Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia

In his book Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015), Christopher Beckwith argues that not only was the Buddha a Scythian from Central Asia, but that the earliest reliable record of Buddhist teaching is to be found in a text attributed to Pyrrho, the Greek founder of philosophical scepticism, cited by the third-century Christian bishop Eusebius. This review considers these claims in the light of epigraphical, textual and archaeological evidence. It then offers an alternative account of Pyrrho’s possible encounter with Buddhist ideas during his stay in India as part of the entourage of Alexander the Great in the fourth century bce, and considers the formative role that the teaching of Democritus and his followers may have had in the evolution of Pyrrho’s sceptical attitude to life.     

Gray Matters: A Deployed Physician’s Perspective on Combat Medicine in Iraq

A female physician who was serving as a first-year medicine resident in Manhattan in September 2001 writes this paper. It details her experience of signing up for military service as a result of the September 11th attack on the United States. She lays out the surroundings, atmosphere, and reactions of those around her during the attack and details her own personal motivations for joining the military, her need to take control and help those in need heal while also trying to heal herself. Grateful, yet haunted by her experience, she provides an intimate glimpse into her time serving as a combat physician at a trauma hospital in Balad, Iraq during the 2007 military surge. A trained geriatrician and palliative care physician she recounts the stories of several patients that have forever shaped her life and explores the contradictions and ethical challenges she faced while caring for them ultimately struggling with the uncertainty of whether what she was truly doing was good for those she served or herself.     

God’s Faithfulness and Dementia: Christian Theology in Context

Christian theology concerns the practical, contextual realities of life in the church and the world. What does this mean for a person with dementia? While much dementia care focuses on deficits, this article promotes a different starting point: God’s faithfulness rather than our forgetfulness. Using case studies from residential aged care, opportunities for meaningful pastoral care are explored, inviting us to see in the person with dementia a deep connection with ourselves. Drawn from a theological understanding of God as three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—“person-centered care” invites us into relationships of mutuality and reciprocity not dependent on words. Pastoral care of families is manifest through personal relationships where all aspects of dementia, including death and dying, can be discussed openly. Grounded in God’s faithfulness, the first and final word is love. Hope lies in the belief that we have already been found. We are blessed by the grace of God, called into community where the insightful and the forgetful flourish together.     

The Significance of Identity in Muslim–Christian Encounter

Encounters between Muslims and Christians are influenced by many factors. In this article a contextual study of a religiously diverse neighbourhood in Leeds, a northern English city, is used to illustrate some of the patchwork of related and overlapping identities which Muslims and Christians negotiate in their everyday encounters. Ethnicity, socio-economic status, and encounter with people of other religions are all found to influence how Muslims and Christians relate to each other and to the secular environment.     

Masturbation: Scientific Evidence and Islam’s View

Masturbation is the stimulation of sexual organs usually to the point of orgasm with an essential autoerotic component. Due to the high prevalence of this sexual behavior, it was and still is a matter of debate if masturbation is a normal action without any side effects and even if it is advantageous or it is associated with side effects necessitating public education how to avoid it. In addition, it is a common question if masturbation is religiously lawful or not. In this study, I assess the results of scientific studies about this sexual behavior and also shed some light on the Islam’s view about it.     

Religious political technology: Damir Mukhetdinov’s ‘Russian Islam’

ABSTRACT

This contribution introduces the concept of ‘religious political technology’ (RPT), using as a case study the strategies of Damir Mukhetdinov, deputy mufti of the Moscow-based muftiate DUMRF. RPT encompasses the construction and professional dissemination of an ideological platform that presents religion – in this case Islam – as an asset to the state and the nation. Mukhetdinov’s RPT is historically enrooted in Russia’s Islamic discourse (through references to Tatar intellectuals and theologians of the late imperial period), and presented as loyal, tolerant, peaceful and modern – and at the same time as ‘traditionalist’. His RPT is meant to appeal to mainstream trends in Russian society (including Neo-Eurasianism and Slavophile thought), to the Orthodox Church, and to the Kremlin; it also presents itself as an instrument of Russia’s foreign policy. At the same time, Mukhetdinov’s provocative statements meet strong opposition.     

Parent’s Perception of Their First Encounter with Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Parents who came with their child to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) for the first time were interviewed 1–2 weeks afterwards in the presence of the child and the therapists. In a grounded theory analysis they revealed uncertainty about their role in the first meeting as well as of future planning. What had been important to them were aspects like communication, sharing perspectives, and the reformulation of problems.     

Issues in Christian–Muslim Relations: A Malaysian Christian Perspective*

Malaysia is a democratic secular federation with Islam as its official religion. Over the last few decades, this unique model of tolerance and accommodation has been undergoing astounding developments politically, socially and economically. Intense intra-Muslim struggles coupled with increased state-mobilized Islamizing efforts have produced disturbing knock-on effects on non-Muslim minorities. Religion is so profoundly interwoven with race, ethnicity, politics and economics that it is impossible to speak of one without touching upon the others. This article aims to elucidate key practical issues affecting Christians living in a majority Islamic context. It further proposes significant policy options for managing Muslim–Christian relations in twenty-first-century Malaysia. Education is crucial for promoting interreligious harmony, religious freedom, and respect for people of different traditions. More collaborative endeavours through interfaith dialogue should help Malaysians transcend cultural, racial, linguistic and religious barriers. Both Christian and Muslim faith communities need to learn more about and from each other and to move forward towards nation-building and a common destiny.     

Making room: a place for children’s spirituality in the Christian church

A relatively uncharted territory until recently, the concept of children as innate spiritual beings has garnered significant attention among scholars over the past two decades. The more that is learned about children’s spirituality, the more apparent it becomes that the Christian church in the United States generally fails to provide sufficient space for children to explore, develop and share their spirituality. This potentially leads children to suppress or disconnect from their spirituality in later years and also deprives a Christian community of the ability to learn and grow from children’s unique experiences of God and spirituality. This paper examines the underlying theories that foster environments among Christian churches where the ennoblement of a ‘grown-up faith’ and the resulting power adults hold because of that, inhibit the ability for children to be regarded and approached as capable of spiritual and faithful beliefs and understanding apart from adult intervention.     

Antisaccades in Parkinson’s Disease: A Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - The usefulness of eye-tracking tasks as potential biomarkers for motor or cognitive disease burden in Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been subject of debate for many...     

Popularizing Islam or Islamizing popular music: new developments in Egypt’s wedding scene

This article discusses the influence of the Islamic Revival on the field of popular art, as well as the influence of market forces on the field of religious art productions, by taking the Egyptian wedding scene from the 1980s onward as a case study. The decline of popular weddings and the emergence of the Islamic alternative, as well as the different styles of weddings, etiquette, and taste cultures of the audiences involved in the substitute wedding scenes, are analyzed. In particular, the latest developmentin which the two scenes, which developed in contradistinction to one another, have come to resemble each other and the rise of respectable, or ??clean,?? formats, rather than overtly religious ones, are investigated. It is argued that the religious?Cclean market can be an asset for the Islamist project, whose aim is to provide an alternative to secular taste cultures, because it is able to cater to diverse pious taste cultures, from strict Islamist to pleasant post-Islamist. Despite the different trends, aims, and content, the various forms of clean?Cpious entertainment sustain or, at least, affirm the general pious taste culture In Egypt.     

Graham Ward’s Poststructuralist Christian Nominalism

In his Cities of God, Graham Ward advocates for what he calls an ‘analogical worldview’. On the one hand, he suggests that this analogical worldview has its roots in pre-modern theology and philosophy, especially in Augustine and Aquinas. On the other hand, Graham Ward draws heavily on contemporary critical theory to express this view. The thesis defended in this paper is that by reading the concept of analogy from Augustine and Aquinas in terms of contemporary critical theory, especially that of Jacques Derrida, Ward develops an analogical worldview that has strikingly nominalist ramifications. These ramifications imply that, in the end, there is no longer an adequacy between the perceiving mind and the reality perceived. The argument is developed in three steps. In the first step, Ward’s reading of contemporary critical theory, especially with respect to Derrida, is introduced. In the second step, the theological appropriation of Derrida in the analogical worldview is analyzed. In the third step, the nominalist implications of this application are shown in terms of Ward’s critique of privileging heterosexual relationships. In this third section, I will also deal more extensively and precisely with the question of what I mean by labeling his work as ‘nominalism’ as well as outlining the specific form of nominalism that I am here invoking. In the penultimate section, I will attempt to show that Ward’s nominalism can also be found in the works of Milbank and Pickstock, as it has to do with the specific way in which they take up the Platonic tradition. In my concluding remarks, I will come back to the discussion about the ontological status of sexual relations, indicating my own view on this issue.     

Teasing ‘Islam’: ‘Islam’ as the Other Side of ‘Tolerance’ in Contemporary Dutch Politics

This article deals with the role of ‘Islam’ in contemporary Dutch political discourses on tolerance. I will show how Islam is described as an ideology (and not as a religion) competing with liberal values. I argue that political disputes are not at all about Islam as a living religion, but about ‘Islam’ as a culturally presumed menace to, or negative projection of, dominant Dutch imaginaries, such as tolerance and free speech, that are taken as elementary conditions for a liberal democratic state. The first part of this article deals with the staging and development of ‘Islam’ in Dutch politics since the 1970s. Part two develops a theoretical understanding of the framing of ‘Islam’ as the opponent of ‘tolerance’ and argues that this position shows a typical modern stance.