There is evidence that the 'My Future is My Choice' (MFMC) intervention is reducing HIV risk behaviours among sexually inexperienced participants aged 15-18. Related risk behaviours and perceptions are also positively impacted by the intervention.
How to cite this article: Strijdom, J., 2014, 'The material turn in Religious Studies and the possibility of critique: Assessing Chidester's analysis of "the fetish"', HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 70(1), Art. #2116, 7 pages.
The material turn in Religious Studies and the possibility of critique: Assessing Chidester's analysis of 'the fetish'In recent debates the neglect of the material dimension of religion and the foregrounding of beliefs in the modern academic study of religion has been attributed to a Protestant bias.As corrective a number of researchers have shifted their attention to the study of bodily performances, sensory experiences and sacred objects in religious traditions. In this article I will enquire how David Chidester's analysis of the cultural, political and economic uses of 'fetishes' under 19th century colonial conditions in southern Africa and in European centres of theory formation on the one hand, and under 20th and 21st century American imperial conditions on the other, may inform the comparative study of religions. Central to my argument will be that the realisation that religions are necessarily concretely mediated should not preclude the possibility of a systemic critique of power relations that are at work in the uses of objects in religions, the comparison of religions and the comparative study of religions.
In this article recent criticisms of Paul are summarised under the headings of ethnicity (Mack), social class (Theissen), gender (Wire) and homoeroticism (Nissinen). Horsley's positive appraisal of Paul's anti-imperial stance is also surveyed. These views are introduced by means of the concept of imitation as a category of social ethics in Paul, the article, concludes with a statement on the morality of reading.
The aim of this article is to challenge Crossan in two related fronts. First, concerning 'story': did ancient authors consciously reflect on the distinction between fact and fiction, history and myth, literal and metaphorical? Could they view myths as made-up tales about divine intervention ? Further, could they question the reality of divine intervention as such, or were these questions introduced only much later by the Enlightenment and then illegitimately projected onto antiquity, as Crossan holds? My answer refers to the evidence in Thucydides, the Hippocratic corpus and the Gnostics, but focuses especially on Plato's conscious manipulation of the myths of Atlantis and the metals. I also respond to Crossan's understanding of the Platonist Celsus. Secondly, concerning 'ideology': if jesus'message and program were about systemic justice as distributive egalitarianism, about non-violent but provocative protest against violent and oppressive imperialism, how do his vision and life then relate to ancient and modern views on and practices of social justice? My objection is that whereas Crossan correctly emphasizes the concern for a just society in the Jewish and Near Eastern traditions, he underestimates the contribution of Greco-Roman paganism (except for the Cynics) in this regard. By means of a cursory discussion of Hesiod, Solon, and Socrates, and a more elaborate treatment of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics (eg, Musonius Rufus and Seneca) I indicate just how important such a nuanced comparison is.
Taking Albert Schweitzer's threefold criticism of psychological readings of the historical Jesus as point of departure, Davies' analysis of Jesus' baptism is critically assessed in terms of (1) his database of sources, (2) his arguments for authenticity, and (3) his psychological explanation of this crucial event in Jesus' life. The article insists, in conclusion, that Davies, psychological analysis should be supplemented with a consideration of social values if we wish to understand the historical Jesus better.
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