Syncretism

Abstract: This thesis attempts to trace and place in context the developing interpretation of Confucius and Confucianism propounded by the Jesuit missionaries in China during the period of the old mission, from its inception c. 1580 to its collapse after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. The Jesuit interpretation of Confucianism was rooted in the Jesuit missionary experience throughout the world, but, more immediately, arose as a response to the peculiar problems experienced by Jesuits in the Far East from the time of Francis Xavier on. Xavier and his successors were confronted by the same pressures of language and culture that had marked and to some extent frustrated earlier intrusions of foreign religions into China-Buddhism, the Nestorian Christians of the T'ang, Judaism and Islam, as well as the Franciscan missionaries of the 13th, and 14th, centuries. Problems of translation and finding equivalent terminology, the Chinese tendency to syncretism and the difficulty of finding an acceptable social role, had demonstrated the necessity of assimilation to Chinese culture.

Abstract: Written by one of France's most brilliant and creative anthropologists, The African Religions of Brazil is regarded as a classic in Afro-American studies. First published in France in 1960, the book represents a singular effort to develop a theory of the interpenetrations of African, European, Christian, and non-Christian cultures in Brazil from colonial times to the present. Addressing a remarkable range of topics -- from mysticism and syncretism to the problems of collective memory, from the history of slavery in Brazil to world-wide race relations -- the work is shaped by the author's rich and original conceptual framework. The result is a compelling study of the origins and growth of a native religious environment. The English translation is supplemented with a biographical foreword by Richard Price and a thematic introduction by Brazilian sociologist Duglas T. Monteiro.

Abstract: This article examines the way in which Christianity and Kongo religion merged to produce a syncretic result. After showing that the Kongo church grew up under the supervision and direction of Kongo authorities rather than missionaries, it will track how local educational systems and linguistic transformations accommodated the differences between the two religious traditions. In Kongo, many activities associated with the traditional religion were attacked as witchcraft without assigning any part of the traditional religion to this category. It also addresses how Kongo religious thinkers sidestepped questions of the fate of the dead and the virginity of Mary when harmonizing them would be too difficult.