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Gandhi : a spiritual biography
In his Autobiography, Gandhi wrote, \"What I want to achieve - what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years - is self-realization, to see God face to face. ...All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are directed to this same end.\" While hundreds of biographies and histories have been written about Gandhi (1869-1948), nearly all of them have focused on the national, political, social, economic, educational, environmental, or familial dimensions of his life. Very few, in recounting how Gandhi led his country to political freedom, have viewed his struggle primarily as a search of spiritual liberation. Shifting the focus to the understudied subject of Gandhi's spiritual life, Arvind Sharma retells the story of Gandhi's life through this lens. Illuminating unsuspected dimensions of Gandhi's inner world and uncovering their surprising connections with his outward actions, Sharma explores the eclectic religious atmosphere in which Gandhi was raised, his belief in karma and rebirth, his conviction that morality and religion are synonymous, his attitudes toward tyranny and freedom, and, perhaps most important, the mysterious source of his power to establish new norms of human conduct. This book enlarges our understanding of one of history's most profoundly influential figures, a man whose trust in the power of the spirit helped liberate millions.
Book
How Can Preachers Use Luther in a Decolonial Multicultural Context?
This article seeks a way for preachers to use Martin Luther’s theology today without succumbing to Luther’s anti-Semitism. Its place in the discipline of homiletics is of hermeneutics and general sermon direction. I argue that Luther’s anti-Semitism is theological, and that in order to avoid anti-Semitism, Luther’s theology must be changed. I also argue that the concept of decoloniality offers a way forward, specifically in hybridizing Luther’s theology in today’s world.
Journal Article
Attitudes of Jewish and Muslim Religious Leaders Towards the Declaration of Principles as a Test Case for Judaism and Islam between Peace and Conflict
The Declaration of Principles (Oslo I Accord, September 1993) was the inaugural groundbreaking agreement in the Israeli‒Palestinian Identity conflict, which revolves around consecrated territory as well as identity components on both sides. This historic accord elicited myriad responses, yet the stances of religious figures are particularly consequential given the profound and intricate religious underpinnings of the conflict. This paper presents the attitudes toward the Declaration of Principles (DOP) held by six religious personages: Rabbi Yehuda Amital, an Israeli Jew supporter of the DOP; Rabbi Shlomo Goren, an Israeli Jew who opposed it; Sheikh Abdullah Nimer Darwish, an Israeli Arab who endorses the DOP; Sheikh Raed Salah, an Israeli Arab who rejects it; Sheikh ʿImad al-Falouji, a Palestinian proponent; and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian opponent. Based on rulings, statements, and press publications, this paper analyzes their rationales and utilization of religion’s social influencing mechanisms, seeking to understand religion’s capacity to confer legitimacy upon alternative religious values enabling conflict resolution through political means, thereby impacting the conflict toward reconciliation or, conversely, escalation. This paper aims to characterize the discourse and reasoning to propose more efficacious means of attaining broad religious legitimacy for future, sustainable peace accords.
Journal Article
Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages
Around the turn of the first millennium AD, there emerged in the former Carolingian Empire a generation of abbots that came to be remembered as one of the most influential in the history of Western monasticism. In this book Steven Vanderputten reevaluates the historical significance of this generation of monastic leaders through an in-depth study of one of its most prominent figures, Richard of Saint-Vanne. During his lifetime, Richard (d. 1046) served as abbot of numerous monasteries, which gained him a reputation as a highly successful administrator and reformer of monastic discipline. As Vanderputten shows, however, a more complex view of Richard's career, spirituality, and motivations enables us to better evaluate his achievements as church leader and reformer.
Vanderputten analyzes various accounts of Richard's life, contemporary sources that are revealing of his worldview and self-conception, and the evidence relating to his actions as a monastic reformer and as a promoter of conversion. Richard himself conceived of his life as an evolving commentary on a wide range of issues relating to individual spirituality, monastic discipline, and religious leadership. This commentary, which combined highly conservative and revolutionary elements, reached far beyond the walls of the monastery and concerned many of the issues that would divide the church and its subjects in the later eleventh century.
eBook
Improving uptake of pediatric vaccines through religious conferences and mobile vaccine clinics in Aceh, Indonesia (TABRIE): study protocol for a stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial
Background
Despite advancements in child immunization, inadequate immunization rates in low- and middle-income countries persist due to inadequate health infrastructure, challenges in vaccine supply and distribution, insufficient healthcare provider training, and low levels of community trust in vaccines. Aceh, a religiously conservative province in Indonesia, has low pediatric vaccination coverage and exemplifies the need for innovative vaccine delivery models. Evidence suggests interventions should target both logistical barriers (e.g., distance or clinic wait times) and societal factors, including misinformation, that contribute towards vaccine hesitancy.
Methods
The trial “TABRIE” will measure the impact of two strategies on children’s vaccination rates and parental attitudes towards vaccines in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar, Indonesia, compared to current outreach strategies. The two strategies being tested are (a) an informational conference with religious leaders who work in specific clinics and (b) a mobile vaccine clinic staffed with community health workers conducting a variety of outreach events. We will execute a stepped wedge cluster randomized design with baseline measures and a cross-sectional sampling structure. Twelve districts (
Kecamatan
) will be randomized into one of the two strategies. In year 1, three districts from each strategy will implement the intervention, with the other three districts implementing the strategy in the second year. We will conduct cross-sectional surveys in September 2023 (baseline), September 2024 (year 1), and September 2025 (year 2). The primary outcome is the proportion of fully vaccinated children aged 1–5 years for bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP), polio, and measles. Secondary outcomes include the proportion of children aged 1–5 years with at least one dose of DTP and measles vaccines, the proportion of vaccine-hesitant parents, social norms surrounding vaccination, parental trust in community health workers to administer vaccines, the proportion of parents experiencing distance barriers to vaccination, the proportion of parents reporting that their religious leader encourages vaccination, and the proportion of parents receiving vaccination information from their religious leader.
Discussion
This study will conduct a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial to separately estimate the effects of religious conferences and mobile vaccine clinics on pediatric vaccination rates and parental attitudes towards vaccination. It will offer a novel paradigm in vaccination delivery by inserting vaccination from clinics into social spaces that provide alternative, community-centered policy solutions to vaccine hesitancy.
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06160999. Registered on December 14, 2023.
Journal Article
A Legacy Lost to the Reformed Imagination: Luther and Confessional Lutheranism on the Extent of the Atonement
The “Young, Restless, Reformed” movement has sought to establish itself upon reformational foundations rooted within the sixteenth century. The new movement’s undertaking, however, has virtually ignored the differences between its own adherence to “limited atonement” and the developed theology of Martin Luther. Even on an academic level, the legacy of gratia universalis ensconced within confessional Lutheranism has been largely lost to the Reformed imagination. This article focuses upon relevant materials in Luther’s Lectures on Galatians (1531/1535) and his Sermon on John 1:29 (1537), as well as the pertinent statements found within early Lutheran confessions. What emerges is a Lutheran tradition that espoused both “unconditional election” and a robust form of “unlimited atonement,” a divine provision of redemption and satisfaction for all. In Lutheran theology, this provision in Christ extra nos serves as an objective foundation for confident faith. As contemporary Reformed scholars increasingly delve into the diversity of the Reformed tradition within early modernity, the distinctive Lutheran voice is another legacy worth remembering.
Journal Article