| Notes on World Religions |
| ANTHROPOLOGY OF WORLD RELIGIONS
1. The �Great Transformation� in Religion Robert Redfield 1953. The Primitive World and its Transformations �Small tradition� versus �great tradition� Small tradition � Small isolated communities (�self-contained and self-supported�) � Socially homogeneous � Strong sense of group solidarity � No full-time specialists, i.e. little or no specialization of labor � Relationships based on personal status, not �practical usefulness� � Kinship is central � Social control is informal: order �seems to flow from the very necessity of existence that they do that kind of thing� � Religion is largely unreflective and unsystematic � ��Moral order� includes the binding sentiments of rightness that attend religion, the social solidarity that accompanies religious ritual, the sense of religious seriousness and obligation that strengthens men, and the effects of a belief in invisible beings that embody goodness� (21) Great tradition/civilization � Large interconnected communities � Socially heterogeneous � Significant specialization of labor, including religion � Relationships based on practical and rational function (impersonal) � Kinship is peripheral to �politics� (contracts and power/stratification) � Social control is formal (government, supported by organized religion) � Religion is more reflective, self-conscious, and systematic�and non-competitive � �During that long period of human history when there were no cities, the relations between one folk society and another did not involve, we may safely assume, the conscious struggle of on ethical system to maintain itself� (54). �It is the city that makes world-wide and conspicuous the self-conscious struggle to maintain a traditional ethos, as it is in the city, in the first place, that traditional morality is attacked and broken down� (55) � �either when new ideas are rapidly introduced and people of different traditions are moved around into pervasive new communications with each other, or else when the technical order develops rapidly within an indigenous civilization, the moral order is thrown into confusion and its authority declines� (73) Milton Yinger 1970. The Scientific Study of Religion �A universal religion will be invented only in a particular sociocultural context�: � Extensive social differentiation � Religious specialization (i.e., the disengagement of religion from life) � Culture contact � Long period of frustration of major needs and aspirations � Values that encourage religious rather than economic, political, or military solutions � Some degree of individualization�the need and possibility to create or join new �voluntary communities� (e.g. �convert�) Ernest Gellner 1988. Plough, Sword, and Book: The Structure of Human History As social coherence breaks down, �logical coherence� replaces it � Social coherence: world of thought is also the world of action. Moral and cognitive dimensions are consonant and reinforce each other. Local groups and subgroups have their own conceptual realities. � Typical of �communal religions�: concrete, self-evident, taken-for-granted, not codified, �patently social� � Logical coherence: world of thought/speculation is separated from world of action/everyday life. Entire group or multiple groups use same conceptual tools. � Typical of �salvation religions�: centralized, �socially disembodied,� formalized/codified, geographically �uprooted,� �theological,� written! � �Without writing, all speech is context-bound� and therefore local (verbal, face-to-face). With writing, language can break free of context and location WORLD RELIGION VERSUS LOCAL RELIGION (1) All world religions started out as/from local religions (2) All world religions are local in the sense that the �official� religion is refracted through a local social context and reality. In other words, every example of a world religion is a local version of that religion. (3) World religions usually try to replace local religions but often end up supplementing them. Clifford Geertz 1968. Islam Observed Compared Islam in Morocco and Indonesia. �Religious faith, even when it is fed from a common source, is as much a particularizing force as a generalizing one, and indeed whatever universality a given religious tradition manages to attain arises from its ability to engage a widening set of individual, even idiosyncratic, conceptions of life and yet somehow sustain and elaborate them all� (14) In both Morocco and Indonesia, �Islamization has been a two-sided process. On the one hand, it has consisted of an effort to adapt a universal in theory standardized and essentially unchangeable, and unusually well-integrated system of ritual and belief to the realities of local, even individual, moral and metaphysical perception. On the other, it has consisted of a struggle to maintain, in the face of this adaptive flexibility, the identity of Islam not just as a religion in general but as the particular directives communicated by God to mankind through the preemptory prophecies of Muhammad� (14-5) 1. In Morocco, the basic style of life�and therefore of religion�is �strenuous, fluid, violent, visionary, devout, unsentimental, and above all, self-assertive.� �Activism, fervor, impetuousity, nerve, toughness, moralism, populism, and an almost obsessive self-assertion� are normal (54). Result: strong-man politics and holy-man piety. Central concept is the saint or religious leader (marabout) who possesses blessing or divine favor (baraka). Followers organize into brotherhoods (awiya), and dead saints (siyyid) and their tombs are religious foci. 2. In Indonesia, the basic style of life is �remarkably malleable, tentative, syncretistic, and most significantly of all, multivoiced� (12). �Inwardness, imperturbability, patience, poise, sensibility, aestheticism, elitism, and an almost obsessive self-effacement� are normal (54). Indonesian Islam does not seek purity of religion but comprehensiveness: �a proliferation of abstractions so generalized, symbols so allusive, and doctrines so programmatic that they can be made to fit any form of experience at all� (17) THEREFORE, a world religion is really a constellation of local variations on a world-religious theme, often emanating from or based in an official home location and version (Mecca for Islam, Rome or Jerusalem for Christianity)�intercultural diversity. Also, the religious situation of any particular society in the �world religion� does not usually present a simple, monolithic religion but a complex and only loosely integrated �religious field��intracultural diversity Example #1: The Religious Field in Thai Buddhism Four types of beliefs/rituals and specialists in village � Buddhist�performed by monks in temple, mostly by younger on behalf of elders and ancestors � Sukhwan (spirit-binding)�performed by elders, mostly on behalf of younger � Cult of guardian spirits of village � Beliefs and rituals for evil spirits that cause illness and possession �The four ritual complexes are differentiated and also linked together in a single total field� (Tambiah 1970: 2) Example #2: The Religious Field in Berti (Sudan) Islam Distinguish between religion (din) and customs (awaid) Gradual Islamization only began in mid-1700s, through integration into Darfur sultanate and migration of missionaries. Berti have �imposed their own interpretation not only on its basic doctrinal structure but also on the practices which it prescribes, permits, or forbids. In the process, they have created their own version of it that deviates from the �normative� Islam but locally constitutes an orthodoxy. All the Berti subscribe to it and any heresy from it is for them unthinkable� (Holy 1991: 20). e.g., each village has mosque (masid), which is just an open-air shade of branches with straw roof. Local religious leader is faki (plural fugara): � Studied Qur�an in religious school (khalwa) � Also usually own books on astrology, divination, dream interpretation, and other �secrets� as well as their own personally-created umbatri with hand-written pages containing any knowledge he has acquired � Leads rituals, chants prayers, makes amulets Religious beliefs are (ideally) shared with all Muslims. Customary beliefs and rituals �are something that is uniquely their and that clearly distinguishes them from all their neighbors� (132). � Concepts of male (in front, east, hard, hot, odd number, black, water) versus female (behind, west, soft, cold, even, white, milk) � Wedding rituals and house-building rites � �Ghosts� (nabati) = person who rises from the grave. Looks human but does not blink or greet people. May settle down in foreign lands and even marry and have children � Devils (shayatin) outnumber humans, have own villages and cattle, invisible except to dogs/donkeys/horses/camels, cause insanity or paralysis � Rituals for rain and agriculture But �they construe their customary rituals as complementary to the religious rites�. Both types of rites, express, in their own way, a cosmology which has its origin in Islam as the Berti understand it� (138)�custom incorporates Islamic elements, and Berti Islam incorporates aspects of custom Example #3: The Religious Field in Shona (Africa) Christianity 4 elements of Shona religion: �traditional,� Protestant, Catholic, and Budjga Vapostori 1. Traditional�70% of adults had no official connection with a Christian group No traditional word for religion: people would say �Ndinonamata midzimu = �I pray to the spirits of the ancestors� At death, person takes his/her place as midzimu, in a spiritual society: �induction� ritual (beer libation and goat sacrifice) gives person a place in ranks of ancestors. �Tribal spirits� (mhondoro) possess mediums of same sex but other lineages. High god Mwari�trans-tribal, remote, not interested in individuals Diviners, witches, and �avenging spirits� (murayi) 2. Protestant Introduced 1911 by medical missionary of Methodist Episcopal Church Currently four official Methodist organizations, 1 Independent African Church, 2, Seventh-Day Adventist, 4 Apostolic Church of Pentecost of Canada, plus unofficial groups (2 Watchtower, Anglican, Salvation Army) Methodists: call God Mwari, emphasize ecstatic personal experience and after-life (also traditional), stress premarital chastity. Clash with traditional culture by banning beer, polygyny, and mhondoro/midzimu spirits. Anti-ritualistic: practice teaching and preaching (Bible-themed and moralistic sermons) Most local staff is native people 3. Catholic Established All Souls� Mission 1929: focused almost all attention on children God called Jehovah, not Mwari Stresses loyalty to organization and system of beliefs and practices over subjective experience Cult of midzimu has place, paralleling belief in saints Emphasizes ritual more than Methodists Mission separated physically and socially from natives: no villagers hold church office, and all services held on mission property 4. Budjga Vapostori Branch of Apostles of Johanne Maranke, founded 1932 by Muchabaya Ngamberume, visionary Methodist layman who renamed himself Johanne: had revelations, prophesied, performed healing. Combines some Methodist (hymns, Bible, revelation) and Catholic (Jehovah, eucharist and confession, colorful robes) elements with traditional and other Doctrine includes polygamy, spirit healing, moral teaching, Bible knowledge, Friday Sabbath, witchcraft trials, and enclosure of community (e.g. religious endogamy). Distinguishable clothing (men and women wear white robes, men wear beards) Organized into local congregations of 20-40 adults; four main offices�baptizers, evangelists, prophets, and healers In general, heterodoxy characterizes Shona society: one chief who prays to spirits and believes in Jesus said, �It is best to believe it all� (Murphree 1969: 132) Many Christians still believe in spirits, and many non-Christians know about heaven In fact, �an individual, at certain times and in given circumstances, moves out of the pattern of belief and practice standard for his religious group, and temporarily and for specific purposes aligns himself with that of another� (140) Therefore, Shona society �has resisted fission along religious lines, and in spite of overt religious differentiation its members continue to retain the freedom to select in thought and action from the wide range of religious alternatives that are available to them. In this perspective Shona society is seen, not as a battlefield for conflicting religious systems, but rather as presenting a religion involving different institutional modalities which appear along a broad religious spectrum that spans this society� (147) CONVERSION The central analytical concept in the spread of world religions has been �conversion.� Usually understood to be (1) sudden, (2) complete, (3) individual, (4) voluntary, (5) emotional, (6) irreversible, i.e. a �new identity� Most famous academic formulation comes from A. D. Nock 1933 Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo = �the reorientation of the soul of an individual, his deliberate turning from indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another, a turning which implies a consciousness that a great change is involved, that the old was wrong and the new is right. It is seen at its fullest in the positive response of a man to the choice set before him by the prophetic religions� (7). Argues that Christianity and Judaism (and later Islam) were fundamentally different from previous religions in that they �demanded renunciation and a new start. They demanded not merely acceptance of a rite, but the [submission] of the will to a theology, in a word faith, a new life in a new people� (14). Previous religions only demanded �adhesion,� acceptance of the ritual behavior of the cult, perhaps even adding it to your pre-existing ritual acts. So, a person could respect multiple adhesive religions simultaneously, but only one �conversion religion� However: (1) actual ethnographic experience does not confirm this model and (2) the concept of conversion appears to be an �ethnocentric� one � Murphree: �case histories show a large number of instances where individuals convert not only once, but several times, and that in different directions� (137)�what he calls �religious mobility� � Catholic missionaries had a different conception of conversion and Christian membership than Protestant: often considered someone �converted� if they received baptism, even if they had not received instruction in Christian doctrine, did not understand it, or had not voluntarily accepted it�goal was as many baptisms as possible! � Often quite gradual process: S. F. Nadel 1954. Nupe Religion: �The religious conversion of a people certainly is not a simple all-or-none affair, but a process of many stages in which an initial acceptance may spread further, be deepened or changed in some other way, and an initial rejection might similarly be modified. My point is that this is not a coherent process moving towards completion...; rather, the process is piecemeal, determined by pulls and strains that emerge stage by stage and only operate from one stage to the next� (254) � Andrew Buckser and Stephen Glazier, eds. 2003. The Anthropology of Religious Conversion. Robert Anderson: Conversion is �a process whereby rather than inevitably substituting one belief system for another, belief systems may differentiate or syncretize depending on how the variable of constraint versus freedom is imposed or permitted�. As so often is the case in anthropology and sociology, we find ourselves using the language of daily life for technical and precise purposes� (130). Rebecca Sachs Norris: �First, although a convert experiences conversion as a reorientation to a new religious belief system, the conversion occurs primarily because it corresponds with the convert�s pre-existing ideas or feelings about truth or meaning. Second, unless they are converting to a different branch of their old tradition, converts usually exhibit one of two ways of relating to the laws and rituals of their adopted religion: zealous adherence or selective performance. Third, since the worldview of the convert exists not only as abstract ideas but also as embodied reality, practicing the adopted religion requires not only the gradual assimilation of the meaning of terms and concepts based in the language and symbols of another culture, but also the performance of ritual postures and gestures requiring retraining of deep-seated somatic responses� (171). Simon Coleman: sometimes talking about conversion, reliving your conversion, and trying to convert others is part of the ongoing conversion process! It is a kind of �conversion maintenance� mechanism, a �gradual and ambiguous socialization into shared linguistic and ritual practices� (16). �telling and retelling conversion stories is a central ritual of faith, framing personal experience in canonical language and recreating that experience in the telling�. Reaching out into the world in order to convert others is a self-constitutive act�. Missionization is not merely a matter of attempting to transform the potential convert, but also�perhaps even primarily�a means of recreating or reconverting oneself� (16-7). One reason why so many converts become missionaries! Many practical, social, non-religious reasons for conversion. Conversion, Colonialism, and Consciousness 1. Especially with Christianity, world religion usually came as part of a �cultural package� that included many non-religious elements (particularly �civilization�) 2. The success of a world religion like Christianity in the colonizing/ civilizing project involved not just a change of beliefs but a �revolution in habits� and an establishment of new institutions Example: Michael Gilsenen 1982. Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Middle East �Furniture, ways of sitting, modes of dress, politeness, photography, table manners, and gestures overturn societies too. Such conventions, techniques, and ways of acting in and on the world are as important as any religion, and changes in them may be as dislocating as changes in belief�. We do not have to accept or impose the primacy of religion over social, economic, or political factors� (22) Example: John and Jean Comaroff 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier, v.2 Colonial missionary work as �an epic of the ordinary,� �the everyday as epiphany� (29) �The everyday, in other words, is seen at once as integral and residual to modernity-as-lived.� A kind of �naturalized habit� (31). �it was precisely by means of the residual, naturalized quality of habit that power takes up residence in culture, insinuating itself, apparently without agency, in the texture of a life-world. This, we believe, is why recasting the mundane, routine practices has been so vital to all manner of social reformers, colonial missionaries among them� (31). � The mission garden as model for �civilized cultivation� and the civilizing role of cultivation (esp. reversal of gender roles) � Money, wage labor, and markets (esp. inherent virtue of work) � Clothing (even imported used clothes from England��transform the heathen body��nakedness or non-modern clothes as primitiveness) � Architecture and home life��civilization expressed itself in squares and straight lines� (127), i.e. imposition of Western-style order, �home� as enclosed private sphere (e.g. doors and locks, functionally specialized spaces), and assignment of women to home � Healing and medicine � Law and rights Can a Traditional Religion Spontaneously Become a World Religion? Robin Horton 1971. �African Conversion� African religions have two �levels� � Lower-level spirits or ancestors � Higher-level �god��remote/deistic Under the right conditions, without contact from outside world religions, the high-level god could be detached from location and society and become a �universalizable� world-god |