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Social isolation and loneliness: unique links with healthy lifestyle behaviors during aging

ocial isolation and loneliness are gaining increasing attention as risks to health and well-being among older adults worldwide. In the United States, about one-third of Americans aged 60 and over are estimated to feel lonely, and one-quarter of Americans aged 65 and over live alone. Social isolation and loneliness are closely related, but have an important difference: social isolation is used to describe situations where people live alone and have very few social connections, while loneliness is the feeling of being lonely regardless of one’s true level of social connection.

Loneliness, or feeling alone, is often a consequence of social isolation, but there are cases where the two situations do not match up. For example, many people actively seek and enjoy solitude, and would be defined as being socially isolated but not lonely. On the other hand, loneliness, as an affective state, is sometimes more related to a person’s level of mental health or depression rather than his or her actual living situation. As people age, it becomes increasingly common that they are “alone but not lonely”, as reduced social network sizes are often expected and prepared for as people age.

In order to better understand the unique contributions that social isolation and loneliness make to health behaviors as people age, we conducted a study using data from over 3000 English adults aged 50 and over. The aim of the study was to determine the independent associations between social isolation, loneliness, and engagement in weekly physical activity, daily intake of fruit and vegetables, smoking, drinking alcohol, and having an overweight or obese body mass index over a 10-year period during aging. We chose to study these specific health behaviors because they are implicated in risks for chronic conditions such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as all-cause mortality risk. Further, they are behaviors that could plausibly be affected by social connections, such as having friends or family to help encourage positive behaviors and discourage negative behaviors.

We measured social isolation and loneliness based on information given by the study participants during study interviews that were conducted in their homes. Social isolation was defined based on several factors: whether someone had less than monthly contact with children, other family members, and/or friends, whether they lived alone, and if they belonged to any social organizations or clubs. Loneliness was defined based on responses to three questions about feelings of loneliness, such as “How often do you feel you lack companionship?” We used longitudinal statistical modelling to estimate the unique and independent relationships between each of social isolation and loneliness, and consistent engagement in each of the health behaviors over the 10-year follow-up period. We accounted for factors in the analysis that could be common causes of social isolation or loneliness and engagement in health behaviors, including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, health status, and depression.

We found that socially isolated older adults were less likely than non-isolated older adults to consistently report engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity or eating five daily servings of fruit and vegetables, and were more likely than non-isolated older adults to be consistently overweight or obese and to smoke at any time point over the 10-year follow-up period. In other words, we found that socially isolated adults were less likely to engage in healthy behaviors and more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors during aging than non-socially isolated older adults. We also found that loneliness was not associated with any of the health behaviors that we studied, except that lonely older adults were less likely to quit smoking successfully than non-lonely older adults.

The results of this study support the notion that social isolation might lead to non-engagement in healthy behaviors. Social isolation could reduce or remove older people’s sense of obligation to stay well for family or friends, and would mean that someone has no social or emotional support to help them stay engaged in positive healthy behaviors. We were surprised that loneliness was not related to health behaviors, but it might be that actual social connections rather than the feeling of having poor social connections is what matters for healthy lifestyle behaviors. Importantly, our findings reflect the role of loneliness in the absence of depression; other research that considers the effect of depression on health behaviors may very well find different results.

There are important future questions raised by the results of this research. First, future research should examine the relative importance of different types and methods of social connections for health during aging. For example, direct face-to-face contact with friends and loved ones may have very different implications for behavior than online or telephone contact. The social media boom may have strong implications for the health, behavior, and well-being of older adults, who are increasingly connected online. We have not yet begun to unravel the potentially complex effects of social media on health in the aging population. Future research should examine the best possible ways to help isolated older adults to connect and stay connected with others in ways that help them to sustain healthy behaviors and promote their overall health and well-being.

Image: Family photo , CC0 via Unsplash.

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Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month with author, professor, and social worker, Melvin Delgado

Born and raised in the South, Bronx by Puerto Rican parents, Melvin Delgado’s research and work has centered on the strengths of communities of color in urban areas. He’s written extensively on social work with Latinos, social justice and youth practice, and most recently the sanctuary movement. We asked Dr. Delgado to answer some of our questions about social work with the Latinx community to commemorate National Hispanic Heritage Month. Each year, from September 15th to October 15th, Americans celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of Americans whose families originated in Mexico, Central American, South America, and Spain.

Earlier this month we caught up with Dr. Delgado to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that Hispanic Americans are facing today.

Talk a little bit about the diversity of the “Latinx community” (which of course is anything but monolithic, as the term may imply)—what do you think is the most commonly misunderstood aspect of these communities? 

The Latinx community is highly diverse and the increase in diversity is ever constant. The majority of Latinxs are Mexican/Mexican-Americans, followed by Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, and other recently arrived groups from Latin America. Citizenship status, a key issue in today’s political climate, can further divide our community. The increase in outgroup marriage (co-ethnic/racial) has only added to this diversity. When we introduce geographical factors (urban, suburban, rural), it makes generalizations even more arduous.

This nation promises to become even more diverse in the next few decades. In 2015, for example, the U.S. was the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world with 41 million native speakers and 12 million bilinguals, behind Mexico and ahead of Colombia and Spain.  However, if projected demographic increases continue unabated until 2050, the U.S. will become the world’s largest Spanish speaking country, with an estimated 30% of the nation having Spanish as part of the languages they speak, and a significant step closer to making this country bilingual in English and Spanish, and bringing about a major transformation to the national culture and identity.

In your experience and work what do you consider to be the most valuable cultural assets Latinos living in the United States possess?

That is a tough question. However, it is the right question because in seeking to answer it we no longer focus on deficits and turn to assets. I believe that the family , in its broadest definition, is at the center of cultural assets. Fortunately, important research and scholarship is taking place across the country on this asset.

What do you think are the most significant challenges facing Latinxs and their communities today? 

There are many challenges depending upon level of formal education and English language competencies. We also face issues of racism because of our backgrounds (Indian, Spain, and African), bringing skin color into the mix, so to speak. The subject of the unauthorized, too, promises to place Latinx’s in the glare of a spotlight. For those who have been separated because of ICE, the challenge of family reunification takes on added meaning. Deportations, for example, have started to increase in numbers, and for every deportation there is a family and community impact.

What kind of work is currently being done in sanctuary cities and communities—where did this idea originate from and what work do feel needs to be done in the coming years? 

The sanctuary world is broad and goes beyond what we typically think of when discussing sanctuary sites, and even more so when it involves “unofficial” designations. It is an expanding universe and full of surprises.

The sanctuary movement consists of two movements—one with a religious purpose with its origins in Tucson in the 1980s. The sanctuary city movement, however, is more of a modern day social phenomenon over the past decade, with an accelerated pace of development over the past two years since President’s Trump election.

I believe that the family , in its broadest definition, is at the center of cultural assets.

Talk to me more about the surprises you’ve encountered in the sanctuary world—I think most people are only familiar with the more political iteration.

I am always so surprised by the vastness of this movement and the wide range of people and organizations involved in seeking social justice for those who are unauthorized. A wide range of professionals are playing active roles. Social workers are acting as social brokers and advocates; lawyers are provided pro bono legal advice and conducting workshops on legal rights; librarians have played an active role in making libraries sanctuaries for the gathering of information, holding meetings, and for the distribution of materials on immigration; “ordinary” residents have lent their talents, food, and money, to aid those residing in sanctuaries. The saying “it takes a village” is equally applicable in discussing sanctuary communities and organizations.

What do you recommend individuals—both social workers, academics, and the general citizenry—do to support the sanctuary movement? 

I see the sanctuary city movement encompassing all types of organizations, professionals, and people, making it more encompassing than a narrow definition of an “official” designation. Elected officials and professionals have a role to play within their own sphere of influence. However, I also see how local residents can move this social change/social justice agenda forward by contributing their time, expertise, and financial contributions.

The work being done in California stands out as a model whereby local residents have opened their homes to protect those who have been targeted for deportations. Houses of worship have benefitted from residents providing carpentry, plumbing, etc., to outfit local houses of worship to house those who are undocumented. Houses of worship rarely have the capacity to actually house people. Professionals have provided workshops on civil rights and made needed referrals when needed. In essence, I can go on and on about the different ways that professionals and residents and work together to move forward this civil rights agenda. That is exciting!

National Hispanic Heritage Month dates back to 1968 and aims to recognize the contributions made by Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States—what kind of value or contribution to see these type of awareness-promoting campaigns make for the lives of Hispanics and Latinos in this country? 

In essence, we are a presence and for some of us, such as Mexicans, we have been in this country for centuries. We, as noted earlier, are a young community and will continue to expand demographically. Our future is this nation’s future!

You also do a lot of work in social justice advocacy in youth communities—what kind of promising practices do you see in this area, particularly in work with Latinx and Hispanic youths? 

I believe that we must embrace an assets/resiliency model to identify and work with strengths. This does not mean that we do not have problems and challenges. However, we must start with these strengths and develop interventions that systematically build upon them and do so in a highly participatory manner.

How do you promote a positive view of urban youth, a population that is so often discussed in terms of a deficit perspective? 

We must systematically go about identifying what these assets are. How are they developed and sustained? How and why have they managed to preserver despite of tremendous odds against them. Each of these questions necessitate a line of research inquiry and corresponding scholarship. Nevertheless, youth must be front and center in helping use answer these questions because in the long-run, they must own the interventions that will follow.

Featured Image: meditation by Zavate Maria on Unsplash. 

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Cardiologists and nephrologists – the importance of collaboration

Bridging the gap between health problems of the heart and kidneys continues to be a talking point amongst specialists. Across both fields, there is clear evidence and recognition that kidney function can affect cardiac health. Kidney patients are vulnerable to a higher level of cardiovascular events as a risk factor and vice versa. Over half of all heart failure patients have moderate or severe chronic kidney disease. Both conditions are connected to similar risk factors, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, age, and family medical history. It has long been assumed that it is these shared risk factors that are the cause of the relationship between kidney and heart disease.

The heart and the kidneys are two of the body’s vital organs with a very close working relationship. While the heart functions to provide the body with a sufficient supply of oxygenated blood, the kidneys work to filter the blood, extract waste products, and maintain normal body conditions.

Kidney dysfunction can lead to increased blood pressure, which if left untreated may result in constriction of the heart vessels. High blood pressure can also exert strain on the veins and arteries surrounding the kidney, smaller vessels to the filters, and the filters themselves. Kidneys work to control blood mineral and salt levels, including potassium, chloride, and sodium, along with many others. An improper balance of these electrolytes may cause abnormalities in heartbeat and may lead to more serious conditions, such as arrhythmia. The ratios of calcium and phosphate levels in blood are also affected as a result of chronic kidney disease. An excess of calcium deposits may lead to plaque build-up in the heart and surrounding blood vessels and restrict blood flow to other organs.

Cardiorenal syndrome is the general term used to describe the overlap between conditions involving both kidney and heart dysfunction. Here are some of the more serious problems related to both heart and kidney functions:

Peninsula Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Congestive heart failure is the condition in which the heart is unable to pump blood with enough pressure and volume around the body. The condition is becoming more common in the west, especially among older people. It can lead to kidney disease, likely as a result of the decrease in renal blood flow caused by the weakened heart muscle. Having high blood pressure is a major contributing risk factor for heart failure, and accordingly for kidney failure too.

Chronic kidney disease is the gradual loss of function of the kidneys over time, typically caused by problems from other illnesses such as hypertension or diabetes. Patients with chronic kidney disease have a higher risk of cardiovascular problems, which increase as kidney function decreases. Heart disease is the biggest contributor to mortality of patients with kidney disease. Statins, usually used to treat high cholesterol levels and lower risk of heart attacks, have been shown to decrease cardiovascular events in patients with the disease as well as slow rate of function decline of kidneys. In a meta-analysis looking at statins in clinical trials, fatal cardiovascular events were decreased by almost 20%.

End stage renal disease is the point at which the kidneys can no longer function as needed, meaning transplant or dialysis are the only solutions. Patients with the disease carry a much higher risk of cardiovascular disease related fatality.

To best manage patients with these conditions, heart and kidney specialists need to understand and learn from each other’s expertise. With many crossover points, cardio-renal diseases require collaboration between both sides to improve patient care and strive for best outcomes.

To showcase this need for collaboration, OUP has highlighted a selection of the latest research on cardio-renal issues and treatment published in the European Renal Association – European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) journals.

“Cardiovascular disease is highly prevalent in patients with chronic kidney disease,” said Professor Thomas Lüscher, editor-in-chief of the European Heart Journal. “Sudden cardiac death is common among patients in the first 90 days of dialysis and it is hoped this collaboration will allow practitioners from both disciplines further their knowledge and research.”

Featured image credit: Doctor team by jennycepeda. CC0 via Pixabay.

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What are environmental laws?

“Environmental law ensures that collective action in relation to environmental problems is authoritative and consistent with the rule of law and other principles of legitimate action.” – Elizabeth Fisher, Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction

Environmental law is defined as laws that relate to environmental problems. A first step towards understanding what environmental laws are, and how they impact our lives, is to understand the complexities of the environmental problems themselves. These types of problems can be hard to get your head around, as they might require a certain level of scientific knowledge or a detailed understanding of socio-political complexities.

A good place to start is to look at a more personal and limited example, so in the below video we use parking on a public street in a residential neighbourhood to understand the common structure of environmental problems.

We’ve researched some facts about environmental problems and the laws that surround them to help you with some further reading:

Discoveries in science play a fundamental role in improving our understanding of environmental problems. We understand more about climate change, pollution in our oceans, and much more now, but studying environmental problems is challenging.There are a diverse range of environmental problems which environmental law attempts to protect against, including deforestation, approximately 129 million hectares of forest (an area roughly the size of South Africa) has been lost since 1990, water scarcity, in 2015 an estimated 2.1 billion people lacked access to safe drinking water, and overfishing, about 34% of global fish stocks have been fished to biologically unsustainable levels.Environmental law not only tries to protect the environment against these repercussions from human development, but it also seeks to promote ‘sustainable development’.In the video we introduced what Garrett Hardin called a ‘tragedy of the commons’, using the problem of parking as an example. Hardin first used this term in a 1968 article in Science and has been used to analyse behaviour in other fields including game theory and development economics.An example of an environmental law that came into effect is the universal agreement on a ban on the use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in aerosols. This was achieved in the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, but the driving factor was that there were commercially attractive alternatives available. In environmental law it has become easier to agree on the fact that something must be done, but harder to agree on precisely what it is, and when it shall be done, and by whom.

Featured image credit: ‘Sunflower, field, wind turbine, and sky’ by Gustavo Quepón. Public Domain via Unsplash .

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The wisdom of Henry Clay: advice for the modern-day politician

Henry Clay was not perfect. He could be harsh in his criticisms—he called Andrew Jackson “ignorant, passionate, hypocritical, corrupt, and easily swayed by the basest men” (Jackson, in turn, termed his enemy Clay “the basest, meanest scoundrel that ever disgraced the image of his god”). Clay made political mistakes, owned slaves, fought duels, had a reputation for gambling and drinking too much, and more. Perhaps some of those reasons were why he never became president. Three times he sought the office; three times he was defeated. Twice more he was runner-up for his party’s nomination.

But his success lies less in the races he ran than in the life he lived and his service to the nation. Clay succeeded as Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Secretary of State, leader of his party in the Senate, and as “The Great Compromiser.” But most of all, he was a political model for generations. In that capacity, his words speak to us still.

Clay on the need to compromise:

“Compromise is particularly appropriate among the members of a republic, as of one common family…. Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise, but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.”

“Nothing human is perfect…. [Do not] reject the practicable in the idle pursuit after the unattainable. Let us imitate the illustrious example of the framers of the Constitution, and always remember that whatever springs from man partakes of his imperfections.”

“[Compromise] is a work of mutual concession…, a work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands by either party…, a measure of mutual sacrifice.”

Clay on the legislative process:

“We cannot foresee and provide specifically for all contingencies. Man and his language are both imperfect.”

“What question is there in human affairs, so weak or so strong that it cannot be approached by argument and reason?”

“The majority should dismiss from their minds all vindictive feelings…. Nothing should be done from passion, nor in passion…. Repeal bad laws, but preserve good ones even if they have been passed by the late dominant party.”

“I coaxed, soothed, scorned, defied them [congressmen], by turns as I thought the best effect to be produced.”

Henry Clay, “the Great Compromiser,” introduces the Compromise of 1850 in his last significant act as a senator. Credit: “The United States Senate, A.D. 1850” drawn by Peter F. Rothermel / engraved by Robert Whitechurch (1814-ca. 1880). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.Clay on the need to represent not your district or state, but your country:

“I know no North, no South, no East, no West.”

“The Union is my country; the thirty States are my country.”

“The happiness of a nation is the happiness of the several states that comprise it.”

“We are the same people. We have the same country.”

“If any man wants the key to my heart, let him take the key of the Union, and that is the key to my heart.”

Clay on the role of “Big Money” in elections:

“Prodigious effort, seconded by a vast expenditure of money, are making from Washington; and if we fail it will be because the power of corruption is superior to the power of truth.”

Clay on tariffs:

“A tariff is an affair of mutual concessions.”

Clay on the role of government:

“[The purpose of government is] to lift up the depressed, to heal the wounds, and cheer and encourage the unhappy man who sees in the past…nothing but ruin and embarrassment, and in the future nothing but gloom and despair.”

Clay on rights, truth, and the American way:

“If we surrender without a struggle to maintain our rights, we forfeit the respect of the world, and what is infinitely worse, of ourselves.”

“Has it ever been known that the cause of truth was hurt by enquiry and investigation?”

Clay and sacrifice in politics:

“I am as ready now to sacrifice every thing…to the rescue of our Country from the shocking and disgraceful misrule in Washington.”

“What are we—what is any man worth who is not ready to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country when it is necessary?”

“I would rather be right than be president.”

Featured image credit: “sparkler-usa-american-flag-united-839806” by Free-Photos. CC0 via Pixabay.

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Thoughts on the origin of the word “bride”

The blog named “The Oxford Etymologist,” which started on March 1, 2008, and which appears every Wednesday, rain or shine (this is Post no. 663), owes many of its topics to association. Some time ago, I wrote about the puzzling Gothic verb liugan “to lie, tell falsehoods” and “to marry” (August 15, 2018) and about the etymology of the English verb bless (October 12, 2016). Ever since I have meant to tell a story of the English word bride. To someone, the bride may appear all dressed in white, but an etymologist roams in the impenetrable gloaming of suggestions, hypotheses, and rejoinders.

Most important of all, it is not clear what the word bride once meant. Much of the marriage institution practiced by the speakers of the Indo-European languages is maintained from the oldest period, but the terminology changes for the reasons that are often hard to account for. So let me state at the outset that the origin of bride is unknown, which, in principle, can be expected, for terms of kinship are notoriously obscure. Even the seemingly transparent Slavic word for “bride” (nevesta, stress on the second syllable) has been discussed up and down and roundabout, but its history remains to a certain extent debatable. The noun bride is Common Germanic (Dutch bruid, German Braut, and so forth; Gothic, recorded in the fourth century, had the same word, namely, brūþs; þ = th in Engl. thick). Even today, bride (at least in English) can be understood in two senses: the word refers to either a woman engaged to be married or a woman on the wedding day (when she is dressed in white).

The earliest books in the Germanic languages are, predictably, translations of the Bible, because literacy, if we ignore the Scandinavian and English runes, came to the West and East Europeans with the conversion to Christianity. The Bible was translated from Greek (as happened when the Gothic bishop Wulfila undertook the translation or when the country of origin was Byzantium, as happened in Kievan Rus’) or from Latin. The word for “bride” occurs in the New Testament (for example, in M X: 35, which is extant in Gothic, and it is the only place where it turns up in the part of the text we today have), but its exact meaning in Greek and Latin is no less controversial than in Germanic.

Before the wedding night. Image credit: Cupid and Psyche plaster model by Antonio Canova. CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr.

With regard to Germanic, about hundred years ago, two proposals about the meaning of bride competed. According to one, a woman acquired the name of the bride once the marriage was consummated. The scholars who shared this view, searched for the etymology of bride among the words connected with intercourse and fertility. The other party emphasized the woman’s moving to her husband’s family. Yet the direction in which its proponents tried to explain the word’s origin was more or less the same, for, however one may look upon the situation, a bride is a woman who will become a wife and mother.

A good deal of historical, literary and ethnographic evidence confirms each view. The wedding night is a big event in folklore and old poetry, and ethnographic observation points in the same direction as oral and written tales. According to the beliefs recorded in many societies, evil spirits will try to attack and abduct the virgin on her first night, and apotropaic magic was needed to avert their influence. In a fantastic form we find the situation described in a Norwegian fairy tale: the hero marries a beautiful maiden, but she is really a troll woman, and he has to take off her three skins before she becomes his faithful (fully human) wife. In Russian folklore, the hero is warned to lie but not touch or kiss his bride for three nights. The idea that, once a maiden loses virginity, she is domesticated and invulnerable to the influence of the spirits is widespread.

The first night is believed to be fraught with such danger that in some societies the defloration of the virgin was the prerogative of the local priest (this is, allegedly, the origin of the infamous right of the first night, which later became the universally hated privilege of the amorous tyrant; the right is called jus primae noctis in Latin and droigt du seignior in French; both terms are late). And woe to the priest who failed to perform the ritual, sometimes public! Perhaps the most often cited description of such an episode in European literature is the defloration of Brünhild by proxy (Siegfried) in the Middle High German Lay of the Nibelungen. From the same source we know about the newlyweds sleeping for several nights with a naked sword between them.

One of Zeus’s many wedding nights: “Danae” by Rembrandt. Image credit: Rembrandt_Danae by pixelsniper. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

Whether the sword is a phallic symbol and whether taking off the bride’s three skins is the not too subtle shorthand for the subjugation of women is something I’ll let advocates of the symbolic treatment of literature to decide. Likewise, I will not argue against the ethnographers and anthropologists who state that the right of the first night originated as a wise step, for an inexperienced young husband would have messed up the whole affair while dealing with an equally inexperienced virgin. In the present context, only the fact matters: all over the world, the wedding night was looked upon as a most important rite of passage for the woman. Consequently, the word bride might have originated from it.

One of Zeus’s many wedding nights: “Danae” by Titian. Image credit: titian_danae_shower_gold_1554 by Art Gallery ErgsArt – by ErgSap. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.On and before the threshold of a new life. Image credit: For the Rest of Their Lives by Gades Photography. Public Domain via Unsplash.

Moving to the husband’s house was another rite of passage. The situation varies from society to society. In some places, the prospective daughter-in-law (more often to be tyrannized not by the domineering male but by her mother-in-law) is carried by the bridegroom or his friends over the threshold of her new house. Sometimes she is strewn with petals, nuts, and fruit (an act of naïve sympathetic magic to ensure fertility). Especially well-known is the throwing of a shoe after the carriage taking the newlyweds to church or to the young husband’s home. This ritual has many variations, but its implication is always the same: the bride is expected to leave behind her “old shoes” and get into the new ones. Sometimes both he and she change their shoes. This insistence on shoes is natural: we go down the path of our life wearing shoes (somebody else’s or our own, as the case may be), try to fill another person’s shoes, and so on. According to this interpretation of the wedding, the word bride can be understood in light of the transitional custom: from the parents’ house to the house of the husband.

I’ll resume this story in two weeks: the next post will be devoted to the “gleanings.” But, to anticipate the frustrating conclusion (“origin unknown”), I should note that one of the problems with the word bride is that it is short (and has always been short) and that, disregarding the predictable phonetic differences, it is the same all over Germanic, while etymology thrives on length and variety.

Featured image credit: Bride and Groom Wedding Day Shoes by Photos by Lanty. Public Domain via Unsplash.

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How do Christians make God present? A stack of index cards

How do Christians make God present?

Several scholars who study religion (including scholars in my own sub-discipline, the anthropology of religion), have over the past decade answered this question using one important concept: “mediation.” “Mediation” occurs when humans use material forms to mediate the presence of an invisible transcendent.

Christian communities have disagreements over mediating forms. For some, mediating forms may include physical things like churches and communion wafers. For others, mediating forms may also include bodily states such as the experiences of worship, or patterned behavior such as prayer. Regardless, mediation is important. In fact, some scholars argue that what we call “religion” would be impossible without mediation.

This view of mediation raises a few questions. One is whether we should be using the term “make” in this context. For many Christians it may be too crass to say that they “make” God present. Does this mean that it is also too simplistic for scholars to use this word when we study Christians? Another question is whether we should use the term “present.” Is Christianity always centered on trying to make God “present”? Or should we instead be asking the broader question: How do Christians relate to God?

It seems to me that the relationship between humans and God in Christianity is more wide-ranging. Here is my case:

This is a nineteenth-century Norwegian mission station in Southern Africa (painted by one of the missionaries, Hans Leisegang, in 1866). I’ve studied the letters left behind from the group of Norwegian missionaries who built this station and a string of others like it. This small group of pietistic Lutherans, in colonized territory, cannot stand for all of Protestantism, let alone all of Christianity, even by a long stretch of the imagination. However, they can tell us something about how they practiced their relationships with God. Relationships, in the plural – because it seems to me they related to God in a variety of different ways.

First, they did use mediation: they used forms to convey the presence of their God. One prominent example on the mission stations was their use of square European houses in straight lines, which signaled a different material and moral sphere than their surroundings.

However, while the missionaries built European houses, they simultaneously questioned this investment of time (though the questioning did nothing to alter their practice) – because they thought it took time away from communicating God directly to the Zulus.

In addition, some material forms were used and refused by the missionaries at the same time. For example, for one missionary, Lars Larsen, it was important to have a bench on the station in case another white person stopped by – the bench was a marker of a “civilized,” Christian space. But it was also very important to him that nobody should call the bench a “sofa” (as some did), because this indicated luxury, which suggested that there was something wrong with his relationship to God.

Other ways that these missionaries related to God involved using their own bodies and selves. Using their selves was a contradictory process. On the one hand, self-denial was a foundational virtue for these early evangelicals. On the other hand, their evangelicalism also set great store by bearing personal witness. For the missionaries, both denial of their self and assertive use of their self as witness were critical parts in the urgent salvation of the Zulus.

Despite the missionaries’ witness, not a single African was baptized for the first 14 years of the Norwegian mission. Was God absent? The difficulty of the situation took hold of Lars Larsen’s body, which was “attacked” by “a corruption of the whole nervous system.”

Some time later, Lars described an unusually moving church service, in which he suddenly experienced that “the sparrow hath found a house […] at thine altars.”

At times the regular failure to achieve ideal mediation between God and people led to repetition: the missionaries’ repeated exhortation of less-than-perfect converts, their repeated circulation of Bible verses.

At other times, the failure of mediation led to a more hopeful stance of simply waiting. Heaven would come.

These descriptions have been exceedingly brief. But they have provided a glimpse into the complexity of this Protestant situation.

So, how do Christians relate to God? How did this particular group of pietistic missionaries posit the relation between God and themselves? Perhaps, on the mission station, the answer looked something like this:

In this case, the relation between God and humans is a composite one. Labeling it wholesale as “mediation” becomes imprecise. Rather, we might think beyond mediation – not in order to discard the concept, but in order to grapple with it more fully. As scholars, and Christians, usually like to do.

Featured image credit: Stories of the Divine by Mariam Soliman . Public Domain via   Unsplash.

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Consent on campus [podcast]

This episode of The Oxford Comment includes discussion of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

As students head back to university to start their fall semester, the conversation of consent will no doubt surround them on campus. But what can actually be defined as consent? Where do students learn what consent actually means? From the time of adolescence, students are taught the notion of consent, which impacts how they view the term in their later life.

On this episode of The Oxford Comment we are discussing how one’s thoughts on consent are formed over a lifetime. From what students learn in school to how popular culture in their teenage years frames their reference, the psychology of consent goes beyond a seminar at university orientation. But how students are taught consent in their formative years will affect how they perceive more sensitive topics like abuse and sexual assault in during their college years. We’re joined by Donna Freitas, author of Consent on Campus and Brendan Kiely (@KielyBrendan) author of All American Boys to further discuss the role consent plays from childhood to college campuses, and into adulthood.

RAINN: 800.656.4673 (U.S) www.rainn.org
National Rape Crisis Helpline: 0808.802.9999 (U.K)
Rape and Domestic Violence Services: 1.800.424.017 (AUS)
Rape Crisis Europe: www.rcne.com (International)

Featured image credit: Bonding Casual College by rawpixel. CC0 via Pixabay.

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Coronations and composite states: the Austrian-Habsburg case

To mark the 65th anniversary of her coronation, Queen Elizabeth II has given a rare interview in which she talked about the event from the extraordinary perspective of the main participant. Her delightful remark that crowns “are quite important things” betrayed intimate familiarity with the meaning of the ceremonial trappings associated with an ancient tradition that in most places has now died out. Future scholars of twentieth-century monarchy and ritual have thus come by a unique piece of oral history. With the exception of the papal coronations of John XXIII and Paul VI, the pageant of 1953 was the only coronation in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. The other monarchies still extant along Europe’s western edge have long ceased to crown their rulers. With the death of King Michael of Romania (1921–2017), like Elizabeth II a great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, the last king to have been anointed and crowned in continental Europe has disappeared. As recently as the nineteenth century, coronations were staged across Europe — from Moscow to Berlin to Paris.

It is only an ostensible irony that coronations underwent a revival during the revolutionary age. New dynasts including Napoleon, who was crowned twice — as French emperor and Italian king — sought the legitimacy that such ritual was thought to bestow. Perhaps the most remarkable concentration of inaugural rites under one government in modern European history transpired in the Habsburg monarchy (or “Austrian Empire” as it was known after 1804). Between the death in 1790 of the emperor Joseph II, an enlightened despot who famously rejected most inaugural rites, and the revolution of 1848, some two dozen coronations and other investitures occurred in Habsburg-ruled territories. In the great majority of these — from the inauguration of Leopold II (r. 1790–92) as Austrian archduke in 1790 in Vienna to the coronation of Ferdinand I (r. 1835–48) as king of Lombardy-Venetia in 1838 in Milan — the rulers themselves or their consorts personally took part. On a few occasions, including Tyrol in 1790 and Transylvania in 1837, non-reigning members of the dynasty or other representatives stood in.

Image credit: Lithograph by Johann Nepomuk Hoechle, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv und Graphiksammlung, Pk 187,16. Used with permission.

Until 1848, a coronation or other inaugural rite survived in each of the four main groups of territories that made up the Austrian Empire. There was always an archducal investiture in Vienna (the Austrian lands), an act of homage and coronation in Prague (the Bohemian lands), and a coronation in either Pozsony (Pressburg, Bratislava) or Buda (Ofen) (the Hungarian lands). Later a coronation was instituted in Milan for the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The (re-)acquisition of territories as a result of the Napoleonic wars involved the revival or invention of rites for which the rich ceremonial tradition of the Court of Vienna offered a veritable trove of knowledge and experience. The Habsburgs were furthermore pioneers in the use of inaugural ritual to modern purposes. The spectacular coronation of the second king of Lombardy-Venetia in Milan in 1838 not only betrayed the influence of ceremonial practice in the other Habsburg lands, but also the more recent experience of staging inaugural rites to rally popular-patriotic support in a new key, to expand the monarchy’s political base, and to legitimate new forms of constitutional order. The picture to the right shows the emperor Francis in the midst of local militia and common people immediately following his investiture in Innsbruck in 1816. Just a couple of months earlier he had issued a written charter for Tyrol in keeping with the provisions of the Congress of Vienna and appropriate, in his words, “to the conditions of the times.”

Unlike the British, the Habsburgs never succeeded in putting on a coronation that applied to all of their many realms. By 1953 the coronation in Westminster Abbey had become more than simply an English one. The Queen swore an oath to govern the peoples of her various kingdoms, dominions, and possessions “according to their respective laws and customs.” It was recognition that unity is best preserved through diversity. Still, the endurance into the nineteenth century of Habsburg inaugural rites reflected the successful practice of power in an expansive, composite polity in which no territory clearly dominated. To remain viable, such a state needed the support of its component parts and to that end it allowed for local rights, usages, languages, etc. The coronations and other inaugural rites betokened the political compromises that obtained between the central government in Vienna and local elites who controlled access to financial and other resources as well as shaped local opinion. In a paradox typical of Habsburg history these ceremonies, which by their nature were particularist, nonetheless manifested the comparatively high level of integration that the Habsburg Empire had achieved by that time. They existed only in the main lands and a few peripheral areas rather than in all historic territories. In emblematic ways ranging from the commemorative medals struck to the choice of participants, the individual rites themselves anchored the territorial-particular into the monarchical whole. On the coin issued for the Lower Austrian inauguration in Vienna in 1790 (shown at the top of this post), the Bohemian lion is seen grasping the Hungarian cross in one paw, the Austrian heraldic shield in the other.

Featured image credit: Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Coin Cabinet, inv. no. 000483ab. Used with permission.

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All about quotations [quiz]

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, ‘By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote’. Quotations are an essential part of language and are used widely by almost everyone, sometimes out of context and sometimes wrongly attributed. Over decades and in many cases centuries, individual quotes have subtly – and sometimes not so subtly – changed their meaning.

How much do you know about quotations and who they belong to? Test your knowledge with our quotations quiz below.

Featured image credit: Woodtype, Printing, Font by Free-Photos. Public domain via Pixabay . 

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