REMEMBERING AS SOCIO-HISTORIC DYNAMIC OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

  • D P Veldsman University of Pretoria
Keywords: Religious experience

Abstract

If religious experience can be described as everyday experience in a religious conceptual framework, and if this framework consists of explanatory commitments, the question that this paper poses is to the genesis of these explanatory commitments.  It is argued that these explanatory commitments, which are imbedded in (ongoing) oral and written traditions, are constituted by the first commandment of tradition, namely to remember. Remembering is executed by telling (the narrative). Critically opposing the epistemology of remembering of Plato and its theological basis, remembering is understood in the light of the process of socialization and the unacceptable distinction between scripture and tradition, as socio-historic dynamic of religious experience. It is further argued, selectively following Bultmann and Taylor that we must distinguish between the historic Jesus and Christ, the latter being understood as an inter-subjective, communal dynamic. This enables an understanding of remembering as remembering, that is, as a dangerous subversive act in solidarity with who suffer.

Author Biography

D P Veldsman, University of Pretoria
Academic Information Service
Published
2019-12-17
Section
Articles