Testimony in High Places: The Conversion of Bertram Wodehouse Currie

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Powell
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Role Of Religion

The role of religion in history is an inherently difficult topic. Historians have rightly approached it with caution. Nevertheless, excessive caution has sometimes impaired our understanding of both individuals and broad historical developments. Ignoring personal religious experiences, especially when they have followed deliberate conversions, may be more dangerous to the truth than imperfectly assessing those experiences. I am not proposing an interdisciplinary approach, although that too is needed. Rather, I am suggesting that the religious experience of individuals be more fully incorporated, where possible, into traditional historical writings. It is in this spirit that I here examine the 1896 conversion, from agnosticism to Catholicism, of the influential London banker, Bertram Wodehouse Currie.

scholarly journals To feel with and for Friedrich Schleiermacher: On religious experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniël P. Veldsman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Absolute Dependence ◽  
Theological Thinking

The German systematic theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher has shaped Western Christian theological thinking in many ways. One such influential way has been his formulation and exposition of religious experience, and specifically the concept of the ‘feeling of absolute dependence’ (Gefühl der schlechthinnigen Abhängigkeit). From a brief account of his understanding of the ‘feeling of absolute independence’, a few critical remarks are made from the broader context of contemporary hermeneutical discourses, focusing on the constitutive role of affectivity and narrative identity in religious experiences of embodied personhood. It is argued that these two themes in revisiting Schleiermacher’s understanding of the ‘feeling of absolute dependence’ can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of religious experience.

scholarly journals Religious experience and the probability of theism: comments on Swinburne

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPH JÄGER
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Probability ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Prior Probability ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Phenomenal Conservatism ◽  
Rival Hypothesis

AbstractI discuss the role of religious experience in Richard Swinburne's probabilistic case for theism. Swinburne draws on his principle of credulity to argue that, if in addition to other evidence we consider that many people have theistic religious experiences, theism comes out as more probable than not. However, on many plausible probability assignments for the relevant non-experiential evidence, the conditional probability of theism already converges towards 1. Moreover, an argument analogous to a general Bayesian argument against phenomenal conservatism suggests that, after we take account of evidence from religious experience, the probability of theism cannot be greater than the prior probability that the best rival hypothesis is false. I conclude that these observations are compatible with what Swinburne would call ‘weak rational belief’ in theism and that such weak belief can be strong enough for rational faith.

scholarly journals Morality and religion: a study of moral judgments of orthodox Christians and nonbelievers in Russian culture

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.R. Arutyunova ◽  
V.A. Agarkov ◽  
Yu.I. Alexandrov
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Sociocultural Environment ◽  
Moral Permissibility ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Human Social Behaviour ◽  
General Individuals

Morality and religion represent an important part of human social behaviour. This work is focused on studying whether and how characteristics of moral judgments may differ in individuals who believe or do not believe in god, and what role religious experience and religiosity level may play in the formation of moral judgments. We analysed responses of 266 participants of an internet-based study, who categorised themselves either as Orthodox Christians (n=130), or nonbelievers (n=136). The participants were asked to assess moral permissibility of harmful prosocial actions in a set of moral scenarios. It has been shown that in general individuals, both believers and nonbelievers deliver comparable moral judgments. However, the orthodox participants judged less permissible to sacrifice one person to save more people’s lives, i.e. their judgments were less utilitarian. Religiosity level did not correlate with any of the characteristics of moral judgments. The results are discussed in relation to evolutionary functions of morality and religion as well as the role of religion in the formation of individual experience in the sociocultural environment

“The World is So Much Bigger”

2021 ◽  
pp. 211-230
Author(s):  
Tina Marie Keller
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The World ◽  
One Year ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact

Opportunities to experience diverse religious traditions while traveling abroad can create invitations to explore the role of religion in identity. This becomes important as teacher educators prepare preservice teachers for classrooms of increasing religious diversity. This study examined the impact of a two-week experience in Israel for three preservice teachers before, immediately after, and one year after the trip. The data suggests that purposeful inclusions of religious experiences, sites, and more importantly personal encounters with individuals of a variety of faiths can create occasions to reflect upon the role of religion in identity. The preservice teachers in this study, while each possessing unique perspectives, spoke to the impact of this experience upon their teaching in the classroom. The chapter concludes with suggested recommendations on how to incorporate religion while planning a trip with preservice teachers.

“The World is So Much Bigger”

2017 ◽  
pp. 275-294
Author(s):  
Tina Marie Keller
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The World ◽  
One Year ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact

Opportunities to experience diverse religious traditions while traveling abroad can create invitations to explore the role of religion in identity. This becomes important as teacher educators prepare preservice teachers for classrooms of increasing religious diversity. This study examined the impact of a two-week experience in Israel for three preservice teachers before, immediately after, and one year after the trip. The data suggests that purposeful inclusions of religious experiences, sites, and more importantly personal encounters with individuals of a variety of faiths can create occasions to reflect upon the role of religion in identity. The preservice teachers in this study, while each possessing unique perspectives, spoke to the impact of this experience upon their teaching in the classroom. The chapter concludes with suggested recommendations on how to incorporate religion while planning a trip with preservice teachers.

Milczenie Boga w Twórczości Literackiej Arnolda Schönberga / The Silence of God in Arnold Schönberg’s Literary Texts

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 465-488
Author(s):  
Michalina Kmiecik
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Great Length ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Religious Dimension ◽  
Apophatic Theology ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Role Of Religion

Summary This article attempts to delineate the religious dimension of Arnold Schönberg’s literary texts. The question about the role of religion in his creative work has been discussed at great length, though almost always with reference to his musical compositions. His literary texts, however, do not deserve such neglect as they address a number of fundamental religious concerns. The author is perplexed by the elusiveness of the divine presence, his inability to express the experience of Nothingness and Absolute Abstraction, the necessity of praying treated as an act of defiance against the void. The article also discusses Schönberg’s libretti to his major musical works (Die Jakobsleiter, Moses und Aron, and Moderne Psalmen) and his drama Der biblische Weg. It is there that the composer shows how the modern man’s religious experience gets tainted by negativity and a sense of God’s absence. The only way to cope with the problem of Le Dieu caché is to enter the path of apophatic theology, that is to try to approach Him through negation, adopt the attitude of ‘deliberate incomprehension’ and puts one’s trust in paradoxes

scholarly journals Introducing ‘Disruption’ to Acute Religious Experiences: An Interdisciplinary approach to a multidisciplinary problem

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Richard Saville-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
The Past ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
The Us ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Meta Analyses

Psychiatry and Religious Studies have common interests in extreme and extraordinary states when articulated in the languages of religions. For Religious Studies the problems with the category of religious experience are philosophical and profound; whilst the resurgence of interest in religion by psychiatrists (three meta-analyses in the past five years) has not repaired the damaging legacy of reductionist interpretations. In this paper I adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the religious experience discourse. From psychiatry I apply the new idea of Disruption, which makes its first appearance in the US psychiatric textbook DSM-5 (APA, 2013); and the older Biopsychosocial model (Engel, 1977). From Physiology I apply the language of ‘ictal’ (Adachi, 2002, 2010) to privilege a dynamic idea of time. These concepts involve particular epistemological presuppositions and, as this is an interdisciplinary, rather than a multidisciplinary contribution, these will be critically developed. The approach I propose provides a way of holistically addressing the categories of Mysticism, Possession and Altered States of Consciousness, as acute or extreme categories of experience. I propose that the idea of ‘Disruption’ can act as a pre-interpretive placeholder for a real existential experience which might (or might not) result in a non-pathological diagnosis of religious experience. The outcome depends on the socialisation of interpretation. I hope to show that the idea that there might be alternative interpretations removes the need for a sui generis defence of religious experience. By insisting on a biopsychosocial approach within an ictal framework, a way beyond the linguistic impasse of interpretation is proposed; the essentialism, implicit in the mysticism discourse, is questioned; and the non-medicalisation of Possession confirmed. The limitations of this paper point to the opportunity for further conversations between interested parties, including people with experiences of Disruption.

scholarly journals O potrzebie antropologicznych badań organizacyjnego wymiaru religii

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Halemba
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
Organizational Aspect ◽  
And Control ◽  
Role Of Religion

On the Need for Anthropological Study of the Organizational Dimension of Religion Qualitative research on religion often overlooks its organizational aspect, even though most of religious life takes place within an organizational framework. Religious organizations are active on many levels: they educate and control religious specialists, shape religious materiality, and in many other ways influence how relationships with the sacred are conceptualized and lived out. The organization of religious life has implications that should be studied by researchers interested in lived religion, especially when they deal with such issues as religious experience, the integrative role of religion, ritual efficacy, and the transmission of practices and beliefs.

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