God’s Will

2021 ◽  
pp. 359-390
Keyword(s):  
God's Will

Autobiographies of Three Surviving Branch Davidians

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-197
Author(s):  
Catherine Wessinger
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Human Dimensions ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Initial Report ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Branch Davidians ◽  
The Bible ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Media ◽  
Federal Agents

This article provides an initial report on oral histories being collected from three surviving Branch Davidians: Bonnie Haldeman, the mother of David Koresh, Clive Doyle, and Sheila Martin. Their accounts are being made into autobiographies. Interviews with a fourth survivor, Catherine Matteson, are being prepared for deposit in an archive and inform the material gathered from Bonnie Haldeman, Clive Doyle, and Sheila Martin. Oral histories provided by these survivors humanize the Branch Davidians, who were dehumanized and erased in 1993 by the application of the pejorative ‘cult’ stereotype by the media and American law enforcement agents. These Branch Davidian accounts provide alternate narratives of what happened in 1993 at Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas, to those provided by American federal agents, and flesh out the human dimensions of the community and the tragedy. Branch Davidians are differentiated from many other people primarily by their strong commitment to doing God's will as they understand it from the Bible. Otherwise they are ordinary, intelligent people with the same emotions, loves, and foibles as others.

Woolman the Prophet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon R. Kershner
Keyword(s):  
Religious Community ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Prophetic Tradition

John Woolman’s ministry efforts translated his vision of God’s will for human affairs into the physical realm. This state of union with God entailed an outward dimension consistent with the transformed state Woolman believed God intended for creation. Woolman was committed to his religious community and viewed himself as representing the best of what colonial society would become. He understood himself to be a prophet like the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, and so he believed his actions to be within the prophetic tradition. This chapter explores Woolman’s sense of commissioning to the prophetic role and his conceptions of what such a role entailed. Then, this chapter demonstrates that the content of Woolman’s message was the application of his vision to human affairs. This message declared God’s claim over the whole world, renounced idolatrous influences, and challenged the alienation of sin.

Cardinal Richelieu between Vattel and Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Rule Of Reason

The view that no form of international law existed in seventeenth-century France, and that this time was a part of ‘prehistory’, and thus irrelevant for international legal thought today is challenged. In addition, the traditional claim of Richelieu to be an admirer of Machiavelli and his Ragion di Stato doctrine to the detriment of the aim of concluding treaties and keeping them (as sacred), is refuted by careful historical research. In Richelieu’s thinking, there is a role for law to play but it is law as justice, law in the classical natural law tradition. Those who rule are subject to the rule of law as justice, the rule of God, or the rule of reason. In Richelieu’s world, kings and ministers are rational instruments of the practical implementation of God’s will on earth.

Wittgenstein and Religion

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kober
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The One ◽  
Exclusive Focus

It will be shown that Wittgenstein's philosophical approach to religion is substantially shaped by William James' . For neither during the period nor later does Wittgenstein thematise religious doctrines, but rather struggles to determine what it means for a sincere person to have a specific religious (James called these attitudes "experiences"). Wittgenstein's almost exclusive focus on attitudes explains, (i) why he is able to strictly discriminate between scientific and empirical claims on the one hand and religious utterances on the other, (ii) why religious and mythical narrations should not be understood as promoting (pre-scientific) theories, (iii) why Wittgenstein non-cognitively interprets religious utterances such as "This is God's will" as avowals, and (iv) why he seems to promote fideism. Wittgenstein's one-sided way of reflecting on religious matters, however, should not be understood as adumbrating or even promoting any more specific account of religion, especially bearing in mind that many of his remarks concerning religion are connected to or motivated by reflections on his own life. This thesis is meant to imply that Wittgenstein does not, as the usual understanding holds, offer a theology for atheists.

“Godsplaining”: Toward a Theory of Religious Capital in Political Rhetoric

2021 ◽  
pp. 002193472110293
Author(s):  
Wincharles Coker
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Radio Station ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Biblical Allusion ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Prophetic Authority

This paper is an effort at theorizing the neologism godsplaining. The term interrogates the attempt by religious clerics to earn cultural capital by explaining God’s actions and preferences. The paper does so by deconstructing the political rhetoric of two popular Ghanaian prophets, following the outcome of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections. Using deconstruction as an analytical tool, the study analyses a 2-hour interview the clerics granted an Accra-based local radio station on its morning show. The analysis showed that the religious leaders engaged in “godsplaining” by employing five basic rhetorical strategies— appeal to prophetic authority, kategoria versus apologia, erotema, biblical allusion, and anecdote in order to defend why their perceived political party either won or lost the 2020 general elections. The analysis revealed that the deliberative rhetoric of the prophets suggested a biased hermeneutic of God’s will in favor of their preferred political affinity. The study has implications for further research in media studies, religious communication, and the question of divinity in partisan politics.

scholarly journals “Redha tu Ikhlas”: The Social–Textual Significance of Islamic Virtue in Malay Forced Marriage Narratives

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 310
Author(s):  
Alicia Izharuddin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Forced Marriage ◽  
Marital Relations ◽  
Love Stories ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediated Discourse ◽  
Marital Success ◽  
Do So

What accounts for the endurance of forced marriage (kahwin paksa) narratives in Malaysian public culture? How does one explain the ways popular fascination with forced marriage relate to assumptions about heteronormative institutions and practices? In a society where most who enter into marriages do so based on individual choice, the enduring popularity of forced marriage as a melodramatic trope in fictional love stories suggests an ambivalence about modernity and egalitarianism. This ambivalence is further excavated by illuminating the intertextual engagement by readers, publishers and booksellers of Malay romantic fiction with a mediated discourse on intimacy and cultural practices. This article finds that forced marriage in the intimate publics of Malay romance is delivered as a kind of melodramatic mode, a storytelling strategy to solve practical problems of experience. Intertextual narratives of pain and struggle cast light on ‘redha’ (submission to God’s will) and ‘sabar’ (patience), emotional virtues that are mobilised during personal hardship and the challenge of maintaining successful marital relations. I argue that ‘redha’ and ‘sabar’ serve as important linchpins for the reproduction of heteronormative institutions and wifely obedience (taat). This article also demonstrates the ways texts are interwoven in the narratives about gender roles, intimacy, and marital success (or lack thereof) and how they relate to the modes of romantic melodrama.

scholarly journals National, Regional, or Just Catholic?—Dilemmas of Church Art in a German–Polish Borderland. Upper Silesia, 1903–1953

Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Jerzy Gorzelik
Keyword(s):  
Imagined Communities ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Sacred Art ◽  
Upper Silesia ◽  
God's Will ◽  
National Community ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Art Works ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
Church Art

The rise of nationalism threatened the integrity of the Catholic milieu in borderlands such as Prussian Upper Silesia. Facing this challenge, the ecclesiastical elite developed various strategies. This article presents interpretations of sacred art works from the first half of the 20th century, which reveal different approaches to national discourses expressed in iconographic programs. The spectrum of attitudes includes indifference, active counteraction to the progress of nationalism by promoting a different paradigm of building temporal imagined communities, acceptance of nationalistic metaphysics, which assumes the division of humanity into nations endowed with a unique personality, and a synthesis of Catholicism and nationalism, in which national loyalties are considered a Christian duty. The last position proved particularly expansive. Based on the primordialist concept of the nation and the historiosophical concept of Poland as a bulwark of Christianity, the Catholic-national ideology gained popularity among the pro-Polish clergy in the inter-war period. This was reflected in Church art works, which were to present Catholicism as the unchanging essence of the nation and the destiny of the latter resulting from God’s will. This strategy was designed to incorporate Catholic Slavophones into the national community. The adoption of a different concept of the nation by the pro-German priests associated with the Centre Party—with a stronger emphasis on the subjective criteria of national belonging—resulted in greater restraint in expressing national contents in sacred spaces.

The Situation of Catholic Instruction in Transylvania during the Communist Takeover

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
László Holló
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
God's Will ◽  
School Network ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Catholic Church

"In less than one year, the Catholic Church, just like the other denominations, lost its school network built along the centuries. This was the moment when the bishop wrote: “No one can resent if we shed tears over the loss of our schools and educational institutions”. Moreover, he stated that he would do everything to re-store the injustice since they could not resent if we used all the legal possibilities and instruments to retrieve our schools that we were illegally dispossessed of. Furthermore, he evaluated the situation realistically and warned the families to be more responsible. He emphasized the parents’ responsibility. First and foremost, the mother was the child’s first teacher of religion. She taught him the first prayers; he heard about God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the angels from his mother for the first time. He asked for the mothers’ and the parents’ support also in mastering the teachings of the faith. Earlier, he already instructed the priests to organize extramu-ral biblical classes for the children and youth. At this point, he asked the families to cooperate effectively, especially to lead an ardent, exemplary religious life, so that the children would grow up in a religious and moral life according to God’s will, learn-ing from the parents’ examples. And just as on many other occasions throughout history, the Catholic Church started building again. It did not build spectacular-looking churches and schools but rather modest catechism halls to bring communities together. These were the places where the priests of the dioceses led by the bishop’s example and assuming all the persecutions, incessantly educated the school children to the love of God and of their brethren, and the children even more zealously attended the catechism classes, ignoring their teachers’ prohibitions. Keywords: Márton Áron, Diocese of Transylvania, confessional religious education, communism, nationalization of catholic schools, Catholic Church in Romania in 1948."

God’s Devils: Pragmatic Theodicy in Christian Responses to Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s Conquest of Jerusalem in 1187

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-164
Author(s):  
Keagan Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Logical Conclusion ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Face

Abstract This paper considers Christian responses to the problem of evil following Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s conquest of Jerusalem. Among Catholics, Audita Tremendi offered the orthodox response that God was punishing Christian sin. However, the logical conclusion of this view is that the Muslims were agents of God despite being “evil” for having captured Jerusalem from Christians. Twelfth-century theologians believed that God could use demons in the service of good. In response to 1187, while many Christians portrayed the Muslims as evil, some expressed that they were divine agents. Meanwhile, others murmured that Muslim gods (including, to some, Muḥammad) were superior to Christian ones; that the Christian god was apathetic, violent, or wicked; that the crusade of 1189–92 was against God’s will; and that crusaders were murderers. Thought-terminating clichés centring on the divine mysteries permitted the continuance of Christianity in the face of this profound theodical controversy.

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