Suchergebnisse

Chapter 7 Converting Meanings and the Meanings of Conversion in Samoan Moral EconomiesChapter 8 Dusty Signs and Roots of Faith: The Limits of Christian Meaning in Highland Bolivia; Chapter 9 Paranomics: On the Semiotics of Sacral Action; Afterword; List of Contributors; Index.

Between 1867 and 1873, the government of Japan conducted a severe persecution of native 'hidden Christians' that resulted in the deportation of thousands from their homes in Kyushu to the far-off northern provinces of Japan. Nearly a fifth died. This persecution occurred despite the presence of Western, Christian consuls and reporters in Nagasaki and Yokohama and the relative weakness of the contemporary Japanese government. My paper works to place the incident within its context of late 19th-century cultural and political relations between Japan and the West. It ultimately concludes that most Westerners, particularly the British (then the most powerful foreigners in Japan), were unwilling to jeopardize trade relations with the Japanese government by forcibly stopping the persecution, an instance of trade trumping concerns for human rights or religious freedom that will be familiar to followers of today's international politics. It also argues that the new Meiji government deliberately used this unwillingness to fulfill its goal of implementing a new Shinto religious policy for the Japanese nation.

In his reflection on the declining importance of religion in the modern world, Max Weber - a late nineteenth century German political economist and sociologist - observed that people in the West are growing religiously "unmusical." A twentieth century inheritor of Weber's ideas, Steve Bruce, expands on Weber's metaphorical observations in two ways. On the one hand, he develops Weber's music metaphor, and compares the contemporary character of religiosity in the West to the aborted attempts of tonedeaf and atomised players to produced melodies: Like the truly tonedeaf, we know about music, we know that many people feel strongly about it, we might even be persuaded that, in some social sense, it is a good thing, but still it means nothing to us. [.] The orchestras and mass bands with their thunderous symphonies have gone. Handfuls of us will be enthusiastic music-makers but, because we no longer follow one score, we cannot produce the melodies to rouse the masses. (Bruce 234) On the other hand, Bruce offers a different image of contemporary religiosity - a confectionery metaphor in the context of which religion in the West loses its acoustic quality and aquires sweet taste. In the present article, I read Bruce's sweet metaphor together with another confectionery image related to Western spirituality - Slavoj Žižek's the Kinder Surprise egg - and focus on the status and implications of Asian religions and their relationship with Christianity in the two thinkers' chocolate metaphorics. The section titles in my article allude to Bruce's and Žižek's sweet metaphors.

What would Dietrich Bonhoeffer have to say today relative to the ethical issues of a nuclear age? Is it possible to obey the commandments of God in an unambiguous way? Although there is no simple answer, relavant guidelines are available.