Wednesday – 09:00-10:30
Session 13 – Aud. Westermarck C101 – Chair: Helena Kupari
Martina Björkander – Åbo Akademi University
Dancing steps of faith: Kinetic-somatic learning processes in charismatic worship
In Kenya, pentecostal-charismatic Christianity is strong and churches play an important part in society, not least in urban areas. Their attraction is especially strong among young people, and a major explanation to that is what Ogbu Kalu calls “the charismatic liturgy”, with songs and music appealing to the young, modern, Kenyan. Church is a place to go for good music just as much as for good preaching or good friends.
Dance as a communal, congregational worship practice is a significant aspect of East African pentecostal ritual life, and one where the connection between learning and religion becomes apparent. By dancing steps of faith, congregants together learn to “walk with Christ” on a daily basis. At the same time, they learn who he is, and effectively internalize doctrinal elements and biblical material. Through ritual action, bodies learn to feel, and brains learn to think in pentecostal ways.
Based on ethnographic material, this paper explores the role of worship for pentecostal spirituality, paying special attention to kinetic-somatic learning processes as part of ritual.
Heidi Jokinen – Åbo Akademi University
Altar Flowers – awing or learning
Visual artefacts have held a multifaceted role in Christianity. The tradition of Biblia Pauberum brought religious learning to those with no access to written words, nor to the language of the elites. The visual was not only about teaching, it was also about experiencing God’s presence.
With reformation the view changed. Man-made images were considered reflecting human conceptions of God. Any devotion to them was idolatrous. Religious learning was to happen through word, through ratio, only. While the approached was later alleviated the question of the function of images in the church remains.
This paper offers new perspectives into the intersections of aesthetics, faith and reason by conducting a conceptual analysis of the role of altar flowers in Lutheran liturgy. While not worshipped, flowers are centrally located. They are decorative yet conveying meanings that support a more rational cultivation at the moment. Altar flowers can offer a deeper understanding on how religious learning and experiencing are related to each other.
Helena Kupari – University of Eastern Finland/University of Helsinki
“Back row sign of the cross”: Conversion as learning through legitimate peripheral participation in the Finnish Orthodox community
An important aspect of religious conversion is acquiring new knowledge and mastering new skills. In this presentation, I apply a practice-oriented framework to analyze conversion as learning. According to this theoretical starting point, learning is a situated, social, and generative activity taking place through “legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger 1991). Learners, in other words, occupy a recognized yet marginal role in wider interactive and collaborative processes, with the possibility of gradually moving towards fuller participation.
In this presentation I ask, how does learning through legitimate peripheral participation work in the Finnish Orthodox community. My study draws on participant observation in a catechumen course organized by one Finnish Orthodox parish for people interested in joining the church, as well as interviews of converts and Orthodox magazine articles discussing conversion. My particular focus is on (potential) new members’ experiences of collective worship as a central actualization of the Orthodox community of practice. However, I also discuss how the “pedagogies of conversion” (Galonnier & de los Rios 2016) applied in the catechumen course embrace the notion of learning through practice and “back row participation”.
Session 14 – Aud. Voltaire M127 – Chair: Terhi Utriainen
Peter Boros – Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Redesigning Buddhist education in early 20th-century China
During the early 20th-century in China, when the country was in transition from imperial reign to becoming a republic, most institutions had to reinvent themselves. Religious institutions, and among them Buddhism were no exception. Multiple responses emerged within the community, but one of the most influential was the radical reform movement of master Taixu 太虛大師, who saw education as the key to revitalize Chinese Buddhism. During his lifetime, he founded several new seminaries for monks, schools for children including girls, and utilized western educational methods and curricula to prepare his students for a ‘modern China’ with ‘modern Buddhism’. However, the reasoning behind his reforms is mostly neglected in academic research. Therefore, in my presentation, I will analyze Taixu’s most important speeches and writings about his educational reforms, and discuss his main arguments. Moreover, I will provide a glimpse into how these reforms influence Taiwanese and global Buddhism to this day.
Aaron French – Universität Erfurt
Esotericism Against Capitalism? Rudolf Steiner’s Esoteric Pedagogy
This presentation seeks a better understanding of how Steiner envisioned esoteric pedagogy as a site of learning (for example through art, seasonal festivals, ritual drama, etc.). I am especially interested in how such an approach was intended to resist the encroaching influence of capitalism, materialism, and corporatism that was spreading in Germany following WWI. Steiner’s ideas about education did not emerge in a vacuum. He was inspired by and connected with other forms of communist, socialist, and Lebensreform movements in his time. Yet Steiner more actively embraced and incorporated esotericism into his pedagogical project. How did his approach differ from the other anti-capitalist and anti-materialist inspired schools that were spreading at the time, and what role did esotericism play in terms of developing Waldorf students?
This presentation will explore these questions and contribute to the recontextualization of both Steiner and esotericism taking place in recent years.
Tiina-Mari Mällinen – University of Helsinki
Learning Compassion, Unlearning Egoism -Mother Amma’s Devotees’ Continuing Life Lessons
In my PhD project I research Mother Amma’s devotees’ identities. The exact research question is as follows: How are Amma’s Finnish devotees’ identities constructed in their temporal narratives?
Since I’m in the beginning phase of the research and haven’t actualized the interviews yet, in this conference I intend to present some broad views of learning and unlearning in the movement in question. This I can do on the basis of familiarizing with the subject for over twenty years.
I propose to give answers to following questions:
What is taught about learning in the Amma movement and how do individuals seem to correspond to this teaching? What are they expected to learn and unlearn and how? Is there ”a minimum syllabus” in the movement?
Session 15 – Aud. Källan C201 – Chair: Maija Butters
Mikko Autere – University of Helsinki
Aesthetic and mystical cognition. Learning appropriate reactions to Sufi poetry
I asked him, “What are the droplets on your cheek?”
He smiled and said, “Oh, just rose water dripping from the flower.”
Experiencing Sufi poetry set to music is an important part of the religious practice of several Sufi orders. Some poems feature unambiguously religious praise of the prophet Muhammad and other religious personalities. Others, like the above verse attributed to Jami (d. 1492), celebrate winebibbing, rakish and antinomian behaviour, and all-consuming passionate love.
But how do Sufi disciples learn to attribute religious meaning to such ambiguous themes and react to them in appropriate ways? Drawing from both texts written by Sufis of the Chishti order and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Indian Sufi shrines, this presentation seeks to trace the contours of the pedagogical methods used in teaching aesthetic and mystical cognition that the Sufis deem essential for turning such poetic themes into a vehicle of a meaningful religious experience.
Olivia Cejvan – Lund University
Revelations according to schedule: Secrecy as didactics in the initiatory society Sodalitas Rosae Crucis
Based on fieldwork as an initiate in the contemporary esoteric society Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (Society of the Rosy Cross, abbreviated SRC), this paper explores secrecy as an educational device in the teaching and learning of ritual magic. Founded in Sweden 2002, SRC perpetuates the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an influential initiatory society instituted in London in 1888. Fieldwork over three years in SRC allowed me to study how ritual skills and inner sense cultivation were taught and learnt within this initiatory community of practice. Here, a stepwise revelation of secret doctrine and secret practices is employed systematically, with each degree unlocking new pieces to the puzzle of spiritual attainment. In analyzing key ethnographic findings from a social learning perspective, I outline two educational dimensions of secrecy: 1) how the gradual revealing of secrets portions curricular content systematically, promoting effective learning. 2) How this gradual revelation also effectuates another condition for learning: student motivation, in creating curiosity and expectation regarding what remains hidden and what will be disclosed in time
Helena Hildur W.
Interfaith Dialogue by Images
I hereby submit a contribution, which could take the form of either a presentation, or an exhibition. It’s the documentation of a two-part workshop – a methodological pilot – held in October 2019. The organizational framework was ‘A Day of Art, Sisterhood, Dialogue’, arranged by the Study Association Ibn Rushd and the Church of Sweden; a development from a series of women-only studies in Scriptural Reasoning, welcoming women of all faiths to interreligious exchange. My task was to offer a space for non-verbal communication, and to moderate group reflections afterwards. The first part of the workshop focused on each individual’s state of mind at the beginning of the day; the last part, by the evening, invited the whole group to interpret their day in simple imagery on large sheets of paper, and subsequently to meet and negotiate creatively with each others’ expressions. 20+ women of various confessions participated with sincerity and ardor.