, and asks whether his theology still has any role to play in current theological and ethical discourses. After arguing that Barth might still have (...) ‘a’ contribution to make, this article provides an in-depth exposition and analysis of Barth’s reading of Romans 12. Here it is shown how, in his commentary on this chapter, Barth maintains thatworship, that is, the offering of our bodies as ‘living sacrifices’ to God, should be seen as the primary ethical act, which precedes and renders possible all other secondary ethical conduct. This is then followed by the last section of this article, which explores the possible meaning and relevance of Barth’s insights for life in present-day South Africa. (shrink)

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This article examines three debates over the nature of human specimens: anatomical dissection in Victorian Britain, the question of ownership over Henrietta Lacks’s cells, and recent debates over how to treat remnants of abortion. These cases reveal that specimens are deeply connected to human persons and should be considered with a particular kind of care. The author uses Andrew Solomon’s concept of horizontal kinship to support reframing medical waste as “relics”—objects of veneration interpreted as revealing truth about the human experience. (...) Envisioning medical waste as relics allows us to wonder at the ability of the body to provide transformative knowledge, which leads to practices of appreciation to honor the sacrifices of the body. (shrink)

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In this article, we review the psychology of hero development and heroworship. We propose that heroes and hero narratives fulfill important cognitive and emotional needs, including the need for wisdom, meaning, hope, inspiration, and growth. We propose a framework called the heroic leadership dynamic to explain how need-based heroism shifts over time, from our initial attraction to heroes to later retention or repudiation of heroes. Central to the HLD is idea that hero narratives fulfill both epistemic and energizing (...) functions. Hero stories provide epistemic benefits by providing scripts for prosocial action, by revealing fundamental truths about human existence, by unpacking life paradoxes, and by cultivating emotional intelligence. To energize us, heroes promote moral elevation, heal psychic wounds, inspire psychological growth, and exude charisma. We discuss the implications of our framework for theory and research on heroism, leadership processes, and positive psychology. (shrink)

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There is a story told of Bertrand Russell, that upon being imprisoned as a conscientious objector he was asked his religion, and replied ‘Agnostic’. The warder asked how that was spelt, and Russell spelled it out. The warder said, ‘Well, that's a new one on me, but I suppose we allworship the same God.’.

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This article analyzes David Hume’s influential critique ofworship from a process point of view informed by the thought of Whitehead and Hartshorne.

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Until its despoliation by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, therelic-collection of Constantinople was the largest and most illustrious ofrelic-collections in Christendom. “Collection” is not an altogether appropriate word however, for the relics were unevenly distributed among the various shrines of the city. First among these stood the so-called “Lighthouse” church [του Φάϱου] of the Theotokos within the Great Palace, probably founded by the iconoclast emperor Constantine V Kopronymos. This was the imperialrelic-collection (...) par excellence, housing such outstanding relics as the Sacred Mandylion from Edessa, the Wood of the True Cross and many other famous relics. The principal churches of the city also had their relics: remains of the “Apostles” Andrew, Timothy and Luke lay beneath the altar of Holy Apostles' Church, the body of John Chrysostom to one side of it. Chalkoprateia housed the girdle [ζώνη] of the Theotokos, Blachernae her shawl [μαфóϱιον] – the list goes on and on. Indeed the impression is given that every significant church, including certain monastic foundations, possessed one or morerelic. (shrink)

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Use of narrative metaphors in moral theory makes possible an account of publicworship as the ground for Christian moral life. By enabling us to picture how our moral agency acknowledges the living God, suchworship grounds the principle that Christian moral endeavor takes shape in God's living presence. The community professes that, in itsworship, its heritage of images of human life under God-creation, redemption, church, and eternal life-effectively reshapes our lives. Thusworship empowers us (...) to see and to shape our moral agency as a response of praise to God as Creator and Lord. (shrink)

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