Figure Of Christ Research Articles

American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War by Eran Shalev (review)

Reviewed by: American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War by Eran Shalev Glenn Moots (bio) American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War. By Eran Shalev. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013. Pp. x, 239. $40.00 cloth; $40.00 ebook) American Zion investigates what Eran Shalev calls “biblicism” or “Old Testamentism” from the American Revolution to the Civil War. It is a consequential and worthwhile study but not without its errors and omissions, including the lack of a geographical or denominational landscape of his subject. Some familiar tropes about American religion are retained (e.g., chosenness was a source of anxiety). Others have been mercifully discarded (e.g., Exodus and eschatology as overarching interpretations). Despite any shortcomings, however, the essays herein are thoughtful and both general readers and academics will find it a valuable resource. The virtues of American Zion lie in its treatment of both familiar and unfamiliar subjects. Shalev ably demonstrates that ministers and others were not only “Israelizing America,” they were also “Americanizing Israel.” The ancient Hebrew polities were not merely rhetorical or metaphorical; they often provided literal direction for America. Shalev convincingly demonstrates that the “Hebrew Republic” became a model for American politics, though he overstates the importance of recent scholarship and does not satisfactorily connect Hebraic republicanism [End Page 122] in Britain and Europe to its use in America. Shalev also provides an enlightening overview of Americans wrestling with the possible identity of Indians as lost Israelites. He tells a fascinating story of how American popular histories written between 1740 and 1850, in the style of the King James Bible (“pseudobiblicism”), prepared the way for the Book of Mormon. He convincingly demonstrates how antislavery arguments distanced America from ancient Israel and made the comparison less appealing. There are entertaining narratives about Mordecai Manuel Noah’s failed attempt to establish a biblical government on Grand Island near Niagara Falls, though what this says about American “Old Testamentism” in general is unclear. Along with these virtues are evident shortcomings, however. Shalev relies too heavily on secondary sources in his characterization of the religious development of America. He argues that Americans turned to the New Testament in a substantial way only after 1820. How did he miss numerous, if not ubiquitous, citations of Romans 13, I Peter 2, Galatians 5, or Matthew 5—some of the most cited texts in political sermons between 1763 and 1800? If anything, the increased usage of the New Testament in the early nineteenth century that Shalev notes was not simply due to “multitudes” becoming attuned to the message of redemption (p. 151). While there was certainly a lot of gospeling on the expanding frontier, spending any time with sermons prior to 1820 will disabuse one of the notion that the New Testament ever played second chair to the Old in private or public Christianity in America. What Shalev overlooks is that Americans since the Second Great Awakening were increasingly willing to stretch the Gospel in social directions as evangelicalism matured and seeds were sown for religiously motivated progressivism. As for the New Testament being used in Lincoln’s eulogies more than Washington’s (p. 157), it was obviously much easier to make the martyred Lincoln a national Christ figure who bore the sins of slavery and war. Shalev’s treatment of classical republicanism in America is also disappointing. He returns to the theme of his earlier monograph, Rome Reborn on Western Shores (2009), which demonstrated the influence [End Page 123] of Rome on early America. While it is true that Americans blended the Bible with classical republicanism in their political thinking, they were hardly the first Protestants, or Christians, to do so. What Shalev never precisely addresses is what the enduring legacy of that intersection is (given that classical republicanism faded in the early nineteenth century) or whether the Bible can stand on its own conceptually as a political source. Was America really only “Rome reborn” all along, or was it, indeed, as he argues here, a new Zion? This distinction needs a much more precise treatment. Sometimes Shalev seems to argue that...

Tekstualiteit van kinematografie: Filmhermeneutiek as publieke teologie

Tendencies in film hermeneutics. Hollywood is synonymous with the tradition of images that are used to create emotion, to strengthen attachment, and to encourage imitation. In a certain sense these values are also encouraged by the church as institution. Scholars who study the connection between cinematography and theology acknowledge that the cinema has become the ‘principal new church’ for post-secularised believers. Films are regarded among the ‘big books’ of ‘postmodern culture’. In this article it is argued that film hermeneutics should be regarded as an epistemological movement which has departed from a typographical culture, including logocentrism, phonocentrism, and text-focused cognition. The movement is towards a visual culture, including audiovisual and virtual realities, and is contextualised in a cyber-community. Tendencies in films with biblical and religious dimensions and themes, including the way in which the Christ figure is portrayed, are discussed. In this article the value of film hermeneutics – that is, the ‘textuality of the screen’ – as public theology, is also identified.

Vanini e la “Prudenza” di Cristo: da Cardano a d’Holbach

Andrzej Nowicki, one of most distinguished scholars of Giulio Cesare Vanini, wrote that the work vaniniana [...] is one of first in European culture, in which person of Jesus, as a man, is completely devalued. In fact, Vanini likens Christ to a politician, that is, a wily politician, amoral, dissembler and liar, addicted to exclusive achievement of goals is proposed. In support of its argument, philosopher burnt at Toulouse in 1619 cites four Gospel episodes, three of which taken from De sapientia of Cardano. The same Machiavellian interpretation of Christ and same Gospel episodes are taken literally by anonymous author of Traite de trois imposteurs, clandestine manuscript more prevalent throughout eighteenth century. One of cases cited by Vanini and by anonymous author of Traite will eventually be taken to support same interpretation of figure of Christ, in Histoire critique de Jesus-Christ, ou Analyse des raisonnee Evangiles of Baron d'Holbach, demonstrating role of bridge between legacy late Renaissance and modern rationalism that Vanini overlaid.

The Camouflage of the Sacred in the Short Fiction of Hemingway

Abstract This essay examines the short fiction of Ernest Hemingway in the light of Mircea Eliade’s notion of the camouflage of the sacred and the larval survival of original spiritual meaning. A subterranean love pulsates beneath the terse dialogue of Hemingway’s characters whose inner life we glimpse only obliquely. In the short play (“Today Is Friday”) and four short stories (“The Killers,” “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” “Old Man at the Bridge,” and “The Light of the World,” discussed here, light imagery, biblical allusions, and the figure of Christ, reveal a hidden imaginary universe. This sacral dimension has been largely overlooked by critics who dwell on the ostensible spiritual absence that characterizes Hemingway’s fiction.

Gods and Settlers: The Iconography of Norse Mythology in Anglo-Scandinavian Sculpture by Lilla Kopár (review)

Reviewed by: Gods and Settlers: The Iconography of Norse Mythology in Anglo-Scandinavian Sculptureby Lilla Kopár Shane McLeod Kopár, Lilla, Gods and Settlers: The Iconography of Norse Mythology in Anglo-Scandinavian Sculpture( Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 25), Turnhout, Brepols, 2012; hardback; pp. xl, 242; 55 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €75.00; ISBN 9782503528540. Gods and Settlers: The Iconography of Norse Mythology in Anglo-Scandinavian Sculptureis an important new addition to recent studies on the acculturation process of Scandinavians in England during the ninth and tenth centuries. In particular, it provides a detailed assessment of all known Anglo-Scandinavian sculptures that may include Norse mythological or heroic imagery. The work is divided into two parts, ‘Images’ and ‘Encounters’. The first focuses on the images on the stones, and examines whether any of them relate to Norse mythology. All figurative Anglo-Scandinavian stonework is considered, including those examples which were once thought to depict mythological scenes but have since been rejected by scholars such as Richard Bailey and James Lang. As may be expected, the Gosforth Cross receives the most attention and the discussion of the Cross is most impressive, including seven pages on the significance of the female attending the crucifixion, variously interpreted by scholars as Ecclesia, Mary Magdalene, or a valkyrie; Lilla Kopár suggests, however, that it may be the Norse goddess Hel. Indeed, she suggests that some of the other cup-bearing female figures may also represent Hel in her role of hostess rather than a valkyrie as is commonly supposed. To help the reader understand the scenes (possibly) being depicted in the corpus, Kopár provides background information on such figures as Sigurd the dragonslayer and Wayland the smith, drawing on pre- and post-Viking [End Page 231]Age sources as well as Viking Age Scandinavian images, especially those on picture stones on Gotland, plus skaldic poetry. Black-and-white photographs, of almost all the sculptures discussed are included, taken primarily from the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, which makes the detailed descriptions of the possible scenes being depicted easier to follow. This section includes a number of interesting ideas, including that the bound Christ figure known in post-conversion Scandinavia may have been influenced by the popularity of bound figures in the pre-Christian tradition. ‘Encounters’ provides necessary background information on the debate over the number of Scandinavian settlers, the state of the church during the settlement period, and the likely relationship between patron(s) and sculptor(s). Kopár offers important new insights into the intellectual framework of the sculptures, arguing that figurative thinking – a recurrence of patterns that are ‘not a conscious interpretive method directed to scripture, but rather a mindset or mental furniture’ (p. 172) – is a more useful tool for considering the works than typology. The ‘table of possible correspondences’ provided on p. 174 is helpful for understanding this system. Kopár also stresses that the sculptures under discussion are Christian monuments at Christian sites so they represent an integration of pagan gods and heroes into the Christian system. Therefore, the sculptures occurred during the middle phase of Christianisation, where traditional beliefs and lore were still recognised but were being accommodated within a new cultural tradition. Consequently, Kopár argues that the sculptures should not be viewed as products of Scandinavian communities but of mixed Anglo-Scandinavian ones, where both traditions were familiar. It is suggested that some of the sculptures required the intellectual engagement of the audience and that they acted as visual riddles inviting cross-referencing between different narratives. Indeed, ‘every single attempt to interpret the iconography of these monuments was a step on the path of religious and cultural integration’ (p. 207). The Gosforth Cross features heavily in this section, where it is argued that it may have served as a preaching cross, and that the otherwise out of place ‘Hel’ figure standing below and to the right of Christ in the crucifixion scene on the Cross helps to link the Christian and Scandinavian traditions. For this reviewer, ‘Encounters’ was the really interesting part of Kopár’s work, so it is unfortunate that ‘Images’ occupies approximately two-thirds of...

Il genio tiranno: Ragione e dominio nell'ideologia dell'Ottocento: Wagner, Nietzsche, Renan

Il genio tiranno: Ragione e dominio nell'ideologia dell'Ottocento: Wagner, Nietzsche, Renan

“I cluppe and I cusse as I wood wore”: Erotic Imagery in Middle English Mystical Writings

The mutual influences of the medieval discourse of courtly love and the literary visions of divine love have long been recognized by readers of medieval lyrical poetry and devotional writings. They are especially visible in the affinities between the language used to construct the picture of the ideal courtly lady and the images of the Virgin Mary. Praises of Mary’s physical beauty, strewn with erotic implications, are an example of a strictly male eroticization of the medieval Marian discourse, rooted in Bernard of Clairvaux’s allegorical reading of the Song of Songs, where Mary is imagined as the Bride of the poem, whose “breasts are like two young roes that are twins” (Cant. of Cant. 4:5). Glimpses of medieval female erotic imagination, also employed to express religious meanings, can be found in the writings of the mystical tradition: in England in the books of visions of Margery Kempe, in the anonymous seers of the fourteenth century, and, to some extent, in Julian of Norwich. Though subdued by patriarchal politics and edited by male amanuenses, the female voice can still be heard in the extant texts as it speaks of mystical experience by reference to bodily, somatic and, sometimes, erotic sensations in a manner different from the sensual implications found in the poetry of Marian adoration. The bliss of mystic elation, the ultimate union with God, is, in at least one mystical text, confidently metaphorized as an ecstatic, physical union with the human figure of Christ hanging on the cross.

El paladín de la nostalgia: una lectura de lo sagrado en “Il Vangelo secondo Matteo” de Pier Paolo Pasolini

A strong atheistic resentment, together with a poetical gramscianism, do not prevent Pier Paolo Pasolini from his attempt of taking to the seventh art the fruit art of his deepest internal demons, namely, the question brings closer the sacred. A lucid reading of this phenomenon, along with an analysis of the chiaroscuro in Jesus Christ figure and its possible literary-cinematographic comparison, appears to be represented in this way in “Il Vangelo secondo Matteo” (1963). Under the light of some figures and key theories in anthropology –and philosophy– of religion, it will be tried to offer a possible reading of the controversial pasolinean film.

Faulkner’s Jewel: Logos and the Word Made Flesh

INTRODUCTION: SEEKING A LIVING WORD From early in William Faulkner's career as a novelist, he wrote as a man troubled by very medium of language itself. Even prior to discovery of his apocryphal Yoknapatawpha County and masterful stories that would, in rapid-fire succession, quickly follow, he troubled by language's potential to remove human beings from necessary dynamism of lived experience. Nevertheless, he also discerned tremendous power of to manifest all that marks species as distinct. That is to say, humankind's dependence on left it precariously balanced between, on one side, disorder of sub-human existence and, on other side, mere lifeless abstraction, cut off from all vitality. (1) In his second novel, Mosquitoes, a work that predates imaginative return to what he called his postage stamp of native [Mississippi] soil, Faulkner explores nature of language that is both perilous and hopeful (Art). The peril is illustrated when narrator of Mosquitoes makes plain temptation toward despair in words: Talk, talk, talk: utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words. It seemed endless, as though it might go on forever. Ideas, thoughts, became mere sounds to be bandied about until they were dead (153). The sentiment is one that Faulkner harbors and which would be crucial throughout his career as a writer--that is, as a man of words: in transferring experience into speech, are prone to rob deeds of their vitality. Within talky narrative of Mosquitoes, (2) however, Faulkner offers his own possible answer--one easily enough discerned, but hardly achieved--in loquacious figure of Dawson Fairchild, a character who maintains a hope that words brought into a happy conjunction produce something that lives (173). The early novel, then, looks toward a new kind of writing that would seek to collapse word and deed, bringing into existence through language a new being that is vital and substantial. (3) Coinciding with this discovery of language's potential a return to his native region, which he would later rename Yoknapatawpha County. In a brief and prolific period, from January 1929 to October 1930, Faulkner published his first three Yoknapatawpha stories, with latter two, The Sound and Fury and As I Lay Dying, proving to be his first true masterpieces. Arguably, it is in these two novels that Faulkner's new conception of language moved to fore, serving as a central theme in each work. That is to say, The Sound and Fury and As I Lay Dying are, in many respects, novels about language and Faulkner's own struggle to produce works of art in line with his new conception of language. And weaving its way through two stories is metaphor of Jesus of Nazareth, who is presented in Christian Bible--particularly Johannine texts (4)--as incarnate utterance of God, divine logos, the Word that was made flesh, and dwelt among humankind (John 1.14). In Faulkner's novels, two characters serving as thematic foils are Quentin Compson in former and Jewel Bundren in latter; taken together, pair exemplifies two novels' contrapuntal relationship, revealing opposite reactions to necessity of human verbality. Understanding, then, each young character's response to humanity's dependence upon language is crucial, for in their attitudes toward words, Faulkner reveals a wrestling with himself, seeking to come to terms with inescapable dependence upon speech that is distinguishing characteristic of humankind. FAULKNER'S CHRIST FIGURES When taking stock of Faulkner's imaginative reserve, one might find Flannery O'Connor's description of American South, with slight modification, to be a strikingly appropriate description of novelist's mind: if not centered on biblical mythology, his imagination inescapably haunted by it. (5) Scriptural allusions are rife within his stories, occasionally even edging their way into works' titles, and Christian Gospels seem to be especially venerated throughout his career. …

The Many Faces of Jesus in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

Many modern American literary works deal with individual responsibility in tumultuous times; in fact, a considerable number even elevate this accountability to such a level that characters are portrayed as altruistic figures in their choice to care for those suffering around them during times of extreme adversity. Focus on altruistic figures can be found in the works of many quintessential modern authors, such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and John Steinbeck. (1) But Steinbeck's work, as I will argue in this essay by considering The Grapes of Wrath, takes altruistic characters a step further by aligning them with Jesus. Moreover, in The Grapes of Wrath, the various Christ-like characters seem also to incorporate features of the American romantic movement known as transcendentalism in order to locate them within the distinctively modern, American context of the Great Depression. A principle tenet in nineteenth-century American transcendental philosophy is that anyone can attain spiritual enlightenment akin to that of Christ. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of transcendentalism, created much controversy when he stated in his Divinity School Address that was not divine but mortal, and that he believed that all individuals were capable of transcending their humanity to achieve a Christ-like state: Jesus Christ belonged to a true race of prophets.... One man was true to what is in you and me.... He said ... 'I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee?' (1037). Such a perspective directly contends that was not the only son of God. Transcendentalist philosophers oppose traditional Christianity by proclaiming that everyone has the potential to gain the heightened spirituality that Christ did. For them, Christ is merely an example, albeit a very important one, of a historical figure whose mortal self did not prevent him from becoming spirituality elevated. This idea of an individual spiritual transcendence, which is equaled to the spirituality of Christ, directly challenges Christianity's core principle that Christ is the only person who, in human form, is also divine. This view has remained controversial even into the twentieth century, but modernist writers such as Steinbeck readily applied this philosophical enterprise to their writings in order to formulate a more accessible representation of Christ through their characters for contemporary readers. (2) The Grapes of Wrath reveals a connection between the traditional Christ figure and the novel's principle characters, but complicates it with a position that eschews the traditional Christian doctrine of Christ's divine humanity. However, the narrative does not merely offer copies of characters that directly fit into transcendentalism's tenet of the divine mortal, for even this position is repudiated when the narrative insists that is attained not as a result of spiritual pursuit, but of moral obligations to others. In other words, the characters are Christ-like because they deliberately assume an existentialist-inflected personal responsibility toward others. For this, they are also often defaulted from their own existence in the end. These modern transcendentalist characters resemble Christ because they fully identify with and embrace the hardships that others are undergoing, but unlike Christ, they do not have recourse to transcending beyond these hardships. Steinbeck's characters remain tied to their struggles and face countless challenges in order to stay true to their existential belief in the importance of personal responsibility. If spiritual transcendence is defined as breaking through one's human limits in order to identify with the divine, then the characters in The Grapes of Wrath, in a sense, cannot be said to have transcended anything at all; they simply carry on the best they can in encountering the bleak reality of their modern lives but remain, paradoxically, still Christ-like. …

Giovanni Bellini's Baptism of Christ in its visual and devotional context: transforming sacred space in Santa Corona in Vicenza

The Dominican church of Santa Corona in Vicenza owed its status and nomenclature to its prestigious relic from the crown of thorns. In the early fifteenth century, the reliquary and its procession were enhanced; the community appeared to increase in number and was taken over by a reform movement. From the late 1470s, an ambitious spatial transformation involved removing the prominent choir precinct from the upper nave; constructing an extended high altar chapel to house new choir stalls; and the creation of a crypt in which the precious relic would be displayed. In 1500, textile merchant Battista Graziani was granted a side chapel location in the newly liberated space of the upper nave. Giovanni Bellini's Baptism of Christ altarpiece, with its unique use of light and composition, focused attention on the figure of Christ and, as suggested by an interpretation of a Dominican text, made reference to the crowning of thorns. Graziani's altar was also subtly related to the high altar, possibly intended to house an image of the crowning of thorns above the projected new site for the relic below.

Diminutive Catastrophe: Clown’s Play

Diminutive Catastrophe: Clown’s Play

Minijature 15. stoljeća u psaltiru iz Franjevačkog samostana u Kamporu na Rabu

Autor obrađuje psaltir 15. stoljeća iz franjevačkog samostana sv. Eufemije na otoku Rabu koji je 1986. godine opljačkan i uništen. Temeljem sačuvanih reprodukcija i škrtih opisa u literatiri nastoji rekonstruirati strukturu uništenog kodeksa i pripadajućih mu minijatura. Upozorava da se jedan folio čuva u privatnoj zbirci u Bologni i ovdje ga prvi put prenosi hrvatskoj znastvenoj javnosti. Inicijale ovog psaltira oslikao je Giovanni di Antonio da Bologna što je već otprije u literaturi utvrđeno.

The Sudden Angel Affrighted Me

The Sudden Angel Affrighted Me

Srebrna oltarna pala u Kotoru

The article analyses a silver altarpiece in Kotor Cathedral which was made in the repoussé technique in the mid-fifteenth century. The figure of St. Tryphon (fig. 11) is the only saint which had been preserved from an earlier, fourteenth century altarpiece. Two figures (Christ and St. Peter; fig. 2, 3) were made by master John of Basel, active in Kotor until 1440 when he moved to nearby Dubrovnik where he was commissioned, by the Franciscans, with a silver crucifix, still preserved. The figures of three saints (fig. 6, 8), in the right part of the middle row (fig. 5), distinguish themselves from the others with their visual quality and are the work of a master who trained in a more developed artistic centre. A more numerous group of figures, the author of the article attributes to a local goldsmith called Marin Adamov (fig. 5, 9, 10). His work on the altarpiece is directly testified with a document dated in 1445. Finally, the altar piece was dismantled and re-assembled in the seventeenth century when the Venetian master goldsmithVenturin added the figures (of a mediocre quality) of St. Francis and St. Jerome (fig. 13). The author of the paper proposes a reconstruction of the original appearance of the altarpiece in the mid-fifteenth century. Accordingly,saints’ figures were arranged in two rows, with Christ figure in the centre of the upper row. The lower centre figure was St. Tryphon, flanked by St. Marc the Evangelist and St. Simeon the Righteous whose Kotor feast coincides with that of St. Tryphon.

Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power by Seth Rosenfeld (review)

Reviewed by: Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power by Seth Rosenfeld Bernard F. Dick Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. By Seth Rosenfeld. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2012. Subversives is a compelling and meticulously documented work of cultural history that moves with the inexorable pace of tragedy, part Greek in its concatenation of events, deceptively unrelated but propelled as if by some strange design; part Shakespearean in its mammoth cast of characters, a mix of protagonists with tragic flaws and antagonists too lacking in self knowledge to elicit pity and fear. It all seemed so simple: Free Speech. Or so the students at the University of California at Berkeley thought in 1964, when in the midst of a protest, a (then) philosophy major injected the voice of reason into what was turning into a shout-out. “My name is Mario Savio,” he declared, thus becoming a Hamlet in a tragedy-by-installments. Blazingly committed, with a crusader’s zeal, Savio only wanted students to enjoy their First Amendment Rights. His zeal set off the Free Speech Movement, which spiraled out of control and devolved into the Filthy Speech Movement. That was how the public perceived it. A notorious dance replete with drugs and sex undermined the cause even more. The students became “The Kids”; the police, “The Pigs,” and a simple plea for due process became a generational conflict. Although curricular reform was needed (e.g., an ethnic studies program), some of the demands made by counter organizations were so ludicrous that they alienated many of the original sympathizers. Rosenfeld did not have to portray Savio as a Hamlet who morphed into a Christ figure; history took care of that. Savio went through his own agony in the garden—depression, homelessness, panic attacks, a failed marriage. But still he managed to graduate summa cum laude with a degree in physics from San Francisco State, from which he later received a master’s. The years of protest took their toll. Savio died of heart problems in 1996, a mere fifty-three. Clark Kerr, Berkeley’s president, was also a tragic scapegoat, but enjoyed a longer life, dying at 92. He was a victim of both history and J. Edgar Hoover, who believed informants’ reports that Kerr was too far to the left. When the Free Speech Movement galvanized Berkeley, Kerr was faced with an impossible situation: how to keep the campus from succumbing to anarchy. When the demonstrations turned ominous, Ronald Reagan, then California governor, argued that they were Communist-instigated. Reagan became a major player in the offstage drama to have Kerr fired. Savio and Kerr could not withstand the juggernaut of the FBI and Reagan, whose [End Page 125] anti-Communist paranoia began in 1946 when he started cooperating with the FBI after becoming convinced of Communist infiltration of the movie business. Ironically, in 1938, according to Reagan’s biographer, Edmund Morris, Reagan, then a liberal with a concern for the marginalized and the dispossessed, considered joining the Communist Party (Dutch, 158). Equally ironic is that, as an undergraduate at Eureka College, Reagan advocated a student strike when programs were in jeopardy because of restructuring. But that was in 1928. One wonders how Reagan’s political career would have fared if he retained his idealism. Subversives is a monumental achievement. Read it and wonder how much talent was lost in the cataclysm that might have been averted if the need for recognition were divorced from the fear of radicalization. One erratum: Larry Parks did not win an Oscar for The Jolson Story (1946), although he was nominated. The best actor Oscar went to Frederic March for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which the House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) found questionable because it implied that WWII veterans had problems adjusting to civilian life. Such were the times. Subversives should be required reading for the social network generation, who don’t know how good they have it. Bernard F. Dick Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck Campus Copyright © 2013 Mid-America American Studies Association

Black Liberation Theology and the Lynching of Jesus

Black Liberation Theology and the Lynching of Jesus

From Langford to South Cerney: The Rood in Anglo-Norman England

Two fragments of a figure of Christ crucified from South Cerney parish church comprise the sole survivor of a Romanesque wooden Rood with an English provenance. This paper argues that it is an example of a Triumphkreuz originally located at the chancel arch of South Cerney church and seeks to establish its relationship to both pre-Conquest monumental stone Rood sculpture and wooden Triumphkreuze in northern Europe and Scandinavia. The Triumphkreuz appears to have been a standard feature of the greater churches of Norman England, but how common it was in post-Conquest parish churches is less clear. While church dedications suggest that devotion to the Holy Cross was particularly strong in south-west England, late-11th- and 12th-century mural painting and sculpture of chancel arches in parish churches over a wide area exhibit a close connection with the Rood.

The Image of Christ in Grotius’s De Veritate Religionis Christianae: Some Thoughts on Grotius’s Socinianism

An attempt is made to show, by means of an analysis of the way in which Grotius deals with the figure of Christ in De Veritate, and by a comparison of his account in that work with the ones in his earlier works Meletius and De Satisfactione Christi, that the accusations of Socinianism, raised against him by his adversaries, were by no means unjustified. In fact, the dogmas of the Trinity and of the dual nature of Christ play no role in De Veritate and the presentation of the figure of Christ is very similar to that of Socinus. At the end of the paper I also try to explain why Grotius felt increasingly strongly drawn towards Socinianism.

Christian Theological Interpretations of God's Grace in the Binding of Isaac

Christian Theological Interpretations of God's Grace in the Binding of Isaac Typological exegesis, practiced by the early church fathers, enables us to catch spiritual meanings in the promise to Abraham, namely, that through him “all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). Christian interpreters caught a divine truth when they discerned an ecclesial meaning. God had just revealed to Abraham that he was not alone, that a church was in the future. His typological interpretation accounts for the seeming repetition of the promise in Scripture: it contains new revelation. The promise to Abraham has always involved a multitude of descendants through Isaac. But after his near sacrifice as a Christ figure, the multitude is the church which emerged after Christ’s death and resurrection.