Radix - Volume 52, Issue 1, 2026

The book of Leviticus presents holiness in two interrelated ways: as a designation for specific spaces, objects, persons, and times, and as a moral-spiritual quality that every Israelite is called to embody. The text emphasizes that Israel is to be holy because God is holy, linking ethical conduct with ritual observance. Dietary laws, distinctions between clean and unclean, and observance of sacred times serve both to set Israel apart from other nations and to cultivate imitation of God’s character. Theophanies, such as the revelation at Sinai, provide intense encounters with divine holiness, eliciting reverent fear and motivating the people toward obedience. These experiences are mediated through priests, ritual spaces, and structured practices, creating layered access to the sacred and reinforcing communal and individual devotion. The book thus functions as a guide for living a holy life through both ethical behavior and participation in ritual. Insights from Leviticus remain relevant for the contemporary church, highlighting the value of symbols, sacraments, and ethical formation in embodying God’s holiness in everyday life.

This article explores the artistic and theological process of visually interpreting the biblical book of Leviticus. Initially perceived as a text of obsolete rituals and laws, Leviticus is re-examined as a narrative of divine proximity, holiness, and restoration. The author reflects on how holiness manifests not only in ritual but also in everyday life, nature, and art. Inspired by Makoto Fujimura’s theology of beauty and the Japanese art of Kintsugi—repairing broken pottery with gold—the painting becomes a meditation on brokenness transformed into beauty. Central visual elements include a ladder symbolizing the connection between heaven and earth, tabernacle-inspired colors, and two figures representing personal devotion and institutional ritual. The work embodies the tension between human fragility and divine presence, suggesting that holiness appears in the cracks of life. Ultimately, the painting is framed as a visual theology: a ladder through which heaven and earth momentarily touch, revealing the sacred in the ordinary.

This article explores how contemporary worship music functions as a practice in which holy impulses are sought and experienced. Drawing on Jan Martijn Abrahamse’s understanding of the sacred as a dynamic, relational reality that manifests within concrete cultural practices, the article approaches worship music not primarily as a textual or aesthetic object, but as a musical–liturgical practice. Engaging insights from philosophy of music (Small, Davies, Bicknell), theology, and hermeneutics (Gadamer), it analyzes how familiarity, repetition, embodied participation, and layered meaning-making contribute to experiences of divine presence. Within this framework, worship music acquires a sacramental dimension. Not as a ritual performed by human agents, but as a practice in which God is experienced as present and active. For many believers, contemporary worship music thus emerges as a space in which the sacred can become perceptible.

In this essay Mieke van Zonneveld explores the relationship between holiness and the poetic function of language. Drawing from several Biblical passages and from personal experience as a poet, she describes how certain features of poetry make it the best form available to communicate about the in essence indescribable realm of holiness. One such feature is the inextricability between form and content in poetry: the message is the form and the form is the message, much like the tabernacle. Secondly, the poetic form assumes a relationship which is often hierarchical. There is, therefore, a close relationship between poetry and prayer. Thirdly, the poetic form allows for ambiguities and the incomprehensible: feelings and ideas may remain paradoxical and absolute conclusions are not required. Lastly, the Bible emphasizes that the relationship between man and God exists in and through language. This endows language with much potential, and poetry, which may be described as language at its best, is therefore an ideal form for communicating about the holy realm.

This article explores how the sacred is experienced within contemporary urban public space. Using the method of photo-walking the city, participants photographed places where they perceived a sense of sacrality and reflected on these experiences in group discussions. The findings reveal that the sacred is not confined to traditional religious contexts but can emerge in a wide variety of urban spaces – from historic buildings and museums to parks, squares, and even the entrance of a supermarket. The study identifies two core moments: being touched and being moved. Being touched may be sensory, social, emotional, cultural, or reflective in nature, while being moved refers to the response that follows – such as reflection, action, or emotional resonance – in line with Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance. The article discusses the dynamics of the sacred as an event, the evocative potential of urban sites, and the language through which people articulate their experiences. It concludes by offering several directions for further urban and theological research: How can the sacred remain visible, and how might public space foster encounters, reflection, and symbolic resonance?

The spiritual awakening among Generation Z can be understood through an Edwardian lens of the sanctification of desire. Drawing on Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections, true religion is seen as shaping human affectivity, our feelings and longings, which in turn orient actions and life purposes. Today, many Gen Z’ers, facing psychological strain, existential uncertainty, and a “meaning vacuum”, are turning toward classical Christian traditions – Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformed communities – seeking stability, ritual, and a sense of rootedness in a fragmented world. These traditions provide structured practices, liturgy, and communal rhythms that reorder desires, offering rest, belonging, and a framework for living meaningfully. Contemporary accounts, such as those of Lamorna Ash and Jonah Falke, show how liturgical and sacramental practices awaken new desires and enable a sense of “home” in God. This movement reflects not nostalgia but a deliberate response to modernity’s instability and the crisis of self-authored meaning. For evangelical-Protestantism, it signals a potential shift: embracing ritual, aesthetic, and bodily dimensions of faith to help young people cultivate desire, orientation, and spiritual formation amid contemporary uncertainty.

This article explores an alternative human–nature relation that acknowledges the inevitable instrumental use without neglecting the moral significance of the natural world. Drawing on Martin Buber’s distinction between I–Thou and I–It relations, I argue that Saint Francis of Assisi’s approach to nature embodies these relations as he treats animals and elements as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ while simultaneously acknowledging their practical utility. In addition, I argue that Franciscus’ Laudes Creaturarum (Canticle of the Sun) demonstrates a deeply lived experience in which the natural world mediates both a direct encounter with God and a familial connection to creation. I claim that such a ‘relationally religious’ attitude, as I term it, grants moral weight to human interaction with nature: neglect becomes ethically analogous to disregarding one’s family or God, even when instrumental use persists. While neither Buber nor Franciscus provide systematic guidance for enacting this attitude, Franciscus’ example offers a profound ethical orientation that situates responsibility for nature within the individual’s moral self-relation, thus normatively bounding our inevitable instrumental engagement with nature and mitigating the risk of unreflective exploitation of the natural world.