Popular Religion and the Turn to Everyday Authenticity: Reflections on the Contemporary Study of Philippine Catholicism

In the history of American popular religion, the Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, have undergone a series of paradigmatic shifts in order to join the Christian mainstream, abandoning such controversial core doctrines and institutions as polygamy and the political kingdom of God. Mormon historians have played an important role in this metamorphosis, employing a version (if not perversion) of the Church-Sect Dichotomy to change the past in order to control the future, arguing, in effect, that founder Joseph Smith Jr’s erstwhile magical beliefs and practices gave way to a more “mature” and bible-based self-understanding which is then said to best describe the religion that he founded in 1830. However, an “esoteric approach” as Faivre and Hanegraaff understand the term has much to offer the study of Mormonism as an old, new religion and the basis for a more even methodological playing field and new interpretation of Mormonism as equally magical (Masonic) and biblical (Evangelical) despite appearances. This article will focus on early Mormonism’s fascination with and employment of ciphers, or “the coded word,” essential to such foundation texts as the Book of Mormon and “Book of Abraham,” as well as the somewhat contradictory, albeit colonial understanding of African character and destiny in these two hermetic works of divine inspiration and social commentary in the Latter-day Saint canonical tradition.

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Aesthetics/Ascetics

Postscripts The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds ◽

10.1558/post.v2i1.5 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 5-28

Author(s):

Jeremy Stolow

Keyword(s):

Popular Religion ◽

Orthodox Jewish ◽

Religious Authority ◽

Competing Demands ◽

Prayer Books ◽

American Jewish ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship ◽

Jewish Intellectuals

This article focuses on the relationship of aesthetics and ascetics with regard to the publication and popular reception of Kosher By Design, a cookbook published by a major American Jewish Orthodox press, ArtScroll Publications. The article analyses the ideological, rhetorical, discursive, and iconographic modes of address embedded within this text, treating them as instances of popular religion, and also as elements of a project in and through which the Orthodox Jewish intellectuals associated with ArtScroll seek to assert new forms of religious authority, in the context of a broader culture of “kosher consumerism,” to which this text is directed. The article ends by highlighting the paradoxical character of this form of “post-scripture,” in which books like Kosher By Design, and by extension other ArtScroll texts—including their popular prayer-books—are caught between competing demands of popularity and authority, art and asceticism, and religious stringency and bourgeois living.

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PEMIKIRAN FIKIH KONTEMPORER MUHAMAD SYAHRUR TENTANG POLIGAMI DAN JILBAB

Al-Manahij Jurnal Kajian Hukum Islam ◽

10.24090/mnh.v5i1.647 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 67-80

Author(s):

Abdul Mustaqim

Keyword(s):

Term Limit ◽

Elastic Domain ◽

Islamic Jurisprudence ◽

Contemporary Study ◽

Individual Interpretation

One fresh contribution to the contemporary study of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) is the theory of limits (nazariyyah al-hudud) promoted by a Syirian liberal Islamic figure, Muhammad Syahrur. Syahrur’s theory of limits solves the epistemological deadlock of previous works. Syahrur asserts that the theory of limits is an approach within ijtihad (individual interpretation) to study the muhkamat verses (clear and direct verses of law) of the Qur’an. The term “limit” (hudud) used by Syahrur refers to the meaning of “the bounds or restrictions of God which should not be violated, contained in the dynamic, flexible, and elastic domain of ijtihad. By using the theory of limit, Syahrur tries to re-constructs both concept poligamy and jilbab as contribution to the contemporary study of Islamic jurisprudence.

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