Andrew C. Dole
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195341171
- eISBN:
- 9780199866908
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341171.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This book reconstructs Friedrich Schleiermacher's understanding of religion and sets this reconstruction into the intellectual and political context of Schleiermacher's work. It is common in the ...
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This book reconstructs Friedrich Schleiermacher's understanding of religion and sets this reconstruction into the intellectual and political context of Schleiermacher's work. It is common in the English literature to see Schleiermacher described as a theorist of “religious experience” or as a hermeneutician of religion, but these views fundamentally misrepresent both the central concerns and the contents of his writings. The reconstruction focuses on Schleiermacher's account of religion as a historically and culturally embedded phenomenon that extends from a core or “essence” within human subjectivity into the realm of interpersonal relations, practices, and material productions. The book calls particular attention to Schleiermacher's lectures in ethics at Halle and Berlin, wherein he developed an understanding of religion as a process of the social formation of feeling. Schleiermacher should be regarded as a thinker who attempted to ground not only academic theology but also the collective self‐understanding of religious persons on an understanding of religion as a natural phenomenon unfolding within history and subject to investigation by the entire range of the natural and human sciences.Less
This book reconstructs Friedrich Schleiermacher's understanding of religion and sets this reconstruction into the intellectual and political context of Schleiermacher's work. It is common in the English literature to see Schleiermacher described as a theorist of “religious experience” or as a hermeneutician of religion, but these views fundamentally misrepresent both the central concerns and the contents of his writings. The reconstruction focuses on Schleiermacher's account of religion as a historically and culturally embedded phenomenon that extends from a core or “essence” within human subjectivity into the realm of interpersonal relations, practices, and material productions. The book calls particular attention to Schleiermacher's lectures in ethics at Halle and Berlin, wherein he developed an understanding of religion as a process of the social formation of feeling. Schleiermacher should be regarded as a thinker who attempted to ground not only academic theology but also the collective self‐understanding of religious persons on an understanding of religion as a natural phenomenon unfolding within history and subject to investigation by the entire range of the natural and human sciences.
Noam Reisner
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572625
- eISBN:
- 9780191721892
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572625.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book offers a comprehensive reassessment of Milton's poetic oeuvre in light of the literary and conceptual problem posed by Milton's sustained attempt to put into words that which is unsayable ...
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This book offers a comprehensive reassessment of Milton's poetic oeuvre in light of the literary and conceptual problem posed by Milton's sustained attempt to put into words that which is unsayable and beyond representation. The struggle with the ineffability of sacred or transcendental subject matter in many ways defines Milton's triumphs as a poet, especially in Paradise Lost, and goes to the heart of the central critical debates to engage his readers over the centuries and decades. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this study sheds fresh light on many of these debates by situating Milton's poetics of ineffability in the context of the intellectual cross-currents of Renaissance humanism and Protestant theology. The book plots an ongoing narrative in Milton's poetry about silence and ineffable mystery, which forms the intellectual framework within which Milton continually shapes and reshapes his poetic vision of the created universe and the elect man's singular place within it. From the free paraphrase of Psalm 114 to Paradise Regained, the presence of the ineffable insinuates itself into Milton's poetry as both the catalyst and check for his poetic creativity, where the fear of silence and ineffable mystery on the one hand, and the yearning to lose himself and his readers in unspeakable rapture on the other, becomes a struggle for poetic self-determination and, finally, redemption.Less
This book offers a comprehensive reassessment of Milton's poetic oeuvre in light of the literary and conceptual problem posed by Milton's sustained attempt to put into words that which is unsayable and beyond representation. The struggle with the ineffability of sacred or transcendental subject matter in many ways defines Milton's triumphs as a poet, especially in Paradise Lost, and goes to the heart of the central critical debates to engage his readers over the centuries and decades. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this study sheds fresh light on many of these debates by situating Milton's poetics of ineffability in the context of the intellectual cross-currents of Renaissance humanism and Protestant theology. The book plots an ongoing narrative in Milton's poetry about silence and ineffable mystery, which forms the intellectual framework within which Milton continually shapes and reshapes his poetic vision of the created universe and the elect man's singular place within it. From the free paraphrase of Psalm 114 to Paradise Regained, the presence of the ineffable insinuates itself into Milton's poetry as both the catalyst and check for his poetic creativity, where the fear of silence and ineffable mystery on the one hand, and the yearning to lose himself and his readers in unspeakable rapture on the other, becomes a struggle for poetic self-determination and, finally, redemption.
Dennis Austin Britton
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823257140
- eISBN:
- 9780823261482
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823257140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
The infidel-conversion motif—in which Jews and Muslims convert to Christianity—is a staple of romance narratives by Roman Catholic writers in medieval and early modern Europe. Baptisms and ...
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The infidel-conversion motif—in which Jews and Muslims convert to Christianity—is a staple of romance narratives by Roman Catholic writers in medieval and early modern Europe. Baptisms and conversions of infidels lead to an important telos of the romance genre: Despite their narrative wanderings and deferrals, romances often contain transformations of identity that lead to the incorporation of the other into Christian community. Uses of the infidel-conversion motif wane in post-Reformation England, however, in the wake of a Protestant theology that deemphasized the power of baptism to create Christian identity. Whereas Catholic theology had asserted that Christian identity begins with baptism, numerous theologians in the Church of England denied the necessity of baptism for salvation and instead treated Christian identity as a racial characteristic passed from parents to their children. The Church of England’s baptismal theology transformed Christians and “infidels” into distinctive races. This book examines English translations of Calvin, treatises on the sacraments, catechisms, and sermons alongside works by Edmund Spenser, John Harington, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Phillip Massinger. Through charting the intersections of race, Protestant theology, and literary form, this book intervenes in critical debates about the relationship between racial and religious identity in early modern England, as well as in discussions of the social implications of romance.Less
The infidel-conversion motif—in which Jews and Muslims convert to Christianity—is a staple of romance narratives by Roman Catholic writers in medieval and early modern Europe. Baptisms and conversions of infidels lead to an important telos of the romance genre: Despite their narrative wanderings and deferrals, romances often contain transformations of identity that lead to the incorporation of the other into Christian community. Uses of the infidel-conversion motif wane in post-Reformation England, however, in the wake of a Protestant theology that deemphasized the power of baptism to create Christian identity. Whereas Catholic theology had asserted that Christian identity begins with baptism, numerous theologians in the Church of England denied the necessity of baptism for salvation and instead treated Christian identity as a racial characteristic passed from parents to their children. The Church of England’s baptismal theology transformed Christians and “infidels” into distinctive races. This book examines English translations of Calvin, treatises on the sacraments, catechisms, and sermons alongside works by Edmund Spenser, John Harington, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Phillip Massinger. Through charting the intersections of race, Protestant theology, and literary form, this book intervenes in critical debates about the relationship between racial and religious identity in early modern England, as well as in discussions of the social implications of romance.
Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199931347
- eISBN:
- 9780199345724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931347.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The examination of the critical method as applied in German Mahābhārata and Bhagavadgītā scholarship has shown that although German scholars claimed to take a scientific approach to the epic, their ...
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The examination of the critical method as applied in German Mahābhārata and Bhagavadgītā scholarship has shown that although German scholars claimed to take a scientific approach to the epic, their interpretations were at best tangential and at worst irrelevant to the text at hand. No German interpreter in a period extending one hundred years had succeeded in presenting a coherent, philosophically illuminating interpretation of the Mahābhārata. The histories they presented of the epic existed nowhere else outside their own minds. The problem in German interpretations of Indian texts is not simply one of the inevitable misinterpretations that beset every hermeneutic endeavor. Rather, the critical method itself entailed a number of problematic prejudices. This chapter seeks to understand the reasons why the Indologists themselves could not see these problems. It looks at the scientization of Protestant theology in the critical method; the secularization of Protestant theology in the study of the history of religions; and the institutionalization of Protestant theology in Indology. It examines how the historical-critical method participates in a tradition of projecting a universal history, most characteristic of Christianity; how the method makes use of a teleological narrative of history, where history moves from a state of immaturity (the Kantian Unmündigkeit) to an enlightened, free, and critical use of reason; and how this narrative was used to justify implantation of an alternative tradition of textual scholarship in place of the Indian commentarial tradition.Less
The examination of the critical method as applied in German Mahābhārata and Bhagavadgītā scholarship has shown that although German scholars claimed to take a scientific approach to the epic, their interpretations were at best tangential and at worst irrelevant to the text at hand. No German interpreter in a period extending one hundred years had succeeded in presenting a coherent, philosophically illuminating interpretation of the Mahābhārata. The histories they presented of the epic existed nowhere else outside their own minds. The problem in German interpretations of Indian texts is not simply one of the inevitable misinterpretations that beset every hermeneutic endeavor. Rather, the critical method itself entailed a number of problematic prejudices. This chapter seeks to understand the reasons why the Indologists themselves could not see these problems. It looks at the scientization of Protestant theology in the critical method; the secularization of Protestant theology in the study of the history of religions; and the institutionalization of Protestant theology in Indology. It examines how the historical-critical method participates in a tradition of projecting a universal history, most characteristic of Christianity; how the method makes use of a teleological narrative of history, where history moves from a state of immaturity (the Kantian Unmündigkeit) to an enlightened, free, and critical use of reason; and how this narrative was used to justify implantation of an alternative tradition of textual scholarship in place of the Indian commentarial tradition.
Alexandra Walsham
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208877
- eISBN:
- 9780191678172
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208877.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, History of Religion
The chapter focuses on the various aspects of pre-Reformation practice and belief, and explores how traditional cultural paradigms were subtly altered and rehabilitated rather than permanently ...
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The chapter focuses on the various aspects of pre-Reformation practice and belief, and explores how traditional cultural paradigms were subtly altered and rehabilitated rather than permanently effaced by the advent of an era of rapid doctrinal and devotional innovation and change. The early modern canon of providential signs and wonders was a mosaic and an amalgam of a cluster of superficially inconsistent intellectual traditions. The post-Reformation repertoire of omens and portents owed much to pagan mythology. Protestant Ministers acknowledged that prodigies of all kinds could be a medium for conveying messages from heaven, and were against popular techniques of predicting the future as ‘heathenish’, ‘superstitious’, and incompatible with a true understanding of the doctrine of providence. The chapter also highlights the tension and interplay between Protestant theology and the preexisting cultures of divination, and explains how ancient cultural patterns serve as templates for the interpretation of current events, simultaneously throwing their own preoccupations into sharp and vivid relief.Less
The chapter focuses on the various aspects of pre-Reformation practice and belief, and explores how traditional cultural paradigms were subtly altered and rehabilitated rather than permanently effaced by the advent of an era of rapid doctrinal and devotional innovation and change. The early modern canon of providential signs and wonders was a mosaic and an amalgam of a cluster of superficially inconsistent intellectual traditions. The post-Reformation repertoire of omens and portents owed much to pagan mythology. Protestant Ministers acknowledged that prodigies of all kinds could be a medium for conveying messages from heaven, and were against popular techniques of predicting the future as ‘heathenish’, ‘superstitious’, and incompatible with a true understanding of the doctrine of providence. The chapter also highlights the tension and interplay between Protestant theology and the preexisting cultures of divination, and explains how ancient cultural patterns serve as templates for the interpretation of current events, simultaneously throwing their own preoccupations into sharp and vivid relief.
Caitlin Carenen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814741047
- eISBN:
- 9780814708378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814741047.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This concluding chapter describes further changes in Jewish–Christian relations, as Americans abandoned their historical mainline denominations in the heart of the city and struck out to form new ...
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This concluding chapter describes further changes in Jewish–Christian relations, as Americans abandoned their historical mainline denominations in the heart of the city and struck out to form new suburban evangelical churches with increasing emphasis on orthodox Protestant theology. Once considered marginal, these evangelicals would soon come to dominate the political and religious landscape at the turn of the twenty-first century. These politically powerful evangelical Protestants undertook their own theological innovations through a de-emphasis on end-of-times eschatology to focus more on the command to bless Israel in order to garner blessings for the United States. Thus, the politically pragmatic and humanitarian Zionism had been utterly replaced by a different Christian Zionism.Less
This concluding chapter describes further changes in Jewish–Christian relations, as Americans abandoned their historical mainline denominations in the heart of the city and struck out to form new suburban evangelical churches with increasing emphasis on orthodox Protestant theology. Once considered marginal, these evangelicals would soon come to dominate the political and religious landscape at the turn of the twenty-first century. These politically powerful evangelical Protestants undertook their own theological innovations through a de-emphasis on end-of-times eschatology to focus more on the command to bless Israel in order to garner blessings for the United States. Thus, the politically pragmatic and humanitarian Zionism had been utterly replaced by a different Christian Zionism.
P. C. Kemeny
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190844394
- eISBN:
- 9780190844424
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190844394.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society, History of Christianity
After examining who supported the Society for the Suppression of Vice, this chapter explores why so many social leaders and prominent liberal ministers, usually recognized as leading social and ...
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After examining who supported the Society for the Suppression of Vice, this chapter explores why so many social leaders and prominent liberal ministers, usually recognized as leading social and cultural progressive voices in their particular fields, wholeheartedly supported the censorship activities of the Watch and Ward Society. Four key sources shaped the anti-vice reformers’ rationale for the censorship of obscene literature: liberal Protestant theology, nineteenth-century moral philosophy, the Whig-Republican view of the public role of religion in society, and their Victorian view of literature. To the anti-vice activists, licentious literature fostered an animalism that hindered the gradual Christianization of society, ruined individuals moral character, encouraged other antisocial behaviors, and contradicted the basic canons of what constituted good literature. For these reasons, the moral reformers argued, voluntary organizations and the state had a moral obligation to suppress obscene works that threatened the well-being of society.Less
After examining who supported the Society for the Suppression of Vice, this chapter explores why so many social leaders and prominent liberal ministers, usually recognized as leading social and cultural progressive voices in their particular fields, wholeheartedly supported the censorship activities of the Watch and Ward Society. Four key sources shaped the anti-vice reformers’ rationale for the censorship of obscene literature: liberal Protestant theology, nineteenth-century moral philosophy, the Whig-Republican view of the public role of religion in society, and their Victorian view of literature. To the anti-vice activists, licentious literature fostered an animalism that hindered the gradual Christianization of society, ruined individuals moral character, encouraged other antisocial behaviors, and contradicted the basic canons of what constituted good literature. For these reasons, the moral reformers argued, voluntary organizations and the state had a moral obligation to suppress obscene works that threatened the well-being of society.
Fred Dallmayr
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813165783
- eISBN:
- 9780813165813
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813165783.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This book explores the possibility of a transition from the modern paradigm—presently in a state of decay or disarray—toward new modes of life where freedom and solidarity would be reconciled, thus ...
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This book explores the possibility of a transition from the modern paradigm—presently in a state of decay or disarray—toward new modes of life where freedom and solidarity would be reconciled, thus making possible a new flourishing of humanity on a global scale. However, it also acknowledges that antinomies of the past cannot quickly be exorcised by philosophical writings and that inherent conflicts in the modern paradigm may surface in virulent forms. Chapters 7 through 9 offer individual case studies that illustrate the difficulties involved in overcoming modern antinomies, especially the tension between freedom and solidarity. They look in particular at contemporary Protestant theology in its quest to reconcile human freedom with the Christian community of believers; Russian intellectual history in its difficult journey from traditional holism via totalitarianism to a precarious democratic freedom; and recent Indian philosophy as it tried to situate itself vis-à-vis traditional Hindu cosmology in its search for a viable democratic path in postcolonial India. The end of the book returns to the book’s central theme—the issue of a reconnection of freedom with social engagement—and stresses the need for new beginnings in this reconnection. Freedom and Solidarity ultimately offers that the solution to the possible derailments of freedom and solidarity into selfish narcissism and ethnocentric collectivism consists in the conception of solidarity as an open-ended, differentiated “public” and the conception of freedom as “authentic” guardianship.Less
This book explores the possibility of a transition from the modern paradigm—presently in a state of decay or disarray—toward new modes of life where freedom and solidarity would be reconciled, thus making possible a new flourishing of humanity on a global scale. However, it also acknowledges that antinomies of the past cannot quickly be exorcised by philosophical writings and that inherent conflicts in the modern paradigm may surface in virulent forms. Chapters 7 through 9 offer individual case studies that illustrate the difficulties involved in overcoming modern antinomies, especially the tension between freedom and solidarity. They look in particular at contemporary Protestant theology in its quest to reconcile human freedom with the Christian community of believers; Russian intellectual history in its difficult journey from traditional holism via totalitarianism to a precarious democratic freedom; and recent Indian philosophy as it tried to situate itself vis-à-vis traditional Hindu cosmology in its search for a viable democratic path in postcolonial India. The end of the book returns to the book’s central theme—the issue of a reconnection of freedom with social engagement—and stresses the need for new beginnings in this reconnection. Freedom and Solidarity ultimately offers that the solution to the possible derailments of freedom and solidarity into selfish narcissism and ethnocentric collectivism consists in the conception of solidarity as an open-ended, differentiated “public” and the conception of freedom as “authentic” guardianship.
Aya Elyada
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804781930
- eISBN:
- 9780804782821
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804781930.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By analyzing the ...
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This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By analyzing the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, it addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe. The analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.Less
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By analyzing the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, it addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe. The analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
Flavia Agnes
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195655247
- eISBN:
- 9780199081189
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195655247.003.0010
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
This chapter aims to trace the complex legal history of the Indian Christian community and their attempts at reform in the post-independence period and recent judicial intervention. The process of ...
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This chapter aims to trace the complex legal history of the Indian Christian community and their attempts at reform in the post-independence period and recent judicial intervention. The process of tracing the developments within the Christian personal law is complex because the laws governing Christians are shaped by two distinct colonial influences, and because the post-independence attempts of reform are marked by the conflict between the conservative Roman Catholic doctrine and the reformist Protestant theology which has its roots within European politics. In conclusion, it must be emphasized that to unravel the legal maze within which the Christian family laws are ensnared, a whole range of legal reforms are necessary and imperative. Unfortunately, even though the community is ready and willing, the political will to legislate for them is sadly lacking.Less
This chapter aims to trace the complex legal history of the Indian Christian community and their attempts at reform in the post-independence period and recent judicial intervention. The process of tracing the developments within the Christian personal law is complex because the laws governing Christians are shaped by two distinct colonial influences, and because the post-independence attempts of reform are marked by the conflict between the conservative Roman Catholic doctrine and the reformist Protestant theology which has its roots within European politics. In conclusion, it must be emphasized that to unravel the legal maze within which the Christian family laws are ensnared, a whole range of legal reforms are necessary and imperative. Unfortunately, even though the community is ready and willing, the political will to legislate for them is sadly lacking.
