Word: paganization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...last scene in Orpheus depicts the trio of principal characters sitting down to lunch--in heaven. They have finally broken with pagan spirits and earthly profanity. Orpheus says a few words to God, and Heurtebise offers to pour the wine. The poet stops him from lifting the bottle, saying that Eurydice should serve, and the audience titters for an instant. Once more, Orpheus's plaintive tone prompts a misinterpretation. Apparently the audience grasped the anti-feminist sentiment...
...Pagan Love. Rubens added some thing to the meaning of every subject he touched, but perhaps the deepest transformation of a theme that he set off was the imagery of the terrestrial paradise, which he changed into a thoroughly erotic Eden: the island of Cythera, sacred to Aphrodite. It was from this delectable abode of profane love that the 18th century painters of the féte champétre drew their inspiration. Rubens' outdoor courts of pagan love became Watteau's exquisite assemblies of lovers and Pierrots, at dusk, beside the Mozartian stone statue. This vision...
...event from a physical to a spiritual phenomenon does not necessarily undermine its value as a miracle. It is quite orthodox Christian theology that miracles are not meant to be simply marvels. That sort of thing, accepted as a commonplace in the 1st century world, was left to pagan magicians. A miracle, rather, is understood as a sign of God's power to heal and save. George Bernard Shaw put it slightly differently. "A miracle," he wrote, "is an event which creates faith...
...characters pursue their seductions, cuckoldries and feverish fornications with the aristocratic aplomb of English gentlemen on a fox hunt. Their talk is nakedly lubricious, yet it shimmers with wit. The absolute lack of any sense of sin gives even the most scandalous scenes in Congreve's plays a pagan air of preadamite innocence...
Although Chad's 52% Muslim majority, as well as its 5% Christian minority, condemn the pagan rites, no effective opposition has been organized. A secret meeting of Chad's church leaders was held in August. So far, they have not dared to speak out for fear of reprisal: the 130 assassinated churchmen were apparently killed for preaching against the rites. Until the dictatorial Tombalbaye can be persuaded to soften his drastic decree, many Chadians will have to choose between possible death from undergoing Yondo and certain death for resisting...