Journal of the Council for Research on Religion

Fractured Orthodoxy

2024-10-24T16:16:34-04:00

The Russian World (Russkii Mir) theology is at the heart of the invasion of Ukraine, and is fueling the ongoing war with apocalyptic rhetoric. Specifically, the Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev), Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’ and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, has declared the “special military operation” in Ukraine to be a Holy War, and sees the Russian Federation as the prophesied one restraining the reign of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 6–7). The West, and its permissive culture of secularist governments, religious pluralism, reproductive freedom, and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ persons, is seen as literally satanic – that is, as heralding the coming of the Antichrist from the Book of Revelation. This article traces the evolution of this aberrant theology, as well as the geopolitical contexts in which it has evolved. The article concludes with a counternarrative coming from the Orthodox Church Father, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (☦︎ 202 CE). It is hoped that a “Return to the Fathers” in theological worldview will, in turn, help Russian Orthodoxy to return to sanity, and away from its dangerous apocalyptic rhetoric.

Riddles of Vedānta and the Revival of Kotta Satchidananda Murty

2024-03-27T06:48:09-04:00

What is the central philosophy of the Upanishads? Is it theistic, monistic, polytheistic, panpsychistic, or something else? Are the world and God real or unreal? Such questions have been a riddle for ancient sages and modern scholars of the Vedāntic tradition, alike. Interestingly, if any thinker has made this discourse more puzzling, it is none other than Śaṅkarācārya (c. 7th–9th centuries CE); through his famous dictum, Brahma satyam jagat-mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah (“Brahman alone is real, the world is unreal. Jiva is not other than Brahman”), he almost changed the entire Vedāntic paradigm, akin to Nietzsche in Western thought with his “God is Dead” dictum. Now, before any thinker embarks on the Vedāntic path, they must first encounter Śaṅkarācārya’s thesis in one way or another, as only then can one engage with notions including ethics, aesthetics, bhakti, karma, and others. Following the same line of inquiry, this review article investigates Professor K. Satchidananda Murty’s distinctive discourse on Vedānta and his engagement with Śaṅkarācārya’s philosophy, as portrayed in a recent edition of some of his works, titled Vedānta and Bhagavadgītā: The Unpublished Writings of K. Satchidananda Murty, proficiently compiled by Professor Ashok Vohra and Kotta Ramesh.

Editorial Address & Advisory Board

2024-10-24T16:36:12-04:00

The first issue of volume five of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) is a call by the editors to examine and understand social cohesions and conflicts, with particular interest in what role religion or religious traditions play within communities of diverse peoples. We sought first to understand how tension points arise within communities, and second, to examine the role played by religion in creating or appeasing these tension points. This issue is thus dedicated to probing, not only the tensions that arise within religiously diverse communities but the solutions that are developed in response to criticism or conflict.

The studies in this issue address: the fractures that have been created in the Orthodox world by the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for the ongoing war in Ukraine; the tensions between liberal and traditional standpoints when discussing the Vedāntic tradition and the philosophy of the Upanishads; the tension and cohesion created by how different Turkish faith communities have been negotiating their role in the preservation of Ottoman architectural heritage; and, finally, how attempts at creating social cohesion in the Southern state of Karnataka have led to tensions between Muslim and Hindu communities.