SEEING IS BELIEVING: THE POWER OF VISUAL CULTURE IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD OF AŞE ZÄR'A YA'EQOB OF ETHIOPIA (1434-1468)

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Visual Representation ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cross

AbstractThe prevailing image of Zär'a Ya'eqob has tended to emphasize the intellectual at the expense of the experiential and political power at the expense of religious power. It is to these relatively neglected aspects of religious life that this article is devoted. It is our purpose here to emphasize the importance of the Cross, the image of the Virgin, the construction of churches and other visual aspects of religious life in Zär'a Ya'eqob's Ethiopia. No other Ethiopian ruler confronted the religious challenges presented by a divided Church and a largely unChristianized empire as systematically and as successfully as Zär'a Ya'eqob. Moreover, he was as sensitive to the daily unspoken truths of religious life as he was to great theological debates and controversies. He understood power in all its manifestations and sought to protect his state, his church, and his people with every means at his disposal. By promoting devotion to both the Cross and the Virgin Mary, he built on the foundations prepared by his parents, especially his father Dawit. He also mobilized Christian symbols which transcended local rivalries and regional loyalties. These symbols, as well as the churches he built, were also particularly suited to visual representation and hence comparatively easy to propagate among Ethiopia's largely illiterate population. They were, moreover, effective instruments of divine power, which brought home not only the message of Christianity's truth, but also its efficacy in the face of the numerous threats that Christians faced on a daily basis.

scholarly journals Notes Towards a History of Aṣe Dawit I (1382–1413)

Aethiopica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Steven Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Representation ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Original Works ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cross ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Church

Dawit I has received far less attention than either his grandfather ʿAmdä Ṣǝyon I or his son Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob. This comparatively brief article attempts to partially redress the balance. During the more than three decades during which he reigned, Dawit strengthened the religious and political fabric of Ethiopia. By promoting devotion to both the Cross and the Virgin Mary, he provided the Church with two pan-Christian symbols which transcended local rivalries and regional loyalties. These were, moreover, symbols particularly suited to visual representation and hence comparatively easy to propagate among Ethiopia’s largely illiterate population. He did not, however, neglect the role of religious texts. His reign is remembered both for the important translations initiated, most notably Täʾammǝrä Maryam and for original works composed by his close associate Giyorgis of Sägla. Dawit also made great strides in solidifying Church state relations, particularly through his generous land grants, and although he did not succeed in resolving the Ewosṭatian controversy, in the last decade of his rule, he moved towards a pragmatic accommodation. All this would by itself, qualify Dawit as one of the outstanding leaders in Ethiopian history. His military successes, particularly against the Muslims of Adal, can only further cement his reputation.

“The Last Enemy Is Death”

1989 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-392
Author(s):  
Charles E Brown
Keyword(s):  
The Face ◽  
The Cross

Paul's reflections on the universal curse of death and its conquest by the resurrection of God's son who shared that curse in his own death on the cross help define the pastoral approach to those who suffer humanity's common anxiety in the face of death

The Essence of Christianity and the Cross of Christ

1914 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 538-594
Author(s):  
Benjamin B. Warfield
Keyword(s):  
New Haven ◽  
Liberal Theology ◽  
Religious System ◽  
The World ◽  
Cross Of Christ ◽  
The Face ◽  
Divinity School ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Right

In a recent number of The Harvard Theological Review, Professor Douglas Clyde Macintosh of the Yale Divinity School outlines in a very interesting manner the religious system to which he gives his adherence. For “substance of doctrine” (to use a form of speech formerly quite familiar at New Haven) this religious system does not differ markedly from what is usually taught in the circles of the so-called “Liberal Theology.” Professor Macintosh has, however, his own way of construing and phrasing the common “Liberal” teaching; and his own way of construing and phrasing it presents a number of features which invite comment. It is tempting to turn aside to enumerate some of these, and perhaps to offer some remarks upon them. As we must make a selection, however, it seems best to confine ourselves to what appears on the face of it to be the most remarkable thing in Professor Macintosh's representations. This is his disposition to retain for his religious system the historical name of Christianity, although it utterly repudiates the cross of Christ, and in fact feels itself (in case of need) quite able to get along without even the person of Christ. A “new Christianity,” he is willing, to be sure, to allow that it is—a “new Christianity for which the world is waiting”; and as such he is perhaps something more than willing to separate it from what he varyingly speaks of as “the older Christianity,” “actual Christianity,” “historic Christianity,” “actual, historical Christianity.” He strenuously claims for it, nevertheless, the right to call itself by the name of “Christianity.”

scholarly journals Cultism and Violence in Nigerian Universities: A Paradigm for Achieving Religious Academic Excellence

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Ushe Mike Ushe
Keyword(s):  
Moral Education ◽  
Survey Design ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Face ◽  
Persistent Violence ◽  
The Government ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Nigerian universities and other institutions of higher learning have in recent times witnessed unprecedented insecurity, persistent violence and educational backdrop, leading to loss of many lives and properties worth millions of naira across the country. Part of the face out of this scourge is the prevailing case of cultism and other forms of violence in Nigerian universities and other higher educational institutions. This has resulted to gruesome arrest, expulsion and murder of many students on account of cult activities on the campuses and other forms of students’ violence which further exposed our universities to insecurity, ritual murders, drug abuse and use of dangerous weapons by cult groups, victimization and regime of terror against fellow students, lecturers, and anyone that stands in the ways of these cult groups on our campuses. This paper discusses the impacts of cultism and other forms of violence on university campuses in Nigeria as a search for achieving sustainable peace and academic excellence. To explore this change, the study employs survey design, questionnaires and face-to-face interviews in collecting data and analysis. The research findings have shown that cultism and other forms of violence are prevalence in Nigerian universities and have increased tremendously in recent decades, reoccurring almost on daily basis. The paper observed that students’ radical activism and union politics, incapability of university and state authorities to enforce minimum standard of students’ civil behaviors on campuses as well as rivalries between cult groups and the wider campus community has drastically affected educational or academic performance of students in contemporary Nigerian society. The paper recommends the restructuring of university educational policies and curriculum, provision of moral education and non-interference of the government and university authorities in the affairs of students’ union politics and activism.

scholarly journals An explanation for phonological word-final vowel shortening: Evidence from Tokyo Japanese

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Satsuki Nakai
Keyword(s):  
Short Vowel ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Phonological Word ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Tokyo Japanese ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cross

AbstractThis paper offers an account for the cross-linguistic prevalence of phonological word-final vowel shortening, in the face of phonetic final lengthening, also commonly observed across languages. Two contributing factors are hypothesized: (1) an overlap in the durational distributions of short and long vowel phonemes across positions in the utterance can lead to the misidentification of phonemic vowel length and (2) the direction of bias in such misidentification is determined by the distributional properties of the short and long vowel phonemes in the region of the durational overlap. Because short vowel phonemes are typically more frequent in occurrence and less variable in duration than long vowel phonemes, long vowel phonemes are more likely to be misidentified than short vowel phonemes. Results of production and perception studies in Tokyo Japanese support these hypotheses.

The Death of God

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Michalski
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cross

This chapter turns to Plato's Phaedo as well as the Gospel of Matthew: two narratives about death, and two visions of human nature. Christ's cry on the cross, as told by Matthew, gives voice to an understanding of human life that is radically different from that of Socrates. For Phaedo's Socrates, the truly important things in life are ideas: the eternal order of the world, the understanding of which leads to unperturbed peace and serenity in the face of death. The Gospel is the complete opposite: it testifies to the incurable presence of the Unknown in every moment of life, a presence that rips apart every human certainty built on what is known, that disturbs all peace, all serenity—that severs the continuity of time, opening every moment of our lives to nothingness, thereby inscribing within them the possibility of an abrupt end and the chance at a new beginning.

“We Simply Illustrate”

Graphic News ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 13-46
Author(s):  
Amanda Frisken
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Print Media ◽  
White Women ◽  
Visual Representation ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Men Of Color ◽  
Visual Expression ◽  
National Police

This chapter examines sexuality discourse and definitions of obscenity in print media following the Civil War. Editors of illustrated sporting weeklies, such as Frank Leslie (The Days’ Doings) and Richard K. Fox (The National Police Gazette) pushed the boundaries of visual representation. Meanwhile, anti-vice activist Anthony Comstock sought control over what could be seen in print. In pursuing the prosecution of Victoria Woodhull, Tennessee Claflin, Ezra Heywood, and D. M. Bennett, as well as sporting publications, Comstock shifted the focus of visual culture. His success in eliminating images he found shocking distorted the visualization of alleged sexual crimes as primarily the racial assault on white women by men of color. In other words, Comstock helped make the racialized rape/lynching mythos the dominant visual expression of sexual violence.

Orthodoxy and Cultural Identity through Music in the English Interregnum

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-138
Author(s):  
Joseph Arthur Mann
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Current State ◽  
Worship Services ◽  
Antebellum Period ◽  
The Face ◽  
Musical Propaganda

After the Parliamentarian faction defeated, captured, and executed Charles I in the last years of the 1640s, their quest for political power shifted to establishing and maintaining a new cultural orthodoxy based in Calvinist morality and to solidifying their new-found political power. At the same time, the recently defeated and oppressed Royalist faction sought to maintain their own culture in the face of this new Calvinist orthodoxy. Chapter two examines and exposes how both of these groups made use of musical propaganda to support these conflicting agendas. Parliamentarians hired propagandists or otherwise sanctioned and promoted publications that endorsed psalm-singing (an integral part of the new orthodoxy) and defended it from the even more radical religious beliefs of the Quakers, who were even against psalm-singing in worship services. Royalists, on the other hand, kept the court culture of wine, pastoral imagery, and (now covert) support for the monarchy alive while also reliving their glorious antebellum period through the publication of old antebellum songs and masque libretti and the publication of new songs that comment on the current state of their community, urging perseverance and unity in the face of oppression.

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