Looking Back, Looking Ahead (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Featured Reflecting on 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines: 1521 to 2021 and Beyond View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Teofilo Giovan III Pugeda
Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism, is an important dimension of Philippine culture, where about 85% of the population identify as Christian. Many Filipinos practice Christian religious activities as integral parts of their personal, familial, and communal lives. Moreover, overseas Filipino workers and migrants vitalize the Christian Faith in other countries. The year 2021 marked the fifth centenary of Christianity’s arrival in the archipelago. Over the previous five centuries, Christianity has played a significant role in shaping Philippine society. We reflect on 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines by reviewing major socio-political events and trends in Philippine history up to the present which are examples of Christianity’s influence on Philippine society. Special attention is given to the Catholic Church’s advocacy of human rights. Afterwards, suggestions are made on how Christianity can better thrive in the country’s future.
Media Strategies of Religious Public Social Media Accounts in Oman View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sultan Al Azri
Social media technologies has offered organizations the opportunity to reach a global population and to achieve deeper purposes. However, to acquire the maximum benefit from social media technologies, they should continue developing strategies that enhance their virtual experience. Public religious institutions eagerly adopt the norms of the digital age and continue developing new media strategies for religious purposes. This paper explores the strategies that Omani digital preachers utilize in their mission to encourage community religious engagement. I discuss such strategies to demonstrate the intersection of Islamic preaching and the communication attributes of different social media platforms. This study explores broader questions about technological and communicational strategies of digital preachers: what are the common strategies utilized by preaching account administrators?; Is there a specialization in the use of different social media platforms in terms of purposes like advertising spiritual events, connecting populations, and content management and presentation?; Did this utilization of strategies lead to the emergence of strategic patterns?; And how different are these patterns from the general patterns? I analyse different types of spiritual social media accounts. These analyses take two dimensions: vertical or chronological dimension, and horizontal direction in which I explore the content and the way it is presented. Using accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as archives, and semi structured interviews with the accounts’ administrators, I explore the visual, editorial, and other techniques to capture the characteristics of the preaching accounts and any unique features in terms of utilized strategies.
The Architecture of Blame : Categories and the Present Sacrificial Crisis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mary Marcel
It can be argued that the structure of society—whether political, social, economic, religious, or even personal—is built upon structures of acceptable blame. If we are convinced that such sacrifices are sufficient in God’s eyes, or whomever we attribute as the author of the system of order we seek to uphold, then we can be persuaded that the sacrifice has “redeemed” us, or satisfactorily “paid” for the “sin” we have committed. But what happens when we can no longer persuade each other about that redemptive power of particular sacrifices? The present era is replete with shocking claims and counterclaims, arguments aired across every medium, disputes between people which have resulted in physical assaults and deaths, and which commentators and scholars rightly discuss with great concern. This paper explores these current critical areas of failed persuasion as symptoms of a deeper and much more profound crisis in our religious, social and political order. This crisis is based in the architecture of blame and sacrifice, rooted in Biblical doctrines and instantiated in western history from about the time of Socrates. In order to examine and elucidate root causes, I use rhetorical theory as a means of making visible the structures of discourse, the social, political and religious foundations upon which they rest, and the rhetorical ecosystems which they have generated. We will thereby also come to see, as theory promises, how their own internal logics have brought about their deterioration and decay.
The Doctrine of εὐπάθειαι (Good Emotions) as a ‘Golden Chain’ of the Psychology of Philo of Alexandria View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maksim Prikhodko
The study deals with Philo’s elaboration of the Stoic doctrine of the rational emotions (εὐπάθειαι) as the perfect states of the relationship between the mind and senses within a soul. This is presented in three types of disposition of the rational and irrational parts of a soul: The first is joy (χαρά), a perfect disposition between mind and sense where the latter reflects the mind’s understanding of the universe as God’s work and God’s providence. The second is caution or watchfulness (εὐλάβεια). Philo reveals this good emotion in the twofold aspect: the flight from the inner danger of the mind’s closeness in the sensual realm and the flight from the outer exterior danger of the mind’s submission to the sensual sphere towards the supernatural vision of God’s Logos in the universe. The third emotion is the rational wishing (βούλησις), whose disclosure we find in Philo’s interpretation of reverence (αἰδώς). This feeling, to Philo, expresses the state of mind of seeking the truth but without the ability to reach it by itself. In the framework of rational wishing, Philo regards the problem of the progress of the soul’s education, namely an initial point where a soul must be humble to understand its divine source and its way in life and be disposed to guidance by The Divine Logos as its Monitor. As a result, the rational potential of sense and the irrational force of the human mind in Philo’s works are revealed.
Featured Interplay of Religious Coping Mechanisms, Internalized Homonegativity, and Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Help among LGBTQ African Americans within Christian Church Congregations View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David Glover
Although the Black Christian churches have historically been a safe haven for the majority of the African American community, African American Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) churchgoers experience a paradox because they are seeking out a religious ideology and institution as part of their psychological coping mechanism despite facing homonegativity within the same Black Christian church community. The purpose of the current study is to examine how internalized homonegativity among African American LGBT individuals might be mitigated by religious coping or their personal attitudes of seeking professional mental health support. Using a sample of 401 African American LGBT participants who were affiliated with a Black Christian at the time of the survey, the researchers found that the increasing levels of self-reported religious coping for meaning in life had a corresponding increase in the self-reported experience of internalized homonegativity. Moreover, increasing levels of self-reported internalized homonegativity were linked to an increasing reluctance seeking professional help for their experiences of psychological distress. In contrast, there was no relationship between religious coping and seeking professional help for their experiences of psychological distress. The results of the study are discussed in the context of prior research and recommendations for professional counseling for African American LGBT churchgoers.
