Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review

Primary schools in New Zealand has been officially secular since 1877 and yet for the last 130 years Christian religious education and instruction, by means of a legal technicality, has been a feature of the country’s publically-funded education. In this article the origins of this technicality and the debates over whether religious education should be funded from the public purse are examined in the light of changing social realities, in particular, biculturalism and the increasing recognition of New Zealand as a multicultural and multi-religious society, with a growing number of those who claim “no religion”. The teaching of Christian formation without explicit, free and informed consent raises concerns about breaches of human rights and anxieties about potentially coercive missionary activities. It is argued that the historical legacy of uncertainty and lack of clarity about religious education needs to be openly acknowledged in order to ensure a transparent and productive public debate on the teaching of, and about, religion, in schools that reflects the new diversities.

Since September 12 2005 the Christian sect known as the Exclusive Brethren have catapulted from relative obscurity to front-page newspaper reports, prime-time television coverage, and the subject of numerous parliamentary debates in Australia. The reasons for this, however, are far more complex than mainstream media reports suggest. Using insights from contextual constructionist theory this article traces the social construction of what it calls the ‘Brethren Cult Controversy’ from its roots in political controversies over the period between 2004 and 2007 to more recent controversies over Brethren education funding, Brethren development siting, and the charitable status of minority religious groups. I argue that, among other reasons, the Brethren’s rise to prominence isdirectly related to the socio-political milieu of Howard-era Australia (1996-2007) and the Brethren’s contemporaneous reduction of their ‘sectarian tension’ with mainstream Australian culture. This article also analyses the popular perception of the ‘Brethren threat’ in mainstream Australian public discourse and the ways in which the media have framed the ‘Brethren Cult Controversy’ as a social problem.

Drawing on ethnographic research carried out with Hare Krishna devotees in Sydney, Australia, this article examines the relationship between rhetoric and belief in Hare Krishna religious practice. The ethnography explores how doctrinal belief is revealed and consolidated for the religious neophyte in contexts of religious instruction and scriptural pedagogy, in formal and informal reading practices, and in conversant interaction with rhetorically accomplished others. The process of learning and rehearsing movement rhetoric is presented here as a creative process of skill development, the mastery of rhetorical technique being one of the essential aptitudes of the advanced religious practitioner. Even where religious pedagogy demands rote learning or faithful repetition, the author argues, neophytes are far from passive recipients in this learning process, but are rather engaged in a highly creative practice of self-transformation. As rhetorical and citational techniques are learned, rehearsed, and continually refined, they emerge in this account as a primary instrument for effecting the realisation of belief and the religious transformation of the self.

During the twentieth century, the power of traditional religion (that is, Christianity) in the West has gradually declined. In the wake of the Enlightenment, personal experience rather than institutional dogma began to dictate individual religiosity, or lack thereof. Pluralism and religious diversity have resulted in a spiritual marketplace that diminishes the claims to authority of particular religions. Further, the emergence of the New Atheists demonstrates that in the twenty-first century West, criticising, attacking, and mocking religion has become acceptable, perhaps even fashionable. In recent decades however, traditional religionhas attempted to re-establish itself. One intriguing aspect of this is an intellectual battle being waged by a more scientific and philosophically sophisticated group of believers, herein dubbed the New Theologians. Largely influenced by the work of esteemed Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, these knowledgeable adherents attempt to convince scholarship, and the general public, that belief in God is rational; and even that God’s existence can be proven. This article traces the origins and considers the arguments of the New Theologians, and argues that the very existence of the New Theologians points to the dominance of the rational model, further confirming the decline of traditional religion in the West.This article also touches on the New Atheists, briefly considering such issues as what makes a non-believer a ‘New Atheist’, and whether these vocal naturalists have been misrepresented. The interactions of the New Theologians and New Atheists with mainstream Western society are examined, and it is found that the possible intellectual debate that the prominence of the two groups might engender does not really exist. The New Theologians offer antique and traditional arguments for the existence of God, the New Atheists tend not to engage directly and competently with the arguments, and both sides make ample use of rhetoric and appeal to their audience’s emotions and lack of knowledge about the subject. It is further found that New Theologians and New Atheists may have a significant impact on perceptions of scholarship about religion (and irreligion) in their communities, as they attract larger audiences than their more scholarly counterparts in the academy.

Between 1919 and 1924 Armenian-Greek spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) and his devoted Ukrainian pupil Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956), two men of utterly distinct characters, backgrounds, and musical abilities, composed music to accompany Gurdjieff’s ‘Movements’ or sacred dances. In following years they went on to compose more music for other purposes. This article attempts to establish basic academic groundwork on the music for Gurdjieff’s Movements. It assesses the unique process of its composition, examines the sources and styles of the music, and analyses the various ways in which the music interacts with the physical gestures of the Movements. It also considers the orchestrations of this music, and the recordings and sheet music that have been released both publicly and privately. The distinctive role of the music in Movements classes and its significance in light of Gurdjieff’s teaching will also be discussed. Finally, as Gurdjieff and de Hartmann worked together on music to accompany Gurdjieff’s ballet The Struggle of the Magicians in the same period as their music for Movements, there will be an exploration of the ballet and its music.

Rastafarianism and Tibetan Buddhism (as received in the West) share a number of curious traits that are worthy of examination. The contemporary West is a liberal, technological and democratic society in which traditional religion and authority have been in decline since the intellectual triumph of reason during the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Yet the Enlightenment’s shadow, the Romantic movement, which championed emotion, instinct, and experience over the philosophes’ rationality and empiricism, continued to exert power in the late capitalist marketplace of the West. The Romantic fascination with ‘exotic’ culturesand authentic spiritualities has led to modern, secular, individuals championing hierarchical, radically undemocratic societies, and valorising and defending hereditary rulers, when these phenomena manifest in a religious context, and present as precious cultural and spiritual heritages threatened with extinction. This article examines two new religions, Rastafarianism (which originated in Jamaica in the 1930s after the coronation of Haile Selassie I as Emperor of Ethiopia) and Western Tibetan Buddhism (which emerged in the wake of the Chinese invasion of Tibet and the departure of the Dalai Lama and many Tibetan monks forthe West in 1959) with a view to demonstrating common themes of ‘orientalist’ fascination with remote theocratic states, hereditary rulers who are also religious leaders, and the value of the exotic religions they represented. That both Haile Selassie I (1892-1975) and Tenzin Gyatso (b. 1935) became exiles after their realms were brutally invaded by totalitarian regimes, went on to have prominent roles as defenders of human rights and advocates of peace due to that exile, and became venerated by devotees in the West in ways that were substantially different to how they were understood in their original religious contexts (the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the traditional Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism) further sustains the argument that these leaders, their exotic homelands, and the spiritual values they embody, have undergone similar processes of reception and religious transformation, resultant upon their physical translation from Ethiopia and Tibet to the world stage.