Journal articles on the topic 'Popular culture – religious aspects – christianity'
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Doye, Eli. "Mopin and its Sacred Ritualistic Aspects." Dera Natung Government College Research Journal 1, no. 1 (2016): 75–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.56405/dngcrj.2016.01.01.08.
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This fieldwork-based article provides an ethnographic overview of the Mopin festival of the Galos and its underlying ritualistic aspects. The Galos have a rich, multi-faceted and distinct culture of their own. Among the diverse types of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) of the Galo tribe, Mopin is the most popular and significant. In fact, it forms a part of the identity and heritage of the indigenous community. Mopin has certain established sacred and religious rituals which are usually accompanied by hymns and incantations chanted by the nyibo (priests) and the bo (co-priests) from their memory. Regrettably, due to modern education and the influence of other religions especially Christianity, rituals associated with Mopin have undergone immense changes in the contemporary time.
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Stinton, Diane. "Jesus—Immanuel, Image of the Invisible God: Aspects of Popular Christology in Sub-Saharan Africa." Journal of Reformed Theology 1, no. 1 (2007): 6–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156973107x182613.
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Widespread evidence indicates that Jesus Christ holds a most prominent place in popular cultures across Africa south of the Sahara. In the present article, empirical data generated through qualitative research in Kenya, Ghana, and Uganda serve to illustrate similar phenomena attested across the continent. Initial description and subsequent theological analysis highlight two central aspects of these Christologies: Jesus as Immanuel—God with us—in Africa, and Jesus as the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). Following a summary overview of Christological images in Africa, conclusions point out their significance to contemporary Christianity, particularly regarding the intrinsic relation between popular and academic theologies.
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Pettipiece, Timothy. "From Cybele to Christ: Christianity and the transformation of late Roman religious culture." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 37, no. 1 (March 2008): 41–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000842980803700103.
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In light of the current appetite for early Christianity in popular discourse, this paper examines the rise of Christianity within the transformative context of late-Roman religious culture. Rather than viewing Christianity as an isolated and unique catalyst for religious change, this paper reminds readers that early Christianity was in fact part of a much broader process that saw a steady increase in the influence of eastern religious cultures throughout the later Empire.
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Robinson, Rowena. "Negotiating Traditions: Popular Christianity in India." Asian Journal of Social Science 37, no. 1 (2009): 29–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853109x385385.
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AbstractThis paper will look at converted Christian communities on the Indian subcontinent and the emergent rich bricolage of religious traditions. A narrative of Indian Christianity takes us almost imperceptibly into the realm of cultural convergence and communication. While the concepts of 'syncretism' or 'composite culture' have framed many discussions regarding this interaction, newer perspectives have begun to emerge. Syncretism sometimes implies the harmonious interaction of different religious traditions, while ethnographies bring up a far more complicated picture of contestation and struggle. We also need to look closely at patterns of religious interaction and engagement. Christianity may take from Hinduism, but this is not always the case. Sometimes both Christianity and Hinduism simultaneously engage with a different religious and cultural environment. Processes are more complex than they at first sight appear and, as this paper will attempt to show, some amount of historicisation is essential when understanding the ways in which they work.
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Lippy, Charles H., and Colleen McDannell. "Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America." Church History 65, no. 4 (December 1996): 793. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3170489.
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Ammerman, Nancy T., and Colleen McDannell. "Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America." Sociology of Religion 58, no. 3 (1997): 289. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3712218.
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Steenbakker, Margaret. "“But in the Thunder, I Still Hear Thor”: The Character Athelstan as a Narrative Focal Point in the Series Vikings." Religions 12, no. 3 (March 18, 2021): 203. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12030203.
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This article explores the way the character Athelstan serves as a narrative focal point in the popular television series Vikings. Using this series as its main case study, it addresses the question of the ways in which the character functions as a synthesis between the two opposing world views of Christianity and Norse religion that are present in the series. After establishing that Vikings is a prime example of the trend to romanticize Viking culture in popular culture, I will argue that while the character Athelstan functions as a narrative focal point in which the worlds can be united and are united for a while, his eventual death when he has reverted back to Christianity shows that the series ultimately favors Viking culture and paints a very negative picture of (medieval) Christianity indeed.
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Hwan Ra, Young. "Christ in Popular Culture in Korea." Journal of Reformed Theology 1, no. 1 (2007): 72–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156973107x182640.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the way in which the Korean church developed a popular image of Jesus Christ in her own context. Many scholars often refer to Minjung theology in order to find the Korean understanding of Jesus Christ. Yet, if one seeks to understand Korean Christology only through Minjung theology, he or she will not be able to grasp its whole nature. The evangelicals have also developed their own Christology that is rooted in a particular Korean context. As will be discussed in this paper, there are four popular images of Christ in Korean Christianity. These are: Christ as the Gift, the Reconciler, the Transformer, and the Liberator.
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Kalu, Ogbu U. "Holy Praiseco: Negotiating Sacred and Popular Music and Dance in African Pentecostalism." Pneuma 32, no. 1 (2010): 16–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/027209610x12628362887550.
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AbstractIn post-colonial Africa, Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity has slowly emerged as an influential shaper of culture and identity through its use of music, media, and dance. This article gives an overview of the transitions that have occurred in African politics, identity awareness, and culture, especially as it relates to the indigenous village public and it’s interface with the external Western public, and how the emergent cultural public has become the most influential player in shaping the African moral universe. Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity has navigated the shift from a missionary-driven avoidance of indigenous music and dance to the incorporation of indigenous elements, leading in turn to the popularization of Pentecostal music and dance that blends indigenous forms and concepts, Christian symbolism, and popular cultural expressions. The resulting forms have not only shaped Christianity, but also the surrounding culture and its political environment.
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Promey, Sally M. "Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. Colleen McDannell." Journal of Religion 77, no. 4 (October 1997): 674–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/490114.
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Albanese, Catherine L. "Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. Colleen McDannell." History of Religions 39, no. 1 (August 1999): 79–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/463577.
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Häger, Andreas. "Christian rock concerts as a meeting between religion and popular culture." Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 18 (January 1, 2003): 36–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67281.
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Different forms of artistic expression play a vital role in religious practices of the most diverse traditions. One very important such expression is music. This paper deals with a contemporary form of religious music, Christian rock. Rock or popular music has been used within Christianity as a means for evangelization and worship since the end of the 1960s. The genre of "contemporary Christian music", or Christian rock, stands by definition with one foot in established institutional (in practicality often evangelical) Christianity, and the other in the commercial rock musicindustry. The subject of this paper is to study how this intermediate position is manifested and negotiated in Christian rock concerts. Such a performance of Christian rock music is here assumed to be both a rock concert and a religious service. The paper will examine how this duality is expressed in practices at Christian rock concerts.
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Hughes, Rebecca C. "Expanding the Bounds of Christianity and Feminism." Journal of Religion in Africa 52, no. 1-2 (June 3, 2022): 22–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340223.
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Abstract As headmistress of the London Missionary Society’s Girls’ Boarding School from 1915–1940 in Mbereshi, Zambia, Mabel Shaw (1889–1973) created an innovative educational programme that embraced local culture and empowered women. Shaw drew from theological, anthropological, and feminist perspectives to guide her understanding of Bemba culture. Shaw built upon fulfilment theology with its premise that all religions had an element of God’s truth in them. In doing so, Shaw differentiated Western culture from Christian culture, creating space to accommodate practices such as ancestor veneration and polygamy. While scholars have been reluctant to label Shaw as a feminist, this author argues she must be recognized as one. Shaw actively collaborated with Bemba women and raised them as Christian saints. Moreover, Shaw was unique in that she urged her British audiences to listen to African voices and to consider the value of adopting aspects of African worship.
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Jamir, Chongpongmeren. "“Nagaland/lim for Christ”: Semiotics in Christianity among the Naga People in Northeast India." Journal of World Christianity 12, no. 2 (August 2022): 212–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/jworlchri.12.2.0212.
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Abstract The appropriation of a religious faith in a particular context involves its interpretation within a cultural web of significance. This involves the use of signs and symbols that have acquired specific meanings in a given culture; an analysis of these signs and symbols reveals realities in the society. This article deals with symbolism pertaining to Christianity among the Naga people in Northeast India. Taking the popular slogan “Nagaland/lim for Christ” as the starting point, the article discusses how such symbols reveal a complex interaction of Christian faith and the culture of the land, resulting in the formation of a distinct form of Christianity. The article argues that the slogan is a symbolic representation of how the appropriation of Christianity among the Naga people involves both the articulation of and creation of realities in the culture.
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Yuanyuan, Zuo, and Yan Yao. "Influence of Lisu People’s Religious Beliefs on their Traditional Medicine." Journal of Research in Philosophy and History 6, no. 3 (September 22, 2023): p53. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/jrph.v6n3p53.
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The Lisu, inhabitants of Nujiang River Canyon in China’s northwestern Yunnan Province, believe in three set of religious beliefs: their own primitive religion, Christianity and Catholicism, introduced by Western missionaries in the 18th century (Yang et al. (Eds.), 1993). Religious convictions permeate all aspects of life conducted by Lisu and do have a profound impact upon various aspects of their traditional culture. The present article explores how religious tenets have helped shape and have affected traditional Lisu medicine, investigating the relationship between religion, culture, and traditional medicine, tracking the path from Lisu ancient history down to modern times.
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Ocker, Christopher. "Ritual Murder and the Subjectivity of Christ: A Choice in Medieval Christianity." Harvard Theological Review 91, no. 2 (April 1998): 153–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017816000032041.
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This is a study of the emotional context of certain medieval anti-Jewish legends. It examines how the stories redefined the composition of society, the relation of this to popular devotion, and the paradox between a religious intention and its effect. After a brief survey of the phenomenon, I suggest that recent views of the psychological sources of the legends do not adequately account for the religious experience that they promote, nor do these explanations sufficiently account for the way the legends encouraged and reinforced social habits—“ruts in the pathways of the mind” that encouraged the maintenance of conformity among members of society. Part one will examine how the libels could help people imagine more specifically the general hostility against Jews widely propagated after the First Crusade and how this superimposed a social uniformity on the town. Part two describes the emotional context of that violence in devotion to the passion of Christ. Part three considers the moral dilemma posed by the function of these legends in popular devotion. My goal is to account for the religious content of anti-Jewish legend and an ethical problem within medieval piety, for which reason it will be necessary to draw on the diverse literature that shaped medieval Christian culture, both learned and popular, from the twelfth century, when the legends first appeared in Europe, to the eve of the Reformation.
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Panjaitan, Michael Yoel, I. Nyoman Suarsana, and I. Ketut Kaler. "Tradisi Rabo-Rabo: Sebuah Cerminan Ekspresi Identitas Komunitas Mardijkers di Kampung Tugu, Kelurahan Semper Barat, Jakarta Utara." Sunari Penjor : Journal of Anthropology 8, no. 1 (March 1, 2024): 28. http://dx.doi.org/10.24843/sp.2024.v8.i01.p04.
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Tugu community settlement are located in Semper Barat District, Jakarta Utara. Tugu community preserve the cultural expressions, specifically cultural activity that connects to Portuguese authentic tradition such as Rabo-Rabo. The uniqueness of the tradition are its existence lies beyond the plurality and modernity of Jakarta. Rabo-Rabo tradition are held occasionally when Christmas and new year celebration, the nuance of this tradition are corresponded with the Christianity and firmly grasp by Mardijkers strong kinship (social aspects), kerontjong music (art aspect), Christianity practices (religious aspects), and Mardijkers expressions (identity aspects). This research use Expressions of Religious Experience theory from Joachim Wach, and Functional Theory from Robert Merton. The Rabo-Rabo tradition is carried out for almost two weeks, starting from the Christmas prayer together until the key event of the year - bathing. The Rabo-Rabo tradition has the function of maintaining traditional culture, religious manifestations, and functions as social education for children.
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Booker, Vaughn. "“An Authentic Record of My Race”: Exploring the Popular Narratives of African American Religion in the Music of Duke Ellington." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 25, no. 1 (2015): 1–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2015.25.1.1.
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AbstractEdward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899–1974) emerged within the jazz profession as a prominent exponent of Harlem Renaissance racial uplift ideals about incorporating African American culture into artistic production. Formed in the early twentieth century's middle-class black Protestant culture but not a churchgoer in adulthood, Ellington conveyed a nostalgic appreciation of African American Christianity whenever hewrote music to chronicle African American history. This prominent jazz musician's religious nostalgia resulted in compositions that conveyed to a broader American audience a portrait of African American religiosity that was constantly “classical” and static—not quite primitive, but never appreciated as a modern aspect of black culture.This article examines several Ellington compositions from the late 1920s through the 1960s that exemplify his deployment of popular representations of African American religious belief and practice. Through the short filmBlack and Tanin the 1920s, the satirical popular song “Is That Religion?” in the 1930s, the long-form symphonic movementBlack, Brown and Beigein the 1940s, the lyricism of “Come Sunday” in the 1950s, and the dramatic prose of “My People” in the 1960s, Ellington attempted to capture a portrait of black religious practice without recognition of contemporaneous developments in black Protestant Christianity in the twentieth century's middle decades. Although existing Ellington scholarship has covered his “Sacred Concerts” in the 1960s and 1970s, this article engages themes and representations in Ellington's work prefiguring the religious jazz that became popular with white liberal Protestants in America and Europe. This discussion of religious narratives in Ellington's compositions affords an opportunity to reflect upon the (un)intended consequences of progressive, sympathetic cultural production, particularly on the part of prominent African American historical figures in their time. Moreover, this article attempts to locate the jazz profession as a critical site for the examination of racial and religious representation in African American religious history.
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del Castillo, Fides A. "Christianization of the Philippines." Mission Studies 32, no. 1 (April 10, 2015): 47–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733831-12341379.
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This paper aims to contribute to discussion on how the Catholic religion took root, spread, survived, and progressed in the Philippines. It seeks to address the Christianization of the pre-Hispanic Filipinos and the subsequent embedded-ment of the Church in indigenous culture. It also discusses on H. Richard Niehbur’s typology of the gospel-culture relationship as discussed by De Mesa (2007). From the fundamental congruencies between Filipino traditional religion and Catholic Christianity, this paper asserts that the lack of tension between the traditional religion of the native Filipinos and Catholicism allowed Christianity to take root, develop, and dominate in the Philippines. In addition, the entrenchment of the Church in indigenous culture and its expression in church architecture, religious art, and popular devotions specifically in the Church of Saint James the Great at Paete, Laguna and San Pedro de Alcantara Church at Pakil, Laguna are discussed. This is to correlate the important contributions of Baroque churches and religious art in the Christianization of the people in the Philippines.
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Nordberg, Andreas. "Old Customs." Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 54, no. 2 (December 19, 2018): 125–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.33356/temenos.69935.
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Although they highlight the Norse (religious) term siðr ‘custom’ and its cognates, some researchers of pre-Christian Scandinavia suggest that the concept of religion involves a Christocentric discourse and should be used cautiously, or even only for Christianity. Some scholars therefore recommend a categorical distinction between pre-Christian (religious) siðr and Christian religion. This paper contributes to this ongoing discussion. I argue that while it is meaningful to highlight the term siðr and its cognates, the distinction between pre-Christian siðr and medieval Christian religion is problematic. 1) While siðr had various meanings in vernacular language, the current debate emphasises only its religious aspect, thus turning the indigenous term into an implicit etic concept. 2) The word siðr and its cognates were also used in medieval Scandinavian languages as designations for Christianity, and hence, the categorisation of pre-Christian siðr and medieval Christian religion is misleading. 3) The distinction between popular siðr and formal religion is fundamentally based on the two-tier model of popular/folk religion–religion. 4) The vernacular (religious) word siðr in the sense of ‘religious customs, the religious aspects of the conventional way of life’ and the heuristic category of (lived) religion are in fact complementary in the study of religion in both Viking and medieval Scandinavia.
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Veldman, Meredith. "“Dressed in an Angel's Nightshirt”: Jesus and the BBC." Journal of British Studies 56, no. 1 (January 2017): 117–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2016.117.
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AbstractThis article examines images of Jesus broadcast on the BBC from the 1930s through the 1950s. During these years, the BBC sought to use its cultural influence to replace popular religiosity with what the clerics who staffed its Religious Broadcasting Department (RBD) regarded as a more masculine, modern, and vigorous national religious faith. To achieve this aim, the RBD marshaled the might of British New Testament scholarship and its image of a warrior-like, apocalyptic historical Jesus. Yet the RBD's hopes of bridging the gap between popular religiosity and its own vision of Christianity went unrealized. Programs on Jesus that reached a genuinely national audience—The Man Born to be King, Dorothy L. Sayers's wartime radio drama, andJesus of Nazareth, a popular television series from the 1950s—instead featured Anglicized and ahistorical images deeply embedded within British popular culture. The story of Jesus on the BBC highlights both this popular culture's strength and Christian Britain's fragmentation.
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Lippy, Charles H. "Chastized by Scorpions: Christianity and Culture in Colonial South Carolina, 1669–1740." Church History 79, no. 2 (May 18, 2010): 253–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s000964071000003x.
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Early in 1740, actor-turned-revivalist George Whitefield journeyed to Savannah after a preaching tour that had taken him to Philadelphia and New York before heading south to Charleston, where he arrived in January that year. At the time, Charleston was experiencing communal angst. A few months before, in September 1739, an uprising occurred in this colony where African slaves were a majority—perhaps even two-thirds of the population. Around two dozen whites lost their lives, and several plantations were burned. Popular belief held that a Catholic priest inspired the revolt since apparently many involved in the uprising were Catholic Kongo people who hoped to escape to St. Augustine where Spanish Catholic authorities had promised them freedom. The assault came on a Sunday early in September. Later that month new colonial legislation that required white men to be armed at all times—even while attending Sunday worship—would become law. Whites assumed that the timing was intended to assure that the revolt occurred before that provision took effect, since most did not ordinarily carry firearms to church on Sunday.
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Dillon, Matthew J. "Symbolic Loss, Memory, and Modernization in the Reception of Gnosticism." Gnosis 1, no. 1-2 (July 11, 2016): 276–309. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340015.
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Social scientist of religion Peter Homans has demonstrated that symbolic loss, cultural memory, and modernization are tightly intertwined. As a consequence of modernization, Western culture has lost a shared relationship to the symbols of its Christian past, leading to religious mourning. This article demonstrates that the category gnosticism opened up an imaginative possibility for individuals to reinterpret the cultural memory of the Christian past and achieve rapprochement with the tradition. The argument proceeds through case studies of psychologist Carl Jung, visionary artist Laurence Caruana, and public speaker Jonathan Talat Phillips. Each case exhibits how symbolic loss of the Christian tradition throws the individual into a period of inner turmoil. When each of them read ancient gnostic texts, they do so to reinterpret the symbols of Christianity, specifically Christ, in ways that respond to forces of modernization. The article concludes that popular and religious interpretations of the ancient gnostics should be recognized as attempts by those who lost Christianity in the West to re-envision its cultural memory and reimagine Christianity in the present.
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Gupta, Charu. "Intimate Desires: Dalit Women and Religious Conversions in Colonial India." Journal of Asian Studies 73, no. 3 (July 14, 2014): 661–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021911814000400.
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Religious conversions by Dalits in colonial India have largely been examined as mass movements to Christianity, with an implicit focus on men. However, why did Dalit women convert? Were they just guided by their men, family, and community? This paper explores the interrelationship between caste and gender in Dalit conversions afresh through the use of popular print culture, vernacular missionary literature, writings of Hindu publicists and caste ideologues, cartoons, and police reports from colonial north India. It particularly looks at the two sites of clothing and romance to mark representations of mass and individual conversions to Christianity and Islam. Through them, it reads conversions by Dalit women as acts that embodied a language of intimate rights, and were accounts of resistant materialities. These simultaneously produced deep anxieties and everyday violence among ideologues of the Arya Samaj and other such groups, where there was both an erasure and a representational heightening of Dalit female desire. However, they also provide one with avenues to recover in part Dalit women's aspirations in this period.
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Dias, Marcelo. "Toward a Post-Religious Urban Theology: The Missionary Movement Ethos in Secularized Contexts." Journal of Adventist Mission Studies 15, no. 1 (2019): 38–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.32597/jams/vol15/iss1/5/.
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"An urban theology should be the center of conversation with the current post-religious context that takes into serious consideration people’s search for meaning and the new spirituality in this age. Perhaps popular culture can give clues about contemporary meaning-making as well (Shannahan 2014:207-217). On the one side, history assures that an urban setting does not need to feel like a threat to the Christian faith. “Early Christianity was primarily an urban movement. The original meaning of the word pagan (paganus) was ‘rural person,’ or more colloquially ‘country hick.’ It came to have religious meaning because after Christianity had triumphed in the cities, most of the rural people remained unconverted” (Stark 2009:2). On the other hand, history warns that a theology irrelevant for the current context and a Christian identity disconnected from the biblical narrative should be perceived as a real threat for the transmission of the faith and mission."
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Handaric, Mihai. "Aspects related to the influence of Christianity on the Society." Randwick International of Social Science Journal 2, no. 2 (April 30, 2021): 58–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.47175/rissj.v2i2.215.
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In this paper the author analyzes the influence of Christianity on society. There will be demonstrated that through its structure, man was created to live in the community. He discovers himself by relating to the world surrounding him, as it is argued by Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber. Here we also include the relationship with the transcendent. The philosophical and sociological arguments help us understand the influence Christianity had on European society. The religion of the European nations had a strong influence on the civilization of the continent and the world. Researchers have come to the conclusion that man was created with an innate religious feeling. Rudolf Otto sought to demonstrate that man's religious experience can only be explained by the aprioric existence of the sacred. So did Mircea Eliade, who introduced a new term "hierophany" to define the act of experiencing the sacred. There were also researchers who reinterpreted the relationship with the sacred. Emile Durkheim argued that ultimately, religion in its present form will be replaced by a so-called "civic religion," which will replace religious services in churches. Accepting the perspective of Scripture, the author tries to show the idea of the presence of Divinity in the believer's life (John 14:15-26). Jurgen Moltman asserts that if society were to enter the process of Christ's discipleship, she would discover the divine alternatives that bring the long-awaited results. Max Weber argued that Christian religion, and especially the sects of Protestantism, had a decisive role in influencing the culture and civilization of modern Europe, and the world at large. From his point of view, the decision of man in capitalist society to make a great effort in his work, has a religious motivation, namely, the doctrine of predestination. Considering that the moral and theological dimension of Christianity lies at the root of human significance, Christians struggle to defend the revealed message. A good example is given by Francis Schaeffer, who in his book Trilogy pleads to preserve the traditional moral values of the Bible. Schaeffer attempts to link the idea of revelation, as it is presented in the Christian Bible, with the discovering of man's significance.
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Elias KC, Rathiulung. "Performing Heritage, Theology and ‘Land’ in the Lujam Songs of the Rongmei Nagas of North-east India." Studies in World Christianity 28, no. 1 (March 2022): 49–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2022.0370.
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The Zeliangrong Nagas (Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Inpui) inhabit the contiguous regions of the present-day Indian states of Manipur, Assam and Nagaland. The Rongmeis first embraced Christianity in the 1920s through converts and evangelists from their neighbouring communities, who were themselves influenced by the American Baptist missions. Through these encounters, indigenous singing practices of their neighbouring Thadou-Kukis were translated and incorporated into Rongmei Christianity as the lujam. The lujam songs have survived in popular practice and print culture, coexisting alongside translations of English hymns and, in more recent years, contemporary Christian worship music. In tracing the journeys of the lujam, this paper presents the gradual indigenisation of Christian teachings and practices among the Rongmeis. It argues that the lujam, as practised among the Rongmeis, embodies an effective mode and method of theologising among the Rongmeis. At the same time, the paper teases out inherent tensions that are managed in the lujam (if awkwardly), between traditional ‘landed’ lifeworld and the lujam’s ‘heavenly’ lifeworld. Thus, the study highlights the theological agency of Rongmei Nagas in their encounters with Christianity as evidenced in the lujam practice.
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Ilyas, Ilyas Syarofian Akmal. "AGAMA DAN RELASI BUDAYA DALAM ISLAM: MENJELAJAHI PERAN PENTING BUDAYA DALAM PEMBENTUKAN IDENTITAS KEAGAMAN." AL-AUFA: JURNAL PENDIDIKAN DAN KAJIAN KEISLAMAN 5, no. 2 (December 14, 2023): 113–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.32665/alaufa.v5i2.1667.
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Religion is regarded as a decree from God and is an important institutional structure that complements the social system. Islam arrived in Indonesia in the 13th and 16th centuries AD, and is now the second largest religion in the world after Christianity. Culture also plays a significant role in shaping religious identity. Religion and culture are two distinct yet important and sensitive entities in the social environment. Both are primordial aspects inherent to communities and individuals and influence each other. Culture can influence religious views, and vice versa, religion can influence culture. In this article, the author uses a qualitative literature study method to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between religion and culture in Islam as well as how culture affects the formation of religious identity. The purpose of this article is also to explain how the concept of social justice in Islam can bring harmony between different cultures.
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Holmes, Andrew. "Ulster Presbyterianism as A Popular Religious Culture, 1750–1860." Studies in Church History 42 (2006): 315–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400004046.
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Both the study of popular religion and popular culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suffer from a number of methodological and definitional problems. Historians of religion often assume that popular religion is synonymous with superstitious beliefs that have little or no relation to confessional orthodoxy. It is further claimed that during the nineteenth century superstition was abandoned as a consequence of the modernization of society and the imposition of respectable behaviour. Complementing this tendency, historians of popular culture in this period have generally ignored the religious aspects of everyday life and describe culture primarily in secular terms. This has much to do with the tendency to adopt, consciously or otherwise, a world-view that automatically assumes the subservience of religion to culture in the modern world. According to this view, once the events of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had cast their spell, organized religion and personal religious faith were jettisoned, often in favour of the nebulous term ‘culture’, and a wedge driven between the sacred and secular. Given the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, it is obvious that this tendency significantly hinders our understanding of the everyday lives and thoughts of our ancestors, especially in the Irish and specifically Ulster context where religion still has an importance that some fail to credit with sufficient patience, let alone understanding. As a result of these problems, the study of popular religion in the modern period lags well behind the advances made by historians of religion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.
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Rowe, Paul S. "Enabling Oblivion: Global Activism and the Erasure of Middle Eastern Christians." International Journal of Middle East Studies 54, no. 3 (August 2022): 554–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s002074382200071x.
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The relative ignorance of Armenian narratives in the analysis of current affairs in the Middle East raised by several authors in this roundtable is symptomatic of a larger problem facing ethno-religious minorities in the region. Until the 1990s, Western exposure to Middle Eastern Christianity in both academic and popular contexts was minimal at best. Outside specific studies of notable groups, scholars largely ignored non-Muslim religious sects. At the level of popular discourse, political Islam had illuminated the majoritarian religious impulses of the region, contributing to common Orientalist stereotypes of Arab and Muslim political culture.1 The presence of several million indigenous Christians, the vast majority of whom represented ancient indigenous communities, was largely ignored among academics and journalists. The notable exception was Lebanon, where Christian participation in the drama of the civil conflict of the 1980s was often noted in the press and occasionally scrutinized in academia.
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Sherrill, Michael J. "Community Formation in Contemporary Japanese Religions and the Implications for Missional Christianity." Missiology: An International Review 36, no. 4 (October 2008): 447–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182960803600404.
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Community formation in Japanese religiosity has played a central role in providing social organization and relational meaning. The stability it once lent to society has been largely undone by rapid modernization. This fragmentation drives many Japanese to seek meaning for their lives in “new” and “new-new” religions. This article examines several contemporary religious groups, with special attention to relational formation. The role of popular culture and manga is also considered. Insights gained from this examination are applied to the Christian context in Japan, with suggestions for how the church might pursue being missional in the contemporary Japanese context.
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Moberg, Marcus. "Popular culture and the ’darker side’ of alternative spirituality: the case of metal music." Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 21 (January 1, 2009): 130–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67347.
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Metal is perhaps the most extreme and aggressive form of contemporary Western popular music. Even though it continues to spark controversy and debate, it has also enjoyed enduring popularity for decades and has spread on a global scale. Metal music and culture has always been characterized by its fascination for dark and austere themes and imagery. Commonly dealing with topics such as evil, death, war, alienation and suffering, metal groups have traditionally found much inspiration in the world of religion, particularly Judeo-Christian eschatology and apocalypticism, different forms of paganism, occultism, esotericism and, last but not least, Satanism. These kinds of religious/spiritual themes have arguably developed into an integral part of metal culture on the whole. They contribute significantly to investing metal music and culture with an apparent aura of sincerity and mystique as well as to raising its shock and entertainment value. At the same time, metal culture is also marked by its high degree of humour and self-irony, its fondness for exaggeration, spectacle and over-the-top theatrics. Even so, metal stands out as a global popular music culture replete with various kinds of often dark and austere religious and spiritual themes, many of which stand in stark contrast to Christianity. Seen in the wider context of the changing face of religion in the West and the increasingly important role played by popular culture in the transformation of religious and spiritual identities, metal has come to play an important role in the dissemination of a wide variety of ‘dark’ alternative religious/spiritual beliefs and ideas. This article sheds further light on this issue through focusing on some contemporary and successful metal groups from the Nordic countries. In relation to this, attention is also drawn to some of the ways in which dark alternative religious/spiritual ideas may be viewed as having become an inseparable part of some sections of metal culture as they have become actively and consciously explored, and sometimes explicitly promoted, by the well known contemporary metal groups discussed in this article.
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Nausner, Michael. "Culture-Specific and Cosmopolitan Aspects of Christian Coexistence. A Postcolonial Perspective on Ecumenical Relations." Religions 13, no. 10 (September 23, 2022): 896. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel13100896.
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This article wants to shed light on some of the cultural complexities of the ecumenical movement by putting it in conversation with postcolonial theory. It argues that the academic discourse of postcolonial theory and the ecclesial movement of ecumenism are siblings of sorts in as much as they both deal with the lingering consequences of past violence and with the tensions between particularity and universality. A growing awareness of the problem of postcolonial conditions in the ecumenical movement is briefly documented with reference to the journal VOICES/VOCES and Simón Pedro Arnold’s suggestion of an ‘inter theology’ sensitive to the power dynamics and cultural intermingling in global Christianity. In a similar vein, Claudia Jahnel is arguing for an intercultural theology that takes processes of hybridization seriously and therefore needs to develop forms of ‘vernacular ecumenism’. It is an ecumenism that materializes in countless Christian migrant communities around the globe. To understand and recognize the complexities in these postcolonial Christian identity formations, some kind of ‘cosmopolitan ecumenism’, as André Munzinger calls it, needs to be developed. This way, hybrid cultural and theological formations can be recognized, and hegemonic universalisms resisted.
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Bochkovar, A. S. "Pilgrimage in world religions as a cultural phenomenon." Voprosy kul'turologii (Issues of Cultural Studies), no. 10 (October 26, 2023): 865–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.33920/nik-01-2310-05.
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The article analyzes the modern aspects of the development of pilgrimage in Islam, Christianity, Judaism. It is proposed to evaluate different stages in the history of pilgrimage development based on the study of current research on this topic. The legal aspects of maintaining and protecting pilgrimage are highlighted both at the national level of different countries and within the framework of international law, since such a phenomenon of world culture is not an ordinary familiarization trip, but is associated with the age-old traditions of different religions that allow millions of believers of different nations to manifest faith through a collective religious ritual.
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Jemioł, Maciej. "The Complicated Pop-cultural Legacy of Figura Christi. Mythologization of the Christ Narrative in the Context of Current Christian Philosophy." Studia Philosophiae Christianae 59, no. 2 (December 31, 2023): 119–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.21697/spch.2023.59.a.13.
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Reflecting on the many challenges facing Christianity as a religion, and particularly Christian philosophy as a way of thinking in modern, strange and unfamiliar times, one encounters time and again the grim realization that many of such challenges are simplyprovided by the current culture, the cultural sphere. Without idealizing Europe’s Christocentric culture and remembering that it was not homogeneous, we must recognize that it once existed, it was the ruling cultural norm. Today, such norms are indeed very different and vary greatly depending on the geographic region we have in mind and change from decade to decade. After the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, modernity and the postmodern era, we observe that what governs our cultural world today is pluralism more than anything else. But there are still some traces of Christocentrism in our culture and in what it has become during this period, namely popular culture. Among other aspects, research has focused on the analysis of one idea – that of the Christ-figure, which has come a long way from theology to culture to pop culture over the centuries. In this article, I will try to show why this complicated legacy can be seen, at least in part, as a challenge to Christianity in light of contemporary Christian philosophy.
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Received: 14/03/2023. Reviewed: 16/04/2023. Accepted: 30/04/2023.
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Jurek, Krzysztof, and Jacek Kozieł. "Byzantine Themes in Polish High School Liberal Arts Education." Studia Ceranea 9 (December 30, 2019): 251–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.18778/2084-140x.09.13.
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The authors focus how Byzantine motifs are presented in the teaching of humanities subjects. The question of the presence of Byzantine motifs is essentially one about the presence of Byzantine heritage in Polish culture. With reference to two school subjects – Polish and History – the authors seek to establish what Polish school students are taught about the reach of Byzantine culture. Present-day teaching of both political and cultural history is underpinned by Occidentalism. Only occasionally is attention paid to the “Eastern” features of Poland’s past. A good example of this is the treatment of one of the most important Polish literary texts, the school perennial, Bogurodzica. This draws on Greek religious hymns, contain words originating in the Greek liturgy, and also alludes to a particular type of icon. Accordingly, the connections between the oldest Polish literary text and Byzantine culture are very clear. However, when classroom teachers discuss Bogurodzica with their pupils, detailing the above-mentioned features, are they aware that this text is an epitome of the presence of Byzantine motifs in Polish literature? Apparently not. With regard to the teaching of history, Byzantine motifs can be approached from at least three angles; in terms of imperial political events, in terms of religious (Eastern rite) aspects of Byzantine culture, and finally in terms of awareness of connections between Polish culture and Eastern rite Christianity, as well as Eastern nations and states viewed as heirs of Byzantine culture. In Polish history there has been a side-lining of the nation’s break with Eastern Christianity even though during certain periods this was the faith of half the Commonwealth’s inhabitants. The marginalisation of this topic does not simply impose a limit on knowledge but it prevents the understanding of particular aspects of our history.
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Cohen, Charles L. "The Colonization of British North America as an Episode in the History of Christianity." Church History 72, no. 3 (September 2003): 553–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640700100356.
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The proposition that, to paraphrase Carl Degler, Christianity came to British North America in the first ships, has long enjoyed popular and scholarly currency. The popular account, sometimes found today in evangelical Christian circles, holds that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries colonists erected a mighty kingdom of God whose gates the humanist barbarians have unfortunately breached. The scholarly variation derives from Perry Miller's eloquent melodrama about Puritanism's rise and fall. Miller anatomized Puritanism as a carapace of Ramist logic, covenant theology, and faculty psychology surrounding the visceral vitality of Augustinian piety, an intellectual body that grew in health and cogency in Tudor-Stuart England and then suppurated on the American strand, corrupted by internal contradictions, creeping secularism, and periwigs. Miller understood that he was describing one single Christian tradition—Reformed Protestantism of a particularly perfervid variety—but such was his narrative's majesty that his tale of New England Puritanism ramified into the story of Christianity in the colonies; in the beginning, all the world was New England, and, at the end, the extent to which the colonists had created a common Christian identity owed mightily to Puritan conceptions of the national covenant. Miller was too good a scholar to miss the pettiness of Puritan religious politics and the myriad ways in which even the founding generation of Saints failed to live up to their own best values, but his chronicle of Puritan decline parallels the popular vision that the colonial period represented the “Golden Age” of Christianity in America: the faith began on a fortissimo chord but has decrescendoed ever since. The logic of this declension scheme spotlights some historical issues while ignoring others. The central problem for declension theory is to explain how and why Christianity's vigor ebbed, whereas the creation of a Christian culture in the colonies—the erection of churches, the elaboration of governing apparatuses, the routinization of personal devotion and moral order—is made unproblematic: it just spilled out of the Mayflower and the Arbella onto Plymouth Rock and Shawmut.
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Karabalaeva, Gulmira, Dinara Osmonova, Ainura Baitokova, Artem Golov, and Zaure Kaskarbayeva. "Transformation of Kyrgyz proselyte religious consciousness: Factors and peculiarities of manifestation in modern spiritual culture." Scientific Herald of Uzhhorod University Series Physics, no. 56 (March 26, 2024): 1129–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.54919/physics/56.2024.112jd9.
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Relevance. The research relevance is determined by the growing interest in religious studies and socio-philosophical aspects of the transformation of religious consciousness of Kyrgyz proselytes in modern society. Purpose. The study aims to highlight the process of transformation of religious consciousness, from changes in beliefs to the formation of new socio-cultural paradigms and structures in modern Kyrgyz society. Methodology. The study methodology includes synthesis, comparative and historical analysis, phenomenological method and philosophical approach. Results. The conducted study determined the main trends and aspects influencing the transformation of the religious consciousness of Kyrgyz proselytes in modern spiritual culture. Thus, the significant impact of Islamisation, Buddhisation, Christianisation and atheisation processes on the formation and evolution of their religious identity was determined. The analysis revealed the complex dynamics of the religious beliefs of Kyrgyz proselytes and their adaptation to different historical contexts. In addition, the study results reveal the current trends in the development of the religious consciousness of this group. Conclusions. The study revealed significant transformations in the religious consciousness of Kyrgyz proselytes, reflecting the influence of historical, socio-cultural and philosophical factors. The results also emphasise the deep meanings and values underlying the religious experience of Kyrgyz proselytes, as well as their perception of the world and their place in it. The findings open new horizons for understanding the dynamics of religious identity in multi-ethnic societies and emphasise the importance of further research in this area. Keywords: religion; ideology; proselytizing; atheism; Islam; Christianity; Buddhism
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Clogher, Paul. "Moving Texts: A Hermeneutics of the Gospel According to Hollywood." Harvard Theological Review 111, no. 3 (July 2018): 382–400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017816018000160.
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AbstractThe Hollywood Jesus epics re-visualize the gospel story against the anxious backdrops of secularization, cultural pluralism, and moral skepticism. While these epics are often derided for their lack of theological insight, cultural awareness, or aesthetic taste, this article argues for a re-appreciation of the genre's internal pluralism and hermeneutical significance. Focusing on Cecil B. DeMille'sThe King of Kings(1927) and Nicholas Ray'sKing of Kings(1961), it reflects on the epic as a tradition-forming moment in the Jesus story's reception. Both DeMille and Ray offer competing interpretations of Jesus, thus illustrating how the genre functions as a site of christological and hermeneutical reflection. Against this backdrop, I argue for a reinterpretation of the genre and, further, proffer a hermeneutical exploration of cinema more broadly as a central moment in the dialogue between Christianity and popular culture.
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White, Adam G. "‘Three Strikes, You’re Out!’." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 29, no. 2 (September 21, 2020): 275–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/17455251-02902006.
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Abstract In an increasingly individualistic culture, we have somewhat lost sight of the important community aspect of Christianity, particularly when it comes to church discipline. One of the more challenging aspects of modern church ministry is what to do when a person’s behaviour threatens the unity and wellbeing of the community. In the nt, we see harsh measures applied to such people, but how do we translate these examples into today’s church? This article looks at the practice of exile or expulsion in the world of the nt generally and the Pauline communities specifically. It will then consider the implications of the practice, as revealed in scripture, and the challenges presented to its implementation in the modern church.
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Horbury, Ezra. "The Bible Abbreviated: Summaries in Early Modern English Bibles." Harvard Theological Review 112, no. 02 (April 2019): 235–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017816019000075.
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AbstractEarly modern English Bibles are among the most significant texts in western Christianity. They contained the translation of the Bible into English and its authorisation, they facilitated the Protestant Reformation, and their effects on English Christianity and culture are felt vividly to this day. A vital facet of these editions are paratexts: the titles, summaries, glosses, and other non-canonical additions appended to scripture to aid its organisation and interpretation. Though neglected by literary, historical, and theological scholarship, these paratexts comprised huge portions of early modern Bibles and acted as productive vehicles to disseminate politics and theologies. One such form of paratext are the casus summarii, the chapter summaries that precede many chapters in early modern Bibles. In these summaries, significant biblical events or controversial subjects were condensed, omitted, reframed, rephrased, or otherwise represented to suit the editor’s purposes. This article provides the first survey of the chapter summaries in early modern English Bibles, with a table detailing the extent to which they were copied between editions. The article focuses on the Matthew, Geneva, and KJV Bibles, with additional discussion of the Coverdale, Great, and Bishops’ Bibles. The article addresses notable aspects of this material, including practices of translation, representations of Sodom, the anglicisation of names, and the sexualisation of Eve. By explicating the origins and influences of these summaries, this article facilitates the understanding and study of paratexts and demonstrates their importance to scholarship of early modern Christianity.
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Huang, Jianbo, and Kun Xiang. "The “Theological” Creation and “Sociological” Foundations of “The Jesus Family” in Modern Shandong." Religions 14, no. 2 (February 1, 2023): 192. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel14020192.
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With regards to the Sinicization of Christianity (基督教中國化), there has always been a tension between “Chinese Christians” (中國(人)基督徒) and “Christian Chinese” (基督徒中國人). This paper intends to respond to this tension through the analysis of The Jesus Family (耶穌家庭), an important representative of the indigenous church movement in modern China. The Jesus Family had its own unique theological propositions and ecclesial practices. Particularly noteworthy was its emphasis on the living community of believers. Below, we present research on The Jesus Family, analyzed from two distinct aspects: those of “Jesus” and “family”. If the return to “Jesus” reflected the movement’s restorationist theological position, the “family” can be seen as reflecting the movement’s sociological advocacy for the practice of communitarian Christian principles. We argue that these aspects of The Jesus Family—emphasizing the values of personal intimacy with Jesus alongside communitarian principles—were key to its flourishing precisely within the unique context of modern Chinese social turmoil and history. In this light, The Jesus Family—both in its theological and sociological dimension—eludes simple classification as the product of “Chinese traditions” or “Christian orthodoxy.” Rather, it appears as the product of the interaction between the two, and we argue that in this, one sees also how the process of the Sinicization of Christianity relies on both traditional Chinese culture and Christian orthodoxy as inseparable and playing mutually interdependent roles.
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Purvis, Zachary. "Religion, Revolution, and the Dangers of Demagogues: The Basel “Troubles” (Wirren) and the Politics of Protestantism, 1830–1833." Church History 88, no. 2 (June 2019): 409–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640719001173.
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In 1833, the Swiss city-republic of Basel separated into two distinct cantons. During the three-year period known as the “Troubles” (Wirren), landowners in the countryside, inspired by the French July Revolution of 1830, rebelled against the city government. The roots of the division, however, run deeper in Basel's religious and theological culture and also reflect the outgrowth of the German Confederation's “persecution of demagogues.” This article examines these neglected aspects of the cantonal division, showing the importance of Christianity, and the complex politics of Protestantism, in Europe's revolutionary century.
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Astakhova, E. V. "The fiesta as a key concept of Spanish linguistic culture." Cuadernos Iberoamericanos, no. 1 (March 28, 2015): 49–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.46272/2409-3416-2015-1-49-68.
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The author examines the image of Spain through the megaconcept of fiesta, which determines many aspects of the national and cultural mentality. This concept reflects various vectors of quotidian life, religious and popular holidays with their complicated details and special dramaturgy, penetrates to every day communication and behavior. The research determines such Spanish extralinguistic realities as corrida, tertulia, movida, botellon, indignados, analyses the role of the theater, of “coffee culture”, of football and other phenomenons in social life and cognitive space of Spaniards. The knowledge of different aspects of fiesta helps to understand the word potential of Spanish language, its metafores, stylistic images.
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Konior, Jan. "Confession Rituals and the Philosophy of Forgiveness in Asian Religions and Christianity." Forum Philosophicum 15, no. 1 (June 1, 2010): 91–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.35765/forphil.2010.1501.06.
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In this paper I will take into account the historical, religious and philosophical aspects of the examination of conscience, penance and satisfaction, as well as ritual confession and cure, in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. I will also take into account the difficulties that baptized Chinese Christians met in sacramental Catholic confession. Human history proves that in every culture and religion, man has always had a need to be cleansed from evil and experience mutual forgiveness. What ritual models were used by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism? To what degree did these models prove to be true? What are the connections between a real experience of evil, ritual confession, forgiveness and cure in Chinese religions and philosophies?
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Panchenko, Alexander. "“Old Sects” in a New Light: How to Study Russian Religious Dissent, 1700–1900." State Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide 38, no. 3 (2020): 7–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2020-38-3-7-37.
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The introductory paper to the thematic block deals with fundamental issues of present day historical, anthropological, and religious studies of the so called “old Russian sects” of the 18th and 19th centuries. Russian religious dissenters of this period could be hardly viewed as homogeneous or integrated religious culture both historically and socially. However, the study of these movements as well as their representation in various discursive and ideological contexts can tell us a lot about religion in Russia of the “Synodal period”. The paper discusses key aspects of Russian sectarianism in terms of sensational forms, media regimes, moral economies, history of confessionalization and charismatic leadership in popular religious culture.
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Brichta, Maximilian. "Fusing Piety and Pop Culture." Journal of Communication and Religion 45, no. 2 (2022): 67–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jcr202245215.
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This essay analyzes the form of Hillsong Los Angeles’s live Sunday services and Hillsong California’s digital services using Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic analysis. Specifically, it extends Burke’s concept of the “representative anecdote” to accommodate the sequence of formal choices made in Hillsong church services. Furthermore, it considers the dialectical interactions of this underlying narrative, the material aspects of the service, and ritual enactments of the discourse therein. The essay offers a processual look at how one of the most popular global church movements articulates an organizationally coherent message in a local setting and also contributes to our understanding how millennial-led ministries influence the contemporary religious marketplace.
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Burns, Thomas J., Tom W. Boyd, and Peyman Hekmatpour. "Elective Affinities in the Anthropocene: Christianity and the Natural Environment Reconsidered." Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research 2, no. 4 (November 10, 2021): p82. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/sshsr.v2n4p82.
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To reach a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between religion and the natural environment, it is important to move beyond essentializing any religious tradition as having a pro-environmental or anti-environmental ethic. Rather, prior work has shown that the canonical, scholarly, and popular literatures and discourse of a number of religious traditions can and have been socially and rhetorically constructed as supporting an array of positions, from preservation to profligacy, and much in between those two ideal types. In this paper, we develop Max Weber’s theory of “elective affinities” and adapt it to the Anthropocene, to make the case that in a fragmented society, people and communities of convenience tend to choose the tropes and framing from the dominant culture to justify self-interested action. That often can take the form of religious discourse. In the sense of finding a wide array of practical interpretations relative to the environment, the theory is largely supported, although we do find important nuances. It is instructive to look at how the language and legitimacy of one institution (e.g. religion) has been used to justify and legitimate that of others (e.g. the polity). While these processes of institutional co-optation can be effective in the short run, they may have corrosive longer-term effects. Key rhetorical, and in fact political, battles in the Third Millennium, will likely be organized around how to adapt pre-industrial religion to late industrial and perhaps post-industrial times, and it remains to see how central the natural environment will be in what communities hold sacred.
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Jackson, Gregory S. "“What Would Jesus Do?”: Practical Christianity, Social Gospel Realism, and the Homiletic Novel." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 121, no. 3 (May 2006): 641–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/003081206x142805.
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This essay makes the historical case for an unrecognized genre of fiction–the homiletic novel. Drawing on traditional Protestant interpretive practices, Social Gospel authors fused forms of spiritual identification rooted in Protestant homiletic exercises (catechisms, interactive allegories, conversion dramas) with practical Christianity's emerging ethic of social intervention, attaching older modes of readerly identification to new sites of literary culture. Homiletic novels democratized pastoral guidance and legitimized fiction as a repository of ethical experience. Through interactive fictions offering virtual models of spiritual agency in the material world, evangelicals prepared for real forays into urban poverty to intervene in human suffering. The homiletic novel became the most popular literary form of the Progressive Era and continues to flourish in the present–day American political, cultural, and religious environment. In tracing its rise and pervasive influence, this study revises conventional histories of literary genre by suggesting an alternative origin for American literary realism. (GSJ)
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Henking, Susan E. "Rejected, Reclaimed, Renamed: Mary Daly on Psychology and Religion." Journal of Psychology and Theology 21, no. 3 (September 1993): 199–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009164719302100301.
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This article reviews Mary Daly's five books published between 1968 and 1987. Mary Daly is a key contributor to the feminist view of religion. The focus of this discussion is her intellectual trajectory that includes critique and reconstruction of both psychology and religion. As she moves from reform to radical feminism and from Christianity to postchristian feminist spirituality, Daly increasingly views both psychology and religion as aspects of oppressively patriarchal culture. Simultaneously, her own work includes psychological insights and envisions psychic integrity as a goal of the spiritual revolution of feminism. Daly's work sponsors a psychology of religion and dialogue between psychology and religion that opposes sexism.