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Agonia, directed by Tomasz Knittel, screenplay by Adam Strug, TVP 2020.

Questions of continuity and transmission, as well as relationship to the community, have long occupied an important part of folk performance scholarship. These topics take on a different urgency in disaster-affected communities, where preexisting socioeconomic issues become more pressing and endanger not only the continuity of folk practices but the communities themselves. The aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami has seen a surge of folk performance revivals in affected areas, hinting to the depth of the ties between local folk performance and community. Following an ethnographic approach, this paper explores the case of the community of Ogatsu (Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture) and its folk performance, the Ogatsu hōin kagura, as one expression of the revival process in an isolated, rural community extensively affected by the 2011 disaster. Putting in perspective the underlying dynamic of continuity and change that characterizes folk performances, the objective is to explore the nature and usage of the kagura and its relationship to the post-disaster community as it responds to changing circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well-being is often described as a state of happiness or satisfaction with life, but it is so much more. The influence of religious involvement on a positive sense of well-being of the individual has been well documented. One aspect of religious involvement comprises the singing of hymns. Through the texts and the power of music, the well-being of the singer/believer can be positively influenced. Fanny Crosby (1820- 1915) wrote more than 8 000 hymn texts on various aspects of religious life such as assurance, salvation, redemption, worship and witness. Many of the hymns deal with the difficulties of everyday life, which is juxtaposed to the better life in the world to come. This paper is concerned with the portrayal of aspects of assurance in some of Fanny Crosby’s hymns texts. It is also shown how her hymns touch on aspects of well-being in the way that they stress the importance of having meaning in life and point towards the fact that the believer’s life can be worthwhile.

Copyright of Music Science Today: The Permanent & the Changeable / Mūzikas Zinātne Šodien: Pastāvīgais un Mainīgais is the property of Daugavpils University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

For over one hundred years the Fifohazana Revival has played a key role in the spread of Christianity in Madagascar. The Fifohazana is an indigenous Christian movement that seeks to serve Malagasy society through the preaching of the Gospel and a holistic ministry of healing in community. This article summarises the findings of a study that explored the role of women leaders as holistic healers in the Fifohazana revival movement and the Reformed Church (FJKM) in Madagascar. Based on interviews with four women ministering in the Fifohazana or the Reformed Church, including a rising leader in the revival movement, this study highlights the importance of women leaders as radical disciples and subversive apostles in the Fifohazana revival movement and in the Reformed Church. As such, these women have been instrumental in bringing renewal into the church through the work of the Holy Spirit in the holistic healing ministry of the Fifohazana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is dedicated to the interpretation of the history of the community Svata Helena (Sf. Elena), founded in the 1820s by the colonists from the Czech Lands. The study interprets the religious history of the community throughout the nineteenth century, determined in the first place by the multiconfessional environment and popular religiosity. Such local milieu offered ideal conditions for the origin of specific forms of popular devoutness. In case of Svata Helena, earlier research led to a thesis that presented the local non-Catholic inhabitants as bearers of the tradition of sectarianism that arose in Eastern Bohemia at the times of the Patent of Toleration (1781). This sectarian tradition was characterized by a deep individual religiosity based on the individual interpretation of the Holy Scripture as well as direct relation to the symbolic Universe without mediation of any type of Church. The present study, however, refutes this "sectarian thesis" and proves the need to find other interpretations, based on consistent analysis of primary sources and literature. Such new interpretation rebuts the earlier generalizations and enables deeper understanding of the religious history of Svata Helena, but also the problem of confessionally delineated popular groups in general. Besides, it discloses wider, as yet unexplored perspective of the missionary movement Free Reformed Church and the abstinence movement Blue Cross. The resulting religious disunion within the Evangelical community was caused precisely by this religious activity that was related to the revival movement within nineteenth-century Protestantism. In the conclusion of the article, the author remarks that the missionary activities of Blue Cross movement were not exclusively focused to the community Svata Helena, but should be evaluated in the wider context of religious situation in South-Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]