The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2021, with the theme ‘Religion and Cultural Change’. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research (Åbo Akademi University), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (University of Turku), and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together doctoral candidates and researchers from various academic fields who engage with the study of religion, such as theology, religious studies, history, philosophy, the arts, social and political sciences and so forth. This included presentations that engaged with the theme Religion and Cultural Change from both historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as looking to the future where possible. As conference organizers, we wanted to highlight cultural change both as dramatic breaking points in history and as slowly evolving transformations. Hence, the conference theme allowed us to address past, present and emerging trends and trajectories within culture, society and the scholarly community. The issue is financed and published by the Polin Institute for Theological Research at Åbo Akademi University, Finland: https://www.polininstitute.fi
{"title":"Religion and cultural change","authors":"Anni Maria Laato, Minna Opas, R. Illman","doi":"10.30664/ar.114539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.114539","url":null,"abstract":"The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2021, with the theme ‘Religion and Cultural Change’. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research (Åbo Akademi University), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (University of Turku), and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together doctoral candidates and researchers from various academic fields who engage with the study of religion, such as theology, religious studies, history, philosophy, the arts, social and political sciences and so forth. This included presentations that engaged with the theme Religion and Cultural Change from both historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as looking to the future where possible. As conference organizers, we wanted to highlight cultural change both as dramatic breaking points in history and as slowly evolving transformations. Hence, the conference theme allowed us to address past, present and emerging trends and trajectories within culture, society and the scholarly community.\u0000The issue is financed and published by the Polin Institute for Theological Research at Åbo Akademi University, Finland: https://www.polininstitute.fi ","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49179297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article presents a comparative study of the experiences of young adults on a spiritual quest in cultural and religious contexts where they have not yet been properly studied, that is Lutheran Finland, Roman Catholic Poland and Orthodox Russia. The study seeks to contribute to the further refinement of the concept of spiritual quest in order to enhance its utility and applicability across different cultural and religious contexts. The analysis revealed several aspects inherent in spiritual quest but which can be variously experienced and manifested in different constellations. This article shows that although each individual might deliver their own logic of ‘being on a quest’, separate cases can be compared on the basis of the concept of the seekership habitus, as presented in this study. The chosen framework of individualization on the one hand and the concept of seekership habitus on the other helps to reveal the duality of the phenomenon of spiritual quest, which is somewhat overlooked in scholarly debates on the topic.
{"title":"‘I try not to save my soul, but to understand it’","authors":"Polina Vrublevskaya","doi":"10.30664/ar.111048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.111048","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a comparative study of the experiences of young adults on a spiritual quest in cultural and religious contexts where they have not yet been properly studied, that is Lutheran Finland, Roman Catholic Poland and Orthodox Russia. The study seeks to contribute to the further refinement of the concept of spiritual quest in order to enhance its utility and applicability across different cultural and religious contexts. The analysis revealed several aspects inherent in spiritual quest but which can be variously experienced and manifested in different constellations. This article shows that although each individual might deliver their own logic of ‘being on a quest’, separate cases can be compared on the basis of the concept of the seekership habitus, as presented in this study. The chosen framework of individualization on the one hand and the concept of seekership habitus on the other helps to reveal the duality of the phenomenon of spiritual quest, which is somewhat overlooked in scholarly debates on the topic.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45037119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The geography of choirs has seldom received attention in human geography and even less so in a Swedish context. This article analyses the geography of choirs in Sweden by focusing on choir members in the Church of Sweden. Sweden offers an interesting case of choral geography because of (1) the Church of Sweden’s geographical presence, (2) the number of choir members, and (3) the role of religion in contemporary Swedish society. An intimation of the contemporary significance is that the Church of Sweden has 78,170 choir members in 2020 and is active in every municipality. The data consist of the Church of Sweden membership and choir members visualized in turn on maps. The qualitative analyses of the quantitative data reveal that there seem to be few youth-choir members in Sweden. There seem to be many children choir members in the larger cities but fewer in rural areas. The northern part of Sweden seems to have generally lower levels of choir members but higher membership in the Church of Sweden. Another finding is that high membership in the church does not necessarily mean a high number of choir memberships. For further studies, quantitative engagement with more datasets together with an engagement with post-secular theories is suggested.
{"title":"Mapping the geography of choirs in Sweden","authors":"Per Göransson","doi":"10.30664/ar.111087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.111087","url":null,"abstract":"The geography of choirs has seldom received attention in human geography and even less so in a Swedish context. This article analyses the geography of choirs in Sweden by focusing on choir members in the Church of Sweden. Sweden offers an interesting case of choral geography because of (1) the Church of Sweden’s geographical presence, (2) the number of choir members, and (3) the role of religion in contemporary Swedish society. An intimation of the contemporary significance is that the Church of Sweden has 78,170 choir members in 2020 and is active in every municipality. The data consist of the Church of Sweden membership and choir members visualized in turn on maps. The qualitative analyses of the quantitative data reveal that there seem to be few youth-choir members in Sweden. There seem to be many children choir members in the larger cities but fewer in rural areas. The northern part of Sweden seems to have generally lower levels of choir members but higher membership in the Church of Sweden. Another finding is that high membership in the church does not necessarily mean a high number of choir memberships. For further studies, quantitative engagement with more datasets together with an engagement with post-secular theories is suggested.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49385743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Magical healers and physicians were among those who provided healing in the medical market of pre-modern Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia. Using newspaper texts published in the region about local occurrences of magical healing as source material, this article examines through discourse analysis how magical healing was stigmatized in public discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. Two main discourses that stigmatize magical healing are evident from the data: the religious and enlightenment discourses. These show the power relations involved in the condemnation of magical healing as an example of the rural population’s superstition and naivity. This article offers new information about stigmatizing discourses on healing methods and practices that were considered witchcraft in a period when a community was undergoing cultural changes that affected health beliefs and power relations.
{"title":"‘No “wise” men or women but real doctors!'","authors":"Karolina Kouvola","doi":"10.30664/ar.110933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.110933","url":null,"abstract":"Magical healers and physicians were among those who provided healing in the medical market of pre-modern Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia. Using newspaper texts published in the region about local occurrences of magical healing as source material, this article examines through discourse analysis how magical healing was stigmatized in public discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. Two main discourses that stigmatize magical healing are evident from the data: the religious and enlightenment discourses. These show the power relations involved in the condemnation of magical healing as an example of the rural population’s superstition and naivity. This article offers new information about stigmatizing discourses on healing methods and practices that were considered witchcraft in a period when a community was undergoing cultural changes that affected health beliefs and power relations.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45663729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
New religious movements (NRMs) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse ways, ranging from closely following mainstream public health recommendations to explicit rejection of such guidance. This article considers the manner in which NRMs have responded to the pandemic through analysis of groups’ ideological alignment with their host societies’ cultural and social frames. Extending the Bromley–Melton (2012) model of social alignment and the Rochford (2018) approach of frame alignment, the response of these NRMs must be contextualized in regard to alignment with broader social frames. The article considers specific cases of NRMs in South Korea, India, and the United States and posits that no single model can encompass NRM responses to the pandemic, but that multiple social factors provide guidance for understanding why and how NRMs responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"New religious movement responses to COVID","authors":"B. Zeller","doi":"10.30664/ar.107731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.107731","url":null,"abstract":"New religious movements (NRMs) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse ways, ranging from closely following mainstream public health recommendations to explicit rejection of such guidance. This article considers the manner in which NRMs have responded to the pandemic through analysis of groups’ ideological alignment with their host societies’ cultural and social frames. Extending the Bromley–Melton (2012) model of social alignment and the Rochford (2018) approach of frame alignment, the response of these NRMs must be contextualized in regard to alignment with broader social frames. The article considers specific cases of NRMs in South Korea, India, and the United States and posits that no single model can encompass NRM responses to the pandemic, but that multiple social factors provide guidance for understanding why and how NRMs responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43164906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
At its inception, the COVID-19 pandemic was described as something inherently new, capable of crossing and erasing the economic, racial, gendered, and religious divides that stratify societies around the world. However, the ongoing pandemic is not new or egalitarian, but fuelled by, and fuelling, crises already under way on a global scale. In this article we examine on the one hand the relationship between the pandemic and still-active formations of racialised and gendered power, and on the other the pandemic's inextricability from a dispersed and uneven planetary emergency. As the environmental historian Jason W. Moore notes, this emergency disproportionately affects ‘women, people of colour and (neo)colonial populations’ (2019: 54), and the effects of COVID-19 are similarly unevenly allocated.
{"title":"Decolonising the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Rebecca Duncan, J. Höglund","doi":"10.30664/ar.107743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.107743","url":null,"abstract":"At its inception, the COVID-19 pandemic was described as something inherently new, capable of crossing and erasing the economic, racial, gendered, and religious divides that stratify societies around the world. However, the ongoing pandemic is not new or egalitarian, but fuelled by, and fuelling, crises already under way on a global scale. In this article we examine on the one hand the relationship between the pandemic and still-active formations of racialised and gendered power, and on the other the pandemic's inextricability from a dispersed and uneven planetary emergency. As the environmental historian Jason W. Moore notes, this emergency disproportionately affects ‘women, people of colour and (neo)colonial populations’ (2019: 54), and the effects of COVID-19 are similarly unevenly allocated.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45273706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The arrival of pandemic diseases (of which COVID-19 is the latest, but not likely to be the last) could be understood, along with impending ecological disaster and global warming, to be the major existential threats envisioned by, and facing, our contemporary culture. This article focuses on the use made of the theme of COVID-19 in the theology and ideology of the Westboro Baptist Church – a Calvinist and Primitive Baptist church founded in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s by Fred Phelps Sr (1929–2014). While numerically small, the church has become infamous through its practice of picketing funerals, and has been characterized as a hate group espousing antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ positions. Through a reading and analysis of sermons and other published materials from the Westboro Baptist Church, the article maps the motif of COVID-19 as it is used by a church whose members perceive themselves as the heralds of an angry God.
{"title":"‘The wrath of God on children of disobedience’","authors":"Erik A. W. Östling","doi":"10.30664/ar.107883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.107883","url":null,"abstract":"The arrival of pandemic diseases (of which COVID-19 is the latest, but not likely to be the last) could be understood, along with impending ecological disaster and global warming, to be the major existential threats envisioned by, and facing, our contemporary culture. This article focuses on the use made of the theme of COVID-19 in the theology and ideology of the Westboro Baptist Church – a Calvinist and Primitive Baptist church founded in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s by Fred Phelps Sr (1929–2014). While numerically small, the church has become infamous through its practice of picketing funerals, and has been characterized as a hate group espousing antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ positions. Through a reading and analysis of sermons and other published materials from the Westboro Baptist Church, the article maps the motif of COVID-19 as it is used by a church whose members perceive themselves as the heralds of an angry God.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44170276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 global pandemic impacted all social relations, including the way religious communities engage in worship services. Due to strict social distancing protocols, the only viable solution for many congregations was online worship. This article investigates how platforms in cyberspace, such as Zoom, can provide a substitute for the core religious practices found in physical worship services, particularly for African Pentecostal believers who rely heavily on the aesthetic and sensory experience of their religious environment. Drawing on the theoretical concept of affordance, it is argued that digital affordances such as the chat box and emojis are used by believers to communicate affective moments arising from the sensory experience of worship. Members of the congregation become ‘digital spiritual hype people’ who render support to leaders in order to create and regenerate an affective environment where the presence of the Holy Spirit can be felt. The Holy Spirit, a fundamental pillar for Evangelical Christians, is understood as an embedded presence within the digital infrastructure. The internet connection, the phone and computers and screens are all re-appropriated as spiritual tools through which miraculous healing can be dispensed to believers in need. This research stands at a critical juncture between what might be termed the ‘pre-COVID era’ and the ‘post-COVID era’. As vaccination plans continue to roll out and social distancing measures are slowly being lifted, a ‘post-COVID era’ for African Pentecostals means negotiating the boundaries between online and offline spaces to fulfil core religious practices.
{"title":"Join the Holy Spirit on Zoom","authors":"Giuseppina Addo","doi":"10.30664/ar.107728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.107728","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 global pandemic impacted all social relations, including the way religious communities engage in worship services. Due to strict social distancing protocols, the only viable solution for many congregations was online worship. This article investigates how platforms in cyberspace, such as Zoom, can provide a substitute for the core religious practices found in physical worship services, particularly for African Pentecostal believers who rely heavily on the aesthetic and sensory experience of their religious environment. Drawing on the theoretical concept of affordance, it is argued that digital affordances such as the chat box and emojis are used by believers to communicate affective moments arising from the sensory experience of worship. Members of the congregation become ‘digital spiritual hype people’ who render support to leaders in order to create and regenerate an affective environment where the presence of the Holy Spirit can be felt. The Holy Spirit, a fundamental pillar for Evangelical Christians, is understood as an embedded presence within the digital infrastructure. The internet connection, the phone and computers and screens are all re-appropriated as spiritual tools through which miraculous healing can be dispensed to believers in need. This research stands at a critical juncture between what might be termed the ‘pre-COVID era’ and the ‘post-COVID era’. As vaccination plans continue to roll out and social distancing measures are slowly being lifted, a ‘post-COVID era’ for African Pentecostals means negotiating the boundaries between online and offline spaces to fulfil core religious practices.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46607596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyses clusters of Muslim responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in a theoretical framework provided by the cognitive science of religion. The responses include theological reflections on the origin, nature, and religious significance of the disease, religious justifications for restrictions on communal worship, apologetics in the light of COVID-19, and how aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic relate to issues of purity, impurity, and contagion. This article places the responses in a wider theoretical context that contributes to explaining their emergence as cultural representations, and, as a consequence, may promote further comparative research into responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in other religious traditions.
{"title":"Minding the pandemic","authors":"Jonas Svensson","doi":"10.30664/ar.107742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.107742","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses clusters of Muslim responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in a theoretical framework provided by the cognitive science of religion. The responses include theological reflections on the origin, nature, and religious significance of the disease, religious justifications for restrictions on communal worship, apologetics in the light of COVID-19, and how aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic relate to issues of purity, impurity, and contagion. This article places the responses in a wider theoretical context that contributes to explaining their emergence as cultural representations, and, as a consequence, may promote further comparative research into responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in other religious traditions. ","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":"67 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41273889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The religious responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Hindu India were manifold and, at times, publicly contested, which raises the question of which societal differences became visible and were augmented as the pandemic unfolded. Based on observations mainly from the first coronavirus wave in 2020, this article argues that the limited religious innovation that ensued gave rise to a lively public debate that revealed marked differences within the Hindu community, that the pandemic offered new possibilities for affirming Hindu identities while othering Muslims, and that it accelerated the transition to online religious services in prominent temples while pausing the activities in others, thus augmenting a marked digital divide that may well outlast the pandemic. Pandemic religious changes notwithstanding, the article concludes that most of the changes were ephemeral and produced minor jolts rather than major transformations.
{"title":"Worship and the virus in Hindu India","authors":"Kathinka Frøystad","doi":"10.30664/ar.107671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.107671","url":null,"abstract":"The religious responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Hindu India were manifold and, at times, publicly contested, which raises the question of which societal differences became visible and were augmented as the pandemic unfolded. Based on observations mainly from the first coronavirus wave in 2020, this article argues that the limited religious innovation that ensued gave rise to a lively public debate that revealed marked differences within the Hindu community, that the pandemic offered new possibilities for affirming Hindu identities while othering Muslims, and that it accelerated the transition to online religious services in prominent temples while pausing the activities in others, thus augmenting a marked digital divide that may well outlast the pandemic. Pandemic religious changes notwithstanding, the article concludes that most of the changes were ephemeral and produced minor jolts rather than major transformations.","PeriodicalId":41668,"journal":{"name":"Approaching Religion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45933031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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