-
The Awakening of the Invisibles: A Glimpse into the Practice of Laywomen in the Naḷakapānasutta
Despite significant progress in recent decades, gender inequality remains a pervasive global phenomenon. According to the United Nations (2024), at the present rate of change, it will take more than 137 years to achieve gender parity. This disparity manifests in distinct ways across social, economic, and cultural contexts, yet in much of the world, gender roles continue to be rigidly defined. Women are still predominantly responsible for household labor, childcare, and other domestic tasks—roles that are frequently naturalized and undervalued. The inequalities inherent in these socially assigned roles, combined with wage disparities, lead many women to prioritize domestic responsibilities over professional aspirations. For others, this prioritization is not a matter…
-
Right Now The Best
In his 2022 album American Heartbreak, Zach Bryan (an American multi-award-winning country/rock singer-songwriter) presents a compelling critique of the prevalent ‘what is next’ culture. A culture that is focused on the future and is never satisfied with the present. In this context, people are always looking to and striving for the next thing, whether that be in a person’s career, personal life, social life, or material possessions. Bryan delves into the societal emphasis on the future, revealing how it comes at the expense of the present moment. This is one of the most honest songs that gets at one of the most corrosive effects of the current culture. Bryan (2022)…
-
The Saintesses of Manga and Anime
If you happen to stroll through the manga section at a nearby Barnes and Noble or scroll through the anime options on CrunchyRoll, you will likely come across more than one tempting option that features a beautiful saint as the leading heroine living in a fantasy world and falling in love with a dashing duke. I have been an avid anime fan for about four years now, and I have frequented the manga section of my local bookstores more than once, I must admit. I’ve even downloaded the sensational app called Webtoon for a wider range of content (hint: if you like “Hell’s Paradise,” “Tower of God,” or “Solo Levelling,”…
-
Religious Espectrocide and Maternal Resistance: Ethical Reflections from a Testimony
Michelle is a Brazilian mother of David, a neurodivergent child diagnosed with autism. In her public testimony, she recounts a painful journey marked by experiences of exclusion and lack of understanding within her evangelical community in Brazil. In many religious contexts, autistic existence is not interpreted as part of human diversity but as a spiritual deviation to be corrected. This article proposes the concept of espectrocide, a term that designates the symbolic, epistemic, and affective erasure of autistic identities, as a tool for analyzing the specific effects of religious discourse and practices on autistic people (Freitas & Franco, in press). More specifically, religious espectrocide refers to the symbolic and structural…
-
Out of the Box Theory for Seminarians: an Autoethnography of Facilitating Workshops
Components of a discovered-in-practice, Out of the Box Theory, can come together in the spiritual formation of seminarians being theologically trained. The process of change can be witnessed in facilitating life writing workshops. Shellseekers Art + Soul life writing workshops has some of the answers to fill a gap in the practical aspects of embodied spiritual formation. In creating and facilitating contemplation and creativity workshops in churches, the classroom, and other venues, as a visual artist and practical theologian, I have observed participants for over a dozen years. In this paper I offer a window into the workshops, with insights gleaned. The methodology used here is autoethnography. “Auto” is for…
-
Reflections on “Pastoral Ethics and Belief Baggage: A Critical Look at Animal Symbolism in Witchcraft” by Claire Ayelotan
Claire’s piece can be read here: https://practicaltheologyhub.com/?p=1298 Fear and the Desire for Control Why are our societies so obsessed with witchcraft? While I was reading Claire’s brilliant piece, I could not help but remember that we used the same Christian text – Pope Gregory IX’s papal bull Vox in Rama – regarding fear of black cats (but my piece was on another topic: https://practicaltheologyhub.com/?p=1268). Black cats and other animals are widely associated with magic and beyond natural (or supernatural) powers. Trying to answer the question, we all abhor death, disease, famine, poverty and not being able to get what we want [in Buddhist terms these are part of what is understood as…
