NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 54, Issue 4, 2000

In the study of African religion Western discourse has been dominant both to Western and African scholars. Through this Western discourse, ‘African Traditional Religion’ was conceptualised and interpreted in terms of a Western vocabulary and conceptual scheme as a pyramid ranging from an all-pervading power at the base to the supreme being at the top with the spirits as intermediaries. The Ugandan scholar and poet Okot p’Bitek (1931-1982) launched a vehement and bitter attack in 1971 in his African Religion in Western Scholarship on this Western discourse stemming from missionaries and scholars of religion (Edwin W. Smith, Geoffrey Parrinder, Edward Evans-Pritchard). In the articulation of his critique on this Western discourse of ‘African Traditional Religion’ as a ‘Hellenisation’ of African religious deities and concepts, Okot appears to be influenced by yet another Western theological paradigm, i.e. the ‘God-is-dead-theology’, stimulated by the publication of Honest to God by John A.T. Robinson in 1963.

This article deals with the first chapter of Judges as a part of the historiography of Israel’s settlement in Canaan. Judges 1:1-2:5 has often been characterized as a heap of rubbish without sense, constructed around an ancient list of unconquered Canaanite cities. Current research, however, concentrates on the ideological rhetoric of historiographical compositions and questions their historical value. And indeed, detailed analysis from a historiographical point of view not only shows that the forementioned list did not exist, but also that Judges 1:1-2:5 is a well constructed historiographical composition with a specific meaning. But in spite of its tendentious nature, the text reflects antiquarian interest and respect for the theological traditions from the past.

The Dutch author Dirk Volckertsz Coornhert (1522-1590) was an exponent of the large group in the low countries who did not join any church. He played an important role in the religious debates of his days. In one of these debates the reformed ministers accused him of using the bible in a libertinistic way. This article deals with the question whether Coornhert can indeed be identified with this so called libertines. Although his work clearly shows the influence of Sebastian Franck and of Erasmus he cannot be identified with them. In interpreting the bible Coornhert held a position between the reformation and the spiritualists.

This article offers a critical analysis of some contemporary attempts to bring up the issue of God and religion again in philosophical discourse, after the disenchantment of the project of Enlightenment. The author analyses G. Vattimo’s recent book Belief, in which he repudiates the violence and oppression of technically manipulating and politically controlling reason. In order to put an end to this violence, Vattimo argues in favor of a complete historicization and secularization of Christianity, which has caritas as its boundary. Basing himself on Ch. Taylor’s Sources of the Self, the author criticizes Vattimo on the point that his thinking leads to a subjectivation of religion and truth, and therefore is unable to stop the violence of reason. As a conclusion, the author stresses the importance of the religious idea of irreducible transcendence as confining the violence of self-willed thinking.