Asking as Giving
Apostolic Prayers and the Aesthetics of Well-Being in Botswana
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3932174 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Frederick Klaits (1Thompson Writing Program Box 90025, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 USA, Email: [email protected], corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 206-226 |
| Publication date | 2011-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/157006611x569229 |
| OpenAlex | W1968110940 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
Drawing on an ethnographic description of hymns, prayers, and requests for material goods among Apostolic Christians in Botswana, this article considers how styles of asking bring aspects of the person to the attention of divine and human others. Apostolic believers regard personal well-being under circumstances of vulnerability as hinging in part on styles of prayer and asking, which entail forms of both self-assertion and engagement with the personhood of others. Experiences of vulnerability compel Apostolics' awareness of how partible aspects of their persons, including the voice, move among them so as ideally to build up well-being. Thus prayers to God as the ultimate source of well-being frame persons in aesthetic terms so that they may be well apprehended by divine and human others. In light of Mauss's theory of the gift, the article considers how verbal requests can foster well-being by conveying aspects of the person to divine and human hearers in ways that assert personal standing while sustaining moral consideration. An avenue is presented for comparative inquiry into the ways in which asking opens spaces of agency and obligation in religious and humanitarian discourses
Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy) · Assertion · Epistemology · Image of God · Obligation · Personhood · Political science · Prayer · Social science · Sociology · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Christian Theology and Mission · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Society, and Development · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,64 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2020 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |