http://www.aarweb.org/meetings/Annual_Meeting/Past_and_Future_Meetings/2005/abstracts.asp

AAR Abstracts

November 19-22, 2005
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    A18-1

Chairs Workshop - Enlarging the Pie: Strategies for Managing and Growing Departmental Resources

The workshop will include plenary sessions with invited panelists with expertise and experience in developing physical, financial, faculty and student resources. Also, there will be breakout sessions for participants seeking help with budgets and financial management, and with growing links to other departments.

    A18-3

Religion and Media Workshop - "Spinning" God: Teaching, Researching, and Reporting on Politics and Religion

This day-long workshop brings together prominent journalists and scholars of religion and media to the AAR who are concerned with the interrelation of politics and religion. The day’s events will include lectures, a film screening, and plenty of time for questions, answers, and further conversation. Topics covered include: Teaching about politics in the religious studies classroom; reporting on the religious dimension of politics; and up to date research on the field.

Questions about the workshop should be directed to S. Brent Plate, Texas Christian University, b.plate@tcu.edu.

    A18-4

Women’s Caucus Workshop - Using Feminist Pedagogies in the Classroom

The Women's Caucus is presenting a workshop on teaching feminist pedagogies.

Scholars including Vasudha Narayanan, Melissa C. Stewart, Karma Lekshe

Tsomo, Julie Kilmer, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, and Victoria Rue will

present on teaching their fields. Paula Trimble Familetti, Harriet Luckman,

and Laurie Wright Garry will preside.

    A18-101

Arts Series/Films: Peaceable Kingdom

In Peaceable Kingdom, we hear the riveting stories of people struggling with their conscience around some of our society’s most fundamental assumptions. An inspiring story of personal redemption, compassion, healing and hope, Peaceable Kingdom is described by many of its viewers as “a life changing experience.”

Directed by Jenny Stein, 2005, 70 minutes (color, USA).

    A18-102

EIS Center Orientation

The EIS Center orientation features a short presentation which includes an overview of the Center, an explanation of how best to utilize the Center, and a question and answer session. After the presentation, the Center will be open for use, with the exception of the Interview Hall. Employers will be able to review candidate credentials, leave messages for registered candidates, and make reservations for booth space. Candidates can pick up their copy of the Annual Meetings Special Edition of Openings, as well as leave messages for employers. The Center will also be accepting onsite registrations at this time. Employers and candidates are encouraged to participate in orientation but are not required to attend.

    A18-103

Arts Series/Films: Mana: Beyond Belief

The central idea behind the new motion picture Mana: Beyond Belief is that the way people behave in the presence of power objects reveals a process of the human mind which is fundamental and universal: belief. By filming power objects around the world--things that are precious because people believe they are--and revealing the myriad activities and behaviors that take place around them, this film presents an exciting new way of looking at what is happening all around us, all the time. Belief is not just religion; it drives the stock market, it determines how we deal with history and our personal memories, it underlies racism and war. Bringing together diverse cultures, characters, visual styles, music and fascinating objects, Mana helps us see the essential, invisible element underlying them all.

Directed by Peter Friedman and Roger Manley, 2004, 92 minutes (color, USA).

    A19-3

Status of Women in the Profession Committee: Conversation about Gender Issues with Program Unit Chairs

The Status of Women in the Profession of the AAR invites chairs, conveners, committee members and friends of AAR and SBL groups, sections, seminars, caucuses, and committees who do work on gender issues to take part in an early morning conversation to facilitate dialogue among our various groups and generate program ideas for future meetings.

    A19-6

Publications Committee Meeting

The Publications Committee will hold its usual business meeting on the Saturday morning of the annual meeting.

    A19-7

Barnes Museum Bus Tour

The Barnes Foundation art collection is unsurpassed in breadth, quality and depth in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. It is enhanced by Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, Chinese painting, African sculpture, retablos from New Mexico, Native American works, and American decorative arts. Juxtapositions of objects from different cultures, periods and media are intentional and provide exciting resources for teaching and viewing the world from a diverse perspective. Self-guided audio tours can be purchased upon arrival at the museum.

    A19-8

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Popularizing Our Scholarship: Its Pleasures and Pitfalls

According to the 2004 NEH study Reading at Risk, religion books are the healthiest segment of adult publishing. In this panel, we will discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of publishing religion and spirituality books for the larger marketplace, as well as the tensions that may arise when one tries to balance academic writing and teaching with "pop" publishing. All panelists have published books with trade houses, and each will consider how and why they got into trade publishing, as well as the response from academic colleagues and communities to these broader scholarly pursuits. The panel, comprising both senior and junior, tenure-track and nontenure-track scholars, who will address a variety of questions about the impact, good and bad, of writing popular books while remaining in academia. This panel will interest AAR members who seek to write for the broadest possible audience and who are also concerned with the professional consequences that accompany this choice.

    A19-9

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Quo Vadis Eastern Europe?

The session raises the question of the direction in which contemporary Eastern Europe (a term which we use to include former socialist countries of Europe, including the Soviet Union) is developing. Connecting the roots with the present, the presenters are exploring the relationship of nationalism, religion, and civil society as well as ecumenical and interreligious relationships.

The Basilian Monks of Grottaferrata and the Pursuit of Christian Unity
Ines A. Murzaku, Seton Hall University

The paper will articulate the intricate religious and political circumstances that gave rise to the movement of the Orthodox faithful of mid and southern Albania to unite with the Catholic Church during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. This occurred at a time when the return or an exclusivist ecclesiology was ruling in the West. Special attention will be given to the Basilian missions to revive the country's Byzantine Catholic tradition.

Teaching about the Other: Inter-Church Dialogue for Russian/Ukrainian Christianity
Walter Sawatsky, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

The paper will examine the conflicts between Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant communities in Russia and Ukraine since 1988 in light of what the schools and press appear to be teaching about the other churches; comparing it with the rise of global Christian consciousness in the West.

Cordoba and Sarajevo: Contrasts in Religious Separation and Tolerance
N. Gerald Shenk, Eastern Mennonite Seminary

Recent studies of Medieval Spain (Menocal) and of contemporary Bosnia (Velikonja) invite comparisons between two very different chapters of strong Muslim influence in Europe. The interpretation of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in various combinations, including both political power and disenfranchisement, suggest that conditions of toleration are more complex than merely external constraints of a strenuous secularism.

Turkish Millet, Religious Nationalism, and Civil Society
James R. Payton, Redeemer University College

The paper will examine the close interrelationship between nationality and religion, nurtured and fomented over centuries, in the southern regions of former Yugoslavia and the challenges faced in developing civil society in the present.

    A19-10

Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section and Hinduism Group

Theme: Teaching Hinduism in a Survey Course

The participants in this roundtable will present a range of approaches to the problem of how to cover “Hinduism” in an introductory survey course. Such a course involves us either in teaching a single “Hinduism,” or perhaps teaching Hinduism as a dialogue among a narrow range of alternate values. At the same time, research on religion in South Asia increasingly stresses the ways we need to view “Hinduisms” as multiple, contextualized and contested. The courses we teach range from multi-religion introductory surveys to more methodologically focused introductory courses that deal with Hinduism as one of one or two case studies. Our goal is not to try to “solve” the problem of how to address Hinduism in the introductory survey course. Rather, our goal by presenting a range of approaches is to open a conversation that will allow for collective reflection on the issue.

    A19-11

Christian Systematic Theology Section

Theme: Music and the Holy Spirit

This session will explore the Christian understanding of how the Holy Spirit shape the human experience of music, as well as how Christian pneumatology might be reformulated in light of that experience. Our expectation is that most presenters will offer audio or audio-visual examples of their subject-matter.

Messiaen, Meaning, and the Transmission of Tradition
Nicholas Adams, University of Edinburgh

An analysis of Messiaen's Messe de la Pentecôte (1951). This paper explores how meaning is constructed in music (the question of so-called 'absolute' music) and also the kinds of preparation required of the listener in order for the music to appear as theology, rather than merely as sound. The paper draws on Messiaen's own reflections in Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d’Ornithologie, Tome IV (1997) as well as topics in German philosophy that relate to music. The thesis presented here is that Messiaen's theology is best understood as a refraction of tradition of music, which is at the same time a model of the presentation of God's address and human response: heard as music.

Music as the Apocalyptic Transfiguration of History, with Special Reference to Adorno and the Fate of Spirit in the Viennese Tradition
J. David Franks, Boston College

The richness of the Viennese musical tradition seemed to shipwreck with Schoenberg, and yet the brilliant critical theorist Adorno insisted on defending him.

Why? I suggest the problem can be traced to the deficiencies of Hegel's pneumatology.

The spirit at work in music is not above the material, but works through it, incarnationally. Failing to understand the analogy of spirit, Hegel misses even the fullness of the properly human spirit, which seeks embodiment, to express life, to express the vitality of a culture.

The greatest music shows an unbounded fecundity due to the vertical downward irruption of beauty (the truth of the “spiritual” view of music), which intersects with the horizontal pursuit of a beauty to be found in fragments (the truth of the “materialist” view), gathering history up into the ever-greater vitality of the divine life whose glory shines forth in the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Rhythmicity and the Eternal Creative Act of the Holy Spirit
Loye Ashton, Millsaps College

This paper outlines a theological interpretation of rhythm that offers a postmodern aesthetic approach for understanding how musical concepts of rhythm, particularly the character of pulse, can help identify the Holy Spirit as the eternal creative act that unites power and meaning in the actualization of life. Looking at medieval descriptions of the Holy Spirit (Abelard, Bernard, and Bonaventure), as well as more recent theologians (Tillich, Neville, Begbie), in light of a contemporary relational metaphysics known as “rhythmicity,” I will explore how rhythm, and especially the manifestation of rhythm in music, helps us to deeply appreciate, rather than destructively deny, the finite beauty of time as salvific. The rhythmic element of pulse allows us to know and feel the Holy Spirit as the unity of mystery and truth, power and meaning, whirlwind and wisdom, cognition and emotion, actualized under the conditions of existence as life.

    A19-12

Comparative Studies in Religion Section and Religion and the Social Sciences Section

Theme: Beyond Freud and Jung: New Psychological Approaches to Comparative Religious Studies

Our panel will present four new perspectives that afford insight into the psychological aspects of various religions. To understand better discourses of the self expressed in literature, ethics, mystical experience, and philosophy, we will draw upon social and self psychologies, concepts of discourse and the body, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. As we discuss our approaches, we will cover a range of religious traditions (including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity) and a variety of cultural contexts (i.e., ancient Greece and India, classical China, late antique Roman Palestine, and turn-of-the-twentieth-century Europe). We will thus demonstrate that psychological theories continue to be useful to scholars of comparative religion.

    A19-13

History of Christianity Section

Theme: Reviewing History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn, by Elizabeth A. Clark (Harvard University Press)

What does it mean to engage in the practice of history when studying the history of Christianity? How do we turn events and ideas of the past into history? In History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Harvard University Press, 2004), Elizabeth A. Clark has written a major study of how historians have grappled with the relationship between the past and the work of creating history, and in so doing, she challenges historians of Christianity to learn from and contribute to continuing debates informed by contemporary theory. This panel will feature four prominent scholars who will discuss the book, as well as a response by Professor Clark.

    A19-14

Philosophy of Religion Section

Theme: Technology, Religion, and the Human in Question

All "Dollied" Up: Why Bans on Human Cloning Are Dressed in the Garb of Human Dignity
Leslie Meltzer, University of Virginia

Public opinion polls demonstrate that the vast majority of people find the idea of human reproductive cloning abhorrent because they believe it will destroy the meaning of what it means to be a person. National and international regulations have banned such cloning on the ground that it threatens 'human dignity.' But just how does cloning endanger our personhood, and what does human dignity mean in this context? Can human dignity be diminshed by cloning, or is human dignity inviolable? This paper briefly examines the regulatory framework surrounding human cloning before exploring various meanings of 'human dignity' and their import in the cloning controversy.

Islamic Philosophy and the Challenge of Cloning
Mohammad Motahari Farimani, Regis College, University of Toronto

Recent advancements in cloning have, courtesy of modern mass media, come to wide public attention—raising some important questions about the role of God in creation. They have made some believers feel distrustful about their understanding of God's creation. Are these new advances and their underlying philosophy tantamount to a serious rival for creation by Divine decree? Or can they be easily brushed aside and explained away? According to Muslim philosophers, especially the followers of Mulla Sadra, this vacillation or feeling of doubt on the part of some believers is due to their failure in understanding the profound meaning of creation. This paper will put forth the argument that cloning is completely compatible with the notion of creation as it is expounded in rational and intellectual terms by traditional Islamic philosophy and shows that modern biological reproductive methods and God's creative act are of two totally different natures.

Exceeding the Eye: The Nodular Subject and the Dislocation of the Philosophy of Religion
Anais Spitzer, Pacifica Graduate Institute

Modern technology and science are transforming the human subject in two key ways. First, subjectivity is no longer discrete and self-contained; rather, it emerges within a distributed matrix, in a complex system wherein the rigid distinction between subject/object is undone. Secondly, this new technological network or cosmos exceeds the individual. To a greater degree, technology creates the subject even more than the subject creates technology. In this way there is always an unanticipatable aspect, a “non-foundational foundation” which cannot be accounted for by the system it founds, thus exposing an openness and incompleteness that is always already in the system itself. Such a “moment of complexity” where the boundaries have been unsettled, challenges philosophy itself by revealing that the calculating subject and the founding distinction between subject and object are untenable. Thinking now requires a new architecture through which to philosophize the irreducibly collective and distributed subject.

A Better Life through Information Technology? The Posthuman Person in Contemporary Speculative Science
Michael DeLashmutt, University of Aberdeen

The depiction of human identity in the pop-science futurology of engineer/inventor Ray Kurzweil, the speculative-robotics of Carnegie Mellon researcher Hans Moravec and the theories of Tulane University mathematics professor Frank Tipler reflect an implied reductionistic philosophical anthropology which regards identity as a system of patterns able to be decoded and re-embodied in whatever substrate technology provides. Although Moravec’s vision of intelligent robots, Kurzweil’s hope for immanent human immorality, and Tipler’s description of human-like von Neumann machines colonising the very material fabric of the universe,may all appear to be nothing more than science fictional musings, they raise genuine questions as to the relationship between science, technology, and religion as regards issues of personhood. In an attempt to correct what I see as the ‘cybernetic-totalism’ inherent in these ‘techno-theologies’, I will argue for a narrative understanding of identity explored under the rubric of a theology of technology.

    A19-15

Study of Islam Section

Theme: Women, Agency, and Islam

The panel explores a number of topics that place gender at the heart of any society. The papers of this panel deal specifically with reproduction, sexual prescriptions, polygyny, and Islamist gender constructions. The first two papers analyze gender issues from an Islamic historical perspective from both early Islamic literature and the life of Muhammad that still have relevance. The last two papers analyze how contemporary understandings of gender constructions are today dynamic and fluid constructions. The four papers demonstrate that much insight can be gained from studying Islamic discourses on women either via an analysis of the early period of Muslim community and literature or via an analysis of contemporary perspectives, both providing new light on the complex issues faced by women in Islamic societies.

Reproductive Discourse in Early Islamic Literature
Kathryn M. Kueny, Fordham University

This paper examines early Islamic discourses on female reproduction. Since females are critical agents in the production of new life, they stand at the crossroads of natural and divine law. Because God animates the inanimate in the womb, early Muslim physicians, scholars, and literati debate how to separate God’s role in the reproductive process from the mother’s. I will explore such debates over reproductive agency in early Muslim tibb, tafsir, hadith, and adab works. Through their elaborate discussions of female fertility, gestation, delivery, and postpartum health, I will suggest that while these works acknowledge divine control over reproductive events, they also portray women as having tremendous influence over their birthing outcomes. This influence, however, is only cast positively if the pregnancy turns out well. If not, a woman’s mind and body stand in violation of natural and divine law, and are subject to social, political, biological, and religious stigmatization.

Sexual Prescriptions and the Legacy of Mariyah the Copt
Aysha Hidayatullah, University of California, Santa Barbara

This paper traces the legacy of Muhammad’s umm walad Māriyah al-Qibtiyah in Muslim historical memory, with particular attention to its role in producing the discourses of sex in early Islam that continue to frame Muslim communal values and sexual mores today. A major concern is Māriyah’s status as consort of the Prophet, a designation on which historical literature is ambiguous, offering different treatments of Māriyah as milk al-yamīn or wife of the Prophet. Also of interest is the historical record of the Prophet’s overwhelming desire for Māriyah, an attraction which sparks bitter jealousy and grievances among his wives and incites the domestic crisis to which the Qur’an refers in Surah al-Tahrīm. That Māriyah gives birth to the Prophet’s son Ibrāhīm is also of crucial significance, both for the consequent elevation of her legal status, as well as the reverence she assumes as the mother of the Prophet’s potential male heir.

Polygyny in the Identity of African American Muslims
Debra Mubashshir Majeed, Beloit College

In both academic and popular attempts to “size up and then pare down” a more covenantal, and some say “honorable” form of Audrey Chapman’s man-sharing, scholars and others routinely overlook critical explorations of polygyny that take into account the subtle levels of complexity inherent in a phenomenon that has currency for an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Americans in 30 states. Such an approach in regards to African American Muslims who practice this form of plural marriage means we fail to engage in discourse at the nexus between received and revealed “law” and communal identity and power. This paper seeks to encourage such dialogue. By considering specific and related claims that African American Muslims make in regards to the practice of polygyny in the U.S., I will demonstrate the relationship between praxis, identity, and interpretation as well as the power of personal experience with a polygynous husband and/or a “co-wife.”

An Islamist Gender Discourse
Roxanne D. Marcotte, University of Queensland

This paper will attempt to provide an analysis of the gender discourse that underlies the discourse of Islamists and argue that, contrary to common perceptions, modernity is influencing the Islamist discourse on gender. Ezzat’s gender discourse will be shown to be indebted to two different kinds of gender discourses, each with its own sets of principles: the traditional and patriarchal religious conception of women’s nature, role and rights and the new modern understanding of Muslim women’s social and political roles influenced by modernity. The Islamist discourse on gender is a modern construct that is constantly being redefined, as attempts are made to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity and to reconcile two sets of principles. This, however, may well account for tensions and inconsistencies that are found in Ezzat’s works that the Islamist discourse cannot easily dismiss.

    A19-16

Theology and Religious Reflection Section

Theme: Violence and God-Images, "After Girard"

The papers in this session explore resources for a discussion of violence and God-images, 'beyond Girard.'

Liberating Religion from Social Conflict: A Critical Examination of Three Evasive Strategies
Hugh Reynolds Nicholson, Coe College

This paper critically examines three strategies by which theologians have sought to dissociate their traditions from social conflict and violence. The first, characteristic of the liberal tradition in modern theology, appeals to a utopian, non-exclusionary form of community; the second, characteristic of orthodox and conservative models of theology, appeals to the concept of legitimate authority established on a metaphysical basis; the third seeks to minimize religious violence through a retrieval of localized, relationally (as opposed to ideologically) based forms of community. I shall argue that while none of these approaches succeeds in dissociating “religion” from social conflict, each offers valuable insights that can be incorporated into an effective theological and practical response to the problem of religious violence.

Honesty about God: God’s Violence/ Violence in God’s Name in Wink, Jung, and Luther
Charlene Burns, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Jill Carroll’s daring critique of all political theologies as doomed to failure unless and until they are “honest, and ever-vigilant against the temptation either to ascribe to nature traits...that are foreign to it, or to excise from it...violence and indifference to suffering—that do not suit our desires or political” goals sets the agenda for my paper (Carroll, 116). In an attempt to “reclaim violent models of God” and “be honest about the universe (Carroll, 116),” I bring Jung’s distinction between God-in-Godself / images of God and Wink’s (Jungian) writings on the “Domination System” into conversation with Luther’s God Hidden/God Revealed in order to suggest a more honest—albeit uncomfortable—appraisal of humanity’s plight.

The Non-Necessity of God’s Violence, or the Possibility of an Iconic Monotheism
Thomas E. Reynolds, St. Norbert College

Our fragile interreligious context requires that we come to terms with the ambiguous witness to violence in monotheistic traditions. Neither denying the prevalence of violent images of God in Abrahamic scriptures nor ceding the hope-filled prospect of non-violence and dialogue between religions, this paper seeks to move beyond Rene Girard’s theory of religious violence by exploring the iconic grammar of the monotheistic imagination. Drawing from the work of Leo Lefebure, Jean-Luc Marion and Paul Ricoeur, the paper develops a double-visioned hermeneutic of the icon that critiques and displaces the violence of idolatry. This has value in that it opens up the polyphonic character of Abrahamic scriptures and, further, engenders the moral disposition of hospitality. It makes it possible to read various images of God against themselves, resisting violence-of-God traditions by giving voice to the universal—and hence, interreligious—God of justice, compassion and mercy. Violence and monotheism are not necessary correlates.

Violence, Fear, and God: Eugen Drewermann's Interdisciplinary Analysis of Christian Violence
Matthias Beier, Drew University

Fear is the source of violence in the name of God. This is the thesis of Eugen Drewermann, who has been the single-most important theologian to bring the issue of religion and violence to the attention of the public in continental Europe. A key question he has addressed is why Christianity, against its professed will for peace, has again and again been used to commit atrocious violence in the name of God? This paper will explicate Drewermann's thesis, apply it to current instances of religio-political uses of 'God' to justify violence, and outline some methodological implications for theological reflection if theology wants to avoid fanning the flames of violence.

    A19-17

Anthropology of Religion Group

Theme: Transplanting Religion: Rethinking Authenticity

Transplanted Authenticity: The Jewishness of Eastern Europe and the Revival of Klezmer
Stuart Charme, Rutgers University

The image of the Eastern European shtetl Jew, which entered American popular culture in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, offered a model of Jewish authenticity to an increasingly assimilated and intermarried post-holocaust generation of American Jews. More recently, the revival of Klezmer, the musical folk tradition of Eastern European Jewish culture, has raised the issue of Jewish authenticity in a context apart from customary debates between Orthodox and non-Orthodox forms of Judaism. This paper will analyze several different approaches to understanding issues of Jewish authenticity in the revival of Klezmer. It will describe the implications of locating Klezmer’s authenticity in a reclamation of elements of Jewish folk culture in danger of being lost, in the celebration of on-going innovation and change, and in a focus on an experiential dimension to Jewish spirituality.

Macedonian-Bulgarian Diaspora in Toronto and the Orthodox Christian Church
Mariana Mastagar, Trinity College, University of Toronto

This paper is a study of the South Slavonic diaspora in Toronto with respect to the role of the Easter Orthodox Church. By comparing church functions in the new land with that of the homeland and the attitudes of Church attendees in both places the study will argue that the church role is transformed. The guiding questions are a) how do resettling immigrants perceive and for that matter make use of the Church? and b) what are the differences between the church’s role in the homeland and in the new land? The data collected shows that the church appears to be less of a sacramental space and more of a location for social and cultural activities, and hence is polyfunctional. Is this change a maker of secularization or modern expressions of religiosity and thus a reversal of secularization theory?

Becoming a New Religion the Old-Fashioned Way: Perspectives from a Transnational Hindu Movement
Hanna Kim, New York, NY

This paper looks at the efforts of the Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (Swaminarayan), a Hindu devotional movement, to transform itself into and become recognised as a religion in dominantly non-Hindu places. In charting this transformation, from an indigenous devotional tradition originating in Western India into a diasporic socio-religious movement whose transnational activities now influence the shape of religious experience both within and beyond India, this paper suggests that Swaminarayan devotionalism is thriving in part to its interpretation of “religion”. This paper makes two connected arguments: that the dominant Western and American discourses on religion sustain a persistent epistemic framework, one that situates religion as sui generis and classifies other religions and behaviours according to given standards of morality and religious practice; and, that Swaminarayan leaders and followers are responding to this episteme in ways that appear to securely anchor their devotional tradition into the dominant discourses.

Place, Space, and the “Healing Dao": Practicing Popular Daoism in the U.S., Thailand, and China
Elijah Siegler, College of Charleston

The Healing Tao, founded in 1981 by a Thai-born Chinese named Mantak Chia is one of the largest Western Daoist groups, teaching a popularized form of Chinese internal alchemy as a series of modular practices . This papers examines, through participant observation, three sites where Healing Tao practices are taught: at weekend seminars in Asheville, N.C., at month-long retreats in Thailand, and as part of a three week guided tour of sacred sites of China. These locations for religious practice force us to reconsider the traditional religious categories of worship, retreat, and pilgrimage, respectively. Those categories involve bodies traveling to a place in order to experience “the sacred.” For bodies learning Healing Tao exercises, on the other hand, their own practices produce the sacred. Healing Tao practitioners have less interest in local religious “place” than they do an abstract Daoist/energetic field of “space.”

    A19-18

Bioethics and Religion Group

Theme: Religion, Ethics, and Access to Health Care

Conscientious Objection and Access to Reproductive Health Care Services: Gender, Justice, and Shame
Nancy Berlinger, The Hastings Center

This paper will examine the use of conscientious objection by health care professionals, with specific attention to its impact on access to reproductive health care services in the United States, and with some attention to U.S. policies that may restrict access to reproductive health care services globally. The paper will focus on the relationship between conscientious objection and professional ethics, exploring the extent to which a professional’s refusal to deliver a health care service may conflict with the ethical obligations and standards of that profession. The paper will explore recent cases involving conscientious objection, existing and evolving “conscience clause” legislation, and the tactical use of conscientious objection in grassroots activism. In focusing on access to reproductive health care services and the ways in which conscientious objection may be enacted, the paper will highlight the special implications of these political and cultural trends for women and for women’s health.

Christian Medical Sharing Plans: An Ethical Review
Charlene A. Galarneau, Wellesley College

Christian medical sharing plans have operated in the US for just over a decade. These health-insurance look-alike plans claim to offer a biblically principled alternative to conventional health care and health insurance. Motivated by inadequate financial access to health care and a desire to live according to particular Christian values, these non-profit, self-regulated ministries organize the voluntary sharing of medical expenses among certain Christian individuals and families. While attending to the spiritual and financial needs of a small and select group of Christians, these plans also replicate ethically problematic elements of current health care and the conventional health insurance system. This paper identifies and critically examines the theo-ethical values embodied in these plans: in particular, the nature and scope of Christian community, care, responsibility (individual and communal), stewardship, and justice (distributive and participatory).

A Theological Ethics of Solidarity: Toward Global Health Care Access
Marie J. Giblin, Xavier University

The first part of this paper examines the lack of access to health care that currently exists for so many people in the Two-Thirds World--using the east African nations of Kenya and Tanzania as examples. Despite efforts in practice to alleviate it, the lack of access has worsened and been made more enduring by policies exported from the U.S. and by corruption within these countries. The second part of the paper considers the concept and practice of religiously motivated “solidarity” as a constructive response to the problem of global health care access and as a means of resistance to the social and economic ideology that shrugs off responsibility for so much ill health and suffering. The roots of “solidarity” within Western Christianity, African Christianity, and African traditional religions will be mined to enrich the concept and make more viable its practice in a globalized world.

Access to Drugs in a New Global Environment: A New Challenge for the African Church
Elias Kifon Bongmba, Rice University

In this paper I argue that the church in Africa should scale up its fight against HIV/AIDS by joing the global campaign for access to drugs by people who are living with HIV/AIDS. I also argue that the church could play a mediating role in negotiationg ethical standards for trial of new drugs and therapies.

    A19-19

Eastern Orthodox Studies Group

Theme: Patristic and Byzantine Hymnography

The Feet That Eve Heard in Paradise and Was Afraid: The Christology of Byzantine Festal Hymns
Bogdan G. Bucur, Marquette University

The paper will focus on the Christology of a number Byzantine festal hymns that have taken over, virtually unmodified, older hymnographic material, going back to fifth-century Jerusalem, but which are still used in the services of the Eastern Orthodox Church. After a brief historical survey, the paper will propose a theological analysis of selected hymns [handouts provided], highlighting their Christological bearing. It seems that these hymns avoid the vocabulary of their contemporary dogmatic debates, and offer an alternative poetic theology deeply rooted in OT imagery, yet surprisingly precise and effective in conveying the very same message about Christ. This finding opens up the discussion of theological method, namely the question of how these hymns could be taken into account more seriously, as direct sources for theology, on par with the data provided by the ecumenical councils, and the subsequent patristic and medieval theology.

The Vindication of Eve: Romanus' Second Kontakion on Christ's Nativity
Verna E. F. Harrison, Saint Paul School of Theology

Romanus the Melodist’s second kontakion On the Nativity of Christ is less renowned than the first but holds considerable theological interest. It is structured as a dialogue among four persons, Adam, Eve, the Mother of God and her newborn Son. The main characters are the women, who take the initiative and move the conversation forward; Adam and Christ respond to them. The poem is not alone but is exemplary among early Christian texts in portraying Eve and women positively. It shows fallen Adam’s misogyny as overcome by Eve’s forthrightness, Mary’s compassion, and Christ’s saving work. Mary represents all human persons before God.

Romanus combines the narrative character of his native Syriac hymnography with the antinomical rhetoric and technical vocabulary of Greek patristic theology. His works epitomize the festal dimension of Byzantine theology and spirituality: anamnesis of past saving events, participation in the eschaton, and hope in God’s love and saving plan.

Cleansed by the Fire of a Mystic Vision
Elijah Mueller, Marquette University

The canons of John Damascene clearly represent a high form of speech. His poetry interprets not only the Feast-day remembrance of the saving works of Christ, but also wraps these events in a rich vestment of images from the Old Testament. In interpreting the Old Testament as a poet, the Damascene reflects on and often identifies with the experience of the inspired prophets whose odes lie behind his hymns. In this identification between poet and prophet, temple and Church, Old Testament and New Testament are fused. This paper will assert that the liturgical enactment of this poetry is an iconic transmission of Old Testament theophanic imagery which is mediated not by the language of Greek metaphysics, but rather by a common, continuing sense of temple liturgy which fuses Tabernacle, Temple, Church and heavenly liturgy. My focus will be primarily on The Damscene’s canons for Theophany, Pascha, Transfiguration and Dormition.

Tradition and Change - Liturgical Chant and Music in the Greek Orthodox Christian Experience in America: Early European Origins
Constantine J. Terss, Heathrow, FL

This paper presents part of the findings of research presently in progress on the traditional chant and music in the Greek Orthodox Churches in America. Specifically addressed in this paper are the early, European origins of the introduction of polyphony and instrumental accompaniment into some Greek Orthodox parishes followed by a discussion of the implications and challenges social change has had on the sacred music and worship in the Greek Orthodox inheritance within the American experience in a postmodern world.

    A19-20

Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity Group

Theme: Rituals of Reading

Making One's Mark: Writing, Reading, and the Authorization of Marginal Religious Practices in Ancient Greece
Sarah Iles Johnston, Ohio State University, Columbus

The religions of ancient Greece, in contrast to Judaism and Christianity, had no sacred texts. I will start by arguing that this is because the Greeks preferred not to ascribe their practices to specific human authorities—they chose not to have a Moses or a Paul—because 1) their religions were built on the assumption that all mortals were equally qualified (and expected) to carry on 'ta patria', the ancestral rites and 2) they liked to ponder, and ponder again, the origin of their rites, creating ever-changing mythic aitia for them. I will then observe that the few cases where Greek religions did incorporate reading and writing of what might be called sacred texts—including 'Orphic' gold tablets and 'magical' instances such as curse tablets—were associated with marginalized practitioners. These practitioners could not draw authority from 'ta patria'. Incorporating writing and reading into their rituals provided a different, literally tangible, authority.

Ritualizing the Book in Ancient Judaism
Michael D. Swartz, Ohio State University, Columbus

Reading and memorization are inseparable from ritual in Judaism in late antiquity. As a result of this, systems of ritual that lie outside the conventional practices for holy books have emerged around the margins of Rabbinic Judaism. In addition, David Frankfurter and others have shown that the written word has a special valence in magical systems. This significance complements the power of the spoken word in the same ritual systems. This paper will explore some of those ritual practices in Rabbinic culture, Hekhalot literature, and related corpora. Several manifestations of ritualization of the book will be explored. These include mantic practices involving scripture, such as bibliomancy and the practice of inquiring schoolchildren; and rituals for conjuration of angels and divine beings in which books are instrumental. These will be studied for their implications for the idea of rabbinic logocentrism.

Readers in Syriac Texts: Who, What, When, and Where
Catherine Burris, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

This paper will examine the role of readers and reading in Syriac texts. Hagiographic texts depict an assortment of readers and reading material, often implicitly linking holiness and literacy. Using an assortment of Syriac saints’ Lives, I will discuss the frequency of the association between holiness and literacy, and consider the ways that gender, location, and social status complicate the issue. Was a male saint more likely than a female saint to be portrayed as literate? When a female saint is shown reading, in what context does she read? Syriac texts depict both private, contemplative reading and public, didactic reading; the discussion of the relationship between gender and literacy in these texts will also consider whether gender determines the type and location of any reading in which a saint engages.

Miniature Books and Rituals of Private Reading in Late Antiquity
Kim Haines-Eitzen, Cornell University

To what extent can the form of ancient books tell us about rituals of reading? Or, to put it differently, what clues might the physical features of literary papyri tell us about how, where, and by whom texts were read? The questions are at the fore of this paper, which focuses on miniature codices and the use of books for private reading in late ancient Christianity. A preliminary listing of miniature codices from late antiquity offers physical some clues to reading practices; alongside this material evidence the literary evidence for private reading will be addressed. Although much attention has been given to the idea that all reading in antiquity was in some senses a public act, this paper will suggest that the form of miniature codices (their size, physical features, contents), particularly when read alongside literary evidence, may shed light on the ancient “solitary reader.”

    A19-21

Theology and Continental Philosophy Group and Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group

Theme: Gender, Politics, and the Return to Religion

The recent ‘return to religion’ in the humanities demarcates a vital theoretical space for re-examining constructions of gender and the political. For example, is it possible, within the matrix of the return to the religious (or theological), that constructions of gender can finally outflank the reductions and limitations of “identity politics”? Does Paul's radical assertion in Galatians that “there is no longer...male nor female” provide new possibilities for a trans-gendered political subject that transcends the religious? Or does this cry for the dissolution of sexual difference neutralize a real politic? This panel marks a rare moment in which gender is an explicit focus of discussion within this recent and influential debate of religion and the political.

    A19-22

Indigenous Religious Traditions Group and Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Group

Theme: The Works and Scholarship of David Carrasco

>Joint panel sponsored by Indigenous Religions

> >Group and Latin American Religions Group

> >AAR Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, November 2005

> >

> >

> >Panel on the work of Davíd Carrasco

> >

> >>>Commemorating the 15th anniversary of

> >>>Religions of Mesoamerica this panel will focus

> >>>on the work of Davíd Carrasco, the Historian

> >>>of Religion who has brought interpretive tools

> >>>from the academic study of religion into

> >>>Mesoamerican Studies through the development

> >>>of the Mesoamerican Archive and Research

> >>>Project.

    A19-23

Religion and Science Group

Theme: The Future of Emergence: Should Theology Mind Emergence?

This panel will explore the implications of the concept of emergence for theological thought, focusing on Philip Clayton’s book – Mind and Emergence. Clayton argues that emergence suggests a new approach to the problem of consciousness--and thus human agency--and that it is consistent with “emergentist panentheism.” In considering the viability of this position, and the theological future of emergence, we attempt to build on this work, suggesting correctives such as model of God as the body of the world, a greater emphasis on human agency, the work of Terrence Deacon and Timothy O’Conner, the limits of human distinctiveness and the overall value (or lack thereof) of evolutionary explanations. We will conclude with a response from Clayton, and a discussion of the future of emergence in theological discourse.

God Embodied in, God Bodying Forth the World: Emergence and Christian Theology
Steven D. Crain, University of St. Francis

Philip Clayton offers a theologically fruitful proposal in wedding the concept of emergent monism to a panentheistic model of God's relationship to the world. I affirm its fruitfulness especially for Christian anthropology. However, I argue that the pantentheistic model should be complemented by the notion that God is the body of the world as a way of sheding more light on the fact that the divine creative act empowers human free agency, and as a way of reminding the theologian that theological models are just that: models that only have some purchase on reality and which need to be combined according to rules that respect the 'grammar' of the doctrine of creation.

Finding Middle Ground: Clayton on Mind and Emergence
James Haag, Graduate Theological Union

Philip Clayton’s work on emergence is a valuable contribution to the fields of religion, science, and philosophy. Three topics will be explored: 1) Clayton differentiates between a number of supervenience theories, finally advocating what he calls emergentist supervenience. Can Clayton’s form of emergentist supervenience do the work of preventing the causal reduction of consciousness while preventing the ominous title of epiphenomenalism and Searleian causal reduction? 2) Clayton pays primary attention to ‘emergents’ in the world and emphasizes their irreducible novelty. Terrence Deacon focuses on the actual course of moving from different types of processes. Do so many types of ‘emergents’ reduce the meaning and utility of the term? Can Deacon provide Clayton a structure from which to work? 3) Like Clayton, philosopher Timothy O’Connor gives attention to agent causation and the emergence of the mind. What are the similarities and differences between the work of O’Connor and Clayton?

    A19-24

Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group

Theme: Loves Herself. Regardless: Womanist Discourse on the Black Woman's Body

The papers in this session lift up issues of misogyny and sexism in rap music and videos as well as issues of sexuality and the black woman while weaving together the common theme of the black woman's body.

Black Bodies Moving in Sacred Space: African American Liturgical Dance
Kimberleigh Jordan, New York University

In this paper, I examine liturgical dance as a church-based form of popular and concert dance at the intersection of Black arts, culture and religion and that the historical roots of liturgical dance are simultaneously Africanist, Pentecostal and American modern dance. While liturgical dance in African American faith communities has developed through the artistic and spiritual leadership of women, it is also as a crucial site for contemporary controversies regarding women’s bodies. The final section of the paper is a brief case study of the Allen Liturgical Dance Ministry, founded in 1978 in Jamaica, Queens, New York. It is a richly generative site for the analysis of contemporary women’s artistic and religious leadership and for liturgical dance production.

Black Woman's Drag
Gayle R. Baldwin, University of North Dakota

Although central to the mandate of the womanist is “to love women, both sexually or not,” and African American scholars in sociology and theology have taken note of the need to confront homophobia when discussing the continued oppression of the black body, the black lesbian religious experience has remained invisible. This paper examines and compares three varieties of black lesbian religious experience: the lesbian who remains closeted within the traditional black church, maintaining a peculiar kind of 'double consciousness,' acceptable only “in drag” in order to pass the strict black church dress code, the black lesbian who chooses a non-traditional black church where she can be herself; and the black lesbian who is in the process of creating her own “faith,” exercising a creative agency in response to black lesbian rejection and murder. The paper is the result of research on religious responses to the murder of Sakia Gunn.

Give Me Body! Black Female Body as Icon in Hip-Hop and Religious Culture
Melva L. Sampson, Spelman College

Give Me Body! Black Female Body as Icon in Hip-Hop and Religious Culture

This paper will address how both hip-hop and Black religious culture have inundated both the pews and global airwaves with negative iconolatry of the Black female body. The focus is on the Black church as a point of departure for Black women’s understanding of body as positive or negative iconography and/or iconolatry. The portrayal of women, most of them African American, as sex objects in rap videos continues to be one of the most contentious aspects of the hip-hop music industry. Spelman College is a case study for womanist approaches to activism and healthy acceptance of the Black female body. The Black church, hip-hop culture, or the rap music industry cannot continue to ignore what has been and is so devastating to Black life and well being.

Are There Any Hip-Hop Womanists in the House? Womanist Theology, Political Activism, and the Hip-Hop Generation
Pamela Y. Cook, University of Chicago

From the 1980’s protests of C. Delores Tucker to this year’s Essence magazine ”Take Back the Music” campaign, older generations of African American women are clearly critical of the prevalence of misogyny and sexism in hip hop lyrics and videos. However, is this womanist agenda relevant to the politics of the hip hop generation? While a few young activists consider themselves as hip hop feminists, many other young black women are still resistant to the label “feminist.” Instead, womanist may be a more appropriate moniker for rallying a new generation of women. Consequently, I will examine whether hip-hop generation black women possess a womanist identity with womanist principles and whether there is a relationship between their womanist theology and their political activism with special attention to activism and the treatment of black women’s bodies.

Icons of Injustice: Gendered and Hyper-Sexualized Black Women's Bodies in U.S. Culture
S'thembile West, Western Illinois University

Historical readings of African American bodies as icons provides a reflective look at intersections of ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in the U.S. The market economy of enslavement profited as much from the

forced-labor and sale of black bodies as it did from institutionalized images and attitudes that framed discourse about race, skin color and gender. Gendered and hyper-sexualized assumptions and images of Black

women's bodies were critical not only to devaluation of black womanhood during the plantation economy of enslavement, but also sustains inequities among U.S. women. This presentation seeks to illuminate the critical

relationsips between hyper-sexualized assumptions and images, ineqality and the lives of contemporary African American women.

Alice Walker, The Color Purple, and a Womanist Gospel of Resistance
Sallie Cuffee, Medgar Evers College

“Alice Walker, The Color Purple and a Womanist Gospel of Resistance”

An increasing body of literature produced by such womanist scholars as Delores Williams, Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, Clarice Martin, and Jacquelyn Grant has underscored the important womanist objective of valorizing the sacred in black women's ordinary lives as a critical introduction into any substantive discourses about God as it relates to producing life-affirming survival and quality of life theology or ethics. This paper focuses on how this body of literature recognized can be directly traced to the influence of Alice Walker and her book, The Color Purple. It also focuses on how Walker produced a cultural epistle that claimed the epistemological privilege of centering black women’s experience in talking about “Dear God.” Lastly, it seeks to underscore Walker's engagement in a womanist gospel of resistance, empowering black women to understand their role as co-creators in church and society.

    A19-26

Religion and Sexuality Consultation

Theme: Regulating Desire: Christian and Buddhist Sexuality Debates in America and Beyond

The Religion and Sexuality consultation, inaugurated this year, endeavors to advance a conversation about religion and sexuality in diverse religious contexts across time and place. This session's papers analyze sundry religious claims for regulating sexual desire and providing a justification, method, and praxis for such regulation. Presenters will explore systems of regulating identity formation, procedures of punishment/censure for failing to undertake such regulation, and the consequences of using religious discourse to regulate desire and sexuality. Papers will be posted online at http://www.as.ua.edu/rel (advance reading optional, not required), and each speaker will have 15 minutes to present. The respondent will expand upon and beyond the specific themes of the papers in order to generate a broader set of ideas pertaining to religion and sexuality. We will allow ample time for a full participatory discussion, and the business meeting will focus on topics suggested by the audience for future sessions.

Being Christian and Having Sex, Too: The Historical Context and Contemporary Application of the Regulation of Sexual Desire as Part of the Practice of Christian Faith
Wil Brant, Chicago Theological Seminary

Contemporary Christian discussions on sex (e.g. same-sex sexual desire and abstinence) are done in the framework of what it means “to be Christian”—a concept which involves a self-regulation of sexual desire. Early Christian writers negotiated a concept of being Christian in relation to a celibate model of spiritual purity and a monogamous model of procreative citizen. These models and negotiations between them can be seen in contemporary Christian discussions about sex. After briefly overviewing these writers and relating how their models of sexual regulation are still a part of contemporary Christian discussions about sex, this paper will conclude by proposing that for self-identified Christians in a context of a contemporary pluralistic society, the regulation of sexual desire might better be engaged in as a dynamic practice of Christian faith, akin to spiritual practices of Late Antiquity, rather than a static following of rules of what is it to be Christian.

Anthony Comstock, Free-Lovers, and the Censorship of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: Defining the Terms of Protestant Toleration in Late Nineteenth-Century New England
Paul C. Kemeny, Grove City College

In the spring of 1882, the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice persuaded the Boston district attorney that the recently published seventh edition Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass violated the state’s obscenity law, which the Society had helped revise two years earlier. Wanting to avoid prosecution, the publisher withdrew the volume from circulation. In response, Whitman launched a campaign, with assistance from Free-Love advocates like Ezra Heywood, to discredit the anti-vice society. But when moral reformers prosecuted Heywood and his allies, Whitman refused to come to their defense. This study not only recovers a surprising incident in the history of late nineteenth-century censorship–Whitman’s silence–but also recovers how and why a mainline Protestant moral reform organization enjoyed the cultural power to enforce conventional Protestant attitudes toward sexuality, marriage, and literature. It also demonstrates that the dominant Protestant views were fiercely contested by advocates of Free-Love.

Finding Safe Harbor: Buddhist Sexual Ethics in America
Stephanie Kaza, University of Vermont

From a Buddhist perspective, working with sexuality is working with attachment and the inflation of egocentric views. The third Buddhist precept prohibits sexual misconduct because it can generate so much suffering. In the 1980s and 90s, the rash of sexual affairs and betrayals in modern American Buddhist centers raised concerns about organizational viability, catalyzing several important initiatives in sexual ethics policy. The paper analyzes the extensive work of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and San Francisco Zen Center in establishing guidelines for responding to cases of inappropriate sexual behavior. This ethical effort reflects American Buddhism in evolution, going beyond the traditional submission to authoriarian power to helping the community learn to take ethical care of itself. By struggling through such a legal process, these Buddhist sanghas laid a useful foundation for future conflicts.

The Opposite of Gay: Ex-Gay Ministries, Identity, and Desire
Lynne Gerber, Graduate Theological Union

The current generation of ex-gay ministries attempt to navigate difficult waters. In response to increasing evidence of, and popular familiarity with happy, healthy homosexual people, these ministries are having to pay more precise attention to defining the moral problem of homosexuality and to claims about the possibility of change. This paper will look at the current state of the conversation in ex-gay ministries about these issues. Using content analysis, participant observation and interview data, I will demonstrate the various tensions in the ex-gay movement and how leaders attempt to resolve them. In conversation with Anthony Giddens’ work on modernity and self creation I will argue that ex-gay ministries are involved in a project of identity formation that both utilizes and challenges post-modern and other contemporary understandings of the body and the self in order to create obedient Christian agents.

    A19-30

Religion and Ecology Tour: Eco-Justice and Chester, Pennsylvania

Please join the Religion and Ecology Group for an on-site Eco-Justice discussion in the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. Eco-Justice or Environmental Justice analyzes how ecological ills are disproportionately shared based upon race, class, and the environment. Chester is an impoverished, predominantly African-American community just west of Philadelphia. Chester has the highest infant mortality rate and percentage of low-weight births in the state. Five waste treatment plants have been built on a concentrated site surrounded by homes and parks in a low-income, largely African-American neighborhood in Chester. One hundred percent of all municipal solid waste in Delaware County is burned at the American Ref-Fuel incinerator; 90% of all sewage is treated at the Delcora plant; and, until recently, close to a hundred tons of hospital waste from a half-dozen nearby states was being sterilized each day at the Thermal Pure plant.

    A19-29

Mother Bethel Church Bus Tour

Mother Bethel is the “mother church” of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and “stands on the oldest piece of land continuously owned by African Americans in the United States.” It is located on a section of Sixth Street renamed Richard Allen Avenue in tribute to the former slave and founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The present sanctuary was erected in 1889 and underwent major renovation in 1987. Of special note and significance are its stained glass windows. Located in the basement of Mother Bethel is the Richard Allen Museum Collection which holds numerous documents, photographs, paintings, and artifacts related to the history of Mother Bethel and the AME denomination. Additional information related to Mother Bethel and the Richard Allen Museum can be found at www.motherbethel.org.

    A19-27

Plenary Address

Theme: A Life Biography of Wolfhart Pannenberg

Born in 1928 in Stettin, Germany, Pannenberg began his theological studies at the University of Berlin after World War II and also studied at the University of Göttingen and the University of Basel. He completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Heidleberg. He studied under theologians Karl Barth and Edmund Schlink, among others. Pannenberg has drawn together religion and science through much of his life. Wolfhart Pannenberg published his magnum opus, the three-volume Systematic Theology, in the 1990s. He has also contributed substantially to the philosophy of history and the philosophy of science. He has been called an “eschatological realist" and a great interdisciplinary thinker.

    A19-28

Special Topics Forum

Theme: AAR Student Luncheon and Panel Discussion: Career Alternatives for Doctoral Students in Religion and Theology

The skills and knowledge students acquire in doctoral studies in religion and theology prepare them for a wide array of career alternatives, not just the role of classroom professor. Today, PhDs in religion and theology are working in venues such as: nonprofit organizations; publishing and other media; theological libraries and archives; offices of campus life, both administrative and auxiliary; foundations specializing in religion; parish or diocesan ministry; providing programming for clergy and laity renewal or for retreat houses; religious high schools; nongovernmental organizations providing human and other services; institutes, religious think-tanks, centers of inquiry, etc.; government; and business. Work in these career alternatives often carries different, sometimes greater financial and psychological rewards than comparable academic positions, as well as different challenges and opportunities for personal development and for influencing others. Panelists will discuss some of these challenges and opportunities and share their own personal experiences in career alternatives. Separate registration is required.

    A19-50

Arts Series/Films: Alambrista

Robert M. Young's critically acclaimed 110-minute film Alambrista (1977) depicts the harsh realities of Mexican life on both sides of the border. Following the birth of his first child, a young Mexican slips across the border into the United States in search of the American dream for himself and his family. He finds heartbreak, exploitation, and disappointment, but also friendship, affection, and help along the way.

When first released, Alambrista received critical praise and a number of awards, including a Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. For the University of New Mexico Press release, a distinguished group of scholars has packaged a new director's cut of the film with a book of essays devoted to immigration and the U.S.–Mexican borderlands.

Directed by Robert Young, 1977, 110 minutes (color, Mexico; Spanish with English subtitles).

    A19-51

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Imagining Religion in the Postcolony: Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism

Postcolonial practices and ways of imagining religion challenge our existing notions and understanding of religion. Is the study of religion still trapped in the binary of occidentalist and orientalist notions of religion? This special topics forum will explore the multiple experiences and practices of religion in postcolonial contexts and scholarly responses to them.

    A19-52

Special Topics Forum

Theme: The Supreme Court and Religion

As Chief Justice Rehnquist's tenure on the Court draws to a close, this panel looks back on the legacy of the “Rehnquist Court” with respect to religion. We will also discuss some of the “hot topics” of the preceding term, including the religious rights of prisoners and the display of the Ten Commandments on government property.

    A19-53

Special Topics Forum

Theme: AAR Excellence in Teaching Forum: A Conversation about Teaching with the 2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner

This interactive session will focus on discussion of issues raised by the teaching materials posted by Professor Zayn Kassam at the AAR's Virtual Teaching and Learning Center. They can be accessed after October 15 at http://www.aarweb.org/teaching/default.asp.

    A19-54

Arts, Literature, and Religion Section

Theme: Angels in America: Theatre, Film, Literature

Shifting Contexts for Grief and Rage: Watching Angels in America, Then and Now
Kent Brintnall, Emory University

In Antigone’s Claim, Judith Butler poses the question of who owns the grief stemming from the AIDS epidemic. Using contemporary work on the politics of mourning, as well as reviews of HBO’s film Angels in America, this paper will explore what it means to watch a televised adaptation of Tony Kushner’s 1987 play in 2004. Given that Kushner’s play was about a very specific coalescence of historial circumstances and was written and presented in the midst of those events, what does the adaptation mean when wrenched from the historical context on which the work is based? Questions about the work of memory and mourning with respect to Angels in America will be related to larger questions about remembering and representing historical tragedies generally as well as the nature of religious rituals as tools for remembering.

co-presenter with Victoria Rue
Craig S. Strobel, ConSpiritu: A Center for Cultural Creativity

This presentation will examine the play Angels in America by means of performance. A selected scene will be enacted by two actor-scholars, with a mid-scene character switch. This gendered character switch will provide the impetus for participants in the session to reflect critically and creatively upon the nature of audience perceptions, culturally-constructed expectations concerning characterization and performance, as well as the nature of the performance event itself vis-à-vis the cultural embeddedness of any performance. All these themes are found in Tony Kushner’s work, and a performance presentation is particularly adept at opening these up for discussion and examination.

Angels in America: Performing Gender Construction
Victoria Rue, San Jose State University

This presentation will examine the play Angels in America by means of performance. A selected scene will be enacted by two actor-scholars, with a mid-scene character switch. This gendered character switch will provide the impetus for participants in the session to reflect critically and creatively upon the nature of audience perceptions, culturally-constructed expectations concerning characterization and performance, as well as the nature of the performance event itself vis-à-vis the cultural embeddedness of any performance. All these themes are found in Tony Kushner’s work, and a performance presentation is particularly adept at opening these up for discussion and examination.

Of Ghosts and Angels: Derrida and Kushner on the Impossibility of Forgiveness
Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Columbia University

In a number of essays and lectures written toward the end of his life, Jacques Derrida sets forth the controversial proposition that, insofar as forgiveness can only forgive the unforgivable, the very possibility of forgiveness lies in its impossibility. This paper will sketch the aporia of forgiveness in Derrida's work, offer a critique of his one sustained attempt to imagine a concrete “scene” of forgiveness as onto-economic, and finally re-imagine the problematic of conditional and unconditional forgiveness through two scenes toward the end of Tony Kushner's _Angels in America_. It will be suggested that something like the forgiveness of which Derrida “dreams”--an interruption refractory to all historical or subjective re-appropriation--might be glimpsed in a particularly haunting sequence in this play, in which temporality, identity, understanding, and forgiveness itself suddenly become utterly impossible.

Angels, Witches, and Goats, Oh My! Otherworldly Creatures on Broadway
Dugan McGinley, Temple University

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is notable for its mystical sensibility. It is populated with creatures who do not quite fit in this world but also do not seem to fit into other worlds made available to them through traditional religion or even the human imagination; yet they ultimately possess a wisdom that is lacking both on earth and in the heavens. This paper will put Angels in America in conversation with other Broadway shows that appeared between its appearance as a play and as a film. I will discuss the overlapping strategies each of these dramas uses to critique the inability of religion and society to come to terms with difference and to identify the “real” enemies to human fulfillment as seen through the eyes of these playwrights.

    A19-55

Buddhism Section and Japanese Religions Group

Theme: Buddhism in the Southern Capital: Heian and Kamakura Developments of Nara Buddhism

During the Nara period (710-794), several Buddhist schools were transmitted from China and became established in the major temples of Nara, the capital of Japan. These schools, the so-called 'Six Schools of the Southern Capital,' were extremely important in introducing Buddhist thought to Japan. In recent years, under the influence of Kuroda Toshio's kenmitsu taisei theory (which holds that, along with the Tendai and Shingon schools, the Nara schools continued to dominate Japan until well into the Muromachi period), scholars have begun to emphasize that these schools continued to play an important role in the Japanese religious scene even after the capital was moved to Kyoto, ending the Nara period. This panel explores the ways in which the Nara Buddhist sects continued into the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods, changing in response to new conditions.

The Miraculous Jizos of Nara
Sarah Horton, Macalester College

Miraculous Jizos of Nara is a category mentioned by the Shasekishu, a late thirteenth-century collection of Buddhist stories. Numerous monks in Nara, the center of 'old Buddhism,' resisted the movement toward single-practice Buddhism by emphasizing a combination of practices. In doing so, they included a focus on Jizo, a figure of relatively new importance. I will briefly discuss several Nara Jizo images, three of which are listed in the Shasekishu. Two others, “naked Jizo” images, illustrate a desire to relate to Jizo in a highly realistic manner. My goal in this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which this bodhisattva that is generally considered to belong more to “folk religion” than to orthodox Buddhism played a crucial role in Nara.

Creating Bodhisattvas: Eison, Manjusri, and Kamakura-Period Buddhism Revisited
David Quinter, Stanford University

One of the most significant new Buddhist movements in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) was the Shingon Ritsu school founded by Eison (1201-90). This paper first examines historiographical issues in the study of Kamakura-period Buddhism that still inhibit balanced analysis of Shingon Ritsu and the other Nara schools, even in recent “revisionist” studies. I will then translate and analyze two devotional Manjusri texts that Eison authored in conjunction with the restoration of Hannyaji. These texts are rich for understanding Eison’s views on outcasts (hinin) as well as Manjusri’s role in the proliferation of Mahayana schools, an issue receiving little previous attention. I argue that to properly understand the Shingon Ritsu Manjusri cult, we must recognize the significance of the Shingon and Hossô transmissions portrayed here and Eison’s will both to make himself into a living bodhisattva and to create bodhisattvas out of his followers, including monastics, lay sponsors, and outcasts.

Zen and the Precepts in Medieval Nara Buddhism: As Seen in Ensho Shonin Gyojo
Kenryo Minowa, Aichi-gakuin University

The Ensho Shonin Gyojoki is a biography of Ensho (1221-1277), a Kamakura period monk who lived in Nara. From this text, we can learn much about the activities Ensho and the monks who had gathered around him. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Ensho and his circle were interested in both the vinaya and meditation. In their study of the precepts, they were influenced by the monks of Sennyuji, a temple in Kyoto which transmitted a different school of Vinaya than that found in Nara. In the case of meditation, they were especially influenced by the new Zen teachings being propagated by Enni Ben'en at Tofukuji in Kyoto. Hence Ensho and his group were linked both to the Vinaya revival movement, which was one of the central concerns of the Nara monks, and the new Zen teachings.

Towards a New Understanding of the Formation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Susumu Uejima, Kyoto Prefectural University

The publication of Kuroda Toshio's 'Development of the Kenmitsu Taisei System in Medieval Japan' in 1975 was a major turning point in the study of medieval Japanese Buddhism. However, his 'kenmitsu taisei' theory is not without problems. In my paper, I will first discuss some problems with his theory. Then, I will critically appropriate Kuroda's theory to develop my own interpretation of medieval Buddhism, using examples taken from the Buddhist school of Nara. To be more specific, I will take up new developments in Buddhist rituals, new forms of shinbutsu shugo practices and the fusion of esoteric and exoteric forms of Buddhism, to illustrate what I see as distinctive features of medieval Japanese Buddhism.

    A19-56

Ethics Section

Theme: Spheres of (In)Justice: Terrorism, Turmoil, and the Resort to Torture

Ethical analyses of the conditions that give rise to, and the ethical arguments that give justification to, the restriction of human rights and the resort to torture.

When Disaster Looms: Terrorism and Supreme Emergency in the Arguments of Michael Walzer and Osama bin Ladin
Elizabeth Barre, Florida State University

In his 1977 classic _Just and Unjust Wars_, Michael Walzer argues that situations of “supreme emergency” may provide justification for terrorist acts. Nonetheless, he has condemned the terrorist attacks of September 11th, believing that these attacks were motivated by a desire for political advantage alone. In this essay, I show that this condemnation is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Usama bin Ladin’s motivations. A careful analysis of his public statements reveals the extent to which bin Ladin believes Islamic civilization to be in a state of supreme emergency. Furthermore, I show that bin Ladin’s justification for terrorism is strikingly similar to the justification Walzer provides in his chapter on supreme emergency. In light of these similarities, it seems that Walzer is left with two options. He can either approve of Al-Qaeda’s tactics or disapprove of his own doctrine of supreme emergency. This essay argues for the latter.

When the Subject Is Torture(d): Torture, Terror, Religion, and Research Ethics
Nancy Berlinger, The Hastings Center

This paper will examine torture with reference to the ethics of human subjects research, through a discussion of a recently announced research project that will involve the deliberate infliction of pain on subjects to measure the effects of religious belief on pain responses. Media coverage of this British study has suggested such research may be of use in fighting religiously motivated terrorism. The paper will describe the characteristic goals of torture, and how, as a subject of research, it differs fundamentally from the study of pain. The paper will also explore the long association of religion and torture, with special attention to the ethical implications both of using the deliberate infliction of pain as a means of quantifying religious belief, and of approaching belief in terms of its utility in reducing pain. The paper will also include observations concerning the ethics of research involving survivors of torture and terrorism.

Walzer and Ignatieff on the Evils of the War on Terror
Bradley L. Herling, Boston University

Michael Walzer and Michael Ignatieff are two of our most reasonable commentators on the 'war on terror.' It may be surprising, then, to discern the prominence the discourse of evil in their ethical reflections. That many contemporary intellectuals have chosen to invoke this moral concept, often in order to contest its vague deployment in public, political discourse, is not a bad thing. But Walzer and Ignatieff both use the concept to construct terrorism as an extreme limit of moral deliberation and response, invoking a logic of justification that necessarily leads to a slippery slope, especially when it comes to the status of civil liberties. To this extent, the paper raises the possibility that contemporary ethical theory, as represented by these two prominent authorities, has little traction in response to dominant public and political forms of ideological justification for extreme measures within the war on terror.

When Is Torture Right?
Douglas McCready, Kutztown, PA

Practiced since the dawn of human history, torture remains a tool for interrogation, intimidation, and punishment. This is so despite international treaties and declarations prohibiting torture absolutely. Even many who abhor torture are willing to consider its use in emergency situations. Both the deontological prohibition of torture and the utilitarian acceptance of torture are inadequate ethics to address the issue. Dershowitz, Walzer, and Elshtain, among others, have attempted to redress the problem with more finely-tuned approaches. Confronting the practice of torture is also difficult because there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes torture. Not all coercion is torture, and some coercion is both legal and ethical. Torture, however, remains a wrongful act.

    A19-57

History of Christianity Section

Theme: Silk Hoods, Deaconess Bonnets, and Nuns’ Habits: Debating Women’s Dress in American Christianity

Throughout American Christian history, what women wear and how they present themselves have been high-stakes issues, debated in civil courts, from the pulpit, in church periodicals, and among laywomen and men. Scholars have demonstrated that dress has long been invested with moral values, leading to prescriptions for proper attire that religious leaders have applied more often to women, historically associated with the body, vanity, and fashion, than to men. However, women have used fashion and dress to serve as nonverbal, often indirect but sometimes blatant, means to challenge authority and reconfigure personal and group identities. This session will address the contested meanings of women’s dress in three distinct time periods and communities. Each case reveals Protestant or Catholic American women playing on the ambiguities of prescribed dress to accomplish their own goals of religious self-expression.

“Between Two Extreams”: Female Self-Fashioning in Early New England
Martha L. Finch, Missouri State University

Female dress constellated critical theological and social concerns in early New England. Beginning in 1634 colonial General Courts periodically noted that there was “much complaint” about “excessive” apparel and developed elaborate regulations of dress and hairstyles according to social rank, economic status, and “godly modesty.” Although sumptuary legislation explicitly applied to both genders, women most often appeared in court accused of wearing extravagant fashions. After the final sumptuary laws of 1676 ministers continued to bemoan their female congregants’ “proud rayment” and explicate scriptural reasons for dressing oneself with sobriety. The “rules” for modest apparel lay within a hazy area between the two extremes of “affected plainness” and “worldly excess,” which allowed for personal discretion in one’s fashion choices. Thus, as court and church records and period portraits reveal, both upper- and lower-class women regularly wore clothing that challenged colonial male authority, eventually provoking the demise of sumptuary legislation.

Deaconess Garb: A Bad Habit or Good Fashion Sense?
Jenny Wiley Legath, Princeton University

At the end of the nineteenth century, while Easter bonnet sales burgeoned and Thorstein Veblen critiqued conspicuous consumption, a group of Protestant women called deaconesses created their own distinctive dress, naming it the garb. I argue that the garb lies at the nexus of deaconesses’ contested relationship with Catholicism and ideas of Protestant womanhood. Through a close examination of publicity materials and private writings, I argue that what deaconesses and their supporters said about the garb discloses their ambivalence toward Catholicism and the ideal of the Christian middle-class woman. In defending their garb against charges of “Romanism,” deaconesses reveal their participation in the popular prejudice against Roman Catholicism, but tempered with their own personal experiences of individual nuns and Catholics. In promoting their garb as “becoming” and “womanly,” deaconesses strove to fit the model of Christian femininity while also calling into question certain assumptions about woman’s role.

Hard Habit to Break: The Work of Mapping Postconciliar Catholicism on Nuns’ Bodies
Stephanie Stillman, University of California, Santa Barbara

As Catholics in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council were intentionally and creatively working to reconstruct Catholic identity, nuns' bodies became the landscape upon which Catholics in the United States mapped new and old identities. Images of the nun in full habit, secluded and bitter, represented a relic of a preconciliar world while images of nuns without veils, in everyday clothing, who were actively engaged in social and political movements were construed as emblematic of the postconciliar future of Catholicism. As Catholics laid claim to nuns' identities through the tailoring of habits they were more broadly engaged in the project of defining postconciliar Catholicism. This work is an attempt to explore the ways that both nuns and lay Catholics in the United States understood alterations of nuns' clothing in the 1960s in an attempt to unpack the underlying hopes and anxieties that were about far more than textiles.

    A19-58

North American Religions Section

Theme: Metaphysical/Occult Traditions and the Imagination of America: Critical and Historical Perspectives

This session will analyze modern American metaphysical/occult movements as the 'mimetic rivals' or 'doubles' of Anglo-Protestant national culture. Nineteenth-century Spiritualism is analyzed as both a model for and model of a burgeoning American imperial culture. Spirit mediums make visible the invisible bonds of 'sympathy' in antebellum society, articulate a polygenetic cosmogony in postbellum America, and regulate the freedoms of newly liberated Anglo-Protestant citizens. The classification of 'occultism' is further problematized as legitimizing the belief systems of hegemonic Enlightenment culture, and sanctioning the violence directed towards allegedly 'occultist' communities contesting the social origins of the American nation.

Marginalizing the Mainstream of Religion, the Occult, and the Otherworldly
D. Michael Quinn, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Despite the complicating fact that marginalized, underprivileged groups have their own competing elites and opinion makers, a larger dynamic operates between a society's elites and non-elites. The belief systems of a society's elites and its non-elites can be seen as parallel, or as symbiotic, or as parasitic, or as antagonistic, or as competitive, or as complimentary, or as similar, or (occasionally) as identical. But the primary dynamic involves the power of a society's elites to privilege their belief systems against those of non-elites. Thus, irrespective of other denominators of social class, a person's beliefs become a litmus test for whether the person is mainstream or marginal, intelligent or unintelligent, rational or irrational, respectful or disreputable. In the western tradition of Enlightenment values, these patterns are particularly evident in beliefs in religion, the occult, and the otherworldly.

The Metaphysics of Empire and the Government of Souls
John H. Lardas, Haverford College

In 1854 the United States Congress received a petition with over fifteen thousand signatures seeking to convene an investigation into “the power and intelligence of departed spirits operating on and through the subtile [sic] and imponderable elements which pervade and permeate all material forms.” As Spiritualism spread across the country, leaders were confident that “spiritual science” might ascertain “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Congress, however, thought otherwise, rejecting the petition with the wry suggestion that “it be referred to the committee on foreign relations.” The question posed to the government went unanswered: what exactly was haunting antebellum America? This paper will explore this question by contextualizing Spiritualism in light of violent incursions into Mexico and Indian lands. It will analyze how spirits not only blurred the boundary between life and death but also enabled individuals to resolve the tensions of a burgeoning American empire.

Race, Nation, and the Topography of Spiritualist Emotion
Robert S. Cox, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

A reformer, Socialist, and satirist, William Denton was among the most widely read Spiritualist writers of the mid-nineteenth century, and one of the most interesting figures for understanding the roles of race and religion in the imaginary community called nation. In this talk, I will explore a new mental science, Psychometry, that Denton developed to explore the deep history of the planet and the races that inhabit it. Steeped in photographic theory and the culture of sympathy that informed Spiritualist praxis, Psychometry permitted the psychically sensitive individual to read the past directly from natural objects, just as one reads the visual past from a photograph. What Denton discovered about the (polygenetic) origins and history of relations of human races, I will suggest, is a bellwether for charting the trajectory of Spiritualist sympathy in the post-Civil War years, and more generally for understanding the transformation of American race relations.

The Dark Sublime: Occult Heresies and the American Nation
Darryl Victor Caterine, Grinnell College

This paper seeks to analyze the perennial struggle between evangelical Protestantism, modern science, and various metaphysical/occult traditions to define the social contours and sacred origins of the United States. Inspired by the scholarship on the witch trials, I will document the sensationalized and/or demonized 'otherness' of Freemasonry, Mormonism, and Ufology in American history. Guided by the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault and and Rene Girard, I will argue that the scandals surrounding the metaphysical/occult tradition reflect an oftentimes violent rivalry between closely related factions of Anglo-Protestant culture to articulate the nation's religious and social boundaries.

    A19-59

Theology and Religious Reflection Section

Theme: Evangelical Religion and Social Change

The four papers in this section examine resources in American evangelicalism for addressing contemporary social and cultural currents.

Honesty, Conflict, and a New Vision of the Reign of God as a Basis for Social Change among Latino/a Evangélicos/as
Nora Lozano, Baptist University of the Americas

This paper challenges traditional theological views that have slowed the process of social change among Latino/a evangélicos/as. First, many evangélicos/as promote a spiritualized theology that ignores/minimizes oppression. This position has generated a passivity that needs to be challenged with the idea that God’s Reign is present today on earth, and evangélicos/as need to act accordingly. Second, since Latino Protestantism was shaped over against Catholicism, since the beginning it has harbored an anti-Catholic feeling that pressure's evangélicos/as to hide their problems in order to be good witnesses of Jesus. The issue here is that a person cannot engage in social changes, if she/he does not acknowledge that there is a problem that needs to be changed. Third, there is a misconception about the term “conflict” that presents that it is always destructive/negative. This idea needs to be reevaluated because often a person/group must engage in healthy conflicts to generate social changes.

Asian-American Evangelicals and the Value of Diversity
Kathleen Garces-Foley, California State University, Northridge

Asian Americans have increasingly entered into the evangelical subculture through such organizations as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Promise Keepers. As they move into the mainstream, they bring distinctive values, religious styles, and social concerns with them. This paper will explore how Asian Americans are changing the face of American evangelicalism in regard to race relations. It will present findings from a year-long study of Asian American pastors who are leading their congregations to become multiethnic. The goal of this study was to understand the racial attitudes of Asian American evangelicals whose “value for diversity” has compelled them to create multiethnic churches. Since the development of multiethnic churches has become a prominent cause for many evangelicals, this is an important arena in which to consider the influence of Asian Americans on evangelical ethics and values.

Cultivating the Affections, Lakewood Church Style: Insights for Contemporary Religious and Moral Reflection
Ki Joo Choi, Boston College

Lakewood Church, the largest church in the United States, has been the object of intense fascination and criticism in recent times. This paper provides a critical interpretation of the Lakewood phenomenon and the theology of Lakewood’s senior pastor Joel Osteen. While Osteen’s message is subject to a number of shortcomings, his emphasis on the theological and moral significance of the positive affections compliments a number of important thinkers within the Christian tradition. As such, Osteen’s theology or, more broadly, Lakewood’s message, can, if given serious consideration, provoke dialogue on the often neglected issue of the role of celebration in the religious and moral life.

"Thus Sayeth the Lord...": Prophetic Voice, Evangelical Theology, and Social Change
Chris Boesel, Drew University

Evangelical theology and preaching is fundamentally constituted by the prophetic. The implication for the question of Evangelicalism’s relationship to social change is that a prophetic understanding of the Word of God offers resistance to cooptation by the cultural status quo. The life and witness of Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842-1919) provides a concrete example of an Evangelical witness that was both fundamentally prophetic and deeply counter-cultural. For Blumhardt, all forms of political action stand under the judgment of God’s Word and the inbreaking Kingdom of God. Simultaneously, Blumhardt remained committed to prophetic social change as a relative and limited witness or parable of the coming Kingdom of God. This commitment allowed for flexibility in dealing with issues of social and political change, retaining a revolutionary orientation, but all the while not allowing the Kingdom of God to be directly identified with any particular political program.

    A19-60

Women and Religion Section and Childhood Studies and Religion Consultation

Theme: Children, Women, War, and Politics

Child Soldiers, Militarism, and Theology: An Ethical Challenge
Kristin Herzog, Independent Scholars' Association

P. W. Singer's 'Children at War' (2005) provides a comprehensive study of child soldiering the world over. It describes almost unimaginable cruelties against and by child recruits. We often overlook, however, that the tendency to militarize children's lives is not limited to the 'Third World.' Child soldiers are a grotesque representation of an increasing global militarization. Cynthia Enloe has described this process in women's lives. There is a tendency to provide more U.S. recruits through children's programs like the 'Young Marines' and advertising on School TV. Recruiting videos are hardly distinguishable from violent video games. Only 2.8 cents of every federal dollar is spent on education, while the defense budget is increasing astronomically, also in other countries. Chris Hedges has written about the myths of war that fuel this development. Even a non-pacifist theology can resist the militarization of children's lives and thereby support the movement to abolish child soldiering.

“Slaughter of the Innocents”: Children in Ancient and Modern War
Honora Chapman, Stanford University

Do we share recognizable cultural values that condemn the murder of innocent women and children? Why? What makes a particular act “barbaric”? I shall show that since the beginning of western historiography in antiquity, authors such as Thucydides have used the reality of women and children dying during warfare—especially sieges— not only as a literary device for increasing pathos in their texts but also in order to comment on the very nature of “civilization” itself, its disintegration at key moments, and what attempts are made to avenge or rectify the wrong done. I shall examine King Herod’s supposed “slaughter of the innocents” as well as the activities of the Romans in Judea in the first century CE., including the siege of Jerusalem in 70. The literary interpretations of these events from two thousand years ago still influence reactions to events nowadays such as the massacre at Beslan.

Living and Partly Living: Childhood under Occupation
Raymond J. Webb, University of St. Mary of the Lake

This paper is based on interviews with ten Palestinian women – five Muslim and five Christian – now ages 16 to 23, who have spent significant parts of their childhood years under military occupation. Their religious understanding and patterns of religious practice are described. The possible effects of social location, opportunities for enrichment activities, success in school, experience of other family members, attitudes toward those who fled and those who resisted, attitudes toward the occupiers, nationalistic, religious, and family motivations, and perceptions about the future are examined. How the women have been strengthened, perceptions of loss, spiritual dimensions, inter-religious attitudes, and analogies to material in sacred texts are elaborated. The functioning of, assistance of, and possible difficulties caused by religion to persons under military occupation also are examined, leading to the exploration of theoretical implications and tentative prescriptions for persons in similar circumstances and for religious bodies so located.

    A19-61

Black Theology Group

Theme: The Nature of Black Religious Experience

What is black about black religious experience? And, what is religious about black religious experience? These questions, while seldom discussed in explicit terms, have theoretical importance for the study of black religion. In fact, the growth of black theology and other modes of academic inquiry is dependent on critical attention to such questions. This panel brings together various perspectives on these two queries.

The Nature of African American Religious Experience: A Postmodern/Post-structuralist Analysis
Torin Alexander, Rice University

It is my contention that contemporary black theology offers a rather anemic understanding of African American religious experience. Additionally, I maintain that this weakness stems from a lack of attention to theory and methodology within the discipline. Moreover, I believe that methodologies associated with postmodern social theory might be employed to great effect to the study of black religion and black religious experience. Specifically, I intend to show in this paper that the methodologies of Niklas Luhmann and Michel de Certeau demonstrate that African American religious experience is best understood as “oppositional.” By oppositional, I mean that which resistances, circumvents, evades, or opposes oppressive dimensions of power, particular in relation to the construction of society. Such an understanding subsumes while going beyond descriptions of African American religious experience as liberative, such as found in the work of James Hal Cone.

Theoretically Essential: Postmodernism and Approaches to Liberation
CL Nash, University of Edinburgh

Two of the most hotly debated theoretical paradigms in liberation theology are: postmodernism and postcolonialism. Postmodernism often succeeds in decentering the authority of liberationist scholars, while postcolonialism, among other things, cannot tell us when colonialism actually ended. Additionally, does complex theoretical jargon simply serve as a gatekeeper, maintaining the very hegemonic order it critiques?

Due to time constraints, I would like to identify and engage the following points: 1) postmodernism levies challenges of ahistoricism and essentialism – which often subverts the Black experience and allows groups to maintain fixity; 2) postcolonialism allows Black identity to become vulnerable, often subsumed in difference and instability; 3) the commodification of cultural production facilitates non-Blacks becoming the experts of our narratives and history; 4) this commodification simultaneously diminishes our authority to become experts of our own histories and narratives.

Toward a Tradition of African-American Pragmatic Religious Naturalism
Jonathon Samuel Kahn, Vassar College

What does it mean when writers who for the most part spend their careers rejecting normative religious commitments find their literary and political imaginations inhabited by religious rhetoric, concepts, and experiences? This paper argues that the rich twentieth century tradition of African American writers—Du Bois, Hurston, and Ellison among them—whose writings contain this ambiguous religious valence makes up a tradition of African American pragmatic religious naturalism. African American pragmatic religious naturalism is coordinate with the larger tradition of pragmatic religious naturalism; both read religion not for truth value but for effects on human life. But the African American tradition uses religion to thickly explore the vicissitudes of racial identity, going against the normative tradition’s resistance to analyzing specific social categories. To make this explicit, Ellison’s Invisible Man is positioned as a paradigmatic text. Ellison finds a religious dispensation—what he calls “soul”—in living with racial ambiguities.

    A19-62

Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group

Theme: War as Responsible Action? The Uses and Abuses of Bonhoeffer's Ethics

"Bush, Bloggers, and Bonhoeffer" is one title in this session, yet it is indicative not only of larger themes of this session but the general purpose of this group. The mission of the Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group is to explore the historical and contemporary interface between theology and public life within the context of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological legacy. The two sessions scheduled for this year's AAR meetings are deliberately constructed to embody this mission as well as to complement each other; both address dimensions of the ways Bonhoeffer is interpreted today. This session explores, but is not limited to, the explicit use of Bonhoeffer both in support of and in opposition to war, specifically the current U.S. war in Iraq. Questions about context, interpretation, and discernment in regard to Bonhoeffer's life and work are central concerns of these papers.

“Telling the Truth”: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Context
Susan Ford Wiltshire, Vanderbilt University

In his prison essay, “Telling the Truth,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer states that “the truthful word” is not itself constant, but depends on who is asking the question and to whom the answer is addressed. It depends on the context. From his earliest decisions in 1933 forward, including his return to Germany from New York in 1939, his assistance in helping Jews emigrate from Germany, and his 'spoke in the wheel' reflections on the bomb plot against Hitler, Bonhoeffer’s beliefs and actions always addressed the government of his own country. Bonhoeffer’s historical legacy is applicable to modern life, but only with the proviso that we understand the context in which Bonhoeffer’s faith intersected with politics and avoid simplistic or naive equations between his context and our own. This paper will trace Bonhoeffer's thinking in 'Telling the Truth' to explore how truth-telling even about his legacy itself is possible across contexts.

Bonhoeffer, Bloggers, and Bush: Uses of a “Protestant Saint” in the Fog of War
Robert O. Smith, Baylor University

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it seems, has never been more relevant to American life. In theologically-infused speech emanating from bloggers to George W. Bush, western discourse surrounding the U.S. war in Iraq repeatedly utilized the 20th century German theologian and pastor. Primary sources such as Internet entries, sermons, letters to the editor and political speeches will be presented to demonstrate the contradictory and sometimes problematic ways in which Bonhoeffer is used. By no means limited to the church, the materials presented validate the reality of what has been called the “Bonhoeffer phenomenon.” The discourse, however, most often employs Bonhoeffer to justify a given position rather than welcoming him as a faithful companion for ethical discernment; the “phenomenon” thus leads to Bonhoeffer’s domestication. With special reference to the new edition of Bonhoeffer’s _Ethics_, the presentation will provide an historical and theological framework with which to evaluate competing claims on this “Protestant saint.”

“Neither Defiant nor Despairing, but Humble and Confident”: In Conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Beyers Naudé on Discernment
Robert Vosloo, University of Stellenbosch

Bonhoeffer’s ethic of responsibility has been used by different individuals and groups to justify competing claims and actions, raising serious questions with regard to wise discernment. With this in mind, my paper will look more closely at the manuscript “God’s Love and the Disintegration of the World” in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics in which the notion of discernment plays a pivotal role. Moreover, this paper will also introduce some aspects of the remarkable life and work of the South African icon of reconciliation, Beyers Naudé. Both Bonhoeffer and Naudé struggled to discern the will of God for their lives. In the final part of the paper the need for discernment in our complex, globalized and polarized world is highlighted against the backdrop of the legacies of Bonhoeffer and Naudé, calling the attention to the need for an ethical optics which focuses on obedience, solitude, solidarity and economic justice.

    A19-63

Confucian Traditions Group

Theme: A Gentleman and His Money: Confucian Attitudes Toward the Creation and Transmission of Wealth

According to the classical Ru philosophers, a gentleman should be concerned with doing what is right, rather than what is profitable. In the 1980s, though, many social scientists argued that it was precisely Confucian values that allowed East Asian economies to soar. What accounts for this discrepancy? This panel seeks to answer the following questions: What were Confucian attitudes towards the creation and transmission of wealth? How did Confucians regard and react to commercial growth? By examining how Confucians at different times grappled with reconciling profit with righteousness, this panel tries to look at how Confucian views changed over the longue durée, from the Han dynasty to the present. The papers conclude that generally Confucians viewed the creation of wealth positively; however, they were distressed by commercialization, which threatened to make people value money more than morality.

Ritual and Non-Ritual Exchange in Early China
Michael Puett, Harvard University

This essay will explore notions of exchange in early ritual texts from early China, particularly the Liji, Yili, and Zhouli, as well as the commentarial tradition that developed on these texts over the course of the Han. My goal will be to analyze how and why these texts conceptualized exchange, and how they consequently conceptualized the issues of wealth accumulation and transmission.

The Subtle Art of Avoiding Profit: The Mercantile Adventures of a Fifth-Century Confucian Exemplar
Keith Knapp, The Citadel

China's economy often experienced spurts of tremendous growth during which mercantile activity flourished. How did Confucians react to such times in which most people esteemed the pursuit of wealth? This paper answers this question by examining the economic activities a commoner who was put forward as a Confucian exemplar. His biography indicates that, if one is a commoner, it is perfectly acceptable to engage in commerce and earn money. However, a good Confucian should not strive to get rich or benefit himself in any manner. Even though one does not disavow money-making, one should still live in relative poverty. This stress on voluntary poverty reflects the importance of the early medieval value known as qing 'purity', which meant that one was uncorrupted by self interests. In an era in which everyone was motivated by lure of the market, a good Confucian was one who remained untouched by it.

Female Virtue, Neo-Confucian Views of Commerce in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century China
Peter Ditmanson, Colby College

This paper explores Neo-Confucian views of the commercial order in Song (960-1279) and Yuan China (1371-1368) and the ways in which anxieties about economic changed manifested themselves in Neo-Confucian discourse on female virtue. While scholars have long argued that the spread of Neo-Confucian doctrine led to the circumscription of female social and economic roles, I argue that these policies were in turn driven by Neo-Confucian concerns with the broad commodification of women that was typified by the courtesan market and the marriage market that had expanded in the commercial world of the 13th and 14th centuries. These concerns manifested themselves not only in biographies and writings on women from this period, but in plays and other literary forms that valorized female resistance to the pressures and temptations of the market place, an enduring trope that dominated Neo-Confucian moral discourse in the centuries that followed.

“Confucian” Views on Wealth Creation from a Modern Interpretive Community: Social Scientists
Christian Jochim, San Jose State University

The paper concerns itself not only with modern Confucian attitudes on the creation of wealth but also with the question: What allows us to identify certain attitudes today as “Confucian” ones? The views under investigation are those of late twentieth century social scientists, who offered their interpretations of Confucian scripture and history in a debate over the role of traditional values in “economic development,” modern code words for the creation of wealth. The paper will contribute to the study of Confucian hermeneutics, in general, as well as to efforts to examine how over the centuries interpreters have appealed to Confucian scripture and history in developing their views on wealth. It aims to make its contribution by analyzing the intellectual context of the interpretive community in question, looking at its interpretive strategies, and examining its interpretations as well as the effect they might have on the broader modern discourse on Confucianism.

    A19-64

Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group and Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group

Theme: Taking Risks: The Rhetorical Challenges in Deconstructing the Radical Religious Right

Panelists will address the increasingly frigid atmosphere in the U.S. for sexual minority discourse and the risks of doing queer scholarship in the current political and religious climate. Strategies for countering the religious right will also be addressed.

    A19-65

Islamic Mysticism Group

Theme: Reading Texts, Reading Lives: Historical and Theoretical Revaluations of Sufi Sources

This panel is aimed at rethinking the way we read medieval Sufi texts to reflect on their subjects and the lives of their authors. The papers are concerned with eastern Islamic societies circa 1000-1500, though the general points we wish to raise are relevant beyond this geographical and chronological focus. One half of the panel deals with the use of hagiographical literature as a source for social history and the other half appraises the relationships between Sufi discourse and questions of law and ethics. By concentrating on thematic issues, we wish to integrate the study of Sufism and Islam more thoroughly in scholarship on religion in general. Our hope is to present to an audience that includes not only specialists in Islam and Sufism but also scholars who deal with other religious contexts and would like to compare their work to discussions of Islamic history, hagiography, law, and ethics.

Corpses in the Hands of Morticians: Pursuing the Social Logic of Disciple-Master Relationships in Hagiographical Narratives
Shahzad Bashir, Carleton College

This paper’s title refers to a Sufi dictum that uses a highly corporeal metaphor to advocate total voluntary submission of a disciple to the Sufi master. Such metaphors, and the extended stories that exemplify them in narrative form, abound in hagiographical literature produced in Persianate societies in the Timurid period (ca. 1350-1500). An interpretive approach to this material, which pays attention to the social context of the production and use of this literature, allows us to reconstitute the social and religious imaginary of the period. This is significant for understanding the social history of Sufi communities since corporeal contact between masters and disciples lay at the base of the development of large-scale networks that eventually came to assume self-conscious corporate identities in the form of the various Sufi orders. The paper will explore these themes by focusing on texts ascribed to Kubravi, Khwajagani-Naqshbandi, and Ni‘matullahi circles.

Reading the Labels: Corporate Names of Sufi Communities in Timurid-Era Sources
Devin DeWeese, Indiana University, Bloomington

This paper will examine the problem of corporate labels applied to Sufi communities of Central Asia and Iran during the 14th and 15th centuries, as reflected in sources (chiefly hagiographical) of the Timurid era, with the aim of highlighting the diversity of the foundations on which communal identities were based (i.e., locality, initiatic transmission, modes of practice, current leadership), before the principle of silsilah-links with a 'founding saint' became firmly established. The particular focus will be on three communal labels -- Khalvati, Ishqi, and Shattari -- that evoke a mode of practice or spiritual experience rather than a personal or corporate initiatic relationship, and appear to overlap, moreover, in their social referents during the earliest phases of their use.

From Intertextuality to Interdiscursivity: Sufi Texts and Fiqh Texts in Medieval South Asia
Amina Steinfels, Mount Holyoke College

I propose to examine the relationship of Sufi texts from pre-Mughal South Asia with works on fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and fatawa (legal decisions). The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were not only a time of rapid expansion for various Sufi orders but also one in which the study and codification of Islamic law was a flourishing enterprise. While Sufism and fiqh constituted two distinct discursive traditions, some Sufi texts of the period contain significant amounts of material quoted from legal works. This inclusion of legal material may be an acknowledgement of, and submission to, the claim to hegemonic Islamic authority made by the Shari'a and its interpreters. Or this may be an appropriation of legalistic authority by Sufi writers. That is, through the inclusion of fiqh and fatawa within a Sufi text, a claim is being made for the all-encompassing authority of the Sufi tradition.

Wise Servants and Virtuous Kings: Sufi Writings as a Source of Islamic Ethics
Elias Jamal, Amherst College

This paper analyses moral and ethical Sufi writings by Sayyid ‘Ali-yi Hamadani, Najm al-din Daya and others. It contends that certain genres of Sufi writings are crucial for the nature and development of Islamic ethics, especially normative and meta-ethics. In arguing for the crucial ethical role of Sufi instruction, the paper also critiques how the almost exclusive emphasis on the experiential dimension of Sufism has caused all supposedly ‘Sufi’ writings to be seen as reflecting a pre-occupation with ‘mystical experience’.

    A19-66

Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Group

Theme: Kierkegaard and Contemporary Virtue Ethics

Kierkegaard after Hauerwas: Christian Courage and Fortunate Fallibility in Contemporary Virtue Ethics
Jason A. Mahn, Duke University

In this paper I put the Christian character ethics of Stanley Hauerwas and Søren Kierkegaard in conversation. In particular, I employ Hauerwas's conception of sin, vulnerability, and the way courage “makes the world more dangerous” in order to forward Kierkegaard's conception of Christian courage and fortunate fallibility. Kierkegaard commends his reader to shape courageous faith by cultivating and overcoming dispositions to sin. If existentialism largely disconnects act from disposition, while classical virtue ethics directly connects them, Kierkegaard’s “existential virtue ethics' (Davenport) understands the act of faith to negatively depend on the disposition that it overcomes. I question the extent to which this negative, dialectical relationship between disposition and act might still belong to “the virtue tradition.” I also suggest that those concerned with a new form of Christendom in America might look to Kierkegaard to retrieve the virtue of Christian fallibility.

Kierkegaard and the Virtues of Weakness
W. Glenn Kirkconnell, Santa Fe Community College

This paper discusses the virtue ethic inherent in Kierkegaard's 'upbuilding discourses' in the light of Alasdair MacIntyre's writings on tradition-based virtue ethics. While MacIntyre presents Kierkegaard as something of the arch-liberal ethical absurdist, it is pretty clear that his signed works conform to MacIntyre's description of the Augustinian tradition. An examination of the epistemological comments of J. G. Hamman shows that Kierkegaard's ethical comments in the discourses are based on philosophical concerns as much as on theological ones, and that these constitute an Augustinian reaction to the breakdown of the Enlightenment project of establishing universally accepted, rationally based ethics. This leaves three unanswered questions: Does Kierkegaard offer reasons why his alternative should be adopted over any other? Does his alternative have anything to offer to the non-theist? And finally, is Kierkegaard better understood as speaking to the Augustinian tradition, or to the universal human condition as finite knowers?

    A19-67

Korean Religions Group

Theme: Religion and Politics in Korean History

Though forbidden conversation topics at a dinner party, religion and politics have long been fused in the Korean experience. This session will focus on the way that religions and religious personalities in Korea have historically used political means to achieve religious and political ends, and how dominant political groups have used religions for political purposes.

Buddhist Monks and Political Power in Late Koryô-Early Chosôn: The Trajectory and Strategy of Muhak Chach'o
Patrick Uhlmann, University of California, Los Angeles

The monk Muhak Chach'o (1327-1405) was a prominent figure in Korean Buddhism during the period of dynastic transition from Koryô to Chosôn. Scholars have suggested that his connections with Yi Sông-gye, the founder of the Chosôn dynasty, and his involvement in the selection of present-day Seoul as the new capital, resulted from his expertise in geomancy.

However, as geomancy belonged to the common repertoire of monks, this only partially explains how Muhak obtained and preserved his access to political power.

This paper argues that Muhak was of low social origin, that he did not take or pass monk-examinations, and that he thus lacked support from the Buddhist establishment.

Muhak gained legitimacy by associating himself with the charismatic monks Zhikong and Naong, promoting their cultic worship, and coining fictive Dharma-lineages. This, rather than his geomantic skills, enabled him to build up connections with the power groups of the Chosôn dynasty.

The Korean Use of Religious "Orthodoxy" as a Political Weapon: The Parallel between the Seventeenth-Century Confucian Ritual Controversy and the Twentieth-Century Christian Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
Weon Chu, Brookline, MA

This paper attempts to highlight the political nature of the doctrinal disputes commonly manifested in both of the Korean Neo-Confucian and Korean Presbyterian fundamentalisms by using Max Weber's notion of 'elective affinities' between the claim of orthodoxy and factional interests. This paper first details the ritual controversy between Song Si-yôl and Yun Hyu. In their fight for power, Song had successfully established himself as the guardian of orthodoxy, using it as a weapon to kill the opponent Yun. This paper also details the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the Korean Presbyterian Church between Hyung Nong Park and Chai Choon Kim. Park reiterated the pattern of factional strife in Chosôn Neo-Confucianism where the ideological stigma of heterodoxy was used to win over the political enemy or opposing faction. This parallel shows us that Park unconsciously showed the cultural “habitus” in using religious orthodoxy as a political weapon.

Shinto Religion, Politics, and Christian Response in Korea
Wi Jo Kang, Wartburg Theological Seminary

This paper discusses how the Japanese colonial government in Korea used Shinto religion for political purposes. Shinto religion was made the state religion of the Japanese Empire at the time of the Meiji restoration and it was closely identified with Japanese polity and politics until 1945 in Korea. The Imperial Diet of Japan, in 1919, passed a resolution to build a 'National shrine' for Shinto religion in Seoul. Eventually the government spent a considerable amount of money to establish Shinto shrines throughout the country. The government explained that the participation in the Shinto shrine activities were not religious acts but patriotic civil activities. Christian communities in Korea strongly opposed Shinto worship and believed that the worship of the Japanese imperial spirits was idolatry. However, eventually all major Christian denominations in Korea accepted the Japanese explanation that Shinto worship was not religious. Those who opposed were imprisoned and suffered martyrdom.

Deconstructing Religions: Religions in the Age of Nukes and Anti-Americanism
Yun Cho, Claremont Graduate University

This paper discusses and evaluates the relation between politics and religions, focusing on Protestant churches in South Korea. International politics is one of the most determining factors which have influenced South Korea today. Nations like North Korea and the United States of America have challenged South Korean politics. Korea was the fastest growing Christian country in Asia during the last century and has the largest Protestant population in Asia today. However, Korean Christianity has been challenged internally and externally. On the one hand, the churches are challenged by their own corruption, and on the other hand, the churches confront the challenges from other religions like Islam. Furthermore, the North Korean nuclear policies and anti-Americanism influence the Korean’s perception of the churches. Analyzing the relation between politics and religion in South Korea, this paper will argue that religions and politics are inseparable factors that have formulated South Korea today.

    A19-68

Nineteenth-Century Theology Group and Mysticism Group

Theme: Late Nineteenth/Early Twentieth-Century Approaches to Mysticism, East and West

Buddha-Nature as the Unity of the Two Truths in Mi-pham’s (’Ju Mi Pham Rgya Mtsho, 1842-1912) Interpretation
Douglas S. Duckworth, Florida State University

Buddha-nature, an innate quality of beings in the world, is a central theme in Mi-pham’s (’ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846-1912) exegesis of his Nying-ma Buddhist tradition of Tibet. Mi-pham's affirmation of the presence of Buddha-nature as intrinsic within the ground of existence depicts a narrative of discovery that is a central theme within the esoteric discourses of his Nying-ma tradition. This paper explores how Mi-pham formulates Buddha-nature within a systematic representation of the relationship between the denials and affirmations of Buddha-nature. His interpretation represents a synthesis of esoteric and exoteric doctrinal exegesis that has accompanied an institutional transformation of the Nying-ma tradition from a non-monastic community into a monastic one. I discuss Mi-pham’s description of Buddha-nature within his depiction of two models of the Buddhist doctrine of two-truths—a formulation of truth that draws from a synthesis of negative dialectics and foundational truth—a synthesis at the heart of Tibetan scholasticism.

Maurice Blondel: Philosophy, Prayer, and the Mystical
Michael J. Kerlin, LaSalle University

Maurice Blondel: Philosophy, Prayer and the Mystical

The central document for understanding Blondel's thought about what he calls 'la mystique' (as distinct from 'le mysticisme') is 'Le Probleme de la Mystique,' the opening piece of a set of essays 'Qu'est-ce que la Mystique?' 'Le Probleme de la Mystique' concerns mainly the relationship between philosophy and the mystical. Since it extends its critical reflection to the whole of human experience, philosophy should be able to consider the conditions for even those experiences that depend upon gifts beyond all natural human powers. But Blondel's comments about philosophy and prayer in 'L'Action' (1893) and 'La Pensee' (1934) lead one to the conclusion that, beyond being critical reflection on experience, philosophy itself is prayer with its fulfillment in the mystical. The purpose of the paper will be a critical development of these connections beyond the explicit argument of 'Le Probleme de la Mystique.'

The Modernist and the Mystic: Albert Houtin's Une Grande Mystique
Charles J. T. Talar, University of Saint Thomas

In the second third of the 19th century the Abbey of Solesmes, under the leadership of Dom Gueranger, assumed leadership in the movement in Catholicism for liturgical reform and restoration. In the last third, however, it was marked by a turning inward toward mysticism and contemplation. This was accompanied by considerable controversy, which centered on Mere Cecile Bruyere, superior of the women's abbey, and Dom Delatte, third abbot of Solesmes.

In 1925 Albert Houtin published a memorandum that had been confided to him years earlier by one of the monks, Dom Sauton, with instructions that it be published after the author's death. It details the controversies and divisions within the monasteries, centering on the role played by Mere Cecile and evaluating her claims to mystical experience. By then Houtin had renounced Catholicism and embraced freethought. Sauton's text resonated with his own sensibilities regarding mysticism and religious experience more generally.

Particular and Universal: Problems Posed by Shaku Sōen’s “Zen”
John M. Thompson, Christopher Newport University

Shaku Sōen (1859-1919) was a tremendously important figure who has been virtually ignored by students of mysticism. Focusing on Sōen’s writings I will sketch out a rough theory of “mysticism” that Sōen seems to hold, pointing out resonances with views espoused by major scholars of mysticism (James, Stace). When we consider such material in conjunction with details of Sōen’s life, he emerges as a complex man. While not an original thinker, Sōen was quite extraordinary — a man disciplined in a traditional Zen style but with a modern scholarly background, whose outlook was staunchly Japanese yet very cosmopolitan. Indeed, Sōen embodies the paradoxes that we see in several of his contemporaries (e.g. Vivekananda, Dharmapala). This creative tension combined with his personal charisma and missionary zeal make Sōen an intriguing figure. Simply put, scholars of mysticism cannot afford to ignore him.

May Sinclair: Mystic Modern
James H. Thrall, Duke University

Recognized in her day not only as an innovative writer of fiction, but also as a philosopher, British author May Sinclair (1863-1946) drew on a largely self-directed immersion in nineteenth century thought to shape a mystic sensibility outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy. Against the backdrop of a crisis of meaning defined largely in terms of mortality, and sharpened by the outbreak of the First World War, she advocated a new idealism, seeking a self-authenticating spiritual orthodoxy apart from the old orthodoxy of establishment Christianity on the one hand, and the extreme heterodoxy of occultism on the other. Her complex representation of mystic experience, with its simultaneous emphases on both an idealistic transcendence and a pantheistic immanence, was, in the end, her method of establishing herself as a modern women.

    A19-69

Special Topics Forum

Theme: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and U.S. Culture

A relationship with the Haudenosaunee “People of the Longhouse” (i.e., Iroquois) has persisted over the entirety of United States history. For example, the Longhouse system was an inspiration to the founding fathers and nineteenth-century feminists; thanksgivings which ceremonially address the whole of creation and decision making with the Seventh Generation in mind, have been an inspiration to transcendentalists, environmentalists, and ecologists; Haudenosaunee leaders like Oren Lyons, have inspired indigenous people around the world to fight together for their rights through institutions like the United Nations. The Haudenosaunee today remain among the last sovereign Native American nations completely separate from the federal government, which continue to govern themselves within the Longhouse clan system. The Haudenosaunee legacy is of profound importance and yet the legacy of this relationship is largely hidden from view. This panel will explore the legacy of the Haudenosaunee and the ongoing challenges to their cultural survival.

Misplaced Origins and Debts Ignored: Democracy Isn't Free
Schuyler Shawn, Syracuse University

A heated debate exists over Haudenosaunee contributions to U.S. democracy. Sources suggest that the controversy is primarily political: tenured 'experts' react negatively to challenges to their authority, incursions into 'their' ideological/economic territory. The History of Religions suggests other interpretations for this reaction, centering on stories of origin and ways of relating to land. 'Democracy'--in the Euro-American imagination--is founded in a temporal tale: the colonists broke free of their places of origin and took up a classical Western (Greek) tradition, attempting a return to that time. This utopian orientation to origin can be contrasted with the origin story of the Haudenosaunee confederacy, a way of governance intrinsically linked to the place(s) from which it came, and expressing an obligation to those places. The Euro-American story conceals debts to place and to the people of that place. This both obscures Haudenosaunee contributions and influences the equation of 'democracy' to 'freedom' (vs. 'responsibility').

What the American Founders Did Not Learn from the Haudenosaunee
Chris Jocks, Arizona State University

Rather than looking at the influence of the Haudenosaunee on the governmental system of the United States, this presentation will focus on six indispensable dimensions of Longhouse practice that are conspicuously absent from it. These six principles can be named as follows:

1. Consensus: government based on persuasion rather than coercion

2. The Good Mind: the source of real consensus

3. Women: cultivators of the future

4. Condolence: healing has to come first

5. Nationhood: the ground we walk on

6. Leadership: listening and voicing

In local contexts of small-scale change, principles like these may have real promise: in schools, and in humanly-scaled workplaces and organizations of all kinds. Where such re-thinking works, it will be a result not of imitation but of thoughtful reflection upon Longhouse practice and experience in ways that respect both the original soil and the new.

Clan Mothers: The Role of Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers in Survival of the Iroquois Confederacy
Nancy Napierala, State University of New York, Buffalo

Clan Mothers: The Role of Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers in the survival of the Iroquois Confederacy.

An historical outline of the unique role of female leaders of clans in the Iroquois Confederacy and their importance in the survival and revival of the culture.

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists
Sally Roesch Wagner, Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation

I will explore how the woman’s rights movement took form in the territory of the Iroquois confederacy, where women have always lived with considerable status and authority. I will share research on how Haudenosaunee women fired the revolutionary vision of early feminists by providing a model of freedom for women at a time when EuroAmerican women experienced few rights. The thought of Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was shaped by their involvement with their indigenous women neighbors in upstate New York. Having no legal existence, once married, EuroAmerican women learned and were inspired by the decisive political power, control of their bodies and property, religious voice, custody of their children, satisfying work, and absence of rape and domestic violence women experienced in Haudenosaunee nations. Supporting treaty rights and native sovereignty, Matilda Joslyn Gage was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation.

    A19-70

New Religious Movements Group and Contemporary Pagan Studies Consultation

Theme: Neo-Pagan Religions in Central and Eastern Europe: Identity, Community, and Challenge

This session will examine the resurgence of pre-Christian and Pagan religions in Central and Eastern Europe. It will be particularly focused on Slavic and Baltic forms of Neo-Paganism, with reference as well to Neo-Shamanic practices. Participants will include scholars from and with expertise on Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. The presenters will probe the motivations of Neo-Pagan adherents and relate them to broader developments of the post-Soviet/post-Socialist world, including the rise of environmentalism, especially in the immediate years following the Chernobyl nuclear accident; the upsurge of ethnic nationalism and ethnic identity movements from the 1980s until the present; and processes of 'westernization' and globalization, along with the growth of anti-western and anti-globalist reactions.

    A19-71

Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Group

Theme: Perspectives from the Post-Analytic Philosophy of Language in the Study of Religion

Post-analytic philosophy is revolutionizing debates about the relations between mind, language, and world. This panel will consider the prospects and problems of applying the insights of this movement to the study of religion. Whether one wishes to construct or deconstruct the category of religion, we argue that a fundamental prerequisite for doing so is a proper understanding of language and its embodiment in the world. Scholars of religion utilizing post-analytic philosophy believe that religion requires no special theory of language to account for it apart from a well developed theory of ordinary language, and that religion is not a representational scheme through which one sees the world. By taking semantic conflict and material difference seriously, while at the same time recognizing the holistic basis of communication, this strategy caters both to cultural diversities and epistemic unity, which are the basis of comparative and general studies of religion.

    A19-72

Reformed Theology and History Group

Theme: Reformed Perspectives on Genetic Engineering

Conversion, Grace, and Illumination: The Contribution of Jonathan Edwards’ Virtue to Debates about Personhood in Bioethics
Elizabeth Agnew, University of Notre Dame

Recent discussions within secular bioethics demonstrate an interest in considering the views of personhood articulated in different religious traditions. This essay develops one such view by retrieving Jonathan Edwards’s understanding of humanity as the basis for developing a Reformed account of personhood. Relying primarily on the Two Dissertations and the Treatise on Religious Affections, I show that Edwards’s account of human nature is connected to a notion of virtue that effectively challenges the concerns with technology raised by many bioethicists. In contrast to other virtue ethics, Edwards rejects the link between virtue and habituation and emphasizes a view of virtue as something achieved only through conversion and illumination.

Image and Substitute: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in a World of Genetic Engineering
Christian D. Kettler, Friends University

'At some stage in the future we will have to decide how human we wish to remain ...' The words of the biologist Edward O. Wilson are troubling to hear. What is to become of Reformed theology in such a world of spectacular exhibitions of human will? The image of God based on the vicarious humanity of Christ in the theology of T.F.Torrance proposes a way in which our ideas of humanity, not just God, are replaced by Christ, the unique substitute. Christ both critiques capricious adventures in genetics, yet embraces a ministry of healing through genetic therapy. Implications of Christ as the unique substitute, as the vicarious image of God in relation with the Father, and as the vicarious healer affirm the uniqueness of the human being created by God (vs. a clone of a human),yet promotes the imperative of genetic therapy as a healing ministry of Christ.

Genetic Determinism and the "Freedom of the Gaps": A Compatibilist Response
Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University

Does genetic knowledge of ourselves affect our understanding of human freedom? I argue that it does, particularly when we take the possibility of genetic determinism seriously, avoiding a 'freedom of the gaps' that presumes scientific progress will not bring to light further evidence for genetic determinism. An approach that enables us to avoid this mistake is the compatibilist view that we are responsible for states or actions of our intellects and wills. This view implies that--because we own them, and they make us who we are--we can be responsible for genetically based traits, or actions that we perform because of those traits, even though we did not choose those traits prior to having them. I defend this view in my paper, and explore along the way whether genetic determinism might have different implications for freedom than determinisms of other kinds.

Still Being Human: The Image of God and Embodiment after the Genome
Robert A. Pyne, Dallas Theological Seminary

A Reformed understanding of the image of God is here applied to the concepts of freedom, responsibility, and purpose in a technological age.

    A19-73

Religion in Latin America and the Caribbean Group

Theme: Religion and Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: In Honor of Oscar Romero

This panel is dedicated to Archbishop Oscar Romero on the 20th year of his death. Monseñor Romero was one of the most active and exemplar radical Christians in the Twentieth Century. His work and peaceful struggle for justice in El Salvador openly defied support of war and indifference to genocide. He became champion of the poor and defender of the oppressed. His legacy of a decolonizing spirituality and activism continues alive today and will forever be a source of inspiration to all those who oppose the misery of poverty and the violence of war in its many gazes and expressions.

Romero's Legacy in Context
John A. Donaghy, St. Thomas Aquinas Church

Oscar Romero has assumed mythic dimensions since his 1980 assassination. Central to the Romero mythology is his alleged “road to Damascus” conversion on the way to Aguilares after the assassination of Rutilio Grande. However, Romero’s emergence as the voice of the Salvadoran poor and oppressed is rooted in his own predilection for the poor and the sick and his loyalty to the church, as well as in the history of a San Salvador archdiocesan pastoral model which he inherited from his predecessor. A series of events, several connected to some of his close friends, had been moving Romero to a more direct and liberating style of pastoral leadership. The death of Grande brought Romero to the point of some critical decisions that set the tone for the archdiocese in the late 1970s. The conditions that were present to make Romero’s legacy significant reveal the roots of liberating pastoral praxis.

Oscar Romero's Commitment to Liberation and Reconciliation
David Tombs, Trinity College, Dublin

Much of the literature on Oscar Romero’s life and work as Archbishop of San Salvador (1977-80) draws attention to his solidarity with the poor in his pastoral work, and the role of liberation theology in his understanding of Christian faith. This paper argues that whilst Romero’s concern for liberation was certainly a central dimension to his work and thought, his commitment to reconciliation was an equally important influence on what he said and did, even though this side of his life is often overlooked. Romero’s prophetic witness as archbishop needs to be set in the wider context of his desire for reconciliation and unity in both Salvadoran society and in the church. It was his ecclesiological and Christological commitment to reconciliation that facilitated and guided his transition from political conservatism to social radicalism during his time as archbishop.

Resistance and Liberation Struggles among Caribbean Coolies: The Religious Imagination of Bechu - "Bound Coolie'"Radical
Michael Jagessar, Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education

This paper will explore the nature of the resistance and subversion of Indo-Caribbeans by examining the role of religions and the religious imagination on Bechu during the period 1894 -1901. Bechu, a 'bound coolie', was a subversive and oppositional voice against the English colonial and Plantocracy in British Guiana (now Guyana). This is a contribution, from an Indo-Caribbean perspective, to the discourse on liberation, resistance and subversion in the region.

Still Struggling toward a New Earth: The Integration of Faith and Practice within Centro de Estudos e Ação Social
Thia Cooper, Gustavus Adolphus College

This talk explores the integration of theological reflection with post-development work and advocacy in Centro de Estudos e Ação Social, a Jesuit-founded civil society organization based in Salvador, Brazil.

Stemming from liberation theology, they continue to use the methodology of action and reflection, the hermeneutical circle. This circle critically reflects in community on reality and spirituality, each in the light of the other. In their analysis of reality, CEAS rejects economic development and globalization, and instead focuses on the political realm, encouraging the poorest communities to struggle with the local government, building their capacity as citizens. From this reality, theological themes emerge: the poor as the starting point for theology, sinful structures, conscientization to share power, and the Eucharist as a potential model for life in community. Finally, CEAS considers this hermeneutical circle to be a multifaith process, a crucial theme for CSOs today.

    A19-74

Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture Group and Theology and Continental Philosophy Group

Theme: Interrogating Ontotheology: Tillich, Heidegger, Marion, and Caputo

Beyond Being: Tillich, Marion, and Caputo on Why God Does Not Exist
Russell Manning, University of Cambridge

This paper defends Paul Tillich’s non-realist understanding of God as consistent with yet supplementary to contemporary theological non-realism. Tillich’s view is considered alongside the conservative theological positivism of Jean-Luc Marion’s ‘crossing of being’ and John D. Caputo’s radical postsecular claim that God is ‘without being.’ However, in contrast to both predominant contemporary non-realist positions, which in effect enact a theological acceptance of the validity of Heidegger and Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ of the philosophical basis of Christianity, this paper argues that for Tillich’s Christian NeoPlatonism the assertion that God is ‘beyond being’ is the starting point for a philosophical theology. It argues that Tillich’s understanding of God as the unconditioned ground and abyss of meaning and being that is itself beyond being enables a constructive philosophical theology of engagement with the divine through the correlative relation of revelation and the contemplative discernment of the traces of the divine within and through culture.

Tillich and Heidegger on Being
Martin Gallagher, University of Kansas

This paper considers the intersections between Paul Tillich and Martin Heidegger on the thought of Being. I don't argue that Tillich was influenced by Heidegger as much as that they shared influences from German romanticism, idealism, and Kantianism. Both thinkers wanted to snatch existence away from the dominance of metaphysical theism, in order to interpret it on its own terms. This required a disposition of courageous resolution to confront das Nichts, both as a yawning abyss and a dialectical no, which enable more positive affirmation. Both thinkers lie within the ontological tradition, and overcoming self-estrangement is to Tillich what overcoming homelessness from oneself is to Heidegger. In the end, I suggest that Heidegger’s positive affirmations remain more firmly connected to his negations, which is why he is not able to affirm a concrete religious expression, while Tillich is able to affirm historical Christianity, albeit outside the boundaries of traditional theism.

God-Less Thinking: The Question of Onto-Theology in Heidegger and Tillich
Mario Costa, Drew University

This paper engages the thought of Martin Heidegger and Paul Tillich on the question of onto-theology. Perhaps no theologian has so explicitly engaged in onto-theology than Paul Tillich. Unlike his contemporary, Martin Heidegger, Tillich seems untroubled by the identification of God with being (or being-itself). It is nevertheless striking that Tillich should make such theological moves (if such moves are indeed theological) at roughly the same time that Heidegger is speaking and writing so forcefully against onto-theology. While much attention has been given to the Heideggerian formulation of the problem of onto-theology, and much attention has been given to Tillich’s ontology and conception of God as being-itself, the seemingly contradictory views of these towering figures have yet to be explored. In conducting just such an exploration, this paper ultimately offers a critique both of Tillich’s ontology (doctrine of being) and his theology (doctrine of God).

    A19-75

Augustine and Augustinianisms Consultation

Theme: Augustine and Community

Augustine’s Image of the Ascension: Medieval Monastic Receptions
Andrea J. Dickens, United Theological Seminary

Augustine says that God descends in order to meet fallen humanity and raise it up. The Resurrection and Ascension become not only Jesus of Nazareth’s Resurrection and Ascension but the Ascension of the Totus Christus. The Ascension is really the Ascension of the Mystical Body of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth as its head. This image appears frequently in the writings of medieval Cistercians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries such as William of Saint-Thierry, Isaac of Stella, Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx, and Gertrude of Helfta. These Cistercians use the Ascension as a basis for their understanding of how the Incarnation saves humans. They also use this image to centralize the importance of the virtue of humility. This image grounds various beliefs, sometimes quite limited, among these Cistercians as to what constitutes community and the Mystical Body of Christ.

Sin and the City: Augustine, Sin, and Life Together
Matt Jenson, University of St. Andrews

1000 years before Luther’s famous description of sinful humanity as homo incurvatus in se, Augustine wrote of homo inclinatus ad se. The primal pair’s Edenic sin resulted from and was itself an inclining towards self, a defection from right relation with God and one another which brought them ‘nearer to nothingness’. This paper will detail various aspects of Augustine’s treatment of sinful inclinatus ad se as a model for understanding sin through engagement with Book XIV of City of God. Particularly, we will consider how his description of sin as inclining towards oneself leads to a relational view of theological anthropology which finds men and women constituted by their relationships to God and to one another.

Christian Identity and Imperial Participation: Tensions in Augustine's Ideal of Community Life
Paul R. Kolbet, Boston College

The legalization of Christianity in the fourth century accompanied by the Theodosian myth of a Christian empire created a great deal of confusion in the North African Church about its own identity in relation to a Roman imperial culture where being a Christian had become respectable. This paper examines the way Augustine, in his thirty-nine years of public preaching, sought to define the identity of his congregation in Hippo. It argues that one finds in Augustine's rhetoric a sophisticated struggle to form in his hearers a vital Christian identity that could sustain involvement with Roman governmental and civic affairs without compromising itself or diminishing its critical edge.

The Wise Master Builder: Paul as a Model for Building Community in Augustine's Commentary on Galatians
Eric Plumer, University of Scranton

Since the publication of Krister Stendahl’s seminal essay “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” there has been a growing consensus that the tradition of Pauline interpretation running from Luther to modern Lutheran scholars, with its enormous emphasis on justification by faith as the solution to the predicament of the guilty conscience experienced by every individual, had its real origins not in Paul but in Augustine. Yet what is often overlooked is that Augustine as a pastor and monk was deeply concerned with the communal aspects of Paul’s teaching as well. Indeed, in his Commentary on Galatians -- his only complete Pauline commentary -- these communal aspects are paramount, so that the dominant image of Paul is that of the master builder of Christian communities: preaching the gospel, upholding its truth, defending the dignity of Gentile believers, and striving to secure peace and unity in Christ.

    A19-76

Foucault Consultation

Theme: Bodies and Spaces: Foucault and Philosophy of Religion

How might philosophies of religion proceed after a serious encounter with the work of Foucault? This session will examine ways in which bodies and spaces figure in such thinking, with the aim of moving critical thought about religion forward--both through and beyond Foucault.

Heterotopic Theology: Toward a Liminal Foucauldian Space of Thought
John McSweeney, University of Limerick

Contemporary Christian theology is confronted with the problem of articulating its specific ‘theological’ identity and recognising how that identity is nonetheless constituted only in relation to other discourses. This paper argues that Foucault’s notion of heterotopia offers a means of conceptualising this problem beyond the problematic dichotomies typical of modern and postmodern thought. In particular, it proposes that Foucault’s later practice of thought can be usefully refigured in spatialised and heterotopic terms. It is argued, that the multiplicity of what Foucault calls the 'emplacements' within heterotopia supports the idea of identity as specific rather than diffused, yet multiple and dynamic. A heterotopic theology is invited to a ‘liminal’ practice which uncovers the complex multiplicity of its identity, and the ethical potential represented by the self-displacement implied in the complexity.

Scratching the Surface: Making Meaning on the Screen of The Pillow Book and the Skin of the Incorporeal God
Jenna Tiitsman, Union Theological Seminary

Foucault’s interrogations of interiority locate meaning-making on the skin. However the danger in superficial sites of signification is the implied visual accessibility to meaning. Cultural code becomes flattened into a text to be deciphered; we lose that which we cannot see. Ascription to superficiality calls for a confrontation in any Christian address of post-structuralism: how can we conceive theologically of the skin as a site of signification when constructions of God refuse a topical boundary upon which meaning can be enacted or inscribed? What are strategies for recovering the boundlessness of the skin as a site of signification? The proliferation of inscribed surfaces in Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (1996) foregrounds, or only-grounds, the surface while dislodging any singular or stable meaning. The unreadability of the body-texts in this film can be read with the complicated surfaces emerging in the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari and Catherine Keller.

The Preponderance of Objectivity: Foucault, Adorno, and the Politicization of Melancholia
Matthew S. Waggoner, University of California, Santa Cruz

In this climate of theory it is unfashionable, but still requisite, to recall not only the repudiations of reason within traditions of criticism we admire, but also their concerns about abandoning certain political fantasies. In Foucault and Adorno one finds, amidst contradictory claims, the presentiment that in light of reason’s failures what must be sought is not alternative sources of emancipation, but the politicization of loss and failure, of impossibility as such. This is the melancholic imperative implicit in the preponderance of the objective, which I shall argue is implicit throughout the work of Foucault and Adorno. In sum, this paper suggests that one of the vital contributions of Religious Studies is not merely to affirm religion in any case, but to register the ambivalence with which religion on one hand, and secularity on the other, figure into histories of social critique in the West.

    A19-77

Religion, Media, and Culture Consultation

Theme: Mediating Transcendence in the New Millennium

Altered States: Travel, Transcendence, and Technology in Contemporary Vodou Practice
Alexandra Boutros, McGill University

In North America, where media and commodity cultures often shape religiosity, the distinction between producer and consumer can be difficult to make—consumers transform themselves into producers and producers become clearly signified audiences. Ethnographic research into Haitian Vodou communities and networks shows a practice of “production” and dissemination of Haitian Vodou in multiple forms. Vodouists generate their own media around the Vodou religion. These production practices allow for a mediation of Vodou on a global scale in ways that seem innovative and unprecedented. However, this production is commensurate with the discourses and cosmology of Vodou. Possession performance, one of the central rituals of Vodou, can be understood as a form of media. In the performances of possession practitioners, and the gods or goddesses that inhabit them, disseminate the cosmology and history of the religion and generate a discursive space for incorporation of new material into the religious compendium.

September 12, Madrid, and Kabul Kaboom! Shockwave Gaming and the Construction of Muslim Identity
Jill Gorman, Rollins College

This paper will explore the construction of Islam in three online videogames produced in conjunction with newsgaming.com. Described by MIT as “a new form of political expression,” newsgaming.com specifically designs games to provoke in its players critical thinking about political issues such as war and terrorism. However, through a close examination of three games-- Madrid, September 12, and Kabul Kaboom!-- this paper argues that the presentation of Islam within these shockwave games should be embraced with more ambivalence. Although they do provide a forum in which to think, the games also construct problems consistent with the representation of Islam in other forms of Western public discourse. It will also be argued that the videogames can be used pedagogically to illustrate how these constructions of Islam are consistent with those produced in other forms of Western public discourse. For the presentation, examples of each game will be presented to the audience.

Tactical Heterotopias and the Space of Religious Performance
Annie Blakeney-Glazer, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

This paper stems from my work on a performance ethnography of North Carolinian noise performer Scotty Irving, known as “The Clang Quartet.” Irving enacts the life of Jesus Christ through use of his homemade instruments and percussion. His performances generally occur in secular, independent music venues, representing a displacement of religious activity. My paper employs Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia and Michel de Certeau’s analysis of everyday practices to reread Irving’s performance and engage larger questions of religious performativity. The heterotopia, as a space of inversion, provides an analytical tool for understanding the dynamics of religious performance in non-religious spaces. I will argue that heterotopias can be tactical, used to sidestep and evade socio-cultural norms. By reading religious performance in this way, a theorist is able to take seriously the subject, the performance, the space, and the bodies involved.

Digital Ecstasy: Simulating Religious Experiences in Cyberspace
Alison R. Marshall, Brandon University

This paper discusses a project to create a virtual temple (lingji.brandonu.ca) to stimulate individuals in cyberspace to have religious experiences and to provide a teaching tool for communicating the details of Lingji religious practice.

Lingji are Taiwanese mediums who enter trance when they are moved by a spirit. They often describe the possession experience using words that emphasize the flow of media. Moreover, when mediums or their assistants explain what mediums do they often refer to them as television sets or stations that transmit spiritual messages. Summarizing the debates about cyber-spirituality, the paper concludes that the biggest obstacle to cyber-spirituality is transforming ordinary cyberspace into something sacred. According to lingji beliefs, cyberspace can be sacred because ling can exist and cause one to be moved or possessed by it anywhere—in a park, in a temple, in an ice cream parlour, and as one Taiwanese medium remarked, “why not through the Internet.”

    A19-129

JAAR International Reception

This reception is for all participants in the “Contesting Religions/Religions Contested Project” and the Board and friends of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

    A19-100

Arts Series/Films: Sharon O'Brien - Readings from The Family Silver

Sharon O’Brien will give a talk and lead a workshop on the creative and spiritual meanings of memoir, including a reading from The Family Silver: A Memoir of Depression and Inheritance. Her memoir records the story of her struggle with depression (“a rude houseguest”) and her search to understand her family’s past. She uses biographers methods to weave together the scattered pieces of the past – a mother’s memo books, a father’s reading journal, family photographs, hospital records, dance cards – into a narrative of redemption. She will go “backstage” about the craft of memoir, giving examples from her own creative process to show how writing can be a journey full of dead ends and side roads as well as open spaces. She will give suggestions for ways to begin writing life stories in a personal narrative workshop. Participants will work in small groups. No experience necessary; bring a pen and a notebook.

    A19-101

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Responding to Political Targeting of Religion Scholars in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education

This workshop consists of four presentations by the panel followed by discussion with the audience. Part One: The Big Picture: Recognizing a Systematic Approach to Silencing Dissent and Demonizing Critique in the Academic Study of religion; Part Two: Disparate Cases: Connecting the Dots to reveal a Common Agenda behind Regional Cases; Part Three: Mobilizing Effective Institutional and legal response: When to Call a Lawyer; Part Four: Protecting Open Inquiry in the Academic Study of Religion: Strategies with Administrations, media, and Regional Response and Support.

    A19-102

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Storming the Ivory Tower: Conflict, Complicity, and Social Change

This special topics forum discusses the complex issues of identity, vocation, and multiple obligations of racial and ethnic minorities in the academy: How to deal with conflictual situations in the workplace? How to balance obligations to communities of origin and to the academy? In what ways have racial and ethnic minorities been complicit with the various -isms? How can we be accountable to a wider public and challenge the academy to be a place for social change? How can institutions attract and retain minority scholars? Panelists include Miguel Da La Torre, Hope College; Joan M. Martin, Episcopal Divinity School; John J. Thatamanil, Vanderbilt University; Andrea Smith, University of Michigan; and Debra Mubashshir Majeed, Beloit College. The AAR Career Guide for Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession will be introduced.

A reception hosted by the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee directly follows.

    A19-103

Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section

Theme: Ethics, Art, and Drama: Teaching Purpose and Performance

Members of this panel will address a wide range of topics related to, for example, how to: use film when teaching ethics; foster critical thinking in emotionally and politically charged contexts through the use of feminist pedagogy; use theatre to introduce students to religious experience; teach Religious Studies in a general education or core curriculum; use a spectrum approach to introduce the full range (spectrum) of Christianity’s position on ethical issues including identifying positions deemed incompatible with Christian morality. A wide variety of pedagogical approaches will be included such as experiential, contract, and cooperative learning; and issues related to diverse learning styles will be recognized.

Hitmen and Whistleblowers: Using Films to Teach Ethics
Helen Benet-Goodman, Charlottesville, VA

Films allow students to rehearse the skills composing moral reflection, including perception, moral imagination, and deliberation. In an increasingly visual culture, students are often more sophisticated visually than they are verbally, allowing them to focus on applying concepts, rather than the difficulties of the text. The presentation reviews how I prepare the class to discuss the films: preparing a study guide for the class; supervising a panel of students who plan the format and content of the class, and evaluating the final results. I draw on the films Crimes and Misdemeanors, Crimson Tide, The Insider, startup.com, and Grosse Pointe Blank to illustrate this process. I also discuss alternative ways of using film in a class: on-line discussion groups, Roger Ebert’s “democracy in the dark” method, and using short films for the final exam. Finally, I review the advantages and drawbacks of these methods.

Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies and Theology
Victoria Rue, San Jose State University

Paper: Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies and Theology

The fields of religious studies and theology are in need of fresh pedagogy.

In this presentation, I will map new approaches using theatre to introduce students to religious experience. My book, Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies will be published by Pilgrim Press in September 2005. My presentation will feature methodology offered in the book and approaches I use in my teaching. Theatre makes ideas palatable, visceral, available. Theatre incarnates ideas. Theatre embodies experience. It is somatic learning. Using theatre in the religious studies or theology classroom links the imagination to cognition, visceral connectivity to understanding. I will show video and photographic documentation from two introductory courses to religion.

A Spectrum Approach to Christian Ethics: Respecting Difference without Resorting to Relativism
Joel Heim, National-Louis University

While some courses educate students about “the correct” Christian position on ethical issues, others introduce students to “both sides” so that students will make up their own minds. In this paper we argue that neither approach is adequate because actual moral disagreements within Christianity reveal far more than two positions.

This paper introduces “A Spectrum Approach,” an alternative pedagogical approach to teaching Christian ethics. Rather than focusing on one or two positions, a spectrum approach presents the full range (spectrum) of Christianity’s position on ethical issues including identifying positions deemed incompatible with Christian morality. After introducing the spectrum approach, the paper describes a Christian ethics course that uses it and concludes by reviewing some practical benefits its use.

Negotiating Transformative Education through Feminist Pedagogy: Challenging Perspectives from Ethics and Art
Kathlyn A. Breazeale, Pacific Lutheran University

Negotiating Transformative Education through Feminist Pedagogy: Challenging Perspectives from Ethics and Art

Marit A. Trelstad and Kathlyn A. Breazeale

Pacific Lutheran University

This presentation examines how to foster critical thinking in emotionally and politically charged contexts through the use of feminist pedagogy. The two presenters converse with each other to model the dialogical nature of feminist pedagogy as they respond to the question: When dealing with “combustible issues” in the field of religion, how can we develop a truly democratic classroom of critical inquiry? One presenter analyzes how critical thinking skill development is enhanced when feminist pedagogy is supplemented with the theories for teaching art developed by Corita Kent. The other presenter raises questions regarding the ethics of encouraging learning that may dismantle or realign a student’s identity, personal relationships, vocational understanding and meaning structures.

Promoting Freedom, Responsibility, and Learning in a General Education Religious Studies Course: The Learning Covenant a Decade Later
Fred Glennon, Le Moyne College

This presentation discusses an approach to teaching Religious Studies in a general education or core curriculum which I call the 'learning covenant.' The learning covenant brings together various pedagogical theories, including experiential, contract, and cooperative learning, in attempts to address diverse learning styles, multiple intelligences, and student learning assessment. In this way, it has some advantages over more traditional methods of evaluation, including meeting student resistance to “required” courses head-on by inviting them to identify learning needs they have regardless of chosen vocation and engages them in meeting their needs in the context of a religious studies course; recognizing the multiple ways in which students learn and providing a variety of opportunities for students to express their learning; and allowing students an opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. The session will be interactive and provide participants with materials to incorporate this approach into their own classrooms.

    A19-104

Arts, Literature, and Religion Section

Theme: Russian Orthodoxy in Literature and Modern Life

The session is focused on Russian Orthodoxy as it is represented in Russian Literature, Aesthetics and modern religious communities. All the participants represent the Center for the Study of Religion, Literature and Culture of Moscow State University. Elena Volkova, a presider, analyses Russian literary characters of Pushkin, Goncharov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in their reference to two Russian Orthodox types of saints – Holy Fools and Bearers of Suffering. Oleg Komkov, a panelist, deals with the conceptions of the poetic form and contemplation in the theoretical writings of the 20th century Russian religious philosopher Ivan Iljin. He explores the iconological background as it is revealed in Iljin’s metaphysically oriented “multi-layer” model of the poetic work. Irina Karatsuba, a panelist, introduces the post-communist church phenomenon of “inventing the tradition” seen through the conflict of modernist and fundamentalist trends within the Orthodox community.

    A19-105

Buddhism Section

Theme: Building Buddhism in the Neighborhood: Individual Papers on Place and Social Space

Individual papers on the relation of place and social space to the establishment of Buddhism, in four cases: the early Tibetan empire, Heian and Kamakura Japan, contemporary China, and contemporary Sri Lanka.

The papers will be followed by the business meeting of the Buddhism Section

Spirits under the Ground: The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism and the Notion of the "Dark Period"
Jacob Dalton, McMaster University

This paper focuses on an unstudied manuscript from Dunhuang and what it tells us about the Tibetan assimilation of Indian tantric Buddhism that took place during the so-called “dark period” of Tibetan history. IOL Tib J 931 is a fragmentary manuscript containing our earliest evidence of a site ritual that became popular in later Tibet. Closer examination reveals that this particular version of the rite is unique. Unlike the later versions of the rite, the Dunhuang version has been adapted for specifically Tibetan concerns. This early period saw Buddhism spread at the popular level, and if the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts tell us anything, the world of the native Tibetan land spirits were central to this assimilation process.

Sutoku and Saigyo: Centripetal and Centrifugal Religious Orientations to Heiankyo
Jonathan Stockdale, University of Puget Sound

As important as narratives of exile may be for understanding the prestige of the Heian courtly center, an equally important drive was the trend toward renunciation, with its centrifugal movement that was at once political, religious, and aesthetic. At times, in fact, the two figures could overlap and intertwine, as can be glimpsed in the poetic pilgrimage taken by the renunciant Saigyô to the exiled Emperor Sutoku’s grave far from the capital, a visit recorded in the Hôgen monogatari and picked up in the later medieval imagination in both monogatari and Noh drama. In this paper, I analyze the entwined figures of Sutoku and Saigyo as providing two models of religious orientation toward the Yamato courtly center, one “locative” and the other “utopic.”

The Spiritual Land Rush: Morality, Power, and Place in New Chinese Buddhist Temple Construction
Gareth Fisher, University of Virginia

This presentation will examine the (re)construction of Buddhist temples in rural areas and small towns in contemporary mainland China. Over the past decade, favorable government regulations on the possession of land for temple construction and the availability of money from overseas donors have led to a boom in new temple construction. This has been followed with a feverish rush by prominent and not-so-prominent Chinese monks and nuns to acquire land and construct temples with the aim of independence from the Buddhist hierarchy and financial security through their old age. While several recent studies have focused on the role of temple reconstruction in the revival of local traditions in the post-Mao era, my discussion will address the building of grandiose temple complexes as potlatches between monks and their patrons on a national and global scale.

Saving the Buddhist Religion: Caste Discrimination and the Establishment of New Temples in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Sri Lanka
Jeffrey Samuels, Western Kentucky University

Articles and monographs published during the last thirty years examining the place of caste in Sinhalese Buddhism have explored how the experiences of caste-restrictions (and perceptions of decline in the monastic order) led lay people and monastics to establish new lineages during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Despite the fact that the establishment of these new Nikāyas opened the door of the sangha to all castes seeking ordination, caste divisions (kulabheda) continue to play a role in the experience of Buddhism in contemporary Sri Lanka. Grounded within an historical context and drawing on interviews conducted with lay people and monastics, this paper considers how attitudes toward caste serve as an impetus for low caste members to establish new temples, as well as how the laity have innovatively understood their decision to establish new temples as a means of assuaging what they perceive as the sangha's decline.

    A19-106

Christian Systematic Theology Section

Theme: Revealed Beauty: The Revelation of God's Beauty in Particular Cultural Forms

Papers in this session will explore how the Christian doctrines of revelation, redemption, and bodily resurrection, as well as the vision of God that emerges from these doctrines, are shaped by differing cultural understandings of the beautiful.

The Vicarious Beauty of Christ: The Aesthetics of the Atonement
Christian D. Kettler, Friends University

Aesthetics haunts Christian theology. It both promises (David Bentley Hart) and troubles. Can the doctrine of the atonement shed new light on theological aesthetics? T.F. Torrance's doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ presents Christ as 'the perfect Eucharistic being' (Schmemann) who lives the life of thanksgiving, faith, obedience, worship, and service that becomes the basis for Christian existence and a critique of our ideas of beauty. This paper seeks to explore the implications of the vicarious beauty of Christ for the beauty of God, creation, and redemption, and the unity of the true, the beautiful, and the good. What we discover is Christ as the one who possesses the vision of God, so that humanity may share in that vision. His atoning act is not only death on the cross, but also a life of wholeness and harmony, that is, of beauty. Our ideas of beauty fail in comparison.

Mathematics, Beauty, and Theology
Karen Kilby, University of Nottingham

Theological reflection on beauty usually focuses on paintings, perhaps music. We should also attend to beauty in the less familiar context of mathematics.Of the potentially infinite amount of mathematics that could be done, mathematicians choose what is of worth, largely on aesthetic grounds.

Considerations of beauty and theology usually focus on some way in which theology is or should be about beauty, but consideration of mathematical beauty opens up the question of whether theology ought to be beautiful.

The analogy with mathematical aesthetics is easy to see in the case of the work of a thinker like Anselm, but one can also see a concern for theological beauty in Aquinas’ discussions of ‘fittingness’, and elsewhere.

The beauty of theology is important not just because it gives intellectual satisfaction, but because it intimates the beauty of God; a theology which fails to be beautiful falls into performative self-contradiction.

“A Broken Beauty”: Cultural Trajectories in Barth’s Theology of Divine Beauty
Amy Pauw, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Karl Barth locates divine beauty in the Trinitarian glory of God; this beauty finds its visible form in the incarnate Christ. Acknowledging the inevitable role that cultural understandings play in theological work, I chart a possible trajectory within Barth’s theology of Trinitarian beauty to forms of human existence and artistic production. After rejecting a cultural understanding of beauty based on an unchanging complementarity and ordered equilibrium within male-female relationships, I turn to an exhibit of contemporary art entitled A Broken Beauty. There I find both contemporary cultural understandings of the pathos and contingency of earthly beauty and a fitting analogy to the beauty of the incarnate Christ.

    A19-107

Comparative Studies in Religion Section

Theme: Secrecy, Politics, and Privacy: Rethinking Religious Secrecy, Pre- and Post-September 11

This panel addresses the role of religious secrecy, in both historical and contemporary contexts. The focus is twofold, examining both the personal and the socio-political dimensions of religious secrecy, its implications both for individual religious identity and for the status of religious groups within their larger cultural contexts. As the papers on this panel suggest, the problem of religious secrecy has become particularly relevant in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the current war on terror. Not only is there the widespread fear of secretive extremist groups such as al-Qaeda operating clandestinely to spread terror; but perhaps more importantly, there is the fear that American citizens may be forced to sacrifice basic rights to privacy and freedom of religious expression in the face of increasing government surveillance, as we see in new measures like the USA PATRIOT Act.

Public Secret Religion and the Apotheosis of Duvalier, Loa 22-Os
Paul Christopher Johnson, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

This paper asks how a secretive religious group once persecuted within a state becomes 'indigenized' as iconic of the State, yet without official recognition. How does a secret society become 'public', a network everyone knows about even though its existence remains unspoken? How do secrets move from being a source of resistance to a source of oppression? I investigate the rise to power of François Duvalier, who became President of Haiti in 1957, in part through his public but secret relationship to the religion of Vodou. 'Public but secret' because he maintained, and strong-armed, Catholicism as state religion even as he circulated the knowledge of his patronage and practice of Vodou. This latter I will call a public secret religion. I argue that this tactic was successful because it drew on Vodou's cachet as a national and noiriste religion expressing resistance within an elitist and neo-colonial State.

Secrecy and Selfhood in Early Arabo-Islamic Canons
Ruqayya Yasmine Khan, Trinity University

In casting an eye on the Qur’an and early Arabo-Islamic belles-lettres (9th to 13th centuries, C.E.), one is struck by a disparity: while the scripture emphasizes a transparency of the self, a self that ought not and cannot keep secrets, the literatures promote the interiority of the self. The Qur'an seeks to forge a subjectivity, a definitive trait of which is its complete transparency vis-à-vis God. In contrast, the belles-lettres set forth the idea that a self without secrets is no self at all. In part, this disparity is explained by the fact that the scripture is concerned with the vertical God-human relation while the non-scriptural sources address relations between human beings. But is this a sufficient explanation for the disparity? What else may the disparity imply for understanding the religious and psychological significance of the secret in these canons?

Religion and Secrecy in the Bush Administration: Gentleman, Prince, and Prodigal Son
Hugh B. Urban, Ohio State University, Columbus

The current Bush administration presents the scholar of religion with a fundamental paradox. On the one hand, this is arguably the most outspokenly religious president in U.S. history, a man who claims not only to have been saved, but called by God to lead our country. Yet at the same time, this is also by many accounts the most secretive administration in U.S. history, displaying an intense preoccupation with information-control. To help make sense of this apparent contradiction, I suggest twe examine Bush through the lenses of three key metaphors: the Biblical Prodigal Son, Leo Strauss' concept of the Gentleman, and Niccolo Machiavelli's ideal of the Prince. These in turn correspond to three of the most powerful forces at work in this administration: the Christian Right; the Neoconservative movement; and the aggressive political agendas of figures like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Neoconservative theorist Michael Ledeen.

Religious Privacy after September 11
Michael Barkun, Syracuse University

'Privacy' and 'secrecy' are related but not identical concepts, particularly where religion is concerned. In American practice, 'free exercise' of religion effectively took the place of a concept of religious privacy. The latitude given to religious observance has, however, occasionally been withdrawn on the grounds that some religions subverted social and political values through their secret conduct. Such suspicion about religious secrecy has re-emerged since September 11th, along with claims that religious observance should be subject to state surveillance. This has resulted in a broadened set of FBI investigative guidelines, promulgated by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, that effectively recast church-state relations.

    A19-108

Ritual Studies Group and Ethics Section

Theme: Intersections of Ritual and Ethics: Rites Shaping Ethics, Ethics Shaping Rites

Organ Donation as, or Versus, Death Ritual: A Comparative Analysis, U.S.-Japan
Ann Mongoven, Indiana University, Bloomington

This presentation explores how 'cadaveric' organ donation may be understood either as a death ritual, or as an impediment to proper death ritual. The paper addresses two cultural contexts in which organ donation has elicited very different cultural responses, political rhetorics, and public policies: the U.S. and Japan. The presentation makes a dual-pronged argument, with the two prongs in deliberate conceptual tension: (1) Ritual understandings help to explain different cultural interpretations of organ donation in the U.S. and Japan. But(2) relevant common death rituals are multi-valent, embodying internal tensions, in both cultural contexts. Deliberate transformation of death rituals can potentially change attitudes about organ donation.

Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts: The Anxious Bench as a Ritual for Freedom
Ted A. Smith, Vanderbilt University

In this paper I seek to replace philosophical caricatures of “autonomy” and “freedom” with thick, precise, limited descriptions of one core practice of democracy as it actually exists in the United States. I consider the “anxious bench” as a ritual for the formation of people free to choose. The anxious bench served as a center of revivals in the United States in the 1820’s and 1830’s. I borrow resources from Hegel and Adorno to describe the anxious bench as enacting a kind of “ideological freedom.” On the one hand, the anxious bench limited freedom in important ways. It forced people to make choices, and itt sharply limited testimonies. But on the other hand, the anxious bench created a kind of freedom relative to existing social structures. I also argue that the story of the anxious bench shows how democracy requires habits and rituals, not just structural changes.

A Double-Movement Model of Forgiveness in Buddhist and Christian Rituals
Paul Reasoner, Bethel University

A Double-Movement Model of Forgiveness in Buddhist and Christian Rituals

From the perspective of ethical analysis, we offer a double-movement model of forgiveness. In brief, the model defends an analysis of forgiveness which requires both the one seeking forgiveness and the one offering forgiveness to perform a double-movement in terms of each person’s (respective) self-identification.

We explore the viability of this double-movement model of forgiveness by examining confession and forgiveness rituals in Buddhism and Christianity. Selected confession and forgiveness rituals in each religious context provide not only test cases for the analysis, but from the ritual side also suggest ways in which the forgiveness model needs to be altered.

We end with brief comments on analogies and dissimilarities with confession, repentance, and absolution in various Buddhist and Christian traditions and an assessment of the viability of the double-movement model of forgiveness.

Concealing the Body, Concealing the Sacred: The Decline of Ritual Nudity in Mormon Temples
John-Charles Duffy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

This paper recounts the gradual decline of nudity in a Mormon temple ritual called the initiatory and interprets that decline by setting it against intersecting Mormon discourses about the body and the sacred. Mormon discourse that figures the body as a temple produces an imperative to conceal the body, as Mormons conceal temple rituals in the interest of sacred secrecy. The decline of ritual nudity in the initiatory extends the imperative to conceal the body into a realm where the imperative had formerly been held in suspension. By concealing initiates’ bodies, the revised initiatory also conceals the church’s institutional power over members’ bodies. Being an initiate myself, I examine the ethical complexities of discussing Mormon temple rituals in scholarly settings and the competing theoretical imperatives I must negotiate as I use scholarly tools to interpret a ritual in which I am religiously invested.

    A19-109

Philosophy of Religion Section

Theme: Religion and German Idealism: Confronting Naturalism and Critical Reason

The German Idealists sought to articulate conceptions of religion compatible with the goal of understanding the phenomenal world without appeals to faith, tradition, or a creator. While the differences among these figures are significant, they confronted common challenges. In so doing, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and G. W. F. Hegel charted modern Western religious thought’s most influential strategies for responding to naturalism and rational criticism. This panel explores these responses, focusing on their resulting views of the nature and significance of religion.

Kant on Beauty as a Religious Symbol
Andrew Chignell, Cornell University

This paper discusses an important role that “symbolization” plays in Kant’s account of religious thought and discourse. In the first Critique, Kant famously denies that the “transcendental Ideas” of religion and speculative metaphysics have the sort of content that would allow them to figure into cognitive attitudes (knowledge, cognition, opinion etc.). He also claims that we can legitimately employ such Ideas in “faith” attitudes that are accepted on the basis of moral considerations. But he worries about whether these Ideas are “empty” or “lacking in content” given that they have no connection to possible experience. His solution appeals to the “symbolization” of Ideas that obtains during certain kinds of aesthetic experience. In religious and secular art, as well as in beautiful nature, we encounter symbols which provide a kind of ersatz content to the Ideas, and thus make them available for legitimate (though still in some important way non-cognitive) use.

Schleiermacher’s Theological Anti-Realism
Andrew C. Dole, Amherst College

Schleiermacher is sometimes described as a Kantian, convinced that knowledge of God is impossible, or as holding that religion is ‘non-cognitive.’ Against these interpretations, I argue that Schleiermacher embraces a carefully qualified form of anti-realism in the area of theology. His reasons for embracing this anti-realism are primarily strategic, and have to do with his desire to render religion compatible with the advance of scientific knowledge. The details of his position regarding the place of truth-claims within theology stem from his desire to distinguish sharply between the activities of religion on the one hand and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake on the other. His position is thus neither that religion is a non-cognitive phenomenon nor that no claims about God or other metaphysical entities can amount to truth, but that religion can and should make do with many fewer claims to truth than it typically contains.

Critical Reason, Idealism, and Religion in Hegel
Thomas A. Lewis, Harvard University

Stressing Hegel’s debt to Kant, I argue that Hegel’s philosophy of religion is fundamentally shaped by his response to Kant’s account of the spontaneity of thought. This response underlies Hegel’s claim that while philosophy and religion share a common object, philosophical concepts provide a more adequate account of this object than religious representations do. This view of the relation between religion and philosophy opens the way to appreciating what Hegel views as the enduring significance of religion: cultivating basic commitments toward others, political institutions, and the absolute, as well as expressing these commitments in narratives, images, and practices. Thus, attending to the Kantian background reveals the distinctiveness of Hegel’s defense of religion and highlights its relevance to contemporary theorizing of religion that stresses narratives and practices.

    A19-110

Religion and the Social Sciences Section

Theme: Religious Discourse and Participation in the Public Sphere: Social Scientific Analyses

Sacred Visions and the Social Good: Religious Practice and Discourse toward a Just, Sustainable, Pluralistic Democracy
Larry Golemon, Dominican University of California

In this paper/presentation, I will share results from a year-long program entitled Sacred Visions and the Social Good, co-sponsored by Dominican University and the Graduate Theological Union, and funded by a community foundation in the Bay Area. The program is committed to bringing community-based scholars and reflective practitioners in faith communities together for purposes of shared research and programming in the ways that faith practices and language contribute to public practices and discourse around the social good. I share the results of three community based studies: one a faith-based community organizing project with youth, the second an interfaith collaboration between Sufis and Buddhist on sustainability, and the last on Native American perspectives on the environment in public education. I will target, specifically how faith-based practices and discourse migrate to the public sphere, to enrich public discourse.

Remembering Equality: Moral Values, Taxes, and the Contemporary American Religious Left
Robert P. Jones, People for the American Way Foundation

This paper presents the results of ethnographic fieldwork among elite activists on the contemporary American Religious Left. The research project examines the growing movement, in the wake of the 2004 presidential elections, to reclaim the term “moral values” and reconnect it to progressive conceptions of equality. Drawing from a data set of nine interviews, this paper focuses on a particular conception of equality as the unifying distinctive in liberal moral values, and I demonstrate the implications of this difference specifically for tax codes, which the Religious Left conceives as “moral documents” that convey commitments, or lack thereof, to the poor. I argue that the Religious Left has a coherent, if under-articulated, position and that this position becomes more cohesive when put into conversation with Michael Walzer’s concept of “complex equality” developed in :Spheres of Justice' (1983) and 'Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism' (2005).

Beyond Belief Alone: The Discursive Shape of the Religion and Society Debate
John Senior, Emory University

This paper offers an analysis of discourse about the place of religion in the context of American democracy. I analyze the ways in which that discourse is constrained and conducted in the contexts of politics, the media, and the academy. At each of these levels, the discourse about religion and society is guided by assumptions about the structure of religious belief, its priority in determining religious and political behavior and practice, and its priority as an identifier of identity. Following Bourdieu, I argue that this discursive pattern is best understood as a reflection of settled “relations of symbolic power” which privilege cognitive acts over embodied practices. Finally, I suggest that a more intentional analysis of the relationship between religious and democratic practices, backed by an integrative epistemological model of the reflexive relationship between belief and practice, would provide a more fruitful approach to understanding the place of religion in democracy.

The Last Cathedral: Simmel, Sacred Music, and the Market
David Horace Perkins, Vanderbilt University

This paper uses Simmel’s writings on money, metropolitan life, culture and crisis, fashion, and prostitution as a lens to explore the irony, dynamics and motives behind the production, sale, and public consumption of Praise and Worship music, which, in some varieties of contemporary Christian worship, is at the epicenter of worshippers’ experience of spiritual community and the presence of God. Simmel’s understanding of modernity, religion, and the bifurcation of culture into the objective and subjective facilitate a discussion of the negotiation of often-conflicting cultural and religious identities through cultural artifacts and the marketplace. Certain consumer culture theorists have claimed that the market is the final arbiter of cultural legitimacy. Does the increasing quantity of Christian pop culture commodities signify that the marketplace is becoming the definitive giver and taker of cultural value to religious worldview and practice? Is the market, as such, destined to become the last cathedral?

    A19-111

Religion in South Asia Section

Theme: Rethinking Religion and Aesthetics in South Asia

'Religion' and 'aesthetics' are generally constructed as separate categories, but in South Asia they are often not conceptually distinct. Our panel explores this problem from the vantage point of three kinds of South Asian materials: those in which the aesthetic 1) is integral to religion; 2) is 'theologized' through specific historical processes; and 3) is abstracted complexly in modern formulations. We focus on a number of regions (Kashmir, Bengal, the Tamil country), discursive traditions (epic, analytical theory, vernacular poetry, performance), and eras (modern and premodern) as well as various redeployments of aesthetic theory. The richness of these empirical studies provides an opportunity to critically think through our received understanding about the categories, religion and aesthetics, a rethinking all the more imperative given the wide diffusion of these categories not only in the modern West, but also in colonial and post-colonial South Asia.

The Aesthetics of the Abandoned Wife: Ethics and the Poetics of Suffering in the Dicing Scene of the Mahabharata
Emily Hudson, Emory University

The dicing scene in the Mahabharata contains one of the most poignant images of affliction in Indian literature: Draupadi’s violation at the hands of the Kauravas. What does the motif of the abandoned wife, pervasive in the Mahabharata, teach us about suffering and about dharma? This paper considers this scene through the epic’s narrative strategies, that is through the skillful manipulation of what I argue are the text’s literary and therefore aesthetic features. Through these strategies, I contend that the Mahabharata makes a specific argument about the existence of suffering and the forces that cause it. This focus is embedded in a larger argument about the relationship between religion and aesthetics in the Mahabharata. I conclude, therefore, by discussing how the problem of suffering belongs to the sphere of the “religious,” how this sphere is defined, and how the Mahabharata conveys its religious messages through its aesthetic elements.

Rama as King, Rama as God: Valmiki's Epic in Courtly and Temple Spheres
Ajay Rao, University of Chicago

The term, 'theologization,' may be used to describe the implementation of Rama worship and its relationship to the commentaries, poetic retellings, and devotional hymns composed in the Srivaisnava community of South India from 1250 to 1600. In his late sixteenth-century commentary, Govindaraja asserts that the Ramayana is not only a work of literary culture, but also a work of tradition (smrti) which explicates the meaning of the revealed Veda. In my analysis, Govindaraja thereby makes an implicit argument about the text's marked religious character. I also focus on evidence from the Vijayanagar empire to isolate the diverse interests of royal and sectarian agents in the construction of temples, instillation of Rama images, and development of a distinctive liturgy. Finally, I explore how this process of 'theologization' does not enatil a delimiting of religion from power as per modern theories of religion.

Casting Bhakti Rasa in an Ethical Role: Performed Aesthetics and the Disruption of Religious Categories in Bharata Natyam
Katherine C. Zubko, Emory University

Contemporary exponents of the traditionally Hindu dance form of bharata natyam reshape the aesthetic category of rasa, particularly bhakti rasa, through performance. This embodied conceptualization of rasa stands in contrast to philosophical and literary rasa theories, religio-aesthetic applications of rasa as found in Gaudiya Vaisnavism, and even the discussions on rasa delineated in Sanskrit dance manuals, including the Natyasastra. The fluid definitions of bhakti rasa formed by the dancers create space for the inclusion of Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and other non-Hindu themes in their choreography. I contend that the reworked aesthetics of bharata natyam not only facilitates this crossing of religious boundaries, but gives precedence to shifting devotional, cultural, political, and ethical categories. Utilizing performance analysis of the danced narrative of a Biblical adulteress, I demonstrate how corporeal dimensions of an ethically framed bhakti rasa disrupt circumscribed religious traditions and religious-secular dichotomies, revealing the inadequacy of prevalent scholarly religious categorization.

Cosmic Drama and Dramatic Cosmos: Tracing the Rapprochement between Saivism and Aesthetics in Medieval Kashmir
Guy Leavitt, University of Chicago

This paper addresses the remarkably consequential convergence of aesthetics and Saiva metaphysics in medieval Kashmir. It is chiefly concerned with the central text (the Natya-sastra of Bharatamuni) through which Saiva metaphysics was entextualized in aesthetics. I argue that this work--the canonical authority for the drama and its signal aesthetic of emotive response (rasa)--was reinscribed as a Saiva text. In order to make sense of this textual reframing, I situate it in relation to the twin interrelated processes which transformed literary culture in Kashmir beginning in the 9th century: the aestheticization of Saiva ritual and philosophy and what I provisionally call the `theologization' of the drama and its aesthetic awareness. While the categories foregrounded in these processes appear to replicate dichotomies of the modern West (the secular and the sacred, for example), I argue that this apparent opposition instead illuminates a distinctively South Asian set of complementary relations.

Emotion Thrice-Abstracted: The "Vaisnava" Poetry of Rabindranath
Tony K. Stewart, North Carolina State University

At thirteen, Rabindranath Tagore published his first lyrics on the agonies of Radha’s starved love for Krsna. Published pseudonymously, the songs were hailed as an important discovery of ancient Vaisnava piety. Tagore didn't admit to the poems for a decade, until he circulated a biography of the author in a mocking european scholastic style. Later he would adamantly castigate critics’ Vaisnava intepretations under the pretext that he was no Vaisnava, rendering the poems inauthentic. Yet the aesthetic manipulation of this emotional landscape was explicitly one of devotional rasa. A technical analysis shows severe flaws by the standards of the Gaudiya tradition, including a non-Vaisnava sensibility regarding a wish for death. Yet his technique abstracted the expressly devotional rasa back into the realm of universal emotion, but not as Bharata might have enjoined. The result: an intensely personal aesthetic of love; his muse, maner manus, the “man within the heart.”

    A19-112

Study of Islam Section

Theme: Contemporary Muslim Intellectuals and Islamic Thought

The Humanization of Islam or the Islamization of Knowledge?
Clinton Bennett, Birmingham, U.K.

This paper analyses contemporary or recent contributions to the debate about whether there is a distinctive Islamic epistemology which can either challenge the West’s, replace it or help to reinvigorate scientific enquiry and excellence within the Muslim world, widely regarded as in deficit. It compares and contrasts the approaches of Ismail al-Faruqi, Ziauddin Sardar and S.H. Nasr with Bassam Tibi and Abdulkarim Soroush. It argues that al-Faruqi and Nasr want to place all knowledge at the service of Islam, that Tibi and Soroush place Islam’s contribution at the service of humanity, while Sardar occupies a middle position that stresses the pragmatic purpose of knowledge. Three understandings of Islamic epistemology emerge: knowledge rooted in Islam is superior to all others; Muslims have a valid contribution to offer alongside other valid contributions; there is a firm distinction between science as neutral and religious knowledge as rooted in personal conviction

Jamal al-Banna, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, and Khaled Abou El Fadl: An Evolving Theology of Justice and Democracy
David L. Johnston, Yale University

This paper looks at the issue of justice and how it relates theologically to the application of Islamic law in our increasingly pluralistic societies. Three contemporary Muslim authors are examined on this issue: Egyptian union activist and Islamic reformist Jamal al-Banna, legal theorist Muhammad Hashim Kamali, and UCLA Islamic law scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl. All three authors argue that the message of justice at the heart of the Islamic revelation naturally leads to a democratic context under the rule of law. However, the paper argues that Abou El Fadl’s vision of shari’a and democracy is the kind of rationale that will likely attract a greater following in the long run. Bringing together theology and law, ethics and philosophy, he develops a theology of creation that empowers humankind to build on its innate sense of justice and mercy in a society that always makes room for the “other.”

"The Way and the Community": Modern Re-conceptualizations of Social Order in Indonesian Islam
R. Michael Feener, University of California, Riverside

This paper explores the intellectual and ideological lineages of contemporary Indonesian Islamist understandings of Shari’a and society, with a focus on the writings of M. Natsir and Anwar Harjono. These first two chairmen of the National Council for Islamic Da’wah (Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia/ DDII) developed their agendas for the Islamization of Indonesian society upon a foundation of radical reconceptualizations of Muslim historical understandings of ‘the Way’ (al-sunna) and ‘The Community’ (al-jama`a). Central to these developments were their appropriations of certain elements of natural law theory and politically populist conceptions of a majoritarian mandate. Through the selective adaptation of such legal and political ideas, these post-colonial religious leaders helped to forge new models for the assertion of Islamic identity and the implementation of a self-consciously Islamic conception of social order in the country’s evolving public sphere.

An Iranian Perspective on Islamic Hermeneutics
Roxanne D. Marcotte, University of Queensland

The purpose of this paper is to show how the work of an Iranian theologian can question traditional Islamic understandings of religious interpretation. Shabestari’s novel exegetical understanding provides a number of arguments for the rejection of any type of religious absolutism that would seek to impose dogmatic “official” interpretations of Islam. His critique is nourished by contemporary (Western) exegetical and hermeneutical discussions which provide him with means to defend values associated with (Western) modernity (e.g., human rights) and have not been articulated in traditional religious interpretations (Shabestari, 1999). Shabestari demonstrates that Iranian theologians can be shown be very much engaged with modernity, attempting to reconcile the Islamic tradition with elements coming from modern social sciences/religious exegesis/philosophy. The idea that Islamic religious knowledge is impermeable to intellectual development in other parts of the world is a false idea.

The Notion of a Common Language and Quietism in Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
Mark Lazenby, West Hartford, CT

In this paper, I examine the notion of a common language and a concomitant quietism in Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In short, Sistani uses a common language of divine revelation to come to quietism about the form of government and who heads it.

In fatwas in June and November 2003 and January 2004, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani can be read as limiting himself to the common language of revelation (the Qur’an and the hadith). This common language is also for Sistani, I argue, the language of the state, and success in the affairs of the state is Allah’s. Insofar as success is Allah’s, the people of the land who submit themselves to Allah must decide the affairs of the state. Sistani himself, as the Grand Ayatollah, cannot interfere; hence his quietism.

The Problem of Orthodoxy in Islamic Studies
Michael Brett Wilson, Duke University

Scholars who study “religious” phenomena have a need for a concept of normativity to describe, compare, and contrast discourses within their field of inquiry. In Islam studies, the term orthodoxy performs this function. However, like all concepts, orthodoxy has a history and is subject to a variety of usages whose meanings are often not self-evident: semiotic slippage plagues the term.

Here I examine the problems surrounding the term in works by various scholars (W.C Smith, S. Jackson, M. Watt, P. Bourdieu). I analyze their usages and suggest a means of reconciling the conceptual problems and opportunities presented by normative language in religous studies. Additionally, the paper examines the use of normative language in several contemporary Islamic discourses and examines their link to institutions of symbolic production.

    A19-113

Women and Religion Section

Theme: Innovative Methodologies in the Study of Goddess

A Method of Studying Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia: The Mytho-HistoricThealogy of Magoism
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Loyola Marymount University

In this paper I delineate a method of studying Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia. I have reconstructed Magoism based on my feminist analyses and hermeneutics of primary sources, which abound in myths, folklore, and toponyms including historical, literary, and religious texts from Korea, China, and Japan besides the two newly rediscovered texts--the Budoji (Epic of the Emblematic City) and the Handan Gogi (Archaic Chronicles of Han and Dan)--from Korea. Magism refers to the pre-patriarchal and trans-patriarchal tradition of East Asian peoples, which derives from the veneration of Mago as Creator, Progenitor, and Sovereign. Methodologically I name this study an East Asian feminist mytho-historic-thealogy. Magoist mytho-historic-thealogy not only incorporates Euro-American studies on Goddess religions presented by Marija Gimbutas, Carol P. Christ, and Melissa Raphaels to name a few among many but also clarifies some unsettling issues in the study of Goddess religions.

Creative and Arts-Based Methodologies in the Study of the Goddesses
Dawn Work-MaKinne, Union Institute and University

This presentation explores arts-based research methods in research into the Matronen Goddesses of the Celtic, Germanic and Roman-Era Rhineland of 2,000 years ago. In addition to religious historiography and linguistics, I also use arts-based, creative, and embodied methodologies. In arts-based methodologies, the creative practices of making, performing, viewing, participating in and thinking about art (visual, monumental, performance, musical, verbal, craft) are in themselves ways of apprehension and knowing. We can examine artistic expressions for information about women, Goddesses and religion. Equally important is the artwork and embodied creative process of the researcher. Ideally, the arts and creative activities should be able to form part of our research presentation in addition to the currently-prized written documents. Such is current practice in many feminist Goddess communities. In the academy, there is scholarly discourse about embodiment, but not much actual art or dancing or movement. How might we begin?

Partial Truths: Narrated Scholarship and the Personal Voice
Patricia Monaghan, DePaul University

Most scholarly writing is doubly non-narrative: firstly, authors present findings detached from the journey towards those findings; secondly, the resources of narrative (characterization, suspense, dynamic action, conflict) are avoided. “Narrated scholarship” offers an alternative voice for the scholar, especially for those working at the boundaries or intersections of disciplines, as scholars of goddess religion frequently are. In addition, narrated scholarship often employs a first-person voice that permits consideration of experientially-achieved knowledge. Such formally transgressive scholarship challenges the implicit Platonism of the traditional scholarly voice and instead embraces what Clifford Geertz calls “partial truths.” This paper explores strategies for effective practice of narrated scholarship in goddess studies, examining and critiquing two methodological approaches, autoethnography and heuristics. Finally, two frameworks for creation of narratives, the odyssey and the quest, are presented and discussed.

Feminist Theology and Backlash Fundamentalism: Re-Imagining Reconsidered
Lauve H. Steenhuisen, Georgetown University

The dynamic interplay between the 1993 feminist theology Re-Imagining Conference and fundamentalist forces within Protestant denominations stands as a watershed event in the history of feminist theology. The conference attempted to create a theology 'through the lens of women's experience' and encountered controversy immediately after closing: convenors received death threats and the primary conference organizer was successfully pressured to resign.

This paper creates a unique methodology to analyze the conference and its backlash: Sociotheology. The methodology is applied to feminist and fundamentalist conceptions of gender, to the use of 'Sophia' in ritual, and to the feminist creation of new rituals-all trigger issues for 'cultural fundamentalists' embedded in Protestant denominations.

The agency to imagine the divine on one's own terms and to claim liturgical autonomy threaten traditional understandings of religious power. Such clashes illustrate the need for a cross-disciplinary engagement to illumine the complexities of the theo-political motivations of gendered social movements.

    A19-114

African Religions Group

Theme: African Religions and the Neo-Diaspora

Multi-Dimensional Conceptualization of the African Diaspora
Isabel Mukonyora, Western Kentucky University

With questions about the fragmentation of Shona culture, colonialism and post-coloniality in Zimbabwe, this paper shows that there are at least three layers of meaning given to the term diaspora in the African Christian thought of Masowe (Wilderness) Apostles. Case study

material from inter-disciplinary work on the Apostles, is used to highlight the connection being made between different experiences of marginality at the social and religious level where the religious imagination that makes it possible to go beyond see other ways of understanding the diasporic condition. This paper draws attention to a popular African Initiated Christian Churches whose members are scattered throughout southern and central Africa since the 1930s. The conclusion drawn is that there are more dimensions to the African diaspora than the socio-political and cultural aspects commonly associated with the history of slavery in the Americas.

West African Sufis in the Americas
Yushau Sodiq, Texas Christian University

This paper explores the emergence of West African Sufism, the Qadiriyyah and the Mouridiyyah Sufi orders in the Americas. These orders were established in Senegal by Shaykh Ibrahim Niansse Kaolaq and Shaykh Ahmad Bamba, respectively. They have millions of followers in West Africa since their emergence. In 1970s, they established their branches in the USA and Europe. In this work, I will analyze how these orders are founded in the USA, explain the methodology they employ to win and train their disciples (the muridis). I will discuss their relationship with one another both in America and Senegal. I will argue that the African Sufi orders in the USA contribute financially to their home countries through their chains of networks; they also enrich religious pluralism in the USA. Their American centers become safe havens for their disciples in solving their social, economic and spiritual problems.

Up, Up Jesus! Down, Down Satan! African Religiosity in the Former Soviet Bloc: The Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations
Afe Adogame, University of Bayreuth

African religions are increasingly engaging the diaspora as new abodes and promising “mission fields”. Two genres of Christian movements can be clearly mapped: branches of mother churches headquartered in Africa; and those founded by new immigrants with headquarters in diaspora, from where they are expanding within and back to Africa. The paper deals with the second category, the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations founded in Ukraine. While virtually all new African churches in diaspora are dominated by migrants, “Embassy” is an exception with non-African membership majority. The paper examines to what extent their beliefs, rituals appeal to a population that was until recently home to essentially communist ideas and worldview. It demonstrates how the church is gradually inserting itself in new contexts; reconfiguring their public role. It shows how the leader’s complex peregrination demonstrate one instance of religious transnationalization of African churches in diaspora.

    A19-115

Chinese Religions Group and Daoist Studies Consultation

Theme: Ritual, Temple, and Power in Later Daoism

This panel brings together three papers on Daoist hagiography, ritual, and institutional patronage, which together share refrains of exorcism and exercise of power that bear on Daoist interactions with the broader, diversified field of religious entities and options in China. Taking the papers as their point of departure, the two respondents will comment on overarching themes with an eye toward highlighting fruitful prospects for collaborative research and discussion in the fields of Chinese religions and Daoist studies.

The Divine Empyrean Palace Temple Network and the Court of Song Huizong
Shin-yi Chao, Rutgers University -- Camden

The apex of Huizong’s (r. 1101-1125) promotion of Daoism undoubtedly was the project of developing the Divine Empyrean ritual movement into a new school, a school in which he was the leader and the cultic ideal. To promote the Divine Empyrean order, Huizong established a temple network across the country, formally called the Divine Empyrean Jade Purity Longevity Palaces but usually abbreviated as Divine Empyrean Palaces as the infrastructure of the campaign. This essay explores this temple network and shows that, as a result of the collaboration between the monarch and courtiers, the Divine Empyrean temples functioned as a manifestation of emperorship to commoners as well as to officials.

How to Become a God: Ritual Transformation into Deities by Contemporary Daoist Priests
David Mozina, Harvard University

Exorcizing demonic forces that cause illness and agricultural failure is a central responsibility of Daoist priests in the contemporary religious culture of southern China. Since at least Song times, Daoists have summoned fierce martial deities associated with thunder who reside in a celestial bureau called the Thunder Department (leibu). Once invoked, these dangerous deities may quell demons blamed for individual illnesses, irregular rainfall, and epidemic outbreaks. But in order to marshal the powers of thunder, Daoist priests must first ritually transform themselves into deities who are able to wield power and influence in the Thunder Department. Using audio and video, this presentation will provide a short but detailed glimpse of how contemporary Daoist priests in Hunan use a sophisticated medley of written talismans, spoken incantations, hand mudras, and dance to transform themselves into deities who are able to mobilize fearsome Thunder deities to exorcise demons and protect the community.

    A19-116

Christian Spirituality Group

Theme: Varied Voices: Theory and Practice of Christian Spiritual Guidance

Reading Voices: A Bakhtinian Model for Literature, Spirituality, and Vocation
Anita Houck, Saint Mary's College

In his notion of polyvocalism, Russian literary critic M. M. Bakhtin proposes that language is “a living mix of varied and opposing voices, developing and renewing itself” in a process of mutual critique and illumination. This concept can provide a model for spirituality as both a field and a practice: both attend to a plurality of voices, including the diversity of lived experience and the variety of cultural realities—from the Buddha to Bridget Jones—that shape individuals’ sense of their own spirituality. In this sense, polyvocalism might even help distinguish spirituality from religion, which is often seen as univocal. Polyvocalism can also shed light on literary texts, which often employ several kinds of language as they address religious questions (e.g., Mark Salzman’s “Lying Awake,” Alice McDermott’s “At Weddings and Wakes”). Finally, polyvocalism can question univocal understandings of vocation and point toward more complex alternatives.

“Good Frendys of þe Spiritualte”: “Holi Dalywance” as a Model of Spiritual Guidance in The Book of Margery Kempe
Elizabeth Drescher, Graduate Theological Union

This paper argues that the elite, clerical orientation of models and methods of spiritual direction deprives the Christian tradition of important alternative approaches to spiritual guidance which contribute to traditional devaluing of lay authority and spiritual contributions in the larger Christian tradition. The paper seeks to balance the picture of spiritual guidance in Christian spiritual history as it may be applied to contemporary spiritual direction by offering the example of late medieval laywoman, Margery Kempe. The paper discusses Kempe’s spiritual development, her articulation of “holi dalyawnce”--defined here as “intimate mystical and/or interpersonal spiritual engagement”--as a primary mode of spiritual guidance, and the use of “holi dalyawnce” in contemporary spiritual direction. The paper considers its own discussion of Kempe’s spirituality as a process of respectful engagement with lay-generated spiritualities that is essential to the continuing development and practice of spiritual guidance and to the discipline of Christian Spirituality more broadly.

The Counsel of Patience: Prisoners as Spiritual Directors in Early Modern England
W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago

The letter from prison was a flourishing genre of religious literature in early modern England, and it figured prominently in the development of the devotional literature of the age as well as in practices of spiritual guidance. This paper will focus on a particular category of prison letters: correspondence between prisoners who knew that they were likely to be executed for heresy or treason. The paper will argue that the offering of spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners struggling with despair or rage raised difficult moral dilemmas for the letter writer and that these dilemmas were resolved through theological reflection on the virtue of patience.

Anthony Benezet: A Philadelphia Quaker’s Testament to the Love of God
Carole Dale Spencer, George Fox University

Anthony Benezet, 18th century Quaker educator, writer, reformer, friend and advocate of slaves, American Indians, women, children of all races, and poor and oppressed people everywhere, exemplified Quaker values and principles of the “Peaceable kingdom” to a degree not matched by any other single individual of his era, except perhaps his fellow Quaker, John Woolman. But Benezet’s influence surpassed even Woolman’s in his day because he impacted political and religious leaders internationally through his influential correspondence and his pioneering pamphleteering. Benezet’s contributions to the elimination of slavery among Quakers, and to the slave trade in England, has been well-documented, but this paper sheds new light on the spiritual influences that enabled Benezet to become a true “contemplative in action” in eighteenth century Philadelphia.

Quaker Clearness Committees: An Interdisciplinary and Spiritual Process
Stanford J. Searl, The Union Institute

This paper examines the Quaker Clearness committee process as a form of interdisciplinary application of spiritual and personal guidance in a communal framework. The paper focuses upon a distinctive integration as between theory and practice in the Clearness process. The paper explores how this interdisciplinary integration brings together the theology of a Divine Source, a socially constructed body and a psychology of submission, all in the service of a search for clarity and direction, under the influence of the Spirit or God.

    A19-117

Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group

Theme: Religion, Science, and Political Discourse: Transfers and Interactions

Religion, science, and politics have often been conceptualized as different cultural domains. Over against a tendency to rhetorically differentiate these three cultural systems, this session engages their mutual dependency and interlacing. The role of religion in the US project of 'Remaking Iraq' and the tension between George W. Bush's theological determination of faith and the public fascination with forensic exactitude demonstrate the complex interweavings of political, scientific, and religious discourses. That the differentiation of science and religion is a result of (Western) rhetorical strategies of identity formation, rather than of historical necessity, is further exemplified with regard to the role of astrology, alchemy, and Kabbalah that are culturally located between religion and science, as well as with regard to the 'medicalization' of religious controversy.

As a result, the discursive transfers between seemingly different cultural domains are moved to the center of scrutiny.

Discourses on Religion, Islam, and the Remaking of Iraq
Caleb Elfenbein, University of California, Santa Barbara

The United States has embarked on a project to remake Iraq. This paper analyzes the role that American public discourses on modernization, religion and Islam have had in this project. Of particular interest is how US policymakers in Iraq have deployed common elements of American public discourse on these matters in their effort to 'modernize' Iraq, especially as these assumptions show themselves in the controversey surrounding the drafting of the interim Iraqi constitution. Attention is also given to how events in Iraq are integrated into American public discourse, reinforcing existing assumptions about Islam's 'anti-modern' tendancies and the universal validity of European and American principles of modernization.

Looking for What You Cannot See: Fascination with Forensic Drama and the Blind Faith of Bush
Jenna Tiitsman, Union Theological Seminary

Mainstream media prior to the 2004 presidential election described the faith of George W. Bush as a study in conviction. On the surface, Bush’s theological determination to trust faith over facts seems to stand at odds with recent fascination with forensic crime drama (e.g. C.S.I.), a genre in which heroism is rooted in the obsessive examination of empirical evidence. However, the cultural imagination expressed in the speeches of George W. Bush and in the workings of forensic crime drama share a singular obsession with seeking and finding that which is all but impossible to see, whether a subterranean weapons store or a drop of blood absorbed by a carpet. It is my intention in this paper to explore the way such searching sight negotiates the blind faith demanded by Bush’s theological certainty. In the complicated crossbeams of our vigilant peering, are there sites of resistance to imperial conviction?

On the Interface of Cultures: Astrology, Chymistry, and Kabbalah between Science and Religion
Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Amsterdam

The rhetorical differentiation between 'science' and 'religion' as two mutually exclusive forms of knowledge about nature and the world reflects identities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Questioning the suitability of this differentiation for earlier periods of western culture, the paper explores the influence of astrology, Chymistry, and Kabbalah, and argues that these disciplines stand on the intersection of 'scientific' and 'religious' forms of knowledge. At the same time, they seem to question the very legitimacy of the boundaries between these categories. Consequently, the paper argues that scholars should acknowledge the fact that there always have been dividing lines between ways of attaining knowledge of the world, but that these lines were not between 'natural science' and 'religion.' The scholar's task, then, is the scrutiny of discourses of separation and the construction of boundaries that fostered identities in a clearly describable context of culture.

Meaning and Implications of Medicalization for the Study of Religion
Titus Hjelm, University of Helsinki

In their now-classic treatise Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness (1980), Conrad and Schneider coined the term medicalization and argued that in modern societies more and more of everyday phenomena are interpreted through the lens of medicine. In the area of social problems, for example, medicalization has signified a move away from considering social problems as moral problems to treating them as medical problems instead, as has been the case with alcoholism. In this paper my aim is to take a look at two different phenomena where medicalization affects the field of religion. Firstly, medicalization is increasingly used to label alternative religions as deviant. Instead of moral and religious arguments, deviance is created by labelling religions as 'unhealthy.' Secondly, issues of health are increasingly on the agenda of religious and spiritual groups and movements themselves. In this case religion and spirituality are presented primarily in the context of well-being.

    A19-118

Evangelical Theology Group

Theme: Remembering the Life and Works of Stan Grenz

Stan Grenz, Evangelical Theologian and former chair and steering committee member of Evangelical Theology, passed away in March 2005. This session is to honor his memory, and to discuss his contributions to both Evangelical Theology and the Emergent Church discusssion.

    A19-119

Religion and Disability Studies Group

Theme: Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas's Essays on Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology

Since the 1970’s Stanley Hauerwas has advocated for people with disabilities and their families. Hauerwas has consistently (if not systematically) produced a significant critique of those practices, attitudes and philosophical positions within liberal society which implicitly and explicitly dehumanise and ultimately seek to eliminate people with intellectual disabilities. Hauerwas’ perspective on disability is not without its critics. Like all good theologians, his talent lies not simply in what he says, but equally in what he challenges others to say. In this session, in conversation with Stanley Hauerwas, we will critically examine his thinking on intellectual disability as it is presented in a new book of his essays edited by John Swinton of the University of Aberdeen (Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Essays on Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology (2005). New York: Haworth Press). We will also reflect on the impact of Hauerwas’ thinking for contemporary disability theology and ethics.

    A19-120

Religion and Ecology Group

Theme: Evolution, Ecology, and Other Religious Animals

Work in religion and ecology thrives when it is literate about evolution, and yet few understand the basic workings of evolution, natural selection, and the immense life processes of the earth. The re-emergence of creationism, from biblical literalism to intelligent design, needs to be challenged on scientific and religious grounds. Our respondent will reflect upon the following topics presented by the panelists: 1) discussion of the centrality of evolution for in-depth religious responses to the ecological crisis; 2) whether graduate religion and ecology degrees should presuppose basic scientific literary in evolutionary theory, regardless of personal beliefs; 3) when “ecological theology” passes unawares as creationism, weakening its power to form vital alliances; and 4) the theme of kinship -- the ultimate in evolutionary connection -- links our species to all life, yet some religious leaders deny that humans belong in the categories of mammal, primate or, perish the thought, ape.

    A19-121

Religion and Popular Culture Group

Theme: Religion and the Politics of Parody

The Fockerized Jew? Questioning Jewishness as Cool in American Popular Entertainment
Samantha Baskind, Cleveland State University

In the past few years, various critics have asserted that the proliferation and openness of Jewish characters, figures, and references in popular entertainment indicates that the Jew is now cool. Certainly, unashamedly Jewish Jews appear in multiple and increasing numbers of venues, but are they necessarily cool? When one thinks of cool, Michael Jordon, an icon of charisma, comes to mind. James Bond’s assertiveness and grace under pressure also epitomizes coolness. These personages possess a quality that transcends gender, age, race, and ethnicity. Can the same be said for the Jew? What accounts for the recent rise of obvious Jewishness, and especially religious elements of Judaism, in the entertainment world? Looking at the wildly successful film “Meet the Fockers” (2004), as well as other current pop culture representations of Jews, this paper questions what about Jewishness is cool and how viewer subjectivities influence the perception of coolness.

Pleasure Temples and Gambling Nuns: The Rhetoric of Las Vegas Religion in the Fifties and Sixties
Christina Cabeen, University of California, Santa Barbara

In the decades following the nationwide crackdown on gambling in the early 1950's, popular magazine accounts of the Las Vegas Strip utilized religious imagery with surprising regularity. Some articles compared tourist behavior with exotic pagan rituals, while others used conventional religious figures and church images to explore how Las Vegas maintained, inverted, or subverted conventional values. By presenting Las Vegas as a parody of religion, it demarcated the Strip as liminal space. This invocation of religion is valuable for understanding how people who were not necessarily religious nevertheless used religious categories to make sense of their worlds.

Comic Form, Forms of Comedy, and the Limits of Religious Criticism in American Popular Culture
Mark W. Graham, College of Wooster

Comedy, though commonly and obviously intended to entertain, often carries with it more serious aims, some of which are to offer critiques of existing social institutions and norms. With this in mind, this paper examines some of the proliferation of popular media formats and forms of creative expression (Internet, print media, television, movies: Weblogs, animated television comedies, newspapers, comic books, movies) that feature a variety of forms of comedy (satire, parody, etc.) that are in part aimed at religious life in American culture, and argues that such riches, rather than being liberating – of creating new ways and means of expression for religious social criticism -- have just as often been critically limited, both by the forms and formats they employ, and by their dissemination through networks of communication whose interests are primarily economic.

Parody and Prophecy: A Serious Look at South Park
Brannon Hancock, University of Glasgow

For over nine years, the cartoon series South Park has used parodical satire to call into question the social, political, and religious excesses of late-capitalist American culture. South Park’s creators employ rudimentary forms of animation and video collage to create a platform upon which the right, the left and the centrist receive equal helpings of derisive, yet insightful, critique. Despite its value as social commentary, South Park has not received broad-sweeping acceptance from the religious community, in part because of the series’ unconventional use of blatantly offensive and highly objectionable humour. Yet, it is because of (not despite) South Park’s use of patently scatological content that its critique of religion and society can be situated within the tradition of prophecy. Through an examination of particular clips and dialogue with the prophet Ezekiel, this paper will attempt to justify the prophetic status South Park’s voice and vision.

    A19-122

Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group

Theme: Lessons Learned from the U.S./Iraq Conflicts, 1989 to the Present

This panel discussion has been created to reflect upon what we, as scholars of religion, have learned from studying the reality of the evolving conflict in Iraq. Participants will address a variety of issues, from Christian and Muslim understandings of just conflict, the morality of sanctions, environmental ethics, the influence or lack of influence of religiously-based peace movements on the conflict, and more.

    A19-123

Roman Catholic Studies Group

Theme: Catholics in the Movies

Progressive Era Religion, Politics, and the Social Problem Film
Judith Weisenfeld, Vassar College

This paper examines American silent film’s participation in and contribution to discourses that located white ethnic Catholics within the complex of economic, religious, and social concerns of Progressive-era America. Using D. W. Griffith’s 1916 Intolerance and Raoul Walsh’s 1915 Regeneration to anchor the discussion, my work will explore approaches to representing Catholicism in “the social problem film,” an important genre in both pre-Hollywood and classical Hollywood film. This essay will expand that literature by examining the varied ways in which relationships between Roman Catholicism and social reform were projected in silent films, as well as contribute to the literature on religion in Progressive-era America by engaging film as an important source for understanding American discourse on Catholicism in the period.

Bing Crosby, Hollywood, and the Catholic Public Sphere
Anthony B. Smith, University of Daytona

Going My Way (1944) was one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed films of the 1940s. The story of a young Catholic priest who saves an urban parish from destitution won awards for both its star, Bing Crosby, and director Leo McCarey. Going My Way constructed Catholicism as the site of numerous cultural borders and transitions, stitching Catholicism into the very fabric of modern urban society while rearticulating it as a sign of an Americanism defined by pluralism, assimilation, and commercial entertainment. The film emerged at a period of intense change both within the American Catholic community as a younger American born generation emerged to challenge ethnic Catholicism, and American society itself as New Deal progressivism gave way to wartime unity. These social changes manifested themselves in the film’s preoccupations with border-crossings, passings, and spatial boundaries as Fr. O’Malley continually traversed the ethnic Catholic city.

The Catholic Horror Film
Peter Gardella, Manhattanville College

The Exorcist marked a turn away from horror films with Victorian settings and Christian conventions where heroes were sure of themselves and objective forces like the cross worked even if those who wielded them did not believe. In this new genre uncertain heroes needed to learn how to believe before they could triumph, and sometimes they did not triumph at all. The Exorcist emerged after the changes of the Second Vatican Council brought an opening to the modern world along with the insecurity of living within it. As the century waned, Evangelical Protestants claimed the power over the demonic in faith-based movie productions, but Catholic priests and ritual objects still signified horror in movies ranging from Hollywood’s Stigmata (1999) to the low-budget Desecration (2000). Re-released in 2000, The Exorcist still keeps alive the panic over Satanism and horror stories of ritual (and actual) child abuse.

Cops and Priests: The Decline of the Irish-American Catholic
Timothy Meagher, Catholic University of America

No film better represents the re-working of American Catholicism, specifically of Irish-American Catholics and “their” church, than True Confessions (1981). Over the course of the twentieth century, the image of Irish American Catholics and the Catholic Church that they led and dominated, changed dramatically. Irish-American Catholics moved from being Hollywood’s favorite ethnic group to being the henchmen of oppressive and authoritarian institutions. True Confessions relentlessly explores the church’s hypocrisy, its cold calculation, and its stifling of dissent. Yet True Confessions is not an anti-religious, nor even an anti-Catholic (nor even anti-Irish Catholic) picture. Indeed, it is really an exploration of what “true” religion is in the new, post-nineteen sixties context of suspicion of authority and institutions.

    A19-124

Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture Group

Theme: Public Theology and Democracy

A minor but significant emphasis in these papers falls upon how Paul Tillich in his time (1886-1965) -- both in Germany until 1933, and in the U.S. thereafter -- constructed a public theology, and the senses in which his was a democratic view. The larger emphasis of the session falls upon the usefulness of Tillich's analyses for constructing a democratic public theology for today, both by way of comparison and interaction with other such analyses, and by way of applying Tillich's ideas to the concrete problems named in the titles of the last three papers.

Constructing a Public Theology: Tillich and Buber's Movement beyond Protestant and Jewish Boundaries in Weimar Germany
Marc Krell, University of Arizona

Liberal Jewish and Protestant thinkers in the Wilhelmine period attempted to mediate God’s presence in the world through their common attempts to portray divine providence in the form of a gradually unfolding process of ethical perfection in history. Yet in their efforts to remain culturally relevant within their own communities, these scholars resorted to apologetics and polemics in attempts to prove their legitimacy. Protestant theologian Paul Tillich and Jewish thinker Martin Buber later rejected this essentialism while at the same time avoiding the dialectic between history and metahistory found in neo-orthodox theology. In fact, they each blamed the disunity of modern European society after World War I on the radical division between the sacred and the secular spheres, and proclaimed the desperate need to mediate between the everyday “broken” world and the Kingdom of God by constructing a public theology situated between religion and culture, unrestricted by confessional allegiance.

Confronting the Powers: Tillich, Stout, and West on Democratic Principles and Procedures
Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount

Recent debates regarding the formal characteristics of democracy have been widespread and polemical. Whether construed as imperialistic concerns or constitutional questions, these debates compel interrogation of the basic presuppositions underlying democratic principles and procedures and the extent to which theological reflections inform them. The purpose of this paper is to engage Paul Tillich and present interlocutors on democracy. The paper has three central sections: 1) An excursus into the historical trajectories in American politics vis-à-vis the relationship between church and state; 2) An engagement between Tillich and Jeffrey Stout and Cornel West; and 3) An exercise in public theology, that is, analysis of the present policies of President Bush with respect to the perspectives of Tillich, Stout, and West. Though distinct in their approaches to public philosophy and the substantive role of theology, Tillich, West, and Stout seek to reconfigure social structures and practices to implement more justly democratic ideals.

Christofascism in America: A Tillichian Analysis of Christian Reconstructionism
Loye Ashton, Millsaps College

This paper will use Paul Tillich’s work to analyze a religious movement in the United States known as “Christian Reconstructionism” (CR) which has enjoyed increasing influence among the religious right, finding support among well-known evangelicals such as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Ralph Reed for its goal of “re-Christianizing” America. However, CR theology advocates a Christian state in which the Constitution is subservient to their Calvinist reading of Mosaic Law, where capital punishment is expanded to match Levitical purity codes, slavery in re-instituted as a form of penal retribution, women are deprived of occupations outside of the home, and religious freedom is non-existent for those who do not submit to the dominion of Jesus Christ. Tillich’s ideas on the topics of theonomy, the Christian symbol “the Kingdom of God”, and the category of the demonic provide a useful critique of this movement in current debates regarding public theology and democracy.

Does the Road of Providence Lead to Freedom? Geoge W. Bush, Paul Tillich, and the Theology of History
Guy Hammond, Virginia Tech Emeritus

The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of Paul Tillich’s categories of historical interpretation to the current Middle Eastern situation. My approach includes a twofold interest: to contribute to the formulation of a progressive Jewish/Christian perspective toward this situation, and to provide reflection regarding the adequacy of Tillich’s categories in dealing with such circumstances. We will proceed by attempting a brief sketch of the implicit “theology of history” of the Bush administration, and then turn to an explication of the relevant aspects of Tillich’s approach to history (his political theology), emphasizing the early rather than the later Tillich. Finally we will employ these categories in an “ideology critique” of the prevailing interpretation, exploring such themes as national vocational consciousness, religious substance and prophetic critique, the relation of power and justice, the place of heteronomous religion, and alternative meanings of freedom.

    A19-125

Cultural History of the Study of Religion Consultation

Theme: Courtrooms, Schoolrooms, and the Making of Religion

Making Religion in the Courtroom: The Practical Implications of the Anthropologist Expert Witness
Kathleen Holscher, Princeton University

Through the twentieth century, anthropologists testified as expert witnesses in American court cases where the very definition of religion, as interpreted and executed under free exercise laws, is at stake. This paper examines the expert witness work of Omer Stewart and John Hostetler, two prominent mid-century anthropologists. Both men testified on the religious merits of practices they studied; Stewart described the use of peyote among American Indians and Hostetler the early removal of Amish children from formal schooling. By considering both the grounds for the authority granted these anthropologists by the courts as well as the layered meanings embedded in each man’s experience as “witness”, the paper works to flush out the sorts of empirical accounts privileged in the courtroom, and uncover the divergent implications that scholarly description can have upon communities of practitioners.

The Collapse of Religion as a Constitutional Construct: Can the Study of Religion Help?
Kathleen M. Sands, University of Massachusetts, Boston

In the American judiciary and in the academic study of religion, parallel changes have taken place within concepts of religion and related concepts of the secular. This paper describes three such changes – the creation of an ever more inclusive list of “religions,” the shift from normative to descriptive accounts of religion, and a recognition that no fixed or coherent boundary exists between religion and culture. As the result of these changes, the definition of religion has become an intractable problem and the religion clauses of the First Amendment are becoming inoperable. The paper illustrates these changes through Supreme Court cases involving Native American religions, Faith-Based initiatives, and sexual dissent. In conclusion, the paper suggests specific ways in which critical studies in the discourses of religion and of secularism might break this conceptual logjam, contribute to a new constitutional concept of religion, and reorient the academic study of religion itself.

The Discourse of "Orthodox Culture" in Postcommunist Russia
Brian P. Bennett, Niagara University

The transition from Soviet empire to Russian nation has been a highly complex and contested affair. Battles over the Soviet past and the Russian future have been waged in both the courthouse and the classroom. A firestorm of controversy erupted over a textbook called THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ORTHODOX CULTURE, which affirmed Orthodoxy's role in Russian civilization, but which critics condemned as retrograde and chauvinistic. The paper discusses this text as a key artifact in the constitution of religion in postcommunist Rusia.

    A19-126

Queer Theory and LGBT Studies in Religion Consultation

Theme: Queering the Study of Religion

The papers in this session explore some of the many ways in which the study of religion can benefit from conversations with LGBT studies and queer theory. Examining theology and intersexuality, LGBT and queer approaches to U.S. religious history, and queer perspectives on the religious right and on religious studies scholars ourselves, these papers demonstrate the new approaches afforded by queer perspectives on religion.

Jesus as Intersexed: A Transgender Counternarrative of Embodiment
Tricia Sheffield, Columbia University

Jesus, as Christianity’s paragon of humanity, is traditionally understood by the Church as non-dual, in that he is “one in being with the Father.” That is, there is no division within Jesus’ identity; he is understood to be both God and human, as was later declared by the Council of Chalcedon. However, in American society, it seems that one must be a gender and perform its constraints according to the heteronormative system of domesticity. My paper argues for a performative gender identity that is simultaneously multiple by using a Chalcedic understanding of fully God/fully human as a hermeneutic that allows for Jesus to ‘embody’ a binary that is not either/or, but rather, both/and. From this position, I argue that intersexed and transgender narratives are sites from which to construct an identity of freedom and fluidity that dismantles the fictive narratives of normative femininity and masculinity.

Queering Fundamentalism: The Case Against John Balcom Shaw (1860-1935)
Kathryn Lofton, Reed College

In August 1916, four ministers in Elmira, New York received anonymous letters accusing the Reverend John Balcom Shaw, President of the Elmira College for Women, of sodomy. Over the next year, Presbytery assembled over fifty transcripts from letters, meetings, and individual testimonies regarding these accusations. This paper provides an analysis of this case material. Although there have been previous studies attempting to explicate the gender dimensions of evangelicalism, never have historians been offered such a concrete moment of queer identity within early fundamentalism. Until 1916, Shaw was a celebrated member of the Protestant ruling class, serving as advisor to “The Fundamentals” and leading several large urban congregations. Through an examination of the diagnostic discourse produced by the Presbytery’s investigation, it becomes clear that Shaw’s interrogators were not without theories of sexuality and gender. Their investigative remainders provide a portrait of queer categorization and gender ambiguity within American fundamentalism.

Queer Encounters: Churchmen, Homophiles, and the Council on Religion and the Homosexual
Heather White, Princeton University

The Council on Religion and the Homosexual was founded in 1964 by two Methodist clergy in San Francisco to advocate for the acceptance of “the homosexual” in U.S. churches and civil society. The first meetings of the Council at Glide Memorial Methodist Church invited local clergy and members of homophile organizations to meet and speak to each other. The primary goal of the Council was to “to promote continuing dialogue between the Church and the homosexual,” and it continued to use a model of face-to-face encounters between these two groups as it formed similar bodies in other metropolitan centers. I examine the resources and practices for this model of sexual/religious encounter, exploring the representations of religious leaders and of gay men and lesbians. I also examine how broader understandings of religion and sexuality were both circumscribed and subverted in the work of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual.

Constructing Chaos: The Religious Right, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Scholars Who Study Them Both
Leslie Smith, University of California, Santa Barbara

The “Religious Right” is understood by many scholars in terms of its vision of a particularly stringent moral order. Taking seriously the significance of subjectivity, sexuality, and discourse as explored throughout the works of Foucault, Butler, and Lincoln, it is arguable that one of the Religious Right’s more interesting characteristics is not its conception of a rigid order, but its ability to craft the threat of an impending and all-encompassing chaos that endangers this sense of order. Moreover, this paper will argue that a significant number of Religious Right scholars engage in discursively similar arguments to promote their own normative agendas. The fact that chaos and order are an inseparable, rhetorical couplet used by both the Religious Right as well as its scholarly interpreters underscores the necessity of queer theory’s examination of the dynamics of power, authority, and legitimation techniques, and how such techniques work to essentialize the “self-evident.”

    A19-130

Plenary Address

Theme: AAR Presidential Address and Awards Ceremony: Hans Hillerbrand, On Book Burnings and Book Burners: Reflections on the Power (and Powerlessness) of Words and Ideas

(and Powerlessness) of Words and Ideas

A native of Germany, Hans J. Hillerbrand did his graduate work in theology and religion at the University of Erlangen, Germany, with a focus on the Protestant Reformation. After briefly teaching at Goshen College, he received an appointment to the faculty of the Divinity School at Duke University in 1959, where he taught until 1970, when he moved to the History Department of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In 1981, he accepted the position of provost at Southern Methodist University, and in 1988 he joined the faculty of the Department of Religion at Duke University. A specialist in the Reformation, his publications include two bibliographies of Anabaptism, a monograph on religious dissenters in early modern Europe, and the Protestant Reformation, as well as the editorship of both the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation and the Encyclopedia of Protestantism. He has served as president of the Society of Reformation Research and the American Society of Church History. He has been editor of the Archive for Reformation History, Church History, and the Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte. The faculty of Montclair State University conferred the honorary doctor of laws on him.

    A19-131

Arts Series/Films: Dennis and Dan Bielfeldt - Jazz on Sax and Piano

In addition to being a Philosophy and Religion Professor and a member of the AAR, Dennis Bielfeldt is a jazz pianist with a degree in piano performance. He has done club work throughout the Midwest, particularly in Iowa City and Des Moines, IA, Wichita, KS, and Sioux Falls, SD. He has played with scores of musicians, has taught jazz piano, and has worked as a clinician. He especially enjoys recreating the sounds of the great solo jazz pianists of the thirties and fourties. Dennis' 19 year-old son Dan is already an accomplished jazz saxophonist who has performed in various venues. He has been the first-chair all-state jazz sax player in South Dakota the last three years. He particularly enjoys playing be-bop.

    A19-132

Arts Series/Films: Dogma

Directed by Kevin Smith, 1999, R rated

Even before Kevin Smith’s 1999 film was released, it was the subject of controversy. The Catholic League strongly condemned Dogma for anti-Catholic purpose and content, and objections emerged from several countries. Smith, however, asserted his right to free speech and audiences responded enthusiastically. Like Smith’s previous films (especially Clerks and Mallrats), the movie aims at a particular generation. Critics and scholars have often assumed that this generation, referred to as the “slacker” generation or Generation X, either rejects religious and spiritual meaning or embraces it in dogmatic and authoritarian forms. Dogma attempts to intervene in this set of assumptions, poking fun at many of its misconceptions and offering an alternative and playful understanding of God. In the film, a woman who is the last living descendent of Jesus is called upon by the Voice of God to stop two renegade angels from entering a Catholic church in New Jersey, and thereby erasing all existence.

    A19-133

Arts Series/Films: Freaks

Directed by Tod Browning, 1932, unrated

Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks disappeared from theatres very shortly after its initial release, saddled with a reputation of financial loss and critical denunciation. Throughout the 1960s, however, the film was successfully screened in drive-ins around the USA as part of the exploitation-cult circuit. In the ‘90s, the film became a central artifact in a growing theoretical conversation between film theory and disability studies. Freaks is perhaps best known for Browning’s decision to employ genuine circus freaks as actors. Set in the environs of a circus sideshow, the film tells a tale of romance and revenge in which the characters with non-normative human bodies are the heroes and the characters with culturally normative human bodies are the villains. The most memorable scene in the film, and the heart of its narrative, depicts the performance of a ritual.

    A19-135

Reception Honoring Contributors to A Guide for Women in Religion and the Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies

The Status of Women in the Profession Committee and the Women’s Caucus invites you to a reception honoring those women who contributed to the original Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies and those who produced its sequel A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z.

    A20-3

Native Traditions in the Americas Group and Religion and Ecology Group

Theme: Ecology, Activism, and Native American Lands/Waters

Collaborative Environmentalism: Environmental Resistance among Natives and Non-Natives
John Baumann, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

My presentation will explore and analyze increasing collaboration between Native Americans and non-native individuals and groups as a strategy to address environmental issues. I will pay particular attention to calls for a “new environmentalism,” moving beyond identification of problems and engaging people and communities at the grassroots level.

Indians, Salmon, and the Complexities of Conflict: Ethical Foundations of Water Disputes and the Exercise of Political Power in the Klamath Basin
Joel Geffen, University of Montana

Environmental racism typically describes negative impacts of private industry and resource management policies upon politically disadvantaged groups, most of which are ethnic or cultural minorities. Native Americans, Latinos, and African-American communities are highlighted in literature concerning the United States. Toxic dumping, air pollution, and the selection of nuclear facility sites have all been identified as significant issues.

This paper examines environmental racism in relation to native groups living in the Klamath Basin, a region located along the California-Oregon border. Bush administration policies allowing the diversion of irrigation water to farmers and ranchers at the expense of endangered salmon and sucker present a danger to the physical and spiritual sustenance of Klamath, Hoopa, Karuk, and Yurok peoples.

However, instead of mainly arguing that environmental racism is directed at them, I will show that administration policies also ignore non-minorities. Among them are defenders of wildlife refuges, commercial fishing communities, and fish biologists.

The Need for Communal Research Ethics: Haudanosaunee Democratic Models
Dianne Quigley, Syracuse University

Current ethical frameworks that guide health/environmental research are based on the protection of individual human subjects. This falls short in dealing with group/community protections and the moral complexities surrounding culturally-diverse values and knowledge. Communal ethics lies in understanding community contexts, in transferring skills and resources, in learning from diverse values and knowledge systems. The ethical framework of Native science demonstrates democratic decision-making in research ethics. Case studies from the Haudenosaunee (the Akwesasne Task Force for the Environment) and others demonstrate field-tested methods for improving research ethics. They stress objective and subjective meanings (technical knowledge and community embedded knowledge); the multidimensional impacts of contamination on community life and a respect for webs of relationship that influences the structure and process of the research activity.

Ecology and Native Lands
Les Benedict, Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment

We have experienced considerable environmental and ecological change in the past century. Nowhere in time has there been such unprecedented change brought to this earth by a single being, humans. Native life is based on an intimate connection to the natural world, a complexity of relationships. To Native Americans the consequences of failing to fulfill these responsibilities is well understood and recognized to mean the loss of sustainability and possibly the end of human kind itself. Cultural practices, ceremonies and oral tradition acknowledge the importance of these responsibilities.

Modern ecology, about 300 years old, has only recently just begun to recognize what Native Americans have understood and practiced for thousands of years.

Provided is an overview of Haudenosaunee sustainable practices that until today were largely dismissed as strange and ignorant. After 500 years of contact with the Haudenosaunee, modern science has miraculously discovered the interrelationships that are important for a healthy world.

    A20-4

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Religion in Europe East and West

The process of European integration has given rise to pivotal debates that signal the evolving place of religion in Europe. Arguments over the potential inclusion of Turkey in the EU and over a constitutional reference to Christian heritage have forced many to reassess the religious dimensions of European identity and to confront the reality of religious pluralism. This forum is designed to shed light on some of the most significant debates involving religion in contemporary Europe. Representing numerous disciplines and regions, a distinguished panel of experts will address a range of issues, including: religion and the politics of identity; the rapid transformation of the mainstream churches; the contentious role of religion in the process of European expansion; the renegotiation of sensitive boundaries between church and state; conflicts between the collective rights of traditional religious communities and the individual rights of European citizens; and the encounter between Islamic and Christian cultures.

    A20-5

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Religion and the Science Curriculum: Implications and Strategies

Cosmology, genetics, ecology and evolution are just a few of the topics within the standard science curriculum that regularly elicit questions and challenges from religious parents and communities. In this session our panelists will share their expertise in addressing the following questions: What are the dynamics at work in these debates? What are the implications for American education? What strategies are available for addressing these issues in the K-12 classroom?

    A20-6

Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section

Theme: What You Don't Know Won't Kill You: Learning Teaching on the Job

These papers explore the different kinds of learning that teaching can give, ranging from what one learns during one's first year of full-time teaching to 'ways in which religious and philosophical ethics can be presented in such a manner that it 'teaches itself' to what professors might want to know as they assist students in transformational education.

“Make the Part Your Own”: What Soap Opera Digest Should Have Taught Me about Teaching
Katherine Janiec Jones, Transylvania University

Using the notion of a “recast” -- an actor who has been hired to replace someone else who is vacating a popular role -- this paper addresses the difficult choices faced by new teachers trying both to fill the shoes of their predecessors and blaze new trails of their own. I suggest that courses tend to be more effective when the instructor structures the syllabus around what she knows and what she enjoys, rather than adhering to imaginings of how others might think the course “should” be taught. The instructor’s enthusiasm for the material is, in many ways, a necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) condition for a syllabus to work. I then flesh out this assertion by looking at the initial, less successful version of an introductory course I taught, and then the revised, much more successful (and enjoyable) version that I now teach.

Negotiating the Chasm between Graduate School and the First Year of Teaching: How I Stopped Crying and Started Drinking
Emily Askew, Carroll College

Six months into teaching religion at a regional undergraduate institution, following ten years of graduate education, I have questions, such as: “Why didn’t you tell me I would have to learn to compose a syllabus reading something like a state penal code, in order to avoid being sued, taken advantage of or humiliated?” In the first part of this paper, I highlight issues that challenge the romantic notion of world-transformation many of us had when we entered colleges and universities as new professors. In the second part, I suggest assignments born from the fire of necessity. With these, I want those who traversed this terrain to remind me of the romance, offer practical teaching suggestions and discuss what kind of wine best accompanies student essays comparing the Dao and YHWH.

What I Wished They'd Told Me about Teaching and How I Learned Better
Anette Ejsing, Augustana College

Everything I was told about teaching is what I have learned: it is hard work, preparation takes more time than you think, female professors have a harder time gaining respect than male professors, I am too ambitious about what to accomplish in the classroom, students are at a low level of knowledge about religious methodology, and they cheat. Still, my argument is that effective teaching is centered on student-learning more than academic content. Designing my courses with the goal in mind that students find them interesting and intellectually stimulating to attend, I have removed the sting of what I was told to expect. My presentation reflects on these three main issues involved in teaching centered on student-learning: 1) The subtle, nearly undetectable dynamics involved in using personal disclosure 2) Tapping into the high energy level of the young learner 3) Calling forward in students a curiosity driven love for learning.

Teaching Itself
Gitte Butin, Gettysburg College

This presentation explores ways in which religious and philosophical ethics can be presented in such a manner that it “teaches itself.” The subject matter is no longer a detached message issued by the instructor and made into an object to be assimilated by the student; rather, the subject matter is worked through as an embodied experience emerging from the learner in response to encounters that address basic religious and philosophical paradigms. The presentation focuses on two modes of teaching itself, both primarily developed in my ethics courses dealing with crime and punishment. The modes consist of 1) experiential learning exercises pertaining to ethical issues and 2) community-based learning, which brings together students and incarcerated people in dialogue concerning crime and punishment. Moreover, the presentation examines the theoretical underpinnings of my pedagogy, primarily the notion of indirect communication as developed by Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.

The Existential Anxiety of Learning: Stages and Elements in a Seminarian's Journey of Transformational Education
Andrea Hollingsworth, Bethel Seminary

When “combustible issues” are raised in classroom settings, professors need to negotiate not only the interpersonal realities of passionately voiced opinions, but also the intrapersonal existential anxieties of individual students who may be encountering ideas that are transforming their personhood. This paper, creatively presented as an engaging first-person narrative of a recent seminary graduate’s learning experience, describes stages and elements of transformational religious education. The goal of such a presentation is to inspire educators to consider the existential anxieties of individual learners, and to structure learning environments in ways that will foster progression in light of those anxieties. The stages highlight the presenter’s progression from myopic fundamentalism to expanded and integrated selfhood, while the elements describe specific teaching styles and classroom environments that furthered the presenter’s transformational learning. It is possible that greater attention to intrapersonal anxieties will aid in the management of interpersonal conflict in emotionally charged classroom discourse.

    A20-7

Buddhism Section

Theme: The Buddhist Preacher in History and Literature

The subject of the preacher (dharmabhanaka/dharmakathika) has gone almost completely unexplored by modern scholars. This paper session focuses on Buddhism in Sri Lanka and India, as a first step. The session has a dual focus: the first two papers are concerned to delineate the role(s) played by preachers in propagating Buddhist textual traditions over time; the second two papers focus on normative portrayals of preachers found within select Buddhist sutras. Ideally, the session will stimulate relection on ways that these two domains may have been mutually influential -- i.e., whether Buddhist preachers may have shaped, and been shaped by, accounts of idealized preachers found in the texts themselves. It is also hoped that the materials presented here will allow for future comparative analysis, both for those working on Buddhism in other cultural contexts, and for those interested in questions of homiletics and hermeneutics across religious traditions.

From Dhammabhanaka to Buddhist Preaching: Theravada Vernacular Transmission
Mahinda Deegalle, Bath Spa University

[No abstract; with reference to the paper proposal, please see notes on diacritical marks below]

Dharmabhanakas in Early Indian Mahayana
David Drewes, Indiana University, Bloomington

In mainstream Indian Buddhism, sutras were memorized and recited publicly by specialized monks known as bhanakas. Though the fact has gone largely unnoticed in scholarship, bhanakas—or dharmabhanakas—played an important role in Mahayana Buddhism as well. They are mentioned frequently throughout Mahayana sutra literature and are depicted in a variety of often surprising ways. They are commonly presented as charismatic figures who traveled with groups of students that coalesced around them; as “irreversible” bodhisattvas very close to the attainment of Buddhahood; and as people who not only preached Mahayana sutras, but were also responsible for their “discovery.” This paper looks at this material against the backdrop of other recent scholarship and attempts to coax from it a picture of the role of dharmbhanakas in the life of early Mahayana.

Listening to the Dharmabhanaka
Natalie Gummer, Beloit College

In Mahayana sutras such as the Suvarna(pra)bhasottama and the Saddarmapundarika, the dharmabhanaka, the orator of the dharma, occupies a critical but profoundly ambiguous position. Within the sutra, the Buddha and his divine assembly describe the future and past times when the sutra will be or has been preached by a dharmabhanaka. As a result, any actual dharmabhanaka who utters the sutra and any audience who hears him find themselves occupying a present time and place foreseen and radically transformed by the narrative of the sutra. The complex and paradoxical relationships among the Buddha, the sutra, the dharmabhanaka, and the audience within the sutra also shape and encompass the dharmabhanaka and his audience “outside” the sutra. These rhetorical strategies in turn construct the model reader as listener, illuminating not only the ritual potency of the oral/aural sutra, but also the ritual (as well as rhetorical) functions of the dharmabhanaka.

The Dharmabhanaka Inside and Outside the Sutras
Richard Nance, Ann Arbor, MI

Indian Buddhist orators have historically served as voices for Buddhist teaching -- but they have also been voiced by that teaching, articulated in the very sutra texts that they are charged to preserve and protect. In this paper, I explore normative portraits of the 'orator of dharma' (dharmabhanaka) drawn in Indian Buddhist sutras, and investigate the influence of such portraits on the ways in which real-world dharmabhanakas likely conceptualized their own activities as orators. As Schopen reminds us, we cannot straightforwardly recover an accurate picture of 'what Buddhism was' from texts that concern 'what Buddhism should be.' But it is no less a mistake to assume either that normative texts do not influence history, or that the traces of such influence are nowhere evident in normative texts. This paper explores some of the ways in which these reciprocal impacts may be glimpsed.

    A20-8

Comparative Studies in Religion Section

Theme: Comparativists and the Study of Religion(s)

The modern study of religion has been shaped by the work of comparativists who have gone beyond the religions into which they were born to explore one or more other traditions. The comparativists have developed cross-traditional approaches which differ from those employed within a tradition insofar as they do not privilege, or at least try not to privilege, a particular religion. In this session panelists consider the work of Mircea Eliade, Francis X. Clooney, Robert Orsi, Jonathan Z. Smith, Charles H. Long, Lawrence E. Sullivan, John Carman, Ugo Bianchi, and Mary Boyce. They ask: What is the scholar's starting point with regard to comparison? How does she or he construe comparison? What specific strategies does she or he adopt to facilitate comparison? Finally, with the help of respondents we highlight the common questions that arise in discussing these comparativists.

    A20-9

History of Christianity Section and Roman Catholic Studies Group

Theme: Catholic Selves and Others in the New World

Aboriginal "Apostasy" in Colonial North America: Problems and Prospects
Emma J. Anderson, Harvard University

For the last decade, scholars have been questioning presuppositions regarding Native American “conversion” in colonial North America. Though aboriginal “apostasy” was almost as common as conversion, and raises similar conceptual issues, it has yet to receive comparable attention. A pronounced preference for studying either adamant traditionalists or exemplary converts has led scholars to ignore the majority of aboriginal peoples whose ambivalent religious lives either fell between these extremes or encompassed them. Only when “conversion” and “apostasy,” carefully deconstructed, are studied in concert will the contours of post-contact aboriginal religious experience be more readily discernable. Like its sister term, “apostasy” obscures as much about Native American religiosity as it reveals, as it was used by European missionaries to designate dramatically different aboriginal responses to Christianity. This presentation, as well as conceptually grounding the study of Native American apostasy in the colonial period, will examine the contrasting experiences of several aboriginal “apostates.”

Accounting for Acoma: Holy Mission, Holy War, and Holy Memory in Oñate’s Conquest of New Mexico
Brandon Bayne, Harvard University

The celebrated “colonizer of New Mexico”, Juan de Oñate burned the Acoma pueblo after a bloody battle in 1599, severing the feet of male warriors and enslaving the rest of the population. In addition to political justifications, the General invoked potent religious categories in order to consecrate the violence. Specifically, he cited past martyrdoms as the preeminent reason for the conquest and future mission as his stated goal for the colony. These themes allowed Oñate to claim that punishing Acoma was not only “just”, but also “holy”. This paper explores the fine line between a “just war” and a “holy war”, as it played out on the borderlands of colonial New Mexico. Because Oñate fought for Spain's martyrs and worked toward God’s mission, he could not afford to let a rebellious pueblo go unpunished. Nevertheless, his own case for war inadvertently preserved Acoma's very different account of the violence.

Searching for Souls in a Twice-Foreign Land: Tribalism, Nativism, and the Evolution of Catholic Indian Missions (1902-1962)
Mark S. Clatterbuck, Catholic University of America

'The Indian Sentinel,' a periodical published by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions from 1902-1962, records the struggle of U.S. Catholic missionaries searching for identity amid tensions from two primary directions. At the turn of the twentieth century, hostility dominated missionaries’ attitudes toward both the “paganism” of indigenous cultures and the anti-Catholicism harbored by much of the country’s Protestant population. By the eve of Vatican II, however, a remarkable transformation had taken place among Catholic missionaries on both fronts. Not only were inculturative experiments with Native traditions underway in mission parishes, but missionaries were also eager to display their patriotic stripes to a predominantly Protestant American audience. As seen in the stories and photographs of 'The Indian Sentinel,' these altered attitudes deeply impacted the theology and missionary method of American Catholics who were beginning to embrace religious syncretism on the one hand, and U.S. patriotism on the other.

Rebel Yell: Father Arthur Terminiello and American Catholicism’s Conspiratorial Margins
Jeffrey Marlett, College of Saint Rose

This paper will address the career of Arthur Terminiello (1906-62), a Roman Catholic priest from Alabama and his involvement with two apparently contradictory elements of twentieth-century American life: anti-Semitism and racial integration. Through this strange brew of hatred and reconciliation Terminiello challenged several stalwart assumptions of mid-century Americana: Jim Crow, anti-Catholicism, Eleanor Roosevelt, Catholic intellectual life, popular culture, and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Terminiello represented a triply-marginalized voice: geographically distant from the centers of Catholic power in the urban northeast, religiously removed from his Protestant neighbors, and ideologically exiled in right-wing extremism. While his name provokes nothing but silence from religious studies scholars, free speech activists know him well as a defining case of hate speech limitations. An examination of Terminiello’s religious actions and attitudes offers new perspectives on Catholicism’s relationship with American life in its mainstream as well as along its alternative, or extremist, margins.

    A20-10

North American Religions Section

Theme: Wrestling with the Modern: Reformers, Fundamentalists, and Showmen

What do an amateur theologian and public huckster, a globetrotting Civil War veteran who owned a stuffed baboon named Darwin, a Nobel Prize winning urban social reformer, and a New Testament scholar and proto-Fundamentalist have in common? This session considers the efforts by P.T. Barnum, Henry Steel Olcott, Jane Addams, and J. Gresham Machen to reconcile the advent of the modern era with traditional religion and their own deeply-held religious values and positions. The four figures represent nearly a century of American religious creativity and vitality in responding to the modern conditions of industrialization, urbanization, new scientific methods and their findings, shifting consumption patterns, and religious diversity. Although each of the subjects walked a separate path and fostered different religious changes, the themes of urbanism, pragmatism, science, and the modern constitution of “truth” recur through the papers.

There’s a Sucker Saved Every Minute: P. T. Barnum’s Theology of Humbug
Jeff Wilson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Phineas T. Barnum was an outspoken temperance advocate and promoter of Christian morality. And yet, Barnum worked his way into fame and fortune through the calculated use of deception. His promotion of such monstrosities as the Feejee Mermaid, Chang and Eng, and Jumbo was predicated on exaggeration and disguise. How then to reconcile the Janus-like nature of an upright Christian peddling hokum?

For Barnum, his circus and museum acted as engines for generating wonder. He re-enchanted a rapidly industrializing world, populating it with unicorns and other marvels. As a Universalist, Barnum knew that his audience was destined for salvation, and thus there was no need to preach to them about dogma. Instead, Barnum reconciled his piety and his hokum with a unique “theology of humbug”—by provoking wonder, even if through dubious means, he invited people to remember the gift provided by their maker: life in a world of marvels.

Oiling the Wheels of Progress: Henry Steel Olcott and the Construction of Scientific Buddhism
Benjamin Zeller, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Henry Steel Olcott is best known as co-founder of Theosophy, as well as contributor to the Buddhist and Hindu revivals in Japan, Ceylon, and India. But the (re)construction of Buddhism to possess the best of both liberal Protestantism and scientific modernism obsessed Olcott in the latter half of his life. This paper focuses on his reconstruction of Buddhism as a modern scientific religion, asking how Olcott understood his mission and how it illuminates wider cultural trends such as modernization, colonial globalization, and the advent of scientific hegemony. I propose that ultimately Olcott did not differentiate between the missions and methods of science and religion, understanding both as empirical pursuits of progress, unity, and order. Yet, Olcott reserved an ‘eminent domain’ for religion, positing that religious claims were the most efficient and accurate arbitrators of reality. In the end, Olcott made religion modern in order to make the modern religious.

“Holding Fast to the Vision of Human Solidarity”: Jane Addams on Religion and Social Reform
Emily R. Mace, Princeton University

In the late nineteenth century, technological developments and rapid immigration transformed America’s cities into their modern incarnations, and in response, reformers devised fresh solutions to new challenges. Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull-House, became one of the most famous advocates of the settlement house movement, in which residents sought to cure urban ills by “settling” in troubled neighborhoods. Her response drew from two inseparable sources: the theology of the Social Gospel and the emerging field of social science as expressed by progressive reform. Addams thoroughly integrated these methodologies to argue passionately for a conception of modern American life that held “fast to the vision of human solidarity.” Understanding Addams’s fusion of religion and social science will help us to more fully comprehend American responses to the implications of urbanization and modernity.

As a Matter of Fact: J. Gresham Machen’s Defense of the Metaphysical and the Moral
Brantley Gasaway, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

In the wake of modernism, scientific naturalism and the philosophy of pragmatism became dominant in American intellectual culture. As the leading apologist for “historic Christianity” in the early twentieth century, J. Gresham Machen refused to retreat from the epistemological challenges posed by modernity. Machen appropriated the empirical scientific language of “fact” necessary for intellectual credibility and relevance while simultaneously rejecting the presuppositions of naturalism. He viewed pragmatism as an impotent skepticism unable to provide guidance in metaphysical and moral matters. In addition to his sustained critique of Protestant Liberalism’s embrace of modern intellectual presuppositions, in the 1920’s Machen also began decrying the broader cultural implications of disregard for metaphysical and moral absolutes. Soon other public intellectuals such as Robert Maynard Hutchins, Walter Lippman, and Reinhold Niebuhr voiced strikingly parallel reaffirmations of metaphysical references and categories. Machen’s identification with conservative epistemology allowed him to offer early critiques of empiricism and pragmatism.

    A20-11

Religion in South Asia Section

Theme: Post-Hindutva?

Has the recent demise of the BJP in the central government of India signaled a larger downturn for the fortunes of the Hindu Right, both politically and ideologically? Or is Hindutva recasting itself for another era of power? For over a decade, scholars of religion in India have contended with the cultural and political ramifications of Hindu Right's startling success. Through revisions of the Aryan question in archaeology and history, to the rewriting of history textbooks in India, to attacks on scholars for their views of Hinduism, the politics of Hindutva have reached deeply into the public and political cultures of India, the international academy, and the worldwide South Asian diaspora. Our aim is to parse out 'Hindutva' from those sites of practice, ideology, and education that are within the scope of 'Hinduism'.

The Pseudo-Secularization of Hindutva and Its Campaign for Uniform Civil Codes
Purushottama Bilimoria, University of New York, Stony Brook

One plank of Hindutva ideology, from the RSS to Bajrang Dal, has been a persistent attack on minority groups, particularly the Muslims, in the context of the Uniform Civil Code. The Hindu Right has capitalized on the quiddity of Personal Laws vis-à-vis uniformity of civil codes as applicable to all Indians, regardless of religion, and arguably sanctioned in the Directive Principle. This anomaly forms the basis of an analysis of the BJP’s relentless charge of ‘pseudo-secularism’ in this as in various other quarters of a seemingly reform-resistant Indian polity. It turns on the inherent ambiguity in the very concept of ‘secularism’ its failure in the Indian context and flounders on the seams of caste politics and an increasing marginalization of minority communities, in a majoritarian political and cultural climate, which Hindu nationalism has long been pressed to defend and preserve.

Hindutva at the Margins of the State: Hindu Nationalism and Social Work
Kalyani Devaki Menon, DePaul University

I will examine how the Hindu nationalist movement capitalizes on the failures of a shrinking welfare state to position itself as the ‘protector and provider’ of the poor and marginalized. Through establishing schools, health clinics and vocational training workshops and doing ‘social work’ in the slums of New Delhi, Hindu nationalists reach out to those marginalized by the state and recruit them as citizens of an imagined Hindu nation. These venues become sites at which the movement is able to disseminate its values to diverse audiences. In order to create resonance with these diverse populations and continue its expansionary trend, the movement excludes expressions of overt cultural chauvinism, and uses Hindu practices and prayers as a way of identifying with and uniting people. In these venues the movement frames itself as a religious movement with a dharmic (moral) charter, rather than a political movement with a Hindu chauvinistic one.

Sanskrit in India: Beyond the Monochrome
Laurie Louise Patton, Emory University

Sanskrit has been frequently stereotyped by scholars (both Indian and Western) as the property of the Hindu right. Such stereotyping happens in both publications and informal “asides” in lectures and private conversations. There is truth to this stereotype in that the Sangh Pariwar has tried to co-opt Sanskrit as a symbol of the authentically “Indic.” But there is more to the story. This paper will draw upon a year’s worth of research in cities in India with Sanskrit scholars, mostly women, who do not fit this stereotype. I will analyze public scholarship, such as Sanskrit street plays about untouchability, Sanskrit dramas satirizing the academic system, and women who have worked to change the caste make-up of their departments. Many are openly critical of the Hindu right. While such perspectives may not be the norm, these case studies make the picture far more complex than most recent studies allow.

Presence, Absence, and Resemblance: Finding and Interpreting Hindutva in Northern California
Shana Lisa Sippy, Columbia University

The Hindu right’s reach is vast and it can be seen in Hindu contexts throughout the United States. Even while this country is home to hot-beds of Hindutva activity there are still places where Hindutva has not made such deep inroads. Based on research conducted over the past five years in California, this paper looks at sites where Hindutva’s status and role are not clear and seeks examine how Hindutva is present, absent and resembled in a variety of American Hindu expressions, such as temples, community centers, Indian groceries, and camps. The paper seeks to consider the nuances of Hindu articulations in the diaspora and to tries to offer some thoughts about how we might evaluate modern expressions of Hinduism and Hindu identity and their relationship to Hindutva, all the while making room for the fact that when things resemble Hindutva they are not necessarily synonymous with it.

    A20-12

Study of Islam Section

Theme: Topics of the Study of Qur'an and Sunna

Ikhrâj in the Qur’an: The Expulsion of the Muslims from Makkah at the Hijrah
Khalid Blankinship, Temple University

A considerable apparent contradiction exists between the sources for the Prophet Muhammad’s biography on the one hand and the Qur’ân on the other about the way his migration with the other Muslims to al-Madînah came about. The biographical historical tradition states that this move was voluntary, even if under pressure, and stresses the role of the Prophet and the Muslims as active protagonists, while the Qur’ân, to the contrary, emphasizes the expulsion of the Muslims from their native city by force and the fear and privation that they endured as a result. While the biographical tradition understandably deemphasizes the weakness and humiliation of the Muslims at the time, a rereading of the text of the Qur’ân makes much clearer the Muslims’ grievance against the Makkans, which became the original source of the wars of early Islam.

Taxonomies in Narrations about the Battle of Uhud and Their Role in Sira-Maghazi Literature
Alfons Teipen, Furman University

The Sîra of Ibn Ishâq (d.767 CE) in the recension of Ibn Hishâm (d. 833), the Kitâb al-Maghâzî of Muhammad b. `Umar al-Wâqidî (d. 822 CE) and the Kitâb al-Tabaqât of Muhammad b. Sa’d (d. 845 CE) are some of the earliest extant records of the communal memory of the historical beginnings of Islam.

This paper will study selected narratives about the important battle of Uhud (625 CE) in these three sources and analyze how variants in their respective narrative presentation can be utilized to learn more about each author’s / collector’s understanding of the Muslim community. Focusing on certain taxonomies and topoi in these varying presentations will allow us to appreciate different understandings of Muslim communal identity in these divergent accounts. These discrepancies are suggestive of differences reagrding the “location,” intended audience, and “Sitz im Leben” of each narrative.

Some Manuscript Evidence Concerning Al-Zamakhsharî’s "Umm al-Kashshâf" and "Khalaqa l-Qur’an"
Andrew J. Lane, University of Toronto

In the secondary literature, al-Zamakhsharî’s (d.538/1144) name invariably appears with a note saying that he was a Mu‘tazilite who wrote a Qur’ân commentary, ‘al-Kashshâf,’ in two years in Mecca; he calls this version the ‘umm al-Kashshâf.’ Such notes frequently add that he began/would have begun his commentary with a Mu‘tazilite ‘profession of faith,’ “Praise be to God who created the Qur’ân (al-hamdu li-llâh alladhî khalaqa l-Qur’ân).” On the basis of an examination of over 200 manuscripts of the ‘Kashshâf’ and its glosses, the author shows that al-Zamakhsharî copied the ‘umm al-Kashshâf’ from a rough draft, and that later he felt the need to ‘authenticate’ the ‘umm al-Kashshâf.’ In the second part of the presentation, the author shows that, not only is there no evidence to support the claim that the ‘Kashshâf’ began with a reference to the ‘creation of the Qur’ân,’ the evidence that is there supports the opposite view.

Gendering the Communal Body: Fasting in the Qur'an and the Hadith
Aisha Geissinger, University of Toronto

This paper will discuss ways that Muslim fasting, as presented in both the Quran and in Sunni canonical and sub-canonical hadith collections, (re)affirms and (re)inscribes particular constructions of gender upon individuals and communities. The actions that fasting Muslims must refrain from during daylight hours--eating, drinking and sexual acts--are activities that also express and perpetuate gender roles and gendered hierarchies in most societies. While the issue of fasting and gender in contemporary Muslim societies has attracted some recent scholarly attention, so far few text-based studies have been done on this topic. This paper surveys the different ways that the Quran presents gender in the verses that discuss fasting. Then, it discusses two noteworthy features of the discourse on fasting found in the hadith literature: the depiction of some early Muslim women as religious authorities on the subject of fasting, and the circulation of traditions which mandate male control of women's fasting.

Women in the Sunnah of Muhammad: ‘Amal ahl al-Madinah and Its Potential Impact on Women in Islam
Phillip Hoefs, Temple University

This paper will examine the historical legal debate over hadith and ‘amal ahl al-Madinah in order to provide insight into the topic of women in Islam. It will have several components, all leading to the need for scholars to re-examine this question for its impact on women. First it will give a brief overview of current scholarship on women in Islam and point out some of the tensions yet to be resolved. Then it will shift to the debate over ‘amal ahl al-Madinah and the ways in which it has been recently revisited, most notably by Yasin Dutton’s 'The Origins of Islamic Law,' in order to highlight some of the limitations of the hadith corpus. By building on Dutton’s work and utilizing additional scholarship the paper will conclude with a discussion of avenues of inquiry for future study that can more positively utilize the Sunnah in discussions of gender.

    A20-13

Study of Judaism Section

Theme: Gender, Feminism, and Orthodox Judaism

Assent to Ascent: Rabbinic Negotiations of Exile, Marriage, and Gender Relations
Gail Labovitz, University of Judaism

This paper explores the intersection of rabbinic concerns about gender hierarchy and Exile, notably as rabbinic texts discuss what is to be done when one member of a married couple wishes to reside in the Land, while the other resists. The Palestinian Talmud and the Tosefta suggest that the husband has more coercive power in such cases than does the wife. The Babylonian Talmud, however, posits gender parity, and suggests that either spouse can precipitate a divorce if unable to convince the other to reside in the Land. This latter addition is particularly intriguing in light of the fact that rabbinic sources regularly consider Exile in terms of God's 'divorce' of Israel, and divorce in terms of exile. Which takes precedence: the husband’s dominant position in marriage or the supremacy of the Land, the hierarchy of gender or the hierarchy of place? When is one most in exile?

Theological Approaches in Orthodox Feminism
Rochelle L. Millen, Wittenberg University

This paper will analyze and assess current Jewish feminist theological explorations and their implications for Orthodox Judaism. Included in the discussion are evaluations of the works of Pamela Nadell, Rachel Adler, Rochelle L. Millen, Tamar Ross, and Yehudah Gellman.

Cumulative Revelation and Orthodox Feminist Theology
Jerome Gellman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The concept of progressive or “cumulative” revelation has been advanced to provide a theological grounding to Orthodox feminism. In this paper I argue that the concept of cumulative revelation is problematic in its own right and of doubtful value for Orthodox Jewish feminism.

'Muggers in Black Coats': Gender and Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Jewish American Imagination
Nora L. Rubel, Connecticut College

This presentation examines two novels: Anne Roiphe’s Lovingkindness and Tova Mirvis’s The Outside World. Written two decades apart, both depict parental concern over the next generation’s return to Jewish tradition. While the first demonstrates the ongoing rift between secularism and orthodoxy and the second exposes the emergent schism within orthodoxy itself, both narratives are examples of a growing genre of American Jewish literature that exhibits the friction between children who have embraced ultra-Orthodox lifestyles and their less religiously observant parents. These works feature themes of “brainwashing” and “kidnapping” by the ultra-Orthodox, coinciding with a growing polarization between Orthodox Judaism and the more liberal Jewish movements. Using these narratives as examples, I will discuss popular imaginings of the ultra-Orthodox as they reflect anxieties of the non-Orthodox about gender and religious authority, as well as the fear of the rea1 or imagined growing power of the Orthodox over contemporary American Judaism.

    A20-14

Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group and Theology and Religious Reflection Section

Theme: A Critical Evaluation of Tomoko Masuzawa's The Invention of World Religions (University of Chicago Press)

This panel offers a critical evaluation of Tomoko Masuzawa's The Invention of World Religions, Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Masuzawa examines the emergence of the concept of 'world religions' in modern European thought, emphasizing relations between new classifications of language and of race. Panelists will bring their varied and broad expertise to bear on Masuzawa's analysis of this

'epistemic regime' that implicitly portrays Europe as 'a prototype of unity amidst plurality.'

    A20-15

Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group and Women and Religion Section

Theme: Writing Women's Theology in Asian North America

This panel discusses the theoretical frameworks and strategies for writing women's theology in Asian North America by focusing on three recent representative works. These works examine feminist Christology, the contours of postcolonial feminist theology, and faith practices of Korean American women. Situating in the in-between space of Asia and America, these writers have to negotiate complex identities and hybrid subject positions. They have to challenge patriarchal biases within their indigenous tradition as well as in Christianity. At the same time, they demystify and pinpoint racism in dominant white feminist theology. While destabilizing traditional theological constructions, they seek to provide resources for creative theological thinking that has implications for other racial minorities in the North American context. To facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and mutual critique, the panel will feature conversations among women of Asian North American, African American, Native American, Euro-American descent.

    A20-16

African Religions Group and Afro-American Religious History Group

Theme: The African Methodist Episcopal Church and Africa

The Other African Methodists in Philadelphia: Zoar United Methodist Church
J. Gordon Melton, Institute for the Study of American Religion

With the emergence of African American religious studies, much attention has been rightfully directed to the role of Richard Allen and the 1794 founding of Bethel Church, the mother congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal

Church. The overwhelming attention to Allen, however, has obscured the presence of the other African Methodists in antebellum Philadelphia, those who rejected Allen's leadership and in 1796 founded the Zoar Church, which

remained in association with the predominantly white Methodist Episcopal Church. Through the antebellum years, which this paper traces, Zoar carried the history of Philadelphia Black Methodism (which predates the founding of the first Methodist congregation) and had paralleled Bethel's success in attracting members. It leaders participated in the intense public debates in the Free Black community (especially relative to Colonization) and

spearheaded the effort for ordination of Black ministers in the MEC.

Africa and the Idea of the Heathen in A. M. E. Missions
Sylvester Johnson, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

This paper examines the pattern whereby A.M.E. missionaries contributed to the production of meanings about Africans and their historical religions as 'heathen.' The idea of the heathen was a powerful concept that vilified Africans and Native American religions in the early modern era. Although it had earlier been applied broadly to religions other than Judaism, Christian, and Islam, it also functioned as a troubling racial signifier--the heathen was non-white and evil. The anti-Africanness and religious hatred germane to this style of alterity is highlighted in the study.

The Lost of the African Centeredness of the A. M. E Church: Leaders, Leadership, Transition, and Lost: The Next Generation of A. M. E. C. Leaders 1839 – 1860
Ralph Watkins, Fuller Theological Seminary

In this paper I argue that after the passing of Bishop Richard Allen the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) begins to lose its roots and African centeredness. The first generation leaders were committed to the African in their name as well as the liberation mission of the AMEC. With the second generation of leaders emerging they are not as connected or rooted to the founding mission. As a result of this sociological phenomenon they begin to develop a bureaucracy and organizational structure that can accommodate the growth of the denomination. The development of this bureaucracy propels the organization into another phase of organizational life that moves the AMEC in another direction than its founders intended. By using the lens of organizational life cycle and institutional theory the development of the AMEC is charted in this paper.

A Trans-Atlantic Relationship: Orishatukeh Faduma and the AME Church
Moses N. Moore, Arizona State University

In 1887, Benjamin Tanner-editor of The AME Church Review received a letter from Freetown, Sierra Leone, introducing William J. Davis as a new subscriber. Davis informed Tanner that 'through Dr. Blyden, a veritable friend of the Negro, your Church Review came into my hands. A Negro indeed, of unmixed blood, I feel Proud that there is existing today a Review such as yours. I shall always read it with pleasure.' In closing, Davis asked, 'Will you, dear Mr. Editor, accept contributions from me either in verse or prose?' Tanner's answer in the affirmative resulted in Davis (AKA Orishatukeh Faduma) becoming an important contributor to the Church Review during a critical era in the history of both the journal and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This paper examines this relationship within the context of subsequent theological and ecclesiastical developments within the AME Church.

    A20-17

Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group

Theme: Self, Subjectivity, and Agency: Theories of Religious Being

Feminist Theory, Religion, and American History
Amy Black Voorhees, University of California, Santa Barbara

When women, religion, and American history intersect, two central problems emerge. One is a tendency towards descriptive reductionism. The other is that the field continues to operate primarily in “empowerment mode” despite the explanatory shortcomings of this approach. These two problems are both linked and discrete. They are linked by their common genesis in the need to grapple with what is generally considered the paradox of female agency, and by their interdependence. They are discrete in definition and scope. Together these problems impede sophisticated historical treatments in the field and compromise our understanding of women’s religious experiences. This paper outlines these two problems and suggests recuperative strategies based on a review of relevant theoretical work, particularly in the field of feminist philosophy. While this paper applies to a particular subfield of religious history, its observations and conclusions apply to much feminist work in the field of religious studies.

Exscripted Love: From a Feminine Body
William Robert, Louisiana Sate University

If “this is my body” says anything, Jean-Luc Nancy writes, it says it outside of speech, as an exscription addressed to a lost body. The body, it turns out, is ininscriptible; rather than being a part of existence, it is a figure of khora: giving place without taking place. The body has place only as a limit and as an opening, as the limit place that opens, that makes way for existence. The kind of body that Nancy imagines—other, plural, open, exposed—explodes any rhetoric of borders, of place, or of the proper. This paper explores what these consequences look like in terms of a feminine religious subjectivity by turning to Julia Kristeva’s work. Through figures such as khora and love that intertwine body and writing, it opens new and plural possibilities for mystical forms of love through which a feminine body comes to be the ex-position of God.

"Talking Back in Iran": Religious Discourse, Women's Agency, and a Rhetorical Turn
Elizabeth Bucar, University of Chicago

Is it possible to conduct “feminist” cross-cultural scholarship when the term “feminist” is contested? Drawing on fieldwork conducted with leaders in the Iranian women’s movement, this paper explores the ways in which secular feminist commitments can interfere with analysis of the actions of women within religious traditions and suggests the utility of developing a more nuanced account of women’s agency. I begin by considering two models of agency common in the fields of political philosophy and anthropology respectively: 1) autonomy and 2) habituation. I argue that neither of these models can account fully for the unanticipated arguments made by Iranian Shiite women. Drawing on Aristotle’s Ethics and Rhetoric, I propose an alternative theory of agency signaled by the phrase “back talk” which retains a measure of choice even as it acknowledges that traditions create the possibilities for rhetorical performance and response.

"I'll Help You Mommy": Autonomy and the "Ethics of Care" from the Perspective of Mothers with Disabilities
Nancy L. Eiesland, Emory University

Beginning with the experiences of mothers with disabilities, both in aggregate and individually, this paper challenges ethical and theological assumptions about them as recipients rather than providers of care. Further, the paper proposes a feminist account of reverence as means for representing the multiform nature of care and interdependence.

    A20-18

Japanese Religions Group

Theme: Projections and Representations of Religion in Japanese Media

This session aims to raise issues concerning the ways religions, or subjects that could be defined as religious, are projected and presented in a variety of Japanese media. Although there appears to be an assumption, particularly among scholars of new religious movements, that representation of religion and interactions between media and religion are generally negative, the situation is more complex and multi-faceted. Investigations into the representation of religious themes in both popular media and the internal media of religious organizations can provide clues regarding the transformation, legitimization, appropriation, and definition of religious ideas, concepts, and forms in society. The papers look at interconnections, convergences, and paradoxes that arise when considering religion in Japanese media. They will also reveal some of the complexities regarding media representation of religion, and the difficulties faced by media consumers (including scholars, who often rely on media interpretations) regarding assessments of religion in Japan.

    A20-20

Men's Studies in Religion Group

Theme: Masculinities in Varying Religious Commuities

This session will examine the construction and experience of masculinities in the contexts of Mormonism, Sikhism, and evangelical Christianity. The papers address fathering in an evangelical context, colonialism and its effects on Sikh masculinity, Christology in film and the masculinity it supports, and gender roles within Mormon masculinity.

Fatherhood and the Creation of Society: A Christian Ethical Response to W. Bradford Wilcox’s Soft Patriarchs, New Men
John Wall, Rutgers University

This paper argues for a new Christian ethical vision of fatherhood that incorporates the notion of “familism” described in Bradford Wilcox’s Soft Patriarchs, New Men, but in the direction of a further possibility that Wilcox himself does not consider: namely, a “critical familism” in which fathers are deeply committed to family life but within the framework of an egalitarian practice of child rearing aimed at the larger promise of creating a more just and good society. Placing fatherhood within a broader Christian ethical historical perspective, the paper orients men’s deeper responsibilities for child rearing, not around greater control in the home, but around the hard work of contributing through the home, in marriage and child rearing both, toward an ever more socially inclusive kingdom of God.

Muscular Mormonism: Gender Ideologies in an Era of Transition, 1890-1920
Amy Hoyt, Claremont Graduate University

From approximately 1880-1930, the Protestant and Mormon churches were experiencing a transition within their respective cultures. Within Protestantism, scholars have identified a masculinization process which occurred in response to a perceived strong feminine presence. Within Mormonism, their marriage system was shifting from polygamy to monogamy and with this change came an emphasis on rigid gender roles, including the masculinization of Mormon men. This paper will chart the ways in which a form of Mormon masculinity was clearly articulated during this era. Mormon masculinity looked surprisingly like the attempts to masculinize Protestantism, but with a twist.

Muscular Mormonism: Gender Ideologies in an Era of Transition, 1890-1920
Sara Patterson, Loyola Marymount University

From approximately 1880-1930, the Protestant and Mormon churches were experiencing a transition within their respective cultures. Within Protestantism, scholars have identified a masculinization process which occurred in response to a perceived strong feminine presence. Within Mormonism, their marriage system was shifting from polygamy to monogamy and with this change came an emphasis on rigid gender roles, including the masculinization of Mormon men. This paper will chart the ways in which a form of Mormon masculinity was clearly articulated during this era. Mormon masculinity looked surprisingly like the attempts to masculinize Protestantism, but with a twist.

(En)Gendered Sikhism: The Iconolatry of Manliness in the Making of Sikh Identity
Navdeep Mandier, Coventry, United Kingdom

In this paper I will attempt to justify the perversity of a proposition which posits the focus of Sikh studies as an object other than Sikhism. The lacuna within Sikh studies signalled by this assertion will be highlighted by problematizing the uncritical acceptance of a Sikh identity, here interrogated from the perspective of the male Khalsa subject, which has been surreptitiously reorganized in an encounter with the pernicious sympathy of modernity’s gaze. It will be argued that the corporeal signature of the Khalsa-pre-eminently the beard, turban and the conspicuous display of weapons- is supplementary to biological masculinity and that the revenant exists in between conflicting interpretations of this fact, the disavowal or affirmation of this supplementary body determining the manifestation of the Khalsa Sikh as either, a ghostly presence or, radically other.

“God, Man, Then ... Wait, How’d That Go?" Examining Emerging Gender Identities in Twenty-Something Evangelical Christians
Curtis Coats, University of Colorado

This paper will explore perceived gender roles among a group of 20-something Evangelicals involved in a large, non-denominational church in the Denver metro area. Specifically, the paper focuses on how the concept, “spiritual headship,” is negotiated in the lives of young Evangelicals and how the concept is reinforced and challenged in the institutional structure and official rhetoric of this particular Evangelical church. The paper directly engages Gallagher and Smith's (1999) notions of 'symbolic traditionalism' and 'pragmatic egalitarianism' by suggesting a broader typology of Evangelical discursive engagement with spiritual headship.

    A20-21

Platonism and Neoplatonism Group

Theme: Neoplatonism, Dead or Alive: Is Neoplatonism a Living Tradition? Part I

no abstact

Ancient Wisdom Revived: Neo-Platonism and the Theosophical Movement
Judy Saltzman, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

This essay argues that Neo-Platonism is very much alive and central to a spiritual philosophy called Theosophy, the Wisdom Religion. Theosophists contend that Platonism and Neo-Platonism with its doctrines of emanation, reincarnation and the human unity with a single Divine Source, have always been alive in secret schools , which went underground after the fall of Alexandria and Plato’s Academy. It will examine the claim that H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine (1888), and Grace Knoche in The Mystery Schools (1999) make that there is an unbroken line of teachers stemming from Pythagoras, Plato, and earlier, through Neo-Platonism to Theosophy in the 19th century and the present day. Theosophists hold that the driving force, which kept the mystery schools alive, was the universality of the Neo-Platonic ideas and their correspondence to Asian sources. Is this viewpoint substantiated or self-serving?

Aleister Crowley’s Theory of the Furores
Matthew Rogers, Northwestern University

In the early 20th century, Aleister Crowley appropriated and transformed the antique psychological model of the frenzies or enthusiasms from Plato’s Phaedrus. The frenzies were a staple of the Platonist tradition in antiquity and the Renaissance, and Crowley reinterpreted them to suit his psychologizing, anti-Christian, occultist agenda. Crowley’s rhetoric of magical tradition included appeals to Hellenic antiquity in general, and “the neo-Platonists” in particular. The 1912 article “Energized Enthusiasm” was the paradigmatic expression of his theories with respect to the frenzies. In it, Crowley reduced the four frenzies to three, and revalued “divine madnesses” as “human methods.” The erotic, mantic and prophetic enthusiasms became sexual, pharmaceutical and musical techniques of religious ecstasy, laying the groundwork for an ideology of “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.”

Contested Pagan Theologies: Then and Now
Robert Puckett, Georgia Perimeter College

In attempting to formulate a coherent theology to legitimate Wicca many contemporary Wiccans look back to the philosophies of their ancient pagan predecessors. However, just as in antiquity, there are competing schools of thought regarding the nature of the divine. Many Wiccans espouse an archetypal view of all gods and goddesses as aspects of one God and Goddess, echoing Apuleius' Isis, a universal goddess worshipped under many names. Some argue for a "pure polytheism" or a henotheistic devotion to patron gods. Others are pantheists with no personal conception of deity, and still others advocate a Neoplatonic panentheism in which the gods emanate from a single source. This paper seeks to analyze the contesting theologies of contemporary Wicca and to elucidate the ways in which Wiccans attempt to legitimate their theological interpretations through the use of classical sources and how these arguments influence and are influenced by the broader Neopagan movement.

Psychoanalysis as a Practice of Neoplatonic Mysticism
Dan Merkur, Toronto, ON, CANADA

The famous Kleinian analyst Wilfred R. Bion approached psychoanalysis through “Plato’s theory of Forms.” Bion’s theory began with the fact that psychotics’ hallucinations and delusions prove coherent when their unconscious meanings are interpreted. Because psychotics are incapable of coherence, their intelligibility attests to “pre-conceptions” that exist objectively. Bion conceptualized psychoanalysis as the analyst’s gathering of the patient’s “beta-elements,” affect-laden sensory data that cannot be linked into coherent thoughts, and their transformation into “alpha-elements,” or thoughts that can be used in thinking. Through interpretation, both the analyst and the patient think increasingly abstractly until they arrive (optimally) at the thought of “O,” the unknowable source of thought. Self-described as a mystic, Bion cited a roster of pagan and Christian Neoplatonists and recommended that analysts listen to patients in states of “reverie” “without memory and desire."

Roethke’s "Epidermal Dress": The Body’s Excessive Vitality and Becoming Divine
Jennifer Rapp, Stanford University

Throughout the course of his writing American poet Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) focused on embodiment. Considering Roethke as an extension of the platonic and neoplatonic traditions opens up the most significant features of both his work and the traditions themselves. Roethke’s understanding of embodiment would be difficult to appreciate apart from a consideration of the approaches to the body taken by Plato and Plotinus. Specifically, there are substantial, analogous relationships that can be drawn between Roethke’s and Plato’s use of animal and organic imagery to represent embodiment. Roethke and Plotinus share a concern with “the body’s excessive vitality” and its role in achieving, and frustrating, fulfilled states of the soul. The conceptual thread linking Roethke to Plato and Plotinus to be discussed: the soul is characterized by surfeit, and, embodied experience is the distinctively human way this surfeit is encountered, denigrated, or delivered.

    A20-23

Religion and Disability Studies Group

Theme: A Third Way: Religion as an Alternative to the Medical Model and the Social Model of Disability

Disability Studies speaks of disability in paradoxes. The Social Model shows how disability is socially constructed while the Medical Model places the 'problem' within the individual. Each of these models offers important insights to our understandings of disability, yet both include significant limitations and risks. This session highlights explorations of disability from religious or theological perspectives that attempt to develop a new 'third way' model for disability studies, one which more fully takes into account the complexity and diversity of individual and social experiences of disability.

Nondualistic Paradigms in Disability Studies and Buddhism: Creating Bridges for Theoretical Practice
Lynne Bejoian, Teachers College Columbia University

Arising from personal and scholarly concerns as to misperceptions of Buddhism within disability studies, this paper endeavors to explore current interpretations of Buddhism within disability studies context, critique disability studies’ assumptions about the value and relevance of this spiritual perspective, and use classic Tibetan Buddhist texts to pose a more current and socially relevant view of disability. Additionally, as a woman with a disability who is a practicing Buddhist, the author will bring a personal voice to this area of critical inquiry. Thus, as a scholar committed to disability studies and Buddhism, the author will explore the paradigm shift both “belief systems” present/expect one to make individually and socially to put theory into practice.

Disability in the Qur'an: The Islamic Alternative to Defining, Viewing, and Relating to Disability
Maysaa Bazna, College of Staten Island

The purpose of this study is to seek a first-hand understanding of the Islamic position and attitude towards disability by examining the primary sources of Islamic teaching—the Qur’an and the sayings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad. We search the Qur’an for references to such terms as blind, mute, deaf, lame, weak, orphan, destitute/needy, and wayfarer. We attempt to understand the intent of these terms by examining the roots of the Arabic words and investigating their possible synonyms; cross-referencing the Qur’anic verses containing the same terms; and confirming the meaning with the Hadith. We conclude that the concept of disability, in the conventional sense, is not found in the Qur’an. Rather, the Qur’an concentrates on the notion of disadvantage that is created by society and imposed on those individuals who might not possess the social, economic, or physical attributes that people happen to value at a certain time and place.

Disability, the Human Condition, and the Spirit of the Eschatological Long Run: Toward a P(new)matological Theology of Disability
Amos Yong, Regent University

The two dominant models of disability are the biomedical definition that emphasizes the curing of individual impairments and the social-constructivist model that focuses on the socio-political conditions produced by discourses on disability. Both models are operative in the biblical traditions. How then can we develop an alternative mode of theologizing disability that incorporates but is not limited to these perspectives? Nancy Eiesland’s proposal of Jesus Christ as “the disabled God” goes some ways toward this goal in redefining disability in anthropological, ecclesiological and theological terms. Its weakness, however, may be its incapacity to address the eschatological hope that motivates many persons with disability. I propose a pneumatological model of the Spirit as the “community-enabling God” that is able to appreciate and rehabilitate insights from the biomedical and social-constructivist models, even as it seeks to complement Eiesland’s proposal and contributes further to a more robust trinitarian and eschatological theology of disability.

Let Us Seek Not to Solidify: Analyzing Disability beyond the Organic or the Social
Lorna Hallahan, Flinders University

This paper develops a detailed and durable framework with which to analyse the ‘contemporary ordinary of disability.’ The paper explicates a phenomenological/relational understanding by combining three schemes to unfold disability: Julia Kristeva’s work on the variegated aspects of experience; Edward Said’s approach to contrapuntality; and Henrietta Moore’s schema for detailing the intersubjective construction of experience. The paper concludes that an intersubjective framework for analysing disability can contain the high levels of ambiguity that threaten to overwhelm any attempt to speak theoretically and theologically about disability. Perhaps more importantly this analytical framework constructs a deeply textured context from which to do theologies in ways that open pathways to positive change in the lives of people with impairments.

    A20-24

Religion and Popular Culture Group

Theme: Exploring the Research Agenda for the Study of Religion and Popular Culture

The study of Religion and Popular Culture has grown substantially over the past fifteen years with the setting up of the Religion and Popular Culture Group at the AAR as well as new specialist journals. The aim of this session is to provide an opportunity for scholars working in this field to discuss the achievements of the past fifteen years, and to explore the agenda for the next phase of research in Religion and Popular Culture. Panelists will begin this conversation by presenting their views on the key questions facing the study of Religion and Popular Culture, as well as the methodological issues that need to be addressed to develop increasingly sophisticated research in this area. The intention will be to draw as many perspectives as possible from participants in the session in order to clarify how the study of Religion and Popular Culture may usefully develop in the future.

    A20-25

Religious Freedom, Public Life, and the State Group

Theme: Religion, Politics, and the Moral Values Debate

No Abstract. See individual paper abstracts.

Abortion and the Politics of God: Why the Left Has Been Left Behind
Linda Ellison, Harvard University

This paper will investigate the ethical implications of the silence of the religious and political left on matters of religion as it relates to abortion. The paper will also propose ways the left may engage the realm of religion in the abortion debate. The paper will specifically draw upon the personal narratives of 729 religious women interviewed by the presenter. These are women who have undergone abortions and have grappled with reconciling and re-imagining their own religiosity/spirituality in the midst of their termination and the public debate.

Moral Effectiveness of Voices on the Religious Left: Seeking Integration via the Paradigm of Nonviolence
Eli Sasaran, Graduate Theological Union

Although deep commonalities exist across religions, the voice heard most often in American public discourse is the religious right. How can the voice of the religious left become more effective in public discourse? How can we enrich the dialogue of an American ecumenical ethic, especially in the context of globalization and re-occurring violence? I explore these questions, with a focus on the moral message of the religious left. First, I briefly describe the situation of the religious right and left. Second, I investigate voices from the religious left, such as Michael Learner, Rev. Jim Wallis, Sr. Joan Chittister, and Michael Nagler. Third, I consider the paradigm of nonviolence as a path to deeper integration of the religious left. My paper argues that the paradigm of nonviolence seems to integrate these voices on the religious left into a more clear, inspiring, and effective moral message for public discourse.

"Moral Values" and the Presidential Election: A Historical Overview of Protestantism and Politics Since the 1960s
Darryl Victor Caterine, Grinnell College

The contemporary conflation of religion and politics in presidential elections can be traced back to the Neoconservative Movement of the 1970s. This presentation offers an analysis of neoconservative historiography, particularly its erasure of the Civil Rights Movement and the attendant issues of injustice in the articulation of a political philosophy. By erasing the Movement as a constitutive political force of the 1960s, neoconservative intellectuals are able to narrate the events of this decade as an irreligious challenge to the legitimacy of the American nation state. Since the 2004 presidential election, religious and Democratic Party leaders have begun to revisit the prophetic Protestantism of the 1960s' counter-culture as a religious and moral language for future elections. The emerging religious politics of the American presidency revive earlier, twentieth century debates between theologians of Neo-Orthodoxy and the Social Gospel, problematizing the meaning of 'moral values' in a historically broader context of American Protestantism.

The Dignity of Politics: Philosophy, Religion, and the "Consent of the Governed"
Joseph S. Pettit, Morgan State University

In current debates about values in politics, little attention is paid to values that are intrinsic to the democratic political process. The failure to attend with care to our understanding of the values present in the democratic political process itself has reduced democracy to a means in service to other ends, rather than an end in itself. As a result, disagreement becomes divisiveness and fellow citizens become combatants who are either friend or foe. In this paper, I argue that at least some portion of these problems is caused by equating consent with material, or substantive, agreement regarding the content of political outcomes, rather than with moral agreement regarding the procedure from which these outcomes are produced. Thus, I propose that as part of current debates about values in politics we should reconsider what we affirm and what we value in 'the consent of the governed.'

    A20-26

Schleiermacher Group

Theme: Part II of Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre (The Christian Faith): On Sin, Redemption, and Christ (Second of a Four-Year New Investigation of Schleiermacher's Magnum Opus)

This will be the second year of the Group’s reexamination of Schleiermacher’s magnum opus, The Christian Faith (Glaubenslehre). Last year we focused on Part I. This year we shall focus on the first half of Part II: on sin, Christ, and redemption, and faith. The papers this year are exceptional, not only because of their quality of scholarship but also because each is daring and novel in its approach and therefore each promises to break new ground in the field.

The format will be as follows: Papers will be available in advance (see below); brief presentations will be made, with discussion after each paper; and a round-table discussion at the end.

Papers for this session will be posted in mid-October at the Schleiermacher Group's "Yahoo! Group" website. AAR members wishing to join the Schleiermacher Group and access this website should contact Brent Sockness at sockness@stanford.edu.

Christ the Bearer of the Divine Love: Christ’s Person and Work in the Theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher
Jacqueline Marina, Purdue University

According to Schleiermacher’s understanding of Christ’s work, Jesus saves through his perfect expression of the divine love and the subsequent impartation of his perfect God-consciousness. It is Christ’s person forming activity that is salvific. This paper explores how Schleiermacher envisions this person-forming character of Christ’s redemptive activity, paying particular attention to its psychological, social, and historical dimensions. Important in this regard is Schleiermacher’s understanding of the corporate character of sin and his understanding of what it means to be a self. Because human beings are so interdependent on one another, the sin of one person implicates the whole race. However, this interdependence also makes it possible for the salvation of all to be accomplished in the life of one person. The transforming power of Jesus’ God-consciousness is transmitted to others in the historical and social arena and in this way becomes salvific for each person and for the entire community.

Schleiermacher on Sin and Redemption: Continuity and Change
Walter E. Wyman, Whitman College

Schleiermacher on Sin and Redemption: Continuity and Change

According to Schleiermacher, in Christianity “everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth” (Christian Faith §11). To think about the Christian faith as Schleiermacher understood it is to think about the dynamics of sin and redemption. My paper investigates Schleiermacher’s thinking about the heart of Christianity, sin and redemption, focusing on the problem of continuity and change. It will seek to sort out the genuinely revisionist or New Protestant components from the points of strong continuity with the theologies of Old Protestantism. How does Schleiermacher conceive of sin and redemption? Wherein lies the novelty of his discussion–what is revisionist or “New Protestant” about it? Wherein lies the continuity with the tradition–what is Old Protestant about it? How successfully has Schleiermacher solved the problem he sought to solve, that is, to work out a middle way between orthodoxy and rationalism?

Faith as Communion with Christ in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics
Dawn A. De Vries, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

One of the remarkable things about Schleiermacher’s systematic theology, the Glaubenslehre, or “doctrine of faith,” is that it has no locus de fide—no sustained discussion of the concept of faith itself. In various places within Der christliche Glaube, Schleiermacher identifies faith in a number of ways; in order to draw out his definition of faith comprehensively, then, many different sections of the system must be consulted. In this paper, I attempt to provide such a comprehensive account of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of faith, arguing that union or communion with Christ is his central definition of faith. Further, I contend that faith so understood provides the subjective correlate to the christological structure of Part II of the Glaubenslehre. Throughout my paper, I locate his discussion of faith within the confessional context that he himself points to in the references listed under his leading propositions.

Schleiermacher’s View of Resurrection in Relation to Redemption, the Naturzusammenhang, and Eschatology
Nathan D. Hieb, Princeton Theological Seminary

The Glaubenslehre provides the context for this exploration of Schleiermacher’s understanding of Christ’s resurrection in relation to redemption (Propositions 100-105), the conditions imposed upon this understanding by his preceding treatment of the nature-system, and the profound implications of this understanding for eschatology. My central claim is that, in spite of his affirmation of the historicity of Christ’s resurrection (Proposition 99), Schleiermacher proceeds to empty the resurrection of redemptive significance in the work of Christ, thereby maintaining consistency with a Naturzusammenhang that implicitly disallows miracles, and resulting in an eschatology in which the resurrection of individual believers may only be posited in severe tension with the consummation of the Church. Thus, the weight of Schleiermacher’s consistent argumentation regarding redemption, the nature-system, and eschatology suggests that there is little room for literal resurrection in the Glaubenslehre in relation to either Christ or individual believers.

    A20-27

Daoist Studies Consultation

Theme: Daoist Studies: Problems and Prospects

This panel explores the state of the field of Daoist Studies, a self-reflective discussion of requisite skills and evaluative criteria, and theoretical issues in Daoist Studies, specifically new interpretative models for understanding and teaching Daoism.

“The Bright Dao Appears Dark”: Is Early Daoism Possible?
Thomas Michael, George Washington University

Early Daoism remains an enigma for scholars who deal with it in their research and teaching. The important controversy centers on the religious nature of Chinese Daoism: does it become a tradition only with the revelation of Laojun (Lord Lao) to Zhang Daoling in 142 CE, or is there some connection between this institutionalized Daoist religion and what went on in the textualized ideas that circulated centuries before? This paper presents ideas on teaching early Daoism as a tradition of discourse that is identifiable by a shared understanding of the pristine Dao. These writings constitute a vibrant tradition of discourse that illuminates a way of thinking and living that owes relatively little to non-early Daoist writings. The importance of this for teaching and research is that it can open new ways to understand the role and position of early Daoism in relation to early Chinese thought and later Chinese religion.

Pedagogical Prospects: Daoist Studies and Material Culture
Jason Steuber, University of Missouri-Kansas City & Nelson-Atkins Museum

Daoist Studies integrates disciplines emphasizing historical and contemporary materials. However, it must remain self-reflexive to avoid pedagogical “textual bias.” The Daoist Studies group can avoid bias by incorporating non-textual materials in pedagogy and interpretation.

Questions to voice include: Would more publications of Daoist art and material culture, without equal increases in access to Daoist works on public display, be sufficient to improve scholarly discourse? How can Daoist material culture collections and education programs be integrated pedagogically?

I suggest two project proposals focused on publications and access. First, a list of Daoist material culture collections must be generated. Knowledge of and access to collections will benefit the group. Second, “textual bias” can be addressed by developing a database of archaeological materials in China. Surprisingly, extant Daoist material culture is often unearthed alongside Buddhist works. With the database, the group could interpret why a difference between Daoist Studies and Buddhist Studies exists.

Ecology and the State: The Politics and Prospects of Daoist Studies
James Miller, Queen's University

This paper examines how scholars have constructed of an affinity between Daoism and ecology that is not only underpinned by a romantic Orientalist reading of Daoist philosophy and religion, but also serves the logic of modernization and nationalism that forms part of the ideology of the Chinese state. In order to legitimate themselves in the eyes of the state, it is in the interests of Daoist institutions to be seen to help build the future of modern socialist China through promoting an ecological consciousness among the masses. This paper argues that it is the task of contemporary Daoist Studies to analyze the ways in which this powerful affinity between Daoism and ecology has come to be constructed and the way in which this affinity functions in terms of the historic relationship between China's religious institutions and the state. In conclusion it examines the obligations of the modern scholar of Daoism.

Reception Theory, Martial Arts, and Daoism in the West: An Interpretative Model in Cultural and Religious Transfers Studies
Dominic LaRochelle, Université Laval

This article proposes an interpretative model derived from reception theory, as developed in the field of literature by Jauss, Iser and Fish. This theory is not only relevant to the study of Daoist traditions in the West, but also to any tradition, religious or otherwise, that traverses the bridge from Asia to Western societies, and vice versa. Reception theory claims that the meaning of a text comes not from the text as a self-sufficient object or from the intention of its author, but rather from the act of reading. It is thus the analysis of the experience of the reader within a specific frame of reference which is relevant to the reception theorist. This paper argues that throughout Taiji quan books, one can clearly perceive a redefinition of Daoism functioning within a specific frame determined by martial arts practice and by a modern Western context.

    A20-28

Death, Dying, and Beyond Consultation

Theme: Continuities and Discontinuities: Contemporary Cross-Cultural Approaches to the Study of Death

This is the inaugural session of the Consultation: Death, Dying, and Beyond. This new program unit will endeavor to examine death from any and every angle of religious studies. Our first session includes papers covering a wide swath of contemporary approaches to the study of death, from a varied and cross-cultural perspective.

Pagans, Death, and Dying
Michael F. Strmiska, Central Connecticut State University

This paper involves the intersection of two different research projects that the author has been involved with for some time. The first project is doctoral research on Indo-European Afterlife Beliefs, focusing on ancient Scandinavian and Vedic-Hindu traditions. The second project is research on contemporary Pagan or Neopagan, New Religious Movements in Northern and Eastern Europe, specifically Iceland and Lithuania. Building on these research projects, the paper investigates the afterlife beliefs professed by contemporary Pagans or Neopagans, that is, Wiccans, Celts and Druids, Norse Heathens, others, who claim to be continuing religious traditions of the pre-Christian European past. The paper will examine the extent to which modern Pagans are carrying on documented beliefs from the Pagan past versus the degree to which they are adding or combining elements from contemporary culture. The author will touch on recent fieldwork in Lithuania in 2004/05.

The Changing Role of the Vajrayāna in the Good Death: Tibetan Buddhist Liberation in Modernity
Eve L. Mullen, Mississippi State University

This paper explores changes to Tibetan Buddhist death rites and interpretations of the Bardo Thödol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) in exile and the west. Regulations on body disposal and lack of available monks for performing rituals influence funeral rituals in exile, and adaptations of death rites for western popular use also affect Tibetan traditions. The paper describes such changes and adaptations in modern Vajrayāna, observed in recent funeral rituals in Tibetan communities, the uses of Tibetan Buddhism in the Living and Dying Project in San Francisco, and the influence of the Chinese invasion of Tibet and subsequent mass deaths of Tibetans upon the Vajrayāna perspectives on death today. The author concludes that the Buddhist virtuous life is still one according to the Buddha’s dharma and compassion, one in which death’s presence is a vital impetus for attaining Buddhist virtues.

Death and Dying in Traditional Islamic Spirituality: A Sufi Saint in America
Gisela Webb, Seton Hall University

This paper will look at the teachings and community practices regarding death and dying established by the twentieth century Sri Lankan Sufi teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who founded a community in Philadelphia in 1972. His mazar (burial shrine) outside of Philadelphia serves as traditional sacred space, perhaps the first Sufi saint shrine and pilgrimage site in the United States. Bawa’s discourses on Qur’an, hadith, and traditions on individual or cosmic transformation and death –such as Muhammad’s paradigmatic Isra’/Night Journey--form a contemporary example of classic Islamic mystical theology, and practical advice, on “dying before death.”

Impromptu Memorial Shrines: Mediators of Ongoing Connection with the Dead in Contemporary U.S. Popular Religiosity
Denis Thalson, Graduate Theological Union

This paper demonstrates that impromptu memorial shrines function as places of mediation between the memorial builders and their loved dead. Memorial builder respondents in a study by geographers Charles Collins and Charles Rhine expressed a conviction that the place of death held more of that person’s essential presence than the grave, which held only the dead body. Collins and Rhine, did not choose to elaborate on the functional importance for the builders of the memorial place. However, in this paper I extend the intimations in their study to suggest that memorial shrines constructed at or near the place of death reveal the imperative of marking the death place itself because to do so establishes and maintains a palpable ongoing connection with the deceased loved one in the minds of the memorial builders.

Death Rituals in Tsunami-Devastated North Sumatra and in Remote Irian Jaya
E. Randolph Richards, Ouachita Baptist University

On December 26, 2004, a 9.0 earthquake, the subsequent tsunami, and the ensuing devastation have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Aceh province of North Sumatra. Most coastal villages had death rates above 75%, rendering it impossible to provide appropriate death rituals for the deceased.

In the past century, travel in Aceh has been forbidden to most foreigners. Since January 2005, international aide workers have been provided a temporary glimpse into this region. Most of the research for this paper comes from case studies and field interviews/observations in Aceh. This data will be compared to previous work I have done on death rituals among Dani tribesmen in the Baliem Valley of Irian Jaya. These two Indonesian tribes, the Acehnese and the Dani, are separated by over 5,000 miles, 10,000 islands, and two religions; yet there are striking similarities in the more indigenous elements of their death rituals.

    A20-29

Open and Relational Theologies Consultation

Theme: Theologies of Mission in a Pluralistic Age

Open and relational theologians have typically embraced a theology of religions that prizes inclusivism or some form of pluralism. In this session, presenters consider what open and relational theology might contribute to a theology of missions. Among the topics discussed are apologetics, evangelism, pluralism, process thought, evangelical theology, interreligious dialogue, and missiology.

Reversing Mission: Relational Resources for Bearing Witness to the Other
Donna Bowman, University of Central Arkansas

Pre-twentieth century theologies of religions tended to essentialize both Christianity and other religions, yet subjected only the other religions to abstraction from their historical contexts and particularities. Such imbalance and selectivity became untenable with the rise of the historical consciousness and the social sciences. However, these same tools can be used to discover the resources available in Christian history and practice for theorizing mission. With eyes wide open to the full contingent reality of the Other, and with ears sensitized to the voice of Christ emerging from many times and places, we may construct a relational theology of mission that reverses the hierarchy in which the missionary represents Christ and the missionized represent the world’s sinners. Such a mission will stress finding Christ in the Other rather than bringing Christ to the Other, and embracing the contingent web of relationships that brings both parties together.

A Paragon for Relational Theological Apologetics in a Pluralist Society: Newbigin’s Approach as a Way Forward for Evangelical Theological Epistemology
Steven Sherman, Winebrenner Theological Seminary

Lesslie Newbigin’s approach to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue ought to serve as a way forward for relational evangelical theological apologetics in a pluralist society. His holistic theological method, including his call to civil and constructive dialogue both within and beyond Christian academia, requires emulation among evangelical scholars; it entails adopting a scholarly believing criticism or critical anti-criticism stance, along with an attitude of genuine openness, as well as dedication to painstaking effort, time, sacrifice, and patience. Hopefully, such a move will generate a broadening consensus as to authoritative sources and humble apologetics respecting theological knowledge: especially among scholars open to considering a wide variety of views both within and beyond evangelicalism. Newbigin’s willingness to learn and to change, his attitude of true appreciation and patient understanding of others and their perspectives, and his ability to hold in tension confessional and open stances regarding theological epistemology, merits imitation among Christian theologians.

Rethinking Dualisms: An Interreligious Approach
Michelle Voss Roberts, Emory University

The vision of the divine relationship to the world as one of connection and horizon is a fundamental contribution of open and relational theologies for grounding interreligious dialogue. This paper explores how to arrive at (or return to) this vision interreligiously –completing the hermeneutical circle of method and content. I argue that approaching the “dualisms” of non-Western traditions (here, Samkhya-Yoga metaphysics) with a relational template enables Western traditions to rethink the nature of their own dualistic foundations. By way of return from the other, interreligious dialogue can enable theologians to rethink the nature of divine and human transcendence without capitulating to separative, hierarchical antinomies.

Process Theology and Religious Pluralism: Evangelism as Deep Listening
Jay McDaniel, Hendrix College

In Understanding Theologies of Religion Paul Knitter shows how in recent Christian history three attitudes toward other world religions have emerged: a replacement model, a fulfillment model, and a mutuality model. Process theologians expand the mutuality model by (1) by offering a theology of listening, suggesting that humans can 'feel the feelings' of one another across cultural and religious divides; (2) offering a theology of evangelism, which interprets missionary activity, not as a seeking of converts, but rather as the promotion of friendship between people of different religions, wherein diversity is honored within limits, and, most deeply; and (3) suggesting that the divine reality is itself an ongoing act of deep listening, which is itself creative transformed by relations with the world. This means that as Christians listen to people of other religions and allow themselves to be transformed by their wisdom, they are extending the healing ministry of Christ.

    A20-30

Signifying (on) Scriptures Consultation and SBL's Signifying (on)Scriptures Group

Theme: Theorizing Signifying Traditions and Practices

Panelists will discuss signifying traditions and practices in various parts of the world and relate such to the phenomenon of 'scriptures.'

    A20-34

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Doctoral Student Workshop for Teaching: Systematic Theology to Latinos and Latinas

The AETH (Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana), through funding granted by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, is sponsoring a project entitled "Pedagogia: Teaching Latinos and Latinas in Theology." In connection with this project, non-Latino/a doctoral students in systematic theology who intend to become professors are invited to attend a workshop that will offer insights, techniques, and resources useful in teaching systematic theology to Latinos and Latinas. The workshop will be presented by Jeanette Rodriguez (Seattle University) and Ruben Rosario (Saint Louis University). Advanced registration is REQUIRED and space is limited to 20 doctoral students. To register or for more information, please contact Ruben Rosario at roasarir@slu.edu.

    A20-33

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Wabash Student-Teacher Luncheon

The Wabash Center and AAR Graduate Student Task Force cordially invite AAR and SBL doctoral Student Members to this lunch gathering with experienced faculty mentors to share conversation about teaching. What influenced your choice to become a teacher? What opportunities have you had to develop your teaching skills? What joys and frustrations do you experience in teaching? What assistance do you have in developing as a teacher?

Participation is by advance registration only, limited to the first 75 doctoral Student Members whose registration the AAR receives. (Overflow registration is accepted in case of cancellations or late arrivals.) Eligibility is limited to doctoral students nearing completion of study who have teaching experience or will soon be teaching, and who have not previously participated in this annual event. Seating is assigned in advance, so if you register and do not attend, your presence will be missed. Lunch is provided. Separate registration is required.

    A20-50

Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group

Theme: The Interpreted Bonhoeffer

To what extent is the publicly known and much revered Bonhoeffer a creation of his primary interpreter Eberhard Bethge? To what extent does the historical Bonhoeffer depart from Bethge's presentation of him? This session features well-known Bonhoeffer scholars asking difficult questions. It will be of interest not only to those concerned with Bonhoeffer in particular but to all those interested in questions of historical and theological legacy.

The two sessions of the Bonhoeffer Group at this year's AAR meetings are deliberately constructed in parallel with each other to address different dimensions of the ways Bonhoeffer is interpreted today. We encourage you to attend both sessions.

The Quest for the Historical Bonhoeffer
Victoria Barnett, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

In much of the Bonhoeffer literature, the “historical” and the “theological” Bonhoeffer have been conflated. Bonhoeffer’s role in history has been “theologized”, shaped by interpretations of him as a Christian martyr. Yet, in much of the historical literature on the Nazi era, Bonhoeffer is a fairly minor figure. How can we understand Bonhoeffer historically, and does a historically grounded study of Bonhoeffer yield new insights into his theological legacy? This paper will begin with an overview of the Bonhoeffer literature from the fields of theology, ethics, history, and Holocaust studies, identifying some of the questions that arise when Bonhoeffer is studied from these different perspectives. The analysis will then turn to the material in the Bonhoeffer Works, including previously unpublished material that sheds new light on Bonhoeffer’s role in history. The paper will conclude with an attempt to bring this historical information into dialogue with the historical and theological scholarship.

Eberhard Bethge: Interpreter Extraordinaire of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
John de Gruchy, University of Cape Town

Eberhard Bethge was undoubtedly Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s close friend. He was also the person Bonhoeffer appointed as executor of his literary estate, a task that Bethge undertook with immense energy and commitment over more than forty years after the Second World War. But Bethge was far more than friend, and more than editor of Bonhoeffer’s works; he was also the major interpreter of Bonhoeffer's legacy. This paper explores this role, one that was evident during Bonhoeffer’s life and developed in a remarkable way after his death. To what extent is the Bonhoeffer we know the Bonhoeffer received through Bethge’s experience and reflection? How did Bethge’s interpretation develop, and did it change over the years? How has Bethge become the paradigmatic interpreter of Bonhoeffer, influencing the way others have interpreted him? And does our knowledge of Bethge as interpreter of Bonhoeffer shed light on the task of theological interpretation as such?

Bonhoeffer and the Jews: Bethge and Beyond
Stephen R. Haynes, Rhodes College

For the past twenty-five years, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s relationship to Jews and Judaism has been dominated by his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge’s conclusion that “there is no doubt that Bonhoeffer’s primary motivation for entering active political conspiracy was the treatment of the Jews by the Third Reich.” Recently, however, new critical light has been shed on Bonhoeffer’s theology and actions vis-à-vis Jews by historians, theologians, and officials at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Where do things stand in 2005? This paper will address this question by reviewing recent developments related to Bonhoeffer and the Jews and by assessing the extent to which they problematize the Bethge thesis that has held sway for so long. In the process, much will be revealed about the 'quest for the historical Bonhoeffer,' Bethge’s role as his primary interpreter, and about the scholarly and popular forces that interact in remembrance of Bonhoeffer.

    A20-51

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Women in Religion - Thriving, Not Just Surviving: A Conversation with Mary E. Hunt, Editor of A Guide for Women in Religion

Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies (1992) framed women's entry into the field of religion in terms of their basic “survival”: balancing career and family, finding one's voice, handling commuting partnerships, negotiating contracts, building the case for tenure, etc. Now an updated view for the twenty-first century, A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z (2004), looks beyond women merely surviving to aim at their thriving in religion. Structural challenges to this persist in various forms, including sexism, racism, economic injustice, and the effects of colonial and patriarchal traditions. But new questions also have arisen: choosing among various career alternatives (administration, publishing, libraries and technology, nonprofits, ministry, etc.), teaching on-line, moving from associate to full professor, facing retirement, and moving into emerita status. Come join a lively discussion of these and other related topics with the editor, Mary Hunt.

    A20-52

Special Topics Forum

Theme: The Marty Forum

The recipient of the 2005 Martin Marty Award for contributions to the public understanding of religion is John L. Esposito, Founding Director of Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, Professor Esposito is the author of over 30 books, including Muslims' Place in the American Public Square: Hope, Fears, and Aspirations (2004).

The Marty Forum provides an informal setting in which Dr. Esposito will talk about his work with journalist Caryle Murphy of the Washington Post, and engage in discussion with the audience.

    A20-53

Special Topics Forum

Theme: What the Study of Mormonism Brings to Religious Studies: A Special AAR Session Organized on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s Birth

Jan Shipps, whose case study approach virtually set the framework for the study of Mormonism within religious studies, will present a paper designed to provide contours for the reflections of five well-known scholars of religion. These contributors have been invited to consider the question of how treating Mormonism as a case study might enrich their own fields of specialization. Briefly outlining the current situation in which, even though more of its members reside outside than inside the U.S., the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the now the fourth largest church in the nation, Shipps will describe how religious studies helps to explain how this once provincial tradition embedded in particular geographic places and idiosyncratic cultures is managing to make itself at home in myriad places and cultures. From their multiple perspectives, the panelists will consider what the study of Mormonism can add to the scholarly study of religion.

    A20-54

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Posters Session

Madame President? An Analysis of Christianity’s View of Women in Leadership and the Dilemma of Women Caught between Radical Feminism and Traditional Exclusion
Prior Holland, Azusa Pacific University

This paper integrates a survey of the current leadership status of women in the U.S. with feminist biblical interpretation supporting women leaders in all spheres of life. Current leadership in Protestant Christian communities and the broader society do not reflect that women are qualified to hold all the same leadership positions as men. I argue that Christians ought to actively affirm women leaders. Recognizing that individual women and men have skills and traits that both duplicate and complement each other, gender equality in leadership selection will provide complimentarity gains. Thus, I argue that Christians must recognize gender differences but not value one gender above the other. Individuals ought to seek role models to develop their leadership abilities; churches need to promote, rather than oppose, female leadership; and the broader society ought to promote both genders to the highest positions of leadership, including the U.S. presidency, based on needs and competence.

From Sanctuary to Sidewalk: Black Religious Iconography in Philadelphia
Matthew Hunter, Temple University

Drawing on the work of Josiah Young, Vincent Wimbush and James Cone, I will describe the form and function of Philadelphia’s African American murals as religious iconography. The Black religious iconography of murals in Philadelphia has continuity with African and Christian traditions of iconography and ancestor veneration.

Foundational to both practices is a deep theology of incarnation. However, these icons also function to claim space through the construction of an-other world-in-marronage that subverts and resists the previous order of things.

Social Scientific Approach to Studying Christian Conversion Narratives
Sang Bok Lee, Kangnam University

The author studied the relationship between Christian adults’ psychosocial factors affecting religious conversion and their conversion narratives. The narrative themes of Christian adults’ conversion stories demonstrated some significant turning points in their autobiographical memories. In this study, the author measured the converters’ stress level and anxiety level, as related to their conversion narrative themes and spiritual well-being. The author selected dramatic conversion group (n=25) and gradual conversion group (n=25), and identified major psychosocial factors influencing dramatic Christian conversion. Dramatic conversion group showed a higher score in the domain of transcendental (p<0.05) in the spiritual well-being score. In the dramatic conversion group, conversion was considered as the first among the significant life events. The members of gradual conversion group reported less stressful life events (p<0.05) and better adjusted to their life environment.

Grassroots Interreligious Organizations: An Emerging Religious, Social, and Political Phenomenon in the United States
David O'Malley, Cleveland State University

This presentation provides an overview of descriptive qualitative research exploring the emerging nature of grassroots interreligious organizations in the United States. It considers the effect on the individuals and institutions participating in this work, as well as the development of three potential organizational missions: 1) the fostering of dialogue among different traditions, 2) addressing unmet human needs through service and 3) advocating for change through corporate and governmental policy. This research holds implications for both theory and practice in light of emerging religious pluralism. This topic is relevant to scholars of religion and other disciplines, as well as practitioners in religious leadership, health, education, social services and law. Interreligious organizations serve as critical organizational structures in communities. Similar to other religious institutions they provide a shared sense of purpose by mobilizing people and resources to address various issues of concern in a community.

Economics and Religion Research Group
Paul Oslington, University of New South Wales, Australia

Despite a Nobel Prize awarded for economics, and its enormous contemporary cultural importance, economic theory has received little attention from religion scholars. A research group recently established in Canberra Australia, (supported by a grant the Metanexus Institute/ with funding from the John Templeton Foundation) is developing the economics and religion dialogue. This group brings together the research universities and theological institutions in Australia’s national capital, Canberra. Convenors are : Dr Paul Oslington, (University of New South Wales/ADFA), Professor Geoffrey Brennan (Australian National University), and Associate Professor Stephen Pickard (St Marks National Theological Centre). We are keen in our poster session to make contact with other scholars interested in issues at the interface of economics and theology. We are also exploring the possibility of a new AAR consultation or group on economics and religion.

Role-Playing the Trials of Jesus and Paul: An Introduction to the New Testament
Adam Porter, Illinois College

My poster describes how my Introduction to the New Testament Class uses role-playing to encourage students to engage with (familiar?) texts in new and interesting ways. Students enact the trials of Jesus and Paul, by playing different roles to persuade the 'Roman' student group to agree with them about what to do with the defendants. Students need to read primary source material closely to do well in the trial; they also need to interact with each other and participate in the trial's discussions. I will also report my assessment of how well the new course met my initial goals for the class and how I plan to further modify it the next time I teach it.

Path-Goal Theory Made Flesh: Mordecai, Esther, and the Road to Purim
Kim Seitz, Azusa Pacific University

Path-Goal Theory is a leadership theory that focuses on empowering others to accomplish the tasks necessary to achieve the goals of a group. The book of Esther tells a story rife with empowerment. Mordecai repeatedly empowers Esther to take risks on behalf of her people. Ultimately, Esther empowers her people to defend themselves from annihilation. Evans and House developed four leadership styles: directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership. The purpose of these styles is to enable subordinates to achieve desired group objectives. This paper will discuss recent developments in this theory. It will then consider this theory in light of the book of Esther to creatively evaluate how Ahasuerus, Mordecai, Haman, and Esther measured up as leaders. Once a comparison has been made, this literary investigation will discuss how a church or college leadership class might use the Book of Esther to teach Path-Goal Theory.

Digital Resources for Classroom Use: the ATLA/ATS Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative
Martha Smalley, Yale University

This interactive display will showcase a freely-available Internet database that contains thousands of images and texts related to the study of religion, the Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative of the ATLA/ATS. The display will feature case studies demonstrating methods for integrating digital resources into teaching and learning contexts. While the focus will be on the content of the database, which supports the study of the Ancient Near East, American and European church history, the missionary movement, the history of Methodism, Baptists, and the Moravian Church, religious iconography, church architecture, the practice of Islam, etc., interactions between librarians/archivists and educators at the display will contribute toward evaluation of how digitization can best be exploited for teaching and learning, and will affect decisions regarding future developments of the database.

Cognitive Science and the Emergence of Symbolic Thought: Semiotic Theory and the Development of Religious Cognition
James Van Slyke, Fuller Theological Seminary

Cognitive Science of Religion has embraced a modular view of the mind, where religious cognition is accomplished through domain-specific autonomous modules which process information independently and unconsciously. Contrary to this view, Terrence Deacon has developed a theory of the co-evolutionary process of language development based on the semiotic theory of C. S. Pierce. According to Deacon, the environment has been a causative factor in the structuring of human cognition to make it easier for humans to easily develop competence in language, especially symbolic processing. Symbolic processing allows humans to represent abstract concepts, thought-patterns and events. Applying this theory to religion, it would seem to be the case that any cognition that is understood as religious (which is a type of language) would also have to involve religion acting as a type of selective process in the development of religious cognition.

    A20-55

Ethics Section

Theme: Political God-Talk: What Does the Religious Left Need to Learn?

The papers presented in this session provide an ethical analysis of the religious and moral language used in contemporary, western, progressive political movements.

The Peculiar Shape of Liberal Christian Political Activism
Ellen Ott Marshall, Claremont School of Theology

This paper identifies three features of liberal Christianity that complicate faith-explicit political activism: theological humility, a narrative approach, and attentiveness to moral ambiguity. These three features help to explain why many progressive Christians flinch at the evangelical tone of their fellow progressives in the public sphere. They also help us explain the peculiar shape of liberal Christian public engagement as distinct from that of progressive evangelicals. Acknowledging this pluralism may weaken the political efficacy of the religious left. However, such acknowledgement is required if we are to engage the public sphere without compromising theological and ethical integrity.

An Eschatological Politics for the Religious Left
Sarah Azaransky, University of Virginia

In order to develop an effective moral message in public discourse, the American religious left must balance liberal democratic and theological commitments. This paper introduces Pauli Murray as a theoretician of a new kind of democratic politics that is robust, egalitarian, and attentive to theological commitments. In the 1970s and 1980s Murray articulated an account of how American theological and democratic commitments inform and revise each other. Central to this account is a concept of eschatological politics, which provides resources for a person with particular theological commitments to engage with the state. Murray provides an alternative, therefore, to political theory that has eschewed religious reasons and theology that has avoided political engagement. This paper argues that Murray articulated a moral message from the religious left that is a viable model today.

“We Don’t Do God!” The Moral Message of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British Tradition of Christian Socialism
Doug Gay, University of Edinburgh

“We don’t do God” – was the warning issued to a journalist in 2003, from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Press Secretary. Blair, a practising Anglican, is a member of the Christian Socialist Movement, which claims a tradition of British socialism dating back to F.D. Maurice in the 19th century. Blair has also linked his Christian 'socialism' with the ideas of Scots philosopher John MacMurray. While claiming a Christian basis for his political beliefs, in response to the tightly policed discursive space offered to explicitly religious ethical messages in UK public life, Blair has adopted a highly mobile strategy of deploying and withholding explicit religious expressions of political ethics. This has been motivated by fears of media identification with the religious right in the USA as well as the inhibitions of the British Left about religion in public life. Is this shrewd and mobile strategy itself ethically cynical?

The Impact of the Religious Left in the Living Wage Movement
Melissa Snarr, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

In this paper, I document and analyze the role of the “Religious Left” within one of the most successful current social movements in the U.S.—the municipal Living Wage movement. Drawing on aspects of social movement theory, I identify the multiple assets the Religious Left has contributed to Living Wage campaigns --including organizational resources, privileged legitimacy, identity formation, and moral motivation-- and argue that in many cases, success was dependent on the Religious Left’s involvement. In the end, I contend that renewed alliances between religion and labor (which involves growing pains on both sides) revitalize the Democratic Party’s base on a local level in ways that have been noticeably absent from recent federal politics. I close the paper by offering a list of best practices, or lessons from the field, which Christian political ethicists might incorporate into their scholarship, teaching, and activism.

    A20-56

North American Religions Section

Theme: Faith and the City: Religion in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia

This session explores religion in Philadelphia with reference to four historical settings: fundamentalist influences on the Philadelphia African American community in the first half of the twentieth century, Christian celebrity and cults of personality in radio evangelism in the 1950s-1970s, the encounter between Jewish Reconstructionist and the Renewal movements and the ways in which they influenced each other, and the growth of new religious movements (especially among African-Americans), in Philadelphia in the 1930s and 40s. The papers will serve as a point of departure for discussion, among all session attendees, about distinguishing features of the twentieth-century religious history of Philadelphia as well as about religion in urban America more generally.

Reconstructing and Renewing Judaism in Philadelphia: The Unexpected Alliance between the Reconstructionist and Renewal Movements in the 1970s-1990s
Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Reconstructing and Renewing Judaism in Philadelphia: the Unexpected Alliance between the Reconstructionist and Renewal Movements in In the 1970s-1990s

In the 1970s , two new Jewish religious movements chose to turn Philadelphia into the center of their activities . The Reconstructionist and the Renewal movements were very different from each other in their theologies , styles of worship and social status. Geographical proximity brought the two groups to cooperate with each other . Sharing teachers and exchanging ideas , the two groups have come to influence each other, inspiring changes in their thinking and style. The reshaped character of the two groups helped both of them to improve their image and standing within the larger Jewish community and offered the two fledgling movements more legitimacy and influence.

Fundamentally Black: The Rise of Philadelphia's African American Evangelical Community
Albert G. Miller, Oberlin College

This paper will explore the rise and significance of fundamentalism and evangelicalism within Philadelphia's African-American community. Whitfield Nottage, a Bahamian emigrant, came to the U.S. in 1909 with his two brothers, Talbot Burton (T.B.) and Berlin Martin (B.M.). Whitfield established the Ebenezer Community Chapel in Philadelphia in the mid 1930s, where he ministered for more than 30 years. Through this ministry, Nottage mentored several generations of Philadelphia ministers and congregations. Whitfield was also the anchor for the arrival in Philadelphia of other Brethren from the Caribbean. Whitfield along with his brothers begin to build a network of ministries across the U.S. that in some ways represents a larger movement of African American evangelicalism. The paper will also discuss the development of the Manna Bible Institute, (of the pre-millennial dispensational theological persuasion) in the 1944, for the specific purpose of providing Bible training to Christian leadership in the Philadelphia Black community.

Kingdoms in the Air: "Morning Cheer" and Early Media Evangelism in Philadelphia
David Perkins, Vanderbilt University

Three Philadelphia-based entrepreneurs of early radio evangelism created kingdoms in the air---principalities defined by theological position, personal speaking and preaching style, political posture, music, and a complimentary host of public meetings where the on-air world materialized before an appreciative constituency. Dr. George A. Palmer, the focus of this paper, and his “Morning Cheer Broadcast” competed with Carl McIntire’s “20th Century Reformation Hour” and Percy Crawford’s “Young People’s Church of the Air” to win souls as well as the loyalty and financial support of “faithful listeners.” Palmer, Crawford, and McIntire each objectified his radio ministry by building a permanent Bible conference facility where influential evangelical preachers, educators, and authors interacted with paying attendees. From the 1950s through the 1970s, these Bible conferences, in combined force with their related radio ministries, became hothouses for the kind of evangelical culture upon which the kingdoms of Bakker, Swaggart, Falwell, and Robertson were built.

Faith in Flux: "Black Gods" in Philadelphia 1930-1945
Danielle Sigler, Austin College

When University of Pennsylvania graduate student, Arthur Fauset decided to study the growth of “storefront” churches in 1939, he had chosen an auspicious moment. African American religion in Philadelphia was becoming increasingly diverse, with established mainstream denominations as well as an influx of these newer religious organizations. Competition for the hearts and minds of Philadelphia’s citizens was fierce. Rev. Becton was murdered in Philadelphia and evangelist Daddy Grace, himself a relative newcomer to Philadelphia, was a prime suspect (though never charged). Divine had shifted his headquarters to Philadelphia following a scandal and the threat of arrest in New York. Thus Fauset found himself at the center of a burgeoning, complicated, and at times, dangerous religious scene.

This paper will focus on the growth of new religious movements in Philadelphia in the 1930s and 40s, seeking to understand its role as both an extension and escape for leaders of new religious movements.

    A20-57

Religion, Media, and Culture Consultation and Philosophy of Religion Section

Theme: Religion, Violence, and the Special Effect: Irruptions of Exceptionality

Recent critical theory has responded to the apparent triumph of global markets

over what were once viewed as Leftist alternatives to capitalism (or over

activities once thought to be outside the sphere of market calculation) with a

renewed exploration of political subjectivity thought in terms of a founding

exceptional event or the irruption of a "special effect" that reorients the

structures within which it initially appears.

Is this turn to the exceptional event the same thing as a turn to (or return of)

religion? How should we understand the haunting isomorphism in much of this

literature between a subjectivating "event" of exception and the "special

effect" as a designation for that captivating irruption of transcendence, the

"fragile absolute," or an unsystematized, contingent excess of meaning?

Similarly, is it possible to elaborate a genealogy of the specialness of the

special effect (or the exceptionality of the event)?

    A20-58

Study of Judaism Section

Theme: Eastern European Jewry: Culture, Thought, and Impact

Bodies in Perilous Balance: A Rabbi’s Response to "Othering"
Ramona Kirsch, University of Missouri-Kansas City

This paper provides one example of ‘othering’ discourse about Jews and their bodies in nineteenth century religious thought as advanced by a Galician Rabbi, Joseph Samuel Bloch during the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Rather than examining those discourses that ‘other’ this paper focuses upon Bloch’s conception of the bodily ‘sameness’ of the Jew that attempted to counter the images of inherent ‘difference.’ In particular Bloch, as an Eastern European Jewish scholar, utilized Talmudic literary practices to not only respond to the ‘othering’ of Jews but to debate within the Jewish community itself regarding the purpose of the Jewish body. Bloch’s very public critique of the growing anti-Semitism and Nationalisms in the fin-de-siècle Habsburg Monarchy resisted conceptions of inherent difference of the Jewish body. Bloch’s conception of ‘sameness’ reveals how individuals and groups establish, produce, and reproduce identity and meaning for themselves vis-à-vis their imposed identity as ‘the other.’

Eastern European Scholastic Kabbalah in Early Modernity
Pinchas Giller, University of Judaism

The solitary practitioners of kabbalistic scholasticism, and the devotional prayer associated with it, remained in practice in Lithuania in early modernity. The term “scholastic kabbalist,” in this case, means someone whose preoccupation is with pure kabbalah, disdaining homiletics and even mystical experience itself, excepting contemplative prayer. The greatest scholastic kabbalist, the Gaon of Vilna, left a number of students in early modern Lithuania. Eventually, these students opened channels of communication with their supposed opponents in the hasidic community, which in turn had several dynasties that produced works of kabbalistic scholasticism. Both groups also forged connections with the mystics of the Middle East. In this way, kabbalistic scholasticism served as a portal to modernity, even as its social influence dwindled in the face of the Jewish enlightenment.

Europe in America? The Historiography of the Landsmanshaft Synagogue
Steven Lapidus, Concordia University

The phenomenon of the landsmanshaft synagogue, also known as the chevra or anshei shul, on the American scene, is clearly a creation of the Eastern European immigrant. But to what degree is it a direct recreation of the Eastern European shtetl synagogue? While many scholars argue that it was an exact replica of its European antecedent, others argue that while an attempt to recreate a familiar institution, the landsmanshaft synagogue inevitably exhibited features of the New World. Its location in America per force, imposed new features on it, resulting in a new creation, a hybridized shtot shul with an American flavour. I will argue that in fact, in its modification and proliferation, the landsmanshaft synagogue served as a stepping stone in the process of Americanizing traditional European Orthodoxy.

The People of the Comic Book: Jewish Men and the Creation of Comic Book Superheroes
Harry Brod, University of Northern Iowa

The illustrated book was one of the few outlets for visual artists in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, primarily the Passover Haggadah. The story of Moses, raised by others when his people were threatened with extinction, eventually becoming their savior aided by miraculous powers, informs the creation of Superman, and with him the entire comic book superhero genre, by two Jewish teenagers in the Depression era United States. To counter anti-Semitic stereotypes which saw Jewish men as Clark Kent types – timid, physically weak, sexually ineffectual quasi-intellectuals – they created a super man. Inspired also by Jewish mystical legends of the Golem, from Superman and Batman to Spider-Man and others, Jewish men have inscribed changing images of Jewish identity into their comic book superhero creations. This paper probes how comic book superheroes embody Jewish traditions and values, as well as their undercurrents of gendered Jewish psychodynamics.

    A20-60

Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group and Evangelical Theology Group

Theme: Constructing Asian-American Evangelical Theologies

This panel will present a conversation about the possibility of constructing Asian North American evangelical theologies. Panelists will propose various methodologies or theological foci that can assist in the construction of Asian North American evangelical theologies that are distinct from - yet in dialogue with - “mainline Protestant” and “fundamentalist” theological paradigms. The panel will also address specific questions such as “what makes Asian North American evangelical theologies distinct? How can an Asian North American evangelical theology be a prophetic voice to the evangelical church? How and when should issues of race, class, and gender get addressed by Asian North American evangelical theologians? Should they be addressed? Why does one retain an evangelical commitment?” Throughout the conversation, the panel will dialogue with universalizing evangelical theologies, Orientalist Asian theologies, and “mainline” Asian North American Protestant theologies - three theological discourses that interpenetrate and influence any attempt to construct evangelical theologies.

    A20-61

Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Group and Black Theology Group

Theme: Despair, Evil, and Human Suffering: A Conversation between Kierkegaard and Black Theology

Grappling with Melancholia and Despair, Black Invisibility and the Tragicomic: The Conversation between Cornel West and Søren Kierkegaard and Its Import for Black and Womanist Theological Anthropologies
Stephen Butler Murray, Skidmore College

A well known anecdote concerning the early teenage years of Cornel West entails his procuring a volume of Søren Kierkegaard from a bookmobile, and finding therein that the pages concerning Kiekegaard’s melancholia and despair set light to West’s study of philosophy. Throughout the academic career of Cornel West, Kiekegaard has remained a constant intellectual companion and interlocutor, particularly with regard to the sources and struggles of hopelessness and anguish. This paper seeks to explore the dimensions of melancholia and despair expressed in the philosophical and autobiographical works of Soren Kierkegaard, in conversation with Cornel West’s articulation of black invisibility, black rage, and the tragicomic. As black and womanist theologies draw on West as a major source, the intent of this paper is to discern how this conversation across the centuries between Kierkegaard and West is important in the construction of contemporary theological anthropology among black and womanist theologians.

Illin’ the Evil, Outing the Absurd: Kierkegaardian Irony Meets Machiavellian Grotesquery in the Postindustrial City
James W. Perkinson, Ecumenical Theological Seminary

This essay will “riff off” of Frederick Jameson’s ideas of the “Global Sublime” to develop an “existential augury” of life in the postmodern ghetto under tutelage to both Kierkegaardian irony and Hip-Hop grotesquery. Kierkegaard’s display of consciousness as an infinitely volatilizing capacity euphemized as “irony” marks out a characteristic of modern mentality that cuts either side of ethics: it can serve a population like oppressed African Americans as a possibility incapable of containment even as it becomes the self-indulgent wit of the elite literati. Notions like Charles Long’s “opacity” or Victor Anderson’s “grotesquery” will be invoked to present a polyvocal challenge of postcolonial “darkness” to the ethereal cynicism of postmodern irony. The aim of such an enterprise is neither clairvoyant vision nor condemnatory evaluation, but a “dialogue of the def”—a subtle shadowing of the possibilities of conscious action and conscientious struggle in a world gone delirious with violence.

The Question of Evil: Romney M. Moseley's Kierkegaardian-Caribbean Theology of Suffering
Brian C. Barlow, Brenau University

This paper introduces and analyzes a dialogue between Soren Kierkegaard (SK) and Romney M. Moseley as a way of contributing to a conversation between SK and Black Theology. It is rooted in the particularities of SK and Moseley as seen in their writings The Sickness Unto Death and Becoming a Self Before God. There is a paradoxical process at work in SK's treatise that guides the reader into ever more intense forms of the suffering of despair as a way of freeing the self from its double-binds in order that it might rest in God. Moseley's book is a passionate testimony to his own short-lived struggle to become an authentic self before God. It is only in and through pain that the self-emptying God can become present to the kenotic self who becomes present to itself before God in imitation of the kenosis of Christ.

    A20-62

Chinese Religions Group

Theme: Teaching Chinese Religions in the Undergraduate Classroom: A User's Guide

'Teaching Chinese Religions in the Undergraduate Classroom: A User's Guide' explores resources, approaches, and pedagogies, and is directed to both specialists and non-specialists in the field. The four panelists address textbooks and other resources, new directions in Confucian studies, new directions in Taoist studies, and pedagogical methods relating Confucianism and Taoism to comparative religious studies and the survey course on Asian Religions. 'Transmitters and Innovaters: Re-presenting Authentic Religion in Chinese Religions Sourcebooks' evaluates the reliability of primary source textbooks in Chinese Religions courses. 'Learning Confucianism through its Exemplars' adapts a traditional Chinese teaching tool to the modern American classroom. ‘Teaching Taoism in the 21st Century: Opening Moves' draws upon current scholarship to present a new vision of the tradition, its teachings, and its true place in Chinese society. ‘Problematizing 'Confucianism' and 'Taoism' in the 'Introduction to Chinese Religions' Course,’ places the Chinese religious tradition in a global religious context.

    A20-63

Eastern Orthodox Studies Group

Theme: Twentieth-Century Eastern European Theologians

Trinity and the Church in the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae
Radu Bordeianu, Marquette University

The relationship between the Trinity and the Church is a subject that rarely receives due attention. Oftentimes the Church seems to be a parallel reality, somehow unrelated to the Trinity. Dumitru Staniloae establishes a clear relationship and a continuum between the Trinity and the Church. One can regard the Church as a reflection of the Trinity by analyzing the analogical relationship between the Trinity and the Church; the Church as icon of the Trinity, where the Church is the type that points to its prototype, that is, the Trinity; the Church as the “third sacrament,” where the Church is understood as the sacramental presence of the Trinity in the world; the ecclesiological consequences of Staniloae’s understanding of theosis, in which creation becomes god by grace, though not God by nature. Thus, Staniloae affirms that the same relationships that exist within the Trinity are manifested in the life of the Church.

(Un)Knowing the Divine Mystery: Theological Epistemology in Dumitru Staniloae and Thomas Aquinas
Jeff McCurry, Duke University

How do we speak of God and know God? In contrast to oppositional narratives of the relationship between Orthodox theology and Catholic theology, I explore similarities in theological epistemology between the twentieth-century Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae and the thirteenth-century Italian Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas. Both seek a third way for theological epistemology between two equally unsalutary options. Staniloae seeks a third way between forming an idolatrous concept of God, on the one hand, and speaking merely meaningless words about God that are unhinged from any real reference to God, on the other. He seeks to chart a vision of truthful but partial knowledge of God. Aquinas's third way of knowing and speaking about God goes between equivocity and univocity to speak of God in an analogical grammar, in which God is referenced truly but not comprehended, in which the divine mystery is described but not mastered.

Tradition, Changes, and the Life of the Faithful in Fr. Dumitru Staniloae
Maria McDowell, Boston College

This paper approaches the ongoing Orthodox discussion of ‘Tradition,’ ‘traditions,’ and theological change in light of the work of the Romanian Orthodox theologian Fr Dumitru Staniloae. First, I will present Staniloae’s emphasis on the Church in history and the distinction between dogmas, theologoumena, and teaching. From there, I will discuss the interplay between these conceptual distinctions as they relate to the formulation of doctrine and how change in teaching and practice may occur within this framework. The heart of this discussion is the dynamic tension between the abstract framework of a ‘living Tradition,’ the lived traditions which change and develop over time, and the important union with God by believers who live and practice various forms of T/tradition. I will conclude with reflection on this final element, ‘union with God,’ and its importance in reflecting on changing practice and teaching.

Dumitru Staniloae on Law and Human Nature
Lucian Turcescu, Concordia University

Orthodox theologians tend to talk a lot about human nature, but much less about law. Romanian Dumitru Staniloae (1903-1993) was no exception. Staniloae saw law as a necessary result of the Fall into sin of the first humans, Adam and Eve. In line with Apostle Paul and the book of Revelation, Staniloae opposed the “newness of the spirit” to the “oldness of the law” and contended instead that as long as there is law there is sin and that the law was given to remove humanity’s sinful state. But eventually love has to take the place of the law. After the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe, Staniloae was called upon to reflect on the church’s role in postcommunist societies. His earlier understanding of the relationship between the law and human nature came to light more prominently during this exercise, but it proved somewhat problematic, as this paper will show.

    A20-64

Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group and Religious Freedom, Public Life, and the State Group

Theme: Liberty, Values, and the Politics of Gender

Democratic Tradition and Fundamental Liberties: From Bowers v. Hardwick to Lawrence v. Texas
Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, Grinnell College

In Democracy & Tradition, Jeffrey Stout mediates between secular

liberals and religious conservatives by proposing a pragmatic conception

of the idea of public reason. Stout proposes his account over against

Rawls's political liberalism. In this paper, I test Stout's account

through an analysis of the majority and dissenting decisions in Bowers

v. Hardwick (1986) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003). The decision to view

same-sex practice and expression among consenting adults as being within

the scope of liberty protected by the U.S. Constitution has been

fiercely contested. Rawls's approach to such contest has been

criticized. In analyzing the Bowers and Lawrence cases, I demonstrate

grounds for supporting Stout's approach, while I show what is at stake

in rejecting Rawls's idea of public reason in the public political forum.

Policing Values and the Private Judgment of the Magistrate
Craig Martin, Syracuse University

Some legal theorists have recently argued for abortion rights and gay

rights under the umbrella of the first amendment, claiming that its

protection should extend to a variety of different values, and that no

one has the right to "impose" their norms on everyone else. I argue that

his approach to procuring gay rights will be unsuccessful, because the

configuration of the public/private border is always "imposed" on the

basis of someone's values. For example, in John Locke's classic essay "A

Letter Concerning Toleration," Locke suggests that the magistrate will

decide on the basis of his "private judgment" when it is uncertain

whether or not a religious doctrine is harmful to the public good.

Although a border is drawn around a sphere in which the government has

no authority, those in power determine the contour of that border, and

they are unwilling at this time to extend that border.

Marriage, State, and Equality
Robert Ross, University of Massachusetts -- Boston

This paper analyzes the recent decision by the Massachusetts Supreme

Judicial Court to allow same-sex marriage. It examines the arguments of

the court not only in terms of their inherent logic, but also in terms

of their constitutional, cultural, and religious implications. The

purpose of the paper is not to constitute a polemic for or against

same-sex marriages, but rather to demonstrate a balanced and

multi-disciplinary approach that considers the interplay of legal,

ethical, social, and theological analysis.

    A20-65

Mysticism Group

Theme: Mystical Relationships: Marriage and Community

For the Beloved: Mystical Marriage in Meister Eckhart and the "Sister Catherine" Treatise
Charlotte Radler, Loyola Marymount University

The construction and division of mysticism into antithetical strands of speculative mysticism and affective mysticism creates artificial fractures and borders. In order to bridge fissures caused by compartmentalizing studies of medieval mysticism, this paper has two major purposes: first, it will highlight the place of bridal and affective imagery in Meister Eckhart’s thought, themes largely neglected by later interpreters of Eckhart. The paper will show the integral part that mystical marriage plays within Eckhart’s mysticism. Secondly, this paper will place the Dominican Master in conversation with the “Sister Catherine” treatise. I will here compare the crucial roles played by marriage motifs in this tract and Eckhart’s mysticism. Readers of these two texts will find the organic coexistence of “speculative” and “affective, bridal” topoi, producing fecund mysticisms. The wider aim of the paper, therefore, is to interrogate and challenge putative dichotomies between speculative and affective mysticism.

Indo-Tibetan Tantrism as “Spirit Marriage”
Stuart R. Sarbacker, Northwestern University

As has been documented by Eliade, Lewis, and others, a fascinating dimension of shamanic ritualism is the practice of shamanic marriage. The foundational principle of such marriage is the nuptial connection between the shamanic ritualist and a spirit-spouse, sometimes yielding amorphous “spirit children” and leading in some cases to “spirit divorce.” As a mythic and ritual institution, shamanic marriage represents one manner in which religious power is mediated through gendered and sexualized symbols and ecstasies. We will demonstrate how the “logic” of shamanic marriage can be said to be parallel to the gendered and sexualized images of Hindu and Buddhist tantra. It will be argued that tantric ritualism embodies the principle of shamanic marriage through tantric maithuna (ritual intercourse) and more broadly the propitiation of wrathful female deity figurations. It will be argued that this may be meaningfully understood in terms of both content (phenomenology) and context (sociology).

"Devekut" and Bodily Service: The Role of the Tsaddik and the Redemption of the “Evil Urges” of the Flock in Eastern European Hasidic Communities
Thomas Cattoi, Boston College

Traditional Hasidic courts were communities where members of Eastern European Jewry sought spiritual fellowship and support under the guidance of a holy man known as Tsaddik, revered for his extraordinary spiritual insight. Hasidic sources credit the Tsaddik with the ability to capture the destructive power of the passions and desires of his disciples and to redirect them to God’s service, in the same way as the soul can gradually purify the passions and desires of the body. By charting the theological ancestry of the doctrine of the Tsaddik, this paper shall explore how Hasidic communities succeeded in elaborating a remarkably original synthesis by appropriating elements from Kabalistic theosophy and from the more world-affirming spirituality of the Jewish tradition. Particular attention shall be given to Hasidism’s re-interpretation of the Kabalistic understanding of 'devekut' in line with the notion of “service through corporeality”, whereby ordinary acts are invested with sacramental value.

Sharing Mystical Experiences in Community: Implications of Some Unusual Evidence
Robert K. C. Forman, The Forge Institute

The Forge Institute has held gatherings of between 10 and 60 experienced practitioners and teachers from a range of spiritual backgrounds and traditions. On many occasions at these events, participants have reported finding unmistakable common experiential ground and identities between their present experiences. In addition, during intimate dialogues, participants, even though from diverse spiritual paths, often identify their present experiences as virtually identical.

These remarkable reports of similar or identical mystical experiences among a group and/or among two individuals from different paths offer distinct challenge to the assumption that all mystical experiences are solo and that various mystical traditions always generate various mystical experiences

This presentation will exammine these experiences and suggest some philosophical and epistemological implications. These experiences also suggest the possibility of mysticism serving as a kind of spiritual 'lingua franca' for our pluralistic age.

    A20-66

Person, Culture, and Religion Group

Theme: The Psychodynamics of Religious Violence

Religious Aggression from a Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychoanalytic Perspective: A Comparison of Aaron Beck and Erich Fromm
Terry Cooper, St. Louis Community College District

Religious aggression is analyzed through a comparison of cognitive-behavioral psychiatrist, Aaron Beck, and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm. More specifically, Beck's conviction that religous aggression stems exclusively from distorted, egocentric, biased thinking is carefully examined. Further, his view that aggression can be 'tamed' through cognitive restucturing is explored. The argument is made that while Beck's contribution is insightful, it is not equipped to handle the ontological anxiety which frequently pushes individuals toward aggression and destructiveness. Erich Fromm's analysis of the limitations of Freudian aggression and the death instinct, along with his own development of the 'syndrome of decay' are employed to illustrate a psychoanalytic understanding of the dynamics of religious aggression. The goal is twofold: (a) to provide a contrast between cognitive-behavioral and psychoanaltyic views of religious aggression, and (b) to come to a deeper understanding of the possibilities for non-aggressive religious dialogue.

Religion and Terrorism: Reflections on the Controversial Conjunction
Thomas B. Ellis, Appalachian State University

This paper argues that religion and terrorism share a common strategy for dealing with the untoward nature of chance. Murderous finalities notwithstanding, terrorism gets its strength before the kill: we are terrorized when we don’t know when, where, or upon whom the next strike will take place. Similarly, and as Rene Girard argues, religious traditions throughout history have attempted to contain confusions and uncertainties through an arbitrary selection and subsequent expulsion (murder) of a surrogate victim. Both of these strategies may be linked to an evolutionary history that has endowed the human animal with a predator-detection system. In other words, humans find chance anathema because our first encounters with chance were our encounters with the unforeseen predator. In an attempt to contain such disconcerting chance, humans seek to violently redistribute this chance to another. This is the predation strategy at the heart of religious sacrifice and terrorism.

Enemies of God: An Exploration into the Psychodynamics of Religion and Violence
Marsha Hewitt, Trinity College

Violence, rage and the urgency to destroy the threatening 'other' infuses most of the world's known religions. This paper will explore the internal psychodynamics of religious violence and religious terror/terrorism from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. A major theme focuses on the internal dialectic within religion that strives to strengthen a sense of identity and agency within the believing community while evacuating difference and the 'alien other' through repression, splitting, dissociation and projective identification. Peter Fonagy's concepts of 'psychic equivalence' and 'mentalization' are helpful in exploring impairments of thought that require the unbelieving, impure, diabolical or threatening evil other, be it an individual, community, nation or ideology in order to eradicate it, thereby producing illusions of internal and external purity and safety. The paper will place these psychoanalytic themes in cultural and political contexts in order to understand the traumatic effects of modernity that produce experiences of dislocation, disorientation and fear.

The Psychodynamic Roots of Religious Terrorism
James W. Jones, Rutgers University

The Psychodynamic Roots of Religious Terrorism

This paper will do three things: review current research on the social-psychological factors associated with terrorism and genocide; discuss the religious beliefs and practices that can lead to terrorist actions; and describe some of the psychodynamics that predispose people to adopt such beliefs and practices. Among the primary texts that this paper will draw on will be Mohammed Atta’s letter to his companions, the letters written by the Dutch fanatic who killed Theo VanGogh, and the author’s research on the Aum Shrinkyo cult. Written from a contemporary relational psychoanalytic perspective, this paper will demonstrate how these clinical psychoanalytic constructs can deepen and enrich the findings of social psychology and illustrate some of the potential contributions of the psychology of religion to the current discussion of religiously sponsored terrorism.

    A20-67

Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Group and Religion and Science Group

Theme: Peirce, Hegel, and Stuart Kauffman’s Complexity Theory

Recent decades have seen several calls, like those of biologist Stuart Kauffman and mathematician Stephen Wolfram, for a “new kind of science,” one emphasizing the appearance of unpredictable novelty in systems governed by rigorous laws. Some of these proposals unwittingly echo arguments about logic and reality that Charles Peirce made a century ago- or even older arguments by G.W.F. Hegel. Our panel will attend especially to Kauffman’s 2000 manifesto Investigations, proposing Hegelian and Peircean ways of understanding unpredictability there. Does Robert Brandom’s retrieval of Hegel’s notion of objective spirit allow an “explanation” of novelty? Could the “gamma part” of Peirce’s “existential graphs,” itself conceived as a rigorous logical system from which novelty emerges, provide an underpinning for the new science Kauffman envisions? Finally, can the contrast between a Peircean approach to populations and Manuel De Landa's use of Deleuzian multiplicities illuminate Kauffman’s attempt at a scientific definition of unpredictable “life”?

Pragmaticist Approach to Emergence in Cognitive Science
Mark Graves, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley

The pragmaticism of C.S. Peirce provides a key framework for addressing current issues in cognitive science. Peirce’s phenomenology, metaphysics, and logic support an emergent model of person rooted in experience that incorporates a person’s decision-making and habit-formation in a neurologically plausible anthropology. Peirce’s real generality, which he called Thirdness, captures interconnected tendencies and escapes the dualism inherent in mind-body, body-soul, and brain-consciousness dichotomies. The intrinsic interconnectivity of Thirdness escapes the essentialism of Cartesian concepts and supports an emergent systems approach to describing the physical, biological, psychological, cultural, and theological aspects of cognitive science. Conceptual graphs, based on Peirce’s existential graphs, provide a logical, diagrammatic, modeling language for cognitive science that captures systems of constraining relationships across biological, neurological, cognitive, and linguistic domains.

    A20-68

Religion and Popular Culture Group

Theme: Frontiers of Technology and Transmogrify

The Swan Complex: Ritual Regression, Technology, and Transfiguration in TV's "The Swan"
Jeremy Biles, University of Chicago

Perhaps no 'reality' television show is so disturbing or so prophetic as 'The Swan.' Designed to transform 'ugly ducklings' into beautiful women, the 'swan program' subjects contestants to extensive cosmetic operations. I argue that the fascination with this successful show derives from its compelling ritual structure. With attention to the ways in which Christian conceptions of the relations between body and spirit are implicated in the American obsession with extreme transformations, I suggest that the 'swan program' enacts a ritual regression that violently literalizes the psychoanalytic symbols associated with the 'mirror stage': each contestant is surgically rendered a 'fragmented body' before beholding in a mirror the transfigured, unified body that ultimately ratifies her sense of self. These 'swans,' I conclude, herald the formation of subjectivity proper to contemporary machine culture, where the intimacy of bodies and technology paradoxically manifests a thirst for perpetual youth underwritten by the death drive.

Technology and Animal Ethics in the Contemporary Kosher Industry
Aaron Gross, University of California, Santa Barbara

In the wake of intense media discussion of animal abuse documented at AgriProcessors, Inc.—the largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse in the world located in Postville, IA—

recent months have witnessed one of the most intense public debates about the ethics of kosher food that American Jewry has ever seen. Given that 175 billon dollars of the goods on supermarket shelves—fully 35% of all supermarket goods—are certified as kosher, the impact of this controversy extends well beyond Judaism. This paper seeks to analyze the range of Jewish voices in this debate on the issue of the ethical status of animals, paying special attention to how the technologically-heavy infrastructure of modern animal agriculture has shaped the debate. I argue that this case can be taken as an illustration of how technology and religious ethics form themselves in relation to one another at both the level of behavioral code and subject-formation.

Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and the Persistence of the Sacred
Robert Geraci, Manhattan College

According to the new discipline the cultural history of religions, religion produces and reproduces culture, including secular culture. The cultural productivity of religion occurs through the persistence of sacred categories outside of theology; that is, religious themes lay camouflaged within secular culture, including science. Recent technoscientific appropriations of the theory of evolution demonstrate the persistence of the sacred and the power of religion to produce culture in the modern world; in particular, popular science publications by eminent scientists demonstrate the persistence of the sacred in secular science. Theories of salvation and cosmic world-purpose help shape the historical development of robotics and artificial intelligence.

The Doomsday Body, or Dr. Strangelove as Cyborg Crip
Rebecca M. Raphael, Texas State University

This paper analyzes Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick 1964) in terms of human-machine hybridity as a locus for concerns about purity. I argue that the film articulates its dystopic eschaton by appropriating traditional apocalyptic dualism but inverting its valuations: here it is not mixture but rather excessive concern for purity, either organic (Gen. Ripper) or technological (The Doomsday Machine), that brings down the final disaster. As a human-machine embodiment, Dr. Strangelove depicts both the dangers and the wisdom of hybridity. The work of Mary Douglas, Donna Haraway, and contemporary disability and monster theorists provide the methodological orientation of the paper. I intend to highlight common apocalyptic structures, rather than to trace historical influence.

    A20-69

Religion in Latin America and the Caribbean Group

Theme: Sexuality, Religion, and Health

(Re)Production Zones: Religion, Development, and Sexuality in Rural Ecuadorian Households
Jill DeTemple, Southern Methodist University

Among the most private of spaces in rural Ecuadorian households, bedrooms are nevertheless the focus of several public debates. Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal and other Christian doctrines address correct sexual behavior, placing it squarely in the context of bedrooms as centers of nuclear households. At the same time, development organizations ranging from the Peace Corps to Plan International target bedrooms and sexuality as they seek to improve the health and well being of Ecuadorians as clients of international aid. “(Re)Production Zones” examines these debates, analyzing both religious and development discourses and practices that focus on sexuality in the context of rural Ecuadorian households. The paper concludes that bedrooms are 'zones of (re)production,' spaces where rural Ecuadorians produce and reproduce worldviews that blend religious and development teachings into a seamless whole, even as they call into question development's unique claim to modernity and religion's hold on tradition in household spaces.

Cuban Feminist Theology: A Revolutionary Ethic of Health and Wholeness for Cuban Society
Margarita M.W. Suarez, Meredith College

Cuban Feminist Theology offers a particular lens into analyzing both the Cuban church and the problems of Cuban society. This paper offers an analysis by Cuban feminist pastors/theologians in mainline evangelical denominations in Cuba that churches in Cuba can work with the state to affirm an ethic of health and wholeness for all the Cuban people. One interlocutor says that the role of the church should be preserving and developing an ethical model which works to transform relationships to protect the people from falling into the arms of a society of consumption. They believe that persons of faith should encourage social and political justice, and work within this society whose revolutionary historical motivation has been to empower the most powerless. These evangelical feminists believe that the ideals of the Cuban revolution and a Christian feminist ethic are compatible and potentially complementary.

Oppressed Bodies Don't Have Sex: The Blind Spots of Bodily and Sexual Discourses in the Construction of Subjectivity in Latin-American Liberation Theology
Claudio Carvalhaes, Union Theological Seminary, New York

Liberation theology in Latin America has been a theological movement based on the preferential option for the poor. It created a new methodology, re-invented theological doctrines, offered new partners of dialogue and helped foster other liberation theologies throughout the world. However, this theology got entangled within the grid of social sciences and ended up repressing and dismissing important aspects of the life of the poor, namely the body and sexual practices. This paper tries to show how these blind spots denounce the totalizing discourse present in Liberation theology and how liberation theology confined both the notion of the poor and of the subject into its own pervasive Christian boundaries. Also, it calls into question the very task of talking about the poor and its subjectivity by complicating its possibilities. Finally, it attempts to create new ways for liberation theologies to talk about the poor in other responsible ways.

    A20-70

Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group

Theme: Cinema-Going as Religious Practice? A Discussion of Issues Raised by Clive Marsh's Cinema and Sentiment: Film's Challenge to Theology (Paternoster Press)

This panel will examine suggestions that cinema-going has a religion-like function in contemporary Western society. In offering critical assessments of Clive Marsh's 'Cinema and Sentiment' the four panelists will use cinema-going as a major case-study of how technology, entertainment and visual culture contribute to Western audiences’ structuring of life, and of the social practices used to discover or construct meaning.

The topics to be discussed are likely to comprise:

Assessments of existing interactions between theology and religious studies and media/entertainment/popular culture

The significance for theology and religious studies of a shift from screen theory to attention to audience response in film studies.

The adequacy of definitions of ‘theology’ used in discussions about film and popular culture

The significance of distinguishing ‘theological’ and ‘religious’ perspectives on film-watching and cinema-going.

The significance of the institutional locations of participants in theology/religion and film discussion

    A20-73

Western Esotericism Group

Theme: Western Esotericism

The study of Western Esotericism is a new academic discipline that has been developing rapidly since the early 1990s. Its subject matter includes currents such as Gnosticism, Hermetism, the 'Occult Sciences' (astrology, magic, alchemy), Renaissance Hermeticism, Philosophia Occulta, Prisca Theologia, Paracelsianism, Rosicrucianism, Christian Theosophy, Freemasonry, Illuminism, Occultism, Spiritualism, and New Age religiosity. These currents are studied from an multidisciplinary and crosscultural perspective.

The Christianization of Angel Magic in the Late Middle Ages
Katelyn Mesler, Northwestern University

This paper explores the practice of invoking angels as it developed in the Christian magical tradition from the 13th to 15th centuries. This growing trend, largely influenced by Jewish and Islamic magical treatises, defied the standard theological conceptions of angels and challenged the limits of licit magical practice. As a form of adjuration, angel magic was initially condemned as a disguised form of necromancy. However, Christian magicians shaped this new tradition as an alternative to demonic magic. This development of Christian angel magic as a distinct practice eventually influenced the widespread understanding of magic, allowing for a new distinction between angelic and demonic invocations. By the 15th century, angel magic was thus much more resistant to persecution. These changes then helped pave the way for the varieties of spiritual magic that began to flourish in the esoteric writings of the Renaissance Mages.

Innovation and Canonization in Esoteric Discourse: The Case of Martinus Thomsen
Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark

The Dane Martinus Thomsen (1890–1981), generally referred to by his first name only, is arguably the second most influential Scandinavian esotericist, after Swedenborg. After two successive visions in 1921, Martinus devoted the following decades to writing a vast corpus of texts outlining a complex cosmology and anthropology. This doctrinal corpus clearly show signs of combining a variety of elements current in the cultural repertoire of the early 20th century, particularly the theosophical and, to a lesser extent, Christian traditions, positivism and non-figurative art.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims to present a religious thinker who has as yet not been the object of virtually any non-partisan scholarship (a couple of articles in Danish are the only exceptions). Secondly, and more importantly, it uses Martinus as a case with which to analyze specific mechanisms of religious innovation and canonization which obtain in European history of religions.

Emanuel Swedenborg’s Aesthetic Philosophy and Its Impact on Nineteenth-Century American Art
Jane Williams-Hogan, Bryn Athyn College of the New Church

In 1972 the Director of the National Gallery, Joshua C. Taylor, wrote

that in the nineteenth century “Only the Swedenborgian teaching had a

direct impact on art, and this was through its link with a complex

philosophical view of perception and aesthetic judgment which suggested

not narrative themes but a spiritual context for artistic form.” This

paper is an exploration of Swedenborg’s (1688-1772) teachings with a

view toward explaining his “philosophy of perception and aesthetic

judgment.” In addition it will examine how that philosophy was used by a

long line of practitioners as they passed their enthusiasm for these

principles from one to another. Among other artists this paper will

discuss the work of Hiram Powers (1805-1873), George Inness (1825-1894),

William Keith (1838-19110, and Ralph A. Blakelock (1847-1919).

Esoteric Studies and Modern Western Occultism: A Useful Methodology to Reconsider Their Relationship and Redefine Identities
Alfred Vitale, University of Rochester

The field of Esoteric Studies includes among its traditions the so-called “occult movements” of the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet, there is very little academic research on these movements, both among Esoteric and traditional religious scholars. While the reasons for this are many, the absence of such published research has robbed religious studies of a vital, paradigmatic religious movement. It is the purpose of this paper to detail the process which is at the core of Modern Western Occultism, where religions are considered discrete systems of useable technologies that can be isolated, extracted, and rebuilt into customized systems of religious beliefs and rituals. This conceptual approach was pivotal in the formation of the New Age movement, the proliferation of Eastern religious elements into the West, and the modern consideration of religion that fostered the “spiritual marketplace.

    A20-74

Zen Buddhism Seminar

Theme: Zen Thought

The seminar explores Zen thought with discussions on Zen understanding of mind, Buddha, enlightenment, the role of doubt in koan tradition. It also evaluates the legacy of D. T. Suzuki as well as zen ethics in relation to Wang Yang-ming's philosophy.

Mind, Buddha, and the Way: Doctrinal Permutations in Mid-Tang Chan
Mario Poceski, University of Florida

The paper explores the conceptions of mind and Buddhahood in Tang Chan, and their ramifications for interpreting the inner dynamics of Chan practice and realization. The staring point for the study is the well-known adage “mind is Buddha,” attributed to Mazu Daoyi, the leader of the Hongzhou school. Notwithstanding the appeal of the premise of readily accessible Buddhahood, the teaching of “mind is Buddha” inherited problems associated with the tathāgatagarbha doctrine, especially its propensity to reify the true mind. Because of that, the records of Mazu’s disciples explicitly criticize its doctrinal stance. Such concerns are partially addressed by the basic notion that all teachings, including “mind is Buddha,” are simply expedient means and should not be grasped as normative truth claims. Accordingly, doctrinal formulations are useful only inasmuch as they counteract mental fixations and facilitate the experience of nonduality, but they are provisional and eventually have to be given up.

Doubt as a Unique Chan Approach to Cultivation and Enlightenment
Ding-hwa Evelyn Hsieh, Truman State University

Chan has often been characterized as anti-logical, anti-traditional, and anti-scriptural. These labels are misleading and fail to describe what Chan really means. Chan is distinctive because it emphasizes self-effort, self-investigation, and self-realization by using doubt as a motivating engine. Unfolding the story of doubt in Chan helps to bring into focus the essence of Chan cultivation and the nature of Chan enlightenment.

Doubt, the state of perplexity and spirit of inquiry, has deep roots in indigenous Chinese thought that often warned against blind acceptance of authority and certainty in one’s intellectual pursuit and moral commitment. Nonetheless, it is also a systematic methodology resulted from the Chan hermeneutical device of the “live word” and “dead word.” Doubt is a prerequisite to good faith; it serves as an introspective force that motivates one to undertake critical self-reflection of one’s own conviction and thus keeps one’s faith grounded in sanity and humanity.

Problems with Enlightenment: The Performance of Encounter Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Chan Buddhism
Jiang Wu, University of Arizona

Many discussions of Zen thought are based on historical sources of early and medieval Chan/Zen traditions, which are regarded as “the golden age” of Chinese Buddhism. Less known is the revival of Chan Buddhism in seventeenth-century China. In this movement, Chan monks sought to reinvent Chan ideals such as the performance of encounter dialogue. This paper proposes to study various implications of the performance of encounter dialogue as revived in the seventeenth century. I shall examine the use of encounter dialogues in Chan communities and reveal that these encounter dialogues were largely enacted based on imitation of previous kōan stories. Such an imitated performance posed questions to the meaning of genuine enlightenment experience because it created a “faked” imagination of actual awakening. By employing performative analysis,” I point out that the problem of such reinvented practice lies in the imagination of “textual ideals” that entail a “performatively created past.

Zen and Japanese Culture: Cultural Perspectives on Suzuki Daisetsu's Interpretation of Zen
Albert F. Welter, University of Winnipeg

Suzuki's influence over modern Zen is indisputable, and has lately been the subject of pointed commentary. Many have noted the correspondence between Suzuki's interpretation of Zen and the Nihonjin ron (Japanism) agenda of the Kyoto School. I draw parallels between Suzuki's interpretation and two prominent thinkers who haveinfluenced notions about Japanese culture: the Edo period Shinto revivalist, Motoori Norinaga, and the father of modern folklore studies in Japan, Yanagita Kunio. I argue that aspects of Norinaga's kokugaku (National Learning) agenda were adapted and reformulated by Suzuki for a twentieth century context. I also suggest how Yanagita's association of contemporary folk customs as a reflection of Japan's 'deep culture' parallels Suzuki's famous identification of Zen's with Japan's artistic traditions. The presentation raises the issue of the role of culture in defining Zen, and whether Suzuki's interpretation of Zen is more about Japanese cultural proclivities than Zen teaching or practice.

    A20-75

Animals and Religion Consultation

Theme: Compassion and Sacrifice, Friends and Enemies: Animals in Religious Traditions

Animals function in myriad roles across the world's religious traditions and throughout human history. This series of papers examines animals across time and space. 'Christ as Orpheus' (Susan Power Bratton) compares ancient Roman and early Christian imagery; 'Dogs in Islam' (Richard Foltz) asks whether canines are God's worst enemy or 'man's' best friend; 'Generating Compassion Through the Release of Animals' (Jennifer Eichman) explores differing perspectives in Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism; 'Surrogate Suffering' (Antonia Gorman) moves into the contemporary cultural/theological discourse via the vivisection movement. Throughout the presentations we continue to pose a central question of 'other than human animals' and where/how they fit in religious studies dialogues.

Christ as Orpheus: Attitudes towards Animal Sacrifice and Violence towards Animals in Early Christian Art
Susan Power Bratton, Baylor University

Comparison of non-Christian and Christian Roman art from the 2nd through the 5th centuries CE demonstrates that Christians adopted Roman motifs concerning plants and agriculture with little modification, while largely eliminating violent scenes concerning animals. Roman sarcophagi lacking obvious Christian symbols may portray the deceased as hunting or depict Dionysian revels with decapitated animals. Christian art favors bucolic settings with shepherds and living animals. Frescoes depict Christ as Orpheus charming the creatures as well as the Good Shepherd, accompanied by his companion animal, a faithful dog, or carrying a sheep. Christian art reduces hunting scenes and military symbols such as horses. The paper investigates possible theological and ethical roots for the differences between Christian and non-Christian images of animals including Christian concepts of egalitarian society, acceptance of barbaric or foreign cultures, and pacifism. Early Christian art rejects Roman sacrificial rituals, potentially including the Roman games.

Generating Compassion through the Release of Animals
Jennifer Eichman, Seton Hall University

Late sixteenth-century Chinese Buddhists claimed that releasing animals was a means to cultivate the mind. To persuade their peers to join releasing-life societies and to attract financial support for the excavation of ponds, they had to address criticisms from both Confucians and other Buddhists. The Confucian scholar, Wang Yangming (1472-1579), wrote that because animals and humans share in the same underlying substance, namely, innate knowing, animals should be used to nourish one’s parents. In contrast, the monk Zhuhong (1535-1615) and his lay followers believed that because humans and animals are both sentient and have buddha-nature, they should not be killed for human consumption. This paper will flesh out the theoretical arguments for and against killing animals, and present some of the ethical practices that were promoted by Zhuhong’s followers, especially Yuan Zhongdao (1570-1604) and Tao Wangling (1562-1609).

Surrogate Suffering: Sin, Salvation, and Sacrifice within the Vivisection Movement
Antonia Gorman, Drew University

Within the surrogacy model of Christian 'salvation,' the sacrifice of Jesus is seen to be the necessary condition for the redemption of humanity. Under this model, the torture and death of an innocent victim not only becomes an acceptable price to pay for the redemption of the sinful many, it becomes the essential price. This paper will show that this model of sacrificial, substitutionary suffering and death repeatedly plays itself out upon the bodies of vivisected animals and that it has self-consciously done so since the advent of the vivisection debate in the Victorian era. It will argue that calls for the recognition of animal subjectivity, so often and importantly heard within the halls of the animal rights/welfare movement, can have little effect within the sacrificial paradigm. Instead, a reformulation of 'salvation' will be recommended--one that utilizes an eco-relational theology in order to dislodge the logic of substitutionary sacrifice.

    A20-76

Childhood Studies and Religion Consultation

Theme: Orphans and Adoption as Matters of Sex, Race, and Poverty: Interfaith Perspectives

This session explores diverse religious perspectives on orphans and adoption. Scholars from various fields address issues such as biblical views of adoption, Christian and Jewish grounds for adoption, hospitality toward orphaned children, systems of foster care and adoption, the role of gender and race in adoption, market aspects of US adoptions, single-parent and gay and lesbian adoption, and cross-cultural adoption.

The Want Ads: Second-Hand Children, the Ethics of Adoption, and the Age of Desire
Laurie Zoloth, Northwestern University

This paper explores the invisibility of children awaiting adoption in a culture troubled by the drama of “designer babies,” genetic engineering, cloning, and ethics of reproduction. For scholars of religion the issue of orphans bears particular weight, for in the Biblical tradition the yearning for children, the problem of fostering marginal children, and the construction of the family are central to the text. Acts of hospitality frame moral imperative in Jewish tradition and lead us to ask: how ought our communities, our fields, and our families respond to the persistent and unanswered yearning of children in the foster and adoptive system? This paper will analyze the literature of “designer” babies and want ads for adoption; reflect on the salient issues in the systems of adoptions and foster care; and reflect on the way that the Jewish textual and Halachic tradition responds to the question of hospitality toward orphaned children.

The Hospitality of Adoption
Jeffrey Hensley, Virginia Theological Seminary

This paper reflects theologically on adoption as a Christian practice of hospitality to children and grounds this reflection in a recovery of the concept of adoption as a way of understanding our relationship with God. It specifically criticizes the prevalent view of adoption as a mere alternative mode of reproduction that leads to the commodification of children. In contrast, it advocates viewing adoption as an expression of charity, a vocation of hospitality in addition to the gifting of children to those who cannot or choose not to have them biologically. Thus it calls for a Christian (i.e., Trinitarian) ethic of hospitality to children that goes beyond the self-interested desire to perpetuate oneself in others—beyond, in other words, a biological form of idolatry—and rather advocates viewing adoption as a witness of God’s gratuitous love for the world.

Suffering the Suffering Children: Christianity and the Rights and Wrongs of Adoption
Timothy P. Jackson, Emory University

Section I of this essay examines how the Bible defines adoption. Section II looks at the rights that ground the moral and legal permissibility of adoption. Section III investigates the ethics of single-parent and gay and lesbian adoption. Section IV looks at the right of adoptees to know their biological identities. Section V asks how views on Christology affect basic perceptions of adoption.

My specific theses are that: (a) adoption is not merely the bestowal of a new (legal) identity but also the acknowledgement of a pre-existing humanity, (b) the primary adoption right is that of orphaned, unwanted, destitute, or abused children to be adopted, (c) it is the sanctity of these children’s lives that gives them this positive right, and (d) society ought to permit both single adults and same-sex couples to adopt.

Tangling the “Red Thread”: Interrogating Racial Difference in International and Cross-Cultural Adoption
Elaine K. Swartzentruber, Wake Forest University

In 2002 slightly over 5000 Chinese orphans, the vast majority being female, were issued immigrant Visas entering the United States as the newly adopted children of American citizens, the vast majority being Caucasian. This paper addresses such cross-cultural adoption as a crucible for systematic interrogation of racial difference and privilege in theorizing and living out of relationships between women. The realities of white supremacy persist as a blind-spot in the ideological discourse of “bi-cultural” Chinese-American adoption inhibiting a thorough analysis of the highly politicized construction of the intimate and personal relational bonds between mother and daughter. Feminist political and theological discourse, as well as ethnographic narrative frame the investigation.

    A20-77

Liberal Theologies Consultation

Theme: Liberal Theologies: Parameters and Prospectives

The Sociology of Liberal Protestantism
Chris Hinkle, Harvard University

Of late liberal theology seems to have many assailants and few defenders. The liberal churches, having lost past social prominence, face an uncertain future. This paper compares depictions of liberal Protestantism by four sociologists (Stark, Berger, Bellah, and Wuthnow), within the context of their treatment of secularization and of the influence of higher education on religious belief and practice. Drawing on this research, I argue that liberal religious thought is precariously intertwined with contested conceptions of secularization, and that the openness to culture and scholarship which defines it will, if these spheres are resolutely secular, invariably deplete it as well. A rehabilitation of liberal Protestant thought and practice thus demands rethinking our understanding of the contemporary social order.

Liberal Theologies: An Alternative Family History
Sheila Greeve Davaney, Iliff School of Theology

Liberal theology is most often associated with the turn to experience, indeed the turn to universal forms of experience, articulated by Schleiermacher. Much of the current criticism of liberal theology has focused on this dimension of the liberal tradition. Not only does such criticism neglect the self-correcting developments concerning the interpretation of human experience that have occurred within liberal theologies over the last century and a half, it almost thoroughly ignores other strands of religious reflection that counter such universalistic and essentializing assumptions. Most significantly, the critics of liberal theology exhibit a strange amnesia concerning the historicist and, in the American context, pragmatist dimensions of theological liberalism. This paper will trace this alternative trajectory within liberal theologies making explicit mention of the precursors to liberalism such as Herder and especially the American socio-historical versions of liberal religious thought that characterized the early Chicago School of Theology.

Can There Be a Radical Liberalism? Nineteenth-Century Resources for Contemporary Theological Liberalism
Daniel McKanan, Saint John's University

Liberal theology can be defined in opposition both to 'orthodoxy' and to 'radicalism.' Liberals reject the dogmatism and pessimism of 'orthodox' Christianity, while 'radicals' assail liberals for compromising with culture. Indeed, critics ranging from Barth to Hauerwas have proposed theological orthodoxy as the foundation for political radicalism. Theological liberals can respond to this challenge with a theology that is both radical and liberal, celebrating the divine goodnes present in all persons and cultures while recognizing that the struggle against evil demands revolutionary as well as evolutionary change. This paper will explore the radical liberalism of nineteenth-century activists like William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglass. They found support for their liberal idealism in both the Christian tradition and the American revolutionary heritage, but they were willing to overthrow both church and state when these violated their highest ideals. Their example can revitalize liberal theology for a new century.

Concerns and Parameters of Liberal Jewish Theology
Ellen M. Umansky, Fairfield University

Over the last one hundred and fifty years, liberal Jewish theology has developed in a number of new directions. The rational “God idea” of nineteenth century classical Reform Judaism gave way to greater belief in God’s reality, although the nature of that reality took, and continues to take, a number of different forms. Early Reform’s emphasis on universalism has since given way to greater emphasis on particularism, while Reform, Reconstructionism, and Conservative Judaism have sought to create distinct theological voices and visions within the American Jewish community. So have feminist theologians and those theologians self-identifying as progressive, new age, or “renewal” Jews. This presentation will explore both the development of Liberal Jewish theologies from the mid-nineteenth century through the present and the clearly articulated parameters and possibilities of each.

Liberal Theology: Roots, Consensus, Enigmas
William E. Farley, Vanderbilt University

This paper explores the present situation of liberal theologies. First, liberal theology’s historical roots are post-medieval movements of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Liberalism arises as one way Protestant theologians responded to that set of institutions, epistemes, and cultural phenomena called the modern. Second, the many sides and movements of liberal theology can be summarized in ten convictions, both negative and positive, that constitute a loose consensus. Third, three enigmas (horizons of future work) shape the present situation and challenge of liberal theology. The first is liberal theology’s tenuous relation to its religious community, to actual religion as practised. The second is the cognitive problem created by the relativization of traditional authorities, the problem of the references and criteria of theological judgments. The third is liberal theology’s ambivalent relation to the modern that grounds its appropriation of historical, social, philosophical and other frameworks in which it would recast religious insights.

    A20-78

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Annual Meeting Initiatives and How to Propose a New Program Unit

Join the chair of the Program Committee and the AAR Annual Meeting Program Director for an informal chat about upcoming Annual Meeting initiatives as well as the guidelines and policies for proposing a new Annual Meeting program unit.

    A20-100

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Got Life? Finding Balance and Making Boundaries in the Academy

This session explores the question of whether it is possible to balance a broad set of life pursuits with academic work. Is the academy structured so as to enable or even allow a variety of important life activities? Within the contemporary academy can one be a scholar/teacher and have a life? The panelists will address issues such as parenting, participation and leadership in religious communities, caregiving, work in the arts, adjunct appointments, and graduate student life. The panel, in conversation with the audience, will engage not just the question of how individuals manage to have a life while pursuing academic careers, but also the best practices that academic institutions can pursue to enable work-life balance.

    A20-101

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Teaching Ethics: The Challenges of Moral Discourse in the Classroom

In the aftermath of September 11, the field of religion has increasingly been turned to, by students and others, for insights on ethical issues and perspectives. What challenges and opportunities exist, and what kind of creative techniques can one employ in teaching ethics? How does teaching ethics differ in a variety of academic contexts, ranging from large state universities to small denominational schools? Is it the role of the instructor to be moral advocate, referee for disparate opinions, or something else? A distinguished group of panelists, all of whom have extensive experience in teaching ethics, will engage each other and the audience on these questions and share some of their successes and failures.

    A20-102

Special Topics Forum

Theme: The Gifford Lectures: Retrospect and Prospect

Larry Witham's new book, The Measure of God: Our Century Long Struggle to Reconcile Science and Religion, provides an insightful history and analysis of the Gifford Lectures and their legacy. Endowed by Lord Gifford in 1887, the lectures have included such great and diverse thinkers as William James, Albert Schweitzer, Niels Bohr, Karl Barth, and Iris Murdoch. Using this as a starting point, the panelists will together address the importance of the Gifford Lectures and the impact that they have had on the philosophy of religion, the relation of religion and science, and on the broader intellectual currents of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Since most of the speakers are themselves Gifford lecturers, the panel will also include personal reflection on giving the Gifford lectures and how the experience has shaped their own thoughts.

    A20-103

Special Topics Forum

Theme: Before You Sign That Book Contract: Negotiating with a Publishing House

As the demands on scholars to publish continue to increase, it’s vital to understand the elements of a book contract. In this session, experts will guide you through the basic clauses of a standard contract, alerting you to some areas that are usually negotiable and discussing important matters like subsidiary rights, out-of-print clauses, advance s and royalties, delivery dates, option clauses and right of first refusal, and indemnities. More than half of the session will be devoted to questions from the audience.

    A20-104

Arts, Literature, and Religion Section

Theme: Mourning and Responses to Suffering

Facing Death: Confronting and Portraying the Dead in Spirit Photography, 1861-1940
John Harvey, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

This paper argues that the image of the dead and of the culture of bereavement was transformed and adapted to the conditions of modernity by spirit photography. The camera provided a technologically mediated encounter with the dead (who appeared on the photographic negative, usually in the form a translucent portrait); evidence of post-mortem survival; and a pictorial promissory of, and index to, the life to come. In so doing, spirit photography revised received models for pictorializing ghosts; extended the range of devices used to keep ‘alive’ the memory of the dead; and profoundly changed the psychology and process of grieving.

Awakening and Encouraging Desire to Hear Stories of Suffering: An Exploration of Friedrich Schleiermacher's Die Weihnachtsfeier: Ein Gespräch
Melissa Johnston-Barrett, Emory University

The Christian theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher is not the first to come to mind when addressing suffering theologically. However, his relatively little-known fictional work, Die Weihnachtsfeier: Ein Gesprach (Christmas Eve: A Dialogue) (1806), proves itself a refreshing alternative to other theological treatments. Traditionally, theology has dealt with suffering as a punishment for sin, as a way of building character, or even as something “aesthetically” necessary. While more recent theology has called these ways of dealing with suffering into question and has pushed for the need to recognize and include the actual voices of those who suffer in theology, almost none have dealt with the issue of how to cultivate the desire to listen to those voices to begin with. This paper explores Schleiermacher’s Weihnachtsfeier as an example of a theological text that does deal with the cultivation of the desire to listen to and tell stories of suffering.

Maccabees and Memory: The Conflation of Hanukkah and the Holocaust in Jewish Children's Literature
Jodi R. Eichler, Columbia University

The figure of Judah Maccabee has been seized as a site of Jewish memory and heritage in diverse ways. In twentieth and twenty-first century America, he has become commercialized as a “Huggable Hanukkah Hero” doll while simultaneously being invoked to link the discrete historical persecutions of the so-called “First Hannukah” and the Holocaust. In this paper I argue that the construction of Jewish identity in contemporary children’s Hanukkah literature takes place through the interwoven writing of trauma and of nostalgia. Drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Maurice Halbwachs, among others, I show that the temporal flexibility of such media cuts in numerous directions. On the one hand, it leads to a flattening of time and glossing over of historical differences. At the same time, it makes space for the imagined restoration of a lost past as a palliative for coping with trauma.

Narratives of Trauma and Truth: Letters from Prison in Early Modern England
W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago

Catholics and Protestants imprisoned for matters of religion in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries covertly published letters in which they argued that they were suffering unjustly for witness to Christian truth. These letters sought to make good on this claim by weaving together three narrative strands: the prisoner's place within the grand narrative of Christian martyrdom; the detailed narrative of the prisoner's arrest and imprisonment; and the narrative of the prisoner's interior preparation for death. This narrative strategy is illustrated through a close, contextual reading of four Elizabethan prison letters, two by English Jesuits and two by Protestant sectarians.

    A20-105

Christian Systematic Theology Section and Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group

Theme: Beauty in Thought, Prayer, and Action: Theological Reflections on Mysticism and Social Activism

This co-sponsored session between the Christian Systematic Theology section and the Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace group focuses on the intrinsic connections between Christian mysticism and activism, a seeming oddity in the Western world. The papers selected for presentation include expository examinations of theologians who have spoken to and done both mysticism and activism in an integral manner, as well as constructive engagements with and critiques of the theory and practice of mysticism and activism.

Channeling Reconciliation: Howard Thurman and the "Poetics of Peace"
Ridgeway Addison, Catholic University of America, Georgetown University

'Channeling Reconciliation: Howard Thurman and the 'Poetics

As a Baptist minister, pastoral theologian, and 'spiritual architect' of the American civil rights movement, Howard Thurman (1900-1981) made significant contributions to the religious and ethical life of twentieth-century America. This paper presents a first-time analysis of Thurman's unique 'reconciling' spiritual idiom (i.e. his 'poetics of peace')as expressed in his many sermons, lectures, addresses, as well as his published and unpublished writings on mysticism and peace. Primary attention will be given to Thurman's own concern for what may be called the 'grammatical' aesthetic' as addressed in his journals, autobiography, and his twin manuscripts, 'The Word,' and 'Apostles of Sensitiveness.'

Where on Earth Is God? Palamite Mystical Theology as a Basis for Environmental Activism
Eleanor Forfang-Brockman, Texas Christian University

In our age of environmental crisis, various attempts at “green” cosmologies have been developed. Some of the most adventurous and potentially effective options, such as process theology and the theologies of “the world as God’s body,” are regarded as challenging received tradition. The mystical theology of Eastern Orthodox Palamite tradition, however, offers a cosmology that neither relativizes humanity (as does deep ecology) nor arouses suspicions of pantheism. This paper will argue that Palamite theology, which is at heart mystical, affirms the radical transcendence of God as well as divine immanence, recognizes the indwelling presence of God in creation, affirms the non-human while at the same time elevating the role of humanity, and broadens the meaning of salvation to include the cosmos itself. In short, Palamite cosmology may provide precisely the foundation for a Christian cosmology that can support environmental activism.

God's Beauty, Social Activism, and the Cross of Christ
Gregory Love, San Francisco Theological Seminary

In 'The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance,' Dorothee Soelle seeks to erase the distinction between the mystical experience of God and social activism. Against a privatized spirituality rooted in a 'perennial philosophy,' and the dogmatic, cerebral faith of the German Protestantism of her upbringing, Soelle identifies a form of mysticism rooted in the concrete particulars of life lived in this world. God is 'common,' 'accessible to everyone.' While Soelle's form of mysticism rightly encourages both inter-religious dialogue and common ethical endeavor, it fails to recognize that Christianity brings to the discussion a unique form of mysticism rooted not in common experience but in the particular narrative of a God who enacts a risky descent, becoming vulnerable to pain and suffering, in order to lift up the threatened creatures. Barth and Bonhoeffer exemplify such a Christian mysticism which, rooted in the God's strange cruciform beauty, enact social resistance to evil.

Some Questions for Male Christian Pacifists
Sarah Morice-Brubaker, University of Notre Dame

This paper examines some examples of masculinist bias in articulations of Christian pacifism, particularly their characteristic focus on state violence. The author suggests ways in which female heterosexual experience may be imagined as a metaphor for Christian nonviolence, and suggests that the image of the church as 'polis' needs to be mitigated by the image of the church as household. The connection between female sexual experience and nonviolent practice also facilitates a needed connection between political theology and mystical theology.

    A20-106

North American Religions Section

Theme: Author Meets Critics: Robert A. Orsi's Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them

Three critics - Peter D'Agostino, Paula Kane, and Thomas Ferraro - will speak about the recent book by Robert A. Orsi, BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH: THE RELIGIOUS WORLDS PEOPLE MAKE AND THE SCHOLARS WHO STUDY THEM. Discussion among all session attendees follows the presentations and Robert A. Orsi's response.

    A20-107

Japanese Religions Group

Theme: Zen and the Art of the Bell Curve: Educating Buddhists in Japan and the U.S.

This session explores the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of Japanese Buddhist education both in Japan and in America. The various papers consider Buddhist education as it occurs at sectarian universities, high schools, temples, research centers, and in American Soto Zen communities. In order to better understand issues of concern in Japanese Buddhism today, it is crucial to be aware of how Buddhists themselves teach history, doctrine, ritual, and values. Japanese Buddhism continues to grope for ways to maintain doctrinal purity while responding to the needs of a drastically changing society. Rather than reinforcing this dichotomy through an exegesis of classical texts or an ethnography of a present-day temple, this panel charts the as yet unexplored arena of religious education as a way to bring together the diverse, and often contradictory voices, that make up contemporary Japanese Buddhism, both in Japan and abroad.

    A20-108

Religion and the Social Sciences Section

Theme: Contemporary Psychological Approaches to the Comparative Study of Religion

Spirituality of the Flesh: The Role of Discrete Emotions in Religious Life
Robert C. Fuller, Bradley University

This paper examines the role of discrete emotions in shaping humanity’s religious sensibilities. I will explore recent research in the natural and social sciences that highlights the importance of identifying distinct emotions and explore how this research opens up new possibilities for understanding the biological basis of religious thought or emotion. More specifically, I will review contemporary research on two very different discrete emotions: fear and wonder. The selective effects that fear has upon our perceptual and cognitive operations sets a biological context for interpreting a variety of religious phenomena--especially North American Protestant apocalypticism which is known for generating tribalism, boundary-posturing, and excessive concern for demonizing enemies real or imagined. I will also argue that research concerning the neurology and evolutionary-adaptive of the emotion of wonder provide