A relationship with Señor de Carácuaro

The present paper explores the issue of personal relationships in the context of pilgrimage. Most literature about pilgrimage in Latin America focuses on the journey, or on the alleged ‘sacred power’ located in the shrine and sought by the pilgrims. I argue that, from the perspective of the participants’ experience, pilgrimage could be understood in terms of personal relationships with particular holy beings, who are perceived as agents. Through the particular case of Marta, a young Purhépecha woman from Lake Pátzcuaro (Mexico), I will examine the modes in which people from this area relate, interact and communicate with saintly beings in the context of pilgrimage; the connection of vows with quotidian experience; and the implications of relationships with saints for people in their everyday lives.     

Priming effect on the exceptive conditional ‘except if’

Here we report the results of one priming experiment that examines the comprehension of exceptive conditionals—for example, ‘Mary will go out tonight except if she has an exam tomorrow’—and indicative conditionals—for example, ‘Mary will not go out tonight if she has an exam tomorrow’. The experiment showed that participants read the true possibility ‘Mary is not going out tonight and she has an exam tomorrow’ faster when it was primed by an exceptive conditional than when it was primed by an indicative; other possibilities (‘Mary is going out tonight and she does not have an exam tomorrow’, ‘Mary is going out tonight and she has an exam tomorrow’ and ‘Mary is not going out tonight and she does not have an exam tomorrow’) were primed equally by both connectives. The experiments showed that (1) when people understand ‘B except if A’, they access the true possibilities ‘not-A & B’ and ‘A & not-B’, and (2) when they understand ‘B, if not-A’ they access ‘not-A & B’, but they do not access ‘A & not-B’. We discuss the implications of this for current theories of reasoning.     

The incarnated icon of Ṣaydnāyā: light and shade

The shrine of the Virgin Mary in the Syrian town of ?aydnāyā is an important Levantine Christian centre and one of the principal Christian pilgrimage sites in the Middle East, second only to the holy city of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages. This study's intent is to examine in detail, and to provide a key for interpreting, the major incongruity emerging through a comparison of the two main textual traditions regarding the shrine: the Christian-Arabic and the Latin-Western. The dissimilarity is constituted by the significant divergences concerning the representation of the miracle of the incarnation traditionally ascribed to the icon of the Virgin venerated in ?aydnāyā, which is essentially omitted in the Christian-Arabic sources. I argue that a key to the understanding of this reticence can be provided by an analysis of the heretical character ascribed to this particular miracle in Islamic theological thought and of the consequent threat it posed to the survival of the shrine itself. That being the primary focus of the investigation, the article also explores some aspects of the cultural and historical vicissitudes and crises of the cult of the shrine in the West from the fourteenth century onwards which, despite the great number of academic works dedicated to this subject, have remained unclear to this day. More specifically, I argue that apparently aporematic elements on the textual level can be interpreted logically by examining the central role played by the Knights Templar in the cult's material and cultural diffusion and by taking into account the connection of the shrine's decay with the order's downfall. The present analysis focuses almost exclusively on the medieval period as being the most significant for the formation and development of the cult of the shrine.     

Turning towards the Tomb: Priesthood and Gender

Abstract

This article offers some broad theological reflections on gender and priesthood through the lens of three turns. The first turn is that of Mary Magdalene away from the gardener and towards her Lord. This is described as a turn which broke the male/female gaze. The second turn is Butler's turn towards gendered subjectivity which brings with it melancholia from which there is no escape. Stuart argues that Mary Magdalene's second turn is a turn away from a subjectivity grounded in gender towards a subjectivity grounded in Christ, a turn made by all those who receive the sacrament of baptism. The third turn is the traditional turn of the priest towards the east, a turn which obscures the gender of the priest and orientates those gathered towards a reality in which gender is deprived of any ultimate status. Stuart argues that the turn of the priest is a re-enactment of the turn of Mary Magdalene and that priesthood is essentially a non-gendered order.     

Buon Purim: proselytizing, professing Jews and the Papal Inquisition in Modena

This essay focuses on an Inquisitorial trial in which a Jewish banker, Moise de Modena, well respected in the Modenese community (Christian as well as Jewish), decided in 1625 to make a stand against two constables and refuse them the customary ‘protection money’ which they demanded during the festival of Purim. The event provided a shaky foundation for their charge of proselytizing. De Modena faced persistent Inquisitorial prosecution but chose also to hire Christian legal counsel to defend him. The trial raises questions about Jews who were able to work behind the scenes during Inquisitorial prosecution in early modern Italy to ensure their acquittal. It also examines gift-giving as a specific social practice between Jews and Christians during he Jews’ ‘carnivalesque’ Purim, which in this particular year fell during Holy Week.     

Mary Magdalene: Lover of the Dying and Resurrecting God-Man

Like Isis, Ishtar, and Inanna, Mary Magdalene mourns the death of the god she loves, and when he resurrects, she celebrates his renewal. Through her intense feeling experience of personal and spiritual love, she represents the feminine side of the death and resurrection phenomenon that plays a realizing role in the humanization of the god-image and likewise of individuation.

Although the Judeo-Christian fathers excluded any sign in their orthodoxy that Yahweh and Christ may have had love partners, archeological evidence and Gnostic texts point to the possibility that they did. In our era, with the psychological perspective that C. G. Jung heralded, we can reconsider and integrate the role of the Eros principle that was split off from our god-image, concretized, and banned along with the “evil” of the flesh.

The emergence of Mary Magdalene in popular culture as the “Holy Grail” or vessel of Christ's child reflects the intense yearning in the psyche for the feminine principle to participate in the continuing incarnation of the god-image, and for the divine feminine–masculine partnership to realize itself in personal, human experience.     

The Problem of Criteria and the Necessity of Natural Theology

Most streams of Christianity have emphasized the unknowability of God, but they have also asserted that Christ is the criterion through whom we may have limited access to the depths of God, and through whose life and death we can formulate the doctrine of God as Triune. This standpoint, however, leads to certain complications regarding ‘translating’ the Christian message to adherents of other religious traditions, and in particular the question, ‘Why do you accept Christ as the criterion?’, is one that Christian thinkers have attempted to answer in different ways. There are two influential responses to this query in recent Christian thought: an ‘evidentialist’ approach which gradually moves from a theistic metaphysics to a Christ‐centred soteriology, and an ‘unapologetic’ standpoint which takes God's self‐disclosure in Christ as the perspectival lens through which to view the world. The opposition between these two groups is primarily over the status of ‘natural theology’, that is, whether we may speak of a ‘natural’ reason, which human beings possess even outside the circle of the Christian revelation, and through which they may arrive at some minimalist understanding of the divine reality. I outline the status of ‘natural theology’ in these strands of contemporary Christian thought, from Barthian ‘Christomonism’ to post‐liberal theology to Reformed epistemology, and suggest certain problems within these standpoints which indicate the need for an appropriately qualified ‘natural theology’. Most of the criticisms leveled against ‘natural theology’, whether from secular philosophers or from Christian theologians themselves, can be put in two groups: first, the arguments for God's existence are logically flawed, and, second, even if they succeed they do not point to the Triune God that Christians worship. In contrast to such an old‐fashioned ‘natural theology’ which allegedly starts from premises self‐evidently true for all rational agents and leads through an inexorable logic to God, the qualified version is an attempt to spell out the doctrinal beliefs of Christianity such as the existence of a personal God who interacts with human beings in different ways, and outline the reasons offered in defence of such statements. In other words, without denying that Christian doctrines operate at one level as the grammatical rules which structure the Christian discourse, such a natural theology insists on the importance of the question of whether these utterances are true, in the sense that they refer to an objective reality which is independent of the Christian life‐world. Such a ‘natural theology’, as the discussion will emphasize, is not an optional extra but follows in fact from the internal logic of the Christian position on the universality of God's salvific reach.     

The distinct emotional flavor of Gnostic writings from the early Christian era

More than 500,000 scored words in 83 documents were used to conclude that it is possible to identify the source of documents (proto-orthodox Christian versus early Gnostic) on the basis of the emotions underlying the words. Twenty-seven New Testament works and seven Gnostic documents (including the gospels of Thomas, Judas, and Mary [Magdalene]) were scored with the Dictionary of Affect in Language. Patterns of emotional word use focusing on eight types of extreme emotional words were employed in a discriminant function analysis to predict source. Prediction was highly successful (canonical r = .81, 97% correct identification of source). When the discriminant function was tested with more than 30 additional Gnostic and Christian works including a variety of translations and some wisdom books, it correctly classified all of them. The majority of the predictive power of the function (97% of all correct categorizations, 70% of the canonical r2) was associated with the preferential presence of passive and passive/pleasant words in Gnostic documents.     

Discourses of Love,Compassion, and Belonging: Reframing Christianity for a Secular Audience

Religious plurality has implications for religious organisations active within the public realm. Using semi-structured interviews, I examine how Christians and Christian organisations are framing faith discourses so that they resonate with religiously neutral discourses dominant in the public sphere. There are indications of a shift towards the use of profane terms instead of sacred terms to explain aspects of the Christian faith and Christian teachings of love, compassion, and belonging are amplified to counter criticisms that Christianity is a threat to liberal rights and beliefs. This article conceptualises these discourses as two social action frames: the ‘Love Frame’ and the ‘Inclusivity Frame’. I do not refute claims that the social significance of religion is declining but argue that Christians and Christian organisations are working within the confines of secular discourses to disseminate their messages in order to build credibility as egalitarian public service providers.     

Race,religion and identity: Arab Christians in the United States

In social terms Arab American Christians lie both inside and outside the category of ‘white’ by race. Seemingly ‘white’ via their religious affiliation with the majority and non-white through their Arab and Middle Eastern backgrounds, at times they have access to privilege and power, and at other times face discrimination as non-white and foreign. In this study, there was a connection between those who identified as white, age, and residence in the wealthy suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. The younger generation of professionals who live in the city of Washington DC, as well as activists and academics, tended to be more ambiguous about their own perceived whiteness. Women and men faced differing challenges from prevailing stereotypes of Arabs and gendered expectations of race. The term ‘ancient Christian’ was used to denote a non-Muslim identity and claim an original Christianity located in the Middle East.     

Worship as a Revelation. The Past,Present and Future of Catholic Liturgy

Unitatis Redintegratio (UR), the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, was both the outcome and instrument of ecumenical engagement between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and continues to have a formative influence on their dialogue. In the lead-up to the Council, personal contacts between Church of England leaders and the nascent Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity played a significant part in a change of atmosphere towards other Christian traditions at the Vatican. UR notes the ‘special place’ which the Anglican Communion holds in the communion of churches: the 1966 meeting in Rome between Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI would lead to The Malta Report (1968) and the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). The ‘Principles of Dialogue’ set out in UR – avoiding polemical language; integrating spiritual and academic learning; expounding positions clearly, and committed openness – are affirmed in the light of the experience of ARCIC. The Agreed Statements of ARCIC I and II, focused around the motif of koinonia, are assessed in view of the topics for dialogue listed in UR: Christology; Ecclesiology (including the Blessed Virgin Mary); Sacred Scripture; Life in Christ in communion; Teaching on sacraments and ministry; and Christian personal, family, liturgical and social life. The significance of eschatology in relation to unity in Christ is highlighted, both with reference to Anglican difficulties about gender relations and authority, and to the three-fold use of ‘complete’ in UR. What might it mean for ecumenical dialogue, and ecclesial relationships, to work from the future backwards rather than just from the past forwards – i.e. in terms of faith rather than sight?     

Meanings of movement,place and home at Walsingham

This paper examines the revival, over the past 100 years, of the Catholic pilgrimage site of Walsingham. It argues that, for some habitual pilgrims, the site is akin to a second ‘home’, constituting a place for ‘dwelling in movement’. Contemporary pilgrimage practices not only establish links between local parishes and the Walsingham shrines, but also incorporate specific forms of mobility that express connections with personal, collective and institutional representations of the past. An examination of the site encourages the blurring of analytical distinctions between ‘local’ and ‘visitor’, and also poses questions concerning the relationship between culture, place and forms of belonging.     

Impacting Awareness of Child Abuse through a Spiritually Based Performing Arts Project

Using indigenous religious folklore images, a folk opera explored issues of child abuse, sexual assault and violence through a psychologically fictionalized character of Mary Magdalene. Befriended by an understanding Mary, Mary Magdalene is healed of her childhood ‘wounds through a religious conversion after almost refusing to encounter Jesus. Six hundred secondary students attended three daytime performances and 486 returned a Likert‐scaled questionnaire. The results indicated that most students perceived abuse as a personally relevant social problem, with this felt relevance increasing with age. Significant trends supported initial expectations that the play may help increase community and personal awareness of child abuse and sexual assault and that the play may also help increase a personal and community interest and effort toward helping others. Perplexing differences in school responses suggest that the schools in which prior discussion occurred may have led to students gaining more social insight and benefit from the play, although some of these same schools also tended to reject the personal relevance of the play. The latter may indicate community risk factors contributing to denial. More Hispanics responded positively to the sense of benefit, which may reflect the fact that there is a Hispanic Catholic majority in the community that sponsored the play itself. Overall, the findings suggest that performing arts can help increase awareness of child abuse as well as personal and community interest in helping and that this benefit increases with teacher discussion and age. In spite of procedural deprivations, the authors felt it was a relatively rare and useful effort to collect some data, hopefully to inspire more social scientists with more resources to consider collaborating with socially and spiritually meaningful fine arts productions in order to document scientifically the impact of the arts on human attitudes and behaviour. The reader's tolerance for the obvious limitations of investigation are requested and appreciated. A discussion of psychospiritual models of creativity and healing concludes the paper.     

Patrides,Plotinus and the Cambridge Platonists

ABSTRACT

Discussion of the Cambridge Platonists, by Constantinos Patrides and others, is often vitiated by the mistaken contrasts drawn between those philosophers and late antique Platonists such as Plotinus. I draw attention especially to Patrides’s errors, and argue in particular that Plotinus and his immediate followers were as concerned about this world and our immediate duties to our neighbours as the Cambridge Platonists. Even the doctrine of deification is one shared by all Platonists, though it is also here that genuine differences between pre-Christian and Christian exegesis can be found. All, it can be said, hope and expect to join ‘the dance of immortal love’, but Christian Platonists had a deeper sense of God’s ‘humility’ in His Word’s material and temporal manifestation. Not Olympian Zeus but the Crucified Christ was their preferred image of divine involvement, and their better guide to heaven.     

Biblical mothers as images of the Church

Among the many images and symbols of the Church which the church Fathers used, biblical mothers had an important role. Some of these images, such as Mary as an image of the Church, became widespread and have influenced later Christian theology and iconography. In this article, both the development and different applications of these images will be explored. How and to what purpose these images were used in the Early Church will also be studied. Among the topics dealt with by using these images were the origin, age, character and purpose of the Church, as well as its relation to several ‘others’ (the Jews, the schismatics and the heretics). In modern ecclesiological discussions, especially of Eve and Mary as images of the Church, the role of the Church in salvation, as well as the communal interpretation of biblical mothers, are relevant.     

‘Wounded by the Arrow of Beauty’: The Silent Call of Art

One of the urgent tasks facing Christian educators at the present time is how they might encourage the spiritual growth of their students. This paper invites reflection on this central question by discussing the role aesthetics might play with particular focus on its relationship to the ‘spiritual senses’, a theme which has been strikingly absent from recent publications on religion and Christian education. Paying particular attention to the work of the contemporary French phenomenologist, Jean‐Louis Chrétien, I shall argue that art invites us to listen to as well as to see the power of beauty. Educators should not ignore this capacity of art to engage the spiritual senses within a contemplative ethos of silence. But I go further than simply pointing to these seminal ideas about Christian formation, by discussing the ‘wound’ that beauty inevitably inflicts. I illustrate this suggestion by referring to Pope Benedict XVI's essay ‘Wounded by the Arrow of the Beautiful’ and to two visualizations of religion: Delacroix's painting Fight between Jacob and the Angel and Beauvois' film Of Gods and Men.     

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.     

Violence as Worship: Religious Wars in the Age of Globalization,by Hans G. Kippenberg,trans. Brian McNeil,Stanford University Press: Stanford,CA, 2011, viii + 286 pp. ISBN 978 0 8047 68726, US$70 (cloth); ISBN 978 0 8047 6873 3, US$21.95 (paperback)

The author argues in this paper that the ‘state effects’ generated by religious movements – even those operating at the margins of societies – require us to consider anew the impact of religious movements on state formation. In Sri Lanka, for instance, evangelicals are a minority. Yet their practice of proselytizing to new audiences was considered ‘unethical,’ generating opposition that was directed not only at them, but also at ruling elites for failing to stem what was seen as an intrusion of incompatible ‘Western’ ideals. Instead of considering how such Christian movements seek to ‘take over’ the functions of the ‘state’ as has been the experience in the United States and parts of Latin America, the author illustrates in this article why it makes more theoretical sense to ask how their activities impinge upon the conceptual frameworks through which the ‘state’ is imagined.