Christian Way Research Articles

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.

The Future of Interreligious Dialogue

AbstractThe ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic has affected all aspects of life, including interreligious engagement. This article offers one interpretation of the key markers that should underpin a distinctively Christian engagement with other religious traditions in the current climate. It develops suggestions around the three “theological virtues” – namely, faith, hope, and love – as it is argued that these make the Christian way of being in the world distinctive and attractive. Each virtue is defined first in a broad way, and then in specifically Christian terms, before it is explored in its various applications to interreligious engagement. The article focuses on the opportunities and challenges of engagement in pandemic times throughout, indicating areas for future development in the process. Its conclusion highlights the challenges associated with interreligious engagement in the digital context.

Política, religión y libertad en Augusto Del Noce y Erik Peterson

This work explores coincidences between two authors who have rarely been connected: Erik Peterson and Augusto Del Noce. Departing from theology and philosophy respectively, they both discover in the sacralization of power the degeneration of politics, far from how it should be conceived in a Christian way. They reach out to Augustine to apply his distinction between the two cities, in order to prevent an immanentization of the eschatological and a subjugation of personal freedom. The reflection on martyrdom and testimony in the democratic game offer a suggestive cooperation, respectful of the search and personal attachment to the truth, not conceiving politics as an intrinsic conflict.

TWO RESEARCH PARADIGMS, WITH OR WITHOUT „GOD HYPOTHESIS”: C.S. LEWIS AND RICHARD DAWKINS

In this present paper we try to learn something about how to cope with analytical investigation of reality, by comparing the ideas of two iconic Oxford figures. On the one hand, the renowned atheist Richard Dawkins, and the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, on the other. It is more than interesting to know how two great thinkers of the 20th century can raise and answer to questions of life, such as Reasoned belief, the so-called „God hypothesis” or concerning our place and purpose in this world. Both Dawkins and Lewis see intellectual reflection on the big questions as natural and significant. Both insist that their beliefs – atheism and Christianity respectively – demand and deserve intellectual seriousness and are capable of being developed into larger systems. Lewis’s apologetic approach generally takes the form of identifying a common human observation or experience, and then showing how it fits, naturally and plausibly, within a Christian way of looking at things. For Dawkins, there is no room for faith in science, precisely because the evidence compels us to draw certain valid conclusions. He proposes an absolute dichotomy between ‘blind faith’ and the ‘overwhelming scientific evidence. Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. An inevitable conclusion is that both Dawkins and Lewis are men of faith, in that both hold committed positions that cannot be proved right, but which they clearly regard as justified and reasonable. We must learn to live with a degree of rational uncertainty about our deepest beliefs and values.

Pastoral Supervision for Safe Churches

AbstractThis essay will examine the contribution of pastoral (professional) supervision in enabling and ensuring a safe church. Pastoral supervision is the brave, safe space where clergy (and ministry workers) reflect on their ministry practice in a regular, planned supervision session. The present article emerges from a decade of training pastoral supervisors and consultation across the national Anglican Church during 2019 based on recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It concludes that the properly Christian way for pastoral supervision to change the culture of the Church is christological: a rigorous grounding of its theory and practice in the story of Jesus Christ.

Un precursore della spiritualità ecologica in Romania: Il servo di Dio Mihai Neamțu OSBM

"The encyclical letter Laudato Sì approaches the topic of the integral ecology in order to inspire a unitary strategy to deal with the challenges of the social – environmental crisis. In this context, it emerges the necessity for the human person to live in a certain way of being in the nature and in the society, that would lead to specific actions meant to care for the common home. For the Christians and not only, the way of being is linked to spirituality. This paper aims to interpret some of the essential elements of the ecological spirituality from the theological perspective and place them in the context of the life of Mihai Neamtu (1924-2000), a Romanian Greek-Catholic monk of the Order of St. Basil the Great. Posterity remembers God’s Servant Mihai Neamtu as an example of responsible living in the common home. His humble, sober and generous way of life was the expression of a profoundly Christian and prophetic way of being, anchored in the Catholic faith and the Eastern spirituality. His relation with the Creator modelled his interaction with the nature and his fellows. He used his charismas heroically for the spiritual and fleshly good of all, proving that there is a natural link between the care for the nature and the care for the persons affected by spiritual or physical pathologies or by poverty."

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.

THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN LAW AND GRACE IN THE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE OF PIERRE BEZUKHOV IN WAR AND PEACE BY L. N. TOLSTOY

The problem of understanding Russian literature implies a grasp of the author’s concept of a human being, rooted in the spiritual tradition of Russian culture. Scientific analysis of the artistic refraction of the religious and philosophical opposition between Law and Grace, the divine power that saves from sin, in the formation of the character expands the idea of the semantic depths of the work, which open up new meanings in the “big time”. The idea of War and Peace was conditioned by the challenges of the cultural and historical turning point in the spiritual experience of the Russian people. In assessing events and people, Tolstoy is guided by the Christian tradition of the Russian culture. The previously undisputed assessment of the blessed results of Pierre Bezukhov’s spiritual biography needs to be clarified based on the conclusions and provisions of the Christian basis of Russian literature. Prince Andrey and Bezukhov were not accepted by the high society, but managed to find common ground. However, Bolkonsky’s interest in lawmaking faded after meeting Natasha, and when the war began, he refused Kutuzov’s proposal, felt responsibility for the doomed soldiers, forgave Kuragin in a Christian way and asked for the Gospel before dying, while Bezukhov never became Peter Kirillovich and was focused on self-determination in the subordinate spheres of earthly life, actualizing the importance of human efforts for the transformation of society. Bezukhov had never made a moral choice between Law and Grace, unlike Bolkonsky, who blessed his son. Thus, the title of the book appeals to the eternal Christian opposition of Law, or war, and Grace that is peace.

A Church of Islam: The Syrian Calling of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio by Shaun O'Neill

Reviewed by: A Church of Islam: The Syrian Calling of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio by Shaun O'Neill Christian Krokus Shaun O'Neill, A Church of Islam: The Syrian Calling of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019. Pp. 137. $21.00, paper. When, in 1982, the Italian Jesuit Paolo Dall'Oglio made a retreat outside Damascus among the ruins of an ancient monastery, Deir Mar Musa, one of the most daring, innovative, and hope-filled projects in the history of Christian-Muslim relations was born. Overseeing the reconstruction of the monastery and the restoration of its eleventh-to-twelfth-century church frescoes from 1984 through 1991, and having transferred to the Syriac Catholic rite, Dall'Oglio along with Jacques Mourad founded the al-Khalil monastic community (Friend of God, the title of Abraham in Islam). The community stands upon three pillars: contemplative prayer, manual labor, and Abrahamic hospitality, especially toward its surrounding Muslim neighbors. When unrest came to Syria in 2011, Dall'Oglio was outspoken in his criticism of the regime. He became a symbol of the burgeoning revolution and a "vociferous advocate for the opposition" (101). Having put his own life and those of his fellow monks and nuns in danger, he was exiled from the country. Over the following year he attempted to organize an international intervention, and in 2013, he surreptitiously returned to Syria but not to the monastery. In July of that year he entered Raqqa to negotiate for the release of hostages with leaders of what would later be known as ISIS. He has not been seen since. That the larger-than-life Dall'Oglio and DMM remain obscure in the Anglophone world is "lamentable," so O'Neill begins to redress the "paucity of writing … in English" about them (xxiv). His scope is broad, briefly covering the history of DMM's founding and examining the community's efforts at Christian-Muslim dialogue with an emphasis on the dialogue of life among monastery guests. O'Neill touches on the often-difficult relationships between Dall'Oglio and the local Christian hierarchy, the Vatican, the Jesuits, and the [End Page 319] Syrian state, describing him as sometimes "blunt" and "caustic" (62), "inflexible" (82), vain and "grandiose" (111). Dall'Oglio, who so longed to be an insider among Muslims, ironically, remained an outsider to a number of Syrian Christians. Critics accuse him of being too Asaad-friendly before the uprising and too Asaad-critical after. The book is based partly on texts and interviews by Dall'Oglio but mainly upon O'Neill's interviews with a few people close to Fr. Paolo, some anonymous. O'Neill's book opens several lines of inquiry that demand further study. First, although the book's titular phrase "Church of Islam" does not appear until page 72, O'Neill offers several understandings of Dall'Oglio's enigmatic formulation, ranging from inculturation and Incarnation, to exchange, synthesis, or even the unfortunate "non-denominational spiritualism" (84). Key for understanding Dall'Oglio's ecclesiology, O'Neill observes, is the Gospel image of the yeast in the dough. Future efforts, however, must further mine Dall'Oglio's conviction that Christianity is principally an animating spirit rather than an institution. In his provocatively titled article "In Praise of Syncretism," Dall'Oglio insists, for example, that there is no specifically Christian way of fasting. Such particularities are appropriated from whatever religio-cultural-symbolic space the Church inhabits. One implication for Christian-Muslim relations is to build a Church not only of Islam but for Islam, promoting Islamic values and aiding the development of the Ummah. Second, O'Neill refers to Dall'Oglio's being a "firm believer in the power of nonviolent resistance and dialogue" (101). Dall'Oglio once insisted that, in the event of conflict, he and DMM would remain in neighborly solidarity with all Syrian parties no matter their political affiliations. When the moment arrived, although he personally may never have carried a weapon, he lent vocal support to those who did on one side of a civil war. Such a position may be explainable, even justifiable, but the tension between his decision to accompany the opposition and Dall'Oglio's commitment to nonviolence...

Leadership challenges in Christian non-governmental organisations

This article refers to selected issues elaborated from my interdisciplinary doctoral thesis accomplished at the University of South Africa in 2019. I investigated the ethical-theoretical frameworks as well as practices of Christian humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Germany by combining a theoretical part (including philosophy, theology, business studies and development studies) and an empirical part. The empirical part was accomplished by interviewing 11 NGOs from the humanitarian field (development and/or relief agencies in an international context). The findings of theory and practice showed that many Christian NGOs typically conform to the secular mindset and regulations in order to be able to function as organisations. The results also revealed that Christian NGOs have difficulties in defining their identity in order to be attractive and convincing to their current and prospective employees and donors. In addition, organisational and hierarchical structures are mostly taken from business companies but do not necessarily always fit to the individual organisations. The research is significant because it shows to what extent these NGOs experience tensions and insecurities having to work in a secular environment, and it helps to identify some typical challenges that Christian organisations face in Western countries. The purpose of the thesis was to impact on the reflection and practice of leaders of NGOs in their quest to understand developments and paradigm shifts, and ensure that they will act in a recognisably Christian way. Contribution: This article has been held as a presentation at the Leadership Conference in Pretoria, South Africa, in 2019. It contributes to the research of specific Christian leadership, and particularly of leadership in Christian non-governmental organisations. This article aims to describe the challenges these organisations face, having to work in the midst of a secular environment.

Sexuality education as political theology: pathways to non-violence

ABSTRACT Thinking sexuality education and religion together often results in antagonisms that pit religious and secular values against each other. Political theology provides new insights into this tendency by showing how modern concepts of political legitimacy are based on secularised Christian theology. Neoliberal schooling, public sexual health and human rights provide legitimacy for sexuality education in post-Christian societies and all three are grounded in political theology. The political theology of sexuality education can be seen wherever ideal sexual subjectivities are presented which set up standards which one can succeed or fail to meet with clear consequences. These standards could be heterosexual, safe and marital, but equally agential, pleasurable, transgressive and self-aware. While there may be many ways of escaping the Christian political theological foundations of sexuality education altogether, a political theology of non-violence opens up a way for Christian and secular conceptions of sexuality education to move forward amidst significant cultural and moral difference.

Soteriology of Suffering: Evangelical Christians in Russia and the Trauma of Political Repression

This article, based on 60 in-depth interviews with the descendants of survivors of political repression, aims at finding out how making sense of a collective traumatogenic experience differs in the case of Evangelical (Baptist and Pentecostal) communities compared with the rest of the cohort. The authors conclude that, in the case of people without religious affiliation, an intergenerational memory transmission mechanism is absent; descendants up to the fifth generation envision the suffering of their ancestors as accidental and meaningless for the present and future. As a result, most descendants refuse to participate in the process of trauma creation. Alternatively, in the final master narrative of the Pentecostals and Baptists, the persecution was an inevitable result of faith. Evangelical descendants construct cultural trauma around a providential event needed to ensure individual salvation and to prevent secularization of the church; for them suffering remains meaningful for the present and future. This allows for the transformation of the stigma that was spoiling their collective identity into a badge of honor, into stigmata, revealing that these believers follow the way of Christ.

Perspectivas ecumênicas numa releitura do Magnificat de Lutero

O presente texto aborda uma interpretação do Magnificat de Lutero, num movimento de argumentação baseado na experiência de leitura de duas tradições, a católica e a protestante, no entendimento que elas podem juntas, levar a uma dialógica do modo de viver cristãmente segundo o modelo de Maria. O objetivo é apresentar uma interpretação e tentamos fazer do Magnificat de Lutero em relação à Maria, num diálogo ecumênico entre as duas tradições acima referendadas. Para isso utiliza-se de revisão bibliográfica, tendo como foco central o livro O Louvor de Maria: o Magnificat, de Martinho Lutero e os possíveis diálogos desde essas duas tradições nesse início de século XXI.

The Writings of Luke and the Jewish Roots of the Christian Way: An Examination of the Aims of the First Christian Historian in the Light of Ancient Politics, Ethnography, and Historiography. By J. Andrew Cowan

<i>The Writings of Luke and the Jewish Roots of the Christian Way: An Examination of the Aims of the First Christian Historian in the Light of Ancient Politics, Ethnography, and Historiography</i>. By J. <scp>Andrew Cowan</scp>

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.

Bóg, Kościół i świat wobec Covid-19

Czas pandemii jest wyzwaniem dla całej ludzkości. Kościół, który żyje w świecie, jest wezwany do tego, aby wraz z całą ludzkością przeżywać te same doświadczenia, odczytując je jednak w świetle wiary. Jedną z form wyrazu takiej lektury wydarzeń jest liturgia, w której Kościół, zwracając się do Boga, opowiada Mu to, czego doświadcza, i prosi o pomoc właściwą dla danej sytuacji. W takim kontekście powstał formularz mszalny na czas pandemii. Treść modlitw w nim zawartych odsłania jasne linie teologiczne, które mogą pomóc przeżywać w chrześcijański sposób ten czas próby. Niniejszy artykuł jest próbą hermeneutycznej lektury kolekty wyżej wspomnianego formularza. Analizy, które zostały zaprezentowane w tekście, prowadzą do konkluzji teologicznych, w których zostały ujęte podstawowe zagadnienia takie jak obraz Boga, tożsamość wierzących, treść chrześcijańskiej modlitwy oraz styl życia, który taka modlitwa inspiruje.

PUBERTY RITES FOR GIRLS AND BOYS IN SELECTED AFRICAN NOVELS

Puberty rites are indispensable in African social and organizational life. They serve as channels through which African children are exposed and taught how to cope/behave to be considered as dignified sons and daughters of their parents and societies. But the influences of Western education, modernization, and Christian missionary counter-teachings in Africa have put an obstacle to such traditional practices which serve as suckle of good mores among African children. Today, the African children are left without benchmarks and this has led them to social vices observed in African societies. Since writers, among others, serve as custodians of events in societies according to time and space, girls’ and boys’ puberty rites have been reproduced in the fictional writings of African writers like Ngugi’s The River Between (1965), Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Nyantakyi’s Ancestral Sacrifice (1998). This article has examined how the above African writers have reproduced the puberty rites for girls and boys in their novels through the concept of rites of passage. As findings, the African writers have proved via their major characters that puberty rites for boys and girls are more or less one of the strong African traditions where the young adults are taught socio-cultural expectations of their society and how to meet up with future challenges ahead. Indeed, the girls’ and boys’ puberty rites are built on formal teaching in initiation ceremonies and on informal teaching through watching and imitating. So, the puberty rites for boys and girls start from informal teachings at home and before being societal formal teaching. On the one hand, right from home, parents associate the boys and girls who have reached the puberty stage around them to teach them things that are socially accepted in their community. Parents spend and make their boys and girls their friends. In this period, boys are encouraged to sit with their fathers and girls with their mothers to learn from them. On the other hand, it is societal when the boys and girls take part in the puberty ceremonies established for boys and girls in their community. But the conflicts of religious ideology between the whites and Africans have served as a bottleneck to the order of things in the novels. In short, the African writers have painted a vivid picture of these rites in their works so that it could not easily disappear because of globalization which is seducing most Africans to copy and paste the foreign ways of doing things. Remarkably, it seems the writers attempt to say to contemporary Africans to examine all things but retain what is good by allowing some of their radical main characters to die and by permitting the temperate ones to live to juxtapose good things in the Christian ways and both in African traditional ways.

Ephesian Women in Greco-Roman and Early Christian Perspective

Elif Hilal Karaman is Research Associate in the Department of History of Religions at Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Turkey. She is part of a growing community of scholars who are seeking to bring female voices and perspectives to the study of the ancient world, NT, and archeology. In this regard, Karaman seeks to examine the different roles of women in Greco-Roman and Christian worlds and to discuss the presentations and changing perceptions of these women. The research contained herein is based on Karaman’s doctoral dissertation, “A Change in Perspective: A Comparison between Early Christian Literature and Greco-Roman Evidence on the Lives of Ephesian Women,” completed at the University of Manchester.The volume begins with an important chapter on research samples. This chapter clarifies the scope of the project and focuses the reader on the locale of Ephesus. Karaman helpfully shows the importance of Ephesus for both the Greco-Roman and NT worlds. The chapter also clarifies the stratification of women in terms of socioeconomic categories. Chapter 2 gives an overview of the history of scholarship concerning both Ephesus and the history of women in the Roman and Christian worlds. Chapter 3 gives a social history of Ephesus, focusing on the domestic, public, ancient, and imperial. Chapters 4–7 begin to explore the social relationships of women in the ancient world. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the topic. This introduction is followed by an analysis of the topic from the perspective of the Greco-Roman evidence and then a similar treatment within the Christian writings. Chapter 4 addresses marriage. Karaman argues that the Greco-Roman and Christian evidence show more agreement of thought than previously acknowledged. In both cases, the submissive-wife motif is pervasive, but with one caveat. Whereas submission in Greco-Roman culture was for the purpose of societal praise, Christian submission was exclusively for the approval of God. Chapter 5 examines the role of widows and single women in ancient culture. Here, Karaman points out that the Christian way of living was driven by faith. Widows and single women operated within social boundaries similar to those of their Greco-Roman counterparts but with different motivations. Unlike chs. 4 and 5, which examined women in the domestic sphere, chs. 6 and 7 explore the role of women in the social sphere. Particularly interesting is the discussion of apparel with the accompanying pictures (pp. 130–31). Karaman concludes that Christian views towards head coverings and marriage were an attempt to, once again, Christianize Greco-Roman norms. Women’s attire were important markers of identity and reputation, and therefore, Christians were to be mindful of an appearance that honored God. Chapter 7 examines the role of women as teachers. The main takeaway from this chapter is the role of women to remain visual but not verbal. Karaman argues that Paul’s admonitions of women’s teaching were purposed to protect their husband’s reputations and not to condemn female public speaking in general.The monograph bears marks of both the academy and personal notes. Growing up near Ephesus, Karaman is able to provide a vibrancy to her research that speaks to her interests in the subject. Karaman is also conversant with a variety of sources. Her use of inscriptions is admirable given the difficulty of drawing conclusions from such a wide sample set. One overall benefit of this study is in showing the continuity between Greco-Roman norms and early Christian witness. Karaman is able to show that both worlds were conversant with one another and that Paul’s concern was that Christians have the proper posture in their Greco-Roman world.