Denominational Boundaries Research Articles

“In All Ages and All Churches”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Antebellum Evangelicalism

“In All Ages and All Churches”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Antebellum Evangelicalism

Destruction of Cult Buildings in Kharkiv during the Russian Military Aggression: Public Perception and Rethinking of Cultural Heritage

The article considers the ways in which public reaction to the destruction of cult buildings in Kharkiv during the full-scale Russian invasion is reflected in Ukrainian-language online media. The author examines how the religious nature of a cultural heritage object affects the perception of its destruction, how the significance of cult objects is reinterpreted in this situation, and to what extent the destruction of cult objects combines religious, ethnonational, and other connotations. Drawing on the theoretical studies of cultural memory by Aleida Assmann, the author establishes which factors influence the actualization of particular aspects of the history of damaged cult objects in the mass media. It is noted that, despite the fairly high level of secularization in Ukrainian society, the collective imagination continues to perceive churches and other religious buildings as sacred objects, the destruction of which is seen as a blasphemous act. The artistic and historical significance of damaged cult objects is actualized much less often in the texts the author analyzes. This is in line with the tendencies described by José Casanova as part of the theory of postsecularism. The specific denominational affiliation of damaged religious buildings remains of secondary importance to the mass media, which may be interpreted as a manifestation of “spontaneous religiosity,” in which the sacral nature of cult objects is recognized, but without serious reflection, awareness of denominational boundaries, or regular immersion in spiritual practices. Furthermore, in this way, respect for believers of different confessions is demonstrated: the special significance of cult objects is recognized first and foremost because of their significance for others. The article also considers the impact of the religious affiliation of cult objects on the ways in which damage done to them is reported in some Ukrainian media.

A Canadian story of Jewish divorce: listening to rabbis across denominations wrestle with egalitarianism and K'lal Yisrael.

This ethnographic interview-based research (2016–2021) analyzes the narratives of a cohort of rabbis in Ottawa who share their experiences of Jewish divorce. Jewish religious divorce is gendered and asymmetrical where the husband gives the divorce to the passively receiving wife who may not herself initiate divorce. This project interrupts the ways in which Jewish divorce is primarily identified in terms of get abuse in the Orthodox world. The asymmetrical divorce process contributes to get abuse, which includes delaying, refusing, or extorting favourable terms in exchange for the husband providing the wife with her get (religious divorce). Women who cannot secure divorces are known as agunot (singular agunah, chained women), who cannot remarry and who commit adultery if they have sexual relations with another man. Women face the additional burden that if they bear children to anyone other than their husband, such children would have the status of mamzerim (singular mamzer, legally illegitimate, product of an illicit union) who may not marry other Jews except other mamzerim, who may not hold certain positions of communal leadership, and whose status is inherited from generation to generation. This gendered injustice becomes the focus of scholarship even as it arouses both communal activism and internal debates. While get abuse is most common in the Orthodox Jewish community, our interviews with Canadian rabbis reveals that Jewish divorce is a transdenominational phenomenon that plays out within and across denominational boundaries. Against a backdrop of increasing stringency in the Orthodox world transnationally, and intensifying concern for the consequences of inegalitarian Jewish divorce, rabbinic stories point to shifting denominational practice. This transdenominational context is key to understanding Jewish divorce in North America. Attending to Jewish divorce in Canada through a denominational lens does important work in disentangling systemic and local factors. We argue that rabbinic stories about how rabbis engage with divorce reveals how the twin challenges of egalitarianism and rabbinic concerns for the unity and continuity of the Jewish people (K’lal Yisrael) shape the experience of Jewish divorce and divorce practice itself. Jewish divorce impacts women in particularly gendered ways but is largely interpreted and practiced by male rabbis. Through our original theoretical framework of “troubling orthopraxy”, we analyse how orthopraxy (correct divorce practice) is conflated with stringency, and how that dynamic pushes and pulls at divorce practice.

Ambiguities in the Search for Christian Unity: The General Council of Protestant Evangelical Missions in Korea, 1905–1912

The formation of the General Council of Protestant Evangelical Missions in Korea in 1905 with the ultimate objective of achieving church union beyond denominational boundaries is a significant but neglected episode in the twentieth-century ecumenical movement. The council was reorganised in 1912 as the Federal Council of Protestant Evangelical Missions in Korea, which marked a significant shift of ecumenical objectives from institutional union to missionary cooperation. This article examines why and how this change happened and its implications for interpretations of the wider ecumenical movement in the twentieth century.

APOCALYPTIC HOMOPHOBIA: FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION, HATE SPEECH, AND THE PENTECOSTAL DISCOURSE ON SAME-SEX RELATIONS IN AFRICA

AbstractIn many African societies, gender roles and sexuality are intensely scrutinized, policed, and often enforced. Frequently, this situation results in perceived deviations being characterized in very strong terms. Many Africans across religious and denominational boundaries seem united in their opposition and criticism of same-sex relationships. In the twenty-first century, criminalization of same-sex relationships has witnessed an uptick across the continent. In Nigeria, same-sex union was criminalized in 2014, an act that witnessed massive support from Protestant, especially Pentecostal, Christian communities. Prominent Pentecostal leaders spearheaded the campaign in support and defense of the anti-gay laws in the country. Reasoned opposition to a practice based on religious faith, doctrine, and scriptural prescriptions is an integral aspect of the protection for the practice of religion. However, there is a palpable tension in the debates around rights to free sexual expression as a fundamental element of legally protected human rights and the equally constitutionally embedded right to religious practice, expression, and exercise. At what point, therefore, does the respect for the free exercise of religion and religious expression come into conflict with the respect for, and protection of, minority rights such as claimed rights to sexual expression such as many LGBTQI persons are increasingly contesting? Framed differently, is the verbal and non-verbal promotion of hatred, violence, indignity, and insult or giving offence to a segment of the population based on sexual orientation a part of free religious expression? How do the Pentecostal arguments against same-sex relations in Nigeria approximate to hate speech, defined as a verbal attack on a person or group of persons based on their attributes such as gender and sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity? To analyze these and related issues, this essay examines the arguments used by the leader of the largest Pentecostal organization in Nigeria—and by far, the most important Pentecostal voice in the country—in the wake of the legal prohibition of homosexuality in Nigeria in 2014.

Art, Faith, and Culture in Mission: The Legacy of Pulidindi Solomon Raj

Pulidindi Solomon Raj (1921–2019), born in a tiny village in India, went through a “journey of ascents,” crossing national and denominational boundaries, scaling ministerial pinnacles, and attaining many laurels, all with the help of two little tools—his pen and his paintbrush. He achieved a global reputation for his artwork in diverse media, such as woodcuts, batiks, etchings, and icons; for his many essays presented in academic settings around the world; and for his seminal work on the “small” church movement in Andhra Pradesh and its sequel on indigenous mission.

What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans) and Women’s Hebrew Poetry on American Shores: Poems by Anne Kleiman and Annabelle Farmelant

What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans) and Women’s Hebrew Poetry on American Shores: Poems by Anne Kleiman and Annabelle Farmelant

Keeping Boundaries in Motion: Christian Denominationalism and Sociality in Amazonia

For the Amazonian Yine people, Christian denominationalism provides an important means for organizing social life. Denominations in this context are not, however, to be understood as clearly bounded entities. Simultaneously with forming and renewing denominational boundaries, the Yine continuously cross, dissolve, and redefine them. This article attempts to understand the denominational dynamics among the Yine people, and in particular their back and forth movement between Evangelicalism, Catholicism, and Pentecostalism, without viewing their denominational allegiances as subordinate to other forms of social organization or as something religiously insincere. Seeking inspiration from the ethnography of personhood and humanity in Amazonia, it suggests that denominations among the Yine can be understood to exist as unstable forms of belonging, as “thickenings” of different kinds of Christian moral relations to sociality, that take place on a continuum pictured not as a line but rather as a space. At the more general level the article shows how Christian vernacular denominationalism is likely to not be based on dogmatic differences but to be rather something that comes to be in practice. Furthermore, the article makes explicit how denominational boundaries are not always of the one and the same kind everywhere but vary between denominations.

Küldetés és cselekvési környezet. A romániai jezsuiták a 20. században

Following World War I Romania became a country having the widest and most diverse ethnic, cultural and denominational features in the region. Th e denominational distribution of the peoples living here mostly covered the various ethnic groups, the communities defi ned by their language and religion belonged to diff erent patterns of economic, social and cultural structures. It was in this context where the community of the Jesuits, crossing ethnic and denominational boundaries, was organised. Th eir coming into existence was promoted by geopolitical and missionary considerations of the Holy See and its expectations that the Greek Orthodox Romanians might convert in the long run. Introducing the activities of the (Greek Catholic) Romanian and the (Roman Catholic) Hungarian and Polish members of the order off ers a picture that refl ects almost every problematic aspect of 20th-century Romania and within it, that of the situation of Transylvania. While presenting this story the study highlights the features characterizing the persecution of the Church by the communists in Romania, and related to this, the main features of the strategies, persecution and underground (catacomb) operation of the Jesuits.

Remapping the History of Catholicism in the United States: Essays from the US Catholic Historian ed. by David J. Endres

Reviewed by: Remapping the History of Catholicism in the United States: Essays from the US Catholic Historian ed. by David J. Endres Michael Skaggs Remapping the History of Catholicism in the United States: Essays from the US Catholic Historian. Edited by David J. Endres. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017. 202 pp. $34.95. Editor David Endres observes that this special collection of U.S. Catholic Historian essays can "serve as a model for the historians engaged in the effort of charting the complexity and diversity of American Catholicism" (vii). The essays, which were originally published between 2008 and 2014, do so admirably in their attention to Latino/a Catholicism in the United States, Catholic women, black Catholics, and the ecclesial activism of the American hierarchy in the Cold War. Because Remapping the History of Catholicism in the United States consists solely of articles published in the journal, a brief synopsis of each article and an evaluation of the collection's impact will have to suffice. Timothy Matovina draws attention to one of the field's longest-standing problems, namely a heavy geographic focus on the eastern portion of the United States. While conceding that this has historically been a weakness of all of American religious historiography, he nonetheless notes that not taking a wider view—in this case, even a hemispheric view—entails overlooking the massive contributions to American Catholicism by Latino/a immigrants. Jeanne Petit narrates the civic activism of Catholic women, who formed a powerful voice for women and children in the early twentieth century but nonetheless represented a mixed blessing "to a hierarchy who were, at best, skeptical of the ability of Catholic women to be political actors and, at worst, saw organized women as a dangerous force" (63). The political and cultural climate of the late 1920s, however, [End Page 75] quashed most hopes for Catholic women to function as a cohesive power in either Catholic or civic life. Amanda Bresie's colorful account of Katharine Drexel's benefactions to Native American missions suggests that class modifies Petit's argument for the role of Catholic women: as Drexel had enormous financial resources at her disposal, her ability to shape mission work was almost unrivaled in the American church. Drexel's example furthermore contests the notion of Christian missionaries acting solely as colonizing agents of Euro-American nationalism-imperialism, with the Blessed Sacrament mother superior bankrolling native suits against the federal government on land reclamation. Kristine Ashton Gunnell's essay on the Daughters of Charity in Los Angeles stands on its own merit but works especially well when read alongside the essay by Bresie and Matovina. The Daughters' focus on "respect for the individual and human dignity … counteracted some of the most pernicious aspects of Americanization," seeking not to melt immigrant culture in the American Catholic pot. Anne Klejment's essay pairs Dorothy Day and César Chávez as catalysts to lay activism, radically embracing poverty and nonviolence in advance of similar movements that would not flourish until well after the Second Vatican Council. Furthermore, their drive against injustice held little regard for denominational boundaries, placing them once again in the vanguard of American Catholicism by "partner[ing] with non-Catholics who shared their values and occasionally borrowed their ideas" (142). Matthew Cressler's article on the emergence of Black Catholic liturgies in the explosive atmosphere generated by the combination of Black Power and Vatican II calls attention to internal debates over "authentic black" Catholicism. Cressler notes that "for black Catholics, the experience of Vatican II was inseparable from Black Power"—whether those same black Catholics favored the Black Power movement or not (146). Some felt that liturgical worship offered black Catholics a unique opportunity to express their cultural patrimony, while others "strongly objected to the idea that the Mass could (or should) include distinctively black practices or address political concerns" (156). Finally, Joseph Chinnici pans out from the national and identity-based focus within the previous articles, instead arguing that American Catholicism in the postconciliar era cannot be understood apart from its intrinsic connection to a—and, eventually, the—global superpower. Not least from this framework emerges the particular relationship between...

Bosnian Identity – Myth And/Or Reality

The rich socio-cultural history of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single territorial, political, state and legal and administrative rounded whole, can be seen in several separated simultaneous fl ows arising as a result of the deep-rooted ethno-confessional division of this area, where religion, as the dominant integrating cultural factor, also represented the main distinctive element of the national identity of the three Bosnian constituent peoples, which the unaltered state agrees with to this day. As a unique area with religions at the border, and denominational boundaries at the edges of Catholicism and Orthodoxy among which Islam is wedged between, Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a unique civilizational bridge between East and West, where the followers of these religions see as their guardians, highlighting specifi c religious, cultural and national characteristics which establishes the opposition to the “other” and “diff erent” with which for centuries has coexisted. The most prominent features of identity and otherness which exist in symbiosis are articulated precisely on the borders as places of their meetings, which in turn have never been so impervious to keep the integration of diff erent ethnic and religious traditions followers, leading to ghettoisation and creating worlds closed for themselves, and long-term coexistence of diff erent and often confl icting civilizational-religious system characterized by a certain closeness of high culture of individual entities and openness, and mutual intertwining of which was out of the realm of popular culture.

‘Anthropological Investigation has Very Little Interest for Me’: Notes from Moravian Missionaries in Australia

ABSTRACTAs some of the first people to spend extended amounts of time with Indigenous peoples, missionaries were well placed to provide information to European and colonial audiences on non-European peoples. Moravian missionaries arrived in Australia in the mid-nineteenth century and over the next six decades worked amongst numerous Indigenous groups in the south-eastern part of Australia, in the interior, and in northern Queensland. This paper will trace the contributions made by German Moravian missionaries to anthropological and ethnographical knowledge both in the colonies as well as in Germany. It will particularly focus upon the connections forged in religious and scientific networks through anthropological work. The paper contends that a unified German identity was forged through scientific work that transcended denominational boundaries. Moreover, the ability to disseminate ethnographical knowledge within secular circles, both in the colonies and in Germany, provided legitimisation to missionary work and embedded missionaries within global knowledge networks. Through examining the work of one individual missionary, Friedrich Hagenauer, the fragility of these global knowledge networks is explored.

The unusual practices within some Neo-Pentecostal churches in South Africa: Reflections and recommendations

This article reflects and makes recommendations on the recent unusual practices within some Neo-Pentecostal churches in South Africa. Neo-Pentecostal churches in South Africa refer to churches that have crossed denominational boundaries. These churches idolise the miraculous, healing, deliverance and enactment of bizarre church performances often performed by charismatic and highly influential spiritual leaders. There have been unusual practices within some Neo-Pentecostal churches that include, among others, the eating of grass, eating of snakes, drinking of petrol, spraying of Doom on the congregants and other experiences. There are many possible theological, psychological and socio-economic explanations for these unusual practices. Given the facts that many South Africans experience various socio-economic challenges, it is argued here that the socio-economic factor is the main explanation for the support of these unusual practices. The unusual practices within some Neo-Pentecostal churches in South Africa are critically unpacked by looking at various churches where the incidents happened. The possible theological, psychological and socio-economic explanations for such practices are outlined in detail. Recommendations are made based on the scientific findings on the unusual practices.

What does a healthy church look like?

Something significant is changing in local church life. We are entering a time of winnowing for congregations, in which a congregation’s core health will mean the difference between survival and death, and also whether it simply survives or thrives in the future. Definitions of “healthy churches” tend to be too general or too small and prescriptive, driving toward some particular theology, tradition, or structure. A more helpful working definition or description is required. This article identifies four general predictors of church health that cut across theological, societal, and denominational boundaries. These markers are simple and attainable for churches that desire to pursue a healthier congregational life. The four characteristics are: (i) clarity of mission and vision, (ii) transformational conflict, (iii) authentic community, and (iv) transparent communication. When a church agrees to make these their highest priorities, the resulting congregational culture begins to exhibit signs of stability, renewal, and hope. Upon the foundation of such practices, the possibilities of future innovation, creativity, life transformation, and community engagement begin to emerge.

“We are the Church”: The Cursillo Movement and the Reinvention of Catholic Identities in Postwar America and Beyond

The Cursillo movement, the three-day “short course” in Christianity that Mallorquín Catholic layman Eduardo Bonnín Aguiló founded in 1944, flourished in the postwar American religious landscape. That the weekend, which emphasizes Bonnín’s theological triptych of piety, study, and action, swept through U.S. Catholic dioceses, parishes, as well as Protestant churches, is a testament to the desire of lay men and women for a personal and communal experience of God. This study of the rapid rise of the Cursillo weekend movement, post-weekend phenomena, and Cursillo spinoffs in the postwar years serves as a case study that illuminates how the global, national, and local were able to work together in new ways in postwar America. A postwar cultural and religious climate of experimentation and global awareness encouraged communalism and working for a common cause. This ethos helped make possible a broad lay-centric spiritual movement that traversed geographic and denominational boundaries.

African therapy for a fractured world(view): The life of founder bishop Johannes Richmond and the invention of tradition and group cohesion in an African Initiated Church

In the book The invention of tradition historian Eric Hobsbawm claims that the process of the invention of tradition serves the formation of group cohesion. The different versions of the life story of the founder bishop of the Corinthian Church of South Africa (AIC), as documented during many years of conducting qualitative field work in this church, are used in this article as a case study in this regard. The article unpacks the way in which the invention of tradition as a process is in this particular AIC currently a work in progress contributing to the formation of a particular type of group cohesion that stretches over racial, religious and denominational boundaries especially by means of the unique liturgical rituals that were influenced by the life story of the founder. The group cohesion that this process fosters is in essence aimed at healing in all its multifaceted dimensions, which includes healing from physical ailments, ‘healing’ from barrenness, healing from spirit possession to healing as (re-)incorporation of an individual into the larger group, the healing of a nation as well as healing from a dualistic spirit-matter worldview.

Bringing the Congregations Back in: Religious Markets, Congregational Density, and American Religious Participation

We draw on the organizational ecology tradition to frame the relationship between the religious environment of a community and local religious participation. Prior research linking religious environments to religious participation downplays a key organizational aspect of religion: the congregation. Following the organizational ecology usage of density, we argue that congregational density—the number of congregations per person within a community—impacts religious involvement by providing opportunities for participation and by fostering social accountability networks within congregations. Drawing on data from the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, we test the hypothesis that congregational density in a locality is associated with greater religious participation by residents. Our findings indicate that persons residing in congregationally dense communities are more likely to be members of churches, to attend church regularly, to participate in church-based activities, to participate in non-church religious organizations, to volunteer for religious work, and to give to religious causes. These findings hold while controlling for an array of individual and contextual-level variables. This notion of congregational density suggests that local factors transcend broader theological and/or denominational boundaries, resulting in variations in religious participation and commitment.

“A Wall Of Separation“. Die Vernichtung religiöser Ambiguität in Irland (ca. 1600 – 1640)

<bold>“A Wall of Separation”. The Destruction of Religious Ambiguity in Ireland (ca. 1600–1640)</bold> Ambiguity is a fundamental human experience. But in recent years, research in the humanities and social sciences has shown that societies have very different ways of dealing with ambiguity, and with religious ambiguity in particular: they either tolerate, moderate or seek to destroy it. In this context, Ireland is an especially telling case, as the denominational boundaries that were drawn in Early Modern Irish society seem remarkably impervious, long-lasting and hostile to any form of religious ambiguity. In this article, I argue that one of the most drastic and most enduring attempts to eradicate ambiguity in Irish society took place in the 1630 s. Clear-cut identities emerged along the confessional divide which heavily impacted everyday life. Four developments facilitated this process: 1) Educational migration to the continent led to a reshuffling of religious elites and, in turn, to a heightened sense of denominational orthodoxy. 2) A new way of writing history came to prominence which attempted to replace established group identities (Gaelic-Irish, Old English, etc.) with an all-embracing, religiously infused notion of “Irishness”. 3) The book market gradually expanded, significantly increasing its scope from a generation earlier, with new literature coming in and with new libraries being established across the country. As a consequence, readers became more keenly aware of the theological debates in England and on the European continent. 4) Long established funeral practices such us the trans-confessional use of burial plots in churches and former monasteries were disrupted, leading to new boundaries, symbolically as well as physically.

Telling the Story. But How?

AbstractJames C. Livingston (1930–2011) was a longtime participant in the Nineteenth Century Theology Group of the American Academy of Religion and author and editor of numerous books includingDividing history into centuries remains arbitrary. Therefore the boundaries must remain fluid. Both to names and movements to be included in the narrative, they must have made some impact beyond their own denominational and/or geographical boundaries. While the marginalized should not be forgotten, intellectual honesty requires to note that the nineteenth century allowed little or no space for them. The same is true with the global scene. The purpose of writing history of the nineteenth century should be to remind us that without being rooted in the past, we have little grounding in the present. We are simply adrift on the waves of the present. Moreover, our own theology would hang suspended in midair without regard to its inception and development.

The Circulation of Medical Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Hungary

This paper reconstructs the circulation patterns of medical knowledge within the geographic space of the eighteenth-century Kingdom of Hungary. The social fabric of the kingdom was thoroughly intertwined with the religious, ethnic, linguistic, estate constitutional, and professional cultures of knowledge which, accordingly, showed a great abundance of diversity. These multi-level regional differences are disclosed while exploring the extent, rapidity, and quality of contemporary medical knowledge circulation, which were primarily influenced by the operation of Hungary’s educational centers under the auspices of the different churches. Undoubtedly, physicians tended to follow the Habsburg Monarchy’s and Europe’s circulation of theoretical, practical, methodological concepts, which varied though according to the means and orientations of different educational centers aided by the “peregrinatio academica.” In the first half of the eighteenth century, Halle served as a primary source of knowledge elements, whereas the import of Dutch and Swiss university cultures of knowledge had been on the rise from the second half of the century onward. Moreover, Gerard van Swieten’s reforms overriding denominational boundaries, transformed the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna into an institute of prominence in the second half of the eighteenth century. The reforms had consequences upon the making and evolution of Hungary’s independent medical discourse, self-reflection, and methodology. The foundation of the Medical Faculty of the University of Trnava (Nagyszombat, Tyrnau) in 1770, and its subsequent resettlement in Buda and Pest, brought about a transformation in the long run.