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Semantics And The Study Of Religion, G. Scott Davis
Semantics And The Study Of Religion, G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
This essay argues that the approach to meaning articulated by Donald Davidson supplies all the student of religion needs to know about this subject. By focusing on interpretation as understood by Davidson, we can understand, for example, the beliefs and practices of a people such as the Dogon of Mali. By adding to this the evidence of ethnography and history, students of religion can give a compelling account of change and adjudicate between competing analyses.
Shakers And Jerkers: Letters From The "Long Walk," 1805, Part 2, Douglas L. Winiarski
Shakers And Jerkers: Letters From The "Long Walk," 1805, Part 2, Douglas L. Winiarski
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Throughout the bitterly cold month of January 1805, John Meacham (1770-1854), Issachar Bates (1758-1837), and Benjamin Youngs (1774- 1855), struggled through mud and ice, biting winds, blinding snow, and drenching rains, on a 1,200-mile “Long Walk” to the settlements of the trans-Appalachian West. Traveling south toward Cumberland Gap, the three Shaker missionaries from New Lebanon, New York, were tracking a strange new convulsive religious phenomenon that had gripped Scots-Irish Presbyterians during the frontier religious awakening known as the Great Revival (1799-1805). Observers called the puzzling somatic fits “the Jerks.” Ardent supporters of the revivals believed the jerks were a sign …
Shakers And Jerkers: Letters From The "Long Walk," 1805, Part I, Douglas L. Winiarski
Shakers And Jerkers: Letters From The "Long Walk," 1805, Part I, Douglas L. Winiarski
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Reports of a bizarre new religious phenomenon made their way over the mountains from Tennessee during the summer and fall of 1804. For several years, readers in the eastern states had been eagerly consuming news of the Great Revival, the powerful succession of Presbyterian sacramental festivals and Methodist camp meetings that played a formative role in the development of the southern Bible Belt and the emergence of early American evangelicalism. Letters from the frontier frequently included vivid descriptions of the so-called “falling exercise,” in which the bodies of revival converts crumpled to the ground during powerful sermon performances on the …
New Perspectives On The Northampton Communion Controversy Iv: Experience Mayhew’S Dissertation On Edwards’S Humble Inquiry, Douglas L. Winiarski
New Perspectives On The Northampton Communion Controversy Iv: Experience Mayhew’S Dissertation On Edwards’S Humble Inquiry, Douglas L. Winiarski
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
This fourth installment in a series exploring newly discovered manuscripts relating to the “Qualifications Controversy” that drove Edwards from his Northampton pastorate presents an unpublished oppositional dissertation by Experience Mayhew, a prominent eighteenth-century Indian missionary from Martha’s Vineyard. Next to Solomon Stoddard, Mayhew was Edwards’s most important theological target during the conflict. Where Edwards pressed toward precision in defining the qualifications for admission to the Lord’s Supper, Mayhew remained convinced that the standards for membership in New England’s Congregational churches should encompass a broad range of knowledge and experience. His rejoinder to Edwards’s Humble Inquiry provides a rare opportunity to …
The Newbury Prayer Bill Hoax: Devotion And Deception In New England's Era Of Great Awakenings, Douglas L. Winiarski
The Newbury Prayer Bill Hoax: Devotion And Deception In New England's Era Of Great Awakenings, Douglas L. Winiarski
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
[...] [T]he “Tappin manuscript,” as I refer to it in the essay that follows, presents an intriguing puzzle. If Christopher Toppan did not compose the unusual prayer request, then who did? When? Why? Solving the riddle of the Tappin manuscript leads us into the troubled final years of one of New England’s most pugnacious ministers and the evangelical underworld of the Great Awakening that he had come to despise.
Donald Davidson, Anomalous Monism And The Study Of Religion, G. Scott Davis
Donald Davidson, Anomalous Monism And The Study Of Religion, G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Donald Davidson’s concept of “anomalous monism” is not nearly as well known as his related attack on the idea of “conceptual schemes,” though they are closely related. This concept, I shall argue, has several important implications for the study of religion. In particular, it implies that, as an account of mind and language, “cognitive science” is going to be of limited interest. Moreover, and that approaches to the study of religion based on models drawn from cognitive science are likely to be “degenerate research programmes.” If this is so, then we can reasonably marginalize such programmes to the extent that …
War And Its Discontents: Pacifism And Quietism In The Abrahamic Traditions (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
War And Its Discontents: Pacifism And Quietism In The Abrahamic Traditions (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Review of the book, War and Its Discontents: Pacifism and Quietism in the Abrahamic Traditions, edited by J. Patout Burns. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996.
Philanthropy As A Virtue In Late Antiquity And The Middle Ages, G. Scott Davis
Philanthropy As A Virtue In Late Antiquity And The Middle Ages, G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
"Philanthropy," "charity," and related concepts were well known to late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Rulers, wealthy individuals and, early on, the Christian church founded hospitals, distributed food, and established forms of relief for the needy of various sorts throughout the period. The problem comes in interpreting these activities, their motives, and their goals. Is the philanthropia of a pre-Christian philosopher of a piece with the agape, or Christian love, of a fourth-century bishop? When the Roman emperor provides bread and circuses, what does he intend and why does he do it? Does the twelfth-century nobleman intend the same? As …
Interpretations Of Conflict: Ethics, Pacifism, And The Just War Tradition (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Interpretations Of Conflict: Ethics, Pacifism, And The Just War Tradition (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Review of the book, Interpretations of Conflict: Ethics, Pacifism, and the Just War Tradition, by Richard B. Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Policraticus (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Policraticus (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Review of the book, Policraticus, edited and translated by Cary J. Nederman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Religion, Interpretation, And Diversity Of Belief: The Framework Model From Kant To Durkheim To Davidson (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Religion, Interpretation, And Diversity Of Belief: The Framework Model From Kant To Durkheim To Davidson (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Review of the book, Religion, Interpretation, and Diversity of Belief: The Framework Model from Kant to Durkheim to Davidson by Terry Godlove. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.