Public Confession Research Articles

Jak duchowość zmartwychstańców przekształcała środowisko kulturowe. Modlitwa Pańska o. Piotra Semenenki i Feliksa hr. Sobańskiego

The text is an attempt’ to present the influence of the spirituality and ideas preached by the Resurrectionist fathers on the culture and art, including architecture and the cultural environment of the Polish territories in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The postulates concerning the need to change the way society functions (towards a civil society), to work on an increase of parish structures and communities operating within local societies, as well as the thorough education of priests and the renewal of liturgical life, were of particular importance to the congregation. The change in thinking towards ideas close to those of the Resurrectionists became evident, among other things, in a tendency particularly prominent in the erection of so-called village cathedrals, or neo-Gothic churches, which became centers of community revival and raised the status of the neighborhood by providing appropriate space for the renewal of the splendor of the collective liturgy and space for educational and charitable works. Feliks and Emilia Sobański, originally from Obodówka in Ukraine, settled in Guzów in Mazovia since 1865, would consciously embraced the idea of secular involvement in the religious development of Poles, the growth of the presence of Christian principles in politics, economy, philanthropy, education, science and art, and thus – in the long run – the rebirth of Polish statehood. Feliks Sobański particularly profoundly experienced his faith in the context of the Lord’s Prayer words, which accompanied him throughout his life and which he put into action through charitable works – he founded orphanages, shelters, hospitals, as well as places of worship – that were part of the architectural landscape of the Polish lands. His attitude derived from personal contacts with the fathers of the Resurrectionist order and benefited from Father Piotr Semenenko’s lectures on the Our Father prayer. Individual invocations of the Lord’s Prayer appeared on places of worship and charity founded by Sobański, including: the chapel at the Guzów palace, the chapel at the Ophanage in Guzów, above the entrance to the Classrooms for Boys in Warsaw, and on the office building of the Sobański palace in Aleje Ujazdowskie in Warsaw. The constant use of fragments of the Lord’s Prayer in order to mark the buildings he founded was an extremely conscious manifestation of piety, simplicity and charity. Feliks Sobański, by placing the message in public space, would probably have assumed that it could be decoded by many, nevertheless it is difficult to identify specific recipients. The permanent (at least in assumption) inscription on the building is, or rather becomes, a permanent element of the space, assigned to carry the values contained in the inscription and influence others with them. The use of passages from the Lord’s Prayer, a text fundamental to Christianity and widely known (at the time of the message’s transmission), is an interesting use of pars pro toto, when a “part” stimulates thinking about the “whole” and a peculiar public confession of faith by Feliks Sobański, resulting from a deliberate embodiment of the Christian attitude following the teachings of the Resurrectionist fathers. It seems that the concept of marking buildings with invocations from the Lord’s Prayer, applied by Feliks Sobański and Emilia Sobańska, has no counterpart in the Polish territories, as well as it has not yet been possible to point out semantically similar European realizations.

The US Biological and Chemical Agression Against Cuba in 1963–1996

For almost 60 years, the United States has tried to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, using a variety of means, including chemical and biological agents. At the same time, their use has always been officially denied by Washington. The purpose of this article is to summarize the available sources proving the involvement of the United States, as well as the groups of the Cuban opposition created and supported by the US, in biological and chemical sabotage against both the economy and the people of Cuba. Sources, research methods. The author used a variety of open sources, including the statements by Cuban officials, materials from the Cuban and American press, declassified documents from the US government agencies, as well as public confessions of former CIA agents and Cuban opposition figures. The research method is the cross analysis. The discussion of the results. The declassified US documents show that the organizers of «Operation 40» and «Operation Mongoose» planned to use biological agents and parasitic plants against plantations of crops and livestock. Sugar exported to the USSR was also poisoned. In addition, the head of one of the Cuban terrorist organizations admitted that he had imported biological agents to Cuba, which provoked an epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever in 1981. The testimoies of several other former CIA agents also point to the use of African swine fever in 1971 to kill pigs in Cuba. The atypical course of the Dengue fever epidemic in 1981, as well as the absence of a strain (Dengue-2) of this virus in the Western Hemisphere at that time, indicate the planned nature of the sabotage, which resulted in an outbreak on the island. Conclusions. During the Cold War, the United States actively used chemical and biological agents against agriculture and the people of Cuba. The facts considered allow us to draw conclusions about the nature of the methods that the CIA used to organize and conduct biosabotage: such operations were planned «in the long run» and had large-scale goals – for example, to eliminate sugar production on the island or cause famine; highly contagious pathogens of human and animal diseases were used for biological sabotage; artificially caused outbreaks of epidemics and epizootics were disguised as natural ones; representatives of the local opposition, as well as mercenaries, were involved in the implementation of sabotage; to infect farm animals, vaccines contaminated with virulent strains directly at biofactories, as well as contaminated feed were used.

THE INDOCTRINATION DIMENSION OF REPRESSION: TELEVISED CONFESSIONS IN CHINA*

Public confessions are repression spectacles that have appeared in different regimes and historical periods. This study theorizes an indoctrination dimension of repression—the turning of punishment into a control tool that displays the regime’s apparent transformative power. Whereas repression is often defined by its inhibiting dimension, this study argues that authorities stage repressive spectacles not only to deter further dissent but also as an instrument of “thought reform,” a governance tradition in China. The study finds two indoctrinating narratives based on an interpretive analysis of a dataset of televised confessions in China. First, confessions show a doctrine of political dissident as traitorous and immoral. Second, they convey a doctrine of rectification that displays the seemingly transformative power of the regime, one in which transgressors perform law-abiding citizens. These findings advance the conceptual refinement of repression by analyzing its indoctrination dimension.

Public confessions. The religious conversions that changed American politics. By Rebecca L. Davis. Pp. viii + 248 incl. 11 ills. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. $30. 978 1 4696 6487 3

Public confessions. The religious conversions that changed American politics. By Rebecca L. Davis. Pp. viii + 248 incl. 11 ills. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. $30. 978 1 4696 6487 3

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics

Rebecca L. Davis's Public Confessions shows how religious conversions of public figures in the mid-twentieth-century United States were far more than individual changes of mind and heart. Instead, “religious conversions and the responses they elicited bore unique, political significance,” fueled by public debates about authenticity (pp. 10–11). While some Americans accepted these conversions, however unexpected, as modern embodiments of classic religious and patriotic ideals, others worried about manipulation. Davis begins with the politician and writer Claire Boothe Luce and her 1946 conversion to Roman Catholicism. While Catholic faith eased Luce's personal struggles, she also worked with the prominent cleric Fulton J. Sheen to contend for its democratizing power against communism. The second chapter profiles conversions of ex-Communists such as Whittaker Chambers to “redemptive Christianity and heterosexual monogamy,” the latter offering skeptical public evidence of authentic transformation (p. 44). Complicating compelling conversions, however, were the discomforting cases of dishonest ex-Communists such as Harvey Matusow and the American prisoners of war in North Korea who declined to return stateside in 1954, both the subject of chapter 3.

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics by Rebecca Davis (review)

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics by Rebecca Davis (review)

Moral Motivation, The Pitfalls of Public Confession, and Another Conversion in Confessions, Book 10

This article focuses on the unresolved scholarly question of how Confessiones, book 10 should be interpreted, proposing a new explanation as to how and why the second half of book 10 is critically important to this text. Emphasizing important relations between the introductory chapters and the second half of book 10, the article revisits Augustine’s treatment of ambitio saeculi, interpreted as a state of will, with which author Augustine continues to struggle, even during his act of confessing publicly (i.e., in composing the book 10 text for publication). As a corruption of the motive behind his act of public confession, ambitio saeculi threatens to undermine the moral integrity of this same act. After Augustine recognizes that he cannot solve this moral flaw, he despairs and considers abandoning his human audience, and so, the very publication of his text. However, he is made newly capable of remaining, as confessant, before his readership, through a new, deeper conversion. This conversion to a new humility is given in and through the confessant’s participation in the eucharistic sacrament, which provides a hopeful resolution to his ambitio saeculi.

America's Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest by Stephen T. Kissel

Reviewed by: America's Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest by Stephen T. Kissel Marcus Gallo (bio) Keywords Old Northwest, Midwest, Religion, Protestantism, Religious development America's Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest. By Stephen T. Kissel. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. 268. Cloth, $110.00.) Examining the Old Northwest until 1848, the year that Wisconsin became a state, Stephen T. Kissel describes the religious "bonds, networks, and relationships that allowed these isolated western settlements to evolve in their regional unity and identity" (2). Kissel tackles a variety of topics, including home worship and hospitality, religious literature and schooling, church-building, camp revivals, Bible societies, and social reform movements. These religious undertakings helped develop the Old Northwest, providing structure to the region prior to the establishment of "stable civic and political infrastructures," when "the separation of church and state became more clearly defined by civic and political policies" (145–46). By midcentury, as the pioneer period ended, the Northwest was home to a "religious mosaic" encompassing a variety of sects that still flavored local society (145). [End Page 650] Kissel's chapters all follow a similar structure: Each looks extensively at how mainline Protestant sects handled the aforementioned undertakings, then touches briefly on similar developments among northwestern minorities: Catholics; Blacks and Indians; and Mormon, Shaker, and Rappite utopians. The repetition of this structure can leave these sections on minorities feeling tacked on; the book offers far more to readers interested in the experiences of white Protestants than to those seeking to learn about Black churches or missionary efforts among Native American communities. While not overly focused on religious violence, the rough-and-tumble nature of the Old Northwest emerges from numerous examples. In Kissel's words, "Being able to hold one's own in a fight was regarded with equal value to honesty, because it proved a man could stand his ground and defend his principles" (119). In some instances, the dividing lines could be between believers and unbelievers. Most of the inhabitants of Jackson, Michigan, and Vermillion County, Illinois, resented the presence of itinerant preachers wishing to spread religion. In Plainfield, Michigan, the settlers threatened to ride the preacher out of town on a wooden horse for insulting their integrity by preaching about the evils of prostitution. Perhaps in response to this sort of hostility, one intrepid preacher rode his circuit "with a loaded pistol and a dirk," causing the Western Methodist Conference to publicly reprimand him, then eventually drive him out of the church (116). Similarly, camp revivals attracted throngs of all sorts, including liquor salesmen, to the consternation of religious participants. Revivals could become sites of vandalism and violence when rowdy crowds of youths sought to entertain themselves by disrupting proceedings, prompting the faithful to arm occasionally themselves to maintain order. In other instances, mainstream Protestants moved beyond the defensive, targeting minority sects with violence. In 1810, convinced that local Shakers had been seducing children to run away and then abusing them, a crowd of five hundred armed men entered Union Village, Ohio, and demanded that the Shakers there renounce their faith. The vigilantes left after the Shakers convinced them that they had not, in fact, been maltreating the children of the village. What emerges is a picture of a society that lacked a monopoly on violence; religious organization helped fill the void of authority. Kissel's investigation of church disciplinary procedures is most revealing of the ways in which religious structures overlapped with civil structures in the Old Northwest, providing something of a surrogate for the state. [End Page 651] When forming, Protestant churches adopted strict rules of decorum. For example, Methodists banned "swearing, drunkenness, profaning the Sabbath, failing to attend public worship, fighting, gambling, transacting dishonest business, participating in the slave trade, and 'the putting on of gold and costly apparel'" (107). Enthusiastic lay members formed committees to strengthen the faith of the spiritually conflicted and investigate unacceptable behavior among their congregations. They punished the guilty by demanding public confessions or, for more extreme behavior, suspending or expelling members from the church. Over time, churches expanded their scope to handle disputes that blurred the line between religious...

Far from a Few Bad Apples: The Role of Public Confessions in a Veteran Social Movement

ABSTRACT An analysis of testimonies of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) found that members used public confessions to frame war crimes as the result of deep-rooted institutional contradictions rather than isolated instances of criminal behavior to call for social change. The veterans used confessions to 1. reveal the back region behavior of war, 2. expose the informational preserve of the self, and 3. disclose dark secrets. The term whistle blowing confessions refers to such narratives. Whistle blowing confessions involve an admission of wrongdoing by an individual but also incriminate a social institution, an authority figure, or the social order in general. In contrast, premodern and modern public confessions have been organized by power holders as propaganda to delegitimize challengers and reinforce their own legitimacy by framing conflicts caused by deep rooted societal contradictions as individual acts of deviance – often to justify increased social control.

The Loss of a Clan: Abandoning Ethos of the East African Revival by the Contemporary Kenyan Christian

This study investigated two practises of the East African Revival (EAR) movement; the public testimony of one’s salvation and the public confession of all known sins. The study further sought to know the attitude of the contemporary Christian on the same. The study was qualitative in strategy with a phenomenological design. Criterion based purposive sampling was used to select the participants. The tools for gathering data were In-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussions, and Document Review. Thematic Coding Analysis was used to analyse the data. The EDNA model for practical theology was applied as the theological framework. Findings show that the EAR members held the public testimony and public confession of sin as foundational to their doctrine and practice. The two practices helped them to create a unique identity and cohesiveness, after separating from their familial clans at conversion, hence forming a new spiritual clan of their own. The contemporary Christian on the other hand finds these two tenets of the EAR,
 intrusive and unacceptable. With no alternative ways of building cohesiveness and a unique identity, the younger believers are left without a clan hence becoming spiritual orphans. Traditional Anglicanism, with its focus on sacraments and liturgy, and African Traditional Religions are among the formations fighting to adopt these spiritual orphans. The study recommends that the church and society revisit these practices and apply them appropriately in the fight against corruption and tribalism, among other ills in Kenyan society.

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics. By Rebecca L. Davis

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics. <i>By Rebecca L. Davis</i>

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics by Rebecca L. Davis

Reviewed by: Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics by Rebecca L. Davis Benjamin Baker (bio) Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics. By Rebecca L. Davis. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 248 pp. Public Confessions appeared as the United States was experiencing Covid-19 quarantines and pitched battles over national identity. Among Americans, the pandemic raised—or revealed, depending on how one looks at it—fierce disputes about the nature of freedom, democracy, and partisanship, while on other fronts Americans just as vigorously debated race, gender, sexuality, and cancel culture. Appropriately, then, Rebecca Davis's volume explores these very issues from the lens of high profile religious conversions of last century. What do Clare Boothe Luce, Whittaker Chambers, Sammy Davis, Jr., Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, Eldridge Cleaver, and Chuck Colson have in common? According to Davis, all experienced religious conversions ("confessions") in Cold War America that "moved claims of religious authenticity to the center of American political debates" and raised "questions of whether and how different kinds of faith variously anchored or undermined American freedoms" (4). Davis does not provide a working definition of the contested term "conversion," although there is rich material throughout the work to grapple with its meaning(s). Instead, in the prologue, Davis suggests that religious conversions discussed in the volume may be seen as "self-discovery," "self-invention," "self-transformation," or a kind of authenticity (1–11). [End Page 309] These notions of conversion are evident in Davis's treatment of religious conversion as not a single event, but rather a whole life lived up to the conversion event. This is in keeping with the long tradition of conversion narratives, with the requisite mention of St. Augustine, exemplar of the genre. However, discrete developments always seem to precipitate conversion, at least in retrospect. Consider Davis's subjects. Luce's daughter tragically died in a car accident in 1944, and Luce was nearing a mental collapse and attempted suicide twice. Chambers felt tremendous pressure from his double life as a Soviet spy and gay man. Davis, Jr. was nearly killed in a car accident in Los Angeles in 1954. Ali grappled with identity issues around being black in America. Colson was mired in the Watergate scandal and awaiting a legal verdict. Davis shows how these celebrities adroitly curated their personal religious conversions for the American public to further political ends. Luce presented Roman Catholicism as a democratic check to the peril of communism, with "Catholic converts [holding] the future for American power and democracy" (13). Likewise, Chambers claimed his conversion to Christianity caused him to inform on his Communist conspirators and champion conservatism. Davis, Jr. practiced and literally performed Judaism to achieve civil rights for African Americans. Ali used his conversion to the Nation of Islam to promote black power and freedom and critique American involvement in the Vietnam War. Colson parlayed his conversion to evangelical Christianity to promote white neoliberal masculinity. In an era when Americans questioned the compatibility of some faiths with democracy, namely, any faiths other than mainline Protestantism, these figures argued that their new faiths were quintessentially democratic. Public Confessions excels in demonstrating how these celebrity conversions, though from diverse backgrounds and varied faiths, all revealed essential aspects of American politics and ultimately shaped American identity. Luce shows how an America that was largely male chauvinist and anti-Catholic was moved, if only incrementally, to view women as serious religious figures and more than sexual objects, and to a consideration that Catholics could be genuinely American. Ali and Davis, Jr. defy the narrow possibilities that racism imposed on blacks and widened religious heterodoxy and political expression for African Americans. Colson demonstrates how white Christian men had the privilege to reinvent themselves despite epic wrongdoing and contributed to the rise and dominance of the Religious Right in the Reagan era and beyond. Public Confessions's strength is that it takes a complex era, group of individuals, and subject matter, and produces an intriguing volume for scholarly and non-scholarly audiences. It is the latest offering in a [End Page 310] growing literature that treats religious conversions as more than religious, per se, demonstrating their...

Water baptism as church membership identity in Nigeria

In the New Testament (NT), water baptism symbolises forgiveness of sins for the baptised, and their identification with Jesus Christ and the church as a body, but not the means of salvation. Most Nigerian churches involve baptism in certain practices, which apparently treat baptism as proof of salvation. This article examined such practices and assessed the extent to which they conform to the NT purpose of baptism. Employing the historical and descriptive methods, this research found that in the NT baptism was the means of public confession of Jesus as one’s Lord. Although several passages in the gospels and Acts give the impression that salvation is tied to baptism, there are many NT passages which make salvation absolutely God’s grace. This article discovered some church practices in Nigeria that suggest that water baptism is necessary for salvation. This attitude is seen in individual denominations making baptism their membership identity. Some other practices treat baptism as proof of salvation and holiness, which include denial of baptism and full membership to polygamists and making baptism a prerequisite for certain privileges. This article concluded that these practices contradict the NT purpose of baptism in that it was intended for identification with Christ and the universal church, not as membership identity of local church groups, or evidence of holiness.Contribution: This research is a contribution in New Testament theology. It argues that the adoption of water baptism as church membership identity in Nigeria, contradicts the original purpose of the sacrament.

Sovereign dealings with blasphemy: the prosecution of written pacts with the Devil within the absolute monarchy of Denmark-Norway

ABSTRACT This article discusses how to perceive developments in the prosecution of written pacts with the Devil in Denmark-Norway between 1634 and 1754. While existing scholarship interprets the prosecution within the framework of an Enlightenment narrative by presenting the cases as evidence of an incomplete rejection of magical beliefs, such as the possibility of making a pact with the Devil, this article investigates the cases with regard to the early absolutist sovereigns’ endeavours to deal with blasphemy offences. The medley of punishments imposed in the cases – including public confession, executions, and imprisonment with hard labour – calls for a more complex evaluation of both ruptures and continuity in the prosecution of this type of crime during the period. Through selected cases representing varying approaches of the respective sovereigns, this article analyses how the understanding and administration of the offence developed in the legal practice of the emerging absolutist state.

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics. By Rebecca L. Davis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 248pp. $30.00 hardcover.

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics. By Rebecca L. Davis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. 248pp. $30.00 hardcover.

Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions that Changed American Politics. By Rebecca L. Davis

<i>Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions that Changed American Politics</i>. By Rebecca L. Davis

“Their Deeds Shall Be Made Manifest”: The Scandalous Mission of Joseph W. Clements to Great Britain, 1848–1851

“Their Deeds Shall Be Made Manifest”: The Scandalous Mission of Joseph W. Clements to Great Britain, 1848–1851

The Power of Public Confession: Mobilization and Reputation Effects of Disclosing Socially Irresponsible Performance

The Power of Public Confession: Mobilization and Reputation Effects of Disclosing Socially Irresponsible Performance

An Accidental Genre

An Accidental Genre