A Philosophy of Christian Materialism: Entangled Fidelities and the Public Good. By Christopher Baker, Thomas A. James and John Reader. Ashgate, 2015. (original) (raw)
Related papers
2020
The reviewed collection of articles constitutes a continuation of an academic discussion of material religion. On the basis of research in different cultures, the authors try to show the way Christians conceptualise, negotiate, contest and challenge questions of material aspects of religious life. They interpret materiality not merely and solely in a narrow sense, i.e. as specific ritual objects (candles, icons, altars, statues, and so on), but as a set of historically and culturally specific relationships between material and immaterial / spiritual in a certain religious tradition. The criticism of the review mainly focuses on the disbalance between 'theory' and 'practice' in the material religion studies presented in this collection. In some articles, the ethnographic component often appears to be in the shadow of ambitious and recurring methodological manifests.
A sacred social: Christian relationalism and the re‐enchantment of the world
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2021
This article intervenes in an ongoing debate as to whether or not Christianity introduces individualism into the lives of its converts. Drawing on an ethnographic account of Emmanuel, a French Catholic Charismatic community, it demonstrates that, counter to the argument that in social cases where Christianity is central, individualism emerges as a prominent value, in some cases it is relationalism that shapes Christian ethical aspirations. I argue that differences observed across contexts in expressions of value and configuration of personhood may be the result of the varied manners in which divine presence is experienced and understood to inhabit the world across Christian communities. Bringing God into the centre of ethnographic analysis in accounting for these differences broadens the debate's comparative reach, while underscoring the manner in which divine agency shapes the ethical aspirations of religious persons and their orientations to social others. Considering the ethical and political implications that one's orientation to the social can have, further investigation is called for into the manner in which the divine is experienced and invoked in social and ritual life.
Material Religion 15, 5, 2019
Material approaches to religion are nowadays indispensable components of the study of religion.As long as the researcher sees herself as ontologically separate from the things she is investigating and exercises self-reflexivity on the social, bodily, and sensual engagement in her research efforts, we are on safe ground. However, if we are determined to take the consequences of the material turn to their logical extreme, this ground becomes shaky.
Researching the religious dimensions of social life pre review version
As the earlier sections of this book demonstrate, research in the sociology of religion has much to contribute to our understanding of important structures and processes in religious institutions and individual religiosity as well forms of interaction between religious organisations and other fields of social life. The aim of this chapter is to delineate an area of research within the contemporary sociology of religion that has arguably been less well-developed than this work on the religious lives of individuals and organisations, but which constitutes an important area for future work. A central assumption of much work in the sociology of religion over the past forty years is that it most naturally focuses on beliefs, practices, organisations and social structures and processes that relate to human engagement with supra-human beings or forces. This piece examines an alternative focus for the discipline, namely the broader study of moral meanings across and beyond religious traditions.
TOWARDS A THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERSTANDING OF MATERIALISM AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE BELIEVER
A Hausa adage says, “Kudi da macigi abin kashewa” that is to say, as swift as one should kill a snake when he or she sees it, so also should money be spent as soon as it comes handy. Unfortunately, such spendings are almost always on self. This to a large extent is the worldview of the Nigerian (Christian), and such tendencies are reflected in their exotic dressing and hairdos, magnificent houses, big bank accounts, and latest model of cars among many others. While none of this in itself is bad, such a believer is observed to spend excessively on personal gratification, regardless of the needs of other societal members. This is a deviation from the biblical principle of moderation, brotherly love, care for the needy, and the believer’s responsibility to the community. This work of research was therefore carried out to explore the theologies that might have informed such materialistic tendencies within the Christendom and the philosophical foundations upon which such materialistic ideologies were built upon. Consequently, philosophies such as egoism, hedonism, humanism, and individualism were blamed for permeating the Christendom with such materialistic ideologies. Having gone through such explorations, the implications of a materialistic attitude on the believer, the society, Christian ethics, Christian theology, and missions were discussed. In a bid to proffer a solution, the writer propounded a theology of simplicity, generosity and contentment; care for the poor and needy within the church and society; and a theology of missions as suggested solutions for the materialistic believer.