Can there be a science of the symbolic?

Science means not just 'knowing', but knowing verified by replicability. Science is particularly hard to bring to depth psychology because the individual uniquenesses that can't be repeated are what make people most deeply themselves. Everyone, including the analytic investigator, however, has a science, in the sense of a world-view that is replicated by experience. Jung offered hermeneutics as an alternative mode to science for getting to know the psychological subject. But as Heidegger emphasized, hermeneutics always begins with the projection of a world-view, i.e., the science of the would-be interpreter. In the analytic situation, dialogue is available to test the world-view and enlarge its horizon, in accord with Gadamer's expansion of hermeneutics, 'the classical discipline concerned with the art of understanding texts', into a method of inquiry open to the possibilities of otherness. An example is given from an analytic training seminar, in which the author began by projecting his version of the theory of psychological types onto the dream material a candidate offered in response to the seminar. A dialogue with the candidate ensued which enabled the teacher to correct his original, somewhat rigid, application of his scientific viewpoint. In such a dialogue, psyche emerges as the final interpreter of what is, generating hypotheses that can fruitfully be applied to the understanding of other cases.     

Supremacist thinking,epistemological despair,and Christian hope

This article looks at the connection between white supremacist cults and an epistemology of despair—a view that knowledge cannot be shared or communicated between diverse people. The theology of Augustine, the fourth century African bishop, undermines the power of this epistemology by inspiring hope in dialogue as an avenue towards ending white supremacist thinking.     

Orthodox Influences on Methodism

This article describes the influence of the Orthodox tradition on Methodism in the course of the development of the ecumenical movement. It relates the proposals made in the 1990s for an international dialogue between the traditions, proposals which have yet to be acted on. The article also describes a series of resonances between the two traditions that exist from earlier parallel developments, as well as emphases that have occurred independently but that can now be recognized as establishing commonalities that could be fruitful in later dialogue. Mention is made of commonality in the theological use of hymnody (Charles Wesley and St Symeon in particular) and of common emphases on trinitarian theology holiness/theosis, the divine image in human nature and on holistic mission.     

Racism as a passion of the soul

Racism, in its various manifestations (e.g., philetism, ethnophiletism, racial segregation, racial discrimination, racial extermination) – as a mere sentiment or conviction as well as a systematic and organized ideology or politics in its origin – is a spiritual tendency of fallen human nature. The purpose of this systematic-dogmatic reflection is to prove from the perspective of Orthodox theology that this harmful propensity of the human race is a direct consequence of original sin and particular passions created in the soul. Racism has extended to the present day on a wider social level, and its only cure is mainly ascetic-spiritual in nature. This spiritual therapy should be performed through and by all the means the church has at its disposal to erase the stigmata of humankind’s primitive negation and ultimate distance from God.     

Let's Talk About Race: Evaluating a College Interracial Discussion Group on Race

The authors evaluate Dialogues on Race, an interracial group intervention in which undergraduate student facilitators led conversations about race with their peers. The evaluation process is described, including developing collaborative relationships, identifying program goals, selecting measures, and analyzing and presenting results. The authors discuss lessons learned about evaluating an interracial dialogue intervention that did not originally include researchers in the hope that this examination will encourage others to evaluate similar campus interventions. Diálogos sobre Raza es una intervención de grupo interracial en la que estudiantes universitarios moderaron conversaciones sobre raza con sus compañeros. Se describe el proceso de evaluación, incluyendo el desarrollo de relaciones de colaboración, la identificación de objetivos del programa, la selección de medidas, y el análisis y presentación de los resultados. Los autores discuten las lecciones aprendidas sobre la evaluación de una intervención interracial dialogada que en principio no incluyó a investigadores con la esperanza de que este examen animará a otros a evaluar intervenciones similares en sus campus.     

Volunteering,social ministry and ethical-behavioural attitudes in post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Christianity

This article explores the principles of volunteer mobilisation in social ministry and diaconal practices in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy. I focus on the main types of faith-based volunteer associations, assistance organisations and official Orthodox centres of social ministry that recruit volunteers. While analysing the mechanisms of attracting volunteers and the types of motivations, I identified two main models of organising communities and social groups: an authoritarian-mystical model and a socially open one. Ethical-behavioural preferences and attitudes determine the motivation of volunteers, as do gender, confessional and ideological-political factors. The analysis is based on both empirical data obtained through interviews with parish priests, organisers of church-based assistance organisations and volunteer associations, and homiletic theological and moral-didactic literature produced within Russian Orthodox Church circles and in official Church documents. I also consider the motivation of volunteers and their ethical-behavioural attitudes in the Russian Orthodox theological context. The article also analyses theological approaches in Russian Orthodoxy, inspired by modern developments in psychology, including self-determination theory and psychological autonomy, as well as ‘humanitarian-anthropological theology’.     

Neither public nor private religion: the Russian Orthodox Church in the public sphere of contemporary Russia

Cross-country comparative studies of religion (e.g. the Religion Monitor) do not cover some important issues regarding the religious situation in Russia. The problem of contemporary Russian religiosity is beyond individual religiosity or religiosity as a spiritual phenomenon. In Russia—one of the countries which experienced Communism as a period of enforced secularization, there are very few people who have had any religious socialization or who have the experience of belonging to the Christian Church or to any religion. The main point of this article is that what is happening with religion in post-Soviet Russia cannot be adequately explained by the concept of ‘public religion’ and the dichotomy of public vs. private religion, due to the practices of private religion manifesting at a very low level among the Russian population, despite the fact that a large number of Russians consider themselves to be Orthodox Christians. However, the representation of the Church in the public sphere has little to do with what concerns Russians who are in some way involved in parishes. As an alternative tool we propose to describe the religiosity of Russians through the methods of network analysis. Results of a content analysis of contemporary Russian and Soviet media, survey data of the Russian population, and data obtained in a network analysis of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church are used for substantiating this conclusion.     

Innovative ordinariness and ritual change in a Jerusalem Minyan

In this article, I present an ethnographic analysis of ritual change in the communal prayers of a Jerusalem congregation that promotes gender equality within the framework of Orthodox-oriented halakha. While scholars have examined how ritual change in Jewish communities develops through the reinterpretation and reutilization of religious texts, practices and objects, my fieldwork reveals how change is shaped by people’s habitus – their ways of being in the world. Communal prayers in this congregation exemplify what I call an “innovative ordinariness” of religious change. Members view and experience their communal rituals as “ordinary” due to their perception of their prayer hall as a familiar spatial and auditory environment. This ordinariness facilitates creative and innovative uses of religious practices. The data outlined here are based on field research during which I participated in the congregation’s services and communal activities, and held interviews and informal conversations with members. This case study depicts ways in which members of Israeli Orthodox society apply their cultural toolkit to create religious spaces that accommodate their gender-egalitarian values, beliefs and lifestyles and, at the same time, produce religiosity that is experienced and understood as legitimate. By doing so, I argue, they assign new meanings to traditional Orthodox categories.     

Interfaith dialogue: seven key questions for theory,policy and practice

Interfaith dialogue is increasingly being recognised by governments across Europe as crucial to developing cohesive communities. This article critically analyses approaches for developing strategies to promote interfaith dialogue between individuals and/or organisations within civil society. It does this by drawing on a series of theoretical questions concerning those who are involved (and missing), what the dialogue is for, and how the dynamics of participation and representation are handled. In the process, the article considers the conditions, spaces, processes, relationships and understandings of identity that can enable successful interfaith dialogue, and how these might be developed in ways which address the issues raised. The original theoretical analysis presented in this article is supported by examples from the author’s cumulative research with policymakers and practitioners across Europe since 2004.     

Gender Differences in the Construction of Spirituality, Work, Learning, and Community by Baalei Teshuvah

This paper explores the question, “How do Jewish men and women who have become Orthodox (baalei teshuvah) compare in their constructions of spirituality, work, learning, religious practices, and community?” It is based on a qualitative research study that included interviews with 48 baalei teshuvah (24 men, 24 women), two focus groups, and ten key informant interviews. Participants were from the East Coast of the USA. We found the women more affirmative about their spirituality and feelings about community; men identified with these experiences but not the terminology. The men gave more attention to work and to their struggles integrating work and religion. The women expressed excitement about learning whereas the men conveyed self-consciousness over their language and learning deficiencies.