Stanley Stowers
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199738960
- eISBN:
- 9780199918676
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738960.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion in the Ancient World
Focusing on a distinction between two modes of ancient Mediterranean religion, the religion of everyday social exchange, in which the main focus was on plant and animal offerings, and the religion of ...
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Focusing on a distinction between two modes of ancient Mediterranean religion, the religion of everyday social exchange, in which the main focus was on plant and animal offerings, and the religion of literate cultural producers, which relies upon the former but re-defines practice as a product of the mind, Stanley Stowers argues that ancient cultural producers textualized sacrificial practice, turning sacrifice into a matter of truths and meanings and overlooking the function of sacrifice as a strategic, practical system of reciprocity between gods and human beings. Modern studies of sacrifice too often depend upon these ancient textual performances, privileging theologies of sacrifice over the underlying and un-theorized practical system of sacrificial exchange in their own attempts to extract meaning. Stowers encourages a renewed focus on sacrifice as a strategy of daily living that avoids the obfuscating fascination with beliefs and discursive rationales common to ancient and modern discourses alike.Less
Focusing on a distinction between two modes of ancient Mediterranean religion, the religion of everyday social exchange, in which the main focus was on plant and animal offerings, and the religion of literate cultural producers, which relies upon the former but re-defines practice as a product of the mind, Stanley Stowers argues that ancient cultural producers textualized sacrificial practice, turning sacrifice into a matter of truths and meanings and overlooking the function of sacrifice as a strategic, practical system of reciprocity between gods and human beings. Modern studies of sacrifice too often depend upon these ancient textual performances, privileging theologies of sacrifice over the underlying and un-theorized practical system of sacrificial exchange in their own attempts to extract meaning. Stowers encourages a renewed focus on sacrifice as a strategy of daily living that avoids the obfuscating fascination with beliefs and discursive rationales common to ancient and modern discourses alike.
Ingo Gildenhard
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199291557
- eISBN:
- 9780191594885
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291557.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores Cicero's religious warfare with Clodius in three orations he delivered after his return from exile: the de Domo sua, the de Haruspicum Responso, and the pro Milone. All three ...
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This chapter explores Cicero's religious warfare with Clodius in three orations he delivered after his return from exile: the de Domo sua, the de Haruspicum Responso, and the pro Milone. All three speeches are deeply imbued with the axioms and the ideology of Rome's civic religion; at the same time, Cicero also brings into play ideas derived from Greek philosophy and tragedy, in particular to assert a theodicy, tightly linked to a civic ethics. After looking at each of the speeches in turn, the chapter casts a concluding look at the de Legibus, which contains a clear and coherent account of the theological schemes on which he relies more or less obliquely in the orations.Less
This chapter explores Cicero's religious warfare with Clodius in three orations he delivered after his return from exile: the de Domo sua, the de Haruspicum Responso, and the pro Milone. All three speeches are deeply imbued with the axioms and the ideology of Rome's civic religion; at the same time, Cicero also brings into play ideas derived from Greek philosophy and tragedy, in particular to assert a theodicy, tightly linked to a civic ethics. After looking at each of the speeches in turn, the chapter casts a concluding look at the de Legibus, which contains a clear and coherent account of the theological schemes on which he relies more or less obliquely in the orations.
Ingo Gildenhard
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199291557
- eISBN:
- 9780191594885
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291557.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores how Cicero configured the supernatural sphere in the light of his experiences with the tyrannies of Sulla and Caesar. After a look at a passage from the pro Sexto Roscio, in ...
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This chapter explores how Cicero configured the supernatural sphere in the light of his experiences with the tyrannies of Sulla and Caesar. After a look at a passage from the pro Sexto Roscio, in which Cicero turned from the protocols of Rome's civic religion to figures of thought derived from philosophical theology, the discussion focuses on his speeches before Caesar, especially the pro Marcello: it shows how the traditional gods, after imposing political apocalypse on Rome, themselves dwindle into mere shadows of their former selves, displaced by the quasi‐divine dictator. If the gods of Rome's civic religion all but died with the republic, they experienced a resurrection after the death of the dictator: the chapter concludes by exploring the idiosyncratic and incoherent fashion in which Cicero configures the divine in the Philippics.Less
This chapter explores how Cicero configured the supernatural sphere in the light of his experiences with the tyrannies of Sulla and Caesar. After a look at a passage from the pro Sexto Roscio, in which Cicero turned from the protocols of Rome's civic religion to figures of thought derived from philosophical theology, the discussion focuses on his speeches before Caesar, especially the pro Marcello: it shows how the traditional gods, after imposing political apocalypse on Rome, themselves dwindle into mere shadows of their former selves, displaced by the quasi‐divine dictator. If the gods of Rome's civic religion all but died with the republic, they experienced a resurrection after the death of the dictator: the chapter concludes by exploring the idiosyncratic and incoherent fashion in which Cicero configures the divine in the Philippics.
Vincent Azoulay
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154596
- eISBN:
- 9781400851171
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154596.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter examines Pericles' personal relations with the city gods and how his career as a stratēgos illuminates the Athenians' collective relationship to all that was divine. As a reelected ...
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This chapter examines Pericles' personal relations with the city gods and how his career as a stratēgos illuminates the Athenians' collective relationship to all that was divine. As a reelected stratēgos and a persuasive orator, Pericles was the spokesman of a civic religion that was undergoing a mutation. He was engaged in various religious activities at a time when the city was introducing profound changes into its religious account of its origins—that is, autochthony—within a context of strained diplomatic relations. The chapter first considers Pericles' role in religion and politics in the context of Athenian democracy, with particular emphasis on the religious festivals supposedly instituted by him, before discussing Pericles' privileged links with several deities in the pantheon. It also explores the increase in the number of impiety trials in Pericles' time.Less
This chapter examines Pericles' personal relations with the city gods and how his career as a stratēgos illuminates the Athenians' collective relationship to all that was divine. As a reelected stratēgos and a persuasive orator, Pericles was the spokesman of a civic religion that was undergoing a mutation. He was engaged in various religious activities at a time when the city was introducing profound changes into its religious account of its origins—that is, autochthony—within a context of strained diplomatic relations. The chapter first considers Pericles' role in religion and politics in the context of Athenian democracy, with particular emphasis on the religious festivals supposedly instituted by him, before discussing Pericles' privileged links with several deities in the pantheon. It also explores the increase in the number of impiety trials in Pericles' time.
SUSAN-MARY GRANT
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264355
- eISBN:
- 9780191734052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264355.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture presents the text of the speech about masculinity, disability, and race in the American Civil War delivered by the author at the 2007 Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History ...
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This lecture presents the text of the speech about masculinity, disability, and race in the American Civil War delivered by the author at the 2007 Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History held at the British Academy. It discusses the centrality of the Civil War to America's national history, and also highlights the role of the dead in the construction both of Northern/Union nationalism and the Southern civic religion.Less
This lecture presents the text of the speech about masculinity, disability, and race in the American Civil War delivered by the author at the 2007 Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History held at the British Academy. It discusses the centrality of the Civil War to America's national history, and also highlights the role of the dead in the construction both of Northern/Union nationalism and the Southern civic religion.
Mads Qvortrup
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719065804
- eISBN:
- 9781781700495
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719065804.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Previously unrecognised by scholars of nationalism, Rousseau was, in fact, the founder of the modern doctrine of nationalism. This chapter shows how Rousseau succeeded in developing a case for social ...
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Previously unrecognised by scholars of nationalism, Rousseau was, in fact, the founder of the modern doctrine of nationalism. This chapter shows how Rousseau succeeded in developing a case for social cohesion and the necessity of having a common culture in a society. In developing a case for nationalism as a ‘civic profession of faith’ he continued—and redeveloped—a doctrine begun by Machiavelli, which was later to be further elaborated by Alexis de Tocqueville and present-day theorists and practitioners of social capital, like the political scientist Robert Putnam and the English politician David Blunkett. It is argued that Rousseau accomplished the feat of developing a new doctrine of civic religion (i.e., nationalism) and that he succeeded in combining a defence for this doctrine with a new place for Christianity (which was consistent with the original apolitical teachings of Christ). The chapter also presents an account of Rousseau's thinking on international politics, including something as timely as an account of his opposition against the establishment of a European superstate.Less
Previously unrecognised by scholars of nationalism, Rousseau was, in fact, the founder of the modern doctrine of nationalism. This chapter shows how Rousseau succeeded in developing a case for social cohesion and the necessity of having a common culture in a society. In developing a case for nationalism as a ‘civic profession of faith’ he continued—and redeveloped—a doctrine begun by Machiavelli, which was later to be further elaborated by Alexis de Tocqueville and present-day theorists and practitioners of social capital, like the political scientist Robert Putnam and the English politician David Blunkett. It is argued that Rousseau accomplished the feat of developing a new doctrine of civic religion (i.e., nationalism) and that he succeeded in combining a defence for this doctrine with a new place for Christianity (which was consistent with the original apolitical teachings of Christ). The chapter also presents an account of Rousseau's thinking on international politics, including something as timely as an account of his opposition against the establishment of a European superstate.
Christopher B. Chapp
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451263
- eISBN:
- 9780801465680
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451263.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
From Ronald Reagan's regular invocation of America as “a city on a hill” to Barack Obama's use of spiritual language in describing social policy, religious rhetoric is a regular part of how ...
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From Ronald Reagan's regular invocation of America as “a city on a hill” to Barack Obama's use of spiritual language in describing social policy, religious rhetoric is a regular part of how candidates communicate with voters. Although the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test as a qualification to public office, many citizens base their decisions about candidates on their expressed religious beliefs and values. This book shows that Americans often make political choices because they identify with a “civil religion.” The book examines the role of religious political rhetoric in U.S. elections by analyzing both how political elites use religious language and how voters respond to different expressions of religion in the public sphere. The book evaluates how citizens respond to religious stumping. Effective religious rhetoric, the book finds, is characterized by two factors—emotive cues and invocations of collective identity—and these factors regularly shape the outcomes of American presidential elections and the dynamics of political representation. While we tend to think that certain issues (e.g., abortion) are invoked to appeal to specific religious constituencies who vote solely on such issues, the book shows that religious rhetoric is often more encompassing and less issue-specific. It concludes that voter identification with an American civic religion remains a driving force in U.S. elections, despite its potentially divisive undercurrents.Less
From Ronald Reagan's regular invocation of America as “a city on a hill” to Barack Obama's use of spiritual language in describing social policy, religious rhetoric is a regular part of how candidates communicate with voters. Although the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test as a qualification to public office, many citizens base their decisions about candidates on their expressed religious beliefs and values. This book shows that Americans often make political choices because they identify with a “civil religion.” The book examines the role of religious political rhetoric in U.S. elections by analyzing both how political elites use religious language and how voters respond to different expressions of religion in the public sphere. The book evaluates how citizens respond to religious stumping. Effective religious rhetoric, the book finds, is characterized by two factors—emotive cues and invocations of collective identity—and these factors regularly shape the outcomes of American presidential elections and the dynamics of political representation. While we tend to think that certain issues (e.g., abortion) are invoked to appeal to specific religious constituencies who vote solely on such issues, the book shows that religious rhetoric is often more encompassing and less issue-specific. It concludes that voter identification with an American civic religion remains a driving force in U.S. elections, despite its potentially divisive undercurrents.
Kyung Moon Hwang
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520288317
- eISBN:
- 9780520963276
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520288317.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In tackling the relationship between state and religion, chapter 5 examines state secularization, which, in Korea, championed religious pluralism as the overarching principle. This chapter argues ...
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In tackling the relationship between state and religion, chapter 5 examines state secularization, which, in Korea, championed religious pluralism as the overarching principle. This chapter argues that state secularization was complicated by the comprehensive influence of Confucianism in the Joseon dynastic state as both a statecraft and a religion. The modernizing state sloughed off Confucianism into the newly conceived sphere of religion, which came under increasing regulatory control through the erection of a firm wall between the realms of the state and religion. The secularizing, civilizing state granted recognition, through classification, to certain religious entities, which gave the appearance of pluralism, while proclaiming less institutionalized religious expressions as socially destabilizing “pseudo-religions.” This state rationalization was eventually overwhelmed by the demands of intensive assimilation during wartime, as the state became increasingly theocratic.Less
In tackling the relationship between state and religion, chapter 5 examines state secularization, which, in Korea, championed religious pluralism as the overarching principle. This chapter argues that state secularization was complicated by the comprehensive influence of Confucianism in the Joseon dynastic state as both a statecraft and a religion. The modernizing state sloughed off Confucianism into the newly conceived sphere of religion, which came under increasing regulatory control through the erection of a firm wall between the realms of the state and religion. The secularizing, civilizing state granted recognition, through classification, to certain religious entities, which gave the appearance of pluralism, while proclaiming less institutionalized religious expressions as socially destabilizing “pseudo-religions.” This state rationalization was eventually overwhelmed by the demands of intensive assimilation during wartime, as the state became increasingly theocratic.
Lucien Jaume
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691152042
- eISBN:
- 9781400846726
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691152042.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter argues that Tocqueville was a moralist in the same sense that he was a political thinker: he imagines not only an adversary whom he must defeat but also an interlocutor whom he must ...
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This chapter argues that Tocqueville was a moralist in the same sense that he was a political thinker: he imagines not only an adversary whom he must defeat but also an interlocutor whom he must convince. The paradox is that his methods as a moralist were the opposite of his methods as a sociologist. Tocqueville the moralist wanted schools to teach the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, which gave a surprising tinge to his “liberalism.” Like Rousseau, but also like Robespierre, he believed that a civic religion was necessary and that those who refused to accept it were enemies. By adopting the position of the public moralist, Tocqueville was able to strike a compromise between his negative emotions (horror of mediocrity, chronic depression and anxiety) and his reasons for hope (democracy was accomplishing miracles and would accomplish more in the future).Less
This chapter argues that Tocqueville was a moralist in the same sense that he was a political thinker: he imagines not only an adversary whom he must defeat but also an interlocutor whom he must convince. The paradox is that his methods as a moralist were the opposite of his methods as a sociologist. Tocqueville the moralist wanted schools to teach the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, which gave a surprising tinge to his “liberalism.” Like Rousseau, but also like Robespierre, he believed that a civic religion was necessary and that those who refused to accept it were enemies. By adopting the position of the public moralist, Tocqueville was able to strike a compromise between his negative emotions (horror of mediocrity, chronic depression and anxiety) and his reasons for hope (democracy was accomplishing miracles and would accomplish more in the future).
Melissa L. Caldwell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520285835
- eISBN:
- 9780520961210
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520285835.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter analyzes Russian cultural values and practices of service, with particular emphasis on the role of religiously inspired service in support of state goals of equality and justice. Over ...
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This chapter analyzes Russian cultural values and practices of service, with particular emphasis on the role of religiously inspired service in support of state goals of equality and justice. Over the past several centuries, Russia’s religiously affiliated assistance groups have consistently focused on redressing inequalities, whether those are social, cultural, economic, or political. Working both in cooperation with official projects and governmental bodies and in opposition to regional and federal policies, religious communities have addressed issues and operated in arenas that have in turn complicated and expanded what counts as worship, service, action, and even the intended beneficiaries of their work. As the examples documented here show, through activities of civic service and engagement, religious communities and their followers have challenged distinctions between religious and secular and cultivated new ethics of voluntarism and political activism.Less
This chapter analyzes Russian cultural values and practices of service, with particular emphasis on the role of religiously inspired service in support of state goals of equality and justice. Over the past several centuries, Russia’s religiously affiliated assistance groups have consistently focused on redressing inequalities, whether those are social, cultural, economic, or political. Working both in cooperation with official projects and governmental bodies and in opposition to regional and federal policies, religious communities have addressed issues and operated in arenas that have in turn complicated and expanded what counts as worship, service, action, and even the intended beneficiaries of their work. As the examples documented here show, through activities of civic service and engagement, religious communities and their followers have challenged distinctions between religious and secular and cultivated new ethics of voluntarism and political activism.
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691175829
- eISBN:
- 9781400885572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691175829.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines Turkish nationalism and Kemalism. The elimination of Islam as an ideological pillar of the main Ottoman successor state created a legitimacy vacuum at the center of the regime. ...
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This chapter examines Turkish nationalism and Kemalism. The elimination of Islam as an ideological pillar of the main Ottoman successor state created a legitimacy vacuum at the center of the regime. Furthermore, the abolition of the sultanate and the dissolution of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) had given rise to a second void necessitating the creation of substitute foci for popular allegiance—both personal and institutional. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sought to fill this lacuna with a new civic religion buttressed by a number of cults. The new ideology, unsurprisingly, was a modified, scientifically sanctioned version of Turkish nationalism. In the 1930s, Mustafa Kemal's followers and party pulled together various strands of several associated cults to create Kemalism, an all-encompassing state ideology based on his sayings and writings.Less
This chapter examines Turkish nationalism and Kemalism. The elimination of Islam as an ideological pillar of the main Ottoman successor state created a legitimacy vacuum at the center of the regime. Furthermore, the abolition of the sultanate and the dissolution of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) had given rise to a second void necessitating the creation of substitute foci for popular allegiance—both personal and institutional. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sought to fill this lacuna with a new civic religion buttressed by a number of cults. The new ideology, unsurprisingly, was a modified, scientifically sanctioned version of Turkish nationalism. In the 1930s, Mustafa Kemal's followers and party pulled together various strands of several associated cults to create Kemalism, an all-encompassing state ideology based on his sayings and writings.
Guy G. Stroumsa
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198738862
- eISBN:
- 9780191802065
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198738862.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Judaism
This chapter shows how the end of blood sacrifices represented one of the most significant transformations of religion in late antiquity. Four main aspects of this multiform transformation are ...
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This chapter shows how the end of blood sacrifices represented one of the most significant transformations of religion in late antiquity. Four main aspects of this multiform transformation are identified and discussed: the new attitude to the self; the new centrality of the book in religious life (for which Max Muller coins the phrase “religions of the book”); the progressive, but eventually radical end to blood sacrifices (until then a central aspect of ritual in quite different religious systems, both polytheistic and monotheistic); and finally the crystallization of religious communities, which led to the disappearance of civic religion, a staple of religious life in the ancient world.Less
This chapter shows how the end of blood sacrifices represented one of the most significant transformations of religion in late antiquity. Four main aspects of this multiform transformation are identified and discussed: the new attitude to the self; the new centrality of the book in religious life (for which Max Muller coins the phrase “religions of the book”); the progressive, but eventually radical end to blood sacrifices (until then a central aspect of ritual in quite different religious systems, both polytheistic and monotheistic); and finally the crystallization of religious communities, which led to the disappearance of civic religion, a staple of religious life in the ancient world.
