The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (974 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
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Heifer, Red
(animal used in Jewish ritual of purification)
:
Heikan
(Jap., ‘closing the gate’). The Zen Buddhist ability to cultivate in
zazen
an awareness of one's surroundings without involvement in them.
Heikhal
(Sephardi name for the Ark)
:
Heiler, Friedrich
(1892–1967).
Christian theologian and
phenomenologist
of religion. He was originally a Roman Catholic, but became a Lutheran under the influence of
Nathan Söderblom
. From 1922 until his retirement in 1960, he was professor of the comparative history of religions at Marburg. Pulled back in a more Catholic direction by the writings of von
Hügel
, he founded an evangelical order of Franciscan tertiaries. His major work was
Das Gebet
(1918; Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion, 1932). In this he put into practice his understanding of phenomenology as a way to discovering common truths at the heart of different religions, beneath the surface. He saw the study of religion in this way as a path that could lead to reconciliation between religions. At the outset of
Erscheinungs-formen und Wesen der Religion
(1961), he summarized his understanding of the phenomenological method: it could not be ‘value-free’, since every science has its presuppositions; thus the historian of religion must be inductive, but the phenomenologist must be deductive, building on the foundations of history, philology, etc., working always with empathy.
Heilsgeschichte
(Germ., ‘salvation-history’). The attempt (made initially by Christians) to discern a unifying thread in human, and especially in biblical, history, that thread being the initiatives and actions of God in saving his people and the world.

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