tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/theology-2093/articlesTheology – The Conversation2024-02-13T16:08:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220072024-02-13T16:08:50Z2024-02-13T16:08:50Z‘Tarry awhile’: how the Black spiritual tradition of waiting expectantly could enrich your approach to Lent<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575326/original/file-20240213-22-sxr5ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=233%2C26%2C4796%2C3925&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-in-brown-coat-raising-her-hands-Y_2P5icyKus">Brian Lundquist|Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year, hundreds of millions of Catholic and Protestant Christians around the world celebrate <a href="https://theconversation.com/lent-is-here-remind-me-what-its-all-about-5-essential-reads-200269">the season of Lent</a>. For the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, observers devote themselves to fasting, prayer and acts of generous giving. </p>
<p>Lots of people, who might not be observant, also take this time to give something up. In 2023, Country Living <a href="https://www.countryliving.com/life/g26473567/give-up-for-lent/">ran a list</a> of 32 ideas for what you might want to curtail, from “commenting on social media”, “road rage” and “ignoring your health” to “speeding”, “snacking” and “single-use plastic”. </p>
<p>For Lent 2024, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has chosen a new book by British theologian Selina Stone, as his annual recommendation. Entitled Tarry Awhile: Wisdom from Black Spirituality for People of Faith, this selection speaks to the growing salience of Black spirituality globally, especially in regards to Christianity. </p>
<p>By 2050, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/">40%</a> of the world’s Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa. Black spirituality will increasingly influence global Christianity as the 21st century continues. The Archbishop’s Lenten book choice cordially redirects religious literary attention to the influence of Black spirituality in Anglican thought. </p>
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<span class="caption">‘Black spirituality will increasingly influence global Christian praxis as the 21st century continues.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/man-in-white-and-red-striped-polo-shirt-_cdI8MkfkVI">Gracious Adebayo|Unsplash</a></span>
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<p>The most intriguing aspect of this selection, though, is what, for many, will be an infrequently used word in the title. “To tarry” is to <a href="https://www.oed.com/dictionary/tarry_v?tl=true">linger in anticipation</a> – be that of a person or an occurrence. In a Christian context, it is about waiting on God, expectantly. </p>
<p>“Tarrying gives us an opportunity to rest,” Welby writes in his foreword, “to see the realities of the world more clearly and to imagine more boldly what the world could be”. </p>
<p>Stone, in her introduction, says the practice recognises “the interdependence of the individual and the community for encounter with God”. She exhorts her readers – whether tarrying, as a tradition, feels like home to them or is entirely new – to be open, as they wait for the justice and peace so sorely missing from the world. </p>
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<h2>Tarrying in the Christian tradition</h2>
<p>The Bible uses the word “tarry” at least 30 times. In particular, as Stone highlights, it is the word (in the King James version) the Gospel of Matthew uses, when Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane with his disciples. Overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, he asks his disciples to, “tarry here and watch with me”.</p>
<p>In biblical literature, tarrying refers to an individual or community patiently, longingly waiting in one setting or state for something. This might be a person or an event or an act of spiritual or political liberation. </p>
<p>The concept of tarrying surfaces in the historical development of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23957241">academic Christian theology</a>. It remains popular among Black Christians, but it is not exclusive to this religious group. In fact, it is not exclusive to religious communities in particular either. It is a term used by philosophers, psychoanalysts and religious leaders alike. </p>
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<img alt="Three men sit in prayer in a church." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575334/original/file-20240213-18-dk237e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tarrying means devoting time to stillness and prayer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/man-in-brown-dress-shirt-and-black-pants-sitting-on-black-leather-armchair-JcnSq7IYTKY">Luis Morera|Unsplash</a></span>
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<p>In Black Christian spirituality, the concept of tarrying exists as a familiar, mature spiritual ritual that practically manifests in a variety of ways. After a church service or an event concludes, worshippers might gather near the altar or remain in their seats, ignoring the socialising around them to devote extra time to prayer. A Christian might sit alone in an empty chapel lost in prayer, conveying their needs and anxieties to God, emboldened by the biblical view that God responds favourably to those who spend time with him. </p>
<p>Like meditating, tarrying prioritises mindfulness over negligence or indifference. It encourages you to live in a way that gives significance to each given moment. </p>
<p>Within the Pentecostal tradition, specifically, tarrying is seen as a spiritual discipline. It serves to clear the way for <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233642398_Tarrying_on_the_Lord_Affections_Virtues_and_Theological_Ethics_in_Pentecostal_Perspective">God’s presence to manifest</a> in even the most mundane, profane aspects of everyday life. Those who tarry prioritise doing so when the anxieties of everyday life compete for one’s mental, emotional, and physical attention – but fail. </p>
<p>Religiously, tarrying means replacing the attention seeking anxieties of everyday life with a focus on the spiritual, the social and the relational. Tarrying functions as an expression of love, devotion and desire. In a world where one’s attention can be diverted more quickly and easily than ever, tarrying is a choice to shun one thing for another. </p>
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<p>Culturally, tarrying calls for rejecting the rat-race mentality characteristic of capitalist societies. In many ways, it is antithetical to the modernist assumptions that drive the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2265.2009.00500.x">glorification of secular reason</a> and the worship of production. </p>
<p>In this way, tarrying unambiguously relates to Lent. The Lenten emphasis on fasting, prayer and ideologically driven generosity and charitable giving aligns with tarrying’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-african-church-choir-made-a-difference-to-care-home-life-in-greater-manchester-190556">emphasis on communal life</a>. </p>
<p>Christians observing Lent give in the expectation that their giving will positively contribute to the life of another. In a world where people are often encouraged to forsake relationship for productivity, perhaps all of us would do well to partake in a little more tarrying in our everyday lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Christopher Wadibia receives funding from a postdoctoral research fellowship specialising in race, theology, and religious studies based at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. </span></em></p>Lenten traditions emphasise fasting, prayer and charitable giving. This aligns with tarrying as central to communal spiritual life.Christopher Wadibia, Junior Research Fellow in Theology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2102752023-12-24T20:53:07Z2023-12-24T20:53:07ZThe Christmas when all the sodomites died<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551965/original/file-20231004-24-gnonhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=596%2C229%2C3147%2C2055&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Beast Acheron, 1475
Simon Marmion (Flemish, active 1450–1489)</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RZ4">Getty Museum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is an obscure medieval legend that says once upon a time in Bethlehem, a child was born whose holiness was so great it required the slaughter of all the “sodomites” in the world. </p>
<p>Sodomites, the legend says, are so impure God did not want to share His humanity with them. So, He killed them all before He became human. </p>
<p>Clearly, there was no divine annihilation of sodomites on the first Christmas. Nonetheless, this curious example of medieval “fake news” is important because of what it represents. </p>
<p>The story combines ridiculous assertions and pious hatred in a manner familiar to many queer people today. What a medieval theologian meant by “sodomite” is not the same thing as what we mean today by “homosexual”. Yet, religious condemnations of “sodomy” are all too often applied to contemporary LGBTQ+ people.</p>
<h2>A false legend</h2>
<p>The medieval authorities who cited the legend believed it was fact. Their faith in the story rested on its supposed origins in the writing of Saints Jerome and Augustine, as explained by James of Voragine (c. 1230–1298) in his famous collection of saints’ lives called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Legend">Golden Legend</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Medieval manuscript" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551966/original/file-20231004-29-nt3nb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Golden Legend is a collection of stories of saints’ lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Umbria,_jacopo_da_varazze,_leggenda_aurea,_1290_ca._01.jpg">Sailko/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>James of Voragine wrote that Jerome and Augustine spoke of how “even the sodomites gave witness by being exterminated wherever they were” on Christ’s birth, because God hesitated to become incarnate while this vice existed in human nature.</p>
<p>The sudden death of all the world’s sodomites, of course, did not happen on the first Christmas. What is more, Jerome and Augustine never actually claimed it did. People who have looked in their works for the legend’s origins have found nothing.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Stained glass window" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1704&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551969/original/file-20231004-24-deen3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1704&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The legend probably began with Stephen Langton, later the Archbishop of Canterbury.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpguffogg/35043226491/in/photolist-6Lb1u-TcN3TG-ScMRdB-ScMSm8-iQRd6K-b6fPzt-VoDGmc">Jules & Jenny/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Every part of the legend is false. </p>
<p>As far as I can tell, the story began in the classroom of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Langton">Stephen Langton</a> (c. 1150–1228) in Paris. </p>
<p>Langton was an intellectual who became the Archbishop of Canterbury and famously played a role in the events leading up to England’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta">Magna Carta</a>. </p>
<p>Before all that, Langton in a lecture repeated a rumour he had heard about another great Parisian teacher, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cantor">Peter the Chanter</a>. He had heard Peter the Chanter had said he had read Jerome and Augustine who had said the world’s sodomites had died on the first Christmas. </p>
<p>Langton admitted he could not find where Augustine had made this claim. </p>
<p>Langton’s many students – who became some of the most influential and powerful men in history – repeated the story anyway. It conveyed what they wanted to be true. We can find it in saints’ lives, sermons, devotional works, compendiums of theology, and inquisitorial handbooks from the 13th to the 16th centuries and beyond.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality-for-starters-jesus-wasnt-a-homophobe-199424">What does the Bible say about homosexuality? For starters, Jesus wasn't a homophobe</a>
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<h2>A useful legend</h2>
<p>Saints and theologians used the legend to solve apparent problems. </p>
<p>The great Italian preacher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardino_of_Siena">Bernardino of Siena</a> (1380–1444) turned to the Christmas slaughter of the sodomites to explain why it was Jesus never mentioned sodomy, instead focusing on other vices like hypocrisy. </p>
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<span class="caption">Saint Bernardino of Siena Preaching, Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, called Lo Scheggia, mid-15th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.artsbma.org/collection/saint-bernardino-of-siena-preaching/">Birmingham Museum of Art</a></span>
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<p>Bernardino – one of the most influential preachers in 15th-century Italy – especially detested sodomy, as well as witches and Jews. In a sermon preached at Florence in 1425, Bernardino explained Jesus did not address sodomy because there were no sodomites. </p>
<p>He “quoted” Jerome’s claim that all the sodomites in the entire universe died at Jesus’ birth, and said during Jesus’ ministry the practice had not re-emerged because of the fresh terror of God’s massacre. The saint urged the authorities of his day to follow God’s example and suggested the local sodomites be thrown into fires in the street.</p>
<p>The 15th-century Spanish inquisitorial handbook, the <em><a href="https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Bz6q2xmOIP0C">Repertorium inquisitorum</a>,</em> used the legend, along with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah">story of Sodom and Gomorrah</a>, to justify the punishment of sodomy.</p>
<h2>A continuing legend</h2>
<p>Medieval thinkers’ ideas regarding sexual morality are still with us. </p>
<p>They especially endure in the connection between “sodomy” and modern homosexuality in some religious traditions. In official Catholic speech during the last century, as the theologian Mark Jordan has <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3634156.html">summarised</a>: </p>
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<p>‘Homosexuality’ took the place of ‘sodomy’ in the way a substitute teacher takes over a class.</p>
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<p>Some modern far-right commentators have rediscovered the legend, celebrating its traditional values and saintly authority. </p>
<p>Today, we can see the Christmas slaughter of the sodomites as both baseless fantasy as well as indicative of traditional religious values regarding sexuality. Such values still connect “deviant” sex to deserving death. One of the early names for HIV was “WOGS”, or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3397564">wrath of God syndrome</a>. Televangelist Pat Robertson <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4617181">famously suggested</a> AIDS was “God’s way of weeding his garden”. </p>
<p>We can also see the continuing power of the same violent impulse found in the Christmas legend in <a href="https://www.justiceinitiative.org/voices/genocide-all-name-crime-being-gay">persecutions of queer people</a> across the world, especially of trans people. </p>
<p>This legend, at its core, argued that God hated certain types of sexual behaviour <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/nebraska-republicans-lb574">more than He loved</a> the people He had made. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/03/ugandan-president-calls-on-africa-to-save-the-world-from-homosexuality">religious extremists channel</a> the arguments, conclusions and spirit of centuries of murderous condemnations of sexual practices and identities. </p>
<p>The obscure medieval legend of the Christmas slaughter of the world’s sodomites is one example of how such persecutory traditions are rooted in prejudices presented as facts. It shows us the saints were frequently wrong, and their errors are now woven into what seem to be our traditions.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael David Barbezat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is an obscure medieval legend that says once upon a time in Bethlehem, a child was born whose holiness was so great it required the slaughter of all the ‘sodomites’ in the world.Michael David Barbezat, Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972032023-01-10T17:15:46Z2023-01-10T17:15:46ZRichard Price: how one of the 18th century’s most influential thinkers was forgotten<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503384/original/file-20230106-23-db9yxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1914%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Price reading a letter dated 1784 from his friend, Benjamin Franklin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benjamin West, National Library of Wales & Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to the eulogies and <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_gentlemans-magazine_1791-04_61_4/page/388/mode/2up?q=price">obituaries</a> written at the time of his death in 1791, <a href="https://richardpricesociety.org.uk/">Richard Price’s</a> name would be remembered alongside figures such as Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, George Washington and Thomas Paine. </p>
<p>Three hundred years on from his birth in the village of Llangeinor, near Bridgend in south Wales, why has he therefore been lost from our popular memory? </p>
<p>After all, here was a polymath whose lasting contributions ranged across a number of disciplines, including moral philosophy, <a href="https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2013.00638.x">mathematics</a> and theology. Moreover, Price’s contribution as a public intellectual made a huge impact, not least in international politics. </p>
<p>A useful starting point are the parallels with his friend <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/oct/05/original-suffragette-mary-wollstonecraft?CMP=share_btn_link">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>. She was a philosopher, a women’s rights advocate and the mother of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley">Mary Shelley</a>. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft was both inspired by Price and indebted to him. Indeed, her most influential texts are directly linked to Price and the pamphlet war known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_Controversy">Revolution controversy</a>. </p>
<p>In these texts, influential thinkers discussed the political issues arising from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution">French Revolution</a>. It has subsequently been recognised as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26213839">formative debate in terms of modern political ideas. </a></p>
<p>It was Price who sparked the controversy with a sermon in 1789 entitled <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Discourse_on_the_Love_of_Our_Country/92QNAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">A Discourse on the Love of Our Country</a>, in which he supported the opening events of the revolution in France. </p>
<p>He declared it to be a continuation of the spreading of enlightened values and ideas introduced by the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/revolution/">Glorious Revolution of 1688</a> in England. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Price’s sermon to the Revolution Society in 1789.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This provoked a response from the philosopher and Anglo-Irish Whig MP <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edmund-Burke-British-philosopher-and-statesman">Edmund Burke</a>, with his famous text, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-france-by-edmund-burke">Reflections on the Revolution in France</a>. </p>
<p>This is regarded as a formative text of modern conservative thought. It defended the importance of the traditional institutions of state and society while warning of the excesses of revolution. </p>
<p>In response, Wollstonecraft published <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-men">A Vindication of the Rights of Men</a> in 1790. It was both a critique of Burke and a defence of Price, who died a year later. </p>
<p>Then in 1792, she wrote her profoundly influential <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a>, explicitly extending dissenting ideals to women, with a searing social critique. </p>
<p>Both Price and Wollstonecraft would subsequently be written out of history. </p>
<p>Price’s biographer, <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/author/Paul-Frame-663/">Paul Frame</a>, suggests this can be partly accounted for by events in France and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Reign-of-Terror">violent turn to terror during the French Revolution</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/libertys-apostle-richard-price-his-life-and-times/">Frame suggests</a> Burke was “the man who had accurately predicted the direction of the Revolution”. This “undermined the more optimistic faith in rationalism and natural rights” of Price and others. </p>
<p>They both also suffered in terms of their personal reputation. Price became a caricature of the picture painted by Burke, captured in the cartoons of the day. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Satirical cartoon of Richard Price at his writing desk overlooked by a large nose and eyes surrounded by haze representing Edmund Burke, carrying a crown, a cross and a copy of his pamphlet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A caricature of Richard Price with a vision of Edmund Burke looking over his shoulder, by James Gillray.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
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<p>Wollstonecraft was posthumously <a href="https://lithub.com/how-a-husbands-loving-biography-ruined-his-wifes-reputation/">undone by the candid biography of her widower</a>, its contents deployed maliciously by those who sought to undermine her. Thankfully, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman-149888">her works and good name were recovered by the feminist movement</a>. </p>
<p>As Frame suggests however, there were deeper, structural factors at play. </p>
<p>Price was the embodiment of a reformism the British establishment had a material interest in thwarting. He represented a dissenting community whose <a href="https://welshchapels.wales/nonconformity/">nonconformist Christian denominations</a> were in opposition to the established church and discriminated against. </p>
<p>Price spoke out against the crown, slavery and chauvinistic nationalism. He advocated equality, democratic principles and civic nationalism. </p>
<p>The hostility towards the progressive forces he embodied was symbolised by the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100452318;jsessionid=7677A3EB1D19321A218678801F2EDCD1">Seditious Meetings Act</a> introduced in 1795 to stifle the reform movement. </p>
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<img alt="An illustration from 1790 showing three men speaking from a church pulpit to a group of others reading and tearing up documents." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsay in a 1790 engraving satirising the campaign to have the Test Act repealed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Sayers</span></span>
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<p>There would have been very real consequences had it been Price and his ilk – and not Burke – who were lionised as the spirit of Britain (a state less than a century old at the time). Arguably, we still live with the ramifications today. </p>
<p>Price’s politics eventually had their day as the social tumult of the 19th century meant the tide of reform could not be stemmed. </p>
<p>Burke’s conservatism, however, conceivably still symbolises where the balance of power sits in terms of the UK’s political culture. The Tory party is often <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA271975015&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=15555623&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E26847d25">still regarded as the natural party of power</a>, and deference towards the ruling classes remains. </p>
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<img alt="A memorial stone dedicated to Richard Price in Newington Green Unitarian Church" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial to Richard Price in Newington Green Unitarian Church in North London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Cardy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given the collective amnesia towards him within Britain, it is perhaps apt that celebrations of Price’s life and works should begin this month with a talk at <a href="https://www.amphilsoc.org/events/electrifying-thinkers">the American Philosophical Association</a> in Philadelphia. </p>
<p>There will, however, be <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089200358334">a programme of events at home</a> to reflect on his contribution and contemporary relevance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599865290761785344"}"></div></p>
<p>This will include a birthday celebration in Llangeinor, an academic conference, and <a href="https://contemporancient.org/">a play</a>. </p>
<p>If he has not been celebrated by a British culture, for which he had such high hopes, then it is high time it happened in Wales, at the very least.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huw L Williams works for Cardiff University who are a lead partner in the 'Price 300' project celebrating Richard Price's tercentenary in 2023. His work as a philosopher is part-funded by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, a government-funded body responsible for promoting academic activity and teaching through the medium of Welsh. He is the President of the Adran Athroniaeth Cymdeithas Cynfyfyrwyr Prifysgol Cymru that promotes philosophy through the medium of Welsh and Welsh-language philosophy.</span></em></p>He was an important philosopher, mathematician and social reformer of his time. But Richard Price was subsequently written out of history.Huw L Williams, Reader in Political Philosophy, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1868042022-12-13T13:19:15Z2022-12-13T13:19:15ZAfter 50 years, ‘liberation theology’ is still reshaping Catholicism and politics – but what is it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500134/original/file-20221209-40125-zix3b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C9%2C1004%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman prays in front of a statue of the martyred Catholic archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, known for his embrace of liberation theology.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-prays-in-front-of-a-statue-of-the-martyred-archbishop-news-photo/999042682?phrase=%22liberation%20theology%22&adppopup=true">Vlady Chicas/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It isn’t often that theology makes headlines. But for the past 50 years, a way of thinking about God and poverty has been doing just that: liberation theology.</p>
<p>Liberation theology’s approach to living out Christian faith has been both <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/after-50-years-guti-rrezs-theology-liberation-still-whats-going">globally influential</a> and bitterly controversial. It has been <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP97R00694R000600050001-9.pdf">investigated by the CIA</a> on suspicion of promoting social unrest and <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html">inquisitioned</a> by a former pope who accused it of getting too close to Marxist thought. It’s even inspired <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/05/did-the-kgb-create-latin-americas-liberation-theology">conspiracy theories</a>. Critics have dismissed it as naive – but also called it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/21/magazine/the-case-against-liberation-theology.html">a threat</a> to free market capitalism.</p>
<p>Fifty years have passed since the landmark publication of the book most associated with liberation theology: “<a href="https://orbisbooks.com/products/a-theology-of-liberation">A Theology of Liberation</a>,” by a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez. whose most recent manuscript I’m helping to edit, published the book in Spanish in 1971, and then in English in 1973. With its emphasis on the liberation of oppressed people, especially the poor, this book helped reconfigure many Catholics’ ways of thinking about the relationship between faith and justice.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.fordham.edu/info/21593/theology/10627/leo_guardado">a theologian</a> who grew up during the <a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/">civil war in El Salvador</a>, I emphasize to my university students that it is impossible to grasp the beating heart of this theology without paying attention to the poverty and legacies of colonialism in Latin America.</p>
<h2>Urgent questions</h2>
<p>Since colonization, the wealthy few have owned most of the land in Latin America, rendering the majority <a href="https://nacla.org/article/legacy-latin-american-land-reform">poor and landless</a>. By the mid-20th century, Christians involved in social and political movements for greater justice in the region were asking what, if anything, their faith had to do with these struggles.</p>
<p>In 1968, Roman Catholic bishops and theologians gathered for a meeting in Medellin, Colombia, to assess the state of the church in the continent. <a href="http://www.povertystudies.org/TeachingPages/EDS_PDFs4WEB/Medellin%20Document-%20Poverty%20of%20the%20Church.pdf">The bishops wrote that</a> “a deafening cry pours from the throats of millions of persons, asking their pastors for a liberation that reaches them from nowhere else.” </p>
<p>The “inhuman wretchedness” of poverty, they argued, was the result of systematic injustice that structured the profound inequality of Latin American society. <a href="http://www.povertystudies.org/TeachingPages/EDS_PDFs4WEB/Medellin%20Document-%20Peace.pdf">They called this</a> “institutionalized violence” – similar to what the famed sociologist <a href="https://www.galtung-institut.de/en/home/johan-galtung/">Johan Galtung</a> would term “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336900600301">structural violence</a>” a year later.</p>
<p>When Gutiérrez’s text was published a few years later, it responded more fully to these questions about the relationship between faith and justice. Today, the book has been translated into 14 languages – <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/december/calvin-of-arabia-protestant-theology-translated-into-arabic.html?share=SBcWlwqMQm%2fB4I3I0Sv7z1AzMnVCG6AQ">most recently to Arabic</a>. </p>
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<img alt="A black and white portrait of a man with a sweater, glasses and thinning fair, holding up his finger." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500133/original/file-20221209-40125-xfyk4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Gustavo Gutierrez during an interview in 1984.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gustavo-gutierrez-founder-of-liberation-theology-said-in-an-news-photo/515505054?phrase=%22gustavo%20gutierrez%22&adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Taking a side</h2>
<p>One dimension of liberation theology has to do with analyzing the sources of social inequality. Its approach treats poverty as a complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to economics, or separated from politics, because it intersects with other forms of oppression, such as sexism and racism. Poverty, Gutiérrez and other theologians have argued, is an evil – something they believe God does not want – for it can bring suffering and early death. In this view, poverty <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/gustavo-gutierrez-and-preferential-option-poor">is not a natural condition</a>; it is a violence that some communities inflict upon others.</p>
<p>The key principle of liberation theology is “<a href="https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/content/4-preferential-option-poor-and-vulnerable#:%7E:text=As%20such%2C%20each%20Christian%20must,work%20in%20solidarity%20for%20justice.">the preferential option for the poor</a>.” This is a commitment to prioritize the material needs of the poor, as well as their knowledge, experience and spirituality. This principle is grounded in the conviction that God is not neutral, but is always on the side of those who most struggle to live.</p>
<h2>El Salvador’s saint</h2>
<p>To advocates of liberation theology, embracing the “preferential option for the poor” means struggling alongside people whose societies consider insignificant, and sharing their life and death. <a href="https://kellogg.nd.edu/archbishop-oscar-romero">Oscar Romero</a>, archbishop of San Salvador in the late 1970s, is often admired as an example of a Catholic leader living out liberation theology. “All those who draw close to suffering flesh have God close at hand,” <a href="http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/homilies/ART_Homilies_Vol2_68_InHerWeaknessChurchLeansOnChrist.pdf">he said in one homily</a>.</p>
<p>In the lead-up to El Salvador’s <a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/el-salvador/">12-year civil war</a>, Romero fought for agrarian reform for landless rural farmers. He mediated between labor unions, popular guerrilla organizations and the military to try to prevent armed conflict. He established the country’s foremost human rights and legal aid organization and <a href="https://www.usccb.org/resources/letter-president-carter-aid-military-el-salvador-february-17-1980">urged U.S. President Jimmy Carter</a> to cease U.S. financial support for El Salvador’s military. </p>
<p>In one of his last homilies, he asked soldiers to stop the killing – <a href="https://kellogg.nd.edu/archbishop-oscar-romero#tab-1490">just a day before</a> <a href="https://elfaro.net/es/201003/noticias/1416/How-we-killed-Archbishop-Romero.htm">being assassinated</a> by military agents in March 1980.</p>
<p>Romero was canonized in 2018 by Pope Francis, <a href="https://catholicnews.com/making-the-poor-a-priority-isnt-political-its-the-gospel-pope-says/">who has said</a> that prioritizing the poor is “the key criterion of Christian authenticity.”</p>
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<img alt="A few people stand up amid a tightly packed crowd of people sitting in the dark." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493615/original/file-20221105-11-p1y8f7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Salvadorans stay up all night to watch live TV from the Vatican, where martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero was declared a saint, on Oct. 14, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ElSalvadorRomeroSainthood/45f2551b26e043b982de9f3f6c271e0b/photo?Query=%22oscar%20romero%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=369&currentItemNo=116">AP Photo/Salvador Melendez</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Controversial then – and now</h2>
<p>One of the most persistent critiques against liberation theology is that it gives rise to revolutionary violence and that, since it is influenced by <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/christians-class-struggle-0">Marxist analysis</a>, it believes violent class conflict is inevitable. Most strands of liberation theology <a href="http://www.povertystudies.org/TeachingPages/EDS_PDFs4WEB/Medellin%20Document-%20Peace.pdf">condemn violence</a>, although they draw a distinction <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-21-me-143-story.html">between the institutionalized violence</a> of inequality and <a href="http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/third%20pastoral%20letter.pdf">violence against injustice itself</a>.</p>
<p>A different kind of critique argues that liberation theology is too political – that it reduces salvation to human action, not God’s actions. In this view, liberation “theology” is more of a secular philosophy, or leftist social commentary. Some of these critiques shaped how <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html">the Vatican initially responded to liberation theology</a>. Pope Francis has been more favorable toward it, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/letters/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150303_lettera-universita-cattolica-argentina.html">telling theologians</a>, for example, “Do not settle for a desktop theology,” but to focus on real people and real life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Catholic priests, one of them wearing a tall hat, stand in white robes in front of a brick wall with a wooden cross on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493616/original/file-20221105-15-jp4lty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2000 photo, Pope Francis, then the archbishop of Argentina, gives a mass in honor of slain priest Carlos Mugica, whose ministry was influenced by liberation theology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ArgentinaSlumPope/9c5679aec7ef443493c73ce3757c7546/photo?Query=%22liberation%20theology%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=33&currentItemNo=23">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>Critics of liberation theology <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500019951">have proclaimed it is passe, irrelevant, even dead</a> – but prematurely, it seems. Today, liberation theology’s reach has spread far beyond Latin America and Roman Catholicism: from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89236116/black-liberation-theology-in-its-founders-words">Black theology of liberation</a> to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Islamic-Liberation-Theology-Resisting-the-Empire/Dabashi/p/book/9780415771559">Islamic liberation theology</a>; from <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/A/A-Hindu-Theology-of-Liberation">Hindu</a> to <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602583450/toward-a-jewish-theology-of-liberation/">Jewish</a> and <a href="https://readingreligion.org/9781626982604/a-palestinian-theology-of-liberation/">Palestinian</a> ones; and to <a href="https://wipfandstock.com/9781592441013/our-cry-for-life/">feminist</a> and <a href="https://concilium.hymnsam.co.uk/issues/20195-queer-theologies-becoming-the-queer-body-of-christ/">queer theologies</a> that have been influenced by liberation theology.</p>
<p>Liberation theology will likely always have its critics, but its supporters continue to build on the legacy of the past 50 years wherever they see poverty, injustice and oppression.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leo Guardado does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The influential movement, which is still controversial both inside and outside Catholicism, must be understood in the context of Latin American history.Leo Guardado, Assistant Professor of Theology, Fordham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1864512022-09-22T12:40:27Z2022-09-22T12:40:27ZThe ‘fathers of the church’ died around 1,500 years ago, but these ancient leaders still influence Christianity today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482613/original/file-20220904-37695-jpygje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C18%2C1558%2C1177&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 11th-century mosaic shows Epiphanius of Salamis, Clement of Rome, Gregory the Theologian, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and Archdeacon Stephen.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_Fathers_Order_(left_part)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">St. Sophia of Kyiv/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly 60 years ago, in October 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council. For the 21st time in the Catholic Church’s history, the pope <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-resists-change-but-vatican-ii-shows-its-possible-102543">gathered bishops from around the world</a> – several thousand of them – to address matters of church doctrine and practice.</p>
<p>Today, Vatican II is remembered as a landmark council that has <a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/remembering-and-misremembering-vatican-ii/">shaped Catholic life in modern times</a>. Leaders agreed to reforms, such as greater use of local languages in the Mass, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html">to reinvigorate the church’s mission in a changing world</a>. </p>
<p>In the council’s <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm">official documents</a>, however, the bishops frequently cite spiritual guides who died more than 1,000 years before: the fathers of the church.</p>
<p>The spiritual and theological authority of the fathers is recognized not only by Catholics, but also by other Christians, including Eastern Orthodox and Protestant communities. Not all agree on the same list of church fathers, yet Christian leaders have been deeply influenced by the fathers’ teachings, from medieval theologians and Protestant reformers to Pope Francis today. </p>
<p>And while there are no women among the “fathers,” the “desert mothers” – influential religious women from the same era – have also left their mark.</p>
<h2>Spiritual fathers</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://www.smu.edu/Perkins/FacultyAcademics/FacultyListingA-Z/Lee">a scholar of early Christianity</a>, I am often asked about the origins of the concept of a church father.</p>
<p>In Christianity, the honorary title “father” <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/65407298">comes from Greco-Roman and biblical ideas</a> about the father as the head of the family. The Roman “pater familias” was responsible for the welfare, education and leadership of the family. He was also considered a priest or religious representative of the household. </p>
<p>In the Bible, the first-century Apostle Paul speaks of himself <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%204&version=NIV">as a spiritual father</a> to other Christians. The apostles and bishops of the church were treated as believers’ “fathers” insofar as they were responsible for preaching, teaching and leading worship. </p>
<h2>Evolving idea</h2>
<p>Early Christians started using the title “father” for bishops, but by the fifth century, it was also applied to some <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/65407298">priests and deacons</a>. </p>
<p>Over time, theologians began to refer to a specific group of “church fathers” to support their positions amid debate – starting in the fourth century, with the Greek bishops <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/458">Eusebius</a>, who wrote a history of the Christian church’s first three centuries, and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67139">Basil of Caesarea</a>, who lived in what is now Turkey. St. Augustine – the Catholic bishop in Roman North Africa who became famous for his “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/796754037">Confessions</a>” – frequently cited the fathers’ teachings to support his arguments during controversies with theological opponents.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An ancient manuscript with a block of cursive script and a brightly colored design at the top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A page from ‘Epistle of Eusebius to Carpianus’ in a 13th-century Armenian manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/st-eusebius-from-epistle-of-eusebius-to-carpianus-13th-news-photo/113437986?adppopup=true">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The fathers’ position in the church was refined in the fifth century by a Gallic monk named <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm">Vincent of Lérins</a>. Not all ancient Christian writers had equal authority, he wrote, but the views of the true fathers could be trusted because their teachings were consistent, as if they formed a council of masters “all receiving, holding and handing on the same doctrine.”</p>
<p>By the modern era, four traits were used as criteria <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67139">to distinguish fathers of the church</a>: 1) orthodox or right theological teachings on essential points, in accord with the church’s public doctrine; 2) the holiness of their life; 3) the church’s recognition of them and their teaching; and 4) antiquity, meaning they lived during the early Christian era that ended around the seventh or eighth century.</p>
<p>The title is distinct from the later honorific “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-some-roman-catholic-saints-called-doctors-of-the-church-175912">doctor of the church</a>,” for spiritual teachers who have made significant contributions to Christian doctrine in any period of history, although some theologians hold both titles.</p>
<p>Unlike the fathers of the church, who are all male, four women are included among the doctors: Teresa of Ávila, a mystic famous for ecstatic visions; Catherine of Siena, who persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome from Avignon; Thérèse of Lisieux, known for her “little way” of holiness by small acts of love; and <a href="https://theconversation.com/caring-for-the-environment-has-a-long-catholic-lineage-hundreds-of-years-before-pope-francis-168698">Hildegard of Bingen</a>, a medieval German nun, scientist and composer.</p>
<h2>Desert mothers</h2>
<p>Modern scholarship has also drawn attention to the important influence of women on the church during the age of the fathers.</p>
<p>For example, the fourth-century fathers Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, who were brothers, considered their older sister, Macrina the Younger, to be the greatest theologian among them. Gregory composed a treatise in her honor, “<a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/macrina.asp">The Life of Macrina</a>,” which depicts her as a true philosopher. A “consecrated virgin” who pledged her life to the church instead of marriage and family, Macrina led a women’s religious community <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/191244670">and was renowned for her holiness, teaching and miraculous healings</a>.</p>
<p>Her paternal grandmother, Macrina the Elder, was also a great teacher and leader who suffered persecution for being a Christian in the late third century. She was responsible for passing on <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/986955454">the teachings of important theologians</a>, such as Origen of Alexandria and “Gregory the Miracle-Worker.”</p>
<p>In addition, women exercised leadership in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/17515110">the growing movement known as monasticism</a>. During the first five centuries of Christianity, many women fled from urban cities to the desert to commit themselves to lives of prayer, fasting and virtue. Known as the “desert mothers,” they were sought after for their wisdom. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A gold and green religious icon shows a man in a robe holding out Holy Communion to a woman in a ragged robe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Holy Communion of Saint Mary of Egypt,’ from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-holy-communion-of-saint-mary-of-egypt-found-in-the-news-photo/520717525?adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Their words or sayings <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/12010493">were collected and preserved for centuries</a>. For example, Amma Theodora, a spiritual mother of a community of women near Alexandria in Egypt, was famous for saying that only humility, not ascetical practices such as fasting, could overcome the temptations of the devil. Likewise, “The Life of Mary of Egypt” was written about <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1260166313">a humble, penitent woman</a> who lived in the desert for 47 years. She was considered a model of humility, and her story was often told during Lent, a period when many Christians perform penitential practices.</p>
<h2>The fathers’ future</h2>
<p>Today, church leaders continue to rely upon the fathers’ teachings as authoritative sources of wisdom. Pope Francis, for instance, often refers to Vincent of Lérins to explain <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/08/pope-francis-and-st-vincent-of-lrins">how Christian doctrine develops over time</a>, like a seed taking root and growing into a tree. </p>
<p>History has shown that Christians frequently disagree on matters of doctrine, and they always will. In those moments, future leaders may look to the fathers as sure-footed spiritual guides.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
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<header></header>
<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
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</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Kang Hoon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize the authority of the ‘fathers’ to guide teaching on doctrinal issues.James Kang Hoon Lee, Associate Professor of the History of Early Christianity, Southern Methodist UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842892022-06-09T18:31:09Z2022-06-09T18:31:09ZBlaming ‘evil’ for mass violence isn’t as simple as it seems – a philosopher unpacks the paradox in using the word<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467836/original/file-20220608-23-ce0o76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C0%2C3826%2C2560&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A visitor pays respects at a memorial created outside Robb Elementary School to honor the victims killed in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TexasSchoolShooting/8cd761ddf20a4f8e9bfb95c202c9ff96/photo?Query=uvalde&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1049&currentItemNo=244">AP Photo/Eric Gay</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “evil” circulates widely in the wake of terrible public violence. The May 24, 2022, massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, is a case in point.</p>
<p>Texas state safety official Christopher Olivarez spoke of “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683">the complete evil of the shooter</a>.” Others expressed their resolve with the same word. “Evil will not win,” the Rev. Tony Grubin <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/26/evil-will-not-win-sorrow-and-disbelief-as-uvalde-mourns-its-children">told the crowd</a> at a vigil.</p>
<p>Days later, at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Texas, CEO Wayne LaPierre acknowledged the Uvalde victims before <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nra-convention-kicks-off-texas-days-elementary-school/story?id=84996347">arguing against gun control legislation</a>. His reasoning pivoted on the concept of evil: “If we as a nation were capable of legislating evil out of the hearts and minds of criminals who commit these heinous acts, we would have done it long ago.” </p>
<p>Evil is one of the most complex and paradoxical words in the English language. It can galvanize collective action but also lead to collective paralysis, as if the presence of evil can’t be helped. As <a href="https://espringer.wescreates.wesleyan.edu/">a philosopher studying moral concepts</a> and their role in communication, I find it essential to scrutinize this word. </p>
<h2>The evolution of ‘evil’</h2>
<p>Evil wasn’t always paradoxical. In <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/evil">Old English</a> it was simply the common word for bad – for any kind of misfortune, illness, incompetence or unhappy result. This meaning lingers in phrases such as “choosing the lesser of two evils.” </p>
<p>Starting around 1300, <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/bad">the word bad</a> gradually emerged as the familiar opposite of good. Yet even while bad was becoming common, people continued to encounter the word evil in older written works, and speech influenced by these works. Translations of the Bible and <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16328/16328-h/16328-h.htm">Anglo-Saxon classic literature</a> surely shaped how the concept of evil came to seem larger than life, and spiritually loaded. Some things seem too bad for the word bad. But what, exactly, does evil mean?</p>
<p>Many people would answer that they <a href="http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/obscenity-case-files-jacobellis-v-ohio-i-know-it-when-i-see-it/">know evil when they see it</a> – or when they feel it. If there’s any good occasion for using the word, surely a planned massacre of vulnerable children seems an uncontroversial case. Still, this commonsense approach doesn’t shed much light on how the idea of evil influences public attitudes.</p>
<p>One philosophical approach – <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/pragmati/#:%7E:text=Pragmatism%20is%20a%20philosophical%20movement,ideas%20are%20to%20be%20rejected.">pragmatism</a> – may be helpful here, since it focuses on how words do things, rather than on how they should be defined. People who use the word evil are doing something: sending a clear signal about their own attitude. They are not interested in excuses, justifications or coming to some kind of shared understanding. In this pragmatic sense, the word evil has something in common with guns: It’s an extreme tool, and users require utter confidence in their own judgment. When the word evil is summoned to the scene, curiosity and complexity go quiet. It’s the high noon of a moral standoff.</p>
<p>As with reaching for guns, however, resorting to the word evil can backfire. This is because there are two deep tensions embedded in the concept. </p>
<h2>Inner or outer?</h2>
<p>First, there’s still some confusion about whether to locate evil out in the world, or within the human heart. In its archaic sense, evil could include entirely natural causes of great suffering. The Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 is an infamous example. Tens of thousands of people died agonizing deaths, and thinkers throughout Europe <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078">debated how a good God could allow such terrible things</a>. The French philosopher Voltaire concluded, “<a href="http://courses.washington.edu/hsteu302/Voltaire%20Lisbon%20Earthquake.html">evil stalks the land</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white illustration shows a tsunami wave crashing over an oceanside city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467837/original/file-20220608-10364-9yz87j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th-century engraving depicts the destruction of Lisbon, Portugal, by an earthquake and tidal wave in 1755.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-depicting-the-destruction-of-lisbon-by-an-news-photo/915219764?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the opposite extreme, many Christian thinkers – and some classical Greek and Roman ones – treat evil as entirely distinct from worldly events. The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, for example, defines evil as an inner moral failure, which might lurk behind even the most acceptable-looking acts. Given his faith that innocent victims would go to heaven, Kant did not focus moral concern on the fact that their lives were made shorter. Rather, <a href="https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300128154">he argued</a> murder was terrible because it was the expression of a morally forbidden choice.</p>
<p>Most people today would reject both of these simple views and focus instead on the connection of inner and outer, where human choices result in real-world atrocities.</p>
<p>Yet the purely inner view casts new light on LaPierre’s argument, that legislation is powerless to prevent evil. If evil were strictly an interior, spiritual problem, then it could be effectively tackled only at its source. Preventing that evil from erupting into public view would be like masking the symptoms of a disease rather than treating its cause.</p>
<h2>The paradox of blame</h2>
<p>There is a second major tension embedded in how the word evil works: evil both does and does not call for blame.</p>
<p>On one hand, evil seems inherently and profoundly blameworthy; evildoers are assumed to be responsible for their evil. It’s constructive to blame people, however, when <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/communicating-moral-concern">blame helps to hold them responsible</a>. Unfortunately, that important role is undermined when the target of blame is “evil.”</p>
<p>Philosopher <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/phil/faculty_display.cfm?Person_ID=1023035">Gary Watson</a> helps illuminate this paradox in his essay “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272273.001.0001">Responsibility and the Limits of Evil</a>.” Blame involves attempting to hold people responsible as members of a shared “moral community” – a network of social relations in which people share basic norms and push one another to repair moral expectations after they are violated. Taking responsibility, in Watson’s view, involves a kind of competence, an ability to work with others in community.</p>
<p>Evil, however, implies being beyond redemption, “beyond the pale” of this community. Calling someone evil signals a total lack of hope that they could take up the responsibility being assigned to them. And some people do seem to lack the social bonds, skills and attitudes required for responsibility. Examining the life story of a notorious school shooter, Watson reveals how his potential for belonging to a moral community had been brutally dismantled by chaotic abuse throughout his formative years. </p>
<p>If evil implies such a complete absence of the skills and attitudes required for moral responsibility, then calling people evil – while still holding them morally responsible – is paradoxical. </p>
<p>Compare this with <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/332273/zero-by-charles-seife/">the paradoxical power of the number zero</a> – a quantity that is the absence of quantity. Zero is a powerful concept, but it requires a warning label: “Steer clear of dividing by this number; if you do, your equations are ruined!”</p>
<p>The English word evil is powerful, no doubt. Yet the power of the concept turns out to be driven by turbulence below the surface. Laying blame on evil can bring this turbulence to the surface in surprising ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Springer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The word ‘evil’ sends a clear message – or does it? There are deep tensions in what the word means, and what it can accomplish.Elise Springer, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822112022-06-01T12:08:19Z2022-06-01T12:08:19ZHow the role and visibility of chaplains changed over the past century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465106/original/file-20220524-18-nz47c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C49%2C5548%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A chaplain prays for a COVID-19 patient in Los Angeles while on a video call with the patient's daughter in November 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXVirusOutbreakCalifornia/d120b3fd64064c77b02ec1c3bd5b9a5d/photo?Query=chaplains%20%20covid&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=76&currentItemNo=35">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic brought new attention to the work of chaplains.</p>
<p>Before the pandemic, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/opinion/coronavirus-hospitals-chaplains.html">as an article in The New York Times put it</a>, the place of the hospital chaplain was “at the bedside, holding a patient’s hand, counseling them and their family members, singing with them, crying with them, hugging them, offering the eucharist, or a prayer for healing.” </p>
<p>As the pandemic unfolded, the work of chaplains – increasingly called spiritual care providers – changed. Some were declared essential employees and continued to work in person, but they were not allowed into rooms with COVID-19 patients. They <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-04-22/coronavirus-shifts-spiritual-care-for-hospital-chaplains">offered words</a> of encouragement and solace through baby monitors and posters taped to patients’ doors. </p>
<p>COVID-19 also shifted the work of hospital chaplains from focusing primarily on patients to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/us/hospital-chaplains-coronavirus/index.html">bridging the gap</a> between dying patients and their distanced family members. Many helped family members at home <a href="https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/06/19/covid-19-chaplain-dying-alone-bridget-power">connect to hospitalized loved ones</a> by phone, FaceTime, Zoom and other technologies. Some chaplains started <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/hospital-chaplain-finds-unique-strategy-combat-covid-fatigue/story?id=84669638">rolling carts</a> of treats and pick-me-ups for hospital staff to promote self-care and prevent burnout. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08854726.2020.1822081">national survey</a> conducted in 2019 found that 21% of the American public had contact with a chaplain in the past two years. Of those encounters, 57% took place in a health care setting. Other encounters happened in places like the military, higher education, and more. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/sociology/people/faculty/cadge.html">scholars</a> of <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/team/michael-skaggs-phd">American religion and spirituality</a>, we know that <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/this-chaplain">chaplains</a> have long histories in health care organizations and have been visible over time to varying degrees. </p>
<h2>The origins of modern spiritual care</h2>
<p>Chaplaincy emerged as a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30102128/">professional field</a> in the mid-20th century out of Protestant efforts to reform theological education. Concerned about the growing influence of psychology and psychiatry in matters previously understood only as spiritual, Protestant theological leaders in the 1920s sought to get students out of classrooms and into real-life situations where they would learn to respond to the challenges and struggles people face in their daily lives. </p>
<p>In hospital settings <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo13963369.html">before the 1920s</a>, chaplains were retired or volunteer clergy with no special training. They visited patients in their own religious traditions alongside other volunteers. Religiously founded hospitals also frequently had priests, ministers or rabbis in service, reflecting the hospital’s religious affiliation. </p>
<p>Many nurses offered religious support at the bedside, rooted in their own religious commitments. In the mid-19th century, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1729vkn">Florence Nightingale</a>, who rose to prominence from her service to soldiers in the Crimean War, saw both to patients’ spiritual and physical needs.</p>
<h2>Training in the field</h2>
<p>As theological educators worked to reform Protestant theological education in the 1920s, they formalized <a href="https://acpe.edu/">Clinical Pastoral Education</a>, or CPE. Initially pioneered by a leading chaplain, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Head_and_Heart.html?id=B8smAQAACAAJ">Anton Boisen</a>, and supported by <a href="http://history.massgeneral.org/catalog/Detail.aspx?itemId=53&searchFor=cabot">Richard Cabot</a>, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, CPE students completed internships in hospitals that supplemented their classroom training. Boisen viewed patients as “living human documents” from which to learn.
CPE students in later years wrote “verbatims,” or reports of conversations they had with patients.</p>
<p>While most people who completed units of CPE did not go on to become chaplains, a few did. By the 1940s, those who wanted to work in hospitals based on their CPE training started to organize themselves as a distinct professional group. </p>
<p>Unlike retired clergy, who mostly made short visits and offered rituals, CPE-trained clergy worked from referrals and connections with hospital staff, made care plans based on the severity of a patient’s illness, documented their visits and were accountable to someone within the hospital.</p>
<p>Data collected by the American Hospital Association suggested that <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo13963369.html">two-thirds of American hospitals had a chaplain by the mid-1950s</a>, though it is not clear how many were CPE-trained. </p>
<p>The development of chaplaincy as a profession distinct from that of local clergy was also supported by the extensive work of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972155">military chaplains</a> on the front lines during World War II and their subsequent memorialization in American public life, such as <a href="https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/Monuments-and-Memorials/Chaplains-Hill">Chaplains Hill at Arlington National Cemetery</a>. </p>
<p>Chaplains in military settings rose to such prominence in the American mind that one who served in the Korean War, Emil Kapaun, is now being considered for sainthood in the Catholic Church for his service to fellow prisoners of war. The priest died in the Pyoktong POW camp in May 1951.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man standing in front of a crucifix reading the Bible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465109/original/file-20220524-19-fuulbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Air Force Chaplain Stephan Borlang reads his Bible in a makeshift chapel in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1992.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SomaliaCivilWar1992UNPeacekeepingForcesUSAirForce/034154e8fe584adaace10a2c6b384f3c/photo?Query=chaplains%20%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1339&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initially chaplains were almost all white Protestant men, but the demographics changed slowly through the 20th century. The <a href="https://www.nacc.org/">National Association of Catholic Chaplains</a> was founded in 1965 and the <a href="https://najc.org">National Association of Jewish Chaplains</a>, now known as Neshama, in 1990. Growing numbers of women and <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/resources/working-papers/black-chaplains">people of color</a> began to enter the field toward the end of the 20th century, and more health care providers began to pay attention to the role of religion and spirituality in patients’ experiences. </p>
<p>About <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo13963369.html">two-thirds</a> of hospitals have chaplains today, which include growing numbers of Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and other non-Christian chaplains. In the 1990s, theological schools began to develop specific <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11089-020-00906-5">degree programs</a> in chaplaincy and spiritual care, rather than expecting chaplains to train for congregational service and then figure out on their own how to apply their training to other settings.</p>
<p>More than a <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/training-credentials/education">quarter</a> of theological or rabbinical schools currently have such programs, with some designed specifically for <a href="https://www.shin-ibs.edu/">Buddhists</a>, <a href="https://www.hartfordinternational.edu/interreligious-peace-studies-programs/degree-programs/ma-chaplaincy/islamic-chaplaincy-pathway">Muslims</a> and people from other non-Christian religious backgrounds. </p>
<p><a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469667607/chaplaincy-and-spiritual-care-in-the-twenty-first-century/">All chaplains today</a> need basic training in caring for people that includes understanding how individuals make meaning, the interpersonal skills necessary to care for people from different backgrounds, and navigating the complexity of organizations in which they work. </p>
<h2>What chaplains really do</h2>
<p>Health care chaplains talk a lot about <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo8268248.html">presence</a> when describing their work, which is increasingly based on the results of empirical research. Presence means everything from casual conversation with patients and families to mediating conflicts between patients, families and care teams. It can also mean offering prayer or other explicitly religious service, and listening to patients’ deepest fears, religious or otherwise.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.transformchaplaincy.org/">Research</a> about the effects of chaplains’ work has <a href="https://us.jkp.com/products/evidencebased-healthcare-chaplaincy?_pos=4&_sid=5673d1fb7&_ss=r">expanded significantly</a> in recent years and shows that individuals who are visited by chaplains are more satisfied with their hospital stays and often have improved outcomes. </p>
<p>Many chaplains reported serving expanding roles during the pandemic and having found increased visibility among hospital staff. Some noted a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-15/a-chaplain-reflects-on-lives-lost-to">greater sense of appreciation and knowledge</a> among staff of what chaplains do. Chaplains aim to <a href="https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/2021/04/mayo-news">continue</a> care of hospital staff through educational programs, among others. </p>
<p>As religious demographics continue to shift in the United States and growing numbers of people are not religiously affiliated, the work of health care chaplains will continue to change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from The Fetzer Institute, the Templeton Religion Trust, and the Henry Luce Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation. She is the founder of the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Skaggs receives receives funding from The Fetzer Institute, the Templeton Religion Trust, and the Henry Luce Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care and Education. He is a co-founder and Director of Programs of the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab.</span></em></p>Chaplaincy emerged as a professional field in the mid-20th century. In the years since, their roles have evolved and they have also come to include many diverse religious traditions.Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityMichael Skaggs, Director of Programs, Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759122022-02-08T13:33:35Z2022-02-08T13:33:35ZWhy are some Roman Catholic saints called doctors of the church?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443124/original/file-20220128-27-qj5fma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C1%2C1010%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bearers carry the relic and the statue in honor of St. Anthony of Padua during a procession in Rome, Italy. St. Anthony of Padua was proclaimed a doctor of the church in 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefano Montesi - Corbis/Getty Images Europe via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 2022, Pope Francis <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2022-01/pope-causes-of-saints-irenaeus-heroic-virtues-promulgation.html#:%7E:text=Pope%20Francis%20authorizes%20the%20conferral,on%20the%20path%20to%20canonization.">bestowed the title</a> doctor of the church on St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a Christian bishop who died about A.D. 200 For centuries, Christians in both <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-irenaeus-285">the Roman Catholic</a> and <a href="https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/1999/08/23/102379-hieromartyr-irenaeus-bishop-of-lyons">Eastern Orthodox churches</a> have venerated him as a saint.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/religious-studies/faculty/joanne-pierce">a specialist in medieval Christianity</a>, I found myself reflecting on the meaning of this title and why is it important today. There are <a href="https://uscatholic.org/articles/201310/how-many-saints-are-there/">over 10,000 saints</a> recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. However, only a few dozen of them have been named a <a href="https://uscatholic.org/articles/200807/chronological-list-of-the-doctors-of-the-church/">doctor of the church</a>, an honorific that recognizes the importance of their teaching, scholarship and writings.</p>
<h2>Early saints</h2>
<p>In early centuries, Christians executed in the Roman Empire for refusing to renounce their faith – <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/martyrs.html">called martyrs, meaning witnesses</a> – were <a href="https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Blood/martyrmainpage.htm">commemorated by their local communities</a> and referred to as holy: sanctus or sancta, in Latin. The graves of these saints were considered holy places, and believers would visit them to pray.</p>
<p>Later, those who had been imprisoned but not put to death were honored by other Christians because of their outstanding courage and strength of faith. Their communities called them <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=32719">confessors</a> because they professed their faith.</p>
<p>Other titles were eventually added to distinguish additional <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-becomes-a-saint-in-the-catholic-church-and-is-that-changing-81011">categories of saints</a>, such as bishop, priest or widow. Even children were, and still can be, <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-italian-teen-is-set-to-become-the-first-millennial-saint-but-canonizing-children-is-nothing-new-in-the-catholic-church-148507">approved for saintly veneration</a>.</p>
<p>For the first thousand years, holy men and women were venerated as saints regionally, usually with the approval of the local bishop. Later, the popes took charge of officially proclaiming saints, and a formal process developed for <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-a-miracle-heres-how-the-catholic-church-decides-170183">examining the applications</a>, or causes, of saintly candidates proposed by regional bishops or other religious groups.</p>
<h2>Scholars and teachers</h2>
<p>Over time, a handful of Christian saints and teachers became especially renowned for their writings or scholarship. A few from the early centuries of the church were recognized as important teachers, or <a href="https://catholicnewsherald.com/faith/198-news/faith/faith-facts/497-the-fathers-of-the-church">fathers of the church</a>, by both Western and Eastern churches – <a href="https://theconversation.com/popes-holy-land-trip-will-help-heal-ancient-rift-with-orthodoxy-27236">which finally split</a> into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, respectively, in the 11th century.</p>
<p>In the Middle Ages, other saintly teachers in Western Europe were acclaimed specifically as <a href="https://uscatholic.org/articles/200807/chronological-list-of-the-doctors-of-the-church/">doctors of the church</a> by the authority of popes. Some revered theologians began to be known as doctor of a specific idea or characteristic. For example, contemporaries of the medieval theologian <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albert-great/">St. Albert the Great</a>, who died in 1280, came to refer to him as the “universal doctor” because of the wide range of topics he covered in his writings. Even one or two of the earlier fathers of the church acquired these additional titles, such as <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2021-08-28">St. Augustine</a>. This North African saint, one of the most influential Christian theologians, died in 430 and became known as the “doctor of grace” because of his theories about <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EO042DSFXvUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=saint+augustine+grace+gift+god&ots=V3ez5ozY5J&sig=2H9bQMFZwzFK035VSNFtpL923HY#v=onepage&q=saint%20augustine%20grace%20gift%20god&f=false">grace as a free gift of God</a>. In several regions, local communities gave similar titles to other respected figures even if they were not officially recognized as saints.</p>
<p>Formal lists of these doctors were compiled and expanded during the 16th through 20th centuries. Today, the Roman Catholic Church <a href="https://aleteia.org/2021/10/30/doctors-of-the-church-named-by-the-last-3-popes/">lists 37 saints</a> officially recognized by papal pronouncement as doctors of the church.</p>
<p>Until after the <a href="https://www.carroll.edu/mission-catholic-identity/second-vatican-council">Second Vatican Council</a>, which met from 1962 to 1965 and initiated significant modern reforms in the church, all doctors of the church were men – usually bishops or priests. In the following decades, that changed. </p>
<p>Today the Catholic Church recognizes <a href="https://aleteia.org/2018/03/08/4-inspiring-women-who-are-doctors-of-the-church/">four saintly and learned women</a> from several different centuries for their theological and spiritual writings. They include the 16th-century Spanish mystic <a href="https://denvercatholic.org/perseverance-made-teresa-avila-master-prayer/">Teresa of Avila</a> and the 12th-century German abbess <a href="https://theconversation.com/caring-for-the-environment-has-a-long-catholic-lineage-hundreds-of-years-before-pope-francis-168698">Hildegard of Bingen</a>, an expert on herbal medicine and botany as well as liturgical drama and music.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Three saints stand in an icon image, with golden halos around their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443123/original/file-20220128-19-1p4sd8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An icon in Christ the Savior Orthodox Church in Chicago shows St. Irenaeus, center, between St. Paphnutius and St. Polycarp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ted Bobosh/Moment Open via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Doctor of unity’</h2>
<p>So, why add another doctor now? St. Irenaeus was already recognized as one of the early fathers of the church. Born during the 2nd century in what is now Turkey, he served as bishop of Lyons in what is now France – moving from one side of the Roman Empire to the other.</p>
<p>He wrote forcefully against a philosophical and religious movement <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/gnostic/">called gnosticism</a> – from the Greek word gnosis, or knowledge – which he saw as a heresy threatening to separate Christians from beliefs handed down by Jesus’ apostles. <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-tiny-minority-of-iraqis-follows-an-ancient-gnostic-religion-and-theres-a-chance-they-could-be-your-neighbors-too-160838">Gnostic</a> Christians taught that the physical world was created not by God, but by a lesser spiritual being, either in error or out of malice. They rejected the traditional Christian beliefs that material reality and the human body <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1A.HTM">were fundamentally good</a> and held that the body was a worthless obstacle to achieving spiritual perfection.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<p>Irenaeus <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm">argued against the gnostics</a>, insisting God created both material and spiritual reality and that both were rooted in God’s goodness. His critique of the gnostic view of Christian teaching reaffirmed the importance of <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iii.xxviii.html">the teaching of the apostles</a>, based on the writings of the Old Testament prophets and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/emergence.html">the four Gospels</a> of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. So Irenaeus’ teaching was valued by later theologians working to strengthen the church’s <a href="https://angelusnews.com/faith/why-isnt-st-irenaeus-a-doctor-of-the-church/">definition of orthodox beliefs</a>.</p>
<p>In 2021, members of the St. Irenaeus Joint Catholic-Orthodox Working Group, an unofficial group of theologians seeking to <a href="https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/projects/irenaeus-arbeitskreis">enrich mutual understanding</a>, met in Rome. During that meeting, Pope Francis <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-10/st-irenaeus-doctor-of-the-church-pope-francis.html">stated his intention</a> to officially declare the saint a doctor of the church. As <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250174/pope-francis-declares-st-irenaeus-doctor-of-unity">the pope later noted</a>, Irenaeus’ life and teaching serve as a bridge between Eastern and Western Christianity. In his own life, he served churches in both traditions, and, despite their individual differences, strove to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Church_and_Western_Culture/m_BcTvyyP_YC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Irenaeus+united+eastern+and+western+churches&pg=PA58&printsec=frontcover">keep them united</a> against divisive teachings.</p>
<p>Because of the influence of his theology and the example of his ministry, St. Irenaeus will be one of those doctors of the church, like St. Albert the Great, to be given a distinctive honorific title: “doctor of unity.” </p>
<p>At a time when <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-partisan-pandemic-do-we-now-live-in-alternative-realities-140290">disease</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-counter-intuitive-solution-to-getting-people-to-care-about-climate-change-120136">environmental disasters</a> and wars threaten to divide Christianity and the world, many believe that a saintly “doctor of unity” may well inspire a more hope-filled future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne M. Pierce does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Saints are recognized for exceptional virtue and faith. But some also are commemorated for their scholarship.Joanne M. Pierce, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1701832021-10-28T12:33:02Z2021-10-28T12:33:02ZWhat’s a ‘miracle’? Here’s how the Catholic Church decides<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428910/original/file-20211027-14962-tce5xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C0%2C2923%2C1841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pope John Paul I, who was pope for about a month before his death, has moved one step closer to sainthood.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PopeJohnPaulI/a01d7aa464cf4429a22ffe11bf6a4ed4/photo?Query=%22john%20paul%20i%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=250&currentItemNo=10">AP Photo/Claudio Luffoli</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Albino Luciano, better known to the world as Pope John Paul I, reigned as pope for only 34 days before his death in September 1978. But he will soon <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-10/pope-john-paul-i-miracle-for-canonization.html">join the ranks</a> of 20th-century popes <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/24/papal-saints-once-a-given-now-extremely-rare/">who the Catholic Church has canonized</a>. This literally means they have been entered on the “canon,” or list, of people formally declared to be in heaven and have been granted the title “Blessed” or “Saint.” </p>
<p>The process requires a rigorous examination of the life and holiness of a candidate and involves <a href="https://www.usccb.org/offices/public-affairs/saints">several stages</a> that can last years or even centuries.</p>
<p>After someone with a reputation for exceptional holiness dies, a bishop can open an investigation into their life. At this stage, the person can be granted the title “Servant of God.” Further details and research are needed for them to be recognized as “Venerable,” the next stage in canonization.</p>
<p>The following step is beatification, when someone is declared “Blessed.” This usually requires that the Vatican confirm that the person performed a “miracle” by interceding with God. Two miracles are required before a “Blessed” can be declared a saint.</p>
<p>What, then, is a miracle? </p>
<h2>More than medicine</h2>
<p>The word is used widely in nonreligious ways. However, the <a href="https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/890/">Catechism of the Catholic Church</a>, which sums up the church’s teachings, defines it as “a sign or wonder such as a healing, or control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine power.”</p>
<p>In the canonization process, a miracle almost always refers to the spontaneous and lasting remission of <a href="https://wgntv.com/news/medical-watch/a-chicago-mothers-miracle-baby-and-the-making-of-a-saint/">a serious, life-threatening medical condition</a>. The healing must have taken place in ways that the best-informed scientific knowledge cannot account for and follow prayers to the holy person.</p>
<p>Pope John Paul I’s beatification was greenlighted by <a href="http://www.causesanti.va/it/archivio-della-congregazione-cause-santi/promulgazione-di-decreti/decreti-pubblicati-nel-2021.html">the sudden healing</a> of an 11-year-old girl in Buenos Aires who had been suffering severe acute brain inflammation, severe epilepsy and septic shock. She had been approaching what doctors considered almost-certain death in 2011 when her mother, nursing staff and a priest <a href="https://www.laprensalatina.com/recovered-argentine-woman-reflects-on-late-popes-vatican-confirmed-miracle/">began praying desperately</a> to the former pope. </p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>Catholic belief in miracles is long-standing and rooted in what the church believes about the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospels portray Jesus as a teacher, but also as a wonder-worker who <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+2&version=KJV">turned water into wine</a>, walked on water and <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/9">fed a large crowd</a> with minimal food. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/iacs/staff/">a Catholic theologian and professor</a>, I have written about saints, <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935420-e-62">especially the Virgin Mary</a>, and taught university courses on hagiography, or writing about saints’ lives. In Catholic tradition, miracles represent more than physical healing. They also confirm what Jesus preached: that God is willing to intervene in people’s lives and can take away their suffering. </p>
<p>For Christians, then, Jesus’ miracles suggest strongly that he is Son of God. They point to what Jesus called “<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2046.htm">the reign of God</a>,” in which Christians hope to be reunited with God in a world restored to its original perfection. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a black shawl walks down a red carpet at the Vatican with children around her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428668/original/file-20211027-27-hdj8pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Melissa Villalobos walks with her family during a canonization Mass at the Vatican in 2019. She experienced a healing after praying to Cardinal John Henry Newman, and the Catholic Church recognized it as a miracle, clearing the way for Newman’s canonization.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Vatican%20Saints/c9359fd8ff8348e48eaef8ce177b4084?Query=miracle%20catholic&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=292&currentItemNo=223">AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Devil’s advocate?</h2>
<p>Naturally, thoughtful people can object to the claimed supernatural origin of such events. And the development of medical science means that some healing processes can indeed now be explained purely as the work of nature, without needing to claim that divine intervention has been at work. Some Christian writers, notably the Protestant theologian <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UPZTDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA131&dq=Rudolf+bultmann+miracles&ots=xTVxFRg56R&sig=3FsfremirJgrGncTxlS44dQgEl4#v=snippet&q=miracle&f=false_">Rudolf Bultmann</a>, have also interpreted Jesus’ miracles as having a purely symbolic meaning and rejected them as being necessarily historical, literal truth.</p>
<p>The Catholic Church has for centuries held that science and faith are <a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-catholic-history-of-the-conflict-between-religion-and-science/">not sworn enemies</a> but rather different ways of knowing which complement each other. That understanding guides investigations of supposed miracles, which are undertaken by the Vatican’s <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/romancuria/en/congregazioni/congregazione-delle-cause-dei-santi/profilo.html">Congregation for the Causes of Saints</a>, which has about two dozen staff and more than 100 clerical members and counselors. </p>
<p>Theologians working for the Congregation assess all aspects of the life of a candidate for canonization. These include the “Promoter of the Faith” (sometimes called “the Devil’s advocate”), whose role was <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_25011983_divinus-perfectionis-magister.html">changed in 1983</a> from finding arguments against canonization to supervising the process.</p>
<p>Separately, <a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/09/23/160923a.html">a medical board</a> of independent scientific experts is appointed to investigate a claimed miracle. They begin by looking for purely natural explanations as they review the medical history.</p>
<h2>New rules</h2>
<p>The process of canonization has undergone continuous revisions throughout history.</p>
<p>In 2016, Pope Francis initiated <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/money-and-saint-making">reforms in how the church assesses miracles</a>, which are meant to make the process more rigorous and transparent. </p>
<p>The Catholic groups who request to open a canonization case for a particular person fund the investigation. Costs include fees paid to medical experts for their time, administrative expenses and research. But cases were often <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-saints/how-much-is-that-halo-pope-imposes-checks-on-costs-of-making-saints-idUSKCN0WC1WH">opaque and expensive</a>, reaching well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi wrote in a 2015 book.</p>
<p>Among Francis’ 2016 reforms was a new rule that all payments be made by traceable bank transfer so groups can better track the Vatican’s spending.</p>
<p>Another of Francis’ reforms is that in order for a canonization case to go forward, <a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2016/09/23/0666/01504.html">two-thirds of the medical board</a> are required to affirm that the miraculous event cannot be explained by natural causes. Previously, only a simple majority was needed. </p>
<p>The overall point of <a href="http://www.archivioradiovaticana.va/storico/2016/03/10/pope_francis_approves_new_rules_for_funds_of_saints_causes/en-1214383">these reforms</a> is to protect the integrity of the canonization process and avoid mistakes or scandals that would discredit the church or mislead believers.</p>
<p>Since Catholics believe that the “Blesseds” and saints are in heaven and intercede before God on behalf of people who seek their help, the question of miracles is a matter of being confident that prayers can and will be heard. </p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dorian Llywelyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To qualify as a Catholic ‘saint,’ someone must have two miracles credited to them. But how does the church define a miracle in the first place?Dorian Llywelyn, President, Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1644022021-07-22T20:04:57Z2021-07-22T20:04:57ZUnis are killing the critical study of religion, and it will only make campuses more religious<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411594/original/file-20210716-25-f327re.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=935%2C0%2C5062%2C3363&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sunlight-falls-onto-slate-tiles-through-664593610">Adam Calaitzis/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Global developments in tertiary education suggest the critical scientific study of religion is endangered. One of the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-unis-consider-more-cuts-including-religion-and-theatre-20210505-p57p3n.html">departments slated for extinguishment</a> amid the pandemic-related upheavals was my own at the University of Sydney. This reflects a <a href="https://www.aarweb.org/AARMBR/About-AAR-/Board-of-Directors-/Board-Statements-/Academic-Study-of-Religion.aspx">trend</a> that has captured the academy in Australia and worldwide.</p>
<p>If we take South Australia as an example, over the past decade programs for the critical study of religion at the University of South Australia have been almost completely extinguished, while programs in theology, such as at Flinders, find their future assured. On the east coast, studies of religion programs at the universities of Queensland, Monash, Deakin and Newcastle have been wound back greatly, bled into “multidisciplinary” programs, or <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-unis-consider-more-cuts-including-religion-and-theatre-20210505-p57p3n.html">closed</a>. Departmental identities have been terminated. What isolated staff are left teach just a handful of electives. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-universities-and-religion-tales-of-horror-and-hope-23245">Australian universities and religion: tales of horror and hope</a>
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<p>In the United States, <a href="https://justin-lane.medium.com/changes-in-religious-studies-departments-promoting-enrichment-or-entrenchment-c01acd52fd94">Boston and University of California Berkeley</a> have wound down or shut their programs, as has <a href="https://paulbraterman.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/sad-news-stirling-university-ends-religious-studies-courses/">Stirling</a> in the United Kingdom. A <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/04/15/catholic-religious-studies-intellectual-education-universities-239825">range of American colleges</a> are just not teaching religion critically any more.</p>
<h2>How do studies of religion and theology differ?</h2>
<p>Part of this move to kill the academic study of religion comes from ignorance of what it entails. It is generally accepted that an historian studies history because they want to know what really happened. In contrast, the general assumption is that if a scholar studies religion, then it can only be because they have motives that are only partly scholarly. This is untrue, but the long shadow of theology unhelpfully hangs over us. </p>
<p>Once theology was seen in the Western academy as the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0953946819868092">queen of the sciences</a>”. The study of Christianity and its philosophies was considered the keystone of all other knowledge. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="view of King's College at the University of Cambridge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411596/original/file-20210716-1960-1m3chrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The legacy of the time when theology was ‘queen of the sciences’ can clearly be seen in King’s College at the University of Cambridge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cambridge-united-kingdom-15-november-2017-789134380">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>This began to break down in the 18th century. Ideas that seemed resolutely Christian began to have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology">Egyptian origins</a>, or show <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3140852?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">links to the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism</a>, or were <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/mystery-religion/Mystery-religions-and-Christianity">connected to the Roman cults</a> of Mithra or Isis.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/get-literate-in-myth-religion-and-theology-38283">Get literate in myth, religion and theology</a>
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<p>Theology was further removed from its queenly status when <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-science-figured-out-the-age-of-the-earth/">geologists showed us</a> the age of the planet was many millions rather than thousands of years old. Then, of course, came Charles Darwin’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-darwins-on-the-origin-of-species-96533">On the Origin of Species</a> in 1859. A few decades later <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-nietzsche-nihilism-and-reasons-to-be-cheerful-130378">Friedrich Nietzsche</a> finally <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/god-is-dead-god-remains-dead-and-we-have-killed-him-9780241472842">declared</a> God dead. </p>
<p>Yet Christian theology was deeply embedded in the university system. Despite a revolution in faith, the development of the secular state and rising adherence to atheism, theology still influences our understanding of how scholars study religion today. Partly this is because many age-old theology departments continue to survive in the academy. </p>
<p>Their primary aim is to make Christianity fit for purpose in modernity (and therefore to stem the flow of apostates and retain its power in the public sphere). This is not an ideal nor inclusive academic aim in our multicultural, multifaith world. These centres will continue to survive because of church and other external funding as much as by the force of tradition. </p>
<p>Additionally, the uneasy relationship between religion and secularism makes cutting the scholarly examination of religion the lazy go-to for management in their present <a href="https://theconversation.com/defunding-arts-degrees-is-the-latest-battle-in-a-40-year-culture-war-141689">war against humanities</a> education. They see it as not being <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-unis-are-far-behind-the-worlds-best-at-commercialising-research-here-are-3-ways-to-catch-up-159915">industry-focused</a> nor turning out <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-making-job-ready-degrees-cheaper-for-students-but-cutting-funding-to-the-same-courses-141280">“job-ready” graduates</a>. </p>
<h2>Religion isn’t going away</h2>
<p>During the 20th century, the badly evidenced <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-religion/article/abs/secularization-theory-and-religion/7C26EFDB037491E784038E6FF765DF15">“secularisation” theory</a> posited that religion would eventually die out as our states became more secular and scientific. This is clearly not happening – although it might seem to some that it is. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-should-rethink-secularism-to-deal-with-religious-diversity-43414">Universities should rethink secularism to deal with religious diversity</a>
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<p>Inside modern multifaith democracies, religions honour an unstated social contract by mostly keeping themselves away from our public spaces. This curated invisibility does not mean religions are ceasing to exist. It also means their influence on public policy can be much more discrete. Unless these influences and behaviours are critically examined by experts trained in religious literacy, they can go unseen. </p>
<p>Religions have shaped and will continue to shape our social, cultural and political structures. We have a Pentecostal prime minister, and faith-based lobby groups are constantly vying for our politicians’ ears. We have new religions constantly coming into being. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-pentecostalism-and-how-might-it-influence-scott-morrisons-politics-103530">Explainer: what is Pentecostalism, and how might it influence Scott Morrison's politics?</a>
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<p>And religions can, on rare occasions, threaten our security. Yet a careful examination of our suburbs will demonstrate the significant contributions a wide range of global religious communities make to social cohesion and community prosperity. The facts of these developments will go uncharted if theology is the only academic paradigm for examining the spirituality of our nation. </p>
<h2>What happens if we lose religious studies?</h2>
<p>The consequences of the closures of religious studies programs are clear: in a world that ceases to be <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/05/18/problems-come-colleges-sweeping-religion-under-rug-opinion">critically aware of religion</a>, religious authority is strengthened through an ignorance that can be shrouded in mysticism. If the only chance we have to study religion at the tertiary level is through a Christian, theological viewpoint, then Western universities are returned to shoring up the high status of one religious tradition over all others. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/want-a-safer-world-for-your-children-teach-them-about-diverse-religions-and-worldviews-113025">Want a safer world for your children? Teach them about diverse religions and worldviews</a>
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<p>While theology continues to focus strongly on the faith study of Christianity, at Sydney we find one of the last departments in Australia where the critical investigation of all religions still takes place. It is a necessary part of the academy and yet its closure is quite possible. </p>
<p>Abolishing what is left of the critical study of religion on our campuses will allow theology, biblical studies and other faith-focused fields to determine how our graduates examine religion. This will not be through the scholarly tools of science, sociology or history, but through close study of scripture and church philosophy. </p>
<p>University campuses more generally will be affected, too. Students and staff will become less critical of religious claims when they see no scholarly force with the religious literacy and confidence required to seriously question those claims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am a senior lecturer in the Department of Studies in Religion - and so have some vested interest in keeping the critical study of religion alive.</span></em></p>The world today needs a critical understanding of religion, not a return to the historical tradition of universities dominated by faith-based study.Christopher Hartney, Lecturer of Religion, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1635602021-07-02T12:15:28Z2021-07-02T12:15:28ZWhy Communion matters in Catholic life – and what it means to be denied the Eucharist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409383/original/file-20210701-21-16j8y10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=111%2C825%2C4428%2C2987&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communion has been described as the 'fount and apex of the whole Christian life.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/15th-century-sienese-panel-depicting-the-communion-of-saint-news-photo/635766873?adppopup=true">Geoffrey Clements/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The biannual <a href="https://www.usccb.org/committees/communications/general-assemblies">U.S. Catholic bishops’ meeting</a> received more than its usual attention this June due to one particular item on its agenda: a proposed document on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, a ritual also known as Holy Communion.</p>
<p>Because this as yet unwritten document is <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-bishops-set-collision-course-with-vatican-over-plan-to-press-biden-not-to-take-communion-162820">expected to include guidance</a> on when and whether Holy Communion may be refused to a Catholic who presents her or himself in a manifest state of serious sin, this church matter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/catholic-communion-eucharist.html">received note</a> <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/06/21/joe-biden-catholic-church-communion-eucharist-bishops-abortion-faith/7770411002/">in the pages</a> of national newspapers. It also prompted a “<a href="https://delauro.house.gov/sites/delauro.house.gov/files/documents/Statement%20of%20Principles%206.18.21.pdf">Statement of Principles</a>” from 60 Democratic Catholics in the U.S. House of Representatives urging bishops “to not move forward and deny this most holy of all sacraments.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://udayton.edu/artssciences/endowedchair/gudorf-cit/current.php">scholar of Catholic sacramental theology</a>, let me offer some thoughts on the central role of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, and the pain it can cause some members to be denied reception of it.</p>
<p>One of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is a ritual in which, according to Catholic theology, bread and wine blessed by a priest really become the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Such is its central role in Catholicism, it has been called the “<a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html">fount and apex of the whole Christian life</a>.”</p>
<p>Catholics are obliged to receive Communion at least once a year, but in practice many do so far more frequently during Mass, or Catholic public worship.</p>
<p>Why might Catholics be concerned with lacking access to this one practice when there are presumably many other opportunities for spiritual growth both within and without the Catholic Church?</p>
<p>The answer lies not only in a sense of injustice about being denied access or forcing a change of habit. It is found in the history, practice and theology of Holy Communion itself.</p>
<h2>Eucharist in early Christianity</h2>
<p>In the formative years of Christianity around 2,000 years ago, the <a href="http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/ancient-christian-worship/272674">practice of ritual meals</a> was already common in both Jewish and Greco-Roman culture. Early Christian Eucharistic practice took seriously the ritual power of a meal to transport participants beyond the physical world by connecting them to both past events and spiritual realities. </p>
<p>Jesus shared many meals throughout his time on Earth, culminating in his “last supper,” during which, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+11%3A23-25&version=NRSV">according to biblical passages</a>, he instructed followers to share bread and wine, saying, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”</p>
<p>Early followers of <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14013.html">Jesus worshiped in synagogues and continued to take part in Jewish rituals</a>. Thus, the Eucharist flowed from the same stream as the Passover Seder in which Jewish tradition says each person is to regard him or herself as having been personally freed from slavery in Egypt.</p>
<p>Yet, Christian ritual meals were unique because they were centered on Jesus, a crucified victim of the Roman Empire, whom, Christians believe, “passed over” death to be resurrected by God.</p>
<h2>Body of Christ</h2>
<p>The whole structure of the Mass, which normally culminates in reception of Communion, is about thrusting participants into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, so that they may see the death-and-resurrection shape of life in the world.</p>
<p>Catholic theology distinguishes three ways of speaking of the body of Christ, all rooted in the Bible: There is the historical Jesus who walked on Earth, the body of Christ that is present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and finally the assembly of people who, as St. Paul the apostle <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12&version=NRSV">put it</a>, “are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”</p>
<p>The early Christian celebration of, and reflection on, the Eucharist did not imagine a sharp divide between the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and in the people who celebrate it.</p>
<p>But an 11th-century controversy over the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, which became closely associated with the historical Jesus, initiated what <a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268025939/corpus-mysticum/">one scholar called a “deadly break</a>” between the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the presence of Christ in people. Twentieth-century Catholic theology recovered that deep connection between Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and in the community.</p>
<h2>Being set apart</h2>
<p>In its most basic terms, Catholics receive the really-present Christ in Communion so that they may be Christ in the world.</p>
<p>Catholics believe that when one consumes the Eucharist, one is incorporated into Christ and becomes bonded to others who are also part of the body of Christ on Earth. It is not simply a matter of individual belief, but of Church unity and the mission of being Christ in the world.</p>
<p>To set oneself outside of the practice of Communion – or to be set outside by another – is to be apart from the very practice that incorporates one into the body of Christ.</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Gabrielli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Amid controversy over US bishops’ plans to deny Communion to pro-abortion rights Catholics, a scholar of sacramental theology explains the importance of the ritual to members of the church.Timothy Gabrielli, Gudorf Chair in Catholic Intellectual Traditions, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591892021-04-28T12:13:34Z2021-04-28T12:13:34ZAncient Christian thinkers made a case for reparations that has striking relevance today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396859/original/file-20210423-13-7dpil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1580%2C1081&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some ancient theologians argued that the Israelites deserved a share of Egypt's wealth after being enslaved for centuries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/egyptian-taskmasters-treat-the-hebrew-slaves-harshly-with-news-photo/173447141?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reparations to Black Americans for centuries of slavery and oppression have been discussed for a long time. But ever since journalist and author <a href="https://ta-nehisicoates.com/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a> wrote “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/">The Case for Reparations</a>” in The Atlantic in 2014, the conversation has taken on a new urgency. In 2021 a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/politics/reparations-slavery-house.html">House committee voted</a> to create a commission to consider reparations. </p>
<p>However, debates over compensating a group of people for past injuries or abuses date back to at least the early centuries of the common era. As a <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/david-lincicum/">professor of theology</a> who teaches about Jewish and Christian antiquity, I have studied how the logic of reparations has roots in the Hebrew Bible and in early Christian biblical interpretation.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates testifies during a 2019 hearing on slavery reparations" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396861/original/file-20210423-19-1gvi7w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates testifies during a 2019 hearing on slavery reparations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/writer-ta-nehisi-coates-testifies-during-a-hearing-on-news-photo/1150823656?adppopup=true">Zach Gibson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Exodus from Egypt</h2>
<p>The classic text for thinking about reparations is the story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, recounted in detail in the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament. </p>
<p>The Israelites had been enslaved by the Egyptians and subjected to forced labor for hundreds of years. As the story goes, through divine intervention and the leadership of the prophet Moses, the people were set free and allowed to depart Egypt.</p>
<p>As God announces the plan in advance to Moses, <a href="https://www.bibleref.com/Exodus/3/Exodus-chapter-3.html">he assures him</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed; each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in the neighbor’s house for jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When the Israelites ask as commanded, the Egyptians surprisingly comply. “And so,” the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+12%3A35-36&version=NIV">text laconically summarizes</a>, “they plundered the Egyptians.”</p>
<h2>Literal or allegorical plunder?</h2>
<p>The story seems to have been a source of embarrassment to Jews and Christians in antiquity and even <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/despoiling-the-egyptians-a-concerning-jewish-legacy">in more recent times</a>.</p>
<p>Whether deceit was involved has been a matter of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1516876">scholarly discussion</a>, but at least one ancient historian used the account to paint the Jews of his day in a dim light. Around the turn of the millennium, <a href="http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/english/trans36.html">Pompeius Trogus</a> wrote that Moses led the Israelites in “carrying off by stealth the sacred utensils of the Egyptians.”</p>
<p>Perhaps in light of similar accusations, some Jews and, subsequently, Christians, interpreted the text as a story about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04768-3_25">symbolic and not literal plunder</a>.</p>
<p>The Jewish Alexandrian philosopher Philo, an older contemporary of Jesus in the first century, <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/philo_judaeus-moses_i_ii/1935/pb_LCL289.349.xml">interpreted the event literally</a> and justified the Israelites’ actions. </p>
<p>“For what resemblance is there between forfeiture of money and deprivation of liberty,” he wrote, “for which men of sense are willing to sacrifice not only their substance but their life?” </p>
<p>In other words, the Israelites were in the right to take material goods from the Egyptians since the Egyptians had deprived them of the far greater good of freedom.</p>
<p>But in <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/philo_judaeus-who_heir_divine_things/1932/pb_LCL261.423.xml?result=1&rskey=u3BbY4">another treatise</a>, Philo gave an allegorical interpretation in which the Egyptians’ wealth represented pagan philosophy. </p>
<p>He felt that ideas that might originate in “pagan” philosophy could be put to good use – or “plundered” – for Jewish purposes. By way of comparison, one might imagine a contemporary preacher using, say, insights from psychoanalysis to elucidate the meaning of a biblical passage. </p>
<p>Two centuries later, the Christian scholar <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/origen/">Origen of Alexandria</a> used a similar argument to <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0415.htm">make the case</a> that “pagan” philosophy should be studied by Christians as the “adjunct to Christianity” – to prepare for and supplement true Christian teaching. He justifies this taking of intellectual property by using the example of the Israelites making off with the Egyptians’ possessions. He understood the biblical text’s account of the plundering of the Egyptians to be a symbolic authorization for Christians to take the intellectual property of the surrounding pagan culture.</p>
<p>Subsequent Christians theologians, from <a href="https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/ddc2.html">St. Augustine</a> in the late fourth century onward throughout the medieval period, took up this line of interpretation. </p>
<p>[<em>This week in religion, a global roundup each Thursday.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=religion&source=religion-global-roundup">Sign up.</a>]</p>
<h2>‘Not just a few dishes’</h2>
<p>But Philo’s literal understanding of the passage – that the Israelites took property from the Egyptians as a form of just repayment for their enslavement – also found followers among the early Christians. </p>
<p>In the second century A.D., a debate raged in the Christian Church as to whether the Jewish scriptures should be authoritative for Christians. <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/marcion.html">Marcion</a>, a charismatic leader from the Black Sea region, contended that the Hebrew Bible attested an inferior god and so should be discarded. He and his followers urged that it contained morally reprehensible stories, and held up the plundering of the Egyptians as an example.</p>
<p>The theologians Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian of North Africa, who argued for what ultimately became the form of Christian belief backed by political authorities, however, disagreed. </p>
<p>Irenaeus replied to the Marcionite argument in his treatise “<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/irenaeus.html">Against Heresies</a>,” which contains a remarkable display of the <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103430.htm">logic of reparations</a>.</p>
<p>He writes that the Egyptians held the Israelites in “abject slavery” while at the same time contemplating their “utter annihilation.” Meanwhile, the Israelites built them “fenced cities” and made them even more wealthy.</p>
<p>“In what way, then,” Irenaeus asks, “did the Israelites act unjustly, if out of many things they took a few?”</p>
<p>His argument is straightforward: The Israelites deserved to be repaid for their forced labor. They contributed to the wealth of the Egyptians, and so had a right to a share of it.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Engraving depicting early Christian author Tertullian" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396860/original/file-20210423-13-7asvb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early Christian author Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, aka Tertullian, circa A.D. 200.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-depicting-early-christian-author-quintus-news-photo/526581582?adppopup=true">Adoc-Photos/Corbis Historical Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Some 25 years later, Tertullian wrote a systematic refutation of Marcion’s position, entitled “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103430.htm">Against Marcion</a>.” In it, he repeated some of Irenaeus’ arguments, including his <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/articles/evans_marc/evans_marc_06book2_eng.htm">case for reparations</a>.</p>
<p>Tertullian imagines a court in his own day hearing the claims of “the Hebrews.” He argues that no amount of gold and silver could repay the Israelites for their hardship. “[They] were free men reduced to slavery,” he writes. “If their legal representatives were to display in court no more than their shoulders scarred with the abusive outrage of whippings, any judge would have agreed that the Hebrews must receive in recompense not just a few dishes and flagons … but the whole of those rich men’s property.”</p>
<p>Particularly notable is the fact that Tertullian makes the case for reparations to be paid to the descendants of the Israelites who had been forcibly enslaved centuries earlier. Although the force of the passage is driven by a debate about scriptural interpretation, its logic strikingly anticipates the case for reparations in the U.S. today.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lincicum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The biblical story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt is also a historical tale of reparations after enslavement.David Lincicum, Associate Professor of Theology, University of Notre DameLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1552562021-04-22T12:24:47Z2021-04-22T12:24:47ZShakespeare’s musings on religion are like curious whispers – they require deep listening to be heard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396365/original/file-20210421-17-if17cq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C177%2C6927%2C5153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Caliban implores his fellow island dwellers to listen to the noises in "The Tempest."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/act-i-scene-ii-from-the-tempest-c19th-century-miranda-news-photo/507137240?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Shakespeare’s role as a religious guide is not an obvious one. </p>
<p>While the work of the bard, whose <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/when-was-shakespeare-born/">birthday is celebrated on April 23</a>, has been scoured at various times over the past four centuries for <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/clare-asquith/shadowplay/9781541774308/">coded messages about Catholicism, Puritanism or Anglicanism</a>, the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-religion-9781904271703/">more common view</a> is that his stunning explorations of humanity leave little space for serious reflection on divinity. Indeed, some Shakespeare scholars have gone further, suggesting that his works display an <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo6021785.html">explicit atheism</a>.</p>
<p>But as a scholar of theology who has published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-Theology-and-the-Unstaged-God/Baker/p/book/9780367784836">a book exploring Shakespeare’s treatment of faith</a>, I believe the playwright’s best religious impulses are displayed neither through coded affirmations nor straightforward denials. Writing at a time of great religious polarization and upheaval, Shakespeare’s greatest pronouncements on faith are more like curious whispers – and, like whispers, they require deep listening to be heard.</p>
<h2>Religious noises</h2>
<p>I see an invitation to this deep listening in one of Shakespeare’s most unusual plays, “<a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/tempest/">The Tempest.</a>” “Be not afeared,” the half-man, half-beast Caliban tells his companions as they arrive on the island where the play is set, “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.”</p>
<p>It is a striking passage, made all the more so coming from a foul-smelling creature accused of attempted rape and repeatedly called “monster.” But in it, Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that there are dimensions of reality that many of us miss – and we might be surprised to find out who among us is paying attention.</p>
<p>Subtleties like this show up differently across Shakespeare’s plays. “Romeo and Juliet” is not in any overt sense a theological play. But as the tragedy comes to a somber denouement, we have the line “See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.”</p>
<p>While there is no clear naming of gods or fates, Shakespeare implies that some great power transcends the destructive feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families of the two lovers. He calls into question the earthly power of the two houses – heaven, he implies, is also at work here.</p>
<h2>Tumultuous times</h2>
<p>Shakespeare was, I believe, in constant search of subtle ways to imagine divine intervention within the human realm. This is all the more impressive given the fraught religious times in which he lived.</p>
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<img alt="An etching of William Shakespeare." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Closet Catholic or atheist? Or is it more complicated?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/english-dramatist-william-shakespeare-circa-1600-news-photo/51165673?adppopup=true">Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The late 16th century witnessed religious and political polarization greater, even, than our own. Decades earlier, King Henry VIII had <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-22586-6">separated the Anglican church from Rome</a> and created a Protestant England. His daughter Elizabeth, who sat on the throne for the first half of Shakespeare’s writing career, was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2016.13">excommunicated by Pope Pius V</a> for continuing in her father’s footsteps. The queen responded by making the practice of Catholicism a crime in England. </p>
<p>So even before Elizabeth’s successor, James I, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/61/251/495/1564755">outlawed overt theological humor or criticism on stage</a>, artists hoping to engage in religious themes were under considerable restrictions. </p>
<p>These upheavals affected Shakespeare directly. Shakespeare’s <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeare-religion/">family had deep ties to Roman Catholicism</a>, as likely did some of his closest associates. For any one of them to express doubts about the Anglican prayer book, or even to avoid the Anglican parish on Sunday, was to put themselves under suspicion of treason. </p>
<p>There is little in the way of biographical detail to help scholars looking for Shakepeare’s religious beliefs. Instead, they have generally relied on explicit references to familiar religious language or character types – the Catholic priest in “Romeo and Juliet,” for instance – in speculating about Shakespeare’s faith. Some have suggested that clues and codes in his play suggest the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/shakespeare-closet-catholic">playwright was a closeted Catholic</a>. But to me it is more in what he doesn’t say, or where he finds new ways of saying something old, that Shakespeare is theologically at his most interesting. </p>
<h2>‘God’s spies’</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s faith and how he expresses it are explored in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24712408?socuuid=9b85877c-589a-4256-a51b-711cfbc818fb&socplat=email">2017 play</a> by poet Rowan Williams, a theologian and former head of the Church of England. In it, Williams imagines a young Shakespeare in search of a new language for things religious, and dissatisfied with the heavily politicized options before him.</p>
<p>In a pivotal scene, “young Will” explains to his Jesuit mentor that, despite the attractiveness of their radical Catholic cause, he cannot join: “The old religion is the only, the only – picture of things that speaks to me, yes, but it’s as if there were still voices all around me wanting to make themselves heard and they don’t all speak one language or tell one tale, and all that – it would haunt me if I tried what you do, and it would make me turn away from the pains and the question, because I’d know that there’d always be more than the old religion could say and it still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>In other words, while Catholicism “speaks” to young Will, he believes there is more that “still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>The voices that Williams’ Shakespeare wants to hear are similar, I believe, to those that Caliban talks of in “The Tempest.” So young Will does not join the Catholic cause; instead, he goes off in search of ways to stay with “the pains and the question.” Williams is suggesting that Shakespeare’s subsequent plays are an attempt to let all these complex and difficult voices “be heard.”</p>
<p>They are his attempt to give voice to religious noise beyond the range of the religious certainty of his age.</p>
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<p>We see this in “King Lear.” Lear spends the entire play cursing the gods for the lack of love and respect his children show him. But when the heaven-cursing rants finally subside, the play gives its audience a beautiful and painful reconciliation scene with his daughter Cordelia. He discovers in his daughter’s forgiveness a kind of higher vantage point, one from which they might both “take upon’s the mystery of things, As if we were God’s spies.”</p>
<p>Like Caliban in “The Tempest,” Lear learns to hear those voices just out of human range.</p>
<p>Similarly, Shakespeare asks his audience to listen and watch differently, as if we too are God’s spies or Earth’s monsters.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony D. Baker funding in the form of a grant from The Conant Foundation, through The Episcopal Church, for travel research on Shakespeare. </span></em></p>Scholars have scoured the works of the great playwright for clues about his faith. A scholar of theology and Shakespeare’s works says it isn’t as simple as that.Anthony D. Baker, Professor of Systematic Theology, Seminary of the SouthwestLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591692021-04-21T18:00:53Z2021-04-21T18:00:53ZDead Sea Scrolls: two scribes probably wrote one of the manuscripts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396264/original/file-20210421-23-if1yhn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C98%2C4527%2C2943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/qumran-israel-january-06-2017-dead-555874084">Shutterstock/Lerner Vadim</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dead-sea-scrolls-are-a-priceless-link-to-the-bibles-past-105770">Dead Sea Scrolls</a> were <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-wrote-the-dead-sea-scrolls-11781900/">accidentally discovered</a> over 70 years ago in a cave in the Palestinian territories, they have been a source of fascination.</p>
<p>The scrolls are famous for containing the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. But exactly who wrote these important documents has been a mystery. Now, thanks to the use of technology, we’re getting closer to understanding some of the background to these enigmatic texts.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249769">a new study</a>, researchers at the University of Gronigen’s Qumran Institute have put together a robust investigation into the palaeography – the study of old handwriting – of one of the scrolls. </p>
<p>Through a series of painstaking processes including digitisation, machine reading and statistical analysis, the team propose that two scribes with very similar handwriting probably wrote the two halves of the manuscript. </p>
<p>The scroll in question, 1QIsaa, is a large manuscript and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dead-sea-scrolls-deciphered-esoteric-code-reveals-ancient-priestly-calendar-91777">one of seven</a> found near the Dead Sea at Qumran, the Palestinian territories, in 1947. The 2,000-year-old scroll preserves the 66 chapters of the Hebrew Bible’s Book of <a href="https://theconversation.com/seal-of-the-prophet-isaiah-sorting-out-fact-from-fantasy-92296">Isaiah</a> and predates other Hebrew manuscripts of Isaiah by over 1,000 years.</p>
<h2>Two scribes</h2>
<p>The authors trained an algorithm to separate the ink from its background, the leather or the papyrus of the scroll. Then, the algorithm studied every character, looking for small changes that might signal a different writer. This kind of algorithmic technology, shown in the image below, has started to be used in biblical studies, and the wider digital humanities, in just the last few years.</p>
<p>To some extent, the new paper overturns the argument that the original text was the work of one scribe. At the end the 27th column of text out of 54, the researchers found a break in the manuscript – both a gap of three lines and a change in material. A second sheet is stitched onto the first, and at this stage, the authors suggest, the scribe also changed. </p>
<p>This result adds to the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-wrote-the-dead-sea-scrolls-11781900/">general assumption</a> and some <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-wrote-the-dead-sea-scrolls-11781900/">previous research</a> suggesting there were perhaps teams of scribes who worked together on the Dead Sea Scrolls, with some working as apprentices to the more senior members. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two blue colour maps of full characters from the Dead Sea Scroll collection." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396051/original/file-20210420-23-1ne94a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Every use of same character was analysed for small differences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/emb/262472.php">Maruf A. Dhali, University of Groningen</a></span>
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<p>A different scribe is not the only possible explanation, however. The authors note that a change of pen, the sharpening of a nib, a change in writing conditions or in the health of the scribe could contribute to the difference they found. Still, the difference seems pretty clear, and a change of scribe is the most likely conclusion. </p>
<h2>21st-century Bible study</h2>
<p>Computers are an increasingly important part of 21st-century text analysis. I have seen increasing numbers of papers at conferences on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament exploring various aspects of the process of transferring texts into digital artefacts (such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-was-the-first-bible-like-102005">Codex Sinaiticus project</a>), the issues relating to how different projects can make use of each other’s data, and the success – or otherwise – of machine-learning processes.</p>
<p>Biblical scholars, including a group of <a href="http://members.unine.ch/jacques.savoy/Articles/StPaul.pdf">researchers in Switzerland</a>, are using machine learning and stylometry – the study of linguistic style – to determine which new letters were authored by Paul the Apostle, for example. </p>
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<img alt="One of the caves in which the scrolls were found at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran in the desert of Israel." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396265/original/file-20210421-15-1rbht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Qumran caves, where the scrolls were found.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cave-dead-sea-scrolls-known-qumran-96106568">Shutterstock/Sean Pavone</a></span>
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<p>Others are modelling texts to explore historical themes across <a href="http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1595/paper5.pdf">the Hebrew Bible</a>. Machine learning is also being used <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259574946_The_Tesserae_Project_Intertextual_analysis_of_Latin_poetry">for text mining</a> – where a target text is compared with many <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2517978.2517985">other similar texts</a> to find parallel uses of the same words or ideas – to explore variations between different texts. The number of positive results found this way usually far outreaches the number proposed by human commentators. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dead-sea-scrolls-how-we-accidentally-discovered-missing-text-in-manchester-138869">Dead Sea Scrolls: how we accidentally discovered missing text – in Manchester</a>
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<p>The sheer number of possibilities currently produced also exceeds the number of research hours available to determine which are useful for ongoing research and which need to be dismissed as chance parallels. At the moment, the machine-learning tools need refinement but they will get there.</p>
<p>While the use of artificial intelligence in the title of the new study might suggest that computers have taken over the role of the scholars in the northern Netherlands, this is certainly not the case. But the shift to the digital offers a new opening for the study of sacred texts, particularly the Christian scriptures and the Hebrew Bible. </p>
<p><em>This piece was amended after publication to say that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the Palestinian territories rather than Israel, and in 1947.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Phillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The researchers used machine learning to study the 2,000-year-old document.Peter Phillips, Research Fellow in Digital Theology, Director of CODEC Research Centre, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1522882021-04-21T12:24:40Z2021-04-21T12:24:40ZFamine in the Bible is more than a curse: It is a signal of change and a chance for a new beginning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395847/original/file-20210419-17-n0utk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2882%2C3978%2C2084&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The famine in Samaria was one of many depicted in the Bible.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/old-testament-the-famine-in-samaria-bible-engraving-by-news-photo/601071886?adppopup=true">PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the coronavirus spread rapidly around the world last year, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-antonio-guterres-famine-covid-19-pandemic-d2c3634a9ceaff7fa6324a63eb158c85">United Nations warned that the economic disruption of the pandemic could result in famines</a> of “biblical proportions.”</p>
<p>The choice of words conveys more than just scale. Biblical stories of devastating famines are familiar to many. As a <a href="https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/joel-s-baden">scholar of the Hebrew Bible</a>, I understand that famines in biblical times were interpreted as more than mere natural occurrences. The authors of the Hebrew Bible used famine as a mechanism of divine wrath and destruction – but also as a storytelling device, a way to move the narrative forward.</p>
<h2>When the heavens don’t open</h2>
<p>Underlying the texts about famine in the Hebrew Bible was the constant threat and recurring reality of <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/famine-and-drought-in-israel">famine in ancient Israel</a>.</p>
<p>Israel occupied the rocky highlands of Canaan – the area of present-day Jerusalem and the hills to the north of it – rather than fertile coastal plains. Even in the best of years, it took <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=teYfEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA149&dq=famine+in+the+bible&ots=Asdo55GcXY&sig=P0VcLiCcc7OKQ7I_3RAjC4c-UKI#v=onepage&q=famine%20in%20the%20bible&f=false">enormous effort to coax sufficient sustenance out of the ground</a>. The rainy seasons were brief; any precipitation less than normal could be devastating. </p>
<p>Across the ancient Near East, drought and famine were feared. In the 13th century B.C., nearly all of the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/131024-drought-bronze-age-pollen-archaeology">collapsed because of a prolonged drought</a>.</p>
<p>For the biblical authors, rain was a blessing and drought a curse – quite literally. In the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/28-12.htm">God proclaims</a> that if Israel obeys the laws, “the Lord will open for you his bounteous store, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in season.”</p>
<p>Disobedience, however, <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/28-24.htm">will have the opposite effect</a>: “The skies above your head shall be copper and the earth under you iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land dust, and sand shall drop on you from the sky, until you are wiped out.” </p>
<p>To ancient Israelites there was no such thing as nature as we understand it today and no such thing as chance. If things were good, it was because God was happy. If things were going badly, it was because the deity was angry. For a national catastrophe like famine, the sin had to lie either with the entire people, or with the monarchs who represented them. And it was the task of <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/HarperCollinsBibleDictionary/o/oracle">prophets and oracles</a> to determine the cause of the divine wrath. </p>
<h2>Divine anger…and punishment</h2>
<p>Famine was seen as both punishment and opportunity. Suffering opened the door for repentance and change. For example, when the famously wise King Solomon inaugurates the temple in Jerusalem, he prays that God will be forgiving when, in the future, a famine-stricken Israel turns toward the newly built temple for mercy. </p>
<p>The Bible’s association of famine and other natural disasters with divine anger and punishment paved the way for faith leaders throughout the ages to use their pulpits to cast blame on those they found morally wanting. Preachers during the Dust Bowl of 1920s and 1930s America held alcohol and immorality <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1800&context=greatplainsquarterly">responsible for provoking God’s anger</a>. In 2005, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953778_1953776_1953771,00.html">televangelist Pat Robertson blamed abortion for Hurricane Katrina</a>. Today some religious leaders have even <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200309160852-fvwh5/">assigned responsibility for the coronavirus pandemic</a> to LGBTQ people.</p>
<p>In the book of Samuel, we <a href="https://biblehub.com/2_samuel/21-1.htm">read that Israel endured a three-year famine</a> in the time of David, considered Israel’s greatest king. When David inquires as to the cause of the famine, he is told that it is due to the sins of his predecessor and mortal enemy, Saul. The story illustrates how biblical authors, like modern moral crusaders, used the opportunity of famine to demonize their opponents. </p>
<p>For the biblical writers interested in legislating and prophesying about Israel’s behavior, famine was both an ending – the result of disobedience and sin – and also a beginning, a potential turning point toward a better, more faithful future. </p>
<p>Other biblical authors, however, focused less on how or why famines happened and more on the opportunities that famine provided for telling new stories.</p>
<h2>Seeking refuge</h2>
<p>Famine as a narrative device – rather than as a theological tool – is found regularly throughout the Bible. The writers of the Hebrew Bible used famine as the motivating factor for major changes in the lives of its characters – undoubtedly reflecting the reality of famine’s impact in the ancient world.</p>
<p>We see this numerous times in the book of Genesis. For example, famine <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/12-10.htm">drives the biblical characters of Abraham to Egypt</a>, <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/26-1.htm">Isaac to the land of the Philistines</a> and <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/43-2.htm">Jacob and his entire family to Egypt</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="https://forward.com/life/447355/the-book-of-ruth-famine-pandemic/">book of Ruth opens with a famine</a> that forces Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, and her family to move first to, and then away from, Moab.</p>
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<img alt="An engraving depicts Naomi instructing her daughter-in-law Ruth to leave with Orpah, her other daughter-in-law, from the book of Ruth, in the Old Testament." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395850/original/file-20210419-21-1yk3ynd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Naomi instructs her daughter-in-law Ruth to leave after famine struck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1000-bc-naomi-instructing-her-daughter-in-law-ruth-to-news-photo/51243480?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The story of Ruth depends on the initial famine; it ends with Ruth being the ancestor of King David. Neither the Exodus nor King David – the central story and a major character of the Hebrew Bible – would exist without famine.</p>
<p>All of these stories share a common feature: famine as an impetus for the movement of people. And with that movement, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/strangers-and-gentiles">in the ancient world</a> as today, comes vulnerability. Residing in a foreign land meant abandoning social protections: land and kin, and perhaps even deity. One was at the mercy of the local populace.</p>
<p>This is why Israel, at least, had a <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/immigration-and-biblical-law-stranger">wide range of laws</a> intended to protect the stranger. It was understood that famine, or plague, or war, was common enough that anyone might be forced to leave their land to seek refuge in another. The principle of hospitality, <a href="https://www.arabamerica.com/hospitality-in-the-arab-world/">still common in the region</a>, ensured that the displaced would be protected.</p>
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<p>Famine was a constant threat and a very real part of life for the ancient Israelite world that produced the Hebrew Bible. The ways that the Bible understood and addressed famine, in turn, have had a lasting impact down to the present. Most people today may not see famine as a manifestation of divine wrath. But they might recognize in famine the same opportunities to consider how we treat the displaced, and to imagine a better future.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Baden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Famine was a constant threat during biblical times. The authors of the Old Testament used it to explain God’s wrath, but also as a narrative device.Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539832021-02-22T14:48:34Z2021-02-22T14:48:34ZWhy Nigeria’s religious leaders should learn more about climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385277/original/file-20210219-13-1sdgl5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigeria's religious leaders should play greater roles in climate change </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/catholic-archbishop-of-lagos-alfred-adewale-martins-and-news-photo/961438584?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is a global issue, but it disproportionately affects developing countries like <a href="https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/20.500.12413/14761/675_Climate_Change_in_Nigeria.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Nigeria</a>. Part of the response needs to be on a large political and institutional scale, based on science. But <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.422">studies</a> have shown that the daily behaviour of individuals also makes a difference to the rate of climate change. Some of these include going car-free, taking public transit or using bicycles more regularly, using energy wisely, recycling, consuming climate-friendly diets (like eating less meat) and wasting less. </p>
<p>It has therefore been suggested that religion might play a role in tackling climate change. This is because faith communities can <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2018.1449822">construct moral frameworks</a> that encourage people to protect the environment. The <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/538df4a5e4b041454de5ca84/t/53b9e9d4e4b0a78ebb9c3539/1404692948309/Mastaler%2C+James.+%2522The+Role+of+Christian+Ethics%2C+Religious+Leaders%2C+and+People+of+Faith+at+a+Time+of+Ecological+and+Climate+Crisis.%2522pdf.pdf">leaders</a> of these faith communities can shape the environmental worldviews and behaviour of their congregations. </p>
<p>With a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/01/the-countries-with-the-10-largest-christian-populations-and-the-10-largest-muslim-populations/">population</a> of over 170 million - both Christians and Muslims, congregating under their tutelage on weekly basis, religious leaders wield a lot of influence in Nigeria. Evidence abounds of some sociopolitical and economic interventions by these leaders that proved productive in the country. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279483120_Religion_politics_and_governance_in_Nigeria">For instance</a>, these leaders have intervened or expressed views on issues concerning good governance, gender equality, education, health and terrorism in Nigeria.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338558055_Beyond_Spiritual_Focus_Climate_Change_Awareness_Role_Perception_and_Action_among_Church_Leaders_in_Nigeria">study</a> among Catholic, Anglican and Pentecostal leaders in Nigeria, however, I found that these Christian leaders don’t know much about climate change. I also found that generally they haven’t taken much action on the issue. This may affect the level of climate change knowledge and concern among their congregations. Providing these leaders with relevant information on climate change would not only boost their knowledge and commitment to climate change mitigation and adaptation in Nigeria, but that of their followers as well.</p>
<h2>Awareness and action</h2>
<p>I interviewed 30 church leaders drawn from the selected denominations and from five geopolitical zones in Nigeria. All said they had heard of climate change. But their perceptions of the causes of the phenomenon varied along religious denominational lines. More Catholic leaders than others said they believed climate change was caused by human activities. The participants said churches could play a role by creating awareness, by providing charity for disaster victims, and through prayer.</p>
<p>Very few reported that they had engaged in some sort of environmental awareness creation among their congregations or groups. Where they had taken action such as planting trees, it wasn’t to address climate change but rather for aesthetic and consumption purposes. </p>
<p>Nigeria faces <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/nigeria-buharis-biggest-challenges/a-36048646">challenges</a> like youth unemployment, poverty, migration, human rights abuses, infrastructural decay, political corruption, insecurity and conflicts. This could partly explain why Christian leaders don’t see climate change as a priority yet. One Catholic leader, for example, has reportedly spoken of <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/earthbeat/nigerian-bishop-ranks-migration-bigger-issue-abortion-climate">migration</a> as a more pressing issue in Nigeria. But climate change <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Climate/Climate%20and%20Poverty%20Conference/D1S1_Hallegatte_CCandPov_9Fev_v6.pdf">is related</a> to these other issues and can make them worse. </p>
<p>Migration and conflicts, for instance, can be driven by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119006000398">climate change</a>. Religious beliefs could be one reason for religious leaders’ poor level of climate change knowledge and action, as I found in another <a href="https://ixtheo.de/Record/1692416359">study</a> with the same participants. </p>
<h2>The influence of religious beliefs</h2>
<p>I <a href="https://ixtheo.de/Record/1692416359">found</a> that some religious beliefs and values actually influenced climate change perceptions among Christian leaders in Nigeria. These included beliefs about end-time, dominion, theological fatalism and pessimism. I also found that denominational affiliation and theology mattered with respect to the influence of some of these religious beliefs. Nevertheless, some of these beliefs serve as barriers to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0265378820931890">action</a> on the part of the church. </p>
<p>For instance, people who hold end-time beliefs see climate change and its impacts as a sign or fulfilment of end-time prophecies. Instead of trying to slow climate change, they prefer to prepare spiritually for the second coming of Christ. In my study, Anglican and Pentecostal participants expressed the end-time beliefs more than Catholics in their interpretation of climate change. </p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Despite their limited knowledge and action on climate change, the leaders I interviewed did feel they had a role through awareness, charity and prayer. They said they could use their credibility to create awareness about the environment.</p>
<p>A recent Afrobarometer <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Policy%20papers/ab_r7_dispatchno339_pap12_religion_in_africa.pdf">report</a> shows that in Nigeria, like other African countries, the majority do not only identify with a religious faith, but are also more likely to contact religious leaders than public officials on socio-political issues. This is because religious leaders are <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Policy%20papers/ab_r7_dispatchno339_pap12_religion_in_africa.pdf">more trusted</a> and less widely seen as corrupt than any other group of public leaders. </p>
<p>The government, nonprofit organisations and others like the <a href="https://canng.org/">Christian Association of Nigeria</a>, the <a href="https://www.pfn.org.ng/">Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria</a>, and the <a href="https://www.cbcn-ng.org/">Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria</a> should therefore provide religious leaders with relevant climate change information and training. </p>
<p>To overcome the barrier created by some religious beliefs, communication about climate change needs to be framed around common Christian values like love and charity. This is especially apt because of the <a href="https://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2017/wp152_2017.pdf">disproportionate impact</a> climate change has on poor and vulnerable communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Nche does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nigeria’s religious leaders can shape the environmental worldviews and behaviour of their congregationsGeorge Nche, Postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Religion Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1545162021-02-10T13:40:42Z2021-02-10T13:40:42ZDisney Pixar’s Soul: how the moviemakers took Plato’s view of existence and added a modern twist<p>Ideas about the soul have been powerful throughout the history of religion and philosophy. Until the 19th-century, most people took the existence of souls for granted. With the rise of modern psychology, this belief lost its plausibility, and today it is largely absent from academic philosophical and even theological writing. </p>
<p>Many now deny the existence of a soul, considering human emotions and motives simply a function of neurons firing. Disney Pixar’s new film <a href="https://disney.co.uk/movies/soul">Soul</a> seems to go against the grain of this development. </p>
<p>It presents its viewers with two realms of being. The first is the realm of human activity, where life occurs. The second realm is of the soul – where life has yet to begin, the great before, and where it ends, the great beyond. In their conception of the soul, the producers hark back to some of the most influential ideas of western intellectual history but in an unmistakably 21st-century way.</p>
<h2>Souls, bodies and death</h2>
<p>The film follows Joe Gardner, an aspiring jazz pianist who is stuck in the rut of his daily life as a part-time middle school music teacher. At the beginning of the film, Joe suffers an accident which leaves him hovering between life and death. The viewer observes Joe’s soul separate from its body as it journeys to the great beyond. </p>
<p>This starting point accurately mirrors the historical origins of western ideas about the soul. The Greek word for soul – psyche – was originally restricted in its use to the context of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#1">dying</a>. Homer describes death as the soul’s departure from its body. At the beginning of its history in the west, the soul was evident primarily in its absence from a dead body.</p>
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<p>With the rise of Greek philosophy in the 6th century BC, the soul was also seen as the force animating the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4181870">living body</a>. Meanwhile, the idea of death as the separation of body and soul remained generally accepted. </p>
<p>This created tension. If souls were supposed to enliven a particular body, they had to interact closely with the body and arguably form a unity with it. But then how could the soul survive the body’s decay or even exist separately? </p>
<p>A further difficulty arose from the widely shared belief in reincarnation. Could human souls be born again into the bodies of animals or even plants? And if so, how could they then constitute the operational centre, so to speak, of their current host?</p>
<p>Plato and Aristotle parted ways over these questions. For <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#3.1">Plato</a>, the soul’s connection with the body was only accidental. The hero of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates, explained to his friends, hours before his execution, that the philosopher yearns for his <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/phaedo/#SH3a">death</a> because it marks the liberation of the soul into its true existence. </p>
<p>Plato’s student <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#4">Aristotle</a>, by contrast, denied that there even was a proper afterlife for the soul. Insofar as the soul was simply the life of the body, he urged, the two formed an indissoluble unity, which death brought to an end.</p>
<p>Things took a further turn with the rise of Christianity. Overall, Christians were more sympathetic to the Platonist view than to its alternatives, because they believed in a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/The-immortality-of-the-soul">life after death</a>. But they rejected the idea of an accidental connection between soul and body. The classical Christian view of the soul as found in <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/">Thomas Aquinas</a> fused Platonic with Aristotelian ideas: the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#BodSou">soul</a> is immortal but tied in eternity to the identity of a body-soul compound. As such, it will be brought back to life at the end of time.</p>
<h2>Pixar’s Platonist conception of the soul</h2>
<p>Against this rough sketch of the western history of the soul, Pixar’s position comes closest to the Platonic view. Souls depart from the dying person and travel to the great beyond. Souls also pre-exist their earthly incarnation, and some of them at least don’t seem overly keen to embark on this journey into life. Souls are immaterial - another tenet of Platonic philosophy - although in the movie they are understandably not invisible. Finally, reincarnation seems possible, even across species as Joe finds out when, for a while, he enters the body of a cat.</p>
<p>Yet the parallels only go so far. </p>
<p>Joe Gardner is unwilling to accept his departure from earthly life, and much of the movie deals with his attempts to return to his previous existence. For Plato, this would indicate that Joe was a bad person unable to detach himself from material pleasures. In the film, however, it is this desire that makes Joe remarkable. </p>
<p>His companion, a not-yet-born soul introduced only as number 22, learns more from Joe, due to his unbending will to return to Earth, than she did from the souls of Gandhi, Einstein and Jung, who had previously tutored her in preparation for her birth. In the world of 21st-century New York, into which the two enter through an extraordinary series of events, number 22 suddenly develops a lust for life after experiencing the simple pleasures of living — from eating pizza to watching the leaves fall from a tree.</p>
<p>None of this would have made much sense to Plato. Rather, the film relies on distinctly modern ideas about the affirmation of the present life as worth living on its own terms. The ultimate “purpose” of the soul is to be the “spark” that imparts the simple gift of life. </p>
<p>Joe’s conclusion from his experience as a disembodied soul is to savour every remaining moment of the earthly life he regains at the end of the film. And even number 22 comes to embrace the value of an embodied existence, despite its risks and limitations. </p>
<p>These are ideas well known from romantic and existentialist philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schleiermacher/">Friedrich Schleiermacher</a> (1768-1834) sneered at the notion of personal immortality as the ridiculous wish to perpetuate one’s own <a href="https://spiritual-minds.com/religion/philosophy/Schleiermacher%20-%20Speeches%20On%20Religion.pdf">miserable existence</a>. Instead, he posited the idea of “immortality in this moment”. The lesson Joe learns, and wants us to learn, from his unusual experience is rather similar, and points to the thoroughly modern cast into which traditional ideas about the soul have been moulded by the makers of this film.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you still haven’t seen this movie about a jazz pianist whose soul goes on a great adventure, it’s about time you did.Lydia Schumacher, Reader in Historical and Philosophical Theology, King's College LondonJohannes Zachhuber, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1481722020-10-19T19:00:21Z2020-10-19T19:00:21ZFive things to know about the Antichrist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363859/original/file-20201016-15-5el5wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C999%2C789&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Luca Signorelli's Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist ( c. 1499 and 1502). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luca_Signorelli_-_Sermon_and_Deeds_of_the_Antichrist_-_WGA21202.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the history of the West over the last 2000 years, there has never been a time when someone hasn’t been <a href="https://www.insider.com/apocalypse-end-of-world-predictions-theories-2019-1">predicting the end of the world</a>. </p>
<p>And now, with a seemingly insoluble <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/climate-change#tab=tab_1">climate crisis</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-26/coronavirus-climate-change-disasters-2020-hell-of-a-year/12696260">pandemic surges</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6a6bab93-21fc-4bd6-b309-86e394e3869b">savage wildfires and hurricanes</a>, and a renewed <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-18/this-nuclear-arms-race-is-worse-than-the-last-one">nuclear arms race</a>, seems no time to stop.</p>
<p>Many of us feel, as poet John Donne put it in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44092/an-anatomy-of-the-world">The Anatomy of the World</a> in 1611, “Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone”. </p>
<p>The Christian tradition tells us to be on the lookout for the Antichrist, who will appear <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1John%202:18">shortly before the big finish</a>. Vast amounts of Christian ink have been used to try and work out when he will come and just how we might identify him when he does.</p>
<p>Here, then, are five things to know just in case:</p>
<h2>1. He is the Son of Satan</h2>
<p>The Antichrist was the perfectly evil human being because he was completely opposite to the perfectly good human being, Jesus Christ. </p>
<p>Just as Christians came to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, so they thought that the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Antichrist">Antichrist was the Son of Satan</a>. Jesus was born of a virgin. So the Antichrist would be born of a woman who was apparently a virgin, but was really a whore. Where Christ was God in the flesh, the Antichrist was Satan in the flesh.</p>
<p>In The Christian New Testament there are only three passages that mention the Antichrist, all in the letters of John (I John 2.18-27, I John 4.1-6, 2 John 7). They suggest the end of the world should be expected at any moment. </p>
<p>Over the first several centuries of the Christian tradition, the scholars of the early Church started to pore over an array of other Biblical characters, finding references to the Antichrist within them: the “abomination of desolation” in the books of Daniel and Matthew; “the man of lawlessness” and “<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/4/1/77/htm">the son of perdition</a>” in a letter of Paul.</p>
<p>The book of Revelation <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Revelation-to-John">describes a singular figure</a> as “the beast from the earth” and “the beast from the sea” whose number is 666. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Religious painting of the antichrist with many heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Blake’s The number of the beast is 666 (1805-1810).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/william-blake/the-number-of-the-beast-is-666">Wikiart</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-things-to-know-about-the-traditional-christian-doctrine-of-hell-119380">5 things to know about the traditional Christian doctrine of hell</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. He is an earthly tyrant and trickster</h2>
<p>By the year 1000, the main outlines of the first of two narratives about the Antichrist was in place thanks to a noble-born Benedictine monk and abbot named <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810104321108">Adso of Montier-en-Der</a> (c. 920-92) who wrote a treatise on the subject. </p>
<p>According to him, the Antichrist would be a Jew from the tribe of Dan and born in Babylon. He would be brought up in all forms of wickedness by magicians and wizards. He would be accepted as the Messiah and ruler by the Jews in Jerusalem. Those Christians whom he could not convert to his cause, he would torture and kill. </p>
<p>He would then rule for seven years before being defeated by the angel Gabriel or Christ and the divine armies, prior to the resurrection of the dead and the Final Judgement. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078">Is God good? In the shadow of mass disaster, great minds have argued the toss</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Past popes have been accused</h2>
<p>By the year 1400, another narrative of the Antichrist had arisen. Now he was no longer the tyrant outside of the Church but the deceiver within it. In short, he was the Pope or even the institution of the papacy and the Church themselves. </p>
<p>As the English religious radical <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/early-christianity-biographies/john-wycliffe">John Wycliffe</a> (c. 1329-84) put it, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the Pope may obviously be the Antichrist, and yet not just that sole single individual… but rather the multitude of popes holding that position … along with the cardinals and bishops of the church.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was the position on the Antichrist adopted by Protestants at the time of the 16th century <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/reformation/reformation">Reformation</a>. <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/martin-luther.html">Martin Luther</a> (1483-1546) was convinced that he was living in the last days. For him, the Pope fitted all the criteria for the Antichrist. The Pope, he declared, “is the true end times Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A papal figure from behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Popes, old and new, have been targets for those on the lookout for the Antichrist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1476461386254-61c4ff3a1cc3?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2389&q=80">Unsplash/Nacho Arteaga</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/apocalypse-now-why-the-movies-want-the-world-to-end-every-year-11496">Apocalypse Now: why the movies want the world to end every year </a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. He is one and many</h2>
<p>Within conservative Christianity over the last century, Antichrists have multiplied. “The Antichrist” has become a general category available for application to an array of individuals, collectives, and objects as the demonic “other”. </p>
<p>Generally, predictions of a tyrant outside the church now dominate the idea of a deceiver within it. </p>
<p>American presidents are <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/11/white-house-shooter-and-obama-the-antichrist-were-other-presidents-called-the-antichrist.html">well represented</a>. When it comes to accusations of being the Antichrist, usually from the conservative religious right, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama have all been mentioned. Donald Trump is gaining popularity as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/stephen-long-should-we-call-trump-antichrist/12335450">a worthy candidate</a> with ethics scholar D. Stephen Long suggesting he represents: “not a single person but a political pattern that repeats itself by taking on power to oppress the poor and the just”. </p>
<p>American evangelist Jerry Falwell, known for <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/jerry-falwell-polarizing-preacher-merged-religion-politics-dies-at-73/">his controversial views on apartheid, homosexuality, Judaism, climate change and the Teletubbies</a>, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/05/did-jerry-falwell-think-i-was-the-antichrist.html">once said</a>: “The Antichrist will be a world leader, he’ll have supernatural powers”.</p>
<p>Hilary Clinton is, to the best of my knowledge, the only <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/197138-montana-gop-house-front-runner-calls-hillary-clinton-the-anti-christ">female candidate</a>. US Republican politician Ryan Zinke who was US Secretary of the Interior in the Trump Administration from 2017 until his resignation in 2019, threw the accusation in 2014. She later <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/hillary-clinton-ryan-zinke-antichrist_n_59b87e38e4b02da0e13d4666?ri18n=true">reassured him</a>, at Trump’s inauguration, that she wasn’t.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230610354_7">Osama bin Laden</a> was a favourite until his death, as was Saddam Hussein. </p>
<p>Marks of the beast have even been discerned by some in supermarket <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/">barcodes</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-your-pets-microchip-has-to-do-with-the-mark-of-the-beast-114493">pet microchips</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Firewalker amid blaze." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How close are we to a fiery end?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/9ByGZyc1nIo?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink">Unsplash/Alexandre Boucey</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-over-fiction-on-the-apocalyptic-super-blood-moon-47916">Fact over fiction on the 'apocalyptic' super blood moon</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>5. He dies in the end</h2>
<p>According to the Christian tradition, the Antichrist will finally be defeated by the armies of God under the leadership of Christ with the Kingdom of God (on earth or in heaven) to follow. </p>
<p>So, in spite of current appearances, Christianity holds firmly to the hope that evil will be finally overcome and that goodness will ultimately prevail. </p>
<p>The core idea of the Antichrist — of evil at the depths of things — lays upon all of us the ethical imperative to take evil seriously. Whether the end is nigh or not, we should work to minimise harm and maximise the good in the here and now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Christian tradition says the Antichrist will come before the end of the world as we know it. So it’s good to know some background on him … or her … or them.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440582020-08-27T03:39:16Z2020-08-27T03:39:16ZAcedia: the lost name for the emotion we’re all feeling right now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353990/original/file-20200821-24-1n91v2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C8%2C5579%2C3764&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514989427254-5acea8b5904e?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=3150&q=80"> Julien-Pier Belanger/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With some communities in rebooted lockdown conditions and movement restricted everywhere else, no one is posting pictures of their sourdough. Zoom cocktail parties have lost their novelty, Netflix can only release so many new series. The news seems worse every day, yet we compulsively scroll through it. </p>
<p>We get distracted by social media, yet have a pile of books unread. We keep meaning to go outside but somehow never find the time. We’re <a href="https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c">bored, listless, afraid and uncertain</a>.</p>
<p>What is this feeling?</p>
<p>John Cassian, a monk and theologian <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Institutes-translated-annotated-Boniface-Ramsey/dp/0809105225">wrote in the early 5th century</a> about an ancient Greek emotion called <em>acedia</em>. A mind “seized” by this emotion is “horrified at where he is, disgusted with his room … It does not allow him to stay still in his cell or to devote any effort to reading”. He feels: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>such bodily listlessness and yawning hunger as though he were worn by a long journey or a prolonged fast … Next he glances about and sighs that no one is coming to see him. Constantly in and out of his cell, he looks at the sun as if it were too slow in setting. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sounds eerily familiar. Yet, the name that so aptly describes our current state was lost to time and translation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-would-seneca-say-six-stoic-tips-for-surviving-lockdown-144346">What would Seneca say? Six Stoic tips for surviving lockdown</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Noonday demon</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acedia#:%7E:text=%22Acedia%22%20comes%20from%20a%20combination,%22deadly%20sin%22%20of%20sloth.">Etymologically</a>, acedia joins the negative prefix a- to the Greek noun <em>kēdos</em>, which means “care, concern, or grief”. It sounds like apathy, but Cassian’s description shows that acedia is much more daunting and complex than that.</p>
<p>Cassian and other early Christians called acedia “the noonday demon”, and sometimes described it as a “train of thought”. But they did not think it affected city-dwellers or even monks in communities. </p>
<p>Rather, acedia arose directly out the spatial and social constrictions that a solitary monastic life necessitates. These conditions generate a strange combination of listlessness, undirected anxiety, and inability to concentrate. Together these make up the paradoxical emotion of acedia.</p>
<p>Evagrius of Pontus included acedia among <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/desert-fathers-sins-acedia-sloth">the eight trains of thought</a> that needed to be overcome by devout Christians. Among these, acedia was considered the most insidious.
It attacked only after monks had conquered the sins of gluttony, fornication, avarice, sadness, anger, vainglory, and pride. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Slock on tree branch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353986/original/file-20200821-22-wihhtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Same same but different. The term acedia was folded into the sin of sloth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1509243271451-2b84555736ad?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2560&q=80">Javier Mazzeo/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cassian, a student of Evagrius, translated the list of sins into Latin. A later 6th century Latin edit gave us the Seven Deadly Sins. In this list, acedia was subsumed into “sloth”, a word we now associate with laziness.</p>
<p>Acedia appears throughout monastic and other literature of the Middle Ages. It was a key part of the emotional vocabulary of the Byzantine Empire, and can be found in all sorts of lists of “passions” (or, emotions) in medical literature and lexicons, as well as theological treatises and sermons.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acedia">first appeared in English</a> in print in 1607 to describe a state of spiritual listlessness. But it’s barely used today.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/personalities-that-thrive-in-isolation-and-what-we-can-all-learn-from-time-alone-135307">Personalities that thrive in isolation and what we can all learn from time alone</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Making like monks</h2>
<p>As clinical psychology has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835158/">reclassified emotions and mental states</a>, terms like “melancholy” can sound archaic and moralising. </p>
<p>Emotional expressions, norms, and scripts <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-06591-000">change over time</a> and vary between cultures. They mark out constellations of bodily sensations, patterns of thought and perceived social causes or effects. </p>
<p>Since these constellations are culturally or socially specific, as societies change, so do the emotions in their repertoire. With the decline of theological moralising, not to mention monastic influence, acedia has largely disappeared from secular vocabularies.</p>
<p>Now, the pandemic and governmental responses to it create social conditions that <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/04/22/were-all-monks-now">approximate those of desert monks</a>. No demons, perhaps, but social media offers a <a href="https://time.com/5802802/social-media-coronavirus/">barrage of bad (or misleading) news</a>.</p>
<p>Social distancing <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/those-alone-in-isolation-plead-for-lockdown-bubble-rule-for-one-friend-20200808-p55jvc.html">limits physical contact</a>. Lockdown constricts physical space and movement. Working from home or having lost work entirely both upend routines and habits. In these conditions, perhaps it’s time to bring back the term. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Engraving of person looking half asleep" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353988/original/file-20200821-16-8qjmf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hieronymus Wierix’s Acedia, a work from the late 16th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hieronymus_Wierix_-_Acedia_-_WGA25736.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-groundhog-day-and-my-time-in-a-monastery-taught-me-about-lockdown-143452">What Groundhog Day (and my time in a monastery) taught me about lockdown</a>
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<h2>More than a label</h2>
<p>Reviving the language of acedia is important to our experience in two ways.</p>
<p>First, it distinguishes the complex of emotions brought on by enforced isolation, constant uncertainty and the barrage of bad news from clinical terms like “depression” or “anxiety”. </p>
<p>Saying, “I’m feeling acedia” could legitimise feelings of listlessness and anxiety as valid emotions in our current context without inducing <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201709/feeling-guilty-about-feeling-bad">guilt that others have things worse</a>.</p>
<p>Second, and more importantly, the feelings associated with physical isolation are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7309680/">exacerbated by emotional isolation</a> – that terrible sense that this thing I feel is mine alone. When an experience can be named, it can be communicated and even shared. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-setting-aside-some-worry-time-can-help-reduce-anxiety-over-covid-19-lockdowns-144561">How setting aside some 'worry time' can help reduce anxiety over COVID-19 lockdowns</a>
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<p>Learning to express new or previously unrecognised constellations of feelings, sensations, and thoughts, builds an emotional repertoire, which assists in <a href="https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-resilience/">emotional regulation</a>. Naming and expressing experiences allows us to claim some agency in dealing with them. </p>
<p>As we, like Cassian’s desert monks, struggle through our own “long, dark teatime of the soul”, we can name this experience, which is now part of our emotional repertoire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan L. Zecher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ancient term ‘acedia’ describes the paradoxical combination of jangling nerves and vague lack of purpose many of us are feeling now. Reviving the label might help.Jonathan L. Zecher, Research fellow, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1450462020-08-26T03:53:26Z2020-08-26T03:53:26ZReligious concerns over vaccine production methods needn’t be an obstacle to immunisation<p>We tend to assume disseminating public health messages is solely the role of public servants such as Victorian chief medical officer Brett Sutton and his former federal counterpart Brendan Murphy, both of whom have become de facto celebrities during the pandemic.</p>
<p>But to ensure vital health information reaches everyone in our community, we need a range of spokespeople, including religious and community leaders.</p>
<p>However, church leaders have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/24/australias-deputy-chief-medical-officer-dismisses-church-objections-to-promising-covid-19-vaccine">expressed concerns</a> some Christians may face an “ethical dilemma” over Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination plans. </p>
<p>Sydney’s Catholic and Anglican Archbishops and the leader of Australia’s Greek Orthodox church told Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the University of Oxford’s candidate vaccine, set to be given to Australians if it proves successful, is potentially problematic because its production method relies on cell lines from an electively aborted foetus.</p>
<p>There are many examples of religious community leaders helping vaccination programs. I experienced this first-hand in 2013, when I supported a catch-up immunisation clinic at a large Samoan church in Western Sydney, which aimed to reduce the measles risk among the Pacific Islander community. One community member who participated told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most Pacific island people go to church. Maybe this is one of the best channels to go through. Ministers, because their job is spiritual health as well, will give out information for the health of their people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That was the first time an Australian church had hosted an immunisation clinic. But the idea of religion crossing over with immunisation is not new. The <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/39485">earliest recorded example</a> of “variolation” (or inoculation) was an 11th-century Buddhist nun’s innovative practice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She ground scabs taken from a person infected with smallpox (variola) into a powder, and then blew it into the nostrils of a non-immune person to induce immunity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Several centuries on, things are more vexed. While major faith traditions endorse the principles supporting the public health goals of vaccination, hesitancy has been documented at an individual <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/4/e20190933?utm_source=highwire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Pediatrics_etoc">clergy level</a>, and concerns have been raised at an organisation level from time to time. </p>
<p>The church leaders who wrote to Morrison have asked the government not to pressure Australians to use the vaccine if it goes against their religious or moral beliefs. Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/24/australias-deputy-chief-medical-officer-dismisses-church-objections-to-promising-covid-19-vaccine">called on the government</a> to pursue arrangements for alternative vaccines that do not involve the foetus-derived cell lines.</p>
<h2>What’s a cell line anyway?</h2>
<p>A cell line is a population of cells that is grown continuously in the laboratory for extended periods. Once established, cell lines have an unlimited lifespan and so are a renewable and reliable system for growing viruses. </p>
<p>Some cell lines, called human diploid cell lines <a href="https://www.atcc.org/products/all/CCL-75.aspx">WI-38</a> and <a href="https://www.coriell.org/0/Sections/Search/Sample_Detail.aspx?Ref=AG05965-C">MRC-5</a>, came from three abortions performed for medical reasons (including psychiatric reasons) in the 1960s. </p>
<p>These abortions were not done for the purpose of harvesting the cells. Cells taken from these cell lines are used to grow the virus, but are then discarded and not included in the vaccine formulation.</p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/questions-about-vaccination">several licensed vaccines</a> have been manufactured using cell lines that originally came from this foetal tissue from the 1960s. This includes the vaccines against rubella, hepatitis A, varicella (chickenpox), and rabies.</p>
<p>The Catholic church has previously grappled with this issue. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, ethicists at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X13001898?casa_token=zF4teD4ovC4AAAAA:Gi14g2FtCUYrNlzofhf_Zt0tfgpVXbOqqTmCd8mpM3OpOSQLxTNCMWH3n50pFVr6_9Fp7GP_s0s#bib0970">declared</a> the abortions from which the cell lines were derived were events that occurred in the past. Most importantly, they acknowledged the intent of the abortions was not to produce the cell lines, and therefore being immunised is a morally separate event from the abortions themselves.</p>
<p>In 2017, the Pontifical Academy for Life reiterated this stance, <a href="http://www.academyforlife.va/content/pav/en/the-academy/activity-academy/note-vaccini.html">stating</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…we believe that all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience and that the use of such vaccines does not signify some sort of cooperation with voluntary abortion. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Moreover, it concluded there is a “moral responsibility to vaccinate […] to avoid serious health risks for children and the general population”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-freedom-of-religion-wont-likely-trump-public-health-interests-with-a-future-covid-19-vaccine-145030">Why freedom of religion won't likely trump public health interests with a future COVID-19 vaccine</a>
</strong>
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<h2>Health comes first</h2>
<p>Supporting public health goals is the key principle previously applied by major faith institutions in situations where ethical issues around vaccination have been <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/4/e20190933?utm_source=highwire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Pediatrics_etoc#ref-4">raised</a>. One previous example is the use of gelatin – which is made from pig skin or bones and is forbidden as a food by some religions – in vaccine and medicine capsules. </p>
<p>After reflecting on the issue, the Kuwait-based Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences <a href="https://www.immunize.org/talking-about-vaccines/porcine.pdf">declared in 1995</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the gelatin formed as a result of the transformation of the bones, skin and tendons of a judicially impure animal is pure, and it is judicially permissible to eat it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Grand Mufti of Australia <a href="https://mvec.mcri.edu.au/immunisation-references/porcine-gelatin-and-vaccines/">released a letter in 2013</a> supporting this judgement, ruling it is acceptable for Australian Muslims to take vaccines containing pork-derived gelatin.</p>
<p>In the case of both gelatin and human cell lines, religious organisations have called on vaccine manufacturers to use alternative methods where possible. Yet given the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may not be feasible or ethical to delay or seek alternative vaccines. </p>
<p>This sentiment was outlined by Reverend Kevin McGovern, a Catholic priest and adjunct lecturer at the Australian Catholic University and the Catholic Theological College, in a recent piece for the ABC: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Developing ethically uncompromised cell lines and vaccines is important. In the crisis of this pandemic, developing and using an effective vaccine so as to save lives is even more important.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While this article is reflecting on religious organisations and vaccination, at an individual level it’s important to note that people who profess to decline vaccines for religious reasons may in fact be motivated not by theological concerns but by their own personal views about vaccine safety, perhaps influenced and echoed by others in their clustered social networks. </p>
<p>For example, US based studies have suggested some parents <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/6/e20192710?casa_token=MC5tFhO65m8AAAAA%3AIm0TxuCZCLuxkBI7JW9FsChZm1rRTgf5uq0sb6S_j6nSpTQc64Kb2f_yQ-vMalAU4O4af0s6eyPMlw#ref-22">circumvent vaccine requirements</a> by claiming religious exemptions, in the absence of a personal belief alternative. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-we-can-prepare-the-public-to-accept-a-covid-19-vaccine-saying-it-will-be-mandatory-isnt-one-144730">5 ways we can prepare the public to accept a COVID-19 vaccine (saying it will be 'mandatory' isn't one)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To move forward, it’s important public health officials work with religious leaders to ensure they are equipped with accurate information about the potential COVID-19 vaccine, its development process and the rationale for its use. Engaging these leaders and building trust are crucial steps into the intersection of religion and vaccination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Seale has previously received funding from NHMRC and from vaccine manufacturers for investigator-driven research. She is Deputy Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation. She does not hold any religious affiliation or funding, or endorse any religious organisation. </span></em></p>Church leaders have raised concerns over a COVID-19 vaccine produced using cells derived from aborted foetuses. But the Vatican has already ruled such vaccines ‘morally separate’ from the abortions.Holly Seale, Senior Lecturer, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1410862020-07-30T07:59:28Z2020-07-30T07:59:28ZIf our reality is a video game, does that solve the problem of evil?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346114/original/file-20200707-194418-1334xzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=477%2C98%2C4528%2C3721&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/artificial-intelligence-concept-virtual-human-avatar-1068287444">Shutterstock/kmls</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pandemics and natural disasters cause pain and suffering to millions worldwide and can challenge the very foundations of human belief systems. They can be particularly challenging for those who believe in an all-knowing and righteous God. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078">Lisbon earthquake</a> of 1755, for example, shook the previously unquestioned faith of many and led Voltaire to question whether this really could be the best of all possible worlds. </p>
<p>When the <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/spanish-flu-the-virus-that-changed-the-world/">Spanish flu</a> struck in 1918, some chose to see it as divine punishment for the sins of mankind and looked to prayer, rather than science, for salvation. Notoriously, the Bishop of Zamora resisted calls from the Spanish authorities to close his churches and instead insisted on holding additional masses and processions.</p>
<p>From a theological standpoint, natural disasters and pandemics inevitably raise the profile of the long-standing and much-debated “problem of evil”. Here is philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson">Galen Strawson’s</a> take on <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/12/06/what-can-be-proved-about-god/">the problem</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We can, for example, know with certainty that the Christian God does not exist as standardly defined: a being who is omniscient, omnipotent and wholly benevolent. The proof lies in the world, which is full of extraordinary suffering…belief in such a God, however rare, is profoundly immoral. It shows contempt for the reality of human suffering, or indeed any intense suffering.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But suppose the person who was directly responsible for creating the world wasn’t God but some far lesser, far more fallible being. Someone more akin to an ordinary human engineer or scientist – or even a movie director or video-game designer. Let us further suppose that the diseases and disasters that can be found in the world are all the result of design choices, freely made by this non-divine designer of worlds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346304/original/file-20200708-3978-1bgx34v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Creation of Adam - a reproduction from a section of Michelangelo’s fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/creation-adam-digital-sketch-reproduction-section-1608382417">Shutterstock/FreedaMichaux</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This may seem fantastically far fetched. But in the realm of physics just these kinds of scenarios are being played out as scientists work on the complex mathematics behind lab-created “pocket universes” and tech leaders, such as Elon Musk, explore the potential of <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/heres-how-elon-musk-plans-to-stitch-a-computer-into-your-brain/">brain-machine interfaces</a>.</p>
<p>It’s also important to appreciate that if this <em>were</em> the case then for many theists God could no longer be blamed for much of the suffering that exists in our world and the problem of evil would be very largely solved.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>Why? Because for theists human beings are creatures of a very special sort: thanks to our God-given free will we have the ability to <em>choose</em> whether we act well or badly. And, generally speaking, God does not interfere with these choices or their consequences. If a free agent acts appallingly (committing murder, rape or genocide) the resulting “moral evil” is to be greatly regretted, but God should not be blamed. The fault lies entirely with the person who freely chose to act in this way. </p>
<h2>Morality and natural evils</h2>
<p>Morality and free will are deeply intertwined. If someone does something very wrong, they aren’t morally at fault if they only acted in that way because they were hypnotised or brainwashed. Similarly, if someone performs a good act (giving food to a starving child, say) but only did so because a gun was pointed at their heads, they are not morally praiseworthy. </p>
<p>Most religious believers hold that humans have the capacity to make free choices. They also believe that anyone who chooses to do the right things can expect to be rewarded by God, whereas those who act wrongly can expect to be punished. For this to be possible God has to not only provide us with free will, he also has to allow us to carry out those actions we freely choose to perform – the bad ones included. </p>
<p>This “free will solution” to the problem of evil has been a mainstay of theology since it was elaborated by <a href="http://sites.nd.edu/ujournal/files/2014/07/Peterson_05-06.pdf">St Augustine</a> more than 1,500 years ago. From the theological perspective, the so-called “natural evils” pose a far more intractable problem. These include all the vast amounts of suffering caused by diseases, earthquakes and floods along with the agonies suffered by animals. As normally construed, these sources of suffering are <em>not</em> moral evils, since they are not the result of freely chosen human actions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344076/original/file-20200625-33569-1tbdbps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apocalyptic vision of giant tsunami waves crashing small coastal town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/apocalyptic-dramatic-background-giant-tsunami-waves-154310390">Shutterstock/IgorZh</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hence the problem posed by such evils for anyone who believes that God created our world. Couldn’t a creator that is truly all-powerful, all-knowing and good have made a much better job of it? In fact, wouldn’t it have been quite easy for God to ensure that the world contains far fewer natural evils? A few tweaks to human DNA would provide <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325178">immunity to cancer</a>. A slightly different tweak would provide immunity to viruses. When designing the animals an all-powerful God would not need to rely on the incredibly slow and imperfect method of evolution by natural selection – a process which inevitably results in vast amounts of <a href="https://imagejournal.org/article/darwin-and-the-problem-of-time/">pain and suffering</a>.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if the maker of our world was not all-powerful, or all-knowing, or as good as it’s possible to be, then it’s not surprising to find ourselves living in the sort of world we do. </p>
<h2>Alternate realities and bubbles</h2>
<p>As for why we should take seriously the idea that there can be makers of worlds who are less than divine, there is no shortage of relevant scenarios to be found in science, science fiction and philosophy.</p>
<p>Among the obstacles that <a href="https://home.cern/about">Cern</a> had to overcome when constructing the Large Hadron Collider (the very large and powerful machine which discovered the <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-the-higgs-nobel-be-the-end-of-particle-physics-18978">Higgs boson</a> in 2012) was persuading a worried public that running the collider would not create a <a href="https://home.cern/resources/faqs/will-cern-generate-black-hole">mini-black hole</a> that would escape the confines of the lab and go on to consume the entire planet. Although there was no real danger of this happening, such worries were by no means entirely groundless. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346310/original/file-20200708-47-hnx79q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Higgs boson was detected in 2012 in the experiments, conducted with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cern-european-organization-nuclear-research-where-1287557641">Shutterstock/DVISIONS</a></span>
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<p>As long ago as the 1980s and 1990s, <a href="https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-286-the-early-universe-fall-2013/video-lectures/lecture-1-inflationary-cosmology-is-our-universe-part-of-a-multiverse/">Alan Guth</a> and <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2004/05/the-creation-of-the-universe.html">Andrei Linde</a> (respected physicists and pioneers of the now widely accepted <a href="http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/outreach/origins/inflation_zero.php">inflationary cosmology</a>) raised the possibility that scientists might soon be able to create “bubble” or “pocket” universes in a laboratory. Initially sub-microscopic, the newly created bubble universe rapidly expands and soon constitutes a full-scale cosmos in its own right. These new universes create their own space and time as they grow, so they take up no room at all in our world and pose no threat to us.</p>
<p>The energy driving the expansion of the envisaged pocket universes derives from the same <a href="http://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/the-inflated-debate-over-cosmic-inflation">inflationary field</a> that cosmologists believe was responsible for an explosive expansion in our own universe that took place shortly after the big bang. During this brief period the scale of the universe’s expansion was enormous, it got trillions of times bigger in little more than an instant. But since the negative energy perfectly cancels the positive energy of the matter being created, no energy conservation laws are infringed. As Guth is fond of remarking, the universe is the ultimate free lunch.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-does-an-experiment-at-the-large-hadron-collider-work-42846">Explainer: how does an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider work?</a>
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<p>Various methods for creating universes in labs have since been proposed, including compressing a few grams of ordinary matter into a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/14/science/physicist-aims-to-create-a-universe-literally.html">very small volume</a> to create small black holes and deploying <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0602084.pdf">stable magnetic monopoles</a> to create exotic spacetime structures. Precisely controlling the physical laws that govern the worlds created by these methods will not be easy. But physicists have <a href="http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1995QJRAS..36..193H/0000193.000.html">not ruled out the possibility</a> of fine tuning their basic physical constants to render them more capable of sustaining the complex structures needed for life.</p>
<p>Even if creating such universes requires knowledge and technology that we do not currently possess, a scientifically more advanced civilisation could easily possess what is required. Hence Linde’s playful quip: “Does this mean that our universe was created, not by a divine design, but by a physicist hacker?”</p>
<h2>The simulation argument</h2>
<p>This is one potential route to creating an entire world. But there are other possibilities, too. Perhaps in reality humans are all characters living inside something akin to a vast multi-player online video game, running on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlTKTTt47WE">super-powerful computer</a>. </p>
<p>By the 1980s and 90s science fiction writers such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/23/surface-detail-iain-banks-review">Iain M Banks</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_(novel)">Greg Bear</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)">Greg Egan</a> had started to explore the fictional possibilities of wholly computer-generated virtual realities in impressive depth and detail. The inhabitants of these worlds might seem to have ordinary physical bodies and brains, but like everything else in these worlds, their bodies and brains were virtual rather than physical, existing only as data flowing through a computer’s innards. </p>
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<p>The 1982 Disney production <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/">TRON</a> was an early movie depiction of this sort of wholly computer-generated virtual world. The human protagonists are converted into data (or “digitised”) by a specially adapted laser beam, which allows them to embark on adventures in a digital virtual reality. The movie’s ground-breaking computer-generated imagery may be unremarkable by contemporary standards, but they are vastly more sophisticated than those found in the early video game <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4VRgY3tkh0">PONG</a>, one of the main <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/04/movies/special-effects-are-revolutionizing-film.html?pagewanted=2">inspirations for the movie</a>.</p>
<p>In 2003 the philosopher Nick Bostrom published his much-discussed “simulation argument”, the upshot of which is that not only are TRON-style virtual worlds perfectly possible, there is a significant probability that <a href="https://www.simulation-argument.com">we are living in one</a>. Bostrom’s initially surprising conclusion is based on some by no means implausible assumptions regarding the computational capacity that future computers are likely to possess (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/35023282">astonishingly vast</a>, it turns out). </p>
<p>If we do exist inside a computer simulation, then since we are all conscious (at least while we’re awake) it must be possible for a computer to generate the kinds of experiences we are enjoying right now. If consciousness required a biological brain, Bostrom’s simulation scenario wouldn’t get off the ground. But science fiction writers were not the only people to be impressed by the arrival of computers. </p>
<p>In the 1970s and 80s increasing numbers of philosophers came round to the view that conscious mentality is not essentially biological in character. Slogans such as, “mind is related to brain as software is related to hardware” seemed very plausible, not only to philosophers but to psychologists and neuroscientists too. If mentality is essentially a matter of information flow (as the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/#Plu">computer analogy</a> suggested) then anything could possess a mind provided it processes information in the right sorts of ways. And computers seemed at least as well suited to this task as a biological brain.</p>
<p>Less radical forms of virtual worlds are also possible and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B70Hapf_okE">Matrix movies</a> provide a well-known example. In this scenario most humans find themselves living somewhere that seems similar to contemporary Earth. In reality, their entire environment is, in effect, a communal mass hallucination – a wholly virtual world produced by a powerful computer hooked into people’s brains via a neural interface. But it doesn’t seem like that: the virtual world seems just as real as our world. </p>
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<p>Smaller scale variants of this scenario are also possible. Instead of an entire planetary population being simultaneously plugged into the same virtual world, just a few people are. Perhaps you are a 22nd-century schoolchild, enjoying a virtual lesson supplied via a tiny but highly sophisticated neural interface, spending a bit of time learning what it was like to be an early 21st-century person leading a perfectly ordinary life. In an hour or so your lesson will finish and your version of the 21st century will come to an end. </p>
<h2>A video game? Seriously?</h2>
<p>A Matrix-style brain-computer interface is capable of controlling every aspect of a subject’s sensory consciousness down to the smallest detail. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be able to supply a completely lifelike total virtual reality experience, involving vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Society does not possess anything close to this kind of technology at present. But there is every reason to believe it is possible, in principle, and rapid advances are already being made. </p>
<p>The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) made <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/03/woman-controls-fighter-jet-sim-using-mind/">headlines</a> in 2017 when one of its neural interfaces allowed a paralysed woman to control a jet plane in a flight simulator. More recently, Elon Musk’s Neuralink start-up announced that it had designed a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6204648-Neuralink-White-Paper.html">neurosurgical robot</a> capable of inserting 192 electrodes a minute into a rat’s brain without triggering bleeding and experiments involving humans are expected to begin soon.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-says-were-probably-living-in-a-computer-simulation-heres-the-science-60821">Elon Musk says we're probably living in a computer simulation – here's the science</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The science and technology needed to undertake this kind of world-making will be more advanced than anything we possess at present, but not by enormous or inconceivable margins. These are technologies we might reasonably expect to develop within a century or so – perhaps sooner.</p>
<p>In any event, the capabilities of these world-makers evidently fall far short of the capabilities of the omniscient, omnipotent and wholly benevolent God of traditional theism. Given the world’s many and varied imperfections, if there is a creator at all, doesn’t it seem more reasonable to suppose that it is of the non-divine variety? Someone more akin to the physicist hacker envisaged by Linde, or the virtual-reality programmers envisaged by Bostrom?</p>
<p>Adopting this hypothesis does not mean the theistic God is entirely redundant – far from it. Theists can still be confident that God is the ultimate creative force in the cosmos. Maybe it was God who brought the primordial cosmos into existence and furnished it with natural laws that allowed its less-than-divine inhabitants to develop the capability of acting as world-makers in their own right, with all the <a href="https://reducing-suffering.org/lab-universes-creating-infinite-suffering/">moral responsibilities</a> this brings. Although there is (at present) no way for us to find out what this divinely created world was like, we can be certain of one thing: being far better designed, it contains far fewer natural evils than can be found in this world, and so far less death and suffering.</p>
<p>But would a benevolent God allow less-than-divine people to create their own worlds? There is at least one compelling reason to think they would. As recent history has shown (think of the suffering resulting from the actions of Hitler, Stalin or Mao) God grants people a great deal of leeway when it comes to making choices that have horrendous consequences for untold millions of innocent men, women and children.</p>
<p>The problem of evil has bedevilled monotheistic religions ever since their inception, and the idea of extending the free-will solution to encompass natural evil has always been available. But until very recently, the idea that anything other than a being possessing supernatural powers could create a world such as ours was almost impossible to take seriously. This is no longer the case. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barry Dainton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What if the being responsible for creating our world wasn’t God, but some far lesser, far more fallible being like a scientist or video game designer?Barry Dainton, Professor of Philosophy, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1357942020-04-30T19:48:14Z2020-04-30T19:48:14ZI once thought Catholic humanist Jean Vanier a hero. Now I’m wrestling with his coercive legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331167/original/file-20200428-110752-zj4adq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C3254%2C1981&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche communities, poses for a photograph after he received the Templeton Prize at St. Martins-in-the-Fields church in London, U.K., in May 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Jean Vanier passed away in May 2019, the Canadian Catholic founder of the <a href="https://www.larche.org/en/web/guest/welcome?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_qHUoc-O6QIVwpFbCh3McQC3EAAYASAAEgJOp_D_BwE">L'Arche International</a> movement that challenged barriers between people with disabilities and able-bodied people was hailed as a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/obituaries/jean-vanier-dead.html">saviour to people on the margins</a>.” </p>
<p>But since <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/arche-founder-jean-vanier-1.5472616">news of his abuse of six women broke in Feburary 2020</a>, many who once thought him a hero have struggled to make sense of the man and his legacy.</p>
<p>I include myself in this group. </p>
<p>As a former caregiver of people with disablities, I came to see Vanier’s <a href="http://www.paulistpress.com/Products/3341-5/from-brokenness-to-community.aspx">theology of disability</a> as one that <a href="http://dltbooks.com/titles/2261-9780232534375-jean-vanier-essential-writings">had the capacity to transform</a> not only hearts and minds, but also communities and structures. But since learning of the abuse, I have come to see it otherwise. </p>
<h2>Coercive underside</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.larche.org/documents/10181/2539004/Inquiry-Summary_Report-Final-2020_02_22-EN.pdf/6f25e92c-35fe-44e8-a80b-dd79ede4746b">report released by L'Arche International in February this year</a> detailed that a comprehensive and impartial (non-judicial) inquiry found there was “sufficient evidence … that Jean Vanier engaged in manipulative sexual relationships with at least six adult (not disabled) women.”</p>
<p>Vanier had a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Vanier">PhD in philosophy</a> and he wrote extensively about disability as informed by the Gospel. Among Catholics and some in the public <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1998-cbc-massey-lectures-becoming-human-1.2946860">in Canada and</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/07/jean-vanier-obituary">internationally</a>, he came to hold a place of <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/03/13/my-conversations-jean-vanier-raised-many-questions-i-have-no-answers">moral authority</a>.</p>
<p>Yet as the L’Arche report attests, there was a coercive underside to Vanier’s life: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The relationships involved various kinds of sexual behaviour often combined with so called ‘mystical and spiritual’ justifications for this conduct.… the alleged victims felt deprived of their free will <a href="https://www.larche.org/documents/10181/2539004/Inquiry-Summary_Report-Final-2020_02_22-EN.pdf/6f25e92c-35fe-44e8-a80b-dd79ede4746b">and so the sexual activity was coerced or took place under coercive conditions</a> ….” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a religious studies scholar who has researched <a href="https://www.augsburgfortress.org/store/productgroup/543/Thinking-Christ">both how Christians understand Christ</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930607003328">feminist theology</a>, I believe this coercive underside is intimately tied to Vanier’s theology. I also believe it was enabled by cultural and religious tolerance for the veneration of male religious leaders that simultaneously marginalizes women. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331169/original/file-20200428-110779-p64zvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jean Vanier following a news conference in London about his receipt of the Templeton Prize, in March 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women as not human</h2>
<p>Throughout Vanier’s writing on disability, there remained a tendency to regard persons with disability as instrumental to our salvation, to human growth and development. Vanier wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What is true for people with disabilities is true for all those who are weak and in need. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1300/J095v08n03_03">They call us to greater compassion, kindness, and tenderness</a>. They can teach us to become human.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sadly, accounts presented by the inquiry suggest Vanier did not see women as unique human persons but rather regarded them as a “type.” For example, the L'Arche report quotes from a woman’s account of Vanier saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This is not us, this is Mary and Jesus. You are chosen, you are special, this is secret.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Vanier’s apparent exaltation of the woman as the chosen and blessed Mary (Jesus’s mother), he also <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/johnson-moral-blindness-and-the-fall-of-jean-vanier/">dehumanized</a> her. There was no recourse to community, so central to Vanier’s vision of “<a href="https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/3-185-3/becoming-human.aspx">becoming human</a>”: instead the women were spiritualized, and he exploited them with impunity.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1231323585261817856"}"></div></p>
<h2>The autonomy of desire</h2>
<p>In Vanier’s theology, he advocated the view that desire simply needs to be properly disciplined by the will. As Vanier wrote in one of his most scholarly works, <em><a href="https://houseofanansi.com/products/made-for-happiness">Made for Happiness: Discovering the Meaning of Life with Aristotle</a></em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In themselves our desires tend to be chaotic, either excessive or defective. Like runaway, riderless horses, they await direction. Man’s proper task is to take hold of the reins and guide them … with all their fulminating energy, towards their sought-after end.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is immediately clear from reading the L'Arche report is Vanier not only lost control of these runaway horses — that is, his own lust — but that the end to which he was steering them was grotesquely self-serving. </p>
<p>Vanier tended to neglect sin in his description of human desire. For example, in his book <em>Drawn Into the Mystery of Jesus Through the Gospel of John</em>, Vanier suggests sin is refusal. Sin is “the wall constructed that prevents us from <a href="http://www.paulistpress.com/Products/3-274-4/drawn-into-the-mystery-of-jesus-through-the-gospel-of-john.aspx">being open to Jesus, to others, and to our deepest self</a>.” </p>
<p>But perhaps Vanier’s unqualified openness to person-to-person encounters as positive exchanges prevented him from seeing how <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Christianity_Patriarchy_and_Abuse.html?id=3-LYAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">human relations are also fraught with coercion and asymmetrical power</a>.</p>
<h2>Conduit for devotion</h2>
<p>The shadow side of desire — how desire is also intractable and easily bent on a lust for rule that can obliterate others’ needs or enable self-deception — was never adequately captured by Vanier’s theology. But it is patently clear in women’s accounts of abuse. </p>
<p>To one of the alleged victims, Vanier made the troubling claim that her love of Christ should be made manifest in her expression of love for Vanier himself, for he was a conduit through which his victim could express her devotion:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When I expressed my astonishment saying … how could I manifest my love to Jesus and to him, he replied: ‘But Jesus and myself, this is not two, but we are one. … It is Jesus who loves you through me.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The habit of baptizing human desire with divine intention and purposefulness has been a <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199895670.001.0001/acprof-9780199895670">source of theological justification for more than one Christian sexual predator</a>. </p>
<h2>Guise of 'mystical doctrine’</h2>
<p>Vanier’s secrecy extended beyond the abuses that he perpetuated. The L'Arche report found from the 1950s forward, Vanier maintained a close relationship with his spiritual mentor, <a href="http://www.lavie.fr/religion/catholicisme/affaire-jean-vanier-la-responsabilite-des-dominicains-sous-l-oeil-des-historiens-24-02-2020-104107_16.php">Father Thomas Philippe</a>, who <a href="https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/12199/brothers-of-saint-john-denounce-sexually-abusive-founder-">sexually abused women</a> under the guise of <a href="https://www.larche.org/documents/10181/1126084/1510-10-Article_La_Croix-PereThomasPhilippe-EN.pdf/1ea3e2e0-448b-48b6-b161-6e2253859f55">mystical doctrine</a>.</p>
<p>A canonical trial condemned both the conduct and teachings of Father Philippe in 1956 after two women abused by the priest stepped forward. According to L'Arche’s report, “in 1956 there was no … doubt” that Vanier “had been informed of the reasons for the condemnation.” </p>
<p>The L'Arche report found that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“because Jean Vanier did not denounce the theories and practices of Father Thomas Philippe of which Jean Vanier was personally aware as early as the 1950s, it was possible for Father Thomas Philippe to continue his sexual abuse of women in L'Arche and it allowed Father Thomas Philippe to expand his spiritual influence on founders and members of other communities.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After more allegations against Father Philippe emerged in 2014, Vanier issued statements <a href="https://www.larche.org/documents/10181/1126084/1505_LetterJV_EN.pdf/4dc9c755-5794-409a-979d-dd108bdd7964">in 2015</a> <a href="http://www.larche.org/documents/10181/1126084/JV_2016_10-LetterILT-EN.pdf/fb4c82bf-4908-4ae9-901b-6a0f2427e224">and 2016</a> and “essentially stated he was <a href="https://www.larche.org/documents/10181/2539004/Inquiry-Summary_Report-Final-2020_02_22-EN.pdf/6f25e92c-35fe-44e8-a80b-dd79ede4746b">not aware of Father Thomas Philippe’s behaviour</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331426/original/file-20200429-51466-2nhvif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jean Vanier with Father Thomas Philippe, date unknown. A still taken from Radio Canada’s ‘Retour sur la vie du fondateur de l'Arche.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">('Retour sur la vie du fondateur de l'Arche'/Radio Canada/le Téléjournal/YouTube)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only was Vanier aware, he was engaged in the same practices. One of the women testified that when she <a href="https://www.larche.org/documents/10181/2539004/Inquiry-Summary_Report-Final-2020_02_22-EN.pdf/6f25e92c-35fe-44e8-a80b-dd79ede4746b">went to Father Thomas to seek his advice to discuss the “secret” with Jean Vanier, she was similarly abused</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There was a curtain, and he sat on the bed. Before I could start talking about Jean Vanier, it started with him, the same as with Jean Vanier. He was not tender like Jean Vanier. More brutal … (and he used the) same words to say that I am special and that all this is about Jesus and Mary.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Veneration for the (male) leader</h2>
<p>Cultic <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/grace-margins/no-jean-vanier-not-all-us">veneration that surrounded Father Philippe was replicated in the kind of adoration Vanier received</a> as a spiritual leader. This made it make it almost impossible for the women to come forward. </p>
<p>One woman testified:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I was like frozen, I realized that Jean Vanier was adored by hundreds of people, like a living Saint … I found it difficult to raise the issue.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The veneration of the male religious leader is a common and pernicious habit of some Christian churches. In the Catholic Church, women have no hierarchical decision-making power and they cannot signify the holiness of Christ as men can. In this way, women lack spiritual authority and are discredited and marginalized.</p>
<h2>The founder is not the community</h2>
<p>The legacy of Jean Vanier will be forever compromised due to the nature and gravity of his actions. </p>
<p>This is not to say that the work of L’Arche is compromised. L’Arche consists of countless decent persons of goodwill whose work conforms to a vision that its founder could never quite attain. </p>
<p>Distinctions are important in theology as in life. The distinction to be made here is not between the sin and the sinner, for they are interdependent. The only distinction to be made is between the founder and the community that he helped found. There is one we must stand against and another we must stand behind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Barter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jean Vanier, Catholic founder of L'Arche International, allegedly had abusive sexual relationships. Religious tolerance for the veneration of male leaders may be partly to blame.Jane Barter, Professor, Department of Religion and Culture, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1370782020-04-28T19:54:47Z2020-04-28T19:54:47ZIs God good? In the shadow of mass disaster, great minds have argued the toss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330898/original/file-20200428-76570-qtkwah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C6%2C1020%2C706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ruins of the Tower of St Roch, or Tower of the Patriarch, following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Ruinas_da_Torre_de_S._Roque_ou_Torre_do_Patriarca_ap%C3%B3s_o_Terramoto_de_1755_-_Jacques_Philippe_Le_Bas%2C_1757.png/1024px-Ruinas_da_Torre_de_S._Roque_ou_Torre_do_Patriarca_ap%C3%B3s_o_Terramoto_de_1755_-_Jacques_Philippe_Le_Bas%2C_1757.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In classical Western theism, God is said to be both good and all-powerful. So how do we square natural disasters – global pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, bushfires, and so on – with a God who, because he is good, would not want natural disasters and, because he is all-powerful, could stop them if he wished?</p>
<p>This was a question asked after the devastating Lisbon earthquake by <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voltaire/">Voltaire</a> (1694-1778), one of the great philosophers of the European Enlightenment. It led to one of his most famous works: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19942/19942-h/19942-h.htm">Candide</a>, or <em>l‘Optimisme</em> (1759).</p>
<p>On 1 November 1755, at 9.30am, Lisbon in Portugal was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Lisbon-earthquake-of-1755">almost totally destroyed</a> by an earthquake, followed by further tremors, fires, a tsunami, and civil unrest. It was All Saints Day and large numbers of people were killed as churches collapsed upon them. Statistics for natural disasters, then as now, are notoriously rubbery. But between 20,000 and 40,000 people died out of a population of some 200,000. </p>
<p>Then, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-religion.html">as now</a>, people wondered whether there was <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/480053">a divine plan to the devastation</a> that shook their Christian beliefs and monuments. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-there-god-whether-we-pray-harder-or-endure-wrath-depends-on-the-religious-doctrine-of-providence-134139">Are you there God? Whether we pray harder or endure wrath depends on the religious doctrine of Providence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Beyond the appearance of evil</h2>
<p>In writing Candide, Voltaire had the German philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/">Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz</a> (1646-1716) in his sights and especially his essays on the goodness of God in <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17147/17147-h/17147-h.htm">Theodicy</a> (1710). For Leibniz, in spite of evils both natural and moral, this was still the best of all possible worlds. It was the best that God could have made. This was because it had both the greatest variety of things and the simplest laws of nature. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330900/original/file-20200428-76560-g5yjrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. A portrait by Bernhard Christoph Francke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz%2C_Bernhard_Christoph_Francke.jpg/512px-Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz%2C_Bernhard_Christoph_Francke.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evils both natural and moral, Leibniz declared, were part of an overall universal good. If the “smallest evil that comes to pass in the world were missing in it,” he declared, “it would no longer be this world; which, with nothing omitted and all allowance made, was found the best by the Creator who chose it”. </p>
<p>While Leibniz admitted it was possible to imagine worlds without sin and without unhappiness, “these same worlds would be very inferior to ours in goodness”. God was, in other words, the perfect gardener in spite of the cosmic weeds.</p>
<p>Before God created this world, according to Leibniz, he compared all possible worlds in order to choose the one that was best. Thus, God created a world that was all the more harmonic for some pain, acidity, and darkness rather than being all pleasure, sweetness, and light. </p>
<p>Leibniz wasn’t stupid. He saw that the “appearances” of evil in the world strongly cut against God’s goodness and justice. He refused, however, to allow the evils of the world to count decisively against God. This would be to confuse the surface of the world with its depth. </p>
<p>He believed that the defender of God should proceed from a faith that the world, in spite of its obvious evils, was ultimately good by virtue of its foundation in the goodness of God who had, after all, created it. </p>
<h2>Candid comedy</h2>
<p>Did Leibniz’s unfailing 18th-century optimism and firm belief in divine goodness fail to take evil seriously? Voltaire thought so. In fact, Voltaire flipped the serious nature of evil on its head; believing that natural and moral evil were so serious they could only be treated satirically. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=677&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=677&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=677&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330899/original/file-20200428-76593-1xynq1i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Atelier de Nicolas de Largillie, known as French philosopher Voltaire, by Nicolas de Largillierre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atelier_de_Nicolas_de_Largilli%C3%A8re,_portrait_de_Voltaire,_d%C3%A9tail_(mus%C3%A9e_Carnavalet)_-002.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Candide, Leibniz was cast as Dr Pangloss, an instructor in “metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology” in the court of the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh. </p>
<p>Pangloss was a committed believer in this world as the best of all possible ones, in spite of its natural evils and the moral evils perpetrated in particular by those of religious faiths (Christians, Jews, and Muslims). Whatever happened in the world, Pangloss, like Leibniz, was able to rationalise it as compatible with its being eventually for the best. </p>
<p>Voltaire <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=EhiWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=represents+the+author+of+nature+only+as+a+powerful+and+maleficent+king,+who+does+not+care,+so+long+as+he+carries+out+his+plan,+that+it+costs+four+or+five+hundred+thousand+men+their+lives,+and+that+the+others+drag+out+their+days+in+want+and+in+tears.+So+far+from+the+notion+of+the+best+of+possible+worlds+being+consoling,+it+drives+to+despair+the+philosophers+who+embrace+it.+The+problem+of+good+and+evil+remains+an+inexplicable+chaos+for+those+who+seek+in+good+faith&source=bl&ots=wdBgxGDfaL&sig=ACfU3U2OLVDhI3kUJXrvfXzI2mhqNAfZyA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjF0ebogYrpAhWUbysKHQ7iD2EQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=represents%20the%20author%20of%20nature%20only%20as%20a%20powerful%20and%20maleficent%20king%2C%20who%20does%20not%20care%2C%20so%20long%20as%20he%20carries%20out%20his%20plan%2C%20that%20it%20costs%20four%20or%20five%20hundred%20thousand%20men%20their%20lives%2C%20and%20that%20the%20others%20drag%20out%20their%20days%20in%20want%20and%20in%20tears.%20So%20far%20from%20the%20notion%20of%20the%20best%20of%20possible%20worlds%20being%20consoling%2C%20it%20drives%20to%20despair%20the%20philosophers%20who%20embrace%20it.%20The%20problem%20of%20good%20and%20evil%20remains%20an%20inexplicable%20chaos%20for%20those%20who%20seek%20in%20good%20faith&f=false">found this notion</a> of the best of all possible worlds problematic, given the sheer quantity and quality of evil present in it. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This system of <em>All is good</em> represents the author of nature only as a powerful and maleficent king, who does not care, so long as he carries out his plan, that it costs four or five hundred thousand men their lives, and that the others drag out their days in want and in tears. So far from the notion of the best of possible worlds being consoling, it drives to despair the philosophers who embrace it. The problem of good and evil remains an inexplicable chaos for those who seek in good faith. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thoughts-and-prayers-miracles-christianity-and-praying-for-rain-125066">Thoughts and prayers: miracles, Christianity and praying for rain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Carrying on</h2>
<p>What was Voltaire’s solution? Surprisingly perhaps, it was not despair. Rather, it was a gentle resignation, a philosophical <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc">que sera, sera</a></em>. This meant the quiet cultivation of our gardens as God had originally intended for us in the first Garden of Eden. We were to be like Adam and Eve. </p>
<p>There was to be, therefore, an avoiding of airy philosophical speculations on how to justify the ways of God to man (like this piece of writing is). Instead, Voltaire advocated doing a little good in the hope of our becoming a little better. </p>
<p>This is a solution that may not satisfy believers in the goodness of God. But it will resonate amongst those of us who, in isolation at home, are quietly tilling the soil, labouring in our vegetable patch, or contentedly mowing our lawns. Simple, but somehow satisfying!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The big questions don’t get much bigger. After the Lisbon earthquake killed thousands, philosopher Voltaire took aim at Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and skewered his view that God is good.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1341392020-03-23T19:05:19Z2020-03-23T19:05:19ZAre you there God? Whether we pray harder or endure wrath depends on the religious doctrine of Providence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322198/original/file-20200323-22614-9dfnyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C59%2C1298%2C891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pietro da Cortona's fresco The Triumph of Divine Providence (1633-1639)</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://uploads8.wikiart.org/images/pietro-da-cortona/the-triumph-of-divine-providence-1639.jpg!Large.jpg">Wikiart</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s not the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/coronavirus-preppers.html">end of the world</a>. But with the Coronavirus running rampant, you could be forgiven for thinking so. </p>
<p>The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse symbolically portray the four events that will occur before the end of the world: plague, war, famine, and death. It is the first of these that is striking fear into hearts worldwide. But with the rhetoric of our being “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/22/tech/att-ceo-coronavirus-war/index.html">at war</a>” with this disease, of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007040978/coronavirus-presser.html">an invisible enemy</a>”, a high mortality rate, and increasing food shortages, all four horsemen appear to be riding out.</p>
<p>How does God figure in all this? Within the religious doctrine of Divine Providence - that all that happens in the universe is under God’s sovereign control – we can identify five different responses. </p>
<h2>1. Providential fatalism</h2>
<p>The first is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23445384?seq=1">providential fatalism</a>. According to this stance, my fate and the fate of the world have all been planned out in advance. Whatever happens is God’s will and there is nothing we can do to alter this plan. On this account, we should all just carry on as usual and should take no active precautions. </p>
<p>In its most extreme forms, this is interpreted in line with the Biblical statement: “They will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them” (Mark 16.18). Among some conservative Protestant churches in the United States, worshippers pick up venomous snakes and hold them up as they sing and dance. It is believed those who die do so because it’s God’s will. </p>
<h2>2. Providential activism</h2>
<p>The second response is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-ecclesiastical-history/article/understanding-providence-the-difficulties-of-sir-william-and-lady-waller/A92D87EFE7FFD133F3E30F7565FE19D3">providential activism</a>, which holds to the belief that, as the African American <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHaInigejt0">spiritual</a> puts it, “He’s got the whole world in his hands”. But this is interpreted to mean, even though God orchestrates all of history to bring about his purposes, he relies upon us to accomplish them.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oHaInigejt0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Providential Activism holds that God knows and sees all, but it’s up to us to enact his plans.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While providential fatalism would see it as sinful to act against God’s will, providential activism would view acting to avoid catching a disease as in accord with God’s will. Thus, taking active measures to avoid contagion is to cooperate with divine providence rather than act against it. The mainstream Christian churches (Catholic, Anglican, the Uniting Church) along with the Jewish and Muslim communities are endorsing this activist approach. </p>
<h2>3. Providential exclusivism</h2>
<p>Third, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20008488?seq=1">providential exclusivism</a> would have us believe that God will look after those whom he has chosen for salvation. This exclusivist approach is common among conservative Protestant groups that divide the world into the saved and the damned on the criterion of having accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://hillsong.com/what-we-believe/">Pentecostal Hillsong Church</a> in Sydney is following government requirements and its large weekend gatherings are going online. It is also recommending taking active measures to manage the disease. Yet it reassures followers that “no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling” (Psalm 91.10). </p>
<p>Pentecostalist Margaret Court’s <a href="https://victorylifecentre.com.au/">Victory Life Centre</a>, while assuring churchgoers their health and safety is the group’s top priority, <a href="https://10daily.com.au/shows/10-news-first/perth/a200313pjxng/margaret-courts-church-says-the-blood-of-jesus-will-protect-patrons-from-covid-19-20200313">declared</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are in agreement that this Convid-19 [sic] will not come near our dwelling or our church family […] knowing that we are all protected by the blood of Jesus.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>4. Providential punitivism</h2>
<p>Throughout the history of Christianity, the most common response to plague has been <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474516635886">providential punitivism</a>. In its simplest form, pandemic disease is God’s punishment for our sins (or the sins of others) and a call for repentance. </p>
<p>It has good Biblical precedent: “Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the [golden] calf” (Exodus 32.35). The Jesuit priest in Albert Camus’ <a href="http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/The_Plague?View=embedded">The Plague</a> warned: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the unjust should tremble. In the vast granary of the universe, the implacable flail will thresh the human corn until the chaff is divided from the grain […] Beaten on the bloody threshing floor of pain, you will be cast out with the chaff. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Coronavirus is yet to provoke providential punitivism in Australia. But, like the Coronavirus, it is spreading. A recent issue of <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/">Lifesite News</a>, a conservative Canadian Catholic magazine, <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/why-coronavirus-is-a-punishment-from-god-that-should-lead-to-repentance">declared</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of course the coronavirus is a punishment from God: all our sufferings are the consequence of sin; for us sinners, they are a just penalty for our sin; and God has complete control over what happens and how it affects us. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The downside of this response is that it makes God an arbitrary and cruel despot rather than a God of love and compassion.</p>
<h2>5. Providential interventionism</h2>
<p>The doctrine of providence is not completely set in stone. For, fifth, providential interventionism holds God can be persuaded to “change” his plans and end the plague because of our prayers to him to do so. </p>
<p>This may seem to contradict the notion of divine providence. But, as medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=IiHuydGzEwEC&pg=PA1533&lpg=PA1533&dq=our+motive+in+praying+is,+not+that+we+may+change+the+Divine+disposition,+but+that,+by+our+prayers,+we+may+obtain+what+God+has+appointed&source=bl&ots=TlIA9Cr5GN&sig=ACfU3U3Gose_FsjSqJKkwfWbzKYXgCWBMA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinlNftu6_oAhV2H7cAHU1VDAkQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=our%20motive%20in%20praying%20is%2C%20not%20that%20we%20may%20change%20the%20Divine%20disposition%2C%20but%20that%2C%20by%20our%20prayers%2C%20we%20may%20obtain%20what%20God%20has%20appointed&f=false">put it</a>, “our motive in praying is, not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that, by our prayers, we may obtain what God has appointed”. In short, God had built our prayers to him, and his response, into his original plan. You never get anything past Thomas Aquinas! </p>
<p>Thus, leaders in the UK of the Anglican, Catholic, Free Churches, Orthodox, and Pentecostal churches have <a href="https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/20-march/news/uk/day-of-prayer-and-action-light-a-candle-say-church-leaders">called</a> for a National Day of Prayer and Action for March 22. Likewise, US President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/15/donald-trump-proclaims-national-day-prayer-america/">called</a> for a National Day of Prayer, “to pray for God’s healing hand to be placed on the people of our Nation”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322201/original/file-20200323-22614-13ycn01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prayers can change God’s plans, according to some believers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1477281765962-ef34e8bb0967?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=632&q=80">Edwin Andrade/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>O ye of little faith</h2>
<p>For the non-believer, none of the above attempts to relate the ways of God to the world is in play. The Coronavirus is nothing but a natural, if deeply unfortunate, event for which there is neither ultimate explanation nor ultimate meaning. It just is. </p>
<p>The virtue of the doctrine of the divine providence is that everything is going to plan in spite of appearances to the contrary. The problem is that it’s hard to believe, in the face of global pandemics, there is any divine plan at all. If there is, God might need to do a pretty radical rethink – and sooner rather than later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What is God’s plan? Whether the faithful pray harder, accept their fate or feel safe from harm depends on their interpretation of Divine Providence.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301792020-02-06T19:59:23Z2020-02-06T19:59:23ZHow two women pulled off a medieval manuscript heist in post-war Germany<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313837/original/file-20200205-149789-1g8ew23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C101%2C799%2C395&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two manuscripts of the visionary, writer and composer St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) survived the Dresden bombings after a librarian stashed them in a bank vault. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Avraham Pisarek/Deutsche Fotothek/Wikimedia)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seventy-five years ago, in February 1945, during the Second World War, Allied forces bombed the magnificent baroque city of Dresden, Germany, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/01/embers-2">destroying most of it</a> and killing <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/bombing-of-Dresden">thousands of civilians</a>.</p>
<p>In central Dresden, however, a bank vault holding two precious medieval manuscripts survived the resulting inferno unscathed. The manuscripts were the works of the prolific 12th-century composer, writer and visionary, St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who had <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Hildegard">established a convent</a> <a href="http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2017/03/international-womens-day-spotlight-on-hildegard-of-bingen/">on the Rhine River, near Wiesbaden and 500 kilometres west of Dresden</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313438/original/file-20200204-41527-8p5dzp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hildegard Abbey, near Wiesbaden, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kate Helsen)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hildegard, whose writings documented her religious visions, <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5n34d2s9">including a theology of the feminine</a> and an <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/tjt.2017-0226">ecological consciousness</a>, and who practised medicinal herbology, was venerated locally as a saint for centuries. The Catholic Church only recently recognized her as one, and also designated her a <a href="http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_letters/documents/hf_ben-xvi_apl_20121007_ildegarda-bingen.html">Doctor of the Church</a>. </p>
<p>After the Dresden bombings, the Soviet Army seized and inspected the surviving vault. The first bank official to enter the vault afterwards found it pillaged, with only one manuscript remaining. The bank could never confirm if the vault was emptied in an official capacity or if it was plundered.</p>
<p>The missing manuscript has not been seen in the West since. The other made its way back to its original home of Wiesbaden, on the other side of Germany, through the extraordinary efforts of two women. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/plainsong-and-medieval-music/article/history-of-a-book-hildegard-of-bingens-riesencodex-and-world-war-ii/33C5408FA9BC114B1239B1A1093D5157">This is the story</a> of how those women conspired to return the manuscript home. </p>
<h2>The librarian</h2>
<p>In 1942, Gustav Struck, the director of the state library in Wiesbaden, became worried about local air raids. Following many European institutions, he decided that his library’s manuscripts needed to be sent elsewhere for safe keeping. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312347/original/file-20200128-81341-13nhqv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hildegard receiving visions, a reproduction of an image from the ‘Scivias’ manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia/Miniatur aus dem Rupertsberger Codex des Liber Scivias)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two of the library’s most valuable possessions were manuscripts of Hildegard’s works. One was a beautifully <a href="https://www.abtei-st-hildegard.de/die-scivias-miniaturen/nggallery/slideshow">illuminated copy of <em>Scivias</em></a>, a collection of 26 religious visions. The other manuscript, known as the <em>Riesencodex</em>, is the most complete compilation of her works, including the visionary writings, letters and the largest known collection of her music.</p>
<p>Why Struck chose to store the manuscripts in a bank vault in Dresden is still a mystery, but their journey there by train and streetcar mid-war is thoroughly documented.</p>
<p>The manuscripts sat in the bank vault for three years until the attack on Dresden.</p>
<h2>After the war</h2>
<p>Immediately after the war, the Americans sacked Struck in their denazification efforts. Librarian Franz Götting took over his job. </p>
<p>Götting inquired about the manuscripts as soon as mail service to Dresden resumed, and learned that the <em>Scivias</em> manuscript was missing, either seized or plundered, but that the bank still had the <em>Riesencodex</em>. </p>
<p>Götting asked repeatedly for the <em>Riesencodex</em> to be returned from Dresden to Wiesbaden. The difficulty was that Dresden was in the newly formed Soviet zone, while Wiesbaden was in the American zone. (The Allies had divided Germany into four occupation zones, and similarly divided Germany’s capital city, Berlin, into four sectors.) The Soviets had issued a decree stating that all property found in German territory occupied by the Red Army now belonged to them.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mty-jApg7yI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hildegard’s composition ‘O Most Noble Greenness.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The plan</h2>
<p>A scholar and medievalist in Berlin, however, came up with a scheme to retrieve the manuscript. <a href="http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN345858735_0042&DMDID=dmdlog48&PHYSID=phys768http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN345858735_0042&DMDID=dmdlog48&PHYSID=phys768">Margarethe Kühn</a>, a devout Catholic who expressed a great love for Hildegard, held a position as a researcher and editor with the <a href="http://www.mgh.de/mgh/mgh-allgemeines/">Monumenta Germaniae Historica</a> project. After the war she found herself living in the American sector of Berlin and working in the Soviet sector.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313547/original/file-20200204-41485-n6f5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of the 12th-century ‘Risencodex’ manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia/Landesbibliothek Wiesbaden)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kühn had stayed at the <a href="https://www.abtei-st-hildegard.de/english/">Hildegard Abbey</a> for several days in March 1947 and had even explored joining the Abbey as a nun herself. She must have heard while she was there that the <em>Riesencodex</em> was being held in Dresden without any promise of return. She devised a plan to help. </p>
<p>Kühn asked Götting for permission to borrow the manuscript for study purposes. Götting asked the Soviet-run Ministry for Education, University and Science in Dresden on Kühn’s behalf. Much to the librarian’s surprise, ministry officials agreed to send the manuscript for Kühn to examine at the German Academy, a national research institute established in 1946 in Berlin by the Soviet administration.</p>
<p>Kühn was convinced that the bureaucrats in Dresden would not recognize the <em>Riesencodex</em>. She decided that when returning the manuscript, with help from the Wiesbaden librarian, Götting, she would send a substitute manuscript to Dresden, and the original to Wiesbaden. </p>
<h2>The crossing</h2>
<p>Kühn enacted the plan with the help of an American woman, Caroline Walsh. </p>
<p>How exactly Kühn and Walsh met is not known, but Caroline’s husband <a href="https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/105289/major-general-robert-l-walsh/">Robert Walsh</a> was in the American air force and was stationed in Berlin as the director of intelligence for the European command from 1947-48. </p>
<p>In an interview in 1984, Robert explained that when he and Caroline were in Berlin she had “worked a great deal with the Germans and with the religious outfits over there, too.” Since the Walshes were also Catholic, it is likely that they and Kühn met through Catholic circles in the city.</p>
<p>Caroline’s position as the wife of a high-ranking military officer may have made it easier for her to travel across military occupation zones and sectors. </p>
<p>In any case, we know that Caroline travelled by train and car and delivered the manuscript in person to the Hildegard Abbey in Eibingen on March 11, 1948. The nuns notified Götting at the Wiesbaden library and returned the manuscript. </p>
<h2>The swap</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313843/original/file-20200205-149738-iyzzcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A <em>Scivias</em> illumination on an edition of Hildegard’s medical works.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beuroner Kunstverlag</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Götting, meanwhile, had not found a suitably sized manuscript to stand in for the large <em>Riesencodex</em> to trick the Soviets. He instead selected a 15th-century printed book of a similar size and had sent this to Kühn in Berlin.</p>
<p>It took some time for Kühn to deliver it to the Ministry for Education, University and Science in Dresden, and two further months before anyone there opened the package in January 1950. By that time, Hildegard’s manuscript was safely in Wiesbaden. But officials spotted the deception and Kühn was in trouble.</p>
<p>An official in Dresden wrote to the German Academy in Berlin demanding to know why they had been sent a printed book rather than the <em>Riesencodex</em> manuscript. </p>
<p>Kühn’s boss, Fritz Rörig, who received the letter was furious with her. Rörig and Götting smoothed things over with Dresden by offering another manuscript in exchange. But Rörig told Kühn that the East German police were inquiring about her, the implication being that he had reported her.</p>
<h2>One still missing</h2>
<p>Although she remained deeply worried for some time afterwards, Kühn never lost her job at the Monumenta nor was she arrested, despite Rörig’s threats. For the rest of her life she maintained a rare cross-border existence, living on Soviet wages in the American sector while continuing at the same job until her death in 1986, at the age of 92.</p>
<p>As one of many scholars who regularly consults the <em>Riesencodex</em>, <a href="https://hlbrm.digitale-sammlungen.hebis.de/handschriften-hlbrm/content/pageview/449620">now available online</a>, I am enormously grateful to Caroline Walsh, and particularly to Kühn who risked her livelihood for the sake of a book.</p>
<p>I am not alone, however, in hoping that during my lifetime someone, somewhere will find the pilfered <em>Scivias</em> manuscript and return it as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130179/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Bain receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is affiliated with the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. </span></em></p>Two precious manuscripts hidden in a bank vault survived the Allied bombing of Dresden, but one wound up in Soviet hands — until it was smuggled home.Jennifer Bain, Professor of Musicology and Music Theory, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.