Plans and Pathways
Interfaith Dialogue - an Unintended Consequence of the Commodification of the Camino de Santiago and Kumano Kodo View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nicky Gutierrez
Over the last fifty years, pilgrimages to sacred sites have increased and gained in popularity. Globalization, the ever-accelerating exchange of information, and the ease of international travel has contributed to the rise of tourism, which has allowed even more people to embark on a pilgrimage experience to a sacred site. The growth of tourism has led to the wide commodification of these pilgrimage routes. Examples of this commodification are the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the Kumano Kodo in Japan. These two pilgrimage routes are the only ones designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The cities of Santiago de Compostela and Tanabe City created the Dual Pilgrim Program and labeled the Camino the “Pilgrimage of the Setting Sun” and the Kumano the “Pilgrimage of the Rising Sun.” The purpose of this program was to increase international tourism and cultural exchange between the two countries. It was not originally created with the intended purpose of interfaith dialogue. Very little research has been done on the Dual Pilgrim Program even though the program could provide an extensive space for interfaith dialogue to occur. By looking at reports, conducting interviews of dual pilgrims, and personally completing the Camino de Santiago, this paper seeks to illustrate how this unique pilgrimage experience helps pilgrims understand and appreciate other faiths through the context of interfaith dialogue. This paper contributes to the narrow pool of research of the under-studied Dual Pilgrim Program.
Finding God in the Wilderness: The Construction of the Oracular and the Poetics of Belief in Select Modern and Contemporary American Poets View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alan Soldofsky
I consider American poets who generate an oracular or religious voice, similar to Duende, when writing about cathartic or traumatic experience. Often the language used to represent such experience is designed to induce in the poet the condition of ekstasis, an elevated state of illumination where one is able to stand outside oneself. Ekstasis as a form of religious experience is postulated as key component of Longinius’s concept of the Sublime. In the Western tradition, discovering (or questioning) one’s spiritual beliefs can be triggered by an incidence of ekstasis, where the poet is able to reach a deeper level of ecstatic truth by experiencing a catharsis. Such a catharsis often becomes represented in a poem’s text in the form of epiphanic language, when the poet is exposed to (or becomes the vehicle for) an oracular experience. A Biblical example would be Moses’ wandering in the wilderness and finally coming to hear and report God’s voice coming from within the burning bush. There are numerous examples of such oracular language to be found in the work of modern and contemporary American poets. In my paper, I more closely examine the use of oracular language and representations of ekstasis in five poets whose work reflects the structure of oracular experience: three whose work is rooted in Delphic narratives of Christianity and two whose work is rooted in narratives of Judaism. The first three are Robinson Jeffers, Elizabeth Bishop, and W.S. Merwin; the second two are Gerald Stern and Philip Levine.
Theorizing Experience from Spiritual Formation to Vocation Discernment: Narratives of a Hong Kong Chinese Seminarian-to-be View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ming-chun Sinn
While research efforts have been devoted largely to priestly identity in the priesthood, it is surprising that there is little academic scholarship on identity research prior to entering seminary as a stage of vocation discernment to priesthood. This paper attempts to bridge the research gap by investigating the ongoing process of engaging in “identity work” of a prospective seminarian through life history research coupled with a dialogic approach. Adopting a narrative research paradigm and drawing on the sociological lens of Foucault’s four axes of ethics, this paper theorizes the experience from spiritual formation to vocation discernment of Lee, a Hong Kong Chinese Catholic, to engage in identity work. Adapting Clarke’s (2009) diagram for doing teacher identity work, I expand the model across professions from teachers(-to-be) to seminarians(-to-be) to expound on the reflexive process of accepting, resisting and being in-between in Lee’s narratives of calling. I postulate that ongoing discursive identities of seminarians(-to-be) are contingent upon an iterative process of constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing a myriad of capacities to harbor hope for being more accommodating and understanding. I also argue that engaging in identity work is crucial for seminarians(-to-be) to maximize their continuous potential for priestly formation. As religion and spirituality are key facets of understanding social life, this paper contributes to research studies in seminary education by drawing on interpretive sociological methods as an alternative research paradigm.
Testing the Spirits: The Tensions and Transformations of Evangelical Christian Yoga View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leah Mernaugh
At the intersections where different religious frameworks collide, spiritual practices become open to reinterpretation and renegotiation. Such is the case for forms of modern postural yoga practiced by evangelical Christians in the Pacific Northwest. Based on my own ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2019, this paper explores how yoga-practicing Christians navigate tensions around yoga’s connections to Hinduism and so-called Eastern spirituality. I describe three strategies— “testing the spirits,” sincerity, and resignification—by which evangelicals engage yoga’s perceived dangers and reorient the practice toward an acceptable Christian spirituality.
