Trumping the Devil!

African spiritualities are hardly static or unchanging. They are dynamic and constantly in flux. African spiritualities are usually not thought out in the agora of desk theology but lived out in the spiritual marketplace, imbuing every life facet in ways that cannot be separated from quotidian, mundane thought. How do African spiritualities contrast with other social dimensions of spirituality? This chapter explores African spiritualities as spiritualities of the marketplace, concerned with the pursuit of cosmic balance, harmony, and human flourishing via a matrix of worldviews and ritual praxis. Through exploring the diversity of African spirituality and cosmologies: the forms, meanings, and expressions that link them, I demonstrate how and to what extent the religious, moral values and imaginaries pervading indigenous worldviews in Africa and the African diaspora are continually contested and negotiated.

Staging Death: Christofascist Necropolitics during the National Legionary State in Romania, 1940–1941

The cult of death and the celebration of martyrdom lay at the core of interwar fascist movements across the European continent. However, it was in the Romanian Legionary Movement (also known as the Iron Guard) that these were articulated into a full-fledged ideology of thanatic ultranationalism. In this article, I examine the spectacular fascist necropolitics staged as state-sponsored funeral performances during the short-lived National Legionary State (September 14, 1940–February 14, 1941). A detailed description of the massive campaign of exhumations and reburials of the so-called “legionary martyrs” carried out during this short time span, culminating with the grandiose ceremony organized for the reburial of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on November 30, 1940, provides insight into the legionary thanatic worldview and ritual praxis. It also sheds light on the movement’s politics of commemoration, death, and afterlife and shows how these were embedded into a religious framework underpinned by theological concepts such as heroic martyrdom, vicarious atonement, and collective redemption.

Ritual and Orthodoxy

Study of Christian origins typically separates the development of orthodox doctrines from community rituals of baptism, eucharist, or anointing of the sick and dying. Ritual studies are an appendix to arguments over the truth of teachings about God, the nature of Christ, salvation, and the canon of Scripture. This chapter argues that emerging Christianity was primarily a community that gathered to engage in ritual activities. Its rituals of baptism and eucharist are at the core of community identity in 1 Corinthians and Romans. The energy fuelling intra-Christian disputes reflects anxieties over the effectiveness of ritual celebrations in the pluralistic setting of early Christian assemblies. Both poetic fragments in Christian texts and artistic settings like the baptistery at Dura Europos demonstrate the powers of ritual to reconfigure participants’ vision of the self in the cosmos. Valentinian, Marcionite, and Manichaean authors and their orthodox opponents mirror diverse ritual praxis.

Åndsforestillinger og deres enhed i Johannesevangeliet

Inspired by recent developments in Johannine research in Denmark, this article investigates the coherence of the concept of pneuma and paraklêtos in the Johannine writings. On the basis of the clear difference between pneuma and paraklêtos in First John, it differentiates between three different concepts in the Fourth Gospel. The first concerns Jesus’ possession of the pneuma from the incarnation to the death on the cross. It derives from the synoptic tradition, or more probably directly from the Gospel of Mark. The second does not have parallels in the synoptic gospels. It concerns the role of the pneuma for the believers. All instances are connected with the ritual praxis in the community and have remarkable relations to Paul. The third conception includes the Paraclete-sayings and is probably a genuine Johannine invention. It presents the pneuma-paraclete as an active figure that takes the place of the absent Jesus and in many ways authorizes the gospel writing. It is furthermore argued that the logos of the prologue can be understood in specific Stoic terms. The Stoic understanding of logos as being the cognitive side of the material pneuma is able to comprise all aspects of the Johannine pneuma-paraclete even if it is a combination of different ideas. Therefore, the prologue should be understood as a philosophical introduction that makes the reader incorporate all three Johannine pneumata into one conception.

Memaknai Praktik Tradisi Ritual Masyarakat Muslim Sumenep

THIS -- paper seeks to reveal the meaning of tradition in the Muslim’s ritual in Sumenep Madura which is understood as a local or popular ritual, associated with the determination of the calendar in Islam. This ritual, when expressed and understood in practice, is always based on the popularization of calendar names in local-based Islam with certain insights and meanings. With this deductive-inductive explorative approach, this paper explain to three popular ritual praxis of the Sumenep Madurese. Firstly, the practice of the death ritual that was intended as a repentance to God for self and “al-marhum”, ties the brotherhood, and effective for Islamic preaching. Secondly, the ritual practice of “Peret Kandung” is a ritual of the first pregnancy for husband and wife entering the seventh month which is meant as a symbol of purification, so that the born child will survive and truly become sholeh child who boast of parents. Third, “sonat ritual” is a continuation of initiation ritual in Sumenep only for boys which is meant as a ritual as well as da'wah media for islamization.

Flexible Believers in the Netherlands: A Paradigm Shift toward Transreligious Multiplicity

The Netherlands has undergone a radical religious transformation through secularization, individualization and migration. Expressions of Christian belief are no longer strictly defined by the Church and hybrid forms of religiosity incorporating other religions have emerged. After a brief sketch of Dutch religious plurality, the author focuses on interviews with ‘flexible believers’, people who combine elements from different religious traditions and worldviews. Through interviews, she discovers a number of characteristics of these multiple religious believers (MRB) - interviewees - such as ritual praxis, identity-making processes and belonging - and reflects on their impact for the wider picture of religiosity in today‘s post-Christian Dutch network society. She concludes that hybrid forms of lived religion like mrb, present a challenge to traditional concepts of religious identity and belonging. They require a paradigm shift from an ‘either/or’ to a relational ‘as well as’ approach within a rhizomatic network of meaning.