ELEMENTS OF SELF-REFLECTION, INTROSPECTIVE COPING ASPECTS, GRATITUDE AND RESILIENCE APPLIED DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC FROM ISLAMIC AND POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY PERSPECTIVES

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting humankind in unprecedented and monumental ways and data is needed to plan for next steps following the acute outbreak. In addition to physical health, coping with the pandemic requires mental resilience. Resilience is one aspect that is absolutely required by all Muslims when facing the COVID 19 Pandemic. There are several verses in the al-Quran that discuss the aspect of resilience or the capability of an individual to rise against adversities and overcome it. Surah Al-Baqarah Verse 214 mentions about the challenges faced by humankind and the assistance extended by Allah SWT. The verse states that every human will face challenges that will make them suffer and lament when overcoming it. Nevertheless, humans who believe in the promises made by Allah SWT will rely on Allah SWT and HIS plans when facing any suffering and hardship until assistance from Allah SWT finally arrives. This verse states that each challenge put forward to an individual with come with a solution if the individual exercises patience through prayers and makes an ultimate effort by completely depending on the assistance offered by Allah SWT. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results is the property of ResearchTrentz and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Pictures of you: God images, gun ownership, and empowerment in the United States

Objective: In the current study, we seek to shed new light on the role of religion in American gun culture by considering whether images people hold of God affect the probability of gun ownership and the experience of empowerment through guns for religious Americans (i.e., the extent to which owners derive security, identity, and status from their guns). Methods: We analyze nationally representative data from the 2021 Baylor Religion Survey in the United States. Binary logistic and ordinary least squares regression models were used. Results: We failed to observe any associations between God images and gun ownership. However, among gun owners (n = 430), belief in an engaged God was associated with lower levels of gun empowerment, while belief in a judgmental God was associated with higher levels. Conclusion: God images may contribute to the experience of empowerment through guns by representing spiritual connection and intimacy or divine anger and retribution. We suggest that future research delve deeper into the intersection of God images and gun-related beliefs and behaviors. © 2023 The Authors. Social Science Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Southwestern Social Science Association.

Immigrant pentecostalism in the emergence of the COVID-19 crisis: reactions and responses from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Berlin.

This article seeks to analyze the reactions and responses of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) in Berlin to the global COVID-19 crisis. Although the UCKG has been the subject of multiple international types of research regarding the spread of the COVID-19 virus, this article shows that the UCKG's global network of local churches must be differentiated in their responses and reactions to the global pandemic. This article traces and analyzes how the local UCKG in Berlin responded to the pandemic in its respective conditions and differed from the global network in the emergence of a pandemic in its rhetoric and discourse, using the concept of the Third Space. For this purpose, the services and sermons of local pastors were recorded to analyze how the discourse toward the COVID-19 crisis changed during the period of occurrence and awareness of a global pandemic. The results show how the church has adapted to the local restriction and regulations and reflect the international literature on how the UCKG's mother church in Brazil acted in comparison. The church and its pastors in Germany responded to the global pandemic in three primary ways: they assigned to authorities' guidelines, provided sermons with undertones of spiritual warfare, and rejected the interpretation of interdependencies between demons and health issues.

Child health and COVID-19: How Mark 10 can inform a Christian ethic

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges for children and families. While most of the public debate surrounding the pandemic naturally focused on mainstream concerns, vulnerable groups, including children, with unique concerns were pushed to the periphery. The fact that COVID-19 continues to impact these vulnerable groups gives Christians an opportunity to right past wrongs. In this article, we first describe the biblical priority Jesus gives to children as members of God's kingdom by exploring Mark 10:13-16. We then highlight specific ways in which the consequences of public responses to COVID-19 disproportionately burdened children. Finally, we present two case studies through which we reimagine how Christians can respond to the collateral impacts of COVID-19 on children in a more biblically faithful manner.

Victory in the Time of c ovi n Defying a Pandemic at an Indian Megachurch

The global COvID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 required significant ritual adjustment in churches worldwide, particularly the larger ones. It has also provoked theological reflection on the origins on the virus, as well as on what God's Word had to say in response. This article investigates the adjustments and reflections at one Indian megachurch, Bangalore's Full Gospel Assembly of God (FGAG), with special reference to its utilization of a victory-oriented and defiant gospel of divine care, protection, and health. The question that animates this investigation is: Can a gospel of victory and health survive a global pandemic? The answer, somewhat counterintuitively (but in another sense - for those familiar with prosperity theology - not at all) is that it not only survives, but thrives. The article attempts to account for this thriving with reference to two distinctive characteristics of the soft version of the prosperity gospel that are manifest in FGAG's victory gospel, both of which are inculcated through ritual repetition and performance: 1) Its paradoxically simultaneous insistence that the faithful are, by God, already victorious, and that miraculous reversals await those who aren't, and 2) its boldly defiant response to evidence that all is not well..

A BiBlicAl ApproAch to the experience of feAr

The Covid-19 pandemic has exponentially raised the levels of fear in Western societies. This essay attempts to delve into the human experience of fear from a biblical perspective. Since the complexity and richness of the biblical texts on fear are overwhelming for an article of these characteristics, a canonical methodology is adopted;that is, we will study the most significant texts on fear in each block of the biblical canon to try to find the most relevant thematic threads. The investigation will show how the Bible reveals the deepest theological roots of fear and, at the same time, proposes interesting educational possibilities of this universal human experience. © 2022 Instituto Teologico de Murcia. All rights reserved.

Divine hiddenness, the melancholic self, and a pandemic spirituality

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted societies worldwide and occasioned intense intellectual reflection to make sense of the phenomenon. The state of insecurity has become a new horizon for doing Christian theology, and the new experience makes it inevitable that the spiritual implications be explored. The article attempts to undertake constructive spirituality for a specific historic moment, and to enquire about the contours of a pandemic spirituality. The disciplinary contribution is to be found in the threefold effort to propose a specific naming of God, discern a unique self-understanding, and intimate corresponding practices. Central notions such as hiddenness of God, melancholic self, and practices of everyday life, of lament and of othering are employed coherently to delineate a contextual pandemic spirituality. A multidisciplinary approach is used to interpret these constituent elements. © 2022, University Of The Free State. All rights reserved.

RESISTANCE TO NARRATIVES OF THE COVID‐19 PANDEMIC AS AN ACT OF GOD: WITH LYDIA REID AND DAVID WILKINSON, “BUILDING ENTHUSIASM AND OVERCOMING FEAR: ENGAGING WITH CHRISTIAN LEADERS IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE” AND ZARA THOKOZANI KAMWENDO, “RESISTANCE TO NARRATIVES OF THE COVID‐19 PANDEMIC AS AN ACT OF GOD.”

This article examines the views of 12 bishops of the Church of England in understanding the COVID‐19 pandemic from the perspective of divine action. The most consistently mentioned unhelpful narratives hinge on an understanding of the pandemic as an act of God. Although there are several possible contextual explanations for this resistance to understand the pandemic as divine action, an analysis of the data shows that it is grounded in a desire to maintain (1) a space for the pandemic, the suffering, and the virus that caused it to be understood as part of creation and (2) focus on human agency and responsibility as the appropriate response to the pandemic. I argue that the strong resistance among the bishops interviewed to a narrative of divine punishment in particular is ultimately grounded in a desire to disable the blunt but effective tool of making moral judgments in the name of divine authority that regularly follow in the wake of global disasters.