日本的宗教法与宗教管理

自1946年颁布宗教法人令,日本的宗教法历经十余次修订,但其一贯的原则都是宗教自由、政教分离,政府对宗教法人的自治权和自律权给予充分的尊重。在宗教界内部的管理方面,宗议会制度和责任役员制度体现了民主的原则和平等的原则,为战后宗教的发展提供了制度性保障。由于宽松的政策环境和民主化管理,宗教在日本战后获得了很大发展。但1995年的奥姆真理教事件之后,日本政府对宗教法做出了重大修改,在尊重教团的自律性前提下强化了政府对宗教教团的管理,宗教团体的活动空间受到一定的限制。     

若干经典理论对乡村经济伦理研究的资源意义

揭示乡村经济发展所带来的伦理变迁,探寻伦理文化对乡村经济发展的作用,是伦理视角下的我国乡村经济研究中两个相互联系的方面。本文探讨了若干经典理论在这一研究领域中的资源意义及应用路径,包括：马克思对小农及其伦理特征的论述;韦伯对经济发展中的伦理动因及不同宗教伦理的比较研究;斯科特的农民“生存伦理”理论及费孝通对“乡土中国”伦理特色的分析。     

Examining the indirect effects of religious orientations on well‐being through personal locus of control

Religiosity often positively correlates with well‐being. Some orientations towards religion may, however, adversely affect well‐being by decreasing perceptions of personal locus of control—a critical antecedent of mental health. We examined this possibility in a New Zealand‐based national sample of religiously identified adults (N = 1486). As predicted, fundamentalism had a negative indirect effect on life satisfaction, but a positive indirect effect on psychological distress. Conversely, people's intrinsic religious orientation had a positive indirect effect on life satisfaction, but a negative indirect effect on psychological distress. Notably, all four indirect effects were transmitted through personal, but not God, locus of control. These results highlight the diversity of religious orientations and show that religious orientations that deemphasize people's personal locus of control have negative consequences for well‐being.     

Christian Ethics,Religious Ethics,and Secular Ethics: A Contemporary Reappraisal

In this essay, I argue that Christian ethicists should not think of themselves as religious ethicists. I defend this claim by arguing that the concept of religious ethics, as it has come to be understood as a discipline that is distinct from secular ethics, is incoherent. In part one, I describe the fraught attempts by theologians in the 20th century to identify the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. In part two, I argue that certain accounts of natural law unwittingly reinforce a problematic conception of secular ethics. Part three examines some trends in religious studies and comparative religious ethics to highlight problematic conceptions of religion. Drawing together these strands of inquiry, I contend that that the secular-religious dichotomy in contemporary ethics should be rejected, but by the same token, I suggest that comparative ethics remains a worthwhile enterprise.     

Searching for salvation: An analysis of US religious searching on the World Wide Web

The goals of this research were to answer three questions. How predominant is religious searching online? How do people interact with Web search engines when searching for religious information? How effective are these interactions in locating relevant information? Specifically, referring to a US demographic, we analyzed five data sets from Web search engine, collected between 1997 and 2005, of over a million queries each in order to investigate religious searching on the Web. Results point to four key findings. First, there is no evidence of a decrease in religious Web-searching behaviors. Religious interest is a persistent topic of Web searching. Second, those seeking religious information on the Web are becoming slightly more interactive in their searching. Third, there is no evidence for a move away from mainstream religions toward non-mainstream religions since the majority of the search terms are associated with established religions. Fourth, our work does not support the hypothesis that traditional religious affiliation is associated with lower adoption of or sophistication with technology. These factors point to the Web as a potentially usefully communication medium for a variety of religious organizations.     

Constructing the boundaries of Anglican orthodoxy: An analysis of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)

This article examines the evolution of the transnational orthodox Anglican movement through the lens of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)—the movement’s most significant public expression to date. GAFCON represented the first large-scale event at which a sizable number of Anglicans (ordained and lay) from both the global North and global South gathered to galvanise an ‘orthodox’ response to the current ‘crisis’ in the Anglican Communion (a crisis precipitated by debates over the status of homosexuality). The analysis is based upon fieldwork conducted at GAFCON, a review of a range of documentary sources, and retrospective interviews with several attendees. The article argues that GAFCON constituted a key moment for the attempted framing of movement objectives for participants, other Anglicans, and outside observers, fixing a standard of orthodoxy in the final Jerusalem Declaration. While attempting to project an image of orthodox unity to outsiders, GAFCON leaders also made the negotiation of certain aspects of cultural difference central to the event’s purpose. Detailed examinations are provided of two topics (homosexuality and female ordination) that exemplify the ongoing negotiation of the boundaries of orthodoxy within the movement. The article concludes with reflections on the significance and further development of the movement.     

Leibniz's Concept of Substance and his Reception of John Calvin's Doctrine of the Eucharist

Leibniz saw the question of the eucharist as a crucial stumbling block to the agreement between Lutherans and Calvinists. Mandated together with Daniel Ernst Jablonsky to prepare working documents for the negotiations between Hanover and Brandenburg in 1697, Leibniz carefully read through the Calvinist Confessions of faith and the works of Calvin in their 1671 edition. He made an extensive collection of excerpts from the Confessions of faith and from Calvin's Institutes all intended to show that Calvinists admitted the substantial presence of Christ's body in the eucharist. (This collection of excerpts is analysed here for the first time and compared with another little-known document, the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken). L. had argued previously in 1691/92 that, contrary to the assertions of Pellisson-Fontanier, his own conception of substance and of Christ's presence in the eucharist was completely different from Calvin's. However, by 1697, it was clear to Leibniz that Calvin's concept of substance, which was broadly speaking Aristotelian, was never defined clearly by the reformer, and could be made to coincide with Leibniz's own notion of substance as force rather than substance in its dimensional sense. At the same time L. dissociated Ubiquitarianism (doctrine characteristic of late sixteenth century Lutheranism, which defended the dimensional presence of Christ's body in heaven and in the eucharist, by arguing that Christ in his divine nature could cause his physical body to be present in several places at the same time) from Lutheranism. He also drove a wedge between the doctrines of Zwingli and Calvin. L. thus attempted to find religious union on a common ontology and he might well have succeeded if it were not for complex political circumstances, which ultimately caused the failure of the negotiations.     

Authority and Legitimisation: the Intraecclesial Strategy of Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens

Abstract?

The election of Ieronymos as archbishop of Athens took place at a critical moment for the Orthodox Church of Greece (OCG). On the one hand, the social credibility of religious bureaucracy was waning. On the other, a fundamentalist faction within the Synod was essentially questioning his authority. In order to confront these problems, Ieronymos found the necessary social and religious legitimisation via the partial democratisation of the administrative function of the OCG as well as the restoration of its relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Ecumenical Patriarchate). The decoding of this intraecclesial strategy, starting from his election in February 2008 until October 2009, is the topic of the present article.     

Exercising Research Skills: An Information Literacy Boot Camp for Religious Studies Graduate Assistants

Instructional librarians at the University of Dayton collaborated with a religious studies graduate program to offer a three-day information literacy workshop, or “boot camp,” to the program's graduate research assistants. The graduate program had found that the assistants' research skills did not meet the expectations of their faculty mentors, and the workshop sought to address these deficiencies. With input from the religious studies faculty, the workshop focused on catalog and database searching, Boolean logic, primary sources, and the Chicago citation style. The librarians incorporated active learning exercises into each workshop session. Assessment of the workshop suggested that the assistants gained confidence in these information literacy skills. Feedback from faculty also indicated that the assistants' research skills had improved.     

The Protestant Reformation and Catholic Publishing: A Framework for Contemporary Understanding

Drawing from the perspective of an interdisciplinary exploration of the sociocultural impact of the printing press and its effects on Catholic thinkers, educators, and worship practices, the author of this article explores the educational mission of Catholic publishing during the Reformation and how it has evolved in modern times. First, the author discusses the communication dynamics of the Reformation and specifically the impact of the printing press. Second, the author explores the historical reasons for why the Roman Church perceived the need for uniformity in worship. Third, the author focuses on how the Roman Church built upon this framework of uniformity to define and shape the issues that were being discussed when expanding their outreach to the public during this period. Fourth, the author shows how Catholic worship and education evolved within an interpretation that is relevant to the educational mission of Catholic publishers today.