Illumine, Vol. 02, No. 1 (2003)
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Item From Christianity in China to Chinese Christianity: Missing history since 1583 and recent academic debates in English(Illumine, 2003) Li, HuaThe history of Christianity in China can be roughly divided into four periods of growth, decline, revival, and indigenisation. After briefly reviewing each period of the history of Christianity in China, I will examine a variety of influential books written by western scholars of different perspectives, reveal their disparate or even contradictory points of view, and evaluate their effectiveness in examining the three phases of the Christian presence in China: accommodation, inculturation, and indigenisation. As the historical evidence presented by these authors develops from a discussion of the introduced presence of Christianity in China to a look at indigenised Chinese Christianity, I will try to find the voids, biases and omissions, and conclude by indicating the possible directions which, I believe, scholarship should take to provide a more complete picture of the history of Christianity in China.Item The struggle for Protestant identity in seventeenth-century England: ‘Catholic’ pictures and Protestant buyers(Illumine, 2003) Warrington, SeanineReligious art was proudly supported by Anglicans after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 for its ability to connect both the early and Medieval churches with the Church of England, and, more importantly, to demonstrate the Anglican’s rejection of the increasingly powerful dissenting perspective. Because nonconformist challenges to the Church’s authority were often framed around the issue of religious imagery, art became a focal point for a power struggle between two Protestant groups: the Anglicans and the Puritans. Taking a defensive stance on the use of religious imagery, the late seventeenth-century Anglican Church promoted religious art on a large scale, both for church and household worship. As a symbol of their loyalty to the Church of England, Anglican laity brought pictures featuring Biblical and hagiographic imagery into their homes for both instructional and devotional purposes. These images, purchased at London auction houses, reflect how the middle levels of lay society enthusiastically embraced religious iconography and indicate the self-conscious identity of Anglicanism in the midst of Protestant conflict and division. The question of the presence of ‘Catholic’ images in Protestant English homes goes beyond simple decoration—religious imagery became a symbol of one’s religious sentiments.Item Illumine: Vol. 2 No. 1 (2003)(Illumine, 2003)This is the full issue of Illumine, Vol. 2, No.1 (2003).Item After ground zero: Problems of memory and memorialisation(Illumine, 2003) Carr, GeoffAccording to French historian Pierre Nora, the twin economic and political revolutions of the eighteenth century ruptured lived traditions of memory as new social orders sought to create “new” pasts through establishing official “sites of memory.” It is against this formal tide that the anti-monument movement struggles, to return the act of social retrospection back to everyday life, to place the responsibility of retaining the past not on a site specific object, such as an obelisk, but upon each individual. In light of this current epistemological shift, it is curious that the Memory Foundations plan produced by architect Daniel Libeskind for the site of New York’s razed World Trade Center (WTC) ignores this avant-garde turn, and favours instead the creation of a conservative site of memory. Especially troubling is the vaguely defined process, used by Libeskind and other officials, to invest this place with an aura of sacredness. In this paper, I will discuss why constructing public memory at such sites is generally flawed, and suggest how the proposed “sacred memorial space” at Ground Zero attempts to manage and harness the range of possible recollections to be drawn from the horror of the collapse of the WTC, selectively forgetting the contradictory and complex, in favour of a spiritualised homogeneity.Item The Mukaekō ritual at Taimadera: A living tradition of medieval Japanese pure land Buddhism(Illumine, 2003) Dix, MonikaThis article examines the religious significance of the mukaek?, an annual performance ritual held at Taimadera, which commemorates Ch?j?hime’s attainment of rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. Focusing on the artistic, religious, historical, and social circumstances that contributed to the popularity of Pure Land Buddhism in the Kamakura period (1185-1333), the reasons behind early medieval Japanese society’s aspiration of faith in Amida and the desire to be reborn in his Pure Land are explored. My discussion of the interrelationship of history and art examines how both faith in Amida and pictorial expressions of this faith inspired the creation of the mukaek? ritual. Through this analysis, I will show that the mukaek? is a living tradition of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhism and a unique embodiment of mutual influences of art, religion, and history.Item Our spiritual nature: An exploration into nature experiences, spirituality and environmental responsibility(Illumine, 2003) de Witt, AnnickIn this autobiographical essay, I reflect on the healing and transformational power of ritual. Here, ritual is perceived as a holistic form of communication that incorporates and unites the material human body, the physical earth, and the non-tangible realms of emotion, intuition, spirit, and thought. The processes of ritual rebalance the flow of energy between and within these diverse elements, and act as a catalyst for change in the participant’s consciousness. Thus, a ritualised act can change the very order of the world itself. The performance of the personal ritual described in this essay was sparked by my grief over the death of someone I loved very much – my mother. The symptoms of my grief were a physical expression of my lack of knowledge about how to live after her death, and did not diminish until I had turned myself over fully to the practice of the ritual. The ritual itself was a simple one: a daily walk up a mountain path to sit in a particular tree. Indeed, at the time, I did not think of this daily act as ritual. Nonetheless, the performance of the ritual honoured and reconnected me to early childhood memories of my mother, and to the earth’s body, and also permitted me to recognise and engage with the anima locus, or place soul, of the mountain tree.Item Walter Rauschenbusch and Charles Gore: Divergent paths towards a Christian social ethic(Illumine, 2003) Vance, CraigWalter Rauschenbush and Charles Gore were contemporaries who had profound impacts in North America and England respectively in the area of Christian social thought. While they both provided theological justification for a moderate gradualist socialism their theologies are in many ways antithetical. Rauschenbusch’s “social gospel,” which has been predominant in North American liberal protestantism, is contrasted with Gore’s “sacramental socialism,” which is predominant in liberal Anglocatholicism. This essay argues for the revival of the sacramental socialist tradition on the basis of comparison with theorists as varied as Max Horkheimer, George Lindbeck, George Grant and the Radical Orthodoxy project of John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock.Item Introduction(Illumine, 2003) Andersen, Angela; Millar, EveItem The tree on White Mountain: On ritual, spirit and place(Illumine, 2003) Pryer, AlisonMy research project explores the reciprocal relationships between nature perception, spirituality and environmental responsibility. Based on twenty-eight in-depth interviews with ‘nature-lovers,’ environmentalists and ‘spiritual seekers,’ an insider’s-perspective is sketched of how an immanent spiritual sense is experienced and activated in nature, and what its potential is concerning the pressing issues in the world. Seen from a philosophical perspective, the research explores if and how an integral worldview, incorporating an inner or spiritual dimension, interacts with and is supported by concrete experiences in the (natural) world, as well as how it finds expression in the world. This research project gives insight into the possible potential of spirituality in terms of the environmental crisis, and attempts to demystify the concept of spirituality and presents it from a ‘this- worldly’ perspective.Item Notes on contributors(Illumine, 2003) Warrington, Seanine; Li, Hua; Dix, Monika; Pryer, Alison; De Witt, Annick; Carr, Geoff; Vance, Craig