The Transcendence of State-Sanctioned Violence and Christian Solidarity

Abstract

This essay is concerned with the nature of the human experiences of transcendence and solidarity with particular reference to state-sanctioned violence and the non-violent resistance inspired by Christian faith. With research undertaken in East Timor, the essay identifies two different forms of transcendence—one marked by mob violence; and the other by ecclesial solidarity. It explores these forms of transcendence in the context of the statesanctioned executions in East Timor that occurred in 1999 after the populace voted for independence from Indonesia, which had brutally occupied the territory from 1975 to 1999. Through the story of a group that was to be executed, the essay explores the nature of state-sanctioned violence as structured by violent transcendence; and the Christian solidarity informed by a pacific transcendence located in the victimhood of Christ. The essay claims that the anthropological insights of René Girard provide an important lens to understanding the East Timorese experience, in which I argue that statesanctioned violence was resisted through the pacific transcendence located in Christ that awakened a consciousness of the victim.     

Mission Impossible: "Nonsectarian" Prayer in the Military Chaplaincy

Abstract

Recent media-saturated events such as then-Navy Chaplain Klingenschmitt's hunger strike in front of the White House, an ultimately unsuccessful class-action lawsuit against the Navy that alleged discrimination against evangelical Christians, and formal charges of religious bias at the US Air Force Academy have renewed concerns about the content of chaplain-led public prayers in ostensibly secular contexts. Some have accordingly touted the advantages of offering "nonsectarian" prayer in command-hosted settings, where attendance by service personnel is mandatory in a real or de facto sense. This paper argues that this push toward nonsectarian prayer ultimately does a disservice to the chaplains themselves and the religious communities from whence they come, whether civic prayer is interpreted as an instance of "ceremonial deism" or a rite of civil religion. But the solution it offers is not for public prayers to become more religiously particular, but for military commanders to cease requesting that chaplains lead public prayer of any kind in such settings.     

Virgil's Fourth Eclogue and the Eleusinian Mysteries 1

This article argues that Virgil's Fourth Eclogue can in part be understood in light of the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries on Roman religion. In particular, it argues that the child can be compared with Ploutos and that the return of the Virgo reflects the myth of Persephone. The myths of Demeter at Eleusis are assimilated to the Roman myth of a golden age under the rule of Saturnus. The return of Persephone from the Underworld and the birth of the child signify an end to war. The possible significance of the poem to Augustan propaganda is also discussed.     

Immigration,new religious symbols,and the dynamics of neighborhoods

Last decades' non-western immigration to Europe has resulted in culturally and religiously more diverse populations in many countries. One manifestation of this diversification is new features in the cityscape. Using a quasiexperimental approach, in which an unexpected political process that led way to the first public call to prayer from a mosque in Sweden is combined with rich, daily, information on housing sales and detailed monthly information on internal migration, this paper examines how one such new feature affects neighborhood dynamics. While our results indicate that the calls to prayer increased house prices closer to the mosque, we find no evidence of increased residential segregation between natives and immigrants.     

水陆画研究的“图像学”意义

水陆画是以图像遗存为特点的物质文化遗产,其中蕴含着涉及历史、民俗、宗教、艺术等方面丰富的信息,如果以"图像学"研究方法入手,深入发掘水陆画的各种文化内涵,使之不仅成为艺术史、美术史的研究素材,而且更可能成为历史学、民俗学、宗教史,乃至整个文化史研究的经典范例。     

The Consolation of Soldiers: religious life in the Swedish army during the Great Northern War

It is commonly acknowledged that an elaborated military pastoral care provided a significant contribution to the efficiency of the Swedish army during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). Usually battle preparations and the chaplains’ efforts to instil morale and discipline among the soldiers are emphasized. In this article my aim is to provide a somewhat different idea on the nature of the religious life in the army of Charles XII. By focusing in turn on the chaplains’ duties, the military sermons, the hymns sung in the army and the soldiers’ reading of prayer books, I point at the similarities between military and civilian religious life in early 18th-century Sweden.     

Special Days of Worship and National Religion in the Australian Colonies, 1790–c. 1914

Throughout the period between 1790 and 1914 the governments of the Australian colonies asked their populations to suspend work and amusements and join in collective acts of prayer. Australia’s special days of prayer have much historical significance and deserve more scholarly attention. They had an enduring popularity, and they were rare moments when a multi-faith and multi-ethnic community joined together to worship for a common cause. This article builds on recent work on state prayers in Britain by considering what the colonial tradition of special worship can tell us about community attachments in nineteenth-century Australia. ‘Fast days’ and ‘days of thanksgiving’ had both an imperial and a regional character. A small number of the Australian days were for imperial events (notably wars and royal occasions) that were observed on an empire-wide scale. The great majority, such as the numerous days of fasting and humiliation that were called during periods of drought, were for regional happenings and were appointed by colonial authorities. The article argues that the different types of prayer day map on to the various ways that contemporaries envisaged ‘Greater Britain’ and the ‘British world’. Prayer days for royal events helped the empire’s inhabitants to regard themselves as imperial Britons. Meanwhile, days appointed locally by colonial governments point to the strength of regional attachments. Colonists developed a sense that providence treated them differently from British communities elsewhere, and this sense of ‘national providence’ could underpin a sense of colonial difference—even a colonial nationalism. Days of prayer suggested that Greater Britain was a composite of separate communities and nationalities, but the regional feelings they encouraged could still sit comfortably with attachments to an imperial community defined by commonalities of race, religion and interest.     

A Call to Higher Things

Abstract

Seeking a responsible middle ground between complaisance and the “religious totalitarianism” of Sayyid Qutb, Miroslav Volf proposes a proper role for religion as a faithful advisor in the public square and an inspired one in the corridors of conscience. But he seems to lose patience with that theme without addressing John Rawls’ case for silencing religious counsels—or engaging the strident atheism of Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, or Grayling, and he takes Qutb more as a foil than an adversary to be grappled with directly. Turning away from debates over religion’s proper public role he catalogues the “malfunctions” of faith, sidestepping many of today’s more burning issues in favor of a generic call to “lives of integrity”—while acknowledging that we mortals are “powerless against the lure of evil,” too often seconded by “the power of the systems that surround us.” Prayer, Volf argues, finds its best use when we ask to be made “willing, capable, and effective instruments in God’s hand.” One only wishes he had been more explicit and more ready for down and dirty argument with those who reject the very idea of prayer and with those who imagine they become God’s best instrument when holding an incendiary device.     

The Elizabethan House of Commons and St Stephen's Chapel Westminster

This essay explores the significance of the Elizabethan house of commons meeting in a converted royal chapel within the Palace of Westminster. In 1548 the dissolved collegiate chapel of St Stephen at Westminster was given over to the exclusive use of the Commons, providing MPs with a dedicated meeting space for the first time. Although a great deal has been written about Elizabethan parliaments, little attention has been paid to the physical spaces within which MPs gathered, debated and legislated. Drawing on parliamentary diaries and exchequer records and informed by digital reconstructions of the Commons chamber modelled by the St Stephen's Chapel project at the University of York, this essay argues for the enduring influence of the architecture and decoration of the medieval chapel on the procedure, culture, ritual, and self‐awareness of the Elizabethan house of commons. Famously likened to a theatre by the MP and writer on parliamentary procedure, John Hooker, the Commons chamber is analysed as a space in which parliamentary speeches were performed and disrupted. The sound of debate is contrasted with other kinds of noise including scoffing and laughter, disruptive coughing, and prayers led by the clerk and the Speaker of the Commons. The iconography of the chamber, including the royal arms above the Speaker's chair and the mace carried by the serjeant‐at‐arms, is interpreted as enabling a culture of counsel and debate as much as an assertion of monarchical power. Evidence is also presented for the Commons chamber as a site of political memory.