Storied Identity

In this paper, I explore two ways of understanding the moral and spiritual significance of stories, and in turn two ways of developing the notion of storied identity, and hence two ways of reading the Bible. I propose that these two approaches to the biblical text provide the basis for a fruitful interpretation of the Christian rite of the Eucharist, so that, to this extent, we can take the Eucharist to support these ways of drawing out the sense of the text. Accordingly, we can speak of reading the Bible eucharistically. The aim of the paper is not to substantially explain central features of the Eucharist as it has been understood in mainstream Christian teaching but, more modestly, to consider how these two ways of approaching the biblical text may help to bring some aspects of the rite, as depicted in Christian thought, into rather clearer focus, including its social dimension, and the relationship, on the Christian understanding, between the divine presence in the Incarnation and in the Eucharist.

Teatr a sprawa Boska. Golgota Picnic, Klątwa, O twarzy. Wizerunek Syna Boga – czyli spektakle obrażające uczucia religijne widziane oczami teologa

Social protests connected with the performances of “Golgotha Picnic”, “The Curse” or “On the Concept of the Face Regarding the Son of God” arouses an understandable interest of the theologian in the phenomenon of “slighting of religious feelings” and the reasons why these stage works evoke such reactions. The article presents an analysis of the content of the mentioned above performances in the context of the words of the Bible as well as the teachings of different Christian Churches. It is aimed at finding points (scenes) in which the content presented on the stage is inconsistent with Christian teaching, distorts it or presents it in an ironic way. The article also tries to find potential artistic justifications for such performances. Referring to earlier published artistic reviews, rather than scientific publications, it defines common features that characterize performances that offend religious feelings, but also indicates areas where the situation of slighting of such feelings is not unambiguous. The article does not deny the possibility that someone’s feelings have been touched or slighted by the discussed performances, but it points out the possibility that the offense of religious feelings is more the result of knowledge, motivation or attitude of the audience than from the presented content itself.

Homo digitalis – Homo medialis. Digitális média és keresztyén antropológia

Homo Digitalis – Homo Medialis. Digital Media and Christian Anthropology. Digital media and virtual community existence define our present and our everyday life to such an extent and poses such new challenges that Christian ethics cannot escape the responsibility of guidance. However, it is not just a question of what ethical norms apply to the online space and appearance therein but also of how online identity redraws a person’s image of him-/herself and of the other. Can Christian ethics speak of homo digitalis and homo medialis without confronting Christian teaching about humans? The present study seeks to critically illuminate new phenomena in the digital world along the topoi of classical Christian anthropology (creation, divinity, alienation, shame, sin, fellow human beings). Keywords: media, digital lifestyle, virtuality, online identity, Christian anthropology

Rethinking Complementarianism

Complementarianism, that is, Christian teaching focusing on men’s leadership and women’s submission as an ideal pattern of relationships and gendered behaviour, has been identified both as a boundary marker with little lived currency and as a contributing factor in instances of intimate partner violence. This contradiction raises a question; does complementarianism have little felt effect or does it have significant—and violent—social consequences? In this article, drawing on Scott’s analysis of Secularism as discourse I consider complementarianism as a religio-political discourse. Through analysis of published church material and stories gathered through interviews with parishioners and church staff, I explore how complementarianism is constructed and implemented in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. I argue that complementarianism is not a distinctively Christian theology, but a discourse, or story, told in community which constructs orthodoxy and both creates and limits gendered and religious identity.

Eschatology and Religiosity of the People in Russia in the 17th Century

The article studies the religiosity of Russian population in the 17th century in order to find out the type of this state of public mind. Special attention is drawn to the acuteness of eschatological expectations in society, which intensified during periods of crises. After the Time of Troubles (Smuta), the Church, trying to bring society out of the spiritual crisis, had been exploiting the “end of the world” topic through publishing relevant texts. This trend was especially noticeable during the time of Patriarch Joseph. The decision of the Moscow Printing House (Pechatnyi Dvor) to extend the amount of eschatological publications was determined not only by the direction of church policy, but also by the request in society, the desire of the population to get a more complete picture of the Christian teaching about the ultimate destinies of the world and man, since the spiritual crisis had presupposed an increase of apocalyptic moods. This desire indicates that the population was characterized by the religiosity of the medieval type. The article scrutinizes in particular the 2nd half of the 17th century, which modern researchers rightly designate as the early Modern era. In a society with such a keen perception of the time, the church reform, initiated in the middle of the century by Patriarch Nikon, was naturally not supported by a part of the population. In the interpretation of the defenders of the Old Belief, the actions of the reformers turned into clear signs of the advent of the kingdom of Antichrist, as it was prophesied in Christian teaching. It was not some peculiarity of the worldview of the opponents of church reform, their behavior adjusted the religiosity of the epoch. To justify these thoughts the position of Patriarch Nikon could be mentioned. Nikon found himself in a situation of disapproval and, arguing to be wrongfully convicted and misunderstood, he also used the eschatological doctrine. Based on the analysis of such facts, the article concludes that the 2nd half of the 17th century was characterized by religiosity of the medieval type.

Christian culture in the first Russian educational books on the French language

В статье рассмотрено отражение христианского учения в первых российских учебных книгах по французскому языку. Отмечается, что авторы первых учебных пособий по французскому языку (азбуки, буквари, грамматики) уделяли большое внимание религиозно-нравственному воспитанию обучающихся, поэтому включали в свои книги тексты из Библии, молитвы, притчи, поучительные истории из жизни святых. Религиозные тексты ценились, так как они воспитывали в учениках нравственные добродетели: благочестие, милосердие, честность, щедрость, скромность. В учебные книги по французскому языку XVIII в. часто в первый раздел включались учебные материалы, тексты, связанные с религией, богослужением, церковью. С течением времени образование приобретало все более светский характер, религиозные тексты в учебниках уступали место бытовой, обиходной тематике. Интегративная подача иноязычных текстов, относящихся к духовной и повседневной жизни обучающихся характеризует учебные книги по французскому языку конца XVIII века, в связи с чем можно констатировать, что обучение бытовой коммуникации сочеталось с религиозно-нравственным воспитанием. The article considers the reflection of Christian teaching in the first Russian textbooks on the French language. It is noted that the authors of the first textbooks on the French language (ABCs, primers, grammars) paid great attention to the religious and moral education of students, therefore they included texts from the Bible, prayers, parables, instructive stories from the life of saints in their books. Religious texts were valued because they brought up moral virtues in students: piety, charity, honesty, generosity, modesty. In educational books on the French language of the XVIII century. often, the first section included educational materials, texts related to religion, worship, and the church. Over time, education acquired an increasingly secular character, religious texts in textbooks gave way to everyday, everyday topics. The integrative presentation of foreign-language texts related to the spiritual and everyday life of students characterizes the educational books on the French language of the late XVIII century, in connection with which it can be stated that the teaching of everyday communication was combined with religious and moral education.

British Antislavery and West Africa

Resistance to slavery within African societies was as complex and heterogeneous as slavery itself. For enslaved Africans and their descendants taken by force to Europe’s colonies in the Americas, antislavery was an existential struggle. Among European states, Britain was among the first imperial powers to pass laws abolishing its slave trade (in 1807) and slavery in its colonies (in 1833). Antislavery was a transnational phenomenon, but Britain made suppressing the Atlantic slave trade an element of its foreign policy, employing a Royal Navy squadron to search for slave ships, pressing African leaders to sign anti-slave-trade treaties as a condition of trade and coordinating an international network of anti-slave-trade courts. And yet, for many leading British abolitionists, “Africa” was an ideological sandbox—an imagined blank space for speculation and experiment on the development of human societies and the progress of “civilization.” In the 18th century, early British critics of the transatlantic slave trade argued that “Africa” presented an unparalleled commercial and imperial opportunity. Although the slave trade—and the plantations in the Americas that slave ships supplied with labor—were profitable, some argued that slave-trading regions could, with enough investment, produce goods and commodities that would be many times more lucrative. Moreover, if Britain were the first European power to abolish the slave trade, it might also be among the first to gain a territorial foothold on African soil. Over time, these arguments coalesced into the concept of “legitimate commerce.” A combination of Christian teaching, slave-trade suppression, and commercial incentives would persuade slave-trading polities to give up the practice and instead produce other goods. Legitimate commerce intertwined with a theory of civilization that held that any society that enslaved people was so degenerate in its social development that nearly any reform or intervention was justifiable. By the end of the 19th century, antislavery became a justification for European conquest. There were at least three broad reform projects launched by British officials and merchants in Africa in the name of antislavery. First, drawing on critiques of the slave trade from the 18th century that emphasized the commercial potential of legitimate commerce, antislavery activists and politicians argued for replacing the slave trade with new kinds of export-oriented commerce. Second, in two colonies, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Britain and the United States experimented with the possibility of using Black people from the African diaspora as settlers and missionaries. In Sierra Leone, more than seventy thousand people, usually known as “Liberated Africans,” were repatriated from slave ships into the small colony. Third, in the mid-19th century, as the transatlantic slave trade declined, Britain and other European powers invested heavily in African plantation agriculture, particularly in cotton and palm oil monocrops.

Prologue I

Prologue I, God and Buckley at Yale (1951); Prologue II, Henry Sloan Coffin’s Yale (1897); Prologue III, Yale Embattled: Noah Porter versus William Graham Sumner (1880). Three historical vignettes in reverse historical order suggest changing stages regarding how Christianity might be related to a modern university. William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale (1951) challenged the university’s claims to be Christian. Defenders of Yale dismissed any anti-Christian influences in the curriculum as matters of academic freedom and pointed to the extracurricular religious influences at the university. When William Sloan Coffin (’97), who chaired a special committee to answer Buckley, was a student, a broad character-oriented Protestantism held a respected place among Yale students and faculty. Going back to 1880, though, it was no longer possible for the Yale President to insist on Christian teaching, as President Noah Porter discovered in his efforts to restrict the teachings of Social Darwinist William Graham Sumner. Despite the imminent disappearance of explicit Christian influences in public culture, it was possible with the broadened definition of religion to see the situation as the spread of religious enlightenment.

CHRISTIAN-ANTHROPOLOGY IDEA OF EDUCATION IN MODERN RESEARCHES

Обоснована христианско-антропологическая идея воспитания как приоритетная научно-педагогическая проблема. Фундаментальные положения христианского учения о человеке в современных исследованиях выполняют миссию антропологического основания православной педагогики. Православная антропология в научной литературе рассматривается в качестве методологической и аксиологической основы православной педагогической культуры. Представлены взаимосвязи христианской антропологии и гуманитарно-антропологического подхода в образовании, православной антропологии и педагогической антропологии. The Christian-anthropological idea of education is substantiated as a priority scientific and pedagogical problem. In modern researches the fundamental ideas of the Christian teaching on the human person fulfill the mission the anthropological foundation of Orthodox pedagogy. Orthodox anthropology is considered as the methodological and axiological basis of Orthodox pedagogical culture in scientific literature. The connections are presented: between Christian anthropology and the humanitarian-anthropological approach in education and between Orthodox anthropology and pedagogical anthropology.