ABSTRACT The debate over the theme of the Eleventh World Council of Churches General Assembly in Karlsruhe (2022) opens a revealing window into how the understanding of love is shaped by socio‐cultural contexts rather than by biblical exegesis alone. The seed of the conversation was planted in the 2018 report of General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit, who proposed that the WCC be understood as a “unique instrument for the ecumenical movement of love.” The contested translation of 2 Corinthians 5:14 generated significant debate between “the love of Christ compels us” and the finally adopted “the love of Christ moves us.” Reading the 2022 Ecumenical Review issues dedicated to the assembly theme, two streams emerge: a love‐as‐freedom stream that emphasizes love's spontaneity and vulnerability, and a love‐as‐imperative stream that emphasizes love's commanding, border‐crossing, embodied character. This article traces the philosophical genealogy of the two understandings through Irving Singer, Gordon Marino, Zygmunt Bauman, Simon May, and D. C. Schindler on the Western side, and through Confucian ren , Buddhist karuna , and Søren Kierkegaard's Works of Love on the Eastern and theological side. I argue that the WCC's negotiated translation is a responsible exercise of contextual theology, but that the imperative character of Christ's love must not be permanently lost in translation.
ABSTRACT The ecological crisis has intensified scrutiny of Christian claims about the distinctive place of the human person within creation. Since Lynn White Jr.’s critique of Christian anthropocentrism, environmental ethicists and ecotheologians have variously proposed ecocentrism, human non‐exceptionalism, and renewed accounts of stewardship. Feminist ecological theology has further exposed the links among anthropocentrism, androcentrism, and hierarchical domination. This article argues that Christian anthropocentrism need not be abandoned but critically reconstructed. Engaging various scholars in the field of ecotheology and relevant Catholic sources, it interprets human distinctiveness vocationally rather than hierarchically. Human dignity and agency entail responsibility from within the community of creation, not domination over it. Building on established Christological accounts of stewardship, the article proposes servanthood as the governing form of an ecologically responsible Christian anthropocentrism.
This paper examines the role of the kenduri tradition as a medium for improvised interreligious dialogue and alliances in the multireligious community of Jatimulyo, Girimulyo Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Despite Indonesia's religious diversity and history of conflicts, kenduri persists as a way of life, fostering harmony amid differences in beliefs. The research problem centers on understanding why this community remains deeply rooted in kenduri and how it generates organic dialogue and cooperation across religions, addressing gaps in prior studies that overlook its improvisational aspects in building tolerance. Employing a qualitative ethnographic approach, data were collected through participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and documentation. Findings reveal that Kenduri’s a culture and tradition that has become a way of life and even the life style of the community. Based on its implementation, there are 3 types of kenduri, namely religious, traditional, and cultural. All three types of kenduri gave birth to a process of dialogue and alliance. Ultimately, kenduri serves as a powerful instrument for fostering interfaith harmony, presenting a compelling model for inclusive societies. It should therefore be deliberately integrated into multicultural policies and educational frameworks as a practical and culturally grounded approach to promoting social cohesion.
To this day, women are still viewed as a vulnerable group. This stigma renders women’s roles in social, political, and religious life insignificant and leaves them feeling powerless. This patriarchal culture fosters gender-biased societal perspectives and perpetuates women’s subordination. Yet, within religious traditions, women’s roles as key participants in religious rituals cannot be underestimated. For example, in the doa wura bola religious tradition of the Bima community, women hold a crucial role as makers of oha mina. This study aims to explore the relationship between women, religiosity, and the formation of agency in the making of oha mina. This study employs a qualitative approach through interviews and literature review to explore the relationship between women, food, and religiosity from the perspective of Anthony Giddens’ agency theory. The findings of this study indicate that food in Bima society is an expression of religiosity and a means of reconciling local values with Islamic traditions. The doa wura bola tradition involves an equal division of roles and distribution of power between women and men. Furthermore, the practice of making oha mina is the locus where agency is formed and new religious authority is consolidated for women.
The increasing use of social media has enabled the rapid dissemination of ideological narratives and facilitated the formation of online communities based on shared beliefs. One account that has attracted public attention is @muslimahnewsid, which is often associated with narratives rejecting democracy, promoting the caliphate, and criticizing religious moderation. However, limited research has examined how these narratives contribute to the formation of group cohesion among followers. This study aims to analyze how fantasy themes, fantasy chains, and rhetorical visions are constructed in the Instagram content of @muslimahnewsid using Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT). This study employed a qualitative approach with content analysis. Data consisted of three Instagram video posts selected from ten purposively sampled posts uploaded between January 2024 and March 2025. The analysis focused on captions, visual elements, and audience comments. To strengthen the findings, in-depth interviews were conducted with expert informants. The findings show that the account constructs fantasy themes centered on leadership crisis, the delegitimization of democracy, and the idealization of the caliphate. These narratives are reinforced through audience interactions, forming fantasy chains that ultimately generate a rhetorical vision portraying Islamic governance as the preferred alternative. The study concludes that symbolic communication plays a significant role in fostering ideological cohesion and collective identity within digital communities.
