“It’s Your Breath in Our Lungs”: Sean Feucht’s Praise and Worship Music Protests and the Theological Problem of Pandemic Response in the U.S.

In response to U.S. government restrictions imposed as part of a nationwide response to the COVID-19 pandemic, charismatic worship leader Sean Feucht began a series of worship concerts. Feucht positioned these protests as expressions of Christian religious freedom in opposition to mandated church closings and a perceived double-standard regarding the large gatherings of protesters over police violence against Black and Brown persons. Government restrictions challenged the sine qua non liturgical act of encounter with God for evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics: congregational singing in Praise and Worship. However, as Feucht’s itinerant worship concerts traversed urban spaces across the U.S. to protest these restrictions, the events gained a double valence. Feucht and event attendees sought to channel God’s power through musical worship to overturn government mandates and, along the way, they invoked longstanding social and racial prejudices toward urban spaces. In this essay, I argue that Feucht’s events reveal complex theological motivations that weave together liturgical-theological, social, and political concerns. Deciphering this complex tapestry requires a review of both the history of evangelical engagement with urban spaces and the theological history of Praise and Worship. Together, these two sets of historical resources generate a useful frame for considering how Feucht, as a charismatic musical worship leader, attempts to wield spiritual power through musical praise to change political situations and the social conditions.

Find Your Way Back: Black Colleagues Return to the Erotic

This paper provides an analysis of the effects anti-Black violence have had on the return of Black colleagues (administrators, faculty, and staff) to higher education after the the 2020 murder of African American citizen George Floyd at the hands of now former Minneapolis police officers. Riffing off of R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s song of return, “Find Your Way Back” and using it as a loose organizational rubric—each section is titled from the song’s lyrics—I ask what answers we might find between return and resignation. The analysis starts with the question of return: How in the hell do Black colleagues return to the university after a collective trauma? The essay centralizes the concerns of Black colleagues in higher education, positioning us between resignation and return. It seeks to consider (pending a return) to what are we returning. To explore this liminal dilemma—resignation or return—the essay will trace the lineage of racism located in higher education to slavery and the violent exclusion of African Americans from gaining access to knowledge. Briefly tracing American education’s lineage to White supremacy, I aim to frame our possible return against an institution that parodies its paternal line. The essay will show that the racism characteristic of American history morphed into an insidious, invisible source of oppression termed microaggressions. To address the consequences of racial microaggressions, I draw on psychotherapeutic clinical research on the effects of racial microaggressions on Black workers. Mirroring clinicians’ approach to addressing the race-based problems of higher education, I call on the Black feminist scholar Audre Lorde’s notion of “the erotic” as a spiritual power source. I look at how Lorde explored Black psychology and trauma within higher education in her poem “Blackstudies.” Mining this and her other triumphant essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” I look to establish “the erotic” as a comparable counterpunch to microaggressions in higher education.

Everything Is Connected

It is a mainstay that spiritual seekers—from New Age thinkers, neopagans, esoteric cults, or people referring to themselves as “spiritual, not religious”—imagine nature as a mysterious, spiritual, and meaningful force to counter alienating and disenchanting modernity. In this chapter, I argue that this spiritual imagination about “mysterious incalculable forces” is not necessarily projected on nature, but, perhaps increasingly, on complex modern institutions. In critical dialogue with the ideas of the classics—that is, Weber, Marx, Mannheim—on modernity and religion, I will argue that such undertheorized forms of modern re-enchantment should be understood as cultural responses to powerful, yet highly opaque systems that are beyond the control of contemporary citizens. Although various examples are used throughout this chapter to illustrate this relocation of spiritual power from nature to society, the main case used is the phenomenon of conspiracy culture or, rather, the phenomenon of “conspirituality.”

Religion as an Instrument of Soft Power in International Relations

The article examines the cases of using religion as a “soft power” in the example of Russia and Turkey. Based on foreign policy strategies, each state forms its own discourse in the use of religions as “soft power”. The article substantiates the idea that world religions have the greatest potential in solving interstate issues, as carriers of a unique historical experience of spiritual and political globalization, as institutions of spiritual power that accumulate significant material and other resources, as well as as institutions of civil society that promote the values of freedom and humanism. The use of religion as «soft power» becomes another argument in criticizing the theories of secularism. The analysis of the discourse of religion as a “soft power” was made on the example of the foreign policy strategies of Russia and Turkey, taking into account their political authority in the international arena, as well as their perception as one of the centers of world religions.

“RIEMPI IL CALICE, O COPPIERE”: LA PRATICA DEL MAJLIS SUFI COME BANCHETTO DEI BEATI NEL PARADISO ATTRAVERSO LA LETTERATURA SUFI MEDIEVALE

Riassunto: Nell’ambito del Sufismo delle confraternite, la sessione di dhikr rituale collettiva, solitamente definita majlis, mostra caratteristiche analoghe anche in contesti molto differenti. Nonostante questa pratica ricopra un’importanza e una funzione assolutamente primarie nel contesto del Sufismo, alla sua analisi non è ancora stato dedicato alcuno studio specifico. In particolare, nessuna attenzione è stata portata fino ad oggi al suo processo di formazione, e questo non soltanto nella sua dimensione di pratica, ma anche e soprattutto dal punto di vista simbolico e metaforico. In questo articolo cercherò quindi di mettere in luce come la pratica del majlis sufi mostri l’influenza diretta di due complesse metafore teologiche: la metafora della regalità, che si esercita sul majlis sufi grazie al rapporto, allo stesso tempo metaforico e reale, che intercorre tra regalità e potere spirituale, e la metafora del banchetto dei beati nel paradiso. Abstract: Within the context of Brotherhood Sufism, the collective ritual dhikr session, usually referred to as majlis, shows similar characteristics even in very different contexts. Although this practice has an absolutely primary importance and function in the context of Sufism, no specific study has yet been devoted to its analysis. In particular, no attention has been paid until now to its formation process, not only in its practical dimension, but also and above all from a symbolic and metaphorical point of view. In this paper I will therefore try to highlight how the practice of Sufi majlis shows the direct influence of two complex theological metaphors: the metaphor of kingship, which is exercised on Sufi majlisthrough the metaphorical and real relationship between kingship and spiritual power, and the metaphor of the banquet of the blessed in paradise.

Medieval Canon Lawyers and European Legal Tradition. A Brief Overview

The Roman Church was a leading public institution of the Middle Ages and its law, canon law, belonged to most powerful factors of European legal history. Today’s lawyers have hardly any awareness of the canonist origins of several current legal institutions. Together with Roman law, canon law constituted the system of “both laws” (utrumque ius) which were the only laws acknowledged as “learned” and, consequently, taught at medieval universities. The dualism of secular (imperium) and spiritual power (sacerdotium), symbolized by so-called two swords doctrine, conferred to the Western legal tradition its balance and stability. We analyze the most important institutional achievements of the medieval canon lawyers: acquisitive prescription, the Roman-canonical procedure, the theory of just war, marriage and family law, freedom of contract, the inheritance under will, juristic personality, some institutions of constitutional law, in particular those based on the concept of representation, and finally commercial law. Last not least, the applicability of canon law defined the territorial extension of medieval and early modern Christian civilization which exceeded by far the borders of the Holy Roman Empire, where Roman law was effective as the law of the ruler. Hence, the first scholar to associate Roman law with (continental) Europe as a relatively homogeneous legal area, Paul Koschaker, committed in his monograph Europa und das römische Recht, published in 1947, the error of taking a part for the whole. In fact, Western legal tradition was based, in its entirety, not on Roman, but rather on canon law; embracing the common law of England, it represented – to cite Harold Joseph Berman – the first great “transnational legal culture”. At the end, some structural features of canon law are discussed, such as the frequent use of soft-law instruments and the respect for tradition, clearly visible in the approach to the problem of codification.

Internalization of Islamic Values in Developing Students' Actual Morals

This study aims to explore the efforts of madrasah teachers to internalize Islamic values in developing students' actual morals. Using a case study research by conducting in-depth interviews with 8 madrasah tsanawiyah teachers and analyzing them with data cleaning, transcripts, coding and categorization, and interpretation. This research resulted in: First, duha sunnah and fardhu prayer in congregation, and get used to respect the teacher, to manage the syahwiya power of students, resulting in "iffah" which gave birth to the morals of jud, syakha', qana'ah, amanah, zuhud, rahmah, hilm, and al-afwu. Second, get used to dzikrullah, and accustom shiyam sunnah, to curb the hammiya power of students, resulting syaja'ah, ‘adalah, ihsan, insyaf, rahmah, and hilm. Third, get used to muhadharah activities, and Islamic integrative learning, to educate students' powers of mufakkara, thus giving birth to wisdom and fathanah behavior. It can be concluded that the internalization of Islamic values in developing students' actual morals is duha sunnah and fardhu prayer in congregation, get used to respect the teacher, get used to dzikrullah, accustom shiyam sunnah, muhadharah activity, and Islamic integrative learning, to curb the spiritual power of shahwiya, manage power of hammiya, and educating students powers of mufakkara, thus giving birth to the behavior of' iffah, jud, syakha', qana'ah, amanah, zuhud, rahmah, hilm, al-afwu, syaja'ah, 'adalah, ihsan, insyaf, mujahadah, sabr, wisdom, and fathanah. The results of this study have implications for the theory of "Islamic moral development" which can be applied to all madrasah education in Indonesia and the Islamic world.

China in Classics: Narrative Construction of Multiple Texts and the Value of the Times

As a spiritual wealth of the Chinese nation, traditional culture is the spiritual power and support for the survival and development of the Chinese people. In the new era, China emphasizes cultural confidence. Its inheritance and promotion of traditional culture have made cultural programs flourish. More recently, specific to multi-dimensional text, learning Chinese culture and extracting spiritual nutrients from TV programs has become an advantageous choice for the broad masses of people to enrich their spiritual life. Through the reconstruction of the text of classics and the narrative construction of the integration of multiple texts, China in Classic Books gives voice to ancient books. By expressing people’s humanistic feelings towards classics, it attracts young people’s attention and realizes mainstream values with its unique charm. Based on the creation rules and communication effects of China in Classics, this paper analyzes the exploration of the contemporary communication of traditional culture of TV programs.

Pengaruh Terapi Spiritual Emotional Freedom Technique (Seft) Terhadap Penurunan Intensitas Merokok Pada Siswa Laki-Laki

Merokok merupakan kebiasaan yang sulit diubah tergantung perilaku setiap individu. Salah satu upaya untuk mengurangi intensitas merokok yaitu Spiritual Emotional Freedom Technique (SEFT) yang merupakan gabungan spiritual power dan energy psychology dimungkinkan dapat mengurangi kebiasaan merokok dan memperbaiki kondisi pikiran, emosi dan prilaku seseorang. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui pengaruh terapi Spiritual Emotional Freedom Technique (SEFT) terhadap penurunan intensitas merokok pada siswa laki-laki kelas XI di MA Nahdlatul Ulama’ Sidoarjo tahun 2020. Desain penelitian yang digunakan adalah pre-eksperimental, one group pre-post test design. Sampel pada penelitian ini adalah seluruh siswa laki-laki kelas XI MA Nahdlatul Ulama’ Sidoarjo dengan jumlah 42 responden diambil dengan teknik Simple Random Sampling. Data dianalisa dengan Uji Wilcoxon yaitu terapi SEFT (Spiritual Emotional Freedom Technique) terhadap penurunan tingkat intensitas merokok. Berdasarkan Uji Wilcoxon didapatkan nilai Z = -5.905 dan nilai p Value = 0,000 sehingga (p< α) sehingga H1 diterima H0 ditolak berarti ada pengaruh terapi SEFT (Spiritual Emotional Freedom Technique) terhadap penurunan intensitas merokok pada siswa laki-laki kelas XI di MA Nahdlatul Ulama’ Sidoarjo.

Getting the Story Right: Reflecting on an Indigenous Rubric to Guide the Interpretation of Mortality Data

The Family Violence Death Review Committee (FVDRC) is one of five Mortality Review Committees (MRCs) that sit within the Health Quality & Safety Commission, Aotearoa, New Zealand. A key goal of the work of these committees is the reduction of the unequal burden of disparities shouldered by Māori (Indigenous peoples). Guidance to the committees on interpreting and reporting Māori mortality comes from Te Pou (the pillar/post), a Māori responsiveness rubric published in 2019 by Ngā Pou Arawhenua (the caucus of Māori MRC members). This guidance was called upon by the FVDRC in the preparation of its sixth report, “Men who use violence,” published in 2020. In this article, the FVDRC reflects on how it strove to uphold responsibilities toward Te Titiriti o Waitangi 1 in its sixth report to get the story right ( Tika—to be correct or true), be culturally and socially responsive ( Manaakitanga—hospitability, kindness, support), advance equity, self-determination and social justice ( Mana—prestige, authority, spiritual power), and establish relationship for positive change ( Mahi Tahi—working together). Opportunities for improved responsiveness in FVDRC reporting are identified, alongside suggestions for extending the guidance in Te Pou. Reflective practice on responsiveness to Māori/Indigenous peoples is recommended more generally for MRCs.