scholarly journals Syncretic Santa Muerte: Holy Death and Religious Bricolage

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 220
Author(s):  
Kate Kingsbury ◽  
R. Andrew Chesnut
Keyword(s):  
Significant Influence ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Socioeconomic Groups ◽  
Santa Muerte ◽  
Palo Mayombe ◽  
Formed Part

In this article, we trace the syncretic origins and development of the new religious movement centered on the Mexican folk saint of death, Santa Muerte. We explore how she was born of the syncretic association of the Spanish Catholic Grim Reapress and Pre-Columbian Indigenous thanatologies in the colonial era. Through further religious bricolage in the post-colony, we describe how as the new religious movement rapidly expanded it integrated elements of other religious traditions, namely Afro-Cuban Santeria and Palo Mayombe, New Age beliefs and practices, and even Wicca. In contrast to much of the Eurocentric scholarship on Santa Muerte, we posit that both the Skeleton Saint’s origins and contemporary devotional framework cannot be comprehended without considering the significant influence of Indigenous death deities who formed part of holistic ontologies that starkly contrasted with the dualistic absolutism of European Catholicism in which life and death were viewed as stark polarities. We also demonstrate how across time the liminal power of death as a supernatural female figure has proved especially appealing to marginalized socioeconomic groups.

Religious Syncretism and Art in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ori Soltes
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
Religious Syncretism ◽  
Spiritual Perspectives ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
Anti Jewish

Religious and cultural syncretism, particularly in visual art in the Jewish and Christian traditions since the 19th century, has expressed itself in diverse ways and reflects a broad and layered series of contexts. These are at once chronological—arising out of developments that may be charted over several centuries before arriving into the 19th and 20th centuries—and political, spiritual, and cultural, as well as often extending beyond the Jewish–Christian matrix. The specific directions taken by syncretism in art is also varied: it may be limited to the interweave of two religious traditions—most often Jewish and Christian—in which most often it is the minority artist seeking ways to create along lines consistent with what is created by the majority. It may also interweave three or more traditions. It may be a matter of religion alone, or it may be a matter of other issues, such as culture or gender, which may or may not be obviously intertwined with religion. The term “syncretism” has, in certain specifically anthropological and theological circles, acquired a negative connotation. This has grown out of the increasing consciousness, since the 1960s, of the political implications of that term in the course of Western history, in which hegemonic European Christianity has addressed non-Christian religious perspectives. This process intensified in the Colonial era when the West expanded its dominance over much of the globe. An obvious and particularly negative instance of this is the history of the Inquisition as it first affected Jews in late-15th-century Spain and later encompassed indigenous peoples in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. While this issue is noted—after all, art has always been interwoven with politics—it is not the focus of this article. Instead “syncretism” will not be treated as a concept that needs to be distinguished from “hybridization” or “hybridity,” although different modes of syncretism will be distinguished. Syncretistic preludes to visual artists in the 19th and 20th centuries, suggesting some of the breadth of possibility, include Pico della Mirandola, Kabir, and Baruch/Benedict Spinoza. Specific religious developments and crises in Europe from the 16th century to the 18th century brought on the emancipation of the Jews in some places on the one hand, and a contradictory continuation of anti-Jewish prejudice on the other, the latter shifting from a religious to a racial basis. This, together with evident paradoxes regarding secular and spiritual perspectives in the work of key figures in the visual arts, led to a particularly rich array of efforts from Jewish artists who revision Jesus as a subject, applying a new, Jewishly humanistic perspective to transform this most traditional of Christian subjects. Such a direction continued to spread more broadly across the 20th century. The Holocaust not only raised new visual questions and possibilities for Jewish artists, but also did so from the opposite direction for the occasional Christian—particularly German—artist. Cultural syncretism sometimes interweaves religious syncretism—which can connect and has connected Christianity or Judaism to Eastern religions—and a profusion of women artists in the last quarter of the century has added gender issues to the matrix. The discussion culminates with Siona Benjamin: a Jewish female artist who grew up in Hindu and Muslim India, attended Catholic and Zoroastrian schools, and has lived in America for many decades—all these aspects of her life resonate in her often very syncretistic paintings.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Ronald M. Green ◽  
George A. Little
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Treatment Decisions ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Units ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Status ◽  
Centered Care ◽  
Family Centered

There is evidence that religious beliefs strongly influence families’ treatment decisions about their loved ones, especially when difficult life-and-death choices must be made. This becomes important in the context of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) committed to family-centered care because families’ beliefs will influence their decision making. To assist NICU professionals, families, and students of bioethics, the chapters in this book seek to address the question, “What are the teachings of the world’s major religious traditions about the status and care of the newborn?” This introduction presents six “take-home” insights derived from the discussions that follow.

Conversion to Christianity: A Bajju Case Study

1994 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-165
Author(s):  
Carol V. Mckinney
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Widespread Adoption ◽  
British Colonial

Within a 55-year period, most Bajju (Kaje) of southern Kaduna State in northern Nigeria converted to Christianity. This research identifies factors that contributed to this widespread adoption of Christianity, including political, religious, sociological, and personal factors. Lack of political representation throughout the British colonial era and the imposition of Native Authority administration formed the context within which conversion occurred. While this structure of the administrative context tended to be oppressive to the non-Muslim ethnic groups, including the Bajju, from a Bajju perspective their widespread conversion to Christianity was a profoundly religious movement.

scholarly journals New religious movements and quasi-religion: Cognitive science of religion at the margins

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-122
Author(s):  
Alastair Lockhart
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Definition Of

The article offers a critical analysis of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) as applied to new and quasi-religious movements, and uncovers implicit conceptual and theoretical commitments of the approach. A discussion of CSR’s application to new religious movement (NRM) case studies (charismatic leadership, paradise representations, Aḥmadiyya, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) identifies concerns about the theorized relationship between CSR and wider socio-cultural factors, and proposals for CSR’s implication in wider processes are discussed. The main discussion analyses three themes in recent work relating CSR to religious and religion-like activities that extend and reframe the model. These include (1) identification of distinctive and accessible cognitive pathways associated with new forms of religious belief and practice (in particular in ‘New Age’ movements), (2) application of CSR to movements and practices outside traditional definitions of religion (near death experiences, conspiracy theories, virtual reality), and (3) engaging CSR in wider cultural processes and negotiations (religion in healthcare settings, and the definition of the study of esoteric religious traditions within academic domains). The conclusion identifies two particular findings: (1) that application of CSR in these areas renders underlying cognitive processes more available to scrutiny and (2) that CSR is employed to identify and enlarge the category of religion. The conclusion suggests that the study of CSR in its application to NRMs and quasi-religion identifies a wide field of common and overlapping themes and interests in which CSR is a more active operand than is commonly assumed.

Emotions and Authority in Religious Organisations

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-80
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Halemba
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Using Data

This article reflects on the place of emotionally arousing ex- periences within religious organisations. Using data obtained through participant observation and interviews, it outlines a research approach for investigations of the interrelationships between particular features of religious practices. Those features have been pointed out in many previous anthropo- logical and sociological works, but few works attempted to analyse connections and interdependencies between con- crete features of religious traditions. The present article takes inspiration from contemporary 'modes of religiosity' theory to explore further the relationships between highly emotion- ally arousing religious experiences and centralised religious authority. Going beyond Whitehouse's theory, it is argued that centralised religious organisations can influence the so- cial features of a religious movement through management of emotionality in ritual practice.

Representation of Latvian Mithology in works of Hilda Vika

2013 ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Austra Celmiņa-Ķeirāne ◽  
Signe Grūbe
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Art Exhibitions ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Initiation Rites ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Original Interpretation

The paper includes the study on activities of the Latvian painter and writer Hilda Vika - Eglīte (1897-1963) in the field of visual art (mostly painting) connected with Latvian mythology. Latvian myth characters and themes came into H. Vika’s creative work after 1930 when she married writer and reviewer Viktors Eglitis and resorted to “Dievturība” (Latvian Neopagan religious movement based on folklore, old folk songs and mythology). Actively and productively working H. Vika participated in numerous group art exhibitions. Her individual vision, decorative solutions of composition and stylized details brought in Latvian painting unusual and essentially different intonations being contemporary at the same time. The research is pointing out H. Vika’s artworks published in various sources with identifiable mythological scenes and motifs and analysing the principles of creating visual images of characters and potential impact. Memories and reviews of contemporaries, art historians and critics are used as additional material. Latvian “Dievs” (the God in the pre-Christian religion of Balts) in painter's works is indefinable age man with light-colored (possibly gray) hair and long pale coat, the image is often surrounded by a bright halo or supplement ethnographic characters. Laima’s and Mara’s ambivalence, which lies in the folk songs where these Latvian deities operate in both - positive (cradle hanging, fertility promotion) as well as harmful or fatal aspects, in H. Vika’s paintings is completely disappeared. Laima only appears as a bright image bearing blessing alongside with Dievs and Mara. H. Vika’s Mara is depicted as the goddess of good fortune and patroness of all feminine duties and as a deity related to the person's birth and initiation rites. Sun and Sun's daughters are painted with light colour tones, dynamic compositional solutions and original interpretation of national folk costumes, supplemented with Latvian characters. H. Vika often minded the question of life and death, the end of human earthly life, and Latvian Velu mate (Mother of the souls / spirits) vividly symbolizes this theme in her works. In most cases, Velu mate is portrayed as a woman with a headscarf or woolen shawl, partly or completely covering her face, as a symbol of unknown and mysterious, the human encounters after the death. The artist focused on mythological themes with great interest and excitement, creating visual images corresponding to a Latvian folklore and ethnographic heritage and representing the external manner reminding Fra Angelico and Botticelli's painting or impact of Russian school and German neo-romanticism.

scholarly journals The Dynamics of Islamic Ideology with Regard to Gender and Women’s Education in South Asia

Asian Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Forkan ALI
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Women's Education ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Asian Society ◽  
Historical Practices

The article presents an investigation on certain anthropological-social aspects and the social organization of women with a focus on female education and women’s rights in Islam in South Asia, and especially in the subcontinent. It starts with the Moghul period and then turns to the colonial era and contemporary developments. Through the movement for independence from colonial rule of Britain, the Muslim identity in the South Asian region rose in a state of transformation, reform and development. This occurred due to several factors that encouraged the regeneration and reviewing of Indian society in response to the condemnation, discrimination and chauvinism of their colonial rulers and their deep-seated legacy. Women of the society, who were censured to be subjugated by the native men as entitled by colonial rulers, empowered this transformation by taking direct and indirect participation in it even though patriarchal norms and mind-sets have been a durable feature of South Asian society, cutting across faith communities and social strata, including the Hindu, Buddhist and other non-Islamic traditions on the subcontinent. While religious arguments are generally used in efforts to preserve the asymmetrical status of men and women in economic, political, and social arenas, this investigation attempts to show that religious traditions in South Asia are not monolithic in their perceptions of gender and women’s education. The structure of gender roles in these traditions is a consequence of various historical practices and ideological influences. Today, there is a substantial variability within and between religious communities concerning the social status of women. At different times and in different milieus, religious points of view have been deployed to validate male authority over women and, in opposition, to call for more impartial gender relations. 

scholarly journals SOUTHEAST ASIA: HISTORY, MODERNITY, AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE

Al-Albab ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumanto Al Qurtuby
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Cultural Legacies ◽  
State Organization ◽  
A Site

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia, with more than six hundred million populations, is home to millions of Buddhists, Muslims, Confucians, Protestants, Catholics, and now Pentecostals, as well as many followers of local religions and spiritual beliefs. Notwithstanding its great historical, political, cultural legacies, however, the region has long been neglected as a site for religious studies in the Western academia. Aiming at filling the gap in Asian and religious studies as well as exploring the richness of Southeast Asian cultures, this article discusses the dynamics, diversity, and complexity of Southeast Asian societies in their response to the region’s richly political, cultural, and religious traditions spanning from pre-modern era to modern one. The article also examines the “integrative revolutions” that shaped and reshaped warfare, state organization and economics of Southeast Asia, particularly in the pre-European colonial era. In addition, the work discusses the wave of Islamization, particularly since the nineteenth century, as well as the upsurge of religious resurgence that shift the nature of religiosity and the formation of religious groupings in the area. The advent of Islam, with some interventions of political regimes, had been an important cause for the decline of Hindu-Buddhist traditions in some areas of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, the coming of Pentecostalism has challenged the well-established mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism, especially in Indonesia and the Philippines. Keywords: history, modernity, religious change, Southeast Asia

scholarly journals 大乘中觀哲學的生死觀

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Ellen Y. ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
Hospice Care ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Body ◽  
Religious Support ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Philosophy Of Life ◽  
Other World ◽  
General Desire

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.生死是任何哲學和宗教都不能迴避的問題，佛教更是如此。相比中國傳統的儒家思想，佛教對死亡，甚至如何去死具有更詳盡的梳理和論證。而佛教的生死觀又源於佛教的核心的教義以及其背後的哲學思考。根據佛教的教義，覺悟、解脫或涅槃意味著從根本上去除人生的煩惱，而佛教認為，人生最大的煩惱便是生死輪迴之煩惱。但大乘佛教的反對將覺悟與紅塵、涅槃與輪迴看作絕對的二元對立，因此強調在生死煩惱中體驗超越的時空和宇宙的真理。本文以大乘中觀學派為主，從其「緣起性空」的哲學脈絡和「相即不二」的辦證思維，審視大乘佛教的生死觀以及它對中國儒道傳統的補充與融合。最後，文章論述中觀學的生死觀在當代臨終關懷中的啟示意義。Death is one of the major issues for all religious traditions; it is especially so for Buddhism, as Buddhist teaching is centered upon death and the impermanence of life. This essay discusses death and dying from the framework of the philosophy of life and death, as outlined in the Māhayānic Buddhism of China. The discussion centers on early Madhyāmika Buddhism and its non-dualist approach to samsara and nirvana, this world and the other world, and life and death. The essay shows that the notions of reincarnation and karmic action offer an alternative perspective on the finitude of human existence and reflection upon life’s uncertainty pertaining to the experience of death. The author contends that the theory of interdependent origination explicated by Madhyāmika Buddhism helps Buddhists to develop adaptive qualities that enable a person to remain balanced in the maelstrom of change and impermanence. This realization of the impermanence of life and the emptiness of interdependent origination leads to the Buddhist ethical positions of no self and non-attachment.The essay also addresses the question of hospice care from the perspective of Buddhism as a religious support system. Although Buddhists understand that suffering is a part of life, there is a general desire to avoid suffering whenever possible. Hospice care is important in Buddhism not only because Buddhists recognize the weakness and fragility of the body and mind in the process of death and dying, but also because Buddhists see the connection between the patient’s end-of-life needs, both physical and spiritual, and the well-being of other people associated with the patient. The essay argues that a positive attitude toward life and death, as presented in Madhyāmika Buddhism, can help patients and their families to deal with the pain and anxiety of terminal illness.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 1527 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Native American Religions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Dees
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Native American Religions

Native American religious traditions encompass a diverse array of beliefs, practices, and features of material culture and society that reflect and shape individual experiences and communal life among Indigenous communities in what is today the United States. While Native American religious traditions have long been the subject of scholarly inquiry, a field of study dedicated specifically to this topic only emerged in the mid-20th century. Because historical sources describing Native religions often wove ethnocentric biases or anti-Indian sentiments into descriptions of Native beliefs and practices, present-day inquiry requires critically reflexive interpretation of primary sources and attention to insiders’ perspectives. Today, scholarship on Native American religions draws on numerous methodological approaches to explore key features of these traditions, including ceremonies, stories, philosophies, art, and social institutions. While these features vary greatly by religious community, practitioners of Native religions often emphasize the significance of land and the environment, their cultural heritage, and relationships between humans and non-human entities, spirits, and ancestors. Many practitioners of Native American religions would resist the notion that a “religious” or “spiritual” realm can be separated from “secular” aspects of society or culture; thus, in addition to focusing on constitutive features of the religious beliefs and practices themselves, an understanding of Native American religions requires attention to broader social and cultural issues, including politics, law, health, and education. Furthermore, just as Native traditions were dynamic prior to the 15th century, they have been shaped by contact with non-Native religions and cultures since the first instances of European colonization. The historical conditions of European and Euro-American settler colonialism and encounter between Native and non-Native communities necessitate attention to issues such as Christian missionization and the ensuing Indigenous responses to Christianity, U.S. federal Indian policy, legal battles over Native American religious freedom and self-determination, and the place of Native religions in mainstream U.S. culture. While these themes and issues illuminate some shared features of Native American religions, the unique histories and characteristics of specific communities necessarily subvert efforts to articulate a simple, comprehensive definition of “Native American religion.” And, while knowledge of the past is essential for understanding Native American religions, a historical focus in itself is insufficient if it ignores the ongoing presence of Native American religious expression. Practitioners of Native American religions today emphasize religious continuity as well as creativity and change, blending long-standing historical traditions with more recently established religious innovations.

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