Aar-hcs Sessions, November 1-3, 2008 (chicago)

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AAR Online Program Book Time and room assignments are subject to change; final time and room assignments are available in the onsite Annual Meeting Program Book. Location Key: CHT Chicago Hilton and Towers PH Palmer House Hilton Hotel

A1-104 History of Christianity Section Saturday - 9:00 am-11:30 am CHT-Conference Room 4C; View Map (coming soon) Download vCalendar File (for use in Outlook or Palm Desktop) (coming soon) Martha L. Finch, Missouri State University, Presiding Theme: Practices of Seeing in the History of Christianity Ann M. Caron, St. Joseph College Practices of Seeing: Vehicles of Meditation and Devotion My paper focuses on drawing, the Consecration of Virgins, from the Benedictine Abbey of St Walburg collection. Analysis of the drawing in conjunction with the third Exercise of Gertrude the Great will show (1) how female spirituality of the later Middle Ages contributed to the emergence of new attitudes toward visual experience, (2) the indispensable place for images in the mysticism of Christian medieval women, (3) insights and concerns, kataphatic tradition of Christian mysticism. Emma J. Anderson, University of Ottawa Devil in the Details: Visual Rhetoric and Historical Misrepresentation in Depictions of the “North American Martyrs,” 1649–Present This presentation will explore the changing visual polemics of martyrdom in North America through an exploration of the 350 year history of artistic depictions of the of eight Jesuit martyrs, killed in the 1640s and canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1930. Visual depictions of their deaths, far from being simple representations of historical events, arguably appeal to the viewer using a highly developed Catholic visual rhetoric of sanctity and suffering: a rhetoric which actively undercuts more historiographically nuanced interpretations of the complex, multivalent ritual actions they portray. My presentation will show how, using contrastive strategies of light and darkness, centrality and periphery, and singularity and ubiquity, centuries of Catholic painters and engravers have taken artistic liberties which arguably obscure rather than illuminate the complex encounter between seventeenth century missionaries and native peoples: simplistically portraying their encounter as the bloody embrace of civilization and savagery, sanctity and barbarism. Amy Ann Slagle, University of Southern Mississippi Seeing Multiplicity: Eastern Orthodox Icons as Mirrors of American Ethnic Diversity With a recent influx of American-born converts and demographic shifts in the ethnic composition of local Orthodox communities, Eastern Orthodox Christians in the United States have begun to explore and affirm intra-parish ethnic diversity by expanding the iconographic repertoire of saints beyond those of traditional Orthodox lands to increasingly include those from Africa, East Asia, and pre-schism western Europe. Although much of this expansion has come from individual converts eager to explore their own ethnic backgrounds within the context of their newfound faith, local parishes too have promoted more ethnically inclusive iconographic schemas in their adornment of church interiors. Based on interviews with church members and a close examination of visual evidence, I explore the ways in which these icons reflect changes in the meanings and uses of ethnicity within contemporary Orthodox Christianity and American society. Rosanne Morici, Syracuse University Spirit as Surface: The Iconophilia of Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art

10/21/2008 10:11 PM

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This paper will contend that there is an essential iconophilia at the core of Wassily Kandinsky’s On the Spiritual in Art that challenges the conventional reading of his abstraction as iconoclastic, as drawing away from the surface of artworks for the sake of a spirituality beyond the surface. Far from effacing the material object, Kandinsky surfaces the means of painting (color, line, canvas), increasing their own condition of materiality, in order to revalue the surface as site of the spiritual. This spiritual revaluation of the surface works to resist and reverse the modern viewer’s training to look away from the surface and recall the memory of other absent objects. For Kandinsky, it is precisely because the viewer is unprepared for its overwhelming materiality that the abstract image can develop in the viewer spiritual eyes present to the surface at hand and attentive to the spiritual power of the mere medium. Responding: Kristin Schwain, University of Missouri, Columbia Business Meeting: Martha L. Finch, Missouri State University Nathan Baruch Rein, Ursinus College

A2-107 History of Christianity Section Sunday - 9:00 am-11:30 am CHT-Conference Room 4F; View Map (coming soon) Download vCalendar File (for use in Outlook or Palm Desktop) (coming soon) Catherine Cornille, Boston College, Presiding Co-sponsored by the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies Theme: Possession among Christians in India: Issues of Authenticity, Authority, and Identity This panel examines the meanings carried by possession and related phenomena such as exorcism, healing, oracles, and prophecy among Christians in India over three centuries. They demonstrate how questions of authenticity and authority in relation to possession have been used to define religious and caste boundaries among Protestants, Catholics, and Hindus and suggest that possession and related phenomena have played and continue to play a significant role in the definition of Indian Christian identity. Will Sweetman, University of Otago The Cessation of the Oracles: Authenticity and Authority in Missionary Reports of Possession in India Although a familiar feature of south Asian religious practice, possession has been marginalized in the writings of both the elite representatives of South Asian religions and, until recently, those who have studied them. Missionaries often paid more attention to popular religious practice than other early European observers, but missionary sources, especially the earlier sources, remain little-studied. This paper is based on reports of possession in two missionary periodicals, one Catholic and one Protestant, written from South India in the early eighteenth century. It examines the use of such reports in debate between Christians and Hindus, between Protestants and Catholics, and between Christians and sceptics in Europe. Authenticity, how far possession was regarded as ‘real’ and how far as mere play-acting for a superstitious and gullible audience, is shown to be a key issue and to have a bearing on the question of the legitimacy of Christian mission itself. Eliza Kent, Colgate University Syncretism and Sin: The Yuyomayan Sect in Colonial Kerala

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This paper seeks to explore the socio-political dynamics of syncretism by examining the origins of an independent Christian church in nineteenth-century south India, the Yuyomayans, whose cosmologies and ritual practices exhibit striking combinations of conventional Christian discourse with local non-Christian beliefs and practices. The archives of missionary societies who worked in South Asia are filled with tantalizing glimpses of visionaries and renegades who appropriated the potentially explosive aspects of the Christian message. But Independent Indian Churches have been understudied, compared to Independent African Churches. In my analysis of the Yuyomayans’ origins, I demonstrate the resemblances between indigenous shamanistic and Brahmanical practices and the more innovative features of the community’s religious life – such as glossalalia, prophecizing and the confession of monstrous crimes. I also argue that the founder’s creative syncretism was threatening to the missionary establishment in part because it exposed the syncretic nature of Christianity itself. Mathew N. Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross Distinguishing between Hindu and Catholic Exorcism in a North Indian Village This paper examines the differing taxonomies employed by Catholics in a North Indian village to distinguish between Catholic and Hindu forms of exorcism and healing. The Catholics are converts from the Untouchable Chamar caste of tanners who practiced exorcism as part of their caste duties. Now as participants in the Catholic charismatic movement they still practice exorcism and healing, but in a way that rejects polluting elements like intoxicants, blood, or money that are often associated with traditional forms of exorcism practiced by the Chamar community. Diagnosing and healing exorcism and other ailments, thus becomes a way of rearticulating a new Catholic Christian identity in which one can touch and be touched in return. Kristin Bloomer, University of Chicago Possession: Syncretic and Somatic Semantics This paper explores the interaction of charismatic and orthodox forms of Roman Catholicism with Hindu possession phenomena through two Tamil, Catholic women who claim to be possessed by Mary, the mother of Jesus. Both of these women live in Tamil Nadu’s state capital of Chennai. The first woman, while possessed, seems to mix charismatic and priestly Roman Catholic rituals with Tamil healing, possession and exorcism rituals in her role as grande priestess over a prayer house. The second borrows from discourses and practices that seem to come not only from this first woman, but also from a popular charismatic retreat center in Potta, Kerala. Both women, then, borrow from authenticating semantics derived from local Tamil and Catholic practices. A close look at these practices reveals what they do, and no not, have in common – and what sort of differences, slippages in meanings, and new forms of authority they enable. Responding: Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa

A2-211 Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements Consultation and History of Christianity Section Sunday - 1:00 pm-2:30 pm CHT-Lake Ontario; View Map (coming soon) Download vCalendar File (for use in Outlook or Palm Desktop) (coming soon) Arun W. Jones, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Presiding Theme: Pentecostalisms in Africa: Histories and Theologies David Tonghou Ngong, Baylor University Material Well-being in the Soteriological Discourse of African Neo-Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity: The Legacies of African Traditional Religion Some observers of the contemporary African scene have pointed out that the recent growth of Neo-PentecostalCharismatic Christianity on the continent may not be unconnected to its stress on human material well being in its salvific discourse. While some African theologians have seen this stress as adequately addressing the present African situation, thus pointing a way forward for African Christianity, others have simply rejected this Christianity. This paper

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takes a middles course: it points out that it is the duty of African theologians to address the key issue that attracts converts to this Christianity, namely, its understanding of material well being, especially in African religious traditions. This paper explores these matters in dialogue with contemporary retrievals of one of the first African theologians, St. Augustine of Carthage. Genevieve Nrenzah, Florida International University The Pentecostal–Charismatic Religious Movement and Changing Discourses on African Religions in Ghana This paper explores Christianity in Ghana focusing on the history of its encounter with African traditional religions in the context of Pentecostalism. I argue that as a Christian religious form, Pentecostalism has throughout its history in Ghana contributed to the continuity of indigenous religions by providing followers with spaces within which to cultivate indigenous beliefs and practices. The rise of spiritual churches represented the earliest phase of Pentecostalism in Ghana, when Christians embraced aspects of African Traditional Religions, deploying their rituals and beliefs to meet the spiritual needs of its followers. The modern phase of Pentecostalism in Ghana sees the rise in Charismatic Christianity, featuring discourses demonizing African Traditional Religions. While Charismatic churches present a negative image of indigenous beliefs and practices, the latter thrive in their followers beliefs and practices. In this way Charismatic Christianity can be said to facilitate the continuous influence of traditional religion in Ghana. Adelaide Boadi, Drew University Emerging Pentecostal Theologies of the Global South and Their Reshaping of Worldwide Pentecostalism: The Case of Africa In this presentation, I will explore the evolvement of Pentecostalism in the Global South, with particular reference to Ghana (and other parts of Africa) into megachurches over the last century, looking at African Independent/Indigenous /Instituted Churches, the Pentecostal/Charismatic and Neo/(Post) Pentecostal movements. I will examine the key issues in the periodization of African Pentecostalism, and discuss the emerging theologies within the movement, paying attention to the worldviews/ethos that produce them.

A2-256 History of Christianity Section Sunday - 3:00 pm-4:30 pm CHT-Lake Ontario; View Map (coming soon) Download vCalendar File (for use in Outlook or Palm Desktop) (coming soon) Nathan Baruch Rein, Ursinus College, Presiding Theme: The Reformation and Early Modern Christianity: Current Issues, Trends, and Challenges The study of the events surrounding the upheavals in popular and ecclesiastical religious life in sixteenth-century Europe — i.e., the Protestant Reformation and associated historical phenomena — has undergone a series of transformations in the last half-century. Almost all the traditional certainties about the field — its status as the definitive break between medieval and modern, its chronological boundaries, its theological character, even its long-term success — have been called into question. Where is the field today, and what issues are now at the forefront? This panel will address these questions in the form of a roundtable discussion among scholars working in a range of disciplinary specializations and institutional settings. Our panel will explore current trends, challenges, and opportunities in this broad field of study. Panelists: Susan Boettcher, University of Texas, Austin Euan Cameron, Union Theological Seminary Hans J. Hillerbrand, Duke University Ralph Keen, University of Iowa

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A3-207 History of Christianity Section Monday - 1:00 pm-3:30 pm CHT-Conference Room 4F; View Map (coming soon) Download vCalendar File (for use in Outlook or Palm Desktop) (coming soon) Patricia O'Connell Killen, Pacific Lutheran University, Presiding Theme: Teaching the History of Christianity: Critical Themes and Challenges What are the key challenges, opportunities, and goals in the History of Christianity classroom today, and how best should teachers respond to them? This session will explore these broad questions through a frank and open conversation with a group of skilled working teachers, representing a variety of backgrounds and institutional settings. The format will be a loosely structured roundtable or "fishbowl"-style discussion, with the audience invited to participate, comment, and reflect. The focus will be on actual classroom practices, experiences, and challenges. Panelists: Madeline Duntley, Bowling Green State University Constance Furey, Indiana University, Bloomington W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago Horace E. Six-Means, Hood Theological Seminary

A3-308 Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions Consultation and History of Christianity Section Monday - 4:00 pm-6:30 pm CHT-Conference Room 4F; View Map (coming soon) Download vCalendar File (for use in Outlook or Palm Desktop) (coming soon) Hans J. Hillerbrand, Duke University, Presiding Theme: Luther's Theology as Resource for Protest and Possibility in Contemporary Global Contexts The session explores the contribution of Lutheran theology to the understanding of the relationship of Christianity to the social and political order, expressed in Luther’s concept of the “two realms” or “two kingdoms.” The session will include a paper proposing a new understanding of such “kingdom” theology by using the concept as a gateway towards a sense of multiplicity of kingdoms. Two further papers offer concrete applications of the Lutheran understanding of church-state relationships. One paper offers a study of Hans Christoph von Hase, a cousin of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his opposition to the Third Reich. Another paper analyzes the tortured historical relationship between the Brazilian state and the Lutheran church in that country. A final paper explores the implications of Luther’s biblical query of the public accountability of political authority for its office. Eric Trozzo, Drew University A Multiplicity of Kingdoms This reconstruction of the Lutheran doctrine of Two Kingdoms seeks to overcome the traditional doctrine’s inherent dualism by postulating it both in terms of resistance to the totalizing tendencies of unicity and as a gateway towards a sense of the multiplicity of divine action in the world. Utilizing the recent work on divine multiplicity by theologian Laurel Schneider and the eschatology of possibility of philosopher Richard Kearney, this paper envisions the kingdoms of God in terms of an unfolding matrix of divine possibility. This matrix gives a space for God working through the

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church, state, and other institutions while resisting a fusion of them into an imperial monolith. Rudolf von Sinner, Escola Superior de Teologia Lutheranism and Citizenship in Brazil Lutherans in Brazil have come as immigrants mainly from Germany. Initially, they had to fight for their own citizenship in a country dominated by established Catholicism with limited religious freedom. In the Republic, they had to define their loyalty between German and Brazilian nationalisms. After World War II, the issue was how to be consciously Brazilian and Lutheran without maintaining a ghetto-like existence, but taking seriously a constructive and critical contribution toward the state and society. Since 1970, the Church (IECLB) has spoken out on public issues. Lutheran theologians like Brakemeier, Altmann, Deifelt and Westhelle have contributed to a critical political, social and genderrelated conscience in the church, based on Martin Luther’s theology and Lutheran confessionality, as well as Biblical hermeneutics and insights from Liberation Theology. Today, with citizenship as the main challenge of democratic Brazil, this paper asks for the specifically Lutheran contribution toward a public theology. Luka Ilic, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia Flacius’s Status Confessionis as an Inspiration for von Hase, Bonhoeffer, and the Confessing Church in the Third Reich This paper examines how the sixteenth-century example of resistance to governmental control over church affairs was utilized as a model for the Lutheran Church in Germany during the reign of National Socialism. The actions and theology of Flacius Illyricus and his followers inspired Hans Christoph von Hase, while also influencing his cousin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Church struggle that they were a part of. One of the primary documents this presentation draws from is von Hase’s master’s thesis which he wrote during the 1933/34 academic year he spent at Union Theological Seminary. In addition, the paper explores the differences in the sixteenth- and twentieth-century understandings of the ethical responsibility of the church and the theologian, as well as in issues concerning church-state relationships. It will be argued that the underlying principles of status confessionis can address and oppose social and political injustice in the contemporary world in a relevant way. Gary M. Simpson, Luther Seminary "Partakers of Divine Majesty": The Question of American Empire and the Hope of International Law in Light of Luther’s Realistic Principle and Practice of God’s Publicity Reinhold Niebuhr analyzed the structural realism of nations and empires around power and prestige, but he was not able to develop a critical theory of empire. Elshtain, Haass, Ignatieff, and Walzer have each reached a similar impasse in the face of American empire. I explore Martin Luther’s biblical inquiry into the questions of whether and how God holds political authorities publicly accountable for their office as “partakers of God’s majesty.” How might divine publicity contribute to the structural transformation of earthly sovereignty today? I explore two case studies--Grotius's seventeenth-century revision of the public declaration of war and twenty-first-century protocol The Responsibility to Protect--that place the principle of publicity, as social theorists call it, as the corner stone of international humanitarian law. In this way the principle and practice of publicity meet the hopeful realism of a critical theology of international humanitarian law rooted in Luther’s biblical imagination of divine publicity. Business Meeting: Hans J. Hillerbrand, Duke University

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