The plan of salvation includes Muslims? Is Allah the same God as Yaweah?

[Timothy17]

Burning people alive for their religious opinions (or cutting their insides out while they are still alive because they dare to propagate a version of Christianity not approved by the government) is diabolical.

And I agree. So is crucifying them, for example, or having them gorged alive by half-starved beasts, or using them for street lamps, which things not a few Christians suffered at the hands of their governments. Other lovely sports among peoples hostile to Christianity included, but were not limited to, emasculation of Bishops and dragging them through the streets for all to witness, purchasing Christian slaves at barn-fire prices (quite literally) in order to slaughter them in whatsoever manner seemed most fitting or enjoyable… need I go on ?

Perverting history to make it appear like the Church was at any time “the government” in order to justify a hostile “seperation of Church and State,” whereas it was always the State that interfered with the Church, is likewise arguably diabolical, and not a little calumnious. I think King Henry the 8th, patron and former Head of your church, suffices for one good example of such nefarious behaviour, and serves as the true example for understanding the need of “seperation of Church and State,” whereas the Church is to be free of interference from the government.

That’s just the most obvious example. More generally, all those expressions of Christianity which promote arrogance rather than charity and humility are diabolical.

Which, ironically, is itself arguably an arrogant statement, but perhaps I stretch. Now I am curious, surely if something is evil it ought to be punished or suppressed by the State, correct - in order to protect the citizens from such evil ? So what policy would you put forth that would effectively protect the Christian subjects of the United States, for example, from expressions of Christianity which promote arrogance ? Perhaps an Office of Religious Censor ? No, that would be too controversial a title. Let’s call it instead the Department of Freedom from Arrogance. I’m sure everyone would love knocks at the door from agents of the DoFA, but this surely wouldn’t be anything reminiscent of an Inquisition.

The diabolical elements are intrinsically intertwined with the divine and human ones,

While I wouldn’t advocate having you burned at a stake or your body mutilated for saying such a thing, I would suggest a good old fashioned head-shake. The divine is never intertwined with the diabolic. Darkness, my friend, is the absence of Light.

Pax,
Tim

 

[John_Paul_Jones]

This subject comes up over and over again. Surely you’ve seen some of the discussions?

The basic logical problem with your position is that if you really say that Muslims don’t believe in the true God because they reject the Incarnation (obviously they don’t say that they reject Jesus), then you have to say that Jews do as well. And that requires you to believe that Jews stopped believing in the true God when they rejected Jesus. That doesn’t make any sense. If they believed exactly the same things before hearing Jesus’ claims as they did afterward, how can they have switched “Gods”?

Edwin

That’s not the problem, that they switch “Gods.” It’s not that they didn’t followed religious practices and acknowledge God (or in the case with the muslims, allah) it’s that when they heard the “Truth” they rejected it - they walked away, or they wanted to kill Jesus as in the NT (or in the case with the muslims - never mind). They believed they had the same God (or allah) as before (after rejecting Jesus), and you can say they didn’t switch God, but you can’t say they believe in Jesus as the Christ. Some believe whatever they believe about a god is more important than Jesus Christ. Where saying there is God or any other god(s) is more important speaking Truth about Jesus Christ. But that’s not the case because the only means God the Father gave us is Jesus Christ.

 

[jerome_ky]

The statement in question has disturbed me, too. I have the same opinion of Islam, that it came along to specifically deny the Crucifixion of Christ, the Sonship and Deity of Christ, and to proclaim Mohammed as the “Paraclete.” Amongst heresies it is the chief, it goes even beyond heresy, building on Manichaeism to become, in my opinion, the “spirit of antichrist” that denies that Christ is come in the flesh.

That said, I came into the Catholic Church a couple of years ago. I did this because the Church has the fullness of the faith, and because her wisdom of 2000 years is an ocean compared to my shallow pool of understanding. I have had to overcome a lot, to swallow my pride in a lot of areas, to acknowledge that the Church has the authority given her by Christ Himself. Too often I see Catholics and former Catholics who are overwhelmed by some pressure they feel in the world to turn on the Church. We are all oppressed today by Islam and its rampant violent chaos. How dare the Church proffer even a gesture of solidarity with the humanity of these devils? I think, however, a sober reading of Lumen Gentium is in order. Let’s see where the emphasis really is.

"14. This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.
…
15. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. (14*) For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (15*) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ.
…
Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. *In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. (17) Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. **She exhorts her children to purification and renewal so that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.

1. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God.(18*) In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.(125) On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126) But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things,(127) and as Saviour wills that all men be saved.(128) Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.(19*) Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel.(20*)"

Now, as for the offending statement, “…there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God…” Can we read this as an if…then? Did Jesus and Paul never carefully word a statement so that discernment was required? The question has come up here, What is this doing here in the first place? (Or in the CCC, at least.) What is any of this doing here? Why would the Catholic Church affirm solidarity with humanity, regardless of belief system, when she clearly spells out that “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” Is there a larger message here? Did the Pope and bishops and periti at Vatican II not know what they were doing when they went through a list of all the religions and religious tendencies and try to find common ground with them all? How foolish of those 100’s of men not to know that Islam is at odds with Christianity. As St. Paul said, “I speak as a fool.” If you were to speak to a Moslem, would it be wrong to say, “You profess to hold the faith of Abraham. Therefore we both adore the one and merciful God, don’t we?” And go from there. If you don’t go from there, then no, there’s no point.

 

[dzheremi]

You’re all going to hate me for bringing this up (sorry Gurney, Jerome, mods), but the bolded and underlined statement in #14 (“Whosoever…”) has also been dealt with here in the past, and it oddly also came to a sort of “what is this statement doing here?” draw, with I think me and CMatt25 on the “this is ridiculous nonsense” side and pretty much everybody else on the other side. Without remembering exactly the name of the thread (or else I’d just link it), I can’t imagine disagreeing with my statements from that time, having now re-read the passage.

Again: Why is this statement here? Who are all these people who believe that the Church has been made necessary by Christ and yet refuse to enter or remain in it? They don’t exist. I think the Vatican is once again either making a very weak point that it’d be better off not splitting hairs to make, or engaging in philosophizing for the pure joy of it (with no real point to be made). I really don’t mean to sound so disrespectful, but I honestly can’t see the wisdom in any of these statements. I don’t understand why phantom people and false religions need to be taking up any of the Church’s time.

 

[jam070406]

If you were to speak to a Moslem, would it be wrong to say, “You profess to hold the faith of Abraham. Therefore we both adore the one and merciful God, don’t we?” And go from there. If you don’t go from there, then no, there’s no point.

What’s the point? Where would it lead? Eventually you would have to tell said Moslem that their faith will not save them and jump through hoops to explain away why you said your plan of salvation (which you really mean, in Jesus) included them but yet…it doesn’t as they stand now in their Moslem belief. Then where does “You profess to hold the faith of Abraham” get you, when dealing with the spirit of antichrist? Especially when their “scriptural” faith of Abraham doesn’t match the Jewish scriptural faith of Abraham.

 

[Contarini]

And I agree. So is crucifying them, for example, or having them gorged alive by half-starved beasts, or using them for street lamps, which things not a few Christians suffered at the hands of their governments.

I’m not sure how that’s even remotely relevant to what I said. I did not dispute for a minute that the Roman Empire was to a great extent a diabolical institution. Indeed, the most diabolical elements in Christendom have come from the Roman Empire. (The Roman Empire had its good elements too, which is the tricky and seductive part, of course.)

Perverting history to make it appear like the Church was at any time “the government”

I did not say that. Although unless you are going to restrict the Church to the clergy, obviously the government was part of the Church. Institutionally the two have always been distinguished in Catholic countries, and in practically every other Christian state I can think of (even Calvin’s Geneva, which actually pretty much replicated the Catholic model). The closest identification of the two is probably to be found in sixteenth-century Anglicanism, which is the version of Christianity I was referring to in the passage where I used the word “government.”

in order to justify a hostile “seperation of Church and State,”

You are making some pretty big assumptions about what I’m saying–assumptions that have everything to do with what you expect me to say and little to do with what I actually said. I do not in fact necessarily favor the separation of Church and State, though I think the form that it takes in the U.S. is a perfectly fine way to approach the question of church-state relations. I have no problem with the existence of a state church in England and other European countries, although I have all sorts of problems with the idolatrous view of church-state relations that prevailed in historic Anglicanism.

whereas it was always the State that interfered with the Church,

That’s too sweeping. They interfered with each other. I agree that it is foolish and odd to worry more about protecting the state from the Church than vice versa, as many modern secularists and liberals do.

I think King Henry the 8th, patron and former Head of your church, suffices for one good example of such nefarious behaviour, and serves as the true example for understanding the need of “seperation of Church and State,” whereas the Church is to be free of interference from the government.

Which is why I included the execution of Catholics as traitors in early modern England as one of my examples of diabolical Christianity. Sorry for being cryptic. Burning at the stake was of course practiced by several Christian states in the early modern period, including Protestant England and Geneva (though in both cases it was used against radicals, not against Catholics) as well as Catholic nations such as France and Spain (and England when it was Catholic). You jumped to the conclusion that I was making an anti-Catholic point.

Which, ironically, is itself arguably an arrogant statement

Why? If I had given specific examples (beyond the obvious ones of vicious persecution) you might have a case, though even then I think it is questionable to claim that any accusation of arrogance is ipso facto arrogant. Of course, the circularity of arrogance and self-righteousness is why these vices are so insidious and so hard to fight.

, but perhaps I stretch.

I think you more than stretch.

Now I am curious, surely if something is evil it ought to be punished or suppressed by the State, correct

Not necessarily. See Aquinas’s discussion of legalized prostitution for starters. And of course modern democratic society has a much broader conception of freedom, though that has both strengths and weaknesses.

The rest of your labored sarcasm is thus pointless.

While I wouldn’t advocate having you burned at a stake or your body mutilated for saying such a thing, I would suggest a good old fashioned head-shake. The divine is never intertwined with the diabolic.

I wish shaking my head would stop me seeing what I see. But unfortunately I do see it, and I’m going to describe it as I see it.

Darkness, my friend, is the absence of Light.

Indeed. That makes my case for me. Wherever the light is not fully present there is some degree of darkness. And this side of the Eschaton the light is never fully present. Q.E.D.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

That’s not the problem, that they switch “Gods.”.

But that’s the claim being made when people say that anyone who rejects the Trinity doesn’t worship the true God,.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Dear Edwin,

To answer your question of how a religion can possibly be “purely diabolical,” please visit the Church of Satan at churchofsatan.com or at a local branch office near you. It just so happens that,
“[They’re] looking for a few oustanding individuals…”
Pax,
Tim

If you mean Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan (frankly I don’t care to click on the website), no, they aren’t purely diabolical. They come pretty close in their worship of self-will and autonomy, and they are messing with powers that they don’t understand. But they use “Satan” as a symbol for human–if mostly sinful and at best not very noble–impulses and aspirations.

The existence of real Satanists is somewhat open to doubt. However, I do note rule out the possibility that some of the stories about them might be true. So I should not have spoken so broadly. I suppose it is possible that there might be an organized religion in which every aspect was genuinely diabolical. But this would be extremely odd, and I think the burden of proof is on those who wish to maintain such a claim.

Edwin

 

[Bluegoat]

The existence of real Satanists is somewhat open to doubt. However, I do note rule out the possibility that some of the stories about them might be true. So I should not have spoken so broadly. I suppose it is possible that there might be an organized religion in which every aspect was genuinely diabolical. But this would be extremely odd, and I think the burden of proof is on those who wish to maintain such a claim.

Edwin

Even Hell was built as an expression of God’s love, is my thought.

 

[John_Paul_Jones]

But that’s the claim being made when people say that anyone who rejects the Trinity doesn’t worship the true God.

Edwin

How can some one both reject and accept at the same time?

 

[dzheremi]

All this stuff about the Jews and the Muslims and each one being able to worship God as he sees fit and why can’t they reject the Holy Trinity and still worship God and blahblahblah is disgusting! The Holy Trinity is the full revelation of God, not merely “our conception” of God to be disagreed with because of a priori knowledge of God held by the Jews. God is not One in the Holy Trinity on the condition that no one disagrees, just as there is no other way to the Father but through Jews Christ no matter if Jews or Muslims or Hindus or whoever else disagrees with that, either. The Trinity is not conditional, the salvation of Christ is not conditional…none of these things are subject to whims and what ifs and all other manners of evil. Submit to them and be a Christian or follow your own heart and intellect and be a worshiper of yourself. There’s absolutely no middle ground here. In fact, such lukewarm sentiments make the Son of God puke.

Relativism is anti-Christ. Whatever else someone might call me, I pray that nobody ever calls me a relativist.

 

[Hiskid1973]

How can some one both reject and accept at the same time?

I knew a oneness pastor as he was called by a a brother in the Lord…It’s not that they don’t “believe” in the Father/Son/Holy Spirit…It’s just the technicalities in the manifestation…So they don’t “see” it as a denial…I hope you can get what I mean…The guy loved the Lord and was very evangelistic. I heard him preach a few times and never heard anything weird on what he was preaching about…I don’t say who or who’s not “in Christ” when they tell me their a christian. I’ll let the Lord handle that…

 

[RobbyS]

So it is an insult, really. Even worse than nonsense (though I think it certainly qualifies as that, too). In effect, the RCC is saying “Yes, we recognize that this is what Muslims think they are all about, but we know better/think they’re wrong.” So…why is this statement even in the CCC in the first place? An exposition of the Christian faith, it isn’t.

Profession does mean something positive. Where the Muslims go wrong is that they say untrue things about the God of Abraham.

 

[RobbyS]

All this stuff about the Jews and the Muslims and each one being able to worship God as he sees fit and why can’t they reject the Holy Trinity and still worship God and blahblahblah is disgusting! The Holy Trinity is the full revelation of God, not merely “our conception” of God to be disagreed with because of a priori knowledge of God held by the Jews. God is not One in the Holy Trinity on the condition that no one disagrees, just as there is no other way to the Father but through Jews Christ no matter if Jews or Muslims or Hindus or whoever else disagrees with that, either. The Trinity is not conditional, the salvation of Christ is not conditional…none of these things are subject to whims and what ifs and all other manners of evil. Submit to them and be a Christian or follow your own heart and intellect and be a worshiper of yourself. There’s absolutely no middle ground here. In fact, such lukewarm sentiments make the Son of God puke.

Relativism is anti-Christ. Whatever else someone might call me, I pray that nobody ever calls me a relativist.

You are right when you say this is about God, not our idea of God. The crux of the matter
is what we believe about Jesus. The Creed is a summation of what we believe about him.

 

[Contarini]

How can some one both reject and accept at the same time?

One can’t. One can reject the full revelation of who God is, while continuing to worship God as one has for centuries.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

All this stuff about the Jews and the Muslims and each one being able to worship God as he sees fit and why can’t they reject the Holy Trinity and still worship God and blahblahblah is disgusting!

But in a discussion forum, people may be less interested in your emotional reactions than in the arguments you can bring to support your position. And those arguments are severely lacking.

The Holy Trinity is the full revelation of God, not merely “our conception” of God to be disagreed with because of a priori knowledge of God held by the Jews.

No disagreement, but irrelevant to the point I was making. If you reject the full revelation, but continue to believe in the partial revelation you have had up to this point, then it defies logic to say that you have somehow stopped believing in the true God, when you believe exactly what you used to believe. Whether you continue to have a saving relationship with God would, according to Catholic teaching, depend on whether you rejected the full revelation in good faith (through “invincible ignorance”) or whether you did so out of pride. You profess to find this distinction meaningless–this is another of your positions that appears highly irrational to me. You asked in another post where these people are who know that Catholic Christianity is true but reject it. Obviously only God knows who they are, or whether they exist. But why do you assume that they do not exist?

God is not One in the Holy Trinity on the condition that no one disagrees,

Straw man and hence irrelevant.

just as there is no other way to the Father but through Jews Christ no matter if Jews or Muslims or Hindus or whoever else disagrees with that, either.

Straw man.

The Trinity is not conditional, the salvation of Christ is not conditional.

Straw man.

…none of these things are subject to whims and what ifs and all other manners of evil.

Straw man.

Submit to them and be a Christian or follow your own heart and intellect and be a worshiper of yourself.

But in your earlier post you questioned whether there were any people who rejected the full revelation of Christianity while knowing it to be true. This doesn’t make sense. I think part of the problem may be the fact (well explicated by C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce) that someone can genuinely believe something to be true while having arrived at that false belief through sinful motivations. Lewis’s example is a jealous husband who comes to believe that his wife has committed adultery, even though he has no good evidence for this opinion. I think that such people would come under the condemnation of Vatican II. The question is: do all those who intellectually reject Christianity fall under this condemnation, or may some of them genuinely be motivated by good faith?

There’s absolutely no middle ground here. In fact, such lukewarm sentiments make the Son of God puke.

When you actually address what I’m saying, your righteous indignation will be a bit more effective.

Relativism is anti-Christ. Whatever else someone might call me, I pray that nobody ever calls me a relativist.

Yes, but you’re so afraid of being a relativist that you refuse to think carefully and logically about this issue. I’m not a relativist either, and calling me one does not mean anything unless you can back up the accusation.

Edwin

 

[tomarin]

All this stuff about the Jews and the Muslims and each one being able to worship God as he sees fit and why can’t they reject the Holy Trinity and still worship God and blahblahblah is disgusting!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acknowledging as the Catholic Church does that our faith has more in common with some faiths than others. Acknowledging that is simply not the same thing as preaching the agnostic mantra that “all religions lead to God” (I say agnostic because saying that all religions are true is the same as saying that they are all equally false).

It’s important to make a distinction here which you may find semantics but I’ll present it anyway: even though all religions are not equally true, all religions have some degree of truth in them because the religious impulse is based on a desire to come into a closer relationship with our Creator that is universally shared among human beings.

Are you familiar with the British anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard who wrote an ethnography called “Nuer Religion” in (I think) the 1930’s? This was a comprehensive study of the religious beliefs of the Nilotic-speaking pastoralists of the southern Sudan. It’s been a while since I read it but it’s noteworthy because the Nuer appear to have believed in a kind of lofty monotheism. This becomes all the more poignant when one learns that Evans-Pritchard converted to Catholicism some time after completing the fieldwork for his ethnography, largely because of his experiences with the Nuer. It appears that learning about their beliefs stirred a religious impulse in him.

So to sum up, all religions may not lead to God but I don’t think that’s the same as affirming that to some degree all religions point to him. As far as Judaism is concerned, I don’t see how you can square your belief that they don’t worship God with the fact that Jesus himself was a faithful, practicing Jew raised in a devout Jewish household? That’s what I was taught, anyway.

 

[dzheremi]

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acknowledging as the Catholic Church does that our faith has more in common with some faiths than others.

Okay.

Acknowledging that is simply not the same thing as preaching the agnostic mantra that “all religions lead to God” (I say agnostic because saying that all religions are true is the same as saying that they are all equally false).

Notice that this is not what I wrote. I wrote about each being able to worship God according to his own religion’s precepts, including rejecting the Holy Trinity. This seems to be an underlying principle of those who defend this “we all worship the same God” stance engendered by CCC 841, does it not?

It’s important to make a distinction here which you may find semantics but I’ll present it anyway: even though all religions are not equally true, all religions have some degree of truth in them because the religious impulse is based on a desire to come into a closer relationship with our Creator that is universally shared among human beings.

This is one of those things that I would not necessarily say is false, but I would be very careful in bringing up in discussions with those of non-Christian faiths. I have written over and over that it is true that not everything in other religions is false or bad, but that this does not mean at all that some truths held in common indicate a common wellspring or a common God/object of worship. I stand by that distinction.

Are you familiar with the British anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard who wrote an ethnography called “Nuer Religion” in (I think) the 1930’s? This was a comprehensive study of the religious beliefs of the Nilotic-speaking pastoralists of the southern Sudan. It’s been a while since I read it but it’s noteworthy because the Nuer appear to have believed in a kind of lofty monotheism. This becomes all the more poignant when one learns that Evans-Pritchard converted to Catholicism some time after completing the fieldwork for his ethnography, largely because of his experiences with the Nuer. It appears that learning about their beliefs stirred a religious impulse in him.

I’ve never heard of it until now. Is it available online somewhere? I would like to read it.

So to sum up, all religions may not lead to God but I don’t think that’s the same as affirming that to some degree all religions point to him. As far as Judaism is concerned, I don’t see how you can square your belief that they don’t worship God with the fact that Jesus himself was a faithful, practicing Jew raised in a devout Jewish household? That’s what I was taught, anyway.

It may be helpful to recall that my original bone of contention with CCC 841 (as expressed in my own thread which you participated in, quite some time ago) was with its impact on understanding and practice of the Christian faith (as I had assumed that this is what the CCC would be concerned with). Similarly, the post you are replying to is written to Christians who have taken a somewhat lackadaisical approach to their faith.

As to your specific example of the Savior as the model Jew, I absolutely agree. If all Jews were devout as Jesus was devout, we would not be having this conversation because the Jews would have accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah in the first place. Would this necessitate belief in the Christian Trinity? It’s hard to say, as that is not how things unfolded. But looking at the world today I must reiterate that, for the sake of the faith which holds all truth and lacks nothing, I cannot in good conscience agree with anyone who would use the Savior’s religious identity to excuse the Jews from following Christ, just as I cannot believe that the Muslims’ having their own religious identities excuse them from ultimately recognizing the Divinity and Lordship of Jesus Christ (they will recognize it on the last day, for sure). Does this mean that they are worshiping a false God or no God or anything like that? I would hope you know me well enough by now to know that I would rather subscribe to the Orthodox mantra of “We know where salvation is, not where it is not” than to make any potentially hazardous claims about just who is worshiping what. I do not know the state of anyone’s souls and it is indeed possible that even many Christians (myself included) may not be worshiping God but instead have set up other things to worship. This is why I address my complaints as I do towards fellow Christians, because as a Christian I am concerned when I detect this attitude that says to each his own, your religion is good enough to be “first among us” even though you don’t worship Christ, etc. I really do believe this is a wrong attitude for a Christian to have.

 

[tomarin]

I’ve never heard of it until now. Is it available online somewhere? I would like to read it.

I don’t know if it’s available online but I can check and get back to you. I would check my local library since it’s almost certainly out of print (despite being a classic of the anthropology of religion and required reading for anthro grad students). It would almost certainly be in a university library’s collection, if you have access to one.

It’s really a fascinating book. He also wrote a classic ethnography on all aspects of the Nuer, called, not too surprisingly, “the Nuer.”

As for the rest of your response I’m going to mull it over before commenting. I may have said all I have to say about this topic. And by the way not only do I remember the earlier thread but I reread it just a little while ago to remind myself of who said what to whom.

 

[dzheremi]

Unfortunately I no longer have access to a university library. Maybe in a couple of months, if it is the Lord’s will…