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This chapter discusses the impact of demographic change (Southern population growth and Northern population decline) on the form of Christianity that is likely to be practiced in the future and points out that claims that the Southern churches have strayed from older definitions of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. However much Southern Christian types have diverged from older Christian orthodoxies, they have in almost all cases remained within recognizable Christian traditions. The first part of the chapter looks at various aspects of inculturation (interpreting the Christian proclamation in a form appropriate for particular cultures) in relation to determining what are the core beliefs and what are the cultural accidents of Christianity; these aspects include architecture, liturgy and religious language, changes in patterns of worship and their underlying beliefs, and the implications of the emphasis on popular belief and tradition for the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Southern Catholic communities. The second part of the chapter discusses patterns in the emerging Southern churches that go beyond familiar Christian traditions, even as far as a thinly disguised paganism, which is manifested in belief in spirits and spiritual powers (which have their strongest impact on terms of healing and miracles and exorcism) and the concept of spiritual welfare (confronting and defeating demonic forces). The third part of the chapter discusses the cultural conflict over literal interpretations of exorcism and spiritual healing in the Bible, the acceptance by the Southern churches of the Old and New Testaments as documents of immediate relevance, their emphasis on aspects of Christianity that have become unfamiliar, and their revival of ancient customs. Last, the Southern churches – the ‘new’ Christianity – are discussed in terms of their sectarian character, and how this is likely to change in the future as they grow and mature, and become more like the major churches.

The dynamic conversation between emperors and empresses and the Christian bishops about imperial power affected all parties. This chapter argues that just as the discourse of imperial power bent to accommodate Christian beliefs, so Christian writings and art absorbed salient aspects of the imperial discourse of founding. The evolving Christian doctrine and the discourse of power, both pagan and Christian, were ultimately synthesized in the sixth-century iconography and attributes of the Virgin Mary. Relatively obscure in the Gospels and in the earliest Christian iconography, by the 500s, Mary was transformed into a Queen of Heaven. This queen was unlike any other before her, yet recalled images and characteristics of both empresses and pagan goddesses.

The collection of twenty-one readings or lessons intended to be used daily by the nuns of the Birgittine Order at the Matins office, known in Latin as Sermo angelicus. These readings were incorporated into the Birgittine office that was used by the nuns of the order and known as the Cantus sororum. Each day of the week had three prescribed lessons to be read after the gospel reading. They focus on scenes from the Blessed Virgin’s life, showing her in her different roles. The work, written in collaboration with her confessor Petrus of Skänninge, contains some poetic language and highlights the centrality of Mary in her role both as the channnel of God’s message of reform and as an embodiment of the order’s contemplative spirituality.

The chapter tracks the appropriation and circulation of two very different kinds of images. First, it examines media depictions of a protest action at Rome’s Trevi Fountain, a tourist destination and pilgrimage site. Then it compares this action to the deployment of images of the Virgin Mary on Bougainville Island in the Pacific. In both cases, images are wielded in protest against oppression. Local actors, appropriating the power of these symbols, mobilize them in local media to mark their positions in war or conflict, thereby constellating divergent sentiments and practices.

Stephen J. Stein focuses on Jonthan Edwards’ treatment of a figure in the New Testament, the Virgin Mary. He highlights a striking irony in Edwards’ exegesis by juxtaposing his steady criticism of the Roman Catholic Church against his high praise of Mary. Stein’s essay is driven by immersion in Edwards’ biblical notebooks, which gives readers a taste of Edwards’ engagement with the Bible and his subsequent theological development from that exegesis. Stein especially highlights how Edwards linked the Virgin Mary to the life of Jesus Christ and the larger story of salvation. Although this question clearly centers on the New Testament, Edwards brings Old Testament passages to bear on it, which illustrates his canonical approach to interpreting Scripture.

The history of the Coptic Orthodox Church makes no mention of the monastic community or the Holy Virgin Church in the Qusqam region until the fourteenth century AD. However, manuscripts and documentation preserved in the monastery prove that there were both activity and continuity of life in the Church of the Holy Virgin Mary in Qusqam before this. In 1986, a group of the monastery monks was formed to study the history, archeology, and monastic life in the Qusqam region from the time of the dwelling of the Holy Family there to the present day. This chapter presents the monks' reflections on the history of this great monastery, tracing all the documents that the monks were able to find about its origin and development.

Cognitive sciences like neuroscience have been used to study more common, cultivated, or induced religious experiences like states of meditation or prayer; however, in Medjugorje, it is the first time that spontaneous and extraordinary mystical experiences, such as visionary experiences in the form of Marian apparitions, have been studied by neuroscience as they are transpiring: pointing to Medjugorje’s uniqueness and importance. The chapter systematically considers the prominent interpretations of scholars who have tried to re-diagnose and explain extraordinary religious experiences as cases of epileptic seizures, hysteria, or hallucination, observing the work of Jean-Martin Charcot, Michael P. Carroll, Richard Dawkins, Andrew Newberg, and concluding with an analysis of Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of the “oceanic feeling” (i.e., mystical experience) and of his understanding of religion as a neurosis. The chapter explains how the scientific studies in Medjugorje substantially challenge the universal applicability of such reductionist theories.

The so-called Protevangelium of James is perhaps the most historically significant of all the non-canonical gospels. In prefacing its account of the birth of Jesus with an account of the birth and childhood of Mary, it has directly or indirectly shaped beliefs about the ‘holy family’ throughout Christian history. It is beyond doubt that the author is familiar with Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives and that he uses them extensively. Yet his use of source texts is seldom predictable, often creative, and almost always in the service of forging a compelling narrative that serves his idiosyncratic take on the tradition. The Protevangelium is a masterpiece of creative synthesis that reveres its source materials while being unafraid to plough its own furrow. This chapter investigates how the Protevangelium interprets and rewrites synoptic narratives, paying special attention to the author’s rewriting of the stories of the annunciation and the birth of Jesus.

This chapter considers the ways in which ideas permeated and changed society over time, through mechanisms that cannot directly be seen in the literary record. It seeks to adumbrate the vibrant oral culture of the period by tracing the movement of ideas between texts, contexts and audiences, using romances, lyrics, sermons, devotional works, anecdotes and proverbs, and accounts of legal cases. Extended discussions are offered of the figure of King Arthur in the Latin of Geoffrey of Monmouth, French of Wace, and English of Laȝamon; the Marian lament at the Passion, in Latin and its French and later English translations; the early Middle English religious lyric; the Mirror of the Church in Latin, French, and English; the South English Legendary, and several other texts.

In this part autobiographical essay, I explore the social consequences of the rise of the so-called ‘tender years’ doctrine coinciding with the rise in divorce. I argue that this has led to increased gender apartheid around the figures of M-for-Mother and F-for-Father, and a new sanctification of the figure of the holy mother-and-child. I look at the inverse and complementary relations between M-for-Male and F-for Female and M-for-Mother and F-for-Father, and I argue (counterintuitively) that origins, mothers, and fathers are queerer in ancient myths and the Bible than they are in contemporary semantics and law. I use strange old biblical texts (Solomon’s judgment; the trial of Abraham) to create unheimlich echoes for the so-called secular state and its strange constructions of the family; and I show how the Ten Commandments continue to influence family law.

The author travels to Kingsville, Texas to meet Sister Maximina, who has spent 40 years campaigning for the canonization of Mother Julia, the founder of the Missionary Daughters of the Most Pure Virgin Mary. (At present, she is “Venerable,” which is the second of four stages to Sainthood.) In her lifetime, the Mexican nun established dozens of convents and schools in the United States and Mexico that catechized thousands of indigent children throughout the borderlands. Through her meeting with Sister Maximina, the author further meditates on the concept of spiritual mestizaje in the borderlands.