Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Neopaganism, Baháʼí Faith, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting patriarchal (male-dominated) imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, studying images of women in the religions' sacred texts, and matriarchal religion.
Asceticism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their practices or continue to be part of their society, but typically adopt a frugal lifestyle, characterised by the renunciation of material possessions and physical pleasures, and also spend time fasting while concentrating on the practice of religion or reflection upon spiritual matters, which is thought by some to allow the practitioner's core of consciousness to expand and connect with the infinite universal consciousness. Some individuals have also attempted an ascetic lifestyle to free themselves from addictions to things such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, entertainment, sex, food, etc.
Religion in Japan is manifested primarily in Shinto and in Buddhism, the two main faiths, which Japanese people often practice simultaneously. According to estimates, as many as 80% of the populace follow Shinto rituals to some degree, worshiping ancestors and spirits at domestic altars and public shrines. An almost equally high number is reported as Buddhist. Syncretic combinations of both, known generally as shinbutsu-shūgō, are common; they represented Japan's dominant religion before the rise of State Shinto in the 19th century.
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.
Śruti or shruti in Sanskrit means "that which is heard" and refers to the body of most authoritative, ancient religious texts comprising the central canon of Hinduism. Manusmriti states: Śrutistu vedo vijñeyaḥ meaning, "Know that Vedas are Śruti". Thus, it includes the four Vedas including its four types of embedded texts—the Samhitas, the Upanishads, the Brahmanas and the Aranyakas.
Nondenominational Christianity consists of churches, and individual Christians, which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism or creedalism of other Christian communities by not formally aligning with a specific Christian denomination. According to Arizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center, nondenominational faith leaders typically maintain a biblical worldview at higher percentages than those of other Christian groups.
In Indian religions, Darshana, also spelt Darshan, or Darshanam (darśanam) is the auspicious sight of a deity or a holy person.
Black theology, or black liberation theology, refers to a theological perspective which originated among African-American seminarians and scholars, and in some black churches in the United States and later in other parts of the world. It contextualizes Christianity in an attempt to help those of African descent overcome oppression. It especially focuses on the injustices committed against African Americans and black South Africans during American segregation and apartheid, respectively.
There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. Officially, North Korea is an atheist state, although its constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, provided that religious practice does not introduce foreign forces, harm the state, or harm the existing social order. Based on estimates from the late 1990s and the 2000s, North Korea is mostly irreligious, with the main religions being Shamanism and Chondoism. There are small communities of Buddhists and Christians. Chondoism is represented in politics by the Party of the Young Friends of the Heavenly Way, and is regarded by the government as Korea's "national religion" because of its identity as a minjung (popular) and "revolutionary anti-imperialist" movement.
Comparative theology is a relatively new discipline within theology, which holds together "comparative" and "theology" in creative tension. It represents a particular type of theological practice committed to deep interreligious learning ("comparative") while staying rooted in a particular religious tradition ("theology"). Moreover, while many of its proponents come from the Christian religious tradition, it can have as a starting point the theology of any religious tradition.
Paul Francis Knitter is an American theologian. He is currently an emeritus professor at Union Theological Seminary, where he has served as the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture since 2007. He is also Emeritus Professor of Theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he taught for 28 years before moving to Union. Knitter is known for his work on religious pluralism and multiple religious belonging, particularly regarding Buddhism and Christianity.
Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J. was a Jesuit theologian, a widely published author on Zen, and a professor of philosophy and history at Sophia University in Tokyo, where he was Professor Emeritus. He was the founder of its Institute for Oriental Religions, as well as the first Director of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.
Francis Xavier Clooney is an American Jesuit priest and scholar in the teachings of Hinduism. He is currently a professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The theology of religions is the branch of theology and religious studies that attempts to theologically evaluate the phenomena of religions. Three important schools within Christian theology of religions are pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism, which describe the relation of other religious traditions to Christianity and attempt to answer questions about the nature of God and salvation.
Lynn de Silva's theology began at an early stage in Lynn de Silva's ministry, when his interest in Buddhism and its culture began to increase. He believed that the credibility of Christianity depended on its ability to relate to Buddhism, which was the faith of the majority of the Sri Lankan population. His objective was to develop a richer appreciation of the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, in particular, to communicate the Christian message in a manner that the Sri Lankan culture understood, and to construct a theology that is focused towards the Buddhist cultural environment. To this end, he used Buddhist concepts to communicate Christian beliefs in a language understood from the Buddhist context, and he aimed at extending Christian theology with Buddhist concepts in order to gain a more thorough understanding of Christianity. In his book The Problem of the Self in Buddhism and Christianity, de Silva states the following:
There is a growing body of opinion within Christianity that its theology is shop-soiled and needs drastic revision in order first, to re-root it in the basic biblical teaching, secondly, to bring it into harmony with new insights and modes of thought coming from other faiths, ideologies and modern science and thirdly, to relate it to social realities... What I have attempted is to help this process of transformation in Christian thinking. However, theological thinking in order to be meaningful and relevant must be contextual. The context of this book is Buddhism.
Harold Coward is a Canadian scholar of bioethics and religious studies. A Bachelor in Divinity, he earned a doctoral degree in Philosophy in 1973 from the McMaster University. He was a professor at University of Victoria and the University of Calgary. He is particularly known for his studies of Indian religions, as an editor of the Encyclopedia of Hinduism, and has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1991.
Joseph Stephen O’Leary is an Irish Roman Catholic theologian. He studied literature and theology at Maynooth College. He also studied at the Gregorian University, Rome (1972-3) and in Paris (1977–79). Ordained for the Diocese of Cork and Ross in 1973, he was a chaplain at University College Cork (1980–81). He taught theology at the University of Notre Dame (1981–82) and Duquesne University (1982–83) before moving to Japan in August, 1983. He worked as a researcher at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nanzan University, Nagoya (1985–86), where he later held the Roche Chair for Interreligious Research (2015–16). He taught in the Faculty of Letters at Sophia University, Tokyo, from 1988 to 2015.
Catherine Cornille is a professor of comparative theology and specializes in theology of religions and interreligious dialogue. She presently holds the Newton College Alumnae Chair of Western Culture in the department of theology at Boston College.
Leo Dennis Lefebure is an American Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, university professor, and author. He is the inaugural Matteo Ricci S. J. Chair of Theology at Georgetown University. He is vice president of the American Theological Society, and president-elect, with his term as president beginning in 2025.
Interreligious studies, sometimes called interfaith studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field that researches and teaches about interfaith dialogue and encounters between religions. It often involves religious scholars in interfaith activism. This concept has injected itself as not entirely interfaith dialogue; which is more often religious than academic in nature. The field emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, as a result of the collective efforts of theologians and interfaith practitioners, during a period of interfaith activism, especially in the North America.
