Papers by Marten Van der Meulen
This article offers the case study of a contemporary mediatized Christian passion event that take... more This article offers the case study of a contemporary mediatized Christian passion event that takes place annually in the public sphere in the Netherlands. Contributing to debates in various studies of religion regarding religious change in late modern societies, the authors propose the concept of ‘play’ that, although not a new concept to the study of religion or ritual, is well suited to investigate religious ritual in a liquid modern world that is characterized by, as scholars state, a global ludification of culture. Play helps to explain that and in what ways a mediatized event like The Passion in a digital media culture opens a ludic space for many people, where their hermeneutical faculty to deal with the sacred is activated. This can resolve the paradox that, in a still secularizing country like the Netherlands, a ritual on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ can be so popular.
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The world of religious experience is changing much faster than the discipline that claims to stud... more The world of religious experience is changing much faster than the discipline that claims to study it. Religious studies still uses Christianity as its measure, still frames the world through the model of five world religions, still largely avoids analysis of key issues around power, poverty, violence, pollution, science, and social conflict, and still looks to highlight differences rather than commonalities. Methods for the Study of Religious Change aims to redefine the study of religion as the study of worldviews, of ideas which are active in shaping the world. It argues that the study of religion should focus on people’s worldview-making capacities and should contribute to the critical analysis of global problems and the promotion of cultural and spiritual respect across religions. Survey chapters on theory and method outline this new approach, while case-study chapters illustrate these ideas with innovative ethnographies of ritual, experience, language, morals and identity.
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African Diaspora, 2009
Abstract This article focuses on the interaction of African churches with the local social, polit... more Abstract This article focuses on the interaction of African churches with the local social, political and religious ecology of Amsterdam Southeast in their search for worship space. It shows the con-tinuing importance of the local, even for such transnational religious movements as ...
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This article describes the developments of the EO Youth Day, a Dutch Christian mass event that at... more This article describes the developments of the EO Youth Day, a Dutch Christian mass event that attracts thousands of young people every year. It is argued that in the course of time, the EO Youth Day has changed from a modest and sober event characterized by a Calvinist outlook to an expressive ‘hip’ event with an evangelical swing. This change becomes especially visible when the first versions of the EO Youth Day in the 1970s are compared with more recent ones—a comparison we shall make in this article. Central to this change is the way the body is addressed and referred to in what we call the ‘forms of embodiment’ offered at the EO Youth Day. Evidence for this is provided by an explorative empirical study of four EO Youth Days—those organized in 1977, 1987, 1999, and 2008.
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This article describes the developments of the EO Youth Day, a Dutch Christian mass event that at... more This article describes the developments of the EO Youth Day, a Dutch Christian mass event that attracts thousands of young people every year. It is argued that in the course of time, the EO Youth Day has changed from a modest and sober event characterized by a Calvinist outlook to an expressive ‘hip’ event with an evangelical swing. This change becomes especially visible when the first versions of the EO Youth Day in the 1970s are compared with more recent ones—a comparison we shall make in this article. Central to this change is the way the body is addressed and referred to in what we call the ‘forms of embodiment’ offered at the EO Youth Day. Evidence for this is provided by an explorative empirical study of four EO Youth Days—those organized in 1977, 1987, 1999, and 2008.
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Two cases in which researchers take part in religious ritual show how being a participant enhance... more Two cases in which researchers take part in religious ritual show how being a participant enhances the researcher’s understanding of what is happening. Through these cases the authors attempt to shed light on the methodological problems concerning the “intersubjectivity” of research on ritual. Ritual goes beyond the verbal and pulls bodily sensations, emotion and gestures into the domain of intersubjectivity established through fieldwork. Experiencing the emotional and physical sensations that accompany ritual give the researcher a clue as to what other participants experience. But maybe more importantly, the participation of the researcher also triggers reflections on the meaning and efficacy of the ritual. These verbalized interpretations of what has happened may further strengthen the researcher’s understanding. The authors argue that it is exactly through putting this intersubjectivity at the centre of both the actual fieldwork and the subsequent analysis that the ever flexible and contested nature of ritual and the dynamic tension between semantic and tacit meaning can be most fruitfully explored.
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Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2013
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Exchange, 2009
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African Diaspora, 2009
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Exchange, 2009
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image, Sep 1, 2009
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Fieldwork in Religion, Nov 25, 2010
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Drafts by Marten Van der Meulen
Dutch evangelicalism has always been institutionally dominated by men, and has always known vario... more Dutch evangelicalism has always been institutionally dominated by men, and has always known various forms of male brotherhoods. However, the past years 'the problem with men' has come to be defined in a particular way, and a whole genre of books has emerged defining and explaining this problem and proposing solutions. The books are part of a broader evangelical men’s movement that focuses on the body and on physical endurance as a test for manhood. Surprisingly, the sources and legitimisations for the essentialising gender ideologies proposed in this movement lean on popularized forms of evolutionary theory and biology, popular culture such as movies and music and spiritual or mythopoetical ideas from books such as Iron John by Robert Bly. We found that the perceived problems of men can be summarized as circulating around three key themes: the absent man, the feminisation of men and the blurring of gender roles. These problematizations furthermore suggest particular remedies that should lead to becoming a ‘real man’.
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Papers by Marten Van der Meulen
Drafts by Marten Van der Meulen