DOCSLIB.ORG

Missionaries As Heroes and Villains

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Missionaries As Heroes and Villains Vol. 32, No. 3 July 2008 Missionaries as Heroes and Villains hen I asked Jamie Scott, author of two articles in this his talkin’ with his fists. There is one great scene . where some Wissue, to suggest a visual illustration for this editorial, hopped up lumberjack is beatin’ on a helpless Eskimo. Sky Pilot he sent two cover images of Sky Pilot: Fighting Missionary of the Far sees this and steps in. As he is removing the lumberjack’s teeth North, a short-lived comic series (1950–51) featuring the heroics of with his knuckles [he says], “The meek shall inherit the earth, fictional missionary John Hawks. My search for information on as it is written, but sometimes they need a little help” (www. comicsbulletin.com/busted/111023108897158.htm). Public perceptions of missionaries have typically oscillated between eulogy and vilification. Both extremes contain elements of truth, but neither can tell the whole truth. Conspicuously religious do-gooders have always been an easy and natural target for those of us whose own standards of piety are more relaxed. Sydney Smith’s wry explanation for the Anglican Church’s opposition to social activist and prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) contains more than a little truth: “She is very unpopular with the clergy,” he observed. “Examples of living, active virtue disturb Continued next page On Page 115 Missions and Film Jamie S. Scott 121 Missions in Fiction Jamie S. Scott 126 David A. Kerr, 1945–2008 130 Oral Theology in Lomwe Songs Stuart J. Foster 134 History of Missiology Web Site Dana L. Robert and Jack W. Ammerman 136 My Pilgrimage in Mission John B. Carman 141 The Legacy of Jacob A. Loewen Harvey G. Neufeldt Sky Pilot, Comic Book, 1950 144 Noteworthy 150 The Literary Legacy of Stephen Neill the comics led me to Beau Smith’s Web site “Busted Knuckles,” Dyron B. Daughrity where in his column of March 7, 2005, he nominated the Sky Pilot series as “Manly Comic of the Week.” “As you can see by the cov- 156 Book Reviews ers,” he explains, Hawks “was a real man . [who] did most of 168 Book Notes our repose, and give birth to distressing comparisons: we long aries in film and fiction are a first for theIBMR . His lead article, to burn her alive” (George W. E. Russell, Sydney Smith [London: “Missions and Film,” surveys everything from silent movies to Macmillan, 1905], p. 85n.). contemporary big-screen television. Whether sympathetic or Since the speakers of each human language have recourse to hostile, visual depictions of missionaries reveal as much about only a limited number of words and idioms and must with these those who produce the films as they do about the missionaries address and describe an infinitely complex and varied world, we themselves. Literary portrayals of missionary subjects may be turn naturally to the use of metaphor. Given the immensity of the similarly judged. Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries linguistic task and the limitation of linguistic resources (whether have been featured in the fiction of both Western and non-Western spoken, contemplated, or written), we drift instinctively toward authors for nearly two hundred years. Fiction allows for more stereotypes of all kinds—racial, social, cultural, religious, and nuanced and contextually satisfying portrayals of missions and vocational. The advent of mass media—radio, film, television, missionaries than is possible in film, yet anyone—friend or and the Web—has simply accelerated the dissemination of such foe—who is familiar with actual missionaries and specific missions stereotypes and has amplified the influence of the metaphors cannot expect to be entirely satisfied, no matter how attuned they we favor, as well as the influence of our underlying personal might be to the agenda of a given author. limitations (and sins!). The worst generalizations smooth the The deeply human quest to understand and represent our- way for us to practice war, torture, or genocide. Euphemisms selves, our world, and the mysteries of Christian faith through are then woven into a cover that is used to hide our pathologies language is poignantly conveyed by Stuart Foster in his article from ourselves and our posterity. Other generalizations leave us “Oral Theology in Lomwe Songs.” Not all of Mozambique’s simply misguided or ignorant. Lomwe people read or write, but through singing and storytelling, Take the word “missionary,” for example. The Oxford English histories are remembered, important values are reiterated and Dictionary traces the word to the French missionnaire, which made reinforced, theologies are shaped and transmitted, and the deep its first published appearance in G. Sagard’sHistoire du Canada, mysteries of faith are grasped and appropriated. Lomwe religious published in 1636. Whether this derivation is correct or not, few consciousness reflects both the unique insights and the limitations speakers and readers of European languages during the past two resident in the people’s communal narrative and reminds all of us, hundred years can have been unfamiliar with the term, as mission- whatever our own narrative and worldview, expressed in whatever aries pursued their vocations within the framework of European language, that we are similarly both enabled and limited. global hegemony. The word “missionary” has since constituted Three articles in this issue feature missionary-scholars well a virtual lexicon of flattery and disparagement. According to the known to, and admired by, many of my generation—Stephen online Wiktionary, the word means either “a person who travels Neill, Jacob Loewen, and John Carman. Even granted the limita- attempting to spread a religion or a creed” or “a naive religious tions of language, it is by means of such stories that we learn how fanatic” (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/missionary). to live into our individual and collective futures. Scott’s two essays examining the representation of mission- —Jonathan J. Bonk INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1977. Renamed INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH in 1981. Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by the Editor OVERSEAS MINISTRIES STUDY CENTER, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. Jonathan J. Bonk (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.InternationalBulletin.org Associate Editor Contributing Editors Dwight P. Baker Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Philip Jenkins Gary B. McGee Brian Stanley Assistant Editor David B. Barrett Daniel Jeyaraj Mary Motte, F.M.M. Tite Tiénou Craig A. Noll Daniel H. Bays Jan A. B. Jongeneel C. René Padilla Ruth A. Tucker Managing Editor Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. James M. Phillips Desmond Tutu Daniel J. Nicholas Samuel Escobar Kirsteen Kim Dana L. Robert Andrew F. Walls Senior Contributing Editors John F. Gorski, M.M. Graham Kings Lamin Sanneh Anastasios Yannoulatos Gerald H. Anderson Darrell L. Guder Anne-Marie Kool Wilbert R. Shenk Robert T. Coote Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the editors. Manuscripts Circulation unaccompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. Opinions Grace Inae Blum expressed in the IBMR are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. [email protected] The articles in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Bibliografia Missionaria, Book Review Index, Christian (203) 624-6672, ext. 309 Periodical Index, Guide to People in Periodical Literature, Guide to Social Science and Religion in Periodical Literature, IBR (International Bibliography of Book Reviews), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature), Missionalia, Advertising Religious and Theological Abstracts, and Religion Index One: Periodicals. Charles A. Roth Jr. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Subscribe, renew, or change an address at www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html or write INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN CA Roth Jr Inc. OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834-3000. Address correspondence concerning subscriptions and 86 Underwood Rd. missing issues to: Circulation Coordinator, [email protected]. Single copy price: $8. Subscription rate worldwide: one Falmouth, Maine 04105-1418 year (4 issues) $32. Foreign subscribers must pay with U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank, Visa, MasterCard, or International Mobile: (516) 729-3509 Money Order. Airmail delivery $16 per year extra. The IBMR is available in print and e-journal editions. Fax: (914) 470-0483 ONLINE ACCESS: Use the subscriber number and postal code from the mailing envelope for online access to the journal. [email protected] Visit www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html for details. Index, abstracts, and full text of this journal are available on databases provided Copyright © 2008 by ATLAS, EBSCO, H. W. Wilson Company, The Gale Group, and University Microfilms. Back issues may be purchased Overseas Ministries Study Center from OMSC or read on ATLAS, www.ATLA.com. Consult InfoTrac database at academic and public libraries. All rights reserved POSTMASTER: Send address changes to International Bulletin of Missionary Research, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, New Jersey 07834-3000. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, CT. (ISSN 0272-6122) 114 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 32, No. 3 Missions and Film Jamie S. Scott e are all familiar with the phenomenon of the “Jesus” city children like the film’s abused New York newsboy, Little Wfilm, but various kinds of movies—some adapted from Joe. In Susan Rocks the Boat (1916; dir. Paul Powell) a society girl literature or life, some original in conception—have portrayed a discovers meaning in life after founding the Joan of Arc Mission, variety of Christian missions and missionaries. If “Jesus” films while a disgraced seminarian finds redemption serving in an give us different readings of the kerygmatic paradox of divine urban mission in The Waifs (1916; dir.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Alec Vidler on Christian Faith and Secular Despair Born in Rye
    Alec Vidler On Christian Faith and Secular Despair Born in Rye, Sussex, son of a shipping businessman, Alec Vidler ( 1899‐1991)was educated at Sutton Valence School, Kent, read theology at Selwyn College, Cambridge (B.A. 1921),then trained for the Anglican ministry at Wells Theological College. He disliked Wells and transferred to the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, Cambridge, an Anglo‐Catholic community of celibates, and was ordained priest in 1923. He retained a life‐time affection for the celibate monkish life, never marrying but having a wide range of friends, including Malcolm Muggeridge, who was at Selwyn with him. Muggeridge’s father was a prominent Labourite and Vidler imbibed leftist sympathies in that circle. His first curacy was in Newcastle, working in the slums. He soon came to love his work with working class parishioners and was reluctantly transferred to St Aidan’s Birmingham, where he became involved in a celebrated stoush with the bishop E. W. Barnes, himself a controversialist of note. Vidler’s Anglo‐ Catholic approach to ritual clashed with Barnes’s evangelicalism. Vidler began a prolific career of publication in the 1920s and 30s. In 1931 he joined friends like Wilfred Ward at the Oratory House in Cambridge, steeping himself in religious history and theology, including that of Reinhold Niebuhr and “liberal Catholicism”. In 1939 Vidler became warden of St Deiniol’s Library, Hawarden (founded by a legacy from Gladstone) and also editor of the leading Anglican journal Theology, which he ran until 1964, exerting considerable progressive influence across those years. He also facilitated a number of religious think‐tanks in these, and later, years.
    [Show full text]
  • Daily Get Alone Time: Eric Liddell's Recommendations Liddell's
    Daily Get Alone Time: Eric Liddell’s recommendations A Disciple desires to meet with God day by day, through good times and bad. Like Jesus, they make it a habit to have get alone time before God. It refreshes them spiritually, so they can refresh others. How to keep the get alone time fresh and meaningful? It’s a struggle. Here’s good guidance from a wise leader. (review this with a Disciple) Eric Liddell was famous as a Olympian, the hero of the movie Chariots of Fire. His memorable saying was, when I run I feel His pleasure. He served as a missionary in China in the 1930s. He was captured by the Japanese and put in a concentration camp. He died there. During internment he wrote a Manual of Christian Discipleship for serious Christians. Here’s his teachings about a daily quiet time. Liddell’s Morning Quiet Time: One way to know God is to spend time with him each day. Set aside a specific time for prayer and Bible study and plan to stick to it... Ask yourself, Have I surrendered this new day to God and will I seek and obey the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout its hours? Wait until you can honestly say, Yes... Here are some suggestions to help you make the most of that time: 1. Be still. God, the source of all truth and love, is here. Take time to realize his presence. Be glad that he speaks when we listen and hears when we pray. Thank him for his Spirit living in us.
    [Show full text]
  • The Virtuous One
    The Virtuous One Like hundreds of other missionaries, weather, preaching to commuters Gladys Aylward went to China with scurrying past London’s Hyde Park nothing but faith and courage. They Corner toward the underground. were all she ever needed. The long‐awaited day finally arrived in By: ELAINE WHITFIELD SHARP October 1930. With her ticket and Bible Gladys Aylward’s report card from the in hand and two traveler’s checks sewn mission training school in London was inside her corset, Gladys set out to join far from impressive. She had failed Jeannie Lawson, a 70‐year‐old self‐ theology and couldn’t speak any supporting missionary in central China. Chinese. Yet as she trudged along Gladys’s proposal that she be the London’s streets to return to her former elderly woman’s assistant had been occupation as a parlor maid, Gladys was warmly welcomed. Gladys arrived in the certain God was calling her, as he had small town of Yangcheng in the Shansi called hundreds of Western Province to find Jeannie bustling about a missionaries since the early 1800’s, to dilapidated inn she’d just rented on an evangelize in China. If no missionary ancient mule‐train trade route. society would back her, then Gladys resolved that she must trust God and go alone. “Got it cheap ‘cause the locals say it’s haunted,” Jeannie explained to Gladys The Roaring Twenties were in full swing. in her Scottish lilt. “We’ll fix it up, open World War I was a distant memory, and an inn, and tell the muleteers Bible London society celebrated its every stories at night.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Reviews the DOCTRINE of GRACE in the APOSTOLIC FATHERS
    Book Reviews THE DOCTRINE OF GRACE IN THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. By T. F. Torrance. 15opp. Oliver <8- Boyd. 12/6. Probably all students of theology must have noticed the significant change in the understanding of the term ' grace ' from the time of the New Testament onwards. Perhaps, too, they will have wondered how and why it was that the evangelical Apostolic message degenerated so completely into the pseudo-Christianity of the Dark and Middle Ages. It is the aim of Dr. Torrance in his small but important dis­ sertation to supply an answer to both these problems. He does so by taking the word ' grace ' and comparing the Biblical usage with that of the accepted Fathers of the sub-Apostolic period : the Didache, I and II Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. The resultant study has a threefold value for the theologian. It has, first, a narrower linguistic and historical value as a contribution to the understanding of the conception of grace in the first hundred years or so of Christian theology. As the author himself makes clear in the useful Introduction, this question is not so simple as some readers might suppose, for the term grace had many meanings in Classical and Hellenistic Greek. It is important then to fix the exact con­ notation in the New Testament itself, and also to achieve an aware­ ness of any shift of understanding in the immediate post-Apostolic period. The exegetical discussions at the end of each chapter have a considerable value in the accomplishment of this task.
    [Show full text]
  • Missions and Film Jamie S
    Missions and Film Jamie S. Scott e are all familiar with the phenomenon of the “Jesus” city children like the film’s abused New York newsboy, Little Wfilm, but various kinds of movies—some adapted from Joe. In Susan Rocks the Boat (1916; dir. Paul Powell) a society girl literature or life, some original in conception—have portrayed a discovers meaning in life after founding the Joan of Arc Mission, variety of Christian missions and missionaries. If “Jesus” films while a disgraced seminarian finds redemption serving in an give us different readings of the kerygmatic paradox of divine urban mission in The Waifs (1916; dir. Scott Sidney). New York’s incarnation, pictures about missions and missionaries explore the East Side mission anchors tales of betrayal and fidelity inTo Him entirely human question: Who is or is not the model Christian? That Hath (1918; dir. Oscar Apfel), and bankrolling a mission Silent movies featured various forms of evangelism, usually rekindles a wealthy couple’s weary marriage in Playthings of Pas- Protestant. The trope of evangelism continued in big-screen and sion (1919; dir. Wallace Worsley). Luckless lovers from different later made-for-television “talkies,” social strata find a fresh start together including musicals. Biographical at the End of the Trail mission in pictures and documentaries have Virtuous Sinners (1919; dir. Emmett depicted evangelists in feature films J. Flynn), and a Salvation Army mis- and television productions, and sion worker in New York’s Bowery recent years have seen the burgeon- district reconciles with the son of the ing of Christian cinema as a distinct wealthy businessman who stole her genre.
    [Show full text]
  • April 1987 (Vol. 60, No. 5)
    Cedarville University DigitalCommons@Cedarville The Ohio ndeI pendent Baptist 4-1987 April 1987 (Vol. 60, No. 5) Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/ ohio_independent_baptist Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, and the Organizational Communication Commons Recommended Citation "April 1987 (Vol. 60, No. 5)" (1987). The Ohio Independent Baptist. 402. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/ohio_independent_baptist/402 This Newsletter is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Cedarville, a service of the Centennial Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Ohio ndeI pendent Baptist by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Cedarville. For more information, please contact [email protected]. OFFICIAL ORGAN O k io J - 3 3o ela tio n ^ * * * i M ® Cr? 9 l4b^ iy a , lire he 3 Wheelersburg Plans New Building The Wheelersburg Baptist Church unveiled plans for a new auditorium on their 109th Anniversary. The church was organized on Sunday afternoon, A pril 9,1878, into an autonomous, independent Baptist church. The first structure (to be replaced) was built that summer, and is still used as the auditorium today. The first addition was added in 1949, and the second was completed in 1959. The educational building was dedicated in 1976. Wheelersburg Baptist Church has a rich heritage and looks forward to a great future. Max K. McCullough is the Pastor. First Brunswick Mortgage Burning 30th Anniversary Fire Destroys Scioto Hills Dining Hall Bill Hollens, Pastor Wright, Don Matheny, Pastor Steve Lantz, Ron Gosnell, Bill Brock. On Sunday, December 7,1986, First Baptist Church celebrated thirty years of ministry in Brunswick, Ohio.
    [Show full text]
  • Inventory to the Helen E
    1 Inventory to the Helen E. Falls Collection AR 680 Prepared by: Taffey Hall, Archivist Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives August 2003 2 I. Biographical Sketch Dr. Helen Emery Falls, retired professor of Missions at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) in New Orleans, Louisiana, dedicated her life to the teaching Southern Baptist mission studies. Though Falls never served as a missionary, her expertise in the knowledge and understanding of the history and structure of Southern Baptist missions both at home and abroad make her a connoisseur in the field of mission studies. She served as Professor of Missions and Dean of Women at NOBTS from 1945 to 1982 and has remained active in missions-education across the country since her retirement, serving as a visiting professor of missions at Boyce Bible College (a school of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She also contributed articles to the Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists project of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Historical Commission. The daughter of an active Southern Baptist minister, Helen Falls spent much of the early years of her life moving from city to city with her family as her father accepted pastoral positions at various churches across the country. She was born in Bay City, Texas on April 17, 1916 to the Rev. Oswald Benjamin and Glennie Augusta (Parker). Shortly after she was born, Helen’s father accepted the position of pastor at the First Baptist Church of Kissimee, Florida. The Falls family stayed in Florida until 1921 when Helen’s father next accepted a pastoral position in Marion, South Carolina and two years later, a position in Bamberg, South Carolina.
    [Show full text]
  • Aug 2020 Vol 44 No 3
    Evangelical Review of Theology A Global Forum Volume 44 • Number 3 • August 2020 Published by Printed by To order hard copies, contact [email protected] ISSN: 0144-8153 Volume 44 No. 3 August 2020 Copyright © 2020 World Evangelical Alliance Department of Theological Concerns (Theological Commission) The free pdf of this journal is distributed under the following conditions: The pdf may not be sold or used for profit except with written consent. The pdf may be printed only for private use, not for profit. The only printed copies that may be used in public are those obtained from the publisher, Wipf & Stock. General Editor: Thomas Schirrmacher Executive Editor: Bruce Barron Assistant Editor: Thomas K. Johnson Book Review Editor: Peirong Lin Committee Executive Committee of the WEA Theological Commission Dr Rosalee V. Ewell, Brazil, Executive Director Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, Germany, Executive Chair Dr James O. Nkansah, Kenya, Vice-Chair Editorial Policy The articles in the Evangelical Review of Theology (ERT) reflect the opinions of the authors and reviewers and do not necessarily represent those of the Editors or the Publisher. The Editors welcome both unsolicited submissions and recommendations of original or previously published articles or book reviews for inclusion in ERT. Manuscripts, reviews, queries and other communications may be addressed to the Executive Editor at [email protected]. Printed by Wipf and Stock Publishers 199 West 8th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97401 wipfandstock.com ERT (2020) 44:3, 195 Table of Contents Welcome to the New ERT . .196 How to Advance the Kingdom of God without Travelling WEA Secretary General Efraim Tendero .
    [Show full text]
  • Have Gun, Will Travel: the Myth of the Frontier in the Hollywood Western John Springhall
    Feature Have gun, will travel: The myth of the frontier in the Hollywood Western John Springhall Newspaper editor (bit player): ‘This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, we print the legend’. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (dir. John Ford, 1962). Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott): ‘You know what’s on the back of a poor man when he dies? The clothes of pride. And they are not a bit warmer to him dead than they were when he was alive. Is that all you want, Steve?’ Steve Judd (Joel McCrea): ‘All I want is to enter my house justified’. Ride the High Country [a.k.a. Guns in the Afternoon] (dir. Sam Peckinpah, 1962)> J. W. Grant (Ralph Bellamy): ‘You bastard!’ Henry ‘Rico’ Fardan (Lee Marvin): ‘Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, you’re a self-made man.’ The Professionals (dir. Richard Brooks, 1966).1 he Western movies that from Taround 1910 until the 1960s made up at least a fifth of all the American film titles on general release signified Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, John Wayne and Strother Martin on the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance escapist entertainment for British directed and produced by John Ford. audiences: an alluring vision of vast © Sunset Boulevard/Corbis open spaces, of cowboys on horseback outlined against an imposing landscape. For Americans themselves, the Western a schoolboy in the 1950s, the Western believed that the western frontier was signified their own turbulent frontier has an undeniable appeal, allowing the closing or had already closed – as the history west of the Mississippi in the cinemagoer to interrogate, from youth U.
    [Show full text]
  • Raoul Walsh to Attend Opening of Retrospective Tribute at Museum
    The Museum of Modern Art jl west 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019 Tel. 956-6100 Cable: Modernart NO. 34 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RAOUL WALSH TO ATTEND OPENING OF RETROSPECTIVE TRIBUTE AT MUSEUM Raoul Walsh, 87-year-old film director whose career in motion pictures spanned more than five decades, will come to New York for the opening of a three-month retrospective of his films beginning Thursday, April 18, at The Museum of Modern Art. In a rare public appearance Mr. Walsh will attend the 8 pm screening of "Gentleman Jim," his 1942 film in which Errol Flynn portrays the boxing champion James J. Corbett. One of the giants of American filmdom, Walsh has worked in all genres — Westerns, gangster films, war pictures, adventure films, musicals — and with many of Hollywood's greatest stars — Victor McLaglen, Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fair­ banks, Mae West, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich and Edward G. Robinson, to name just a few. It is ultimately as a director of action pictures that Walsh is best known and a growing body of critical opinion places him in the front rank with directors like Ford, Hawks, Curtiz and Wellman. Richard Schickel has called him "one of the best action directors...we've ever had" and British film critic Julian Fox has written: "Raoul Walsh, more than any other legendary figure from Hollywood's golden past, has truly lived up to the early cinema's reputation for 'action all the way'...." Walsh's penchant for action is not surprising considering he began his career more than 60 years ago as a stunt-rider in early "westerns" filmed in the New Jersey hills.
    [Show full text]
  • Shedding Light on the Modalities of Authority in a Dar Al-Uloom, Or Religious Seminary, in Britain
    religions Article Shedding Light on the Modalities of Authority in a Dar al-Uloom, or Religious Seminary, in Britain Haroon Sidat Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK; Sidathe@cardiff.ac.uk Received: 25 July 2019; Accepted: 26 November 2019; Published: 29 November 2019 Abstract: ‘God is the Light of the heavens and the earth ::: ’ (Quran, 24:35.) This article sheds light on the modalities of authority that exist in a traditional religious seminary or Dar al-Uloom (hereon abbreviated to DU) in modern Britain. Based on unprecedented insider access and detailed ethnography, the paper considers how two groups of teachers, the senior and the younger generation, acquire and shine their authoritative light in unique ways. The article asserts that within the senior teachers an elect group of ‘luminaries’ exemplify a deep level of learning combined with practice and embodiment, while the remaining teachers are granted authority by virtue of the Prophetic light, or Hadith, they radiate. The younger generation of British-born teachers, however, are the torchbearers at the leading edge of directing the DU. While it may take time for them to acquire the social and symbolic capital of the senior teachers, operationally, they are the ones illuminating the way forward. The paper discusses the implications of the changing nature of authority within the DU is likely to have for Muslims in Britain. Keywords: Dar al-Uloom; Islam in Britain; Deoband; ulama; tradition; authority 1. Introduction During research undertaken for my PhD thesis, authority emerged as a significant analytical category and became one of the lenses through which I examined the Dar al-Uloom (DU).1 Its relationship with the Islamic tradition, that of being anchored in an authentic past, results in intense competition among British Muslims who vie to present themselves as heirs of an authentic interpretation and practice of Islam (Gilliat-Ray 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Pray for Missionary Kids! Did You Know That 372 Children Are Listed in the Missionary Prayer Handbook? They Each Face Unique Circumstances and Appreciate Your Prayers
    ALLAN WILKS I’ll Love You Forever “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35) n his 1986 classic children’s book, Love You Forever, author life, was deeply comforted and energized by his knowledge of IRobert Munsch simply and tenderly tells of a mother’s uncon- the ironclad durability of the Lord’s love. He asks his Roman ditional love for her son throughout his life.It is one of the best- readers the question “Who shall separate us from the love of selling children’s books of all time, and no wonder—few can Christ?”(Romans 8:35) He goes on to answer his own question read it without an emotional response.We are irresistibly drawn by listing the direst things he can think of, based upon his own to the ideal maternal love that endures all manner of childish life experience: “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, behavior and adult separation, always returning at the end of nakedness, danger, sword.” each day to the promise of forever-love. If I ask myself the same question, my list will surely be differ- The climax of the story (spoiler alert!) comes when the son ent than Paul’s, but the answer to the question must be the visits his mother near the end of her life and repeats back to same—”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors her her oft-repeated promise to him. This perfectly imagined through Him who loved us.”(Romans 8:37) There is simply noth- scene of returned love reminds us of the Lord Jesus on the ing that can sever the fierce bond of the love of my Savior for cross,seeing His sobbing,heartbroken mother as she gazed on me, forged in the furnace of the cross.
    [Show full text]