The article is devoted to the rethinking of the traditional doctrine of creation in postmetaphysical theology, which is seen as an example of contextual theology. An analysis of the works of Catherine Keller (feminist theology) and John Caputo (theology of event) demonstrates that creation is reinterpreted in the context of attempts to overcome the power discourse and dissociate the idea of the divine from the idea of sovereignty. The creation, in this postmodern the-opoetics, is understood not as a move from nothing into something, but rather as a transformation of darkness and depth. The concept of creation ex nihilo is related to Greek philosophical concepts of omnipotence, which reject the primordial chaos and the feminine in favor of a powerful patriarchal deity. In this context, Keller and Caputo transform the traditional doctrine of creation ex nihilo into creation ex profundis or ex amore. In their interpretation, the biblical narrative doesn’t describe a single pure force acting ex nihilo, but an ensemble offorces, one of which appears as active and formative, and the other as more open, mobile and unformed. Thus, in postmodern theology, we have an emphasis on poetic becoming and the rejection of a hypermasculine, powerful God. We argue that theological hermeneutics, in its effort to destroy divine sovereignty, also deconstructs traditional monotheism. This theology tries to show that religion in the postmodern world is a way of being-in-the-world.

The article describes dark ecclesiology, a new theological theory of the church. According to the author, it represents a strategy of emancipation of the ecclesiastical thought and practice from clericocentrism. For centuries, ecclesiology focused on describing hierarchical structures that shaped normativity within the church. Everything strange and abnormal remained in the shadows. “Invisible" groups (women; queer people; unbaptized; human embryos; animals and other non-human living beings) fall into the shadow area and are excluded by the clerical authorities from the scope of ecclesiology. Dark ecclesiology allows for a fresh look at the church. As a theological research method, it reconsiders the church's composition, structure, and boundaries; it provides an opportunity to speak about earlier excluded church actors and things, avoiding their forced normalization within the framework of mainstream ecclesiological theories. The critical potential of dark ecclesiology makes it possible to reveal the contingency of church norms and the arbitrariness of the exclusion from the church of those who consider themselves to be church members. Shadow actors are described through theological infra-language, which is a way of correlating different perspectives and narratives in one space through which they express their belonging to the church. Dark eccle-siology refers to a flat ontology that asserts the ontological equality of all actors, including God. Methodologically, it uses the ideas of object-oriented philosophers (T. Morton, G. Harman, and others) and B.

The feminist theological and historical work of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza has been met with diverging responses. For feminist biblical scholars, Schussler Fiorenza is essential reading, with even her works from the 1970s and 1980s still standing as key reference points. For mainstream (“malestream”) biblical scholarship, however, her entire body of writing is typically ignored, including within historical Jesus research (HJR), despite its value in both problematising and advancing the so-called Quests for the Historical Jesus. By evaluating and synthesising Schussler Fiorenza’s HJR work on fundamentalism, feminism, and anti-Semitism, this article situates the effects of Schussler Fiorenza’s work and the credibility of her critics within the Quests. While the themes Schussler Fiorenza addresses, such as feminism and Judaism, are key features of the Third Quest, her proposals with regard to HJR, including the politics of interpretation, the shift to memory and orality studies, and the evaluation of meaning-making itself, are theoretically critical and self-reflexive in a way which the Third Quest has rarely been. Given the emphasis Schussler Fiorenza places on self-evaluation, and her critical examination of the work of her peers in HJR, one is led to consider the possibility that her work may represent a Third Quest Critical-Stream, or even a Fourth Quest.

For many critics, James H. Cone (1938-2018), “The Father” of Black liberation theology, was America’s most important (Black) theologian in the twentieth-century who had energetically engaged the urgent issues of America’s race relations, justice, Black suffering, and civil rights. He wrote and spoke loudly against what he called “America’s Original Sin”, (White) racism, and thus pressed upon White Americans, especially White Christians in America, to stop practicing anti-Black racism and to alter their scornful feeling toward Black people. Cone also summoned White American Christians and the White church to embody the liberative message of the biblical prophets and Jesus Christ, as well as God’s categorical demands to Christians to practice justice, do what is right, and to hate oppression. In the same vein, through his politico-theological and ethical writings, he awakened the American conscience to the forces and systems that oppress and dehumanize Black people and alienate other marginalized groups in America from the opportunities and privileges in society.

This article is a review of several of the implicit philosophical epistemic tenets of Teologia India as it is lived, believed and practiced in the highlands of Chiapas, Southeast Mexico, among the Mayan peoples of the region. Some of these philosophical characteristics and practices - which set Teologia India significantly apart from other forms of Liberation Theologies - are: expressions of an “embodied theology” present in a constellation of practices; the status, meanings and interpretations of dreams for faith; myths as revelation of historical truth; local languages as conceptual systems for the understanding of reflections on faith; sacred indigenous music, dance, chants and textiles as an epistemic presence much beyond the conventional understandings of inculturation.

Although some theologians have been advocating for a thorough consideration of ecological issues for more than twenty years, it is only recently that it has become an important matter for some churches and for political theology. In a 1995 book, “Cry of the earth, cry of the poor,” Leonardo Boff argued that together with social and justice concerns for the poor, the church and the society should look and respond to the destruction of the environment. Boff echoed the “Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation” project led by the World Council of Churches. The climate crisis later became a locus theologicus but also a topic for national and international advocacy. It became an ecumenical and interfaith concern expressed through various initiatives. Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, 2015, catalyzed these reflections and actions and constituted a turning point in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The COVID-19 pandemic raised new ecological concerns. However, despite all these developments, most of the churches have not yet mainstreamed ecology in their discourse and their pastoral action.

Many biblical texts mention eunuchs (ewovxog, ОТО). In the Hebrew Bible the term saris appears mainly as an element of the administrative apparatus. In the New Testament the image of the eunuch becomes the subject of theological reflection. In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ says that there are “Eunuchs who have made themselves Eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). The article examines this verse, its Sitz im Leben, and traces its influence on both Christian theology and the religious practice of the followers of Christ. For a long time, the eunuchs in Matthew 19:12 have been seen by commentators as a model of chastity, an ideal member of the Christian Church, a prototype of a monk. However, the analysis of ancient texts shows how morally ambiguous the image of the eunuch was. In the ancient Mediterranean, the eunuch was the epitome of transgression of all norms related to family and sexual life. Through this image, everything that seemed eternal and reasonable was called into question. Hence, the image of eunuch given as a positive ideal denied the triumphant heterosexual binary model in which such things as family, gender, and gender identity were inscribed.

In the “History of India” of Rashid al-Dm (1249/50-1318), which is a part of his “Compendium of Chronicles”, the author mentions ‘The Scriptures of Shakyamuni”. Rashid al-Dln’s informant was the Buddhist monk Kamdlashri from Kashmir. These references are found in several passages of the “History of India”: at the beginning and the end of this book as well as at the beginning of the section about Buddhism. The Buddha is presented in that part as the latest “Prophet” in a series of other “Prophets” (past Buddhas of earlier ages) who established the “Suma” for his followers, and his words constituted the “Scriptures”- the Abhidharma. Karl Jahn and Johan Elverskog interpreted this as Islamization of the discourse, and Johan Elverskog explicitly denied that the Abhidharma could be called the “Scriptures of the Buddha” or his “revelation”. The present article shows this to be wrong. It is well known that Buddhist sources claim that the Fourth Buddhist Council was held in Kashmir in the reign of King Kanishka, and the Sarvdstivddius declared the Abhidharma-pitaka as “the words of the Buddha” (buddha-vacana) in polemics with the SUtravddms (Sautrdntika). A similar veneration of the third part of the Buddhist Canon (Abhidhamma) is also witnessed to in Pali sources.

This paper discusses the construction of the “religious other” and the notion of tolerance by the Russian censorship. By using the methods of Cambridge Methodological School, the paper explores the case at the highest censorship committee of the Russian Empire, the so-called “Committee of the April 2^nd, 1848”, devoted to define admissibility and limits of religious controversy and polemical theology, in particular, between the Orthodox, the Lutherans and other confessional groups. The author is trying to unpack the content of such terms as “heterodox” and “orthodox” in their evolving correlation, and the specific understanding of tolerance in Russia under Nicolas I.

This article deals with the anti-ecumenical movement in Russian Orthodoxy, representing aspects of religious separation and isolationism. The authors analyze sociocultural and political premises, upon which this Orthodox isolationist ideology is based, including such elements as defensiveness, obsessive securitization, intertwined with revanchism, geopolitical resentment, and idealization of the Soviet past. The authors emphasize the “mobilization consciousness” — a psychological conviction that any positive transformation process in Russia might happen only in circumstances of extreme stress and the feeling of threat. The article further presents a comparison of Orthodox fundamentalists and radical right movements.

The article analyzes the process of post-Soviet invention of a new religious tradition of icon painting in the Armenian Apostolic Church. During the Middle Ages, the Armenian Christianity did not produce a tradition of icon-worshipping. However, since the 17^th century, due to various reasons, church painting was developed and became a part of both church interior and everyday religiosity. During the Church's post-Soviet re-institutionalization, such painting became more and more demanded as its purchase and gifting was a significant part of the church economy and of prestigious gift exchange. As a result, along with the wide-known older “Armenian” style, a new “icon painting canon” emerged. It was “reconstructed”, but in fact invented, as an allegedly authentic Armenian style, on the basis of Byzantine icons and the medieval Armenian book miniature, by two icon-painters, father and son Azaryans. Azaryans claimed primacy of the Armenian icon-painting by referring to the evangelical myth of the miraculous image of Christ, allegedly belonging to the Armenian king Abgar. Although the Azaryans’ project remains marginal and feminized, it may be seen as a manifestation of post-secular religiosity, a form of religious practice and even an act of religious conversion.