Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society. It can indicate one or more of the following:
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common type of these. Second, a chapel is a place of worship, sometimes interfaith, that is part of a building, complex, or vessel with some other main purpose, such as a school, college, hospital, palace or large aristocratic house, castle, barracks, prison, funeral home, hotel, airport, or a military or commercial ship. Third, chapels are small places of worship, built as satellite sites by a church or monastery, for example in remote areas; these are often called a chapel of ease. A feature of all these types is that often no clergy were permanently resident or specifically attached to the chapel.
Secularity, also the secular or secularness, is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. In the Middle Ages, there were even secular clergy. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. The word secular has a meaning very similar to profane as used in a religious context.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines religiosity as: "Religiousness; religious feeling or belief. [...] Affected or excessive religiousness". Different scholars have seen this concept as broadly about religious orientations and degrees of involvement or commitment. The contrast between "religious" and "religiose" and the concept of "strengthening" faith suggest differences in the intensity of religiosity.
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to the diverse contents of religious traditions as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The various methods and frameworks can be summarized according to the classic distinction between the natural-scientific and human-scientific approaches. The first cluster amounts to objective, quantitative, and preferably experimental procedures for testing hypotheses about causal connections among the objects of one's study. In contrast, the human-scientific approach accesses the human world of experience using qualitative, phenomenological, and interpretive methods. This approach aims to discern meaningful, rather than causal, connections among the phenomena one seeks to understand.
Interfaith dialogue, also known as interreligious dialogue, refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels.
Religiocentrism or religio-centrism is defined as the "conviction that a person's own religion is more important or superior to other religions." In analogy to ethnocentrism, religiocentrism is a value-neutral term for psychological attitude.
The study of religiosity and intelligence explores the link between religiosity and intelligence or educational level. Religiosity and intelligence are both complex topics that include diverse variables, and the interactions among those variables are not always well understood. For instance, intelligence is often defined differently by different researchers; also, all scores from intelligence tests are only estimates of intelligence, because one cannot achieve concrete measurements of intelligence due to the concept’s abstract nature. Religiosity is also complex, in that it involves wide variations of interactions of religious beliefs, practices, behaviors, and affiliations, across a diverse array of cultures.
Kemetic Orthodoxy is a modern religious movement based on the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian religion known as Kemeticism. It was founded in 1988 by Tamara Siuda, who until 2023 was recognized as the leader of the movement, called its "Nisut" or "Pharaoh".
Sacral architecture is a religious architectural practice concerned with the design and construction of places of worship or sacred or intentional space, such as churches, mosques, stupas, synagogues, and temples. Many cultures devoted considerable resources to their sacred architecture and places of worship. Religious and sacred spaces are amongst the most impressive and permanent monolithic buildings created by humanity. Conversely, sacred architecture as a locale for meta-intimacy may also be non-monolithic, ephemeral and intensely private, personal and non-public.
Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), was an opinion by the Supreme Court of the United States regarding whether a state university might, consistent with the First Amendment, withhold from student religious publications funding provided to similar secular student publications. The University of Virginia provided funding to every student organization that met funding-eligibility criteria, which Wide Awake, the student religious publication, fulfilled. The University's defense claimed that denying student activity funding to the religious magazine was necessary to avoid the University's violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The efficacy of prayer has been studied since at least 1872, generally through experiments to determine whether prayer or intercessory prayer has a measurable effect on the health of the person for whom prayer is offered. A study in 2006 indicates that intercessory prayer in cardiac bypass patients had no discernible effects.
Religious literacy is the knowledge of, and ability to understand, religion. There has been an ongoing reflection on what counts as literacy. In particular, there is the increasing recognition that literacy is more than a cognitive skill and not only about decoding and processing information. Thus, religious literacy is not just about the ability to navigate a terrain or domain effectively – it is not just a skill – but also entails an awareness of what one is doing when navigating such a domain. Being literate is not just about the ability to ‘do’ but includes an understanding of what one is doing. The importance of being religiously literate is increasing as globalisation has created greater links and migration between societies of different faiths and cultures. It has been proposed that including religious literacy as an aspect of public education would improve social cohesion. In addition to being familiar with and comprehending the nature of religious experience, religious literacy is a fundamental understanding of the complexities, contradictions, and difficulties of at least one religious tradition. Religious literacy is necessary in contemporary society not to understand religions in isolation, but rather to foster mutual understanding. It embraces diversity and promotes balanced and wise engagement with the religious aspects of human cultures.
In 2013, the Royal Military College of Canada is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the two small devotional chapels in Yeo Hall, which were installed in 1963. With a view to encourage and enhance their spiritual well-being, the Protestant and Royal Catholic Chaplains, cadets and staff use the Chapels. Gifts to the chapels have been made by successive generations of cadets and ex-cadets.
Scholarly studies have investigated the effects of religion on health. The World Health Organization (WHO) discerns four dimensions of health, namely physical, social, mental, and spiritual health. Having a religious belief may have both positive and negative impacts on health and morbidity.
One of the most common ways that people cope with trauma is through the comfort found in religious or spiritual practices. Psychologists of religion have performed multiple studies to measure the positive and negative effects of this coping style. Leading researchers have split religious coping into two categories: positive religious coping and negative religious coping. Individuals who use positive religious coping are likely to seek spiritual support and look for meaning in a traumatic situation. Negative religious coping expresses conflict, question, and doubt regarding issues of God and faith.
The Kamppi Chapel is a chapel in the neighbourhood of Kamppi in Helsinki, Finland, located on the Narinkka Square. It is also known as the "Chapel of Silence" since it is intended to be a place to calm down and have a moment of silence in one of the busiest areas of the city.
Spirituality affects both mental and physical health outcomes in the general United States population across different ethnic groups. Because of the nuanced definitions of spirituality and religiosity, the literature on spirituality is not consistent in definitions or measures resulting in a lack of coherence. However, taken as a whole, research tends to show that the effect of spirituality is positive, associated with better health outcomes. For those who engage in spirituality, it may serve as a buffer from negative life events, often moderating the relationship between negative life experiences and levels of anxiety or depression. The exception is when negative spiritual coping is practiced. This type of coping has negative health implications.
Somerville College Chapel is the chapel of Somerville College, Oxford. The chapel is unique among Oxford colleges because it has no religious affiliation - reflecting the non-sectarian foundation of the college as place for the higher education of women. It can be seen as both a manifestation of the aspirations of liberal Christianity in the interwar years, including the advancement of women and ecumenism, and of the contestation of the role of religion in higher education among elites in the same period.
Anna Halafoff is an Australian sociologist who is Associate Professor in Sociology at Deakin University and former president of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion.
