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Opening address at the Symposium on Saami religion arranged by the Donner Institute 16-18 August 1984
No full textThis paper is based on the words of welcome to the symposium on Saami Religion
Methodological remarks on studying prehistoric Greek religion
No full textThis paper presents a methodological approach to the study of Greek religion of the period which lacks written documents, i.e. prehistory. The assumptions and interpretations of religion of that time have to be based on archaeological material. How do we define religion and cultic activity on the basis of primary archaeological material from this period, and which are the methodological tools for this difficult task? By asking questions on the nature and definition of religion and culture scholars of religion have provided us with some methodological apparatus to approach religion of the past in general, but there are models developed by archaeologists as well. Critical combination of these methodological tools leads to the best possible result. Archaeology studies the material culture of the past. History of religion studies the spiritual culture of the past. In the background the two have important theoretical and even philosophical speculations since they both deal with meanings (of things or practices) and with interpretation
Visiting Ground Zero: sacred echoes in secular rites
No full textFor the past several years since September 11, 2001, large numbers of people from across the continent and around the world have visited the site of the devastated World Trade Center in New York. Scholars in religious studies and the social sciences have noticed that there were and continue to be (though less so over time) religious aspects to the observances and performances of visitors to ‘Ground Zero’, as the site of the former World Trade Center almost immediately came to be called. A central argument of this article is that the ongoing stream of visitors to Ground Zero, strictly speaking, does not qualify this phenomenon as a pilgrimage in the traditional religious sense; it is more akin to the growing phenomenon of religious tourism, although it is not exactly that either. Nonetheless the event of 9/11 generated many ritualized activities; the article will also address the process scholars call ‘ritualization’ and related terms in ritual studies. Although ritualized performances at Ground Zero do not amount to a pilgrimage in the narrow sense that historians of religion mean when they analyse traditional pilgrimages, such as the Hajj to Mecca, or following the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, visiting Ground Zero has taken on both secular and religious elements
Children of God in Bergen
No full textThe founder of the movement Children of God, David Berg, was born in Melrose, Oakland, Calif. on the 18th of February 1919. In 1969 the first congress takes place in Laurentide near Montreal. Here the followers of Berg establish themselves as a religious group. Bishops and elders were elected, Berg is called Moses, under which name he was referred to in the revelations of some of his young followers. The group is called Children of God, a name first used by a journalist and then adopted by them. The missionary efforts of the group are mainly directed towards the younger generation. Usually the members are in their late teens and early twenties. When joining the movement, they forsake everything. That means they leave school or universities, they give up other forms of training, they don't continue with their jobs and they leave their homes. They live together in communes, or as they prefer to call it "Christian house”. In 1972 the movement reached Europe. A colony was founded in London, and from there they proceeded to Oslo
The problem of Millenarism
No full textThe myth of the recurrence of the golden age after a period of accelerating miseries ("messianic woes") in the near future is of course not peculiar to the chiliasm of the European later middle ages. On the contrary, it belongs to the basic eschatological themes of millenarism in general. These themes are found also in Hindu tradition. To determine those general characteristics of traditional Hindu society which can contribute to an explanation of the relative unimportance of peasant rebellions and the lack of chiliastic mass movements, is not a problem to be solved within the field of the history of religions. For example, the egalitarian message of the bhakti saints, disputing the hierarchy, did not preclude that the salvationist sects did adapt to the caste system. The religious movements contributed to and gave ideological form to adjustments within the existing social structure. Obviously there was little need for millenarism in this process.
Foreign influences on the idea of God in African religion: some remarks on a great problem
No full textThe study of primitive peoples has often neglected influences from the environments. The sociologists and the anthropologists regard the influence as a concrete fact that is taken in account with regard to the behaviour. They have—as a rule—no interest in studying the historical development. They take facts as they meet them in life. Studying African religions we must bear in mind that the influences of missions, for example Christian and Muslim, are clear among many of the African peoples. Therefore a study of foreign influences upon African religions is necessary in order to provide an analysis and an understanding of the contemporary religious situation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of foreign religions on the God-idea in order to see if the Christian or Muslim ideas of God are reflected in the indigenous religions of Africa
Darsan (to See) Lord Shiva in Varanasi. Visual Processes and the Representation of God by Seven Ricksha-Drivers
No full textIn spite of its effort to be transculturally relevant, the psychology of religion is quite ethno- or rather Western-centric. This becomes very clear when one tries to "translate" Indian folk religiosity into concepts taken from mainline theories; i.e. social, cognitive or psychoanalytical psychology of religion. Not only do the norms and values differ, but the very ontological assumptions underlying the categories in which the researcher understand differs fundamentally from the internal Hindu anthropological and epistemiological apriori. For example, their words of the psyche include contextuality, from time to space, to ethics to groups. The subtle interrelatedness of the divine, spiritual and the mundane is obvious It includes the flows and exchanges of substances within and between persons with minimal outer boundaries. The author discusses the role of the visual and behavioural dimensions of the Indian religiosity
The Saami drums and the religious encounter in the 17th and 18th centuries
No full textFrom the end of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century much of the confrontation between indigenous Saami religion and Christianity was focused on the drums. The Saamis of both Denmark—Norway and Sweden—Finland had been christianized for decade. The main problem for the Church authorities turned out to be that of making the Saamis abandon their indigenous religious customs. From the end of the 17th century, an intense period of propaganda and coercion began to make the Saamis abandon these non Christian elements in their religion. For the Saamis, the drums represented their threatened culture, the resistance against the Christian claim to exclusiveness, and a striving to preserve traditional values. The drums had a twofold role to play in the religious encounter. They were both foci of the confrontation and sources documenting and structuring it. The fight between old and new beliefs is to some extent possible to follow in the records from the district and county courts. These records give us access to Saami arguments and views of the importance of the drums in Saami society. The function of the drums as instruments for a Saami description of the encounter is, however, difficult to make out. The drum figures are difficult to interpret and there are a number of alternative ways of understanding their meaning
Personal piety in Nordic heathenism
No full textUsually, Nordic heathenism is thought of as a fairy-tale or as an impersonal, collective event. Sacrifice (blót) and ethics appear to be the main facts. Was there anything at all like piety, and could it, in this case, be spoken of as personal? The inhabitant of the North stands out as a more collectively thinking person, attached to dynasty, housecarls and family. However, there are a couple of examples in the texts of a "personal faith" and an interest in "the individual or his soul or destiny". It is quite clear, that the collective and impersonal traits in old Norse religion were far more prominent than in the religious currents of today, but there was in Nordic paganism a personal piety, too. It appeared not only in personal opinion and personal means of expression, but also in daily life as well. The single peasant, Viking, fisherman, artisan, housewife, was in his or her everyday work totally dependent on the blessing of the gods and on protection from the attacks of the demons. He who succeeded enjoyed this personal success because of personal sacrifices, personal fortune and personal blessing
Conflict and concord on the Internet: selvet.dk
No full textThe Internet epitomizes globalization. Spanning most of the globe, yet leaving out the most marginalized populations, it reproduces the power structures and inequalities of the world at large. Nevertheless, as technologies become more widely available and more user-friendly, there is the potential to interact on an unprecedented scale with people of other nationalities, backgrounds and religious affiliations. Interaction may, of course, foster dialogue, but can also lead to polemics and aggressive behaviour. In discussion groups, Internet forums where opinions are exchanged, the potential for disagreement is evident. In a sensitive area such as religion, the risk of conflict is obviously present. People in different localities, who may well never meet face-to-face, and who do not even need to present themselves on-line under their real names, might in fact find it particularly tempting to handle conflict situations by using verbal invective. This risk is recognized by Internet users, who have adopted the militant metaphor ‘flame war’ to denote such excessive verbal aggression. Most research on religion on the Internet has focused on the use of this medium within one particular religious tradition, usually Christian or Muslim. Considerably less attention has been devoted to the question of what happens when members of different traditions interact and confront the opinions of others. The present article looks at some of the ways in which potential conflicts in this confrontation between various traditions are managed. The empirical material analysed has been chosen with one main objective in mind: the need to find a discussion group where people of sufficiently divergent opinions meet. The Danish site selvet.dk is a forum where people of quite different persuasions meet, and thus need to work out a modus vivendi when sharp divergences become manifest