Religious Studies and Theology
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST
<p>For forty years <em>Religious Studies and Theology</em> has published thoughtful, peer-reviewed original research with significance to the inter-related disciplines of Religious Studies and Theology. <a href="https://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/about">Learn more.</a></p>
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
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Religious Studies and Theology
0829-2922
<p>© Equinox Publishing Ltd.</p> <p>For information regarding our Open Access policy, <a title="Open access policy." href="Full%20details of our conditions related to copyright can be found by clicking here.">click here</a>.</p>
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Introduction
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/27381
Editor Foreword
Introduction
Religious Studies
Religious Studies
David Atkinson
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
1
4
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Seeing All Things in Relation to God
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/27051
<p>This essay argues that a theology of the intellect is key to understanding the being and calling of a Christian University. It seeks to provide an understanding of the unique foundation and shape of Christian learning by showing that the intellect is a divine gift. Christian thinking and scholarship begins with the mystery of the triune God because the principal object of Christian thinking is the triune God and God’s action in and through Christ. Setting the intellect within the history of God’s reconciliation of all things in Christ lays bare the underlying rationale for Trinity Western University’s guiding vision: “every graduate is equipped to think truthfully, act justly, and live faithfully for the good of the world and the glory of God.” </p>
Articles
Evangelical Free Church
Christian academia
liberal arts education
moral reason
common good
theology of the intellect
Gottesvergessenheit
postsecular
Intellect
Theology
Christian Theology
Mark Husbands
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
5
17
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St. Thomas More College
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/27032
<p>As a Catholic college federated with the University of Saskatchewan, St. Thomas More College (STM) benefits from the arrangements negotiated at its founding by the Basilian Fathers. When the Basilians withdrew from STM in 2013, the College entered a new relationship with its diocesan bishop, but continues to steward the educational culture created by its founders. Now under lay leadership and with an increasingly diverse community, STM faces the dual challenge of renewing its Catholic identity and remaining a sustainable liberal arts college. In its current College Plan, it lays out a strategy for doing both while also engaging with the national work of Indigenous reconciliation.</p>
Articles
Basilian legacy
Catholic identity
strategic plan
whole persons
hospitable Catholicism
Authentic Indigenization
Institutions of Higher Education LB 2326.4-2330
Roman Catholic Church
Western Canadian History
Education institution history
Higher Education
Carl Still
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
67
80
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Belonging
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/27003
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Christian higher education in Canada is caught in a culture war. The pressure to conform to either a faith position or secular position on the topic of sexual orientation is putting institutions and perhaps, more importantly, people at risk. The King’s University (King’s) became a focal point for this issue when in 1991 King’s released an employee who was in a same-sex relationship. The resulting landmark case contributed to establishing sexual minority rights in Alberta and in Canada. This paper describes the journey King’s has been on towards LGBTQ+ inclusion. It will relate the process by which King’s came to a statement on inclusion, the impact on King’s culture and reflect on possible implications for the future of Christian higher education.</p>
Articles
Christian higher education
Canada
Alberta
Diversity
LGBTQ
sexual orientation
Christian faith
faith and reason
Christian Higher Education
Higher Education
Melanie J Humphreys
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
105
113
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The Cross and Our Calling
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26961
<p>Redeemer University is a Canadian Christian university located in Ancaster, Ontario. Founded in 1983 in the Reformed Christian tradition, Redeemer’s mission is to prepare students to join Christ in his redemptive work through their careers and callings, while also fostering faculty research and scholarship in every discipline from a Christian perspective. Over the past forty years, Redeemer has evolved from a small college with limited degree granting authority to a full university offering a variety of programs including a B.A., B.Sc., B.Ed., B.B.A., B.Kin., and B. Comms. Redeemer currently faces challenges stemming from a post-Christian Canadian culture and the impact it has had on widespread individual belief in the psychological self as the ultimate source for personal identity and <br />understanding. The changing higher education marketplace also contains a proliferation of degree granting institutions, and students are increasingly seeking clear and direct pathways to careers, making institutions like Redeemer with traditional degree nomenclature to appear less relevant and desirable. However, some of these challenges also present opportunities. Post-Christian culture also means that more Christians desire a unique, faith-based higher education institution, as it becomes more difficult to express faith in public spaces.</p>
Articles
university
education
post-secondary
Reformed
Christian
identity
History
Religious Studies
History
Religious Studies
David Zietsma
Nicole Benbow
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
49
66
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Four short stories on CMU
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26956
<p>“Four Short Stories on CMU” presents an account of how Canadian Mennonite University embodies the significance of its mandate. Seeking to resist common bifurcations of “real university” and “faith-based university,” Cheryl Pauls takes inspiration in a phrase from CMU’s mission statement, “innovative Christian university.” In exploring the provocative potential of the phrase’s blend of inventiveness and faithfulness, Pauls draws connections across the university’s Four Commitments, their theological impulses, the substance of CMU education programs and scholarship, and dimensions of growing relevance to Canadian universities today. Through glimpses into the development and character of CMU, Pauls makes a case for the vitality of theologically generated impulses within the university sector today.</p>
Articles
Anabaptist faith
innovative Christian university
real university
social and ecological justice
generous hospitality
radical inclusion
University development
Education institution history
Cheryl Pauls
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
91
104
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The Idea of a University
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26935
<p>What are the implications for a liberal arts university that is heir to the Bible college movement of Western Canada. What is the rationale for the transition and the unique challenges in this transition for schools that choose to shift from Bible college to liberal arts university? The essay concludes that while this is the right move and that as such it makes sense, the challenges are yet very real and that the response is one that requires attention to some critical questions that are, perhaps, unique to schools that have made that transition. </p>
Articles
Bible College movement
Christian discipleship
arts and sciences
cultivation of a Christian mind
mental health challenges
instrumentalist view of higher education
University
Higher Education
Christian Higher Education
Bible College
Liberal Arts University
Transition to University from Bible College
Christian Higher Education
Gordon T Smith
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
81
90
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Why go to University? Forming academic friendships at Tyndale University, a private Christian university in Ontario, Canada
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26908
<p>This paper considers why Christian Higher Education could offer a hopeful, if metaphysical, answer to the question, “Why go to university”? The paper draws on two examples to argue that a greater diversity of higher education institutions in Ontario would tell a bigger story about what going to university is for. The first example is historic and introduces four female philosophers whose academic friendship impacted postwar moral philosophy in Britain and North America. The second example is contemporary: Tyndale <br />University is a private Christian university in Toronto. The paper argues that Tyndale University is an example of the kind of small to mid-size universities capable of fostering the academic friendships necessary to preserve diversity, resilience and alternate imaginations during times of global disruption.</p>
Articles
Academic Friendship
alternative moral narrative
institutional differentiation
diversity
Higher Education
Christian Higher Education
Education
Philosophy
Theology
Beth Green
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
35
48
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Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality, and Politics, edited by Amélie Barras, Jennifer A. Selby and Melanie Adrian
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26895
<p><em>Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality, and Politics</em>, edited by Amélie Barras, Jennifer A. Selby and Melanie Adrian. University of Toronto Press, 2022. 428pp., 1 b&w map, 6 b&w figures, 1 b&w table. Pb. $42.95. ISBN-13: 9781487527884.</p>
Book Reviews
Canada
Islam
Sufism
methodology
history
future trends
BP173.25-173.45 Islamic sociology
Religious Studies
Islamic Studies
Emily Victoria Hanlon
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
115
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Sowing the Seed
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26802
<p>The history and mission of Burman University, a small faith-based post-secondary institution located in Lacombe, Alberta, is a story of faith and optimism. Its story can be best understood within the history and ethos of Seventh-day Adventist higher education. As the school was established in 1907, it has transformed itself through several stages into a university with programs fully approved by Campus Alberta Quality Council. For more than a century the institution has resided on the “hilltop” and has seen many alumni make positive impact in the world. The institution has experienced challenges, has worked through them with resilience, while maintaining its strong Christian ethos. As the campus statue of The Sower illustrates, seeds that have been sown on campus have resulted in reapings of generations of young people whose lives have been transformed and who, in turn, have helped transform the world.</p>
Articles
Adventist Higher Education
Seventh-day Adventists
Christian ethos
whole-person education
Adventist Higher Education
Seventh-day Adventists
Burman University
Christian Education
Education
Higher Education
Loren Agrey
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
19
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A Tale of Three Women
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1448
<p>Lady Anne Conway (1631–1679) and Margaret Fell Fox (1614–1702) used what Audrey Lorde has called the tools of the Master’s House, in this instance philosophy and religion, as instruments of self-expression and definition rather than silence and oppression. Through rational argument, Conway challenged philosophic and religious positions about the nature of God and his relationship with the natural world. Through disembodied spirit, Fell Fox and the Quakers pushed Protestant doctrine beyond its belief in the authority of the scriptural Word as interpreted by the individual to the authority of Christ speaking within the individual. Drawing on my own experience as both a feminist and a spiritual seeker, I argue that their primary motivation was not political, religious, or social dissent, but rather a determination to walk a radical spiritual path towards self-transformation.</p>
Articles
Anne Conway
Margaret Fell Fox
Feminism
BR290-481 Modern period
BL2700-2790 Rationalism
BX4800-9999 Protestantism
BX7601-7795 Friends. Society of Friends. Quakers
Theology
Feminism
Philosophy of Religion
Susan M Young
Copyright (c) 2007 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2007-10-05
2007-10-05
45
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10.1558/rsth.v26i1.45
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C. S. Peirce and the Nested Continua Model of Religious Interpretation, by Gary Slater
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26462
<p><em>C. S. Peirce and the Nested Continua Model of Religious Interpretation</em>, by Gary Slater. Oxford Theology and Religious Monographs, edited by J. Barton et. al., Oxford University Press, 2015, 242pp., Hb. $145.00. ISBN-13: 9780198753230.</p>
Book Reviews
Peirce
Nested Continua
interpretation
supersessionism
Peirce
theology
Religious Studies
Mark Migotti
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
120
122
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Prophet al-Khidr: Between the Qur'anic Text and Islamic Contexts, by Irfan A. Omar
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/26435
<p><em>Prophet al-Khidr: Between the Qur'anic Text and Islamic Contexts</em>, by Irfan A. Omar. Lexington Books, 2022, Hb. 156pp., $93.00, ISBN-13: 9781498595919.</p>
Book Reviews
Sacred Writings
Sufism
mysticism
Islam
philosophy
BP188.45-189.65 Sufism. Mysticism. Dervishes
Sacred History
Carimo Mohomed
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-12-18
2023-12-18
123
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Surveillance in New Religious Movements
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1418
<p>Contemporary discourse on surveillance tends not to account for the types of surveillance and security measures that both traditional and alternative religions adopt. Certainly, many religions have for centuries recorded, and thus, monitored, the lives of their followers. English parish records noting lives, baptisms, deaths and so forth is one such example originating in the sixteenth century. When one thinks of contemporary surveillance, however, more sophisticated strategies involving new technologies typically comes to mind. This article offers an examination of the numerous traditional and newer surveillance techniques of one particular new religious movement—Scientology. This movement employs a variety of stratagems in order to preserve a high level of secrecy regarding both its central doctrines and some of its activities. This article suggests that Scientology’s surveillance methods are driven not only by the group’s desire to protect its interests, but also by the quest for control (and hence, for power) that the group’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, sought throughout his life and left as an institutional legacy after his death.</p>
Articles
surveillance
new religious movements
Scientology
Religious Studies
Theology
Religious Studies
Theology
Susan Raine
Copyright (c) 2009 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2009-07-17
2009-07-17
63
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10.1558/rsth.v28i1.63
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Desert Spirituality in 17th and 18th Century French Calvinism
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1436
<p>Between the 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the 1735 partial renewal of Protestant toleration, the Huguenots choosing to remain in France were forced to clandestinely practice their religion in the wasteland, or désert, of the Cévennes. Understood within an Old Testament interpretive framework, the Huguenots perceived themselves as the new Israel, which identification was reinforced by their adoption of a covenant theology recognizing only one people of God. Moreover, the decentered character of the désert facilitated direct and universal numinous encounter by its occupants, thereby dissolving traditional boundaries as well as empowering charismata among all those seized by the Spirit. Accordingly, these désert episodes proved instrumental in forging a new Huguenot identity, onto which community members tenaciously clung even following their readmission into French civic affairs.</p>
Articles
Huguenots
Edict of Nantes
Church History
Church history
Protestantism
Kirk R MacGregor
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-01-23
2008-01-23
203
231
10.1558/rsth.v26i2.203
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Religious Ethics and International Order
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1415
<p>This essay draws from the literature on religion’s revival as an important political force in international relations and assesses the effect that this revival might have on international order. It defines international order as a modicum of stability and co-operation among sovereign states and notes that some observers see religious communities threatening this order by encouraging fundamentalist communities that might undermine the more secular character of international order. After noting how authors have questioned the supposed “secular” character of international order, the essay suggests that religious communities have or could play a significant role in responding to conditions such as poverty and injustice that also threaten international order. As result the revival of religion and the plurality of religious communities throughout the globe might better be viewed as a source of support for international order.</p>
Articles
Religious revival pluralism
international order
religious ethics
Religious Studies
Theology
Religious Studies
Theology
Tom Keating
Copyright (c) 2009 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2009-07-17
2009-07-17
3
22
10.1558/rsth.v28i1.3
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Religion and the “New Terrorism”
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1416
<p>There has been an increase in the number of scholars who proclaim the growth of the “new terrorism,” whose core characteristics include: the central role of religion, its increasingly lethal and indiscriminate nature, and the potential use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). As opposed to older terrorist organizations that sought tangible, political goals, the “new terrorism” paradigm claims that Political Islamic groups such as Al-Qaeda are primarily nihilistic and, thus, seek the physical destruction and total elimination of their opponents. Conversely, this article maintains that modern religiously-inspired terrorist movements are similar to older terrorist groups in terms of their objectives, tactics, and strategies, as the role of violence remains primarily communicative, and not destructive. In addition, since the views of the “new terrorism,” especially regarding the appropriate counter-terrorism strategies, resonate with American foreign policy goals and geo-political interests, this conception permits U.S. officials to both delegitimize the aims of current terrorist organizations while, in the process, absolving the West of any responsibility in creating the current conditions responsible for their growth.</p>
Articles
New terrorism
Political Islam
Al Qaeda
weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)
Religious Studies
Theology
Religious Studies
Theology
Thomas J Butko
Copyright (c) 2009 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2009-07-17
2009-07-17
23
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10.1558/rsth.v28i1.23
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Christian Zionism and Its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1417
<p>Christian Zionism remains a powerful religious and political force in American politics and continues to greatly impact U.S. foreign policy and geo strategic interests in the Middle East. Despite the fact that many Americans believe that U.S. policy in the region and its unwavering support for Israel accentuates anti-American sentiment in the area, most continue to overwhelmingly support Israel and steadfastly maintain that the benefits of their alliance with Israel significantly outweigh the potential costs. Thus, in the case of Christian Zionism, as both a religious movement and political ideology, it serves to reinforce and solidify the close historical ties between these two allies more than 60 years after the original founding of the state of Israel.</p>
Articles
Christian Zionism
U.S. foreign policy
Middle East
Religious Studies
Theology
Religious Studies
Theology
Daniel Friedman
Copyright (c) 2009 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2009-07-17
2009-07-17
47
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10.1558/rsth.v28i1.47
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The Lord’s Resistance Army
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1419
<p>This essay examines the history, strategy and tactics of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a millenarian terrorist group that originated among the Acholi tribe in Northern Uganda. Today, its operations focus on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it is active in Uganda, the Sudan and the Central African Republic. The LRA is composed of approximately 90% kidnapped child soldiers and as a result of its depredations, almost 90% of the Acholi and other northern Ugandan tribes live in squalid IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps in Uganda. Children in villages and even from some of the so called protected camps, the so-called “night commuters,” must trek as many as 20 miles each night into towns in order to avoid abduction. The article focuses in particular on the religious aspects of the LRA and on its metamorphosis from a local to a regional and ultimately into an international security challenge.</p>
Articles
Lord’s Resistance Army
Joseph Kony
Alice Auma Lakwena
Child soldiers
Religious Studies
Theology
Religious Studies
Theology
Jeffrey Kaplan
Copyright (c) 2009 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2009-07-17
2009-07-17
95
127
10.1558/rsth.v28i1.95
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Aspects of God’s Relationship to the World in the Theologies of Jurgen Moltmann, Bonaventure and Jonathan Edwards
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1446
<p>This paper studies how Jurgen Moltmann, Bonaventure, and Jonathan Edwards use the notion that God’s goodness is self-diffusive and the doctrine of the trinity to understand why God created the world and what this means to God. It first examines Moltmann’s theology, noting some problems in his thought. It then looks at how Bonaventure’s approach avoids these while creating others. This is followed by Edwards’ utilization of the notion of moral necessity and a more complex understanding of infinity to provide a more coherent understanding than the other two, while incorporating insights present in the thought of both.</p>
Articles
Jurgen Moltmann
Bonaventure
Jonathan Edwards
relational theology
BT98-180 God
BT695-749 Creation
BV4625-4780 Moral theology
Religious Studies
Theology
Don Schweitzer
Copyright (c) 2007 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2007-10-05
2007-10-05
5
24
10.1558/rsth.v26i1.5
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John Updike’s Rabbit, Run
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1447
<p>This article considers the powerful role of language and imaginative literature in cultural and self-formation. Drawing on Richard Rorty’s description of narrative forms as vehicles for meaning, I describe leading metaphors in representative literature of the Modern period. I suggest that Modernism exhibits a cultural loss of meaning, and a “death of God” zeitgeist. Works of that period also show pessimism about erotic relationships. I proceed with a close reading of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, which was written just as the Modern period closes. In Updike, the protagonist intuits a strong spirituality and finds rich erotic experience. But in the wake of Modernism’s spiritual vacuity, and erotic pessimism, the protagonist in Rabbit, Run desperately seeks a vocabulary to voice his intuitions which his own culture cannot sustain.</p>
Articles
John Updike
Modernism
PS221-228 20th century
PS370-380 Prose fiction
Literature
David J Fekete
Copyright (c) 2007 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2007-10-05
2007-10-05
25
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10.1558/rsth.v26i1.25
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The Doukhobor Problem
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1449
<p>This paper analyses the process of the media in British Columbia and in Canada in the stigmatizing of members of the radical Doukhobor Russian religious community known as the “svobodniki” or the Sons of Freedom. This process lasted from the late 1920s through to the end of the 1960s. A key issue of their protest was the disruption to their way of life in the Kootenay region in British Columbia by an unsympathetic cultural environment—secularized and pro-militarist—which they regarded as the antipathy of their values. Despite the clarity of their demands and the open statements of the reasons for their protests, their methods of protest were <br />presented by the media as acts of insanity. When women led the protests, the media portrayed them as monstrous and unfeminine. My analysis of the media shows how female Sons of Freedom protestors presented a direct challenge to the conservative gender roles which middle-class women of the 1950s were being asked to adopt. The response of the state was to declare these protestors “bad mothers” and to imprison their children for up to six years.</p>
Articles
Doukhobors
Church and State
Media representations
BV629-631 Church and state
BV652.95-657 Mass media and telecommunication in religion
BR1609.5 Dissent
BR1610 Tolerance and toleration
Cultural studies
Julie Rak
Copyright (c) 2007 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2007-10-05
2007-10-05
59
76
10.1558/rsth.v26i1.59
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The Bad Side to The Good Story
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1450
<p>Between 1909 and 1913, the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta (or Eskimos as they were then known) were all baptized and joined the Anglican Church. These conversions were both sudden and surprising given that evangelization had failed for decades. Why conversion happened and how it changed them—as perceived at the time by ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Anglican cleric Charles E. Whittaker—is what follows here, drawn primarily from diaries, and archival resources.</p>
Articles
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Conversion
MacKenzie Delta
Inuit "Eskimo"
Colville
W. Fry
Ilavinirk
Kublualuk
Mission
Mamayayauk
H.R. Marsh
Nunatagmiut
Ovayoak
Pannigabluk
shaman
Siksigaluk
syphilis
I.O. Stringer
C.E. Whittaker
F1096-1100.5 Mackenzie
BV2000-3705 Missions
BV4912-4950 Conversion literature
Cultural Studies
Religious Studies
Walter Vanast
Copyright (c) 2007 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2007-10-05
2007-10-05
77
116
10.1558/rsth.v26i1.77
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The Role of the Tohunga—Past and Present
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1433
<p>In traditional Maori society before the coming of the white man [pakeha], the spiritual leader [tohunga] was the person who was in communication with the gods and spirits [atua] and who maintained the laws of sacredness [tapu] and regulated the life and events of their village. Because of his great authority and power [mana], the tohunga, his instruments and dwelling were tapu. However, with the coming of the white man with his guns, goods, new diseases, and his ignoring of the laws of tapu, the tohunga was seen as losing his mana. Those who continued to use the traditional methods of healing against the new diseases, often with disastrous results, were regarded as charlatans to the extent that legislation was eventually enacted against any who continued to claim to function as a tohunga.</p> <p>However, emerging out of the Maori wars was a new form of tohunga who had accepted Christianity and combined its teachings with some of the Maori culture and customs. Thus they have become the new Maori spiritual leaders and faith healers, exercising not their own power through the strictures of tapu, but the power of God and his holy angels to heal and restore the Maori to fullness of life.</p>
Articles
Maori Christianity
tohunga
Ratana
Christianity
Conversion
Theology
history of Christianity
Adrian M Leske
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-01-23
2008-01-23
135
147
10.1558/rsth.v26i2.135
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Reinterpreting the Kwakiutl Hamatsa Dance As an Expression of the Apollonian and Dionysian Synthesis
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1434
<p>In Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict appropriates Nietzsche’s distinction between the Apollonian and Dionysian art impulses as the model for her discussion of cultural diversity among North American Indians. However, Benedict’s use of the Nietzschean model not only fails to capture the true ritual significance of the religious or spiritual practices of Kwakiutl Indians of the North West Coast, the result of which portrays the Kwakiutl as primitive savages, but it is also a crude misrepresentation of the Nietzschean model she takes herself to be adopting. While I do not think that Benedict’s position is definitive of current scholarship on this topic, it is my contention that the Apollonian/Dionysian model, properly understood, yields some rather interesting insights into the religio-spiritual practices of the Kwakiutl and so is deserving of further study. This article offers an interpretation of the hamatsa dance of the Kwakiutl Winter Ceremonial as a synthesis of both Apollonian and Dionysian art impulses through which the Kwakiutl construct their ontological and moral worldview.</p>
Articles
Winter Ceremonial
Kaakiutl
Friedrich Nietzche
Ruth Benedict
hamatsa dance
Philosophy
History of the Americas
Religions
Mythology
Religious Studies
Anthroplogy of Religion
Ritual Studies
cultural studies
Philosophy of Religion
Alan McLuckie
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-01-23
2008-01-23
149
171
10.1558/rsth.v26i2.149
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Liberating Epistemology
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1435
<p>This investigation contends that postfoundationalist models of rationality provide a constructive alternative to the positivist models of scientific rationality that once dominated academic discourse and still shape popular views on science and religion. Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, has evolved organically into a cross-cultural, cross-contextual, interdisciplinary conversation that can help liberate epistemology—especially theological epistemology—from the stranglehold of Enlightenment foundationalism. U.S. Latino/a theology provides an alternative to the dominant epistemological perspective within academic theology that is in many ways analogous to the organic, conversational epistemology embodied by the Wikipedia online community. Accordingly, this investigation argues that the work of human liberation is better served by liberating epistemology from the more authoritarian aspects of the Enlightenment scientific tradition—especially popular positivist conceptions of rationality.</p>
Articles
Wikipedia
conversational espistemology
Theology
Theology
Rubén Rosario Rodríguez
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-01-23
2008-01-23
173
201
10.1558/rsth.v26i2.173
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The Victim in Ethical Theology
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1437
<p>Nietzsche would regard Levinas’ ethical theology, in which the moral subject is responsible for the oppressed as “other,” as a “slave morality” which derives its moral force from resentment. In defence of Levinas’ ethics I turn to the life and reflections of Jean Améry, Jew, philosopher, atheist, resistance fighter tortured by the Gestapo, survivor of Auschwitz. His life is a “trace” of the tragic inhabiting Levinas’ theology. Améry rejects Nietzsche’s view of resentment. Drawing upon Bataille’s distinctive understanding of sadism, Améry claims that oppression is a pitiable degree of loneliness in the face of the tormentor’s lust for domination. This can be righted if the <br />tormentor, by desiring to reverse this situation, becomes a fellow human being. Améry rejects evangelical forgiveness as a sub-moral abandonment of the oppressed’s responsibility for the oppressor. The historical impossibility of this reversal reveals the tragic destiny of the oppressed and of Levinas’ theology of the “other.”</p>
Articles
Levinas’ Tragical Ethical Theology
Jean Améry
Nietzche
Religious Ethics
BJ1188-1295
Theology
Philosophy (Ethics)
Paul Rigby
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-01-23
2008-01-23
233
254
10.1558/rsth.v26i2.233
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L’ Église catholique et le nouveau régime socio-politique en Pologne
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1426
<p>The issue of the Church’s involvement in public life of the nation has always generated debate. Particularly under communism, when the Church had to resist the dominance of an atheistic doctrine, the Church was relied upon to articulate the value of religiosity without running afoul of the authorities. It was, in essence, valuable to ordinary Poles who respected its social and cultural importance for their lives. As the analysis here shows, the situation faced by the Church has changed dramatically; it faces the challenge of remaining relevant in a society switching to democratic and culturally secular assumptions. Just how this relationship will develop and what the role will be for the Church in the future is a central concern of this paper.</p>
Articles
l’État et l’Église
Polish church
Church and State
BV629-631
Catholic Church and State
BX1790-1793
Church History
Franciszek Adamski
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-08-19
2008-08-19
7
20
10.1558/rsth.v27i1.7
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The Roman Catholic Church in Poland and Civil Society
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1427
<p>In this article, I address the stance taken by the Church viz-à-viz the social and political structures of Polish society. This arises because the new situation of a democratic state presupposes a secular, civil society environment. In my analysis, I show that the Church has moved away from political engagement with this new situation, and is now shaping itself as a key element, but only one of several, in a pluralistic culture. This will mean a quite different Church in the future.</p>
Articles
Polish Church
Catholic Church and the State
BX1790-1793
Church History
Janusz Mariański
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-08-19
2008-08-19
21
42
10.1558/rsth.v27i1.21
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Polish Religiousness
http://journal.equinoxpub.com/RST/article/view/1428
<p>Polish religiousness is a phenomenon composed of many both antagonistic and interdependent (even symbiotic) constituents. Different mental strata, political wings, degrees of engagement and social entities should be presented here to show the complexity of the phenomenon in question. I shall raise only a few of the most important problems. In order to do so, it is useful to draw four main lines of division.</p>
Articles
Polish church
Church History
BR140-150
Catholic Church and State
BX1790-1793
Church History
Kamil Kaczmarek
Copyright (c) 2008 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2008-08-19
2008-08-19
43
68
10.1558/rsth.v27i1.43