In the sixteenth century, the nocturne genre developed in Italian art introducing the idea of a scene depicted in the darkness of night. This concept of darkness paired with intense light was adopted by Caravaggio in the late sixteenth century and popularized by himself and his followers. The seemingly sudden shift towards darkness and night is puzzling when viewed as individual occurrences in artists’ works. As an entire genre, the night scene bears cultural implications that indicate the level of influence culture and society have over artists and patrons. The rising popularity of the theater and the tension between Protestantism and Catholicism intersected to create a changing view on the perception of darkness and light. This merging of cultural phenomena affected Caravaggio and his contemporaries, prompting them to develop the nocturne genre to meet the growing demands for darker images.

John Marston’s literary legacy has inevitably existed in the larger-than-life shadows of his great contemporaries William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. In the last two centuries, his works were hardly taken on their own terms but were perceived instead in overt or implicit comparison to Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s. As a result, Marston’s plays acquired the lasting but unfair image of haphazard concoctions whose cheap sensationalism and personal satire often got them in trouble with the authorities. This was the case until recently, especially with Marston’s comic drama. Following revisionist trends, this study sets out to restore some perspective: it offers a fresh reading of Marston’s comic plays and collaborations—Antonio and Mellida, What You Will, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, The Dutch Courtesan, The Malcontent, Parasitaster, Eastward Ho, and Histrio-Mastix—by pursuing a more nuanced contextualization with regard to religious context and archival evidence. The first central contention here is that instead of undermining political and religious authority, Marston’s comic drama can demonstrate consistent conformist and conservative affinities, which imply a seriously considered agenda. This study’s second main point is that the perceived failures of Marston’s comic plays—such as tragic elements, basic characterization, and sudden final reversals—can be plausibly read as deliberate effects, designed with this agenda in mind. The significance of this analysis lies in its interpretation of Marston’s comedies from the angle of religious and political conformism, which argues for an alternative identity for this playwright. The discussion opens with a presentation of Marston’s early satirical books as texts informed by a moderate Church of England Protestantism, yet coinciding at times with some of Calvin’s writings, and by a distrust of the individualistic tendencies of the English Presbyterian movement as well as the perceived literal ritualism of the old Catholic faith. On this basis, it then proceeds to reveal an identical philosophy behind Marston’s comic plays and collaborations. Antonio and Mellida and What You Will are interpreted to dramatize the human soul’s dependence on God’s favourable grace; Jack Drum’s Entertainment and The Dutch Courtesan to insist on the acknowledgement of God in romantic desire; The Malcontent and Parasitaster to present the dangers of the political immorality; and Eastward Ho and Histrio-Mastix to argue for the necessity of edifying occupations for the wayward human will. In its conclusion, this study further highlights Marston’s bias for political and religious individual obedience to established hierarchies and his suspicion of the early modern forces of change. The conformist identity that emerges from the present discussion is consistently supported by the archival evidence surviving from the playwright’s life. Thus, Marston’s comic drama can be interpreted as the result of carefully considered and skilfully implemented political and religious ideas that have been neglected so far.

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a minority conservative faction took over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This project seeks to answer the questions of how a fringe minority within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination could undertake such a feat and why they chose to do so. The framework through which this work analyzes these questions is one of competing worldviews that emerged within the SBC in response to decades of societal shifts and denominational transformations in the post-World War II era. To place the events of the Southern Baptist “crisis” within this framework, this study seeks to refute the prevailing notion put forth in earlier works that the takeover was an in-house event, driven purely by doctrinal disputes between conservative Southern Baptists and SBC leadership. Illustrating the differences between rhetoric and action on both sides of this intra-denominational conflict, this work seeks to provide perspective to the narrative of the Southern Baptist “crisis” by asserting that the worldviews guiding the opposing factions diverged not only on doctrine, but culture and politics as well. Placing the events of the “crisis” within the context of broader worldviews, this project highlights and examines the intertwined nature of religion, culture, and politics in modern American society.

<p>The Senses of Fundamentalism: A Material History of Sensing Bodies in Early Twentieth-Century American Fundamentalism offers a new historical narrative about the rise of fundamentalism. I argue that sensing bodies laid the foundation of fundamentalism. New kinds of Christian sensory practices around the turn of the twentieth century established the shared frames of reference that allowed a broad fundamentalist coalition to emerge. Fundamentalists felt their faith in their guts. </p><p>Each chapter of this work explores the role of one of the senses in fundamentalist life: sight, hearing, touch, and the spiritual senses. Using visual and material evidence, I explore how fundamentalists trained their eyes to see truth from dispensationalist charts, how they taught their ears to hear the voice of God on radios and phonograph records, how they regulated and controlled contact between gendered bodies through clothing, and how they honed their bodies to sense spiritual presences. </p><p>Using the methods of visual and material culture studies of religion, I examine the how specific sensory practices structured the everyday realities of fundamentalist life. I examine the specifics of how sensation operated in fundamentalist religious practice. Current studies of fundamentalism tend to treat the movement as primarily concerned with intellectual matters. My material and visual history of fundamentalism intervenes in the historiography to show that efforts to describe fundamentalism as an intellectual movement have excluded important bodies of data. By studying ideas and doctrines, scholars have too long presumed that fundamentalists forbade material forms of religious devotion or disregarded bodies altogether. My work materializes the study of early fundamentalism, exploring how material objects and sensory practices undergird traditional concepts like “belief,” “theology,” or “literalism.” This project recovers sensing bodies as the cornerstone of fundamentalism.</p> / Dissertation

Aux trois moments que constituent d’abord la décennie 1550, temps fort de la conversion nobiliaire au protestantisme, puis le temps des affrontements religieux de 1560 à 1598, et enfin celui de la fondation de l’absolutisme, à quelle fidélité le gentilhomme réformé doit-il consentir en ces temps d’incertitudes où désormais l’unité religieuse n’existe plus ? Obéit-il à une fidélité confessionnelle dictée par sa conscience ou à une exigence politique et relationnelle qui le lie naturellement, et à son seigneur, et à son roi ? Si le noble de foi réformée ne ressent pas au XVIe siècle de contradiction entre les deux sphères, celle du politique et celle du religieux : il n’a pas en effet le sentiment de se couper de son roi, en combattant dans les rangs de l’armée protestante, bien au contraire. Progressivement la distance se creuse vis-à-vis de ces seigneurs, et on perçoit alors l’extrême liberté des attaches politiques qui les lient au chef de parti. Mais la revendication d’une liberté irrépressible n’est rendue possible que par une stratégie mise en place de longue date par ces nobles protestants. Celle-ci repose d’abord et surtout sur une base solide et indéfectible, une nébuleuse d’amis et de parents. La proximité avec l’Angleterre et la Cour d’Elisabeth facilite également cette attitude distancée. Enfin, au XVIIe siècle, elle s’appuie aussi sur le véritable bouclier qu’a pu représenter l’édit de Nantes pour la noblesse ; ce dernier permet l’établissement d’un culte de fief et les protestants nobles chercheront à exploiter tous les ressorts juridiques du texte pour préserver leur foi intacte. Les alliances matrimoniales et l’action des femmes, filles ou épouses, serviront à la consolidation de la foi réformée. Alors que la répression, ciblée sur quelques individus, n’épargne pas le second ordre, certains nobles chercheront à trancher le dilemme soumission par la conversion ou désobéissance par l’exil, en dissociant les deux services, en refusant de choisir entre Dieu et le roi. / The important steps of French nobility: At first, 1550: part of the French nobility chooses to Protestantism. Then, 1560 and 1598: the French Religious Civil Wars. Finally, it was the start of Absolute Monarchy. When the unity of the Faith no longer existed, the choice of the French nobility was either to be faithful to the King or to god. Therefore, there were a gap between the religious faith and the political loyalties to the King. At first, the French nobles kept trusting their King, but a certain misunderstanding started to develop and the nobles gradually chose freedom over their loyalty to the French King. England’s proximity and Elisabeth 1st’s Court help them keep their distance with the King. They could rely on too their friends and family and parents to keep their faith alive, and the Edict of Nantes re-established the French nobility’s civil and religious rights. However the persecution of the Protestant did already start. Therefore many French Protestants nobles chose exile. Otherwise they were banished by the French Kingdom. Some of them hid their real faith, refusing to have to choose between their God and their king.

anglicky The diploma thesis Contemporary Trends of Protestant Liturgical Music in the Czech Republic deals mainly with both - musical and unmusical - element of contemporary praise and worship songs used at protestant Sunday services. The aim of praise and worship music in a Sunday service, is to give praise to God, as well as it was in biblical times. Therefore the first chapter of the thesis presents observations about music in the Bible and examines its connections to non-musical ways of praising God, which throws light upon the situation today. The part of the thesis which makes the reader familiar with current situation of protestant liturgical music in the Czech Republic, points out weaknesses in present-day song writing and shows a need of musical education for Christians, who take part in performing music at Church, compose songs and translate them from other languages. There is also a notable trend of adapting hymnbook songs, which therefore become friendlier to younger generation who prefers livelier music. Although there is not any board for protestant liturgical music, there are several influential personalities, whose view on various components of music liturgy and relationship to God's praise are presented in the third chapter. All of them agree on the fact that praising God through...

Tendo como pano de fundo a visibilidade alcançada pelos evangélicos em décadas recentes, tanto pelo seu extraordinário crescimento numérico, quanto pela sua surpreendente presença no campo político, o trabalho procura analisar, dentro do campo neopentecostal, a especificidade da Igreja Renascer em Cristo. Ao mesmo tempo que ela apresenta um discurso voltado para jovens e empresários de classe média, com uma estética que combina de forma inédita o sagrado com elementos da indústria do entretenimento e da comunicação de massa, constitui-se como um poderoso empreendimento gerenciado segundo uma racionalidade empresarial moderna. Sua capacidade de mobilização se manifesta através de megaeventos,que ampliam ainda mais sua visibilidade, estendendo sua influência além dos seus limites institucionais. É esse poder de mobilização que o campo político-partidário tenta apropriar, sem ter, contudo, o mesmo êxito que o empreendimento religioso, já que a capacidade de arregimentação que a igreja demonstra possuir, se funda no sagrado e para ele retorna. O que está em jogo, mais do que o poder político, é o poder simbólico, ou seja, a capacidade do discurso religioso de encampar na sua lógica segmentos cada vez mais amplos da experiência de vida, em domínios considerados profanos, e conferir-lhes novos significados, frente às incertezas de um mundo em transformação. / Members of evangelic protestant denominations have achieved in recent decades a new visibility in Brazil, owing as much to an extraordinary increase in their numbers as to their unexpected presence in the political arena. It is against the background of such developments that this research attempts to analyze the specificity of the church Renascer em Cristo within the neopentecostal religious field. While it appeals to young people and to middle class businessman, by means of aesthetic devices which surprisingly bring together sacred elements, mass media, and the entertainment industry, the church has turned into a powerful enterprise managed according to principles of modern entrepreneurial rationality. Its capacity to mobilize people is displayed in gigantic shows, which give it a greater visibility and extend its influence beyond its institutional boundaries. It is this mobilization capacity that politicians try to gather in their support in the political arena, without, however, having the same success as the religious enterprise. In fact, the power displayed by the church in gathering such support is based on sacredness and to sacredness it must return. More than political power, then, what is in fact at stake is symbolic power, or the capacity for a religious discourse to encompass within its own logic wider and wider segments of the profane life experience of the people, and confer upon them new meanings, in light of the uncertainties of a world in transformation.

Este trabalho pretende interpretar historicamente a transformação de práticas e crenças religiosas do período colonial brasileiro até a atual influência marcante do Pentecostalismo que se manifesta como uma nova categoria religiosa apresentando peculiaridades próprias. A religiosidade brasileira desde tempos coloniais revela-se imbuída de diversidade, tolerância e, principalmente, de sincretismo. Tal quadro decorreu da convergência de inúmeras influências culturais advindas das etnias que aqui conviveram: portugueses, indígenas, afro-descendentes. Nesta análise utilizaremos o conceito de hibridismo cultural a fim de constatarmos o sincretismo enraizado na religiosidade brasileira. Demonstraremos que, posteriormente, em fins do século 19 e início do seguinte, a entrada de imigrantes de credo protestante introduziu novas atitudes e crenças no cenário religioso brasileiro permanecendo em grande parte restrito a parcelas da população. No entanto, crenças pentecostais, decorrentes do Protestantismo, popularizaram-se e apresentaram, recentemente, qualidades próprias constituindo-se como responsáveis por um amplo processo de transformação e reforma social. O estudo pretende interpretar, portanto, tal força e popularização como decorrente de sua adaptação e flexibilidade a condições religiosas e culturais do país. A popularidade pentecostal, contudo, ao longo de sua história no Brasil também apresentou limitações de adaptabilidade, sendo que as mais recentes, como a \"Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus\", as que melhor se adequaram ao quadro religioso brasileiro e no exterior, apresentando-se como uma nova categoria religiosa. Por fim caracterizamos de forma mais factual crenças e práticas religiosas, inferindo a partir de uma pesquisa de campo realizado em Vitória, Espírito Santo tomando a cidade como estudo de caso. Como conseqüência, uma análise qualitativa nos permitiu chegar aos elementos conclusivos que ajudaram a explicar as características peculiares do Pentecostalismo e da nova configuração da religiosidade brasileira contemporânea. / This study intends to understand cultural elements in Brazilian popular religiosity through its colonial past up to the recent growth of Pentecostal creeds, the latter presenting new costumes and beliefs. Brazilian religious scenario since colonial times is rich in diversity, tolerance and mostly in syncretism. Such a scenario is an outcome from various ethnic groups living in the country: Indigenous, Portuguese and Afro-Brazilians. In order to analyze Brazilian religious aspects we used the theoretical concept of cultural hybridism specifically in its creative transcendence category. With the arrival of historical Protestants in the country - remaining restricted in ethnic and socioeconomic terms - new attitudes and costumes were presented in Brazilian religiosity. But Pentecostalism, a branch of Protestantism, showed greater flexibility and achieved to spread and became popular. The study aims to understand how this process came to be. Nevertheless, only some Pentecostal denominations in the country and abroad showed dynamism and adaptability. The most notable case of success is one of its most recent, the Universal Church of Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus), presenting some new religious features. We finish with a case study taking the city of Vitória, state of Espírito Santo, as parameter where a field research allowed us to comprehend peculiar features in Pentecostalism and recent changes in Brazilian religious scenario.

No description available.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse how and to what extent Ku Klux Klan constructed a pan-Protestant interpretation of Christianity based on its “myth of America” (Americanism) during the years 1915–30. Using hermeneutic content analysis and a theoretical approach based on Gramscian “cultural hegemony” and historian of religions Bruce Lincoln’s theory of myth, I examine the construction through three analytical themes: the Klan and the myth of America, the Klan’s pan-Protestantism, the Klan and religious patriotism. The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s advocated a theological position where race and religious confession are intimately entwined, and its members hence believed that the white race is God’s chosen people and Unites States a God-ordained nation. Opposing the idea of multiculturalism, Klan members stressed the notion of America as a nation imagined to be threatened by Jews, Catholics, and blacks. Therefore, every white Protestant American had to unite in order to combat these alleged national and racial menaces. This worldview was permeated by aspects of love. It was mostly because of love to God, race and nation – not primarily due to hate – the Klan constructed its interpretation of Protestant Christianity. The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s truly imagined themselves as guard-ians, or Knights, of an endangered culture.