Sacred Traditions Research Articles

Sephora’s Starter Witch Kit

In late summer 2018, beauty chain Sephora announced the release of a “Starter Witch Kit” in collaboration with fragrance company Pinrose. By September, Sephora announced it was cancelling the product after receiving extensive criticism on social media, particularly from Modern Witches. This article examines the uproar surrounding Sephora’s Starter Witch Kit as it played out on Twitter. The debate on Twitter included Witches protesting the appropriation and commodification of their sacred traditions, as well as outsiders who questioned the right of Witches to complain about spiritual theft. This Twitter debate was an opportunity for Modern Witches to substantiate and legitimize their identities as Witches. Witches distinguished their identities as “authentic” by mocking certain products and consumers, and demarcated practices/traditions as distinctive of Witchcraft by calling them sacred. By accusing Sephora of spiritual theft, Witches also largely elided their own engagement with appropriation from religious traditions.

Christian Mindfulness and Mental Health: Coping through Sacred Traditions and Embodied Awareness

Mindfulness is increasingly implemented as a tool in mental health practice for coping and self-care. Some Christians worry that these practices might be in conflict with their own tradition, while other Christian contexts are reclaiming the contemplative aspects of the faith. Though clinicians are not trained to teach on religious topics and ethically must avoid pushing religion onto clients, conceptualization and research extend the benefits of mindfulness practices for religious clients. This paper will discuss the evidence for using mindfulness in mental health treatment and connect mindfulness to the Christian tradition. The authors explore how intentional awareness and embodiment of the present moment are supported in Christian theology through the incarnation of Jesus and God’s attention of the physical body in the Christian scriptures. The authors also discuss how sacraments and prayer naturally overlap with mindfulness practices for the dual purposes of emotional healing and spiritual growth. To bolster the benefits of mindfulness in the psychological and religious realms, the purpose of this paper is to empower therapists to address client concerns of whether mindfulness is in conflict with Christianity, support clients in expanding current Christian religious coping, and provide Christian leaders with more information about how mindfulness elements are already present in Christian rituals and beliefs.

ЖІНОЧА ГІГІЄНА: ДОГЛЯД ЗА ТІЛОМ, ВОЛОССЯМ ТА ОБЛИЧЧЯМ У ТРАДИЦІЙНІЙ КУЛЬТУРІ УКРАЇНЦІВ СЕРЕДИНИ ХІХ – поч. ХХ ст.

This article presents an approach to analysis of women’s hygiene and beauty practices in the traditional Ukrainian society. As a key message, the article discusses female hygiene and body care as a historically determined, complex process, affected by popular beliefs stemming from people’s living, natural and, more specifically, climatic conditions. The author presents the rules of society, especially taboos, which influenced women’s hygiene as a special practice. Hence hygiene, body care and beauty standards are recognized as a function of specific social and cultural norms established for woman’s body. In addition, the notion of bodily health, hygiene and beauty was most closely tied to the popular view of «proper» and «improper» days for body care. For instance, ritualistic washing of the body was mandatory on the eve of major calendar holidays, especially Christmas and Easter, however, bathing, washing or sprinkling, practiced during these periods, had as its object rather some sacred than any hygienic purpose. Accordingly, on the days of traditional Christian fasting (Wednesdays and Fridays), it was forbidden to bathe, the same goes for Sundays and the time during certain calendar periods: on the eve of Whit Sunday festivities, Midsummer Night, also after Elijah’s Day or the Feast of Transfiguration. The emphasis was put on hygiene, standards of beauty, care, etc. as a construct of cultural and social norms, where the age and marital status of women would be of great importance. As woman grew older, she had to become more inconspicuous: excessive primping, self-care, and adorning were strongly condemned by the society of that time. Thus, it appears that all hygienic procedures of body and hair care were under the scrutiny of society, with imposition of a significant number of taboos, restrictions and precautions. Women had to follow all those precepts because otherwise they would be accused of violating sacred traditions.

Upacara Adat Tengger di Ambang Komodifikasi: Merawat Tradisi dari Ancaman Desakralisasi

The phenomenon of profanation of sacred traditions in the tourism industry is increasingly prevalent. Considering that matter, some steps should be taken to avoid the tradition of desacralization. This research was done by a field research approach to identifying the values of the traditional ceremony of Tengger, especially Yadnya Kasada, Yadnya Karo, and Unan-unan. This research was located in Tosari and Ngadiwana Village, Tosari, Pasuruan, East Java. The data was collected by unstructured and open-ended interviews. The results showed that their beliefs and obedience in conducting the ancestral teachings must be balanced through a deep and comprehensive understanding of traditional values. On the other hand, adaptation strategies must be carried out to stabilize themselves with modernization. These are done to preserve the existence of tradition without eliminating the essence of sacredness that has been attached to it. Therefore, one of the steps that can be taken is to separate the tradition from commodification without resisting the flow of modernization

THE IMPORTANCE OF RITUALS IN COURT PROCEEDINGS

The article focuses on defining the concept and historical roots of ritual. The ritual component of justice is analysed. The characteristics and role of rituals in modern justice are identified. The contemporary judiciary is becoming more and more isolated, its structure more complex and branched out, each of which serves as a safeguard against the errors of the previous one. However, above the last instance, there is still something that guarantees justice and inspires confidence in the human court. This is reminded by the judicial rituals that continue to accompany the judicial process. Court rituals are not only an accepted way of doing things; they also convey information that contains the answers to many of the questions that people subconsciously ask themselves when they come into contact with the courts in particular situations. The deeper one understands the origins and traditions of the judiciary, the greater is the trust in the court, which is so necessary in the modern conditions of the development of our society, when the very idea of justice and guarantees of judicial protection is proclaimed as one of the main legal values. Today, some part, perhaps a significant one, of this functional purpose of rituals has been irrevocably lost and one can speak of the end of the era of a society of sacred traditions. Rather, we can talk about the transformation of a number of ritual forms into legal forms by reducing their religious significance, and about the transfer of sacral significance to the values of modern secular civilisation – the independence of judges, free access to justice, etc. Today’s judicial rituals are as necessary for participants in the process as they were a thousand years ago, despite the fact that not many people think of them as such, perceiving them precisely from a legal perspective. The traditions of court rituals should not only be observed as a tribute to the past, but their performance should be conscious and filled with meaning in keeping with today’s demands, for trust in a court that looks and acts beyond the perceptions and expectations of observers is hardly possible. The court, both in the Middle Ages and today, differs from various pseudo-judicial organizations (such as the emergency courts, which are based on arbitrariness) precisely in judicial rituals – the attributes of a real judicial process. Just as rituals were important in times when the court was trusted by virtue of their observance, so today the court needs rituals when the very idea of justice and guarantees of judicial protection is proclaimed to be one of the most important legal values. The court today more than ever must conform to modern ideals which are hardly more sacred values than the divine justice in the medieval court.

Revisiting a Hypothesis: Tracing Early Buddhist Heritage in Central-Eastern Europe

The following paper is a revisitation of a hypothesized cultural connection between the Szekler gates, predominantly from Transylvania (in the Carpathian Basin), and the Sacred gate tradition found across Asia. The structure of this paper is built upon three different approaches: firstly, the recent publications and historical records on this topic; secondly the ethnographical similarities in function and symbolism between the Szekler gates and the gateways found across Asia; and thirdly the observable similarities and analogies between the ornaments and symbols used on Szekler gates and other Asian gateway structures are examined. This article aims to investigate if the observable analogies and similarities are just the result of a strange coincidence, or if there is indeed a cultural connection between the Szekler gate and the similar constructions across Asia as hypothesized by several 19th and early 20th-century researchers of the topic.

EAST TRYPILLIA AND WEST TRYPILLIA CULTURES: MYTH OR REALITY?

Problems of culturogenesis and structure of the cultural complex of Trypillia-Сucuteni become relevant in the last decades of the XXth century. The emergence of new sources and methods encourages researchers to understand the phenomenon of Trypillia-Сucuteni on a new level. There is a noticeable tendency to single out individual archaeological cultures instead of structural subdivisions of the cultural community at the turn of the XX—XXIth centuries. The binary scheme of the division of the Trypillia culture into the «East Trypillia» and «West Trypillia» cultures became popular in the national Trypillia studies. However, such an «innovation» is not sufficiently substantiated both at the level of methodological principles and analysis of specific materials. Elucidation of the real structure of the cultural complex of Trypillia-Сucuteni shows its versatility and proves the artificiality of its division into two archaeological cultures, which is proposed by O. V. Tsvek and S. M. Ryzhov.
 The division of the Trypillia-Сucuteni cultural complex into separate archeological cultures (two or more) is impossible until its final stage CII, because almost all its structural units are selected on the basis of ceramic traditions, and the other parameters (character of house-building, tools producing, sacred tradition) are more or less the same. All structural units combine a genetic link with the Precucuteni-Trypillya A times, which demonstrates all the features of the Trypillia-Сucuteni cultural complex as a whole, with the exception of ceramic traditions. These traditions are the most dynamic, act as an indicator of the cultural identity of certain groups of the population and reflect the structure of the cultural complex.
 The structure of the cultural complex Trypillia-Сucuteni is a spatio-temporal continuum, its complexity is due to dynamic and multifaceted processes of internal transformations of individual units of the structure, the interaction of traditions and innovations, constant contacts between them, the movement of specific groups, their interaction with surrounding cultural complexes. The binary concept of the «East Trypillia» and the «West Trypillia» cultures, which became too popular today, is an artificial construction and does not reflect the real structure of Trypillia Culture.

The Role of National Values in the Family in Child Education

The article discusses the role of the family and national values in the upbringing of children. Thoughts on the example of parents in the upbringing of children, the positive impact of a healthy lifestyle in the family are also shown. The importance of national values in the upbringing of children is also highlighted in detail. Every parent in an Uzbek family should feel from the heart that a child needs to develop humanism, love for the Motherland, faith, responsibility, devotion to our sacred traditions, passion for science, cultural skills. Therefore, the main school of child rearing is the relationship between a couple and a parent. Raising a child is one of the most important issues for parents.

Женские образы и визуализация травмы в блокадном тексте Ольги Берггольц

This work investigates the role of female images in the representation of trauma in the blockade narrative by O. F. Bergholz. Her poetic texts for propaganda posters “Okna TASS” and the poem “Conversation with a neighbor” portray realistic images of women. The poem “The February Diary” conveys the blockade trauma through the aesthetics of silence, filled with existential semantics. In “Leningrad Poem,” the poet emphasizes the loss of sacred traditions: the disconsolate mother cannot bury her child. In “Leningrad Autumn,” Bergholz reproduces real everyday life and religious-mystical being: the figure of a woman holding a board with nails visualizes a graphic symbol - a cross, manifesting the burden of people’s ordeal. In the novel “Day Stars,” the chapter “Smoke Break,” the author depicts the emotional and moral threshold crossed by two Leningrad women, sitting on a sled with a coffin and having a smoke break. In the passage “Banya” from the unfinished second part of “Day stars,” Bergholz breaks through to the “existentially uncomfortable writing” and visualizes the blockade trauma in the category of physicality traditionally tabooed in the literature of the Soviet period. The naked female body becomes exceptionally expressive and serves as a sign to reveal new meanings in the literary text. Skinny bodies being the norm, the appearance of a buxom beauty in the bathhouse caused anger: the blockade women identified her as an enemy. The author of the paper defines Leningrad women, considered in the framework of trauma studies, as a “community of loss” of female identity.

Bertholda Müllera-Oerlinghausena nieznane dzieła o tematyce religijnej

Bogata twórczość artysty Bertholda Müllera-Oerlinghausena (ur. 10.02.1893 r., zm. 22.06.1979 r.) zawiera liczne odniesienia do chrześcijaństwa. Projekty kilkunastu okien witrażowych, realizacje mozaikowe, reliefy, a nade wszystko rzeźby odnoszą się do chrześcijańskiej Tradycji skłaniając do refleksji wielu odbiorców. Na terenie Polski znajdują się jego dzieła: monumentalny krucyfiks w kościele pw. św. Antoniego w Pile oraz osiem witraży w kościele pw. św. Marii Magdaleny w Dobrodzieniu przedstawiające wybrane wydarzenia z życia Jezusa.

ЕТИЧНІ СМИСЛИ ДРАМИ СВЯТИТЕЛЯ ГЕОРГІЯ (КОНИСЬКОГО) “ВОСКРЕСІННЯ МЕРТВИХ”

The drama “Ressurection of the dead people”, written by the famous Orthodox hierarch saint Georgiy (Konys’kyj), presents the well-known monument of the old Ukrainian didactic literature. Even nowadays its impressive religious and ethical basis demands attention, popularization and further exploration.The aim of the article is pointing out the central moral and theological ideas of this work and making analysis of them.Georgiy (Konys’kyj’s) drama is connected with the biblical texts (with the evangelic parables of the Wheat and the Tares, of the Sower and of the Rich Man and Lazarus, in particular). This connection is regular and strong enough. At the same time, the author uses some corresponding ethical senses, elements of subject line and images more or less creatively. As a result, his literary work can be interpreted as a perceptibly original one.As well as the Holy Writ and the Sacred Tradition of Church, the drama “Resurrection of the dead people” underlines the value of the different Christian virtues. Among them we find the diligence, the mercy, the making of peace, the gratefulness, the relying upon God’s Providence, the patience, the humility, the understanding of the eternal values priority, etc. Being a preacher of virtues, Ukrainian dramatist preaches down the numerous vices and sins. According to his ethical position, our struggle against the evil should be as righteous and legal as it possible.In spite of some loss of conformity to the moral theology in one episode, on the whole the drama by Georgiy (Konys’kyj) must be regarded as a successful artistic embodiment of the important ideas of the Christian ethics.

A vision of the bull in economic and sacred traditions of Ossetians

A vision of the bull in economic and sacred traditions of Ossetians

Book Review: Stanley Porter, Sacred Tradition in the New Testament

Book Review: Stanley Porter, <i>Sacred Tradition in the New Testament</i>

Zaślubiny w Polsce średniowiecznej

Marriage was an important moment in the lives of two people who decided to establish a family and enter into new family and neighbourhood arrangements. In the Middle Ages, Polish wedding ceremonies were given a ritual form. Sacred tradition merged with newer Christian content and marriage was recognized as a sacrament which symbolically emphasized the importance of events and was supposed to provide future happiness for the newlyweds. The wedding ceremony was preceded by three public announcements in church. It was laid down that the ceremony be held in church and with witnesses. The main elements were the handshake, the exchange of gifts in the form of wreaths, rings or other gifts, and the words spoken: I take you to be my husband/wife.

Editorial

The essays in this dossier are the result of the course “Interreligious and intercultural dialogue from a decolonial perspective”, which took place between May and June 2017 at the CEIICH in the UNAM. In this course, I proposed to link a decolonial theoretical perspective to the topic of “intercultural dialogue” and, beyond, to “interreligious dialogue”; anyhow, this last topic turned out to be the point of departure to explore more profound dialogues, linked no only to religious phenomena but to sacred traditions and spiritualities. During the course, emphasis was put on this last aspect due to the fact that the topic of “the Divine” (in its different expressions), although central to decoloniality, has been poorly studied. Moreover, it has been marginalized within secularized social sciences —and this not just in Mexico, but in most occidentalized universities throughout the globe. This vacuum towards the study of “the Divine” —and, beyond, its limitation through a concept of culture (which is, at the same time, associated to the colonized and to the “other” of modernity)— led the participants of this volume to research deeper that which philosopher Enrique Dussel has described as the “spaces denied and oppressed by modernity”.

Preface: The Word in Words and Images

PrefaceThe Word in Words and Images David Paul Deavel Catholicism is "not a religion of the book." It is instead a religion of the Word—Christ himself, the Logos of the Father in whom everything has been communicated to us and passed down in two forms. "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture," the Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum tells us, "then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." That goal is that the presence of Christ be made manifest in the life of the Church throughout history. This understanding, shared by our Orthodox brothers and sisters, is usually denied by our Protestant brothers and sisters, who generally deny that the Word is found in any medium except the written Scriptures. For them, Scripture is the only place to which one can turn to receive the message of the Word in a public, authoritative way. Catholics (and Orthodox, for that matter) are not forbidden from thinking there is something true about the traditionally Protestant take on Scripture. While the Protestant notion of Scripture as perspicuous, or clearly expressed and easy [End Page 5] to understand, is not something that a Catholic can accept, the notion that all truth is indeed found in Scripture is quite easy to believe. Bl. John Henry Newman's Essay on Development argued for the development of doctrine and the need for an infallible authority in part on the basis of the inchoate and seemingly incomplete nature of the Revelation of Jesus Christ as it is found in the Bible. Where, for instance, does the Bible have an inspired table of contents that tells us which books are in it? Nevertheless, Newman indicated a belief that all truths might be found there. In fact, he seemed to think that the seeming incompleteness of the Bible was not caused by being incomplete, but by including all truth in an unsystematic, mysterious, and veiled fashion. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains.1 A 1984 commercial for Prego pasta sauce features an Italian-American father chastising his newlywed son for getting sauce from a jar. As he lists what ingredients must be there for a successful sauce—and marriage—the son repeats, "It's in there." After the son puts a spoonful of sauce into his mouth, the father exclaims, wide-eyed, "It's in there!" So it is with Scripture. Those who approach with faith and openness will find that all the truths of the world, [End Page 6] though not obvious on the outside and not accessible simply by reading without the tradition and authority of the Church, are indeed "in there." That is why the development of lay Catholics studying Scripture has been such a powerful one in the modern world. While many Reformation-era polemics about the Church's denial of the laity's right to read the Scriptures in various time periods have been exaggerated, it is nonetheless true that in the last few centuries regular reading of Scripture has not always been emphasized in the whole of the Catholic Church. Newman himself complained of the lack of Catholic scripture study in an 1883 letter to...

Judeo-hrišćanska i apokrifna predanja u Kuranu

As scripts for Muhammad's religious notions of Judaism and Christianity, we can use relevant Christological teachings of the Judeo­Christian Arabs whose segments of religious and cultural syncretism we find textually conceived in the Quran. Islamic exegesis describes a number of biblical events and personalities in the spirit of Semitic and Syrian-Palestinian teachings, with all of their heterodox beliefs, which have continued to live in the Islam. Presence of the apocryphal and non-biblical texts in the Quran, points to an explicit deviation from the canonical teachings presented in the Four Gospels, and from the apostolic-patristic heritage that the Church has preserved in the Sacred Tradition.

Pauline Hermeneutics: Exploring the "Power of the Gospel." by Eve-Marie Becker and Kenneth Mtata

Reviewed by: Pauline Hermeneutics: Exploring the "Power of the Gospel." by Eve-Marie Becker and Kenneth Mtata Troy M. Troftgruben Pauline Hermeneutics: Exploring the "Power of the Gospel." Edited by Eve-Marie Becker and Kenneth Mtata. Lutheran World Federation Studies 2016/3. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlangsanstalt, 2017. 182 pp. This collection of essays originated in a 2015 consultation in Aarhus, Denmark, sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The book is the final volume of a four-part LWF biblical hermeneutics series, all of which have included Lutheran scholars from across the globe addressing topics of biblical interpretation in light of the Reformation. This book raises relevant questions regarding Lutheran interpretation of Paul, addressing them with different [End Page 120] hermeneutical insights, approaches, and reflections from seasoned Lutheran scholars. After the Preface and Introduction, the book includes thirteen essays organized into three sections: (1) Exploring Paul and Pauline Hermeneutics, (2) Reading Pauline Texts and Contexts, and (3) Applying Paul's Theology and Hermeneutics to Church and Society. The essay by Kenneth Mtata (Zimbabwe) characterizes Paul's Gospel as a message of freedom from shame and of new identity, both of which are of increased relevance today. Eve-Marie Becker (Denmark) explores the selective yet "connective" ways Paul engages sacred traditions, showing him to be an intentional but complex transmitter, motivated by his apostolic call as much as anything else. The next two essays propose Paul's legacy calls for ongoing rethinking of conventional Pauline hermeneutics: Oda Wischmeyer (Germany) suggests Paul's focus on the Spirit and freedom justifies a more expansive notion of divine communication, and Magnus Zetterholm (Sweden) uses Paul's positive evaluation of slavery to advocate the "newness" proclaimed by his gospel calls for ongoing reinterpretations of scripture for new circumstances. The next four essays center on interpretation for contemporary contexts. Rospita Deliana Siahaan (Indonesia) explores 1 Corinthians 12–14 and Luther to argue churches should not judge one another's practices (especially charismatic practices), and Roger Marcel Wanke (Brazil) shows the interconnectedness of God's creating and reconciling—as divine works and as calls for human responses today. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow (Norway) uses "intersectional hermeneutics" to encourage further dialogue between Galatians 3–4 and marginalized voices and experiences, and Lubomir Batka (Slovakia) lifts up Paul's notion of "citizenship" in Philippians as a hermeneutical instrument for modern interpretation. The final section features five essays that apply Pauline theological principles to modern issues in church and society. Faustin Mahali (Tanzania) argues further integration of Luther's notion of justification by faith among African Lutherans should foster more holistic practices of inclusion and challenges to injustice. Urmas Nõmmik [End Page 121] entertains questions from an Estonian context regarding Scripture and sexuality, Mercedes L. García Bachmann (Argentina-Uruguay) explores nuances of "holiness" in Paul's Letters, and Hans-Peter Grosshans (Germany) investigates Paul's thinking in Philippians 3:20 in conversation with Luther's notion of vocation in larger society. Bernd Oberdorfer (Germany), finally, shows how Luther creatively rearranged Paul's ethical principles for Luther's cultural context, suggesting we do likewise under Paul's notion of "test everything" to discern the good. The book's most distinctive gifts are the global range of its contributors and their critical reflections on Lutheran interpretation of Paul. Given not only Paul's influence on Luther, but vice-versa (Luther's influence on historic interpretation of Paul), this book raises relevant questions 500 years after the Reformation's birth. The essays are brief, raising questions and reflecting generally more than striving to shift the fulcrum of New Testament scholarship. Still, the authors speak with gravitas from extensive careers of theological research. The finest essays are those that name real quandaries in Lutheran interpretation of Paul (for example, Oberdorfer), propose non-traditional hermeneutics as Pauline (Wischmeyer, Zetterholm), or spotlight some very distinctive contextual challenges today (Mahali, Nõmmik). As this summary shows, the book is more representative than new, more diverse than narrow, and emphasizes more questions than conclusions. Still, for teachers and students engaged in cross-cultural Lutheran dialogue, these essays offer a lovely snapshot of the interpretive questions and challenges most pressing for global Lutheranism today. Troy M. Troftgruben Wartburg Theological...

Diaspora Theatre and the Yoruba Sacred Tradition: Aimé Césaire's A Tempest

Diaspora Theatre and the Yoruba Sacred Tradition: Aimé Césaire's A Tempest

Twenty-First Century Leadership: A Return to Beauty

Highlighting Aristotle’s appreciation that “The soul . . . never thinks without a picture,” this article weaves together art and ideas into an aesthetic encounter with beauty, leadership, and our humanity. It invites reflection based on long-established wisdom traditions as well as drawing on insights from everyday sacred traditions. You are invited not only to engage in reading the words presented on each page but also to stop and to reflect on their meaning. You are offered the power of art to intensify your experience and understanding. The article invites you to enter into a contemplative silence designed to increase your appreciation of your own and others’ humanity while deepening the beauty of your own leadership. Such encounters with art and deep reflection have the power to guide us in rediscovering and creating beauty in our fractured world. Encountering art and wisdom through a deeply reflective process does not dismiss science but, rather, partners with all ways of knowing to go beyond what any one approach can produce on its own. Thus, the overall invitation of the article is to heighten your understanding of yourself, your role, and your aspirations as a 21st-century leader.