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2021 ◽  
pp. 89-136
Author(s):  
Francesca Brooks

Chapter 2 compares the rhetorical tropes employed in the ‘Preface’ to The Anathemata (often overlooked in the scholarship) with those of the preface to King Alfred’s Old English translation of the Pastoral Care. This comparison establishes the idea of Jones’s artful construction of his ‘Preface’ as a manifesto for the cultural project of The Anathemata. Reflecting on the Alfredian rhetorical ideal of an English nation (and more specifically an English nation of Catholics) as both a medieval and a post-medieval construct, this chapter illuminates the direct challenge of Jones’s ‘Preface’ to Alfredian assertions of English hegemony. Key to this effort to disrupt the hegemony of British Christian history, this chapter argues, is Jones’s use of Latin and how this implicates the work of two other ninth-century writers—Asser and Nennius—in Jones’s dialogue with King Alfred.


Author(s):  
Tatsiana Valodzina ◽  

The article deals with one of the most popular techniques in Belarusian magical medicine — the so-called historiolae, the essence of which is to recall precedent situations. This implies that the “disequilibrium of being, which has arisen in human life at the present moment (e.g. a disease), is restored according to a sacred pattern that took place in the past”. The texts declare connections between different levels of the worlds, past and present, but to the same extent between the microcosm and the macrocosm, erasing all distinctions between the real and the supernatural worlds. The present time of these charms prevents the transfer of the patient and the healer to ancient times of the myths. Instead, it is the sacred world that spreads around the requester. The most common form of such charms includes a narrative that relates certain events in Christian history, primarily describing the life of Christ or of one of the saints. A particular place among the narrative manifestations of historiolae is occupied by references to the Passion of Christ. These narratives, in turn, possess powerful life-affirming and healing potential. It is not the logical correspondence of a specific comparison in an incantation that is central, but the very desire to place the situation of treatment in an appropriate context. A number of texts from the author’s field records and archival materials are introduced here into scholarly circulation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Y. Stern

Abstract This paper offers a set of conceptual reflections on the politics of deferral. Beginning with an examination of this idea in analyses of colonialism, human rights, and liberalism, the paper turns to Gershom Scholem’s well-known opposition between Jewish messianism (“life lived in deferral”) and Zionism (concrete political action). The paper troubles this distinction by tracing the concept of deferral back into Scholem’s earliest writings on messianism and by showing the term’s genealogical reliance on the theological-political vocabulary of sovereignty. Against this critical background, the paper returns to the present, in order to reframe Scholem’s distinction and suggest that, far from negating messianic deferral, Zionism and Israeli colonial rule capture and redeploy its logic as a secular modality of power. The paper concludes by inscribing this secular, political theology of Zionism within a Christian history of deferral, messianism, and empire.


Author(s):  
Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong

The Black Stool has been considered by Western missionaries and missionary established churches mainly as a sacred object and religious material for rituals without much attention to its educational significance. The Western missionaries introduced Christian education and schooling pattern of learning to the Akan societies. The introduction of Western and Christian education came with Bibles, Hymn Books, Liturgy books and other educational materials. Even though the Akan had their own forms of learning, the indigenous educational resources did not attract the consideration of the missionaries. The missionary legacy of not recognizing the indigenous educational materials such as the Black Stool has remained with Christian education in Akan churches and other educational patterns. The study is an examination of the educational dimensions of the Black Stool and its significance for moral and leadership formation. Using both primary and secondary sources to examine the role of the Black Stool in moral education and leadership formation, the study points out the fact that the Black Stool is capable of providing even education in Christian history and calls for the need for re-thinking Akan Christian history to reflect significant intellectual weight embedded in the Black Stool. The study has established that the Akan Black Stool that over the years has been considered mainly from its sacred and religious dimensions has educational dimensions that equally must attract intellectual attention. The study identifies the traditional pattern of learning as a discipline that must attract intellectual attention. Moreover, there is a need for a paradigm shift on the perception of the Black Stool. A paradigm shift on the perception of indigenous educational resources will position the Black Stool as a relevant educational resource for a traditional pattern of learning. The study calls for a need for re-thinking of Akan Christian history to retrieve Christian information and history that have been embedded in indigenous resources like the Black Stool. Keywords: Akan, Black Stool, Traditional Patterns of Learning, Christianity, Educational Resources.


Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas

The Wanderer and The Ruin are productively read as eco-elegies: explorations of changing relationships within the Earth community. The Wanderer offers its audience an exemplary portrait of natural depression, a human pattern of exile, emotional trauma, and acceptance which relies on identification with the Earth community as a way of healing. The poem affirms the idea that other-than-human elements of Earth community can actively improve the mental state of their human neighbors and reconcile apocalyptic loss. The Ruin contrasts this apocalyptic imagery with an imagined future where the Earth community responds to, but ultimately outlasts, the destruction of human societies. These eco-elegies encourage audiences to consider the long view of Christian history, pacifying anxieties about human relationships with other-than-human.


2021 ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
David Lloyd Dusenbury

Anti-Semitic interpretations of the gospels and Christian hostility towards Jews are both rooted, in terribly complex ways, in the first centuries of the Christian era. The death of Jesus is certainly the “most resentment-laden” theme in Christian history. But this chapter argues that it is not a sign of primitive Christian resentment that the gospels depict a Judaean moment in Jesus’ legal ordeal in Jerusalem—an ordeal which culminates in a Roman verdict, and a Roman punishment. In fact, the Judaeans’ condemnation of Jesus is less decisive in the gospels than in many revered Judaic texts. This chapter thus seeks to reconstruct a Judaic ‘passion’ narrative in which Jesus dies, and Pilate is innocent, from the ‘Judaean’ testimonies of a pagan philosopher (Celsus), from the pages of an illustrious rabbinic collection (Babylonian Talmud), and from a tradition of parodic ‘gospels’ (Toledot Yeshu).


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter G.R. De Villiers ◽  
George Marchinkowski

The commandment not to work and to rest on the Sabbath became a major spiritual practice in Judeo-Christian history. This article will spell out, in a concrete manner, the key spiritual contents of Sabbath-keeping that are relevant for and that determine an authentic, liberating and joyful celebration of the Sabbath. It, thus, contributes to the debate by Christians about the shape and form of what the practice of Sabbath-keeping practice might look like today. This article firstly explains how and why the practice by times became oppressive and abusive, losing its popularity because of a legalistic moralism. It then analyses how the practice in reality is about sanctifying work that reflects its true nature and that contributes meaningfully to human existence. It will focus on how commitment is a necessary beginning to practise the Sabbath before it analyses the dynamic and inspirational nature of Sabbath-keeping as a practice about resting. The article will anchor theological and theoretic reflections concretely in the life experience of faith communities concluding with a discussion about the lightness of the practice that is enjoyed in liturgy, in community, in play and in joyful celebration. The very last part will spell out ecological implications of Sabbath-keeping as one of the latest, exciting forms of Sabbath-keeping.Contribution: This article responds to the renewed interest in the spiritual practice of Sabbath-keeping. It analyses how the practice lost its popularity because of a legalistic moralism. It will then analyse the lightness of the practice as it is enjoyed in liturgy, in community, in play and in joyful celebration.


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