Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

ABSTRACT

Building on entries written for Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, this article explores Christian–Muslim relations in China and Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The first half of the article considers Christian–Muslim relations amongst the Japanese in and outside Japan. Direct, indirect and potential interactions and contemporaneous commentaries are explored in order to build a picture of the sort of Christian–Muslim interactions that took place. However, due to the sparsity of sources, this section seeks more to develop and open potential avenues of enquiry than to provide definitive answers. The second section focuses on Christian–Muslim interactions in the work of Matteo Ricci and suggests that Christian–Muslim interactions in East Asia generally, and in China more specifically, were significant not only to the Jesuit mission itself, but also to the shaping of European knowledge of the East.     

Christian‐Muslim relations in the African context

Abstract

The course of Islam and Christianity in Africa as well as statistical figures suggest a wide variety within, as well as considerable divergence between, both religions in the many African contexts. Though the majority of African Muslims still stick to a ‘traditional African Islam’, we observe a resurgence of Islam reflecting a growing religious awareness, on the one hand, and tendencies towards an ideological re‐interpretation (Islamism), on the other. Trends in resurgent Islam are highlighted by the examples of Islamic internationalism and da'wa, the modernisation of Islamic education, and the proliferation of Islamic political groups all over the continent. Various dimensions of Christian—Muslim relations in Africa today show areas of conflict as well as of cooperation and exchange. Against the background of the economic and social disintegration of many African societies, there is no alternative to inter‐religious dialogue which must be based on an authentic African theological foundation, being rooted in the African heritage shared by Muslim and Christian communities alike.     

Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Trinitarian Formulation in the Islamic Milieu

This article examines a theological treatise of Abū al-Faraj ?Abd Allāh Ibn al-?ayyib, a savant of the Assyrian Church of the East. The treatise discusses the Attributes of Deity demonstrating a thematic correspondence with the dominant polemical arguments occasioned by the Christian view of the Trinity and Christology. These include the relation of the hypostases to the attributes of essence, specifically the unity of the divine essence in contrast to the plurality of the hypostases. Ibn al-?ayyib also borrows concepts from the Muslim milieu to commend his Christian formulation. Most notable among these is the Ash?arī concept of the divine attributes (?ifāt) and their categorization. The Ash?arīs had limited the attributes of essence to seven. Ibn al-?ayyib limits them to three: paternity, filiation and procession. The article considers Ibn al-?ayyib’s Christian intellectual forebears, demonstrating that he used and amended their formulations. Finally, two Muslim polemicists are considered to establish that Ibn al-?ayyib was engaging with specific objections concerning the Christian Trinity. This thematic correspondence warrants a reconsideration of Ibn al-?ayyib’s contribution to the Muslim–Christian interface. Although never an explicitly polemic theologian, the savant-priest developed an implicit apologetic through his theological treatises that provided intellectual fortification for his Christian community.     

Good Catholics: The Battle over Abortion in the Catholic Church

Abstract

Queer readings of the Bible are sometimes understood to be irrelevant for uses of the Bible in theology, theological education, and ministry. This address challenges that understanding by considering ways in which portions of the Bible take positions vis-à-vis religious tradition that parallel moves made in queer theory and queer theology. Using the task of preaching as an example, the address suggests that queer readings can be useful for the practice of Christian ministry even as such readings challenge certain ‘common-sense’ conceptions of ministry, theological education, and religious community.     

Queer Muslim love: a time for ijtihad

ABSTRACT

Across the globe, Muslim communities have developed, and are continuing to develop, a theology of compassion, non-judgmental attitudes, and support toward queer Muslims. This discourse uses ijtihadic analysis to support acceptance of queer Muslim love, because religion is a strong and deep social construct that acts as a moral compass where Muslim queers learn to feel “unacceptable”, “bad”, and “worthless” and under the mercy of the horrified gaze of mainstream, heteropatriarchy, which uses religious arguments to contest the rights enshrined in the South African constitution. It provides a case study as a pedagogical reflection to share intentions, process, and outcomes of sexual diversity workshops to support queer Muslim love to broadly raise critical consciousness about alternative sexual orientations and identities.     

“In the Image of God”: Reconstructing and Developing a Grassroots African Queer Theology from Urban Zambia

This article is a contribution towards the development of queer theologies in contemporary African contexts. Based on fieldwork in the gay community in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, the article explores the significance of the theological notion of the Imago Dei, the image of God, in the self-understanding of Zambian gay men as being gay and Christian. Bringing this incipient grassroots theology into conversation with broader theological discourses, in particular African theology (including African women's theology) and queer theology, we interrogate current understandings of the Imago Dei that either ignore sexuality or exclude same-sex loving people (in African theology) or that conceptualize queerness from white Western privileged perspectives (in queer theology). Hence we develop the notion of the Imago Dei as a stepping stone towards an African queer theology.     

Re‐building Sodom and Gomorrah: the monstrosity of queer desire in the horror film

In Skin Shows, her study of gothic horror, Judith Halberstam argues that ‘[m]onsters are meaning machines’. Narratives about monsters create meaning by defining the border between normal and monstrous desire. This essay offers a close reading of horror films from three very different periods of the genre's history— Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Haunting, and Scream—to demonstrate how these films represent queer desire as monstrous, disruptive and violent. Reading these cinematic representations alongside Christian discourses of sodomy demonstrates that the study of religion and the study of popular culture can inform each other, that theological meaning can be found in the artifacts of popular culture and that these artefacts can only be fully understood by attending to their theological meanings. The essay concludes with suggestions regarding how such artifacts can be engaged to support queer political projects.     

Introduction

Abstract

The introduction to the special issue situates the five following essays in the context of historical and contemporary theological reflection on maternality. It addresses the fraught connection between sexuality and maternality in the Christian theological imagination and argues that the maternal body has often functioned as a bridge between the opposed arenas of Word and flesh, God and humanity, and eternity and time. The introduction concludes by using the figure of the Virgin Mary as a lens to consider the theological themes of birth, grief, the incarnation, sacrifice, and Eucharist. Mary’s body, site of the incarnation, allows connection, mediation, contiguity, and congress to occur. As such, it also functions as a bridge between theology and sexuality.     

Holy mothers of God: sex work,inheritance, and the women of Jesus’ genealogy*

ABSTRACT

In this article I consider the stories of Jesus’ women ancestors in the genealogy which opens the Gospel of Matthew. Reading these stories in light of Marxist-feminist analyses of marriage, sex work and reproductive labor, alongside contemporary sex workers’ rights discourse, and through Marcella Althaus-Reid's claim that all theology is “a sexual act”, I explore their implications for contemporary debates about property and propriety in both Christian systematic theology and contemporary Christian sexual ethics – which cannot, of course, be disentangled from one another. To conclude, I return to the twinned questions of righteousness and purity which centrally define both theological accounts of Christian identity and Christian sexual ethics, suggesting that righteousness relies for its coherence not only on the abjection of those who fall short of its standards, but also on their labor.     

Refuge in the Bosoms of the Mountains: A Ninth-Century Muslim Appraisal of Monastic Piety

ABSTRACT

This article examines a relatively little-known text, the Kitāb al-ruhbān/Book of Monks, from the ninth-century Muslim moralist, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā. The topical range of Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s own literary corpus was extensive, yet the concern for ascetic practices forms a consistent thread throughout his work. As for this particular text, the esoteric wisdom associated with asceticism is specifically communicated through the teachings of Christian hermits. The Kitāb al-ruhbān, formulated as a collection of short dialogues and edifying statements regarding Christian monastic piety, profoundly demonstrates the continuing appreciation for monastic insight, particularly amongst Muslim ascetics, well into the Islamic period. There are, moreover, no explicit traces of sectarianism or confessional barriers here. Instead, the sagacious maxims for maintaining a righteous life are often passed from Christian hermits to devout Muslim listeners. This text thus further reveals the intricate connections between Christian monastic communities and medieval Islamic mystical culture.     

The continuing relevance of “queer” theology for the rest of the field

ABSTRACT

What does it mean to queer theology? How is this task of queering theology relevant to and engaged with mainstream academic theological discourse? What is already queer about theology? What direction should queering theology take in the future? This special issue examines these key questions, among others, which are at the heart of the overall project that has been referred to as “queer theology”. In this introduction to the volume, we outline common strands of thought, and key issues and questions that undergird and interlace the essays in this volume. We also provide a brief history of queer theology, highlighting four themes that we consider essential to the study of queer theology as a whole: (1) the role of witness, (2) the project of disentangling the “real” issues from the incidentals in reactions to a queer presence in the Church, (3) the creative rereading of tradition with an eye toward emancipation and (4) the ways in which queer theology orients the field of theological studies as a whole to what really matters (or ought to matter) for Christians and others seeking to follow the witness of Jesus.     

Mary Astell’s theory of spiritual friendship

Mary Astell’s theory of friendship has been interpreted either as a version of Aristotelian virtue friendship, or as aligned with a Christian and Platonist tradition. In this paper, I argue that Astell’s theory of friendship is determinedly anti-Aristotelian; it is a theory of spiritual friendship offered as an alternative to Aristotelian virtue friendship. By grounding her conception of friendship in a Christian–Platonist metaphysics, I show that Astell rejects the Aristotelian criteria of reciprocity and partiality as essential features of the friendship bond and that she develops a theory of friendship that is neither reciprocal nor partial. Further, I argue that Astell’s theory of friendship advances her feminist aims by providing a justification for female–female spiritual bonds in contradistinction to female–male marriage bonds. Astell argues that the female–female bond of spiritual friendship is sanctioned by God, and is, therefore, a divinely authorized alternative to the male–female bond of marriage. Through her theory of spiritual friendship, Astell marks out a central place for female–female bonds and provides women with a justification for resisting marriage.     

The Trinity in Qur’anic Idiom: Q 4.171 and the Christian Arabic Presentation of the Trinity as God,his Word,and his Spirit

ABSTRACT

Since the early centuries of Islam, the Qur’an’s deep imprint on Arabophone Christians has been evident, not only in their evocation of qur’anic language, but also in their creative employment of the text in constructing their own orthodox Christian Arabic theology. This article investigates the presentation of the Trinity as ‘God, his Word, and his Spirit’ in Christian Arabic theological tracts in the early centuries of Islam. It argues that Q 4.171 played a foundational role in constructing a distinct Christian Arabic Trinitarian theology and that Arabophone Christian writers discerned in it the nucleus of what could be developed as an orthodox Trinitarian theology. It traces the development of the Christian Arabic Trinitarian formulation in four works by Arabophone authors: John Damascene’s On Heresies 100; On the Triune Nature of God; the interreligious disputation in the court of the ?Abbāsid Caliph al-Ma?mūn attributed to the theologian Theodore Abū Qurra; and the apologetic letter by ?Abd al-Masī? al-Kindī. This article also makes observations on the implications of the Christian Arabic theological project for interreligious encounter in the early Islamic centuries.     

The Word was Not Made Flesh: Theological Reflections on the Banning of Seksualiti Merdeka 2011

Abstract : In November 2011, the Malaysian sexuality rights festival Seksualiti Merdeka was banned after being labelled immoral and subversive. The organizers insisted that the festival was a forum for the voices of sexual minorities and that the ban was politically motivated. By examining the rhetoric surrounding this festival in the Malaysian media, this article aims to uncover how the tensions between Malaysian politics and religion affect the lives of queer Malaysians in terms of human rights before providing a Christian theological response.     

Proleptic Sexual Love: God's Promiscuity Reflected in Christian Polyamory

Abstract

Goss acknowledges the value of pair-bonded relationships to the Christian community but wants to explore the ethical and theological space for envisioning Christians whose erotic lives fall outside monogamous relationships. He takes seriously Elizabeth Stuart's suggestion that the restoration of an eschatological paradigm for rethinking queer sexual relationships. Goss claims that Christ becomes the paradigm for multi-partnered relationships in spiritual encounters within religious communities and perhaps a means for rethinking non-monogamous relationships.     

‘Mystic Atheism’: Julia Kristeva's Negative Theology

Abstract

This article examines Julia Kristeva's paradoxical concept of a ‘mystic atheism’. It falls into three parts. First, it briefly surveys Kristeva's psychoanalytic account of Christian theology in Au commencement était l'amour (1985). Secondly, it assesses Kristeva's analysis of the Christian mystical tradition from Teresa of Avila to Angela of Foligno in such works as Le féminin et le sacré (1999) and the three volumes on Le génie féminin (1999-2002). For Kristeva, Christian mysticism represents a key moment in the transition from theology to psychoanalysis: what she locates within the work of the female mystics is a so-called ‘mystic atheism’, that is to say, an affirmation of an other within the subject as opposed to the divine other that supposedly lies outside it. Finally, the article offers some critical comments upon Kristeva's own ‘mystic atheism’: I argue that—like much negative theology—Kristeva's psychoanalysis remains ontotheological in form and that this dimension expresses itself in a problematic tendency to anthropomorphize the other within. In conclusion, I will suggest that Kristeva's ‘mystic atheism’ ultimately remains within the theological tradition it seeks to call into question.     

Christian‐Muslim theological encounter: The priority of tawhid

Both Islam and Christianity are monotheistic faiths, yet the one God proclaimed and worshipped by each appears to be a different deity by virtue of the different conceptual construct that applies in each case. For Islam the defining motif is the idea of tawhld, for Christianity it is the notion of Trinity. In respect to theological dialogue between these two faiths the onus lies with the side holding the more complex construct to relate that back to the simpler and less complex, especially where the simpler motif is deemed to be contained within ike complex. Thus it behoves the Christian side to examine critically the trinitarian and related doctrines concerning the understanding of God, with a view to a clearer restatement of the essential oneness of deity which, after all, is the undergirding conceptual reference. In attempting this task, the ‘problematic of unity’ inherent in the Christian concept of God is addressed and a theological revision is suggested. The intention is to rethink critically aspects of Christian doctrine so as to further Christian‐Muslim theological dialogue, without in any way diminishing the essential insight of either side, but rather with a view to opening new lines of expression that each might equally affirm.     

Blasphemy and Protection of the Faith: Legal Perspectives from the Middle Ages

ABSTRACT

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legal traditions have all attempted to define and prohibit blasphemy: insult or verbal attack against their religion, against its rites and symbols, against God and his human representatives. Such laws could be internal (prohibiting blasphemy by members of the faith group) or external (prohibiting insult by those outside the faith). This article will first briefly trace the former, looking at how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legal traditions from Antiquity and the Middle Ages define and prohibit blasphemy. The second part of the article will then focus on the second issue, looking at how Christian and Muslim legal traditions attempted to prohibit insults to the faith by adherents of other religions. We shall look, for example, at various Christian laws dealing with what was perceived as Jewish mockery of Christian ritual and sacred objects: from mock crucifixions allegedly practiced by Jews as part of Purim celebrations in the fifth-century Roman Empire to Jews who supposedly derided the Eucharist during thirteenth-century Corpus Christi processions. We shall in parallel examine prohibitions in Muslim legal texts (including the so-called Pact of ?‘Umar) of dhimmīs insulting the Prophet Muhammad or the Qur'an. This comparison will show that, while blasphemy was illegal and could be harshly sanctioned and there were lines that religious minorities must not cross, these lines were often not clearly delimited, and became the object of conflict and negotiation.     

The Limits of Inclusion: Queer Theology and its Others

In this article, I describe three problems found in some inclusive queer Christian theologies: a strong contrast between Christian queer inclusiveness and the exclusive other — a contrast that sometimes takes anti-Semitic form; ignoring what I term the affective life of binaries — the way symbol systems depend on associative relationships between multiple binaries, so that rendering one binary relationship fluid fails to destabilize the symbol system itself; and a presentist approach to origins that seeks legitimation for contemporary queer assumptions or for queer theology as such. I argue that the presence of any of these elements renders queer theology un-queer. By connecting inclusive queer theologies to debates over inclusion, livability and humanity in queer theory (particularly between Judith Butler and Lee Edelman), I conclude that the rhetorical posture of radical inclusion may have limited value for queer theology and suggest an alternative starting point grounded in a dictum from Marcella Althaus-Reid.