Christian Elements Research Articles

Christianity Excised: Ichikawa Kon's Fires on the Plain

Ichikawa Kon (b. 1915) adapted O¯oka Sho¯hei's (1909–1988) masterful anti-war novel Fires on the Plain for film in 1959. In the process, Ichikawa effected the inevitable simplifications and homogenisations of the story with the consequence that the protagonist, Tamura, was no longer besmirched with the ethical and moral stain of cannibalism. Ichikawa also muted the Christian elements in the story, a decision that has several implications for the narrative, and for understanding the actions of the protagonist in the film. This absence of Christian elements provides the framework for explaining Tamura's motives in refusing to eat human flesh, as well as justification for the shift in rhetorical stance between novel and film. The removal of the Christian sub-plot may also reflect the changing ideological stance of Japan in the post-war world order.

Preface

SEPARATED BY SEVEN BLOCKS of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, two works of video art by Bill Viola on display at the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (as I write) offer compelling hints about the contemporary openness to religious experience. Neither work incorporates explicit iconographical elements of Christianity, yet each hints at aspects of Christian Medieval and Renaissance art through posture, gesture, and sometimes action, enabling the viewer who wishes to do so to connect these intense video images and actions with the light thrown by Christianity on suffering and death and the prospect of life after death. The two video works indicate the opening of fissures in the representation of contemporary experience through which a refracted awareness of religious illumination breaks through.

Charisma, Converts, Competitors: Societal and Sociological Factors in the Success of Early Christianity

hy was Christianity so successful in its earliest days? That is the question which this important book examines again. It is not a new question, and answers have been given in the past by such distinguished scholars as Adolf von Harnack and R.M. Grant. But as our knowledge of the ancient world increases, new perspectives open up, and new disciplines are used, it becomes possible to approach it from fresh angles. The question why Christianity was successful inevitably takes us back to Jesus, and the first part of the book considers why people followed Jesus in the first place. Then there is an examination of why Gentiles were attracted to the new religion and why some found Christianity more appealing than its competitors. Finally, there is an investigation of what societal factors assisted Christianity, or were exploited by Christianity, in its march to triumph. This work is by no means a history of early Christianity It is rather an attempt to explain certain crucial elements in Christianity's success. The approach adopted here, making full use of the social sciences, sheds new light on some hitherto shadowy chapters and provides a new and better explanation of why Christianity triumphed in the Roman empire. Jack T. Sanders is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies in the University of Oregon, USA.

The double conversion of Ben-Hur

Ever since the 18th century revival of Hebrew literature, translation has been considered an efficient tool for ideological manipulation. Christianity has been a traditional candidate for such manipulation. Fear and hatred of the “younger” religion may have accounted for the subversive treatment of Christian elements in Hebrew texts. Strategies varied, depending on period and norm, mostly involving omission of undesirable material, but often converting the text into a more acceptable ideological type. Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ (1880) by Lew Wallace is one of the novels most translated and most tampered with, and due to its predominantly Christian character, it can serve as an illuminating case study both for the subversion of Christian elements and for the more “creative” conversion into the “Few against Many” or “Jewish bravura against the Roman Empire” model.

The Essential Element of Christianity

The Essential Element of Christianity

The Song of Sir Rod the Long: A Gay Romance of the Round Table by Larry Howard (review)

136arthuriana unrcsolvable 'dichotomyofsecularandspiritual desires' (58) in Malory, shecontends, has remained a popular theme in modern Arthurian literature, especially in the narratives she examines here. With respe« to issues of gender, Hildebrand argues that Malory's text, unlike Geoffrey's, is 'remarkably free, for its time, ofmysogynist depictions ofwomen' (59). Chapters three, four, and five represent the core ofHildebrand's study, providing detailed comparative analyses ofArthurian fiction byStewart, Bradley, and Lawhead. Such a process, by its very complexity, risks losing the reader in a welter ofdetail, but the chapters are carefully organized in parallel structure. Beginning with an overview, each then discusses the reader's relationship to the events and central figure(s) ofeach volume, followed by units on gender and religion, in that order, and concludes with a concise summary. While this unvarying pattern may be perceived by some readers as rather mechanical, it is reasonably effettive from a mnemonic standpoint. Hildebrand has selected these authors for the variety oftheir representations of religion and gender and for the consequent responses their works elicit from the Christian feminist standpoint. 'Stewart's, Bradley's, and Lawhead's novels portray different religious traditions: respectively, an ede«ic monotheism, Neo-PaganWicca, and Christianity' (Abstra«). As to gender, Hildebrand describes Stewarts Merlin as 'gender neutral,' while Bradley's overt attack on patriarchal religious and gender structures is answered by Lawhead's equally unsubtle reinscription ofa patriarchal value system. Although the feminist reader's response to these texts may be readily inferred from their relative gender positioning, Hildebrand interestinglycomplicates her readings by factoring in the Christian element. TheFemaUReaderattheRoundTabUis asolid, well-organizedstudy. Hildebrand's treatment ofboth religion and feminism is scholarly, well-informed, and blessedly non-polemical. Additionally, this is one ofthe few full-length studies I have seen to accord popular Arthurian fiction the sort ofscholarly and critical attention usually reserved exclusively for the products ofhigh culture. In this respect, it is not only a timely contribution to the field, but also one that should establish a model for similar studies in times to come. ELIZABETH S. SKLAR Wayne State University Larry Howard, The Song ofSir Rodthe Long: A Gay Romance ofthe Round TabU. New York: Writers Club Press, 2000. Pp. 212. isbn: 0-595-00599-3. $12.95. Larry Howard's 'gay romance' runs the gamut from the twee to the precious to the witty to the romantic to the pornographic, but it is not equallysuccessful in each of these modes. The epigraph (1I know myqueen would neverwish/To see a knight in armor swish') fairlywarns the readerwhat to expe« in some ofthe queasier moments of the romance. It is not, however, made up entirely of twee and twaddle. The narrative docs have its high points and often displays a cleverlyskewed awareness of REVIEWS137 traditional Arthurian legends. For example, the opening scenes ofRod's unusually close attachment to his mother and his not-quite appropriate approach to Camelot echo the story ofPerceval. The sadism ofCarados ofthe Dolorous Tower (who, in Malory, is first seen whipping a naked and bound Sir Lionel) may have inspired the most unpleasant character in the romance, the accurately, if unsubtly, named Reverend Rectal. Olga, the unbeatable Lesbian knight (knightess?), may have been inspired less by Arthurian exemplars than by such martial women as Spenser's Britomart and Vergil's Camilla, but she too has literary antecedents. While the allusion game may briefly entertain readers ofArthuriana, it is not really crucial to the delight or distaste that Sir Rod may inspire in the reader. The plot is a relatively traditional story ofa country lad, who goes to Camelot to become a knight and pursues a quest that involves his maturing into selfunderstanding and universal acclaim. The basic twist is that Rod is a very effeminate young man, who is taken under the wing (and other appendages) ofthe lovely Sir Bruce, who disappears in the course ofan adventure in Scotland. Rod undertakes the quest ofSir Bruce, acquiring a new more muscular persona in the process, and, along the way, involving himself in a number of adventures of a comic and/or erotic variety, involving lovers and monsters, sadists and lesbians in a somewhat prodigal confusion. The story ends, charmingly, if unusually, with...

THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT AND BASIC ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES AND THEOLOGICAL DEBATES*

International Review of MissionVolume 91, Issue 361 p. 163-186 THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT AND BASIC ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA: SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES AND THEOLOGICAL DEBATES* MICHAEL BERGUNDER, MICHAEL BERGUNDER Dr Michael Bergunder teaches ecumenics and religious studies at the University of Halle, Germany.Search for more papers by this author MICHAEL BERGUNDER, MICHAEL BERGUNDER Dr Michael Bergunder teaches ecumenics and religious studies at the University of Halle, Germany.Search for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2002.tb00338.x * This text is based on M. Bergunder, “Pfingstbewegung in Lateinamerika: Soziologische Theorien und theologische Debatten”, in Pfingstbewegung und Basisgemeinden in Lateinamerika: Die Rezeption befreiungstheologischer Konzepte durch die pfingstliche Theologie, ed. M. Bergunder, Hamburg: Evangelisches Missionswerk in Deutschland 2000 (Weltmission heute; 39), pp. 7–42, 138–142 (The volume contains articles in German translation by Pentecostal theologians on liberation theology). AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume91, Issue361April 2002Pages 163-186 RelatedInformation

Mosiach is here now: just open your eyes and you can see him

Religious groups deal with failed prophecy in different ways. This paper examines messianic expectations among Lubavitch Hasidim in Stamford Hill and their response to the death of their leader whom they held to be the Messiah. It is based on eight years of participant observation in the community. In agreement with Melton's theory, when the Rebbe died, Lubavitchers held that the Rebbe was more powerful in the spiritual realm without the hinderance of a physical body. However some have now claimed that he never died. Several even state that the Rebbe is God. This is a significant finding. It is unknown in the history of Judaism to hold that the religious leader is God and to this extent the group is unique. There are certain Christian elements which apparently inform the messianic ideas of this group.

Éléments chrétiens et leur fonction dans la poésie de Maḥmūd Darwīš

The article analyses the Christian elements in the poetry of the well-known Palestinian poet, Maḥmūd Darwīš many of whose poems were inspired by the New Testament. Special emphasis is given to his treatment of the cross.

The Calumet and the Cross: Religious Encounters in the Lower Mississippi Valley

FATHER JACQUES MARQUETTE CARRIED two religious symbols on his journey down the Mississippi: a cross and a calumet. The first was an icon at the heart of Marquette's own faith-the symbolic connection between a loving God and a sinful world. The second was a native symbol-an ever present bond between a protective spirit and his grateful children. Marquette's carrying of a calumet symbolized the connections the French and Indians had established by 1673. Yet Marquette and French colonials' misunderstanding of this and other native symbols and rituals would continue to color their encounters with native peoples. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the French encounter with the Quapaws. But that encounter would also be shaped by the Quapaws' own misunderstandings of French Catholics and their symbols and rituals. Most discussions of the Quapaws' encounter with European religion have focused on the French failure to convert them to Catholicism. Over twenty years ago, W. David Baird argued that the Quapaws were friends rather than converts. Morris Arnold and George Sabo III have more recently echoed that characterization. Arnold goes so far as to say that there is ample indication that no significant Christian influence was brought to bear on the region's indigenous population during Arkansas's colonial epoch.1 Yet the Indian encounter with Christianity bears further examination, for if the Quapaws did not convert, they nevertheless made aspects and agents of Catholicism important parts of their society and culture. For Indians, religion was much more malleable than it was for European Christians. While Europeans hoped for a wholesale adoption of ritual and belief, native peoples of North America tended toward a more selective appropriation of Christian elements, with the object of gaining the spiritual power Europeans could provide. This was especially true in the case of the Quapaws. The Quapaws incorporated missionaries and their symbols into their culture and participated in Catholic rituals. They did not do this as part of a process of conversion to Christianity, however, but as a means to strengthen and maintain their own nation. Rather than feeling they were under assault by the missionaries, they welcomed the introduction of new spiritual power as a gift, which they actively pursued. To their minds, such incorporation was essential. The continuing biological onslaughts of epidemic disease from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century and the resulting decline in population from about 7,500 to less than 1,000 made it imperative that they assimilate other peoples and their spiritual power in order to sustain a viable nation.3 By 1673, when Marquette first floated the Mississippi, the four villages of the Quapaws were located along the Mississippi River. They had established one village, Kappa, on the east bank of the Mississippi. Two others, Tongigua and Tourima, sat on the west bank and a fourth, Osotouy, at the mouth of the Arkansas. This arrangement of settlements permitted the Quapaws to regulate travel up and down the Mississippi. Enemies could be turned back from either direction, while potential trade partners upstream could be warned of dangers farther south. This put the Quapaws in excellent position to be middlemen between the lower Mississippi and the pays d'en haut, the upper country of the Ohio River valley and the Great Lakes. The Quapaw villages on the west bank also guarded the entrance to the Arkansas River. This gave the Quapaws access to prairie and woodland hunting grounds upriver, while hindering such access on the part of competitors. According to Paheka, a Quapaw elder in the 1820s, the Quapaws took advantage of their strategic position, fighting and pushing out their rivals. They blocked upriver inhabitants from trade on the Mississippi as well.4 Such was the situation in the lower Mississippi valley when Father Marquette began his expedition with Louis Joliet and their five companions. …

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and Arabic Science

The article argues that Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and his court played a unique role in the transfer and diffusion of Arabic science (with its Greek, Hebrew and Christian elements). Scientists at the court translated and elaborated upon it. Moreover, there existed a two-way traffic of scientific knowledge between Frederick and his court scholars, on the one hand, and several oriental courts and their scientists on the other hand. Thus the reader gains a view of Frederick's scientific activities from the Arab perspective, too.Frederick's contribution to the existing biological sciences of his time was his “Book of Falconry”, which was exceptional in the then contemporary approach and methods employed in those fields. Even in this treatise on falconry, Frederick drew upon the fund of knowledge of Arab practitioners. This chain of arguments concerning Arabic science is situated within the setup of Frederick's oriental political practice and sumptuous court life.

The Children of Someone Else's History: Reading for Restorative Justice

What is wrong with our justice system that Aboriginal people find it so alienating? Murray Sinclair [1] Aboriginal justice issues have been amply studied in Canada, but the studies have not led to many changes in the system. Bridging the Cultural Divide: A Report on Aboriginal People and Criminal Justice in Canada (1996), part of the massive Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) study, is thorough and intelligent and gathering dust, along with the rest of the report. proportion of Aboriginal people in Canadian (and U.S.) jails and prisons continues to rise; reservation and urban Native communities continue to suffer from poverty, crime, alcoholism, and abuse; and the majority community continues to respond with a legal system based on punishment and retribution (however much seasoned with useless white guilt) that simply makes all these conditions worse, while successful community-based programs die for lack of support, translated into lack of funding, from the dominant society that holds the purse strings. As a position paper by the Community Holistic Circle Healing (CHCH) project put it: The use of judgement and punishment actually works against the healing process. An already unbalanced person is moved further out of balance.... What the threat of incarceration does do is keep people from coming forward and taking responsibility for the hurt they are causing. It reinforces the silence, and therefore promotes, rather than breaks, the cycle of violence that exists. In reality, rather than making the community a safer place, the threat of jail places the community more at risk. [2] What we--and I self-consciously mean a we of all human beings--need to effect change is a tool like Uncle Tom's Cabin that makes Aboriginal justice issues viscerally compelling in terms the dominant society can not only understand but claim as its own. Such a text, I argue, is available in the shape of Richard Wagamese's novel, A Quality of Light. This comparison, of course, raises all manner of questions and problems. American racism--with its history of chattel slavery as well as its overtly violent and proudly invoked pioneer past--is different from Canadian racism. Harriet Beecher Stowe was attacking slavery, not racism. Yet Uncle Tom's Cabin was a revolutionary document in its ability to create in dominant culture readers not only empathy toward Tom and Eliza and George but also an awareness of their own complicity in the system that enslaved the characters. Similarly, Wagamese's novel entails empathy and a willing acceptance, not of guilt but of complicity, in a justice system that does not work. In fact, on one level the book is about learning to take responsibility for complicity and working around the current western democratic tradition of justice as retribution and punishment. Alliance Party's focus on toughening Young Offender, parole, and other policies and the consequent shift to the right in Canada's discussion of crime and punishment make such a responsibility more difficult to realize and more important to advocate for. At the same time, the explicitly Christian elements that Stockwell Day increasingly inserts into the debate may make A Quality of Light an even more effective tool than it was when it was first published. A Quality of Light A Quality of Light begins during the Oka summer of 1990 and continues in flashbacks as the narrator, Joshua Kane, looks back across his life and the life of his best friend, Johnny Gebhart, who is engaged in a hostage-taking in the Federal building in Calgary, through which he hopes to focus national attention on the underlying inequities of Native affairs in general. Josh is Cape Croker Ojibway, but he has grown up in an adoptive white farming family and has become a Christian pastor. Johnny is of German-Canadian heritage. As a boy he coped with his alcoholic father by imagining himself an Indian and systematically educating himself, through books and experience, on indigenous issues in Canada. …

Healing Practices among the Yezidi Sheikhs of Armenia

The Yezidis, speakers of a Kurdish dialect living mainly in northern Iraq, are distinguished from the (Muslim) Kurds and other neighboring communities by their religion, a syncretism of Islamic and Christian elements with local indigenous cults. They are at pains both to distance themselves from the Kurds and to keep their rituals secret from outsiders, having gone so far as not to adopt Arabic or any other writing system and to stigmatize literacy. This report of field research among the exilic Yezidi communities of Armenia and southern Russia sketches the relationship of their traditional healing practices with their social structure and describes both a sanctioned treatment by a sheikh of one of the clerical castes and the practice of a non-traditional, but tolerated, woman healer and fortune-teller.

Queering the Word: Patricia Nell Warren's Adaptation of Christian Sacraments in The Fancy Dancer

The essay explores the ways in which Patricia Nell Warren's The Fancy Dancer (1976) employs Roman Catholic sacraments to depict the developing sexuality of a young gay priest. The essay explores the parallels between sacramental spiritual development and the individual and communal markers of a burgeoning gay or lesbian identity. Additionally, the novel's connections between conversion narratives and coming-out narratives are examined. The essay argues that Warren, in using the rhetoric, symbols, and models of the Church differently, disrupts the narrow epistemology underlying Christianity. Finally, novels such as Warren's suggest that gay and lesbian authors can adapt elements of Christianity while undermining its oppressive presumptions, and establishing a liberatory rhetoric that maintains the intelligibility and recognizability of familiar Christian models.

Folkelighedsbegrebet i praksis - en vandrelærers arbejde i 1920'ernes Sydslesvig

The concept of “folkelighed” in practice. The work of an itinerant teacher in the southern Schlesvig of the 1920’sThis article attempts to pin down the way in which an element of “folkelighed” was central to the wide variety of work carried out by itinerant teachers in southern Schlesvig. After the referendum of 1920 and the fixing of the national boundary with Germany, the occupation of itinerant teacher was established south of the new border for the purpose of strengthening, in conjunction with private tuition in Danishminded homes, elements of Danishness. Taking the activities of the itinerant teacher, Jørgen Jørgensen, as an example, we see how popular nationalism at grassroots level was just as clearly visible in games and woodwork lessons as it was in history and Danish. The concept of “folkelighed” was on a par with Christianity, and nationalist thinking was an indispensable part of the mental baggage that belonged to the period and to the area and was therefore a natural component of everyday activity. Jørgen Jørgensen made a very committed contribution. He was a firebrand, who devoted his life to itinerant teaching and his significance for local society can be compared to the earlier platoon commanders. His work can be seen as an example of the way in which the concept of “folkelighed” was acted out in practice. The article concludes with some thoughts on the subject of the concept of “folkelighed” in our day, which, however much its reduced emphasis on nationalist and Christian elements has made it less distinct, nevertheless remains in great demand.

A Union of Christianity, Humanity, and Philanthropy: The Christian Tradition and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Nineteenth-Century England.

AbstractThis paper offers an historical perspective to the discussion of the relationship between Christianity and nonhuman-human animal relationships by examining the animal protection movement in English society as it first took root in the nineteenth century. The paper argues that the Christian beliefs of many in the movement, especially the evangelical outlook of their faith, in a considerable way affected the character as well as the aims and scope of the emergent British animal welfare movement - although the church authorities did not take an active part in the discussion and betterment of the conditions of animals. An explicitly Christian discourse, important in creating and sustaining the important philanthropic tradition in Britain, mobilized the movement. The paper also traces the gradual decrease of the centrality of the movement's Christian elements later in the century when evolutionary ideas as well as other developments in society shed alternative light on the relationship between human and nonhuman animals and brought about different trends in the movement. This paper sees Christianity not as a static and defining source of influence but as a rich tradition containing diverse elements that people drew upon and used to create meanings for them. The paper implicitly suggests that both a religion's doctrines in theory and the outcome of a complex interaction with the changing society in which the religion is practiced determine its potential to influence animal-human relationships.

A Union of Christianity, Humanity, and Philanthropy: The Christian Tradition and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Nineteenth-Century England

AbstractThis paper offers an historical perspective to the discussion of the relationship between Christianity and nonhuman-human animal relationships by examining the animal protection movement in English society as it first took root in the nineteenth century. The paper argues that the Christian beliefs of many in the movement, especially the evangelical outlook of their faith, in a considerable way affected the character as well as the aims and scope of the emergent British animal welfare movement - although the church authorities did not take an active part in the discussion and betterment of the conditions of animals. An explicitly Christian discourse, important in creating and sustaining the important philanthropic tradition in Britain, mobilized the movement. The paper also traces the gradual decrease of the centrality of the movement's Christian elements later in the century when evolutionary ideas as well as other developments in society shed ahternative light on the relationship between human and nonhuman animals and brought about different trends in the movement. This paper sees Christianity not as a static and defining source of influence but as a rich tradition containing diverse elements that people drew upon and used to create meanings for them. The paper implicitly suggests that both a religion's doctrines in theory and the outcome of a complex interaction with the changing society in which the religion is practiced determine its potential to influence animal-human relationships.

“How we learned to kill our brother” ? : memory, morality and reconciliation in Peru

In this article we explore how campesinos in Ayacucho (Peru), understand both the political violence that has contoured daily life since 1980 as well as the mandate to kill that arose within the context of the armed conflict between the Shining Path guerrilla, the Peruvian Armed Forces and the peasant civil defense patrols. Since 1995 we had conducted anthropological research in various rural communities in Ayacucho. We investigated how war shapes moral life, challenging concepts of acceptable human conduct and the very sense of what it means to live in a human community. We utilized a genealogical approach to analyze the origins of moral interpretations that are forged in specific contexts. Indeed, the moral frameworks that villagers recount syncretize elements of militant Christianity, psychocultural themes, and the appropriation of extra-local discourses in the process of both militarizing and demilitarizing daily life.

Russian Peasant Beliefs and Practices Concerning Death and the Supernatural Collected in Novosokol'niki Region, Pskov Province, Russia, 1995. Part II: Death in Natural Circumstances

This article, based on fieldwork but drawing on other contemporary and historical material, examines some aspects of the present state of mortuary ritual and associated beliefs among a mixed population of official Russian Orthodox and the religious group known as Old Believers, about whose funerary practices little has been written. The ritual emerges as a complex balance of Christian and pagan elements, a clinging to archaic tradition combined with modern pragmatism and accommodation to changing socio-economic conditions.

Christianity and Republicanism: A Response to Nederman

In reply to Nederman I argue that in the Middle Ages monarchy and republicanism were not mutually exclusive, and that hierarchy and organicism were not specifically Christian ideas, and should not, therefore, be seen as the Christian element in republican thought. One should not assume that Christianity or any other historical ideology has an essential core of unchanging characteristics.