Text: Ritva Palmén & Anna-Liisa Tolonen

Photos: Heikki J. Koskinen

The American Academy of Religion (AAR) with the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) co-host annual meetings, which are the largest events of the year in the fields of religious studies and theology. Some 9,500 people attended the 2016 Annual Meetings held in San Antonio, Texas, USA, in November 22–25. These events brought together thousands of professors and students, authors and publishers, religious leaders and interested laypersons from the Unites States and all over the world.

In recent years, these two events have been among the main forums for presenting and communicating the ideas and research carried out in our Centre of Excellence. In San Antonio, a group of our researchers had an opportunity to enjoy access to more than 1000 academic sessions and additional meetings, and to present their research in several formal and informal occasions. Elina Hellqvist, Minna Hietamäki, Panu Pihkala, and Anna-Liisa Tolonen gave their individual papers.

The conference was a treasure cave for scholars of religion and environment. This interdisciplinary field, which has grown rapidly in the 2000’s, consists of scholars from various countries. A new member of our CoE, Panu Pihkala (Dr.theol., postdoctoral Researcher, scholar in ecotheology) attended and gave papers both at AAR and SBL in this year San Antonio meeting.

Pihkala reports that key topics included Laudato Si, ecological hermeneutics, eco-reformation, and climate change.  Laudato Si (LS), the influential encyclical by Pope Francis (2015), has raised discussion on ecotheology on many fields. In the conference there was more papers which dealt with LS than one could possibly attend to, among these high-quality session on Pauline texts and Ecological Hermeneutics. The session included also a qualified overview by Michael Patrick Barber of recent papal teaching on ecotheology, with special emphasis on the use of Paul’s theology in that.

If LS has generated movement towards richer ecotheological reflection especially in the Roman Catholic world, many Lutherans are pushing towards a similar goal with an emphasis on the need of an “eco-reformation”. In 2017, the 500th anniversary of reformation will be celebrated.  The proponents of eco-reformation see that a major need in today’s world is reforming the human-nature-relationship to more sustainable ways. The campaign has been spearheaded by North American Lutherans (and supported by the Lutheran World Federation). Two fine new books related to the subject were on sale at the conference: the straight-out-of-the print Eco-Reformation (edited by Dahill and Martin-Schramm) and Transforming Luther: The Planetary Promise of Luther’s Theology by Vítor Westhelle (2016).  Panu Pihkala’s own AAR presentation was linked with the eco-reformation and Lutheran eco-justice theologies, and his SBL presentation dealt with use of the Bible by early 20^th-century ecotheologians. For more information, see blog by Panu Pihkala.

Anna-Liisa Tolonen, a doctoral student of our CoE working in the field of biblical studies, was invited to give a paper in a session organized by Christine Helmer (Northwestern University). The session was titled “From Biblical Theology to Biblical Reception” and aimed to address the variety and vistas of the emergent and growing field of reception historical study of the Bible, as well as its impacts on the study of the Bible and biblical theology at large. Each of the five invited speakers presented case studies, providing different disciplinary perspectives into reception-historical analysis, such as those of biblical studies (Christian Eberhart, University of Houston; Marvin A. Sweeney, Claremont School of Theology; and Tolonen), study of early modern folklore (Eric Ziolkowski, Lafayette College), and of film (Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, Eastern University).

The panel reflected on questions related to methods of the reception history of the Bible – a field taking shape at the intersection of biblical, religious, theological, cultural, and artistic concerns – and successfully represented the growing interest in the field, as well as the lively on-going debates on the appearances and authority of the Bible. The papers shall be worked into articles to be published in an edited volume in De Gruyter’s ERB monograph series.

Anna-Liisa Tolonen’s paper, “What is ‘biblical’ and what is ‘reception’?,” was based on the approach to biblical reception she develops as part of her doctoral dissertation. Its main purpose was to challenge the notion of ‘biblical’, which, as she proposed, is still too often used somewhat carelessly in contexts in which the notion of ‘reception’ is reflected upon with theoretical critical awareness. She argued that:

“The Bible is not the origin, cause, or subject of its reception; rather, receptions produce, maintain and cultivate what is considered to be authentically biblical. I therefore imagine biblical reception as comprised of the various and diverse, at times contradictory, cumulative and on-going makings-of-sense-and-use-of-scriptures; all this could be called the discursive practices that objectify the “biblical.”  This is true of the “early” receptions, including the codifications and canonizations of certain collections, which count as practices informed by the emergent notion of scriptural canon(s). But it should be no less true of the later and the much later receptions, in which we standardly presume a dichotomy of the Bible-as-subject, on the one hand, and its interpreters, on the other. As regards the present, contemporary receptions – not excluding ours – shape future conceptualizations of what counts as the “biblical” in the past, and what can be claimed “biblical” in the future.”

In her conclusions, Tolonen sketched out a more inclusive notion of reception, which could lead not only to a more flexible but also to a historically more accurate notion of the biblical. This notion, she envisioned, could better serve our contemporary historical consciousness of the shared past and the intertwined history of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Kelly Douglas Brown, Serene Jones (AAR president 2016), and Michelle Alexander in an interview session.

This year the current political and societal issues were strongly manifest in numerous panels and sessions. The recent presidential election of US was much debated theme in both informal gatherings as well as in organized sessions. For instance, in one of the plenary panels, ‘Love and Hate in American Religion’, explored manifestations of “the hatreds of our day,” their origins, their relation to religious thought and practice, and varied strategies available to disrupt their power. Such theologians as Cornell West and Eddie S. Glaude draw out the connections between hatred directed towards Latinos, African Americans, and Muslims. The following lively discussion included several allusions to president-elect Donald Trump and his campaign’s statements and showed clear worry about the rise of the idea of white supremacy.

These same themes reappeared in several panels. In ‘Post-Trump Election’ session participants asked what is their role as scholars of religion in this context and does this context place new demands on their work. One of the prominent black theologians, professor of religion, rev. Kelly Douglas Brown presided two sessions; on black theology and civil rights, with the special interest on current changed political milieu. Drawing on her experiences during the election cycle she pointed out that the role of religion and race played a major influence in the election and warned that the political season will be polarizing and divisive.

AAR also hosted Templeton Prize lecture with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ‘Faith in the Future: The Promise and Perils of Religion in the 21^st Century. Rabbi Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth and laureate of the 2016 Templeton Prize. He is known for his pleas for appreciation and respect of all faiths, with an emphasis that recognizing the values of each is the only path to effectively combat the global rise of violence and terrorism. Sacks is also known for his defendence of compatibility of religion and science, a response to those who consider them necessarily separate and distinct. In his lecture, Sacks gave an overview of his idea of the fourfold process of secularization, which begun with the secularization of knowledge during the 17^th century, was followed by the secularization of institutions and culture and has culminated in the secularization of morals in the 20^th century. He then reminded the audience that modernity’s master institutions, science, technology, the market economy and the liberal democratic state, all of them together cannot answer the three questions that any reflective person will ask him or herself some time in the course of a lifetime. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? Who am I, the question of identity. Why am I here, the question of meaning. And how then shall I live, the question of morality. The lecture ended by Sacks emphasis on education and the role of academy or the idea of university. Universities should remain as central institutions of modern societies; places where “argument and disagreement can be hard harnessed to the collaborative pursuit of truth.”

Text: Anna-Liisa Tolonen

”If languages are the key to our cultural heritage…”

”…, then it is necessary to teach them effectively and, if possible, in an appealing way. For this reason the Polis method was developed, turning Polis into one of the very few institutions in the world that teach the so-called dead languages (e.g. Koine Greek, Biblical Hebrew, and Latin) as living languages.” This is the way in which the so called ”Polis method” is introduced. But how should one teach “effectively” and “in an appealing way”? And what is meant by the resurrection of ancient languages in contemporary Western academia? This text explores the phenomenon by way of interviewing scholars and teaching faculty connected with the Polis Institute Jerusalem.

Professor Christophe Rico’s academic background is in Greek Linguistics. He defended his doctoral thesis on the suffix system of Homeric nouns and adjectives at Sorbonne University in 1992, and he is currently a professor at the University of Strasbourg. For the last twenty years or so, Rico has lived in Jerusalem.

Professor Christophe Rico

Since the early 1990s, Rico has been developing a method of teaching ancient Greek as a living language. An updated edition of his text book Polis: Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language (Jerusalem: Polis Institute Press) was published in 2015. Today, Rico is the director of Polis – Jerusalem Institute for Languages and Humanities, which hosts 360 local and international students annually, most of whom come to the institute to learn the languages they want to understand by way of learning to use them.

Why Jerusalem?

– Jerusalem, the city of the Bible, the cradle of monotheism, and the melting pot of the Semitic and Hellenistic heritages, is a unique place in the world for discovering the roots of our civilization through the study of languages. And the Polis Institute Jerusalem is so far the only place in the world where a student can study simultaneously ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Biblical Hebrew and Classical Syriac) and modern ones (modern Hebrew, colloquial and literary Arabic), all as living languages.

– Among many other ones, the Polis method was also inspired by a proven model of language learning: the Israeli Ulpan method for learning Modern Hebrew has enabled hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants to master in record time a language widely considered difficult. This is accomplished through total immersion and the constant involvement of the student in the learning process.

In practice, the Polis Method means that from the first day onward, the teaching and learning of the language takes place in a monolingual environment: the instructor speaks only the language which he/she is teaching and the students ought to do the same. The anticipated outcome is that the student learns the language without an inter-mediating language.

– Through various other teaching techniques (Total Physical Response, TPR Storytelling, conversational pair and small group work, etc.), Polis courses quickly develop functional spoken vocabulary and grammar through constant communicative exchange between the instructor and the students. After two years (four semesters), students can read and understand – not merely decode – simple ancient texts without needing a dictionary. They learn to think in the ancient language and understand it on its own terms, without needing a modern language to stand in between them and the text. From this unique starting point, they may proceed gradually to master the extant literature in their language of choice, Rico explains.

– I have been the first one to benefit from teaching Greek in this way, as the way I learnt to speak that language was precisely by teaching it in a living way. From the moment I started talking Greek, my reading speed in that language increased considerably, as well as the number of texts that I was able to understand without translating them.

Efforts to keep the language in use

Dr. George Kiraz, Director of Beth Mardutho–The Syriac Institute and Editor-in-Chief of Gorgias Press, teaches ancient Syriac at the Polis Institute, as well as at his own institute in New Jersey. He has also taught Syriac courses at Princeton University, Princeton Theological Seminary and Rutgers University. Kiraz is himself a syriacist, as well as Syriac Orthodox born in Bethlehem. Although Arabic is his native tongue, he regards Suryoyo as his cultural tongue and uses it on a daily basis.

George Kiraz teaches Syriac at Beth Mardutho.

In 1986, Kiraz introduced the Syriac script to the world of computing with his Alaph Beth Computer Systems. As PCs started to become popular, many scholars began to use them. In 1998, Kiraz co-authored the proposal to add Syriac to Unicode which made it possible for Syriac to be implemented in all modern devices and co-developed the Unicode-based Meltho fonts, which has made it possible to have Syriac in mobile devices. Consequently, the Syriac communities, dispersed worldwide, can communicate in Syriac online.

Kiraz is an expert of Kthobonoyo, which is the spoken for of classical Syriac as used in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. (For more, see Kiraz’ article ’Kthobonoyo Syriac: Some Observations and Remarks’). As regards classical Syriac, he stresses constant communication with the ancient texts as the only way to maintain high quality of research.

”Dead” languages and their resurrection

Dr. Mercedes Rubio, the Director of Academic Affairs at the Polis Institute, has a background in Medieval Latin and Jewish philosophy (which is mostly written in Arabic, though sometimes with the Hebrew alphabet). She is currently researching the transmission of Aristotles’ texts into the West.

– As I came to work at the Polis Institute, I wanted to experience the Polis method first hand. So I enrolled to a Latin class. You see, although I read Medieval Latin without problems, I could not compose almost anything! The way I had learnt the language never implied that I should use it; instead, I should be able to analyze it by breaking a sentence into pieces.

– In a way, ancient language instructors of the past few centuries have actually killed ancient languages by adopting a way of studying them that mirrors natural sciences, that is by “dissecting” them just as you would do to a frog. This has meant that we do no longer try to understand a text as a whole, as a meaningful unit, but by way of grammatical analysis. Knowing the grammar is essential, of course, but grammatical analysis and translation are but one aspect of the process in which we relate to texts. Languages are first and foremost a vehicle of ideas, of worldviews, and a means of communication. I feel that in a way we have lost this vehicular role of ancient languages and tend to study them as valuable museum pieces, which are out of their natural context.

– I like to think that we are presently witnessing a sort of resurrection of ancient languages, Rico says smiling. – I imagine that within twenty or thirty years, in most Classics and Religious Studies departments, ancient languages will be taught more communicative ways, and we will wonder how people could have done it otherwise before. Further, as more people become able to read ancient texts directly without translation, I expect the quality of research to improve considerably and we will experience a new Renaissance.

Reactions and responses to communicative teaching of ancient languages

José Ángel Domínguez has worked as Director of Language Department at the Polis Institute Jerusalem since its beginning. He also teaches Latin by the Polis method. Domínguez has experienced that immersion in ancient languages may sometimes cause conflicts among proponents of different pedagogical views.

– We are criticized, of course. Wherever I go and talk about the method, I often hear that our approach prevents students from getting to know the grammar. Moreover, using games, for instance, as a resource of learning is considered to be fun for the students but neither serious nor effective. Thus far, our response to such criticism is the results themselves. Student following our method get a deeper knowledge of the structure of the language, not excluding grammar, even if they are capable of understanding texts without constant consultation of a dictionary or grammar. Anyone can take a chance to try how the method works. Moreover, applying the method does not mean that one should abandon other, more traditional forms of teaching ancient languages or disregard the study of grammar; in contrast, the Polis method is open and one may integrate any resource to it that could actively help at finding what we call the “key of the Library of Alexandria”: a more direct access to the ancient sources.

– Our students have, in fact, proven to be a resource for developing the method. We are glad to see that some of our former students have educated themselves to teach Ancient languages as living languages both at our institute and elsewhere. Responding to this, we have started a course on methodology for teachers in Rome every July.

_______________________________________________________________________

Prof. Christophe Rico visits the Faculty of Theology (UH) on Friday, October 21, 2016. The programme of his visit includes a lecture on “The Hellenistic World and its Language,” as well as an introduction to the Polis method. The event is open to everyone (see https://www.facebook.com/events/1786506914950512/); for more information and in order to register, please, contact: anna-liisa.tolonen@helsinki.fi.

Text: Elisa Uusimäki (CoE in ‘Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions’) & Anna-Liisa Tolonen

Photos: Anna-Liisa Tolonen

The two Centres of Excellence at the Faculty of Theology – Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions and Reason and Religious Recognition – are characteristically interdisciplinary. Thus, the research conducted should not only be of high quality within specific disciplines, but also reflective of cooperation that breaks down boundaries between fields. Having both of these goals as our aims, we should strive to deepen and broaden our notions of, for example, historical phenomena, philosophical concepts, or the meanings of “holy scriptures” within ever-changing religious traditions.

While people working in these giant research centres keep themselves busy, the paths of the centres may not easily cross. Challenges of interdisciplinary cooperation are felt within both research environments. And yet, there are plenty of questions that could bind them together, not least in the field of biblical studies. As many other boundaries that have kept scholars apart, so is the one between the centres: imagined and contingent or, to say the least, well worth crossing.

Abound Shm’oun, a living scribe who copies Syriac manuscripts at St. Mark’s Monastery in Jerusalem

Elisa’s postdoctoral project focuses on the formation and lifestyle of a wise person in Hellenistic Judaism; within the CSTT, she has primarily collaborated with the team studying various changes in late Second Temple Judaism. Anna-Liisa, in turn, interprets biblical reception and circulation of narratives from the books of the Maccabees up until early Islam; her doctoral thesis contributes to the RRR research team that attempts to re-evaluate and reinforce the importance of non-conflict driven paradigms in the study of ancient religion. Differences in respective fields or methods of research has not prevented us from searching for and formulating new questions together. Recently, this cooperation has materialised as co-authored articles, a related conference paper in EABS Leuven and, last but not least, as a course taught in the Helsinki Summer University.

We first found common grounds in the text known as 4 Maccabees. We set ourselves to find out how the author conceives of himself as an intellectual of his time. How, then, does he fashion scriptural examples? What makes these examples philosophical and exemplary as they are claimed to be? Those curious to know our answer may find it – with descriptions of some rather usable examples – in our article “Reason and Emotions: Life Management according to 4 Maccabees” (published only in Finnish “Järki ja tunteet: elämänhallintaa Neljännen makkabilaiskirjan mukaan”, Teologinen Aikakauskirja 121/1 [2016]: 6–19).

Our joint project on 4 Maccabees has increased our interest in early interpretation of scriptures in connection with ancient commentary culture(s). In August 2016, we offered a course – lecturing together, as well as to each other! – on “Holy scriptures: Interpretation and commentary in early Judaism, Christianity and Islam” (12 hours) in the Summer University. This course was offered for students of theology, religious studies, and history. In four thematically organised sessions, we shared our views and visions on the development of ancient commentary practices, the use of figures as an interpretative means, and the importance of landscape as a frame for scriptural interpretation.

The same landscape may be transformed in the hands and minds of its occupants.

We did not abandon 4 Maccabees in the process. Instead, this particular composition has made us explore texts that seem to have functioned in multiple interpretative contexts since antiquity. These contexts represent biblical cultures that worked in inter- and multicultural ways already before the invention of the postmodern usage of such terms. To get a grasp of this phenomenon, we have written another article with due attention given to the early Jewish, Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian identities of 4 Maccabees. Our work shall soon be published in The Journal for the Study of Judaism – please stay tuned…

The blog entry has also been published at the website of the CoE in ‘Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions’.

Photo: Michalle Gal

Text: Hanne Appelqvist

Work on a theoretical concept can easily be hampered by the kinds of examples we treat as paradigm instances of that concept. This is because our intuitions, feelings, and attitudes regarding the chosen examples direct our vision, and do so for better and for worse. A concept like recognition is especially susceptible to this, as it applies to human communities, traditions, and worldviews, as well as to our friends, family, and even ourselves as members of those groups seeking or granting recognition. One countermeasure against the possible bias resulting from our personal involvement is to consider the relevant concept in a neutral context that does not carry the connotations preventing a clear view of the phenomenon under investigation. This is what Professor Jonathan Neufeld (College of Charleston), Professor Brian Soucek (UC Davies Scool of Law), and I sought to do in a panel titled Aesthetic Obedience and Disobedience, presented at the BSA Annual Conference at Homerton College, Cambridge. Focusing on philosophy of art we asked (i) what it means to recognize an object as a work of art; (ii) what role might art play in public deliberation including the recognition of under-represented groups; and (iii) whether the fact that something is recognized as art justifies its exemption from certain legal obligations including laws against the discrimination against minorities.

The panel began with my own paper “On the Quest for a Common Standard: Wittgenstein and Kant on the Rules of Art”. Drawing on the work of these two formalists, I argued that one can neither understand nor evaluate art without acknowledging and mastering the rules of the relevant tradition. However, if Kant and Wittgenstein are right, the rules of art are quite peculiar, as they cannot be couched in conceptual formulas but must be read from the works themselves. Hence, the understanding of art cannot be acquired by consulting a manual or by imitating others, but requires one’s personal and practical immersion in the aesthetic system constituted by its nonconceptual, specifically artistic rules. If there is no common standard – not even one as formal and empty of empirical content as the Kantian principle of purposiveness without purpose – then our responses to works of art are no more than random likes or dislikes in the newsfeed of social media. And the works of art, they may be “anything or nothing at all” to borrow Wittgenstein’s expression.

While the beauty of such a Kantian view lies in the pure formality of the rules of art, the view may also be criticized for its inability to pay due respect to the relation between art and society as a whole – just like the Kantian notion of respect we owe to others as rational agents has been criticized for its disregard for the historical and cultural situatedness of people. Jonathan’s paper “Aesthetic Civil Disobedience” presented powerfully the case of art’s role in public deliberation, arguing that works of art do not have to be reduced to mere didactic tools of various political agendas but can actually function as engines of societal change via their aesthetic properties. In support of this claim, Jonathan offered an analysis of aesthetic civil disobedience by discussing such cases as Pussy Riot, the (illegal) placing of a finely carved statue of Edward Snowden on a War of Independence memorial in Brooklyn NY (see picture below), and the presentation of pictures of African-American community leaders next to statues memorializing leaders of the Confederacy on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. While all instances make specific demands for political recognition, these acts of aesthetic civil disobedience are not reducible to discursive reasons that could be translated into written manifestos. Instead, the aesthetic form of the acts or artworks is an integral part of their public communicative function.

Brian’s paper “Artwork Exceptionalism” introduced the phenomenon of misrecognition to the discussion by analyzing cases where an otherwise generally applicable law is taken not to apply to art. Hence, for example, a junked car in one’s front yard may be exempt from the law prohibiting the storage of junked cars on front yards, if it happens to be, not just a junked car, but a work of art made out of one by being painted and filled with flowers. Such cases may seem innocent enough, but they force the judicial system to deliberate what counts as art and what not, and what type of art is aesthetically significant enough to warrant an exemption – a task which at the outset seems more suited for philosophers of art than a court of law. Moreover, the innocuousness of the junked car case soon fades away when we see the structural parallel between such “artwork exceptionalism” and “religious exceptionalism”, a recently hot legal topic in the US. We may well learn to live with a junked car transfigured into an artwork on our neighbor’s front yard, because we want to guard the freedom of artistic expression in our society. But what are we supposed to think of the analogous case of court granting exemption from the law prohibiting discrimination against sexual minorities for a wedding photographer who, appealing to his religious beliefs, refuses to take photos at a same sex wedding? As demonstrated by Brian’s paper, the case is tricky, “for just as any object, arguably, can become an artwork, so might any action be an exercise of religion – even filicide, as Abraham can attest”.

For further discussion, see:

Hanne Appelqvist (2013) “Wittgenstein and the Limits of Musical Grammar”, The British Journal of Aesthetics 53 (3), pp. 299–319.

Jonathan Neufeld (2015) “Aesthetic Disobedience”, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73 (2), pp. 115–125.

Brian Soucek (2014) “Aesthetic Judgment in Law” and “Personification of Art”, in Michael Kelly (ed.) Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2d ed.) (Oxford: OUP).

The exterior of the mosque. Photo: Anna-Liisa Tolonen

The city of Córdoba hosts a remarkable monument, which has two names: Mezquita and Cathedral. According to travel guides, the building is a former mosque which could include up to 40 000 persons. It is also the main church of Córdoba at which Christians regularly gather to celebrate the Mass.

***
The history of the city, as well as that of all Andalusia, is characterized by diversity of religions. In the 12th century, the Jewish scholar Maimonides as well as the Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (known also as Averroes) lived and worked in Córdoba, in which one of the world’s largest libraries was located.

After the conquest in 1236, the minaret of the mosque was converted to the bell tower of the cathedral. Photo: Anna-Liisa Tolonen

A visitor may find the beauty and sense of harmony of the mosque-cathedral reassuring. At the same time, the space evokes anxiety. Is this peaceful coexistence, religious traditions in smooth historical continuum or blatantly against one another? Are both Islam and Christianity presented equally or is one repressed by the other? And where does the over and over conquered site hide the Jewish history which is also characteristic of the area?

Fine pieces of both Muslim and Christian architecture coexist and collide in the mosque-cathedral. Photo: Anna-Liisa Tolonen

Religious tolerance and recognition were themes discussed at the annual meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) organized this year in Córdoba. In a seminar focused on early Christianity, eleven scholars presented their work. Among them were also Outi Lehtipuu, Anna-Liisa Tolonen, and Ismo Dunderberg, representing Reason and Religious Recognition CoE. Lehtipuu evaluated early church fathers’ recognitions of women in their comments on “no longer male and female … in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Tolonen discussed early Christian identity politics: (how) could same figures be respected both as Jews and as martyrs for Christ? Dunderberg presented Origen’s attitude toward his rival Heracleon, whose thoughts Origen transmits in critical but also approving manner.

***
In the concluding discussion of the seminar, themes of tolerance and recognition met with ideological-critical questions about power and violence. The participants reflected on the naming of events and phenomena, which often already involves certain positions, attitudes as well as problems. The study of encounter between different religions does not lead into simplifying either–or conclusions; rather, it may challenge us to understand history in greater diversity. While it is irresponsible to deny or belittle conflicts, a critical analysis of coexistence cannot be satisfactory if only apparent contradictions dominate our views of history.

Text: Outi Lehtipuu & Anna-Liisa Tolonen