BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ceres.rub.de//events//
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-TIMEZONE:UTC
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Guest Lecture | John Torpey (New York): "Points of Departure: Reli
 gious Breakthroughs and their Significance"
DTSTART:20140120T171500Z
DTEND:20140120T184500Z
DTSTAMP:20260418T214328Z
UID:en-20140120-guest-lecture-torpey-644@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:This paper explores religious breakthroughs and the challenges
  they must meet if they are to endure.  I explore the origins of Buddhism\
 , Christianity\, Islam\, the Protestant Reformation\, and the French Revol
 ution\, and discuss four such challenges:\n1) While there may be no strong
  desire to police boundaries or exclude outsiders\, there must be some dis
 tinction between who is "in" and who is "out" of the movement that comes i
 nto being on the basis of the founders' original ideas.  There thus arise 
 ways to distinguish among adherents and non-adherents.  The ways in which 
 this binary is constructed has far-reaching consequences for the character
  of the religion that is emerging.\n2) If the message is to endure\, the p
 urveyors of the original teachings must consolidate and standardize them i
 n some fashion.  The message must be stabilized at least to some degree su
 ch that it has sufficient coherence to be received and absorbed by new ini
 tiates.  Yet the stabilization of the main message need not preclude varia
 nt readings of the canon – which typically come to predominate in differ
 ent regions as a result of routine historical processes.\n3) Then there is
  the matter of the messengers – who will carry on the message?  The main
  question to be addressed here is that of who will enjoy the authority of 
 the initiator(s) of the breakthrough.  There is always\, in other words\, 
 a problem of succession.  The way in which that problem is resolved may ha
 ve quite profound consequences for the nature of the message and for the l
 ong-term consequences of the breakthrough.\n4) Next is the question of the
  relationship between "virtuosi" and laity.  The former are understood to 
 have privileged access to the sacred lore\, whereas the latter may be rega
 rded by the virtuosi as religiously disqualified  -- adherents\, perhaps\,
  but "second-class citizens" of the faith.  Variations in the relations be
 tween virtuosi and laypeople have profound ramifications for the character
  of a religion.
LOCATION:FNO 02/ 40-46
URL:https://khk.ceres.rub.de/en/events/en-20140120-guest-lecture-torpey/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR