Ritualized Doctrine? Rethinking Protestant Bodily Practice Through Attention to Genre in Calvin's Institutio
Protestantism poses a two-fronted challenge to ritual studies. First, Protestants have been deeply shaped by the Reformation’s polemical stance against ritual and accompanying valorization of scripture and theological reason. Second, Protestant assumptions remain inscribed in many of the historic me...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2017]
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In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 85, Issue: 3, Pages: 746-774 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Calvin, Jean 1509-1564, Christianae religionis institutio
/ Protestantism
/ Ritual
/ Materiality
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RelBib Classification: | KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance KDD Protestant Church RA Practical theology |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | Protestantism poses a two-fronted challenge to ritual studies. First, Protestants have been deeply shaped by the Reformation’s polemical stance against ritual and accompanying valorization of scripture and theological reason. Second, Protestant assumptions remain inscribed in many of the historic methods used to study ritual, resulting in a series of methodological dichotomies—between mind and body, subjectivity and habituation, text and action—of which scholars are still taking critical stock. Against this backdrop, this article reconsiders the genre of Jean Calvin’s 1559 Institutio Christianae Religionis. It shows a strong resonance with other ancient and medieval examples of writing designed to be used within a field of embodied practice, yet in which the theoretical content is nonetheless crucial to the text’s ritualized use. It thus recasts the conceptual relationship between theological writing and ritualization while also illuminating an underappreciated and distinctive role given to bodily practice within a major tradition of Protestantism. |
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ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfw092 |