Indigenous Epistemology Explored through Yoruba Orisha Traditions in the African Diaspora

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes an Indigenous epistemology explored through Yoruba Orisha traditions in the African diaspora. It also emphasizes the discordance between Euro-American psychology and African American women’s feminism. In particular, it presents decolonial woman-centered spriritual practices and the possibilities inherent in cosmovivencia. As an example, it draws from a symposium hosted by Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) at City University of New York in February 2016, entitled Trade/itions: Trans-Atlantic Sacred Orisha Traditions. The article is intended to open dialogue about the epistemic centering of Indigneous philosophies, as well as the historical and current practices within African diaspora spiritual systems to support individual and community well-being and social activism. In addition, it addresses the preponderance of damage-centered research about African-descended and Indigenous peoples and women, in particular, in the academic psychology literature and recommends emergent methodological strategies for resistance to those approaches that reinforce colonial paradigms. Lastly, it supports the integral connection with and reliance on the natural world and all living species within Orisha traditions. These vital connections intrinsically place women practitioners at the forefront of efforts toward environmental justice.     

Francisco López de Gómara's Humanist Reframing of the Missionary Project on Cozumel

Abstract

This article examines the rhetorical strategy and discursive practices employed by Francisco Lopez de Gomara in his Conquest of Mexico. It focuses specifically on the historian's treatment of events on the Island of Cozumel prior to Cortes' invasion of the mainland. The article interprets Gomara's Cozumel story, “the first encounter,” as a typological figure of speech. The political goals of empire, conversion and material gain are subsumed in a rhetorical vision of the New World. Cozumel is the promise. The historian frames the conquest of Mexico, the fulfillment that Cozumel heralded as a humanist project, and the New World as a work of Renaissance lay culture. The principal weapon of conquest and reconstruction is language. Wielded by Cortes and his historian, it functions to construct and communicate a rhetorical vision of a New World that incorporates the best of Europe and America even while it decries human rights abuses on both sides.     

‘Some will see miracles’: The reception of Morris Cerullo world evangelism in Britain

Morris Cerullo World Evangelism (MCWE) is an American evangelical ministry currently operating in Britain. This article examines MCWE's reception within the UK context. The evidence suggests that the characteristics of this ministry lead to a selective appropriation and appeal primarily to African‐Caribbean migrant groups. It is paradoxical that MCWE's White‐led Mission to London revivals may function as an expression of Black identity in the UK. This will be explained in terms of cultural forms and worship style, message, and social functions. Because of this differentiated reception, it appears unlikely that MCWE will significantly increase its UK membership.     

Don't Call Me Ishmael: Religious Naming Among Protestants and Catholics in the United States

We explore whether first names of religious origin continue to have religious connotations for Protestants and Catholics in a U.S. culture where naming is largely secularized. We use 1994 General Social Survey data to examine several questions: (1) whether there are Protestant-Catholic differences in broad categories of names (Old Testament, New Testament, saints, etc.); (2) whether worship attendance predicts the likelihood that Protestant and Catholic parents select categories of names corresponding to their respective traditions; and (3) whether worship attendance predicts selection of specific names that are disproportionately common within Protestantism and Catholicism (without regard to the broader categories). Results show some expected Protestant-Catholic differences in the frequency of name categories. However, there is no relationship between parental worship attendance and the likelihood of choosing these categories, suggesting that differences cannot be explained by religious motivations. In contrast, worship attendance does increase Catholics' likelihood of choosing specific names that are disproportionately common within their tradition. This suggests that committed Catholics perceive certain names as "Catholic" and represents one instance in which names do retain religious connotations for believers. We are aware of no previous research that has established such a link between parental religious commitment and naming.     

On Understanding Worship in School Part Two: On worship and educating

This article continues a discussion begun in Part One. Together they re-examine the central thesis of Professor John Hull's (1975) book, School Worship, An Obituary, that the practice of worship in school is inappropriate. He attempted to establish his thesis through the analysis of the concept of education and of the concept of worship, and thus to show their essential incompatibility. Part One reviewed what an incompatibility might mean in the school context. After all, many diverse activities are pursued during the school day that, practically speaking, could not be done simultaneously in the same room. His thesis must be taken in the stronger form that, theoretically, the sense of education and the sense of worship are such that the two activities together are conceptually incoherent. The earlier article also reviewed his analysis of the concept of education. It questioned his definition and showed that it hinged on some of the dubious assumptions of an evidentialist philosophy. A better view of understanding and pedagogy might actually require the practise of worship in school. If it is the intention of our society to communicate the substance of religious life to the young, training them in worship may be the best, if not the only, way to do this. The features of education that Hull has identified have been selected for their rhetorical force. They appear to challenge what are assumed to be essential features of worship. Whether they do so in fact will depend on one's understanding of worship, but in what follows, his key assumptions about worship are put to the test and found wanting. Part Two, therefore, investigates Hull's understanding of worship. It finds that he believes a prior unconditional commitment to the belief 'God exists' is of the essence of worship. For him, it is this commitment that puts it at odds with education which he believes must scrutinise everything. The arguments against Hull here are designed to show that he is mistaken in his understanding of worship. Practices do not develop on the formation of belief systems first. Furthermore, religiously speaking, worship actually embraces a radical questioning. Finally, his assumption that there is a logical incompatibility in having an unconditional commitment and in embracing the practice of radical questioning is tested against the figure of Socrates. In the life of Socrates one can see how piety and educational practice belong together in such a way that one is the expression of the other. It is concluded that the nature of education and worship are at stake. These may have changed in such a way that they can no longer be pursued together. But there was a time when education flowered into worship, and worship found its substance in education. Hull's case concerning their intrinsic conceptual incoherence through philosophical analysis does not succeed. He has only shown us how our world has changed, and that, not necessarily for the better.     

Pipe organs and satsang: Contemporary worship in Shimla's colonial churches

This article explores two seemingly contrasting types of Christian worship (one led by the pipe organ and the other by satsang), which I repeatedly experienced (between 2006 and 2010) during my fieldwork in Shimla, North India. Although it is often assumed that the pipe organ speaks more to colonial worship and satsang to postcolonial worship, this article demonstrates that both of these styles of worship are actually postcolonial attempts to negotiate colonial history. This suggests a need to complicate contemporary external discussions of the inculturation of Christian worship in India. Furthermore, by focusing on the way that contemporary Christians work with missionary histories to create living landscapes of worship, this article demonstrates that Christian worship is central to the identity of many non-Christian residents and tourists, who are also central to the formation of Christian landscapes of worship. The article concludes by suggesting that these groups also need to be brought into debates about the nature of Christian worship in contemporary India.     

Personality and coping: A context for examining celebrity worship and mental health

The adaptational‐continuum model of personality and coping suggests a useful context for research areas that emphasize both personality and coping. The present paper used Ferguson's (2001) model integrating personality and coping factors to further conceptualize findings around celebrity worship. Three hundred and seventy‐two respondents completed measures of celebrity worship, personality, coping style, general health, stress, positive and negative affect and life satisfaction. Celebrity worship for intense‐personal reasons is associated with poorer mental heath and this relationship can be understood within the dimensions of neuroticism and a coping style that suggests disengagement. Such findings suggest the utility of examining the relationship between celebrity worship and mental health within both personality and coping variables, which have practical implications for understanding and addressing mental health problems that may occur as the result of engaging in celebrity worship for intense‐personal reasons.     

Just Call Me by My Name: Worship Music in Asian Ecumenism

This article examines the historical development of worship music in Asian ecumenism by examining three ecumenical hymnals from the 1960s to the present. It identifies key personalities and institutions involved in the formation of Asian worship music. The essay argues that the maturation of Asian Christian spirituality via music making requires the church to hold in tension both its missional heritage and local cultural practices. It proposes the development of robust theo‐liturgical scholarship as being critical in helping the church mature.     

Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States

Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one’s neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within religious communities, however, has questioned the importance of theology as a motivation to volunteer (Putnam and Campbell, in American Grace. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2010; Lewis et al., in Soc Sci Res 42: 331–346, 2013). In this paper we test the effects of a religious adherent’s image of God’s disposition toward the world on their pattern of community volunteering. Using data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey and multinomial logit models, we find that having an image of God as judgmental lowers the odds that religious adherents report having volunteered for the community independent of their place of worship. Adherents who are most willing to engage the external community independent of a place of worship are those with less judgmental images of God. We also find that embeddedness is associated with volunteering for and with the place of worship in the community. Implications for theory, research and social capital formation are discussed.     

Translation of the 12-step alcoholic anonymous from English language to Yoruba language and its application within the Yoruba culture among patients with alcohol use disorder in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The aims of this study were to translate the English version of the 12-step alcoholic anonymous (AA) to the Yoruba version and to compare among patients with alcohol use disorders (AUDs), which version would be associated with a higher participation in AA. After an initial translation of the English version of the AA to Yoruba version, 200 participants with AUDs were randomised into either group, matched by age and gender and enrolled in the 12-step programme for six months. Compared to the Yoruba group, the proportion of participants retained in treatment in the English AA group was significantly lower between baseline and at six months, OR?=?.45, 95% CI (.26–.83). The Yoruba 12-step AA has the potential of mitigating the language barrier the English version poses to individuals with limited ability in the English language because participants felt more connected with God.     

Treating survivors of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

As part of an established traumatic stress research and treatment program located in New York City, we experienced the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center first as New Yorkers, but also as professionals with an interest in both treating the survivors and furthering scientific knowledge regarding the neurobiology and treatment of traumatic stress. This paper gives vignettes of calls to our program and the treatment of World Trade Center terrorist attack survivors.     

A meta-analysis of primate hand preferences, particularly for reaching

P. F. MacNeilage, M. G. Studdert-Kennedy, and B. Lindblom (1987) proposed a progression for handedness in primates that was supposed to account for the evolution of a right bias in human handedness. To test this proposal, the authors performed meta-analyses on 62 studies that provided individual data (representing 31 species: 9 prosimians, 6 New World monkeys, 10 Old World monkeys, 2 lesser apes, and 4 greater apes), of the 118 studies of primate handedness published since 1987. Although evidence of a population-level left-handed bias for prosimians and Old World monkeys supports P. F. MacNeilage et al., the data from apes, New World monkeys, and individual species of prosimians and New World monkeys do not. Something other than primate handedness may have been the evolutionary precursor of the right bias in hand-use distribution among hominids.     

Let Us Pray: Classroom Worship in Theological Education

Theological education typically includes classroom worship, a practice of great pedagogical power and curricular import. As pedagogy, classroom worship does four things. It focuses teaching and learning on God, and fosters theological dispositions necessary for sustaining that attention. Second, it rightly positions the entire class in dialogical relation to the divine Thou, in communal relation to each other, the larger church and the wider world, and in personal relations that risk transformation. Third, it frames theological education as an integrative practice of faith and learning. Finally, it invites teachers to know their students as whole persons and students to trust their teachers as spiritual guides. As curriculum, classroom worship may have greater significance than chapel worship for many students and at particular schools. It should be moved from implicit curriculum to explicit, with careful attention to the null curriculum and to the matrices of relationship within which worship has meaning.     

Adolescents' visual preference for color over form

This study is concerned with the visual preference for color over form among the Yoruba adolescents of Nigeria. The hypothesis is that Yoruba adolescent boys are more likely to demonstrate superior performance in a task involving cultural differences in visual selective attention preference for color over form than girls. One hundred 16-year-old adolescent boys and girls were randomly drawn from two secondary schools for this study. The instrument used was the Visual Selective Attention Color-Form Matching Experiment. Computation was carried out with a chi-square 2 X 2 contingency analysis. Results indicated that the hypothesis reached a .001 statistical level of significance. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Stone,Ken, Practicing Safer Texts: Food,Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective

Abstract

The past twenty years have witnessed much discussion about the place of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people in the Church, particularly through two sets of debates: on whether and under what circumstances LGBT people should be ordained, and on whether and under what circumstances LGBT people should have their marital unions blessed. The past twenty years have also witnessed the creation of various liturgical materials responsive to the needs of LGBT people, particularly for events that are crucial to an LGBT person's life and faith but for which there were no existing rites in public worship. However, by concentrating only on the occasional and extraordinary events in a person and a community's life as "queer worship" (with its double sense of both "unusual worship" and "worship for LGBT people"), we are neglecting the myriad ways in which day-to-day ordinary worship is, and is not, queer. This article therefore examines the ways in which heteronormativity and the demand for "covering" can create tacit prohibitions around worship for LGBT Christians. Arguing for the inherent queerness of Christian worship, it suggests practical ways in which LGBT people's lives can more fully integrate into a community's liturgical life, and vice versa.     

Spirituality and aging: How worship communities of older adults sustain their faith in the absence of traditional ordained leadership

ABSTRACT

This article considers how older Christians (aged over 70) exercise worship in an environment of shared ministry. Specifically, the Local Shared Ministry Units (LSMU) model of worship within the Auckland Diocese of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Polynesia (Auckland Diocese). A collective case study approach was used, and individual members of four LSMUs were interviewed with the resulting comments treated as a collective case study. The findings indicate these older adults are still seeking faith formation, do not regard themselves as fully formed spiritually, and use personal prayer in particular to enhance and nourish their faith growth.     

I Surrender All: Subverting the Cruelty of Capitalist Optimism with Affective Expressions of Worship

This paper explores the experience of an affectively charged healing worship service comprised of mostly working-class parishioners. It suggests that they seek healing from a feeling of being worn out by the precarity of daily life and by their efforts to reach the “American dream.” The ensuing discussion is framed by Lauren Berlant’s (2011) cruel optimism: we are attached to ideals that both define our identities as productive members of a capitalist society and at the same time necessitate our failures at reaching those ideals. The work of relational psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell is utilized to describe how affective worship builds a co-created relational space of vulnerability and care that subverts this dominant ideal. The paper concludes with Emmanuel Ghent’s suggestion that religious surrender leads to an expansion of the self.     

How Muslim and Non-Muslim Chaplains Serve Muslim Patients? Does the Interfaith Chaplaincy Model have Room for Muslims’ Experiences?

Chaplaincy is typically practiced within the contexts of the Jewish and Christian traditions, and little attention has been paid to the influence of the Islamic perspective of nursing and caring. Therefore, many Muslim patients might not receive appropriate care for their religious and spiritual needs, especially as they relate to daily religious practices and worship, medical ethics, and end-of-life treatment choices. This study examined Muslim and non-Muslim chaplains’ approaches to pastoral care used with Muslim patients in New York City hospitals. The study used in-depth interviews with 33 Muslim and non-Muslim chaplains. The results indicate areas of both convergence and divergence.     

The Missional Shape of Worship in Evangelical Lutheran Worship

Abstract : Mission stands out as an orienting concept in ELW unlike its predecessors. ELW has a missional theological framework as well as a practical missional orientation, a situation in which worship and mission are understood and practiced in relation to one another. It is possible that ELW will help congregations claim the missional character of worship.