Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Moon, Sun Myung

(Encyclopedia)Moon, Sun Myung sŭn yŭng mo͞on [key], 1920–2012, South Korean religious leader. He was an engineering student in Japan and a dockworker before founding (1954) the Unification Church with a doctri...

Garland, Hamlin

(Encyclopedia)Garland, Hamlin, 1860–1940, American author, b. near West Salem, Wis. He grew up in the Middle Western farmlands, the region he later wrote about in verse, stories, and autobiography. His tales, col...

despotism

(Encyclopedia)despotism, government by an absolute ruler unchecked by effective constitutional limits to his power. In Greek usage, a despot was ruler of a household and master of its slaves. The title was applied ...

peyotism

(Encyclopedia)peyotism, religion of some Native North Americans in which the hallucinogenic peyote button is used as the sacramental food. It is the most widespread indigenous contemporary Native American religion....

Babbitt, Irving

(Encyclopedia)Babbitt, Irving băbˈĭt [key], 1865–1933, American scholar, b. Dayton, Ohio. At Harvard as professor of French literature from 1912 until his death, he was a vigorous critic of romanticism, deprec...

United Church of Christ

(Encyclopedia)United Church of Christ, American Protestant denomination formed in 1957 by a merger of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches (see Congregationalism) and the Evangelical and Reforme...

Unification Church

(Encyclopedia)Unification Church, church founded (1954) in South Korea by Sun Myung Moon; officially the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification for World Christianity. Moon moved to the United States in 1971. ...

Ritschl, Albrecht

(Encyclopedia)Ritschl, Albrecht älˈbrĕkht rĭchˈəl [key], 1822–89, German Protestant theologian. He taught theology at Bonn (1851–64) and at Göttingen (from 1864). The Ritschlian theology, a reaction agai...

avatara

(Encyclopedia)avatara ăvˌətârə [key] [Skt.,=descent], incarnations of Hindu gods, especially Vishnu. The doctrine of avatara first occurs in the Bhagavad-Gita, where Krishna declares: “For the preservation o...

Persius

(Encyclopedia)Persius or Aulus Persius Flaccus pûrˈshēəs; ôlˈəs, flăkˈəs [key], a.d. 34–a.d. 62, Roman satirical poet, b. Etruria. A member of a distinguished family, he went to Rome in boyhood, was edu...