Christian Groups Research Articles

The Power of Mimesis and the Mimesis of Power in the Production of Subjectivity

The article compares and analyses two approaches to the production of subjectivity — Foucauldian and Girardian — within the context of contemporary political philosophy and philosophical anthropology. These two theories—which are arguably dominant in their respective fields—are compared due to their shared focus on the role of power and violence in the formation of the subject. Both approaches acknowledge the importance of power in shaping the self, but they differ in their emphasis on specific aspects of this process. In the Foucauldian approach, power is seen as a pervasive and complex force that permeates all aspects of society, while in Girardian theory it is understood as a more localized and intentional form of domination. Despite these differences, both approaches share a common understanding that the subject is shaped through the application of power techniques, including the use of violence. However, each approach places a different emphasis on the role of these techniques in the formation of identity and agency. Thus, in Foucauldian thought, violence internalized and instrumentalized by power through its localization in institutions is external to the individual — who appears to be a passive recipient of subjectifying practices; this also reflects the “political capture of the body” by biopower as the infection of the individual by power and self-control, and, consequently, becoming a mediator of power oneself. In contrast, the Girardian perspective—in which mimesis is the primary condition for the formation and operation of society—asserts the supremacy of violence around which institutions form, due to which violence is only partially removed from the individual. Thus the role of being violence’s operator is imposed upon them — though in a depoliticized form not directly linked to power structures. Both theories of the reproduction of subjectivity, in one way or another, diagnose and describe the crisis of the individual. They therefore propose their own solutions for overcoming this crisis. However, they share the common understanding that subjectivity is rooted in the individual. As a result, the strategies proposed by Foucault and Girard, such as self-care practices and radical Christianity, which are not formed by external power, do not transcend power or mimesis.

Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity-Revised (PIOS-R) Across Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Groups

The revised Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS-R) is widely used. Support for its factor structure is mixed across either a two-factor or a bifactor model. Normed on a primarily Christian sample, researchers use the PIOS-R to examine scrupulosity across religious groups. This study’s primary aims were to clarify the PIOS-R’s factor structure in a religiously diverse sample and determine whether the PIOS-R shows measurement invariance across religious groups. A secondary aim was to evaluate psychometric properties. U.S. participants (N = 718) who self-reported as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim were recruited using MTurk. Multiple group CFA indicated that a two-factor solution comprised of Fear of God (FOG) and Fear of Sin (FOS) provided the best-fitting model. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance held across religious groups. Internal consistency was strong for the full scale (ωt = .96) and both FOS (ωt = .95) and FOG (ωt = .92) subscales. The PIOS-R was more strongly correlated with DOCS Scrupulosity (r = .71) than with DASS-21 Depression (r = .58), DASS-21 Anxiety (r = .66), or a measure of religiosity (SCSRFQ; r = .36), supporting relative discriminant validity. The PIOS-R appears appropriate for assessing scrupulosity within and among these religious groups.

Reflections of Culture Wars in Contemporary U.S. Cinema

This article focuses on the impact of cinema in the ongoing culture war between the "orthodox alliance" – conservative, right-wing, predominantly Christian groups – and progressivist, leftist liberal, mostly secular and atheist communities in the struggle for the right to shape the social agenda, dominate public discourse, and define American popular culture. The author examines the advance of the progressivist agenda in Hollywood films and the attempts of right-wing traditionalists to counter this perceived imposition of hostile values through boycotts and the creation of alternative content. The commercial failures of mainstream Hollywood productions that preach diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the sudden box office success of independent titles that appeal to ultraconservative audiences, demonstrate that the longstanding hegemony of liberal perspectives in public entertainment has begun to face considerable competition from orthodoxy. This could affect the outcome of the entire confrontation between two fundamentally different visions of America.

Order, Identity, and the “New Self”: Reading Ephesians Through Social Representations Theory

Social representations theory (SRT) refers to an approach within social psychology focusing on systems of beliefs, concepts, and values that establish social order and allow for individuals and groups to identify and understand themselves vis-à-vis others. It involves the ascription of meaning to phenomena so that the unfamiliar is made familiar, and new concepts are integrated into existing worldviews in an ongoing process of constructing and interpreting social realities. This approach has not yet been applied to any biblical texts, and this article will explore how such an application would prove fruitful for understanding the processes of identification and community formation in early Christian groups, with a specific focus on Ephesians. This study will focus on how the concepts of reconciled differences (Eph 2.11–22) and of the “new self” (Eph 4.17–32) are communicated to the readers. Analyzing these concepts through SRT will elucidate how the author advocates for certain beliefs, concepts, and values as part of the community members’ process of aligning themselves with their newly created self. Reading Ephesians through SRT can better elucidate how the text reflects its enigmatic community, which was being formed and reformed through identification, division, and re-identification in the tumultuous second half of the first century.

Caste, Christianity, and the Invented Moral Panic of ‘Love Jihads’

In this article, I explore how dominant caste Christians in the state of Kerala, India have perpetuated a false narrative of “love jihads” while at the same time have pushed campaigns for dominant caste Christian women to have more children. I focus on the Syro-Malabar Catholics; an Eastern Rite of Catholicism and part of a larger group of Christians called the “Syrian Christians.” The Syrian Christians are, and have historically been, dominant caste and are recognized by the Kerala state and other religious groups as such. Since the literal reproduction of religious and caste hierarchies is only possible through endogamous (arranged) marriages, controlling women’s bodily autonomy and their sexual agency are a function of brahmanical patriarchy, or the intersections of casteism and patriarchy. I thus trace over a decade of incidents where unsubstantiated claims of “love jihads” have been raised by the Syro-Malabar hierarchy, and how these claims are often accompanied by initiatives aimed at encouraging Syro-Malabar Catholic women to have more children. While South Asia studies and feminist studies have examined the invented moral panic of “love jihads” in a Hindu/Muslim frame, it is important to contextualize how and why dominant caste Syro-Malabar priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals have also used the charge of “love jihads” to whip up communal panics that are both casteist and Islamophobic at their base.

Lament: Measuring a Christian Meaning-Making Coping Practice

Research demonstrates that people draw on their religions in coping with difficult life circumstances, and that more religious people tend to cope better than less religious people. Lament is a religious prayer practice that constitutes a form of meaning-making coping. Here, we explicate this form of coping and, in a series of three studies with Christian participants, report on the development of a lament scale. In the first study, we develop items and test the items for clarity and for generalizability to diverse Christian groups using expert review and cognitive interviewing with participants representing five Christian groups. In the second study, we report results of exploratory factor analysis using data from primarily White and Protestant MTurk participants ( N = 303). In the third study, we report on factor stability and construct validity using data from largely White and African American Protestant and Catholic Prolific participants ( N = 346). The studies demonstrated generalizability to diverse Christian groups, a three-factor structure consistent with our theoretical formulation, good construct validity and relationships with well-being. Moderation analyses also indicated that when both Complaint and Praise are either high or low, the severity of the event is inversely related to flourishing. However, when either Complaint or Praise is high, the negative relationship between severity of the event and flourishing is ameliorated. The Lament Scale is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing lament in ways that are consistent with the conceptualization of lament as a meaning-making coping practice.

“Ex-gay” campaigns as a new form of conservative Christians’ queer hatred politics in South Korea

ABSTRACT Since the mid-2000s, conservative Christians in South Korea have focused heavily on anti-gay campaigns that demonize gay people and homosexuality itself, demonstrating a violent aversion to queer subjects. However, certain Christian groups started claiming to be more “tolerant” in the early 2010s in their advocacy for “curing” homosexuality through “ex-gay” campaigns. I argue that these supposedly more “tolerant” ex-gay campaigns cause harm to gay people and are fast becoming more prevalent as a covert form of hatred in South Korea. This study analyzes the strategies of ex-gay campaigns conducted by a subsection of conservative Christian groups and the discourse of ex-gay testimonies to capture the subtle changes in hatred politics and critically explore their ideological framework to debunk their homophobic arguments. The research findings reveal that (1) ex-gay campaigns try to undermine the credibility of queer movements by appropriating their content, form, and emotions, and (2) through the testimonies of ex-gay people, they contradictorily construct identities based on hetero-patriarchal norms. These findings illustrate how ex-gay campaigns have similar ideological underpinnings to anti-gay campaigns, but with differences in strategy and articulation. Through a close analytical reading of South Korean campaigns, this article contributes to the broader global efforts to construct a richer counter-discourse against queer hatred.

Making Memories: Countercultural Memory in Irenaeus, Martyrdom of Polycarp, and Apocryphon of James

Abstract Cultures define themselves largely by how they remember the past; the commemoration of history provides a link to bygone eras that helps determine social dynamics in the present. But not everyone remembers the past in the same manner. Not only do people champion competing historical narratives, but they also memorialize the past in different ways, such as erecting monuments, glorifying a specific person, constructing and honoring an archive, revering a symbol, holding an event that repeats periodically, maintaining an institution, and more. These various hubs of memory creation and preservation are often called “sites of memory.” This article explores how various Christian groups in the second century invested their social memory in divergent sites. These sites not only propagated differing forms of Christian expression, but also diverse notions of what it means to remember. While some championed preservation of the past, others believed that memory entailed radical innovation.

Sickle cell disease awareness and perception among Christian religious leaders in Accra Metropolis: a qualitative study.

Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a severe hemoglobin gene mutation disorder inherited from both parents. 2% of Ghanaian newborns are affected by SCD; one in three Ghanaians has the hemoglobin S gene. Christian religious leaders may play a role in the prevention of SCD through the promotion of genetic counseling, genotype screening for premarital couples, and offering counseling to couples on prenatal screening and diagnosis for SCD. However, little is known about the awareness and perception of SCD among Christian religious leaders in Ghana, and this study aims to explore these. This study adopted a qualitative descriptive design to explore the awareness and perception of SCD among Christian religious leaders in the capital city of Ghana. A purposive sampling technique selected 16 participants from churches under the main Christian groups. The participants were chosen based on their roles and responsibilities within their respective churches. Data was collected using a semi-structured interview guide, which included open-ended questions to encourage participants to share their thoughts and experiences. The interviews were conducted in a private setting to ensure confidentiality. The data was then analyzed using a thematic analysis approach, which involved identifying recurring themes and patterns in the participants' responses. The study's findings are crucial. They reveal a high awareness of SCD among Christian religious leaders, but also some misconceptions. Most of the religious leaders knew SCD was a genetic disease, although a few associated SCD with superstitious beliefs, poor dietary intake, and lifestyle. Some also stated that SCD was a disease of the blood group instead of the defective haemoglobin gene. They perceived SCD to be burdensome, disruptive, and draining, and they associated the disease with burnout in Persons Living with SCD (PLWSCD) and their families. The religious leaders had a good social network with PLWSCD, including family, friends, colleagues, and congregants. These findings underscore the need for intense education about SCD, especially among Christian religious leaders. It is crucial to engage all stakeholders to intensify public awareness and education about SCD while improving the management and social support systems available to PLWSCD and families. This includes the religious institution's leadership, PLWSCD and families, the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, and the Ghana Education Service. As active stakeholders, religious leaders can play a vital role in supporting PLWSCD if they are equipped with the necessary knowledge about the condition. .

Christian Zionism and Its Impact on USA Politics

As we will see in this study, “Christian Zionism,” which was historically introduced about half a century before Jewish Zionism and inspired it, is not merely a concept consisting of two words. While the Jewish ideology of returning to Palestine had a Messianic and religious jargon in ancient and mediaeval times, contemporary Jewish Zionism has additional secular, nationalist, and socialist components to it. It is not possible to evaluate Christian Zionism independently of specific prophecies and, of course, religion. When we look at the history of Christianity, although we see extreme anti-Semitism and, within the framework of this enmity, severe oppression> and persecution of Jews, in recent years, significant Christian groups, especially American Evangelicals, have not only renounced the oppression and genocide of Jews but have decided to support Jews under all circumstances and even seem to be filled with sympathy for Jews. Can it be the reason that Christians, through their reading of the Old Testament from a different perspective in the post-Reformation period, have truly regretted their mistreatment of the Jews up to this point and have come to appreciate the Jews? Or else do economic and political interests now require such a theopolitics? Or is it because the Christian prophecy that the second coming of Jesus Christ will only be possible when today's Al-Aqsa Mosque is demolished, and the Temple of Solomon is rebuilt in its place has been drowned out by the Zionist Jewish prophecy that is so passionate about rebuilding the Temple that evangelical Christians in particular, and their puppet US administrations in particular, support the state of Israel under all circumstances - given the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza today? By seeking answers to these and similar questions in the current study, it will be presented to the reader's attention why the Western states, especially the United States, support and participate in this crime against humanity by Israel, which massacres dozens of innocent people every day.

Paul Gerhardt in America 1743–2007

Abstract: German Hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676), often described as the most important Lutheran hymnwriter other than Martin Luther, has had an impact in America. His hymns helped shape the faith and ministry of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), often described as the “father” of the Lutheran church in America. His hymns helped Lutherans to face the crisis of World War I. Since the eighteenth century Gerhardt hymns have appeared in North American Lutheran hymnals. Even today they appear in both Lutheran hymnals and the hymnals of other Christian groups. Lutherans observed the 300th anniversary of his birth in 1907 with celebrations for laity and clergy featuring Gerhardt’s hymns. Many articles in church periodicals described Gerhardt and his hymns. The 400th anniversary of his birth in 2007 gained some attention, in church publications and academic conferences, but generally less attention than in 1907.

Do I Participate in the Discourse of Respectability? Reflecting upon Histories of Female Homoeroticism and Enslavement

My research challenges and participates in discourses of respectability, focusing on female homoerotic desires, the intertwining of religiously endorsed enslavement with sexual violence, and the intersection of race, ethnicity, and religion with sexual violence. I argue for the freedom of academic writing to present evidence-based conclusions and personal insights, drawing on contemporary figures like Sudanese anti-slavery activist Mende Nazer. Respecting biblical texts involves differentiating between plausible historical readings and personal ethical views. Misreadings of biblical passages are common, but interpretations such as that Rom 1:26–27 condemns same-gender relations or that Col 3:22 condones enslavement are not among them. The early Christian groups rejecting slavery were labeled heretics, prolonging slavery’s existence. A hard, critical examination of where things went wrong both within the Bible and beyond may help to prevent future Christians from supporting new forms of slavery. I hope that my feminist intersectional interpretations are compatible with the womanist biblical interpretation and ethics that are central to all future research on these topics.

Nationalism and Economic Development in Lebanon: Challenges and Opportunities for Unity and Integration

Lebanon is a small country on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, known as a country with a strategic position geographically and politically. It was a divided country full of endless conflicts. This paper analyses the obstacles and opportunities to build Lebanese nationalism to realize the nation's integrity. Lebanon's main obstacles are the heterogeneity of society, foreign interference, and intergroup affiliations with other countries. At the same time, the foremost opportunity to build Lebanese nationalism is that they have the same language and culture, namely Arabic. Strong nationalism is the capital to build lasting political stability. This research is qualitative research that will collect specific qualitative data to create generalizations. Arabic as a language, identity, and culture is the most vital cohesive factor that unites the country and originates Lebanese nationalism. The problem of building Lebanese nationalism is mainly dependent on a strong government that can control the people. The challenge is that the ruling government comes from a minority religion, namely Maronite Christians dealing with Sunni and Shia Muslims and other Christian groups. Hence, a strategy is needed to create common interests that can be accepted by all groups, namely economic development amid the current Lebanese financial crisis. Received: 20 March 2024 / Accepted: 30 June 2024 / Published: 02 July 2024

Reexamining the Relationships of Religious Communities and the Public University: A Call-Back to Two Previous Scholars’ Responses With New Lenses

Higher education in the 2020s remains deeply divided on the role of religion, or what the Council on the Advancement of Standards (CAS) in 2023 describes as “religious, secular, and spiritual identities.” In two previous articles in this Journal, one 2010 article by the late Peter Magolda and one in 2014 by Perry Glanzer, detail the ways in which students and the student groups themselves should be considered in relationship with their institutions. However, ten years after those arguments, questions of how religious leadership should relate to and interact with the institution still remain. The ways in which institutions are utilizing critical religious pluralism theory are at the forefront of three relationship-minded considerations the authors wish to highlight. Initially, understanding the relationships requires reexamination of the ways interpretations of the First Amendment affect public and the private university settings for religious life. This article explores the relevance of professionalizing the relationship between religious leaders and the institution, the ways in which such a relationship can support stability of the religious communities themselves, and the importance of progressive Christian groups as a part of a more religiously diverse campus’s pluralistic religious and spiritual ethos. The gaps in Magolda and Glanzer’s arguments, plus the emergence of critical religious pluralism theory, offers new opportunities to consider higher education policies and practices related to “religious, secular, and spiritual” identities.

Religious othering in Nigeria’s electoral discourse: Towards a critical religious tolerance

Religion is a main characteristic of Nigerian identity and influences the algorithm of its public life. The study explores online religious othering in Nigeria’s electoral discourse. The study utilises a critical discourse analytic approach and examines a dataset of over 14,000 Facebook comments from Nigerians from different religious groups. The analysis revealed that religious othering in the electoral discourse was indexed using three major strategies, namely: demonisation, ingroup ostracisation and stereotyping. The study demonstrates, among others, an emergent intra-religious discord in the online electoral discourse, mainly among the Christian group. Members who displayed favouritism to an outgroup cause, in this case, the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, are framed as Other. They are denied the membership of being a Christian. The study concludes with imperative advocacy for the cultivation of critical religious tolerance, a model and practice for engendering a respectful and inclusive political environment beyond religious affiliations.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Third Heaven: Reading the Secret Book of James (NHC I,2) with a Parodic Imagination

Abstract: From its appearance of the risen Lord to its heavenly ascent the Secret Book of James (NHC I,2; Ap. Jas .) is imitative of other early Christian revelatory literature. Scholarship has attended to these points of similarity to situate this text in relation to others and has found it to be the product of an educationally elite community. Its imitation, however, is marked with critical twists that point to essential difference as well as similarity. Parody, an intertextual mode marked by this type of imitation with critical difference, was well known in literary circles of the first several centuries. The works of Lucian in particular demonstrate how parody could be used as a vehicle for displays of educational bravado as well as social commentary, both of which might also characterize Ap. Jas . Reading through a lens of parody, or with a parodic imagination, brings into focus new interpretive possibilities for Ap. Jas ., along with its elite author and audience, and their posture toward the diverse landscape of early Christianity around them. Correspondingly, it stands to expand our historical imagination concerning the means and modes of discourse accessible to early Christian groups carving out identities for themselves within that landscape.

Conservative Christianity, Anti-Vaccination Activism, and the Challenge to Secularism in Singapore

Abstract A culture war has been brewing in Singapore since 2009 when a conservative Christian group conducted a reverse takeover of a feminist civil society organization and was subsequently expelled from the organization in a publicized meeting between the two groups. Since then, the state has mediated the contestation of values between religious conservatives and liberal groups allied around issues of gender and sexuality. The culture war between the two sides has revolved around creative protests that have evaded state prohibitions against public contestations over what is legally considered private beliefs and affairs. They involve innovative hybridizations of American discourses on values and rights mixed with Asian emphases on family traditions and sentiments. The COVID-19 pandemic has, however, laid bare the adaptation of the American culture war into the Singaporean public sphere. This article looks at and analyzes COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among conservative Christians in Singapore and their incorporation of anti-vaccination views from American Christian nationalism into secular framings, invoking legal rights and responsibilities aligned with the state’s nationalist discourse. I argue that this represents a new phase of contestation by conservatives, refashioning their religious views into secular frames of public good and morality serving the secular nation. By doing so, they implicitly challenge the state’s regulation of religion as private interests and beliefs. This altered religious activism has shifted the terms of secularism and loosened the hegemony of the state in defining these terms.

Christian Higher Education at Secular Universities: A Multiple-Case Study of Christian Study Centers and Institutes for Catholic Thought

For over 50 years, a group of Christians has cultivated a movement to revitalize Christian education at secular universities. These leaders formed centers for Christian thought (CCT) to reengage the Christian faith with the intellectual life (and vice-versa) and work with students, staff, and faculty within American universities. At present, there are at least 41 CCT in the USA, but little empirical work has been done to explore this type of Christian education. In this paper, we used a collective case study of five established CCT to answer the following research question: What are the distinctive features of Christian study centers and institutes for Catholic thought, and what is the nature of Christian education they offer? Each center we studied exhibited characteristics unique to its institutional context and yet shared some key educational elements with other centers. In sum, CCT used hospitality and intellectual fellowship to engage the riches of the Christian intellectual tradition to satiate the human appetite to live an integrated life. The center staff believed that living the integrated life would strengthen the global church and thereby benefit the university and society. Although CCT are distinct from Christian colleges and universities, opportunities exist for mutual learning between them that could help perpetuate the Christian intellectual tradition. For example, CCT could benefit from the faith integration conversations happening on Christian campuses, who could, in turn, learn from the holistic approaches of CCT and benefit from hiring faculty who were involved with a center as graduate students.

Thomas Aquinas and the Qualification of Monastic Labor

Early monastic communities in Egypt were veritable laboratories for the practice of Christian virtue; perhaps surprisingly, they were also large-scale coordinated communities of labor. That manual labor should have been part of anchoritic life is not obvious; given that hermits were leaving the cities and the usual occupations of life in the world, there might be a question as to why they would seemingly return to such occupations having sought the purity of living alone in the desert. Combining Platonic thought with radical Christianity, the monks found a way to make the maximally spiritual life also a worker’s life. The architects of this form of life saw manual labor as a means for achieving self-sustenance, an effective weapon against temptation, a resource for the support of the needy, and a vital component in the monks’ ascetic program. The argument of this paper is that this powerful cultural consensus on the centrality of work to monastic life endured for almost a thousand years before it came to be qualified, by Thomas Aquinas among others. When Thomas Aquinas writes on the purposes of manual labor he is entirely traditional. However, Aquinas ends up diminishing the extent to which the pursuit of the traditional goods gained by the practice of manual labor is obligatory for monastics. Aquinas’s discussion of manual labor as an element of monastic life is a definite departure from the tradition. In the typically polite fashion of a scholastic theologian, Aquinas shifts away from Augustine and re-interprets St. Paul in unprecedented fashion. His argument is influenced by his own commitment to a new form of monastic life, which was changing not just theologically but as a result of the evolving backdrop of the social and economic realities with which religious life necessarily interacted.

Diversity Dynamics: How Local Religious Groups Appear, Persist, or Disappear over Time

AbstractReligious diversity is often described and measured statically. This article goes a step further by describing how congregational religious diversity changes over time, and by exposing the mechanisms underlying these changes. We combine data from two censuses (from 2008 and 2020) of congregations in Switzerland with a sample‐based national congregation study conducted in 2008. Our main findings are the following: (1) overall, the number of congregations is in decline. (2) Religious diversity remains stable, but underlying features of religious diversity change radically. For example, established Christian congregations almost only disappear while Orthodox Christians see almost only new congregations. (3) Rural areas lose congregations mainly because established Christian groups merge their parishes, while urban areas have a high turnover. (4) Some congregational characteristics such as religious tradition, number of participants or presence of a meeting space significantly predict a congregation's likelihood of disappearing, in contrast to other variables, including income.