Åbo Akademi: Open Journal Systems
Not a member yet
892 research outputs found
Sort by
The new in the religious movements among Zulu and Swazi
No full textWhat was new in the Early Christian Church? Is it not a fact that continuity with the Old Testament background dominated? The first Christians were Jews; their Holy Book was the "Old" Testament; they honoured the Torah; and felt at the Sabbath at home in the Temple. All this goes to show that nothing, perhaps, was new. Yet, to the early Christians everything was, in fact, new. This same tension can be discerned in the modern Christian prophet movements in Africa. All of us who have tried to interpret aspects of this movement were intent on proving that what was new was in fact—the Old. Within the apparently Christian Church the old traditional African patterns showed through and dominated. If "magic" was found to have been smelled out, this was mentioned only in order to show how the particular group was dominated by fear of magic. In studying the "blend of old and new" in the movements it was easy to suggest that the interesting aspect was role of traditional values, dressed up in new forms.
The political suspension of ethics: proposals for a historical study of reversal of values in a situation of martial conflict in Lanka
No full textThe overall aim of this project is to focus on the general socio-economic and political conditions leading to martial conflict in relation to religious and secular values, value systems and ideologies in Īlam/Lankā, with special regard to their transformation. It deals with the extent of reversal and re-reversal in the course of the conflict and reconciliation respectively. These values are reversed through political decisions in a martial situation. It is true that martial conflicts arise over the distribution of resources and territory and not over theological issues. When, however, religion is placed in a martial context and related to the interests of one group, then even a sophisticated theology can take the form of an identity-bestowing ideology and adopt martial doctrines such as the concept of just war. Territorial and social definitions of citizenship are replaced by definitions relating to sacred boundaries. Christianity may turn into German Christianity or Serbian Christianity, Hinduism into Hindūtva and Buddhism into Sinhalatva. The overall martial context is finally symbolised in religion as an identity marker alongside sacralisation of language, history, and territory, etc. This martial context generates a religious surplus even within secular ideologies and leads both to a suspension and a reversal of values in established religions. The proponents are ideologues, including monks and priests, and politicians in the widest sense. They become warmongers in a martial situation, where they become ‘authentic’ and authoritative. In a non-war situation they are marginalised as extremists. During war, they suspend fundamental human values, but they ‘suspend’ in the specifically German (Hegelian) sense of aufheben, meaning to elevate, to save and to call off. They do not annihilate these values, only to recall and retrieve them during truces and cease-fires, in situations of non-war, and diplomatic or ecumenical encounters, or during academic conferences. In times of martial conflict, ideologues, as advocates of war, actualize ways of integrating violence into non-violent traditions. In this article five ways of rationalizing violence, which have global parallels in martial societies, are referred to. The first way is the well-known and popular reasoning about the holy ‘end’ that justifies the less holy ‘means’; the second line of reasoning points to an alleged connection between present and past ideal persons or events; the third way of rationalizing violence introduces a de-eschatologizing distinction between preliminary and final ‘ends’; a ourth way is to make a distinction between an elite and the common people; the latter are allegedly not capable of following the noble principles of the elite; a fifth and final method, which is rather unsophisticated, is historical revisionism
Dance as Aggressiveness
No full textThe woman who founded Tenho-kötai-jingii-kyö, Kitamura Sayo (1900-1967), publicly announced in July 1945 that the world was coming to an end and that she had been chosen by the absolute deity Tensho Kotai Jingu to be the savior of the world. People began to gather to her banner, a religious organization was formed, and legal incorporation of the group as a religious juridical person took place in January 1947. Teaching that regret, desire, hatred, love and other emotional antipathies were the cause of all misfortune, the founder urged people to free themselves of such restraints by praying earnestly until they attained a state in which the self was completely forgotten. Since the members of the group perform a ritual dance and fall into an ecstatic condition at the group meetings, the movement is called the Dancing Religion.
Religion and diet in a multi-religious city: a comprehensive study regarding interreligious relations in Tbilisi in everyday life and on feast days
No full textThis article deals with the importance of foodways among the believers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, both on feast days and in daily life. It takes the form of an interdisciplinary survey in which interviews and written sources are used as well as personal observations from people living within the city
Body-mind unity and the spiritual dimension of Modern Postural Yoga
No full textThis article is concerned with the connection between body and mind that the practice of yoga is expected to develop and it aims specifically to examine the relationship between this body–mind connection and the spiritual dimension of yoga practice. The article particularly focuses on contemporary forms of yoga. Since these forms feature predominantly the practice of yoga postures or asanas, the term Modern Postural Yoga is employed.The phenomenological approach renders yoga ahistorical and ostensibly concentrates on the individual and her experience. The cultural materialist viewpoint cannot account for the ways in which yoga can act as a technique for empowerment and spiritual cultivation. More importantly, both currents seem to exist as possibilities within the same class,even within the same body
Protestant pilgrimage to Jerusalem: preparations for the kingdom of God in apocalyptic rhetoric strategy
No full textThe vast majority of sacred shrines and holy sites host pilgrims united by strong degrees of cultural homogeneity. But Jerusalem differs on this point- it draws pilgrims from a vast multitude of nations and cultural traditions since the city is considered holy by three major religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The representatives of these traditions go partly to different places at different times where they are engaged in different forms of worship. Often these visits are marked by clashes at the holy places. The notion of Jerusalem in religious belief is constructed by the transmission of various representations concerned with the image of the city. For Western Christianity today, Jerusalem is not only important because of the things which Jesus of Nazareth, according to the tradition, did there. For many Christians Jerusalem is vitally important because of the apocalyptic promise Jesus left his followers with: I'll be back! Therefore, the position of Jerusalem in the religious end-time play is crucial, since apocalyptic representations of the New Jerusalem motivate contemporary believers to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and to partake actively in political disputes about the Israeli—Palestinian conflict
Queen Christina’s esoteric interests as a background to her Platonic Academies
No full textIn 1681 the blind quietist, Francois Malaval, stated that Queen Christina of Sweden late in life had ‘given up’ [Hermes] Trismegistos and the Platonists, in favour of the Church fathers. The statement does not explain what role the Church fathers were to play in her last years, but it does show that Christina really had been interested in the rather elitist and esoteric doctrine of Hermetic Platonic Christianity. In this article the author looks at her library to show the depth of this Hermetic involvement. Her interest serves as a background to her life as ex-queen in Italy after her famous abdication from the Swedish throne in 1654, when she was 27 years old
'Our queen of hearts' - the glorification of Lady Diana Spencer: a critical appraisal of the glorification of celebrities and new pilgrimage
No full textReligiosity and spirituality respectively have always been and will be subject to change. The emergence of the manifold forms of new religious and spiritual movements in the last century includes a variety of cult-like venerations of specific individuals, such as politicians (e.g. Mao, Lenin) and modern idols (e.g. Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson), who are glorified like saints. Devotees gather annually for memorials of their departed idols or travel long distances to visit the tomb, former home, etc. of a specific person to pay tribute to him or her. Due to the motivations of these devotees, the trouble they take, the practices and the tangible emotionality that are connected with this phenomenon, it can be considered a form of pilgrimage. This article presents some thoughts about the glorification of celebrities which leads to these considerable forms of cult and pilgrimage, using as an example the case of Lady Diana Frances Spencer (d. 1997)
Singing of incantations in Nordic tradition
No full textSpoken recitation became established as the mode of delivering the Finnish incantation. The ordinary incantations connected with everyday life in agrarian society were recited with little ceremony, in a mumble, a whisper. Finnish researchers of folk belief have described the incantation as a genre characterised by spoken delivery and a verbatim adherence to a traditional scheme. The European incantations noted down in the past few centuries are indeed formulae with a seemingly mechanical effect. The performer aims not at personal contact with the other world or an opponent, but believes rather that he will achieve his goal through his command of secret knowledge and magic techniques. Anyone is capable of reciting an incantation, and the mode of delivery is of no vital significance. This description, however, only partially corresponds to the essence of the Finnish incantation tradition. The incantations of Eastern Finland differ from those of the western tradition in their breadth and wordiness. They have also been characterised by a wealth of variation. These characteristics are reinforced by the tietäjä institution which persisted late in the area. From what we know of the tietäjä's behaviour, the incantation uttered in a normal speaking voice is a late phenomenon. It also appears that the Eastern Finnish and Karelian tietäjä institution in particular retained elements of the pre-Christian, Scandinavian belief tradition longer than any other
Ritual Change in a Turkish Alevi Village
No full textThis study is a documentation and analysis of change in ritual in the village of Sarilar, on the west bank of the Euphrates River near Yavuseli, Gaziantep. The research problem posed was identification of ritual change within the consultants' memory and some tentative ways of situating such change within the socio-economic context. The mysticism of the dervish lodge remains as a certain life attitude along with the new views of modernization that have been so well inculcated. Although modernization, at least in the Turkish Alevi context, tends to conflict with the mystical experience of the Bektashi dervish in some areas, a democratized inner core remains