Projects

While the field of theology has often been challenged in that it carries a preconceived normative perspective to the study of religion, it has been widely assumed that the sociology of religion is better suited to investigate religious vitality since it operates from a scientific and value-free perspective. This project challenges this binary and instead claims that the sociology of religion carries silent normative claims as well. These ...

Young people in the West are more likely to encounter religion in videogames than in places of worship like churches, mosques or temples. This dissertation departs from observations by enthusiastic theologians who find religion everywhere in videogames – the largest cultural industry in the world. However, if religions are beliefs in supernatural substances given meaning to, culturally, through objects and social functions; then what is ...

My research asks why and how does religion and culture play a role in the political decision

making in the South-east Nigeria and in other Multicultural parts of the world like, Flemish,

Belgium and Toronto, Canada.

The purpose or my research is twofold. Firstly, to explore the overall changes in political

decision-making, and why they are influenced by the role religion plays as a whole. This is ...

The later Schelling and Nietzsche developed unique and influential perspectives on the nature and function of religion. For certain reasons (developed below), often these perspectives have not only been viewed separately from their historical ancestry, but no heed has been given to a potential philosophical connection between them. The purpose of this project is then to re-contextualize the later Schelling and Nietzsche as post-Hegelian ...

The Dutch theologian K.H. Miskotte (1894-1976) has brought to the fore that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contains a profound criticism of religion. Inspired by Barth, he has even called Tanakh as a whole an ‘anti-religious testimony’ and has developed his entire biblical-theological work from this angle. According to Miskotte, criticism of religion is at the core of the Hebrew Bible, as it proclaims the exodus from religious slavery. This ...

THE ROLE OF THE FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS IN VERGOTE'S PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION: AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

Antoon Vergote (1921-2013) got his first assignment to lecture at the KU Leuven in 1954 and continued lecturing until 1987 at the Higher Institute of Philosophy and at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational sciences, where he founded in 1958 the Center for the Psychology of Religion. He became an internationally recognized authority in ...

The goals of the project as a whole are to establish, by means of thoroughly researched and critically analyzed case-studies

1. how the concept of religion has evolved within Roman Catholic theology
2. how that understanding has developed throughout history
3. how it has impacted on the life and experience of this religious tradition’s adherents
4. how it has shaped the interaction of the Roman Catholic ...

This project proposes an analysis of the role played by religion and religious leaders in the processes of conflict transformation, with a special focus on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Religion is frequently criticized as one of the principal sources of violent conflicts. However, recent studies on transitional justice and conflict resolution emphasize the importance of religion for achieving and maintaining peace. This project ...