http://www.aarweb.org/Meetings/Annual_Meeting/Past_and_Future_Meetings/2004/abstracts.asp
AAR Abstracts
November 20-23, 2004
San Antonio, Texas, USA
22-67
Reidar Aasgaard, University of Oslo
From Boy to Man: Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
The apocryphal infancy gospel of Thomas, which narrates the childhood story of Jesus from the age of five to twelve, is an enigmatic text. Originating probably in a Greek-speaking context in the second century CE, the gospel proved very popular way into the Middle Ages.
Much effort has been put into analysing its complicated textual tradition. Somewhat surprisingly, however, its contents has not been much studied, for various reasons.
This paper will analyse how Jesus in the Infancy gospel is depicted as going through various stages of childhood. It aims at showing how the Jesus figure is gradually transformed from a little boy to a young man, and particularly how this manifests itself in the depiction of gender distinctions and of social roles and activities. This picture seems to reflect the kind of development a male was expected to go through in late Antiquity/Early Christianity on his way from boy to man.
21-13
Cassie Adcock, University of Chicago
Sacred Cow? Freedom of Religion and the Cow Protection Movement
Although supporters of the cow protection movement in colonial north India made frequent use of “economic” arguments, scholars have frequently stressed a Hindu religious motivation for the movement, focused on the symbol of the sacred cow. Such an effort to identify an essentially religious component in cow protection, I argue, obscures the political valence of “religion” and “economy” within the legal discourse of “freedom of religion.” The identification of a cause as “religious” is not only an analytic, but a political matter. This paper examines Arya Samaj cow protection arguments not with an aim to identify their essentially religious quality, but rather to examine the crucial position that the “economic” argument occupied in the context of “freedom of religion”: it functioned to define cow slaughter as bearing upon the central governmental concern of the long term-prosperity of individual and state, and therefore as a matter of civil concern.
20-118
Erin H. Addison, University of Arizona
The Holy We Can See: The Construction and Conservation of Material Remains in the Holy Land
We examine the editing of the landscape of the religious past for marketing to the tourist industry and global development interests in the 'holy land.' Visible cultural remains are powerful symbols which compose a text inscribed on the landscape and read by everyone who travels through it. To erase the material remains of a culture is part of the process of erasing its historical and contemporary political efficacy, not to mention its identity. It is equally important, however, to recognize that all editing of this text constructs another narrative of cultural identity.
Examples discussed are the archaeological 'editing' of early Islamic remains in Israel; the reconstruction of Jewish and Roman remains at Saffuriyah/ Zippori National Park; the editing of Muslim pilgrimage sites and construction of the Christian landscape in Jordan; and the map of holy sites on the English and Arabic websites of the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
20-116
Siamak Adhami, Saddleback College
A Neopythagorean-Neoplatonic Account of Zoroastrian Theogony
Neoplatonic interpretations have been used in several of the religious traditions of late antiquity and medieval period. The one religion which has not received much attention in this regard is Zoroastrianism and the literature written by the adherents of this religion. In particular one text, i.e., Dênkard (Act of Religion), is of great interest in the present examination. In a chapter from this text--dated in its present format to the ninth century--in additon to the use of the 'number theory,' one encounters a unique account of the Zoroastrian theogony, beginning with the supreme god Ohrmazd who is identified as the One, the Principle, and the Immutable. The uniqueness of this account lies in the fact that a dualistic religion, such as that of Zarathustra, would be subjected to such a philosophical interpretation. This attempt may have come about as a consequence of a progressively dominant monotheizing tendency of late antiquity.
20-125
Afe Adogame, University of Bayreuth
“A Walk for Africa”: Combating the Demon of HIV/AIDS in an African Pentecostal Church
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is one crisis that has shot the African continent into global limelight particularly in the last decade. In spite of the common rhetoric whipped by the international community, prevention and impact mitigation responses have been largely hypocritical, half-hearted and grossly inadequate. The scourge seem to have defied any discernible medical therapeusis and curative measures, thus leaving it to gradually erode into the fabric of these societies. Religious groups have been largely affected especially as youth, the highest HIV/AIDS risk-group, swell their membership in contemporary period. This shapes the responses of religious groups and poses a crucial challenge to their beliefs, ritual practice and worldview. Using the example of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria and Diaspora, the paper demonstrates the various mechanisms employed to combat the epidemic. The RCCG conceptualization of disease and healing is central in understanding these responses and measures in combating HIV/AIDS.
22-64
Bobby C. Alexander, University of Texas at Dallas
The Role of a Mexican Protestant Church and Its U.S. Missions in Transnational Migration
This paper demonstrates the role played by a religious institution in transnational migration between Mexico and the U.S. La Luz del Mundo is Mexico’s largest Protestant church and the largest single denomination made up of Mexican migrants in the U.S. As mutual aid societies, the various mission churches, which are geographically dispersed across Mexico and the U.S., create pathways for members by offering housing, food, financial assistance, and jobs. Church ideology – reproduced through church ritual – facilitates and reinforces not only the existence of transnational communities, but also the process of migration itself. Members believe their church is called to establish international missions. The paper highlights a specific religious ritual, Santa Cena (Holy Supper), a required annual pilgrimage of this diaspora church, to church headquarters in Guadalajara, Mexico. The paper is based on ethnographic research conducted at church headquarters and the mission church in Dallas, Texas.
22-13
Kecia Ali, Brandeis University
"I Was a Girl of Nine": Recent Online Controversies over the Prophet's Marriage to Aisha
According to most traditional Muslim sources, Aisha was a girl of six or seven when her father Abu Bakr married her off to his close friend, the Prophet Muhammad. She was nine years old, according to these accounts, when the marriage was consummated. This marriage became the focus of substantial controversy in 2002, when Southern Baptist preacher Jerry Vines declared Muhammad a “demon-possessed pedophile.” Many refused to accept the evidence presented by Vines for Aisha’s age at the time of marriage, even though it was taken from Sahih Bukhari, the most authoritative Sunni hadith collection. The radically different responses received by these Muslim questioners asking about age differences in marriage suggest that many Muslims are caught between uncritical acceptance of their inherited tradition and the fear that any critical stance toward that tradition will be a capitulation to, as one author puts it, “the enemies of Islam.”
22-55
Zaheer Ali, Columbia University
"Black Mecca": The Nation of Islam's Mosque No. 7, Harlem, and Islam in New York City
The development of African-American Muslim communities in New York City provides a unique study in the emergence of Islam as an American urban religion. The one community probably most influential in this process is the one that began as the Nation of Islam's Mosque No. 7 in Harlem. Drawing on traditions and practices honed in the Black urban experience, members of Mosque No. 7 established a religious community that profoundly shaped, and was shaped by, the religious, political, cultural, and social life of the city. Through oral history interviews, this paper traces the development of the Mosque, focusing on the lives of its believers and the institutions they founded. The paper also demonstrates how the Mosque's legacy continues to influence the ways Islam is practiced by Muslims, and viewed by non-Muslims, in New York City.
22-120
Hans Alma, Leiden University
Spirituality: A Secular View -- Transcendence and Spirituality in Philosophy and Psychology of Art
In my paper I will sketch the present academic and professional interest in spirituality in the Netherlands. Against this cultural background, I will develop the concept of 'secular spirituality', on the basis of the aesthetic-philosophical thinking of Iris Murdoch and John Dewey, and the psychology of art found in relational psychoanalysis. Spirituality is defined as an attitude of attentive involvement in existence. It is based on a 'full perception' of our world, which may result in an aesthetic experience. In attending to beauty, we can experience transcendence. This view on spirituality will be explored from both philosophical and psychological views, in order to better understand the spiritual quest of people who do not understand themselves to be religious in a traditional sense.
22-75
Robert E. Alvis, St. Meinrad School of Theology
Ethics and the Practice of Memory: Catholic Responses to the Expulsion of Ethnic Germans from Postwar Poland
Accompanying Germany's defeat in World War II was the forced expulsion of millions of ethnic Germans from the country's eastern provinces. By Soviet design the lion's share of this evacuated territory fell to the resurrected state of Poland. The socialist regime that emerged in Poland justified the population and territory transfers as legitimate war reparations and sought to expunge the traces of this earlier German legacy from Poland's collective memory. This paper considers the orientation of the Catholic Church in Poland toward the ethical implications of this episode. I examine the interpretive models Catholic leaders developed to explain these traumatic events and the extent of their willingness to remember German heritage and suffering. At play in the formation of such responses were the ethical resources distinctive to Catholicism, the extensive religious infrastructure the church absorbed from German sources, and the church's strained relations with Poland's socialist government.
21-14
Mehdi Aminrazavi, University of Mary Washington
Omar Khayyam on Theodicy: The Irreconcilability of the Intellectual and the Existential
While Omar Khayyam’s view on theodicy is known to have been expressed through his famous Ruba‘iyyat, few people know about his philosophical writings in this regard. In this paper, I will offer the two-dimensional perspective of Omar Khayyam on the problem of evil: the intellectual and the existential. Khayyam’s ontological analysis of the problem of evil as an inherent and necessary constitution of the corporeal world will first be discussed. Khayyam’s intellectual analysis of theodicy, which is essentially Ibn Sinian, changes radically in his Ruba‘iyyat where he uses poetic license to express a theology of protest. This paper is an attempt to place the dichotomy between the philosophical and the existential analysis of the problem of evil in Khayyam’s thought in their proper context.
20-122
Laura Ammon, Claremont Graduate University
Surfacing Submerged Texts in the Study of Religion: Exploring E. B. Tylor’s Use of Missionary Documents
Nineteenth-century anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor made use of many different kinds of documents in order to construct the theory of religion found in Primitive Culture. Prominent among Tylor’s footnotes are references to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Catholic missionaries. This paper will examine the connections between Tylor’s theory of religious survivals and the materials in missionary-ethnographers’ texts. I will argue the connection to these texts is foundational to Tylor’s theory of religion and played a significant role in the cultural history of the study of religion within both religious studies and anthropology. Seeing Tylor in this light expands our understanding of the common antecedents in religious studies and anthropology.
21-50
Derek N. Anderson, Loyola University, Chicago
Theological Nonviolence in Julian of Norwich’s Showings of Divine Love
Recent works addressing the violence inherent in the Christian doctrine of the atonement have displayed difficulty in accomplishing both of their central tasks simultaneously, namely, to read the crucifixion as a subversion of human (and divine!) violence and to give an adequate account of how Christ’s death remedies human sin. The theology of Julian of Norwich accomplishes both these tasks. In her Showings, Julian presents a theological vision that purposely eschews violence. Julian’s soteriology employs each of the key structural features present in the atonement theory of an author like Anselm of Canterbury, but it does so without relying for its basic logic upon divinely sanctioned violence. The satisfaction Christ makes, in Julian’s view, overcomes the breach between humans and God caused by sin, but it is a satisfaction based not upon violence but upon healing and wholeness.
22-106
Emma J. Anderson, Harvard University
The Missionary, "the Apostate," and "the Sorcerer": A Study in Jesuit-Aboriginal Interaction in Early Seventeenth-Century Canada
This presentation will critically examine the writings of a single Jesuit missionary, Paul Le Jeune, in order to illuminate the complex web of fraternal inter-relationships and religious commitments which he both observed and disturbed, between the members of a single aboriginal family in the ‘contact zone’ of early seventeenth century Canada. Examination of each axis of the triadic relationship which existed between Le Jeune, Pierre-Anthoine Pastedechouan, his erstwhile teacher of the Innu language, whom he referred to in his writings as “L’Apostat,” and Carigonan, Pastedechouan’s older brother, and a respected Innu shaman, whom he termed “Le Sorcier” allow us both to highlight different aspects of Jesuit-aboriginal encounter and to challenge the entrenched historiographic conventions which have traditionally described it.
21-50
Kaiya Ansorge, Emory University
The Concept of Miracle: Entering Theology through Aesthetics
This presentation will explore how various representations of miracle influence theological constructions of God and the cosmos and vice versa. Each illustration will depict specific narrative cultures around the concept of the miraculous. The aesthetic experience affectively impresses on the viewer a recognition of a spectrum of miracles as well as their theological and cosmological assumptions and ramifications ranging from gnostic to pan(en)theistic depictions. By distilling conceptual complexities into visual data, the diverse understandings of miracle are clarified. This occurs by specific and recognizable differences in worldview that we can see according to the variations in graphic depiction. Visual portrayal of the miraculous is revealing of underlying definitions and theology.
22-71
James Boyd Apple, University of Alberta
Buddhist Theories of Mind as Representationalist Analysis: Bridging the Gap between “First Person” Accounts for “Third Person” Problems
This paper examines classical Indian Buddhist Abhidharma formulations concerning the function and structure given to mind (citta) or consciousness (vijnana) and redescribes these in terms of representationalist and functional analysis of consciously experienced first-person perspectives. The study of consciousness, the mind, and/or the “mental” has been a topic of interest among recent Euro-North American academic studies in the fields of philosophy and science. Likewise, the study of the mind and the “mental” has occupied Buddhist scholars for over two thousand years. The question is whether and how physical states of the human nervous system can be mapped onto the content of conscious experience. This paper explores accounts of Buddhist psychology in terms of Metzinger’s conceptual tools–the 'phenomenal self-model' and the 'phenomenal model of the intentionality relation'– as a conceptual link between first-person and third-person approaches to the conscious mind and between consciousness research in the humanities and in the sciences.
21-124
Paula K. R. Arai, Carleton College
Zen Practices of Japanese Laywomen
In seeking insight into the nature of Zen Buddhist women’s lay practice, ethnographic research reveals important ways their sundry practices offer guidance as well as demonstrate the complexity of their lived tradition. Such an approach involves questions like: What kind of Zen practice is suited for someone given a terminal diagnosis? A focus on these women’s practices brings to the fore complex dynamics and concerns that shape what values, ethical principles, and strategies women use to negotiate their lives. Through an examination of the elements that constitute the practices, the definition of Zen practice extends beyond “just sitting” to activities that embrace both dualistic concepts and esoteric “magic.” My data suggest that Zen ritual practices offer ways to address the non-cognitive, non-intellectual, emotional and psychological needs people have to cope with the problems of human existence––love, loss, birth and death, longing for belonging.
22-68
Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Ritual and Renewal: Creating Jewish Traditions 1960s-1970s
The late 1960s saw the rise of a renewal movement in Judaism that has transformed Jewish practices and modes of worship, and rejuvenated the tradition. Jewish baby boomers created a neo-hasidic movement that combined elements of traditional Judaism with the hippie culture that developed at the time. Eager for greater spirituality and meaning in their lives, the neo-hasids aimed at creating a captivating and inspiring atmosphere, which would be open to men and women alike. They advocated lay and egalitarian participation instead of services led by (male) rabbis and cantors, and they resurfaced rituals that had been abandoned by the mainstream, or reinterpreted, and modified the forms and meaning of currently practiced rituals. While the movement was relatively small, its impact has been enormous, transforming Jewish rituals and worship in the home and the synagogue, in both traditionalist and liberal Jewish circles.
22-71
Daniel A. Arnold, University of Chicago
Causes and Reasons in Buddhist Philosophy: Reflections in Light of Vincent Descombes’s Critique of Cognitivism
The conceptual tools developed in Vincent Descombes’s recent critique of cognitive philosophy will be deployed to characterize Buddhist philosophers in the tradition of Dign›ga and Dharmak?rti as sharing (despite important differences) what is arguably the main principle of contemporary cognitive philosophy – viz., its uncompromisingly causal account of mental events. Accordingly, it will be asked to what extent these Buddhist philosophers might be vulnerable to the cogent critique advanced by Descombes. It is suggested that some Buddhist philosophers can be understood as having worked to address something very much like the problems identified by Descombes. It is, finally, suggested that the problematic issues can be framed not only in terms of Descombes’s proposed category of intentionalism, but also in terms of whether or not Buddhist thinkers in this tradition – or, for that matter, contemporary cognitive philosophers – are in a position to distinguish between causes and reasons.
21-55
Emily Askew, Carroll College
Displacement: Against Sedentarist and Nomadic Romance Stories
In this paper, I consider how we might acknowledge the creative agency that comes to the fore when lives are made in and by mobility. Simultaneously, to adequately valorize these creative forms of agency, we must name the violent and oppressive historical, contextual conditions that have displaced persons. To the extent that the language of border crossing and boundaries is geographical language, I turn to work of cultural geographers to offer a critical spatial discourse that will do justice to both creativity and violence, minimizing neither. The spatial model cultural geography offers is the model of "place"—ironically the word at the core of "displacement." More than these two functions, however, place as described in cultural geography points to new ways in which the desire to belong "somewhere" have been achieved in the face of radical dis-place-ment.
21-52
J. Heath Atchley, South Hadley, MA
Confronting Secularity: Nietzsche and Deleuze
This essay criticizes the common notion that philosophy is much to blame for the division of life into the separate realms of the religious and the secular. It is not necessarily philosophy’s turn to reflection and rationality that cultivates the divide between the secular and sacred. Instead, philosophy in a certain key continually confronts this breach, assuming not that it is to be healed, but that it gets in the way of what matters. From this perspective, the problem is not philosophy’s lack of appeal to a transcendent deity; it is the thought of religion as being confined to the operation of transcendence. In other words, one of the results of transcendence is secularity, an argument articulated by Marcel Gauchet. Friedrich Nietzsche’s notion of affirmation and Gilles Deleuze’s concept of immanence are explored as examples of philosophical confrontations of the secular that critique transcendence.
22-124
J. Heath Atchley, South Hadley, MA
The Silences of Secularity: Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation
This essay argues that Sofia Coppola’s recent film Lost in Translation draws an image of secularity as an inability to speak. Bob and Charlotte, the film’s main characters are unable to express to their loved ones their unease with life. Such a problem, however, is not merely personal, because it occurs within a cultural context (secular modernity) in which value and sense ultimately reside outside of experience. This diagnosis draws from Marcel Gauchet’s argument that transcendence causes secularity. The film offers Bob and Charlotte’s encounter with each other (made up of significantly expressive conversations) as an alternative to transcendence-driven secularity. A genuine encounter, according to Gilles Deleuze, is a becoming that breaks the cycle of transcendence and releases new, immanent values into life. Hence, an encounter critiques secularity.
21-116
Janel Atlas, Messiah College
Appealing to the Prodigal Son: Ecological Responsibility in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer
Barbara Kingsolver has been dismissed by some on the academic circles as a bestseller of low-fat fiction. However, in my paper, I will explore the prevalent theme of ecology in Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer as evidenced by the use of the nonhuman environment as a character which has its own legitimate place. I will argue that Kingsolver’s text plays a vital role in changing Americans’ understanding of nature to recognize that humans are implicated in our natural surroundings and that we must responsibly find our place in the web of life around us and in us.
22-24
Juan Avila, University of California, Davis
Luis Valenzuela Beeteme: Yoeme Sacred Geography from a Historical Perspective
The Yoeme homelands or, 'Hiakim' located in southwestern Sonora, Mexico, are physically marked not only by rivers, mountains, caves, shorelines, rugged desert and plateaus, but also by the stories and memories of Yoeme elders who learned the contours and details of this sacred and physical geography from older generations of Yoeme. This paper will present the personal perspective of this sacred landscape of one Yoeme elder, Luis Valenzuela Beeteme, who was born in Nogales, Arizona, and raised in the Rio Yaqui, Sonora, Mexico, from the late 1910s through 1927, a tumultuous time for Yoeme people. This presentation will explore this elder's own view of his culture's sacred geography in the historical context of Spanish and Mexican campaigns to rid the region of Yoeme autonomy and control of their land.
23-8
Sarah Azaransky, University of Virginia
Feminist Theological Method and “Usable Aspects of the Past”
In _White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus_, Jacquelyn Grant calls for the development of a Christology in light of Black women’s experiences. Grant concludes, in part, that a constructive feminist theology should take seriously only “usable aspects of the past.” This paper considers two early Christian sources, Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) and oracles of New Prophecy, in order to explore criteria for what makes a particular source ‘usable.’
21-27
Rachel Sophia Baard, Villanova University
Dialogues between Tillich and Feminism: A Rhetorical Map
Analysis of different dimensions of Tillich's theology, particularly by way of classical Aristotelian rhetorical categories - as appropriated by modern communication theory - provides a map for possible dialogue between Tillich and feminism. From this perspective, it is clear that such dialogue would find compatibility in terms of logos (content) and pathos (a focus on the situation of the audience), but would run into trouble when it comes to the element of ethos (the character of the speaker). This refers to Tillich's relationships with women. Using post-structuralist emphases, the notion of ethos is further examined in order to complicate the issue. Ethos is shown to be a multifaceted and complicated concept that is intricately tied to the logos and pathos dimensions of rhetoric. When thus complicated, Tilich's ethos is shown to be compatible in some respects with feminism, despite problems.
22-110
Rachel Sophia Baard, Villanova University
Material Theology: Talal Asad and the Task of Rhetorical Theology
Clifford Geertz's classical definition of religion as a 'system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations,' has played an important role in rhetorical readings of doctrines, i.e., on the kind of theology that focuses on the practical effects of doctrines. Talal Asad challenges the conceptual focus in Geertz's definition, and focuses instead on the question of how symbols come to be constructed and accepted as natural and authoritative, while others are opposed. This critical discussion in the field of antropology of religion invites rhetorical theology to embrace the 'postmodern' rhetorical emphasis on genealogical suspicions more fully, thus not focusing only on the concrete results of doctrinal symbols, but on the concrete realities underlying them.
21-52
Marie L. Baird, Duquesne University
Whose Kenosis? An Analysis of Levinas, Derrida, and Vattimo on God's Self-Emptying and the Secularization of the West
Levinas's model of kenosis, which he defines as 'subordination of [God's omnipotence] to man's ethical consent' is a diachronic transcendental self-emptying with no real time analogue. Such subordination allows for the event-ful emergence of Derrida's 'undeconstructible' gesture of hospitality. Although structurally always 'to-come,' such hospitality nevertheless breaks through the circle of exchange attendant upon a metaphysical structure of reality regarded as absolute and divinely ordained. There is no necessity for the 'definitive' kenosis of Christianity that Vattimo insists upon. Vattimo's own proposal of friendship-as-caritas is compatible with the model of kenosis, and its ethical thrust, that Levinas proposes and upon which Derrida builds. All three thinkers help to collapse the distinction between 'profane' and 'salvation' history. Their shared rejection of a divinely ordained metaphysical structure of reality and their embrace of a kenotic model of divinity permits the overflowing of ethical responsibility, hospitality, and friendship into the marketplace.
21-113
Katharine Baker, Vanderbilt University
The Transvestite Christ: Hedwig and the Angry Inch Perform Queer Theology
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of language seeks to expose how linguistic interactions are produced by the power relations comprising our social structures. Queer Theology has a similar goal: exposing the power relations inscribed in theological language and symbols, particularly the dominance of hetero-normativity. Judith Butler’s theory of “excitable speech” describes how one can re-signify a dominant discourse—reinterpret it against itself—thereby opening an avenue of new agency for those dominated by what Bourdieu calls “the official language.” Queer Theology again has a related objective: to re-signify theological language by “queering” it, and thus opening the redemptive resources of Christian faith to those previously excommunicated. In the rock musical Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Hedwig, the protagonist, re-signifies his identity through gender-bending transvestism and doctrine-deconstructing re-appropriation of Christian theology. This essay documents his evolution in the terms of Bourdieu, Butler and Queer Theology, particularly the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid.
21-115
Kelly Baker, Florida State University
Henry Ossawa Tanner and Visual Mysticism
Henry Ossawa Tanner, an African American artist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, depicted grand biblical narratives on canvas. His luminous canvases were engulfed by his religious faith and captured viewers in his representation of the divine. However, previous scholarship has ignored Tanner's religious background and his desire to paint God in the human arena. Tanner's religiosity moved beyond denominational bounds toward mystical expression that centered on his personal relationship with God. This paper will argue that Tanner was a visual mystic due to the medium of religious expression, canvas and brush. This paper seeks to define the category of viusal mysticism and demonstrate the validity of such a category by examining Tanner's life, his paintings, The Annunciation, Daniel and the Lion's Den, and The Resurrection of Lazarus, his commentary about his own work, and how others, contemporaries and scholars, have described the artist as a mystic.
20-61
Kimberly Faye Baker, University of Notre Dame
Moving beyond Ourselves: Augustine on Living as the Body of Christ
This paper presents the image of the Church as the body of Christ as a remedy to the increasing sense of disconnectedness in contemporary society. It will begin with a discussion of three aspects of the Body of Christ in the writings of Augustine—the transformed community, the sacraments, and the mission of the Church in the world. Based on this discussion, the Body of Christ will be described as a dynamic community that draws individuals beyond themselves into community and draws the community beyond itself into the world. It will conclude by offering suggestions on ways that this understanding of Church meets the needs of urban society by shaping a community that looks inward to reflect on the mystery of faith and also turns outward to embrace life and service to the world.
23-11
Gayle R. Baldwin, University of North Dakota
The Resurrection of Matthew Shepard; the Disappearance of Sakia Gunn: Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, and the Religious Imagination
The mythical resurrection of Matthew Shepard and the disappearance of Sakia Gunn raise some interesting issues concerning race, gender and religious responses to the murders of homosexual youth. Matthew Shepard was a white male raised in the rural community of Laramie, Wyoming; Sakia Gunn, a black lesbian from the inner city of Newark, New Jersey. This paper reflects the discoveries found in extensive interviews of religious people, gay and straight in both of these communities. Of particular interest is how religious people, who have had their own religious imaginations shaped by certain cultural and racial views of religion and sexuality had to reconstruct key concepts, assumptions and moral values in response to these murders.
22-67
Susan Ridgely Bales, Carleton College
Training Christian Soldiers: An Analysis of James Dobson’s Approach to “Bringing Up Boys” from 1970-2003
Through a close analysis of Dr. James Dobson’s parenting advice from Dare to Discipline through Bringing up Boys, including various material produced by his multi-million dollar organization, Focus on the Family, this paper explores the development of his roadmap to manhood. Through this exploration I hope to discover the root of his concern about America’s boys, particularly in terms of their sexuality and their crucial role in the future of Evangelicalism and the nation. Examining this material reveals constant warnings about homosexuality that grow ever louder and overtime these warning have been paired with warnings against male violence and alienation. Digging deeper into the construction of this dire picture will also allow scholars to understand the emphases and desires of Dobson and the other members of Focus on the Family as they search for ways to create Godly families in what they believe is an increasingly secular world.
20-73
Gregory A. Banazak, SS Cyril and Methodius Seminary
Writing Globalization Religiously: The Case of Bartolomé de Las Casas’ Genealogy of the "New World"
In this paper, we propose to continue the tendency to apply Foucauldian thought to premodern authors by examining the histories of Bartolomé de Las Casas -- Brevísima Relación de la Destruición de las Indias, Historia de las Indias, and Apologética Historia Sumária -- in light of Foucault’s
ideas about genealogy. Our purpose is to understand these histories as religious genealogies and to affirm the validity of Foucauldian thought for understanding globalization from a religious perspective.
21-22
Gregory A. Banazak, SS Cyril and Methodius Seminary
The Role of Mysticism in Conversion to Social Activism: The Case of Sixteenth-Century Latin America
How do individuals step out of a situation of oppression in which they are immersed --- or even a situation of oppression from which they are benefiting --- and decide to change that situation? Our presentation attempts to answer this question from the perspective of mystical experience. It examines four individuals in the early history of the European presence in Latin America --- Pedro de Córdoba (1480?-1521), Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), Vasco de Quiroga (1470?-1565), and Gerónimo de Mendieta (1526-1604) --- who explicitly attribute their conversion toward social activism to mystical experiences. We study their narratives of mystical experience to determine what role such experience plays in social conversion.
20-121
Daniel Barber, Duke University
Adorno and the Philosophical Production of Grace
One intriguing development in contemporary philosophy is the renascent discussion concerning religion and radical politics. Theodor Adorno's significance lies in his attempt to present Marxist and religious themes in a manner adequate both to their ineliminable potential and to the inadequacy of their positive or orthodox formulation. Religion and revolution must themselves be conditioned by philosophical practice, and Adorno's work begins articulating such a condition. The existence of suffering creates a need for philosophy to achieve a mobile power of thought adequate to the real and its problematic presentation. Philosophical practice is imminent in that it subtracts itself from transcendent conditions and theological or political objects in order to invest its own movement with a religious and revolutionary ethos. Thought achieves transcendence through the compositional extraction of a temporality whose potentials exceed identitarian domination and nominalist collage. This philosophical condensation conditions religious and political conceptions of redemption or utopia.
21-125
William Barbieri, Catholic University of America
Contra Augustinum: On the Irrelevance of Classical Just War Theory Today
A number of Christian thinkers have recently endorsed the use of force in Iraq as well as in the 'war on terrorism' by invoking an interpretation of just war theory that claims Augustine as its primary inspiration. This paper contends that, while Augustine's importance in the historical development of just war thought is undeniable, his relevance to the contemporary situation is minimal. 'Permissive' just war theorists enlist Augustine in an effort to bypass or elide the careful distinctions and conceptual modifications that the subsequent tradition has produced. The resulting accounts are not only ill-suited to coping with the complexities of modern forms of violence, but they also dispense with the crucial just war criterion of comparative justice and embrace a version of legitimate authority that is antithetical to a successful international regime of conflict transformation. Augustine, I conclude, should be gracefully retired as a just war thinker.
20-124
Linda L. Barnes, Boston University
Chinese Healing through Missionary Eyes
Throughout the history of Western forays into China, Christian missionaries of different kinds included descriptions and commentaries on Chinese healing in their reports to their superiors both in Europe and eventually the United States. Such reports were influenced by shifting representations of China that included the demonizing of the Mongols during the late Middle Ages as Europeans struggled to understand who the invaders from the east were; the idealizing of the Ming dynasty during the Enlightenment, particularly through the writings of Jesuits priests; and the increasingly negative stereotyping of China and the Chinese by Protestant missionaries, who entered China during the early decades of the nineteenth century. This paper will review case examples from each of these periods to illustrate how political and economic developments in Europe intersected with key changes in Western medical theory and practice, and with changing religious perceptions of China and the Chinese.
21-50
Kirsten Bault, Azusa Pacific University
Theology of Employee Selection
This study considers the employee selection process of American businesses. It is a two-fold process, balancing attitude and aptitude. American business employee selection currently focuses on aptitude at the expense of attitude. This is due to a number of factors including federal laws such as Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action which restrict employer’s right to information of a future employee. By looking at the current practices, specific Bible narratives, and then developing a dialogue between the two, it is possible to develop an evangelical Christian approach to the hiring process. This approach recognizes the importance of aptitude while one considering the proper emphasis on employee attitude and ethics in the hiring process. It suggests that EEO laws may infringe on a company’s ability to ask sufficient questions to explore the potential employee’s ethics, and it recommends altering hiring practices to balance the focus between attitude and aptitude.
20-68
John Baumann, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
Wounded Land: Environmental Resistance and Revitalized Identity
This paper will consider examples of Native American resistance as exemplified in struggles over environmental issues on Native land in North America. Utilizing case studies from Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site, management of the local environment on the Menominee reservation in Wisconsin, and following the growing controversy over construction of a 250 mile high voltage power line through Minnesota and northern Wisconsin, this examination of Native responses to environmental debates and development proposals provides a window on an understudied aspect of Native revitalization efforts manifest in environmental resistance. Cultural self-identity, sovereignty, political power, and the merging of religious, economic, and political rhetoric will be discussed.
22-53
Richard Bautch, St. Edward's University
Exchanging Customs and Concepts in the Classroom as Borderlands
Grounded in the experience of teaching undergraduates in the Southwest, this paper describes a pedagogical approach that is keyed to the interaction of theology and culture. A class on Catholicism provides a test case, although the principles developed in this paper are adaptable to the study of other denominations. First the paper discusses the importance of recognizing the diverse backgrounds from which students come. Secondly the paper discusses how these students optimally encounter Anglo and Hispanic scholars of Catholicism. Their syllabus is designed around the work of scholars who value experience, give priority to the religion’s cultural component, and pose questions that are theological in nature. The challenge of bringing students to interact with the ideas of these scholars is here discussed. Finally the paper describes how students may participate in advancing the projects that theologians and scholars of religion have initiated.
22-55
Linda Beck, Barnard College, Dept of Political Science
The “Other” Black Muslims: The Transnational Community of West African Muslims in New York City
The “Other” Black Muslims: The Transnational Community of West African Muslims in NYC
Although West African Muslim immigrants, many of whom practice a form of Sufi Islam, are adding to the growing Muslim population in the U.S., little is known about their relations with other Muslim and non-Muslim groups in American society. How does West African Sufism influence their incorporation into the Muslim community in the U.S.? Does contact with other Muslims lead them to embrace a more “orthodox” Islam? Or do they continue to rely on marabouts (Sufi clerics) as religious and political intermediaries? Are their attitudes towards religion and politics reinforced by American secularism or challenged by a fundamentalist model of political Islam that some Muslims see as an alternative to Western modernity? And finally, how does their status as a racial as well as a religious minority influence their political incorporation into American society?
21-107
Carla Bellamy, Columbia University
Who Died and Left You in Charge? or Possession, Power, and Religious Identity in Contemporary Northwestern India
While Hindu “possession” practices, particularly goddess-related ones, have been analyzed in their greater religious contexts, similarly extensive work has not been done on Indian Muslim “possession” practices. In a Muslim context, the “possessing” spirit can be malevolent, benevolent, or willing to reform, and this ambiguity allows members of Hindu, Shia, and Sunni communities to negotiate their individual situations by means of innovative but still unquestionably religious discourses that draw upon Muslim narratives and historical figures. This paper will address gender-specific issues of power and “possession” through an analysis of Muslim-influenced “possession” practices in an Indian context; its substance derives mainly from an attempt to identify and contextualize Urdu and Hindi terms for “possession” practices as used by pilgrims at a major north Indian Muslim pilgrimage center. In doing so, this paper seeks to contribute to the larger project of examining the politics of religious identity in contemporary India.
21-67
Virginia Bemis, Ashland University
Rescuing the Perishing: The Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby
Analysis of the hymns and career of Fanny J. Crosby, writer of 'Pass Me Not," 'Rescue the Perishing', and many other hymns that have become lasting favorites. Re-examination of this popular nineteenth century blind writer from a disability studies perspective with attention paid to both her theology of disability and her status as role-model and claimant of a place in the church.
20-113
Gustavo Benavides, Villanova University
Is Religion a Western Invention?
The presentation explores the current scholarly unease with the concept of religion, one based on the alleged complicity between the concept of religion and the West’s hegemonic position. This exploration will be carried out along two tracks. One involves an immanent critique of L’Occident et la religion: it examines Dubuisson’s use of the concepts of “instinct cosmographique” and “formation cosmographique,” and asks whether they are not liable to the critiques to which Dubuisson subjects “religion.” The other examines whether Manichaeism may not provide a clue about the existence of “religion” long before the emergence of the West, for Manichaeism seems to be an extreme case of self-consciousness regarding the creation of a religion that applies to all of humanity, a self-consciousness which forces us to be skeptical towards the claims concerning the modern “invention” of religion, not to mention the allegations about the recentness of “master narratives.”
23-3
Brian P. Bennett, Niagara University
The Mythos of Logos: Paratextual Accounts of the Church Slavonic Bible
Biblical translation is an enterprise that relates the immutable ‘word’ to mutable culture. How this relationship is achieved, by whom, and with what results, may become a matter of myth. The famous tale of the Septuagint’s origin demonstrates the point. The myth helps bridge the gap between ‘word’ and culture, justifying and lauding the transposition of the scriptures into a new cultural milieu. The paper discusses the Church Slavonic Bible attributed to Saints Cyril and Methodius (ninth century). Produced, it is said, through divine assistance yet rejected by certain earthly powers, the translation was extolled in an array of literary and liturgical genres. The mythos explains how the logos reached a certain ethnos. When the translation reached Russia (tenth century), the myth found fertile new ground. The paper correlates this material to Gerard Genette’s notion of the ‘paratext.’
20-74
Kent Berghuis, Dallas Theological Seminary
Would Jesus Play Texas Hold-Em? Reflections on Religion and the World Poker Tour
On first glance, the world of gambling in general, and poker in particular, might appear to be basically irreligious. However, several fascinating intersections between religion and the growing popular phenomenon of poker-playing deserve to be explored. On the first level is the realm of superstition--praying for a blessing on the cards, etc. A second level is the identification of players with religious figures--such as the World Poker Tour pro who looks like and calls himself 'Jesus,' and religious computer icons chosen to identify players on popular on-line poker sites like PokerStars.com. A third level that gets beyond the superstitious is the scientific, mathematical approach to the game that sees the outcomes primarily in terms of numbers, and the sharks who know this and prey on the 'dead money.'
21-116
Evan Berry, University of California, Santa Barbara
Historical Issues in Religion and Ecology
In order to fully understand the powerful and complex relationships between ecology and religion that contemporary scholars have only recently begun to investigate, it is necessary to return attention to the foundational thinker of ecological thought: Ernst Haeckel. Articulating the historical development of ecology and its birth in the milieu of Leibnizian monism and German romantic Naturphilosophie is crucial for theorizing the religious dimensions of ecology. Haeckel’s religiosity was not simply an earlier version of the modern “ecological paradigm”: his social Darwinist thought was a foundation for the development of Nazi “political biology”. Thus this paper asks the following: what does it mean to think historically about the relationship of religion and ecology rather than to think abstractly about such connections? The history of ecology as a form of religiously infused science suggests a different, and somewhat more cautious, interpretation.
21-106
Stephen Berry, Duke University
Crossings: The Atlantic Passage and the Transfer of Religion in the Eighteenth Century
The essential continuity between Europe and early America has been seamlessly described, as if no time existed in the Atlantic between them. Yet, the beliefs of the Old World did not simply transfer to the New, but experienced a translation in the crossing. The close reading of travel narratives benefits the understanding of American religion by viewing religious beliefs during a liminal moment in which no particular religious institution predominated. The setting of the ship peels back the social assumptions underlying the convictions of worldwide Christian movements such as Anglicanism or evangelicalism, while also revealing the historical actors during a period of inner, personal change that opened new vistas. Three environmental circumstances aboard ship emerge as touchstones for seagoing religious belief – maritime dimensions of time, space, and mortality. The ship’s environment and circumstances of oceanic passage created a space for community formation that transcended normal social and cultural divides.
20-19
Jennifer E. Beste, Xavier University
Conceptions of Children's Moral Agency in Contemporary Catholicism
The purpose of this paper is to explore how American Catholicism understands the relationship between children’s moral agency, sin and grace, and moral and spiritual development. After offering a historical overview of how the Catholic tradition has viewed the moral capacities of children, I focus on how contemporary Catholicism understands the “age of reason” and connected implications for moral agency. Particularly helpful will be a close examination of the assumptions about children’s moral nature and vulnerabilities found in religious education material in the last forty years and official church documents about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Seeking to avoid an emphasis on lists of sins and resulting guilt, many religious education teachers perceive the Sacrament of Reconciliation as immersing children in the crucial process of developing their moral and spiritual capacities. I seek to discern whether preparing children for the Sacrament of Reconciliation effectively fosters moral and spiritual development.
22-61
Swasti Bhattacharyya, Buena Vista University
Babies, Science, and the Mahabharata: A Hindu Ethic Applied to Assisted Reproductive Technology
From the Mahabharata birth narratives of the five Pandava brothers and their 101 Kaurava cousins, five characteristics important to Hindu thought may be extracted, namely: (i) the focus on societal good; (ii) the underlying unity of all life; (iii) the requirements of dharma, (iv) the multivalent nature of Hinduism; and (v) a theory of karma. Though these principles, specifically the context-specific nature of dharma, preclude a formation of the Hindu ethic, they do provide a beneficial set of lenses through which one can examine a variety of ethical issues. Utilizing these five elements of Hindu thought, this paper examines the case of Jaycee Buzzanca, a baby conceived with donor gametes, through in vitro fertilization and carried by a surrogate mother. Along with presenting various Hindu perspectives, this paper indicates ways in which Hindu traditions might frame and discuss issues that arise from the implementation of assisted reproductive technologies.
21-107
Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado, Boulder
Feminine Speech: The Tantric Mantra and Its Gendered Implications
With this paper I propose exploring the Tantric mantra with a different kind of map than is usually employed, one which pays attention to the pivotal role gender plays in the context of Tantric discourse and cosmology. I suggest that the Tantric mantra is a different kind of speech; it is language which is gendered, 'feminine' language. Recent work on the role of language in the West, especially with thinkers like Lacan and Butler, has precisely delineated the fundamental role that language plays in setting the very conditions for the creation of identity through language’s power to create a duality of the word and the referent behind the word. I suggest that the Tantric mantra presents a rupture, a seething insidious excess of speech, a stammer which jams the system. For our own Western preoccupation with the word, it affords a vision which dislocates the logocentric hegemony of reason.
20-74
Jeremy Biles, University of Chicago
SUNDAY! . . . SUNDAY! . . . SUNDAY! The Monster Trucks’ Black Sabbath
Since its inception as a publicity stunt in the 1970s, the “monster truck” phenomenon has grown into an international spectacle. Strangely, even as the one-time fringe event has evolved into an American arena bonanza, the monster truck rally has rarely been a subject for scrutiny by cultural critics or theorists of ritual. I attempt a first step toward analyzing the ritual aspects of the “Monster Jam,” while also drawing upon the historical concept of sacred monstrosity in order to explain the religious fascination that these giant machines exert on thousands of people. I argue that this fascination devolves on an ambivalence vis-à-vis American consumerism, as emblematized by the automobile. The ritual constructs of the rallies combine with the contradictory qualities of monstrosity to allow spectators to indulge in the seductions of mass consumerism even while enjoying the elevated singularities of custom culture in the form of the monster truck.
22-12
Kathleen Bishop, Madison, NJ
The Moral of the Story: Narrative Truth and Moral Experience
This paper will describe ethnographic research with urban adolescent girls to illustrate the value of narrative inquiry and, most importantly, narrative theory for psychology and religion. Narrative psychology is best rendered through narrative method, in this case psychoanalytic ethnography. Moral experience is always encountered by subjects that are "embodied and embedded" (Seyla Benhabib). Only a narrative method can do justice to both internal and external aspects of moral subjectivity, such as gender, emotion, physicality, relationships, history and culture.
21-68
Beth Blissman, Oberlin College
Straw Bales and Santuarios: New Forms of Religious Response to the Ecological Challenges of the Borderlands
Because we live in a time when our species is confronted with increasing ethical dilemmas related to the continuation of life on this planet, we need constructive ethical perspectives that recognize and value process, complexity and particularity. This paper explores two grassroots communities in the U.S./Mexico Borderlands that employ cross-cultural collaborations to address issues of environmental justice, daily practice and the integration of human needs with the surrounding ecosystems. By exploring the ethical frameworks operating within each organization, I will address questions of agency, appropriation and reciprocity across cultures from a liberation feminist perspective. Through these pathways, I explore tools and solutions that can support, challenge, and re-shape the criteria we have to think, judge, and act as moral agents in the world.
20-61
Hans Boersma, Trinity Western University
Bordering on the Augustinian: Radical Orthodoxy’s Interpretation of the Civitas Dei and Civitas Terrena in St. Augustine
This paper discusses Radical Orthodoxy’s analysis of Augustine’s distinction between civitas dei and civitas terrena. RO’s analogical worldview, although bordering on the Augustinian, insufficiently allows for (1) a positive functioning of boundaries and discipline and (2) the flourishing of peace and justice in public spaces both within and outside the Church. Both John Milbank and Graham Ward’s critique of borders and William Cavanaugh and Daniel Bell’s celebration of borders derive from a lack of appreciation for Augustinian notions of (1) the church as one public among others, which refuses to identify church and civitas dei; (2) the civitas dei as eschatological entity, which admits of the need for borders prior to the eschaton; (3) the positive character of temporal ends, which enables positive cultural development also beyond the Church; and (4) the need for border patrols, use of force may at times be necessary in the interest of peace.
20-104
Benjamin Bogin, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Entering the Action: The Memoirs of a Monk Turned Ngakpa
One of the fundamental distinctions found in popular and academic works on Tibetan Buddhism is the division between celibate monks and the itinerant or village-dwelling priests known as ngakpas (sngags pa). Reliance upon prescriptive doctrinal texts and assumed correlations with aspects of Western religions has distorted our view of these complex modes of religious life. Through analyzing the autobiographical writings of Yolmo Tenzin Norbu (1598–1644), a fully ordained monk (dge slong) who renounced his vows in order to pursue the life of a ngakpa, I will challenge some common generalizations about ngakpas. By exploring Tenzin Norbu’s remarks on the change from monk to ngakpa, I will present a microhistorical study of what this change entailed. In particular, I will discuss Yolmo Tenzin Norbu’s reflections on the life of a ngakpa within the contexts of Buddhist doctrine, narrative art and literature, and early seventeenth century Himalayan society.
21-50
Richard Bohannon, Drew University
Power Dynamics and Religious Architecture: A Case Study of the Christian Science Center, Boston, MA
This presentation concerns how the architectural public facades of religious groups react to and are influenced by social, economic and religious factors. This project details the Christian Science Center in Boston, MA, as it developed from a corner church in 1894 to its current fifteen-acre complex. Through studying the various stages of construction, it will be shown how the Center's structures have consistently mimicked the religious and especially civic architecture of their respective historical periods, and how design choices were influenced by changing social and religious contexts. It will be shown how the Christian Science Center 1) begs the question of what gets defined as valid Christianity, 2) blurs the lines between religion and the secular, or what is religious and what is public/civic, and 3) complicates notions of hierarchy through its various levels of domination and subordination in economic, religious and social spheres.
20-75
Thomas P. Boland, Jr., Union College, New York
Too Heavy a Price? Daniel Berrigan, Ernesto Cardenal, and the Nicaraguan Revolution
In 1978 the United States priest, poet, and social activist Daniel Berrigan wrote an open letter to his counterpart, Ernesto Cardenal, pleading with him to reconsider his enlistment in the armed struggle in his native Nicaragua and not renounce his long-held commitment to nonviolence. This paper examines their public exchange on the relative merits of violent and nonviolent resistance to oppression, which illumines both the struggle for justice being waged throughout Central America at that time and the often sharp debate that surfaced within religious contexts over the question of means. In particular, the paper seeks to challenge the facile assumption that only Cardenal's just-revolution position constitutes Christian realism. A considered look at Berrigan's pacifism reveals that elements of realism are traceable to his position, as well.
21-25
Nadia Bolz-Weber, University of Colorado, Boulder
The Deaf as a Cultural Group within the Academic Study of Religion
Within the academic study of religion the deaf have been largely ignored. The past 20 years have seen an attempt in the field to examine how religion is expressed and experienced by a wide range of cultural groups. While progress has been made to investigate religion among women, ethnic groups and immigrants – the deaf remain to be viewed as cultural group. As a group with a distinct shared language and culture, it is my contention that the deaf – viewed as a cultural group in other arenas – must be studied as such within the field of religious studies. The purpose of my research is to examine the deaf as a distinct cultural group, while offering a model for the continuing academic study of religion among the deaf, in order to bridge the gap between how the deaf community views itself and how Mainstream culture views the deaf.
21-105
Jessica A. Boon, Duke University
In the Aftermath of Unity: The Suffering Christ in the Theology of Spanish "Conversos"
In contradistinction to the assumption that many Spanish mystics were conversos because converts from Judaism were drawn to interior versions of Christian spirituality, I argue that Bernardino de Laredo’s incorporation of a Vita Christi into his tripartite mystical treatise, The Ascent of Mount Zion (1535, 1538), reflects the depth of his orthodoxy over against the question of his heritage. Laredo’s rendition of the Passion is particularly vivid, for the Passion is transcribed on the soul and body of the mystic in such a way that the spine becomes the column and the heart becomes the concrete base of the cross. I suggest that Laredo’s choice to incorporate Passion meditation at a high level in his mystic way, rather than consigning it to beginners, not only reinforces his ability to move as a Christian despite his converso surroundings, but was in fact the source for his influence on Teresa of Avila.
22-103
Thomas Borchert, University of Chicago
Theravada Monastic Training in the Chinese National Sangha
This paper is a discussion of the monastic training at the Buddhist Institute at Wat Pajie in the Dai-lue Autonomous Prefecture of Sipsongpanna on China’s southwest border. The Dai-lue practice Theravada Buddhism and have historically had profound ties to the Theravada Sanghas of mainland Southeast Asia. These ties have been particularly important for the reconstitution of monastic practice in Sipsongpanna after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Despite this, Sipsongpanna is situated within the People’s Republic of China, and the monks are officially members of the Chinese Sangha. Over the last five years, the relationship between the Theravada monks of Sipsongpanna and the Mahayana monks of the rest of China has become much more important for the continued vitality of the Sangha of Sipsongpanna.
20-11
Mark G. Bosco, Loyola University Chicago
Coloring Catholicism Greene
This paper aims at situating the conversation about Greene’s religious imagination in terms of his ongoing dialogue with the theological developments stressed in religious, specifically Catholic, discourse during and after Vatican Council II. By a comparison of some of the theological elements from his “Catholic” cycle of novels to a consideration of his later novels, this paper argues that far from being “post-Catholic” or “post-religious,” it is better to say that Greene’s religious imagination is Post-Vatican II.
22-23
Fay Botham, Claremont Graduate University
How a Catholic Theology of Marriage Crushed California's Anti-Miscegenation Law
Recent debates on same-sex marriage have illuminated the ways that religion shapes American marriage law. California’s 1948 Perez v. Lippold offers another particularly revealing glimpse into the ways that religion has historically influenced legal constructions of marriage. Using Perez as a case study, my paper addresses the relationship between religion and American marriage law, exploring the ways that Catholic belief played into the case and how the attorney challenging California’s law employed religion as an innovative strategy in his legal arguments. I argue that the multiracial Catholic context in which Perez arose, the religion-based legal strategy, and one Justice’s vote in the decision demonstrate that religion and region decisively shaped Perez, and indirectly, Loving v. Virginia. Linking Christianity to the historical construction of marriage vis-à-vis anti-miscegenation law, this paper highlights the intellectual connections between religion and conceptions of race, and the religious values that inform the legal right to marry.
21-103
Eric Boynton, Allegheny College
Evil and the Problem of Commemoration
Extending and specifying the interpretive insight that Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical work must be read with Jewish sources in mind, recent scholarship has begun to suggest that the provocation of the Holocaust and evil ought to be emphasized as well. I wish to harness this interpretative approach to Levinas’ work and bring his consideration of evil in essays such as “Useless Suffering” and “Transcendence of Evil” to bear on the issue of memorialization and commemoration in relation to the Holocaust and the 'negative-form monuments' of German artist Horst Hoheisel.
21-28
Joseph A. Bracken, Xavier University
Creatio Ex Nihilo: A Field-Oriented Approach
Process-oriented thinkers complain that the classical understanding of the God-world relationship is inherently dualistic. Instead they propose a model of the God-world relationship based on the soul-body analogy. Yet this seems to compromise the freedom of God vis-a-vis creation and the notion of God as Trinity. The author suggests a new approach to the God-world relationship based on a modified understanding of 'societies' within the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead: namely, as structured fields of activity for their constituent actual occasions. The three divine persons of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity thus co-constitute a divine field of activity within which creation can be nested as a hierarchically ordered set of subfields corresponding to individual entities (inanimate and animate) and the 'systems' (environments, communities) into which they are aggregated. The infinite act of being proper to the divine persons is thus shared with all their creatures by degrees.
22-68
Martha Bradley, University of Utah
Religious Communal Groups as Spatial Communities
This comparative study examines the experience of the Oneida Colony and the Mormons as spatial communities that married of theology and form, architecture and belief, social activity and space. These examples were religious, communal organizations that developed distinctive ideas about space, spatial practice, and identity. Both reflected complex, hierarchical spatial visions of the world drawn by charismatic leaders—John Humphrey Noyes and Joseph Smith--who proposed a new way of living in the world, reshaped ideas about family, community and self in the process, a new version of the good life that played out in separate inclusive communities. This paper looks at the way theology is “concretized” and represented in ideas about space, life practices, and spatial patterns. For each example, space became a way the identity and history of the group was remembered and perpetuated, how social relationships were structured and understood, and how boundaries were drawn.
22-68
Gilbert Bradshaw, Brigham Young University
Alcohol, Gangs, and Education: Secularization of Youth of the Charismatic Renewal in an Indigenous Guatemalan Community
There is a sizable group of Charismatic Catholics, in the highlands of Guatemala in the district of Sololà. The Charismaticos of Mayan descent are a people trying to preserve an ancient lifestyle and culture while participating in a religion that is comparatively new.
I find that the youth of the village are far less diligent in their religious observance than the older generation. The reasons the Fathers, Catechists, and members themselves have said for the apathy of the youth are alcohol, drugs, gangs, and, surprisingly, education; all elements that have been introduced in their town in the last thirty years.
I explore the reasons for their secularization in interviews and participatory observation. I include interviews with a number of troubled youth and producers/vendors and distributors of illegal alcohol. I explore how the church is affected by secularization and I include what the charismatic renewal is doing to combat secularization.
20-56
Donald M. Braxton, Juniata College
Naturalizing Transcendence: Cosmologies of Emergence as the Foundation of Rasmussen's Earth Ethics
In this paper I argue that the concept of emergence in the natural sciences offers a superior cosmological foundation for contemporary theology and ethics than does traditional notions of transcendence. Emergence designates moments when various chaotic systems develop an internal dynamic which generates an entirely new level of complexity, a qualitatively different mode of existence which cannot simply be reduced to its constituent parts. It is transcendence without reference to final causality or central organizing principle. Emergence is autopoietic. It is only against this cosmological background that contemporary theology and ethics can productively engage the conceptual and moral complexities which challenge the survival of our species and our planet. Cosmologies of emergence are the missing 'common creation stories' to which Rasmussen appeals in his Earth Community, Earth Ethics (1996).
20-116
Jay Bregman, University of Maine, Orono
The Neoplatonic Revelation of Transcendentalist Nature
For the American Transcdentalists 'Nature' conceived Neoplatonically replaced the Mosaic Law and/or Jesus the Christ, as the lynchpin of a 'New Revelation.' H.D. Thoreau, e.g., translated a famous 'Orphic' verse attributed to Proclus 'in which the world is represented as one great animal, god being the soul thereof...' Bronson Alcott used the Chaldaean Oracles and Neoplatonic works as revelatory sources for his 'Oracular & Orphic' utterances. Transcendentalist notions of Universal Correspondence owed much to Proclus, who filled Emerson's universe 'with august and exciting images.' 'Revelatory Nature' as the basis of a revalorized OLD Neoplatonic Religion had become a religious option. Thus 'paganism' became a concern of the Transcendentalist Catholic convert Orestes Brownson, whose Christian Aoplogetic response to Emerson is uncannily reminiscent of late antique Christian responses to non-Christian religious Neoplatonists.
21-23
Lucy Bregman, Temple University
Psychology Sliding into Spirituality: An Examination of the Death Awareness Movement
The death awareness movement is one site where 'spirituality' seems to have replaced 'psychology,' yet without a real change in the language, concepts and basic aims of the movement. The paper's major focus is the emergence of 'spirituality' as a category. The term has vague links to religion, but now is used to refer to an existential individual core of every person. The latter virtually duplicates the primary humanistic-psychological framework of the death awareness movment, and in the latter's popular self-help literature, it is impossible to make a distinction between psychological and spiritual.
21-56
Valerie Bridgeman Davis, Memphis Theological Seminary
The Innerspace of Evangelist and Pastor Claudette Anderson Copeland
Claudette Anderson Copeland, a native of New York and a resident of San Antonio, has helped shape the landscape of modern women evangelists for 35 years. A regular on TBN and one of T.D. Jake's 'God's Leading Ladies,' Copeland manages to straddle her evangelical, holiness pinnings and her postmodern attitude with grace. I offer a womanist critique of Copeland's place in the current female evangelists/televangelists milieu.
21-22
Lynn Bridgers, Spring Hill College
Mystic as Activist: Trauma, Mimesis, and the Currents of Consciousness
William James links mystical experience to spiritual innovation and activism as well as to dissociation, and incursions from the subliminal. Contemporary research strongly correlates dissociation to traumatic experience and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder and other dissociative disorders. In the lives of these activists and innovators trauma does consistently occur and social activism in the aftermath of mystical experience subtly mirrors the type of trauma experienced. This paper explores three different views of identification and mimesis, incorporating insights from Sandor Ferenczi, Cathy Caruth, and Ruth Leys, and then applies those perspectives to the shaping of social activism in the aftermath of mystical experience. William James’s poly-psychic psychological model (as opposed to di-psychic models popularized in depth psychology) combined with greater clarity on the formative role of mimesis, yields understanding of how streams of consciousness shape the mimetic expression of post-mystical social activism.
21-73
Lynn Bridgers, Spring Hill College
A Snare of My Own Choosing: Love and the Captive Will in Augustine's Anthropology
In Confessions, Augustine describes the moment that began his own life of loving service. “I…fell in love,” he says simply, “which was a snare of my own choosing.” This paper explores the role of love in securing that snare, his “captive will,” for love and will are inextricably entwined. Examining early and late work, including On Free Choice of the Will, Confessions, and Retractiones, the framework mirrors Augustine's theological anthropology and shapes Augustine’s theological enterprise, demonstrating remarkable consistency. This suggests that contemporary psychological emphasis on autonomy may be misplaced. Genuine freedom means freely using metaphysical freedom in submission to eternal law, a voluntary service – begun in a moment of emotion – continued and secured by love. The paper concludes with the implications of Augustine’s views in terms of formation for social justice and the possibility that only through consciously choosing loving submission to God can one truly be free.
21-6
T. L. Brink, Crafton Hills College
Power Teaching in the Classroom and Web-Based Learning Objects
This presentation focuses on two innovative techniques for improving critical thinking as well as memorization of terminology in students who are underprepared for college, and emphasizes principles of multiple intelligences. One of these techniques is the use of interactive learning objects in an online environment. These go beyond lecture notes and include drills, games, puzzles, and simulations which require the student to actively master the material and/or engage in critical problem solving.Power teaching is a classroom technique emphasizing involvement of students and multiple learning styles. Active learning, reinforcement, eidetic and motor mnemonics are utilized. Those who attend this presentation will be given a free CD-rom with the interactive learning objects developed by the presenter for use in his introductory world religions class.
20-66
Kent Brintnall, Emory University
Rend(er)ing God's Flesh: The Body of Christ, Spectacles of Pain, and Trajectories of Desire
The formal elements of the images that comprise Matthias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece and those that make up Robert Mapplethorpe’s collection of sado-masochistic photographs are remarkably similar. Grunewald’s images are a distant ancestor to Mapplethorpe’s; Mapplethorpe’s images function as a key for interpreting the erotic dynamics of Grunewald’s. This paper substantiates the claim – relying on the images’ formal similarity, the work of Georges Bataille, Steve Neale, and Lee Clark Mitchell, as well as reviews of Mapplethorpe’s work from the 1990s – that sado-masochistic homoerotic desire is part of what makes the spectacle of the crucifixion attractive and desirable. I will argue that part of what makes Mapplethorpe’s – and, to a much lesser extent, Grunewald’s – images controversial is not merely their content, but their ability to expose something about the character of Christian art and the Christian narrative.
22-109
Jacquelene Brinton, University of Virginia
Rethinking the Role of Religious Discourse and Practice in Political Reform: The Case of the Ottoman Ulama and the Reforms of Mahmud II
The Islamic legal tradition was not a static tradition and recent scholarship has shown that notions of change and reform were built into the structures of Islamic law. When necessary many ulama have been able to reinterpret tradition by using the tools of Islamic jurisprudence. This was the case in the 19th century Ottoman Empire when reform became necessary in order for the Empire to survive. By the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was in a state of decline, and Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808-1839) recognized the need for reform. Also during this period many ulama viewed religious revival as synonymous with reform. This was a direct result of the influence of the Naqshabandi Sufis among the political elite in Istanbul, including the ulama. It was the presence of this new religious force coupled with the need for reform that gave rise an internally inspired, religiously authentic reform measures.
22-15
David R. Brockman, Southern Methodist University
Turning to the Religious Other: Christian Theology and Interreligious Dialogue in the Age of Globalization
In a context of globalization, “interreligious dialogue” must move from the periphery of Christian theological reflection to its vital center. This means that Christian theologians must expand the range of theological sources and norms to include (potentially) the experiences, texts, teachings, and traditions of heretofore marginalized religious others (those traditionally considered outside the Christian community and its tradition). I justify this claim on two grounds. First, the preferential option for the margins entails such an expansion of theological sources and norms. Second, the repression of the religious other robs Christian theology of perspectives and resources vital to its task as critical inquiry into the Christian witness.
21-125
Pamela K. Brubaker, California Lutheran University
A Critical Appraisal of Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Just War Against Terror
Jean Bethke Elshtain is an advocate of just war theory as theological and philosophical justification for the US war against terror. This paper is a critical appraisal of her interpretation and use of just war theory. I analyze her interpretation of Augustine’s just war theory and her use of Reinhold Niebuhr. My critique centers on her thin description of Jesus’ teachings and her sanguine account of US power. I offer contending interpretations of Jesus teaching as a critique of empire and his movement as renewing communities of mutual sharing. I present a critical analysis of her advocacy of a benign imperialism by analyzing US foreign policy in the post World War II period. I conclude with a discussion of the relevance and limits of Augustine’s just war theory in an age of terror.
20-66
Julianne Buenting, Chicago Theological Seminary
Oh, Daddy! God, Dominance/Submission, and Christian Sacramentality and Spirituality
This paper explores BDSM (bondage/dominance, sadomasochism) as potentially transformative encounter in relation to themes of trust and surrender, suffering and pleasure, self-shattering and self-donation found in Christian sacramentality and mystical spirituality. Using a methodology of intertextual comparison, an exploration of these themes in spiritual writing and in queer BDSM writing will be used to propose that queer understandings of BDSM offer relational conceptualizations that may be helpful for Christian understandings of our relationship with the divine (and vice versa). Special attention will be given to the characteristics and role of the dominant (top/master/daddy) as these relate to Christianity’s use of dominant imagery for God.
20-102
Charlene Burns, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Cognitive Dissonance and the Induced-Compliance Paradigm: Ethical Concerns in Teaching Religious Studies
This paper examines the potential ethical implications of cognitive dissonace learning theory and the induced-compliance paradigm for the teaching of religious studies in publicly funded colleges and universities. Given that religious beliefs can be challenged by the historical-critical study of scriptures, for example, and that cognitive dissonace is generated when this occurs, it is vital to make explicit the potential for ethically questionable unconscious manipulations of student beliefs.
22-123
Charlene Burns, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Seeds of Divine Love Scattered through the Cosmos: A Theological Interpretation of Altruism in Nature
Evolutionary biology and theories of altruism in combination with human developmental psychology, suggest a theological anthropology based in the human capacity for empathic participation and altruism. Biological entrainment in nature has been extensively documented, and has been shown to be the basis for empathy in humans. Empathy is, in turn, constitutive of healthy human selfhood and the importance of compassion is a central tenet of many of the world's religions. In the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea, saw the cosmos as teleologically united 'by an unbroken law of love into one communion...through a universal affinity, that is sympatheia.' Incarnation can thus be rethought of in terms of the preexistent divine logoi/intentions, scattered like seeds throughout creation, offering the possibility of union with the divine. Altruism in nature does not, therefore, challenge religious claims that moral behavior has transcendent meaning, but suggests that it is a manifestation of the divine will.
21-61
Douglas Burton-Christie, Loyola Marymount University
Spirituality at the End of the World: The Destruction of the Earth and the New Eschatology
Is the end of the world near? This question, which has long informed Christian eschatological thought, is currently undergoing a transformation of meaning as the life-systems of the world gradually begin closing down. Our deepening awareness that biological life itself may be drawing to a close is altering our sense of the meaning of the 'end.' A new eschatological spirituality is emerging in response to this crisis, arising to a great degree not from traditional religious communities, but from the ranks of scientists, poets, historians, and anthropologists. In this paper, I will consider the significance of this emerging eschatological spirituality. In particular, I will examine (a) its social-cultural locus, its 'secular' or 'non-religious' character; (b) its attention to acute biological loss as a dimension of contemporary spiritual experience; and (c) its potential to inform a meaningful political response to the deepening ecological degradation afflicting the world.
21-23
Lee Hayward Butler, Chicago Theological Seminary
African American Spirituality: A Psycho-Theological Tradition
Spirituality is an interdependent component of humanity. It is vitally important for surviving the crises of life and finding the power for living. Because of the existential nature of spirituality, it is often misinterpreted, misrepresented, and mistakenly viewed as being psychology or religion. Many who critique spirituality, do so from a perspective that regards nihilism as the force that currently undergirds our society’s spiritual quest. If nihilism is one’s starting point for evaluating spirituality, then one will not see the essential nature of spirituality, and will completely misunderstand African American spirituality. A nihilistic starting point could lead one to conclude that Africans in America are without propriety and beyond redemption. This view is what has led many to regard African Americans as psychologically maladaptive and religious heathens and hedonistic. This paper will explore African American spirituality as a tradition and force for living.
22-17
Joel Cabrita, University of Virginia
Holy Water, Profane Water: Appropriations of a River
"Blood River' in South Africa is home to two monuments, each facing the other across the river's water. One is the Afrikaaner memorial to the 1838 defeat of 10,000 Zulu warriors. The other, built in 1998, commemorates the Zulus. For the Afrikaaners, Blood River becomes the site of their deliverance by God, and as Israel is born from the Red Sea, so is the Afrikaaner nation born from the red waters. For Nguni culture, the river is a site where spirits linger, home to the 'River People." These different 'commodifications' of the river are explored, and the possibility of the waters instead becoming a sacrament of reconciliation. As the waters of baptism birth new life, I suggest that the water of 'Blood River' - so long a divisive symbol - can be transformed by South African churches into a restored sign of hope.
21-53
Timothy C. Cahill, Loyola University, New Orleans
Teaching Islam in a Wired Environment
The paper will present a few experiments in teaching Islam at the introductory level. It surveys the results of some three hundred web sites designed and published as a required component of a religious studies course, with special reference to those that focus on local mosques. The assignment has evolved over a six-year period to encourage greater interaction with Muslims in the area. Visiting a mosque, temple, synagogue, or religious center is the basis for the assignment. Designing and publishing a web site incorporating a description of the visit is the outcome. The paper will also relate how courseware can be employed to augment traditional teaching materials. Finally, the paper may explore prospects for including a service learning dimension to the introductory study of Islam.
22-110
S. T. Campagna-Pinto, Claremont McKenna College
Manhattan Jeremiad: Theological Implications of the World Trade Center Memorial
This paper will explore the theological implications of the World Trade Center Memorial by bringing into discussion the relationship between Freedom Tower and Reflecting Absence. The verticality of the tower when combined with the sepulchral qualities of Reflecting Absence creates a theological meaning familiar in American religious thought that would not be present if oppositional structures were absent. By juxtaposing verticality with entombment, the WTC Memorial creates an architectural jeremiad that preaches a post 9-11 patriotism shaped by human ascent under the threat of divine wrath. In so doing, the WTC Memorial contextualizes and reduces memorialization of the victims of 9-11 with a political statement loyal to the ideological demands of civil faith in American exceptionalism. The WTC Memorial functions as an architectural symbol of American political theology representative of political interests seeking to redefine and extend a particular vision of American civil religion.
21-56
Debra Campbell, Colby College
The Nun and the Crocodile: The Stories within The Nun's Story
This paper examines the spiritual pilgrimages of Kathryn Hulme (1900-81) and her life-partner Marie Louise Habets (1905-1991). It explores Hulme's assertion in her 1966 memoir,Undiscovered Country, that her 1956 novel, The Nun's Story, presents two narratives intertwined: Habets's life as a nursing sister (1926-1944) who left to join the Resistance, and Hulme's years as a member of 'The Rope,' a primarily lesbian group of Gurdjieff's disciples in Paris (1932-37). After Gurdjieff's death, Hulme converted to Catholicism, and continued the 'inner work' begun with him. This paper explores ways in which lesbian feminists coming of age before mid-century incorporated strains of two patriarchal traditions, Catholicism and Gurdjieff's teachings, into their lives, instinctively adopting the 'plunder and recycle' strategies that Mary Daly associates with pirates.
22-54
Jason Carbine, University of Chicago
Defending the Front-Line Fortress: Transmitting the Patthana in Contemporary Burma
A massive body of textual material concerning the conditioned flow of all phenomena, the Patthana (P. Conditional Relations) is the last and according to many Theravada Buddhists in contemporary Burma the most important of the seven books of the Abhidhamma-pitaka (P. Basket of Higher Philosophy). In fact, drawing on classic Theravada mythologies of decline, Burmese Buddhists have emphasized that when the Buddha's Dispensation falls, the Patthana will be the first to go. In ways distinctive to contemporary Theravada Buddhists in, for example, Sri Lanka and Thailand, contemporary Buddhists in Burma have called for a defense of the Patthana as a 'front-line fortress in the territory of the Dispensation.' The defense of the Patthana has entailed various modes of discourse and practice; as a representative example of those modes of discourse and practice, this paper examines a collection of Patthana sermons given by a Burmese monk, the Venerable Janakabivamsa (1900-1977).
22-13
Seth Carney, University of London
The Prophet Muhammad as Ecunemical Figure: Legal and Mystical Interpretations
This paper will discuss ecumenical teachings within the Islamic tradition. It will focus on both the juristic and legal ways in which ecumenicist ideas have been propounded by Muslim scholars in the classical and modern period, but will also deal with the mystical aspects of this tradition as well. After surveying different ways in which Muslim scholars have attempted to create a pluralistic understanding of religion, I will then discuss the specific way in which esoteric conceptions of the Prophet have attempted to understand him as a figure that transcends the limits of religion (including Islam). I will close this discussion with a way in which messianic ideas of Islam have often been used to buttress pluralistic beliefs, and make comparisons between ecumenical understandings of the Prophet as “the perfect human” and other religions’ (especially Buddhism)’s understandings of human perfection.
22-53
Richard M. Carp, Appalachian State University
Borders at the Center: Teaching the Borders of/in the Classroom
Guillermo Gomez-Pena writes that borders are no longer at the periphery; 'boundaries' have exploded and fragmented; borders float freely throughout. A 'center' in a religion marks the temporary predominance of one party to the contest, rather than a still point around which the religion revolves. Once students experience religions as internally complex, contested territories, their own engagement in such contests no longer threatens their religious identities in quite the same way, engendering a freedom to engage others both within and outside their identified religio