Prophetic Disappointment and Ideological Change among Israeli Settlers’ Rabbis: The Case of Rabbis Yehuda Amital and Shmuel Tal

In this article, I examine the role of prophetic disappointment in creating ideological change. I discuss the response of two Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Yehuda Amital (1924–2010) and Rabbi Shmuel Tal (b. 1962), to the crisis of faith they encountered regarding the role of Zionism in the messianic drama. This research describes the process of religious switching they have gone through due to failure of prophetic faith. This work argues that their transformation was an attempt to cope with the tension that results from cognitive dissonance in two different instances while blaming a third party for misunderstanding the true will of God. Their religious switching was an act of theodicy, justifying God’s justice, while renouncing their previous held beliefs.

“Breonna Taylor Could Have Been Me”: Bearing Witness to Faith in Black (Feminist) Futurity at the Speed Art Museum’s Promise, Witness, Remembrance Exhibit

This article explores the Speed Art Museum’s exhibit, Promise, Witness, Remembrance, as a site of meaning-making in the wake of the state-sponsored killing of Breonna Taylor. The article focuses on how the curators engaged the felt sense of vulnerability to premature death among Black viewers identified with Taylor in ways that held in tension a crisis of faith in, and an insistence upon, Black futurity.

Abraham von Franckenberg and the Ancient Wisdom of Rebirth

This chapter shows how the Silesian nobleman Abraham von Franckenberg linked Jacob Boehme’s spiritual alchemy to the idea of ancient wisdom, as exemplified by the gnostic church father Valentinus. Franckenberg himself experienced a crisis of faith in 1617 and discovered the heterodox devotional literature of his day upon his religious awakening. In the early 1620s, he read many of Boehme’s works in manuscript and met with their author in person repeatedly. Soon after Boehme’s death, Franckenberg composed an epistolary treatise that defended Valentinus against his detractors and presented him as a model Christian who had experienced rebirth. Much like Boehme, Franckenberg described this as spiritual alchemy. In later writings, he frequently alluded to concepts of his spiritual alchemy yet never again presented it as fully as in his early Theophrastia Valentiniana.

The crisis of faith and its consequences in adult life

The article defines a crisis in relations to faith and describes its consequences. The article also shows: reasons why people decide to leave the Church, reasons for changing denomination, as well as the paths to conversion.

Anthropocene islands: There are only islands after the end of the world

Many Anthropocene scholars provide us with the key take home message that they are writing ‘after the end of the world’. Not because they are writing about apocalypse, but because they are engaging the Anthropocene after the profound crisis of faith in Western modernity which has swept across academia in recent decades. Here the dominant problematic of contemporary Anthropocene thinking has rapidly turned away from modernity’s human/nature divide to that of ‘relational entanglements’. Thus, Anthropocene scholarship is taking a particular interest in geographical forms and cultures which are held to bring this problematic to the fore for more intensive interrogation. In this article, we examine how the figure of the island as a liminal and transgressive space has facilitated Anthropocene thinking, working with and upon island forms and imaginations to develop alternatives to hegemonic, modern, ‘mainland’, or ‘one world’ thinking. Thus, whilst islands, under modern frameworks of reasoning, were reductively understood as isolated, backward, dependent, vulnerable, and in need of saving by others, the island is being productively re-thought in and for more recent Anthropocene thinking. We explain how islands have shifted from the margins in a number of international debates, becoming key sites for understanding relational entanglements, enabling alternative forms of thought and practice in the Anthropocene.

KATEKESE PENDALAMAN KITAB SUCI UNTUK MENINGKATKAN RASA PERCAYA DIRI DAN KEBERANIAN MENGUNGKAPKAN PENGALAMAN IMAN BAGI ANAK BINAAN EMAUS DALAM RANGKA BULAN KITAB SUCI NASIONAL TAHUN 2020

The purpose of this service activity is to introduce the holy book as a source of faith and inspiration for life. Specifically, the aim of this activity is to increase the confidence and courage of the boarders who are assisted by Emmaus in sharing their faith experiences based on the scriptures. The method used in deepening the scriptures is the catechetical method of the people. In-depth meetings are held 1 (once) a week for 4 (four) weeks in September 2020. Each meeting has a sub-theme as an elaboration of the big theme, namely: "Proclaiming the Good News Amida Crisis of Faith and Identity." The data collection technique used is direct observation in which the abserver is involved in the activity. The object observed was the participants' self-confidence and courage in the deepening of diabetes. The result that was achieved in this service activity was an increase in the sense of self-confidence and the courage of the participants in thanks to the technique. This is indicated by the increase in the percentage of the active study participants who express their experiences of faith based on the scriptures.Key words: Catechesis, deepening of the scriptures, Emmaus-assisted boarders Abstrak: Tujuan kegiatan pengabdian ini adalah mengenalkan kitab suci sebagai sumber iman dan inspirasi hidup. Secara khusus tujuan kegiatan ini meningkatkan rasa percaya diri dan keberanian anak asrama binaan Emaus dalam berketekese, mengungkapkan pengalaman iman mereka berdasarkan kitab suci. Metode yang digunakan dalam pendalaman kitab suci adalah metode katekese umat. Pertemuan pendalaman dilaksanakan 1 (satu) kali seminggu selama 4 (empat) minggu dalam bulan September 2020. Setiap pertemuan memiliki sub tema sebagai penjabaran dari tema besar yakni;”Mewartakan Kabar Baik Di Tengah Krisis Iman dan Identitas.” Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah observasi langsung di mana abserver terlibat didalam kegiatan. Obyek yang diobservasi adalah rasa percaya diri dan keberanian peserta pendalaman dalam berkatekese. Hasil yang dicapai dalam kegiatan pengabdian ini adalah rasa percara diri dan keberanian peserta dalam berkatekese meningkat. Hal ini ditunjukkan dengan bertambahnya presentase jumlah peserta pendalaman yang aktif berkatekese mengungkapkan pengalaman imannya berdasarkan kitab suci.Kata kunci: Katekese, pendalaman kitab suci, anak asrama binaan Emaus

Crisis of faith or faith of crisis

Some indicators of the religiosity of the population of Belarus according to the results of opinion polls 2017–2019 are presented. Global characteristics are distinguished against which the religious situation is developing, and a system of factors characterizing the specificity of religiosity in modern Belarus. An attempt is made to forecast a change in religiosity.

The Treatment of Doubt

This chapter follows Jews whose life-changing doubt was discovered by or confessed to a spouse. It talks about therapeutic professionals who tried to help double lifers such as Jewish life coaches, outreach rabbis, and religious therapists. It also explains the profession of religious therapy that are in the midst of a moral struggle as to which authorities they owed their allegiance: their own religious orthodoxy or their clients' individual autonomy. The chapter explains how most therapeutic professionals rejected the common rabbinic explanation in circulation for the contemporary crisis of faith, the Internet. It also points out how therapeutic professionals drew on the authority of therapeutic discourse in order to argue that it was emotional and interpersonal dynamics that obstructed emuna or faith.