Smells and Bells

As we have discussed in class and as Rasmussen also describes in her book, “Arabic flavored” Islam tends to be much more publically patriarical, while Indoneisan Islam includes and appreciates women in their islamic traditions, practices and beliefs. This generality kind of reminded me of christianity amongst white people vs christianity among black people in America.  Christianity by whites was often forced upon and used to oppress black people especially during slavery times and now just a few generations later many black families hold strong christian beliefs, which seems counterintuituve to many. I do not speak for anyone whatsoever, but from what I have experienced and witnessed many have in turn used it to persevere through the effects of that oppression, to restore and keep faith.  Wildly famous rapper and producer Kanye, for example, openly discusses his faith in his music and other media, often symbolizing Jesus and religion as safety and motivation to get through ra...

According to the Christian belief, God entered the world himself in the tangible form of Jesus allowing this being to be approached in a multitude of ways, as: a broken body on a cross, a baby nursing from his mother’s breast, a young man embracing a friend. In, The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch, Canstance Classen discusses two very important excerpts from the gospel of St. John that specifically connect the sense of touch to Jesus. In one passage, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him and in the other he invites Saint Thomas to touch him as proof of his resurrection. It was eventually concluded that Mary should not touch Jesus because she wanted to embrace him as a lover and a man. In contrast, Thomas could embrace him because, being high-minded and masculine in nature, he properly understood the proper reverence owed to Jesus. I believe that the action of Jesus had responding differently to the touch of a man versus a woman, has resulted ...