Current Journal | Volume 30 (2022)
A Virus Became a God: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Religious Legitimacy Crisis in Africa
by Leo Igwe
Abstract: Discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa have mainly focused on measures taken by the government and international bodies to combat this deadly virus. Little attention has been paid to the fact that these initiatives put into question the authority and influence of religious leaders and institutions. This is especially the case in Nigeria where religious leaders wield enormous powers and influence; where pastors and Imams/sheikhs lead mega-churches and mega-mosques. This presentation explores the steps taken by the government to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and how religious leaders and institutions reacted to these measures. The paper argues that contrary to the notion that religious traditions are unchanging in their nature, in the face of crisis, as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic, religious institutions innovate, and device ways, means and mechanisms to adapt and survive.
Learning In Our Contemporary World, a Natural Scientist’s Reflections
by Thomas Dillern
Abstract: In this essay I cast a look upon learning in the contemporary world. Based on my own experience as a natural scientist I reflect upon my own practice, learning and professional development. Alongside thinkers as Aristotle, Dewey, and Polanyi, I take a reflective journey where I elaborate how one, from a humanistic point of view, consider learning to happen. Further, I discuss how we in our contemporary world, governed by some sort of technological logic, have confined how we think about knowledge, the process of learning and human practice, and even how this confinement reduces our own potential horizon of understanding. Hence, in this journey, I also try to describe how we can meet these challenges.
A Beautiful Fun Good Life
by David Bishop
Abstract: Starting with good, we’re led to God, the ultimate standard of good. Then, realizing that even this absolute, God standard can’t be absolutely pinned down, we swing back toward the good standard. Some rules seem self-evident. Through a combination of reason, intuition, and observation—as we learn to understand them—they sound reasonable. Humanism is not physicalism. Free will shaping events, mind moving matter, violates no physical law. Some people lack free will all the time; all people lack free will some of the time; but all people can’t lack free will all the time or people would not be people. Is a beautiful fun good life all we have to have?