Police killings of unarmed Black people have ignited a national and international response unlike any in decades. But differing from their civil rights-oriented predecessors, today’s activists do not think that the institutions and values of liberal democracy can eradicate structural racism. They draw instead on a Black radical tradition that, Terrence L. Johnson argues, derives its force from its unacknowledged ethical and religious dimensions. We Testify with Our Lives traces Black religion’s sustained influence from SNCC to (...) the present, reconstructing a radical lived ethics of freedom and justice. Johnson demonstrates that Black Power fundamentally contests liberalism’s abstract understanding of democracy, calling instead for new embodied frameworks to achieve human flourishing and dignity. Black bodies represent the primary form of resistance against violent and oppressive regimes of white supremacy and exploitation, and the individual and collective struggles of Black life bear witness to the dogged determination to cultivate beauty, rage, and joy. Considering the writings of Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, We Testify with Our Lives makes its case through a new narrative of the evolution of Black radicalism from the civil rights movement through the Movement for Black Lives. It forges new insights into Black Power’s vital contributions to debates on ethics, transnational politics, democracy, political solidarity, and freedom—and its potent resources for the ongoing struggle to build democratic possibilities for all. (shrink)

The position concerning the mental health of black and minority ethnic women in Britain is closely linked to that of their respective communities in general. Issues concerning inappropriate care and treatment; lack of access to services; and service delivery based on assumptions and stereotypes govern the way in which black women and men experience mental health care and treatment. This article discusses the specific nature of black women's position, within the wider context of black communities’ experience (...) as a whole. While the term ‘black and minority ethnic communities’ covers a range of differing communities, the focus here is on the experiences of women from African, African-Caribbean and Asian communities. In relation to women in these communities, reference is made to issues concerning: (1) older women; (2) women of mixed heritage; (3) women's roles as care-givers; and (4) the position of refugees and asylum seekers. The article also explores and outlines the importance of self-help strategies including, e.g. befriending and counselling and the role of religion and spirituality in enabling many black people to manage their mental distress. (shrink)

Through an engagement with Sylvia Wynter, this article explores how black feminist critiques of the human can inform critical genealogies of religion. Specifically, the article develops a theoretical framework to interrogate how the modern construction of religion and the secular also produces racial identities and hierarchies. To draw attention to the global dimensions of this project, the article foregrounds the seminal work of Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm in his book, The Invention of Religion in Japan. The article argues that studies (...) like Josephson-Storm's show how religion helps transform existing forms of social organization within a bio-evolutionary conception of the nation, and is used by the state to differentiate between who can be considered fully human and who cannot. In this process “superstition” or “irrationality” is rewritten as a biological threat to the health and well-being of “the people,” and political domination is represented as a struggle to purify the nation. (shrink)

This essay considers the complexities associated with faith-based initiatives for poor black people, as these initiatives have become one antipoverty strategy within some black churches. Deploying a womanist perspective on public policy, my contention is that faith-based initiatives have a contradictory nature in relation to ameliorating poverty among blacks. While these initiatives provide the necessary funding for many religious organizations such as black churches that are already doing antipoverty work, these initiatives simultaneously fail to consider how (...) free-market institutions exacerbate poverty in general and black poverty in particular. Black churches must acknowledge that faith-based initiatives are an insufficient strategy for the amelioration of poverty if such a strategy is not situated alongside more structural and class-based efforts to ameliorate systemic injustice. (shrink)

The Ansaru Allah Community, also known as the Nubian Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH) and later the Nuwaubians, is a deeply significant and controversial African American Muslim movement. Founded in Brooklyn in the 1960s, it spread through the prolific production and dissemination of literature and lecture tapes and became famous for continuously reinventing its belief system. In this book, Michael Muhammad Knight studies the development of AAC/NIH discourse over a period of thirty years, tracing a surprising consistency behind a facade of serial (...) reinvention. It is popularly believed that the AAC/NIH community abandoned Islam for Black Israelite religion, UFO religion, and Egyptosophy. However, Knight sees coherence in AAC/NIH media, explaining how, in reality, the community taught that the Prophet Muhammad was a Hebrew who adhered to Israelite law; Muhammad’s heavenly ascension took place on a spaceship; and Abraham enlisted the help of a pharaonic regime to genetically engineer pigs as food for white people. Against narratives that treat the AAC/NIH community as a postmodernist deconstruction of religious categories, Knight demonstrates that AAC/NIH discourse is most productively framed within a broader African American metaphysical history in which boundaries between traditions remain quite permeable. Unexpected and engrossing, Metaphysical Africa brings to light points of intersection between communities and traditions often regarded as separate and distinct. In doing so, it helps move the field of religious studies beyond conventional categories of “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy,” challenging assumptions that inform not only the study of this particular religious community but also the field at large. (shrink)

James H. Cone is without question the most important Black Theologian of the last century in U.S. theology. This essay is an engagement with his work, focusing in particular on the shifts from European theology, in his Black Theology & Black Power, to Black Aesthetic Religious production, in The Spirituals & The Blues, to The Cross and the Lynching Tree. The core theme of this essay is the entanglement of spiritual/religious colonization with production/invention of racial hierarchies (...) that then became the crucibles for the forging of racist imaginaries that entailed, authorized, enshrined, and sacralized white supremacy. The Janus face of this alchemy, however, was the production of a black religion of liberation that entailed decolonizing the “blackness” invented by the modern project of religious racist colonization. The essay considers how Cone’s works empowers us to think through the analogies between the process of the colonization of the indigenous peoples of the so-called “New World” and the “enslavement” of African peoples. The similarities have to do with the coupling of the colonization of imaginaries with the imposition of racial imaginaries, i.e. religious conquest is also a racial conquest, and conversely, racial conquest is also a religious conquest. (shrink)

A Igreja Católica legitimou prática e teoricamente o sistema colonial brasileiro e teve um caráter predominantemente leigo, por força da instituição do padroado. Pouco foi escrito sobre as irmandades de negros. As análises têm se restringido a observar que desempenharam um importante papel na manutenção das crenças religiosas africanas. Com a República, o processo de romanização empreendido pela Igreja teve por objetivo a desvalorização do catolicismo laico, com o desmantelamento das antigas irmandades e sua substituição por novas organizações leigas. Impõe-se (...) caracterizar o papel desempenhado pela resistência, sem o quê seria difícil entender a existência atual da Irmandade Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos de São Paulo, fundada em 1711, na região central da cidade. Sua história se confunde com a história das irmandades de negros em geral, mas oferece exemplo de como continuou a ser repositório da tradição popular, calcada em prática religiosa católica 'branca' e prática religiosa 'negra', pensada a partir do patamar da escravidão. Palavras-chave : religião; poder; laicidade.The Catholic Church legitimized practical and theoretically the Brazilian colonial system and had a predominantly lay character by virtue of the institution of patronage. Little has been written about the brotherhoods among black people. The analysis have been restricted to noting that they have played an important role in maintaining the religious African beliefs. With the Republic, the romanization process undertaken by the Church has aimed the devaluation of the laic Catholicism, with the dismantling of old brotherhoods and their replacement by new lay organizations. It is necessary to characterize the role played by resistance, without which it would be difficult to understand the actual existence of the Irmandade Nossa Senhora dos Homens Pretos de São Paulo, founded in 1711, in the central region of the city. Its history is mixed with the history of black people brotherhoods in general, but provides an example of how it continued to be the repository of folk tradition, grounded in the 'white' catholic religious practice and the 'black' religious practice, seen from the porch of slavery. Keywords : religion; power; secularism. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to show that instances of valorising blackness have turned out to be harmful to African peoples. Whereas there have been several movements such as Black Power Movement, Black Consciousness Movement as well as individuals such as Steve Biko, Aime Cesaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor, William DuBois, Edward Blyden, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, it is the case that none of these minds made the conscious effort to interrogate the literal and symbolic use of black (...) for Africans. Consequently, this research limits its scope to Fela’s valorisation of blackness as enshrined in his blackism. Using the method of critical analysis, it argues that Fela’s “Blackism” takes the categorical and symbolic implications of blackness to an uncritical assimilation. The present study submits that until the ideological underpinning of the categorical and symbolic uses of blackness for Africans is engaged, all valorisation attempts will continue to yield meagre outputs. The first task is therefore to disclose the Eurocentric campaigns that mitigated the worth of the original or traditional people of Africa, south of the Sahara as well as the arrays of rejoinders which led to the valorisation of blackness. Afterward, Fela’s version of valorisation as encapsulated within the fold of his blackism will be disinterred. The rest of the paper shows not only that the valorisation agenda was a failed project but also that Fela’s “Blackism” is one of these failed projects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna; A Ten-year JourneyCorinne DempseyLonging for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna; A Ten-year Journey. By China Galland. New York: Penguin, 1990. xx + 392 pp.As someone accustomed to reading religion through ethnography—a genre that approaches deities and saints in a largely contextualized manner, purportedly “grounded” in indigenous perspectives—writings that aim to link devotional figures from opposite sides of the (...) globe make me decidedly skittish. So near the beginning of Longing for Darkness, when Galland states that “intuition told me” that the Black Madonna at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and the goddess Kali from a Varanasi temple in India are somehow “connected” (p. 57), I felt the urge to discredit the entire book. Yet as it happened, it was too late; by then I was irretrievably captivated by a vividly and passionately told tale, related by an intensely courageous and honest author. Rather than expecting—wrongly and perhaps unfairly—the writing to conform to my academic framework, I thus gladly tended to what seemed to be my own “genre problem.” Wanting to maintain the author’s credibility in my eyes—to take her leaps of faith for what they were—I let go of the inclination to frame the book as ethnography, or even history of religions, and construed it as something else, something no less valuable.Because of its deeply personal tone, Galland’s detailed portrayal of her visits to a half dozen countries reads somewhat like a travelogue, yet much of the account takes place at home as well—in only slightly exotic places such as Marin County, California, and southern Texas. Furthermore, Galland chronicles a journey that is as much an interior one as it is global, invoking a personal and spiritual process that she connects to her search for feminine models for God and human holiness. In many ways a pilgrim’s account, Longing for Darkness is perhaps most aptly described as spiritual autobiography, or in any case, it is from this angle that I find immense value in the work. This does not mean, however, that Galland’s account relies entirely on faith, “intuition,” or personal interpretation; she has most certainly done her scholarly homework. Peppered throughout by footnotes and capped by an extensive selected bibliography, the book gives good reason for some of us to be genre-confused.The point of entry Galland chooses for leading us on her spiritual journey is a high mountain trek in Nepal. The trip, meant to culminate in a moon ceremony at a mountaintop monastery, ends instead in disaster, a metaphor for the disastrous direction that her life is presently taking. Subsequently, while back at home, Galland reassesses and readjusts the course of her internal world, meanwhile taking herself and her reader back across the globe four and a half years later. She travels to Nepal and India two more times, aiming to learn more about the goddess Tara, women in Tibetan Buddhism, and furthering her own established commitment to the Buddhist tradition. Galland relates in striking visual and conceptual detail experiences and observations at various shrines and conversations with a vast array of people—including a meeting with the Dalai Lama. After her second trip to South Asia, the [End Page 224] author takes a detour to Einsiedeln, Switzerland, before returning home, thus beginning her exploration into the phenomenon of European Black Madonnas. Galland continues her investigation of Mary by embarking on two more European journeys that take her to Switzerland, France, the former Yugoslavia, and twice through Poland. A side trip to the Rio Grande Valley to visit a North American Madonna shrine further rounds out her quest.The book’s final scene brings us to the author’s northern California home atop Mount Tamalpais, where the Dalai Lama performs the Lahsang ceremony for the purification of the earth and for world peace. Longing for Darkness thus ends where it began: in mountains, sites where one might expect to find spiritual riches. Furthermore, while start and finish are located on opposite sides of the globe, Galland refers to her journey as taking her full circle; her travels confirm what she already knows, gained primarily through... (shrink)

In the field of modern photography, aesthetic recreations to varying degrees through the content of the images presented by photography, while forming a certain degree of philosophical aesthetic awareness, can awaken people's emotions and philosophical cognition. As a modeling language, the tone in photography is crucial in embodying the contrasting relationship between light and shade, virtual reality, and the different levels of black and white in black and white portrait photography. It is the most basic factor that (...) constitutes a character's image. Based on the unique performance characteristics of the art of black and white portrait photography, and based on the art of tone in photography and cognitive and aesthetic perspectives in philosophy, this article discusses the role, classification, and influencing factors of tone in black and white portrait photography, and expounds the different philosophical concepts of the East and the West represented by the differences in tone in black and white portrait photography. By analyzing the philosophical concepts and expressions of tone in black and white portrait photography, it can be seen that black and white portrait photography has simple and highly generalized artistic characteristics. It represents the characteristics, connotations, and aesthetic characteristics of black and white portrait photography with a unique art, and at the same time builds a bridge between the photographer and the viewer at the philosophical and aesthetic levels. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance by Reggie L. WilliamsCourtney H. DavisBonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance Reggie L. Williams waco, tx: baylor university press, 2014. 196 pp. $39.95.In a year when nine people were killed in a historic black church and a litany of African American lives have been extinguished by police brutality, (...) to say this book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and racialized interpretations of Jesus is timely is an understatement.Bonhoeffer was in search of a meaningful Christian theology through an authentic encounter with Jesus. Reggie Williams argues that Bonhoeffer, while [End Page 205] communing with people of color in 1930 Harlem at the height of its literary movement, found that meaning in the “black Christ” tradition otherwise unfamiliar to the young scholar. Bonhoeffer carried the identity of the black Christ to Germany, where he actively resisted Nazi atrocities and was executed in 1945. How is it that his ethic of resistance could be so singular, given that he was formed in much the same way as his “fundamentally oblivious” German peers (2)? Williams credits the difference to Harlem, where Bonhoeffer was schooled in hermeneutics and empathy; he further contends that Bonhoeffer’s practical experience in New York as well as the South and Cuba informed and motivated his attempts to actively eradicate the “lethal assumptions” of his peers in the German academy about God and humanity (3).On the undeniable influence of a hermeneutic, Williams states that a community of believers must have one; not only that, its hermeneutic must be connected to justice that extends concern beyond the confines of “self and kind” (3). Here Williams introduces the concept of empathy, which he describes as an ability to enter into the context of another’s suffering. Quite unintentionally, he informs the Rachel Dolezal controversy in noting that one does so without “losing grasp of one’s own separate identity” (3). Williams posits that Bonhoeffer must have experienced a “healthy and appropriate” empathy evidenced by his transformation from a theology that sanctioned racism prior to Harlem, to a willingness to share vicariously in the daily toll of racism in the black community, to resistance of racism upon returning to Germany (4). Bonhoeffer was not hamstrung by his social identity; he did not let being a white German scholar impede his ability to enter into the black American community and learn from it, “as though he had never been an outsider at all” (78).Williams argues that Bonhoeffer’s German peers did not possess such empathy because they had not shared in his Harlem experience. But there were in fact others in Germany who did not allow German nationalism to supersede Christ-centered resistance, even without the benefit of such an encounter. Although Williams does not address this fact in his argument, the historical documentation assembled in this book makes it plain that Harlem, the black literary movement, and Adam Clayton Powell Sr.’s ecclesiology did indeed have a profound effect on Bonhoeffer and his radical ethic of resistance.In addition to the exploration of Bonhoeffer’s time in Harlem, this book raises important considerations about scholarship and pedagogy that would benefit a broad audience. Williams, using Bonhoeffer’s own words, emphasizes that his early theology had been a demonstration of intellect rather than an expression of faith. Although he had written two dissertations, he was “not yet a Christian” when he set off for New York (109). When he returned, he lamented the German academy’s “guardians of purity” in Bonn who policed the borders of tradition—what was and was not taught in the classroom or preached on [End Page 206] Sunday (111). Has the academy continued this tradition of policing, and what is the rationale for the discipline of theology: intellectual religion or active faith? Williams makes the answers clear.Courtney H. DavisSt. Bernard’s School of Theology and MinistryCopyright © 2016 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The first part of this article analyzes the Black Power movement within the context of wider debates about how black nationalism conceptualized the need to form a people as a response to white supremacy. The second part examines how white supremacy conditions the nature and form of democratic citizenship in the United States and how the formation of a “nation within a nation” is a vital adjunct to dismantling white supremacy as a political system. Part three situates (...) Black Power within a theological conception of poverty understood as powerlessness. Building on James Cone and Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, it closes by suggesting that forming a people as a response to powerlessness constitutes a double movement of healing and exorcism. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Resumo O Reinado de Nossa Senhora do Rosário (também conhecido como Congado), manifestação católica, típica dos negros, festa popular e importante no Estado de Minas Gerais funda-se em uma narrativa mítica em torno da Santa de mesmo nome e constitui o imaginário de seus devotos. Compreender como esta religiosidade mítica foi constituída no Brasil é o objetivo desse artigo. Os dados são partes integrantes de tese de doutoramento que adotou a teoria da complexidade (...) (Morin), a psicologia profunda (Jung, Campbell, Bachelard), a antropologia do imaginário (Durand) e a antropologia da festa (Duvignaud) com seus principais expoentes em diálogo com outros autores, como referenciais teóricos. A mithopoiésis (Ferreira Santos) aqui entendida como a elaboração de sentidos dada pelos congadeiros à sua própria vida orientada pelo fundo mítico de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, se tornou a metodologia mais adequada para o estudo. Os resultados encontrados possibilitaram a construção de novos conhecimentos sobre as comunidades afrodescendentes, ampliando a nossa compreensão sobre a sociedade brasileira, e sobre nós mesmos. Palavras-chave: congado; mito; imaginário; festa.Nossa Senhora do Rosário's Reign (also known as Congado), Catholic manifestation, typicaly of black people, popular and important party in the State of Minas Gerais is founded on a mythical narrative about the Saint of the same name and establishes the imagination of its devotees . Understanding how this mythical religion was established in Brazil is the purpose of this article. The data is part of the doctoral thesis which adopted the theory of complexity (Morin), depth psychology (Jung, Campbell, Bachelard), anthropology of the imaginary (Durand) and anthropology of the party (Duvignaud) with their main representatives in dialogue with other authors, as theoretical reference. The mithopoiésis (Ferreira Santos) here is understood as the elaboration of senses given by the Congadeiros to their own lives, guided by the mythical background of Nossa Senhora do Rosário has become the most appropriate methodology for the study. The results allowed the construction of new knowledge about the afro-descendent communities, enlarging our understanding of the Brazilian society, and ourselves. Key words: congado ; myth; imaginary; party. (shrink)

Este livrinho é antes de tudo um desabafo. Poético existencial, sim. Mas também uma reflexão incontida, que não quer se calar. Busca, portanto, também a prosa de nosso tempo. Neste sentido, existe aí a história, a gnose religiosa, a filosofia do nosso tempo.Mais que nunca estamos cara a cara com uma nova Era, diante de um outro objetivamente possível relato na história da humanidade. Pela primeira vez necessária e plenamente universal. Isso é cada vez mais inegável e abrangente para qualquer (...) um. Somos nós e a natureza, a natureza e nós. Mares nunca de antes navegados, até por conta de tanto plástico. Cale-se o arauto da desigualdade pós-moderna, cesse tudo o que a musa moderna entoa: um canto ainda mais alto se alevanta.José Jorge Siqueira compartilha a hipótese, se filia à hipótese pela qual se quisermos sobreviver temos de filosofar verdadeiramente. Sua especulação, neste trabalho ora apresentado, se une à maré cheia, volumosa, de toda uma corrente de pensamento existente no planeta nesses termos. Sua fala é, portanto, a de um homem negro brasileiro, forjado historicamente na negação. Não apenas só de negro, pois esta (a negação) se impôs também à circunstância ex-colonial do país. Não estamos sós, há toda uma condição estigmatizada nesses termos mundo afora; em especial, para o caso, a nos entrelaçar ao continente africano e sua diáspora. Viva a consciência de si, enquanto princípios civilizatórios do conhecimento em todos os planos, da religiosidade à filosofia, da ontologia do ser em relação consigo mesmo e à natureza, da literatura às artes todas e à universalidade da ciência! Viva a interessantíssima reflexão que se ergue no Brasil nestes termos a olhos vistos (mas tem de ter olho de ver)! Nasceu uma flor imprevista, desafiadora, mas nasceu à luz do sol. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, 70.6 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians,1 58 percent of them still segregate themselves by race on Sunday mornings, and white Protestants make up the majority of this 58 percent.2 These facts belie the claim, popularized after Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election, that America is living in a postracial society3 And yet, the role played by religion in white people's lived experiences of race, racism, and white class privilege in the United States tends to be (...) neglected by philosophers and religious studies scholars, except perhaps when considering white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.4 Contemporary philosophy is secular in a way that generally excludes and... (shrink)

In Interplay of Things Anthony B. Pinn theorizes religion as a technology for interrogating human experiences and the boundaries between people and other things. Rather than considering religion in terms of institutions, doctrines, and creeds, Pinn shows how religion exposes the openness and porousness of all things and how they are always involved in processes of exchange and interplay. Pinn examines work by Nella Larsen and Richard Wright that illustrates an openness between things and traces how pop art and (...) readymades point to the multidirectional nature of influence. He also shows how Ron Athey's and Clifford Owens' performance art draws out inherent interconnectedness to various cultural codes in ways that reveal the symbiotic relationship between art and religion as a technology. Theorizing that antiblack racism and gender- and class-based hostility constitute efforts to close off the porous nature of certain bodies, Pinn shows how many artists have rebelled against these attempts to counter openness. His analyses offer a means with which to understand the porous, unbounded, and open nature of humans and things. (shrink)

This text examines the tensions and the dissonances in the relation between religion and public sphere in contemporary Brazil. Based on a Sociology and on an Anthropology of the phenomena of secularization and secularity, the purpose is to demonstrate the “porosity” of the Brazilian public/political system with the religious milieu. By applying a socio-historical perspective, the work attempts to understand how the boundaries between religion and politics were precariously constructed throughout the constitution of our State in Brazil, without ever having (...) been institutionally well-delimited. This vacuum, which generated concessions on the part of the State to major Christian religions, guaranteed public legitimacy to their religious symbols in official state spaces, which are, in principle, neutral and secular. However, the 1988 Constitution represented the influx of modern and secular legislation that legitimized subjects of rights such as women, black people, indigenous peoples, LGBTs, environmentalists, etc. Given that background, this reflection aims at contributing to the interpretation of the complexity involved in the multiple and contradictory presence – in the public sphere – of both major Christian religions – which are based on an agenda of conservative religious values – and liberal and libertarian projects organized by segments of civil society and public agents, which generate tensions and dissonances. To understand this reality – as a mosaic of interactions and antagonisms –, we work with the notion of “pluri-confessionality” of Mexican sociologist Roberto Blancarte and also with the notions of secularity of “recognition” and of “integration” of French political scientist Philippe Portier. Hence, we attempt to reach theoretically and empirically a broader and nuanced understanding of our public-political system in the relation with the religious dimension. (shrink)

Esta obra pretende atender uma necessidade referente ao tema imposto pela Lei 10.639, de 09 de janeiro de 2003, que inclui nos currículos escolares a temática afro-brasileira. Não é uma obra que aborda preceitos, rituais, mitos e fundamentos religiosos. Mas sim que trata de questões éticas, sociais, filosóficas e históricas sobre o culto aos Orixás no Brasil.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Tragic Vision of African American ReligionPaul E. CapetzThe Tragic Vision of African American Religion Matthew V. Johnson New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 189 pp. $75.00Matthew Johnson’s profound book The Tragic Vision of African American Religion sheds new light upon the distinctive nature of African American religion. Adequate interpretation of this topic requires understanding the traumas inflicted upon Africans sold into slavery, their existential predicaments before and (...) after emancipation, and the ongoing plight of their descendants whose psyches have been indelibly scarred by this traumatic history. Johnson avails himself of the resources of philosophical theology, psychoanalytic theory, and literary criticism to argue his thesis that African American religion expresses a tragic vision of reality. Besides providing an illuminating analysis of the traumatic experience underlying this religious vision, Johnson presents a compelling constructive proposal as to the broader implications of his thesis for Christian theology at large.As a student of David Tracy and Langdon Gilkey, Johnson sees the necessity for rigorous philosophical reflection in theology. Because the spirituality of the black church stands in some real tension with the traditional theological categories inherited from Europe, Johnson proceeds with “a phenomenological orientation grounded in a philosophical hermeneutical approach” that allows him to excavate the traumatic experiences informing this spirituality (4). He skillfully uses the concepts of mourning, loss, longing, and desire developed in psychoanalytical theory to probe the significance of trauma for grasping the dynamics of African American spirituality. He engages literary criticism and argues convincingly for a distinction between “tragedy” as a literary genre and the tragic vision it articulates. Indeed, the tragic vision is prior to tragedy. The tragic is not the encounter with meaninglessness per se but “the always already aesthetic representation of the encounter, which preserves its terrible truth in a transfigured vision of reality” (6). This vision affirms life while facilitating “the recognition and embrace of the darker, more fundamental truths of life” (7).Cognizant that other theologians have declared the incompatibility of Christian faith with a tragic vision of reality, Johnson believes otherwise. He insists that the tragic is fundamental to human experience as such, although it is frequently evaded by strategies of foreclosure—including those of Christian theology—that falsify the experience. Yet the distinctive thing about the black religious experience is the way African Americans made the Christian faith [End Page 215] their own by transforming it at a deep spiritual level through their tragic vision. Mildly critical of previous formulations of black theology, Johnson contends that this involved much more than the affirmation that God cares about the sociopolitical liberation of oppressed people. The Christian tragic vision of the black experience offers the possibility of a new basis for “theology in an African American key” (6). Since he understands himself primarily as a Christian theologian, however, Johnson addresses an audience consisting of more than fellow black theologians. He rightly highlights a profound truth that white theologians have largely failed to grasp: the contribution of the black church “transcends the confines of African American culture to speak meaningfully to a Christian faith struggling to remain viable in a meaningful way” (10).James Cone once issued this challenge: “Why don’t white theologians make racism their issue?” White theologians who ponder Johnson’s book will begin to understand the full import of this challenge: by opening ourselves unreservedly to the pain of our black sisters and brothers, we may discover anew the meaning of that genuine humanity to which the gospel summons all people. A theological reformulation of Christian faith as tragic in the light of the traumas of the black experience could occasion a much needed reformation of the white churches in America.Paul E. CapetzUnited Theological Seminary of the Twin CitiesCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

William Hasker thinks that his emergent dualism provides a plausible account of the mind’s survival of bodily death, giving it a crucial advantage over physicalism. I do not share this appraisal. Emergentism by its very nature works against the (immediate) survival of death. The analogies that Hasker employs to overcome this initial implausibility fail due to factual errors, and his position ends up in no less a difficult position than the physicalism that Hasker rejects. Hasker’s attempt to escape this difficulty (...) results in what is effectively an abandonment of emergentism, and the adoption of a more traditional dualism. (shrink)

Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early (...) modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high gods, and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait “high gods” stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion. (shrink)

This article introduces a new term, “anti‐blackness supremacy,” in order to supplement existing theological discourse about the ethical life of racism. To a much greater extent than the terms “racism, ” “white privilege” or even “white supremacy,” this term also better positions scholars to address what I identify as the two most pressing problems in anti‐racist discourse: first, the inability to diagnose the relation between classism and racism without reducing one into the other; and second, the tendency to treat racism (...) as a monolithic evil that falls upon all people of color equally and in the same way. The former error has distorted political discourse for decades; the latter misconception intensifies as the United States undergoes demographic shifts in the wake of immigration from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Both of these errors arise from a pervasive misunderstanding of the slave regime that has set our current racial system in motion. In truth, slavery primarily represents not a mechanism of profit extraction, but a relation of a unique type of power. The term “anti‐blackness supremacy,” I contend, corrects both of these misperceptions, affirming both the singularity of black oppression and its fundamental connection to enslaving power. In so doing, it enables ethicists to disarm an older racial foe while thwarting the ascension of a newer one. (shrink)

We present a cross-cultural analysis showing that the presence of an active or moral High God in societies varies generally along a continuum from lesser to greater technological complexity and subsistence productivity. Foragers are least likely to have High Gods. Horticulturalists and agriculturalists are more likely. Pastoralists are most likely, though they are less easily positioned along the productivity continuum. We suggest that belief in moral High Gods was fostered by emerging leaders in societies dependent on resources that were difficult (...) to manage and defend without group cooperation. These leaders used the concept of a supernatural moral enforcer to manipulate others into cooperating, which resulted in greater productivity. Reproductive success would accrue most to such leaders, but the average reproductive success of all individuals in the society would also increase with greater productivity. Supernatural enforcement of moral codes maintained social cohesion and allowed for further population growth, giving one society an advantage in competition with others. (shrink)

This practical guide features thirty-three mindfulness exercises centered on healing for the Black community, each focusing on the systemic challenges that people of color face and designed to deal with the emotions these experiences create.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology ed. by John HartDannis M. MattesonThe Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology Edited by John Hart OXFORD: JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD, 2017. 560 pp. $195.00If ecology is the study of "relationships in a place," as John Hart reminds readers in the preface of the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology, it is fitting that this volume centers (...) its thrust relationally (xxiv). Throughout its pages, a diverse community of authors explores the relationships among religious and spiritual traditions, human life, and care for the Earth. Defining religion as a language with which to grapple with meanings assigned to cultural values (xxi), this volume turns to the meanings that humans have historically placed on their relationship to the Earth within spiritual and religious frameworks. It further ponders how our religions and spiritual traditions reflect a relationship to the Earth that is conscious of the status of our planet's health today. Offering insights from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Eastern and Western Christianity, and indigenous perspectives, the authors reflect on new and old insights from within their tradition that speak to specific ecological issues. The volume is split into four parts, flowing thematically from conceptual and descriptive, to concrete visions for practical steps toward healing the Earth. [End Page 199]Part 1 describes the various ways religious and spiritual traditions enhance ecological consciousness. Seyyed Hossein Nasr shows how the Qur'an depicts the created order as a reflection of God's face, suggesting that we are literally defacing the face of God in our industrial recklessness. David Mevorach Seidenberg presents a Jewish eco-theology, which decenters the human as the pinnacle of creation. In part 2, the authors further draw out the socioecological implications of religious teachings. Melanie Harris argues that religious communities must open their eyes to the link between structural violence against black women to structural violence against the Earth. She maintains that this analysis is key to finding solutions for ecological reparations. When Harris argues that social justice is Earth justice, she is claiming that the dismantling of both white supremacy and colonial ecology go hand in hand.Part 3, titled "Ecological Commitment," highlights the specific contexts in which the relationship between religion and ecology are embedded. Myrna Perez Sheldon and Naomi Oreskes trace the entanglement of evangelical identity with the politics of scientific doubt. In response, they suggest a new framework for evangelical participation in environmental restoration that moves beyond a political identity that is chained to right-wing doubt about climate change. In asking how "Korean Christianity can become more Nature-conscious, Nature-related, and Nature-integrated," Yong Bum Park points to Chondogyo, a Korean indigenous religion (333). This tradition is shown to take seriously the ecological crisis as a "crisis of consciousness and conduct," encouraging religious people to foster a socioecological vision of restoration (333).Part 4, which provides examples of concrete visions and projects on the ground, ends with John Hart's reimagining of the Earth as a "common commons." The notion that the Earth is a sacred "common commons" of "interdependent, integral, evolving relational community" requires conversion in light of how religious people relate to the Earth today (437). According to this commons ethic, land should be "commonized and communalized" rather than rendered private property (476).I highly recommend this volume for teaching undergraduate and graduate courses that are exploring the intersection of religion and ecology, especially courses focusing on religious ethics. Though the breadth of this work might strike the reader as boundless, herein lies its strength, especially for teachers of Christian ethics. This resource broadens the conversation recently highlighted by Pope Francis in Laudato Si' beyond the Christian perspective on ecology. The Companion models interreligious dialogue, opening to the diverse ways many different religious and spiritual traditions demand action for environmental restoration. [End Page 200]Dannis M. MattesonLoyola University ChicagoCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The purpose of the current research was to explore and expose discourses that constrain how Black women engage with health and well-being practices, specifically long-distance running, therapy, and adhering to a vegan diet. The theoretical framework for this research builds upon Black feminist thought and the Foucauldian concepts governmentality and disciplinary power. I employed aspects of netnography and conducted 28 semi-structured interviews with Black millennial women in the United States. I argue that disciplinary power constrained how the (...) Black women in this study engaged with the well-being practices. However, the participants resisted disciplinary power by rejecting the discursive barriers that would deter them from freely engaging with the well-being practices. The current articulation of discursive barriers refers to discourses that deter Black women from engaging with the well-being practices and other activities because they are Black women. Contexts where discursive barriers circulate and constrain Black women’s health are identified. The rationale behind health-related discursive barriers and connections to health disparities are also discussed. (shrink)

I examine how James Baldwin explored white ignorance—as conceived by Charles Mills—in his work. I argue that Baldwin helps us understand Mills’s account of white ignorance more deeply, showing that while only mentioned briefly by Mills, Baldwin provides fruitful insights into the phenomenon. I also consider the resources Baldwin provides to find a way out of white ignorance. My aim is to link these thinkers in ways that have been largely ignored.

African and African American Christian ethics comprises an assemblage of disciplines and traditions that address the embodied experiences of black people and provide moral guidance for life in community. Its progenitors helped to establish it as a field of ethical inquiry despite marginalization and hostility and in contrast to dominant ethical traditions that privilege concepts over encounters with embodied life. African and African American Christian ethics privileges embodied encounter as the location for determining a moral hermeneutic in order (...) to recalibrate our understanding of communal relationships toward healthier norms, for the sake of the entire community’s survival and wholeness. (shrink)

I examine how white British members of a London-area environmental group conceptualize race in relation to ecological disasters. Based on a five-year (2018–2022) ethnographic study, members employed racialized narratives and symbolic boundaries to construct who was the cause of disasters, who had the moral responsibility or calling to remediate disasters, and who possessed the adequate resources and capacity to fix disasters. Together, these narratives formed a tripartite racial imaginary which functioned to demarcate the symbolic boundaries of an ideal, white racial (...) identity that was intimately crocheted with notions of authentic guilt and remorse, responsibility and liability, work ethics, competent knowledge, resource mobilization, moral commitment, and racial paternalism and superiority. Through the pursuit of this White racial ideal, members frequently conceptualized ecological disasters throughout the non-white world as the fault of specific actions by non-White people, identified unique racialized actors as the proper responsible parties for working on the remediation of ecological disasters, and also assigned particular White people from Westernized, industrial, democratic states as the only people in possession of the appropriate knowledge, resources, and character to clean-up and manage a healthy environment. (shrink)

Although women are the centre of African society, not much scholarly attention has been given to these conduits of human development in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe. The stories of individual women have never formed part of Methodist historiography, ecclesiology, or theology. Methodist scholars exercised this pigeonholing even though women contribute to the life and mission of the church in a formidable way. Moreover, the ministers’ wives who are the leaders of the women’s movement that has the majority of church (...) membership in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe have also not received scholarly attention despite how they have dedicated their lives to supporting their husband’s ministry. As a result, lay members of the women’s movement would not be expected to be celebrated as most Methodist scholars are male ministers who have never celebrated the work of their wives. This article was motivated by the appointment of Mrs. Sipiwe Chisvo, an ordinary member of the Women’s Fellowship from the low-density suburb of Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe to be the first black President of the World Federation of the Methodist and Uniting Church Women in 2022. Chisvo actively participated in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe’s interventions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and presumably, this contributed towards her visibility and recognition in the international arena.Contribution: Although African women often remain in the peripheries of culture, Sipiwe Chisvo is an example of a religious African woman who gave hope to the hopeless people during COVID-19 and this role contributed immensely to her appointment as the president of the World Federation of the Methodist and Uniting Church Women. With this identity, Chisvo represents selfless services rendered by African women to communities during pandemics and these services do not go unnoticed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sense and Sensibility: IARPT’s Four Existential OrientationsWilliam David Hart (bio)I. Introduction: IARPT’s Liberal HorizonThe concerns of the Institute of American Religious and Philosophical Thought are worlds apart from the preoccupations that animate the characters in Jane Austen’s novels. This is not to say that IARPT is disinterested in romance, love, and heartbreak. It is to say, rather, that Sense and Sensibility, the title of Austen’s 1811 novel, is a (...) good cover term for the matters that I wish to address. I say this despite the fact that many characters in the novel, especially Fanny Dashwood, are insufferable members of a British ruling class that, along with its wealth-hording, patriarchy-sustaining institution of primogeniture, needed to be expropriated by the working class. I say this despite the fact that the sensibility of the British aristocracy, as is true of all aristocracies, is off-putting. With this proviso, it is precisely the sense and sensibility of the Institute (the love, romance and, perhaps, tragedy) that I wish to survey through a focus on what I take to be its animating existential concerns. I call these orientations existential rather than merely intellectual because they go beyond ideas, professional commitments, and implicate the entire range of life dispositions. These orientations are habit-forming.Constitutive of these orientations are anxieties regarding the meaning and significance of those things for which we live and die. The sheer fact of consciousness, of conscious matter, of matter conscious of its consciousness and the wonder and awe this inspires as we consider the very existence of things is part of our existential ensemble too. For some of us wonder and awe before the groundless gratuity of existence, let’s call this ontological curiosity, compete with death anxiety and its intimations for preeminence in how we imagine the meaning and significance of our life. This is not a binary matter. For some people, perhaps for most, the joy of existence larded as it is with terrible things exceeds, as the case make be, the quiet desperation, sorrow, or terror, and the emptiness at the center of all things. My exploration focuses on the anxieties rather than the curiosity. I take it for granted that the deep source of anxiety is mortality and its various intimations. Our quest for lives of meaning and significance is threatened by the “horrid d’s”1 of death, disease, dread, despair, [End Page 5] and disappointment. Various thinkers have theorized how we cope with this anxiety. Some argue that denial is a dominant way of dealing with death, which they take to be foundational to the other meaning and significance-threatening phenomena.2 Where the answers to these threats provided by traditional religions are found lacking or otherwise no longer credible, denial expresses itself in the form of various immortality projects: typically, the puritanical, maniacal, and methodical pursuit of health and wealth, in consumerism of all kinds, from the hottest new diet, to a Peloton exercise bike, to a Tesla. And then there is the pursuit of fame and celebrity, which many people can no longer distinguish, the hope, captured so well in the theme song for the television series, Fame. “Fame / I’m going to live forever / Baby, remember my name.”3 We want to be remembered. Whether by future generations or, inside the digital clouds of Instagram or TikTok, or, as some would have it, within the consequent nature of God. Of course, for some populations, death is not so easily denied. Death has an in their face immediacy, insistence, and oppugnancy that rips through flesh and leaves its subject not merely anxious but dead. I speak, for example, of the mind-numbing repetitiveness with which police kill Black people. Or the myriad ways, including environmental racism, in which Blacks are subject to premature death. Some thinkers even theorize that death is the existential horizon for Black people in an ontologically distinctive way.4 Thus the March 2020 police-raid killing of Breonna Taylor in her home may be a statistical anomaly but is experienced as a monstrous revelation of the nature of things, of Black social life as social death. This is not a... (shrink)

This book is outstandingly important for two reasons: first, because it offers a new explanation for the uniqueness of the West, and secondly because it develops in a radical way the notion of hist...

Beauty therapy is part of a vast multi-national, multi-million pound beauty industry. The beauty salon lies at the heart of a complex set of discourses and practices. Research conducted in the salon sheds light upon a number of key sociological debates including; issues of health and well-being; gendered employment practices; the construction and maintenance of gender identity and sexuality; body practices; and leisure activities. In this sense the salon may be used as a microcosm in which to investigate wider sociological (...) concerns. In this paper, I will draw upon the testimonies of beauty salon clients, and beauty therapists. I describe four areas of treatment: pampering; routine grooming; health treatments; and corrective treatments. These areas are investigated in depth and related to different spheres in the woman's life. In particular, I show how the beauty salon is drawn upon in helping to negotiate the balance between these competing arenas. The ambivalences of achieving an ‘appropriate’ appearance in these differing spheres is investigated. Their implication in the self-surveillance of the client is also discussed. (shrink)

Why do American Black people generally have worse health than American White people? To answer this question, “Black Health” dispels any notion that Black people have inferior bodies that are inherently susceptible to disease. This is simply false racial science that has been used to abuse Black people since our African ancestors were brought to America on slave ships. A genuine investigation into the status of Black people’s health requires us (...) to acknowledge that race has always been a powerful social category. Race largely predetermines individuals’ social and political power and access to resources needed for health and wellbeing. And as a group, Black people have been intentionally denied this power and access. Systemic racism, oppression, and White supremacy in American institutions have largely been the perpetrators of differing social power and access to resources for Black people. It is these systemic inequities that create the social conditions needed for poor health outcomes for Black people to persist. An examination of social inequities reveals that it is no accident that Black people have poorer health than White people, instead in America, almost every institution has been designed to withhold what Black people need for proper health and wellbeing. Black Health provides a succinct discussion of Black people’s health, including the social, political, and at times cultural determinants of their health. This book examines the ways that Black people’s multiple identities—social, cultural, and political—intersect with anti-Black institutions, such as housing and health care to determine their poor outcomes in pregnancy, pain management, sleep, and cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

O coração como atributo hagiográfico de São Benedito do Rosário: hipótese sobre a sua origem e seu modelo subjacente da vida cristã The heart as hagiographic attribute of Saint Benedict of the Rosary: hypothesis on its origin and its underpinned understanding of Christian life Neste artigo, investiga-se uma variação incomum dos atributos hagiográficos clássicos de São Benedito: o São Benedito do Rosário com coração. Procura-se explicar tanto a relativa raridade de figuras com esse atributo adicional como a sua existência. Para (...) isso, discutem-se a história das representações de São Benedito, função e exemplos da religio cordis no Brasil colonial e as características das irmandades e confrarias que veneravam São Benedito. Defende-se que as atribuições hagiográficas alternativas de São Benedito representam ênfases da fé cristã distintas com mais ou menos proximidade ao projeto da religião colonial. Conclui-se que as confrarias dos “homens ‘pretos’” não usaram preferencialmente a figura de Benedito com o Menino Jesus, mas as representações do Benedito do Rosário. Dessa forma, não enfatizaram na experiência da “união mística” como expressão máxima e propósito predileto da sua fé, mas no modelo da partilha solidária, segundo o qual a proximidade de Deus passa pela aproximação aos/às mais necessitados/as. Interpretamos o atributo do coração não como retorno para o discurso dominante da religio cordis do catolicismo colonial, mas como uma releitura crítica do discurso oficial pelas confrarias e irmandades. Palavras-chave: Benedito com Menino Jesus. Benedito do Rosário. Coração. Religio cordis. Theologia cordis. Irmandades e confrarias da Nossa Senhora do Rosário.This paper investigates an unusual variation of the classic hagiographic attributes of St. Benedict: St. Benedict of the Rosary with heart. The article tries to explain both the relative rarity of this additional attribute as its existence. The history of representations of St. Benedict is discussed and examples are given for the role and characteristics of the religio cordis for colonial Brazil within the fraternities and sororities that venerated St. Benedict. It is argued that the alternative hagiographic attributes of St. Benedict represent different emphases of the Christian faith in more or less proximity to the colonial project of religion. It is concluded that the confraternities of “‘black’ people” preferably did not use the figure of Benedict with the Jesus as a child, but the representations of Benedict of the Rosary. Thus not the experience of mystical union is emphasized as the center of their faith, but the model of shared solidarity, according to which the nearness of God is related to the proximity to those in need. We do not interpret the attribute of the heart as a return to the dominant discourse of the religio cordis of colonial Catholicism but as a critical rereading of the official discourse by the fraternities and sororities. Keywords: Benedict with Jesus as a child. St. Benedict of the Rosary. Religio cordis . Theologia cordis . Brotherhoods and confraternities of Our Lady of the Rosary. (shrink)

Estruturando conceitos (raízes do conhecimento). Noções sobre a gramática Ioruba -- O complexo Jêje-nagô -- A palavra e suas possibilidades -- A natureza e o homem -- Corpo individual e corpo coletivo -- A noção de saúde física e mental -- O surgimento da doença -- Os Ajogun -- Especificando conteúdos (ramos de conhecimento). A medicina Ioruba -- Òsányìn, o dono de todos os vegetais -- A folha e a sabedoria -- Omolu, o grande médico -- Os àwon Òrìsà se (...) apoderam das folhas -- O Sistema Ioruba de Nomenclatura e classificação das plantas -- O ritual Sàsányìn -- As plantas, seus cantos e encantos -- Glossário de ervas : ficha catalográfica -- Glossário de aplicação das ervas -- Glossário por nome de ervas : português -- Glossário por nome de ervas : ioruba -- Glossário por nome de ervas : nome científico -- Glossário de ervas Òrìsà -- Glossário de palavras em ioruba utilizadas no texto -- Apêndice: àse e atitude sustentável. (shrink)

It is my contention that what is generally construed as the Euthyphro Dilemma as a reason to deny that moral facts are based on theological facts is one of the worst arguments proposed in philosophy of religion or ethical theory, and that Socrates, the character of the dialogue who poses the dilemma, was both morally bankrupt in his challenge to Euthyphro, but more importantly here, ought to have lost the argument hands down. But in any dialogue, the author controls what (...) people say. Plato was able to easily give Socrates the victory by writing the ending of the story himself, where Euthyphro, believing that piety is what the gods approve of, loses the argument abysmally. The version of events presented here is different. This time, Euthyphro is permitted to offer a reasonable defence of his position, and he has the benefit of having been able to read all that has been said on the Euthyphro dilemma over the last couple of millennia, and especially the last fifty years. Under such circumstances, Socrates does not stand a chance. We arrive at our scene, the steps of the Dunedin High Court, in Dunedin, New Zealand, on a cool mid-winter July morning. (shrink)

The book addresses influences and affinities in the context of the history of ideas, literary theory and criticism. It brings together American Transcendentalism, Negritude, African religions and philosophy.

Southeast Asia has numerous religions and diverse forms of state-governance, so the populations largely have the freedom to express themselves within the context of their society. Expressing oneself can occur within the context of their religion, using the language they have been cultured within, if they remain in their cultural-context. This paper explores the context of Buddhist nations using militarized-language, seen as problematic by Dr. Matthew Kosuta, who professes in his masters-thesis that it is a contradiction. A portion of my (...) article refutes his position, on the grounds that Buddhism developed within the Hindu-Brahmanism context and caste was normalized in regions influenced by such culture. Equally, it could be noted, the Buddha also used a language that was suitable for agriculturalists, merchants, Brahmins, so a militarized-language was just one way to speak to some people within their own social context, which was understandable not just to them, but to anyone interested in attaining Nibbāna. (shrink)

According to the epistemological objection to divine command ethics, if morality is grounded in God’s commands, then those who do not believe in God cannot have moral knowledge. This objection has been raised—and answered before. However, the objection persists, and I argue here that it has not been substantially improved upon and does not deserve a second hearing. Whether or not God’s commands provide the basis of moral facts does not imply that unbelievers cannot have moral knowledge, since the ability (...) to know that something is true does not depend on our ability to know what makes it true. (shrink)

Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening. The authors traveled around the country to spark an open conversation that brings together the Black prophetic tradition and the wisdom of the Dharma. Bridging the world of spirit and activism, they (...) urge a compassionate response to the systemic, state-sanctioned violence and oppression that has persisted against black people since the slave era. With national attention focused on the recent killings of unarmed black citizens and the response of the Black-centered liberation groups such as Black Lives Matter, Radical Dharma demonstrates how social transformation and personal, spiritual liberation must be articulated and inextricably linked. Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah represent a new voice in American Buddhism. Offering their own histories and experiences as illustrations of the types of challenges facing dharma practitioners and teachers who are different from those of the past five decades, they ask how teachings that transcend color, class, and caste are hindered by discrimination and the dynamics of power, shame, and ignorance. Their illuminating argument goes beyond a demand for the equality and inclusion of diverse populations to advancing a new dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies systems of suffering and prepares us to weigh the shortcomings not only of our own minds but also of our communities. They forge a path toward reconciliation and self-liberation that rests on radical honesty, a common ground where we can drop our need for perfection and propriety and speak as souls. In a society where profit rules, people's value is determined by the color of their skin, and many voices--including queer voices--are silenced, Radical Dharma recasts the concepts of engaged spirituality, social transformation, inclusiveness, and healing. (shrink)

Secular people are strangely ambiguous. They feel a tension between what they don't share and what they have in common-between avoiding religion and embracing something like it. An event as ordinary as a wedding can be uncomfortable if it feels too religious, and even for those who are indifferent to religion, a passing reference to God can be cringeworthy. And yet, religion is tough to avoid completely without living in its remainder. The Secular Paradox explains why. Relying on several (...) years of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, Blankholm shows how secular people are both absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like tradition, which includes beliefs and institutions, as well embodied practices. Recovering this tradition makes legible what secular people share with one another and explains why the secular movement in the United States remains predominately white and male. Humanistic Jews, Hispanic Freethinkers, Ex-Muslims, and black nonbelievers are secular misfits whose stories reveal the contours of the secular most clearly by proving to be more and less than what remains when Christianity is removed. The Secular Paradox offers a radically new way of understanding secularism and secular people by explaining the origins of their inherent contradiction and its awkward effects on their lives. This new understanding matters for anyone who has ever avoided something because it felt too religious, everyone who considers themselves secular, and all those who want to understand them better. (shrink)

The complexities of black hair care provide a useful point of entry to the problem of theorizing, experiencing, judging, and pursuing bodily beauty in racialized contexts. This chapter aims to catalogue and clarify some of the philosophical questions that arise from the negrophobic somatic aesthetics. It provides answers to the most pressing questions, questions that demand the attention not just of aestheticians and ethicists, but also of students of natural science and the philosophy of existence. The chapter focuses on (...) cases that emerge from Afro‐US life‐worlds. Richard Shusterman's determination to contest the centuries‐long denigration of the body that infects western philosophy and culture leads him to employ the Greek term soma to name his approach, which he defines as the study of the experience and use of one's body as a locus of sensory‐aesthetic appreciation and creative self‐fashioning. (shrink)

Many think that the aim of Hume’s Dialogues is simply to discredit the design argument for the existence of an intelligent designer. We think instead that the Dialogues provides a model of true religion. We argue that, for Hume, the truly religious person: believes that an intelligent designer created and imposed order on the universe; grounds this belief in an irregular argument rooted in a certain kind of experience, for example, in the experience of anatomizing complex natural systems such as (...) the eye; and retains this belief, on the basis of these reasons, even after careful scrutiny. We argue that two of the Dialogues’s characters, Philo and Cleanthes, exhibit true religion. A third character, Demea, exhibits false religion and a persistent impiety. Taken as a whole, we see the Dialogues as an educational performance for the benefit of Pamphilus, Cleanthes’s ward, as well as for the benefit of readers of the Dialogues. Specifically, we think, given that its lessons concern theology and the principles of religion, the dynamics of the Dialogues’s discussion and the interplay between its characters can be seen as a demonstration of a method for becoming truly religious. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha RayChioma Dibia (bio)Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha Ray New York: Oxford University Press, 2023Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, bioethics had engaged only sparingly with the concept of racism. In 2016, Danis and colleagues published an article exhorting bioethicists to (...) engage more meaningfully with the concept of racism—given its impact on health and well being—and to consider strategies for combating it within and outside clinical settings (Danis et al. 2016, 5). While this paper generated considerable debate regarding how far bioethics ought to go in its engagement with racism (Baker 2016, 16; Weddle 2016, 32; Fuller 2016, 29), the focus of the field of bioethics quickly turned to more traditional subjects of bioethical inquiry, including ethical issues arising in doctor-patient relationships and new reproductive technologies. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd during that time, racism has received greater attention in the bioethics literature and Keisha Ray's Black Health arrives just in time to urge us to ensure that the current focus on the impact of racism on the health of racially minoritized people is not short-lived (Ray 2023, 21; BBC News 2020).The overarching argument in Ray's Black Health is that Black people's poor health does not arise from innate biological deficiencies but stems from their experience of racism at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal levels. Ray stresses that far from being solely a feature of America's past, racism [End Page 105] continues to taint Black people's relationship with the healthcare system and other societal institutions. In each chapter, Ray focuses on a specific racial disparity in health to illustrate how racism limits Black people's access to the social determinants of health and thereby contributes to their poor health. To set the context for this discussion, Ray provides an introductory chapter where she unpacks key terms including "racism," "racial disparities," and "the social determinants of health." In this chapter, Ray also clearly outlines the structure of the text and provides a summary of each chapter. This chapter provides the blueprint for the rest of the book, as in it, Ray provides a clear statement of the style, content, and purpose of Black Health.The first racial disparity that Ray considers is Black birthing mortality, and in chapter 1, Ray traces this to the history of slavery and eugenic policies which have shaped the relationship between physicians and Black women. As Ray explains, since Black people were forcibly brought to the United States, the government has sought to control Black women's reproductive lives and has often relied on physicians to effect control. She demonstrates how harmful stereotypes about Black women, including their so-called hardiness, originated in medical literature and have been used to deny pregnant Black women humane care. According to Ray, "[c]linicians' attitude and behaviors towards Black pregnant people still reflect an enslaved and slave-owner mentality, and this has great consequences for the survival of Black pregnant people." (32) By highlighting the birthing experiences of Serena Williams and Shalon Irving, Ray dispels the assumption that wealth or academic qualifications are a panacea for Black birthing mortality and shows how racism can be deadly for all Black pregnant women, irrespective of socioeconomic status. Ray also considers how income and housing inequities affect Black pregnant women and the cumulative effect of weathering on their health as well as that of their unborn children. This chapter most clearly shows how interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism operate and intersect to render pregnancy and childbirth a potentially dangerous experience for Black women.Next, Ray turns to racial disparities in clinical pain management and continues to explore the impact of historically racist beliefs and false stereotypes on the care of Black people. However, in this second chapter, Ray delves more deeply into the role of medical literature—both historical and contemporary sources—in perpetuating false assumptions about the Black body. She demonstrates how the historical portrayal of the Black body as not only less than human... (shrink)

This article builds on my recent engagement with James Cone’s binary view of Africanness and Christianity which focused on his Western locus of enunciation and the criticism he received from his African American colleagues. I believe that analogical questions regarding Christian theology’s attitude towards Africanness in general and African religiosity in particular present themselves to us who live in and try to make sense of South African reality today, including white people like myself. I start by introducing a decolonial (...) perspective as it manifests itself through the recent #MustFall student movements. In this context, I offer three theses regarding the decolonial perspective on African religiosity, each of which constitutes a more or less direct critique of Cone’s ambivalent attitude towards Africanness, and African Traditional Religions in particular. The first thesis concerns the distinction between postcoloniality and decoloniality; the second thesis concerns engaging African religiosity as a requirement for decolonising Christian theology; and the third thesis concerns problematising the relationship between the categories of blackness and Africanness. (shrink)

What can be gained from a dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion? David Black brings together contributors from a wide range of schools and movements to discuss this question.