Religion and the Body

RELIGION AND THE BODY RELIGION AND THE BODY Based on papers read at the symposium on Religion and the Body held at Åbo, Finland, on 16–18 June 2010 Edited by Tore Ahlbäck Editorial Assistant Björn Dahla Published by the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History Åbo, Finland Distributed by Tibo-Trading Ltd Pargas, Finland Editorial secretary Maria Vasenkari Linguistic editing Sarah Bannock ISSN 0582-3226 ISBN 978-952-12-2590-1 Printed in Finland by Vammalan kirjapaino Sastamala 2011 Editorial note or a few years now a new trend in the study of religion has been discernible Fin the choice of themes for the Donner Institute conferences. The object of interest is no longer old, established religions—and neither are recently established religious movements found on the agenda. The attention has thus turned away from organised religious practices. Instead, studies are focussed on non-institutional and non-organised practice of religion. This is obvious in the theme for the 2008 symposium ‘Postmodern Spirituality’, in the 2010 theme ‘Religion and the Body’—also the subject of the present volume of the series Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis—and in the theme for the Institute’s symposium organised 15–17 June 2011: ‘Post-Secular Religious Practices’. In all these cases, human religious activities are explored in a secular context outside of established religions. Our Call for Papers for the symposium ‘Religion and the Body’ included the following brief definition of the theme: ‘One of the places where religion and culture intersect is the body. The body can be manipulated using various methods that are also used in a non-religious context. Examples of such are asceticism, fasting and other dietary restrictions, and various psycho- techniques such as yoga. The body is also mutilated for religious reasons, as in the case of circumcision.’ Having given some 15 examples of phenomena within this theme the definition continued thus: ‘The theme of the body has been topical for quite some time—for example, within gender studies. .We should, however, point out that we are thinking of the concrete body, not of the body in a metaphorical sense.’ The symposium ‘Religion and the Body’ attracted a great deal of interest; it was well attended and well organised—we now hope that the conference publication will be well received. 5 Table of contents Jarl-Thure Eriksson Truth, body and religion 11 Veikko Anttonen The sacredness of the self, of society and of the human body: The case of a Finnish transgender pastor Marja-Sisko Aalto 13 Madis Arukask Resurrection, revenance, and exhumation: The problematics of the dead body in songs and laments 28 Asma Barlas Abraham’s sacrifice in the Qur’an: Beyond the body 55 Måns Broo Defiled and deified: Profane and sacred bodies in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theology 72 Oren Ergas ‘Religion’ and ‘body’: Reclaiming the missing links of Western education 79 Céline Grünhagen The female body in early Buddhist literature 100 Juha Hiltunen Spiritual and religious aspects of torture and scalping among the Indian cultures in Eastern North America, from ancient to colonial times 115 Tuija Hovi Praising as bodily practice: The neocharismatic culture of celebration 129 7 Visa Immonen & Jussi-Pekka Taavitsainen Finger of a saint, thumb of a priest: Medieval relics in the Diocese of Turku, and the archaeology of lived bodies 141 Jay Johnston The body in Wellbeing Spirituality: Self, spirit beings and the politics of difference 174 Isabelle Jonveaux Asceticism: an endangered value? Mutations of ascetism in contemporary monasticism 186 Sandra Junker The disorderly body: Considerations of The Book of Numbers, 19 and ritual impurity after contact with a corpse 197 Matti Kamppinen The concept of body in religious studies 206 Jens Kutscher Towards a solution concerning female genital mutilation? An approach from within according to Islamic legal opinions 216 Göran Larsson Islam and tattooing: An old question, a new research topic 237 Michelle Lelwica The Religion of Thinness 257 Mikael Lindfelt The body, religion and sports: Through the lenses of postmodern religiosity 286 Mira Niculescu Women with shaved heads: Western Buddhist nuns and Haredi Jewish wives: Polysemy, universalism and misinterpretations of hair symbolism in pluralistic societies 309 8 Peter Nynäs Multiple bodies in the spirituality of the gay porn star McCree: Reflections on corporeality and subjectivity 333 Jo Pearson Embracing the lash: Pain and ritual as spiritual tools 351 Ferdinando Sardella Religious experiments in colonial Calcutta: Modern Hinduism and bhakti among the Indian middle class 364 Andrew Singleton The rise and fall of the Pentecostals: The role and significance of the body in Pentecostal spirituality 381 Sofia Sjö Struggling bodies and body struggles: Explorations of body and religion in contemporary Nordic film 400 Terhi Utriainen The post-secular position and enchanted bodies 417 Malcolm Voyce Buddhism and the formation of the religious body: A Foucauldian approach 433 Biographical notes 462 9 JARL-THURE ERIKSSON Truth, body and religion uid est Veritas.* These are the words spoken by Pilate who, as he washed Qhis hands, tried to find something to accuse the man of who had been brought before him by the Jews. The anagram of this classic Latin sentence is: est vir qui adest: that is the man in front of you. The coincidence of this anagram fascinated me as a teenager. The confrontation between Jesus and Pilate was illustrated in Ripley’s Wonder Book of Strange Facts, a book I had received from an elderly lady from New York during a visit to the USA in 1963, where I worked as a counsellor at a Salvation Army Summer Colony. So, what is truth? In a religious context ‘truth’ is like a mantra, a certain imperative to believe in sacred things. However, one of the great minds of the Medieval Ages actually gave the best possible definition of truth. According to Thomas of Aquinas (1225–74) ‘truth is a measure of the resemblance between reality and human perception’ (veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus). In nature there is no truth: everything is as it is in an eternal quest for har- mony. The concept of truth and falseness arises, when we as humans compare reality, as we experience it through our senses, with the representation we have in our memory, a comparison of new information with stored information. If we look for the truth, we have to search in the human mind. There we will also find religion. Some of us have heard the story of the boy who wanted to explore the nature of time. As the pragmatist he was, he started to disassemble his mother’s alarm clock; without, however, coming any closer to solving the problem. The time-measuring device, the clock, does not communicate the meaning of time. For us humans, knowledge of time gives a context to operate within. The nature of meaning is one of the most intriguing questions in philosophy. The concept of meaning is closely related to the human mind. Non-human primates do learn things by experience, but are not capable of long-term plan- ning. The intellectual leap of mankind which occurred some 50 to 100 thou- sand years ago, most certainly assisted by the development of language, lifted * This paper is based on the words of welcome on 16 June 2010. Jarl-Thure Eriksson is the chancellor of Åbo Akademi University. 11 JARL-THURE ERIKSSON the mind from dwelling in the present to a metaphysical state, wherein it was possible to make time travel in the mind by remembering occasions from the past, or making strategic plans for hunting or attacks on neighbouring tribes. Meaning is putting a sense experience into a context and perceiving a dynamic narrative, either in terms of history, or the coming future. According to the dualistic principle of Descartes, humans consist of a body substance and a soul substance. In the seventeenth century the soul had a deep religious meaning; one saw the soul as a ghost being somehow im- mersed in the bodily being. Today we draw a parallel between soul and mind, the mind being a result of cognitive functions. We still know very little about the working of the mind, about consciousness and about ‘the self’. New information accumulates continuously. For instance, mirror neurons seem to have a bearing on empathy and social abilities. It might even be that the network of these neurons has a cross-connecting function by uniting different regions of the cortex. As a further result, the conscious mind experiences the real world as a scene wherein you yourself are an actor. In his large work Der Untergang des Abendlandes, about the rise and collapse of cultures, Oswald Spengler includes religion as an important ingredi- ent of each form of culture. Spengler uses seasonal changes as a metaphor for the maturation of civilizations. During the spring mythical tales have an amalgamating influence on the community. Summer signals the appearance of religious thinkers writing down ethical rules. The autumn brings enlight- enment and philosophers searching for reason. An increasing secularization announces the coming of the winter phase, the last stage before collapse. From archaeology and history we also know that religion plays a central role in the interplay between the ruler and his subjects. But we also know that without a religious infrastructure, there would probably be no cultural development at all. In summary, the religious characteristic of the human mind emerged in parallel with its intellectual faculties, perhaps assisted by the development of the mirror neurons. On the inner scene humans saw themselves as members of a social group. Threatened by natural catastrophes, diseases and tribal vio- lence it seems logical that human beings incorporated superior powers into their mental scenarios.

Load more