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Religious Reform
A religious reform (from Latin ''re-'': "back, again", and ''formare'': "to form"; i.e. put together: "to restore, reconstruct, rebuild") aims at the reform of religious teachings. It is not to be confused with an organizational reform of a religious community, though mostly this is a consequence of a reform of religious teachings. Definition Religious reforms are performed when a religious community reaches the conclusion that it deviated from its - assumed - true faith. Mostly religious reforms are started by parts of a religious community and meet resistance in other parts of the same religious community. Religious reforms usually lead to a reformulation of the religious teachings held for true, and to the condemnation resp. rejection of teachings held for wrong. Mostly the deviation from the assumed true faith which gives reason for a religious reform crept in over a longer period of time, sometimes over centuries. A religious reform is always a reorientation at the histori ...
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Ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) ...
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Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be Criticism of the Catholic Church, errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church. The Reformation was the start of Protestantism and the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church. It is also considered to be one of the events that signified the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period in Europe.Davies ''Europe'' pp. 291–293 Prior to Martin Luther, there were many Proto-Protestantism, earlier reform movements. Although the Reformation is usually considered to have started with the publication of the ''Ninety-five Theses'' by Martin Luther in 1517, he was not excommunicated by Pope Leo X ...
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Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 ''sui iuris'' churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it ...
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Second Vatican Council
The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and 12 weeks, in the autumn of each of the four years 1962 to 1965. Preparation for the council took three years, from the summer of 1959 to the autumn of 1962. The council was opened on 11 October 1962 by Pope John XXIII, John XXIII (pope during the preparation and the first session), and was closed on 8 December 1965 by Pope Paul VI, Paul VI (pope during the last three sessions, after the death of John XXIII on 3 June 1963). Pope John XXIII called the council because he felt the Church needed “updating” (in Italian: ''aggiornamento''). In order to connect with 20th-century people in an increasingly secularized world, some of the Church's practices needed to be improved, and its teaching needed to be presente ...
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Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous search for truth and knowledge, which is closely intertwined with human reason and not limited to the theophany at Mount Sinai. A highly liberal strand of Judaism, it is characterized by lessened stress on ritual and personal observance, regarding '' halakha'' (Jewish law) as non-binding and the individual Jew as autonomous, and great openness to external influences and progressive values. The origins of Reform Judaism lie in 19th-century Germany, where Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his associates formulated its early principles. Since the 1970s, the movement has adopted a policy of inclusiveness and acceptance, inviting as many as possible to partake in its communities rather than adhering to strict theoretical clarity. It is strongly identifi ...
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Islamic Modernism
Islamic modernism is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response to the Western cultural challenge" attempting to reconcile the Islamic faith with modern values such as democracy, civil rights, rationality, equality, and progress.''Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World'', Thompson Gale (2004) It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence" and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis (''Tafsir''). A contemporary definition describes it as an "effort to re-read Islam's fundamental sources—the Qur'an and the Sunna, (the practice of the Prophet) —by placing them in their historical context, and then reinterpreting them, non-literally, in the light of the modern context." It was one of the of several Islamic movements – including Islamic secularism, Islamism, and Salafism – that emerged in the middle of the 19th century in reaction to the rapid changes of the time, ...
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Liberalism And Progressivism Within Islam
Liberalism and progressivism within Islam involve professed Muslims who have created a considerable body of progressive thought about Islamic understanding and practice. Their work is sometimes characterized as "progressive Islam" ( ar, الإسلام التقدمي '). Some scholars, such as Omid Safi, differentiate between "Progressive Muslims" (post-colonial, anti-imperialist, and critical of modernity) and "Liberal advocates of Islam" (an older movement embracing modernity). Liberal Islam originally emerged out of the Islamic revivalist movement of the 18th-19th centuries. Liberal and progressive ideas within Islam are considered controversial by some traditional Muslims, who criticize liberal Muslims on the grounds of being too Western and/or rationalistic. The methodologies of liberal and progressive Islam rest on the re-interpretation of traditional Islamic sacred scriptures (the Quran) and other texts (the Hadith), a process called '' ijtihad'' (see below). Th ...
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Biblical Studies
Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse academic discipline, disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from ancient history, historical criticism, philology, textual criticism, literary criticism, historical backgrounds, mythology, and comparative religion. Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature. Biblical scholars do not necessarily have a faith commitment to the texts they study, but many do. Definition The ''Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies'' defines the field as a set of various, and in some cases independent disciplines for the study of the collection of ancient texts generally known as the ...
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Historical Criticism
Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". While often discussed in terms of Jewish and Christian writings from ancient times, historical criticism has also been applied to other religious and secular writings from various parts of the world and periods of history. The primary goal of historical criticism is to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or ''sensus literalis historicus''. The secondary goal seeks to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipients of the text. That may be accomplished by reconstructing the true nature of the events that the text describes. An ancient text may also serve as a document, record or source for reconstructing the ancient past, which may also serve as a chief interest to the ...
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Liberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, also known as Liberal Theology and historically as Christian Modernism (see Catholic modernism and Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy), is a movement that interprets Christian teaching by taking into consideration modern knowledge, science and ethics. It emphasizes the importance of reason and experience over doctrinal authority. Liberal Christians view their theology as an alternative to both atheistic rationalism and theologies based on traditional interpretations of external authority, such as the Bible or sacred tradition. Liberal theology grew out of the Enlightenment's rationalism and Romanticism of the 18th and 19th centuries. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was characterized by an acceptance of Darwinian evolution, a utilization of modern biblical criticism and participation in the Social Gospel movement. This was also the period when liberal theology was most dominant within the Protestant churches. Liberal theology's in ...
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Religious Liberalism
Religious liberalism is a conception of religion (or of a particular religion) which emphasizes personal and group liberty and rationality. It is an attitude towards one's own religion (as opposed to criticism of religion from a secular position, and as opposed to criticism of a religion other than one's own) which contrasts with a traditionalist or orthodox approach, and it is directly opposed by trends of religious fundamentalism. It is related to religious liberty, which is the tolerance of different religious beliefs and practices, but not all promoters of religious liberty are in favor of religious liberalism, and vice versa. Overview In the context of religious liberalism, ''liberalism'' conveys the sense of classical liberalism as it developed in the Age of Enlightenment, which forms the starting point of both religious and political liberalism; but religious liberalism does not necessarily coincide with all meanings of ''liberalism'' in political philosophy. For exam ...
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