Tuesday 16 – 11.00-12:30
Session 7 – Aud. Westermarck C101 – Chair: Sofia Sjö
Elisa Mikkola – University of Helsinki
Women learning a new profession in the field of New Spirituality
In my presentation, I will discuss how angel services are produced in the field of New Spirituality in Finland, how the producers of new spiritual services describe their work, how they started to deliver these services, and how they collect their customer base.
The research material consists of six interviews with women practicing angel therapy or other spiritual services. The interviewees described the turning point when they became interested in new spirituality. The transition to users and later producers of spiritual services seems to be related to a crisis in personal or professional life.
Courses and various certificates give them the confidence to work in their profession and the opportunity to identify themselves as professionals in the new spirituality. There is no contradiction between spirituality and entrepreneurship, as they see entrepreneurship as part of a spiritual path, the strengthening of personal skills and qualities.
Emilia Plichta – Åbo Akademi University
Impact of Catholic Church’s teachings on childless women in Poland
The decision to have offspring is influenced by the context in which a person is situated. Women who decide to remain childless are at a higher risk of social exclusion than men. Poland provides a unique context for analysis of childlessness in relation to religion – the country is considered religiously homogeneous with low birth rates but a relatively low level of childlessness. For my master’s thesis, I analysed a document of the Polish Episcopal Conference Służyć prawdzie o małżeństwie i rodzinie (Eng. Serving the Truth about Marriage and Family) to uncover language that may contribute to the social exclusion of childless women. The document is written with the intent to be a pastoral inspiration. The arguments from the text, when used to teach the members of the Catholic Church in Poland about living according to God’s will, may have a negative impact on the people who cannot or do not want to have children and contribute to their social exclusion.
Ella Poutiainen – University of Turku
Sacred feminine leadership? Teaching and learning gender within feminine spiritualities
Women’s spiritual retreats, feminine ’mystery schools’ and other women-only events are flourishing within the field of holistic spirituality. These ’feminine spiritualities’ invite women to cultivate and heal ’the feminine’ in order to gain personal empowerment and to bring about change in what is considered a masculine world. Scholars of holistic spiritualities have been concerned about the fields emphasis on individual empowerment over structral change and the possible natrualisation and reinforcement of binary gender roles. By both drawing on and challenging this critique, this presentation explores feminine spiritualities as a site for learning both gender and social action. I suggest that the feminine appears both as natural to women and as something that must actively be (re-)learned by modern women ’living in a man’s world’. Furthermore, by looking at the idea of ’sacred feminine leadership’, I will consider how women are invited to channel their inner growth toward outward action.
Session 8 – Aud. Voltaire M127 – Chair: Marcus Moberg
Anders Aschim – Høgskolen i Innlandet
First language Catholic catechesis in Norway: Learning (religion) for the diaspora?
In recent years, the Catholic Church in Norway has seen a considerable growth, mainly due to migration. Today, it is both one of the most numerous and one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse religious minorities in the country.
Many children and young people take part in catechesis, the faith education programme of the Catholic Church. In principle, this education is offered in Norwegian language for all participants. However, in several parishes, catechesis is also offered in the first language of certain migrant groups, e.g. Polish, Vietnamese, Tamil or Lithuanian. The main objective of this education is of course the religious socialization of children and youth. From the point of view of socio-cultural learning theories, however, one may also search for other more or less visible learning outcomes, in terms of e.g. language skills, cultural heritage, specific religious traditions, or even social control. Data consist of interviews with migrant chaplains in addition to diocesan statistics and Vatican and docesan documents.
Dmytro Markov – A.Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies, Kyiv, Ukraine (online)
An education and the revival of Nepalese (Newar) Mahayana Buddhism: to educate an old Buddhist priest and a young Buddhist scholar
Nepalese Buddhism (also known as Newar Buddhism) represents an ancient surviving tradition of Sanskrit Buddhism, originating from Indian Mahayana/ Vajrayana; it has been uninterruptedly practiced in Nepal for at least 1500 years. The political, social, cultural challenges which the Nepalese Buddhists faced in 20 and 21 c. caused the crisis of a traditional institutions of Nepalese Buddhism and affected the life of the sangha and laity. An education became one of the central lines to help the Nepalese Buddhism to begin reforms and adapt. Thus, esp. since 1980-s young intellectuals and traditional teachers started different activities (classes, study of texts; rituals for priests; study of Buddhist philosophy etc.). Such institutions as Aksheshwar Mahavihar, the Lotus Research Center, Nagarjuna Institute of Buddhist Studies (NIBS), later also Sugata Buddhist College etc. emerged as centers for study of Buddhism. They are combining modernist and traditional elements and methods in their educating work; work for reviving of Nepalese Mahayana.
Teemu Toivonen – University of Eastern Finland
Communal life as a context of learning
The number of conversions to the Orthodox Church of Finland grew since the 1970s. By the early 21st century, most parishes in Finland offered some organized teaching for potential converts. However, the ways in which the converts are trained or educated before and after joining formally the Orthodox Church are little studied, in Finland as well as in other Orthodox contexts. My presentation outlines some results of a survey conducted for those who had participated in catechumen courses in the Orthodox Parish of Helsinki. The answers reflect participants’ experiences of socialization to a new religious community on different levels. Due to the time of the survey, the effects of Covid-19 are visible in part of the results and they seem to reveal strengths and weaknesses in the communal life of the converts.
Session 9 – Aud. Källan C201 – Chair: Maija Butters
Elad Ben David – Bar-Ilan University
Social Media as a Platform for Religious Spirituality during Covid-19: The Case of Jewish Israeli Preachers on YouTube
The Covid-19 pandemic has appeared while the proliferation of new media technology is dominant and affects mediated communication in the public sphere, where religion has become a prominent online factor. The paper focuses on the case of popular Jewish Israeli preachers, who use the YouTube platform for teaching Judaism, as a tool to boost spirituality among the viewers. Through the Covid-19 case, I argue that although the pandemic has harmed daily religious routines, it also played a significant spiritual role, thanks to the advancement of religious activity on social media platforms. In an era where individuals and communities were forced to limit their physical religious rituals, the engagement of a ‘virtual Judaism’ as an independent religious form, preserved a communication channel between the preachers and the audience. The paper applies a range of examples used by those YouTuber preachers, highlighting the importance of social media as a platform to acquire religion and spirituality, especially during the unprecedented era of Covid-19.
Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska – SGH Warsaw School of Economics & Joanna Krotofil – Jagiellonian University
Polish Islamic Internet as a Site of Learning
Polish Islamic Internet is a unique place for converts to learn about Islam. The tiny local Muslim community that does not exceed 0.3% of the general population is geographically dispersed – thus naturally Internet might provide a space where Polish speaking Muslims can connect, interact and learn. At the same time small number of Muslims and low-profile Islamic leadership puts them more in a position of receivers rather than producers of Islamic knowledge online. The paper aims to unpack the variety of challenges related to studying Internet as a site of learning in the Polish Muslim context. We will use the concept of religion focused internet space as a site of learning to analyse the blurred boundaries between different levels of religious content and the complex power dynamics related to the extension of religious authority afforded by online space.
Robin Isomaa – Åbo Akademi University
How to Think like an Atheist: Analyzing Atheist-Produced Educational Content on YouTube
One central element of deconversion processes is replacing old ways of thinking with new ones. The resocialization into a new (non)religious identity involves processes of learning and unlearning, and deconverts who exit the religious field altogether can utilize a variety of resources in their journey, including books, documentaries, and social media.
Atheism has had a strong presence on YouTube since its founding, and this paper views YouTube videos as educational resources for atheists. Drawing from a sample of 63 atheist YouTubers, and taking a discourse-analytic approach, it investigates different types of educational videos and ways of thinking about subjects like religion, science, and philosophy that atheist content creators utilize and promote. Together, they construct an idea of what an atheist is expected to know and a normative ‘atheistic’ approach to acquiring knowledge and interpreting the world.