Pub Date : 2018-12-11DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1532919
Ali Akbar
ABSTRACT Historically, Muslim orthodoxy has regarded the Quran as God’s Word dictated to Muhammad through the mediation of the Angel Gabriel, and has thus maintained the corresponding argument that the Prophet played no role in shaping the content of the Quranic revelations. This paper discusses a project of what I shall refer to as ‘reforming theology’ within contemporary Islamic scholarship which stands in contrast to the dominant orthodox view of revelation and the nature of the Quran. In particular, the paper examines how several contemporary Muslim scholars, namely Fazlur Rahman (from Pakistan), Abdolkarim Soroush and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari (from Iran) and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (from Egypt), challenge the widely accepted idea about the Quran being the literal Word of God. The paper argues that the project of these scholars represents a radically new direction in Islamic theology because of its strong emphasis on the human side of the Quran. It also shows that the implications of these scholars’ re-examination of traditional theories of revelation are not only limited to theological matters, or specifically the communicative relationship between God and His Prophet, but also have a number of consequences for the practice of exegesis.
历史上，穆斯林正统认为《古兰经》是真主通过天使加百列向穆罕默德口授的话语，并因此坚持相应的论点，即先知在塑造《古兰经》启示的内容方面没有发挥作用。这篇论文讨论了一个项目，我将称之为“改革神学”在当代伊斯兰学术中，它与占主导地位的正统观点的启示和古兰经的本质形成对比。特别是，本文考察了几位当代穆斯林学者，即Fazlur Rahman(来自巴基斯坦)，Abdolkarim Soroush和Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari(来自伊朗)和Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd(来自埃及)，如何挑战被广泛接受的关于《古兰经》是真主的文字的观点。本文认为，这些学者的项目代表了伊斯兰神学的一个全新方向，因为它强烈强调古兰经的人性方面。这也表明，这些学者对传统启示理论的重新审视的影响不仅局限于神学问题，或者具体地说，上帝与他的先知之间的交流关系，而且对训诂学的实践产生了一些影响。
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Pub Date : 2018-10-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1534749
Rafael Cazarín, Mar Griera
ABSTRACT Women’s presence in Pentecostal leadership positions has slowly increased over the past decades, which raises new questions on the reconfiguration of gender roles and its relationship with religious doctrines. Based on empirical research, this article examines the construction of female leadership and religious authority within Pentecostal churches in a diasporic context. We draw upon biographical narratives of six female Pentecostal pastors—three African and three Latin American—who are leaders in Pentecostal churches in Spain. Our aim is to understand which conditions allowed these women to obtain positions of leadership in a mainly male dominated Pentecostal milieu and analyse the discursive articulation of Pentecostal conservative views on gender issues with local dynamics in the construction of female religious authority. The article shows that the authority of these women within the church realm is forged and legitimated through a religious narrative, one that empowers them as religious leaders without challenging their (and other women’s) subaltern role in the domains of social and family life.
{"title":"Born a pastor, being a woman: biographical accounts on gendered religious gifts in the Diaspora","authors":"Rafael Cazarín, Mar Griera","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1534749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1534749","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Women’s presence in Pentecostal leadership positions has slowly increased over the past decades, which raises new questions on the reconfiguration of gender roles and its relationship with religious doctrines. Based on empirical research, this article examines the construction of female leadership and religious authority within Pentecostal churches in a diasporic context. We draw upon biographical narratives of six female Pentecostal pastors—three African and three Latin American—who are leaders in Pentecostal churches in Spain. Our aim is to understand which conditions allowed these women to obtain positions of leadership in a mainly male dominated Pentecostal milieu and analyse the discursive articulation of Pentecostal conservative views on gender issues with local dynamics in the construction of female religious authority. The article shows that the authority of these women within the church realm is forged and legitimated through a religious narrative, one that empowers them as religious leaders without challenging their (and other women’s) subaltern role in the domains of social and family life.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"451 - 470"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1534749","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47157012","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 : 2018-10-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1535443
P. Retnaningdyah
ABSTRACT Indonesian domestic workers (IDWs) have been frequently stereotyped as uneducated and submissive women with little or no bargaining power in transnational labour migration. This article examines why and how literacy practices help foster the activism of IDWs in Hong Kong. In particular, I seek to understand the significance of IDWs’ writing in relation to Islamic modernities. Using the framework of alternative modernities, I argue that the creative process of IDWs’ writing sheds light to their attempts to exercise individual and collective agency. Specifically, the article looks at the role of Forum Lingkar Pena (Pen Circle Forum, FLP) Hong Kong, an IDW writing community, to reveal how its collective literacy practices help affirm Islamic values as part of a modernisation process on IDWs’ own terms.
印尼家庭佣工(idw)经常被定型为未受过教育和顺从的妇女，在跨国劳动力迁移中几乎没有议价能力。本文探讨扫盲活动为何及如何促进香港残障人士的行动主义。特别是，我试图理解idw的写作与伊斯兰现代性的关系的意义。利用另类现代性的框架，我认为idw写作的创作过程揭示了他们行使个人和集体能动性的尝试。具体来说，这篇文章着眼于IDW写作社区Forum Lingkar Pena (Pen Circle Forum, FLP)香港的角色，以揭示其集体扫盲实践如何帮助确认伊斯兰价值观，并将其作为IDW自己的现代化进程的一部分。
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Pub Date : 2018-09-28DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1526811
Frances Bird
ABSTRACT This article examines how a secular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) community choir in New Zealand negotiates a relationship with sacred repertoire, and the church in which the choir is located. A mixed-methods study included semi-structured interviews with 26 current and past members, musical directors and a church representative. Themes that emerged included tensions between religion and an LGBTQ cultural secularism, intersections of reconciliation and affirmation and the identity constitutive uses of space. Findings suggest that although, as LGBTQ-identified people, secularism is an important identity, sacred music is pleasurable. The choir provides church-like functions, through a sense of community, ritual and an environment for spiritual reflection and the practice of values. The church location offers reconciliation for those with Christian backgrounds. Benefitting each other, the choir gives St. Andrew’s legitimacy in its identity as an LGBTQ-inclusive church, and the church space has a queering effect on the presentation of the choir.
{"title":"A queer relationship? The construction of a New Zealand LGBTQ community choir and its host church","authors":"Frances Bird","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1526811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1526811","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines how a secular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) community choir in New Zealand negotiates a relationship with sacred repertoire, and the church in which the choir is located. A mixed-methods study included semi-structured interviews with 26 current and past members, musical directors and a church representative. Themes that emerged included tensions between religion and an LGBTQ cultural secularism, intersections of reconciliation and affirmation and the identity constitutive uses of space. Findings suggest that although, as LGBTQ-identified people, secularism is an important identity, sacred music is pleasurable. The choir provides church-like functions, through a sense of community, ritual and an environment for spiritual reflection and the practice of values. The church location offers reconciliation for those with Christian backgrounds. Benefitting each other, the choir gives St. Andrew’s legitimacy in its identity as an LGBTQ-inclusive church, and the church space has a queering effect on the presentation of the choir.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"435 - 450"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1526811","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43055709","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 : 2018-09-26DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1523801
Latoya Lazarus
ABSTRACT This article addresses the connection between religion, culture and the family through a critical examination of evangelical Christians’ focus on ‘the family’ in Barbados, in 2015 and 2016. The intentions are to highlight Evangelical Christians’ strategic deployment of a common rhetoric or frame of ‘defending the family,’ which was put forward in public discourses relating to sex, sexuality, marriage and the family. This rhetoric draws upon and reproduces deep-seated anxieties around the state of the family as well as its connection to ideas of progress, freedoms, national sovereignty and the establishment of strong nations. The article also sheds sociological light on Evangelical mobilisations by exploring the socio-cultural context in which they are occurring. The presented analysis is based on a critical feminist discourse analysis of relevant local and regional newspaper articles, blogs and websites, observational research as well as a review of secondary qualitative and quantitative data and pre-existing scholarly literature.
{"title":"‘Defending the family,’ safeguarding the nation: an examination of evangelical mobilisation in present-day Barbados","authors":"Latoya Lazarus","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1523801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1523801","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article addresses the connection between religion, culture and the family through a critical examination of evangelical Christians’ focus on ‘the family’ in Barbados, in 2015 and 2016. The intentions are to highlight Evangelical Christians’ strategic deployment of a common rhetoric or frame of ‘defending the family,’ which was put forward in public discourses relating to sex, sexuality, marriage and the family. This rhetoric draws upon and reproduces deep-seated anxieties around the state of the family as well as its connection to ideas of progress, freedoms, national sovereignty and the establishment of strong nations. The article also sheds sociological light on Evangelical mobilisations by exploring the socio-cultural context in which they are occurring. The presented analysis is based on a critical feminist discourse analysis of relevant local and regional newspaper articles, blogs and websites, observational research as well as a review of secondary qualitative and quantitative data and pre-existing scholarly literature.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"394 - 415"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1523801","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45476312","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 : 2018-08-08DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1505759
S. Lawson, S. Ramey
ABSTRACT The social media uproar in Fall 2017 over a nursing textbook chart that presented generalised characterisations of minority groups generated an assumption that medical training needs more Religious Studies expertise. Analysing the sources that the chart cited, we trace the authors’ assertions to studies of varying quality and identify several specific processes involved in simplifying knowledge for dissemination, as the authors disregarded the limits of each specific study and ignored counter-evidence or otherwise evaded critical scrutiny. Comparing this example to examples from world religions discourse illustrates both differences and similarities in the process of constructing simplified presentations. While both presumably developed out of good intentions, they generate significant problems in their effort to shape material to support larger arguments. Thus, scholars across disciplines should critique and complicate their own processes for generating simplified knowledge.
{"title":"Sourcing stereotypes: constructing and challenging simplified knowledge","authors":"S. Lawson, S. Ramey","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1505759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1505759","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The social media uproar in Fall 2017 over a nursing textbook chart that presented generalised characterisations of minority groups generated an assumption that medical training needs more Religious Studies expertise. Analysing the sources that the chart cited, we trace the authors’ assertions to studies of varying quality and identify several specific processes involved in simplifying knowledge for dissemination, as the authors disregarded the limits of each specific study and ignored counter-evidence or otherwise evaded critical scrutiny. Comparing this example to examples from world religions discourse illustrates both differences and similarities in the process of constructing simplified presentations. While both presumably developed out of good intentions, they generate significant problems in their effort to shape material to support larger arguments. Thus, scholars across disciplines should critique and complicate their own processes for generating simplified knowledge.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"416 - 434"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1505759","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43278829","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 : 2018-08-03DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1500381
David Zimmer
ABSTRACT Can an individual trip to an artwork in a Protestant church, that evokes experiences of transcendence, be understood as a ‘Protestant pilgrimage’? The question is discussed with a historical example from the eighteenth century and a contemporary example from the twenty-first century, both of which refer to the transcendental dimension of (religious) art and raise the question about the interrelationship between art tourism and pilgrimage. Although the motivation for such journeys is often aesthetic and not spiritual, visitors may be deeply touched by the artworks and experience feelings that transcend the mundane present. If these examples are considered as ‘pilgrimages’ (and not only in a merely metaphorical sense), attention must be paid to their ecumenical, potentially heterodox character. For in the Reformed tradition, the importance of the pilgrimage is the journey itself, and not the final destination.
{"title":"Between art tourism and ‘Protestant pilgrimage’: individual journeys to artworks in two churches of Reformed denomination near Bern, Switzerland","authors":"David Zimmer","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1500381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1500381","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Can an individual trip to an artwork in a Protestant church, that evokes experiences of transcendence, be understood as a ‘Protestant pilgrimage’? The question is discussed with a historical example from the eighteenth century and a contemporary example from the twenty-first century, both of which refer to the transcendental dimension of (religious) art and raise the question about the interrelationship between art tourism and pilgrimage. Although the motivation for such journeys is often aesthetic and not spiritual, visitors may be deeply touched by the artworks and experience feelings that transcend the mundane present. If these examples are considered as ‘pilgrimages’ (and not only in a merely metaphorical sense), attention must be paid to their ecumenical, potentially heterodox character. For in the Reformed tradition, the importance of the pilgrimage is the journey itself, and not the final destination.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"361 - 375"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1500381","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48720045","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 : 2018-07-31DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1500382
Craig A. Hammond
ABSTRACT Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films evoke landscapes, characters and themes of undisclosed longing; with provocative situations of desperation and stranded existences, Ceylanian trysts, landscapes and human encounters also tend to be tinged with the fleeting hue of nostalgic daydream, and the lustre of unspoken aches. So often in Ceylan’s films what is most important goes unsaid, and remains unsayable; with the open ciphers of lonely wanderers, something from beyond the images and dialogue of the films stirs. Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun) starts with a night sequence in which a lone man drives along an unlit and isolated road; he hits something – a human being. With this, Servet, an ambitious politician, takes the decision to drive away and leave the body. This self-interested decision kick-starts a sequence of events which soon implicates the lives and familial relationships of Servet’s driver Eyüp. This paper explores, analyses and discusses the characters and narrative of Ceylan’s Three Monkeys, using the philosophical frameworks of Ernst Bloch, Marc Augé and Friedrich Nietzsche.
{"title":"Three Monkeys (2008): oblivion, anamnesis and the latent spectrality of hope","authors":"Craig A. Hammond","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1500382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1500382","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films evoke landscapes, characters and themes of undisclosed longing; with provocative situations of desperation and stranded existences, Ceylanian trysts, landscapes and human encounters also tend to be tinged with the fleeting hue of nostalgic daydream, and the lustre of unspoken aches. So often in Ceylan’s films what is most important goes unsaid, and remains unsayable; with the open ciphers of lonely wanderers, something from beyond the images and dialogue of the films stirs. Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun) starts with a night sequence in which a lone man drives along an unlit and isolated road; he hits something – a human being. With this, Servet, an ambitious politician, takes the decision to drive away and leave the body. This self-interested decision kick-starts a sequence of events which soon implicates the lives and familial relationships of Servet’s driver Eyüp. This paper explores, analyses and discusses the characters and narrative of Ceylan’s Three Monkeys, using the philosophical frameworks of Ernst Bloch, Marc Augé and Friedrich Nietzsche.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"376 - 393"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1500382","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46006559","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 : 2018-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1489865
Raymond L. M. Lee
ABSTRACT Recent studies of religion and the media generally assume the secular nature of the latter impacting on the former. Religious relevance is set against a media culture of screens and networks that purportedly shape and reshape the symbols of sacredness. Yet the media itself may also be regarded as constituting a form of sacredness in its generation of excess. Within an expanding digital universe, the media creates and channels an abundance of information to overwhelm the attention of billions of people. The power to access excess places the sacred in the resources and practices of interconnectedness made possible by the use of digital devices that readies populations to anticipate limitless flows of data. Parallels can be drawn with the cargo cults of Melanesia where natives in contact with their colonisers came to anticipate the arrival of unlimited wealth and goods. This comparison may be used to illustrate the dual face of the media as secular in its operating system and religious in its production of excess. It also raises the question of whether the secular in digital culture could be treated as if it were wholly autonomous of the religious.
{"title":"Access to excess: media as religion and the new cargo cults","authors":"Raymond L. M. Lee","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2018.1489865","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1489865","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recent studies of religion and the media generally assume the secular nature of the latter impacting on the former. Religious relevance is set against a media culture of screens and networks that purportedly shape and reshape the symbols of sacredness. Yet the media itself may also be regarded as constituting a form of sacredness in its generation of excess. Within an expanding digital universe, the media creates and channels an abundance of information to overwhelm the attention of billions of people. The power to access excess places the sacred in the resources and practices of interconnectedness made possible by the use of digital devices that readies populations to anticipate limitless flows of data. Parallels can be drawn with the cargo cults of Melanesia where natives in contact with their colonisers came to anticipate the arrival of unlimited wealth and goods. This comparison may be used to illustrate the dual face of the media as secular in its operating system and religious in its production of excess. It also raises the question of whether the secular in digital culture could be treated as if it were wholly autonomous of the religious.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":"19 1","pages":"345 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2018.1489865","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44697282","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 : 2018-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2018.1489864
Andrew-John Bethke
ABSTRACT This article is an introduction to and analysis of experiments in localisation at Grahamstown Anglican Cathedral. To this end, three songs are presented, each composed or arranged by the junior choristers of the cathedral choir. The method of composition/arrangement is loosely based on experimental workshops conducted by David Dargie in the 1970s and 1980s with people across Southern Africa. The texts and music of the songs are analysed, with the express purpose of determining to what extent Southern African cultures have interacted with western cultures. A method of categorisation, derived from models developed by Huib Schippers and Akin Euba, is used to determine the depth of cultural contact. The author finds that in two of the songs there is evidence of creative and meaningful mingling of local and western cultures. The third song, being simply an arrangement of a local song, is more obviously Southern African, although it too shows influence of western harmonic conventions, albeit more superficially.
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