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1

Pickard, Stephen. "Many Verandahs, Same House? Ecclesiological Challenges for Australian Anglicanism." Journal of Anglican Studies 4, no. 2 (December 2006): 177–200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1740355306070678.

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ABSTRACTThe article addresses a number of different themes related to Australian Anglicanism. Underlying this inquiry is a deeper concern to trace the contours of an ecclesiology that is both embedded in a particular context (Australia) and through that points to common ideals that inform the self-understanding of the wider Communion. After an introduction, the remainder of the article is divided into four sections. The first section involves a brief historical perspective to introduce Australian Anglicanism to a wider audience. A second section attends to matters of law and governance; familiar enough but often dry territory, though certainly revealing as to the present state of our Church. From history and law I offer in the third section a reflection of a geographical kind on the idea of place as a formative factor in ecclesiology. In this way I hope to be able to highlight some of the particular challenges for Australian Anglicans and hopefully the wider Communion.
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Hilliard, David. "The Ties That Used to Bind: A Fresh Look at the History of Australian Anglicanism." Pacifica: Australasian Theological Studies 11, no. 3 (October 1998): 265–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1030570x9801100303.

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This article questions the widely accepted idea that the history of Anglicanism in Australia has been dominated by warfare between three church parties: Anglo-Catholic (high), evangelical (low) and liberal (broad). In fact, among lay Anglicans and at the parish level party strife was much less important than is often assumed. Until recently Australian Anglicans shared a number of common institutions, attitudes and social characteristics, and there was a large body of “moderate” Anglicans — exemplified in this article by the Rev R. P. Hewgill of Adelaide — who did not identify with any particular party.
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Rayner, Keith. "Australian Anglicanism and Pluralism." Journal of Anglican Studies 1, no. 1 (August 2003): 46–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/174035530300100104.

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ABSTRACTInitially the Church of England was the one recognized church in Australia. As other churches were established, it became the dominant church among a few others. Subsequently it became one Christian denomination among many. Now it finds itself, with other churches, among a plurality of other faiths. This evolution from singularity to plurality has raised such questions as whether truth is one or many, how unity relates to plurality and how a church conveys its message in a plural society. For Anglicans the intensity of these questions has been heightened by the plurality within Anglicanism itself. This article argues that plurality can contribute positively to a fuller perception of truth and that the pressure for unity continues in the face of pluralism, though it may be a unity obtained by excluding dissenting points of view or an inclusive unity which transcends plurality.
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Mndolwa, Maimbo, and Philippe Denis. "Anglicanism, Uhuru and Ujamaa: Anglicans in Tanzania and the Movement for Independence." Journal of Anglican Studies 14, no. 2 (September 9, 2016): 192–209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355316000206.

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AbstractThe Anglican Church in Tanzania emerged from the work of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) and the Australian Church Missionary Society (CMSA). The Anglican missions had goals which stood against colonialism and supported the victory of nationalism. Using archives and interviews as sources, this article considers the roles and reaction of the Anglican missions in the struggle for political independence in Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the effects of independence on the missions and the Church more broadly, and the responses of the missions to ujamaa in Tanzania.
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HILLIARD, DAVID. "The Transformation of South Australian Anglicanism, c. 1880–1930." Journal of Religious History 14, no. 1 (June 1986): 38–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9809.1986.tb00454.x.

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6

LAKE, MEREDITH. "Provincialising God: Anglicanism, Place, and the Colonisation of Australian Land." Journal of Religious History 35, no. 1 (February 23, 2011): 72–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2010.00972.x.

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REYNAUD, DANIEL. "A Second Front: Canon Garland, Chaplain Maitland Woods and Anglo-Catholicism in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 72, no. 1 (October 21, 2020): 95–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046920000743.

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This article explores the work and influence of Anglo-Catholicism in the Australian Imperial Force during the Great War, based on reading the wartime correspondence of key AIF Anglo-Catholics, especially that of Canon David Garland and Chaplain William Maitland Woods. Anglo-Catholics were enthusiastic in support of the war, but simultaneously used it to promote Anglo-Catholicism and combat what they perceived to be the errors of non-Anglo-Catholic Anglicanism and the various Protestant groups, opening what might be considered a second front against these religions.
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8

Pickard, Stephen. "Church of the In-Between God: Recovering an Ecclesial Sense of Place Down-under." Journal of Anglican Studies 7, no. 1 (May 2009): 35–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355309000047.

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AbstractThis article examines the significance of ‘place’ as a theme in ecclesiology in the interests of developing an ecclesial sense of place within my own context of Australian Anglicanism. To talk about ecclesiology is to talk about place, about God’s place, about our placement in the world, about how and why our social life operates as it does, about what engenders optimal life enhancing community. From this perspective, place can be a critical concept through which theology, ecclesiology, mission and ministry can be organized and better understood. The primary discipline that has deployed the concept of place is geography. Accordingly, in this article, I consider the theme of place as it is discussed in professional geography and briefly examine some implications for being church and the Anglican Church in particular. This provides the framework for consideration of place within an Australian cultural and ecclesial context. In doing so, I examine the motif of verandah as a depiction of ecclesial place down-under. The key concept of the ‘in-between place’ to depict a post-colonial way of being church is deployed in order to recover an ecclesial sense of place down-under. Underpinning such an approach is the theological concept of the in-between God.
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9

Fletcher, Brian H. "Anglicanism and Nationalism in Australia,1901-1962." Journal of Religious History 23, no. 2 (June 1999): 215–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.00083.

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10

Fletcher, Brian H. "Anglicanism and National Identity in Australia Since 1962." Journal of Religious History 25, no. 3 (October 2001): 324–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.00137.

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11

Withycombe, Robert S. M. "Imperial Nexus and National Anglican Identity: The Australian 1911–12 Legal Nexus Opinions Revisited." Journal of Anglican Studies 2, no. 1 (June 2004): 62–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/174035530400200107.

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ABSTRACTThe legal Opinion of eminent English Counsel on the legal nexus of the Australian Anglican colonial dioceses to their Mother Church in England was delivered on 20 June 1911. It provoked a decade of debate in diocesan, provincial and national synods that revealed how leading Australian Anglicans identified themselves before and after World War One. Great diversity appears among the responses of bishops, clergy and laity. Both enthusiasm for change and wariness of it were confined to no one region or diocese. Lay understandings and participation in these debates, along with churchmanship anxieties and long traditions of colonial diocesan independence, were among important factors that governed the Australian Anglicans' long march towards constitutional autonomy in 1962. Lambeth archives, printed Synod Reports, Australian secular and religious press reports are quarried to reconstruct these images of a diverse and uncertain pre-1921 Australian Anglican identity.
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12

Strong, Rowan. "An Antipodean Establishment: Institutional Anglicanism in Australia, 1788–c. 1934." Journal of Anglican Studies 1, no. 1 (August 2003): 61–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/174035530300100105.

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ABSTRACTThis article argues that the Church of England in Australia maintained for most of this period a culture of conservative political and social values. This conservative culture was a consequence of the Church of England being a subordinate partner in the hegemony of the ruling landed classes in England. In Australia, the Church of England, while never legally established, continued to act as though it was, and to strongly uphold conservative political and social values long after its monopolistic connection with the state had any practical reality. Consequently, the Church of England in Australia supported conventional values and solutions to social problems and marginalized Anglicans who challenged its prevailing conservatism. The catalysts for a change in this prevailing institutional culture were the First World War and the Great Depression. These challenges prompted the emergence within the institutional church of the beginnings of a more cautiously critical outlook towards the social status quo.
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Withycombe, Robert S. M. "Australian Anglicans and Imperial Identity, 1900-1914." Journal of Religious History 25, no. 3 (October 2001): 286–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.00135.

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14

WELCH, PAMELA. "Constructing Colonial Christianities: With Particular Reference to Anglicanism in Australia, ca 1850–1940." Journal of Religious History 32, no. 2 (June 2008): 234–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2008.00709.x.

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15

Stuart, John, and Ian Welch. "William Henry Fitchett: Methodist, Englishman, Australian, Imperialist." Social Sciences and Missions 21, no. 1 (2008): 57–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187489408x308037.

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AbstractHistorians of colonial Australia have long been fascinated by the effects of religious change on urban New South Wales and Victoria in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This period, it is generally acknowledged, was one of evangelical revival amongst Anglicans and nonconformists alike. Well known (and sometimes world-renowned) evangelists from Great Britain and the United States invariably included cities such as Sydney and Melbourne on their international itineraries. But the local evangelical presence was strong; and this article focuses on William Henry Fitchett, a Melbourne-based evangelical Methodist clergyman who has largely escaped the attention of historians of religion. The reason he has done so is because he achieved fame in a rather different field: as a popular author of imperial histories and biographies. His published works sold in the hundreds of thousands. Yet he also wrote many serious works on religious matters. This article places Fitchett in the context of evangelical mission and revival within and beyond Australia, while also paying due attention to the influence of religion on his writing career. Les historiens de l'Australie coloniale ont longtemps été fascinés par les effets des transformations religieuses dans le monde urbain de New South Wales et Victoria durant le dernier quart du 19e siècle. Cette période est généralement considérée comme ayant été celle d'un Réveil évangélique parmi les Anglicans et les non-conformistes. Des évangélistes connus (et parfois mondialement connus) venus de Grande Bretagne et des Etats-Unis incluaient invariablement dans leurs périples internationaux des villes comme Sydney et Melbourne. Mais la présence évangélique locale était aussi forte, et cet article se concentre sur un pasteur de l'Eglise Méthodiste évangélique basé à Melbourne, William Henry Fitchett, qui a largement échappé à l'attention des historiens de la religion. La raison en est qu'il s'est rendu célèbre dans un domaine autre que religieux, à savoir comme auteur populaire d'histoires et biographies impériales. Les travaux qu'il a publiés se sont vendus par centaines de milliers d'exemplaires, mais il a aussi écrit des œuvres sérieuses sur des questions de religion. Le présent article replace Fitchett dans le contexte de la mission évangélique et du Réveil en Australie et au-delà, tout en se penchant sur la question de l'influence de la religion sur sa carrière d'auteur.
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16

Strong, Rowan. "Anglicanism and Sanctity: The Diocese of Perth and the Making of a ‘Local Saint’ in 1984." Studies in Church History 47 (2011): 390–402. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400001108.

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On 23 February 1984, the bishops of the Anglican Province of Western Australia signed and sealed a document promulgating the Venerable John Ramsden Wollaston a local saint and hero of the Anglican Communion in accordance with Resolutions 77–80 of the Lambeth Conference 1958. These four resolutions had allowed national or provincial Anglican Churches to add to the Calendar of the Saints to permit ‘supplementary commemorations for local use’ according to the following principles where they were extra-scriptural persons. They had to be individuals ‘whose historical character and devotion are beyond doubt’; ‘revisions should be few and without controversy’; and such additions ‘should normally result from a wide-spread desire expressed in the region concerned over a reasonable period of time’.
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17

Sherlock, P. "Book Review: Tom Frame, Anglicans in Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), pp. x + 293. ISBN 9780868408309 (pbk)." Journal of Anglican Studies 6, no. 2 (December 1, 2008): 252–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17403553080060020806.

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18

CAREY, HILARY. "Anglicanism in Australia. A history. Edited by Bruce Kaye, Tom Frame, Colin Holden and Geoff Treloar. Pp. xxiii+432 incl. 62 ills. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002. A$69.95. 0 522 85003 0." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55, no. 1 (January 2004): 208–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046903278295.

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Hogan, Trevor. "Bruce Kaye (Gen. ed.) Anglicanism in Australia: A History (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2002). Associate Editors: Tom Frame, Colin Holden, Geoff Treloar. ISBN 0 522 85003 0, pp. xxiii +408+ photos. RRP AU$69.95." Journal of Anglican Studies 3, no. 1 (June 2005): 121–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1740355305052829.

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Gilley, Sheridan. "Sydney Anglicans. A history of the diocese. By Stephen Judd and Kenneth Cable. Pp. xii + 393 + 49 ills. Sydney, Australia: Anglican Information Office, 1987. A$28.95 (cloth), A$ 16.95 (paper), 0 949108 33 2; 0 949108 41 3." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 40, no. 4 (October 1989): 627–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046900059339.

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21

Hilliard, David. "Anglicans in the Antipodes. An indexed calendar of the papers and correspondence of the archbishops of Canterbury, 1788–1961, relating to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Compiled and edited by Ruth Frappell, Robert Withycombe, Leighton Frappell and Raymond Nobbs. (Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies, 50.) Pp. xvi+443 incl. frontispiece. Westport, Conn.–London: Greenwood Press, 1999. £75.95. 0 313 30925 6; 0742 6836." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 52, no. 03 (July 2001): 521. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046901697392.

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22

Booth, Ken, W. J. Torrance Kirby, Bruce Kaye, John Nurser, Gary D. Badcock, Peter Sherlock, Stephen Cherry, Todd Townshend, and Charles Sherlock. "Peter Nicholas Davies, Alien Rites? A Critical Examination of Contemporary English in Anglican Liturgies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 264. ISBN 0-7546-5157-6 (hbk). £47.50. - Michael Brydon, The Evolving Reputation of Richard Hooker:An Examination of Responses, 1600–1714 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 240. ISBN 0-19-920481-0. £49.00 - P.D.L. Avis, Beyond the Reformation? Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2006), pp. xx + 234. ISBN 0567083993 (hbk). - Brian Porter, Frank Woods: Archbishop of Melbourne 1957–77 (Melbourne: Trinity College, 2007), pp. 271. ISBN 9780646471211. AU$39.00 - G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: One-Volume Edition, The Lectures of 1827 (ed. Peter C. Hodgson; trans. Robert F. Brown, Peter C. Hodgson and J. Michael Stewart, with the assistance of H.S. Harris; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp. xvii + 552. ISBN 978-0-19-928352-1 (pbk). - Tom Frame, Anglicans in Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), pp. x + 293. ISBN 9780868408309 (pbk). - Simon Jones (ed.), The Sacramental Life: Gregory Dix and His Writings (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2007), pp. xxiv + 161. ISBN 978-1-85311-717-6 (pbk). - Stephen Ellingson, The Megachurch and the Mainline: Remaking Religious Tradition in the Twenty-first Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 256. ISBN 0226204901. - Mary Reath, Rome & Canterbury: The Elusive Search for Unity (New York/Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), pp. xviii+158. ISBN 978-0-7425-5278-4 (hbk)." Journal of Anglican Studies 6, no. 2 (December 2008): 245–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1740355308097414.

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Bouma, Gary. "Australian Anglicans and Religious Plurality: Exclusive Theologies vs. Theological Affirmations of Diversity - A Tale of Two Cities." Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 26, no. 2 (December 16, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/arsr.v26i2.139.

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Douglas, Brian. "Charles Sherlock , Australian Anglicans Worship: Performing APBA (Mulgrave, Victoria: Broughton Publishing, 2020), pp. x + 433. ISBN: 9780648265962." Journal of Anglican Studies, October 13, 2020, 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355320000455.

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25

Brown, Malcolm David. "Doubt as Methodology and Object in the Phenomenology of Religion." M/C Journal 14, no. 1 (January 24, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.334.

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Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)“I must plunge again and again in the water of doubt” (Wittgenstein 1e). The Holy Grail in the phenomenology of religion (and, to a lesser extent, the sociology of religion) is a definition of religion that actually works, but, so far, this seems to have been elusive. Classical definitions of religion—substantive (e.g. Tylor) and functionalist (e.g. Durkheim)—fail, in part because they attempt to be in three places at once, as it were: they attempt to distinguish religion from non-religion; they attempt to capture what religions have in common; and they attempt to grasp the “heart”, or “core”, of religion. Consequently, family resemblance definitions of religion replace certainty and precision for its own sake with a more pragmatic and heuristic approach, embracing doubt and putting forward definitions that give us a better understanding (Verstehen) of religion. In this paper, I summarise some “new” definitions of religion that take this approach, before proposing and defending another one, defining religion as non-propositional and “apophatic”, thus accepting that doubt is central to religion itself, as well as to the analysis of religion.The question of how to define religion has had real significance in a number of court cases round the world, and therefore it does have an impact on people’s lives. In Germany, for example, the courts ruled that Scientology was not a religion, but a business, much to the displeasure of the Church of Scientology (Aldridge 15). In the United States, some advocates of Transcendental Meditation (TM) argued that TM was not a religion and could therefore be taught in public schools without violating the establishment clause in the constitution—the separation of church and state. The courts in New Jersey, and federal courts, ruled against them. They ruled that TM was a religion (Barker 146). There are other cases that I could cite, but the point of this is simply to establish that the question has a practical importance, so we should move on.In the classical sociology of religion, there are a number of definitions of religion that are quite well known. Edward Tylor (424) defined religion as a belief in spiritual beings. This definition does not meet with widespread acceptance, the notable exception being Melford Spiro, who proposed in 1966 that religion was “an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated super-human beings” (Spiro 96, see also 91ff), and who has bravely stuck to that definition ever since. The major problem is that this definition excludes Buddhism, which most people do regard as a religion, although some people try to get round the problem by claiming that Buddhism is not really a religion, but more of a philosophy. But this is cheating, really, because a definition of religion must be descriptive as well as prescriptive; that is, it must apply to entities that are commonly recognised as religions. Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, proposed that religion had two key characteristics, a separation of the sacred from the profane, and a gathering together of people in some sort of institution or community, such as a church (Durkheim 38, 44). However, religions often reject a separation of the sacred from the profane. Most Muslims and many Calvinist Christians, for example, would insist strongly that everything—including the ostensibly profane—is equally subject to the sovereignty of God. Also, some religions are more oriented to a guru-pupil kind of relationship, rather than a church community.Weber tried to argue that religion should only be defined at the end of a long process of historical and empirical study. He is often criticised for this, although there probably is some wisdom in his argument. However, there seems to be an implicit definition of religion as theodicy, accounting for the existence of evil and the existence of suffering. But is this really the central concern of all religions?Clarke and Byrne, in their book Religion Defined and Explained, construct a typology of definitions, which I think is quite helpful. Broadly speaking, there are two types of classical definition. Firstly, there are substantive definitions (6), such as Tylor’s and Spiro’s, which posit some sort of common “property” that religions “have”—“inside” them, as it were. Secondly, functionalist definitions (Clarke and Byrne 7), such as Durkheim’s, define religion primarily in terms of its social function. What matters, as far as a definition of religion is concerned, is not what you believe, but why you believe it.However, these classical definitions do not really work. I think this is because they try to do too many things. For a strict definition of religion to work, it needs to tell us (i) what religions have in common, (ii) what distinguishes religion on the one hand from non-religion, or everything that is not religion, on the other, and (iii) it needs to tell us something important about religion, what is at the core of religion. This means that a definition of religion has to be in three places at once, so to speak. Furthermore, a definition of religion has to be based on extant religions, but it also needs to have some sort of quasi-predictive capacity, the sort of thing that can be used in a court case regarding, for example, Scientology or Transcendental Meditation.It may be possible to resolve the latter problem by a gradual process of adjustment, a sort of hermeneutic circle of basing a definition on extant religions and applying it to new ones. But what about the other problem, the one of being in three places at once?Another type identified by Clarke and Byrne, in their typology of definitions, is the “family resemblance” definition (11-16). This derives from the later Wittgenstein. The “family resemblance” definition of religion is based on the idea that religions commonly share a number of features, but that no one religion has all of them. For example, there are religious beliefs, doctrines and mythos—or stories and parables. There are rituals and moral codes, institutions and clergy, prayers, spiritual emotions and experiences, etc. This approach is of course less precise than older substantive and functional definitions, but it also avoids some of the problems associated with them.It does so by rethinking the point of defining religion. Instead of being precise and rigorous for the sake of it, it tries to tell us something, to be “productive”, to help us understand religion better. It eschews certainty and embraces doubt. Its insights could be applied to some schools of philosophy (e.g. Heideggerian) and practical spirituality, because it does not focus on what is distinctive about religion. Rather, it focuses on the core of religion, and, secondarily, on what religions have in common. The family resemblance approach has led to a number of “new” definitions (post-Durkheim definitions) being proposed, all of which define religion in a less rigorous, but, I hope, more imaginative and heuristic way.Let me provide a few examples, starting with two contrasting ones. Peter Berger in the late 1960s defined religion as “the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as humanly significant”(37), which implies a consciousness of an anthropocentric sacred cosmos. Later, Alain Touraine said that religion is “the apprehension of human destiny, existence, and death”(213–4), that is, an awareness of human limitations, including doubt. Berger emphasises the high place for human beings in religion, and even a sort of affected certainty, while Touraine emphasises our place as doubters on the periphery, but it seems that religion exists within a tension between these two opposites, and, in a sense, encompasses them both.Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church and arch-nemesis of the conservative Anglicans, such as those from Sydney, defines religion as like good poetry, not bad science. It is easy to understand that he is criticising those who see religion, particularly Christianity, as centrally opposed to Darwin and evolution. Holloway is clearly saying that those people have missed the point of their own faith. By “good poetry”, he is pointing to the significance of storytelling rather than dogma, and an open-ended discussion of ultimate questions that resists the temptation to end with “the moral of the story”. In science (at least before quantum physics), there is no room for doubt, but that is not the case with poetry.John Caputo, in a very energetic book called On Religion, proposes what is probably the boldest of the “new” definitions. He defines religion as “the love of God” (1). Note the contrast with Tylor and Spiro. Caputo does not say “belief in God”; he says “the love of God”. You might ask how you can love someone you don’t believe in, but, in a sense, this paradox is the whole point. When Caputo says “God”, he is not necessarily talking in the usual theistic or even theological terms. By “God”, he means the impossible made possible (10). So a religious person, for Caputo, is an “unhinged lover” (13) who loves the impossible made possible, and the opposite is a “loveless lout” who is only concerned with the latest stock market figures (2–3). In this sense of religious, a committed atheist can be religious and a devout Catholic or Muslim or Hindu can be utterly irreligious (2–3). Doubt can encompass faith and faith can encompass doubt. This is the impossible made possible. Caputo’s approach here has something in common with Nietzsche and especially Kierkegaard, to whom I shall return later.I would like to propose another definition of religion, within the spirit of these “new” definitions of religion that I have been discussing. Religion, at its core, I suggest, is non-propositional and apophatic. When I say that religion is non-propositional, I mean that religion will often enact certain rituals, or tell certain stories, or posit faith in someone, and that propositional statements of doctrine are merely reflections or approximations of this non-propositional core. Faith in God is not a proposition. The Eucharist is not a proposition. Prayer is not, at its core, a proposition. Pilgrimage is not a proposition. And it is these sorts of things that, I suggest, form the core of religion. Propositions are what happen when theologians and academics get their hands on religion, they try to intellectualise it so that it can be made to fit within their area of expertise—our area of expertise. But, that is not where it belongs. Propositions about rituals impose a certainty on them, whereas the ritual itself allows for courage in the face of doubt. The Maundy Thursday service in Western Christianity includes the stripping of the altar to the accompaniment of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me”), ending the service without a dismissal (Latin missa, the origin of the English “mass”) and with the church in darkness. Doubt, confusion, and bewilderment are the heart and soul of this ritual, not orthodox faith as defined propositionally.That said, religion does often involve believing, of some kind (though it is not usually as central as in Christianity). So I say that religion is non-propositional and apophatic. The word “apophatic”, though not the concept, has its roots in Greek Orthodox theology, where St Gregory Palamas argues that any statement about God—and particularly about God’s essence as opposed to God’s energies—must be paradoxical, emphasising God’s otherness, and apophatic, emphasising God’s essential incomprehensibility (Armstrong 393). To make an apophatic statement is to make a negative statement—instead of saying God is king, lord, father, or whatever, we say God is not. Even the most devout believer will recognise a sense in which God is not a king, or a lord, or a father. They will say that God is much greater than any of these things. The Muslim will say “Allahu Akhbar”, which means God is greater, greater than any human description. Even the statement “God exists” is seen to be well short of the mark. Even that is human language, which is why the Cappadocian fathers (Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Naziansus) said that they believed in God, while refusing to say that God exists.So to say that religion is at its core non-propositional is to say that religious beliefs are at their core apophatic. The idea of apophasis is that by a process of constant negation you are led into silence, into a recognition that there is nothing more that can be said. St Thomas Aquinas says that the more things we negate about God, the more we say “God is not…”, the closer we get to what God is (139). Doubt therefore brings us closer to the object of religion than any putative certainties.Apophasis does not only apply to Christianity. I have already indicated that it applies also to Islam, and the statement that God is greater. In Islam, God is said to have 99 names—or at least 99 that have been revealed to human beings. Many of these names are apophatic. Names like The Hidden carry an obviously negative meaning in English, while, etymologically, “the Holy” (al-quddu-s) means “beyond imperfection”, which is a negation of a negation. As-salaam, the All-Peaceful, means beyond disharmony, or disequilibrium, or strife, and, according to Murata and Chittick (65–6), “The Glorified” (as-subbuh) means beyond understanding.In non-theistic religions too, an apophatic way of believing can be found. Key Buddhist concepts include sunyata, emptiness, or the Void, and anatta, meaning no self, the belief or realisation that the Self is illusory. Ask what they believe in instead of the Self and you are likely to be told that you are missing the point, like the Zen pupil who confused the pointing finger with the moon. In the Zen koans, apophasis plays a major part. One well-known koan is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Any logical answers will be dismissed, like Thomas Aquinas’s statements about God, until the pupil gets beyond logic and achieves satori, or enlightenment. Probably the most used koan is Mu—Master Joshu is asked if a dog has Buddha-nature and replies Mu, meaning “no” or “nothing”. This is within the context of the principle that everything has Buddha-nature, so it is not logical. But this apophatic process can lead to enlightenment, something better than logic. By plunging again and again in the water of doubt, to use Wittgenstein’s words, we gain something better than certainty.So not only is apophasis present in a range of different religions—and I have given just a few examples—but it is also central to the development of religion in the Axial Age, Karl Jaspers’s term for the period from about 800-200 BCE when the main religious traditions of the world began—monotheism in Israel (which also developed into Christianity and Islam), Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Confucianism and Taoism in China, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. In the early Hindu traditions, there seems to have been a sort of ritualised debate called the Brahmodya, which would proceed through negation and end in silence. Not the silence of someone admitting defeat at the hands of the other, but the silence of recognising that the truth lay beyond them (Armstrong 24).In later Hinduism, apophatic thought is developed quite extensively. This culminates in the idea of Brahman, the One God who is Formless, beyond all form and all description. As such, all representations of Brahman are equally false and therefore all representations are equally true—hence the preponderance of gods and idols on the surface of Hinduism. There is also the development of the idea of Atman, the universal Self, and the Buddhist concept anatta, which I mentioned, is rendered anatman in Sanskrit, literally no Atman, no Self. But in advaita Hinduism there is the idea that Brahman and Atman are the same, or, more accurately, they are not two—hence advaita, meaning “not two”. This is negation, or apophasis. In some forms of present-day Hinduism, such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as the Hare Krishnas), advaita is rejected. Sometimes this is characterised as dualism with respect to Brahman and Atman, but it is really the negation of non-dualism, or an apophatic negation of the negation.Even in early Hinduism, there is a sort of Brahmodya recounted in the Rig Veda (Armstrong 24–5), the oldest extant religious scripture in the world that is still in use as a religious scripture. So here we are at the beginning of Axial Age religion, and we read this account of creation:Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal.Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.All that existed then was void and form less.Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.(Rig Veda Book 10, Hymn 129, abridged)And it would seem that this is the sort of thought that spread throughout the world as a result of the Axial Age and the later spread of Axial and post-Axial religions.I could provide examples from other religious traditions. Taoism probably has the best examples, though they are harder to relate to the traditions that are more familiar in the West. “The way that is spoken is not the Way” is the most anglicised translation of the opening of the Tao Te Ching. In Sikhism, God’s formlessness and essential unknowability mean that God can only be known “by the Guru’s grace”, to quote the opening hymn of the Guru Granth Sahib.Before I conclude, however, I would like to anticipate two criticisms. First, this may only be applicable to the religions of the Axial Age and their successors, beginning with Hinduism and Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and early Jewish monotheism, followed by Jainism, Christianity, Islam and so on. I would like to find examples of apophasis at the core of other traditions, including Indigenous Australian and Native American ones, for example, but that is work still to be done. Focusing on the Axial Age does historicise the argument, however, at least in contrast with a more universal concept of religion that runs the risk of falling into the ahistorical homo religiosus idea that humans are universally and even naturally religious. Second, this apophatic definition looks a bit elitist, defining religion in terms that are relevant to theologians and “religious virtuosi” (to use Weber’s term), but what about the ordinary believers, pew-fillers, temple-goers? In response to such criticism, one may reply that there is an apophatic strand in what Niebuhr called the religions of the disinherited. In Asia, devotion to the Buddha Amida is particularly popular among the poor, and this involves a transformation of the idea of anatta—no Self—into an external agency, a Buddha who is “without measure”, in terms of in-finite light and in-finite life. These are apophatic concepts. In the Christian New Testament, we are told that God “has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong…, the things that are not to shame the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27). The things that are not are the apophatic, and these are allied with the foolish and the weak, not the educated and the powerful.One major reason for emphasising the role of apophasis in religious thought is to break away from the idea that the core of religion is an ethical one. This is argued by a number of “liberal religious” thinkers in different religious traditions. I appreciate their reasons, and I am reluctant to ally myself with their opponents, who include the more fundamentalist types as well as some vocal critics of religion like Dawkins and Hitchens. However, I said that I would return to Kierkegaard, and the reason is this. Kierkegaard distinguishes between the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. Of course, religion has an aesthetic and an ethical dimension, and in some religions these dimensions are particularly important, but that does not make them central to religion as such. Kierkegaard regarded the religious sphere as radically different from the aesthetic or even the ethical, hence his treatment of the story of Abraham going to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son, in obedience to God’s command. His son was not killed in the end, but Abraham was ready to do the deed. This is not ethical. This is fundamentally and scandalously unethical. Yet it is religious, not because it is unethical and scandalous, but because it pushes us to the limits of our understanding, through the waters of doubt, and then beyond.Were I attempting to criticise religion, I would say it should not go there, that, to misquote Wittgenstein, the limits of my understanding are the limits of my world, whereof we cannot understand thereof we must remain silent. Were I attempting to defend religion, I would say that this is its genius, that it can push back the limits of understanding. I do not believe in value-neutral sociology, but, in this case, I am attempting neither. ReferencesAldridge, Alan. Religion in the Contemporary World. Cambridge: Polity, 2000.Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa of Christian Teaching”. An Aquinas Reader. ed. Mary Clarke. New York: Doubleday, 1972.Armstrong, Karen. The Great Transformation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.Barker, Eileen. New Religious Movements: a Practical Introduction. London: HMSO, 1989.Berger, Peter. The Social Reality of Religion. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.Caputo, John. On Religion. London: Routledge, 2001.Clarke, Peter, and Peter Byrne, eds. Religion Defined and Explained. New York: St Martin’s Press. 1993.Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press, 1995.Holloway, Richard. Doubts and Loves. Edinburgh: Caqnongate, 2002.Jaspers, Karl. The Origin and Goal of History. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977.Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or. London: Penguin, 1992.———. Fear and Trembling. London: Penguin, 1986.Murata, Sachiko, and William Chittick. The Vision of Islam. St Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House, 1994.Niebuhr, H. Richard. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. New York: Holt, 1929.Spiro, Melford. “Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation.” Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. Ed. Michael Banton. London: Tavistock, 1966. 85–126.Touraine, Alain. The Post-Industrial Society. London: Wilwood House, 1974.Tylor, Edward. Primitive Culture. London: Murray, 1903.Weber, Max. The Sociology of Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough. Nottingham: Brynmill Press, 1979.
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