NILAI-NILAI SOSIAL PROFETIK DALAM RITUALITAS IBADAH PUASA RAMADHAN

Ramadan fasting rituals have a big mission in shaping the social personality of a Muslim. This is because the obligation of fasting is a theocentric-oriented category of worship and an anthropocentric orientation. This study seeks to explore the predictive social values ​​contained in the mandatory religious fasting of Ramadan. This is library research with a philosophical normative approach. Meanwhile, the analytical theory used, namely the theory of social science (ISP), which Kuntowijoyo put forward, was in the form of values ​​of humanization, liberation, and transcendence. The study concludes that three prophetic social values can be taken from the spirituality of Ramadan fasting, including (1) faith commitment as a manifestation of transcendent values ​​, (2) fostering social piety character as a manifestation of liberation, (3) Social care as a manifestation of humanization.

A more comprehensive comprehension and appropriate application: An answer to dwindling faith commitment from the book of Hebrews

Closely linked to the phenomenon of the decline in church member numbers in the Western church, is the phenomenon of dwindling their faith commitment. This is the phenomenon in which church members do not show the same vitality and zeal as before and are in danger of abandoning their faith. The current article contributed to the arsenal of studies, aimed at addressing the phenomenon by presenting the solutions deduced from a single biblical book, namely the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is arguably one of the most fitting biblical books to shed light on how the phenomenon can be addressed, as Hebrews was written to a church that experienced a decline in faith commitment. The primary aim of the article was to determine what solutions the writer of Hebrews proposes for addressing his addressees’ dwindling in their faith commitment, while the secondary aim was to reflect on how the writer’s solutions can be applied in the 21st century church. In order to achieve these aims, reconstruction by means of exegesis and a detailed literature study is used in the article. It begins with the reconstruction of the context of the addressees, specifically to determine the reason(s) why they dwindled in their faith commitment. This was followed by reconstructing the writer’s solution for his addressees’ dwindling faith commitment. Next, the writer’s solution was fleshed out in the light of the whole of Hebrews by tracing the major themes and broad lines found in the book. It is noted that the writer addresses the issue by guiding and exhorting his addressees to come to a more comprehensive comprehension and appropriate application of their confessed faith. This he does by shaming, frightening, reminding, guiding and assuring them. By means of reflection, it is suggested in the conclusion that the same strategy can be applied in the church today to address the phenomenon of dwindling faith commitment.Contribution: The article indicated the relevancy of the book of Hebrews for the church in the 21st century, especially in terms of addressing the issue of dwindling faith commitment. As such, the article gives practical suggestions on how the issue can be addressed from the book of Hebrews by pastors, ministers, pastoral counsellors, Bible students, and church members.

Testing the inescapable network of mutuality: Albert Luthuli, Martin Luther King Jr and the challenges of post-liberation South Africa

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, 50 years ago on 04 April 1968, has been recalled in the United States with memorial services, conferences, public discussions and books. In contrast, the commemoration in 2017 of the death of Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli, 50 years ago on December 1967, passed almost unremarked. That is to our detriment. Yet, these two Christian fighters for freedom, in different contexts, did not only have much in common, but they also left remarkably similar and equally inspiring legacies for South Africa, the United States and the world in the ways they lived their lives in complete faith commitment to ideals and ways of struggle that may guide us in the ongoing struggles to make the world a more just, peacable and humane place. For South African reflections on our ethical stance in the fierce, continuing struggles for justice, dignity and the authenticity of our democracy, I propose that these two leaders should be considered in tandem. We should learn from both. This article engages Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in the ‘inescapable network of mutuality’, applies it to the struggle for freedom in South Africa and explores the ways in which South Africans can embrace these ethical ideals in facing the challenges of post-liberation.

The Constitution as a Code of Honor

This article argues that the Senate’s refusal to consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court should be deemed unconstitutional. The Senate’s stonewalling disrespected the institutional needs of the judiciary, violated the constitutional norm of forbearance in the exercise of power, and assumed a Senate role in the appointments process that was never intended. Although no court would ever enjoin a recalcitrant President to make a nomination or an obstructionist Senate to meet with, deliberate over, or vote on a presidential nominee to the Supreme Court or anything else, the President’s and the Senators’ oaths to “support the Constitution” should be understood as entailing a good faith commitment to enabling the government to function.

Urban Intellectual Christianity

This chapter focuses on the development in the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century of intellectuals in the study of Christianity with a stronger faith commitment than their predecessors discussed in Chapter 3. Whilst many of these individuals would initially see themselves as being cultural Christians, they would later shift and see themselves as Christian scholars (Jidutu xueren) who serve as elders and pastors of local urban intellectual churches and develop their theological engagements based on the Calvinist tradition. Moreover, in contrast to the cultural Christians who spent most of their more formative years during the Cultural Revolution, this new generation of Christian intellectuals was born towards the end of the Cultural Revolution and was often more shaped by—and may even have been part of—the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

On Facing Up to the Question of Religion as Such

After noting the limitations of an ‘Epistemic’ and a ‘Content’ presupposition made in recent analytical philosophy of religion, this chapter argues that philosophy has a core normative interest in religion as making metaphysical posits that support hopeful and steadfast commitment to ethical ideals. The nub of religious faith is held to be practical commitment to the foundational propositions of such religious worldviews. Philosophy, therefore, needs to seek a theory of permissible faith-commitment to putatively revealed truths for use in assessing particular forms of religious commitment. While philosophy cannot construct an ideal religion, it can, this chapter contends, develop our understanding of the cognitive content that religions need to have in order to play the identified ethical role.

Menuju Kesetaraan dalam Beragama yang Berbudaya: Refleksi Seminari Injili

ABSTRACT: This article discusses a variety of modern man who is more civilized from the Evangelical perspective. Nowadays, the relations between different religious people is still filled with religious violence and conflicts. This happens because of extreme radicalism views wich perhaps are caused by the leftovers of our religious studies and practices in the past. There was a misunderstanding in processing religion wich could destroy the future of human civilization due to the absence of a culture of togetherness. The Evangelical Christianity may participate to think few principles of religious life wich are better for present humanity. The recommended principles are: 1) the importance of natural religious comparison in the normal society, 2) returning to the principle of missional church, 3) prioritizing the ethical emphasis more than the apologetical, 4) the balance between faith commitment and religious tolerance, 5) prophetic leadership rather than priesthood only, 6) faith particularism than religious exclusivism in inter-religious approach, 7) personal spirituality rather than individual religiosity. Thereby it is hoped that religious people may live together easier within the context of national unity and world peace. KEYWORDS: religious, conflict, collective civilization, normal comparison, ethical, prophetic, missional, particular.

The Language of Baptism in Early Anglo-Saxon England: The Case for Old English

This article explores the possibility that the vernacular (Old English) may have been used in the baptismal rite in Anglo-Saxon England before the middle of the eighth century. Statements made by Bede (d. 735) and Boniface (d. 754), provisions in the Canons of the Council ofClofesho(747) and the probable existence of a lost Old English exemplar for the ‘Old Saxon’ or ‘Utrecht’ baptismal promise (Palatinus latinus 755, fols 6v–7r), all suggest that it was. The use of the vernacular was most attractive in a context of ongoing Christianization, where the faith commitment of the baptizand was foregrounded and his or her understanding of the rite correspondingly highly valued. Later, the shift of focus towards the correct pronunciation of the Trinitarian formula and the increase of general knowledge about the baptismal rite reduced the impetus for translation, and Latin became the standard language of baptism. The translation and non-translation of the baptismal rite reflect broader concerns about the place of the Church of the English and its ethnic and cultural particularity within the universal Church, and particularly its relationship with Rome.

Isaac Arama’s “Nightmare:” Closing the Philosophical Exegetical Chapter Maimonides Opened

Isaac Arama (1420–1494), the most influential preacher in the generation of the expulsion from Spain, attempted a balance between what he considered a foreign Greek body of rational knowledge on the one hand, and a supra-rational revealed knowledge native to Judaism’s prophetic tradition on the other. This article focuses on an aspect of his creative exegesis and in particular his engagement with Maimonides that was powerful enough, in addition to other historical factors of course, to close the chapter on Jewish philosophical exegesis which Maimonides spearheaded. Often, his own exegesis is pointedly constructed to subvert Maimonides’ own exegesis and thus offer an alternative direction for biblical commentary that mediates between the rigor of philosophical reasoning, or the authority of the mind, and the existential faith commitment to revelation, or the authority of God.