Protestant Circles Research Articles

Christianity and Gender Relationships in Japan: Case Studies of Marriage and Divorce in Early Meiji Protestant Circles

It is accepted that Victorian attitudes to love, chastity, marriage, and the family, all rooted in Christianity, played an important part in changing norms of behavior related to gender relationships in Meiji Japan. But writers on Christianity in Meiji Japan have paid little attention to women and the influence of Christian ideals on the actual behavior of Meiji Christians. This paper examines gender interaction in early Meiji Protestant circles and the evidence available for the marriage relationships of five Protestant leaders: Ibuka Kajinosuke, Uemura Masahisa, Ebina Danjo, Kozaki Hiromichi, whose marriages seem to have been successful, and Uchimura Kanzo, whose first marriage was not. Particular attention is paid to four issues: the extent to which the individuals studied had participated in gender interaction in Christian circles before becoming deeply involved, how partners were chosen, how the partnerships developed and, finally, the tensions that arose and what was done about them. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] KEYWORDS: Meiji Japan - Protestant - converts - marriage - gender relationships - Uchimura Kanzo (ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) IN LATE Tokugawa Japan, marriage customs, the role and position of women in the family, and attitudes to female chastity differed according to status and occupation. It was acceptable for elite males to have concubines, and for peasants to sell their daughters into prostitution. Beauty and desirability were the attributes of high-class geisha rather than of ordinary, marriageable, women. Women who belonged to the merchant and farming elite had opportunities for education and were able to take part in cultural pursuits, such as membership in literary circles, on the same terms as men. Female members of the samurai class, however, led more restricted lives. They were educated, but it was an education specifically for women. Their lives centered on the home and subservience to their fathers, their husbands, and their mothers-in-law. While the concept of male-female equality was present, for example in the writings of Ando Shoeki ... and the preaching of Kino ..., the founder of Nyoraikyo ..., Confucian teachings about the inferior status of women were able to reach a wide audience through the use of texts such as Onna daigaku . ... in reading primers for women of all classes (Hirota 1994, 325-27; Kanda 1994; Walthall 1991 and 1998). As is well known, early Japanese visitors to America and other Western countries were surprised by the prominence of women in public life and shocked by the deference paid to them by men (Kume 2002, 253-54). It is therefore not surprising that there was much discussion about the position of women in society in the early Meiji period. The status of women, the relationship between husbands and wives, prostitution and concubinage were among the topics raised by the early enlightenment intellectuals in their journal, Meiroku zasshi ... (Braisted 1976). Saeki Junko (1998) has analyzed the influence of the Victorian concept of love on Meiji literature. In the Tokugawa period, love (iro .) was not linked to chastity and the search for the right marriage partner; it existed outside marriage and focused on the sexual act as a way of transcending everyday experience. Sexual activity belonged to the sacred, not the profane. But in the Meiji period, iro came to seem uncivilized and was replaced by ai ., the Victorian concept of romantic but chaste love which made sexual activity a conjugal duty rather than the goal. Although the pleasure quarters remained the easiest place for novelists to explore gender relationships into the 1890s, the relationships sought by the heroes and heroines of writers such as Tsubouchi Shoyo ... and even Ozaki Koyo ... were spiritual rather than physical (Saeki 1998, 7-64; Kohiyama 2005, 1-7). It is accepted that Christianity played an important part in these changes (Saeki 1998, 13-16; Kohiyama 2005, 7-11). …

Gebildete Doppelgänger: Bürgerliche Juden und Protestanten im 19. Jahrhundert (review)

Gebildete Doppelganger: Burgerliche Juden und Protestanten im 19. Jahrhundert, by Uffa Jensen. Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 167 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005). 383 pp. euro46.90. Jensen's book examines the rise of antisemitism within the ranks of the German educated bourgeoisie (Bildungsburgertum), focusing on the period between 1840 and the early 1880s. The university-trained Bildungsburgertum constituted that class of the German population to which the country owed its reputation in scholarship, technical expertise, and administration. As a group, the Bildungsburgertum enjoyed greater social prestige in Germany than elsewhere in Europe and, before the turmoil and inflation brought about by World War I, a considerable measure of material security and comfort that imbued many of its members with the certainty of cultural and social superiority. The Bildungskultur-a climate fostering cultivation and self-improvement-that had formed its breeding ground originated towards the end of the 18th century. Bildung constituted an important factor in educational socialization, through which the individual became part of a larger whole. Jensen rightly emphasizes that Bildung played a central role in Protestant circles, while never permeating the German Catholic population to the same extent. German Jews, on the other hand, felt deeply committed to the ideals of Bildung and viewed the Bildungskultur primarily a fruit of the Enlightenment, especially since being part of it (at least until the 1880s) meant sharing a certain liberal outlook. The ideal of Bildung constituted the most powerful link between German Jews and German culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This predilection of educated German Jews toward the Bildungskultur was ultimately responsible for the tragic illusion that induced many to remain in Germany after 1933. Jensen maintains that even in its inception the Bildungsideal became part of a German-Jewish identity since it was inherently related to Jewish traditions of religious scholarship and learning. To German Jews, who stood outside the standisch structure of society, it was a vehicle of both integration and social mobility. German Jews contributed to the culture of Bildung, excelled in its pursuits and, a corollary, gradually became estranged from traditional eastern European Jews. The author maintains that the adoption of bourgeois Bildung was not, however, a rejection of one's Jewish heritage but rather indirectly constituted a continuation of Jewish identity through education. By 1852, about 10 percent of all German university students were Jewish, and the 1850s and 1860s are clearly the high point of Protestant-Jewish understanding. But even during those years, the first signs of antisemitism from among the ranks of the educated began to appear on the horizon. Already in 1850, Richard Wagner published Das Judenthum in der Musik, in which he deplored the destructive influence of Jews on German cultural life. Jensen argues that for Wagner Jews appeared gebildete Doppelganger, or cultivated doubles: They formed part of one's own culture but at the same time stood outside of it-therein lay the danger (p. 100). To Wagner and others like him, educated Jews who retained their Jewish identity threatened to undermine the bourgeois Bildungskultur from within. After emancipation and the foundation of an Empire that was welcomed by German Jews, precisely because they hoped that its society and politics would be shaped by the new Bildungskidtur, the antisemitism of the educated elite grew more intense. Jensen maintains that the embourgeoisement of Jews led to an image of them as unheimliche (menacing) Doppelganger who would soon threaten the position of Protestants in the Bildungskultur. Thus the new, close relationship between Jews and Protestants that had grown out of the Bildungsideal in the mid-19th century led to new forms of Jewish identity, well new forms of antisemitism. …

Making Wise the Simple: The Torah in Christian Faith and Practice (review)

Making Wise Simple: The in Christian Faith and Practice, by Johanna W. H. Van Wijk-Bos. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2005. 329 pp. $20.00. Professor van Wijk-Bos is a prolific writer on intersection of Hebrew Bible and contemporary Christian, especially feminist, hermeneutical concerns. Her burden in this latest book is introduce Christian readers. Aside perhaps from a modest florilegium of Sunday school stories, Psalms, and comfortable prophetic bons mots recycled in Handel's Messiah, Tanakh remains for many Gentile Christians a remarkably unfamiliar book. Indeed, terms like and are in Protestant circles often freighted with half-digested theological baggage that make rehabilitation attempts an uphill struggle. Against Christian ignorance and suspicion of Law of Moses, van Wijk-Bos sets out present a winsome, accessible, and personally engaging presentation of Pentateuch as a divine word for Christians today. Her thesis is that Christians, like Jews, read Hebrew Scriptures as those who look back at time when intervened directly in human affairs; they encounter in Old Testament of Israel who is closely involved in his creation. Within this framework, God's care extends especially on behalf of poor and of God's covenantally chosen people who are called in accordance with Torah's formulation of divine design. Historical-critical issues are flagged up, but reading of text is primarily literary and theological. After two introductory sections, extensive Part III takes us into substance of beginning with Genesis 1-11, which sets context of Torah's narrative within making of its world: Israel's creation and preservation is for saving of all. So we read of world's making, marring, and mending, basic themes of creation and fallenness, covenant and sacrifice, promise and genealogy. The New Testament's Romans and 1 Timothy are singled out for their lamentably inadequate rendition of creation narrative-the lack of Adam and Eve typology in Romans, and 1 Timothy for its subordination of women, a move that is never made in Old Testament. While Christians can accept Gen 2-3 gratefully, 1 Timothy 2 is wholly superseded. In a further 100 pages, Part IV comprises entire rest of Torah's story as the making of a people. Structurally, implicit equation between Gen 1-11 and remainder of arguably begs certain questions; but Part IV on its own offers an attractive, if eclectic, Deuteronomic interpretation of remaining Pentateuch: Wandering Arameans of Gen 12-50, becoming of a people (Exodus 1-24), as well as God's bringing them to this (Num 11; Deut 34) and instructing them about in unconditional covenant (Exod 20-23; Lev 19; Deut) and place and manner of life with God, i.e., worship (Exod 25-40; Lev). A synthetic aggiornamento is offered in concluding Part V (Living with Torah, comprising God in Torah and Christ and Torah in Jesus and Paul). Where admirably stresses love for stranger, question of how then shall we live is for Christians normatively focused on postmodern political project: traditio legis, or canon within canon, is Gal 3.28-understood mandate sweeping away of old oppressive systems that perpetuate class and race divisions and construe women as other and the stranger. There is a modest 10-page bibliography which, like indexes, makes no reference such major contributors a Christian appreciation of Old Testament in New as Brevard Childs, Christopher Seitz, Walter Moberly, Bernd Janowski, Hartmut Gese, James Dunn, Richard Hays, Henning Graf Reventlow, Peter Stuhlmacher, and a number of others. …

The Catholic Luther

The article traces the changing conceptions of Martin Luther in Protestant and Catholic circles, from the sixteenth century to the present. Catholic theologians first saw Luther as morally flawed, a stubborn heretic whose teaching was in no sense compatible with ancient and medieval Catholic tradition. Though Protestants defended Luther's catholicity, their defense rested in part on a redefinition of what constitutes true catholicity. For modern Catholic theologians, Luther remains both a profound and a problematic figure, but a genuinely Christian voice whose views can edify his Catholic readers, even if his teaching is not fully compatible with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

Théologie chrétienne et urbanisation

Theology and Urbanization Christian theologians long feared the modem city. After the Second World War, a number of missionary clerics participated alongside secular researchers in sociological surveys focusing on the mobility and individualism of uprooted and atomized city dwellers. Their aim was to adapt pastoral care to a changing world. Various theological approaches, developed in Protestant circles, were progressively to consider urban existence as an important issue for the renewal of the Christian message.

Erasmus and the Croats in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

In this paper, the focus is on the Croatian humanistic writers and diplomats who embraced Erasmus, along with an overview of Erasmus's influence in the works in Croatian Renaissance humanists. The most interesting aspect is the epistolary connection between Erasmus and Croatian humanists. From the correspondence papers, it is known that Erasmus had contact with Jakov Banicevic from Korcula (Jacobus Bannisius, 1466-1532), Stjepan Brodaric from Slavonia (Stephanus Brodericus, 1490-1539) and Franjo Trankvil Andreis from Trogir (Tranquillus Andronicus Parthenius, 1490-1571). Itis only fragmentary items of information that have remained concerning Erasmus' presence in Croatian cultural history ; perhaps these will be supplemented by future research. Nevertheless, even from these few precious fragments it is clear that the reception of the great humanist was uninterrupted during the whole of the 16th century and that the attitude towards him was quite diverse, ranging from uninhibited expressions of admiration (Marko Marulic), via appeals to his authority (Vinko Pribojevic) to harsh criticism (Nikola Petrovic). Apart from records in chronicles, quotations of Erasmus' writings, the expression of personal value judgements, the forms of reception also include philological polemics and supplementation (Matija Vlacic) and the anthologising and printing of Erasmus' works (Ivanus Pergosic). It can be noted that the mentions of the Dutch humanist in the Dalmatian circle, in the first half of the century, remained within the context of private correspondence (only Marulic at least intended to publish his eulogy, although he was prevented by censorship) ; in the second half of the century the testimonies derive from Protestant or crypto-Protestant circles, and were published in print.

J. S. Bach: Técnica de composición como <i>explicatio textus</i>

Durante los siglos XVII-XVIII, los teóricos de música, especialmente en ambientes protestantes, recogen, sistematizan y dan a conocer diversos procedimientos constructivos (figuras) usados por los compositores renacentistas e inmediatamente posteriores para expresar sub specie musicae el contenido del texto. De este modo, la técnica de composición musical se va "idiomatizando". La aportación de J. S. Bach, en este sentido, ha sido estudiada y reconocida por la musicología histórica. Hace un tiempo, también la teología evangélica ha comenzado a interesarse en este aspecto de la música de Bach, pues parece claro, que la explicación de los textos bíblicos o devocionales puede tener éxito por medio del trabajo artístico sobre dichos textos, ya que, por este camino, la teología aprende a oírlos y entenderlos de un modo nuevo. Es aquí donde la música, mucho más que el resto de las artes, adquiere una especial importancia.

Ghosts, Animals, or Angels. Christian Story-Telling in a Modern World

Diane, a young Christian university student, was home for the summer. One evening she returned late from a visit to her friends. She walked quite alone through an alley and asked God to keep her from harm and danger. Halfway down the alley she noticed a man, looking like he was waiting for her. She prayed for protection and instantly a comfortable feeling of quietness and security surrounded her, as if someone was walking with her. She walked right past the man and arrived home safely. The following day she read in the paper that a young girl had been raped in the same alley, just twenty minutes after she had been there. She decided to go down to the police station. She could identify the man at a line-up. The man was arrested. She asked the policeman if he would ask the man why he had not attacked her. His answer was as simple as it was surprising: “Because she wasn’t alone. She had two tall men walking on either side of her.” This story was mentioned in an edifying book on angel apparitions, published in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1982 (MacDonald 1982: 75). It is the oldest variant I know of a story that is still circulating around the whole world, especially in orthodox Protestant circles. In the following I am going to give some examples that became known to me from folkloristic publications, from internet messages and from oral communication. I will also treat the classic story-type of Guardian Angels, of which in my opinion the aforementioned version is a modern transformation. In some older wonder-stories that are particularly widespread in Dutch Pietistic circle, pious girls do not play the main role but rather reverend pastors. In addition, I will compare these with some variants from English Methodism, in which pastors are also protected, but not by angels, but by riders on horse, stray dogs or even mysterious ghosts. 1

Enlightenment, Establishment and the Word

There is cause for concern for the future of New Testament studies, in particular in the UK, in relation to (a) theology as a whole, (b) the churches and (c) the univer sity system in general. A perhaps surprisingly large proportion (some 20%) of the teachers employed in Theology and Religious Studies departments of British uni versities and other comparable publicly funded institutions have New Testament as their subject. No other subject is so big. The situation is not without odd features. The strength of New Testament studies coincides with its almost fastidious with drawal from wider theological or religious connections, yet it is surely these con nections, taking various forms, which largely account for the subject's predomi nance. Equally strange is the recent official endorsement by the Roman Catholic Church of the range of methods now used in biblical studies, both historical and literary, when it coincides with a widespread tendency in many Protestant circles to reject the Enlightenment's legacy of primacy for historical enquiry in favour of revived doctrinal orthodoxy. Indeed some elements in New Testament scholarship have embraced this standpoint, often streamlining the New Testament writings to accord with later doctrinal norms. This movement accords ill with the official reli gious neutrality of university departments, which is accentuated by the tendency to locate them in schools of humanities. At the same time, the links between such departments and the churches have become tenuous, and even the elementary insights of New Testament studies find little currency in church decision-making. There is a need to work for new styles of relationship between New Testament studies and both theology in general and the churches (as a natural constituency), in ways that accept honestly the achievements and valid perspectives of the academic discipline.

The Changing Role of Women in the Early Christian World

“[T]he vitality of the church is regained when it recovers the revolutionary insights of its founders, Jesus and Paul. In the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century and in the renewal movements that have taken place in both Roman Catholic and Protestant circles in the present century, it has been the fresh appropriation of the insights of Jesus and Paul about the inclusiveness of people across ethnic, racial, ritual, social, economic, and sexual boundaries that has restored the relevance and vitality of Christian faith and has lent to Christianity as a social and intellectual movement a positive, humane force in the wider society.”

Die ‘Proslogion C2-4’ van Anselmus van Kantelberg (1033/34-1109 nC)

The Proslogion, C2-4 of Anselm of Canterbury (1033/34-1109) In Protestant circles students and lecturers usually know the ‘ontological’ (a name given by Kant) proof for the existence of God of Anselm, mostly only from selected sentences and critical arguments about this ‘proof. In this article the full Latin text of Anselm’s proof is given and, presumably, its first Afrikaans translation. Subsequently, summaries of two widely divergent views on interpreting the four chapters of the Proslogion are given and, finally, the Proslogion is very briefly related to the reflections of Wentzel van Huyssteen on the methodology of theology.

Bible Believers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World.

(also Bible-believer, Bible-believing Christian, Bible-believing Church ) is a self-description by conservative Christians to differentiate their teachings from others who see non- or extrabiblical tradition as higher or equal in authority. In normal usage, Bible believer means an individual or organisation that believes the Christian is true in some significant way. However, this combination of words is given a unique meaning in fundamentalist Protestant circles, where it is equated with the belief that the Christian contains no theological contradictions, historical discrepancies, or other such 'errors', otherwise known as biblical inerrancy.

Unity in Diversity: Ethnotheological Sensitivity in Cross-Cultural Evangelism

Originally presented as an introduction for a visiting lectureship at Fuller Theological Seminary, this article illustrates why the author's writings are so valued by missiologists — well beyond his own tradition. And Professor Luzbetak has done for his Roman Catholic colleagues what Eugene Nida has accomplished in Protestant circles: sensitized a growing number of missionaries to the cultural dimensions of their mandated task. One key to this broad influence is found in the following article: his perceptive anthropological insights do not weaken his theological commitment, but rather inform and enhance it.

The American Protestant Theological Seminary and Missions: An Historical Survey

Like other movements throughout history, the Protestant missionary enterprise arose out of zealous activism, and only later turned to reflective analysis. Even then, missiology as a discipline developed very slowly within the halls of academia. Furthermore, as senior missiologist, R. Pierce Beaver points out in this paper originally presented to the Association of Professors of Missions (at St. Louis, June, 1973), some belatedly-established chairs of missions saw only a decade or two of occupancy before the Great Depression reversed these gains; and the changes brought about by World War II accentuated this downward trend. With the renewal of interest now appearing in some Protestant circles, this historical analysis should encourage every missiologist as to the cruciality of his task.

Clement of Rome and Moralism

Clement of Rome has often been judged and found wanting by his Protestant interpreters. His letter is frequently presented as “a good illustration of the break between the New Testament faith and the Apostolic Fathers' lapse into moralism.” (And “moralism,” to put it mildly, is not always a pleasant word in Protestant theological circles.) Rudolf Knopf calls attention to the “rationalen Moralismus des Schreibens.” And Johannes Weiss says that “a strong moralism runs through all its expressions from the first page to the last.” When James Mackinnon gives us examples of Christian moralism in the sub-apostolic period, Clement is of course present in a prominent way, as indeed he is also significantly present when H. E. W. Turner mentions the “tradition of ‘sober moralism’ which was so notable a feature of late first-century and early second-century Christianity.” Moreover, A. C. McGiffert stands in the same tradition of interpretation when he says that for Clement “salvation is to be had only by obeying God and doing his will.” One could of course go on and on citing examples of this kind, but it seems unnecessary to do so, especially in view of the fact that a great many more illustrations are readily available in Thomas F. Torrance's The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers. Not only does Professor Torrance mention numerous scholars who stress the moralism of Clement, but also he himself comes to the conclusion that grace in I Clement appears to be an “enabling power granted to those who are worthy.” Clement “may use the language of election and justification, but the essentially Greek idea of the unqualified freedom of choice is a natural axiom in his thought, and entails a doctrine of ‘works,’ as Paul would have said.”

Vocation et Iimites d'une sociologie du protestantisme en France

During recent years, the sociology of religion has developed rapidly in French Protestant circles. Ap parently the difficulties, at least as regards sociogra phy, had been greater than those faced by Catholics. Statistics of religious practice were, in fact, less meaningful. It was only after 1950 that studies began to gain ground. These first studies tackled the problems of participation in the rites, particularly in Bordeaux and in Strasbourg of those of political behaviour. Various enquiries have been made in Alsace between 1954 and 1959. The problem of the pastors and that of certain aspects of the pastorale (geographical sectors, e.g.) have also been tackled. The sociology of religion is being deve loped apace with the theological renewal and with the effort to define the real meaning of the Church. The social and cultural conditions of Protestantism are much different from those of Catholicism. The sociology of Protestantism cannot just follow in the footsteps of that of Catholicism, and a psycho-socio logical study of French Protestantism has yet to be made.

Natural Theology and The Christian Faith

For over a generation now (in Protestant circles) natural theology has fallen on evil days. Barth has stamped ruthlessly on every attempt to ground the Christian faith in any form of general knowledge. ‘Back to the biblical faith’ became his watchword. Bultmann likewise scorned Weltanschauung as the importation of Stoicism into the non-philosophical Christian faith. Between Barth's biblical theology and Bultmann's existentialism there was such a strong bond of common hostility to general revelation that natural theology was rejected outright—for natural theology is most properly defined as any knowledge of God, His will and His ways, based on man's general experience, knowledge, and reason.Lately, however, for good or ill, there are some signs of return. The thrust of Kierkegaard's anti-rational and antiempirical polemic is being broken both as its newness wears off and as its negativity stands naked before us. The anti-theological as well as the an ti-metaphysical drive of linguistic philosophy is slowing down, and there is even evident most recently a somewhat more constructive mood and method within this philosophical position. The power of Tillich's position, in sharp contrast, has been partly due to a bold system holding that, while recognising the truths inherent in both Barth's anti-liberal stand and Bultmann's existential interpretation of the Christian faith, nevertheless dares to base itself on the fulness of the facts of experience and of human history. Tillich's positive and inclusive approach is commending itself to a fast expanding circle of thinkers.

Catholic Bible Translations

HE REPORTED popularity of the recently published Revised Standard Version of the New Testament' has inspired the hope in Protestant circles that a reawakening of interest in things biblical will soon manifest itself. Translations and revisions generally are a more accurate barometer of popular interest in the Sacred Scriptures than are scholarly publications, for these are intended only for a very limited audience whereas vernacular translations affect greater numbers of believers.