Religion in Crisis

The state of lockdown during Covid-19 had a significant impact on the way in which religion was practised with respect to attitudes towards faith, rituals, and ways of worshipping. This study captures the experiences of practitioners of different faiths in the immediate aftermath of the first lockdown in the UK. Questions were designed to prompt reflection on this drastic change to normal life. The study shows that the experience of lockdown not only provided people with space to think about their faith but also forced them to confront their praxis. What emerged were the novel ways in which respondents engaged with digital technology (the practice of religion online) and material culture to facilitate worship.

Theological Studies/Teologiese Studies, 2021

2020

eBook collection of essays from Religious Studies Scholar at TAMU on Religious Groups responses during COVID-19 2020

2020

The global pandemic produces rules that impose suffering on religions, which must reconsider their social role now. This entails the need to examine the rules of coexistence within societies, where Coronavirus phenomenon raises existential and religious questions. We need to look at the condition of the state of religious freedom – in the European context – referring to globalization in a climate of restriction of personal, social, and religious freedom. Complexity has undermined the role of states, the delimitation of competences regarding relations with religions. For them, building community and associations relations where religious freedom is expressed is fundamental. Believers are therefore bearers of specific interests. This particular situation calls for a new function for religions, focused on the value of the person who can lead to the common identity and guarantee «those values of social and community integration that seem particularly discovered today».

Newsroom, 2020

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has caused disruption on a global scale, impacting on many facets of life. Religions are invariably implicated in such times of crisis in diverse ways. But how should we think about what is taking place religiously at the present time? This short article considers the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of 'crisis religion', exploring ways that religions are responding and being reshaped by the disruption of this epoch-making global event. Reflecting on developments from the vantage point of New Zealand, it encourages analysis that pushes beyond commonly employed frames of reactionary, resurgent or repugnant religion.

Religion, 2022

The beginning of year 2020 will be remembered as a turning point within several societies. In countries affected for many years by various secularization trends, radicalization controversies and sexual abuse in connection with religion, religion found a new her positively or negatively. Before that time, through the regular publication of diverse statistics, public discourse was mainly focused on reporting about ethnoreligious violence and the decline in religious practice and in the numbers of affiliated members. After places of worship in many countries were closed as part of a strategy to contain the virus and ensure people respected social distancing, suddenly worshippers organized and found new ways of negotiating with governments. Thus, they reframed public discourse, notably reminding their societies that they were still active and attached great importance to their collective rituals. In many places around the world, religious groups complained that their needs had been forgotten.

2015

Weerawardhana, C. 2015, Review of Ganiel, Gladys Heidemarie Winkel and Christophe Monnot (Eds.) 2014, Religion in Times of Crisis. Leiden: Brill. Numen, 62:4, pp. 484-486.

2020

This article explores the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 on the worship services and events of Christian communities Focusing on the UK in terms of practice, the research includes early pandemic examples from a range of Christian traditions and denominations, as well as relevant cases from other countries The Christian church organisations considered range from the extensive world-wide reaches of the Roman Catholic Church, to international Protestant denominations such as the Anglican Communion, and to independent non-denominational groupings and local churches This paper considers the ways in which churches are coming to terms with the impacts of this pervasive virus on the global community, and on their own congregations At a time when all religious events were postponed or cancelled, many churches moved online for the delivery of daily and weekly worship services Yet, some other events needfully persisted;this has especially been the case for funerals, as the number of ...

Faculty of Theology - University of Malta, 2021

ABSTRACT The scope of this study -- conducted by the academic members of staff of the Department of Pastoral Theology, Liturgy and Canon Law in the Faculty of Theology of the University of Malta -- was twofold: (a) to gather information about how people interpreted the Covid19 pandemic and the partial lockdown in Malta and (b) to reflect constructively on a global crisis which was difficult to understand and very hard to live. The questions in this survey were meant to gauge the personal experiences of the participants, how Covid19 impacted their sense of existential meaning, their faith, their sense of community and how they coped with the crisis. The study was held between 30 November and 21 December 2020. During this period, 1102 responses were recorded. LINK: http://www.um.edu.mt/theology/covid19

Pharos journal of theology, 2022