#pietism

[grandpasessions]

On the Absence and Unknowability of God

C. Yannaras

[pennstateuniversitypress]

Unlocked Book of the Month: Falckner's Curieuse Nachricht von Pensylvania

Each month we’re highlighting a book available through PSU Press Unlocked, an open access initiative featuring scholarly digital books and journals in the humanities and social sciences.

About our August pick:

Originally circulated in Germany, Daniel Falckner’s Curieuse Nachricht von Pensylvania was one in a wave of pamphlets about the American colonies disseminated in Europe during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It stood alongside influential works by Penn and Pastorius that were circulated among Pietists and other groups to raise awareness in Europe about the practical and spiritual climates in Pennsylvania. Falckner’s pamphlet, in particular, was used in a promotional manner and utilizes a question-and-answer format, addressing everything from how to plan for a voyage to America to common professions for Europeans in the New World, dealings with the native population, seasonal climate, and hundreds of other issues. This translation of Curieuse Nachricht, first published by the Pennsylvania German Society in 1905, includes introductory chapters and annotations by Julius Sachse. The English translation and original German text appear on facing pages, and annotations examine the differences between an original manuscript and the version widely distributed by the Frankfort Company, a group of Pennsylvania land investors, in 1702.

Read more and access the book here: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-05384-4.html

See the list of full Unlocked titles here: https://www.psupress.org/unlocked/unlocked_gallery.html

[bestartistictshirts]

Antique Book in German

Check out this item in my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/listing/1400633636/1667-rare-antique-book-in-old-german

[synesindri]

i'm always making characters strongly religious in a way that mostly aligns with their upbringing but is different enough that it causes them problems & crises

[seinaet]

Another one that could be a direct inspiration lol, especially due to the colour scheme and the lace collar scarf thing

[neroushalvaus]

The thrilling sequel

Vaikka mustavalkoinen ois maailma... 🌈

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

I used The Magicians novels as a reference point in a paper I wrote recently for class -- the topic had to do with how stories exist in conversation with each other, and I talked about the reaction against the Chronicles of Narnia's pietism throughout the series, and particularly how it plays out in Quentin and Ember's adversarial relationship, compared to the lifelong devotion the Narnian protagonists give to Aslan. Good stuff, I'm delightfully clever.

The amusing bit for Tumblr purposes is that I just got the paper back, and amid other more substantive comments, my instructor wrote "I'm completely distracted by the mention of The Magicians LOL. Quentin, Alice, Eliot and all the rest are very alive to me from the TV series...." No need to thank me, ma'am, distracting people by forcing them to think about Syfy's The Magicians is (not to brag...) kinda what I do.

(I didn't even mention Eliot in the paper. That one's not even on me.)

[bijoumikhawal]

hello! i hope it's alright to ask you this but i was wondering if you have any recommendations for books to read or media in general about the history of judaism and jewish communities in egypt, particularly in ottoman and modern egypt?

have a nice day!

it's fine to ask me this! Unfortunately I have to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of books on Egyptian Jewish history have a Zionist bias. There are antizionist Egyptian Jews, and at the very least ones who have enough national pride that AFAIK they do not publicly hold Zionist beliefs, like those who spoke in the documentary the Jews of Egypt (avaliable on YouTube for free with English subtitles). Others have an anti Egyptian bias- there is a geopolitical tension with Egypt from Antiquity that unfortunately some Jewish people have carried through history even when it was completely irrelevant, so in trying to research interactions between "ancient" Egyptian Jews and Native Egyptians (from the Ptolemaic era into the proto-Coptic and fully Coptic eras) I've unfortunately come across stuff that for me, as an Egyptian, reads like anti miscegenationist ideology, and it is difficult to tell whether this is a view of history being pushed on the past or not. The phrase "Erev Rav" (meaning mixed multitude), which in part refers to Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and converted to Judaism, is even used as an insult by some.

Since I mentioned that documentary, I'll start by going over more modern sources. Mapping Jewish San Francisco has a playlist of videos of interviews with Egyptian Jews, including both Karaites and Rabbinic Jews iirc (I reblogged some of these awhile ago in my "actually Egyptian tag" tag). This book, the Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, is avaliable for free online, it promises to be a more indepth look at Egyptian Jews in the lead up to modern explusion. I have only read a few sections of it, so I cannot give a full judgment on it. There's this video I watched about preserving Karaite historical sites in Egypt that I remember being interesting. "On the Mediterranian and the Nile edited by Harvey E. Goldman and Matthis Lehmann" is a collection of memiors iirc, as is "the Man in the Sharkskin Suit" (which I've started but not completed), both moreso from a Rabbinic perspective. Karaites also have a few websites discussing themselves in their terms, such as this one.

For the pre-modern but post-Islamic era, the Cairo Geniza is a great resource but in my opinion as a hobby researcher, hard to navigate. It is a large cache of documents from a Cairo synagogue mostly from around the Fatimid era. A significant portion of it is digitized and they occasionally crowd source translation help on their Twitter, and a lot of books and papers use it as a primary source. "The Jews in Medieval Egypt, edited by: Miriam Frenkel" is one in my to read pile. "Benjamin H. Hary - Multiglossia in Judeio-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll" is a paper I've read discussing the Jewish record of the events commemorated by the Cairo Purim, I got it off either Anna's Archive or libgen. "Mamluks of Jewish Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate by Koby Yosef" is a paper in my to read pile. "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type A particular trend of mysticisme in Medieval Egypt by Mireille Loubet" and "Paul B Fenton- Judaism and Sufism" both discuss the medieval Egyptian Jewish pietist movement.

For "ancient" Egyptian Jews, I find the first chapter of "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD” by Simon Schama, which covers Elephantine, very interesting (it also flies in the face of claims that Jews did not marry Native Egyptians, though it is from centuries before the era researchers often cover). If you'd like to read don't click this link to a Google doc, that would be VERY naughty. There's very little on the Therapeutae, but for the paper theorizing they may have been influenced by Buddhism (possibly making them an example of Judeo-Buddhist syncretism) look here (their Wikipedia page also has some sources that could be interesting but are not specifically about them). "Taylor, Joan E. - Jewish women philosophers of first-century Alexandria: Philo’s Therapeutae reconsidered" is also a to read.

I haven't found much on the temple of Onias/Tell el Yahudia/Leontopolis in depth, but I have the paper "Meron M. Piotrkowski - Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period" in my to be read pile (which I got off Anna's Archive). I also have some supplemental info from a lecture I attended that I'm willing to privately share.

I also have a document compiling links about the Exodus of Jews from Egypt in the modern era, but I'm cautious about sharing it now because I made it in high school and I've realized it needs better fact checking, because it had some misinfo in it from Zionist publications (specifically about the names of Nazis who fled to Egypt- that did happen, but a bunch of names I saw reported had no evidence of that being the case, and one name was the name of a murdered resistance fighter???)

[thatscarletflycatcher]

(Hi!! I really like your blog)

A thought for perusal: Do you think removing most of the religious conflict for 2004 N&S robbed viewers of too much thematically? I also wonder if you have any ideas how it could have been worked in more, given the time constraints?

Hiii!!! It's always a joy seeing you in my notes!

I'm not sure, to be honest. I think Gaskell's Unitarianism makes it so that she doesn't really have any big Theological Hot TakesTM that are crucial for understanding the text, the way Universalism is important to Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, or Evangelicalism is to Jane Eyre, or even a certain Pietism one finds in Alcott's Little Women.

Mr. Hale becoming a dissenter is more about plot functionality than anything else, even/specially if you consider it in comparison with Mr. Benson in Ruth (where his dissenting character informs so much of what Gaskell has to say there about Christian Morality) and Mr. Holman in Cousin Phillis (where his dissenting character informs to a good extent the life and education he has provided Phillis with). If anything Mr. Hale becomes a dissenter not because he's convinced that this or that dissenting tenet is right, but because he's become unconvinced that this or that Anglican tenet is right.

(As a side note, apparently it was one of Dickens "strong recommendations" that Gaskell make the reveal of Mr. Hale's doubts as quick and as vague as possible. So for everyone that starts reading the novel and wonders "but what where his doubts?" you can blame Dickens for that XD)

The other part where religion is important in N&S is Margaret's lie; it is a crisis for her because it is the one action she cannot justify herself away, AND she experiences it as faithlessness, and Gaskell elaborates some argument around the idea of humble repentance and being kind and patient with one's soul -the reference to St. Francis of Sales, the paradigmatic saint of overcoming scruples with immense trust in Divine Mercy AND of conquering the spiritual life with gentleness, humility and firm kindness seems very pointed to me that way... but, honestly, how do you even translate that to the screen? Most if not all academic readings of the text so far consider it a given that Margaret's guilt about the lie is just psychosexual displacement of shame tied to the idea that she's been sexually sullied in Thornton's mind because he saw her with Frederick at the train station, and nothing more. So I think it is actually a mercy that the miniseries sort of sidesteps the whole thing XD

There are other things that were ignored or changed from the text that I think are much more essential to the themes of the novel, such as a fairer dealing with the pros and cons of both North and South (the series omits the bad South things and the good North things), and Margaret's Cromer holiday as the turning point where she heals enough to take her life in her own hands and shake off the controlling behaviors or her relatives, and so come into her own as a woman -which is the thing that makes possible her acceptance of marriage with Thornton in the end.

[flowerandblood]

The Fall from the Heavens Scene [ 10/? ] | Chapter 3 Waiting for her letters was his obsession. She sent one every two months, always on the same day, for many years. At first they were short and full of uncertainty, but then it seemed to him that she had the impression that he didn’t read them anyway, so she began to write and confide in someone who no longer existed, revealing to him the darkness and suffering of her own heart. He was embarrassed by his own reactions, that whenever he saw a sealed message from her lying on his table he would take it reverently and sit down on a chair by the fire, as if in some kind of ceremony pulling off the lac and unrolling it slowly, feeling his heart beat fast. He repeated to himself in his mind that he would read her despairing, feminine ramblings to mock her, but in fact he was immersed in her thoughts, in her world, trying to imagine her, analysing each word with pietism, returning to the sentences that had taken the most root in his heart and would not leave him afterwards for days. He read her letters for hours, treating such evenings like a sacred day, running his thumb over his lower lip, staring dully ahead in the light of the blazing fire, thinking of her words. Although he pretended that what she wrote meant nothing to him, once in a while, usually when he was waiting for her next message, he would take all her letters and read them one by one, analysing how her handwriting had changed, now much prettier and assured, how her choice of words had evolved, rich and full of metaphors. He knew that, like him, she read a lot.

[macla539ac]

it's intriguing how people apply the principle of not judging in all situations, even in situations that are not judgments but rather descriptions of facts. this sounds like harmful pietism.

[yoga-onion]

[Image above+below: works of an Estonian artist, Kaljo Põllu (28 November 1934 – 23 March 2010) ]

Legends and myths about trees

Forest myths, Estonian traditional beliefs (2)

The world of the Estonians’ ancestors - Proto-Estonian mythology

The world of the Estonians’ ancestors is believed to have turned around a pillar or a tree, to which the skies were nailed with the North Star. The Milky Way (Linnutee or Birds' Way in Estonian) was a branch of the World tree (Ilmapuu) or the way by which birds moved (and took the souls of the deceased to the other world). These myths were based on animistic beliefs.

Some traces of the oldest authentic myths may have survived in runic songs. There is a song about the birth of the world – a bird lays three eggs and starts to lay out the nestlings – one becomes Sun, one becomes Moon and one becomes the Earth. Other Finnic peoples also have myths according to which the world has emerged from an egg.

It has been suggested by ethnologist and former president Lennart Meri and among others, that a Kaali meteorite crater which passed dramatically over populated regions and landed on the island of Saaremaa around 3,000 - 4,000 years ago was a cataclysmic event that may have influenced the mythology of Estonia and neighboring countries, especially those from whose vantage point a "sun" seemed to set in the east.

There are surviving stories about Kaali crater in Finnish mythology (Description of indigenous paganism by Finns who always believed in spirit beliefs). 

In the Karelian-Finnish folk epic, the Kalevala, cantos (songs) 47, 48 and 49 can be interpreted as descriptions of the impact, the resulting tsunami and devastating forest fires. It has also been suggested that the Virumaa-born Oeselian god Tharapita is a reflection of the meteorite that entered the atmosphere somewhere near the suggested "birthplace" of the god and landed in Oesel.

Estonian mythology is a complex of myths belonging to Estonian folk heritage and literary mythology, and the systematic documentation of Estonian folklore had only began in the 19th century. 

Therefore, information on Proto-Estonian mythology before the conquest of the Northern Crusades, Christianisation and incorporation into the European world and during the medieval era, is only scattered in historical chronicles, travellers' accounts and in ecclesiastical registers.

It can be difficult to tell how much of Estonian mythology as we know it today was actually constructed in the 19th and early 20th century. Friedrich Robert Fehlmann, one of the compilers of the Estonian national epic, Kalevipoeg in the introduction to Esthnische Sagen (Estonian Legends), states.

"However, since Pietism has started to penetrate deep into the life of the people...singing folk songs and telling legends have become forbidden for the people; moreover, the last survivals of pagan deities are being destroyed and there is no chance for historical research."

木にまつわる伝説・神話

森の神話・エストニアの民間伝承 (2)

エストニア人の祖先の世界 〜 原始エストニア神話

エストニア人の祖先の世界は、柱または木の周りを回っていたと信じられており、その柱には北極星とともに天空が釘付けにされていた。天の川（エストニア語ではリヌーテーまたは鳥の道）は世界樹（イルマプー）の枝であり、鳥が移動する（そして亡くなった人の魂をあの世に連れて行く）道であった。これらの神話はアニミズム的な信仰に基づいていた。

最古の本物の神話の痕跡が、ルーン文字の歌詞の中に残っているかもしれない。ある鳥が3つの卵を産み、雛を産み始める。ひとつは太陽になり、ひとつは月になり、ひとつは地球になる、という世界の誕生の歌がある。他にはフィン族にも、世界が卵から生まれたという神話がある。

3,000～4,000年前に人口密集地域の上空を劇的に通過し、サーレマー島に落下したカーリ隕石 (ｶｰﾘ･ｸﾚｰﾀｰ) は、エストニアや近隣諸国、特に「太陽」が東に沈むように見えた国々の神話に影響を与えた可能性がある、と民族学者で元大統領のレンナルト・メリらによって示唆されている。

フィンランド神話 (精霊信仰を常に信仰していたフィン族による原始宗教的な伝説) にカーリ隕石に関する物語が残っている。カレリア・フィンランドの民俗叙事詩『カレワラ』の第47、48、49カント (聖歌) は、その衝撃と、その結果生じた津波、壊滅的な森林火災についての記述であると解釈できる。また、ヴィルマア生まれのオイセルの神タラピタは、この神の「出生地」とされる場所の近くで大気圏に突入し、オイセルに落下した隕石の反映であるとも言われている。

エストニア神話は、エストニアの民間伝承と文学的神話に属する神話の複合体であり、エストニアの民間伝承の体系的な記録が始まったのは19世紀になってからである。そのため、北方十字軍の征服、キリスト教化、ヨーロッパ世界への併合以前、そして中世のエストニア神話の原型に関する情報は、歴史年代記、旅行者の記録、教会の記録に散見されるのみである。

今日私たちが知っているエストニア神話のどれだけが、19世紀から20世紀初頭にかけて実際に構築されたものなのかを見分けるのは難しい。エストニアの民族叙事詩『カレヴィポエグ』の編纂者の一人であるフリードリヒ・ロベルト・フェールマンは、『エストニア伝説』の序文で次のように述べている。

“しかし、敬虔主義が人々の生活に深く浸透し始めて以来......民謡を歌い、伝説を語ることは、人々にとって禁忌となった； さらに、異教の神々の最後の生き残りは破壊されつつあり、歴史研究のチャンスはない。"

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Pietistic Vs. Biblical Sanctification

How many of us try to clean ourselves up before approaching the Lord's Table, as if there were some degree or level of purity that we could reach that would make us acceptable to God? The command to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself should be sufficient to make you recognize your utter inability to do so. In all likelihood, the thinking that we have to make ourselves right and acceptable before God before he will accept us probably derives its origin from the influential but flawed theology of Pietism. For what man could ever clean himself up enough to make himself acceptable to God? And if he could clean himself up to that degree, then what further need would he have of a Savior or the nourishment of the Lord's Supper? He would be self-sufficient. The whole point of both the gospel and the Lord's Supper for Christians is to continually recognize our own spiritual bankruptcy and dependency on the…

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[natandacat]

The way I was raised gave me a very different understanding of religion compared to typically religious people so this might be accidentally offensive to some, but I truly believe an ancient vampire would have such a different stance on religion. Do you actually believe sunni Islam looked the same in a given era when armand was born (it barely looks the same depending on where you are and who your community is). Same for the catholicism he likely followed in Venice, have you ever read about medieval Catholicism? How different it is from Vatican 2? Or the kind of extreme protestant pietism he was indoctrinated into within the children of darkness. Not to mention theres a reason why we have religions like baha'i today; it was especially the case in medieval times to study across religions among scholars, especially between Christianity, Islam and Judaism. I just think it would be fascinating to sit down with armand and talk about his connection to the divine and his thoughts on theology

[wutbju]

BJU's Provost and EVP Gary Weier amplified McNulty and Pence's editorial with the comment:

What about pietism?

This honestly startles me -- still.

Gary! Pietism? Do you understand that that's different from piety?

Pietism is the collective system that informs/shapes a believer's piety.

It's like the difference between Christianity and following Jesus.

Pietism is demanding every one carry "paper Bibles" to Chapel while piety is a person's actual consumption and digestion of Holy Writ.

I, personally, because of my familial upbringing and my personal comfort level and my time in fundamentalism, choose to always teach with my knees covered. I could call this a kind of piety.

Pietism is if I insist that every woman around me dress similarly.

I am floored that you said the quiet part out loud here, Gary.

[cheerfullycatholic]

Angelus, February 11th 2024

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

Today’s Gospel presents us with the healing of a leper (cf. Mk 1:40-45). To the sick man, who implores Him, Jesus answers: “I will; be clean!” (v. 41). He utters a very simple phrase, which He immediately puts into practice. Indeed, “immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean” (v. 42). This is Jesus’ style with those who suffer: few words, and concrete deeds.

Many times, in the Gospel, we see Him behave in this way towards those who suffer: deaf mutes (cf. Mk 7:31-37), paralytics (cf. Mk 2:1-12), and many others in need (cf. Mk 5). He always does this: He speaks little and His words are followed promptly by actions: He bows, takes by the hand, and heals. He does not waste time with discourses or interrogations, much less in pietism or sentimentalism. Rather, He shows the delicate modesty of one who listens attentively and acts with solicitude, preferably without being conspicuous.

It is a wonderful way to love, and how it would do us good to imagine it and assimilate it! Let us also think of when it we happen to encounter people who act like this: sober in words, but generous in action; reluctant to show off but ready to make themselves useful; effective in helping because they are willing to listen. Friends to whom one can say: “Do you want to listen to me? Do you want to help me?”, with the confidence of hearing them answer, almost with Jesus’ words: “Yes, I will, I am here for you, to help you!”. This concreteness is so much more important in a world such as our own, in which an evanescent virtuality of relationships seems to be gaining ground.

Let us listen instead to how the Word of God provokes us: “If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled’, without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?” (James 2:15-16). The Apostle James says this. Love needs tangibility, love needs presence, encounter, it needs to be given time and space: it cannot be reduced to beautiful words, to images on a screen, momentary selfies and hasty messages. They are useful tools that can help, but they are not enough for love; they cannot substitute real presence.

Let us ask ourselves today: do I know how to listen to people, am I ready to meet their requests? Or do I make excuses, procrastinate, hide behind abstract or useless words? In real terms, when was the last time I went to visit someone who was alone or sick – everyone can answer in their heart – or when was the last time I changed my plans to meet the needs of someone who asked me for help?

May Mary, solicitous in care, help us to be ready and tangible in love.