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Journal of Religious History The Journal of Religious History is an international, fully refereed journal which publishes articles and reviews current work in the history of religions and their relationship with all aspects of human experience. With high quality international contributors, the journal explores religion and its related subjects, along with debates on comparative method and theory in religious history. Triennially: February, June, October "The Old Vexed Question:" Divergent Attitudes and Practices in the Sacred Music of Early Ballarat
When gold was discovered at Ballarat in 1851, the peaceful pastoral community was transformed into a rough mining camp. People from all parts of the world came in search of wealth, bringing with them a diversity of cultural and spiritual affiliations. As the musical life of the various denominational groups developed according to specific doctrinal principles and local influences, strong opinions were expressed in the community regarding the place of music in worship. This article looks at the developments in sacred music during the two decades that saw Ballarat transformed into a major city. The strong differences in discourse and practice that were evident between and within particular religious groups form a background for reflecting upon contemporary perceptions of the function of music in worship. Volume 33 Issue 4 (December 2009) - pp. 401-417 The Church of England and the Origins of Homosexual Law Reform
That the Church of England was an active and public supporter of homosexual law reform during the long debate on the issue in England between 1957 and 1967 is reasonably well known. It released reports and documents justifying and arguing for decriminalisation, and its bishops in the House of Lords were among those voting in favour in 1965. In this article, relying upon archival materials that have been only rarely used, I demonstrate that the Church's support went much deeper than is often assumed. Beginning in 1952, a process of theological reconsideration and behind the scenes lobbying lead by a relatively small group of thinkers made the Church an initiator in the reform process. Relying upon Rochon's notion of a "critical community," I offer a description and explanation for the Church's role. Volume 33 Issue 4 (December 2009) - pp. 418-434 "Moral Panic" or Pejorative Labelling? Rethinking the Mazengarb Inquiry into Underage Sex in the Hutt Valley in 1954
This article re-examines the interpretation of widespread concern over significant underage sex in the Hutt Valley, Wellington, which resulted in a government inquiry in 1954. It challenges the typical "moral panic" interpretive lens concerning the inquiry, arguing that the term obscures more than it reveals. The term focuses on reaction to the Hutt Valley affair but fails to address sufficiently the causative question of why such concern existed in the first place. The "moral panic" framing of the Hutt Valley incidents has failed to give adequate recognize that the developments were early indicators of increasing societal shifts that threatened long-held public views on sexuality; that manifest, societal, sexuality values changes in the next two decades showed that concerned people of 1954 were right within the framework of their worldview to have such concern; and that the so-called "moral panic" concern of 1954 already existed prior to the Hutt Valley disclosures. Volume 33 Issue 4 (December 2009) - pp. 435-451 Between Religion and Superstition: Buddhism and Daoism in Guangzhou, China, 1900–1937
This paper illustrates how Buddhist and Daoist monasteries in Guangzhou, with their legal religious status, situated themselves within the new concept of the modern nation-state, and how the distinction between religion and superstition affected ordinary people's religious lives. There were inherent tensions between religion and the modern nation-state, and the survival of Buddhism and Daoism was determined by their subordination to the state ideology and to political authorities' regulation. However, the government did not regulate the form of worship in government-approved religious sites. Due to the syncretic nature of Chinese religion, the select few of the Buddhist and Daoist monasteries in Guangzhou, with government recognition as symbols of "true religions," paradoxically served as a protective umbrella for the people to carry on with their "superstitious" practices. At the level of praxis, the line between religion and superstition was not as distinguishable as the government had envisioned. Volume 33 Issue 4 (December 2009) - pp. 452-471 Conversion by the Numbers: Benefits and Pitfalls of Quantitative Modelling in the Study of Early Christian Growth
Proponents and critics of numerically modelling early Christian growth have missed many complexities of this approach. This study re-examines quantitative modelling by conducting "thought experiments," built from initial assumptions to population projections. First, an "apostolic mission" model assumes that Christianity grew via persuasive leaders; it projects a cubic growth curve. Second, a "values reproduction" model ties higher reproduction and conversion to certain Christian values; it projects an exponential curve. Next, a "social reaction" model links growth to interconfessional interactions; it projects a logistic curve. Such formal models reveal numerical parameters of conversion and the impact of various assumptions. Together, they illustrate the variability of early Christian population projections. They also showcase limitations of traditional quantitative modelling, which tends to oversimplify social conditions, to mischaracterise ancient religion, and to inspire teleological reasoning. Newer "network" models can overcome only some of these limitations. Used carefully, however, quantitative methods supplement familiar socio-cultural approaches. Volume 33 Issue 4 (December 2009) - pp. 472-498 "Desperate Fighting at the Cape": The Salvation Army's Arrival and Earliest Work in Late-Victorian Cape Town
Many scholars writing on colonial themes have associated the early Salvation Army with imperialism and related ideologies. Historians of Victorian Cape Town have been no exception. Their research has essentially identified the organisation with the imperial concerns of the city and its dominant middle-class culture. While there is some truth to this assessment, especially after the Army adopted an extensive social scheme in 1890, the earliest efforts of Salvationists at the Cape were often defined by very different objectives. The military-clad Salvationists arriving in Cape Town in 1883 owed something to a colonial age, but their sensational methods of evangelism quickly angered the local authorities. Despite sharing a bourgeois interest in temperance, the Army's working-class followers also received little support from the middle classes. Animated by a revivalism that violated conventional notions of religion, gender, and race, its pioneers in South Africa possessed few ties to imperialism or middle-class ideology. Volume 33 - Issue 3 - September 2009 - pp. 265-284 Theological Innovation from Spiritual Experience: Henry Alline's Anti-Calvinism in Late Eighteenth-Century Nova Scotia and New England
The strident anti-Calvinism of Nova Scotian revivalist Henry Alline (1748–1784), who left a substantial mark on the religious landscape of Nova Scotia and parts of New England, has been noted but largely neglected by historians. This article investigates Alline's anti-Calvinism and concludes that it is best explained as arising from his own interpretation of his vivid spiritual experiences, particularly his dramatic conversion. Rather than simply rejecting Calvinist theology in favour of an emotive, experiential religion, however, Alline drew on his experiences to formulate an alternative anti-Calvinist theology. Alongside other examples from the period, Alline's case suggests that evangelical "democratization" of popular religion in the eighteenth-century transatlantic revivals could result in theological innovation rather than the abandonment of theology. Volume 33 - Issue 3 - September 2009 - pp. 285-300 The Barony and the Churches of Late Nineteenth Century Glasgow
The Barony Parish Church was one of the most important churches in nineteenth century Scotland partly due to its history, size, and location at the heart of the "second city" of the Empire and its Minister, Norman MacLeod. Its congregation represented every tier of Glasgow society in terms of social class and gender and as such, throws light on the more general debates on religion and society in nineteenth century Britain. When compared with other churches and denominations in Glasgow, it builds a more general picture of church and people in the city. The picture drawn reveals a complex pattern of adherence varying between individuals and families. An over emphasis on secular reasons for church membership ignores the important role of faith in determining patterns of adherence. Family letters, diaries, and journals often reveal a deep-seated faith and critical reflections on the preaching of the Word. Volume 33 - Issue 3 - September 2009 - pp. 301-327 Missions on the Frontiers of Spanish America
This article examines missions as a colonial institution on the fringes of Spanish America. The Spanish Crown employed the mission as a cost-effective form of converting to Catholicism native peoples living on the frontiers of Spanish America, and incorporating them into the new colonial social and economic order. The article compares missions in northern Mexico, the Río de la Plata region, and eastern Bolivia. Volume 33 - Issue 3 - September 2009 - pp. 328-347 Utopians at the Parliament: The World's Parliament of Religions and the Columbian Exposition of 1893
This article examines the Columbian Exposition and World's Parliament of Religions, both held in Chicago in 1893. While both events drew on nineteenth-century beliefs in the superiority of Western Christianity, they reflect divergent views on technology, social inequality, and urban reform. The Exposition's "White City" offered visitors a temporary, otherwordly escape, whereas the World's Parliament emphasized the importance and possibility of concrete solutions to social problems. As such, these events express radically different forms of utopian speculation in Gilded-Age America. Volume 33 - Issue 3 - September 2009 - pp. 348-365 Performing Buddhist Modernity: The Lumbini Festival, Tokyo 1925
This paper looks at the 1920s Tokyo transformation of hanamatsuri (the celebration of the Buddha's birthday) from a local observance to a mass public spectacle. The Lumbini Festival was a performance of Buddhist modernity orchestrated to promote links between Japan and Asia and present Japan as leader of Asia. The Lumbini Festival appeared in 1925, the same year as did the Young East, an English language journal published in Tokyo to promote the trans-Asian Buddhist fellowship. Neither was a state initiative, but both nevertheless contributed to the formation and naturalisation of links between Japan and its Asian neighbours and the development of the Japanese empire. The Lumbini festival naturalised Buddhist brotherhood in Tokyo; the Young East, by reporting it through Asia and the West, promoted ideas of their shared Buddhist heritage, and of a Buddhist basis for social reform and Asian modernity. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 133-148 Nagarjuna and the Tathagatagarbha: A Closer Look at Some Peculiar Features in the Niraupamyastava
This article examines several verses from the Niraupamyastava, where Nagarjuna makes explicit references to the non-empty aspects of the doctrine of emptiness—a topic systematized and crystallized in the doctrine of Tathagatagarbha, thought to have appeared later than his date and to have been unknown to him. Establishing the authenticity of the hymn, in addition to the criteria utilized by Lindtner, the article analyses the style and the relationship of the text with texts belonging to other schools, thus locating Nagarjuna in his historical and temporal context. The article also brings into focus the overlooked or marginalized topics present in Nagarjuna's texts such as the practice of devotion and visualization of the Buddha as method for realizing emptiness. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 149-164 "Proto–Tantric" Elements in The Gandavyuha-sutra
Although a Mahayana sutra, the Gandavyuha clearly contains a number of elements that seem to presage the "tantric" phase in Indian Buddhism. In particular, the sutra contains four components worthy of note: elaborate scenes detailing what can best be understood as mandalas, a soteriology based on absolute faith in the spiritual guides, a strong insinuation of organisational esotericism, and the hint of sexual yoga. After briefly summarising some recent scholarship on the Gandavyuha, the author addresses each of the four "proto-tantric" components in detail. Following this, the author concludes with the suggestion that despite the inherent difficulties in developing a relative chronology of Indian Buddhist literature, close readings such as provided in this article may be useful in generating data sets, which can then be used to relate Indian Buddhist texts to each other. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 165-177 Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Theodore Stcherbatsky, and Tibetan Tradition on the Place of the Absolute in Yogacara Buddhism
This paper examines the contrasting approaches to the study of Buddhism of two great early twentieth-century Buddhologists, Louis de La Vallée Poussin and Theodore Stcherbatsky. La Vallée Poussin understood Buddhism primarily as 'religion' and saw philosophic methods as subsumed in the religious experience of salvation; Stcherbatsky, coming from the Russian school, which had direct contact with Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism, saw Buddhism primarily as 'philosophy' and emphasised critical enquiry and logical consistency. The paper explores how this influenced their understanding of the place of the absolute in Buddhism generally and in Yogacara Buddhism in particular. It compares their disagreement to differences at the heart of Tibetan scholasticism evident in the writings of Dolpopa (1292–1361) and Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) over the proper interpretation of Yogacara. The paper also explores implications of the legacy of these two scholars for recent Western scholarship and for the understanding of Yogacara. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 178-197 Using Skilful Means Skilfully: The Buddhist Doctrine of Upaya and Its Methodological Implications
This article concerns itself with the Buddhist doctrine of upaya ("skilful means"). Rather than provide a historical analysis of the concept, this paper first of all outlines some of the presuppositions that affect both its working in a traditional Buddhist context and its interpretation in modern academic enquiry. It is argued that these contexts differ significantly and that they lead to quite different understandings of the role and function of the concept itself. Then, through reference to the Tibetan dGe lugs pa tradition and the background of Tibetan doxography, it is suggested that there are certain dangers in over-emphasizing the concept of upaya in isolation. Most notably, if the doctrine of upaya is simplistically posited as some sort of aphilosophical praxis against rational enquiry, then there is a danger of not taking the tradition's own scholastic endeavours seriously enough and downplaying the status of rational enquiry in the tradition itself. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 198-214 Dhammapada Traditions and Translations
The Dhammapada is probably the most frequently translated Buddhist text in the world today. This article looks at the history of translations of the Dhammapada since it was first translated into English in the nineteenth century. I start by comparing the little known first English translation by Daniel Gogerly from 1840 with the influential 1870 translation by Max Müller. The paper then examines the main translations which have appeared since the mid-twentieth century. I show how they represent Buddhist, Hindu and other views on the Dhammapada and that they continue to be influenced by the pioneering nineteenth-century translations. I argue that translations of the Dhammapada are conditioned not only by the viewpoints of the translators but also by the existence of a tradition of translating the Dhammapada. Both factors I conclude have contributed to the importance placed on the Dhammapada as a representative Buddhist text. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 215-234 New Perspectives on the English Reformation
The historiography of the English Reformation has been driven by several key themes for three or four decades: the chronology of religious change and the success or failure of Protestantism to establish itself, the position of Puritanism vis-à-vis Church conformity, the role of Arminianism (anti-Calvinism) in doctrinal and ecclesiological debates and its impact on ecclesiastical politics and, more latterly, the continuities of ideas and beliefs between medieval Catholicism and Reformation Protestantism. This survey article on six new books in the field of Reformation studies argues that while the current historiography is generating very exciting work on the religious mentalité of early-modern English people and the transmission of ideas across the Catholic-Protestant divide, as well as generating a thriving debate on Calvinist consensus (or not) and the rise of Arminianism (or not), there are further rich seams to mine that incorporate gender into the analysis and that add the Atlantic World perspective to that of the European context for Reformation. Volume 33 - Issue 2 - June 2009 - pp. 235-253 Reading the Body: Mystical Theology and Spiritual Actualisation in Early Seventeenth-Century Lima
In early seventeenth-century Lima, Peru, female visionaries composed texts of their bodies, and texts composed their bodies. This fact can be explained, in part, by the belief that an individual could gain access to and appropriate the language of God (His spiritus) in distinct ways. Mystical narratives, stigmata, as well as the spoken words of enraptured visionaries communicating with absent souls were considered readable texts because the object to be read could be a book, a painting, or the body itself. Thus the reading of, and listening to, texts was parallel to Lima's visionaries entering a state of spiritual ecstasy (arrobamiento), and "reading" their bodies as living books, which perforce became a readable space. Volume 33 - Issue 1 - March 2009 - pp. 1-27 "The Evil State of Tepidity": Mass-Going and Absenteeism in Nineteenth-Century Australian Ecclesiastical Discourse
This paper sets out to explore how the Australian Catholic Church's perceptions of Mass-going and absenteeism evolved in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. By examining the Lenten pastorals of Archbishop John Polding of Sydney, along with various mission sermons, the paper argues that a decisive shift is discernible after the 1860s. Where previous emphasis had fallen on absenteeism as a breakdown in the individual's relationship with God, later understandings introduced a dominant ecclesial imperative: Catholics who failed to attend Mass were also weakening the Church and effectively aiding hostile secular and Protestant forces arrayed against her. This shift was itself the product of a critical transformation in the field of ecclesiastical discourse as it gravitated inexorably towards more agonistic expressions. Volume 33 - Issue 1 - March 2009 - pp. 28-48 The Evangelical Alliance, Religious Liberty, and the Evangelical Conscience in Nineteenth-Century Britain
This article explores the difficulties nineteenth-century British evangelical ecumenists faced as they attempted to develop distinctive practical initiatives that could commend widespread support across the denominational spectrum. In particular, it focuses on the nascent Evangelical Alliance's growing concern to promote religious liberty overseas. By following the debates within the Alliance about the need to pursue religious liberty and attending to the obstacles preventing such a course of action this article suggests the need to distinguish between a qualified agenda committed to securing religious rights (religious liberty) and a broader agenda committed to securing political rights (religious equality). By favouring the former, the Evangelical Alliance succeeded in developing a distinctively pan-evangelical initiative that commended relatively widespread support. Thus evangelical concern for religious liberty must be distinguished from the distinctively Nonconformist promotion of religious equality. Volume 33 - Issue 1 - March 2009 - pp. 49-65 Austen Henry Layard's Nineveh: The Bible and Archaeology in Victorian Britain Timothy Larsen
In the middle of the nineteenth century, Austen Henry Layard uncovered parts of several ancient, buried Assyrian cities, including the capital, Nineveh, and dragged sizeable bits of them back to the British Museum. His book, Nineveh and Its Remains (1849), was a Victorian sensation. This article explores some aspects of Layard's book and discoveries that captured the Victorian imagination. Many were fascinated with Assyrian remains as they related to the history of art. Layard's work was also received as having helped to illuminate or even confirm the Bible. Although some statements by Layard had helped to fuel this interest, he was not personally an orthodox Christian. Despite having been standardly portrayed this way by scholars, these early archaeologists were not Christian apologists who exaggerated the scriptural connections of their discoveries. To the contrary, subsequent developments, particular the deciphering of the cuneiform writing, revealed that Layard and his follow pioneering Assyriologist, Henry Rawlinson, had underestimated the extent to which these findings related to stories in the Bible. Volume 33 - Issue 1 - March 2009 - pp. 66-81 After the Death of God: Postsecularity?
These recent volumes clearly show that the work of the recent generation of French philosophers, and the philosophy they continue to inspire, offer a splendid resource for theologians and theorists of religion. They stage a challenge to received divisions between philosophy and theology, deconstructing the secular/non-secular bifurcation on which they rest. In this vein, the contribution of the 'postsecularists' is to emphasise the centrality of issues of social justice at the heart of the religious sensibility. Volume 33 - Issue 1 - March 2009 - pp. 82-95 Horror Crime or Bad Habit? Blasphemy in Premodern Europe, 1200-1650
In public debates the issue of blasphemy is often marked as a modern phenomenon. In fact, blasphemous speech acts were also an integral part of everyday life in the Middle Ages and in Early Modern Europe. Cursing and swearing, oaths and other blasphemous utterances were used in all strata of society. While enraged preachers condemned this mortal sin and various laws threatened with capital punishment, the common practice was different as most blasphemies passed with minor punishments or even without any kind of prosecution. Attacks on the honour of God were constituent elements of everyday conflict behaviour. Blasphemy therefore must not be misinterpreted as indication of religious indifference or even unbelief, but rather as different usage of the religious sphere in premodern times. Volume 32 - Issue 4 - December 2008 - pp. 398-408 How Far Could Free Religious Thinking Go? The Case of Johann Rudolf Werdmüller, Zurich 1658
In 1658, Johann(es) Rudolf Werdmüller, a renowned Zurich general and diplomat, was accused of blasphemy. As it referred to essential religious matters, the accusation had a considerable public impact. The court files of the case provide evidence of wider battles over the desirability and nature of religious tolerance. Instead of narrating a case story this analysis suggests a different approach to the history of religion. The sources are not taken as documents expressing a discursive system of philosophical points of view and their appearance in religious polemics. Rather, the court files stand for specific speech acts, i.e. verbal performances in the linguistic sense. Thus, Werdmüller's example is taken to demonstrate that those considered to be blasphemers in the era of confessionalisation did not simply express religious scepticism in the form of "discourses," nor did they rebel against authority figures or resort to forms of magic. Rather, they provoked their society, discussed religious matters, entertained their audience and competed wittingly with those interested in religious issues. In conclusion, it is proposed that the history of religion should not be confined to a history of ideas and religious doctrines but should integrate linguistic approaches. Volume 32 - Issue 4 - December 2008 - pp. 409-421 Anti-Providentialism as Blasphemy in Late Stuart England: A Case Study of "the Stage Debate"
This article develops a cultural history of blasphemy as representation by exploring the nexus between conceptions and perceived manifestations of blasphemy in a theological context. Specifically it uses a case study of "the stage debate", a controversy about the viability of the theatre in England at the turn of the eighteenth century, to argue that contemporary perceptions of anti-providentialism informed a sense of practical blasphemy that was commensurate with the Thomistic conception of blasphemy as aggravated unbelief. This interpretation illuminates the theological sensitivity of contemporary godly critics to perceived instances of anti-providentialism and their belief in the actual diabolism of the theatre. Volume 32 - Issue 4 - December 2008 - pp. 422-438 "To Prostitute Morality, Libel Religion, and Undermine Government": Blasphemy and the Strange Persistence of Providence in Britain since the Seventeenth Century
This article looks at the long term history of blasphemy in Britain and its relationship to the phenomenon of providence from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth. This, it is suggested, has substantially dominated the appearance of blasphemy accusation and public concern linked to the moral security of the realm. Using sermons and didactic writing from the seventeenth century, the article demonstrates how conceptions of providence and blasphemy were linked to produce a forceful culture which protected rulers against challenges to the community. Using demonstrations of public opinion the article shows how in the twentieth century the providential fear of misfortune as a result of blasphemy became linked with issues of national safety and prosperity. The article concludes by suggesting that the link between blasphemy and providence enabled both to remain credible into the twentieth century and beyond, undermining many of the linear models of both secularization and the growth of rationality. Volume 32 - Issue 4 - December 2008 - pp. 439-456 Blasphemy in Early Modern Sweden - An Untold Story
In early modern Sweden, blasphemy was regarded as one of the most serious crimes one could commit. It was subject to the death penalty and was termed Crimen Laesae Majestatis Diviniae- a "crime against the heavenly majesty." In the period 1680-1789, 110 cases of blasphemy came before the Judiciary Inspectorate; these cases can be divided into the following categories: blasphemy against God, basphemy against the sacraments, deliberate assignations to the Devil, and other blasphemies. Of the 117 accused, only nine were women and a significant number were soldiers. Blasphemy could be regarded a common subgenre within an already oral military culture. Volume 32 - Issue 4 - December 2008 - pp. 457-470 "Visions on the Battlefields": Alexander A. Boddy, Early British Pentecostalism, and the First World War, 1914-1918
This article investigates the relationship between religion and politics in the First World War by examining the work of Rev. Alexander A. Boddy, a Church of England minister and key leader in early British Pentecostalism. The article surveys a wide variety of responses to the war in Great Britain, but focuses, in particular, on how Pentecostalism shaped Boddy's distinctive understanding of events, especially his view of supernatural phenomenon, his attitude toward the nations involved, and his eschatology. The article explores how Pentecostalism, by focusing on signs and wonders in everyday life, contributed to an interpretation of state politics and world events that placed unique emphasis on determining the role of the supernatural in contemporary events that remains part of popular Pentecostalism today. Volume 32 - Issue 3 - September 2008 - pp. 281-302 The Riddle of Ishtar's Shoes: The Religious Significance of the Footprints at 'Ain Dara from a Comparative Perspective
This essay analyzes the carved footprints in the Iron Age temple at 'Ain Dara, Syria from a broadly comparative perspective. This methodology is necessitated by the fact that footprint iconography is very rare in ancient Near Eastern art. The diverse examples utilized in this paper to help explicate the footprints at 'Ain Dara range from the Footprints of the Buddha (Buddhapadas) to the sullied feet of Jesus. Through analysis of footprint iconography in other religious contexts, I have drawn conclusions concerning the form and function of the temple footprints at 'Ain Dara that have escaped other scholars of the ancient Near East. Volume 32 - Issue 3 - September 2008 - pp. 303-319 Joining the Evangelical Club: The Movement of the Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia Along the Church-Sect Continuum
A number of North American Wesleyan-Holiness denominations emerged in Australia, beginning in the years following the Second World War. Some of these churches moved from being despised and marginalized sects to established denominations while others remained small and isolated, experiencing little growth. Their story demonstrates that movement along the church-sect continuum is by no means a smooth and inevitable one. Random processes may lower or raise religious tension within the group thus affecting its movement along the continuum. The strict behavioural standards in Wesleyan-Holiness churches have gradually been lowered and the distinctive beliefs of these groups have been eroded. Wesleyan-Holiness churches in Australia have grown primarily through "switchers" from other denominations more than from new convert growth, so that they have become more generically "Evangelical" and less distinctively "Holiness" in their beliefs and practices. Volume 32 - Issue 3 - September 2008 - pp. 320-344 John Milner and the Orthodox Cause
The study deals with Bishop John Milner, the English Catholic polemicist and historian, closely involved in affairs relating to the efforts to obtain Catholic emancipation. It identifies Milner's most fundamental concerns, offering a description of a coherent structure of anti-Enlightenment thought. This description serves to provide a unified interpretation both of his very varied and often influential writings and of his conduct in public affairs in England and Ireland. In this broad perspective, the figure of Milner can be seen to be important for an understanding of the transition being made in his period by the Catholicism of the British Isles to its nineteenth-century identity. Volume 32 - Issue 3 - September 2008 - pp. 345-360 Remapping the Landscape: Early Christianity and the Graeco-Roman World. A Review Article
No Abstract Volume 32 - Issue 3 - September 2008 - pp. 361-370 Introduction: Religion and Empire, an Historiographical Perspective
The relations between empires and Christianity have been the subject of considerable historiographical attention and it is the object of this paper to review the major issues in this recent literature to provide a context for the specialised papers which follow. Major issues on which discussion is focussed include the extent to which missionaries can be said to be agents of empire, the significance of missionary critique of imperial practice and the extent to which missionary activity was a form of "cultural imperialism." Examples are chosen chiefly from the British Empire but there is also some comparative material drawn from the history of the Roman, Spanish, and French empires. Volume 32 - Issue 2 - June 2008 - pp. 159-178 Religion and the "Evil Empire"
This paper provides an historiographical review of the rhetorical and historical sources for religious suspicion of empires and imperialism in the west. It begins with an analysis of Ronald Reagan's celebrated "evil empire" speech of March 1983, and traces its polemical roots to scriptural precedents, notably in the Book of Revelation, in which "empire" is equated with the unjust rule of Babylon. Some comparisons are made between the general use of religious ideologies to support imperial regimes in ancient and other, more modern, world empires including China and Islam. The final section considers the debate about the role of religion in supporting - or critiquing - modern, secularised empire states such as the second British Empire. The paper argues that it is not possible to understand the problematical relationship of religion and empire in modern societies without recognising the ongoing force of Christian polemic even when religious arguments have not specifically been invoked. Volume 32 - Issue 2 - June 2008 - pp. 179-192 Anglican High Churchmen and the Expansion of Empire
Postcolonial history has taken a great deal of interest in the missionary endeavours of the church throughout the Empire, especially the work of Protestant/evangelical mission societies. Apart from attention to organisations like the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) and to some extent the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the work of Anglican High Churchmen has sometimes been overlooked.1 In fact, High Churchmen were very concerned about the role of the Church of England in the expanding empire during the mid-nineteenth century. They were keen to bring the extension of the church under institutional control and to co-operate with the imperial parliament as closely as possible. The activity of the SPG and the foundation of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund (CBF), which provided clergy, schoolmasters, catechists, and bishops as agents of Anglicanism and Englishness, can be seen as part of this strategy. Volume 32 - Issue 2 - June 2008 - pp. 193-215 Maori "Conversion" to the Rule of Law and Nineteenth-Century Imperial Loyalties
Missionaries were among the first Europeans to interact with the New Zealand Maori, bringing an evangelical message with a strict set of "laws" for Maori to follow. Maori, whose own religious beliefs required rigid observance to ritual, took time to convert to missionary Christianity but, like many Oceanic peoples, did so with fervour, regulating their daily lives according to the Laws of the missionaries' God. With the advent of British rule in New Zealand in 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi gave Maori the same rights as British subjects, but also (in the Maori-language version) guaranteed tribal autonomy. As the British administration established itself, it slowly attempted to bring Maori under the authority of the Queen's Laws, using persuasion rather than force. This article, using Maori-language newspapers of the mid-nineteenth century, discusses how some Maori approached the question of Law in a similar way to how they had converted to Christianity. This was partly due to their own, now Christianised, worldview, but it was also due to how the colonial authorities presented the principles of Law to them. Volume 32 - Issue 2 - June 2008 - pp. 216-233 Constructing Colonial Christianities: With Particular Reference to Anglicanism in Australia, ca 1850-1940
This paper argues the need for new histories of the various settler churches or Christian confessions of Australia and for a new approach to colonial confessional history itself. It suggests that the confessions should be seen not as transplants (as is commonly done) but as variants of their churches of origin and, taking Australian Anglicanism as the primary example, demonstrates a method by which their evolution might be examined. The shaping effect of an assortment of influences, ideas, events, and pressures is explored in a series of settings, from the global to that of local micro-cultures. It is suggested that if the many forms each of the churches has taken in myriad contexts can be identified in this way it should be possible to construct new, variegated colonial confessional histories. Volume 32 - Issue 2 - June 2008 - pp. 234-255 To Eliminate Colour Prejudice: The WCTU and Decolonisation in Australia
From the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Australia played a key role in the articulation and development of human rights for Aborigines. They provided practical and political support and scaffolding while developing an important ideological base, and they formed alliances across class, gender, race, religious, and political lines to achieve their goal of racial equality. Their activism coincided with the period associated with decolonisation. It has been argued that, in Australia, the end of empire coalesced with the rise of the labour movement in the 1940s. However, this article argues that as a means of understanding WCTU involvement in defending and shaping an Aboriginal rights agenda, the rise of labour is an important but partial explanation. It downplays the role of gender and religion in formulating an ideological position while masking its political implications. Here, I explore the politics of WCTU reform, particularly connections between gender, religion, and race, and trace the Union's defence of Aboriginal human rights in post war Australia. Volume 32 - Issue 2 - June 2008 - pp. 256-276 Engineering the Kingdom of God: Irrigation, Science and the Social Christian Millennium, 1880-1914
Irrigation was a hot issue in turn-of-the-twentieth century Australia. Most often, it was embraced by booster-visionaries who wanted it to provide Australia with a place at the table of nations. Not all irrigation enthusiasts placed the same emphasis on wealth and national power, however - indeed, there were some who believed it would help achieve a just distribution of social opportunity. In this article, I look at two Australian "social Christians", the Melbourne minister, Charles Strong, and the South Australian journalist, Harry Taylor, who saw irrigation as an agent of God's Kingdom on Earth. This belief was part of a more general conviction, shared both by these men and other social Christians, that it was possible to merge millennial religiosity with evolution, progressive politics and rational principles. Volume 32 - Issue 1 - March 2008 - pp. 1-15 A Door of Hope Re-opened: The Fifth Monarchy, King Charles and King Jesus
A Door of Hope was the manifesto of the Fifth Monarchists' desperate uprising in London in January 1661, a few months after the Restoration of Charles II. While the rising itself is well known, its manifesto has never been examined in detail. Probably based on a sermon to Venner's congregation, it displays a defiant conviction that the Restoration could be understood as part of God's providential plan, the next step towards the imminent kingdom of Christ on earth. But it also reaches out to a much wider constituency, all the supporters of the "Good Old Cause," offering a programme that might appeal to many radicals. And the author draws on secular, republican discourse to buttress his apocalyptic claims, revealing close links between even the most extreme Fifth Monarchists and wider currents of interregnum radicalism. Volume 32 - Issue 1 - March 2008 - pp. 16-30 Radio Ministries: Religion on Australian Commercial Radio from the 1920s to the 1960s
This article examines the first forty years of religious broadcasting on commercial radio in Australia, a subject largely neglected by historians of Australian religion and the media. It reveals the diversity of religious broadcasting on Australian commercial radio, the ambiguities of the regulatory framework within which it operated, the influence of American religious broadcasting in Australia, and the challenges confronting religious broadcasters, particularly in the decade between the introduction of television and the emergence of talkback radio. The article concludes in the second half of the 1960s, when religious programming faced mounting commercial pressures, as well as a new opportunity in the shape of "talkback" radio. Volume 32 - Issue 1 - March 2008 - pp. 31-54 Post-Colonialism, Orientalism, and Understanding: Religious Studies and the Christian Missionary Imperative
This article explores issues related to the worldviews of Friedrich Max Müller and Monier Monier-Williams, and contemporary critique of their work. Their indebtedness to their own age is explored, especially fulfilment theology and the missionary imperative, noting similarities and differences in their agendas. The conclusion considers how post-colonial critique can be applied. While accepting the validity of such critique, it is suggested that it makes vast and sweeping judgments, engaging in a totalising narrative. It is argued that, applied too harshly, such critiques can ignore the positive contributions to understanding other faiths and cultures made by such figures. It ends with some reflections upon both their and our place within the evolving tradition of the study of religion, and the need for both understanding and critical judgment. Volume 32 - Issue 1 - March 2008 - pp. 55-75 Holy Weddings, Unholy Marriages: Christian Spouses and Domestic Discords in Early Colonial Lesotho, 1870-1900
In the Lesotho Archives in the capital Maseru, lies unreferenced, scattered files containing testimonies of Christianised BaSotho couples embroiled in marital litigations in the last third of the nineteenth century. Reading these testimonies in relation to one another, and engaging in an in-depth qualitative examinations of the narratives embedded in the texts offers a rare opportunity to explore the texture of conjugal relationships among Christianised spouses in this period. The compelling picture that emerges is one of extreme instability of Christian marriages. We behold here conjugal lives teeming with conflicts and intrigue. Adultery accusations and spousal violence punctuated the conjugal lives of these spouses in unexpected intensity. This study concludes that after over half a century of missionising the BaSotho, evangelical missionaries seemingly had had little impact on the texture of BaSotho conjugal relations. The rampant "adultery" and spousal abuse that seemingly plagued these Christian spouses were expressions of pre-Christian patterns that were manifestations of gendered conflicts. Volume 31 - Issue 4 - December 2007 - pp. 363-386 The Roots of the Presbyterian Church of Kenya: The Merger of the Gospel Missionary Society and the Church of Scotland Mission Revisited
The Presbyterian Church of Kenya is the product of the merger of the missionary work of the American Gospel Missionary Society (GMS) and the Scottish Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) in 1946. The two missions had been working independently of each other in central Kenya since 1898. However, there is hardly any scholarly work that has analysed the merger. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to examine why the GMS-CSM merger became necessary from a GMS perspective. The paper argues that the merger became inevitable and unavoidable because the GMS was unable to solve the problems that plagued it - some of its own making and others beyond its control. The paper concludes by showing that the CSM emerged as the beneficiary of the merger because it eventually assimilated the GMS work. Volume 31 - Issue 4 - December 2007 - pp. 387-402 Religious Cultural Hybridity in Chudosik (Ancestor Memorial Service/Ceremony) in Korean Protestantism
This article attempts to examine Chudosik in Korean Protestantism. The distinctive characteristics of Chudosik can be understood in terms of regarding religion as cultural practices. If so, Chudosik can be seen as a religious practice in everyday life of Korean Protestants. By conducting an ethnographic fieldwork in Seokkyo Korean Methodist church, I conceptualise five practical characteristics of Chudosik: indigenous, transformational, spiritual, pragmatic, and compounded. These characteristics show how the religious practices of Seokkyo congregation members keep both traditional socio-cultural values and the features of Christian service in order to satisfy their demand, and how they transform their religious practices. In this sense, Chudosik represents the cultural hybridity of Korean Protestantism. It is also a spontaneous output of the Korean Protestants' cultural habitus and the Korean context. Furthermore, in regard to Chudosik, it is also possible to say that Protestantism is re-embodied onto Korean culture. Volume 31 - Issue 4 - December 2007 - pp. 403-420 Being Crypto-Jewish in Colonial Brazil (1500-1822): Brushing History against the Grain
This paper consists of two parts. In the first, I am going to review and synthesise the history of Jews - or rather various versions of Fuzzy Jews1 - who settled in Brazil during the time it was a Portuguese colony, including a brief period when part of the nation passed under Dutch control. This overview probably adds nothing new to the history of this topic, except insofar as it stresses the details necessary to develop the argument in the next section. The second part turns to a more difficult and in many ways speculative kind of history, that of the emotional and psychological experience of being a Jew - again in several versions of nominal Catholicism. Here is where I bring to bear insights from psychohistory and the history of mentalities in order to interrogate the sources in Inquisitional archives and archaeological studies in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. Volume 31 - Issue 4 - December 2007 - pp. 421-450 The Emotions in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Spirituality
This article examines discourses on emotion produced and circulated in the context of spiritual reform in sixteenth-century Spain as teleological methods of self-interpretation which nonetheless stressed the individuals' responsibility in actively recognising, displaying, and directing their emotions to a spiritual purpose. Paying particular attention to key devotional books such as Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, Francisco de Osuna's Third Spiritual Alphabet, Bernardino de Laredo's Ascent of Mount Sion, and Teresa of Avila's Book of her Life and The Way of Perfection as a framework of beliefs and guidelines which helped to shape actual cultural practices such as self-examination and meditation, it seeks to show the complexity of sixteenth-century understandings of emotion, rationality and the role of the will. It thus aims to challenge the narrow approach taken by recent philosophers like Ronald de Sousa and Robert Solomon in their critique of the historical role of emotion within religion. Volume 31 - Issue 3 - September 2007 - pp. 235-252 The Elusiveness of Protestantism: The Last Expatriations for "Apostasy" from the Church of Sweden (1858) in a European Perspective
By studying the responses to the last expulsion for "apostasy" from the Swedish National Church in 1858, this article examines how an international Protestant identity was constructed in mid-nineteenth-century Europe. It is the argument of this study that a comprehensive identity - including both evangelicals and theological progressives - could be built around the notion of religious liberty. The advocacy of religious freedom became a line of demarcation that separated this group from the Roman Catholic Church, as well as from those Protestants that were firmly attached to an exclusivist position. In order to manufacture this unity, strategies that had been used to fortify the Catholic-Protestant divide were now also used to establish distinctions between different forms of Protestant belief. It is the argument of this article that this unity definitely broke with the theological disputes of the 1860s. Volume 31 - Issue 3 - September 2007 - pp. 253-268 The Politics of Caring for the Poor: Anglican Responses in 1890s Tasmania
Relieving poverty amongst skilled but unemployed workers during the Tasmanian economic collapse in the 1890s challenged both a conservative government's policy of avoiding public debt by initiating minimal relief and the limited financial and human resources of voluntary philanthropic agencies, the Anglican Church amongst them, whom the Tasmanian governments expected to carry the burden of delivering relief to those deemed to deserve it. With labour organisations too weak to lead, and amidst the silence of church leaders, it fell to individuals like the Reverend Archibald Turnbull to articulate a Christian socialist critique of government policies and values and to advocate the desperate plight of the poor. In this context, this study examines how contemporary government and Anglican Church leaders responded to Turnbull's political and pastoral initiatives in Hobart in 1893-96. Volume 31 - Issue 3 - September 2007 - pp. 269-286 Suffering, Vice, And Justice: Religious Imaginaries and Welfare Agencies in Post-War Melbourne
Faith-based welfare agencies vary considerably, dependent on the nature of their leadership, the inheritance of their services, and the niche that they are assigned by state policy in the mixed economy of welfare. Another dimension of their diversity can derive from the discursive structures of their faith. This article examines the theological inheritances that shaped how three key welfare agencies in post-war Melbourne imagined what they were doing, as they drew on the diversity of teachings about the poor derived from the Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist traditions. Volume 31 - Issue 3 - September 2007 - pp. 287-304 "The Enchanter's Wand": Charles Darwin, Foreign Missions, and the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
It often goes unmentioned that one of the primary purposes of the famous circumnavigation of H.M.S. Beagle was foreign missions. Charles Darwin, the voyage's most famous participant, was at best noncommittal about the missionary activity surrounding him for most of the trip. He emerged from the voyage, however, as an enthusiastic and outspoken proponent of missions. The British missions at Tahiti prompted him to change his view. Sailing to Tahiti, he read several accounts about the South Sea missions, and had already begun making arrangements to publish his "Diary" as a travel journal. Darwin became convinced that missionaries helped "advance" the natives toward "civilization" and thereafter enthusiastically defended missionaries in an ongoing public debate. Volume 31 - Issue 2 - June 2007 - pp. 131-150 "Wild Oats or Acorns?" Social Purity, Sexual Politics and the Response of the Late-Victorian Church
The late-Victorian social purity movement heralded a new phase in the history of moral regulation, generating significant levels of Anglican and Nonconformist support for male chastity and the elimination of the sexual double standard. Historians have so far highlighted the more repressive aspects of these campaigns such as their willingness to use criminal legislation and censorship to elevate standards of public morality. This article rehabilitates the discourse and activity of churchwomen - not least Ellice Hopkins - who were prominent campaigners for social purity. Women purity workers exerted enormous pressure upon the professional hierarchies of church and chapel, actively reworking Christian readings of the body so as to bring the moral influence of the churches to bear upon public opinion. In so doing they brought about a significant transformation in clerical attitudes that regarded discussions of sex as beyond the boundaries of civilized discourse and led in the promotion of a regulatory, but nonetheless highly public, religious discourse on sexuality. Volume 31 - Issue 2 - June 2007 - pp. 151-168 "Upon Past Ebenezers We Built Our Jehovah-Jireh": The Vision of the Australian Aborigines' Mission and Its Heritage in the China Inland Mission1
In 1902, the New South Wales Aborigines' Mission found that financial constraints hindered them from achieving their vision and they adopted the faith mission principles of the China Inland Mission. A period of growth followed. By 1907, the name was changed to the Australian Aborigines' Mission. The article will investigate the vision of the mission from its foundation within the Christian Endeavour movement and its later heritage within the China Inland Mission. It will demonstrate that when it became a faith mission the defining principle was that of trusting God for physical needs. The article will establish that in the first half of the twentieth century the mission did not address the issue of the interface of gospel and culture. The process of conversion included western influence, but it has not erased cultural identity and the ministry of Indigenous converts is a witness to some fulfilment of the vision. Volume 31 - Issue 2 - June 2007 - pp. 169-184 Patrick O'Farrell: An Expanded Memory
This paper provides an analysis of the contribution to the Catholic history of Australia by Patrick O'Farrell. Eschewing footnotes, like O'Farrell himself, Campion considers the changes of tone, emphasis, and content which enrich the new editions of the history, from its first appearance in 1968 through subsequent rewriting in 1977, 1985, and 1992. It is argued that O'Farrell responded to the transformation of the Catholic world in the intervening decades but also to new research in Australian Catholic historiography, much of which he was responsible for fostering. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 18-23 Patrick O'Farrell and the Irish History Wars, 1971-1993
While Patrick O'Farrell's achievements as an historian of the Irish and of Catholicism in Australia are well recognised, little attention has been paid to his significance as an historian of Ireland. This article takes his two major Irish monographs, published in 1971 and 1975, and considers how they influenced leading Irish political historians of the 1970s and 1980s. In doing so, the article examines the crisis created for historians by the Northern Ireland Troubles. It demonstrates that the work of O'Farrell, which called into question the primacy of politics and of the nation state, helped open up new avenues for the analysis of Irish culture and identity. Yet, at the same time, such an approach challenged the republican reading of Irish history as a struggle against colonialism, and thus O'Farrell's work attracted severe criticism. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 24-39 The Vanished Kingdoms of Patrick O'Farrell: Religion, Memory and Migration in Religious History
This article considers the place of religion and memory in the history of religious immigration to Australia. It begins with a discussion of the work of Patrick O'Farrell and his family memoir, Vanished Kingdoms and its evocation of family, place, and religion in New Zealand and Australia. It reviews recent writing on collective memory by the religious sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger, theologian Paul Ricoeur, and the Australian historian Peter Read, raising possibilities for the analysis of sources relating to the memory cultures of migrants to Australia in the nineteenth century. This article takes a small sample of testimonies from the letters of Irish migrants, including those edited by Patrick O'Farrell, and the speeches and correspondence of some members of the higher clergy and concludes with some speculation about the way in which migrants to Australia forged the chains of memory that constitute their religious communities. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 40-58 "This Special Shell": The Church Building and the Embodiment of Memory
Religious, congregational, individual, and community memories are embodied in church buildings. Under normal circumstances these memories sit harmoniously together. Once the church building is destined for closure, however, the equilibrium of the memory platforms is disrupted, often causing conflict. The value of associating memory with a building is questioned, especially when such attachments are seen to impede the rationalisation of church assets. Through the process of closure and afterwards, the memory patterns and associations are reorganised, redrawn, and reprioritised. This article examines these memory shifts in the context of Australian religious history from the 1970s to the present day. Special attention is given to the Uniting Church in Australia. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 59-77 The Forgotten History of the Protestant Crusade: Religious Liberalism in Ireland 1
Irish historians do not generally identify religious liberalism as a feature of the 1820s. Instead, they have mapped religious conflict onto increasingly binary conflicts in the socio-economic, cultural, and political spheres. The "Second Reformation" missionary movement put evangelicals and Catholics on a direct collision course and, consequently, historians have argued that it was a key factor in the emergence both of Irish Catholic nationalism and Protestant defensive co-operation. However, the Crusade also produced a strong Protestant backlash alongside the growing sectarian conflict. In County Limerick, for example, two versions of Church of Ireland opposition emerged during 1820, among high church clergy including Bishop Jebb and among liberal Protestant gentlemen. Instead of closing down debate into rigid binary opposition along sectarian lines, the Limerick evidence shows that the Crusade produced a much more complex religious, social, and political debate than historians have recognised which, in turn, made possible a wider range of responses to key Irish problems. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 78-102 An Irish Conservative Perspective on the Defence of the Church of Ireland, 1865-1868
This article provides an analysis of the range of arguments used by senior members of the Irish Conservative party to defend the Established Church of Ireland from 1865 to 1868. The position of the Anglican Church in Ireland came under increasing threat following the death of Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister and the leader of the British Liberal party, in October 1865. Throughout his career, Palmerston, who had close connections to Ireland, had been a staunch defender of the privileges of the Church of Ireland. The first section of this article looks at the historical context in which this attack on its privileged position in Ireland arose. The second part traces some of the key arguments which leading members of the Irish Conservative party used in their defence of the Established Church. The final part of the paper considers some of the divisions which existed within the Conservative party, both in Britain and in Ireland, on the question of the future status of the Church of Ireland and at the effects that these divisions had in weakening its case against it. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 103-114 In Loving Memory of Mary Belshaw, May McRidge, and the Nyungar People of the Badjaling Mission, 1930-1954
Using examples from his family and religious history, Patrick O'Farrell analysed the transition from Irish emigrant to assimilated colonial in what was perceived as vacant land. Like O'Farrell, this article will also use family history to address the issues of memory, religion, and assimilation. The Irish weaver Mary Belshaw (1879-1960) came to Australia in 1913 and was instrumental in the emigration of her family to Australia during the 1920s. She worked as a Protestant missionary among Aboriginal Australians from 1915, until her retirement in 1953. Although the grave she shares with her co-worker May McRidge (1882-1943) bears the words "Ever remembered by what she has done," her story was largely forgotten by her family. In 1986, the Nyungar people erected a memorial stone to Belshaw and McRidge and the thirty-nine Nyungar families who lived at the Badjaling Mission in Western Australia from 1930 to 1954. This article will address the wider issues in twentieth-century Australia which contributed to the neglect of the story by Belshaw's Irish Australian family and then led to its recovery. It will reveal how an Irish heritage was rediscovered because the story lived within a Nyungar community who had survived terra nullius and assimilation policies to return to their land at Badjaling. Volume 31 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - pp. 115-129 On Becoming Pope in Late Antiquity
To an extent unusual among holders of papal office in late antiquity, we know something of the family of Gregory the Great (590-604). His father, Gordianus, was a wealthy Roman who had married a lady named Silvia, who herself had a sister named Pateria, while he had another three aunts, Aemiliana, Gordiana, and Tarsilla, the sisters of his father.1 He also seems to have had one, and possibly a second brother.2 We know from his writings that his three aunts on his father's side adopted a religious life in common, but they attained very different levels, for Gregory reports that, whereas Gordiana disgraced herself by marrying a farmer on her estates, Tarsilla reached the highest level of holiness. He describes his great-great-grandfather Felix, a bishop of the Roman church, appearing to her in a vision in which he showed her a mansion of great brightness and told her to come, for he would receive her there; soon afterwards, she died of fever.3 While such details may appear sparse, they provide a basis on which we can make some general statements on the kinds of people who became pope in the period from the late fifth to the early seventh centuries; a table of these popes is appended to this paper. We shall suggest that there was a set of criteria which were met by new popes time and time again, and that these remained surprisingly constant across the period. Volume 30 - Issue 3 - October 2006 - pp. 279-293 Mandala of the Self: Embodiment, Practice, and Identity Construction in the Cakrasamvara Tradition
Tantric traditions have often been ignored by scholars studying Asian social history, in part because the structure of traditions, and hence their social impact, have been poorly understood. This paper seeks to remedy this lacuna by exploring in some depth a particular tradition, that centring around the Cakrasamvara Tantra, an Indian Buddhist scripture that became the basis of a popular practice tradition in Nepal and Tibet. Following Charles Taylor and the Comaroffs, I will argue that the Cakrasamvara practice tradition encourages a construction of self-identity based on a rather different set of assumptions than those common in the West, i.e., assumptions concerning the limits and constitution of the self. I will explore the nature of this considerably more expansive and fluid sense of self and its social and historical ramifications, both in the pre-modern and contemporary manifestations of this tradition. Volume 30 - Issue 3 - October 2006 - pp. 294-310 "Appear as Crucified for Me": Sight, Suffering, and Spiritual Transformation in the Hymns of Charles Wesley
Early Methodist laypeople often described their conversion experiences in terms of seeing the suffering of Christ. This article considers this theme within early Methodist culture by examining the relationship between sight, suffering, and spiritual transformation in the hymns of Charles Wesley. Many of Wesley's hymns depict the suffering of Christ in evocative detail, encouraging the singer or reader to imagine and respond to this suffering in particular ways. I argue that Wesley presents the sight of Christ's suffering as having profound transformative power, at the heart of Christian experience. In doing so he constructs Methodist spirituality in a way that draws upon both the ancient Christian tradition of Passion devotion and contemporary eighteenth-century convictions about the power of the sight of suffering. Volume 30 - Issue 3 - October 2006 - pp. 311-330 The Savage Science: Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, and the History of Religion
This article analyzes how Freud takes issue with the prioritization of the present over and above the historical past. Significantly, Freud's understanding of history is closely related to his interest in Christianity's historical dependence on Jewish antiquity. He emphasizes the common sources of both religions: both are shaped by the experience of guilt. Christianity, however, relegates the historical past to the realm of the "old Adam." According to Freud, Jewish culture, by contrast, revolves around the commemoration of a "savage" (i.e. pre-modern) past. This article thus focuses on how Freud combines his analysis of onto-genesis (in his psychoanalytical case studies) with a discussion of phylogeny. The manifestation of psychic illness gives body to the unconscious remembrance of phylogenetic history. Thanks to religious and literary documents an irrational past has been put down in writing. According to Freud, this characterizes their historical truth value. Volume 30 - Issue 3 - October 2006 - pp. 331-353 Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Repudiation of Protestant German War Theology
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a revolutionary in two senses. Obviously, his role in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, when it was discovered, stamped him as a political revolutionary. Beyond that, however, Bonhoeffer was a theological revolutionary in that he repudiated and refuted the prevailing Lutheran-Hegelian-Rankean Geschichtsbild, i.e., image of German history, that had become paradigmatic for his class, the so-called Bildungsbürgertum, the highly educated upper middle class. Central to this image was the idea of the Creator God as essentially a "warrior" God who realized the history of salvation via the power struggles of nation states. Bonhoeffer, in his confrontation with the Third Reich, came to the conclusion that its evil triumph had a great deal to do with the image of history that underpinned it. This article traces the evolution of the doctrine of the Power State rooted as it was in Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms or realms, and shows how Bonhoeffer via his reflections expressed in the fragments known as Ethics, overturned that doctrine and thereby wrought an intellectual-historical achievement of immense significance not only for Germany, but also for the modern world. Volume 30 - Issue 3 - October 2006 - pp. 354-370 Adam, Pre-Adamites, and Extra-Terrestrial Beings in Early Modern Europe
This article examines the question of the existence of non-Adamic persons - both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial - in early modern Europe. More particularly it looks at how the existence of non-Adamites seriously called into question the credibility of the central themes of the Christian story of the creation, fall and redemption in Jesus Christ in early modern Europe. It analyses the impact on the Christian view of history caused by the discovery of the inhabitants of the New World, speculations about the polygenetic origins of the human race, and discussions about the plurality of worlds. It concludes with some reflections on the monogenetic and polygenetic accounts of the origin of humans in a post-Darwinian context. Volume 30 - Issue 2 - June 2006 A Vision of an Anglican Imperialism: The Annual Sermons of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 1701-1714
This article examines the first two decades of the oldest continuing Anglican missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1710. It argues that, contrary to the prevailing historiography of the British missionary movement, this early eighteenth-century society was genuinely evangelistic and marks the real beginning of that movement. The society also marks the beginning of a formal, institutional engagement by the Church of England with the British Empire. In the Society's annual anniversary sermons, and influenced by the reports sent by its ordained missionaries in North America, the Church of England's metropolitan leadership in England constructed an Anglican discourse of empire. In this discourse the Church of England began to fashion the identities of colonial populations of Indigenous peoples, white colonists, and Black slaves through a theological Enlightenment understanding. Volume 30 - Issue 2 - June 2006 Curious Paradoxes: James Anthony Froude's View of the Bible
James Anthony Froude disapproved of the apologetic methods used by English Protestants in defending Christianity because he felt they did not answer the real questions. Nevertheless, he was disquieted by the rise of religious infidelity during the nineteenth century. Froude believed that heterodox clergymen deserved a hearing, but he also believed they had to be answered. He feared that simply using legal means to silence the doubters would strengthen infidel opinion, and drive young inquirers toward Rome or atheism. At a minimum, Froude himself wanted to believe the gospel history. While he could not believe much that was said in its defence, he was unhappy with much that was said against it. Froude suggested that the synoptic gospels might have been based on an early, authentic biography of Christ. He preferred this solution to assuming that the early church had been motivated by "passion or fraud or cowardice" in creating a fiction. Volume 30 - Issue 2 - June 2006 Review of Three Recently Published Studies on the Mandaeans
This review deals with three major studies of the Mandaeans all published in 2002. Although each of the works utilizes earlier material, and indeed Drower's work dates back to 1937, their collective appearance marks something of a resurgence for Mandaean studies in the anglophone world. The review links these works to recent rapid changes for the Mandaeans, and indeed the development of substantial diaspora communities in Australia and elsewhere. The author also makes brief comment on the difficult questions of Mandaean identity and origin, and their relationship with Manichaeism. Volume 30 - Issue 2 - June 2006 Heavenly Visions: Otago Colonists' Concepts of the Afterlife
This paper explores popular beliefs about heaven and hell in the largely Presbyterian colony of Otago, New Zealand, during the second half of the nineteenth century. The heresy trials of two prominent clerics resulted, in large part, from the questioning of traditional doctrines on hell, particularly as they related to the fate of dead infants. Although fierce debate surrounded these trials, the diaries, letters, and headstones of Otago residents reveal a pervasive popular belief in heaven as the afterlife destination of all children and most adults. This reflected a growing focus on the innocence, rather than the original sin, of children, coupled with an increasing emphasis on the loving, rather than judgmental, characteristics of God. While clergy emphasized God's presence as the great pleasure of the afterlife, popular visions of heaven clung instead to the hope of joyful reunions with family and friends. Volume 30 - Issue 1 - February 2006 Christianity, Gender, and the Working Class in Southern Dunedin, 1880-1940
This article is a study of the southern suburbs of Dunedin, which during the late nineteenth century became the most industrialized and working class urban area of New Zealand. Analyzing the social composition of fifteen southern Dunedin churches, I question the idea, widely held by New Zealand historians, that the working classes had largely turned their backs on organized religion. In keeping with recent scholarship in the social history of British and Irish religion, I show that unskilled workers were better represented in many southern Dunedin congregations that previous historians have acknowledged and that skilled workers numerically dominated most churches. When women are included in the analysis, working class predominance increases further. Signing the suffrage petition in remarkable proportions, working class Christian women turned the southern suburbs into a world-leading first wave feminist community. Moreover, varieties of popular Christianity flourished beyond the ranks of active churchgoers. I conclude by suggesting that New Zealand historians need to rethink the old "lapsed masses" and "secular New Zealand" assumptions and to investigate the diverse varieties of Christianity shaping the culture, and their sometimes conflicting this-worldly meanings. Volume 30 - Issue 1 - February 2006 Jesus and the Ideal of the Manly Man in New Zealand after World War One
This article investigates attempts to portray Jesus as a "manly Man" for "manly men" in the wake of World War One. The Jesus that emerged as a result of this enterprise was a heroic personality formed through interplay between ideals about soldiers and Christ. Whilst only some military virtues were valued - and only in particular forms - even these proved problematic in certain respects. In particular, attempts to integrate soldierly and moral manliness, especially through resurgent use of notions like chivalry and crusade, failed to connect with soldiers' actual experiences. Nonetheless, the manly Jesus represented an important religious response to World War One. It illuminated much about New Zealand religion and religious interaction with visions of ideal manhood. In particular, visions of a manly Jesus highlighted that ideals of moral and domestic manhood and more assertive ones coexisted in a state of tension. Volume 30 - Issue 1 - February 2006 Between a Hard Rock and Shifting Sands: Churches and the Issue of Homosexuality in New Zealand, 1960-86
This article explores the attitude of New Zealand churches to homosexuality from the 1960s to the 1980s and their varied stances regarding homosexual law reform in 1985-86. In the early 1960s church and society were in lockstep in publicly supporting traditional sexual morality. Major and wider attitudinal change in the later 1960s and into the 1970s led to changing attitudes in relation to homosexuality. At this time churches in New Zealand were weakening in numbers and in influence. One response was to embrace societal causes; another was to react against societal change. Marked "liberal" and "conservative" polarization led to a collapse of the "theological middle." New Zealand churches were divided over homosexual law reform in 1985. Conservative Christians looked to biblical texts while liberal Christians focused on wider issues in society. The conservative Christian defeat in the decrimialization struggle was a defeat on a broader front. Volume 30 - Issue 1 - February 2006 Antipodeans Abroad: Trends and Issues in the Writing of New Zealand Mission History
There has been a paucity of reflective and contextual analysis of New Zealand's historical involvement in the international missionary movement. This article suggests that existing literature falls into four categories: denominational/organizational histories; biographies and personal narratives; unpublished university theses; and a small body of more reflective and contextual works. Historical analysis since 1990 reflects wider historical discourses, rather than being the specific product of mission history. Valuable analysis has focused on women's involvement, culture contact, and the relationship between New Zealand missions, European colonialism and indigenous nationalist movements. Yet the theological nature of missionary involvement has been less extensively understood, obscuring the nuanced nature of things like missionary motivation and the relationship with colonialism. A lacuna still exists with respect to: a comprehensive and comparative analysis of post-1945 missionary involvement; micro and macro-historical analysis of missionary support; the gendered nature of missionary support; and the role of children and young people in missionary structures and discourse. Volume 30 - Issue 1 - February 2006 Dreams and Conversions: A Comparative Analysis of Catholic and Buddhist Dreams in Ming and Qing China: Part I
Since the Church fathers, oneirology and dream revelations were regarded with considerable suspicion among theologians and ecclesiastical authorities, though dreams remained a powerful and pervasive feature of religious expression at a popular level. Among converts in Ming-Qing China, where lay initiatives were necessarily important given the paucity of European priests, holy dreams were crucial in the formation and consolidation of a powerful religious subculture. The following is a version of the keynote address delivered at the Fourth Biennial Meeting of the Religious History Society, in July 2004 in Newcastle, Australia. Volume 29 - Issue 3 - October 2005 The Non-Jurors and their History
This paper is concerned to establish and elucidate the intellectual distinctiveness of the Anglican Non-Jurors of the late Stuart and early Hanoverian period. It places the Non-Jurors in the context of the early Counter-Enlightenment and finds their distinctiveness within it, as a body, in the extent and intensity of their commitment to rationalist, critical historical study as a theological method, reflecting a primitivist, or more precisely, restorationist religious stance. The writings of Charles Leslie and Jeremy Collier are those chiefly used in exemplification. The concluding part of the study enquires into the sources of the Non-Jurors' confidence in the value of historical argument in controversy. It points particularly to the Non-Jurors' use of the practices of contemporary historiography, which regulated the application of rationalism by requiring concurrent application of doctrinal and moral standards. Volume 29 - Issue 3 - October 2005 Beyond Comfort: German and English Military Chaplains and the Memory of the Great War, 1919-1929
How did German and English military chaplains commemorate the Great War? The established historiography broadly interprets war commemoration in the post-war period in two ways. One approach presents commemoration as a ritual of healing that soothed the bereft. The other emphasizes the political function of commemoration, interpreting it as a way of reshaping the war in collective memory to legitimize the status quo - by venerating sacrifices made for the nation, it put the nation beyond question to strengthen allegiance to the established order. Both interpretations treat the language of war commemoration as one of consolation and comfort. Military chaplains, however, espoused a more ambitious mission. For them, the purpose of war commemoration was to inculcate dissatisfaction, guilt, and discomfort. This was because they remembered the war as a contest of ideas embodied in the clash of nations, a contest that was still unsettled. Their purpose was therefore the antithesis to consolation and conventional patriotism: to mobilize the living to honour their "blood debt" to the dead through the language of agitation. They themselves had participated in a war regarded by the churches as a campaign of regeneration through blood, in which sacrifice and suffering would revitalize their nations by bringing them to repentance, piety, and social cohesion. Because they were implicated personally in that incomplete crusade, they were especially anxious to realize the mission and complete the sacrifices of the dead. Anglican ex-chaplains predominantly implored their congregations to ensure a permanent peace that had been purchased by blood, whereas German Protestants invoked a resurrected Volk reclaiming its status as a chosen people. Each articulated a politics of remembrance, one formed on the vision of a war to end all wars, the other on a vision of a war to resurrect the Reich as the Kingdom of God. While the political content of their memories was different, they shared an attitude to the function of remembrance, as a ritual to mobilize and arouse rather than console. Both groups preached that the peace was a continuation of an unfinished moral and spiritual struggle. Furthermore, while always honouring the dead, they stressed that the worth of their sacrifices was no longer guaranteed but contingent upon the conduct of living and future generations. Despite the divergences that emerged from their different confessional and national traditions, and from their respective circumstances, they shared a common moral language. Volume 29 - Issue 3 - October 2005 The Seventh Messenger and Australia 1904-1980: Benjamin Purnell and the House of David
The Southcottian tradition of the Seven Angelic Messengers of Rev. 10:7 has a long association with millennial belief in Australia. Brought hither by Christian Israelite missionaries in the 1840s, the final three Messengers (Wroe, Jezreel, and Purnell) all journeyed to Australia to win converts. After describing the origins and beliefs of the sects established by these Messengers, this article outlines the impact of Benjamin Purnell's House of David on local Christian Israelites and others. His visit to Melbourne in December 1904 to "ingather" over seventy converts from the Fitzroy congregation is outlined; a comparison is made with J. A. Dowie's missionary tour of the same year. A description of the life the Australians led in Michigan and their attempts to leave the colony and expose Purnell's sexual misconduct are outlined. Despite unfavourable press reports, continuing missionary activity in Melbourne and then in Sydney resulted in further converts leaving for America, and the establishment of a branch community at North Ryde. A comparison of its ethos and that prevailing at Benton Harbor is included. Details of the eventual demise of the North Ryde community are followed by a brief analysis of its place in Australia's religious life. This essay is published to mark the centenary of the departure of the Christian Israelites in February 1905. Volume 29 - Issue 3 - October 2005 |
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