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"syncretism"
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Hindu-Catholic encounters in Goa : religion, colonialism, and modernity
\"The state of Goa on India's southwest coast was once the capital of the Portuguese-Catholic empire in Asia. When Vasco Da Gama arrived in India in 1498, he mistook Hindus for Christians, but Jesuit missionaries soon declared war on the alleged idolatry of the Hindus. Today, Hindus and Catholics assert their own religious identities, but Hindu village gods and Catholic patron saints attract worship from members of both religious communities. Through fresh readings of early Portuguese sources and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this study traces the history of Hindu-Catholic syncretism in Goa and considers its implications for our understanding of power, religion, and postcoloniality\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Nuove acquisizioni sulla chiesa della Martorana a Palermo mediante lo studio e il restauro dell'organismo architettonico
The essay proposes some reflexions about the studies done in the towerbell of the church known as \"Martorana\" in Palermo (Sicily). Continues those done by authors as Vicente Lamperez y Romea and Leopoldo Torres Balbás in Spain during last century, and the comparison with the \"cimborios\"of Toro, Salamanca and Zamora. Is evident an analogy through Zamora and Caserta Vecchia, with the growth of the order. In Gaeta, the tower bell built during different periods with preexistences of the VIII century and completed in the XII, finishing its plan with cilindric \"torreselli\" in the angles. With some construction elements and details, there are similitudes with Colegiata de Toro. Finally we can say that the belltower of the \"Martorana\" is one expression of the constructive syncretism of mediterranean and local workers.
Journal Article
Presentation and Analysis of “Three Teachings Syncretism” in Song and Jin Poetry and Its Modern Significance
The “Three Teachings Syncretism” (sanjiao heyi, 三教合一), i.e., the integration of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, represents an important religious philosophy in ancient China. This article aims to analyze how this ideology is presented and expressed directly in Song and Jin poetry, along with its modern value and significance. To achieve the research objectives, the paper isolates related poems from the Complete Song Poetry and Complete Liao Jin Poetry as the research objects. First, it organizes and classifies the relevant poems through the ways in which the idea of “Three Teachings Syncretism” is presented. Second, it examines the reasons behind this phenomenon, including the intellectualization of poetry and the Confucian academic background of Buddhist monks and Daoist priests. Thirdly, it explores the value and significance of this thought for modern China, showcasing the inherent diversity, inclusiveness, and harmony in Chinese culture.
Journal Article
“Both Exist at the Same Time”: Reconceptualizing Religious Syncretism in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (2018)
This article explores how Akwaeke Emezi’s novel Freshwater (2018) reconceptualizes Christianity and represents religious syncretism as an inevitable, rather than elusive, aspect of contemporary African identities. Because of the protagonist’s identity as an ogbanje—both spirit and human and yet neither—the novel presents a narrative that challenges the concepts of religious syncretism as a contamination of one religion by another, and it accomplishes this by representing the process of syncretization between Igbo cosmology and Christianity in its plot and characterizations. One of the ways in which it achieves this is by characterizing Christianity’s Christ as “Yshwa” and portraying his contentious and ultimately reconciled relationship with the ogbanje. Some readings of the novel underscore the dichotomy between the ogbanje and Yshwa, and this approach not only perpetuates binaries and purist impressions of religion and spirituality, but it also presents religious syncretism as elusive because of presumably stubborn dissimilarities. By resisting this dichotomous reading of the novel and understanding how and when religious syncretism is represented, I suggest that this narrative contributes to current discourse on literary representations of syncretism in ways that dismantle hegemonic representations of Christ as a Western-centric symbol of Christianity and reconfigure Christianity by characterizing Yshwa through an Igbo ontological lens.
Journal Article
Leyendas chiquitanas: transcripts, reviews and syncretism in the indigenous literature of eastern Bolivia / Leyendas chiquitanas: transcripciones, revisiones y sincretismo en la literatura indigenista del oriente boliviano
The work Tradiciones y leyendas chiquitanas from Hector Flores Landivar, published in 1981, tells the traditional legends of the region herded or experienced by the author during his lifetime: simple stories that also reveals the conditions of daily life, social disparity between mestizos and peasants and syncretism with the local mythology.
Journal Article
Syncretism in the cult of the syrian goddess
In this thesis, I have undertaken to analyse the effect upon the cult of the Syrian goddess of the process of religious syncretism, which occurred through contact between the Aramaic speaking people of the city sacred to the goddess: Hierapolis/ Mnbg, and the peoples of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire. The purpose of my analysis is to examine the extent to which the syncretic developments observed in the cult of the Syrian goddess can be viewed as systematic and whether looking specifically at syncretism in a religion is useful in gaining insights into that religion, where a non-specific approach would not. From previous studies of syncretism in the fields of theology and anthropology, I have established a workable definition of the term religious syncretism and I have combined aspects of structural and cognitive approaches to syncretism. I have focussed on the types of syncretism called association and identification as this yielded the most significant results.
Dissertation
Negotiating with Tides and Tigers: Life on the Boundaries of Bangladesh’s Flooded Forest
The Sundarbans, which stretches from the Bay of Bengal over parts of India and Bangladesh, is the largest mangrove forest in the world, constantly in flux due to the erosion and cyclones that can drastically reshape the land. This article explores how Muslims, Hindus and the Indigenous Munda must negotiate the precarity of life and work on the forest boundaries, and the constant fluctuation of institutions and geography. These communities depend on the forest, negotiating dangers such as tigers, crocodiles, snakes, cyclones and the strict limitations imposed by the Forest Department. This article will explore boundaries, erosion and forest predators in turn, culminating in the argument that the roots developed by the Sundarbans’ communities incorporate spiritual collaboration as a form of syncretism. This article argues that, like the mangroves that characterise the Sundarbans, the communities that live on its boundaries have developed a distinctive system of roots that negotiates the unique demands of life in the region.
Journal Article
Juan Sepulveda and the Understanding of the Syncretic Characteristics of Latin American Pentecostalism: The Case of Classical Pentecostalism in Guatemala
This article presents the case of Guatemalan Pentecostalism as a highly relevant expression of Latin American Pentecostalism that helps to clarify the debate about the syncretic nature of Pentecostalism. We use the Guatemalan case to test the thesis of Juan Sepúlveda, a Chilean Pentecostal historian and theologian, who explains the success of Latin American Pentecostalism in light of its syncretic character. His argument about the syncretic character of Pentecostalism is based on the Chilean case. Paying attention to its historical development, we present Guatemalan Pentecostal theology in relation to traditional Mayan culture and religion and in relation to popular Catholicism and traditional Latin American Protestantism. Specific attention is paid to the espoused theology of Pentecostal pastors as they provide an account of indigenous Pentecostals’ lived faith. Finally, we answer the question: Does Juan Sepulveda’s approach (still) provide an adequate framework for the theological assessment of possible syncretic characteristics of (Latin American) Pentecostalism? The Guatemalan case indicates ways to improve certain limitations of Sepúlveda’s approach, such as its static understanding of culture and its exclusion of the theological understanding of syncretism.
Journal Article
Syncretism Narrative and the Use of Material Objects within Some Neo-Pentecostal Circles in Contemporary South Africa
African Pentecostal Christianity presents interconnectedness with African cultures, spiritualities, and religiosity in many ways. Among many other practices that demonstrate this interconnectedness is the use of material objects common within some African Pentecostal Christian spaces, African cultures, spiritualities, and religions. The advent of neo-Pentecostalism in South Africa has brought some controversies in the use of material objects within the broader African Pentecostalism. This has led to the outright demonization and to the conclusion that this practice was fundamentally syncretistic. This article investigated the syncretism narrative given the use of material objects within some neo-Pentecostal spaces in contemporary South Africa. It scrutinized the syncretism narrative and problematized it as the continuation of the missionary-colonial project that demonized African religious and cultural practices. It was argued that this constitutes coloniality that uses a “cultural bomb” that seeks to eradicate African customs, cultures, religions, and practices including the use of material objects. The study was conducted through the desktop research methodology focusing on secondary literature on African Pentecostalism, African neo-Pentecostalism, and syncretism. The findings indicated that the syncretism narrative is often applied to African Pentecostalism and seldom used with other Christian traditions, especially those of Western descent. Again, when the term is used, non-syncretistic elements are often not acknowledged. Thus, the need to transform the current narrative was highlighted.
Journal Article
Looking Back: Theological Reflections on the Intersection between Pentecostalism and Ubuntu within the African Section of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa
Syncretism in the African section of South African Pentecostalism followed the emergence of the Ethiopian movement. The latter took the lead in promoting the syncretising of Christianity and African culture and practice (hereinafter referred to as Ubuntu). A similar syncretism emerged in the Christian Catholic Church in Zion in Wakkerstroom, the “black section of the Apostolic Faith Mission”, soon after the departure of Reverend Pieter Le Roux, who was appointed to lead the Apostolic Faith Mission in Johannesburg since John G. Lake was returning to the USA. This article intends to show that such syncretism did not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it was influenced by the interpretation of some portions of Scripture, the influence of John Alexander Dowie’s praxis and some dreams and visions of a leader of the Christian Catholic Church in Zion in Wakkerstroom. This form of syncretism later permeated subsequent sections of African Pentecostalism in the Apostolic Faith Mission, resulting in the emergence of two categories of African Pentecostalism in the church: namely, those who accept this phenomenon and those who abandon it. These past developments position the Apostolic Faith Mission as a prime example to use in analysing syncretism in Pentecostalism and how it could be addressed by taking cognisance of Ubuntu without committing syncretism. Hence, the following question arises: How can theological reflections on the past experiences of the black section of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa contribute to promoting a biblical approach that takes cognisance of Ubuntu without committing syncretism? This article applies the Magadi research method conceptualised for practical theology to answer this question. It further demonstrates that it is possible to promote a biblical approach that embraces Ubuntu without committing syncretism.
Journal Article