Christian Ideas Research Articles

Ritual and pluralism: Incommensurable values and techniques of commensurability in contemporary urban Chinese funerals

The default funeral in Shanghai today consists of religious variations of a secular socialist civil ritual. Within this ritual, however, is a clear paradox: how can one create religious “variations” of a secular and socialist funeral that explicitly denies any recognition of spirits or the afterlife? How do socialist, religious, Confucian, and even Christian ideas of personhood and death become commensurable in one single ritual? This paper explores the relationships between incommensurable values through commemorations of the dead in Shanghai. This article not only shows how a single ritual can realize multiple seemingly incommensurable values but also details two different techniques for making such incommensurable values commensurable. My findings show that what makes value pluralism possible depends on how people conceptualize rituals. When people see rituals as following social conventions, there is more space for pluralism, but when people treat rituals as making personal testimonies, the possibility for pluralism decreases.

Revising Orthodoxy in the Poems of Robert Southwell

Community is the framework for the Christian experience. The Greek text from which the English bible is translated uses the ἐκκλησια, which means “assembly,” “assemblage, gathering, meeting,” and in the earliest text, “the universal church to which all believers belong.” Thus, the very idea of Christianity after Christ suggests community. Robert Southwell trained to contribute to a very particular portion of the Christian community in Elizabethan England, but the lyric poetry he produced during this time represents community as flawed and as a potential hindrance to salvation. His poetry responds to the orthodoxy of community by representing real, lived community as spiritually counterproductive and juxtaposing it against the necessity of individual experience and salvation.

Уникальный концепт славы: девальвация ценности личной славы (молвы) в русском былинном эпосе

The article is dedicated to the concept of glory, which should be placed among the main concepts of the world’s folk epics. According to the author’s analysis (undertaken through the axiological, comparative-historical, and historical-genetic methods), glory – as rendered in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, The Mahābhārata, European and Oriental medieval epics, etc. – is most often related to the rumors about a concrete hero and emerges as a substitute of individual immortality or as a pledge of postmortem beatitude. Among nearly all known works of heroic poetry, only the Russian folk epics are fundamentally opposed to this interpretation: Bylinas don’t treat glory as a specific attribute belonging to this or that hero, but as a collective virtue of all Russian knights – the one intended to deter foreign rulers from their invasions of Russia and to protect, in this earthly world, both the divine law and suffering people. Accordingly, the article provides a comparison between different works of heroic folklore and Russian bylinas, which enables both to interpret more fully the axiological structure of the epic tradition as such (the notions of glory, honor, boasting, and rumor – the ones still insufficiently analyzed in scholarly literature and defined more precisely in the present paper), and to determine the principal originality of the Russian folk epics, their unique position among other oral songs of similar nature. In particular, a comparison between the heroic songs of Christian Europe and Russian bylinas allows the author to argue confidently that precisely the latter incarnated (in the most original and profound way, at different levels of their artistic structure, including plot, motives, and imagery) the values and the ideas of Christianity, its spiritual and moral potential.

INTERRELIGIOUS DUALISM IN UKRAINE IN 17-18 CENTURIES: SPECIFICITY OF LIVING

The article deals with the specifics of pagan and Christian beliefs in the worldview of Ukrainians of the 17–18 centuries. The term “interreligious dualism” has been proposed to refer to the phenomenon of synthesis of religious beliefs. The research is based on the analysis of samples of the spiritual culture of early modern Ukraine. The purpose is to outline the specifics of interreligious dualism in the worldview of Ukrainians of the 17th–18th centuries. The research has been conducted with the use of methods of analysis (concrete samples of combinations of Christian and pagan beliefs) and generalization (identification of main tendencies in the functioning of interreligious dualism). The phenomenon of interreligious dualism lies precisely in the parallel and synthetic existence of Christian and archaic points of view. Enlightened progressive clergy attempted to overcome magical mysticism, emphasizing the superstitious nature and the falsehood of man’s magical powers. From the standpoint of Christianity, the magical power of man and his attempts to manifest it condemned as sinful communications with the devil. And from a secular standpoint, magical abilities were perceived as the knowledge and skills of individual members of the community who can influence nature, the elements, the harvest, health, relationships. The average Ukrainians focused on preserving and using traditional pre-Christian beliefs in everyday life. Resistance was not caused by Christian ideas themselves, but by strict church formality and rituality. The phenomenon of interreligious dualism in the 17th and 18th centuries looks like the search for a non-conflictual combination and compromise between the archaic and the Christian views.

ВИКТОР УЛЬЯНИЧ И ЛАДОЗВОННАЯ ИНТЕГРАЛЬНАЯ МУЗЫКАЛЬНО-ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ СИСТЕМА (портрет композитора)

This article is an interview with Victor Ulyanich — composer, Honored Artist of Russia, founder of the Computer Music Department of the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, Professor, Ph.D. in History of Arts. The interview preceded by a brief characteristic of the composer's creativity, genre preferences and characterological content of his compositions, including nature and its sacredness, cosmos and human within it, correlations of all things in the Universe, temptation and resistance to it, and Christian ideas. The main attention is focused on a number of aspects of the Ladozvonn integrated musictheoretical system, which was created by the composer. In order to fully reveal the parameters of its functioning, the author conducted an interview with the composer, which fits seamlessly into the outline of the article. In the process of the dialogue, important points were revealed concerning the use of the main tool of the Ladozvonn system — colored rectangular matrices, the concepts of invariance and fractality, and timbre dramaturgy as a functional analogue of the system in harmony. During the dialogue with the musician, the author substantiates the need to introduce such special terms as "ladozvonn" and "ladozvonn tree" into compositional and musicological usage, as well as to refer not to mathematical, but to musical categories in the process of working on a computer work. The composer raises questions about the repertoire of computer music, and in conclusion, expresses an opinion on the state of modern culture and the composer's place in the world.

Активность словопроизводства и особенности структуры лексических единиц народного православия

The research is devoted to the analysis of the word formation peculiarities of the vocabulary expressing the idea of Christianity and the creed in the Russian language and its dialects, with priority attention to the dialect group of South Russian Tambov dialects. The aim of the study is to analyze the creative word-formation potential of the investigated lexicon, which defines a new approach: identifying the original derivational base in the historical projection, a variety of methods of derivation, description of motivational semantic relations. The word-formation potential and the structure of Christian vocabulary units are traced with priority attention to the dialect group of South Russian Tambov dialects. In the course of scientific development of the data the originality of dialect word-making is revealed, typical word-formation models in lexical and semantic groups are analyzed, the dominant influence of the historical old Slavic and Russian traditions and the interdependence of language and national mentality are evidently determined. Lexical realizations, the situational use of which sometimes presents unexpected contexts, demonstrates the self-value of studying the “religious” macro-field of vocabulary in the dialect “version”, and the dominant position of language in the formation of the national worldview. The facts prove the extreme importance of explication of the tradition of the creed in the main system and subsystems of the national Russian language. The basic empirical base is the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V.I. Dal. The analyzed array of lexical units is formed from this source and compared with the data of other dialect dictionaries reflected in the bibliography. The reference point for the detection of units of Christian vocabulary by V.I. Dal was the dictionary litter “folk-church”.

Хасан-Гата Габаши против миссионера Евфимия Малова: пример мусульманско-христианской полемики конца XIX в.

The article deals with the Muslim reaction to the Russian Orthodox missionaries’ challenge in the polemic work by Hasan ‘Ata Gabashi “Nur al-haqiqa” (1886). The author explores the internal mechanism of Islamic discourse, which works to protect the sphere of Muslim dogmatic (‘aqida) from the “alien” influence and is realized through the delineation of protective boundaries. As a defence tactic, Gabashi uses the strategy of refuting “false idea” or “false teaching” from ‘Ilm al-Kalam. The paper analyses the development of the narrative, the argumentation used by Gabashi and the behavior of those involved in the polemics. As he implements his “protective project,” Gabashi explores and criticizes Christian ideas in terms of his own discourse. As the Muslim author, Gabashi does not reject the entire Christian doctrine or the entire Bible, but selectively criticizes “distortions” that are contrary to Islam.

Ecological Sin: Ethics, Economics, and Social Repentance

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople of the Eastern Orthodox Christian ecumene has been a longstanding advocate for the development of an ecological consciousness among both Orthodox Christians and the people of the world at large. Arguably, one of his most salient contributions to ecological ethics has been his usage of the idea of “ecological sin” yet, despite the growing body of what may be dubbed an: “Orthodox Christian eco-theology,” the ethical dimensions of the concept of “ecological sin” remain under examined. Hence, my aim is to further the conversation by offering an analysis of the notion of sin as it relates to the ecological crisis in order to contribute to the development of an applied Orthodox ecological ethics as well as demonstrate the ways in which Orthodox Christian ideas, values, and practices may serve as a source of ecological wisdom, even for those whom do not practice the faith. In doing so, I will illustrate how our global civilizational ethos contributes to the ecological crisis and will examine the practical dimensions of what it means to engage in repentance for our ecological sinfulness by suggesting ways in which humanity can reform its current ethos and begin to develop a more ecologically virtuous mindset and way of life.

Соотношение свободы и независимости в христианстве и светской рациональной философии

Freedom and independence are among those phenomena, the study of which never loses its relevance. We believe that in modern conditions, clarifying the relationship of the corresponding categories can significantly help people in their spiritual growth, identifying ways to freedom and independence. It is these circumstances that determine the purpose of the work, which is to study the relationship between freedom and independence in Christianity and social rational philosophy. The extensive use of extrapolation, analysis, comparison, and synthesis methods was used to achieve this goal. An appeal to the spiritual heritage of Augustine the Blessed, Thomas Aquinas, Abbot Filaret, A. I. Osipova, I. A. Ilyina and others allowed the authors to once again make sure that Christianity, which has its origins in social relations, does not form imaginary values in a person, does not lead him into a world of illusions. The work shows that, according to Christian ideas, freedom is based on faith and the inner spiritual life of a person, which he must strengthen, constantly appealing to divine essences. It is pointed out that the essence of the Christian understanding of freedom lies in «the ability to spontaneously begin a state» and the independence of the will from compulsion by impulses of sensuality; this circumstance, referring to I. Kant, is noted by Osipov. Independence, being a derivative of freedom, is formed, like it, on the basis of Christian values and manifests itself in a person’s desire to protect himself from the devil, evil and everything else that destroys his spirit and flesh. Considering the peculiarities of ideas about freedom and independence in social rational philosophy, the authors turn first of all to the Marxist philosophical heritage, to the views of Kant, G. V. F. Hegel and D. V. Pivovarova. Emphasis is placed on the features characteristic of these approaches. The Marxist vision of the problem under discussion is revealed through the analysis of a critical attitude to religion, belief in the proletariat, communism and the future kingdom of freedom, characteristic of the creators and supporters of the corresponding teaching. When studying the Kantian approach, attention is focused on the ideas about the relationship between man and God, on the moral side of human life. In Hegel’s dialectical views, through the analysis of true and untrue alienation and assimilation, the key aspects of the relationship between freedom and independence are revealed. Pivovarov’s definition of freedom, which contains a statement about the unhindered manifestation of the nature of anything, traces the idea of independence, characteristic of all representatives of rationalism, as a necessary condition for freedom. The idea of independence as a necessary condition for freedom, characteristic all representatives of rationalism, is traced in Pivovarov’s definition of freedom. The results of the authors’ philosophical search made it possible to verify the multidimensionality of the categories under study and the high significance of their understanding in relation to the search for ways to freedom and independence. The idea that unites the considered versions of the vision of freedom and independence is the belief in the power of the human mind, rejection of arbitrariness, orientation to higher spiritual values. The content of the article also shows that the comprehended pair of categories works well for both philosophical and non-philosophical comprehension of the essences of various fragments of being.

Speaking with Birds in Chinese. Franciscan Thought on the Middle Kingdom Proselytization

The difficult task of preaching Christianity in China was undertaken by several Catholic missionary orders, the first of which was the order of the Franciscans. The article examines philosophical and theoretical foundations of Franciscan “inculturation”, which served as the basis of their missionary practice, arising from the ideas and activities of the founder of the order – Francis of Assisi, in particular from his belief in the need to declare the truth of the Gospel to all things from stones and birds to the pagans.According to the author’s hypothesis rational seeds of the Franciscan inculturation were carefully incorporated into the theory and practice of the famous Jesuit teologia accomodativa, which allowed the Renaissance Jesuit order to bring the ideas of medieval scholastics-Franciscans to a new level, thereby achieving great success in missionary work, and stay in China at the court of Ming and Qing emperors in spite of the persecutions.The first part of the article examines the fusion of the basic principles of both orders, both in historical retrospect, and the embodiment of this synthesis in the modern Catholic Church in the current Pope Francis. It is shown how the Franciscans, who postulated the importance of personal charisma and the need to bring Gospel’s message to the largest possible audience, played a fatal role in suppressing the activities of Catholic missions in the Middle Empire due to their de facto intolerance to the more radical methods of inculturation used by the Jesuits.Summing up 700 years ofFranciscan presence in China (with an inevitable break after the Yuan Dynasty and the prohibition of Christian preaching under Emperor Yongzheng), the author believes that the fundamental developments of the order's thinkers, glorified in medieval Europe, turned out to be ineffective when trying to spread Christian ideas in the Confucian Celestial Empire.

Political Form in Paul Celan

Paul Celan’s “Tenebrae” is a scandalous poem: it describes how “unity with the dying Jesus” (in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s words) is achieved by means of the Jewish experience of the concentration camps. In this paper, I provide a new interpretation of “Tenebrae” that breaks from the two traditional ways in which the poem has been viewed—on the one hand, as a Christian poem that suggests that Jesus, insofar as he suffers just like Jewish concentration camp victims do, can provide “hope and redemption for the faithful” (Gadamer), and, on the other hand, as an ironic criticism of this Christian idea. Rather, I suggest that “Tenebrae” is a modification of Christianity: preserving Christian belief about Jesus’s death, it destroys that belief, and does so for the sake of the defense against Christian persecution. Finally, I suggest that this view reveals the peculiar poetic form of “Tenebrae”—what I call “political form.”

Kereszténység és emberi jogok – az emberi méltóság nézőpontjából

A tanulmány bizonyítani igyekszik, hogy a vallási meggyőződéssel élő embert nem távolítani kell az emberi jogok rendszerétől, hanem épp ellenkezőleg, közelíteni kell felé. Az emberi jogok a Teremtő adta emberi szabadságból erednek, minden jog mélyén megtalálható az emberi méltóság. Az emberi jogok az embertől elválaszthatatlan olyan természetes és elidegeníthetetlen jogok, amelyeknek tápláléka a keresztény szabadságeszme is. A tanulmány foglalkozik a személyiségvédelemmel, érinti a magánszféra védelmét, az egyenlőség problémáját, valamint arra a megállapításra jut, hogy az emberi jogok alatt bizonyos szociális jogokat is érteni kell a keresztény szellemű megközelítés alapján.

Subjective and Territorial Scope of confugium ad ecclesias, and Christian Ideas

Beginnings of asylum (asylum, ius asyli, confugium) in ancient Rome dates back to Romulus times. In subsequent periods of the development of the Roman state, the right of asylum was further developed and included in the norms of material and legal nature. In the Republic Period there were no comprehensive legal regulations regarding ius asyli, although temple asylum was known. It was only during the empire that legal regulation of asylum was in place and two of its forms were developed, confugium ad statuum (asylum, escape to the monument to the emperor) and confugium ad ecclesias (church asylum). That study focuses on answering the question of whether Christian ideas had an impact on the subjective and territorial scope confugium ad ecclesias. After the Edict of Milan in the year 313, Christianity, being able to worship publicly, began to influence the consciousness of the inhabitants of the empire. The Church was conceived as an institution protecting the weak, persecuted and those in need. The right of asylum was also enriched with some Christian elements, especially mercy (misericordia), in relation to individuals entitled to benefit from asylum protection. The territorial extent is also expanded to include places belonging to temples, such as the bishop’s house, cemetery and monasteries. An important novelty was the validity of confugium ad ecclesias in every Christian temple because it was not the emperor’s decision that was in force of ius asylum and the sanctity of the place. However, imperial constitutions played a more important role in shaping the right of asylum in the 4th and 5th centuries than the synodal legislation.

Foucault, Early Christian Ideas of Genitalia, and the History of Sexuality

Foucault, Early Christian Ideas of Genitalia, and the History of Sexuality

Personalism Approach as a Countermeasure against Ideological Instrumentalisation of Humanity

Personalism understood as an anthropological theory and practice, may represent an ideologic means of anti-instrumentalisation of the person in the contemporary world, a means of returning his (her) internal value and external respect to him (her). Personalism, relying on the Christian idea of the personality and re-creating the ideal of conciliar communicating the person with his “Other”, i.e. his neighbour is aimed at problematising the Enlightenment ideological apparatuses as well as Hegelianism and even Marxism, if Marxism is to be understood in its initial sense as the ideological base of the struggle of classes, i.e. the three primary ways of meta-ideological enslaving the humanity by political regimes in the nineteenth–twentieth centuries in a great majority of countries. In the paper, we outline the principal salience of de-ideologising the person in the European personalism.

The Nomadic Component of the Middle Dnieper (Right Bank Ukraine) Population of Ancient Rus Time According to Anthropological Data

The relationship between the nomadic and Slavic population of the Middle Dnieper during Kievan Rus period was considered by historians, archaeologists and linguists. The issue connected with the influence of nomads on the anthropological composition of the population formation in the region was considered poorly by anthropologists. Anthropologists associated separate skulls with people from nomadic groups, the Caucasoid features of which were weakened (flattening of the facial skeleton). The number of such skulls at Christian burial grounds of the Middle Dnieper is insignificant. However, among the nomad populations of Eastern Europe there were groups with pronounced Caucasoid features. These are primarily groups genetically related to the Caucasus. In this work, craniological materials from 12 Ancient Rus series were considered in a wide range of groups that represent the nomadic peoples of Eastern Europe. The analysis included nomadic groups of steppe regions of Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Don region and the Volga region (V—XIII c.). Statistical processing of materials was carried out using the Systat software package. For the Ancient Rus period, the biological presence of people who were genetically associated with the Alanian (Iranian-speaking) groups is recorded in this region. They dominate at two burial grounds out of 12. The Alans were a group with Caucasoid features. They were one of the components of the Saltovo-Mayakш culture population. Еру Alans are represented at the medieval burial grounds of the North Caucasus. Their physical presence is recorded at a number of Lower Dnieper burial grounds. The Alans (Jassy) could also be a part of the Chorni Klobuky Union. Perhaps they were more ready to accept Christian ideas and that is why they were better integrated into the Slavic environment. All Turkic series turned out to be morphologically and statistically far removed from the Slavic groups of the Middle Dnieper (Right Bank Ukraine). This is especially true for Polovtsians and Pechenegs. For these groups of nomads, brachycrania (or a tendency towards it), large face sizes, and weakened profiling of the facial skeleton were typical.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SEARCH FOR VALUE ORIENTATIONS OF A NEW CULTURE BY AURELIUS AUGUSTINE

Purpose. The article is aimed to reveal the essence of the eternal problem, comprehended by Augustine Aurelius in the culture of the early Middle Ages – the focus of the value orientations of the anthropological search. Theoretical basis. Only in the twentieth century, various aspects of Augustine’s creative legacy became the subject of scientific research by many authors. As the direction of their scientific research, the problem of the relationship of reason, faith, knowledge, which has risen sharply in medieval Christian culture, has been considered. The logical outcome of these studies was the assertion that for Augustine Platonism was the main of the philosophical teachings of antiquity; that Augustine, being in line with Christian philosophy, considered the understanding of the aesthetic perfection of the Divine creation of the world as the sense of human life. The analysis of their works gives reason to argue that the definition of the human essence – the Augustine’s anthropological problems, was practically not addressed by representatives of domestic and foreign philosophical thought, and therefore remained undiscovered. Originality. The authors have proved that the definition of the human essence by Augustine is in the correlation with his answers to questions about the nature of the origin of man, about the secrets of being, etc. The ethical ideal of the thinker has been revealed, which is systematically formed in his works. Conclusions. The thesis has been substantiated that the anthropological views of Augustine Aurelius are in correlation with his epistemological judgments. Only by knowing the order of things in the universe, determined by the will of the Lord, we will know also the order of our value orientations. The basis of the philosophical comprehension of the human essence by Augustine Aurelius is a series of questions that constantly arise before mankind – about the nature of its appearance, about the secrets of human existence, the sense of life, death and immortality, etc. The ethical ideal of the thinker is an eternal city that is not based on human nature, it is too volatile, therefore it is only to a small extent subject to research, but on a Divine basis – the Christian idea.

IMPARCIALIDADE E OBRIGAÇÃO NA FILOSOFIA MORAL DE PETER SINGER

O artigo discute a ideia de imparcialidade na filosofia moral de Peter Singer. (1) primeiro, apresenta, em linhas gerais, a ideia de imparcialidade na filosofia moral de singer. (2) discute-se as implicações da imparcialidade na tese sobre as obrigações dos ricos em ajudar os pobres. (3) em seguida, discute-se a distinção entre obrigatório e super-rogatório e, a partir dessa distinção, constrói uma crítica à exigência de imparcialidade por parte do agente. (4) discute-se a crítica de que a imparcialidade desconsideraria o altruísmo autorreferente como um aspecto central e irrenunciável da vida das pessoas. (5) por fim, apresentam-se os argumentos utilizados por singer para responder às críticas à imparcialidade: (5.1) o apelo à ideia cristã do dizimo; (5.2) a ideia de nível intuitivo do pensamento moral; (5.3) a justificativa imparcial da parcialidade.

Lex: A Study on Medieval Terminology for Religion

Medieval Christian authors frequently employed the Latin word lex (“law”) and its vernacular cognates to mean something akin to the modern notion of “religion.” Like a religion, a lex was the collection of observances that marked a particular people‐group, such as Christians or Muslims. This article examines the category of lex in its historical context revealing both its similarities and differences from modern “religion.” It argues that the category of lex borrowed on Roman ethnography and Patristic exegesis and was inseparable from larger Christian ideas about society, human nature, and political order.

Rejecting Opposite Ideologies without Discriminating against Ideological Opponents? Understanding Nonbelievers’ Outgroup Attitudes

Several people fail to reject opposite ideologies without discriminating against opponents. Do nonbelievers make this distinction? Across two experiments in three cultures (total N = 2064), we investigated participants’ willingness to help a religious target involved in religious anti-liberalism (antiabortion), activism (promoting Christian ideas), or devotion (religious service); or a neutral cause (copying syllabus or visiting family). In comparison to a control condition (neutral target, neutral cause), nonbelievers–except French atheists, to some extent–made this distinction: they were unwilling to help the religious target when acting for any of the three religious causes, but not when acting for a neutral cause. Groups with opposite ideologies, here believers and nonbelievers, seem both similar and qualitatively dissimilar in their outgroup attitudes.