Moltmann’s theology in dialogue with liberation theologians revives the role of Black Theology in democratic South Africa

The theme for Liberation Theology has always been about concerns for the marginalised masses and socio-political liberation for the economically disadvantaged. Its mandate is to seek to guide towards the discovery of being human without references to historical divisions between the haves and have-nots created by socio-economic imbalances promoted by political regimes. Moltmann’s content of theology, its revision, its innovation rather than the theological method has marked his restless imagination. His method of exploration in doing theology has brought him into dialogue with philosophers and theologians of different persuasions. In this study, he is evaluated in his dialogue with the liberation theologians. The focus is on Moltmann’s theological approach to ecumenism, built around the Kingdom of God concept, and ecclesiastical analysis and political theology. These three areas are the transitional arguments on how Moltmann enters into dialogue with the liberation theologians. The argument moves on to point how Liberation Theology has exerted itself as Black Theology in South Africa during the apartheid time. Black Theology is a theology of liberation because of its resistance and endeavours of eradication of all forms of oppressive systems. The two injustices (socio-cultural misnomers) in the democratic South Africa are discussed as a calling for Black Theology’s voice. These are corruption and human rights abuses. Black Theology brings religion into the secular world as a way of aborting all forms of discrimination based on race, sex and economic class.Contribution: Black Theology is invited to revisit Moltmann’s ecumenical, ecclesiastical and political theological understanding, as a way of reviving itself back to the centre stage of prophetic role within the corrupt and human rights and dignity abuse society.

AN ANALYSIS OF SALVATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

This article intends to investigate this issue objectively and honestly without bias from the comparative viewpoint between Islam and Christianity. The methodology of the article is to have a comparative analysis of the concept of salvation in both Islam and Christianity by presenting the similarities and differences. This article utilises passages from the Qur’an and the Gospel as primary sources, which will be complemented with journal articles as a secondary source. The first section looks at the terminology of ‘salvation’ within Islam and Christianity from the viewpoints of sin, repentance and forgiveness, as salvation in both Christianity and Islam means saving from the consequences of sin, and in both religions this involves repentance by humans and forgiveness by God. The second part of this article will examine how Muslims and Christians view Jesus in relation to salvation. This is tied to salvation because the death and resurrection of Jesus is how Christians believe salvation has been accomplished. The final section of this article analyses the God doctrine of Christianity and the God concept of Islam from the comparative perspective with regards to the topic of salvation. This comparative analysis will be important in highlighting the similarities between the two Abrahamic faiths, and that such commonalities can be used as a basis for respect and peaceful co-existence between Christians and Muslims.

Depictions of God in the Drawings of German-Muslim Children

This empirical inquiry aimed to examine the qualitative differences of the ‘God’ concept of Turkish-German Sunni Muslim children living in Germany. In this study, non-anthropomorphic drawings did not increase gradually with age. Anthromoporphic God depictions seem to be ontologically moving away from people with age. In the present study, indirect God depictions occurred six times more than the direct God depictions. ‘Religious-cultural drawings’ were the most common in the sample. The girls drew more aesthetic drawings that expressed an emotional bond with God. Boys depicted God more rationally and pragmatically in regard to human life and the world.

Married life concept in Ukrainian wedding sphere of concepts

The article defines the term of «concept» and «sphere of concepts» considering their relationship, their link to the concepts of conceptual and linguistic pictures of the world. Scientists’ views on the nature of the concept are described. It is indicated which of scientists researched the Ukrainian conceptual picture. It is designated which of the linguists paid attention to studying the concepts, which fill the Ukrainian wedding sphere of concepts, the level of exploring the issue. The description of the concept is given, namely: its structure, boundaries, links between individual concepts, content of images. The place of the concept of marital life in the Ukrainian marriage concept is observed. In this article married life concept is studied. Investigations are based on Ukrainian works of Slobozhansky writers, folklore collections and dictionaries. Catch-phrases, separate lexemes, wedding context excerpts, proverbs, folk set-phrase similes are analyzed. The terms of concept and sphere of concepts are explained. Approach to studying Ukrainian wedding sphere of concepts are scheduled, it’s boundaries and concept content. Special attention is given to married life concept formation. Integral parts of married life concept are allocated as well as it’s relationships with other concepts like family, happiness, love, father and mother, kindness, bread, home, road, mood, knitting, soul, time. A lot of images like wife, husband, married couple, child (children), young married woman, host, hostess, orphans, general prosperity, inheritance, household are analyzed. These images form a named concept explaining symbolic basis of dew, fire, mood, dove. Catch-phrase models are described as well as God concept as the main conceptual image. The inner shape of catch-phrases, which form married life concept, are considered. Catch-phrases components are singled out which have logical meaning for determining concept boundaries and forming a number of synonyms and antonym pairs – inheritance, kindness, bread, happiness, destitution, grief, poverty. Epithets of the words like spouse are explained as well as the basis of concept appearance connected to the Ukrainian way of life.

The relationship between individual differences in religion, religious primes, and the moral foundations

We present evidence for a complex relationship between religiousness and Haidt’s moral foundations, with data from four experiments, measuring 21 different dimensions of personal religiousness and utilizing six different religious primes. The more conservative dimensions of religiousness, such as intrinsic religious orientation and religious attendance, were positively related to binding moral foundations of loyalty, authority, and purity and sometimes related to the individualizing foundation of care. However, other, less conservative dimensions of religiousness, such as quest and extrinsic religious orientations, were unrelated or negatively related to binding foundations. Benevolent God concept was the only religious measure that was positively related to all five moral foundations. We did not find reliable effects of religious primes on endorsement of moral foundations. Results suggest a consistent but complicated relationship between religiousness and moral foundations at a dispositional level.