Christian Way Of Life Research Articles

Animals, Wonder, and “Order Trouble” during the Jesuit Mission to Japan

When Jesuit missionaries began arriving in Japan in the sixteenth century, they brought not only a new religion, Christianity, but also several domestic and exotic animals. Not only did these animals provoke feelings of curiosity and wonder, but they became a site of epistemic contestation between Christian and Buddhist views on human‐animal relations. In Buddhist thought, humans and animals were conceived of as interrelated, as both were thought to be trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. On the other hand, in Christian thought, humans and animals were stratified according to Aristotelian hierarchies, according to which the former were viewed as superior to the latter. After the Jesuits arrived in Japan, it soon became clear that their proselytes' pre‐existing modes of relating to and classifying the natural world would need to be converted to Aristotelian ones in order to propagate a Christian way of life. Thus, animals became a central part of Jesuit evangelism. Many of these creatures were deployed as tribute gifts, which altered the emotional landscape between the European and Japanese humans who used them as a buffer. This paper explores how animals, wonder, and religious epistemologies intersected to transform Japanese Christian attitudes towards animals during the Jesuit Mission to Japan.

The development of the Vatican’s sports diplomacy tools in the 21st century

The article discusses the Vatican's public diplomacy tools, specifically the phenomenon of sports diplomacy. Sports diplomacy is a new tool for the realization of soft power by the Vatican, which gained its relevance during the pontificate of Francis I. This type of cultural diplomacy is characterized by significant dynamism, connection with socio-economic and political trends, and for a long time was out of the Vatican's sight due to moral and ethical contradictions inherent in this type of public diplomacy, as well as the lack of resources for the implementation of initiatives in this area. The contradictory nature of sports diplomacy for the Vatican is due, on the one hand, to the "ideal" sport's focus on the cultivation of moral and ethical values approved by the Roman Catholic Church (compassion, respect, love, harmony, and joy), and, on the other hand, to the political engagement and business orientation of "real" professional sport. Due to the traditional role of the RCC as a source of moral and ethical guidelines for Catholic society, sports diplomacy for the Vatican involves significant reputational risks. These risks stem from many factors, among them: the exploitation of athletes, the spread of dishonest sporting behavior (e.g., doping) within sports organizations, and the inconsistency with the values imposed by the sports industry, among them body worship, hedonism, consumerism, hoarding, individualism, and the obsession with success. In many ways, the emergence of this tool has been a forced measure and is linked to the changing territorial distribution and national composition of Catholicism, which has necessitated the need to find new ways to establish a dialogue with the Vatican's target audience, which is predominantly made up of people from developing countries in the global South. These circumstances have led to a decline in the popularity of the RCC and its doctrines, as well as a decline in the attractiveness of the Christian way of life and Christian values among believers. They have also become an indicator for the RCC of the need to respond to the changes that have taken place and to seek new tools of public diplomacy that can bring the Church back to the attention of its target audience. The article examines the Vatican's views on the values of sport and the sports industry, discussing their relevance to Christian values, as well as acceptable formats for the Vatican's participation in the sporting life of society. The article discusses the Vatican's priorities, including its predominant focus on amateur sports. At the same time, it reveals evidence of the Vatican's intention to increase its representation in professional sports, which is expressed in the creation of specialized agencies, inclusion in sports associations and societies, and involvement of professional athletes. The current limitations of Vatican sports diplomacy are also examined. Conclusions are drawn about the Vatican's interest in the development of sports diplomacy and its desire to use this tool to achieve strategic goals.

The Impossible Reformation: Protestant Europe and the Greek Orthodox Church

Abstract This article identifies one of the great but unstudied paradoxes in the history of early modern global Christianity: that the stronger the desire for a uniform Christian way of life burned, the deeper the fractures between different Christian denominations began to grow. It explores this issue by examining the learned exchanges between the infamous Greek Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lucaris (1572–1638) and members of the Dutch Reformed Church. These efforts have often been seen as an expression of Christian ecumenism or as evidence that the early modern Middle East had become yet another arena for Catholic–Protestant rivalry. But once motivations on both sides are placed in the distinctly local religious climate that fostered them neither of these explanatory paradigms suffices. On the contrary: a decentred approach to this material reveals how Protestant and Eastern Christian understandings of what reform meant and how it could be attained were completely distinct and irreconcilable. It is thus imperative to resist any simple application to Middle Eastern Christianity of categories rooted in European Christian traditions and, instead, to tease out how different Christian denominations defined reform differently. Only then can we make good on our commitment to approach early modern global Christianity as a pluriform and multi-centred phenomenon.

ТОБОЛЬСКИЙ АРХИЕРЕЙСКИЙ ДОМ КАК АКТОР КОЛОНИЗАЦИИ СИБИРИ В XVII В.

In the course of the development of Siberia the Russians created an authentic “living space” on the colonized lands, relying on their religious traditions and practices. The article shows the role of the Tobolsk bishop’s house in the formation of the socio-cultural environment in the territory under development in accordance with the norms of the Christian way of life. The “bishop’s house” is understood as a regional institution of the Russian Orthodox Church, which organized and controlled the spiritual sphere of the life of the local society. The Siberian diocese was created in 1620. The bishops used the centuries-old experience of the Russian Orthodox Church and, at the same time, responded to specific “challenges”. These “challenges” were associated with the huge scale of the controlled territory and its considerable remoteness from the center, the lack of priests and their doubtful moral appearance, peculiarities of the sex composition of the first Russian settlers, disagreements with secular administrations on the issue of power-sharing. The main concern of the 17th century Siberian bishops was the maintenance of the moral state of society, regularization of the church sphere, as well as anxiety about the population of Siberia, including the indigenous people. During the 17th century a system of the diocesan administration was created. The regional features of this system were expressed in the variety of principles for the division on the tithe districts and the replacement rates of secular decals by spiritual customers (representatives of the white and black priests). The church court of the law, organized by the Tobolsk bishop’s house, was an important tool for curbing “disorder” both among the clergy and in the secular community. The Orthodox landscape was formed on the territory under its jurisdiction to satisfy the spiritual needs of the local society. By the end of the 17th century, there were about 225 churches in the diocese, including monasteries. Most of them were located in Western Siberia, which was the most developed part of the diocese and closest to its center. The problem of providing parishes with priests was solved, and widely revered regional shrines appeared. The christianization of the indigenous population was carried out mainly by the forces of the monasteries. Using various forms of the influence on the society, the Tobolsk bishop’s house exerted a great influence on the religious and moral condition of the local society and became one of the leading actors in the colonization process.

Alay Kapwa and community pantries during COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines.

In the crisis we are facing, the importance of solidarity, as a vital component of Alay Kapwa Spirituality, in evangelizing the people to practice their faith through care and concern for others is manifested. This is the true Christian way of life. We are Christians not just because we are praying together but because we are helping one another. When the pandemic ends, we can be assured that Alay Kapwa Spirituality is already animated in the lives of the people and when we face situations where solidarity seems to be needed, we will no longer wait for the extreme hardships of the poor to be manifested before we help them.

Philosophical, anthropological and axiological aspects of Constantine’s definition of philosophy

Abstract This paper focuses on the philosophical-ethical foundations of Constantine’s definition of philosophy, as well as its anthropological and axiological aspects. The focus is placed on the relationship between definitions of philosophy postulated by Constantine the Philosopher and John of Damascus, the latter of which traces the six classical definitions systematized by Platonic commentators. Byzantine thinkers proposed a method of unifying both the theoretical and practical aspects of ancient philosophy with a Christian way of life by interpreting the classical definitions of philosophy and dividing it into theoretical and practical parts, the latter including ethics. Constantine understood philosophy in the sense of the second (knowledge of things Divine and human) and the fourth (becoming like God) meanings of earlier definitions, with the addition of the Christian sense of acting in accordance with the image of God. In addition to these gnosiological and anthropological aspects, the paper also observes the axiological aspect of Constantine’s definition of philosophy, which appears to be a foundation for exploring human behaviour as in compliance with Christian laws encouraging changes in ethical principles so as to follow a new code of ethics, through which new values were presented to the Slavs.

Budowanie wspólnoty parafialnej z osobami z niepełną sprawnością

Parafia jest wspólnotą wiary, kultu i miłości braterskiej. W jej budowaniu biorą udział osoby z niepełną sprawnością. Słuchają one słowa Bożego i głoszą je w różnoraki, dostępny dla nich sposób. Uczestniczą one w liturgii, przystępują do sakramentów świętych i są adresatami modlitwy innych parafian. Jednocześnie czynnie uczestniczą w liturgii i nabożeństwach oraz swoje modlitwy i cierpienie ofiarowują za innych ludzi. Uczestnicząc w budowaniu parafii–wspólnoty braterskiej starają się realizować swoje posłannictwo w Kościele i świecie, apostołując poprzez ukazywanie innym chrześcijańskiego stylu życia. Osoby z niepełną sprawnością angażują się w działalność charytatywną parafii, a także w zrzeszenia religijne istniejące na jej terenie.

A Response to Joseph M. Lear, ‘Liturgy with Ruth: Immigration and the Problem of Anti-Eucharist’

Abstract In this response to Joseph Lear, Tommy Casarez praises Lear’s use of the phrase, ‘anti-eucharist’, and his claim that we live in an anti-eucharist culture, or something akin to Madonna’s material world. Noting the significance of food and common meals in Scripture, Casarez points out that Ruth is not only and not primarily a recipient but also a contributor. Lear is commended for his description of a space-making ethic, with the eucharist serving as a space-making event that essentially defines the shape and character of the Christian way of life.

Transformation of the Classical genre: Quadratus and beginnings of Christian apology

Quadratus belonged to the second generation of Jesus’ followers. At the early stage of his life he was an itinerant preacher of the Gospel, also visiting Asia Minor in the course of his travels. It was there that he may have received information about the persons who had directly experienced Jesus’ beneficence. After he settled in Athens, Quadratus, just like other Athenian apologists, Aristides and, later, Athenagoras, was not part of the Church hierarchy, but, more likely, a free teacher. When Hadrian was visiting Athens, he was presented with an apology which should have provided the emperor with reliable information concerning the new religion. The paper suggests a hypothesis that the direct impulse to defend Christianity was the conflict between the Christians and the Athenian society on the issue of the Eleusinian mysteries.Quadratus’ apologetic opus, among other topics of which we have no knowledge, discussed the unique character of the miracles performed by Christ, comparing them to the deeds of the demigods or of the contemporary miracle-workers. It also (according Martyrologium of Bede the Venerable) discussed the nature of Christian food, emphasising its ordinary character. Just as the Letter to Diognetus, it probably suggested that the Christian way of life and customs were not different from those of other people.

GNOSTICISMO: UM RESGATE CONCEITUAL MOTIVADO PELA EXORTAÇÃO APOSTÓLICA GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE

Objetiva-se neste artigo expor os resultados de pesquisa sobre o Gnosticismo, motivado pela Exortação Apostólica do Papa Francisco Gaudete et Exsultate. O gnosticismo aparece caracterizado como um sistema de conhecimento que tem como objetivo atingir a verdadeira gnose, ou seja, o conhecimento verdadeiro. As origens do movimento gnóstico não são fáceis de ser identificadas, mas seus vestígios podem ser encontrados já na filosofia de Platão, na literatura judaica e nos escritos apócrifos do cristianismo primitivo. Combatido como heresia, sobretudo por Irineu de Lion, os conceitos gnósticos não foram totalmente superados, sendo, de certa forma, resgatados na atualidade e que tem influenciado o modo de vida cristã de muitos católicos. Chamado pelo Papa Francisco de inimigo da santidade cristã, aponta-se no desenvolvimento do texto os principais conceitos gnósticos, sua formação como movimento, difusão nas comunidades cristãs e implicância na vida evangelizadora da Igreja Católica, nos tempos atuais.

Nuevos apuntes a propósito de la Segunda parte de la torre de David moralizada por vía de diálogos (¿de Jerónimo de Lemos?) y de una Historia acaecida en una ciudad de este reino muy provechosa así para religiosos como para casados

Abstract: These lines propose an interpretation of two literary works found in the Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus 11657 (Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Sign. Cod. 11657 Han.): the Segunda parte de la Torre de David moralizada por via de dialogos para todo genero de gente, lost during centuries; and an unknown Historia acaecida en una ciudad de este reino muy provechosa asi para religiosos como para casados. Philological considerations delivered here allow us to suggest that Jeronimo de Lemos could not be the author of the Historia acaecida. Indeed, it is very probable that the latter not be the outcome of rewriting of previous materials, as it seems, on the contrary, to be the case for the Segunda parte. Independently from considerations on their authorship, the set of texts studied here represents a certain unity conferring them the role of manual of customs with an underlying function of promoting the pedagogy of marriage and a Christian way of life in a convulsed time.Keywords: Jeronimo de Lemos, marriage, Hispanic literary dialogues.

Ser-para-la-muerte y vida auténtica. La apropiación de Heidegger en la legitimación filosófica del “Movimiento Nacional” durante la Guerra Civil española (1936-1939)

Martin Heidegger was the most influential foreign philosopher on the Spanish philosophy in the 30s, and Ortega y Gasset himself dealt with the ideas exposed by the German in his major work, Being and Time (1927). In this context, Heidegger’s work was gradually imported by intellectuals and philosophers linked to the anti-Republican conspiracy. When the Civil War started, its jargon was adopted by Falange’s young intellectuals for their media outlets, Pedro Lain Entralgo, among them. However, it will be also used by a faction of extreme right-wing monarchists. One instance of it was the philosopher Jose Pemartin, who will make use of Heidegger’s concept of time to turn the Christian way of life, now in arms, into the only authentic form of existence. The present paper will restore the context of the symbolical and intellectual struggle for the leadership of the Movimiento that received and made use of Heidegger’s work, specially the Falangist and the reactionary nationalism interpretations, as well as the discursive strategies to which the German master’s ideas were exposed.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Böse

Friedrich Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Böse

Une conférence méconnue du père Sertillanges : Le travail unanime (1919)

The article focuses on an unknown lecture given in April 1919 by Father Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges in the Madeleine church in Paris and dealing with the subject of work. Since the pre-war years the Dominican had fought for the establishment of Christian trade-unions and was concerned by problems relating to women’s work. DuringWorldWar I, he realised that industrial production was a key factor in resisting the enemy and he insisted on the need for cooperation between workers and soldiers if victory was to be achieved. After the armistice, strikes and the rise in social tensions drove Sertillanges to remind his compatriots that working together ('travail unanime') was a fundamental element, during both war and peace, in preventing foreign aggression and in returning to a Christian way of life.

Indigenous Commentary on Sixteenth-Century Mexico City

In circa 1550, an indigenous mapmaker painted a watercolor of viceregal Mexico City and its environs. The Uppsala Map has long been a source for examining social life in the Basin of Mexico, yet its description of the city has been one less studied. This essay scrutinizes the mapmaker's graphic commentary on the viceregal capital. In particular, it studies how a narrative figure's corporeal expressions and optic interest presented the city for examination. A formal analysis of the map suggests that the city's traza (urban plan) was not spatially unitary, a point under-scored by the actas de cabildo, or municipal decrees, mandated. These demonstrate anxiety over spatial irregularity, which in the opinion of the city council threatened the city's policía (the virtue of living a Christian way of life within an ordered settlement). Lastly, this essay situates the Uppsala Map within the cartographic milieu of the Spanish Atlantic world through a study of cartographic elements that closely resemble those found in Alonso de Santa Cruz's 1542 world map.

Typological Realism in Contemporary Evangelical Fiction: Tragedy, Eternity, and The Shack

Typological Realism in Contemporary Evangelical Fiction:Tragedy, Eternity, and The Shack Kenneth Paradis (bio) The modern author who writes a novel based typologically on themes from the Bible ... is literally incapacitated by history and his own consciousness from writing out of the faith that was accessible even to the most sophisticated medieval authors. (Conversely,... any modern work that used typology seriously and naively would remain, almost by definition, sub-literary, like most Sunday-school readers.) Theodor Ziolkowsky Every human society requires a "theodicy," an interpretation of the suffering and injustice endemic to the human condition. It is the absence of secular society to provide such, after the retreat of Enlightenment thought, the facile substitutions of consumerist hedonism, and the machinery of the secular therapeutic, that opens the door for a return to the evangelical theodicies. Peter Berger William Paul Young's homiletic novel The Shack is an originally self-published text that, as of September 2010, had over ten million copies in print and had been at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for seventy weeks.1 The Shack's story of self-help and healing through an experiential encounter with Christian doctrine instantiates a mode [End Page 107] of representation (typological realism) that is prominent in evangelical homiletic narrative and fiction and that plays a key role in articulating a contemporary countersecular evangelical perspective or "worldview." Mack, The Shack's protagonist, is a regular guy from the Pacific Northwest who goes on a camping trip with his kids during which his five-year-old-daughter Missy is kidnapped, abused, and eventually murdered by a serial killer at an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Three years later, the profoundly disillusioned Mack receives an enigmatic note in his mailbox signed by "Papa" (his wife's name for God), inviting Mack to "get together" with him at the shack. Confused, and suspecting the killer's involvement, Mack travels to the shack but finds there only bleak reminders of his daughter's brutal murder. Turning to leave while fighting suicidal despair, Mack sees the shack and its environs transform into a paradisal landscape. Inside the now-idyllic cottage, Mack finds God the Father in the form of a motherly African-American woman calling herself "Papa" or "Elousia"; the Holy Spirit as a beautiful, ethereal East Asian woman named "Sarayu"; and, of course, a wise, friendly Jewish carpenter named Jesus. Over the next three days, Mack eats, drinks, works, plays, laughs, cries, and converses with the Three-who-are-One, while also sharing experiences of a more divine nature: watching his dead daughter playing in the heavenly garden that is her true home, walking on water with Jesus, and seeing the spiritual essences of the world laid out before him in blazes of psychedelic colour in a moment when he is given the ability to see some of what God sees. Mack's experiences at the shack—culminating in Papa's taking him into the surrounding mountains to recover Missy's missing remains—help him overcome the trauma of losing his child as well as helping him forgive and be forgiven by his abusive dead father (who God allows him to meet). While returning home after waking up in the once-again disenchanted shack, Mack is badly injured in a car accident. On his recovery, however, he is able to retrace his hike with Papa and finds Missy's remains exactly where he had found them on his enchanted weekend. Finally at peace, Mack asks his friend Willie to write down his story. It is Willie who arranges the novel, and it is his commentary, in the preface and epilogue, that frames Mack's narrative. The Shack is an homiletic novel. Its primary job is to inspire in its reader a transformation toward a more Christian way of life.2 The forms of representation it employs serve that end. As its author explains in "The [End Page 108] Story Behind The Shack," the book emerged from a desire to pass on the theological insights gleaned from years of personal struggle in order to give a true understanding of God's love "to a world that longs, in the deepest...

The Recent Developments in Custody Law for Muslims in Israel: Gender and Religion

AbstractIn this paper we explore how Shari‘a Courts cope with the issue of custody, in light of two Supreme Court rulings concerning custody cases, in which the regional Shari‘a court suspected the mother of living a Christian way of life. The article aims at discerning the debate between the Shari‘a Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court concerning the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law and rulings in the issue of child custody, and at proposing an alternative line of interpretation that would help avoiding the debate. The article argues that Shari‘a courts have embarked on a “purification” process, removing secular elements from their legal discourse, both at the rhetoric and symbolic levels, and thus excluding any affinity to secular legislation. The Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law is a main focus of those “purification” efforts. This raises the question of why the Supreme Court actually reversed only so few Shari‘a court rulings. We suggest that it did not have to do so. Though explicitly not basing its rulings on civil law, the Shari‘a Court of Appeals actually imported the principle of the child’s best interest through the back door, by considering it to be a principle acknowledged by Shari‘a. The court reinterpreted religious legal literature and in fact Islamized Israeli law, in the sense of turning an Israeli legal principle into an Islamic one. Another softening of what appears to be a rigid position held by the Shari‘a court may be discerned in its rulings that allow drawing on social workers’ reports in order to determine a child’s best interest.

On the Proper Essence of Christian Economic Ethics

In recent times, the question about the proper essence of a Christian economic ethics has rarely been asked explicitly. However, the concept of a society, as presented by Jurgen Habermas, offers renewed access. The necessary foundation for this approach involves the relationship between belief and reason as the basis for communication, the concept of 'being made in God's own likeness' as regulating factor and the association with the Christian way of life as a prerequisite for responsible economic activity. One possible consequence hereof is to see the social market economy as a third way, situated between socialism and capitalism, with its extra-economic prerequisites and its particular relationship between market and state. After all, the aim is also to consider the role of the Church as a global player and an intermediary of values for a civil society. Key words: Christian economic ethics, Catholic Social Teaching, society, political theology, social market economy Definition of the problem The question on the proper essence of Christian economic ethics has hardly been asked explicitly any more in recent times (Wilhelms 2007: 494). Why did it not happen? In the past, for Christian social ethics - which also includes economic ethics - such foundations were part of the standard (Brinkmann 1978: 461 ff.; Kerber 1978: 547 ff.). Did we lose sight of this question in the secular societies because religious positions were pushed aside into private life; and what does the social philosopher Jurgen Habermas mean when he speaks, in this context, of a post-secular mat should conserve the moral potentials of religions (Habermas 2001)? We should continue by dealing with these questions if laying the foundations for Christian economic ethics is to be successful in today's conditions. 1. Post-secular society If we ask for the meaning of the term society, first of all two distinctions can be made. On the one hand, the concept of society presupposes a secularization process, and on the other hand, the assumption that mis process has come to its end does not mean that, as a result, a closed, for example Christian, society would be the consequence. But rather, society can only mean that secular patterns of interpretation - just like all other ones - must justify themselves in the discourse and that, besides religious ones, they subsist, but cannot enjoy any automatic preference. However, with the religion sociologist Jose Casanova, we have to question the presuppositions of this position advocated by Habermas. For instance, in his Eurocentric view, Habermas assumes that religious groups continue to exist within an environment that is otherwise predominantly secular (Habermas 2008: 37 f.). But Casanova questions this process of secularization in several respects by pointing first at the fact that the decline of religious life, which is noticeable in Central Europe, can be considered an exception on the world stage. Second, he states, the idea that from an authoritarian, religious society, a democratic, secular one has arisen in the wake of modernization, is a myth. According to him, the denominational State was rather the consequence of the Thirty Years War, and in many cases, in particular, religious groups were involved in democratization processes. And also with respect to the potential of religions for violence, Casanova demonstrates that nearly all of the extraordinary acts of violence of the first half of the twentieth century were not religiously motivated (Casanova 2009: 8 ff.). Altogether, he refers, as a consequence, to three components of a secularization theory that are, in his view, to be distinguished from one another and between which there is no necessary interrelation: a) the theory of institutional differentiation between the secular sphere, such as the State, the economy, science on the one hand, and religious institutions on the other; b) the theory of a progressive decline of religious convictions and practices as a measure of modernization; and c) the theory of privatization of religion as a prerequisite for a modern, secular and democratic policy (Casanova 2009: 83). …

“Like a Boat is Marriage”: Aelred on Marriage as a Christian Way of Life

This study of Aelred of Rievaulx's understanding of marriage as a Christian state of life first considers his work in the context of earlier written souces and the debates about marriage in the twelfth-century schools; it then exposes Aelred's thinking on the sacramentality of marriage, the position of woman in the marriage relationship, and the importance of marriage in relation to the common good, that is, the socioeconomic order. Much of Aelred's thought remains applicable to Christian marriage today.

Early Religious Practice in the Greenland Settlement

While the beginnings of Christianity in Greenland are very poorly recorded, the settlement has played a prominent role in the discussion of paganism, the conversion, and early Christianity in the Viking world, thanks to the sagas in which Greenlanders feature. In particular, the range of religious practice that is reflected in the literary representations of the past is very striking; the rituals of the seeress, Thorbjorg, the Christian practice of Eric's wife, Thjodhild, and Gudrid's pilgrimage to Rome and profession as a nun offer contrasting perceptions of lived religion in the late Viking Age. While the absence of other relevant sources relating to Greenland is clearly a disadvantage, it leaves us free to question entrenched assumptions about the early religious life of the community.While, as elsewhere, the conversion to Christianity in Greenland would have had a practical impact, ranging from the creation of political and economic alliances to changes in social custom (including burial and memorialization), I argue in this paper that Greenland might have been somewhat different from other Scandinavian communities overseas. Discussing and drawing on the written and material record, I propose that we might gain from resisting the narrative of Christian convention, which requires sudden, dramatic, and emphatic change, in favor of a different understanding of religious practice. If we entertain the possibility that some societies may have had more room for religious diversity than Christian sources would allow, it could be argued that the early community of Greenland, instead of conforming to Christian stereotype, experienced an extended period of diversity; a mixed society encompassing traditional religious practice and a largely domestic Christianity could have continued for some time until Christianity gained a sufficient degree of institutionalization to impose a more conventional Christian way of life.