Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review

The Order of Saint Charbel, and its founding prophet William Kamm (b. 1950), also known as “The Little Pebble,” has been a marginal presence on the fringes of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia since the 1980s. While a series of bishops from the Diocese of Wollongong (and other dioceses) have issued official statements taking issue with the beliefs and practices of the group and publicly distancing the group from normative Catholicism, little systematic analysis of its beliefs has been undertaken which situate these within a wider historical Roman Catholic context. This article offers a preliminary analysis of some key themes occurring in the “private revelations” which form a key aspect of the Order of Saint Charbel’s religious repertoire and their relationship with the broader theological positions of Catholic traditionalists. This article suggests that the Order of Saint Charbel, while sharing some concerns with traditionalist and other groups across the spectrum of conservative reactions to Vatican II, is best classified as a “devotionally traditionalist” lay movement exhibiting a kind of popular theology that can only be properly understood when viewed against the wider backdrop of traditional vernacular Catholic devotional practices, many of which have either declined or become marginalized since Vatican II.

The experience of colonialization and Christianization among the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), the Polynesians’ furthest settlement in the Southern Hemisphere, resulted in significant population decline of the Maori, land alienation, the rise of nativist revitalization movements, and British laws regarding land tenure that conformed to a Domesday Book tradition of conquest and social stratification. Nativist religious movements attempted to regain the land, reverse Maori population decline, and avoid the pathological consequences of aporia, a Greek word that signifies “without a bridge.” Three successive “Holy Spirit” movements arose to heal the breach between the old world of the Polynesians and the new world of British colonization and Christianization. Adherents assumed an identity as Israelites—the children of Shem—and challenged the Christian dominance of the Pakeha (European New Zealanders). From this culture clash came the Land Wars of the nineteenth century and the emergence of a new, biracial nation.

Christianity and circus entered the Australian landscape within a few decades of each other. Christianity arrived with the First Fleet in 1788. Five years later, Australia’s first church was opened. In 1832, the first display of the circus arts was given by a ropewalker on the stage of Sydney’s Theatre Royal. Fifteen years later, Australia’s first circus was opened in Launceston. Nevertheless, Australia’s historians have tended to overlook both the nation’s religious history and its annals of popular entertainment. In their new antipodean setting, what did Christianity and circus offer each other? To what extent did each accommodate the other in terms of thought and behaviour? In raising these questions, this article suggests the need to remove the margins between the mainstreams of Australian religious and social histories. For the argument of this article: 1) the term “religion” will refer to Christianity, specifically its Roman Catholic and principal Protestant manifestations introduced in Australia, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist; and 2) the term “circus” will refer to the form of popular entertainment, a major branch of the performing arts and a sub-branch of theatre, as devised by Astley in London from 1768, and first displayed in the Australia in 1847.

One of the most iconic television series of the 1990s, The X-Files drew on religious and folkloric traditions regarding supernatural phenomena for many of its plotlines. Among the themes that the show’s writers turned to repeatedly was witchcraft, using it as a major plot device in six episodes over the course of the series’ eleven season run. While drawing on longstanding ideas about witchcraft arising from European and European-American culture(s), these writers also had to contend with a social environment in which fears of witchcraft had resurfaced in the form of the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria and where various forms of modern religious witchcraft had arisen, often claiming proprietorship of the concept of the witch itself. How the show’s writers chose to portray this topic and navigate around the social issues it posed offers insight into the nature of beliefs about witchcraft present in American culture, especially at the close of the twentieth century.

Nestorius and his relationship with his eponymous heresy, Nestorianism, has been a controversial topic in religious studies and in Christian theology. Largely thought to have been condemned for professing Nestorianism, the discovery of the Bazaar of Heracleides of Damascus (written by him in exile) led to a wide-reaching reassessment of this very relationship. Despite Nestorius’ protestations in defence of his own perceived orthodoxy, his rejection of the stronger term henosis for the weaker synapheia to describe the union of the natures of Christ and criticism of the use of the term “hypostatic union” both demonstrate that, implicitly, he did profess a two-person Christology. The authenticity of the Bazaar’s authorship and other historiographical issues came to the fore soon after its discovery. The dating of certain key events and the silence of Nestorius in other parts have led to a consensus of sorts amongst scholars in accepting the Bazaar, in large part, as being the work of Nestorius whilst still admitting of later additions and emendations. This article examines the relationship between Nestorius and Nestorianism, explains key theological terminology used in the Christological debates of the First Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, situates Ephesus I and Chalcedon in their proper context and their relationship to Nestorius, provides an overview of the key arguments for and against the acceptance of the authorship of the Bazaar, and includes a concise summary of the most compelling arguments in favour of the acceptance of the Bazaar’s authorship.

The article investigates the relationship between religion and technology, referring to relevant topics in the concept of “human beings,” such as body and spirit. It particularly taking into consideration the transhumanist and posthumanist tenets, which are often regarded as conflicting with a spiritual/religious thought. The Dragon Ball franchise as a case of study provides insight into how elements of spirituality and technology can be well structured in a very popular medial product with a unique reference universe of significances using an history of ideas and historical-religious framework.