Pub Date : 2021-01-21DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2021/v34n2a6
Thibaut Dubarry
With reference to two Pentecostal churches in the Kayamandi suburb of Stellenbosch, South Africa, we consider the ways in which capitalism and the Pentecostal spirit interrelate in a contemporary South Africa. We start off by acknowledging that many forms of Pentecostalism now tend to follow the paradigm set by neo-Pentecostalism, and that the same might be true of our two church communities, Revival Fire Ministries, and the Apostolic Faith Mission, even if the latter is more typically regarded as part of the classical Pentecostal movement in South Africa. Then we discuss Pentecostalism and its relationship to the secular domain. We show how Pentecostalism, in contrast to traditional forms of Christianity, is par excellence involved in the immanent/horizontal affairs of believers' lives. Indeed, the market itself appears to be sacralized, implying a transfer of holiness into the secular domain. We conclude with the idea that we have observed a fourth wave of Pentecostalism, anticipating that the golden age of Gesara/Nesara may be considered as a secular faith, forming a Hegelian synthesis of the two so-called secular religions of the 20th century, capitalism and communism. We have analyzed it as an apocatastasis, meaning restoration to the original or primordial condition1.
{"title":"Pentecostal Churches and Capitalism in a South African Township: Towards a Communism of the Market?","authors":"Thibaut Dubarry","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2021/v34n2a6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2021/v34n2a6","url":null,"abstract":"With reference to two Pentecostal churches in the Kayamandi suburb of Stellenbosch, South Africa, we consider the ways in which capitalism and the Pentecostal spirit interrelate in a contemporary South Africa. We start off by acknowledging that many forms of Pentecostalism now tend to follow the paradigm set by neo-Pentecostalism, and that the same might be true of our two church communities, Revival Fire Ministries, and the Apostolic Faith Mission, even if the latter is more typically regarded as part of the classical Pentecostal movement in South Africa. Then we discuss Pentecostalism and its relationship to the secular domain. We show how Pentecostalism, in contrast to traditional forms of Christianity, is par excellence involved in the immanent/horizontal affairs of believers' lives. Indeed, the market itself appears to be sacralized, implying a transfer of holiness into the secular domain. We conclude with the idea that we have observed a fourth wave of Pentecostalism, anticipating that the golden age of Gesara/Nesara may be considered as a secular faith, forming a Hegelian synthesis of the two so-called secular religions of the 20th century, capitalism and communism. We have analyzed it as an apocatastasis, meaning restoration to the original or primordial condition1.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49050414","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}
Pub Date : 2020-07-05DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a3
A. Moyo, G. Tarugarira
Some religious movements have instilled a creative and innovative spirit among their adherents. This spirit is coupled with hard work and the inculcation of skills towards making a better life for themselves and their families. Referring to the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa – Forward in Faith (ZAOGA FIF), this essay explores how this church organization has instilled hard work, frugality, and penultimate economic empowerment among its followers through Talents/Matarenda. The essay has employed theEmpowerment Framework of Longwe and Clarke (1994) as an analytical tool to unpack the church’s approach towards the empowerment of women. It has established positive changes in people’s quality of life amidst conflicts and compromises between the maintenance of religious ethical standards and the primacy of the economic motives in the adherents’ quest for material wealth.
{"title":"Money Dwells in the Spiritual Pocket! The Gospel of Prosperity and the Empowerment of Women through Talents/'Matarenda among ZAOGA FIF Adherents in Gweru, Zimbabwe","authors":"A. Moyo, G. Tarugarira","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a3","url":null,"abstract":"Some religious movements have instilled a creative and innovative spirit among their adherents. This spirit is coupled with hard work and the inculcation of skills towards making a better life for themselves and their families. Referring to the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa – Forward in Faith (ZAOGA FIF), this essay explores how this church organization has instilled hard work, frugality, and penultimate economic empowerment among its followers through Talents/Matarenda. The essay has employed theEmpowerment Framework of Longwe and Clarke (1994) as an analytical tool to unpack the church’s approach towards the empowerment of women. It has established positive changes in people’s quality of life amidst conflicts and compromises between the maintenance of religious ethical standards and the primacy of the economic motives in the adherents’ quest for material wealth.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44685596","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}
Pub Date : 2020-07-04DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a2
Elsabé Kloppers
Hymns are commonly sung in the public space of worship. They often also function in other public as well as private spheres. Religious singing in publicspaces forms bridges between personal faith, the church, and public Christianity, while at the same time also forming bridges to a pluralist,secular, and post-secular society. I depart from the premise that the singing of hymns in the public sphere constitutes a form of religion lived in public.When the singing is reflected upon and discussed in public, also in social media, it can be seen as a form of public theology. Aspects of the receptionhistories and narratives of hymns, functioning in the wider public sphere in various countries and in various contexts and times, are discussed with regardto the possible functions that the singing could fulfil in these contexts. It is shown that hymnody forms a part of the beliefs, self-concepts, values,symbols, identities, ideologies, instruments of power, sets of myths, and the collective cultural memory of people
{"title":"Singing and Sounding the Sacred - the Function of Religious Songs and Hymns in the Public Sphere","authors":"Elsabé Kloppers","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a2","url":null,"abstract":"Hymns are commonly sung in the public space of worship. They often also function in other public as well as private spheres. Religious singing in publicspaces forms bridges between personal faith, the church, and public Christianity, while at the same time also forming bridges to a pluralist,secular, and post-secular society. I depart from the premise that the singing of hymns in the public sphere constitutes a form of religion lived in public.When the singing is reflected upon and discussed in public, also in social media, it can be seen as a form of public theology. Aspects of the receptionhistories and narratives of hymns, functioning in the wider public sphere in various countries and in various contexts and times, are discussed with regardto the possible functions that the singing could fulfil in these contexts. It is shown that hymnody forms a part of the beliefs, self-concepts, values,symbols, identities, ideologies, instruments of power, sets of myths, and the collective cultural memory of people","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48254556","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}
Pub Date : 2020-07-04DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a1
J. Mgumia
The private business sector has been expanding rapidly in urban Tanzania since the country started liberalizing its economy in the 1980s. Witchcraftdiscourses linked to the business sector have emerged side by side with the increased liberalization of public spaces and media. Drawing from anethnographic study of 52 adolescents with small businesses in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a Foucauldian analysis of popular discourses onwitchcraft and business, I attempt here to make sense of why witchcraft is invoked in a sector that is conventionally viewed as the realm of economicrationality in neoliberal discourses. In this article, I suggest that capital, knowledge, and markets, which continue to be presented as necessaryconditions for business growth, are not sufficient in explaining why certain businesses fail and others succeed. It rather suggests context specific reasonsthat may explain how adolescents with small businesses end up embracing popular discourses that link business success or failure to witchcraft, such asChuma Ulete (reap and bring). It also explains the impact that such an embrace has on the ways in which these young people with small businessesare engaging with entrepreneurship. This entails unpacking how witchcraft ends up being invoked by those who need their businesses to grow as well asexplaining how they take pre-emptive measures to protect their businesses from such apparent witchcraft.
{"title":"Chuma Ulete: Business and Discourses of Witchcraft in Neoliberal Tanzania","authors":"J. Mgumia","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a1","url":null,"abstract":"The private business sector has been expanding rapidly in urban Tanzania since the country started liberalizing its economy in the 1980s. Witchcraftdiscourses linked to the business sector have emerged side by side with the increased liberalization of public spaces and media. Drawing from anethnographic study of 52 adolescents with small businesses in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a Foucauldian analysis of popular discourses onwitchcraft and business, I attempt here to make sense of why witchcraft is invoked in a sector that is conventionally viewed as the realm of economicrationality in neoliberal discourses. In this article, I suggest that capital, knowledge, and markets, which continue to be presented as necessaryconditions for business growth, are not sufficient in explaining why certain businesses fail and others succeed. It rather suggests context specific reasonsthat may explain how adolescents with small businesses end up embracing popular discourses that link business success or failure to witchcraft, such asChuma Ulete (reap and bring). It also explains the impact that such an embrace has on the ways in which these young people with small businessesare engaging with entrepreneurship. This entails unpacking how witchcraft ends up being invoked by those who need their businesses to grow as well asexplaining how they take pre-emptive measures to protect their businesses from such apparent witchcraft.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44223069","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}
Pub Date : 2020-07-04DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a4
D. Wallace
Against the background of changes in the religion-state relationship in South Africa since 2009, this essay provides the foundational history of a resurgentfundamentalist Christian alliance that seeks to exert influence in politics, state institutions, and civil society. The discussion includes the growth of fundamentalist groups in the United States that established the religious right as a political force on which the alliance’s stringent anti-liberal agenda and strategies are modelled. In conclusion, the unlimited right to religious freedom is questioned in the context of guarantees of protection from discrimination in a constitutional democracy.
{"title":"Resurgent Fundamentalism, Politics, and the Anti-Liberal Agenda: Challenges for South Africa's Constitutional Democracy","authors":"D. Wallace","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/v33n1a4","url":null,"abstract":"Against the background of changes in the religion-state relationship in South Africa since 2009, this essay provides the foundational history of a resurgentfundamentalist Christian alliance that seeks to exert influence in politics, state institutions, and civil society. The discussion includes the growth of fundamentalist groups in the United States that established the religious right as a political force on which the alliance’s stringent anti-liberal agenda and strategies are modelled. In conclusion, the unlimited right to religious freedom is questioned in the context of guarantees of protection from discrimination in a constitutional democracy.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44000192","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}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A1
Ayyappan Balakrishnan
Bonded labor is the most widespread form of slavery in the world. It is at once the most ancient and most contemporary face of human servitude. In India, ‘labor’ is more a social category than economics, where the division of labor and laborer is defined according to the caste. The caste system is not a scientific division of labor, which is, after all, necessary for the efficient functioning of any economy. It is an arbitrary, birth-determined hierarchy in which different types of laborers are graded one above the other and subject to a descending scale of civil disabilities that have nothing to do with efficiency or productivity. It is not a division based on choice, as individual sentiment, preference, or even actual skill, have no place in it. Caste slavery was an oppressive, discriminative, and exploitive system which existed in Kerala from an early medieval period onwards. In the social structure of Kerala, the bonded or forced labor system was an unavoidable factor of slavery. As the system of bonded labor was associated with feudalism, land-based social relations were formed in the state. The oozhiyam or bonded labor system, therefore strictly connected with the caste oriented slavery in Kerala. Under the system of oozhiyam, the economically under-privileged servants were obliged to render bonded services on all days of the week as required by the government officials and the higher castes. The main force behind this system was the coercive authority of the government and the privileged class. Nobody dared to evade the services demanded by the government. Only on the days of the oozhiyam services, the laborers received a minimum quantity of food to keep their body and soul together. This essay mainly focuses on the ameliorating activities of the Christian missionaries, such as the London Missionary Society (LMS) and Church Missionary Society (CMS), among the oppressed sections of the society of Kerala. In addition to the social legislations of the government, the intervention of Christian missionaries also helped in the permanent abolition of the system of oozhiyam in Kerala.
{"title":"The Role of the London Missionary Society and Church Missionary Society in the Abolition of Oozhiyam (Bonded Labor Service) in Kerala","authors":"Ayyappan Balakrishnan","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A1","url":null,"abstract":"Bonded labor is the most widespread form of slavery in the world. It is at once the most ancient and most contemporary face of human servitude. In India, ‘labor’ is more a social category than economics, where the division of labor and laborer is defined according to the caste. The caste system is not a scientific division of labor, which is, after all, necessary for the efficient functioning of any economy. It is an arbitrary, birth-determined hierarchy in which different types of laborers are graded one above the other and subject to a descending scale of civil disabilities that have nothing to do with efficiency or productivity. It is not a division based on choice, as individual sentiment, preference, or even actual skill, have no place in it. Caste slavery was an oppressive, discriminative, and exploitive system which existed in Kerala from an early medieval period onwards. In the social structure of Kerala, the bonded or forced labor system was an unavoidable factor of slavery. As the system of bonded labor was associated with feudalism, land-based social relations were formed in the state. The oozhiyam or bonded labor system, therefore strictly connected with the caste oriented slavery in Kerala. Under the system of oozhiyam, the economically under-privileged servants were obliged to render bonded services on all days of the week as required by the government officials and the higher castes. The main force behind this system was the coercive authority of the government and the privileged class. Nobody dared to evade the services demanded by the government. Only on the days of the oozhiyam services, the laborers received a minimum quantity of food to keep their body and soul together. This essay mainly focuses on the ameliorating activities of the Christian missionaries, such as the London Missionary Society (LMS) and Church Missionary Society (CMS), among the oppressed sections of the society of Kerala. In addition to the social legislations of the government, the intervention of Christian missionaries also helped in the permanent abolition of the system of oozhiyam in Kerala.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489935","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}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A2
Iskander Abbasi
New York's twin tower bombings, popularly referred to as 9/11, are regarded as a watershed period in world affairs. It happened at the cusp of the new century and its impact, since then, has been enormous, for it radically changed many aspects of human life. Both the print and the electronic media were pivotal in these changes. Besides shaping the way that communities perceive others, it also influenced the manner in which communities are dealing with one another. Since a radical Muslim group was blamed for this dastardly deed and since Muslims were implicated for this reprehensible act, the secular media expectedly placed the Muslims - in majority and minority settings - around the world under the spotlight. The media's negative portrayal and reporting about Muslims did not only contribute towards a tendentious relationship between the media and the Muslims but it also contributed towards the spread of Islamophobia. This thus caused Muslims in both majority and minority settings to adopt a skeptical view of the role of the secular media. Considering these developments, this essay's focus turns to the South African print media that reported and analyzed their reporting of this event during that period. Since it is beyond this essay's scope to look at all the country' s daily and weekly tabloids, it restricted itself to two widely circulated South African weekly newspapers, namely the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian. It first describes and discusses their front-page reports as they captured the tragic 9/11 event, before it reflects on their editorials -columns providing one with insights into the respective editors' understanding of this event and their perceptions of Muslims nationally and globally. Being a purely textual study, it conceptualizes Islamophobia as the essay's conceptual frame.
{"title":"South Africa's Weekly Media: Front-Page Reporting 9/11, Preventing Islamophobia","authors":"Iskander Abbasi","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A2","url":null,"abstract":"New York's twin tower bombings, popularly referred to as 9/11, are regarded as a watershed period in world affairs. It happened at the cusp of the new century and its impact, since then, has been enormous, for it radically changed many aspects of human life. Both the print and the electronic media were pivotal in these changes. Besides shaping the way that communities perceive others, it also influenced the manner in which communities are dealing with one another. Since a radical Muslim group was blamed for this dastardly deed and since Muslims were implicated for this reprehensible act, the secular media expectedly placed the Muslims - in majority and minority settings - around the world under the spotlight. The media's negative portrayal and reporting about Muslims did not only contribute towards a tendentious relationship between the media and the Muslims but it also contributed towards the spread of Islamophobia. This thus caused Muslims in both majority and minority settings to adopt a skeptical view of the role of the secular media. Considering these developments, this essay's focus turns to the South African print media that reported and analyzed their reporting of this event during that period. Since it is beyond this essay's scope to look at all the country' s daily and weekly tabloids, it restricted itself to two widely circulated South African weekly newspapers, namely the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian. It first describes and discusses their front-page reports as they captured the tragic 9/11 event, before it reflects on their editorials -columns providing one with insights into the respective editors' understanding of this event and their perceptions of Muslims nationally and globally. Being a purely textual study, it conceptualizes Islamophobia as the essay's conceptual frame.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489947","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}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A3
A. Ishabiyi, Sultan Khan
Historically, religion has played a key role in the destiny of human beings. It has provided reasons for its existence and shaped the social, cultural, economic, and political behavior of individuals and society. Specifically in the 21st century, the globe has become a multi-faith space with diverse religious philosophies, ways of religious expressions, norms, and values. For the young university students, it provides a space for critical reflection, awareness of one’s self and an environment in which one’s values and norms are tested and perhaps reshaped. Given the abstractness of the university environment and exposure to a vast range of beliefs and practices, it may challenge the religious belief structure of students to an extent that one may go on to question long held religious beliefs and practices. It is against the background of this context that this article tests the nature of religious associational life of on-campus black African Christian students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus. The methodological approach to the study embraced both qualitative and quantitative data gathering tools. Semi-structured self-administered questionnaires were used to gather data. A total of 123 respondents, selected purposively, participated in the study. The results of this study suggest that on-campus, religious associations play an integral role in reinforcing the religious and spiritual identity of students. It impacts both their personal and academic life. Additionally, the study highlights that although religious tolerance featured in the study, there was a need for inter-religious dialogue, given the diversity of faith groups in the country.
{"title":"Religious Associational Life amongst Black African Christian Students at Howard College Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal","authors":"A. Ishabiyi, Sultan Khan","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A3","url":null,"abstract":"Historically, religion has played a key role in the destiny of human beings. It has provided reasons for its existence and shaped the social, cultural, economic, and political behavior of individuals and society. Specifically in the 21st century, the globe has become a multi-faith space with diverse religious philosophies, ways of religious expressions, norms, and values. For the young university students, it provides a space for critical reflection, awareness of one’s self and an environment in which one’s values and norms are tested and perhaps reshaped. Given the abstractness of the university environment and exposure to a vast range of beliefs and practices, it may challenge the religious belief structure of students to an extent that one may go on to question long held religious beliefs and practices. It is against the background of this context that this article tests the nature of religious associational life of on-campus black African Christian students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus. The methodological approach to the study embraced both qualitative and quantitative data gathering tools. Semi-structured self-administered questionnaires were used to gather data. A total of 123 respondents, selected purposively, participated in the study. The results of this study suggest that on-campus, religious associations play an integral role in reinforcing the religious and spiritual identity of students. It impacts both their personal and academic life. Additionally, the study highlights that although religious tolerance featured in the study, there was a need for inter-religious dialogue, given the diversity of faith groups in the country.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489955","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}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A4
Iskander Abbasi
This article aims to more thoroughly intersect the figure of the Muslim into the framework of the coloniality of being, and into the narrative of race and religion in modernity. Two areas of concern are investigated: First, how Islamophobia aided in forming the coloniality of being in ways that decolo-nial scholarship – namely that of leading Latin American decolonial thinker, Nelson Maldonado-Torres – is seemingly unaware of or downplays, and second, how a rereading of a number of the key events and figures that define a decolonial discourse on race and religion, such as the Valladolid debates (1550-1551) and the figure of Christopher Columbus, help to more rigorously conceptualize the figure of the Muslim in relation to the coloniality of being.
{"title":"Islam, Muslims, and the Coloniality of Being: Reframing the Debate on Race and Religion in Modernity","authors":"Iskander Abbasi","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2020/V33N2A4","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to more thoroughly intersect the figure of the Muslim into the framework of the coloniality of being, and into the narrative of race and religion in modernity. Two areas of concern are investigated: First, how Islamophobia aided in forming the coloniality of being in ways that decolo-nial scholarship – namely that of leading Latin American decolonial thinker, Nelson Maldonado-Torres – is seemingly unaware of or downplays, and second, how a rereading of a number of the key events and figures that define a decolonial discourse on race and religion, such as the Valladolid debates (1550-1551) and the figure of Christopher Columbus, help to more rigorously conceptualize the figure of the Muslim in relation to the coloniality of being.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489976","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}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a5
Nhlanhla Landa, Sindiso Zhou, B. Tshotsho
The abuse of women and girls by individuals in authority has been a subject of complex debates in both social and academic discourses. This article analyses the language of deception used by the clergy in winning the trust of women and girls in Christian congregations prior to abusing them. We used Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to explore the language of religious leaders in the narrative of women and abuse as reflected in the media. Using a qualitative approach, the study analyzed 17 news articles drawn from the Zimbabwean media landscape. With these analyses, we were interested in the language used by the religious leaders as reported by the victims. Findings indicate that, to entice their victims, religious leaders rely on grooming – a persuasion process that, in the context of the clergy, invariably fuses the language of courtship, spiritual language, and religious language in order to persuade. The clergy also often used their ‘elevated’ religious position to threaten women with evil spirits and the perpetuation of their problems if they would not do as the religious leader instructed, which often led directly to sexual assault. Coupling the threats were assurances that only the pastor could rid them of their problems. This approach left the women and girls, already vulnerable due to all kinds of reasons that have brought them to seek help from the clergy in the first place, devastated and dependent on the religious leaders. The victims would thus often seek the perpetrator-to-be for his services. We conclude that the vulnerability of women and girls and their trust in the clergy expose them to exploitation, manipulation, and sexual abuse by the same religious leaders supposed to be representing purity. Further, due to the burden of poverty, unemployment, and the worsening economic environment in Zimbabwe, women remain at the risk of falling prey to the deceptive language of the sexually abusive clergy. Keywords: Clergy, sexual abuse, language of deception, courtship language, Christian abuse, women abuse
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