In this article, 1 explore how the Long Geng Badeng Kenyah community of Sarawak converted to Christianity even though there was no sustained missionary persuasion from the outside. Over a period of study, I eventually...In this article, 1 explore how the Long Geng Badeng Kenyah community of Sarawak converted to Christianity even though there was no sustained missionary persuasion from the outside. Over a period of study, I eventually accept the simple emic explanation that ＂it is easy when you are a Christian＂ to be an important explanation. Central to this view is that Christianity provides an alternative religion that allows the people to avoid the need to observe the many troublesome taboos that hinder frequent traveling and engaging in various kinds of economic activities. The influence of relatives is an important factor, too, and as more people become Christians, the traditional Bungan followers lose the support to continue with the traditional religion and eventually almost all follow their relatives to adopt the new religion, which they find do not hinder practicing their culture other than replacing the traditional worship with the Christian way. The ethnographic study provides the opportunity to relate to recent scholarship on the anthropology of Christianity, and facilitates anthropological reflection on the study of cultural change, in particular, in relation to the work of Marshall Sahlins.展开更多
The centuries before the renewal of both the scientific-philosophical and the everyday thinking were dominated by the Christian way of approaching all the phenomena of human life, love and sexuality not excluded. Howe...The centuries before the renewal of both the scientific-philosophical and the everyday thinking were dominated by the Christian way of approaching all the phenomena of human life, love and sexuality not excluded. However, the tran- scendence-based other-worldly concepts to grasp what happens in human beings-in- the-flesh were challenged by this-worldly concepts, whose explicit or hidden origin was the Epicurean approach to the same phenomena. In my paper, I outline firstly some of the main tenets of Lucretius the Epicurean poet, secondly, I characterize the basic convictions of Christian theological-philosophical writers, in order to present, thirdly, how they influenced each-other in Andreas Capellanus＇ treatise On Love.展开更多
文摘In this article, 1 explore how the Long Geng Badeng Kenyah community of Sarawak converted to Christianity even though there was no sustained missionary persuasion from the outside. Over a period of study, I eventually accept the simple emic explanation that ＂it is easy when you are a Christian＂ to be an important explanation. Central to this view is that Christianity provides an alternative religion that allows the people to avoid the need to observe the many troublesome taboos that hinder frequent traveling and engaging in various kinds of economic activities. The influence of relatives is an important factor, too, and as more people become Christians, the traditional Bungan followers lose the support to continue with the traditional religion and eventually almost all follow their relatives to adopt the new religion, which they find do not hinder practicing their culture other than replacing the traditional worship with the Christian way. The ethnographic study provides the opportunity to relate to recent scholarship on the anthropology of Christianity, and facilitates anthropological reflection on the study of cultural change, in particular, in relation to the work of Marshall Sahlins.
文摘The centuries before the renewal of both the scientific-philosophical and the everyday thinking were dominated by the Christian way of approaching all the phenomena of human life, love and sexuality not excluded. However, the tran- scendence-based other-worldly concepts to grasp what happens in human beings-in- the-flesh were challenged by this-worldly concepts, whose explicit or hidden origin was the Epicurean approach to the same phenomena. In my paper, I outline firstly some of the main tenets of Lucretius the Epicurean poet, secondly, I characterize the basic convictions of Christian theological-philosophical writers, in order to present, thirdly, how they influenced each-other in Andreas Capellanus＇ treatise On Love.
