Power and Religion in a Modern State: Desecularisation in Australian History

Secularisation is a concept with many meanings making it difficult to analyse historically. Yet it is the default master narrative in much Australian historiography. Secular historians typically criticise the role of religion in history as being either too unengaged or, if engaged, too intrusive and negative in its impact. This article challenges both assumptions, taking five “nodal points” in Australian history and arguing that they are better given a “Christian” than a secular interpretation. Australia's first European settlement was a high‐minded reform experiment, based partly on a humanitarian Christian vision. The Church Acts gave the population ready access to Christian influence, resulting in a highly “Christianised” nation. When federated, that nation refused to give ascendancy to any one Christian denomination, but largely assumed that its polity was that of a “Christian commonwealth.” Out of its Christian commitment, in the middle of the twentieth century, it withstood control by atheistic communists of its industrial and political life. In the first decade of the present century, a surprising number of politicians have sought to define its national identity largely in terms of its Christian heritage rooted in the Classical/Christian tradition.     

The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

Bigamy: A Male Crime in Medieval Europe?

Crime is often gendered. This article argues that the crime of bigamy was a male crime in the fifteenth‐ and sixteenth‐century Catholic world. Courts prosecuted male bigamists far more often and more harshly than female offenders. However, drawing in particular on records from the fifteenth‐century bishop's court of Troyes, I argue that women also committed bigamy. Judicial and social gender biases identified only male bigamy as fully criminal behaviour.
The reasons for this gender difference lie in the different roles of spouses as prescribed in Christian law, theology and culture. For a man to commit bigamy fundamentally violated his responsibilities as a husband. Female bigamy, by contrast, was to an extent tolerated as a lesser evil. Better a woman have two living husbands, one present and one absent, than no husband at all.     

"And the Bones Come Together": Women'sReligious Expectations in Southern Africa, c. 1900–1945

African religious beliefs invaded Christian missions and provided the backdrop for interaction between African converts and women missionaries. African women came to missions not as tabulae rasae; their culture had stamped them with expectations and insights with which they imbibed and moulded the Christian message. They viewed religion as a resource. Their cultural expectations reinforced missionary promises and facilitated Christian conversion. As religious specialists women gained status, respect, social and economic security in pre-colonial society because they provided necessary and important services. These expectations lingered among African women at the missions. Thus, within patriarchal Christian denominations African women often exhibited an assertiveness which missionaries misunderstood and maligned. Mission conflicts were based on missionary attempts to make African women dependent upon their Christian spouses. This role was contradictory to African beliefs and Christian African needs. Differences were further exacerbated by gender discrimination within the church, which affected both European and African women, and colonialism, which provided the background for Christian occupation of the colony. Although familial obligations and cultural expectations were points of contention, motherhood, literacy, and leadership training provided meeting points of mutual concern for African women and missionaries.     

The Polygamy Question: Missions,Marriage, and Assimilation

Polygamy was a vexed question for missionaries in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the mid twentieth century, Christian missions of various denominations worked with the Australian Commonwealth Government to achieve a policy of assimilating Aboriginal people into white Australian culture. Yet there was little consensus as to how this assimilation policy could or should be applied to Aboriginal marriages. This article demonstrates that the issue of polygamy exposed divisions between church and state as well as among Christian denominations over their understandings of marriage. These differences stemmed from differing spiritual visions of assimilation in Australia. The conflicts over marriage in the Northern Territory, therefore, reveal that assimilation, and settler‐colonialism more broadly, operated on a religious plane as Aboriginal people, missionaries, and bureaucrats engaged in a spiritual contest over what represented a legitimate and acceptable marriage in that land.     

“Let Every Christian Denomination Cheerfully Unite”: The Origins of Presbyterian Interdenominationalism

The history of religion during the eighteenth century is, fortunately, a well‐developed and researched field. Despite the strides taken, however, little has been written on denominational attempts at Christian unity. Historians have instead focused on the multitude of conflicts, both social and religious, that marked the period and preoccupied churchgoers. Although this perspective is indispensable for any understanding of the eighteenth century, it is incomplete. The current portrayal of the late colonial religious scene as one of violently opposed denominations presents the well‐known instances of denominational unity, such as the bishopric crisis, the constitutional crisis, and the War for Independence, as products of political or temporal motivations. Overlooked are the religiously motivated attempts between churches to cooperate, such as the interdenominational journey begun by the Presbyterian Church during the French and Indian War. By examining the Presbyterian struggle to establish a stronger spiritual bond between Christian denominations, it sheds new light which calls into question the current understanding of church participation in the pivotal events of the eighteenth century. Harkened by a divine punishment, Presbyterian interdenominationalism reveals not only that ecclesiastical harmony was pursued in an era defined by conflict, but that these unions could also be motivated by religious rather than solely political ideology.     

Māori “Conversion” to the Rule of Law and Nineteenth‐Century Imperial Loyalties

Missionaries were among the first Europeans to interact with the New Zealand Māori, bringing an evangelical message with a strict set of “laws” for Māori to follow. Māori, whose own religious beliefs required rigid observance to ritual, took time to convert to missionary Christianity but, like many Oceanic peoples, did so with fervour, regulating their daily lives according to the Laws of the missionaries’ God. With the advent of British rule in New Zealand in 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi gave Māori the same rights as British subjects, but also (in the Māori‐language version) guaranteed tribal autonomy. As the British administration established itself, it slowly attempted to bring Māori under the authority of the Queen's Laws, using persuasion rather than force. This article, using Māori‐language newspapers of the mid‐nineteenth century, discusses how some Māori approached the question of Law in a similar way to how they had converted to Christianity. This was partly due to their own, now Christianised, worldview, but it was also due to how the colonial authorities presented the principles of Law to them.     

Life on the Edge of the Arctic: The Bioarchaeology of the Keldudalur Cemetery in Skagafjörður,Iceland

Burials were examined from the late Viking Age early medieval Christian cemetery at the farm of Keldudalur in the Skagafjörður region, Northern Iceland. The cemetery likely served a single household for about 100–120 years, from the beginning of the 11th century AD to the turn of the 12th century. Cemetery inhabitants represent a population that lived through the transitional period when Christianity was established in Iceland. The changes are visible in the mortuary record with the changeover from outlying pagan graves to enclosed Christian cemeteries situated on the farmsteads. Keldudalur is one of the numerous early Christian family cemeteries that littered the 11th century Skagafjörður landscape. The burials included 53 well‐preserved skeletons of 27 adults and 26 subadults. Various factors such as fluctuating climate and environmental conditions, and seasonal or periodical availability of resources have the potential for impacting human diet and health over time. To assess the health status of the burials, data were collected for a number of health status indicators such as stature estimation, developmental enamel defects, porotic hyperostosis, infectious disease, trauma, degenerative joint diseases, dental caries, calculus and tooth loss. Results suggest that inhabitants of Keldudalur experienced periodic stress and rigorous living conditions. Infant mortality was great, although if individuals survived childhood, the age expectancy was fairly high. There was no obvious evidence for interpersonal violence or endemic infectious disease. However, the common occurrence of growth disturbances, generalised periostitis, trauma and degenerative joint disease all point to a number of stressors in the lives of the people at Keldudalur, which is suggestive of a resilient people living and adapting to a harsh and periodically resource scarce subarctic environment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Artificial cranial modification on a female skeleton from the Byzantine site of Maroneia (Thrace,Greece)

Artificial cranial modification is one of the most often documented types of intentional intervention on the human skeleton in the anthropological record. A female cranium exhibiting headshaping recently came to light at the Early Byzantine site of Maroneia, in Thrace, northern Greece. Headshaping was practiced by several different population groups during the migration period (1st–9th c. AD), but was unknown in Byzantine customs. Homogeneity in burial customs, evidenced by the skeleton's position and orientation and by cemetery topography, strongly supports the hypothesis that this burial belonged to a Christianised citizen who had the right to be buried in a common Christian cemetery. Headshaping provides strong evidence for the cultural adaptability and complexity of Early Byzantine society at Maroneia, an important provincial urban centre of the Byzantine Empire. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

"Testimonies from the Field": The Coming of Christian Science to Australia, c. 1890–1910*

The account of the coming of Christian Science to Australia given in this article is based on testimony contributed by early adherents to the two main church publications, The Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel , supplemented by Church records and other sources. The first two decades are covered, from the earliest known intimations of interest to the death of Mary Baker Eddy in 1910, when a Christian Science presence in Australia was assured. Interest shown by writer Miles Franklin, and her association with Melbourne adherents such as leading feminist Vida Goldstein, provides the starting point. The focus is on positive responses. It is postulated that in addition to the documentary and expressive value of the testimonies, they point to problems of class and health in turn-of-the-century Australia. A preponderance of women in both the testimonies and the practice is evidenced, and the openness of progressive women to new approaches is noted. With reference to male testimony, it is suggested that further research into responses to American ways in religion by the urban midle class would be very valuable.     

Palace churches of the Anatolian Seljuks: tolerance or necessity?

Abstract

The edifice in Konya known as Eflatun and the church in the citadel of Alanya, both of which were maintained during the Anatolian Seljuk period, are discussed and interpreted. Architectural and historical information indicates that both structures were used during this period by the Christian spouses of the sultans as well as other Christians living and serving at court. Contrary to the common argument that the Seljuks retained churches near their palaces as a sign of their tolerance toward their Christian subjects, the paper presents evidence supporting the view that the sultans kept these structures for tactical and social reasons, for the use of their spouses and other Christian associates and servants of the Seljuk court.     

Athanasian Paganisation of Arius: Unprecedented Application of the Deification Theme

Athanasian contribution to the development of the deification theme and its subsequent influence on Christian spirituality remains significant. Athanasius certainly applied deification in his fight with Arianism. A generally acknowledged application of deification in Athanasius in an anti‐Arian context also finds additional support in a seemingly unexpected place—Athanasian criticism of pagan divinization, mostly concentrated in Against the Pagans. Relying on a traditional Christian apologetic approach for criticism of pagan divinization, Athanasius contextualizes the theology of Arius as the paganization of Christianity as well as proposes necessary prerequisites for Christian understanding of deification. This is an unprecedented application of deification in Christian theology where one Christian author portrays the teaching of another Christian author as pagan divinization.     

Conversion Narratives and the Roman Inquisition in Malta, 1650–1700

This article analyses the conversion narratives which Christian renegades to Islam narrated to the inquisitor on their arrival in Malta in the second half of the seventeenth century. A few of them really believed in their new faith and were declared formal heretics, but the great majority had either been brought up as Muslims since a tender age or else were only suspected of believing that one can save oneself as a Muslim. The inquisitors were very indulgent with them and believed them when they said that they preserved the Christian religion in their hearts and were Muslims only on the outside.     

The texture of literacy in the testimonies of late-medieval English proof-of-age jurors, 1270 to 1430

This article examines references by jurors in proof-of-age hearings from 1270 to 1430 to writing and written documents. By analysing the incidence of these references decade by decade over the whole period and by close attention to changes in the wording of individual testimonies, some important insights into the place of literacy in the lives and mentalities of quite humble medieval men are apparent. Of only ‘village status’, these jurors' testimonies provide evidence of the way literacy gradually permeated more and more intricately the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, often not replacing older ways of doing things but co-existing with them. Some conclusions as to how literacy affected different occupations and different areas of the country are drawn.     

‘My Dog is My Home’: multispecies care and poverty politics in Los Angeles,California and Austin,Texas

My Dog is My Home is an art activist project in Los Angeles dedicated to sharing testimonies about the redemptive bonds of care and love between homeless persons and their canine companions. These testimonies politicize the structural violence and oppressive norms about propertied citizenship and notions of home that operate to render homeless human and animal lives disposable and ungrievable. Informed by the experts’ testimonies on multispecies homelessness and an engagement with feminist care theory, we bring relational poverty studies into conversation with critical animal studies to reject this framing of homeless lives as disposable and to trouble the idea of property as the fundamental basis for value. We problematize these notions by highlighting the insights gained from witnessing the entangled empathetic relationships forged between homeless humans and dogs. These relationships are not only a window into the political economic material conditions and discourses that reproduce homelessness and the animal-as-property. We conclude that studying these bonds offers a collective politics of multispecies mutuality, care, and love.     

Geographies of Indigenous Identity: Spatial Imaginaries and Racialised Power Struggles in Bolivia

This article examines racial power struggles in Bolivia through a spatial lens. It analyses the process of resistance to the oligarchic elites mounted by indigenous‐popular sectors in Bolivia in the first decade of the 21^st century as well as the subsequent eruption of conflicts between different indigenous sectors, and argues that political conflicts in Bolivia in the 21^st century are, among other things, also conflicts over spatial imaginaries and the different territorialising and (re)territorialising projects corresponding to them. Social movements against racial neoliberalism challenged the colonial spatial imaginary. The partial success of those struggles brought into relief two distinct indigenous spatial imaginaries, one rooted in the defence of ancestral territory and indigenous autonomy, and the other based on a redefinition of territoriality as centrality within the state and society at large. The article reads contemporary inter‐indigenous conflicts as manifestations of the differences between these two spatial imaginaries.     

English Evangelicals,Protestant National Identity,and Anglican Prayer Book Revision, 1927–1928

This paper examines English Anglican and Free Church evangelical reactions to the Church of England's Prayer Book revision proposals in 1927–1928, arguing that their responses reveal the resilience of Protestant national identity and anti‐Catholicism within English evangelicalism during this period. The concept of a Protestant nation, reformed heritage and Protestant constitution remained integral to the English evangelical identity. The robust “no‐popery” response of evangelicals in 1927–1928 points to the durability of the Protestant national narrative in English culture and society beyond the nineteenth century and suggests that the liberal Anglican vision of a broadly Christian national identity had a significant ideological rival in the interwar period.     

Samuel Clarke’s Lives and husbands’ remembrances of their wives

ABSTRACT

Among the narratives of eminent divines and Christian worthies that Samuel Clarke derived from published sources and included in his many publications are the lives of fifteen early modern women, three of them written by their husbands. Humphrey Gunter’s funeral memorial of his wife Mary, Samuel Clarke’s life of Katherine, and Richard Baxter’s of Margaret have a personal immediacy and an affectionate detail often absent from the other biographies. In the contexts of both the original publications and Clarke’s texts, their depictions of spousal relationships reflect the tension between traditional commemoration and individual expression apparent in seventeenth-century narratives of women’s lives. The bonds each husband recalls celebrate the virtuous wife, though none of the recollections is as forthright as Baxter’s insightful recognition of Margaret’s complex character and her significant role in their marriage.