Christian Religious Traditions Research Articles

Revisiting Second Wave Histories: New Chronologies, Geographies, and Appraisals

Revisiting Second Wave Histories:New Chronologies, Geographies, and Appraisals Tamar W. Carroll (bio) Janet Allured. Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women's Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950–1997. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016. xiii + 348 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8203-4538-3 (cl); 978-0-8203-5477-4 (pb); 978-0-8203-5004-2 (epub). Shelah Gilbert Leader and Patricia Rush Hyatt. American Women on the Move: The Inside Story of the National Women's Conference, 1977. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. xxi + 169 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-1-4985-3599-1 (cl); 978-1-4985-3601-1 (pb); 978-1-4985-3600-4 (epub). Barbara Molony and Jennifer Nelson, eds., Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism: Transnational Histories. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. vii + 335 pp., ill. ISBN 978-1-4742-5051-1 (cl); 978-1-4742-5052-8 (epub); 978-1-4742-5053-5 (pdf). Jocelyn Olcott. International Women's Year: The Greatest Consciousness-Raising Event in History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. xvi + 334 pp., ill. ISBN 978-0-1953-2768-7 (cl); 978-0-1906-4998-2 (epub); 978-0-1997-1664-7 (pdf). These four recent books on second wave feminism raise compelling theoretical and methodological questions while also providing a wealth of information about women's activism in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Chief among them is how to define second wave feminism itself; Janet Allured, as well as Barbara Molony and Jennifer Nelson offer critiques of the wave metaphor for how it tends to elide women's activism that does not align neatly with the crests of women's suffrage and second wave feminism. Yet, Malony and Nelson retain the term "second wave" within quotation marks because of its historical significance and widespread use in the historiography of feminism; their volume seeks to "fill in the troughs" between waves and broaden our geographic conceptualization of the second wave to recognize the autonomous development of non-Western feminisms (3). Allured points out that "the term 'second wave' remains useful in describing the renewed burst of grassroots service and political activism in the 1960s and 1970s," an observation that is born out in Olcott [End Page 136] and Leader and Hyatt's accounts of the 1975 International Women's Year (IWY) conference in Mexico and the 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas: something special really did happen in these years (3). Together, these works also contribute to methodological questions, including how to understand the role of international and national conferences in the broader feminist movement and how to incorporate local and regional history into national and transnational narratives. The first two books under review broaden the chronology and geographic scope of second-wave feminism, while the second two hone in on the mid-to-late 1970s and look at International Women's Year conferences as pivotal moments in both transnational and US feminism. In Remapping Second-Wave Feminism, Janet Allured sets out to "encourage the full and complete telling of the story of second-wave feminism in the South" and to demonstrate that the region "had a vigorous, defiant, and persistent cadre of committed feminists who supplied the national organizations with both ideas and personnel" (3). Allured's study shifts our attention to the activities of feminists in the American South and is grounded in Louisiana, where she conducted prodigious archival and newspaper-based research and an amazing number of oral histories (at least ninety-seven by my count). She draws on other recent studies of feminism in Southern cities to round out her account, which shows that feminism not only flourished in the South but was distinctive in some important ways from the "bicoastal" feminisms of the urban North and West that Allured argues have dominated the historiography.1 Southern feminism was part of a multi-ethnic "regional movement against social injustice" that drew on liberal Christian and Jewish religious faith traditions that "demanded equality of opportunity for oppressed people" (3, 11). Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Reform Judaism congregations were especially important in transmitting a social justice ethic and inspiring women to fight for equality of sex as well as race; they also provided key meeting...

The Küme Mongen and the Reign of God

This paper attempts to offer a theological reflection that compares two concepts from two different religious traditions that deal with a similar concern: guiding humanity and the cosmos to flourishing and abundant life. On the one hand, I will consider the Küme Mongenthat comes from the Mapuche people of Chile and Argentina. On the other hand, I will consider the concept of the reign of God, so central to the Gospels and re-articulated frequently in Christology, specifically, Latin-American liberation theology. First, I will explain the context from which Küme Mongenemerges and give an account of the central ideas of this concept. Second, I will give an account of the treatment of the reign of God in J.A. Pagola and J. Sobrino’s Christology. Finally, I will explore the possible connections between the Mapuche vision of fruitful life and the Kingdom of God, opening possible paths for mutual learning and understanding between the Mapuche and the Christian religious traditions.

Exploring cross-lagged associations between spiritual struggles and risk for suicidal behavior in a community sample of military veterans

BackgroundThere is consensus that struggles with religious faith and/or spirituality likely contribute to risk for suicidal behavior in military populations. However, a lack of longitudinal information has limited the ability to clarify the temporal associations between these variables. MethodsThis study examined cross-lagged associations between key types of spiritual struggles (divine, morality, ultimate meaning, interpersonal relations, and doubting) and indices of risk for suicidal behavior (suicidal ideation and probability of future attempt) in a community sample of veterans who completed assessments spaced apart by six months. ResultsGreater severity of all forms of spiritual struggles was generally concurrently associated with indices of suicidal behavior at both time points. Of the possible models for predicting suicide risk, structural equation modeling analyses revealed that a cross-lagged option with spiritual struggles predicting risk provided the best-fitting solution for veterans’ responses on study measures. In addition to PTSD and MDD symptomatology, issues with ultimate meaning at Time 1 were uniquely predictive of veterans’ perceived likelihood of making a suicide attempt beyond the second assessment, after accounting for autoregressive effects and other variables in this model. LimitationsThis sample was recruited from a single geographic region with disproportionate ties to Christian religious traditions. In addition, reliance on self-report instrumentation potentially limited the accuracy of gauging suicide risk in some cases. ConclusionsFindings highlight the prognostic value of spiritually integrated models for assessing suicide risk in military veterans that account for mental health conditions along with possible expressions of suffering in the spiritual domain.

Faith, hope and love in sport

In the Christian religious tradition, theological virtues of faith, hope and love have a central role. Along with the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance they present the whole of the good human life. While cardinal virtues can be cultivated by human will, faith, hope and love are given by God and therefore open ‘natural’ human life on Earth toward transcendent spiritual realities. Human beings as bio-psycho-social and spiritual beings incorporate theological virtues in all the activities of their life. In sport, faith, hope and love have an important, though often neglected, role. On a practical level faith can be recognized in any relation between athlete and coach. To trust one’s coach, without any guarantee that the outcome of prescribed workouts will lead to the desired results, needs strong faith, trust and confidence. Moreover, faith is the virtue that makes sport so attractive also for spectators even to the point of being a ‘secular’ religion for the masses. Hope is the virtue of ‘not yet’ or of something ‘being on its way’. For most athletes, daily workouts are not a goal, but just the means to that end. Any reason for doing sports needs a hope behind it in order to move or will oneself to action. Along with hope, understood as a golden mean, we find despair on the one hand and ‘false hope’ on the other. Both are corruptions of hope seen daily in the world of sport. To manage hope in sport practices correctly offers a path to success in sport at all levels. Love is at the apex of the theological virtues. There are many formulations of love both in ancient Greek and Roman times: eros, agape, caritas, amor. Each has its special characteristic meaning also in sport. In sport we can see laughter and tears because any love is connected with highest human joy and deepest depression. Yet, in summation, it is argued that love in sport must be understood as the binding force and source of cooperation and fulfilled life for any athlete qua human being.

Rethinking Amalek in This 21st Century

Twice in the Hebrew Bible—Exodus 17:14–16 and Deuteronomy 25: 17–19—the ancient Israelites were commanded to “blot out” the memory of Amalek, their enemy for all time (as God intended to do as well). Yet, because these texts are a part of Jewish (and Christian) religious traditions, annually these passages are read in the synagogue on the appropriate Sabbath occasions in the annual reading cycle, and linked to the Festival of Purim that is based on the Book of Esther. Over the course of Jewish history, Amalek has served as the symbolic enemy of the Jewish people (e.g., Armenians, Nazis, Palestinians); indeed, all of the enemies of the Jews were and are understood to be descendants of the original Amalekites, and thus worthy not only of enmity but of destruction as well (e.g., Haman, Antiochus, Titus, Hadrian, Torquemada, Khmelnitsky, Hitler). Today, many of those in Israel allied with the so-called “settler movement” associated with right-of-center Orthodox Judaism and located among populations primarily of Palestinian Muslims, and Arabs view them as the descendants of Amalek as well, and thus sanction and legitimate their own at times violent actions and behaviors. At its most transparent level, responding to Amalek is a response to antisemitism, both historical and contemporary. This paper examines the history of Amalekut (“Amalek-ness”) within the Jewish (and Christian) religious tradition, the role of memory and forgetting of those survivors and their descendants traumatized by their enemies, the current manner of branding one’s enemies as descendants of Amalek, and whether, in truth, reconciliation is even possible among enemies of long standing. The implications and consequences for all of the divided groups thus becomes an enormous challenge. Practical suggestions are offered at the end as potential models for both present and future work as well.

Why the Arab Spring turned Islamic: the political economy of Islam

Abstract This paper argues that the fundamental reason for the ascendancy of political Islam in the wake of the Arab revolutions lies in the uncompetitive nature of the religion and its implications for political economy: the fact that Islam is one and long since unchanged, which makes the Islamists’ call very costly to resist and very attractive to follow. The argument is developed through an examination of sectarian and legal history in Islam and a comparison of the nexus between church, state and individual in Christian and Muslim religious traditions. Special attention is devoted to Islamic Law and the law schools that define it.

Resurrection and Death From Rabbinic Understandings to the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx

My paper will explore the understanding of death and resurrection in Judaism through the selections from biblical and rabbinic corpus and reflect on its relevance to Catholic theology on the same subject matter. The diverse, unsystematic, and contextual characters of Jewish remarks on death and resurrection suggest that these remarks are rooted in the more fundamental concern regarding covenantal relationship and ethical living. Resurrection is mostly presented as an extended reflection of Jewish concern for the justice and righteousness in this world, following the traditional Jewish hermeneutical principle “kal vahomer.” Death, likewise, is understood as indicative of the condition of the living world as well as contributive to the development of Jewish religious traditions and identities. Thus, in Judaism, death is neither completely negative nor utterly overshadowed by the sure hope of resurrection. In some significant ways, the Jewish understanding of death and resurrection correspond to 20th century catholic theological reflections. Edward Schillebeeckx, for example, suggests that belief in resurrection does not argue away the realty of death but rather let death be death. As a free gift of God to those who trust, resurrection makes sense of human death, rather than simply declaring it powerless or inconsequential. Thus, Schillebeeckx asserts that it is important to focus not just on Jesus's final resurrection but also on Jesus’ entire life which led up to his death. Jesus’ death itself is an invitation to the participation of Jesus’ entire life, and is therefore also a hermeneutical opening for the development of Christian religious traditions and identities. In conclusion, though Jesus’ death and resurrection are unprecedented and unparalleled revelations, they should not supersede a Jewish understanding of death and resurrection or render them primitive. Rather, death and resurrection are a signature component of the common root of Christianity and Judaism.

O wzniosłości w dyskursie religijnym (z perspektywy słownictwa)

The article is devoted to sublimity as one of the rule shaping religious discourse (especially in Christian religious tradition). In the first part the author presents three ways of understanding of the term sublime/sublimity, which have developed during historical reflection on this category: sublimity as a grand style (one of the three rhetoric styles); as a grand (high) speech (Pseudo-Longinus); as an ambivalent experience of dread and fascination (Rudolf Otto), that arouses in the believer feelings of numinous. The second part examines the lexis (vocabulary) as a mean to achieve sublimity in religious texts. The author points out however, that the effect of sublimity is achieved not only by means of lexis, hence further research is needed.

Puripetal Force in the Charitable Field

This article sets out to clarify the wide range of relationships between religions and humanitarian traditions as ideological movements, taking Islam as a case study. It postulates that the concept of the “sacred,” which is culturally restricted, is a special case of boundary maintenance or “purism.” Metaphorically, “puripetal force” is defined as a tendency common to all ideological systems, a resistance to social entropy or anomie. The importance of purity in Islamic doctrine is well attested, but within that wider sphere we may identify the specially puritan version of Islam known as Wahhabi-Salafism. As for humanitarianism and philanthropy, these occupy in the West a “space” protected by special laws and conceived of as untainted by either politics or economics. Within the wider sphere of humanitarianism we may locate a more concentrated form in Dunantism, which has underpinned the world view and habitus of the International Committee of the Red Cross. This article outlines how the policies and programs of various Islamic charity and welfare organizations—originating in Britain, Indonesia, and Saudi-Arabia—interact differentially with on the one hand Islamic doctrines and on the other hand humanitarian traditions. Finally, it is suggested that this explanatory model could equally be applied to Christian and other religious traditions, with the concluding thought that the common ground between the institutions of international humanitarianism and religion is currently expanding.

Examining the Presence of Congregational Programs Focused on Violence Against Women.

Religious congregations are uniquely poised to provide programs to support survivors of violence against women; yet little is known regarding the prevalence of such programs. In this study, we used data from three waves of the National Congregation Study (N=3334) to examine change across time in the presence of a congregational program to support survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence. We also explored results among different Christian religious traditions across time. Given the gendered nature of this violence, we also tested whether the (a) gender of the head clergy (i.e., religious leader), and (b) ability of women to serve in congregational leadership roles predicted the presence of programs. As points of comparison, we also examined the total number of congregational social service programs and food programs in particular. Overall, we found different patterns of change across religious traditions for the different programs. Moreover, clergy gender and the ability of women to serve in leadership roles predicted the presence of different types of programs. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research also are discussed.

Architectural Renovations of Body-As-Temple

This paper addresses the Christian religious tradition of understanding the human body as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’ within the context of body modification in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Drawing on ethnographic research in Jerusalem and Kansas City, interviews with artists and Orthodox Christians, and theological discourses on the body and art, this paper seeks to understand how the body is treated by Orthodox Christians and evaluates the ethical commitments and contestations around the human body and religious practice. The paper focuses specifically on tattooing practices, which, though typically prohibited in conservative forms of Christianity, are nonetheless practiced as a means of devotion in specific Eastern Orthodox Christian settings. These modifications to the body are taken in dialogue with ritual and practical concerns exhibited in Eastern Orthodox burial practice. The paper argues that while there are commonalities across Eastern Orthodox practice, the ethical implications of specific actions are highly contextualized and must be interpreted within local regimes of aesthetic behaviour.

Stammereligioner: konversion til kristendom og hinduisme i Indien. Illustreret med eksempler fra santal- og bodostammerne i kolonitiden i Indien

Based on case studies of conversion among the Santals and Bodos in Central India and Assam from 1867 to the 1930s it is argued that the European Christian missionaries to the tribal peoples overstated the importance of baptism and did not fully understand the rationality which the converts addressed their situation through. During the colonial period the converts to Christianity were far more open to mobility between different religious groups and far more elective between local and Christian religious traditions. These facts query the post-colonial resentment of the acts of the Protestant Christian missions during the colonial period as well as the larger approach to the colonial period in the school of ‘post-colonial studies’. In both cases due to the fact that the Indians living during the colonial period are denied the rationality they acted within. 
 
 A note has been added post-release in the end of the article on the request of the author.

Human Labor: Vocation to Share and Celebrate Divine Creativity

In the Christian religious tradition, a great deal of study is devoted to the notion of human work and its importance to the world as such. In presenting some general ideas on this topic based almost exclusively on Christian perspective, Rev. Dr. Karekatt has argued that religion throughout the ages has played a decisive role not only in the understanding of human being and his/her surroundings but also in providing them with means and methods of harnessing human labor. With the arrival of modern science and technology however, the Church was faced with immense challenges in order to redefine work ethics and provide the meaning of it that would fit the new and ever increasing development of labor philosophy within modern and secular worldview. This and other questions such as work in the Christian perspective, human being as creation in the image of God and ordained to live in society, and finally work or labor as a fundamental dimension of human existence have been discussed in the present article.

Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Spirituality

The words ‘forgiveness’ and ‘reconciliation’ are used loosely today and bear a variety of sometimes overlapping meanings. Many believe that the words have come into Western usage from the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition. This paper shows that they have not, though undoubtedly the Christian tradition has shaped the modern understanding of and approach to the interpretation of these words. This paper suggests how the language of forgiveness and reconciliation, understood specifically in the manner of Paul, might be developed as a useful tool for understanding forgiveness and reconciliation as part of human spirituality that is not necessarily within the Christian religious tradition.

An Invisible Wall: The Relationship Between Congregational and Seminary Libraries in the United States

Theological (seminary) and congregational libraries in the Christian and Jewish religious traditions have coexisted in some fashion since their beginnings; however, little research exists regarding the relationship between these related-but-distinct library types. This essay explores the relationship between these types of libraries through a survey of their literatures and available statistics, considering their histories and contexts within the broader religious and library worlds, as well as their current relationship in light of their diverse religious institutions. The roles of these libraries will be examined regarding religious, theological, and information literacies as well as exploring their staffs, their staff's education, funding, library hours, their goals, objectives, and outcomes, particularly regarding the changing landscape of religious and theological education for both clergy and laypeople. It concludes with future possibilities in the religious library world in a congregational landscape that often cannot afford full-time, traditionally-theologically-educated clergy, much less paid congregational librarians.

Religion and Volunteering Over the Adult Life Course

Previous studies have not longitudinally assessed whether religion is related to individuals’ movement into volunteering activities across the adult life course. Using four waves of panel data, I present evidence that religion is associated with individuals’ movement into religious institution and nonreligious institutional forms of volunteerism—volunteering for a religious congregation or other religious organization, and volunteering for a nonreligious institution, respectively. I consider the general religious mechanisms of changes in motivation to volunteer through enhanced religious beliefs and increased opportunities to volunteer through greater religious service attendance and involvement. Increased religious belief and attendance result in a greater probability that individuals engage in religious institution volunteerism. Religious institution volunteering increases the likelihood of movement into other formal volunteering over the adult life course. This analysis offers evidence that religious institutions are feeder systems, as increased involvement yields more opportunities for formal volunteerism over the adult life course, irrespective of underlying personality traits. Additionally, the findings suggest that religious mechanisms may operate differently across Christian religious traditions.

Temi e problemi del cristianesimo antico in prospettiva storico-religiosa : Ugo Bianchi e il metodo comparativo

The fundamental requirement of Ugo Bianchi’s scientific pursuit was to combine two basic guiding principles in a single frame of reference : idiographic research concerned with the ‘particular’ in its irreducible historic specificity, and the construction of a vast comparative structure suitable for showing similarities and differences between diverse phenomena and between their respective processes of formation and development. Over the long course of the scholar’s scientific journey, Christian religious tradition constituted an important subject of investigation to which the tools of comparative and idiographic analysis were always applied with expertise and adaptability in a project intended to legitimately include, as historical religious subject matter, Christian issues usually deemed to be the specific, if not exclusive, province of disciplines such as the history of Christianity, Christian literature, biblical exegesis, and theology.

Mobilizing Christianity in the Antivivisection Movement in Victorian Britain

Abstract This article offers a historical perspective on the bearing of the Christian tradition on humans’ ethical relations with other animals. Instead of focusing on major theologians and canonical texts, this article turns to the initiatives taken by laity and clergy in the mobilization of their antivivisection cause in the last quarter of the 19th century. It reveals that despite the lack of institutional support from major Churches, many reformers sympathetic to Christian ideals relied on Christianity as their moral foundation, utilizing various recourses associated with it in their fight against animal experimentation. These reformers appropriated the concepts of sin and self-sacrifice and the notion of the incarnate Christ, as well as critiques against scientific knowledge and materialism permeating the wider conflict between religion and science at the time. In this wideranging mobilization of resources associated with the Christian religious tradition, they sustained a generation of activism against animal experimentation while, at the same time, recreating a positive Christian subtradition in animal ethics.

The Byzantine Silver Bowls in the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial and Tree-Worship in Anglo-Saxon England

The ten Byzantine silver bowls included amongst the grave goods interred in the chamber of the Mound 1 ship burial at Sutton Hoo remain one of the most puzzling features of this site. It has been suggested that these items, which lay separated from the rest of the silver in the burial and close to the head of the body-space (where no body was found), may have had some special meaning which has never been discovered. This paper will argue that one of the possible keys to unlocking their significance may be found in the central roundel that adorns the centre of each bowl in the form of a rosette. These bowls, which are thought to have been manufactured in the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire in c. 600, entered the British Isles in unknown circumstances before coming into the possession of the man buried in (or commemorated by) the Mound 1 burial. Through comparison with contemporary sculpture and vernacular literature, I will suggest that this central rosette, which was associated with both the cross of Christ and sacred trees in Byzantine sculpture, may have served as a conventional bridge between Christian and pre-Christian religious traditions associated with sacred trees in Anglo-Saxon England. The central rosettes adorning each of these bowls may have been understood as the flower of a sacred tree. Since the latter appears to have figured in Anglian paganism it is possible that the bowls may helped to convert the Anglian aristocracy, bridging a gap between Germanic insular religious traditions and those that were being introduced to Britain at the time that the ship burial itself took place.

Reexamining the effect of christian denominational affiliation on death penalty support

Despite the fact that numerous Christian denominations in America condemn or condone the death penalty, extant research on the effects of religiosity on citizens’ support for capital punishment has generated ambiguous results of denominational affiliation. This empirical ambiguity may be the result of measurement error. Testing data from the General Social Survey, this study employs a historically and theologically grounded measure of religious tradition affiliation to contrast to past research. Controlling for religious beliefs, religious behaviors, and race, the results indicate that affiliation with any Christian denomination increases the likelihood that an individual will support the death penalty compared to nonreligious individuals. In contrast, members of different Christian religious traditions are no more or less likely to favor capital punishment than other Christian affiliates.