Vol. 5, No. 1
Summer 2023

This sociological study aimed to ascertain the percentage of adults living in the United States who have experienced religious trauma (RT) and what percentage presently suffer from RT symptoms now. After compiling data from 1,581 adults living in the United States, this study concludes it is likely that around one-third (27‒33%) of U.S. adults (conservatively) have experienced religious trauma at some point in their life. That number increases to 37% if those suffering from any three of the six major RT symptoms are included. It is also likely that around 10‒15% of U.S. adults currently suffer from religious trauma if only the most conservative numbers are highlighted. Nonetheless, since 37% of the respondents personally know people who potentially suffer from RT, and 90% of those respondents know between one and ten people who likely suffer from RT, then it could be argued that as many as one-in-five (20%) U.S. adults presently suffer from major religious trauma symptoms.

In my first paper for SHERM, I argued that “fetus personhood” is irrelevant to the abortion debate. In this paper, I will argue that personhood is irrelevant to the euthanasia debate as well. Even though a terminally ill patient is a person, ending their life can still be moral. Because personhood (and mindedness) is only instrumentally valuable as means to attaining the good life, if a terminal illness has now made that impossible, it is permissible (when both the doctor and patient agree) for the doctor to help the patient end their life. Thus, euthanasia should be legal.

Political theology has traditionally been dominated by Christian concepts, specifically the concept of a law-giving and order-preserving god. Other political theologies are possible, however, and this essay considers one—the trickster—a culture hero and comic buffoon who delightedly and shamelessly violates and subverts order to inaugurate a new reality of his own making, if not of his own will. The first half of the essay introduces the trickster as a cross-cultural agent of creative destruction, a messenger and civilization-bringer, and a clever fool. The second half explores how the last two centuries of Western social and intellectual history have shifted the ground from under a god of order toward a spirit of flux, transience, paradox, and liminality. The essay concludes that the contemporary post-modern state of permanent liminality is better symbolized and grasped through the mythical lens of the trickster than the biblical god, including and especially contemporary global right-wing populism, whose leading figures reflect the wicked energy and appeal of the trickster impulse.

The Parable of the Three Rings is famous in its versions by Boccaccio and Lessing. They share the fundamental idea that only one religion is true but human condition does not let us know which one is the true one. It is an inherently modern idea to stress on the limits of human knowledge while arguing against pure forms of skepticism and relativism. The result of the parable is friendship in both versions, yet the question of truth remains at the center of the conceptual framework underlying the stories. On the contrary, scholars started giving much more relevance to the ethical side of dialogue, so that interpersonal relationship is not just the result of a cognitive process. Personal encounter should be prior to the question of truth. This new approach is challenged by the nature of the relationship with the other. Should it be symmetrical and mutual? Views on dialogue inspired by Lévinas must answer negatively. If we want to keep the relevance of friendship we should rather prefer Buber’s idea of dialogue. In our world, despite this, inequalities are such that symmetry and mutuality cannot be the standard condition of dialogue and we must be responsible in advance for the other (in the sense of Lévinasian servitude for the other). A mediation between these two standpoints can be found in Panikkar’s notion of inter-in-dependence, as I shall argue. In fact, this notion combines the interdependence present in Buber’s I-Thou relationship and the independence or separation stressed by Lévinas in the relation to the other understood in terms of relation between absolute terms.

This paper seeks to explore the academic approach to interreligious dialogue by outlining some key features of what the author sees as its philosophical foundation: understanding. It argues that understanding what it is to understand is crucial to developing interreligious dialogue because, at its core, the goal of such dialogue is the exchange of differing religious understandings for mutual benefit. Thus, the author contends that a thorough academic perspective on interreligious dialogue can only be established if a robust account of understanding is first constructed. Having addressed this, the author outlines three key features of understanding: subjectivity, internality, and appreciation of the whole. Following this, a curious aspect of the generation of new understanding is explored, namely the seeming link between leisure, the absence of so-called “servile” work, and the generation of new insights. Whilst this collection of key features is by no means exhaustive, this paper seeks only to open a conversation on the nature of understanding that has been noticeably absent from philosophical and theological discussion in recent years. Given this, the author hopes to open avenues through which others might critique, explore, or add to the features identified in this article in order to expand the neglected field of the Philosophy of Understanding.

This article addresses the contention commonly expressed among liberal theologians and commentators that the Jesus of history, to the extent that he may be identified, was essentially a social revolutionary, broadly sympathetic to what might be identified in contemporary terms as ideological “socialism.” It is often conceived that Jesus’ concern for the poor, the disenfranchised, and the underclass of Second Temple Judea endows him with a broad egalitarian ethic, making him akin to an ancient “redistributionist.” I will argue, however, that “socialism” did indeed exist in those days, in the form of the Dead Sea sect, and that the historical Jesus was profoundly opposed to the community of property it represented. For him, “social justice” was part of the embedded ethics of Judaism itself, divorced from the “redistributionist” theories of Marxist and neo-Marxist adherents. Whereas the Essene sectarians withdrew from what they called “the material wealth of wickedness,” Jesus admonished his disciples to pursue dealings out of economic contact with the world at large.

Theorists emphasize the significance of the conceptualizing phenomena before any quantification in the scientific work process. The role of analogy among all human-beings’ cognitive tools in the process of problem solving and concept creation is undeniable according to experts. Accordingly, this paper defines the analogy of “religion as brand” as an analogical model to shed light on political and religious marketing aspects of two terrorist organizations and religious brands in the Middle East. The concept of “ISIS and Al-Qaeda are sub-brands of Islam” was extracted from this metaphorical structure. The paper illuminates different branding attributes of these two terrorist groups through reviewing approximately fifty first-hand and second-hand materials on the issue. This review reveals how Islam functions as a master-brand and nourishes these two brands ideologically. The analogy entails a variety of attributes among which five aspects of branding including communication, brand mythology, competition, attracting social and symbolic capital, and brand promise are discussed and religious associations which endorse these two groups’ political functions are examined.

The problem of evil is the philosophical question regarding how to reconcile the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God with the pain and suffering in the world. The Hypothesis of Indifference is Paul Draper’s proposal considering that question. His claim is that the pain and pleasure we experience in our lifetimes has nothing to do with God or some other supernatural force acting as an agent of good or evil. In this paper, I argue that Draper’s Hypothesis of Indifference is a better explanation for why we experience pain and pleasure than theism is and that it survives major contemporary criticisms posed by Peter van Inwagen and William Alston.

Licensed psychotherapist, podcast host, and religious trauma survivor, Dr. Laura Anderson, has contributed a volume drawing from both her own experiences and trauma studies scholarship. Anderson avoids harsh and direct condemnation of high-control religions (HCRs) but, rather, describes the human experiences and biological explanations of lives immersed in fear, shame, and mistrust. Her book, When Religion Hurts You, will likely connect most with religious trauma survivors who have already left an HCR (or are on the way out) and with professionals unfamiliar with the specific biological and relational theories of trauma. Anderson provides cautious optimism, noting the time and effort needed to “live in healing bodies.”