Problems of Belief: Tonalities of Immediacy among Christians of Damascus

Abstract

This article examines the different effects Christianity has among Christians of Damascus. Instead of focusing on devout subjects, I trace out the ramifications Christianity has in different settings. Christianity sets different kinds of foregrounds and backgrounds which in this article are attended to during the Feast of the Holy Cross. During this Christian feast, a great variety of themes are brought into play with different kinds of relations to what it is to be a Christian in Damascus. I argue that what I term tonalities of immediacy is a fertile way to understand how contingencies and histories are played upon in concrete situations. The problem of belief, I argue, is not settled by pointing to a particular Christian and Western heritage or to default reactions against imagined certainties; rather the interplay between faith and scepticism may be a productive lens through which to grasp local Christian concerns.

Keywords:

• Christianity
• scepticism
• belief
• sexuality
• minority

Acknowledgements

This paper was first presented at the conference Foregrounds and Backgrounds: Ventures in the Anthropology of Christianity, April 2009. Later versions of the paper have been presented at the magic circle upon invitation by Rane Willerslev and Anne Line Dalsgaard at Aarhus University, May 2009, and the Comparative Christianities Studies Group organized by Joel Robbins at the University of California, San Diego, October 2010. I would like to thank Joel Robbins, Jon Bialecki, and Naomi Haynes for their valuable comments on the paper. The research was funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research, FKK, the Danish Council for Strategic Research, DSF and the Danish Institute in Damascus. I am thankful for readings and suggestions on the manuscript by Esther Fihl, Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, Lise Paulsen Galal and Lars Højer and, in particular, Jonas Adelin Jørgensen, Ashley Lebner and Anthony Shenoda. Finally, I want to thank Nils Bubandt, Ethnos, and three anonymous reviewers for productive comments and critique.

Notes

All persons appear under pseudonyms.