Journal for the Study of Religion最新文献

{"title":"A mall intercept survey on religion and worldview in the Cape Flats of Cape Town, South Africa","authors":"T. Farrar, Khanyisane A. Falake, Adriel Mebaley, M. Moya, Ivor I. Rudolph","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n1a3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n1a3","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzes worldviews and religious beliefs and practices in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa, using a mall intercept survey of n=513 visitors to five shopping centers. Variables considered included demographic characteristics, measures of religiosity and religious pluralism, participation in religious activities, and supernaturalism (both related and unrelated to a traditional Christian-Abrahamic worldview). The majority (69.4%) of respon-dents identifies as Christian, though denominational affiliation is very diverse. The other two prevalent religious affiliations are the African Traditional Religion (16.4%) and Islam (11.7%). Only 1.6% of the respondents self-identified as non-religious, a smaller percentage than has been found in research on Cape Town as a whole or South Africa nationally. The degree of self-reported  religiosity, participation in religious activities, and belief in supernatural  phenomena are all high. Associations between demographic characteristics and religion and worldview variables are analyzed in detail. Keywords : mall intercept, religion, worldview, survey, Cape Flats, South Africa","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489637","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}

{"title":"Humanist Limits in the Material Phenomenology of Religion","authors":"G. Meyer","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a3","url":null,"abstract":"This article tracks a shared methodological tension within the work of a few classic phenomenologists, based on an epistemological juxtaposition at the heart of their enquiry. This epistemological tension emerges as secular and non-secular concepts are worked with concurrently. A modified form of this tension is present in the materialist phenomenology of religion that David Chidester presents, which links his phenomenology to the earlier classical forms. However, although a methodological tension is maintained in his work, the epistemological juxtaposition that initiated the tension is collapsed along humanist boundaries, with important consequences for the study of religion.","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489837","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}

{"title":"Christian gacaca and official gacaca in post-genocide Rwanda","authors":"P. Denis","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/V32N1A1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/V32N1A1","url":null,"abstract":"In October 1998, a think tank of the Rwandan state proposed the establishment of gacaca jurisdictions – popular courts charged with judging the people involved in the genocide against the Tutsi. Lesser known is the Christian gacaca, a conflict resolution mechanism, also inspired by the traditional gacaca, which was established during the same period by the Catholic Church of Rwanda as part of the synodal process leading to the celebration of the 2000 Year Jubilee. This essay describes, on the basis of archival documents and oral testimonies, the genesis of the Christian gacaca and examines how it related to the official gacaca. This pastoral initiative contributed to a relaxation of the tension between church and state that had marked the immediate aftermath of the genocide. The aim of the Christian gacaca was to bring about reconciliation in communities divided by the genocide, by bringing together victims and perpetrators. The task of the official gacaca was to judge and, if the guilt was established, to punish the authors of the genocide crimes. It was also, like in the Christian gacaca, to restore social harmony, but only through a judicial process.Keywords: Rwanda, genocide, Catholic Church, synod, 2000 Year Jubilee, Christian gacaca, official gacaca, Nyakibanda Major Seminary, Urugwiro Village","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489580","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}

{"title":"Religious freedom and the law: a reality or pipe dream for prisoners in South Africa?","authors":"H. P. Motlalekgosi","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n1a2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n1a2","url":null,"abstract":"Freedom of religion, like other human rights, must be respected, protected, and promoted by relevant and entrusted authorities to comply with legitimate laws, applicable to a particular environment. In South Africa, the Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998 as amended, the White Paper on Corrections in South Africa of 2005, and internal policies are intended to make provision for prisoners’ freedom of religion in the correctional services environment. These essentially give effect to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996, emanating from pertinent international and African continental instru-ments. Through an analytic design of change over time, this essay seeks to conduct an analysis of prisoners’ freedom of religion in South Africa. This analysis is based on the Department of Correctional Services’ annual reports published between 1997 and 2016 and the general conditions of prisons in South Africa. The finding of this study reveals a violation of the right of prisoners to freedom of religion by the South African correctional authority. Keywords : prisoners’ freedom of religion, human dignity, religious beliefs, spiritual services, prisoners’ spiritual needs","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489594","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}

{"title":"Cast as Written: Protestant Missionaries and their Translation of Molimo as the Christian God in 19th-century Southern Africa","authors":"Sepetla Molapo","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/V32N1A4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/V32N1A4","url":null,"abstract":"This essay reads the 19th-century Protestant Christian missionary archive in order to explore how it deals with translating the term ‘molimo’ as (the Christian) God. It shows that this work of translation rests upon a binary division that Protestant Christian missionaries make between the inside and the outside with priority given to the former over the latter. This binary division that informs the translation of molimo as God, has the  consequence of dis-solving the material religion of the 19th-century Sotho speaking people and inaugurating in its place a notion of religion whose foundation is personal interiority. The result of this departure of molimo from the material to personal interiority is the reorganization of the relationship between space and time. The essay argues that molimo’s departure from the material to personal interiority privileges space over time because, reconstituted as the Christian God, molimo gets cast in the language of writing. Writing has the consequence of dissolving an order of life based on the priority of speech (orality).Keywords: molimo, writing, speech, Protestant missionaries, Southern Africa, translation","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489647","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}

{"title":"· Unpacking the Socio-Political Background of the Evolution of Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria: A Social Movement Theory Approach","authors":"K. E. Amaechi, R. Tshifhumulo","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a1","url":null,"abstract":"In the last decade, Boko Haram (BH) has become notorious across the world, because of its militancy and ultra-fundamentalist activities. Its violent activi-ties have in many ways surpassed other similar African Salafi-oriented organizations, such as the AQIM in Algeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia. This article traces the socio-political and organizational background upon which this organization evolved in Northern Nigeria. Drawing from the social movement theory, it harnesses data, collected mostly from semi-structured interviews on some Salafi leaders, security personnel, politicians, and ordinary civilians who worked in the area. The study explains how the evolu-tion of such an organization is rooted in context-specific political structures within Northern Nigeria. The argument is that these are enabling mobilization resources and political opportunities upon which initial BH activists established the organization in the region. Keywords: Armed violence, Boko Haram, Northern Nigeria, Salafi-oriented movement organizations, Salafism, Social movement theory","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489770","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}

{"title":"'Sanctifying sex': exploring 'indecent' sexual imagery in pentecostal liturgical practices","authors":"Sarojini Nadar, Johnathan Jodamus","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/V32N1A5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/V32N1A5","url":null,"abstract":"Pentecostalism, like many other church traditions, is well known for its fixation with doctrinal dualisms which enforce a separation of body and spirit, and a Puritan sexual ethic. These conservative sexual norms have led to the policing of bodies and sexual practices. As a result, instead of encouraging safer sexual practices, the churches have been known to enforce abstinence outside of marriage, or sexual restrictions within it, thus marking sex in general as ‘inde-cent’. Some of the consequences of this repression of sexuality are young people being forced into early marriages to avoid ‘living in sin’, teenage pregnancies as a consequence of not wanting to disobey the church’s teaching on sex and contraceptives, as well as more serious consequences of unbridled sexual expressions resulting in sexually transmitted viruses. The consequences of a repressed sexuality are indeed serious. However, what if this ‘repressive hypothesis’ can be challenged within Pentecostal spaces? What if, like Foucault suggests, a deeper engagement with the subject matter would show, not sexual censorship, but rather a re-channeling of sexuality? Drawing on Foucault’s challenge to the repressive hypothesis, where he suggests that so-called repressed sexuality finds ‘appropriate’ outlets in spaces such as psychi-atry and prostitution, this essay suggests a third outlet, namely Pentecostalism. While particular sexual discourses may be constructed as indecent and conta-minated as ‘sin’, liturgical and deliverance practices ironically signify erotic relationships between the divine and the believer. Proceeding with an ‘in-decent’ theological lens, as proposed by Marcella Althaus-Reid, we argue that Pentecostalism’s liturgical practices ironically and unconsciously open up possibilities for more embodied, real, and sexed experiences of the divine. This consideration not only expands the interpretive possibilities for how we mark relationships with the divine, but also how sexual relationships between humans are shaped and possibly destigmatized. In taking a sneak peek ‘under God’s skirt’, in Althaus-Reid’s words, we reimagine the indecent as sacred. Through an analysis of how bodies and rituals are marked by discursive prac-tices within the songs and performances in these churches and an examination of a blasphemy case, this essay lays bare the critical spaces available for more embodied theologies – ‘sexual healing’ that perhaps even the worshipers them-selves have unconsciously ignored.Keywords: Pentecostalism, sexuality, indecent theologies, embodiment, Foucault","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489656","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}

{"title":"Can the Rwandan Catholic Church Overcome its History of Politicization? A Reply to Philippe Denis","authors":"A. Court","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a2","url":null,"abstract":"Scholarly interest in Rwanda ranges across all aspects of its history. A substantial body of influential research appeared particularly during the two decades following independence in 1962. These contributions together with earlier work constitute the bedrock of later research, including the intensive focus on the mass violence in Rwanda during the first half of the 1990s and its consequences for the Great Lakes region. One of the most controversial questions to emerge from the occurrences of the 1990s has been the role of the churches, and particularly the dominant Roman Catholic Church, in the violence manifesting in its most extreme form in the genocide of 1994. This article addresses the claim by the scholar Philippe Denis in his essay ‘Christian gacaca and official gacaca in post-genocide Rwanda’ (Denis 2019:1-27 of 27) that the Rwandan Catholic Church has played a leading role in the difficult process of post-genocide reconciliation. Denis provides us with an authoritative account of the emergence and functioning of the Christian gacaca and its relation to the official, state-sponsored gacaca. Moreover, he presents grounds for his claim that this pastoral initiative helped to alleviate the tension that arose between the church and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)-dominated state in the aftermath of the genocide when the institutional church was widely condemned for its silence during the genocide and even for its complicity in the genocide. The question that I wish to pose is whether, by not broadening the focus placed by the church on the problem of ethnic animosity or ‘ethnocentrism’ as the principal causal factor that ‘led’ to the genocide, Denis does not elide a range of trigger factors that should be taken into account in any assessment of both the genocide and the church’s role in it. I aim to show that, by not taking into account these important factors and their relevance for interpreting the historically close ties between church and state, Denis tends to endorse the church’s reductionist interpretation of the history of intergroup conflict and mass violence, which it attributes almost exclusively to ethnic animosity. Consequently, when in the aftermath of the genocide, the church declared that ‘ethnism’ lay at the heart of all social and political ills, moreover refusing to acknowledge its own role in propagating a state ideology of ethnic racism, it not only risked re-inscribing a binary-logic that guided its thinking and defined its role in the Rwandan politics throughout the 20th century, but also deflected attention away from its problematic assumption of moral authority to mediate between perpetrators and victims/survivors. Keywords: Christian gacaca, Rwandan Catholic Church, genocide, ethnicity, ethnocentrism, ethnism","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489776","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}

{"title":"Christiane Kruse, Birgit Meyer, and Anne-Marie Korte (eds.) 2018. Taking offense: Religion, art and visual culture in plural configurations. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. 383 pages. ISBN: 978-3-7705-6345-6","authors":"T. Wilks","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n1ar1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n1ar1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489759","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}

{"title":"Open Space Worship: A Religious Identity of the Johane Masowe Chishanu Church in Zimbabwe","authors":"Phillip Musoni, P. Gundani","doi":"10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2019/v32n2a4","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines ‘open space’ worship that has typified the religious identity of the Johane Masowe Chishanu Church (‘John of the wilderness’ Church that congregates on Fridays) in Zimbabwe. The Johane Masowe Chishanu Church (JMCC) is a Zimbabwean African indigenous church with branches in many countries. These congregations, being in Zimbabwe and other countries, are recognizable by their white garments and gatherings in open spaces for church services. The practice of congregating in open spaces has been condemned by city fathers, town planners, and government autho-rities guided by health policies and by-laws (Lubinda 2015; Ncube 2016). In spite of these condemnations, the JMCC has continued to use available open spaces for its services. Our understanding is that congregating in open spaces has become an integral part of the JMCC’s history and theological identity. In this article, we examine the veracity and provenance of this assumed identity by interrogating the church’s traditions, its relations with colonial authorities, and its theology of open spaces. Borrowing from the theory on identity formation (Dominelli 2002), our contention is that a combination of factors contributes to the JMCC’s continued practice of gathering for worship in open spaces. These factors include the sectarian influences on the JMCC, the African spiritual ethos within which it was founded, as well as the colonial ‘othering’ and subsequent marginalization. Keywords: Johane Masowe Chishanu Church (JMCC), African indigenous churches (AICs), colonial government, identity formation, ‘othering’, open spaces, sect, pseudo-religious movements","PeriodicalId":42808,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67489852","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}