{"title":"The Linguistic Turn and the Expanding Horizons of Early Christian Martyrdom","authors":"David L. Eastman","doi":"10.1163/15743012-BJA10019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-BJA10019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the impact of martyrdom literature on the formation of Christian identity in the earliest centuries. Taking a cue from insights from the “linguistic turn” in scholarship, the article examines the function of martyr traditions in identifying suffering as the evidence of true Christian identity, in transforming the martyrs into a perceived elite class of Christians to be emulated, and in promoting a strong, anti-imperial rhetoric. Questions of historical veracity in these texts therefore give way to an analysis of the rhetorical and ideological impact of these stories.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82169607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Illius sponsi thalamus fuit uterus virginis”","authors":"Chris L. de Wet","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the image of Mary’s womb as the bridal chamber in which the Word and the flesh, the divine and the human natures of Christ, are united. The image presents the reader with a paradox – the Word and the flesh engage in a divine unification and comingling in the womb of the virgin. The study traces the development of the image in the earlier works of Augustine, and contextualises it within Augustine’s later thought, in which the body and sexuality are considered in a more positive light. The study aims to demonstrate that Augustine’s structuring of incarnational theology served as a framework for his views on sexuality – prelapsarian, postlapsarian, and eschatological sexuality – and the discourse of the incarnation, especially in his later thought, should be seen primarily as a discourse of sexuality.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90311897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between Boundaries, towards Decolonial Possibilities in a Feminist Classroom","authors":"F. Seedat, Sarojini Nadar","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper theorises the teaching and learning of feminist approaches to the Bible and the Qurʾan in a Master’s course with a historically Christian focus. It draws on a critical review of an assessment task, and our pedagogical experiences as teachers, to consider how students made meaning within this decolonial pedagogical space, which explored feminist approaches to the two sacred texts. Our analysis shows, our work as teachers was to hold onto the tension in the space between two feminist approaches to sacred texts, and to not succumb to the pressure to release, trivialise or exacerbate that tension.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75886816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Racialization of the Jewish Question","authors":"W. Goldstein","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article explores how the Jewish Question went from being a question of whether to give Jews, as a religious minority, citizenship, to a racial theory of a conflict between the Aryan and Semitic races. It explores the origins of Christian anti-Judaism in Europe and describes how it flared up during the Crusades, Inquisition, and Pogroms. It then describes how and explains why the Jewish Question became pseudo-secularized into a pseudo-scientific racial anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Final Solution.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82704865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religion: The Final Frontier of the Rainbow Nation","authors":"Lee-Shae S. Scharnick-Udemans","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article assesses the ways in which religious diversity and religious pluralism are asserted and negotiated within the context of contemporary South Africa through scrutinising the Christian Friendly Products campaign which advocates against the ubiquity of the halaal food symbol and halaal food in South Africa. Halaal is an Islamic term, which refers to food products that are ritually permissible for consumption by Muslims. The campaign claims that the visible presence of halaal food in public spaces undermines the rights of Christian consumers, is an affront to the beliefs of Christians, and is a presage to the impending Islamisation of South Africa. In claiming that religion is the final frontier of the rainbow nation, this article argues that the myth of rainbowism, once wielded as a peacemaking gesture and nation building tool, has projected inaccurate representations of religious coexistence and difference in South Africa that obscure and minimise growing religious conflict and tension.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90933538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Problem with Sandra","authors":"Stephen R. Milford","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The orangutan, Sandra, has been legally granted the status of ‘non-human person.’ Although, a great victory for those who promote animal rights, this has raised questions about the contemporary approaches to personhood. Recent relational ontological shifts, evident in both secular and theological anthropology, risks unfortunate consequences. Like a snake eating its own tail, without proper circumspection, relational ontology is in danger of postulating a problematic circularity of persons creating persons out of nothing. This article explores these recent shifts, the possible pitfalls of relational ontology, and proposes certain theological desiderata.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72386029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor’s Preface","authors":"Gerhard van den Heever","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82006394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creating the Coloured Other in South Africa in Light of the “Jewish Question” in Germany","authors":"H. Walters, C. V. D. Waal","doi":"10.1163/15743012-02703002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703002","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers a response to Warren Goldstein’s analysis of the racialisation of the “Jewish Question.” By analysing the role of Scripture, Afrikaner nationalism and racial science in the production of apartheid, we argue that the insights shared by Goldstein as related to the “Jewish Question” sparks a fertile reflection on the “Coloured Question” in South Africa. While the outcomes differed, the correlations are to be found in the processes of othering that preceded and accompanied them. We explore the entangled nature of theology, biology, and politics in the racialisation, and subsequent othering, of the coloured category (where resonances with the Jewish example are to be found). By illustrating the similarities and differences between the “Jewish Question” and the “Coloured Question,” what is offered here is a piece to think with as the process of othering finds new targets in an increasingly polarised world.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82740834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reconsidering Secularism and Historical Narrative of Christianity","authors":"F. Kubra Aytac","doi":"10.1163/15743012-bja10005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-bja10005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this review article, Graeme Smith, A Short History of Secularism, is reviewed with its main arguments regarding secularisation debate. A radical reconsideration of secularism and its social history, starting with the Greeks and continuing to modernity and the contemporary period, are offered by this book. The book’s attempt to construct a historical narrative of Christianity is an essential contribution to literature. It highlights the changes Christianity is exposed to as it moved across Europe and different mindsets that influenced people during this period. Students who are interested in studies in pastoral psychology, religion, and secularism are the primary audience for this monograph. However, anyone interested in the secularism debate will find it interesting.","PeriodicalId":41841,"journal":{"name":"Religion and Theology-A Journal of Contemporary Religious Discourse","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91341306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}