Human Flourishing and History: A Religious Imaginary for the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene denotes the impact of human activity on Earth systems, resulting in mass extinctions of plant and animal species, pollution of oceans, lakes and rivers, and altering of the atmosphere. The Anthropocene signifies the mass control of nature by humans, the erasure of boundaries between humanity and nature, and the threat to human existence by human-made technology. How can biological humans flourish, if their physical environment, the very condition of their existence, is destroyed? What does it mean to thrive as a human in an age when human-made machines threaten to make humanity obsolete? How does human flourishing relate to human history? This essay argues that the monotheistic traditions, and Judaism in particular, offer meaningful religious imaginaries for the Anthropocene because they envision human flourishing as embodied, ecological and historically grounded. In contrast to secular imaginaries, which either declare the “end of nature” or envision the obsolescence of biological humanity, the Judaic religious imaginary honors the interconnectedness and interdependence of all creatures, while recognizing human responsibility toward the well-being of the natural world. Viewing nature as divinely created, and, thus “enchanted” by the divine presence, the Judaic religious imaginary offers a vision of human flourishing based on the ethics of care and responsibility that enables humanity to respond and perhaps even prevent further ecological collapse.

Vision, subalternity, and religious imaginary in southern Italy

Vision and divine voice, however defined, are at the heart of religious experience. The meeting with the Other sustains new ways of life and grants deep transformations in subjectivity. After chronicling the difficulty, indeed outright impossibility, of circumscribing and defining these complex experiences, as well as the opacity of the dominant categories that have been adopted by sociology, anthropology, phenomenology, and psychiatry, this article explores three case histories from southern Italy. Each one reveals a particular knot where private (and traumatic) experience has incorporated historical horizons and collective anxieties. By adopting a historical and comparative perspective, the author investigates how visions, voices – and more generally the encounter with transcendence – enable subalterns to deal with suffering and marginality and, more importantly, to build a view of how the world is and works. Finally, the article suggests that these experiences allow a transformation of the nostalgia for agency into new ‘horizons of expectation’.

Cristianos en tiempo de pandemia

The Covid-19 pandemic has to be considered as a biopolitic fact to be discerned from the point of view of our Christian faith. This article tackles three questions related to the pandemic. First it will critically analyze the religious imaginary that spontaneously surged with this pandemic. Then the experience in the church will be examined especially the way we now relate to each other. This will be done through the lenses of the reform principle, the pastoral criterium and the priority of the poor. The third part will study the global solidarity that the present world order requires now. Keywords: Covid-19, Religious Imaginery, Church, Solidarity

Novas faces do cristofascismo no Governo de Jair Bolsonaro

O presente artigo estuda o cristofascismo, termo usado para designar movimentos mundiais onde a tendência ao totalitarismo neoliberal politicamente e conservador nos costumes torna-se cada vez mais acentuada. Tomando como referencial a obra As origens do totalitarismo, de Hannah Arendt, identificamos o messianismo na construção de um imaginário popular religioso que coloca expectativas no advento de um governo “cristão” que inaugura uma era de justiça na sociedade. Analisamos o cristofascismo na auto-identificação de um líder com esses ideais, e que surge no contexto brasileiro com a eleição de Jair Messias Bolsonaro como presidente da República. Sustentamos a hipótese de que o messias esperado atua politicamente amparado pela religião. A associação foi feita a partir da frase do ministro Ernesto Araújo, que compara Bolsonaro a Jesus: a pedra rejeitada pelos construtores e que se tornou a principal. Abstract: This paper studies Christofascism as a term used to designate world movements where the tendency towards totalitarian neoliberalism and conservatism is becoming increasingly pronounced. Taking Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism as a reference, we identify Messianism in the construction of a popular religious imaginary that places expectations on the advent of a “Christian” government that will inaugurate an era of justice in society. We analyze Christofascism in the self-identification of a leader with these ideals, and wich arises in the Brazilian context from the election of Jair Messias Bolsonaro as President of the Republic. We support the hypothesis that the expected messiah acts politically supported by religion.The association was made from the words of Minister Ernesto Araújo, who compares Bolsonaro to Jesus: the stone rejected by the builders and that became the main one.Keywords: Cornerstone; Christofascism; Messianism; Jair Bolsonaro; Totalitarianism.

The Cruciform Imaginary

This chapter explores the role of social imaginaries in revealing the tragic, justifying responses to the tragic, and patterning legitimate courses of action in the face of the tragic. It examines the rise of religious imaginaries, in particular, as frameworks for environmental thought and governance. Finally, drawing upon the work of Dietrrich Bonhoeffer, the chapter sketches the contours of a religious imaginary by which we might apprehend the tragic, justify certain choices in the face of the tragic, and pattern or teach appropriate responses to the tragic. This “cruciform imaginary” encourages us to bear the costs of the tragic so that others might benefit from possessing or securing more goods at once.

Conversion in Post-secularity

This article takes the post-secular mind-set as a heuristic lens to see the concept of conversion in a new, and perhaps refreshing, way. Missiology, taken here as the theological and therefore critical study of Christian mission, has always had a keen eye on conversion as a concept covering manifold experiences of change in religious faith, behaviour, and allegiance. However, the modern secular outlook has not been able to cater for a good missiological explanation and understanding of ongoing conversions. We will assess the work of two outspoken missiologists of our day, Marion Grau and Bryan Stone, in order to find out what a post-secular outlook on conversion may bring to light. Post-secularity may encourage missiologists to move beyond the secular imaginary of conversion as only a socioeconomic phenomenon on the one hand, and beyond the religious imaginary of conversion as only an answer to a divine call on the other hand. Post-secularity opens up to see the complex contextual entanglement of the religious and the secular realm involved in conversion.1 本文以后世俗的思想倾向作为启发式的透镜，用全新的方式来看待转化的概念。宣教学，作为神学和基督教宣教的重要研究，总是对转化很关注， 因它覆盖了多层面的宗教信仰和行为上的改变和拥护。但是，现代世俗观点不能对不断的转化作一个好的宣教的解释和了解。我们会对两位当今坦率的宣教学者，马瑞恩·葛若和布瑞·斯彤的著作做个评估，以发现后世俗的观点会对转化带来什么亮光。后世俗主义可能会鼓励宣教学者们，一方面逾越将转化当作社会经济现象的世俗虚构，另一方面逾越将转化当作唯一回应上帝呼召的宗教虚构。后世俗主义打开了转化在宗教与世俗领域里的复杂的处境化的缠绕。 Este artículo utiliza una lente investigativa pos-secular para tratar el concepto de la conversion a través de un método quizás nuevo y refrescante. La misionología, tomada aquí como el estudio teológico y, por lo tanto, crítico de la misión cristiana, ha puesto siempre una mirada perspicaz sobre la conversión como un concepto que abarca múltiples experiencias de cambio en la fe religiosa, en el comportamiento y en la fidelidad. Sin embargo, la perspectiva secular moderna no ha sido capaz de proveer una buena explicación y comprensión misionológicas sobre conversiones que se producen de manera continua. Se evaluará el trabajo de Marion Grau y Bryan Stone, dos misiólogos muy francos de nuestros días, para saber si esta perspectiva pos-secular puede aportar algo nuevo sobre la conversión. Por un lado, la pos-secularidad puede ayudar a que los misiólogos vayan más allá del imaginario social sobre la conversión como un fenómeno socio-económico; y por el otro, ir más allá del imaginario religioso de la conversión como sólo una respuesta al llamado divino. La pos-secularidad permite observar la compleja situación contextual entre el ámbito religioso y el secular involucrados en el tema de la conversión. This article is in English.