Chinese Christianity in international perspective: some remarks on ecclesiology and fundamental concepts engaging East and West

ABSTRACT

In Chinese legislation on the Church as well as in the theological debate in China and, the concepts of religion and Christianity predominate, depending, from a historical perspective, on the influence of nineteenth-century philosophical and theological ideas from the West, conveyed by socialist political theory, by the weak ecclesiology in missionary societies operatingin China before 1949, and influential theologians setting the scene. The idea of Sinicisation contributed to the perpetuation of the nineteenth-century ideas of religion and Christianity in China. Today, however, there are signs of change. The churches in the accelerating multi-modernity in China wishto clarify what is unique for the Christian Church. Sometimes, however, what is characteristic of the Church in China is also characteristic of the Church in many other places in the world.     

The Acquisition and Function of Religious Beliefs: A Review and Synthesis of Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives

ABSTRACT

Two main scientific approaches have renewed in the last decade the scientific study of religion: the cognitive and the adaptationist. The former is focused on proximate causes, the latter is looking for ultimate causes of religious beliefs and behaviours. Both approaches are useful and promising. However, in both cases, various important aspects and contexts associated with the origin, acquisition, and transmission of religious beliefs have been neglected. The present paper offers an approach that conjoins both models after reviewing several critical issues, to highlight a distinction between cognitive conditions and structures, on one side; and developments or applications, on the other. As a result greater attention needs to be paid to religious functions and their cultural framework to better understand religion and to explain some current processes, like massive secularization in several areas.     

Psychoanalysis,class & politics: Encounters in the clinical setting

Abstract

There is little research and literature available in the United Kingdom which addresses the issues for black and ethnic minority families who have dealings with the family court system. Therefore, this article is based largely on the personal views and experiences of the author. In it I shall be commenting on the functioning of the court in terms of private law concerning children.     

The Field of Science and Religion as Natural Philosophy

“Natural philosophy” is an important term from the history of science because it was used to describe the study of nature during medieval and early modern Europe. This article gives an overview of the history of natural philosophy, since the use and eventual disuse of the term helps one to understand the emergence of modern science. Following a suggestion by the historian of science Peter Dear, I argue that the term deserves to be rehabilitated because it draws attention to the complexities of scientific theorizing. The article concludes with an argument that the field of science and religion should be seen as an updated version of natural philosophy.     

The interior and the abject: uses and abuses of the female in the middle ages

In this paper I argue that during the High Middle Ages definitions of the female as distinct from the life led by women played a crucial role in defining social boundaries and solidifying new systems of power. I suggest that there were two female figures that were crucial to these definitions: the mother and the virgin. While the mother image was invoked to describe the internal functioning of the Christian community, the virgin metaphor drew the external boundaries and defined the Christian community's relation to the non‐Christian other.     

The im-possibility of secular critique: The future of religion's memory

The legacy of secular critique, with its Greek, Christian, Kantian, modernist traces, constitutes an aporetic law (or contradiction). That law is this: a critical legacy, if it is critical, can affirm and sustain itself only by trying to separate it from itself (from the very crisis that it is). The legacy or history of ‘religion’ is always a history of such critique. Such a legacy always anticipates critiquing itself, its memory (of whatever kind – racist, sexist, colonialist, nationalist). Such a legacy of critique is always a legacy of crisis. However, the crisis of such a legacy cannot be resolved, because critique, as kairos/krisis (critical/decisive moment), can admit of no resolution. Yet the (secular) history of religion, if it is ever historical, can only be a history of such aporetic critique. Such an aporetic critique will be the heritage of religion's im-possible ¹ ?1. I write the word impossible/impossibility with and without a hyphen. When I hyphenate im-possible, I do so to remain true to Derrida's use of it. The im-possible is irreducible to either possibility or impossibility. Sometimes Derrida also writes the word without hyphenating it, but he still implies such irreducibility. future. It is an im-possible future because it will always be a promise, a promise to separate it from itself, a promise that will remain always deferred, always to come. Today, the promise of this secular critique is (in) democracy with its sovereign ‘decisive’ politics. We can no longer simply critique the (future) legacy of religion, understood this way. To do so is to fulfil that legacy's own messianic wish. This is the aporetic limit of secular critique. To think at the limits of the legacy of the critique of religion is to think the very question of the (secular) history of ‘religion’ and its others, that is, ‘religions’.     

Politicised religion and the religionisation of politics

The dilemmas of dealing with difference are currently at the heart of our society. Among the anomalies of our age is the survival and even flourishing of complex systems of values based on religion. However, we see that mosques flourish, ethnic associations with religious undertones multiply and religion is present in the public sphere through conflicts about religion or persons believed to be religious. Islam is a much discussed topic. The line between private and public religion is as thin as ever, and I would argue so is the line between religion and politics. This can be observed at two levels. First, the invocation of religion in the political discourse, leading to the politicisation of religion and second, as the influence religion has on political life, the religionisation of politics.     

The Catholic Church,moral doctrine,and HIV prevention in Recife,Brazil: Negotiating the contradictions between religious belief and the realities of everyday life

Religious beliefs have had a key role in shaping local responses to HIV and AIDS. As the world's largest Catholic country, Brazil is no exception. Yet little research has been conducted to document how religious doctrine is enacted in practice among its lay leaders and followers. In this article, we present ethnographic research from Recife, Brazil, conducted to understand the way in which religious doctrines are interpreted at a local level. Contextualised within the sociology of contemporary Brazilian Catholicism, we draw on interviews with clergy members, lay leaders, and parishioners to discuss how the Catholic Church's vision of sexuality translates into everyday lives of its followers. We explore the disjuncture between the Catholic ideals of fidelity and delaying sex until marriage with the everyday reality of the Church's followers, highlighting the role that gender plays in defining sexual roles and expectations. We conclude by posing questions for future research and HIV prevention strategies considering the formal institutional response of the Brazilian Catholic Church to AIDS on the one hand, and the social and cultural contexts in which Catholics live their daily lives on the other.     

The implication of technology in mediatisation and mediation approaches to religious studies

This paper investigates the groundwork upon which the concepts of mediatisation and mediation were erected, focusing on the very definition of what media-technology is. These concepts frame the conversation among scholars in the study of religion and media. However, despite the fact that the two keywords share the same root, media, they are understood as incompatible with one another. On the one hand, mediatisation is broadly defined as a historical shift in which the logic of mass media transforms traditional forms of religion, subsuming them under the imperative of the modern marketplace. On the other hand, scholars studying the mediation of religion affirm that media have always shaped and transformed religious practices. This investigation argues that the controversy between the two modes of analysis does not consist of whether or to what extent media technology affects or transforms religion. Rather, the conflict arises from how media technology is defined.