Introduction: Paul, Founder of Churches. Cult Foundations and the Comparative Study of Cult Origins
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Gerhard van den Heever in
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Abstract
In this introduction to the discussion on James C. Hanges, Paul, Founder of Churches, the significance of the comparative work on the cult founder-figure and typology of cult foundations is discussed. The essay argues that this serves to ground any interpretation of the cult founding work of the apostle Paul in an understanding of the materiality of religion. This gives impetus to a more concrete conceptualisation of Christian origins. Further reflection on this comparative enterprise is offered by means of three discussion foci, namely Discourse, imperial context, spatiality; Diaspora religion; and New Religious Movements. It is argued that the pervasiveness of imperial discourse and its spatial encoding allows us to see Paul’s cult foundations as sites of imperial resistance. Diasporas and diasporic religions provide key illuminations for understanding the broader context of the foundations of cult groups by Paul. Study of new religious movements will also aid in concrete descriptions and analysis of the making of early Christian groups and their organisation.
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Hanges James Constantine Paul, Founder of Churches: A Study in Light of the Evidence for the Role of “Founder-Figures” in the Hellinistic-Roman Period 2012 Tübingen Mohr Siebeck Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 292
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1
James Constantine Hanges, Paul, Founder of Churches: A Study in Light of the Evidence for the Role of “Founder-Figures” in the Hellenistic-Roman Period (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 292; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012).
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16
James Constantine Hanges, “Interpreting Glossolalia and the Comparison of Comparisons,” in Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils (eds. James Constantine Hanges, Thomas A. Idinopulos, and Brian C. Wilson; Numen Book Series 113; Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2006), 181–218. See his essay in this issue: James Constantine Hanges, “ʻSevering the Joints and the Marrowʼ: The Double-Edged Sword of Comparison”, 331–344, for more on the perils and pitfalls of comparative work in history of religion.
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26
Douglas R. Edwards, Religion and Power: Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greek East (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1996).
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29
Gerhard van den Heever, “Space, Social Space, and the Construction of Christian Identity in First Century Asia Minor,” Religion & Theology 17, no. 3&4 (2010): 205–243.
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31
Stephen Mitchell, “Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 91 (1987): 333–65; see also Mary T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire (Princeton, N.J./Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2000).
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32
Lynn R. LiDonnici, “The Images of Artemis Ephesia and Greco-Roman Worship: A Reconsideration,” Harvard Theological Review 85, no. 4 (1992): 389–415.
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33
Douglas R. Edwards, “Defining the Web of Power. The Novelist Chariton and His City Aphrodisias,” JAAR 62, no. 3 (1994): 707–9; also in general Edwards, Religion & Power; also Douglas R. Edwards, “Pleasurable Reading or Symbols of Power? Religious Themes and Social Context in Chariton,” in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (ed. Ronald F. Hock, J. Bradley Chance, and Judith Perkins; Atlanta: Scholars, 1998), 31–46; Douglas R. Edwards, “Surviving the Web of Roman Power: Religion and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles, Josephus, and Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe,” in Images of Empire (ed. Loveday Alexander; JSOT Supplements 122; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 179–201. The phenomenon of intertwining local traditions with imperial space was a two-way street, in that imperium was not just imposed on the local Greek elites, but they themselves blending their local images and traditions with that of imperial space: “Aphrodisias used the myths, symbols, and general popularity of Aphrodite to define itself amidst the Roman world of the first centuries of the common era. Aphrodite’s appearance throughout the oikoumene in multiple forms (statues, coins) and the local iconographic displays in Aphrodisias illustrates local elites’ presentation of the power, significance, and prestige of the city, its populace, and its goddess,” Edwards, “Defining,” 712.
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36
Ugo Bianchi, “Iside Dea Misterica. Quando?,” in Perennitas: Studi in Onore Di Angelo Brelich/Promossi Dalla Cattedra Di Religioni Del Mondo Classico dell’Università Degli Studi Di Roma (Rome: Edizione dell’ Ateneo, 1980), 9–36; H. S. Versnel, “Religieuze stromingen in het Hellenisme,” Lampas 21, no. 2 (1988): 111–136.
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43
Jonathan Z. Smith, “Hellenistic Religions,” in The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia vol. 18 (15th edition; ed. Philip W. Goetz; Chicago, Ill.: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1986), 925.
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46
Bruce Lincoln, “Epilogue,” in Ancient Religions (ed. Sara Iles Johnston; Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 2007), 241–251; now republished as “Ancient and Post-Ancient Religions” in idem. Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars. Critical Explorations in the History of Religions. Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, 2012: 73–82. I speak of religious change as “cultural recalibration” taking note of Lincoln’s polythetic definition of religion as the interplay of four variables: religious discourse, practice, communities, and institutions, 75–76.I translate these variables to indicate imagining world and its social circumscription, together with the discipline needed to transform individuals in accordance with the vision; social formations as the localisation and arena for such world making and identity formation and maintenance; and instances of authority exercise to regulate, routinise, and encompass in tradition such social discourse.
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50
Steven Vertovec, “Religion and Diaspora,” in New Approaches to the Study of Religion. Volume 2: Textual, Comparative, Sociological, and Cognitive Approaches (ed. Peter Antes, Armin W. Geertz, and Randy R. Warne; Religion and Reason 43; Berlin; New York, N.Y.: de Gruyter, 2004), 277.
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51
Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas. An Introduction (2nd edition; Abingdon; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2008). The examples are those discussed in Global Diasporas. I write “diaspora” in lower case to indicate that I have moved beyond viewing the classical Jewish and Christian definition of diaspora.
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59
Janet McLellan, “Buddhist Identities in Toronto: The Interplay of Local, National and Global Contexts,” Social Compass 45, no. 2 (1998): 227–245.
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61
Pierre-Joseph Laurent, “The Process of Bricolage Between Mythic Societies and Global Modernity: Conversion to the Assembly of God Faith in Burkina Faso,” Social Compass 52, no. 3 (2005): 309–323; Birgit Meyer, “‘Make a Complete Break with the Past.’ Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostal Discourse,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 3 (1998): 316–349..
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63
Steven Vertovec, “Ethnic Distance and Religious Convergence: Shango, Spiritual Baptist, and Kali Mai Traditions in Trinidad,” Social Compass 45, no. 2 (1998): 247–263.
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64
Kurt Rudolph, “Early Christianity as a Religious-Historical Phenomenon,” in The Future of Early Christianity. FS Helmut Koester (ed. Birger A. Pearson; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1991), 9–19; here 19, or as Helmut Koester maintained in the same volume: “Thus, Christianity is just one of several Hellenistic propaganda religions, competing with others who seriously believed in their god and who also imposed moral standards on their followers,” 473. “Bricolage” and “syncretism” here do not imply that there exists something like a pure and stable identity that is then somehow “mixed” with another tradition or elements thereof. The term syncretism is used here simply to indicate that blending is an ab-original ongoing process that lies at the very core of any religious tradition at every moment of that tradition’s continual unfolding, adaptation, and recalibration, and that there has never been a pure starting point.
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65
Pawan Dhingra, “‘We’re Not a Korean American Church Any More’: Dilemmas in Constructing a Multi-Racial Church Identity,” Social Compass 51, no. 3 (2004): 367–379.
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67
Robert Wuthnow, “The New Spiritual Freedom,” in Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader (ed. Lorne L. Dawson; Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 89–111.
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68
Hammer and Rothstein, eds., The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements, 3–4. In the context of recent theorising of NRMs as young religions it makes no sense any longer to use outdated terms like cult (in the pejorative sense it was used previously in sociology of religion; in the more neutral meaning of “making cult” I still use the term), sect, or any term signifying deviance or abnormality.
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69
Hammer and Rothstein, eds., The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements, 1–5.
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Introduction: Paul, Founder of Churches. Cult Foundations and the Comparative Study of Cult Origins
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Gerhard van den Heever in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
In this introduction to the discussion on James C. Hanges, Paul, Founder of Churches, the significance of the comparative work on the cult founder-figure and typology of cult foundations is discussed. The essay argues that this serves to ground any interpretation of the cult founding work of the apostle Paul in an understanding of the materiality of religion. This gives impetus to a more concrete conceptualisation of Christian origins. Further reflection on this comparative enterprise is offered by means of three discussion foci, namely Discourse, imperial context, spatiality; Diaspora religion; and New Religious Movements. It is argued that the pervasiveness of imperial discourse and its spatial encoding allows us to see Paul’s cult foundations as sites of imperial resistance. Diasporas and diasporic religions provide key illuminations for understanding the broader context of the foundations of cult groups by Paul. Study of new religious movements will also aid in concrete descriptions and analysis of the making of early Christian groups and their organisation.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 599 | 89 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 251 | 3 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 86 | 10 | 0 |
