Comparing Religions

Comparing Religions

Numen Book Series Studies in the History of Religions

Edited by

Steven Engler Kim Knott P. Pratap Kumar Kocku von Stuckrad Advisory Board

b. bocking — m. burger — m. despland — f. diez de velasco — I. S. gilhus — g. ter haar — r. i. j. hackett t. jensen — m. joy — a. h. khan — g. l. lease e. thomassen — a. tsukimoto — a. t. wasim

VOLUME 113

Comparing Religions Possibilities and Perils? Edited by

Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson, and James Constantine Hanges

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2006

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Comparing religions : possibilities and perils? / edited by Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson, and James Constantine Hanges. p. cm. — (Numen book series. Studies in the history of religions, ISSN 01698834 ; v. 113) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15267-0 ISBN-10: 90-04-15267-9 (alk. paper) 1. Religion—Methodology. 2. Religion—Study and teaching. 3. Religions. I. Idinopulos, Thomas A. II. Wilson, Brian C. III. Hanges, James Constantine, 1954BL41.C583 2006 200.7—dc22 2006048992

ISSN 0169-8834 ISBN (10) 90 04 15267-9 ISBN (13) 978 90 04 (15267-0) © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS List of Contributors ...................................................................... Preface ............................................................................................

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Part One: Theoretical Aspects of Comparison Chapter One Comparison as a Theoretical Exercise .......... Anthony J. Blasi

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Chapter Two Questions of Judgment in Comparative Religious Studies .................................................................... George Weckman

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Chapter Three The Role of the Authoritative in the Comparative Process .............................................................. David Cave

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Chapter Four The Mothering Principle in the Comparison of Religions ............................................................................ Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos

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Chapter Five Theaters of Worldmaking Behaviors: Panhuman Contexts for Comparative Religion .................. William E. Paden

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Part Two: Theory into Method: Comparison of Religions in the Study and the Classroom Chapter Six Comparing Religious Ideas: There’s Method in the Mob’s Madness .......................................................... Wesley J. Wildman

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Chapter Seven Comparative Religion for Undergraduates: What Next? ............................................................................ 115 John Stratton Hawley

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Chapter Eight Socrates and Jesus: Comparing Founder-figures in the Classroom ........................................ 143 James Constantine Hanges Chapter Nine Christianity’s Emergence from Judaism: The Plus and Minus of Joseph Klausner’s Comparative Analysis .................................................................................... 175 Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos Chapter Ten Interpreting Glossolalia and the Comparison of Comparisons ................................................ 181 James Constantine Hanges Part Three: Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Modernism in the Comparison of Religion Chapter Eleven Towards a Post-Colonial Comparative Religion? Comparing Hinduism and Islam as Orientalist Constructions ........................................................ 221 Arvind Sharma Chapter Twelve Circling the Wagons: The Problem with the Insider/Outsider in the Comparative Study of Religions .................................................................................. 235 Russell T. McCutcheon Chapter Thirteen The Postmodernist Challenge to the Comparative Method ............................................................ 249 Robert A. Segal Chapter Fourteen The Only Kind of Comparison Worth Doing: History, Epistemology, and the “Strong Program” of Comparative Study .......................................... 271 Ivan Strenski Bibliography ................................................................................ 293 Index of Names .......................................................................... 313 Index of Subjects .......................................................................... 317

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Anthony J. Blasi David Cave James Constantine Hanges John Stratton Hawley Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos Russell T. McCutcheon

William E. Paden Robert A. Segal

Arvind Sharma Ivan Strenski

George Weckman

Wesley J. Wildman

Department of Sociology, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA UC Foundation, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Department of Comparative Religion, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA Department of Religion, Barnard College, New York, New York, USA Department of Comparative Religion, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA Department of Religious Studies, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA Department of Religion, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom Department of Comparative Religion, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside, California, USA Department of Classics and Comparative Religion, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA Department of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

PREFACE The distinguished historian of religions, Max Müller, famously said that “to know one religion is to know none.” If Müller had been less assertively “German” (his birth language), and more understatedly “English” (his adopted language) he might have said: “To know one religion is to want to know more about other religions.” We professors of religious studies in the university confront daily the challenge of students who want to know not only one religion but many religions. We can only guess about student motivation. Yet certain facts stand out. Students today are far more culturally sophisticated than ever before. They are more attuned to different cultures; more open to ethnic, religious, racial, and linguistic differences; more cognizant of the diversity of scriptures and worship practices; more accepting of “other gods.” Because of this, students are less willing to settle for the truth and meaning of any one religion. They want to learn about the truth and meaning of many religions. This was brought home to us in one of our classes when a student taking a course on the social and religious history of the Jewish people expressed satisfaction in reading the Hebrew Bible for the first time. When asked why she had waited so long to read these scriptures, she replied, “I was turned off by the Bible because my grandmother was a fundamentalist Christian. But my mother now is a practicing Buddhist—which made me interested in what the different religions are saying. I want to compare them.” “I want to compare them.” This seemingly harmless remark should awaken in us a renewed enthusiasm. Like it or not, for better or worse, the university teaching of religion has perforce become the teaching of comparative religion. But the question is begged if we do not make clear how the act of comparison should proceed. How to compare religions? What methods? To what end? With what profit? What are the risks, perils, liabilities in comparing religions? This volume of essays, authored by university professors of religion with years of classroom experience, addresses itself to the central question of comparing religions. Part One of this volume, Theoretical Aspects of Comparison, contains five essays dealing with some of the abstract philosophical

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questions that frame comparative work. Anthony Blasi in “Comparison as a Theoretical Exercise” makes the bold assertion that “comparison pertains to the scientific discourse, not to the religions being compared . . . [hence] comparison is [actually] not inductive in nature.” Blasi pursues his point by rigorously distinguishing between “inclusive and exclusive” concepts of comparison. Pressing the distinction makes us realize (in his view) that the religious data selected for comparison and the very concepts of comparison themselves are contingent and strategic, and can never be universally approved. In a similar vein, George Weckman, in “Questions of Judgment in Comparative Religious Studies,” proposes a “practical approach” to comparison. While noting the criticism that comparison of religion only favors the religious predisposition of the scholar doing the comparison, Weckman thinks that comparison is inevitable and potentially beneficial. The question is how to make sound, non-biased judgments that, in the words of the late great scholar Joachim Wach, attain “relative objectivity.” Weckman argues for a keen self-awareness of our own predilections and how they inform our comparative categories; only through such awareness can we develop insights into our own religious preferences (or lack of them). “Relative objectivity” is thus achieved through a dialectical process in which our investigation of others simultaneously becomes a rigorous investigation of ourselves. David Cave analyzes the central role authority can play in a theory of comparative religions in “The Role of the Authoritative in the Comparative Process.” What is authority and who is authoritative, and why should this matter in religious studies? Cave answers by borrowing Bruce Lincoln’s distinction between epistemic and executive authority and finds that religious claims necessarily invoke authority because they are claims made “outside the human realm.” Where best to find the religious authoritative in the comparative process? Cave points to scripture. Here four issues are fundamental in the act of comparing two different religious scriptures: motive, material, method, and subject. Attending to these issues makes it possible to separate the important from the trivial in the scholarly study of religion, to avoid essentialist simplifications, and to achieve a sounder, more probing understanding of religion. Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos in his essay, “The Mothering Principle in the Comparison of Religions,” counsels limits on what can be legitimately compared. Finding that comparing religions is least

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rewarding where the comparison focuses on exclusively intellectual matters (“what is believed”), or where it imposes abstract artificial forms (e.g., “sacred tree,” “cosmic mountain,” etc.) on the data of religious experience, Idinopulos argues that comparing religions can only be rewarding where the comparison is carried out among religions which are in fact historically connected and genetically linked in structure. Certainly this is the case with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; it is also the case with Hinduism and Buddhism. Idinopulos refers to the genetic structure that makes the comparison of religions most effective as the “mothering principle,” without which comparison is (in his view) superficial and empty. Finally, this section on theoretical considerations concludes with William E. Paden’s signature contribution to the scholarship of religious inquiry, “Theaters of Worldmaking Behaviors: Panhuman Contexts for Comparative Religion,” an essay that in many ways takes exactly the opposite tack as Idinopulos’ essay. By “worldmaking,” Paden means the human universal behavior of making a world from all the cultural experiences that geographically and historically locate human beings on the face of the earth. This means there are as many “worlds” as there are human cultures; this also seems to mean that there can be no one world as there can be no one culture. Does this lead to some sort of relativism towards culture and religion? Paden answers negatively, “insofar as there are recurring patterns to human behavior, there will be patterns to religious behavior, regardless of culture.” Such “recurring patterns” provide stability in a chaotic universe. Taking a functional perspective about the role and meaning of religion in worldmaking activity, Paden shows his indebtedness to Emile Durkheim by avoiding any and all metaphysical-theological references and speaks only of religions as “organized systems of god-oriented behavior.” To better understand these systems, he urges his readers to think big methodologically about religion—to think of cultural “worldmaking.” Part Two, Theory into Method: Comparison of Religions in the Study and the Classroom, consists of six essays that take the discussion beyond abstract principles of comparison (although these remain salient) by focusing on practical questions generated by actual comparative projects. Wesley J. Wildman’s essay, “Comparing Religious Ideas: There’s Method in the Mob’s Madness,” is a product of the ambitious research effort, The “Crosscultural Comparative Religious Ideas Project” (CRIP) carried out by a group of Boston-based

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scholars from 1995 to 1999. Wildman notes that categories of comparison necessarily involve vagueness “in order to register differences,” although vagueness does not prevent the detection of interesting aspects of religion. Wildman reinforces the point made by many contributors to this book, namely that comparison can be made well or badly depending on the adequacy with which the comparative categories are formulated; however, in any case, the act of comparing religions is inevitably (in Wildman’s judgment) “a socially and politically contextualized act of interpretation.” Moreover, he holds that religious belief data can be given flexible and illuminating interpretive structures by adopting the methods of crosscultural comparative analysis that he and his close colleague, Robert Cummings Neville, have carried out in the CRIP study. Large research projects conducted by cadres of specialists are not the only place where fruitful collaborative research occurs. In “Comparative Religion for Undergraduates: What Next?” John Stratton Hawley focuses on the classroom as a place of worthwhile discovery through critical comparison. Hawley begins by noting the differences between comparative religion and the history of religions, two closely connected but not identical inquiries, and he asks how these two modes of inquiry can be incorporated into the undergraduate classroom in ways that acknowledge postcolonial concerns. Through specific techniques of “historicizing” the history of religions and “comparativizing” comparative religion, Hawley gives concrete examples of how the undergraduate survey course can be made intelligible to beginning students while remaining in tune with today’s constantly changing global realities. Most impressive in Hawley’s essay is the vivid sense the reader gets of a professor before his class struggling to convey all the wonder and wisdom of comparing religion. At the heart of this struggle is Hawley’s keen awareness of the geographic, cultural, linguistic, and religious differences that make for the differences in the world’s people. Following up on this point, Hawley’ call for a comparativist course on the role of religious violence will resonate with those who think that the practice and study of religion cannot be insulated from the real world of struggle and strife. From the broad methodological and pedagogical strategies highlighted in the previous essays, the next three focus in on particular case studies as a means of reducing theory to pedagogical method. In the well-argued essay by James Constantine Hanges, “Socrates and Jesus: Comparing Founder-figures in the Classroom.” Hanges

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raises questions fundamental to every student wishing to compare the “life-visions” of two founder-figures. The tendency of students seeking “commonality” is to equate the religions to be compared with the founder-figures (Socrates and Jesus). The questions raised here are: Can the presumed founder-figure be equated with the religion? And can any comparison be effective if there is no equivalence between a religion (particularly given historical development) and the original founder-figure? Looming over the question is the fact that the founder-figure is rarely, if ever historically known with factual accuracy. This means that wherever comparisons are to be made by students, these comparisons are centered on literary texts alone, and through which the founder-figure can be glimpsed only indirectly, if at all. Hanges’ conclusion is that the comparison of religion (at least as far as founder-figures are concerned) is limited to the comparison of texts and therefore to the variety of interpretations that are an inescapable part of texts. This fact cannot but have crucial implications for students and teachers on how religions are to be compared when the comparison itself is dependent on presumed knowledge of the founder-figure. A second concrete case of religion comparison is introduced by Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos in “Christianity’s Emergence from Judaism: Plus and Minus of Joseph Klausner’s Comparative Analysis.” Here the author applies the earlier point he made in his earlier essay in Part One that comparison of religions is most effective and convincing when the religions are historically and genetically connected. Idinopulos speaks with approval of Joseph Klausner’s analysis of the emergence of Christianity from Judaism. Idinopulos begins with the central question: How did the Jew Jesus cause the birth of Christianity, a religion that became significantly different from Judaism? The answer lies in the unusual ways in which Jesus preached the prophetic Gospel of repentance to hasten God’s Coming Kingdom—ways that moved Jesus’ fellow Jew, Saul of Tarsus (Paul), to interpret his words in such a mystical way that made Christianity’s emergence from Judaism inevitable. This is the plus in Klausner’s comparative analysis; the minus is seen in what is described as Klausner’s “nationalism and chauvinism” in defending Judaism, traits which expose the bias of the comparativist, thereby minimizing the persuasiveness of the comparison. Our third case study is found in James Constantine Hanges’ essay, “Interpreting Glossolalia and the Comparison of Comparisons.”

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Hanges begins with the contention that “exposing students to the enterprise of comparing comparisons might serve as an important step in their introduction to” the comparative study of religion. Taking his cue from Jonathan Z. Smith’s discussion of the politics of comparison in the “quest” for Christian origins in Drudgery Divine (1990), he then describes how the specific comparative strategy described by Smith is still being used today by both conservative Christians and Pentecostals in an effort to discredit each other’s understanding of the nature of contemporary glossolalia. By carefully analyzing a wealth of examples taken from printed sources and the Internet, Hanges presents a powerful and readily generalizable case study of how apologetic comparisons are constructed and employed. Ultimately, Hanges argues, the pedagogical importance of such case studies lies in the fact that they not only “fulfill Smith’s goal of creating situations in which students must ‘negotiate difference, evaluate, compare, and make judgments,’” but they also effectively lead students to engage the motives and means of comparison with “greater critical scrutiny.” Part Three, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Modernism in the Comparison of Religion, deals with the continuing impact (and interaction) of these three broad intellectual movements on religious studies. Arvind Sharma introduces Orientalism as an issue in the “comparative equation” in his “Towards a Post-Colonial Comparative Religion? Comparing Hinduism and Islam as Orientalist Constructions.” Here Sharma begins with the question of whether in comparing Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, we are actually comparing objectively these three religions, or whether in presuming so to compare, we are not in fact speaking from an Orientialist bias and distortion of these religions. For Orientalism, Sharma tells us, is the “Western domination and exploitation of the East: the West viewing the East as alien, as ‘the other’.” Having identified the problematic of Orientalism, Sharma insists “what we all describe today as Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam is itself the work of European scholarship, quite apart from the consequences this fact may have had for the mode of scholarship.” In this regard Sharma repeats the telling point made by Bernard Lewis—that Asians did not study Europe nor other Asians. Further, it is not surprising that it was not in Asia but in Europe that the comparative study of religion was initiated. Sharma concludes his essay by pointing to the western Orientalist interpretive tendency to regard the “outsider” interpreter as necessarily knowing more about

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a religion than the “insider” participant. This western interpretive tendency has led to biased conceptions: Hinduism as a “passive” religion; Buddhism as an altruistic, rational religion; and Islam as a religion of militancy. Yet this bias also made it possible to recognize the limits of western-rooted comparative religions. We see the limits in the “renewed privileging of Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism, and the renewed privileging of the non-theism in Buddhism; the renewed privileging of the literalness of the Qur"an in Islam”—all of which are veiled reactions to the impact of Western scholarship. Russell McCutcheon in “Circling the Wagons: The Problem with the Insider/Outsider in the Comparative Study of Religion,” continues in the postcolonial vein of Sharma with an added dose of postmodern skepticism. McCutcheon argues that crosscultural comparison of religion cannot evade the insider/outsider problem. That problem surfaces when it is assumed that there is some sort of definitive, authoritative, privileged “insider” perspective from which to interpret and understand religious data. When this happens the data cease to be “data,” that is, they cease to be objects of publicly accessible intellectual investigation and scrutiny. McCutcheon charges that “many of our attempts to do crosscultural comparison in our classrooms” suffer from the failure to overcome the insider/outsider problem by developing a public discourse of inquiry. Rather, we academicians continue to look for comparative similarities, minimizing differences, promoting artificially imposed notions of religious unity. Instead, what we need is “to determine some defensible principle of selection” that will make it possible also to determine “how it is that we will look into the issue of difference and . . . what will get to count as a difference worth looking into.” Something of a rebuttal to the more radical conclusions potential in McCutcheon’s critique of comparative religion is represented by Robert A. Segal’s strongly argued essay, “The Postmodernist Challenge to the Comparative Method.” Segal forcefully denies the extreme postmodernist thesis that the uncovering of similarities and differences in comparing religious data is a “meaningless activity.” It cannot be true (in Segal’s view) that comparison is invalidated by the supposed sheer uniqueness of data under comparison. Segal then proceeds to express his approval of types of comparative analysis he dubs “controlled’ comparisons (as seen in the works of S. H. Hooke), and the “New Comparativism” (represented by William E. Paden, Ninian Smart, and Jonathan Z. Smith), all of whom seem to think that no

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adequate comparative religion analysis can be conducted without considering both similarities and differences in their historically based contexts. Set alongside the “New Comparativism,” Segal describes the “Old Comparativism,” or simply the “comparative method” represented by J. G. Frazer and Segal himself. The “comparative method” as applied does not commit the sins charged against comparative religion studies by postmodernists. The “comparative method does not ignore differences, nor confuse similarity with identity or with essence; nor does it generalize too broadly and prematurely, and take phenomena out of context.” Segal concludes by summarizing the comparative method of Frazer—which reinforces his main argument that the “comparative method” is at base the method of empirical research and observation applied to the study of religion. This method has nothing to do with the practice (as postmodernists charge) of equating supposed similarities with metaphysical essences. Finally, in a boldly stated defense of modernist approaches to the study of religion, Ivan Strenski focuses on “hypothesis testing” as the main purpose of comparative religion in “The Only Kind of Comparison Worth Doing: History, Epistemology and the ‘Strong Program’ of Comparative Study.” Although the 19th-century comparativists have been subjected to withering ridicule by contemporary critics, Strenski argues that their kind of “ambitious, full bore comparative study” is still “possible and desirable” and “epistemologically plausible.” Guided by the broader aspirations of the Durkheimian school of sociology, a “strong program” seeks not merely to describe facts, but to explain them as well, thus bestowing on comparative study a certain scientific character based on the discernment of behavioral causes and the formulation of sociological laws. Despite postmodernist doubts, such a modernist-inspired “strong program” is, according to Strenski, the only way to “advance the study of religion towards scientific, or at the very least more rigorous, research goals.” To conclude this preface let us say that if our contributors have shown the several roads to comparison and also raised consciousness about the difficulty in and desirability of traveling these roads, they will have done their work as scholars and teachers very well. For they will have provided a sound and honest response to the desire for comparing religions made by the young student who was introduced in the opening. The Editors wish to acknowledge formally the kind permission

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granted by John Stratton Hawley for the republication of his essay, and to Lucy K. Pick and the Marty Center of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago for their willingness to facilitate the publication of this revised copy of Professor Hawley’s essay, presented earlier as the Wabash Lecture of the Chicago Forum on Pedagogy and the Study of Religion in 2002. The Editors also wish to acknowledge Wesley J. Wildman’s essay as a revision and expansion of chapter 9 of Ultimate Realities edited by Robert Cummings Neville (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001). Finally, the Editors would also like to express our thanks to Jennifer Lauren Muncy of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio for her assistance. We dedicate this book to grandchildren Zachary, Cecilia, and Dimitry (Mitsou) Idinopulos and to their Koutures cousins: Anne Christine, Carolyn Marie, Mary Doukakis, Luke Harry, and Gregory Christian—who will one day be studying religions and wondering how best to compare them. To family, friends, and colleagues, we add our further dedication. The Editors

Part One THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF COMPARISON

CHAPTER ONE

COMPARISON AS A THEORETICAL EXERCISE Anthony J. Blasi I. Introduction What makes comparison scientific? Specifically, in the study of religion, how does one go beyond simple museology? There is a point to simply exposing students to a number of different religious traditions as a part of their general education, since there is certainly value in having citizens of the modern world who have relativized their own cultural positions. To educate students who see their own religious tradition as one among many invalidates any legitimation based on an absence of questioning. As a result of a fair-minded exposure to various religious traditions, students either adhere less firmly to their original religions or to their lack of religion, or they reformulate their prior commitment in a more sophisticated configuration.1 In the academy we encourage such changes as inherently good, since we believe that knowledge per se, and especially knowledge that leads to critical reflection, is inherently valuable. The broader citizenry often believe that people who are knowledgeable in this sense are more adept at living in the modern world than those who lack such awareness. So, simple museology is pedagogically valid. Nevertheless, scholars responsible for higher learning beyond the first course in religious studies should aim at more than that. In seeking to make the conduct of comparative inquiry scientific, we must go beyond the level of exposure to religions that serves the purposes of good citizenship. People who begin as sincere students in the course of their general education develop a curiosity about the world around them. Satisfaction of that curiosity demands knowledge that is authentic, that is defensible as knowledge about what

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See Berger, The Sacred Canopy, pp. 96–97.

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actually happens in the environing world. The satisfaction of our students’ curiosity is not achieved by turning them into tolerable and tolerant citizens but by accounting for realissima. This is scientific quest, an inquiry into reality that entails an engagement with evidence and logic. There are two kinds of reality at issue in science. One is the realissimum of the ontological philosophers. These philosophers have argued over what modality of being is foundational to the other modalities—essence, existence, and nature—and whether being depends on the power of a creator to maintain it in its modalities. That inquiry in turn leads to ontological and non-ontological accounts of a creator. Such, of course, are not our issue. For our purposes the realm of the realissimum is simply that which is able to intrude upon our consciousness from outside of it. There are occasions when we become aware of realissima in such a way that they force us to regard them in one way rather than another. How we regard them is an emergent experience between us and them; they feel smooth, they are bright enough to induce us to squint, and so forth. This illustrates what we mean by evidence. Moreover, we know better than to confound our experiences with the realissima themselves, rather we use our experiences more or less reliably as indications of the presence of realissima. For example, we do not confuse our squinting with the reality of the sun. And with considerable reliability we identify the sun without examining it closely. In the case of religion, the realissima are actions, experiences, cognitions, and ideas that people enact, feel, know, and entertain. We hold in abeyance how reliably religious people use their actions, experiences, cognitions, and ideas as indications of the presence of deity simply because science does not extend to the latter. The second kind of realissimum in science consists of the operations of the inquiry itself. These correspond to the phenomenological interest in “the things themselves,” bracketing whatever is in the realm of the realissima that may lie outside of the consciousness maintained by the scientific inquirer. Interestingly, the scientific endeavor depends on an analogy between oneself and the process of inquiry; the way one experiences oneself as a physical body serves as a point of departure for the way one accounts for other physical objects. Similarly, in the study of religion, the inquirer locates the investigation’s point of departure in an analogy between the scientific self and some other person, who is religious. As I have noted elsewhere,

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one cannot have an experience of someone else’s religion (or lack of religion) in the same way one experience’s one’s own religion (or lack of religion).2 One’s own religion must recede into memory while the religion of the other enters the consciousness as a relative novelty. Thus one would actually be comparing a memory with a novel present moment. This difference in perspective results in an inherent incomparability. Alternatively, one might turn from the other’s commitment and come back to one’s own, reviving the latter so that it is no longer a memory and thereby turn the other’s commitment into a memory. The same problem arises in the consideration of different religions that are sustained by different other peoples. An attempt at simultaneity would result in a syncretism, a harmony so to speak, rather than a true comparison. Because of this difficulty, it is important to the comparative process in science to spell out the ways in which one is aware of the matters of inquiry so that the comparison is truly pairing equivalencies. It should be noted that comparison as a scientific problematic occurs in the reality of the scientists’ own conceptualizations and cognitions. There is nothing about such a comparison in itself that can be predicated validly of the live experiences of the peoples whose religions are being compared. Comparison pertains to the scientific discourse, not to the religions being compared. Consequently, comparison is not inductive in nature, though dependent on prior inductive endeavors. There is another sense, however, in which comparison is indeed inductive: if religious people themselves compare different religious traditions or subtraditions, their comparative activity merits scientific study. Nevertheless, such a study is not itself comparative, but rather a study of such phenomena as syncretism, desyncretiztion, and conversion.3 Inquiry into these could only be comparative if one were to look for parallels between two syncretisms, for example—such as parallels between the bringing together of traditions from different cultural systems into the early Hebrew religion (Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Egyptian) and the bringing together of different traditions

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Blasi, “General Methodological Perspective,” p. 72. For studies of syncretism, see Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil; Nielsen, “Civilizational Encounters in the Development of Early Christianity”; and Ralston, Christian Ashrams. For a study of desyncretism see Blasi, A Sociology of Johannine Christianity, pp. 275–92. 3

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into Baha’i. Alternatively, one could examine different patterns of conversion, as done systematically by Robert L. Montgomery.4 The present discussion does not focus primarily on such inductive studies of folk comparisons of religions. II. Ends or Purposes of Comparison It is important to ask what the purposes of comparison in science in general are and what the purpose of a given comparison in an inquiry may be. The guidelines that one should draw up for oneself should depend on those purposes. In the present context we will speak only of the purposes in general of comparison in science. To pose the question of such purposes in any meaningful way, it is necessary to describe comparison itself in the most elementary manner possible. As an operation, comparison utilizes two kinds of concept— inclusive and exclusive. The inclusive concept enables two or more cases to be accepted as examples of what the concept includes. The inclusive concept prevents our comparing “apples and oranges.” Thus the question arises in the comparative study of religion whether Buddhism and theistic religions can be compared; some concept broad enough to include both needs to come into play before any true comparison can be made.5 The exclusive concept distinguishes between the two or more cases that are being compared.6 They cannot be identical; otherwise no comparison is in order. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive because a comparison entails both a sameness and a difference. The difference is all the more informative since it characterizes the two (or more) cases in differing ways; the two cases are not merely two phenomena that would be similar in all respects save not being identical. That is to say, the difference is not simply that between singularity and plurality. It should be noted that these inclusive and exclusive concepts are not references to direct observations, comparable to “marked ballots” and “stone artifacts,” but to constructs, such as democratic politics and styles of art that in some way depend on direct observables.

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Montgomery, The Lopsided Spread of Christianity. See Durkheim, “Concerning the Definition of Religious Phenomena,” pp. 81ff. See Bendix, “Concepts and Generalizations,” p. 176.

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There may or may not be indirect observables, comparable to elections or to ancient craftspeople, between the direct observables and the constructs. Comparisons use direct observables but are about constructs.7 A first contribution, purpose, or end of comparisons is the illumination of the meaning of the inclusive concept.8 An abstraction transmitted from person to person in verbal form differs in nature from an experience of the reality to which the abstraction would refer. The experience itself, of course, is shaped in part by the prior existence of the abstraction in the scientist’s repertory of concepts. This is the familiar hermeneutic circle, which raises the question how a concept could emerge in one’s thinking without a prior experience engendering it? Or we might further ask how any experience could be an experience of a particular kind of object without the prior existence of a concept with which to recognize the experienced object as the kind of object it is conceived to be?9 Our minds are not blank slates or unused magnetic tapes passively receiving stimuli from outside. As Gestalt psychologists taught us long ago with their optical illusions, minds actively shape and embrace. However, our preconceptions are necessary preliminary drafts of our experiences. Science is very interested in revising concepts and in the emergence of newly experienced discoveries made possible by the now-revised preliminary conceptions. Comparison is one way to set about revising concepts, of filling out their meaning with qualitatively differing cases and thereby illuminating them.10 A second contribution, purpose, or end of comparison is narrowing down the generalizability of the exclusive concepts. As with the

7 On direct observables, indirect observables, and constructs, see Kaplan, Conduct of Inquiry, pp. 54–56. 8 Bendix, “Concepts and generalizations,” pp. 180–81, presents these “contributions’ of comparisons. 9 Note this parallel in textual interpretation: “A person who is trying to understand a text is always performing an act of projecting. He projects before himself a meaning for the text as a whole as soon as some initial meaning emerges in the text. Again, the latter emerges only because he is reading the text with particular expectations in regard to a certain meaning. The working out of this ore-project, which is constantly revised in terms of what emerges as he penetrates into the meaning, is understanding what is there.” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 236). 10 Baltzell, for example, stretches the meaning of “Protestant ethic,” a concept taken from Weber; see Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, and Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

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first contribution, this one pertains primarily to the conduct of inquiry rather than to external realissima. When one draws a distinction between kinds of a category, each of the resultant kinds is narrower than the initial concept, in the sense that each kind is more specific than the initial concept and points to fewer realissima. The more comparisons one makes, the more one increases the number of meaningful qualifiers that can be applied to cases exemplifying the broader category. These qualifiers derive from evidence rather than entirely from the thought process itself.11 Which and how many specifying concepts should be retained and recorded depends on the specific research objectives. In the case of human activities such as those that comprise religion, the scientific types should parallel the folk types used by the religious people themselves.12 This is not to say that the scientist should believe what the religious believers believe and feel what the religiously-moved people feel, but that the scientist should have relevant categories for the kinds of beliefs and feelings that the religious actors have. The beliefs and feelings of the latter will in turn articulate the interactions of both their own religious developments and the environmental factors that impinge upon their individual and collective religious endeavors.13 A third contribution, purpose, or end of comparison is the delineation of the boundaries that separate the compared (and contrasted) structures. The scientist records time, place, and other coordinates for locating the relevant cases.14 With this information another researcher should be able to revisit the scene and repeat the comparisons in order to ascertain whether the cases have remained the same or changed. Evidence of a change takes the form of a new comparison, only the comparison is not made with different “cases” or examples but with the same one or ones at two different times

11 For example see Ducey’s development of types of ritual in his Sunday Morning. Aspects of Urban Ritual. 12 A more exact term than “folk type” would be “ethno-concept.” What is at issue is not the non-elite status of the believers but their not being engaged in academic comparative religious studies. 13 See Ammerman et al., Congregation & Community, where Christian congregations are examined, with several congregations each representing different trajectories of pluralization in contemporary society. 14 For example, Bouthoul notes the importance of distinguishing between the Christianity of intellectual elites such as theologians and the lived Christianity of the masses. See Bouthoul, Traité de Sociologie, pp. 514–15.

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or places. The result of a discovery of a salient change is a narrowing of the generalizability of the concepts in use, whether they are inclusive or exclusive concepts, on the basis of new evidence. Moreover, one might generate a new conceptualization, and a processual one at that, by formulating an account of the process by which the noted change takes place. In addition, one can delineate the generalizability of exclusive concepts in a more subtle way by focusing on the derivative implications of such concepts. For example, David L. Balch compares the depiction of suffering heroic characters in two religious contexts— the Roman/Hellenistic wherein the cult of deities and legends about ancestral heroic characters helped legitimate the state, and the early Christian household in which the suffering Christ and contemporary legendary martyrs delegitimated the state regime. He points to such Roman/Hellenistic art works as those depicting Iphigenia, Laocoon, and even the dying Galatian, and proposes considering them as helping comprise the physical setting for Paul’s verbal depiction of the suffering Christ. The delegitimating aspect of the Christian cultus of the suffering savior is inferred after the comparison is made.15 III. Kinds of Comparison Illuminating Inclusive Concepts More needs to be said about the illumination of inclusive concepts. We have noted that comparative evidence may lead to a reformulation or further formulation of what a concept means or encompasses. The latter term, encompass, calls to mind imagery of reaching out and collecting cases. With a concept, however, cases are not only collected but selected according to some descriptive or analytical criterion. The more analytical a criterion is and the less merely descriptive, the more adequate it becomes.16 By reformulating concepts on the basis of the results of comparisons, one in effect discovers new concepts. William James proposed that concepts should have fuzzy rather than sharp edges so that the concepts could be

15

Balch, “Paul’s Portrait of Christ Crucified (Gal. 3.1).” This is to disagree with Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 75, who would have definitions have external characteristics as criteria. 16

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shaped in use.17 Herbert Blumer spoke of “sensitizing concepts” which give their user only a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching empirical instances. He proposed that the human sciences use sensitizing concepts rather than definitive ones because of the nature of the matter of inquiry. In handling an empirical instance of a concept for purposes of study or analysis we do not, and apparently cannot meaningfully, confine our consideration of it strictly to what is covered by the abstract reference of the concept. We do not cleave aside what gives each instance its peculiar character and restrict ourselves to what it has in common with the other instances in the class covered by the concept. To the contrary, we seem forced to reach what is common by accepting and using what is distinctive to the given empirical instance. In other words, what is common (i.e., what the concept refers to) is expressed in a distinctive manner in each empirical instance and can be got at only by accepting and working through the distinctive expression.18

Formalizing the same insight for purposes of outlining a research technique, Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss spoke of theory as something to be discovered in “grounded” (i.e., warranted) condition. They specifically spoke of “generating theory” by means of comparative analysis.19 Needless to say, such an approach stands in marked contrast to those who would “test” hypotheses to see whether they qualify as instances of a scientific “law” similar to the law of gravity in Newtonian physics. Inclusive concepts can also be illuminated by resorting to them in quite different contexts. A comparison of sorts is thereby undertaken, but it is not a matter of comparing cases but of comparing different perspectives that can be taken in approaching an idea. Each different occasion for invoking an idea provides it with a unique context, and each new context provides a new perspective for it. The researcher thereby comes out of the inquiry with a far richer idea of ritual, or magic, or henotheism, or sectarianism. Such thusly enriched ideas can then serve all the better as sensitizing instruments. This is the point of theory for the researcher who follows up a curiosity about some portion of the lived world. Theory is not an end, as it would be in philosophy, but a means. The point, then, is not to rest more

17 18 19

James, Pragmatism, p. 78. Herbert Blumer, “What is Wrong with Social Theory?” pp. 148–49. Glaser and Strauss, Discovery of Grounded Theory, pp. 21ff.

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or less satisfied with a theory, but to develop the theoretical apparatus for scientifically engaging the lived world. A third way of illuminating inclusive concepts is to see them embodied in different materials—or more precisely, in different material cultures.20 One might draw an analogy with the arts, wherein one would look for such techniques as perspective or chiaroscuro in painting, or iteration or modulation in music. One develops a sensitivity that makes comparisons possible that would not have come about had one not developed a habit of looking for certain paradigmatic patterns. This sensitivity emerges less from the formal delineation of the paradigmatic pattern than from the habit of mind developed in the course of inquiring into many cases. Research is, after all, a practiced art, a craftsmanship, that develops over time, not an accomplishment of ratiocination. A fourth way of illuminating inclusive concepts is drawing out implications of several compared instances for one’s own consciousness. In this way one might develop a more nuanced understanding of one’s own religious adherence (or non-adherence) by examining one or more instances that are quite different from one’s own stance. This involves an implicit comparison of one’s own state with that of one or more other sets of people. The comparison will not be one of true equivalencies since one’s own state is known from the inside, so to speak, while that of the other is known from the outside. Consequently, one would not proceed from such a thought experiment directly into a scientific conclusion. However, people who have more nuanced understandings of their own commitments operate on an everyday basis with a more refined mode of thinking about commitments generally, much in the way that people who are theologically learned about their own tradition tend to appreciate more adequately other traditions. As an example of one comparative strategy, we can consider the massive comparative study of systems of “Ultimate Reality” by Giovanni Magnani.21 Magnani develops a comprehensive classification

20 See Clark, Church and Sect in Canada, where concepts derived from European religious history by Ernst Troeltsch are applied to Canada. Liebman and Cohen look at twentieth century Judaism in Israel and the United States, in Two Worlds of Judaism. 21 Magnani, Religione e religioni. Dalla monolatria al monoteismo profetico and Magnani, Religione e religioni. Il monoteismo.

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of the “Object” of religion. Thus his first volume compares monotheism with pantheism and panentheism, refining the concept of monotheism in the process. Having distinguished monotheism from approximations to it, he proceeds to review adepts’ concepts of polytheism and dualism, as well as carefully analyzing ancient Hebrew concepts of deity, including the religion of Jahweh, the monolatry of the early prophets, and the monotheism of the major prophets, along with an excursus on cross-cultural deisms. The second volume examines the modern Jewish concept of God, Christian trinitarianism, and Moslem monotheism. An important fruit of his comparative procedure is the identification of modern dogmatic assertions (i.e. conclusions not warranted by the literary evidence) about the different religious traditions under consideration. Magnani has illuminated the concept of Ultimate Reality in all four ways described above. Narrowing the Generalization of Exclusive Concepts As noted above, when making comparisons one uses exclusive concepts to distinguish the two or more structures that one places into the comparison. When comparing ascetic Christian groups, for example, Max Weber found some to be inner-worldly and some to be other-worldly. Inner-worldliness and other-worldliness are the exclusive concepts, and of course they appear in the plural since each excludes what the other includes. To the extent that an exclusive concept often coincides with another exclusive concept in its application to a social formation, it is likely to assist in the generation of theory. Weber, for example, found that what he termed the “spirit of capitalism” had an “elective affinity” for inner-worldly asceticism.22 That kind of theoretical stratagem does not aim at either establishing or testing universal “laws” but at generalizations. To what historical instances an elective affinity applies is an empirical question, and this question along with the question of why an elective affinity appears in a number of cases not in a few are problems for further inquiry. The procedure is more inductive than deductive; one decides

22 Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 399ff., and Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The latter volume is a more complete set of Weber’s “Protestantische Ethik” essays than the earlier Scribner’s edition.

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what concepts to use for purposes of excluding cases after inspecting a number of instances of that to which the earlier inclusive concept refers. Exceptions to the elective affinities one comes to expect may lead one to question whether the exceptional instances really belong in the category created by the original inclusive concept. An ascetic group may lack a spirit of capitalism altogether but orient itself politically toward inner-worldly concerns; the Catholic Worker movement of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day comes to mind. One reasonably asks whether the asceticism of living with the poor is the same thing as the asceticism Weber had in mind. Is an asceticism based on class-consciousness the same thing as an asceticism based on a plan of creation? Perhaps the class-conscious asceticism is more foundational and more widespread than the asceticism based on the plan of creation. What is at issue in such an instance is the generalizability of the inclusive concept, in this instance asceticism based on a plan of creation. Specifying the Boundaries Between Structures As pointed out earlier, most aspects of comparison in the human sciences pertain to the theoretical approach to matters of inquiry rather than the categories for thought and action that occur in the minds of the social actors under study. In any kind of study oriented toward external realities, some moments in the developing awareness will reside further within the scientific subject, the “I,” and some further outside, in the realm of the reality under study. In comparison, the identification of structures to be compared depends more on the “outside” matters of inquiry than in the ideas with which those matters could be characterized. One may, for example, identify different cultural systems—i.e., inter-related patterns of using symbols. Even within a single cultural area, making comparisons may sensitize one to religious pluralism. Again, historical comparisons may sensitize one to processes of political secularization and its opposite, theocratization. There are really two comparative activities involved in such a line of inquiry: One comparison examines two historical processes—e.g., the emergence of theocracy in Calvin’s Geneva and the emergence of a religiously-neutral state in Jefferson’s America. The second comparison compares discourses within a society—e.g., religious and political discourse in the early American republic.

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Comparative studies may also sensitize one to the emergence of identities in the social world. There may be different individual identities and different collective identities, and, more importantly, one may note the dialectic of individual and collective identities. Individuals develop their identities and alter them in the course of their lives in society. For example, an individual’s self concept will involve significant memberships in families, friendship groups, organizations, communities, and nations, as well as particular roles that one plays in such collectivities. Collective identities thereby enter into the person’s individual identity. It will not suffice in comparative studies, consequently, to simply compare individuals to one another or compare religious collectivities to one another. Exploration of either kind of identity will lead the investigator into the dialectic of the individual with the community. In this sense a comparative literary study of religious texts is nothing more than museology. We must recognize both communities appropriating texts as religious and as proper to themselves, and individuals appropriating texts either as individual quests that propel them into public action or as collective documents imported into personal identities. Speaking more generally, the “matter” of inquiry is human action; its nature is enactment. Analyses of leftover traces of human action— symbols detached from their use much in the manner of left-over icons from some ancient civilization—fail to capture that enacted nature. One needs to reconstruct what went on in the production, amendment, and use of such symbols. One needs to note resistance to change in such stories, as well as resistance to stasis. This latter is for more important than often supposed; people feel most authentic in the fresh avoidance of cliché. It is the processes embodied in the interactions among people that are the “matter” of inquiry and that need to be identified and compared. In fact, any tradition, religious traditions included, cannot remain static in some unchanged condition because each generation of adherents appropriates the tradition in different circumstances. The religiosity of the founder cannot be the religiosity of someone reared in the founder’s tradition, any more than a successful political revolution can remain revolutionary or a fresh new piece of music can retain its novelty in a second, third, or thirty-third hearing. Sometimes in specifying boundaries between structures it is useful to compare the religious and the non-religious, not compare religions. Thus there could be a religious set of time coordinates or cal-

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endar and a secular one. Liturgically-minded Christians begin their religious calendar year even as the secular calendar is working its way toward a commercial climax. In a counterpoint pattern, the Christian ethos dwells on the poverty and simplicity of the Nativity as the secular world builds up steam in its commercial Christmas season. The two are no doubt linked in a curious way. They are not mere coincidental seasons that borrow one another’s symbols. Peter Staples, in his analysis of temporal references in the gospels, demonstrates this kind of pattern at work in the first century against the backdrop of more ancient Hebrew temporal systems.23 The whole creates a counter-culture of messianic cues in the setting of the Roman Empire. Such a line of inquiry raises the issue of the relationship between the distinct but connected “worlds” having the different time coordinates. IV. Comparison and Everyday Life There is a temptation to discuss scientific methodology in the abstract as if it applied to some world set apart from the everyday world in which one lives. It is true that any scientific endeavor comprises a universe of discourse that follows a paradigm that differs from everyday activities and that uses a system of typifications that differ from those that arise in the “natural attitude” of everyday undertakings.24 However, I would insist that scientists and other humans stand outside of the several discourses that they entertain and that the suspensions of judgment and of relevance, the epochai that they sustain as they enter into one discourse and set other discourses aside, are not foundational in consciousness but rather occur within acts of consciousness. The “I” that takes up the several discourses is not under control but rather pursues the several modes of “logical control.” Consequently, there is no guarantee that the conduct of inquiry within one discourse remains uninfluenced by the other modes of discourse in which the “I” is habitually engaged. Curiosity itself,

23

Staples, “Structuralism and Symbolic Universe.” See Schutz, “Common-sense and Scientific Interpretation.” On the “natural attitude” (perhaps it would have been better termed “naturalist stance,” borrowing some terminology from the art world), see Schutz and Luckmann, Structure of the Life-World. 24

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which drives scientific inquiry, is the product of the habitual actions of the “I.” Thus the very wish to apply scientific procedures to religion, or to any other matter of inquiry, does not itself arise while following methodological rules. In the conduct of comparisons, the impact of biographical everyday life is to be found not only in the focus on religion in general as a matter of inquiry but also in answering the question as to which religious phenomena are to be compared with which others. Given the number of scholars in religious studies, there is no reason to expect any “main stream” to select the same phenomena for comparison or, if agreeing upon a set of instances, to conduct the comparisons in the same way. As in most human inquiries, the quest for a “unified science” is a chimera. That is not because the comparative enterprise is itself a chimera but because it is possible.

CHAPTER TWO

QUESTIONS OF JUDGMENT IN COMPARATIVE RELIGIOUS STUDIES George Weckman I propose here a practical approach to the comparison of religions in the classroom. For those of us who teach courses on various religions, theory becomes practice in front of a group of students. The tone, intention, and framework of teaching methods are as important in this context as fact, consistency, and scholarship. The big problem is how to present and discuss religious matters in ways that are appropriate to the personal, existential, and political context of students and faculty. Hence this meditation on how to be fair in comparative comments, i.e. how to compare judiciously rather than judgmentally. The Historical Factor The term “comparative” as an adjective to describe and name a kind of study of religions is widely used in common parlance, but it has been much criticized in scholarly circles. For the general public it means that someone is studying more than one religious tradition and that such a person inevitably notices similarities and differences among them. Scholarly criticism, however, has assumed that there are hidden agendas behind such comparisons, ulterior motives which are negatively judgmental. This suspicion was warranted in the past. In a recent book, Following Muhammad, devoted as much to methodological issues as to Islam, Carl W. Ernst asserts that the concept of comparative religion “in part arose in Protestant seminaries to answer the question, Which religion is better?” He adds that early in the last century it “shifted into a less missionary and more theoretical attempt to understand common structures that may be found in

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many traditions.”1 In light of this shift, one must ask: Does the stain of condescension and proselytism remain today with the term and/or the practice of ‘comparison’—does the name and the practice still imply superiority? The late Ninian Smart was shy of the term “comparative” too. In his introductory textbook Worldviews he notes that “a strange division arose between religious scholars who belonged largely to Christian faculties of theology or divinity schools, and scholars engaged in the comparative study of religion.” The latter dealt with non-Christian religions because it was thought “that Christianity is unique and cannot seriously be compared to other religions.” He says that it was not until the 1960s that the modern study of religions began to look “at Christianity, too, as a ‘world religion’.” Nevertheless he concludes his discussion by affirming that “the whole enterprise of crosscultural understanding is comparative.”2 The first issue to resolve, therefore, is the lingering aura of favoritism in religion studies when the term “comparative” is used. It may be that the term is too tainted and must be abandoned. The practice, however, would seem to be inevitable. Religious Judgmentalism There are a number of faults to avoid. One is using a category which is too big or complex. That is the main problem in the gross category of religion from which the judgmentalism of previous generations arose. There are too many factors in a religious tradition or situation to make a simple comparative judgment. It resembles the position of the child who condemns all vegetables without discriminating between beets, spinach, and peas. Historically, we have had to concede, the study of other religions has been rooted in comparing inferior religions to one’s own superior religious position, whether this study bore the name “comparative” or not. But can one compare anything else to one’s own choices without assuming that one has chosen wisely and that other options have been appropriately rejected? The issue we face, therefore, is whether one can be a fair and unbiased comparativist at all. 1 2

Ernst, Following Muhammad, p. 48. Smart, Worldviews, pp. 15, 16.

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Those of us who studied in the shadow of Joachim Wach (directly or posthumously through his student, Joseph Kitagawa) had little or no apprehension about “comparative.” One of Wach’s books on methodology was called The Comparative Study of Religions. In it he deals very positively with the uses and methods of comparison. Among other issues, however, he is concerned with the relationship of the scholar’s role and the believer’s, and wishes to be respectful of the latter while promoting the former. Many of his generation of religion professors were explicitly both believers and scholars, so he argued that “it is not true that in order to exalt your own faith you must hate and denigrate those of another faith.”3 There is a perspective which religious scholars must learn, expressed famously by Robert Burns: to see ourselves as others see us. Imagination or mirror, aided by the accounts of ourselves by others, puts us in the same category as our foreign and ancient subjects. We understand them as we try to understand ourselves. I wrote an article many years ago with a good title (however weak the content): “Believing Myth as Myth.”4 In this title I tried to promote the complex intellectual phenomenon of accepting one’s own belief in the terms used by others. Those who say my sacred stories and beliefs are myths might be believers in other stories or analysts antagonistic to all religious belief. This believing myth as myth perspective is not easy to acquire or ever completely accomplished, but one can attempt it and achieve some measure of objectivity, especially with a sense of humor. Seeing oneself and the whole human condition in cool, dispassionate light can be both amusing and illuminating. This does not ruin religious belief and practice, at least for some of us. Secular Judgmentalism Wach was suspicious of the presumption of a scholarly detachment, finding “something pathetic about the modern historian of religion who uses strong words only when he wants to convince us that he

3

Wach, Comparative Study of Religions, p. 9. Gibbs and Stevenson (eds.), Myth and the Crisis of Historical Consciousness, pp. 97–107. 4

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has no convictions.”5 This raises the postmodernist objection that no one is objective and impartial, even the “modern” social scientist. Wach knew that it is not only believers who compare other religious options unfavorably to their own; the modernist hostile critic does so also. But most to be pitied or criticized, he said, is a “skepticism and playful intellectuality” of “unlimited relativism.” I think he had in mind the antiquarian or curiosity seeker who viewed religions with supreme condescension. Wach was willing instead to settle for what he called a “relative objectivity.” “Emotions and passions do play a legitimate role in religion. It is precisely here that . . . the best justification for the comparative study of religions can and must be found.”6 This leaves us, I think, with modesty and self-consciousness in the attempt to compare religious phenomena. We admit that all categories, comparisons, and judgments are tentative and partial. As Jonathan Smith put it, the historian of religion “submits to a lifelong sentence of ambiguity.”7 All our observation is affected by our preconceptions, and all our reflection is grounded in our deep intellectual commitments and historical situations. Therefore, all comparison will incorporate our values. The task is to be reflective and self-conscious enough to bring these features to our and our audience’s attention as much as possible in all our thought, speech, and writing. Aware of this limitation on ideal objectivity, we may proceed to try to understand human religiosity, in particulars and in generalities. I suspect that this modesty about one’s data, interpretations, and conclusions is the real heart of the post-modern critique. Too much might have been made of the presumed confidence of previous generations of scholars, the modernists. Is it not probable that they assumed that their descriptions and interpretive categories were tentative and theoretical? If they did not, they stand condemned. In any event, it is often helpful to use their categories and comments, no matter how egregious their presumption to objective truth. Complete jettisoning of past scholarship on religions is hardly necessary. I agree with Jonathan Smith’s position, summarized in the editors’ preface

5 6 7

Wach, Comparative Study of Religions, p. 8. Wach, Comparative Study of Religions, p. 9. In Patton and Ray (eds.), A Magic Still Dwells, p. 24.

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to A Magic Still Dwells, that “we may take issue with our modernist forbears without embracing the rhetoric of certain of our postmodernist contemporaries.”8 As I suggested earlier, it may well be that the study of religions cannot usefully be called “Comparative Religion” today. Nevertheless, the methodology of comparison is inevitable and beneficial. The trick will be avoiding pitfalls such as the presumed superiority of one, especially one’s own, religion. This does not mean, however, that value judgments can or should be avoided. How these judgments can be made judiciously and helpfully is the second theme of the comparative methodology I wish to present here. Making Judgments I like Wach’s rhetorical question, “Does a ruby or an emerald sparkle less if called a jewel?”9 Names and categories are clearly different kinds of things from the things that they name and categorize. These intellectual processes or “second-order” activities are clearly different from that stuff of the world and human life which they organize in our thought. Comparisons inevitably use such second-order categories. It is fruitful (pun intended) to compare apples and oranges precisely if and when they are understood as two examples of the category fruit. It should be obvious that comparison should use comparables. Examples of the same kind of religious thing should be compared, as with jewels or fruit. An insidious kind of judgmentalism occurs when the ideals of one religion are compared to the realities of another. This happens because observers see the practices of a religious group more easily than their intentions. In one’s own religion one is more focused on the ideals of the good than the failures in practice. One also more readily ascribes honesty and forgiveness to oneself and one’s group, while often suspecting the foreigner of duplicity and hypocrisy. To avoid this sad situation one should take care to examine the categories of comparison to make sure that the same kinds of things

8 9

Patton and Ray (eds.), A Magic Still Dwells, p. 4. Wach, Comparative Study of Religions, p. 9.

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are being compared. Returning to the jewel example, one must analyze and reflect on one’s conception of jewelness. Are there simply better or worse jewels? Or can a judgment be determined more precisely? We need to see whether and how the emerald might be thought to be a better jewel than the ruby. If value in jewelness is based on or measured by color brilliance, the emerald has more jewelness and is therefore better, than the ruby, while the reverse judgment would result from color saturation as a determinant. Note that the blank statement of one jewel’s superiority to the other hides the presumed value upon which the judgment has been made. Once that measure of value is explicit, the process of evaluation may or may not proceed to favoring one scale of value over another. Therefore, one might reasonably end up saying: because I take greater pleasure in color brilliance, I value the emerald more than the ruby, admitting that others may favor color saturation and come to the alternative conclusion. A problem is brought to mind by the fruit example. “Fruit” in botanical analysis refers to seed-bearing parts of plants. This differs from culinary usage that both limits the seed-bearing plant products to the edible ones and expands it to include seedless plant parts. At the same time, “fruit” can be a different culinary category from “vegetable” if the latter includes only leaves, roots, and other non-seedbearing parts of plants. And then there is the confusion about tomatoes, on which the cook and the botanist part ways. The moral of these reflections on jewels and fruits, again, is the warning to examine one’s categories and values in comparison. Judgment in Terminology Another kind of problematic judgment can be made in comparative studies when names for categories have negative connotations. Many a teacher has tried to convince students that “myth” does not mean “false” but rather “sacred story.” We often feel like Sisyphus working uphill when we try to argue against common usage—usage that is exactly the opposite of the desired meaning. The ancient Greeks started this by naming their own questionable legends or foreign sacred stories “myths.” They were judgmental comparativists. If we want to discuss or compare various myths we might try to find another name for that category of narrative. We also need another

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term for “magic,” and for the same reason. Magic was defined by James George Frazer as an alternative to religion. For him it was practical and proto-scientific. For the average person it is associated with trickery and entertainment. Can it ever appropriately or effectively be used for ritual practice which is believed to be effective ex opere operato? If the comparativist teacher uses this term a not so subtle put-down of sacramental theologies is justifiably suspected. Obviously one should be suspicious when the pejorative word is used of some religious traditions and not of others or one’s own. Do some religions tell myths and practice magic while others do not? Do we taint some historical accounts by putting them in the category of myth; do we foreclose on some rituals if we stress their presumed effectiveness in changing the world? I would suggest a reflexive glance at favored or unlikely applications of such negative terminology as a way of demonstrating the ubiquity of such phenomena. In the comparative study of myths and magic modern and popular examples should be included. My favorite example of mythology is the lore around George Washington, and for magic, astrology. Yet other examples, especially Christian in most U.S. classrooms, can serve to adjust and expand the potentially judgmental terminology. In discussions of morality, a quick comparison judgment is often called “prejudice.” As with “myth” and “magic,” “prejudice” is the negative term for something that can have a more positive name. When a prejudice is justified and helpful in understanding it is better named a “generalization.” As such it is an inevitable feature of abstract thought. Items of thought must be categorized, often in various ways, or else they remain unusable. The point at which such generalization deserves to be condemned as prejudice changes for each person as generalizations become indicators of lazy thinking, obvious contradiction, or cruel intention. Instead of wholesale generalizations one needs specific summaries of specific information, to whatever extent that is possible. Comparative Structures Daniel Brown, in his New Introduction to Islam, raises the issue of generalizations about Islam in the face of so many different islams. Using the analogy of a language, he promotes the notion that even a large religious tradition will have a common vocabulary, a kind of grammar,

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and a recognized shared heritage.10 If we think of our comparisons as comparisons of the grammatical structures of religions, we base the analysis on the relationship of elements, not on the elements themselves. Comparing symbol systems is not very presumptuous because it does not foreclose on the myriad sentences which can be spoken in these various languages. That is, it does not presume to compare ideas or practices but how they are related to each other in each system. An example of such a grammatical structure in religions is the process of salvation. Many, but not all, religious traditions offer a solution to some presumed dissatisfaction, so one can set up a soteriological structure by which to compare the special content of each tradition. Each religious tradition will promote its particular analysis of each of the following elements in the structure of salvation: 1) the problem or deficiency in human life, 2) the agent or agency of aid, 3) the actions or thoughts prescribed or necessary, and 4) the goal or resolution in this life or another. Scholars of Hinduism often describe the varieties of that widely variable tradition in terms of the margas or paths salvation available within Indian literature and practice. Klaus Klostermaier’s survey of Hinduism devotes a third of its pages to the three most prominent paths.11 These are the paths of works (karma), of knowledge ( jnana), and of loving devotion (bhakti). The path of works, for example, focuses on 1) the twin problems of impurity and the desire for status and merit. One is helped in overcoming these problems by 2) observing Vedic texts, preserving social roles, and the services of brahman priests. Prescribed actions are 3) rituals (samskaras), ethical activity (dharma), and asceticism (tapas). The reward is 4) becoming a complete being and providing blessings for one’s descendents. The other Hindu paths can be similarly analyzed in this pattern. The pattern can be spelled out in Christian or Muslim terms but only the pattern or structure is similar. Abrahamic religions tend to identify the problem with 1) sin or disobedience, vary in how much aid can be given by 2) God or society (from intercession to atonement), prescribe 3) more or less ritual-ethical activity, and generally promise 4) heavenly reward.

10 11

Brown, New Introduction to Islam, p. xii. Klostermaier, Survey of Hinduism, pp. 151–305.

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Of course this pattern constitutes a gross oversimplification of salvations, but it is very useful when beginning a study of Hinduism and other religions with prominent salvation systems. It emphasizes the variety in cultures and religions by illustrating how diverse each item in the pattern can be, while at the same time providing a structure for comparison. One should not, however, force this structure onto any and all religions or parts thereof. This is not a universal pattern. Conclusion It is my conviction that good classroom teaching in the field of religions will continue to be comparative, no matter what the theoretical hazards. Comparison within categories simply is the best and most natural way to present material. We build our knowledge, our pictures of the world, moving from the familiar to the new. The first step is saying that the new is similar in some way to something in our previous experience. The next step, of course, is the recognition that this new item is not exactly like our point of reference. And so our knowledge grows and becomes ever more complex. If this is the process of learning, the comparative method is essential. It needs, however, constant adjustment and modification. It is, after all, just a tool or set of tools for intellectual investigation, not truth itself.

CHAPTER THREE

THE ROLE OF THE AUTHORITATIVE IN THE COMPARATIVE PROCESS David Cave This paper evaluates the role of the authoritative in the comparative process. It asks the questions, “What is the role of the authoritative when we compare one religion or aspect of a religion with another religion or aspect?” “And, how do authoritative claims facilitate and impede comparison?” On September 11, 2001, the United States witnessed a tragic wake-up call that demonstrated the power that can be unleashed when someone has defined your identity as evil. The terrorists were comparativists. They, in their comparison, drew upon an authority of absolutism to identify their target, give rationale to their actions— at least for themselves and for those who agreed with their worldview—and embolden their resolve in what they were about to undertake. Comparison is at the basis of knowledge. It is also at the basis of faith, action, and, if not practiced with humility, of destruction.1 Not all destructions resulting from faulty comparison need be violent. There can be more benign destructions that trivialize or patronize the Other, thereby destroying the integrity of the Other. I do not aim to explore how we can prevent either malignant or benign destructions of the Other from misguided comparisons. What I am interested in is how we should account for authority, for that which is taken as unquestioned, when we do compare one religion with another.

1

Charles Kimball refers to the way absolutist truth claims perpetuate evil acts, in his When Religion Becomes Evil. Jessica Stern, terrorism expert at Harvard University, describes how young people come to accept leaders and claims as authoritative, unquestionably buying into them to the point where these young people are willing to strap bombs to their chest to kill themselves and others. See her Terror in the Name of God.

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I argue that it is important for us to identify and respect what the believers take as authoritative. For in this way we get at what is most consequential for them and we, in turn, make the comparative enterprise itself of consequence. Whether as an insider or as an outsider to the religious tradition, the scholar allows the claims of the tradition to be authoritative for her. This approach enables her to approximate the impact that the authority has upon the believers. Moreover, this approach only strengthens the voice, hence the authority, of the scholar in the believers’ eyes. Then, once having identified the authoritative and its significance, the scholar, now speaking to the academy, may peel back the curtain to see what lies behind the authority, as the dog did to the Great Wizard in the film “The Wizard of Oz,” and explore the context that gives rise to the authority and the staging that upholds it. What is Meant by Authority? First, what do we mean by authority? Common understandings associate it with the power of an office, the charisma of an individual, the possessor of specialized knowledge or of a skill, or the holder of critical experience or practical expertise.2 Authority is also associated with tradition and the prevailing moral order, what the protestors of the 1960s spoke against. Authority is also applied to tyrants and to the state when either or both banishes individual rights and freedoms.3 Church historians and theologians refer to the divine authority of the Church and its special revelation, unbeholden to reason. Each of these, according to Bruce Lincoln in his study on authority, presumes that authority is a quality that a person or an institution either has or does not; that authority is an “entity.”4 The above prevailing views of authority, says Lincoln, can be reduced to two broad categories: “epistemic” and “executive” (which I will also label as the institutional). Epistemic authority refers to the possession of privileged knowledge or information or of a special skill

2

Ward, Religion and Revelation, pp. 304–06. Lincoln, Authority, pp. 1–2. 4 Lincoln, Authority, pp. 116–17. Lincoln argues, however, that authority is not an “entity,” but an “effect,” which I will speak to below. 3

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(such as technical experts, scholars, specialists of all kinds). Executive or institutional authority refers to persons or institutions who are thought to be “in” or “have” authority (political leaders, parents, military commanders, the church, the office of the presidency).5 Whether the authority is thought to be due to a superior form of knowledge, understanding, insight, skill or experience, or thought to be invested either by divine right or tradition, Lincoln says that authority is based on or sets up an a-symmetric relationship between a speaker (the holder of authority) and an audience (the one under authority), where the audience is in a dependent relationship to the speaker, dependent in knowledge, power, custom, insight, or experience and expertise. In referring to the relationship as between a speaker and an audience, Lincoln frames the definition of authority around speech, deriving authority from its original meaning, found in Roman legal discourse, as auctoritas, a “word used with many different shades of meaning, usually in connection with the capacity to perform a speech act that exerts a force on its hearers greater than that of simple influence, but less than that of a command,” says Lincoln.6 What the speaker says is taken to be right and to be trusted. Because the speaker is trusted, the speaker is able to bring about an effect merely by the influence of its authority. What is important, here, Lincoln points out, is that the speaker, the one possessing authority, does not need to persuade or coerce the audience in order to get the audience to act or think in a certain way. To use a simple example: a father tells his son to clean his room and the son obeys, because, by the father’s authority, the father says so. The father did not have to persuade the son on the merits of a clean room or instill fear or pain to get the child to do it. The son, respecting the father, followed through. If persuasion or coercion is resorted to, says Lincoln, the father gives up or loses authority. He puts himself as an equal (“I must convince you why a clean room is good.”) or, if in using force, as the weaker by resorting to superior strength to get the son to act (“I will spank you if you do not clean your room.”). The ability and potential to use argument or force is there, but authority,

5 6

Lincoln, Authority, p. 4. Lincoln, Authority, p. 2.

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when present, is able to produce an effect without having to resort to argument or force.7 The son may respect the father’s authority out of fear or out of trust in the father’s better judgment. Either way, regardless upon what the authority is based, argument or force restrained is authority exercised. As Lincoln defines it, therefore, authority is “an effect (and the perceived capacity to produce an effect) that is operative within strongly asymmetric relations of speaker and audience.”8 This relationship is built on the audience trusting the speaker, whereby the audience knows that the speaker has the potential to exercise persuasion or force or both if so chosen. Adds Lincoln, authority “permits . . . speakers to command not just the attention but the confidence, respect, and trust of their audience, or—an important proviso—to make audiences act as if this were so.”9 The audience may be led to give their “confidence, respect, and trust” even if they may not actually have such for the speaker. In other words, authority can be illusory. All that is necessary is that it achieves the desired effect: that the audience allows what the speaker says to be so. Authority, therefore, has “the capacity to produce consequential speech, quelling doubts and winning the trust of the audiences whom they engage,” says Lincoln.10 Because authority relies on its capacity to command trust and respect, it is not surprising that it makes use of a “whole theatrical array of gestures, demeanors, costumes, props, and stage devices through which one may impress . . . an audience,” adds Lincoln.11 Authority is as much the creation and maintenance of perception as it is to possess solid content. The staging of authority, putting on a semblance of having physical power, superior knowledge or skill, or of having divine legitimacy, each and all serve to convince or impress an audience that the speaker possesses authority. Says the anthropologist David Kertzer, “authority, the belief that a person has the right to exercise influence over others’ behavior, is itself an abstraction, and people can conceive of who has authority and who does

7 8 9 10 11

Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln,

Authority, Authority, Authority, Authority. Authority,

pp. 4–6. pp. 116–17. p. 4. p. 7.

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not only through symbols and rituals.”12 So, for Catholics, the Pope need not speak in order for him to get respect. The pageantry, the vestments, St. Peters, are enough to communicate authority. For Protestants, the Bible need not be opened or heard to be perceived as having authority. Its gold leaf pages, abnormally large size, placement on the pulpit with a bookmark parament, all communicate authoritativeness. The Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, is wakened, fanned, and put to bed each day, legitimizing its authoritativeness for Sikhs.13 The Pope, the Bible, the Granth Sahib do not have the same level of authoritativeness, if at all, to an outsider as they do to a Catholic, Protestant, and Sikh, respectively. Even then, the authoritativeness of the Pope is conditional to certain Catholics, and Protestants disagree among themselves on the inerrancy of the Bible. What or who is deemed an authority, therefore, is relative to a specific audience. The audience has a role in determining authority as much as the quality and theatrics of the speaker. Turning now from defining authority generally to defining religious authority specifically, Lincoln says what makes authority religious authority is when the claims to truth lie outside the human realm. Religious claims are the means by which certain objects, places, speakers, and speech-acts are invested with an authority, the source of which lies outside the human. That is, these claims create the appearance that their authorization comes from a realm beyond history, society, and politics, beyond the terrain in which interested and situated actors struggle over scarce resources,” and so, these claims are “beyond the possibility of contestation.14

Religious claims appeal to the highest form of epistemic and executive authority. By basing its claims outside the human realm, the pronouncements of religious authority can never be tested, and its executive authority is removed from being questioned: “Who is this

12

Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power, p. 24. One can see this staging in the non-religious, political realm of Mao Zedong, when, with his leadership challenged, he solidified his authority through various calculated moves to remind the working class of his peasant upbringing and sacrifices on their behalf. See Spence, Mao Zedong, pp. 93–95. 14 Lincoln, Authority, p. 112. 13

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that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”, asks God of Job ( Job 38:2). Religion makes truth claims which are non-falsifiable and which believers take as trustworthy, to the degree that they are willing to base their actions upon them. One need not have absolute certainty in these claims, just enough “practical certainty” to take them as legitimate.15 It is not only the explicitly religious that assumes a transcendent authority. Marxists, without appealing to the divine, have their own form of ‘transcendent” when they give unequivocal assent to the historical, dialectical process, says Lincoln. Nationalism, too, is a “transcendent” when its authority is meant to be “interpreted but never ignored or rejected.”16 To the degree that an ideology appeals to a transcendent truth claim, it becomes “religious.” Because religious claims are not obvious to all—not being obliged as they are to act in accordance with nature or be accountable to “history, society, and politics,” needing only to operate within their own system17—religious authority is arbitrary. Religious claims need not be so by logical necessity. They are just chosen to be so. Though they may be forged over time, resonate with how the world is thought to be, and speak to peoples’ deepest emotions, passions, and visions, religious claims, nevertheless, are mediated intuitions and secondorder propositions. They are the creation of a particular imagination. Certain people create, accept, and give legitimacy to certain things. It is this arbitrariness that constitutes religious claims and confronts people for a decision. Reason alone cannot bring one to accept the Qur’an as the literal speech of God, that Amida Buddha resides in the Pure Land, that God created the world, and that Confucian ritual aligns society with the way of Heaven. At some point, to be a follower of a religion, one has to accept and choose the truth claim, to buy into the authority. One has to accept that “there is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet,” if one is to be a Muslim. The authoritative discourse of the Qur’an in the shahadah demands either a “yes” or “no” choice. For a Hindu, the Vedas are to be authoritative, and for a religious Jew, the Torah.

15 16 17

Ward, Religion and Revelation, p. 8. Lincoln, Holy Terrors, pp. 6, 111 n. 16. Lincoln, Authority, p. 112 and Ward, Religion and Revelation, pp. 10–11.

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The Qur’an, the Vedas, the Torah can be taken authoritatively as divine speech or for the paradigmatic values they provide.18 In either case, whether as divine speech or as definers of boundaries and preservers of tradition, their authority is arbitrary and poses a decision to all who encounter them on whether to accept and choose them as authoritative or not. The truth claims of religion constitute religion’s authoritative discourse, says Lincoln. They are the rationale religious adherents give for the way the world is and the directive for how they should act in it. This authoritative discourse is subsequently transmitted through the various dimensions of religion, which Bruce Lincoln has identified as—“discourse,” “practice,” “community,” and “institution.” Religion involves 1) a “discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contingent,” and “that claims for itself a similarly transcendent status.” The discourse is religious not simply by virtue of its content, but also for its claims to authority and truth. A claim to “transcendent authority,” be it to a divine source or to ancestral or scriptural authority, makes the claim religious, says Lincoln. Religious discourse, by virtue of its “metadiscursive capacity to frame the way any content will be received and regarded,”19 can make anything take on religious or sacred authority; 2) a “set of practices whose goal is to produce a proper world and/or proper human subjects, as defined by a religious discourse to which these practices are connected.” “No practices,” he adds, “are inherently religious, and any may acquire a religious character when connected to a religious discourse that constitutes them as such;” 3) a “community whose members construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse and its attendant practices.” And he adds, “those who revere the same texts (whether written or oral), adhere to the same precepts (taken from those texts and their commentaries), and engage in the same set of practices (grounded in texts and precepts) have a great deal in common;” and 4) an “institution that regulates discourse, practices, and community, reproducing them over time and modifying them as necessary, while asserting their eternal validity and transcendent value.”20

18 19 20

Holdrege, Veda and Torah, p. 2. Lincoln, Holy Terrors, pp. 5–6. Lincoln, Holy Terrors, pp. 6–7.

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Even when in certain societies, such as in the United States, where there is, by law, a separation of religious authority from the workings of business, politics, economics, and civil and criminal law, the authority of religious discourse nevertheless manages to permeate and influence “practices,” “communities,” and “institutions” throughout society. President Bush’s appeal to scripture and to certain conservative theologies in the shaping of his foreign policy, attests to the permeation of the authority of (a certain kind of ) Christian discourse into the political sphere.21 The Authoritative in the Comparative Process Let us now look at how the role of authority is at play in the act of comparison, asking ourselves first how authority and comparison tie together generally and then turning to the example of comparing the authoritativeness of scripture. As stated earlier, we cannot know something except through comparison. “Comparison is a fundamental element of human rationality,” says Robert Neville, giving justification for the “Comparative Religious Ideas Project,” a three-year project devoted to comparing religious ideas, across Chinese, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions.22 Most people compare implicitly. Comparativists are more deliberate, methodical, programmatic, and self-conscious in the act of comparison. Comparison in this case centers around four principal components: motive (why compare? What larger ends do we want to advance?); material (what religious data do we compare? And upon what sources and people do we rely?); method (how do we do it? What assumptions do we address, steps do we take?); and

21

See Lincoln’s chapter “Symmetric Dualisms: Bush and Bin Laden on October 7” in Holy Terrors and see also, Phillips, American Dynasty, pp. 230–33. 22 See Neville (ed.), Religious Truth, p. 204, and the other two volumes of the project, both also edited by Robert Neville. The Human Condition, and Ultimate Realities. See also Barbara Holdrege’s reference to Jonathan Z. Smith’s comments on the limits yet inevitability of comparison as a means of knowledge. Four types of comparison are identified: ethnographic, encyclopedic, morphological, evolutionary, neither of which, according to Smith, is adequate however. Holdrege, Veda and Torah, pp. 19–21. For the original essay by Smith on comparison, “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” and discussions in response to its assertions on comparison, see A Magic Still Dwells, Patton and Ray, eds.

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subject (what specifically do we want to learn? clarify? advance?).23 The comparative enterprise is persistently self-conscious and experiential. It is not just a mental exercise, but, whether as “objective” scholars or as subjective believers, it is a participatory exercise, for, when undertaken honestly, one cannot separate oneself from the process and its implications.24 Persistent within each of the above components of the act of comparison, is the issue of authority. Regarding motive—is the purpose of my comparison to establish or uphold the prominence of my position? Or is the motive to trust the pursuit of truth as paramount?25 Regarding material—whose voice(s) do we draw upon? What are the principal texts and sources that we must identify and refer to? Regarding method—how do we take the truth claims of the religion we study, and what the believers say about them? To what degree do we respect their voice and assumptions? Regarding subject—what is indeed the, or one of the, core elements of the religion or concept with which we are to compare? What is most authoritative? And what is subordinate, secondary in the system that makes up a religion’s, a person’s, a community’s world?26

23

Sharpe. Comparative Religion, p. 2. Also see Neville, Ultimate Realties on the four points that comparison must take into account: 1) “Comparison requires understanding all sides to be compared in their own terms,” 2) “Comparison is more than assembling accurate representations of the things to be compared; like a ‘third term’ it says how the things relate to one another, how they are similar and different,” 3) “Comparisons are claims that aim to be true in what they assert about the relations among religious ideas and they need to be grounded in processes that test them according to relevant criteria,” and 4) “Claims to the truth of comparisons ought not fade in the face of critical qualifications but should amend themselves as improved,” pp. 190–191. 24 See Brooks, “Taking Sides and Opening Doors,” pp. 817–830. 25 Eric Sharpe says that, historically, comparative religion has been used to advance three purposes: apologetic, to show that all religions are fulfilled in Christianity; for a perennial philosophy, to show the unity of all religions; and for anthropological/ethnological reasons, to show the differences and similarities of cultures. Sharpe, Comparative Religion, pp. 265–66. See also Lincoln in Holy Terrors on how comparative religion can be used to exercise dominance of one religion/culture/civilization over another for destructive ends, p. 82. 26 The thematic issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion on Hinduism specifically addresses these questions on the relation between authority and the study of religion, or, in this case, Hinduism. Vol. 68, 4 (December 2000). On this last point, “subject,” see Haq, “Human Condition in Islam,” pp. 160–61, in which Haq refers to looking for the “proper parts” of a religion, so as to make comparison between two religions less ambiguous. Says he, “In comparisons . . . we must first

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To learn about the concept of authority, Bruce Lincoln engages in his own comparative exercise, looking at three historical examples sufficiently close to our cultural tradition yet far enough away to gain the necessary perspective: the assembly (agore) of the Homeric Greeks, the Roman Senate, and the Germanic Thing,27 each a place where authority was exercised and where it was challenged. He draws on texts which “enjoyed considerable authority within the societies that produced them, that is, their audiences put their trust in these accounts and listened to them attentively, permitting their words to act on them.”28 But in order to get a fair understanding of how these texts acted authoritatively in their contexts, Lincoln regarded the texts as authoritative for him, too. Says he, I am willing to grant these same texts a certain degree of authority at second hand and make use of them, not for the recovery of ‘actual events,’ but for the elucidation of what authority was and how it operated within these societies. I trust that these texts said things which their audiences found credible and which we may therefore take to reflect with some accuracy the sociopolitical processes and authority effects with which those people were familiar.29

Lincoln’s treatment brings out an important point in the comparative process: to get at what really is consequential, one must get at and respect the integrity of that which is unequivocal, uncompromisable, indeed, irreducible—in other words, authoritative—in the tradition being studied. Only in this way will we be able to approach the impact of an idea, a person, a ritual, a symbol etc. in the life of the community under comparison. Identifying the authority in order to get at the most authentic voice for the religion or aspect under study, was addressed in a thematic issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, devoted to the question “Who speaks for Hinduism?”30 The question, “Who

examine how two given elements from two given systems function within the system to which they each belong, and whether they each form a proper part of that system; only then will we be in a position to compare them meaningfully.” 27 Lincoln, Authority, 12. The Germanic, or Norse, Thing, was a place or institution in Scandinavian society where legal disputes were brought for resolution, p. 56. 28 Lincoln, Authority. 29 Lincoln, Authority. 30 See above n. 26.

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speaks for . . .?” is laden with methodological tensions at the heart of how we study religion, and, for our purposes, for how we compare religions. It draws out the tensions between the “confessional” and “objective” approaches to the study and comparison of religions, between “theological and social scientific methodologies,” between the “phenomenological claim to ‘irreducibility’ of the object of study and reductionism in its many forms,” and between “teaching religion and teaching ‘about religion’.”31 The range of responses to the complex question, “Who speaks for Hinduism?,” are more than what this paper aims to raise. However, I do wish to refer to the article by Douglas Brooks, “Taking Sides and Opening Doors: Authority and Integrity in the Academy’s Hinduism.”32 Brooks says that whether it is as a practitioner of a religion looking out or a scholar of the religion looking in, it is the audience who establishes and tests the authoritorial integrity of the speaker. Says he, The question ‘Who speaks for Hinduism?’ belongs as much to scholars as it does to Hindus. It is the selected audience who creates the authority of whomever is doing the speaking, and that audience undoubtedly has its own dynamic, history, agenda, and bias. Authority so ‘delegated’ is a moving target as much as we might like to believe that truths endure and untruths eventually fail or vanish. Further, a person may speak with more than one agenda, or for more than one audience, or for multiple reasons. In our zeal to speak the truth or present the evidence, we need to remember that scholarship is not a religion antagonistic to religion. The same person may speak with authority or with multiple agendas in any number of different settings. The point is simply that people are held accountable within each context, sometimes by very different criteria and standards. The consequences of a scholarly viewpoint may be as offensive to some religious people as any other dissonant or disagreeable view.33

The audience, according to Brooks, is the authority. The audience determines what is legitimate and correct. This location of authority in the audience instead of in the speaker appears to flip the

31 32 33

Caldwell and Smith, “Who Speaks for Hinduism?”, in Journal . . ., p. 706. Brooks, in Journal . . . p. 120. Brooks, Journal . . ., p. 822. Italics mine.

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a-symmetrical relationship set by Lincoln, who says it is the speaker who is the authority. In reality, Lincoln and Brooks say the same thing. For in order for the speaker to have authority, the audience must grant it. Thus, when I study the iconic role of sacred texts by comparing the Qur’an with the Lotus Sutra, two texts people need not understand or even read for the texts to have an effect upon Muslims and Mahayanists, respectively, I respect the integrity of Muslim and Mahayanist believers who are willing to grant authority to the Qur’an and Lotus Sutra to hold sway over them, to effect them. So the believers, the rationale they give for taking the Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra as authoritative for them, must be respected by the scholar. The scholar is in an a-symmetric relationship to the believers; for the scholar grants authority to the believers. The scholar as audience gives authority to the believers, as speaker. For the scholar to reduce the rationale of believers for why they take the Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra as authoritative to that which they do not recognize—to psychology, sociology, politics, etc.—is not to take their rationale as authoritative. The audience (the scholar), in effect, denies the speaker (the believers) authority. As such, the scholar weakens the integrity of the believers and also weakens the impact that the Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra is seen to have on the Muslim and Mahayanist, respectively, and, conceivably, on the scholar herself. The believers’ rationale, however, is, nevertheless, put within the historical, and socio-political context of the believers, so as to approach more closely the authentic significance and meaning of the believers’ understanding. The way in which a Muslim youngster in a madrasa (Islamic school) takes the Qur’an as iconic is different from the way a Shia takes it when he commemorates the murder of Husayn. To state the various speaker/audience relationships addressed here, the following can be identified: a) there is the authority of the Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra for their respective believers. The Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra are the speakers; those who honor and follow them are the believers, the audience. The believers trust in the texts as authoritative for them; b) then there are the believers who are the speakers and the scholar is the audience. The scholar trusts, respects, honors the authority, the integrity, the rationale of the believers; c) then there is the context. The context is taken as authoritative by the scholar, for it gives meaning, authenticity, to what the believers

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say. The scholar trusts the voice of the context in order to carry out valid comparisons between differing sets of believers; d) then there is the scholar, who is the speaker, and his authority comes, or is given to him, by the audience. The authority of the audience bears upon the scholar; for should the scholar disqualify the rationale of the believers, reduce it to what the audience does not recognize, the scholar loses her voice, her authority to speak for the tradition. The scholar gains authority as speaker when the scholar, the comparativist, honors the authority of the believers; scholar and believers, speaker and audience operate in a mutually reflexive manner. It seems, therefore, that in the comparative enterprise, in the act of comparing one aspect in a religion with the same aspect in another religion to come to a greater understanding of a vaguer category, that those who are speaking authoritatively for the religion will have their words taken at face value (hence the truth claims are not questioned), but at the same time their words will be evaluated against the context to which they are being applied, in order that the aspects being compared are placed in their proper contexts, and, thus, receive their appropriate and authentic meaning.34 This anchoring of the speaker’s words in context is not to demand that the speaker persuade the audience, which, in Lincoln’s words, would reduce the speaker’s authoritorial status. It is just that the audience, the context, now as authoritative, is respected for what makes for relevant or appropriate or contextually authentic speech. Comparison is not unilateral, but a dialogue between two authorities, between speaker and audience. To see how authority relates to the comparative process, it may be best to walk through the comparative process to see where it comes into play. When we compare, we take an aspect or category of religion and look at how that aspect or category is found in another religion. Then, from studying how these aspects or categories compare and contrast, we shed light on a broader, encompassing third variable that we wish to understand better. In the “Comparative Religious Ideas Project,” to which I have referred, Robert Neville and Wesley Wildman define comparison this way:

34

Refer again to Nomanul Haq. See footnote 26.

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david cave The shortest possible version of our conception of comparison is the following. In any comparison, the things compared are compared in some respect. The ‘respect of comparison’ is a vague category. So, for instance, to compare religious traditions or texts in respect of what they say about the human condition is to treat the human condition as a vague category that is made specific in different ways by what the traditions or their representatives say about it.35

The project takes three purposely “vague” concepts in religious studies—the Human Condition, Religious Truth, and Ultimate Realities— and, comparing what the Chinese, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions have to say about these concepts, seeks to arrive at a fuller understanding of these concepts. The authors of each tradition draw upon core texts in the religious tradition. Whether the author is a believer or not, in either case the author takes authoritatively what the tradition, or the texts, have to say about these concepts. That is, the comparativist takes as trustworthy what the texts and adherents have to say about this concept. The comparativist does not need to be persuaded by the claims of the texts, by what the text might say about the human condition, for example. In fact, she should not expect the claims to persuade her necessarily, for the claims are arbitrary; they get their rationale and legitimacy within the context of its particular religious tradition. The “Comparative Religious Ideas Project” focuses on philosophical and theological ideas. The same need to respect authority applies if the comparative process were to center on more concrete concepts of a tradition, such as initiation, ritual, sacrifice, priesthood, divination, sacred space and time, etc. Whatever the category compared, it is important to take as authoritative that category or concept as it exists in each of the traditions compared, in order to have a rightful equation. So, to compare, say, the significance of scripture for affecting human action in Christianity and Islam, it is a false equation to accept the Bible as the word of God in Christianity but take the Qur’an as the product of Mohammed: the Bible is given transcendent legitimation while the Qur’an is taken as a historical creation, a cultural artifact for establishing Arab unity. The words of the Bible are taken as untainted by human machinations for

35

Neville and Wildman, Religious Truth, p. 4.

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power; whereas the Qur’an is taken as the product of human and, therefore, flawed motivations.36 For the comparativist, not to take as authoritative what the audience regards as authoritative—that both the Qur’an and the Bible are divine discourses—but, instead, to explain either or both as a historical, sociological, or psychological product, is to, in Lincoln’s terms, turn the authority into an argument, to take it to the level of persuasion. As a result, the comparativist minimizes the arbitrariness of the religious claims, thus diminishing the impact, the consequence, the challenge that the authority makes upon one. To take away the authority, the arbitrariness, is to reduce that category, that expression in the religious tradition, to something else, to something that is persuasive to the outsider. The comparativist, in short, is made the authority, as the one who governs the rationale, the discourse, on what is truly so. Within a religious tradition, however, the locus of authority is not the same for everyone. The divide between those who have a more open view of canon and tradition from those whose view is more closed, suggests a difference of where the authority resides. For Christians or Muslims who are open to taking the authoritativeness of the Bible and the Qur’an, respectively, out of the realm of the divine and placing it within the human realm, the authoritative is still there; it is just not placed outside the human realm. The arbitrariness and consequentialness of authority in the within-the-humanrealm position can still be there, in like manner as the arbitrary claims of myth arise from its blurred historical origins: “we have always done it this way from time immemorial.” The comparativist, therefore, is to be attuned to the kind of audience she is studying and to the audience’s presuppositions for what they perceive as authoritative. So, if the Qur’an is taken as a human product by a particular group of Muslims, an audience within Christianity that takes the Bible as a human product must be found. From there, having a balanced equation, the comparativist can see the effect of the Bible and the Qur’an as paradigmatic and transcendent—albeit not divine—

36

Wilfred Cantwell Smith probes the assumptions of believers and scholars on the provenance of the Qur’an and the Bible in his essay, “Is the Qur’an the World of God?” in Smith, Religious Diversity.

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authorities for the discourse, practices, community, and institutions of a particular group of Christians and Muslims. Whether as a divine or human product, the Bible and the Qur’an are authorities from which the adherents of Christianity and Islam get their meaning. Moreover, the authority establishes the hierarchy against which less important components or texts in Islam and Christianity are ranked. “The scriptures of certain traditions are ranked according to their level of spiritual authority,” says Barbara Holdrege.37 And adds, “in such cases the primary criterion for ranking is generally an ontological distinction in which those scriptures that are held to be a divine revelation or direct cognition of reality are ranked as most sacred and authoritative, above scriptures that were composed by inspired human authors.”38 The team of scholars in the “Comparative Religious Ideas Project,” focus on the principal texts of each tradition as a way to arrive at (the) core positions in the religion studied, and thus at what is authoritative. Indeed, one of the objectives of comparison is to separate the important from the trivial.39 Not to arrive at the authoritative is to weaken the comparative enterprise and the capacity for it to yield significant comparisons. By its very definition, authority is consequential. It does not need to persuade or coerce. It is effectual simply by being taken as it expresses itself. Wrestle with it and you get at the heart of the matter. By focusing on the authoritative, however, that does not mean that we cannot and do not compare lesser components in the hierarchy. It is only that comparing the lesser yields less than substantial change, dialogue, and progress. Of course, we often must start with lesser aspects, the more peripheral, before we move to the authoritative; but we should at least be moving in the direction of the authoritative. For instance, if we intend to study the iconic nature of sacred texts, posing the question, “Why are sacred texts, using the Qur’an, the Bible, and the Lotus Sutra, as examples, capable of being author-

37

Holdrege, “The Bride of Israel,” in Levering, ed. Rethinking Scripture, p. 182. Holdrege, “The Bride of Israel.” She adds that this ranking does not always hold in practice. p. 240, n. 3. 39 Neville, Religious Truths, p. 3. 38

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itative for those within a tradition without every having been read, understood, or even opened? That is, what is the material significance of sacred texts?”, we would not get much insight if we merely, and straightaway, said, “Because believers claim these texts to be of divine origin.” It would be more insightful and productive if we first studied the perceptions of text, writing, codices, and canon, etc. in the history of the tradition before moving to the texts’ divine provenance, to the rationale most believers would give for these texts’ authoritative status. On the other hand, it is better at times to go straightaway to what is preponderant in a tradition, passing over secondary components, if we are to get at the authoritative, at the most consequential. Wendy Doniger, in comparing Western to Indian views of myth and dreams, draws on “the most dramatic (and often the most extreme) antithesis within each culture.”40 For, she adds, “to show the contrast between what most people think and what philosophers think, not only in the West but in India, and . . . to show the contrast between what most people think in India and what most people think in the West . . . one is necessarily led to concentrate on the famous Western credos,”41 that is, on what is most broadly authoritative. Focusing on sacred texts in the comparative process is an oft chosen way to look for the authoritative in a given religious tradition.42 Miriam Levering identifies four ways by which scriptures or sacred texts are distinguished from all other texts within a tradition, thus qualifying them as authoritative: Scriptures are authoritative, 1) for the allegations made about their origin and ontological status. “. . . they are believed to be revealed by transhuman powers, to convey eternal truths, or to replicate the speech of the gods;” 2) for their functional purposes: “they are used as normative or authoritative bases for communal life . . .;” 3) for how they are regarded: “they are treated as ‘sacred,’ that is, powerful and inviolable;” 4) for the way they are received: for the way “people respond to the texts, the uses they make of them, the contexts in which they turn to them, their understandings of what it is to read them, or to understand them,

40

Doniger O’Flaherty. Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities, p. 9. Doniger O’Flaherty, Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities. 42 That is why the Comparative Religious Ideas Project chose to focus on the principal scriptures of the traditions being studied. Neville, Religious Truths, xviii. 41

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and the roles they find such words and texts can have in their religious projects.”43 Sacred texts can also transmit their authority through their iconic status as a material object. The Qur’an, the Lotus Sutra, the Torah, Veda, the Bible, the Guru Granth Sahib, have expressed iconic status throughout history. The texts need not be read, understood, even opened to convey authority.44 Within and among religious traditions, there are, in addition, other or different authoritative “texts,” particularly when we consider nonliterate cultures. Aside from the oral tradition, Larry Sullivan refers to other non-textual transmitters of authority—such as music, canoe making, pottery, house construction, dreams, weeping, sounds and shadows, and the human body.45 Determining the locus of authority within a religious tradition is part of the comparative process as we try to find the most compatible vocabulary and components between two religions. So, for instance, as a center of authority, it is more accurate to equate the Qur’an with Jesus and the Hadith with the New Testament than it is to equate the Qur’an with the Bible and Jesus with Mohammed.46 When we compare religious texts, then, we evaluate their authoritativeness and look at how the perception of their authoritativeness has been upheld in the respective tradition. We also look at how 43

Levering, “Scripture and its Reception,” in Levering, Rethinking Scripture, pp. 58–59. It is not merely the content, then, which makes the sacred text authoritative, but how the text functions within the community. Barbara Holdrege makes this point strongly in her Veda and Torah, by emphasizing scripture’s “cosmological dimension,” meaning that scripture gets its authority for how it “embodies” the divine as a “living aspect,” and also, on a more mundane level, for how it articulates the structure of reality, the order of society and its performances, through the “divine language” of the text. Holdrege, Veda and Torah, pp. 16–17. The text is authoritative for what it represents and constructs, not so much for what it says or who happened to have “written” it. Holdrege wants to move away from the text simply as holy writ and as oral, pp. 3–5. 44 We find this iconic status in Buddhism well expressed in the following guide, found in the back of a book on Tibetan Buddhism that advises the reader on the care of Dharma books: “Dharma books contain the teachings of the Buddha; they have the power to protect against lower rebirth and to point the way to liberation. Therefore, they should be treated with respect—kept off the floor and places where people sit or walk—and not stepped over. They should be covered or protected for transporting and kept in a high, clean place separate from more ‘mundane’ materials,” and continues, Dalai Lama, World of Tibetan Buddhism. 45 Sullivan, “Seeking an End to the Primary Text,” in Beyond the Classics?, Reynolds and Burkhalter eds., p. 58. 46 Smith, Religious Diversity, p. 24.

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that authoritativeness has permeated the tradition, in its ritual, art and architecture, soteriology, ethics, perceptions of the Other, etc. By comparing sacred texts, one of the most identifiable centers of authority within a tradition, we get at, not just at what is core to the religion, but at the supporting structures that give and uphold the texts as authoritative and the effect of these texts throughout and upon the tradition. As it has been stated, whenever we deal with the authoritative, our comparison of religions becomes more fruitful. There will always be authorities within the religions studied and within our own position. Authority is the platform upon which ideas and values rest, from which they spring into new ideas and values, and upon which confidences in judgment are based. To rely on authority does not mean there are no more open-ended questions, that the book has somehow been closed, as in the boundedness of canon. Rather, authority, while always there, is not always there in the same way. Texts, practices, institutions, discourses, all travel within and among traditions, across and through time. In so doing, they become different. Comparable to what Edward Said said about theories, that, though they may dissipate in their relevance as they travel to different contexts, only to be revitalized and reframed by their engagement with new social and political conditions,47 so do authorities come out restyled and revised, but still definable in their general parameters, as they come into new settings and face new comparative strategies, hence the importance that dialogue and comparison have and the anchoring of authority in its context. The Pope is a different authoritative figure in the United States than he is in Italy. The story of the Buddha’s enlightment took on different degrees and expressions of authoritativeness as it traveled from India to Japan. When we come up against authorities in the comparative process, we must not get stuck over truth claims or butt truth claims against each other—“the Bible is of God; the Qur’an is not.”48 Instead, our orientation should be one of empathy, of standing back to see the authority in its network of relationships. Positioning authority this way takes it out of its naked, blunt isolationism and puts it instead

47 Said, “Traveling Theory,” in Edward Said Reader, Bayoumi and Rubin, eds., pp. 195ff. 48 See Smith’s essay on this polarization, “Is the Qur’an the Word of God?” in Smith, Religious Diversity.

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into a family of associations, which serves to show its interrelatedness, interdependence, and place, for without these associations it would not be anchored in history, but would be an abstraction, wholly other—thus beyond our capacity to understand it.49 It would be alien. Whenever and however an authority is contextualized, it is important to recognize that when we draw out a tradition’s authority or authorities, we are addressing that which, for the fact that the authority permeates multiple components of the tradition, envelops the adherent in a network of meaning, emotions, actions, and historical associations involving discourse, rituals, beliefs, moods, personal and corporate traditions, visions and reflections, and questions of ethics and boundaries. There is much that swirls around a practitioner’s authority. There is a whole range of emotions, perspectives, experiences, beliefs and practices linked to it. I realized this network of emotive and conceptual associations that come attached to an authority when I was talking with a colleague who could not grasp that I do not regard Christianity as the preeminent religion. As I explored the implications of some of his tenets (his authorities), which, to some degree he was willing to modify, he soon realized that by modifying these tenets one by one the religious orientation he had held for a number of years began to be, in his view, dismantled. Naturally feeling uncomfortable with that dismantling, he turned to me, wandering if I had any authority (-ies) of my own, and asked if I at least held to the authority of a belief in God. This exchange demonstrated to me not how and that we are to dismantle an adherent’s authority, but how it is that when comparison is undertaken, particularly when confessional stances come into play, people bring a whole emotive, epistemic, and historical body of associations to the table that must be taken into account when evaluating the consequential impact of their authoritative structure.50

49 Jonathan Z. Smith frames the issue as when religious phenomena are claimed to be “unique.” See his study, Drudgery Divine, p. 35ff. 50 Rene Gothoni, writing on the comparative enterprise, speaks of the network of associations that come into play when one seeks to understand a religious orientation, and when comparing another religion with it. So when he studies Jewish and Buddhist monks, he aims as much as possible, using a range of tools, to enter into their world, and determine how he feels within in, and, if he would, to remain in it, Attitudes and Interpretations, pp. 38–41.

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Keith Ward refers to a belief system’s authoritative structures as “basic principles.” “Basic principles” serve as the “practical certainties” needed to live out a meaningful and workable belief system, in an otherwise uncertain world. Says Keith Ward, It is difficult to lay out the conditions under which one may be justifiably certain . . . One’s whole outlook in philosophy, morality, art, and religion tends to be governed by some basic principles, from which more particular judgments are derived, in conjunction with particular experiential beliefs. When one gets back to such basic principles it is hard to see what they, in turn, could be derived from. Philosophers tend to argue for them in terms of such criteria as the richness, adequacy, and fruitfulness of the conceptual schemes which they generate. Such criteria are themselves disputable, however, and so it often turns out that one will accept a scheme if it is a workable framework which one has learned from an early age and if its foundational principles seem simple and persuasive, and so not raise great problems when applied to the data of experience. Such principles will be certain, in that they form the basis of a whole scheme; they are the framework within which one thinks and acts in these areas. They are not unquestionable, but if one questions them one is questioning a whole system of particular judgments, not merely some isolated particular judgment.51

Ward says these “principles,” these authorities, are not unquestionable. But they just as well might be for the epistemic and experiential load they carry, that if questioned, could destabilize the whole system.52 “If you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoining,” says Saul Bellow’s Augie March, implying the interconnection of things.53 Through comparison it is possible to draw out the authoritative structures behind a religion’s belief system, way of practice, community and religious institutions, those elements in a religion by which the practitioners conceptualize a workable and experientially affirming worldview.54 That is why dialogue, “structured empathy,”55 and the willingness to be “penetrated” by the other,56 to have the demands

51

Ward, Religion and Revelation, p. 8. Italics Mine. Bruce Lincoln speaks of the inherent precariousness of authority that gets its validation from religious truth claims. For if a religious truth claim is undercut, the legitimacy of the authority is undermined. Lincoln, Authority, p. 113. 53 Bellow, Adventures of Augie March, p. 3. 54 Smith, “Comparative Religion,” in History of Religions, Eliade and Kitagawa, eds., p. 48. 55 Smart, Worldviews, p. 20. 56 Brooks in Journal, p. 818, and Neville and Wildman, in Religious Truths, p. 205. 52

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of the text, of the authority, to act upon the scholar, are so critical in the comparative process. It is not that we are to buy into truth claims (for that is beyond the province of the history of religions). Rather, the authoritative, in acting upon us, can help us come to a new understanding of our own experience, of our own categories, and of the vocabulary we use. The comparative process, Neville and Wildman remind us, is ongoing. It is a circular path of even more refined and probing understandings.57 There are problematics with focusing on the authority. By zeroing in on the authoritative we may not be sufficiently prepared to deal with it meaningfully. It is approached with less than a full quiver of appropriate methodologies, facts, and perspectives. We get overwhelmed. It is too unwieldy. So our efforts become futile and frustrating. If we were to compare the Qur’an with the Lotus Sutra on the subject of the text as a symbol, an icon, a material, self-authenticating authoritative source within a religious tradition, it does not serve to go straight to comparing the Qur’an as the literal word of God and the Lotus Sutra as the embodiment of the Divine Law. To compare at this level is to take on the authorities straight out, to deal squarely with what is uncompromising. Instead, we can look first at the ways each text has been expressed within its tradition, how each has been upheld as authoritative, and the references in the text that sustain this view. The Qur’an says three hundred times that it is a text to be recited.58 The Lotus Sutra says that one is to “accept, uphold, read, and recite” it, “memorize it correctly, practice and transcribe it . . .”59 So in the Nara and Heian periods in Japan, it was the most copied Buddhist text of any other.60 Comparing the way in which the Qur’an and the Lotus Sutra articulated their authoritativeness through cultural means, rather than by comparing whether and how they are true in the metaphysical sense, enables the comparative process to deal with each text as an authority, showing how authoritativeness is articulated through culture.

57

Neville, Religious Truths, p. 4. See Graham’s essay, “Earliest Meaning of Qur’an,” in which he says that the earliest meaning of the Qur’an is that which was meant to be recited “aloud,” such that the “recurring imperative Qul!, “Say,” occurs three hundred times; in, Qur’an, Style and Contents, p. 165. 59 The Lotus Sutra. Trans. by Watson, p. 323. 60 Kornicki, Book in Japan, pp. 83, 87. 58

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Moreover, a problematic with focusing on the authoritative is that it can put us up against obstacles, intransigence. Because the authoritative is held unquestionably, we can potentially engage in a fruitless comparative enterprise, going nowhere, because there is no room for analysis, self-analysis, or compromise. There is no desire to move toward a synthesized new understanding; each side claims its authority as the absolute truth. Comparison becomes not to advance knowledge but to state positions, to make threats, or to close discussion into retreat. Authority becomes obstructionist. Another problematic is to mix authority with persuasion or coercion. That is, one side settles into persuasion and reductionism while the other sticks with the authority as authoritative, not reducing it to something else. If two religions or aspects are compared phenomenologically, that is, taking the believer’s point of view, then the believer’s point of view of each religion must be respected. If a reductionistic explanation is resorted to, such as explaining a phenomenon sociologically, then the sociological method must be applied to both religions. Phenomenology and reductionism need not be antagonistic to each other, says Arvind Sharma. They can complement and supplement each other.61 The important point is to keep the terms of engagement equal. Similarly, there can hardly be fruitful comparison if one religion or aspect overrides the other, aiming to be the dominant position, without there being any compromise, or adjustment for moving forward. It is easy for an authoritative position, because it is authoritative, to monopolize and dominant, to coerce. This coercion, or patronization, can happen when one position, religion, or aspect is claimed to be unique while the other position, religion, or aspect is taken to be conventional. The purpose of comparison, in the end, is to advance knowledge, to help us come to a better understanding of a particular religious idea, to find how two religious positions might address a particular human problem, to refine a methodology and a vocabulary, and to enrich our spiritual and creative lives, among other objectives. All involve moving forward in some way, not just to compare and contrast for the purpose of defining each side’s position—though that is

61 Sharma, “What is Reductionism?” in Religion and Reductionism, Idinopulos and Yonan, eds., p. 137.

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a valuable preliminary step. It is in dealing with that which is defined as authoritative, and respecting it as authoritative, as trustworthy and consequential, that the act of comparison itself becomes consequential, for the advancement of knowledge and for our own development. In our world today, of too many authorities (violently) confronting each other, it is important that we learn how to understand and engage with the authoritative in a way that leads to the enrichment, not the destruction, of the human community.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MOTHERING PRINCIPLE IN THE COMPARISON OF RELIGIONS Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos . . . a matured comparative method is as much concerned with determining where comparisons should not be made as with drawing conclusions from comparisons instituted. —Morris Jastrow The Study of Religion (1902)

I Comparing religions is a dangerous business best avoided. This is true for a number of reasons. The religious people I have known, the truly religious (rarely professors of religious studies), do not compare religion to anything, much less to another religion which they would almost certainly find deficient when compared to their own.1 Kierkegaard spoke of religious truth as “subjectivity” and made a point of saying, “practice your faith and keep quiet about it.” The implication: for better or worse the study of religion, including the comparison of different religions, is an intellectual endeavor carriedout by people who need not have any practical religious faith of their own.2 Recently, without explanation, Miami University’s Department of Religion (in which I teach) renamed itself the Department of Comparative Religion. The name change seems to bestow a certain scientific or social scientific status and prestige on my department. Yet we offer no courses in comparative religion per se and what courses we offer on religious studies methodology fall short of “comparative religion.” 1

See Sharpe, Comparative Religion and Bouquet, Comparative Religion. This point of keeping quiet about one’s religious faith is stressed by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. 2

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This brings me to a point; the phrase, “comparative religion,” if it means anything should mean comparing actual religions. Yet anyone who has struggled for years to master the elements of one or two religions, cannot but see comparing different religions as a task fraught with peril. Max Müller, commenting on the complex demands of religion scholarship, wrote: “He who knows one religion, knows none.”3 Most of us would respond by admitting we know none. And in truth we know none because there is so much to learn. After all any living religion continues to live, grow, and change, long after we’ve read books about that religion. Therefore, there are always more books to read and write. The known dead or defunct religions, like Mithraism, about which there could be fixed knowledge, are few in number. The problem of knowledge is compounded when the task of comparison assumes knowledge of more than a dozen religions. Who among us can speak of knowing even a half-dozen different religions which could be brought into some meaningful and legitimate (not superficial and bogus) comparison? In this respect consider a simple, accurate definition of religion offered to us by Samuel Sandmel. In his brief and also bright book, We Jews and Jesus, Sandmel writes: “A religion is . . . a complex of more than just theological viewpoints, for a religion has its own tone and texture which arise from its history, its group experience, its mores and norms, and even its folkways.”4 Assuming Sandmel’s definition and then moving to compare the theology, tone and texture, the history of group experience, the mores and norms and folkways, and doing all this of a living and changing religion—of not only one religion but of two or three— well then (I ask) who has time to talk or read the newspaper? Nobody knew this better than Sir James George Frazer, who (if the anecdote can be trusted) had written into his marriage contract that the only days he need be absent from his study were Christmas and Easter.5 We commonly try to short-circuit the problem of our humanly limited knowledge by focusing on a set of questions or considera-

3 Müller, Introduction to the Science of Religion, cited in Sharpe, Comparative Religion, p. 31. 4 Sandmel, We Jews and Jesus, p. 111. 5 This anecdote was related to me by my colleague Wayne Elzey, Professor of Comparative Religion, Miami University of Ohio.

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tions stated beforehand and applied to the religions under comparative scrutiny. This “short-circuiting” usually takes one of two forms. The first is the pedestrian way of approaching religion as a matter of comparing the belief-contents of different religions, using the familiar formula: “Buddhists believe . . . Christians believe . . . Hindus believe . . . Jews believe. . . .” Of course there is no problem to draw up lists of different religious beliefs or teachings and compare the lists. What such lists have to do with actually comparing religions is uncertain, and in my opinion the comparison invites superficiality and misunderstanding. For the belief-content of any given religion is only one aspect of the religion, and not necessarily the most important aspect. The second way of short-circuiting knowledge is the pseudo-phenomenological practice of identifying certain religious patterns and comparing religions by the way in which these patterns are exemplified. For example, take the “pattern” of pilgrimage. One could examine Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism by the way in which pilgrimage is exemplified in that religion. This approach is more sophisticated because it does not limit itself to a narrowly intellectual (“What is believed”) approach and seems to reach out to the “mores and norms and folkways” of religion. But I refer to this as the pseudo-phenomenological approach because the “phenomenon” under scrutiny is not an element of an actual religion (something both particular and complex) but rather the artificially constructed category labeled “pilgrimage.” The weakness of this approach (what justifies calling it “pseudo-phenomenology”) lies in that what appears to be an historical-empirical approach to religious practice and expression, is actually a covert form of idealism or dogmatism. Consider, for example, the so-called “sacred tree” pattern; it is pre-selected by the scholar and then employed as a form by which to render intelligible a given religion and to facilitate the comparison of one religion to another. Whether that form or pattern actually renders religion and the comparison of religions intelligible is not a matter decided by empirical-historical investigation. The fact that “sacred tree” appears in one or more religion gives the impression that this form must appear in every religion. Intelligibility seems to be decided formally, according to the terms of the schema. In other words, religion’s intelligibility appears to be dogmatically decided by schematic fiat. In addition to the problem of knowledge there is the problem of sameness and differences. We can agree that sameness tells us little

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or nothing and that without differences and comparison of differences, we would know little.6 Having said that let us here agree to some common-sense logical truisms. Totally dissimilar things cannot be compared because there is no basis of comparison. A wholly unique religion certainly cannot be compared with another wholly unique religion. But there is no wholly unique religion or anything else wholly unique that falls within the limits of knowledge. Yet we do use the word “unique” with meaning. We do so because we can acknowledge uniqueness without diminishing the qualities of sameness and differences. We can best illustrate this point by referring to art. No one doubts that it makes sense to refer to a given work of art as unique whether the artist is famous or unknown, expert or amateur. Uniqueness or “one-of-a-kindness” attaches to a work of art because it came from the mind and hands, from creative endeavor, of a particular individual—an artist. Uniqueness bears the hallmarks of origination or originality. It is also true that we can discuss a unique piece of art work in terms of the elements that entered into its creation; these elements are formal: the use of light, color, shading, tone, composition, perspective, depiction, mood, effects, and a host of others. The “originality” of a given work of art has to do with how uniquely the formal elements are wielded by the artist. My point is that the necessary presence of these formal elements in any and every work of art, however unique or original the example, makes the comparison of art works possible. If uniqueness in art bestows something of the mysterious, the ineffable, then the formal elements of artistic creation provide the intelligible or comparable and knowable dimensions of art. What is compared is not the art work qua uniqueness but the art work qua comparableness. To apply my point to religion through the analogy to art, I should say that religion has both its unique, mysterious, incomparable aspects, and its formal or formalistic elements that render religion intelligible as religion and make comparison among different religions possible. We can organize the formalistic elements around such binaries as: power and powerlessness; matter and spirit; revelation and his-

6 On classifying as an inevitable method of rendering religion rationally intelligible see Smith, Drudgery Divine, especially chapter two; and Jastrow, The Study of Religion, p. 94.

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tory; eternity and time; prophecy and priesthood; infinite and finite; knowledge and ignorance; error and truth; sin and salvation; divine and human; location and dislocation; sacred and profane. I should say that religion is recognizable as religion and that religions (which are otherwise unique in their content) can be compared as to sameness and differences according to how these binaries actually have shaped the contents of any given religion. An understanding of these binaries in religion would be achieved empirically, through description of the actual practices of the religion. My approach to religion here is genuinely phenomenological in combining both historicalempirical (descriptive) and interpretive functions of inquiry. The methods of such an inquiry must include epoche (as Joachim Wach talked about it) and the pursuit of eidetic vision or intuitive sense of the whole as shown in the works of M. Eliade and G. van der Leeuw.7 Further it seems to me that there need be no quarrel in religious study between area studies specialists and religious studies comparativists because both endeavors are basically descriptive. I would suggest that more adequate comparison of religion is possible the more one knows empirically about religions. This means that area studies logically should precede comparison as “data” upon which the comparativist draws. What is to be avoided is methodological imperialism, as I would call it. Methodological imperialism occurs when a scholar presumes to stand above religions, personally committed to none, and “value-free,” when the scholar presumes to decide which religion best exemplifies the formal elements. Imperialism occurs when, for example, “spirit” or “sacred” or “infinite” goes beyond a descriptive category of meaning and becomes a controlling value in an evolutionary schema of religions. II If religion is the voice of humanity speaking, then humanity speaks in many voices.8 Anyone trying to understand the emergence of Christianity out of Judaism, and of Islam out of both Judaism and Christianity, will appreciate that religion, certainly monotheistic reli-

7 See Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion; Van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation; Wach, Sociology of Religion; and Long, Significations. 8 See Bouquet, Comparative Religion.

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gion, is humanity speaking in many voices. The reason has to do with the richly complex and layered structure of religion, which includes, history, culture, geography, economics, politics, the past, the present, and future time. We can gain a sense of the immense complexity of religion by recognizing, for example, that the emergence of Christianity out of Judaism had less to do with the fact that Jesus was a Jew than the process by which Jesus was divinized in the period following his death. Without that process of divinization the fellowship that gathered around Jesus would have amounted to little more than one of the many Jewish sects that arose in first century Roman-governed Palestine and then died out with the execution of their leaders (see below my essay on the emergence of Christianity from Judaism). The act of comparing Judaism and Christianity requires us to go beyond the consideration of merely formal elements like the belief contents of the two religions into an inquiry about how Christianity emerged as a religion out of Judaism, and how Judaism continued to be a religion separate and distinct from Christianity. A formal statement of the differences and similarities of belief among Jews and Christians does not touch on the central question of the emergence of one religion from the other. Understanding the historical process of emergence is crucial to any useful comparison of religions. Recognizing the sheer difficulty of gaining adequate knowledge to make comparisons forces us to take seriously the limits of comparison itself. Nothing is to be gained by ignoring the historical context in which a religion is born, grows, and continues to develop. The most fruitful comparisons of religions are those in which the historical context is respected. This means that every religion has a mother. Judaism mothered Christianity; Judaism and Christianity together mothered Islam. Comparing Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as three exemplifications of ethical monotheism, points usefully to sameness and differences, continuities and discontinuities, between these three religions. On the other hand one should not suppose that any useful comparison can be made by comparing a religion of ethical monotheism to the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. The absence of historical context and the absence of a mothering principle remove the ground of comparison. The absence of such a ground exposes the vacuity of such old expressions as “world religions.” The only authentic world religions are those which have shaped their message and mission to appeal to adherents across ethnic or national lines.

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In that respect, whereas Christianity and Buddhism and Islam because of the international or non-national factor are world religions; Judaism (the religion of Jews) and Hinduism (the religion of Hindustanis) are technically not “world religions.” The evolution of one religion out of another is a complicated, protracted, painful, and wondrous event, like human birth. Such an event could not have occurred if the impetus for separation were not there in the mother religion. The daughter need not have found fault with the mother. No failing need be assumed in the birth of one religion from another. The birth of the new may be attributable to an inspired leader, to a fresh insight, to a revelation of some sort, to the discovery of a novel way to tackle a common human problem—or to some combination of these stimuli. The important point to be made here is that every religion has a maternal ground, a maternal ground that includes language, place, and time. The understanding of the evolution of the new from the pre-existing maternal ground must take all these factors into account. So it is that I conclude that one of the most important tasks in the comparison of religions is to study the birth process for the sake of understanding how the new and the old are connected, each to the other. These “connections” between religions are properly the subject of comparative religion studies. E. O. James, writing of the emergence of religion itself, well understands the importance of discerning these “connections.” After identifying birth and fertility, the food supply, and the seasonal sequence—death and the afterlife as the “foundations” out of which the ancient gods assumed their several forms and functions, James speaks of the achieved goal of the comparative task: “From these foundations the subsequent course of development and diffusion has been traced and the interconnection and correspondence between various elements in this complex and widespread structure of faith and practice have been determined.”9

9

See the preface of James, The Ancient Gods.

CHAPTER FIVE

THEATERS OF WORLDMAKING BEHAVIORS: PANHUMAN CONTEXTS FOR COMPARATIVE RELIGION William E. Paden The plea for radical contextualization in the study of religion has had its therapeutic necessity and effects. Yet the study of religion without connective, generalizing concepts only yields sets of unrelated data, with no continuity from one culture to another. For the postmodernist, there is little noticed about what recurs in human behavior, because human behavior is itself one of the suspect categories: Whose notions of human behaviors? Which humans are the models for human behavior? What is the social class, gender, or political orientation of the person who is describing human behavior and of the persons being described? To many, the notion of comparability seems simply not to have survived the erosive effect of these deconstructive interrogations. The challenge to comparability is genuine enough. Essentialist categories need to be exposed, cultural biases shaken, and religion needs to be seen as something real people do and not just as a floating topic. This is not to say that the topical approach is all wrong: The classical comparative study of religion did well to put the matter of recurring forms of myth and ritual on the table. Still, this brought problems of comparability, since comparativists seemed to be illustrating the meaning of those forms with examples deeply embedded in culture-specific significations. If one starts with culturally formed ideas taken from religious vocabularies it is hard to do stable comparative work unless one self-consciously chooses to compare crosscultural materials with clearly admitted cultural prototypes.1

1 As described by Saler, in Conceptualizing Religion. Methodological issues of applying religious concepts to different historical cultures are examined in depth in the three-volume Comparative Religious Ideas Project, ed. by Robert Cummings Neville and published by the State University of New York Press (2001).

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In this essay I propose that panhuman behavioral dispositions and functions, and not just religious topics, would be a good place to look for some bases of comparability. Panhuman can refer to what recurs cross-culturally, and it can also refer to evolved, species-specific, genetic dispositions for certain kinds of behavior, particularly our capacities for sociality. Without trying to adjudicate exactly what is cultural (or “learned”) and what is biological (or inherited genetic wiring), I do think that there are ways of construing patterns of religious worldmaking such that they can be shown to correlate generally with evolved biological or cognitive tendencies—that is, with our common organic ancestry. In this paper, then, I explore a model that can constitute a productive, mediating bridgework between our subject matter and the human sciences.2 Practitioners of the natural sciences would be amazed to find that postmodern humanities folks find nothing to compare between human cultures, considering that those cultures are all invented and sustained by the same species. I have also found this interpretive model3—to be developed below— a useful way, though not the only way, of contextualizing the posttheological study of religion in the contemporary, secular classroom.

2 This essay extends and amplifies an earlier sketch of these points published as “Universals Revisited,” 276–289, and anticipates a book-length treatment of the subject. I have been much inspired in this by Burkert’s ground-breaking Creation of the Sacred. Earlier influences included Fox’s work on “behavioral repertoires” and “grammars of behavior,” as in The Search for Society, 20ff., 116ff.; and Lopreato, Human Nature and Biocultural Evolution. Most books on human ethology, though, have little to say specifically about religion, for example, Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s immense compilation, Human Ethology. An exception is Hinde’s Why Gods Persist. The newer “cognition and religion” movement is of course also related to this approach, as in Atran’s In Gods We Trust, or Boyer’s Religion Explained, though they and other cognitivists focus more on the level of psychological computation and inference than on behavior. Although concentrating on explanatory issues, and thus different than my focus on comparative patterns, Sweek also calls for an ethological approach to religion in “Biology of Religion,” 196–218. An excellent overview of developments as they might concern the field of religious studies, is Geertz, “Cognitive Approaches to the Study of Religion,” 347–400. 3 I use the term “interpretive” deliberately. I do not enter into the huge jungle of scientific debates about the relative role of culture or learning in evolution, or about any particular evolutionary theory. I do try to shift some of our hermeneutical repertoire in a way that indicates points of continuity between the history of religions tradition and the findings of the natural sciences.

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Worldmaking as a Human Behavior Getting behind the cultural level to the human level means taking a big-picture, evolutionary view, stepping back from the particularities of religious contents and styles and looking at some of what seem to be our persistent behavioral infrastructures. This is not to limit our subject matter in some simplistic way: Humans not only select mates, defend territories, and make tools, but also construct and transmit language worlds, and accordingly build systems of science, art, and religion. We are world makers. “Behavior” in the broadest sense then means not just specialized actions such as canoe building but also includes the larger, “silent” group behaviors related to the formation of cultural worlds.4 In this panoramic scope, all civilization, including religion, is a theater of behavior, and we are its actors. Cross-cultural or macro-evolutionary patterns are invisible to the normal, culture-bound insider. It is natural to see the world through the boxed, insular categories of one’s own daily language. Even if our students are science majors, they live in a society that keeps science and religion in separate lexicons and compartments. Yet, awareness of the patterns that underlie cultural behavior, as studied by the evolutionary sciences, will help contextualize some of the otherwise kaleidoscopic variety that we see in the history of religion. These are the stabilizing and interactive patterns of social world building and communication. Among these panhuman, infrastructural commonalities is worldmaking itself.5 In naturalistic language, worldmaking is habitat making and environment formation. Habitative behavior is a mark of any organism. It provides stability and continuity by forming a relatively controlled environment over against an otherwise chaotic universe.

4 In referring to “group behaviors” I mean 1) the collective activities of sets of individuals for common causes and the precipitates of those activities in the form of language, values, technologies, and material culture that in turn significantly influence, motivate or constrain individual behavior, and 2) the sociality of the brain that is predisposed to collective loyalty, conformity, submission to authority, reciprocity, etc., as these all form relationships between one or more individuals. This does not imply that cultural contents are simply downloaded into individual minds. 5 I take the term partly from Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, whose philosophical considerations about “world versions” I share, but develop it in terms of social, religious, and ethological considerations.

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In this sense, the many human cultures and subcultures are all variants of the activity of environment selection, each with its language, social expectations, position in space, collective memory, and skills. Seeing cultures as habitats allows us to describe them both as natural eco-systems that are part of an evolutionary history and as systems of values and practices that have rich and interesting contents as experienced by their insiders. Looked at from the naturalistic, outsider’s viewpoint they appear as niches, enclaves, ecological populations, hives, versions of hominid environments—but from the insider’s viewpoint they are the world itself. From the outside, they look like stagings; from the inside, they are the stage, they are reality. This double perspective on worldmaking allows us to acknowledge the very great difference between the insider’s and comparativist’s viewpoints. To the inhabitant, the world is a singular experience and has an absoluteness; to the observer, it is an instance of common processes of construction and function. In this sense I find “worldmaking” an effective interpretive concept in the teaching process, providing a connective middle ground between the humanities and the natural sciences. Two realities are joined and become homologous in this notion: first, our biological inheritances as habitative life forms and social creatures who build niches in environments, and, second, our cultural inheritance as peoples who inhabit lived worlds of meaning (phenomenological notions of “life worlds” have a long and important pedigree here, and a relevant application). As humans, our roots are in both. We are hominids and we are also Muslims and Pure Land Buddhists; we are organisms, and we are also Ukrainians and Chinese. Worldmaking, then, is not just a matter of building something, but also of inhabiting something, as beavers build dams and inhabit them, and as bees build hives and structure their society within them. We make worlds, and having made them, become players in them. The worlds are then at once human products but also environmental objectivities that leverage styles of cognition and responsiveness.6 They

6 That a social construction can come to function as an objectivity, an ontology, is a basic concept in the sociology of knowledge, as summarized in Berger, The Sacred Canopy, chapter one. From a different, but very promising, cognitive science point of view, Day also examines ways cultural artifacts and practices can play a role in generating and maintaining religious cognition. See his “The Ins and Outs of Religious Cognition,” 241–255.

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can also be changed or modified. Classic notions of sacred space and sacred time easily fit into this approach, and continue to be effective illustrations of the subject in the classroom. Worldmaking, accordingly, can be seen as a group (and individual) behavior with variant cultural contents, and thus becomes a key comparative concept for the study of religion. That all groups form worlds is universal; the content of human worlds is cultural, in process, and always contextual from moment to moment. Likewise, that every group “invents” a past is universal; but the content of that past is always different from world to world, and even changes within the history of any one group. That groups invest certain objects with authority and charisma is universal; what the objects are is diverse. That groups defend and maintain their own order is universal, but what it is that constitutes “the order of things” varies completely. Social groupings within cultures form subworlds in their distinctive ways with their own expectations for behavior. Monasteries, marine training camps, chemistry labs, and tennis courts have their behavioral parameters and standards of performance. We alternate in such environments, each with its special terminologies and protocols. A world or subworld, here, is the horizon of language and behavioral expectation that any group, subgroup or individual assumes at any time for its frame of reference—a kind of theater in which roles are played out and a place where the forms and experiences of that world can have revelatory power for its inhabitants. Religious systems are such domains. Conceptually and methodologically, “world” does not imply fixed entities “out there.” It does not imply that there are independently existing worldview containers with edges and transmitted as “wholes.” Worlds are the ever-changing precipitates of processes of selection and transmission by which individuals chose imagined continuities from the past and versions of that past applied to the present. As an etic term, a world is not a set of fixed meanings, but a contentless analytical concept referring to how one environment differs from another at any point in time in terms of behavioral contexts and expectations. It is an indicator of domain difference and specificity, directing observers to the kinds of settings in which subjects operate, the kinds of horizons that individuals assume and in which they participate, so that one can be more attentive to the particular contextualities and schemas self-constituted by those environments. “World,” then, entirely points to these differential contents, but has

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no template content in itself; as a concept, it does not override cultural and historical particularity, but exposes it. Worldmaking, as a verb, makes this into a behavioral process that recognizes worlds to be acts and choices of subjects. Religion as Human Behavior Religious worlds, to form a simple, stipulative characterization as a starting point, are those where gods are referenced and honored in some manner. By referring to gods as the prototypal religious objects, I do so loosely, including in the notion any superhuman entities such as buddhas, spirits, ancestors, or living gurus. Religions, per se, would then be collective, organized systems of behaviors that reference such beings. Usually these are routinized ritual systems, and come into play during times of life passages, times of critical needs, or fixed, periodic times of regular services or festivals. Religious systems often interact with other behavioral zones, such as politics or art. Note that this definition does not assume the independent existence of gods, only that religious people assume them to exist. As linguistic and ritual objects, transmitted with ontological status, the gods activate an interactive realm of behavioral possibilities, both inspiring and constraining the lives and subjectivities of their populations. Religion and religious language, in this view, are normal forms of behavior that happen to be responsive to or directed to gods. If one zooms in from a wide-angled “generic kinds of behavior” (e.g. worldmaking) lens to a more microscopic focus, one sees that religious life draws on any kind of activity. Thus, if intended to honor gods, any of the following are “religious” (in my stipulative sense): walking on coals, bathing in a river, studying scripture, climbing a mountain, dancing, or chanting. Likewise, any number of presumably opposite behaviors could be religious: dressing up but also going naked, killing people but also refraining from killing people, being quiet or shouting, fasting or feasting, putting on a hat or taking a hat off. “Behavior honoring gods” does not imply that religion is good or socially functional. It is whatever humans do, raw or refined, dysfunctional or functional, in the name of gods. There is nothing normative or idealized here, just behavior. This unadorned view of religion is one to which observers and students of contemporary

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world affairs can often relate. Referencing a god and holy scripture is exactly what was going on in the minds and piety of the 9/11 hijackers,7 not to mention various abortion clinic bombers. Ways of Inhabiting the World The macro-behavior of worldmaking can be parsed into many panhuman dispositions. For illustrative purposes I will discuss the relevance of the following for the study of religion: kin loyalty, giving sacred status to certain objects, making pasts, maintaining order, submitting to rank, social reciprocity, display behaviors, making meaning, and reflexive self-modification. All of these are expressions of our wiring for sociality, our phylogenetic experience of living in groups, our social brains. Obviously societies are different in terms of environmental and cultural adaptations, but they are all variations on sociality, and religions are themselves biodiverse forms of social experimentation and innovation. Kin Loyalty Behavior. A powerful, foundational, species-level behavior that religious life draws upon is kin loyalty.8 Readiness for loyalty to one’s group—whether a family, club, clan, team, gang, military unit, school, ethnic identity, country, religion, or any coalition of individuals that bonds them against non-group threats—is a mental mechanism that has ruled much of the history of our species and indeed, of many others. In the realm of human culture, “kin” behavior does not necessarily depend on close blood relations. It can also be a sociocultural construction, while still drawing on deep biological instincts. Moreover, when the disposition for group loyalty is fused with religious notions that “our people” and its institutions are sacred because endowed by divine authority, and when the group

7 Lincoln, Holy Terrors, 1–18, which analyzes the instructions found in the luggage of Mohamed Atta. 8 Kin selection is a well-known theory in evolutionary science, in essence showing that individual animals (and social insects are a representative illustration) will be willing to sacrifice their individual lives (and hence genes) for others to the extent that the genes are the same. In mainstream evolutionary thought, though, the emphasis has been on individual self-interest rather than on group self-interest. A concise summary of the issue of individual vs. group “selection” is Borrello, “The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Group Selection,” 43–47. The relevance of kinship “belief ” for understanding religion is drawn out in MacIntyre, “Was Religion a Kinship Surrogate,?” 653–694.

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is designated with identity markers and “flags” (“Christians,” “Muslims”) and thus forms an essentialized entity in the minds of adherents, then one has a potent chemistry. Defending group honor, whether imaginary or not, is not only serious but sometimes noxious (Third Reich rhetoric about “making sacrifices for our sacred, noble blood” is still in collective memory). Displays of loyalty become critical indicators of the strength and survival of the group.9 These dispositions, after all, have formed over millions of years. What we have here is Durkheim’s basic insight, but combined with the biological forces that were missing from his theory. From the notion of group-as-world we can more easily understand how it is that groups make certain objects sacred, construct “histories” (read: myths) to validate the foundations of their own institutions, and monitor behavioral boundaries to prevent the erosion of their social order. Making Objects Sacred. Groups place marked values on certain objects. The behavior that makes a record-breaking homerun baseball worth millions is the same kind of behavior that makes objects sacred, inviolable or charismatic in religious contexts. Human groups clearly attribute esteem, status and signification to objects way beyond their surface, pragmatic worth. Scan the many cultural worlds of time and space and one will see concentrations of activity around certain focal points. These hot spots, magnets, or basins of attraction are the objects that groups have made sacred—shrines, stones, authorities, scriptures, icons, places, rites. Around them a number of observances and precautions cluster. Like nuclei of a cell, they appear to give orientation, stability, and empowerment to the group and its authority system, functioning as a kind of inviolable cultural DNA or place-holder for group continuity and survival.10 As identity markers they are enhanced both by the force of collective tradition and by the supernatural aura surrounding them, an aura that is itself the result of a mythicization (itself a behavior) that elevates the prestige of the objects verbally

9

For interesting empirical research on the adaptational value of “costly” behaviors that “signal” group loyalty see Sosis and Alcorta, “Signaling, Solidarity, and the Sacred, 264–274. 10 Rappaport develops this notion of sanctified objects as “functional replacement(s) for genetic determination of patterns of behavior,” in his Ritual and Religion, 418.

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and ritually. The sacred objects are immunized from harm by way of protective laws, ritual taboos, or other sanctions. Religious worlds form around these manifestations of the gods. In interaction with them arise many of the kinds of religious behaviors with which we are familiar: e.g. pilgrimages, worship, festivals, and personal interactions such as vows and prayers. One can even speak of the revelatory function of these objects, just as one could of the “stuff ” of any cultural formation such as music, philosophies, literature, theoretical science, or human relationships. Here “the sacred” is not a matter of theology, but of ethology— the study of behavior, animal and human, in an evolutionary context. Attributing sacrality or prestige to objects is evidently a form of species behavior. Technically speaking, it is a manifestation of what is called the human phenotype—the expression of our genes, the genotype, relative to social environments. Again, I am here extending Durkheim’s secular treatment of “the sacred.”11 Making pasts. Human worlds “have” pasts, but those pasts are “made” in acts of transmission just as worlds are. Someone, some “kin” group, put them there and keeps them there, as its family album, as its memory of key persons and events. As with the construction of sacred objects, forming a history is a natural group behavior. Past-making takes place through mnemonic acts of oral recitation, ritual and festivals, icons and chants, shrines, writing, reading, and styles of education. At those junctures, pasts are given meaning and interpretation. These “histories” are major ingredients—or in the present context, major behaviors—of religious worlds, and weigh heavily on them. Each group transmits its history of the world in a way that reflects and grounds its place in the world. The histories function as repertoires of exemplary figures or precedents for legitimizing or inspiring one’s behavior. They are memories that must be recalled and re-selected, or the world they held together would vanish. No past, no culture; no past, no religion. The sacred histories, the origins, are therefore remembered through their re-enactments. This collective mnemonics relies on repetition, whether of a constant reiteration, or in periodic, great festival times with their marked choreographies and often vivid displays, special

11 As previously described in Paden, “Creation of Human Behavior,” 15–26; and “Before ‘The Sacred’ Became Theological, 198–210.

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foods and music, and other forms of body memory. Religions are in this sense elaborate memory machines, and nation states often parallel them in the way they transmit their traditions.12 Maintaining order, punishing its violations. Humans protect their worlds, as any organism will. A good deal of religious behavior, in fact, seems to be maintenance behavior: keeping to the existing order, enforcing tradition, obeying the precepts, avoiding infractions of the laws, performing ordained social roles, attending the rituals, bestowing or receiving punishment for any infractions of the order. Most religions have terms for sacred order, for example, Dharma in Hinduism, T’ien or T’ien-li in Confucianism, or Sharia in Islam. Incentives for moral behavior and disincentives for immoral behavior rule the social world. Protective behavior also entails regulating or re-balancing—in some cases, purifying—the system when there is transgression. Every society has its rules, but also its punishments. Keeping violation away is one thing, but dealing with it after it is present is another. The historical, cultural and situational varieties here are endless—everything from public executions to mild apologies, from excommunication to bathing, from exorcising to repentance. Rules of purity and the removal of impurity keep social orders intact, and religions often require concentrated forms of these practices. In short, religions become instances of a rule of nature: system regulation.13 Submitting to Status and Hierarchy. In-groups not only evoke loyalty, but within them often evoke submission to rank.14 Dominance and submission relative to status are found throughout the human and pre-human worlds. In the case of religions, not only religious leaders, but also gods and religious heroes can take on the attributes of, so to speak, “alpha” beings. Like the queen bee, humans who are esteemed as kings and saviors have the identical genetic make-up of any of their kindred beings—the difference is simply that the group

12 An excellent treatment of collective past-making, with examples from both secular and religious cases, is Zerubavel, Time Maps. On group memory and body memory see also Connerton, How Societies Remember, and on the active nature of history construction, Tonkin, Narrating Our Pasts. 13 For a fuller study of the concept of sacred order see Paden, “Sacrality as Integrity, 3–18. 14 Burkert’s treatment of hierarchy in Creation of the Sacred, op. cit., ch. 4, is a masterful treatment of submission behavior.

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cultivates them, through special behaviors, for their special social role in the system. Again, in many religions, the disposition to respond to “status” seems to sometimes be blended with the disposition for allegiance to the group, particularly where the god of the group is both an object of status and authority, and a guarantor of the group’s tradition itself. Displays of subordination, humility, deference, sacrificial acts and respect are of course the very stuff of large swaths of religious behavior and history of spirituality. Depending on their types of social structure, religious groups naturally vary in the way in which social respect for leaders and gods is displayed. Reciprocity behaviors. The disposition for reciprocal interaction, the heart of sociality, is also one of the great domains of evolved human behavior generally and is the subject of extensive research that may bear on the study of religion.15 Human life, and hence religious life, is lived in relationships and mutuality, and this includes giving and receiving, trust and confidence, communication, negotiation and appeasement, and in general, accountability. In religion, this mutuality is seen in relations with gods. Readiness for relationship, readiness to relate to objects as if they were person-like, readiness to talk to and listen to someone “out there,” seem to represent a kind of default setting of the socially constructed human mind. From the earliest age, infants begin interacting and bonding with their caregivers, and one’s first love is indelible. Relationship is so important that humans will invent it if necessary, with pets, dolls, cars, angels and other imaginary beings. We are prone to listening to the world and making a conversation with it, prone to bonding and forming stable relationships, prone to making and receiving signals. Enter, the gods. Indeed, some cognitive anthropologists have noticed that spoken language is based on dialogue, and that this “dyadic premise” may be the foundation for the social construction of unseen powers, i.e. gods.16 Onto these culturally transmitted objects, the gods, we attribute human, social minds—and cognitivist research, again, explains much about our disposition to perceive

15 A representative account of social reciprocity from the point of view of evolutionary psychology is Cosmides and Tooby, “Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange,” 163–228. 16 On this see Goody, ed., Social Intelligence and Interaction, especially Goody’s chapter, “Social Intelligence and Prayer as Dialogue,” 206–220.

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agency in the environment and attribute anthropomorphic qualities to it.17 Religions, then, provide an interactive space, an environment, for idealized and intensified sociality behavior, a place to act out the deepest human hopes and fears. This clearly has an enduring function. Difference of culture or subculture will determine the difference of roles and interactive protocols, e.g. whether these are hierarchic or egalitarian. The gods, in this sense, are reflections of cultural behaviors, but also models for them in that their behaviors can show exemplary instances of qualities such as mercy, righteous anger, stability of promise, sacrificial love, allegiance, or even care for the dispossessed. Display Behaviors. Signaling is a fundamental behavior of life forms at all evolutionary levels. As communicative animals we give signs, show our intentions, express who we are and what we want. We do this with our bodies, clothes, environments, images, collective demonstrations. We make overt displays of respect, power, authority, humility, loyalty, celebration, ecstasy, spectacle, rebellion. Religious behavior, for its part, is typically an enhanced and often dramatic illustration of the power and process of the language of display and signaling found throughout the natural world. It is conspicuously manifest in collective ritual and the construction of visual actions and spaces, but is also seen in the way individuals act out their religious roles. Ritualization, in particular, is in many ways a controlled focusing of communicative display. It “says” with actions, choreography and iconic settings what could only be conveyed in embodied, dramatic fashion, and not simply in words. The same display effect can be seen in the most opposite kinds of contents or foci of ritual: for example, the tea ceremony but also the Penitente’s literal reenactment of Jesus’s Passion; or the silence of a Quaker meetinghouse but also the ordeals of a warrior’s initiation. And it is seen in the way ritual, with its controlled environments, constructs idealized display scenarios to be held up as models and memories, as with rites of passage or inaugurations. The public burning of a heretic or the destructive “statements” of terrorists, are also display behavior, as is mimetic or sympathetic magic generally. Temple complexes as well as the decorated canopies built by the male bower birds of Australia

17

Examples include: Guthrie, Faces in the Clouds; and Boyer, Religion Explained.

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(to attract females) each display attempts to impress, entice, please, accommodate. Making meaning, making explanations. The brain is always making meanings. We do this through speech, whether spoken outwardly, inwardly (thought), or in writing. In many ways worldmaking is a linguistic enterprise, where the categories of language schemas, being prior to sensory experience, become the ineluctable lenses through which we perceive, conceive, and explain the world. Language converts whatever happens in experience into its own categories. We are, as one author put it, the “symbolic species.”18 Language is an outcome of our evolved, shared social consciousness.19 Here my main point is to emphasize the way language and its derivatives, such as theologizing, can essentially be understood as behavior.20 We make words and we listen to words. We explain and codify. Through words we simplify and reduce what is otherwise infinitely complex or chaotic. We imagine what we will, with ease. We say words over our misfortunes to alleviate our pain, explain illness by speaking of karma or divine punishment, make schemas for the origin of the world and for the causes of things, and write tomes to build elaborate explanatory universes. All of this is a form of “doing,” constructing, behaving. Religion is inconceivable without speech behavior and its interpretive power. Gods are part of that repertoire. Modifying the self. Behavior is not just external world building, it is also inner world building. It includes mental acts of reflexively acting back upon one’s own subjectivity, adjusting one’s interior environments. Regimens of self-construction illustrate the mind’s proclivities and abilities to monitor itself and introspect, and religious paths in particular contain extensive repertoires of ways to recondition the possibilities of selfhood, moral responsiveness and emotion. Mental and emotional states can be scrutinized, modified, acted upon. This illustrates the macro behavior of the brain’s capacity for learning to learn—learning to make changes or adjustments, to re-form its

18

Deacon, The Symbolic Species. On the co-evolution of language and the development of social culture, see Donald, Origins of the Modern Mind. 20 A strong case for studying religions as semantic universes is made in Jensen, The Study of Religion in a New Key. 19

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responses, to override some of its own cruder dispositions. Reflexivity, too, is part of our inheritance as evolving organisms. Concluding Points This has been a brief review of some kinds and aspects of behavior that figure into religion and how their roots may be linked with our scientific knowledge of the history of the species. Naturally there are endless kinds of evolutionary dispositions and social categories connected to religious behavior—and one could mention research on subjects such as attachment,21 ritual form,22 imitative behavior,23 emotion,24 and memory25—but the above are basic and illustrative. Religion builds on, improvises on, and interacts with such mental and social hardware. Nature does not speak English. It speaks behaviors. We need to learn that language, just as previous generations of comparative religion scholars thought they needed to learn the language of hierophanies and symbols. There is nothing in the above behaviors—admittedly, characterized in broad strokes—that is not biological and that would not be understood by evolutionary science, and there is nothing about these behaviors that should be unfamiliar to historians of religion. Nor is there anything about them, at least in my mind, that tilts towards any particular ontology. The study of religious behavior feeds into our general understanding of human behavior, and the other way around. Nature, I imagine, makes no such distinction as religious vs. nonreligious. Not only are there resemblances between Tenrikyo pilgrims taking home a thread from the kimono of their founder, Hindus taking home dirt from Govardhana hill, and Hajjis taking home water from the sacred well at the Kaaba, but there are resemblances between these and their secular analogues, where fans (of music, sport, or politics) bring home souvenirs and mana-laden emblems connected with their objects of devotion.

21 22 23 24 25

Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion. McCauley and Lawson, Bringing Ritual to Mind. Tomasello, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens. Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity.

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Behavior patterns are not only a basis for constructive comparative work, but they are themselves also the result of comparative perspective. This is to say that these patterns would not be noticed in the first place if one were only familiar with a single society. The comparative study of religion is one of the few academic endeavors to have built scaffolding for forming generalizations about behavioral forms that connect the historical cultures of the world, forms that would otherwise be obscured or invisible. How then does this ethology of religion relate to postmodern criticisms of comparativism? Does the above program figure to extract all the juice out of lived religious and cultural life? Does it suppress difference? Does it reduce its subject to static, cookie-cutter molds? Are the exemplifications of these human behaviors robbed of their difference, their voice, and reduced to being instantiations of the “same” hierarchic thing?26 While this paper is mostly about restoring some bases of commonality, in the context of a very general exercise in conceptual modeling, it is not intended to exclude or subordinate the importance of difference. In the present endeavor, that would mean exploring the variations on the commonalities relative to changing environments. The variations, or improvisations, would show the extant range of possible historical human behaviors relative to the patterns— theoretically speaking, all the possibilities of “making things sacred,” all the possibilities of “self-modification,” all the possibilities of “maintaining order.” Of course the cultural versions themselves are all embedded in variables of political, class, and gender dynamics, as well as constant historical change. As such, there is nothing particularly bloodless or abstract about such a comparative process. Finding how groups “do” pasts, how they conceive and transmit them differently, indeed, how they may revise or dismantle received histories, all require on-the-ground attention to cultural specificity and voices. Being part of a general behavior pattern does not make instantiations of that behavior “the same,” any more than the generic activity of “doing sports” makes soccer and swimming the same. A pilgrimage to Presley’s Graceland is not the “same” as a pilgrimage

26 For a review of issues in the modern comparative study of religion see Paden, “Comparison in the Study of Religion,” 77–92.

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to Mecca, even though there are some shared behavioral aspects. All comparison, in other words, is aspectual.” The abstraction that apples and oranges are both “fruits” (or even that they are both “round” or “edible”) calls attention to common patterns of function and structure but does not reduce apples and oranges to sameness. They are similar in some ways, not others. The common pattern or feature is not the “whole” of each of its instantiations, but a feature of it.27 This would be my understanding of the descriptive and explanatory use of the behavioral patterns outlined above. There is no foundationalism in the above model in terms of dependency on any particular evolutionist theory or any particular form of naturalism. But in understanding the diverse dynamics of religious behaviors we can start to become free of the persistent tendency to reduce religion to single frames. We can also form a potential twoway street with the work and data of the human sciences. Empirical studies of any of the collective or communicative behaviors described above, and the historian of religion’s study of their recurring cultural expressions, can be mutually informative and productive. I have found this an apt interpretive framework for presenting the study of religion in the secular, liberal arts setting of a state university, where classes are filled with students from the sciences, social sciences and humanities alike. Relating comparative religion to the language of species-level behaviors, including “worldmaking,” provides a kind of Verstehen in a new key. Here it is the archetypes of behavior, so to speak, rather than archetypes of meaning, that invite study, and that help students relate otherwise different and distant cultural expressions to “known,” intelligible human realities. As well, the notion of world versions helps contextualize and make normal the endlessly different languages about sacredness and gods. Translation of religion into patterns of human behavior is of course not the only way to study the subject matter, and it is not the only basis or level of comparison, but I have tried to suggest some of its functions and opportunities.

27 Poole’s essay on controlled, aspectual comparison remains a cogent analysis of the epistemological basis of comparative method: “Metaphors and Maps,” 411–457.

Part Two THEORY INTO METHOD: COMPARISON OF RELIGIONS IN THE STUDY AND THE CLASSROOM

CHAPTER SIX

COMPARING RELIGIOUS IDEAS: THERE’S METHOD IN THE MOB’S MADNESS Wesley J. Wildman Introduction Methodological wrangling over simple tasks is a waste of time; it is better just to get on with the work at hand. If reflection on method in relation to the task of comparing religious ideas has value, it is because comparing religious ideas is an important and complex task. Self-conscious debate about comparative method ought to be useful because there is confusion and fierce debate about the primary task, from how best to do it to whether to attempt the task at all. This essay surveys a number of attitudes and approaches to comparison in the study of religion. One of these was developed in the Crosscultural Comparative Religious Ideas Project (CRIP), a Bostonbased research effort running from 1995–1999. Under the leadership of Robert Neville, CRIP brought together six tradition specialists (Frank Clooney, David Eckel, Paula Fredriksen, Noman al Haq, Livia Kohn, Anthony Saldarini) and four comparative generalists (Peter Berger, John Berthrong, Robert Neville, Wesley Wildman), as well as a number of graduate students. The double aim was to test a methodology for comparing religious ideas by actually using it to make comparisons, and to explore a small-community-based pedagogical approach to the formation of potential future experts in comparative religion. The project produced three volumes of results that appeared in 2001 entitled Ultimate Realities, The Human Condition, and Religious Truth.1

1 Neville, ed., Ultimate Realities. This essay is a significantly revised and expanded version of ch. 9 of Ultimate Realities. I owe a great deal to other members of CRIP, but especially to Robert Neville, with whom I collaborated closely throughout the project, co-writing many chapters, including the one profoundly revised here. Though I was first author on the original chapter and Neville’s contributions were minor, it is impossible to overstate his influence on the way I understand comparison of

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My purpose here is to join the ongoing conversation over comparative method by showing how the CRIP approach relates to others. I shall make a three-fold case on behalf of this view of comparison. First, I shall indicate how it draws on the strengths of existing approaches. Second, I shall identify a pervasive weakness in extant approaches to comparison of religious ideas and show how the CRIP approach overcomes it. Third, I shall show how the CRIP proposal answers the challenges issued by various comparativists, including Jonathan Z. Smith in a famous article analyzing approaches to comparison.2 It follows that this essay is not only a survey of approaches to comparison but also an argument for the particular method for comparing religious ideas that the CRIP used in its research.3 The organization of the essay expresses its argumentative character. I classify a number of attitudes and approaches to comparison according to how they would answer an increasingly detailed sequence of questions. Some reject the possibility of comparison whereas I argue for its possibility. Others reject explicit categories for comparison whereas I argue that explicitness about the inevitability of comparison in categories (or respects) is a virtue overall. Still others justify categories from existing theories whereas I argue for limiting (not eliminating) this kind of justification in order to make categories more vulnerable to correction and more easily able to change in response to the process of comparison. And yet others justify categories directly from similarities in the data whereas I argue, with Smith, that this is too arbitrary a procedure. The CRIP view, by contrast, is that there should be a dialectic between data and comparative categories whereby the task of understanding through comparison can build progressively on previous results. Categories can come from anywhere so long as a dialectical process of improvement and correction is in place. Justification of religions. In particular, the seeds of the CRIP approach to comparison were planted in Neville’s earlier works, especially Normative Cultures. Neville has given his permission for me to rethink and rewrite the original chapter; I take full responsibility for the result. 2 Smith, “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” The paper was initially presented to the History of Judaism section of the American Academy of Religion, 1979. 3 There are many useful surveys to which those seeking more comprehensive and less quarrelsome coverage can turn. Other ways of summarizing approaches to the study of religion and the comparison of religious ideas include Sharpe, Comparative Religion; Ringgren, “Comparative Mythology,” Smart, “Comparative-Historical Method”; Tracy, “Theology: Comparative Theology”; Capps, Religious Studies; and Clooney, Seeing through Texts.

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comparative categories is a complex process depending both on data identified and described and on theories in which the categories get meaning by playing key roles. The CRIP approach presupposes a corporate effort to make and improve comparisons, to assemble and analyze data, and to root out bias and short-sightedness. It eschews exclusive reliance on the genius insights of brilliant comparativists and instead builds these into a wider and messier corporate approach that includes ordinary scholars as well as the occasional comparative genius. It is a method for the mob. It may seem untidy but, like the natural and social sciences, it may be able to achieve results where nothing else can. The requirement of a community of inquiry that can stabilize hypotheses for investigation lies at the heart of the pedagogical significance of the CRIP approach. I begin by discussing comparison in general terms and describing the CRIP approach in more detail. The bulk of the paper analyzes alternative views of comparison. In the penultimate section, I review the aforementioned argument of Smith and show how the CRIP approach to comparison, though it may have weaknesses all its own, does not fall prey to the criticisms he rightly levels against extant approaches. I conclude with some reflections on the pedagogical implications of this approach to comparison. What is Comparison? Comparison is controversial when it reaches across cultures, languages, religions, worldviews, and forms of life. I venture a general discussion of this topic in an attempt to establish a relatively noncontroversial basis for the subsequent discussion of strategies for comparing religions, and specifically religious ideas. What is comparison? The Oxford English Dictionary’s online definitions for the transitive verb “compare” are: (1) “To speak of or represent as similar; to liken”; and (2) “To mark or point out the similarities and differences of (two or more things); to bring or place together (actually or mentally) for the purpose of noting the similarities and differences.” Both definitions are relevant to most kinds of comparison. We usually begin by noticing that two things are curiously alike and then we proceed to examine them closely, noting similarities and differences. To “bring or place together for the purpose of noting the similarities and differences” is in effect to invoke and impose a respect of comparison on the cognitive process. We

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usually compare in respects that interest us, often neglecting respects that do not. The respect in which we compare constitutes a comparative category for the comparison. A prosaic example may be in order. When we seek to compare oranges and apples in respect of being fruit, we use “fruit” as a comparative category. As fruit, apples and oranges are similar in some respects and different in others; these more specific respects of comparison are subordinate comparative categories. In respect of surface texture, oranges are dimpled whereas apples are smooth; in respect of rind qualities, most oranges have a thick and fleshy rind while apple rinds are thin, and both are slightly bitter; in respect of internal structure, oranges are segmented and apples are not but both carry seeds in a segmented arrangement. The respects of comparison thus define a complex array of categories, some subordinate to others, and each the basis for noting similarities and differences. Every comparative category must be vague in order to register differences. Vagueness here does not mean perverse refusal to be specific. Rather, vagueness refers to a logical characteristic of a category, namely, that the law of non-contradiction does not apply to what falls within it. For example, the comparative category of “fruit rind” must be vague to accommodate the quite different cases of apples, oranges, watermelon, avocados, and kiwi fruit. Propositions expressing the characteristics of fruit rinds—“Fruit rinds are thick and smooth” versus “Fruit rinds are thin and furry,” for example— specify the category of “fruit rind” in ways that seem to contradict but in fact do not contradict because of the vagueness of the category “fruit rind.” The vague category is a meaningful basis for comparison and the many possible specifications of it fill out its content. To say this is not yet to say that the comparative category is useful or interesting. In fact, I selected a mundane category just to make the point that we must distinguish the logical analysis of the vagueness of a category from judgments about whether a vague category helps to detect anything interesting about important subject matters, such as religion. All comparison is interested, because it is the act of interpreting beings. We usually are unaware of our interests, which is why meeting people with different interests can be so entertaining or disturbing: encountering the other heightens our awareness of our own particularities. We compare apples and oranges in respect of health benefits, cost, ease of production in a local climate, seasonal demand,

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shelf life, flavor, and what our kids will eat. We shift with ease among these various respects of comparison as our interests dictate and we think little of it because nothing of intellectual or moral significance seems to be at stake. But this is not always so; sometimes important moral or intellectual issues are at stake in the comparisons we make. The vagueness and interestedness of comparative categories can combine in unexpected ways to produce bad comparisons. Specifically, we conceive categories poorly (a) when they lead to uninteresting comparisons, (b) when we fail to make them vague in just the right ways to accommodate the things we are interested in comparing, or (c) when they depend on mistaken theories about aspects of reality. I will give examples of all of these in what follows. (a) “Rind texture” is vague in just the right way to handle the varied surface characteristics of fruit, but it is not especially interesting in isolation from some theoretical account of why fruits have rinds and why the rinds vary in character. “Large-scale segmentation” is not much use as a comparative category if we are interested in comparing apples and oranges because the category only succeeds in registering apples negatively, as not having any large-scale segmentation. In fact, if we are not properly attentive, we may conclude that apples have no segmentation at all because they do not have the segmentation we see in tangerines and oranges, and our attention is focused only on large-scale segmentation. If we were to consider the broader category of “segmentation,” we might happily make comparisons between apples and oranges with respect to several different kinds of segmentation (large-scale, sub-structure scale, seed-scale, surface bump patterns, etc.) We handle vagueness of the “segmentation” category by specifying subordinate categories to flesh out the dimensions of meaning of segmentation that the data demand. (b) There is nothing inherently wrong with comparative categories lacking the ideal level of vagueness. But two practical problems can arise, especially when we unthinkingly adopt existing categories for new purposes. On the one hand, too much vagueness gives undue freedom to our overactive pattern-recognition skills, permitting us to see similarities and differences that suit our interests, whether or not those interests are ideologically innocent. Thus, sometimes it may suit us to compare apples and oranges in respect of their reminding us of glorious summer holidays in the south of France. Far less innocent comparisons of the same sort are possible, though perhaps not in the domain of fruit. On the other hand, our comparisons can

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lack richness and insight when we use insufficiently vague categories to describe ill-suited subject matter. Consider again the comparative category of “segmented fruit structure,” for example. This category must be vague to allow for the segmented macro structure of tangerines, the segmented seed casings of apples, the fact that some apples have minor large structure segmentation (in the form of bumps at the bottom of the apple) and others do not, the symmetry of peaches and nectarines, and the fact that some oranges have delicate internal substructures and others do not. If we unconsciously understand the comparative category of segmentation to refer only to comprehensive macro-structural segmentation, then our comparative category may lead us to overlook other types of segmentation in fruit, as when the claim that “Oranges are segmented but apples are not” leads us to overlook segmentation of the apple core. Consciousness of this problem is the first step in avoiding distorted descriptions of segmentation in apples. The most useful strategy is to develop an array of categories within which broader categories are specified by subordinate categories. This leads us to look for subtle features. It is precisely for this reason that classification schemes have been so important in the history of thought.4 While promoting more detailed observation, however, classification schemes also carry hidden theoretical assumptions about which we must strive to be aware lest distortion of description and flawed understanding go unnoticed.5 Thus, one of the tricks in improving comparisons is to allow the details of the process of comparing to make us conscious of narrowness in our comparative categories, whereafter we can either narrow the definition of a comparative category to conform to the way we were using it or broaden the definition to accommodate the features of the data that interest us. In either case, the categories of comparison are responsive to the process of comparison. 4 Witness the impact of Carl Linnaeus’s famous taxonomy of animals and plants. The first edition of Linnaeus’s taxonomy, Systema Naturae, was published in 1735 and it subsequently went into many editions, growing from a slender pamphlet to a multi-volume work. It is still in use today, though with many changes and expansions. This is but one example of the many taxonomies and classifications in use our age, from product catalogues to types of religion. 5 The criticisms of Linnaeus’ taxonomy are legion but the deepest problems with the taxonomy arise when morphological similarity makes organisms seem related yet genomic information suggest evolutionary distance, thereby clouding the very concept of species, which is one of the most crucial comparative categories of the classification.

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(c) Some comparisons are invidious and lead to intellectual misunderstandings and moral disasters. When Aristotle compared human beings in respect of the independence and completeness of intellective soul, he concluded that slaves had none of these qualities and that women require a man’s fully developed intellective soul to guide and complete their own partially developed intellective soul.6 Aristotle seems unaware of his powerful desire to rationalize existing social practices, yet his comparison reflects this interest in a way that is obvious to people with different interests (such as Plato7) and still more obvious to people who live at a time when better data makes Aristotle’s comparison seem silly, despite the fact that it was generous for its time in some ways (not everyone clearly distinguished women from slaves, as Aristotle did). Where precisely does the problem with Aristotle’s comparison lie? The mistake is in the meaning he gives to the comparative category by which he attempts to diagnose similarities and differences among men, women, and slaves, namely, the independence and completeness of intellective soul. The meaning of this category derives from mostly mistaken theories about human nature, the intellect, and human reproduction, and from mostly mistaken estimates of the power of social context to condition interpretations. Aristotle was empirically minded enough to recognize that some women did not fit his model but treated them as “contrary to nature” exceptions rather than as the few women able to break through oppressive social circumstances to realize some of their intellectual power despite the almost insurmountable difficulties they faced. And Aristotle was just wrong about reproduction, as when he speculated that women had to be incomplete men because their bodies were unable to heat menstrual fluid to the point that it could become semen. Of course, he thought that semen was the source of the non-material parts of a human being, including especially intellective soul. The theoretical framework for his comparative category of “the independence and completeness of intellective soul” was defective and we are entitled to wonder whether he did enough to test and improve the category. 6

See Aristotle, Physica 1252b; Generation of Animals, I 728a (Loeb Classical Library). See Plato’s Republic, in which Plato allows women a role in the ruling class. But in Timaeus 90e, the best that women can hope for in the process of rebirth is to become a man. 7

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The lesson here is that special interests interfere with the refinement of comparative categories. Interested comparison is inevitable but bad interested comparison is not. We can control for interests by seeking correction and refinement of our comparative categories. We can strive both to make them sensitive to the variations in the data for comparison (as when we have to avoid unconscious rigidity in our understanding of segmentation in fruit) and to give them meaning through embedding them in superior theoretical frameworks (as when we have to have accurate theories of reproduction if we are to avoid Aristotle’s mistakes in wielding the category of the independence and completeness of intellective soul). This discussion of interested comparison drives home the sometimes-overlooked fact that behind every act of comparison there lurks an interpreter with only partially conscious interests, incomplete knowledge of the world, and an enormous capacity for making delicate discriminations to suit ruling interests, to rationalize desired actions, and to bring comfort and assurance that the “other” is comprehensible and controllable rather than terrifying. The neurological conditions for comparison are important here. Human beings have highly developed pattern recognition skills, which are especially useful for recognizing the significance of facial expressions.8 These skills misfire from time to time in interpreting faces. They also lead us to expect patterns where none exist, or at least none at the level we seek. This is one of the great liabilities that human beings bring to observation and inquiry, and psychologists have documented its effects in great detail.9 It is equally a liability in comparison, where untrained human beings are too ready to find similarities on the basis of a quick glance. This maximizes vulnerability to error due to overconfidence, and marginalizes the careful observation and analysis of theoretical frameworks that we need to save comparative conclusions from becoming victims of casual hubris borne of over-active patternrecognition skills. To summarize, comparison is a cognitive activity that involves 8

See Brothers, Friday’s Footprint. There are many compendiums of errors due to biological limitations on human rationality and overactive pattern recognition, including examples of the ways that unscrupulous people exploit such vulnerabilities for their own profit and amusement. See, for example, Gilovich, How We Know What Isn’t So; Piatelli-Palmarini, Inevitable Illusions; Plous, Psychology of Judgment; Randi, Flim Flam; Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World; Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things. 9

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construing multiple things as instances of a vague comparative category. Good comparison works (a) empirically by keying categorical vagueness to comparative data, (b) conservatively by allowing for over-active human pattern recognition skills, (c) theoretically by attending to the way categories derive their meaning from existing interpretations of aspects of reality, and (d) humbly by seeking correction of comparative hypotheses in light of changing observations and theories. Comparison in the Crosscultural Comparative Religious Ideas Project To explain the CRIP approach to comparison in more detail, we need to move beyond this basic understanding of comparison, and of what makes comparison good. In particular, we need to shift the focus to religion rather than the banal topic of fruit. The CRIP approach to comparing religious ideas has several characteristics.10 First, the CRIP approach is focused on religious ideas, rather than religious practices or religions in general. Focusing on ideas is not as limiting as it may seem at first since even religious practices are available for comparison as ideas when they are described verbally and framed theoretically. In fact, comparing practices in isolation from the ideas that make them important and relevant to people is probably futile. The point of focusing on ideas is to keep elements of interpretation in the comparative picture. Comparative categories derive their meaning from theoretical interpretations of aspects of religion and the comparative venture collapses into mere impressionism if we pretend that comparative categories somehow appear from nowhere, contextless and free of the distortions of history and the colorings of interpretation. When texts do not exist to document aspects of the meaning of religious beliefs and practices, as is the case for many modern tribal religions, cultural anthropologists and other observers of these religions must create interpretations of what they see to guide subsequent comparison. Second, the CRIP approach is committed to a particular interpretation of the history of comparative categories. Many comparative categories owe their origins to translation decisions about how 10 Perhaps the most compelling account of the CRIP approach to comparing religious ideas is Neville and Wildman, “On Comparing Religious Ideas”.

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to render in European languages key terms in the sacred texts of the world’s religions. From there, those categories have had a huge impact on subsequent discussions—and not just explicit comparisons. Even apparently neutral description makes use of available terminology and so is inherently comparative in nature. When some activity is identified as a ritual, some person as a priest, some place as sacred, or some time as propitious, the descriptions presuppose comparative judgments. The comparative categories of “ritual,” “priest,” “sacred place,” and “propitious time” are stretched in these new usages and they also lead interpreters and subsequent readers of these descriptions to interpret the things described in terms of existing patterns of usage of the key categories. Comparison suffuses description and thus the only way forward even for description is to take responsibility for comparative judgments wherever they arise. Third, the CRIP approach proposes that taking responsibility for a comparative judgment involves explicitly thematizing the category involved, subjecting it to scrutiny regarding its origins and existing usages, examining the theoretical frameworks that give it meaning, and testing to see whether it leads to distorted readings of the things described by means of it. In other words, comparative judgments are inevitable so we must create a process whereby we can correct comparative judgments and the categories they involve. Fourth, this commitment to constant correction and improvement requires us to treat comparative judgments as fallible hypotheses, not indubitable propositions. Moreover, this commitment to correction, while freeing us to work with comparative categories regardless of their convoluted histories, leads us to be suspicious of all comparative categories and to look for the three problems identified above: categories suffering from theoretically suspect framing, categories insufficiently vague to avoid distortion, and categories so vague that there is insufficient resistance to our tendency to form hasty impressions of similarity. Fifth, the CRIP approach assumes that comparisons aim to be true, in the dyadic sense that locates the truth or falsity of a proposition in the accuracy of interpretation of its subject matter. Famously hidden within this apparently simple dyadic understanding of the meaning of truth is the far more complex process of interpretation that associates a claim with a subject matter in a particular respect, and locates the act of interpretation itself in a concrete social and polit-

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ical situation. It follows that we must evaluate the truth of a proposition expressing a comparative judgment in relation to the way the respect of interpretation—the comparative category—forges a link between comparative judgment and subject matter. And we must concern ourselves with the effects of comparing religions because comparison inevitably is a socially and politically contextualized act of interpretation. Sixth, the CRIP approach proposes that justifying comparative categories begins with using the category to describe and compare religious ideas fairly, where fairness is judged by the standard that Wilfrid Cantwell Smith so ably defended: “qualified adherent approval.” But the CRIP approach also involves taking responsibility for the fact that a category derives its meaning from large-scale theories of the subject matter. That is, a category such as “ultimate reality” is not just an empty vessel that we say contains other ideas such as Allah, Brahman, Chance, Dao, Emptiness, Form, or God. Ultimate reality is itself an idea with meaning that derives from the various ways it is specified in comparisons and by theories that explain how these various specifications are related to one another (in Max Weber or Paul Tillich, for example). Some comparativists balk at entering the theoretical territory limned here but I think it is futile trying to avoid theoretically loaded comparative categories. The most prudent course of action is to make these theories explicit and to seek to refine them as opportunity allows. I shall discuss in more detail later how to manage the theoretical elements of justifying comparative categories. Finally, the CRIP approach achieves objectivity and accuracy in comparison not by trying to avoid the many hermeneutical difficulties of comparison but rather by embracing them as inevitable and seeking, indeed constructing, a procedure whereby we can locate mistakes, overcome distortions, and improve the theoretical frameworks underlying comparisons. In this sense—here at last I offer a compact definition—the CRIP method is a dialectic of theory and data sustained within a large-scale social process devoted to the discovery, improvement, and correction of comparative hypotheses. Comparison as Impossible The sequence of questions by which I survey the field and promote the CRIP approach begins with the basic one reflecting the con-

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tention surrounding comparison in contemporary religious studies: Is comparison possible? If we take this question in its narrowest sense, as asking about the sheer possibility of comparison of religious ideas and practices, it is unproblematic. I think it undeniable that comparison has actually occurred, whether well or badly done. The question is more interesting if understood as a question about the possibility of successful comparison. The ideal of “success” is contested but I think the discussion above reflects most people’s hopes for what success should mean: allowing for over-active human imagination, minimizing the effects of biased interests, identifying important features of the things compared, and winning approval of descriptions from qualified adherents, where “qualified” means experts trained in the disciplines of comparison. To this I would add the meta-constraint that the purpose of making comparisons should be morally legitimate. Understanding success in this five-fold way, I contend that relative success in comparing religious ideas is possible, at least some of the time. The views denying the possibility of successful comparison11 do so in at least the following three ways. First, some are so impressed by the differences between cultures and religions that they speak of incommensurability and deny the meaningfulness of talk about vague categories that express common respects of comparison. Even when common respects of comparison seem to be present, these critics insist, we cannot assure ourselves that real commonality exists because intricate cultural embedding makes the ideas involved incommensurable. To this “incommensurability objection” my answer is three-fold. (a) The biological structure of human life places a limit on the problem of cultural impenetrability and gives a solid basis for speaking of common features of human culture. (b) The phenomenon of multiple religious and personal identity (for instance Confucian Christians, Jewish Buddhists) shows that the claim of incommensurability is strained. (c) What is difficult to communicate or translate at one time and place may not be so always and everywhere because language and culture are mutable, dynamic phenomena. To say that comparison is a social and political act is precisely to allow that it can change circumstances, including by creating previously non-existent possibilities

11

For example see Wiebe, Religion and Truth; Beyond Legitimation.

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of communication and crosscultural understanding. These three considerations do not automatically assure the meaningfulness of speaking about common respects of comparison but they do check objections that would arrest from the outset all attempts to identify meaningful respects of comparison. Once the comparative process has begun, at least on the CRIP understanding of that process, the existence or creation of common respects of comparison is largely an empirical matter. Second, some are so impressed by the human tendency to become attached to familiar ways of interpreting the world that they view the problem of bias as intractable. They deny that we can treat religious practices, texts, and traditions as specifications of comparative categories without fatal distortion, no matter what pains are taken to be fair. Perhaps we can imagine creatures capable of fair interpretation through being less thoroughly indebted to biologically congealed habits of understanding than human beings are. But we cannot imagine ourselves capable of overcoming the limitations of imagination and perspective that plague our attempts to be fair-minded in human affairs. My reply to this “bias objection” turns on a difference in judgment regarding the degree to which bias is problematic. I take the existence of adaptable forms of inquiry such as the natural sciences to be evidence that people are capable of establishing social arrangements wherein vulnerability and improvement of interpretations is prized. Moreover, the “qualified adherent approval test,” in spite of its complexities, assures us that our efforts to be fair are sometimes relatively successful. Once again, however, nothing in this reply guarantees fairness, nor even a recipe for achieving it. Fair interpretation is an art form in which success turns on skill and effort as well as a clear-headed method. Third, some might grant the meaningfulness of respects of comparison and even the possibility of making allowance for bias, yet view the purpose of comparison as essentially immoral, thus making successful comparison impossible where “success” connotes worthiness. Whether the goal of comparison is to satisfy curiosity, to enhance understanding, to build theories, or something else, the “morality objection” insists that comparison is an exercise of cultural power for which it is hard to take full and fair responsibility. If not a blatant exertion of cultural force, then it is at the very least a dangerous form of transformative praxis: comparison changes things, both the things compared and those making the comparisons. My reply

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to the morality objection begins by granting that comparison is interested and transformative praxis. Indeed, the very purpose of comparison in the social context of interreligious dialogue is to bring about cultural and personal change through mutual understanding. I think that purposes in making comparisons or religious ideas are often and perhaps usually morally legitimate. There are no guarantees, however, for moral judgments of this kind change with time and place. I have no trouble imagining settings in which curiosity should be checked and understanding sacrificed for the sake of some relatively higher moral purpose, such as the protection from scrutiny of an exquisite and fragile cultural phenomenon. The incommensurability, bias, and morality objections to the possibility of successful comparison are potent. My reply in each case turns heavily not only on the conception of comparison I am defending but also on the social process of comparison that plays an essential role in making corrections and adjustments in comparative judgments. My resistance to non-empirical pronouncements about what is possible and what is impossible in comparison makes sense only in the context of a serious positive viewpoint that moves beyond hopeful speculation about comparative method. That alternative is a properly empirical procedure that prizes vulnerability of comparative hypotheses and actively seeks to improve them in as many ways and with as much diligence as possible. This is the CRIP approach. Comparison as Something Other than an Explicit Cognitive Process Positions answering the question of possibility in the affirmative can be differentiated by their responses to a second question: To what extent should comparison proceed as an explicitly cognitive process with the results of comparison represented as (hypothetical) ideas? The argument that an act of comparison presupposes a respect of comparison (a category) is sound; it is simply a part of the grammar of comparison that two things are similar or different somehow— and the how is the respect or category of comparison. Nevertheless, comparisons of religious ideas sometimes avoid any explicit mention of the operative categories. This may be because of lack of interest or because of inconsistency, which would be serious defects. This silence also may serve a constructive goal: resistance to making the act of comparison an explicit cognitive process. To suppress discus-

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sion of the category of comparison while still making comparisons is effectively to leave the results and categories of comparison implicit in the comparative act itself. There are at least two reasons why this goal sometimes seems important. First, if we view knowledge as an event of illumination within a dynamic process, we might feel averse rather than drawn to explicit hypotheses about religions voiced explicitly in terms of comparative categories. Rather, proper knowledge is attained when the results involve a seeing-as with potentially transformative effects. Second, refusing to make the results of comparison explicit in the form of clear hypotheses is a hedge against so-called logocentrism. Vigilantly deconstructing comparative conclusions as fast as they materialize keeps the mind agile, avoids the ironic trapping of theorists by their own comparative conclusions, and most adequately respects differences among traditions. Some theorists deem these virtues so important that they willingly forsake the rather different virtues of self-consciousness of procedure, vulnerability to correction, and detection of bias that pertain to acts of comparison structured as explicit cognitive processes along CRIP lines. There are a number of examples of this reticent approach to comparison. They vary in the degree to which they oppose representation of comparison as an explicit cognitive process and of comparative conclusions as ideas but they uniformly insist on the value of comparison in absence of a cognitive representation of the results as a third thing. Such approaches may use respects of comparison drawn from narrative structures12 or metaphors.13 Alternatively, they may juxtapose points of view14 or facilitate intellectually illuminating play across differences.15 These approaches avoid large-scale theories about categories of comparison (such as the human condition, ultimate realities, or religious truth). Moreover, they tend to be suspicious of accounts of causal factors that purport to explain conceptual similarities between traditions or texts.16 The suspicion is understandable:

12 Doniger, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities. 13 Eckel, To See the Buddha. 14 Clooney, Theology after Vedanta; “Comparative Theology,” 521–550. 15 Smith, Imagining Religion; Smith, Map is Not Territory. 16 See Ultimate Realities, ch. 8, where such causal explanations appear.

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theories about comparative categories and causal analyses tend to be seriously underdetermined by the comparative data. I have some sympathy for these indirect approaches to comparison. They highlight a genuine weakness, albeit one that fades with time (I hope), in the CRIP approach to comparison. These views hold in common that successful comparison is a moment of genius insight in which an illuminating similarity is grasped intuitively and then expressed gracefully, avoiding the unattractive mistake of smothering the insights with an unwieldy theoretical apparatus. Almost any broad theoretical framework either will be too abstract to explain anything or will quickly predict not only the insight under investigation but a horde of other comparative conclusions as well. In fact, it will predict so much on the basis of such slender data that the theory will collapse under the weight of its own pretensions. A theory about a comparative category is, on these views, drastically underdetermined by the data, and thus extensively stipulates what ought to be the case, invariably getting too much wrong to be attractive. Making comparison into an explicit cognitive process with a dialectical methodology of vulnerability, debate, and improvement seems too facile, too unrealistic about the complex data to be accounted for in comparisons, and too optimistic about the power of theories to coordinate the disparate data consistently. What is left for comparison, then, except to be the domain of genius insight? And what is the point of rendering comparison an explicit cognitive process except boldly to hide from the fact that we simply cannot regulate comparative efforts in the way the CRIP approach claims is possible? Note how modest is the objection to the CRIP approach that I infer from these viewpoints. It does not claim that successful comparison is impossible on a priori grounds. Rather, it plausibly argues that a slender base of comparative data about religious phenomena and a worrying history of distortion and arbitrariness in previous comparative efforts combine with the irreducible complexity of the task to make the safest approach one of avoiding too formalized and aggressive an approach to comparison. Leave it to those deeply initiated into several traditions. Let us be content with their moments of illumination and the comparative insights they produce. Let us avoid systematization and cognitive fretting. It’s just not worth it. The relationship between this view and the CRIP view resembles the relationship between Mahayana and Theravada sensibilities in Buddhism. In Theravada, the focused journey toward enlightenment

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is for the monks, for the genius experts. In Mahayana, enlightenment is for the masses; not being genius experts, however, they must find ways to work together. In the same way, I am urging that the process of comparison should be made more public, that many kinds of people should combine forces to search for stable comparative hypotheses, and that the key to this approach is an explicit method. This method must prize stability and vulnerability to correction in comparative hypotheses, render its provisional conclusions as ideas on the way to theories about religious matters, and demand careful justification for the comparative categories that make stable comparative hypotheses feasible. The CRIP approach goes even further, however—and here the Buddhist analogy begins to strain, though the “egalitarian rebellion” version of the origins of Mahayana keeps the analogy alive. I argue that the genius insight method of comparison was never sufficiently productive of deep insights and that such insights as were won were never made as fruitful as they might have been for the work of others. In short, there is a scientific approach to comparison that promises far better results due to the coordinated work of many in place of the rare, uncoordinated insights of the few genius comparativists. The question becomes, therefore, whether the CRIP method works. As sympathetic as I am to the criticism I have been discussing, I do think that more can be achieved than it allows. I return to these matters below. For now, the relation between the CRIP approach and this family of critics suggests an amusing image, flattering to both sides in different ways yet gently mocking both, too. What begins as conflicting bets over what would be gained by selfconsciousness about method in comparison ends with the reticent, Theravada approach having nothing to do but watch while the enthusiastic Mahayana crowd uses every available resource to maximize the impact of their combined efforts. The members of the disciplined monkish group, amazed at the innocence of their non-adept friends, with some justification predict that the corporate experiment will begin in optimistic methodological stipulations and, chaotically stumbling along a host of mistake-ridden paths, end in utter failure. The large, noisy group, for its part, is unconcerned with the adepts’ opinions because time is on its side. Where the adepts can only watch in amusement, already pressed hard up against their self-imposed limits for what is possible in comparison, the corporate experiment’s refusal to accept any limitations a priori on what comparison can

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achieve gives it time and opportunity to learn from its many mistakes and to generate new approaches and new forms of cooperation. The outcome remains an intriguing question. I bet on the mob. Comparison Based on Categories Justified by Existing Theories of Religion Approaches to comparison that produce explicit cognitive representations of the process and results of comparing religious ideas constitute a large group, though it is diverse and produces results of uneven quality. We can distinguish these views based on the answers they provide to the question about how we should justify the categories used for comparison. A later section of this essay deals with approaches that attempt to justify categories directly from “similarities” in the data of religious ideas and practices; this is an extremely dubious procedure but it has its own special virtue, as we shall see. The current section deals with approaches that borrow or deduce categories for comparison from existing theories of religion and justify the use of those categories by virtue of the plausibility they gain from those theories. We can distinguish such approaches, though not without overlap, by the nature of the theory of religion that furnishes and justifies the categories. I present them here for convenience in family groupings. First, one family of approaches begins from a confessional religious perspective, approaching other religious traditions in terms of categories dominant within the home tradition.17 An important social phenomenon connected with this is interreligious dialogue, in which representatives of religious traditions join in discussion over shared issues of practical importance or simply to increase mutual understanding. Surely this is the most natural way, in the sense of being simplest and most direct, to approach the task of making comparisons among religious ideas. What could be more straightforward or more morally satisfying than to approach the plurality of religions from one’s own perspective? I heartily affirm the moral and existential naturalness of this kind of approach to comparison. Yet it

17 See, among numerous others, Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” 115–134; Pannenberg, “Toward a Theology of the History of Religions,” pp. 65–118.

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has an obvious downside in that the categories for comparison are so heavily indebted to a particular confessional perspective that they cannot be as responsive to the data as scholars and theorists of religion require. An ideal dialogue encounter for many religious-believer comparativists may not be ideal for comparativists for whose purposes the inflexibility of categories derived from and justified by confessional commitments interferes with the scholarly task. Flexible categories are better in the CRIP approach because comparative categories always need improvement, and any theory that produces and justifies categories always needs refinement. Second, another family of approaches justifies the key categories for comparison by means of a theological-mystical-metaphysical theory. This is true in very different ways of the perennial philosophy,18 various archetype and Jungian approaches,19 and even certain contributions in the philosophy of religion.20 The theory in question may be more or less complete and more or less empirically driven, yet it is persuasive enough to commend its principal theoretical categories to the comparativist. There are many examples that we might consider here but, for the sake of specificity, I shall discuss the perennial philosophy. The perennial philosophy offers a way to see how adepts of all religious traditions hold certain key ideas in common, albeit under sometimes radically different descriptions, while explaining why nonadepts could flatly disagree with each other about religious beliefs and practices. The existence of this purported common core is the reason the perennial philosophy is sometimes called the primordial tradition. It is defended by thinkers who in some cases—and preeminently in the case of Huston Smith, its best known contemporary representative—have spent a great deal of time learning about religious practices and texts from all over the world.21 Its advocates would say without hesitation that its plausibility derives mainly from the fact that it can make sense of a great deal of data. Just because

18 For example, see Huxley, Perennial Philosophy; Schuon, Transcendent Unity of Religions; Smith, Forgotten Truth. 19 For example, see Campbell, The Masks of God Eliade, Cosmos and History; Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries; Eliade, Images and Symbols; Eliade, Sacred and the Profane; Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion; Eliade, History of Religious Ideas. 20 For example, see Hick, An Interpretation of Religion. 21 The fruits of this research effort are especially evident in Smith, The World’s Religions.

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of this, we are told, we should not hesitate to adopt categories from the perennial philosophy for the sake of making detailed comparisons. From its hierarchical ontology of the Great Chain of Being we receive the categories of Godhead (nirguna Brahman), God (saguna Brahman), discarnates and other intermediate beings, human beings, animals, plants, and inanimate objects. Its cosmology offers categories such as the human condition, ultimate and proximate religious truth, savior figures and bodhisattvas, ignorance and liberation. Its view of the religious quest leads to other comparative categories such as morality, ritual, sacred texts, and special revelations, each of which is interpreted through the lens of the ontology and cosmology of the perennial philosophy. When a powerful large-scale theoretical interpretation of religion furnishes categories, perennialists urge, comparison can proceed untroubled by the problem of categorial justification, focusing instead on comparative details. Ultimately, on this view, the result is the further illumination and consolidation of the theory of religion that furnishes the categories in the first place. What happens, however, when some data beg for comparison in fundamental categories other than those served up by the perennial philosophy? The existence of such data is predicted within the perennial philosophy approach and explained by means of the distinction between what is ultimately and proximately true; in this way the contraindicative force of such data is contained. Ultimately, the contraindicating data are really not so important even if, proximately, they are pervasive and central. Going further, what happens if, by following this procedure, most of the interesting details of religious practices and ideas are effectively eliminated from having a say in what the fundamental categories for comparison should be? For example, the majority of scholars in religious studies simply cannot accept that pervasive themes in religion such as food and purity can be marginalized in the way that the perennial philosophy does. As beautiful as the perennial philosophy is, it has few followers. This is partly because of an ontology that is opposed to the naturalist tendencies of modern western science but also because its handling of comparative data is felt to be arbitrary. The sense of arbitrariness derives from the fact that the theory furnishing the categories for comparison is too neat, too easily able to deflect objections, and thus too convenient, too invulnerable, too unresponsive to criticism, and too uninterested in correction and improvement.

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For all that, of course, the perennial philosophy might be correct, at least in its essentials. The point here, however, is that the vulnerability of comparative categories is at least as important a virtue as the coherence and simplicity of a theological-mystical-metaphysical theory that might produce them. The same goes for other members of this family, including especially the various archetype theories of religion, regardless of whether we provide a metaphysical or other explanation for the universality of the archetypes: vulnerability of categories is an essential hedge against ignorance about religion and the wider reality in which religion exists. A third family of approaches justifies comparative categories by virtue of one or another scientific-causal theory about the origin and nature of religion. Such approaches, including many of the brightest stars in the sky of the scientific study of religion, usually have begun from particular scientific or social-scientific disciplines, thereafter leading out into proposals for more or less comprehensive theories of religion. Examples are legion, and usually emphasize a particular discipline such as evolutionary biology,22 anthropology,23 sociology,24 neuroscience,25 cognitive science,26 or psychology.27 The word “causal” in scientific-causal is helpfully vague. On the one hand, it cuts in the direction of the second family’s expectation that there are naturally occurring limitations on how religious ideas fit together. Of course, the third family explains these limitations in terms of the sphere of interest of the leading scientific discipline

22 Frazer, Creation and Evolution; Frazer, The Golden Bough; Spencer Harrison, Nature and Reality of Religion; Tylor, Primitive Cultures. 23 Durkheim, Elementary Forms; Lévi-Straus, Totemism; Lévi-Straus, Structural Anthropology; Douglas, Natural Symbols; Douglas, Implicit Meanings. 24 Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Weber, Essays in Sociology; Weber, The Religion of China; Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures; Geertz, “Deep Play,” Berger, The Sacred Canopy; Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality; Berger, ed., The Other Side of God. 25 Jaynes, Origin of Consciousness; Ashbrook, The Human Mind; d’Aquili, Laughlin, and McManus, The Spectrum of Ritual; d’Aquili and Newberg, “Religious and Mystical States,” 177–99; d’Aquili and Newberg, “The Neuropsychological Basis of Religions,” 190–91. 26 Boyer, Religion Explained; Boyer, Naturalness of Religious Ideas; Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral; Atran, In Gods We Trust. 27 Freud, Future of an Illusion; Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents; Erikson, Young Man Luther Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God.

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(e.g. social patterns, brain structure and function, psychological mechanisms) rather than in the second family’s more metaphysical or mystical ways. On the other hand, causation points in the direction of historical influence whereby certain comparative categories achieve a high degree of naturalness, as when the historical emergence of Buddhism and Hinduism from earlier Brahmanic religions means that samsara and moksha are natural categories for both. The historical influences in question might vary widely, from the effects of trade contacts or missionary zeal to planned cultural engineering. Some approaches in the third family make appeal to both kinds of causation to justify comparative categories. This is true especially of approaches to comparison that allow the philosophy of history to play as large a role as historical details.28 Unfortunately, sometimes these views presuppose influence where none has been shown to have any historical-causal basis. Alternatively, they presuppose an evolution of ideas where the close-knit cultural competition needed for the natural selection of ideas cannot be demonstrated. The third family displays relatively less interest in the first family’s approach to religious pluralism, beginning from one’s personal religious point of view. It also contrasts with the second family by limiting attention to recognizably scientific theories or to historical causation, at least in intention if not always in practice. The problem with the third family of approaches, however, is the same as the problem in the first and second families: comparative categories need to be more vulnerable to correction than these approaches allow. We must be able to take account of all that is learned about religious traditions in the process of making comparisons. It would be churlish to criticize the many instances of creative genius in the study of religion that abound in these three families of approaches. Let me be clear that in no case is it the source of comparative categories that troubles me. Each of these types of theories of religion has bequeathed valuable categories for comparing religious beliefs and practices. The problem is rather the rigidity that categories suffer when we justify them mainly with reference to largescale theories of religion. These theorists themselves, and I daresay the bulk of those making use of their comparative categories, have not said clearly enough how these categories can respond to resis-

28

Hegel, Lectures. Also see Toynbee, An Historian’s Approach to Religion.

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tant data. My contention is that, regardless of the source of categories for comparison, the methodology of comparison must prize vulnerability of comparative categories and of the comparisons they permit. Comparison Based on Categories Justified from Similarities in Data When categories receive their justification from an existing complete or partial theory of religion, they are even less flexible and responsive than the theories themselves. When too much data is not registered well enough by an array of categories, the dependence on a background theory makes flexible correction of categories almost impossible. This has long been sensed within the study of religion and by reaction has produced a fundamentally descriptive group of approaches to comparison. In this group, the justification of comparative categories derives from how well they express the relative importance of the data and of the relations between data. Justification of this sort is a delicate procedure. Sometimes comparativists have justified comparative categories merely on the putatively self-evident character of the similarities themselves. The failure of “what just seems similar” to justify categories of “the similar” is notorious,29 however, for two reasons. On the one hand, the role of the interpreter is so powerful in appeals to the obvious that it can swamp the ideal of descriptive impartiality. On the other hand, it continues to be difficult to figure out when phenomena are “essentially similar”; comparison seems not to advance this phenomenological task so much as codify persistent perplexity about it (but see below for a brief account of how philosophical phenomenology is supposed to overcome this challenge). Despite these problems, something like an appeal to the obvious is indispensable to the justification of categories in these approaches because of their insistence on allowing data to speak for themselves. The problem is unavoidable, therefore; it must be managed rather than avoided. I cluster the views in this group into families based on strategies for managing the challenge of impartiality in judging obvious similarities.

29

This criticism is made forcefully in Smith, Imagining Religion.

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First, experience and brilliance matter, and thus one family of approaches simply does the descriptive task well. That is to say, some writers adduce descriptive categories on the basis of intensive grounding in multiple religious traditions, with the benefit of ongoing discussions with a wide variety of people. The result is descriptions of religious phenomena and ideas that win the grudging but secretly appreciative approval of large numbers of experts. Under this heading I include the luminaries of description in the study of religion. Some of these could be called descriptive phenomenologists of religion, as against philosophical phenomenology to which I will return presently.30 For others the phenomenological label is less apt but they are nonetheless expert observers and describers of religious phenomena.31 There are many others of both sorts.32 There are also many figures from the previous sections whose projects crucially depend on expertise in description so it is as well to remember that this group is distinguished primarily by a commitment to descriptive adequacy as primary justification for comparative categories. Second, another family of approaches to comparison manages the problem of bias in description by partially relying on the lines of justification already discussed. This has to be done in precisely the right way, however: the aim is to relieve pressure on descriptive adequacy as the sole justification for comparative categories while still avoiding reliance on large-scale theories of religion in order to maintain the close ties between categories and data. One example of such a judicious hybrid approach is the comparative strategy advocated by Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy.33 In that work Otto blends phenomenological description with a partial theological viewpoint. There is no fully worked out theory of religion underlying Otto’s categories of mysterium and tremendum; he himself says that he only

30 For example, see van der Leeuw, Religion; Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion; Jastrow, The Study of Religion. 31 Sharpe, Comparative Religion; Sharpe, Understanding Religion; Smart, The Phenomenon of Religion; Smart, “Comparative-Historical Method,” Smith, Faith and Belief; Smith, Towards a World Theology. 32 One of the most pervasive suppliers and reinforcers of comparative categories should be mentioned under this heading, though it is less systematic than any of the examples so far mentioned: the almost universally used classification system of the United States Library of Congress. See Library of Congress Classification Schedules Runchock and Droste eds. 33 Otto, Idea of the Holy. Also relevant here are Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil; Ricoeur, Conflict of Interpretations.

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focuses on the irrational element in religion, which leaves out an enormous amount of data. Yet the categories achieve justification not only by observations of the recurrence of phenomena that are arguably identical in substance, but also by a partial worldview that postulates the religious potency of reality. Third, another hybrid family of examples uses various kinds of higher-order classifications of the data to supplement justification of comparative categories by means of their adequacy for describing data. Examples are plentiful, including the classification systems of Watson and Dilworth34 and Paul Tillich’s analysis of God concepts.35 In such cases, structural similarities in the ideas of diverse religious traditions suggest a classification. This classification is then supported in at least one of four ways: (a) by elimination of alternative classifications, (b) by the theoretical beauty and economy of the classification, (c) by the classification’s efficacy in organizing further data, and (d) by the classification’s production of new insights. These classifications may or may not be ideal, in the sense of being defined by key features that are rarely realized purely in actual instances, and they may be partial or exhaustive. All of the approaches to justifying categories discussed in this section prescind from heavy reliance on well worked out theories of religion. By contrast with the views discussed in previous sections, they cleave to whatever relevant data is available, without the aid of much in the way of a theoretical superstructure to add authority to the classifications and categories that result. This is so even in hybrid approaches to justification (the second and third families). The attempt to stay closer to the data by resisting the potentially blinkered influence of large-scale theories is to be lauded, in spite of the problems of justification merely from impressions of similarity. From this we learn the crucial lesson that, difficult though it may be, we must limit (not eliminate) the role that big-deal theories of religion play in the justification of comparative categories. Yet anti-theoretical, data-driven comparison is too arbitrary, so we must not exclude large-scale theories of religion altogether from the justification of comparative categories. We must maintain a distinction— it can never safely be made rigid—between the task of comparison that produces and justifies comparative categories and the subsequent 34 35

See Watson, Architectonics of Meaning; and Dilworth, Philosophy in World Perspective. Tillich, Systematic Theology.

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task of theory building that takes the categories as well-attested ways of organizing data. In this way we arrive at the necessity for a dialectical approach, which is the CRIP way. Comparison Based on a Dialectic of Data and Categories The final group of approaches to comparison attempt, by contrast with all approaches discussed so far, to introduce procedures that gradually improve categories, however they are produced. The most feasible procedure for such improvement is a thoroughgoing dialectic between the raw data and the categories used in making comparisons of the data. These approaches tend to be unwieldy because of the number of variables involved. Not only is there a large amount of data to manage, but this data needs to be effective for the correction of the categories in use. Moreover, the theories guiding interpretation of the data are themselves complex and subject to correction. I discuss here three dialectical approaches. The first and most famous is E. Husserl’s philosophical phenomenology.36 Husserl’s attempt to allow phenomenological generalizations to respond to data is truly impressive. The CRIP approach follows him in this respect, though in few other ways. Husserl’s program is burdened by awkward philosophical assumptions that it is less than optimally helpful for a general theory of comparison. In particular, his foundationalist epistemic project seems wrongheaded and produces confusions in his method that obscure the details salient for a general theory of comparison. His elaborate procedure for guiding phenomenological reflection is both too little in respect of attending to too few sources of corrective wisdom, and too much in respect of being thoroughly overbearing and impossibly demanding. If ever there were a comparative method for adepts it is Husserl’s. That said, I do admire his attempt to found a discipline of comparative phenomenology, his scientifically minded respect for vulnerability of categories inferred from data, and his use of a dialectic of data and categories to drive his phenomenological method. The second example also focuses on phenomenological reports: the heterophenomenological method advocated by D. C. Dennett.37 36 37

Husserl, Ideas; Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Dennett, “A Method for Phenomenology,” pp. 66–98.

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Dennett’s approach can be regarded either as an attempt to correct some of Husserl’s excesses or as a simplified version of Husserl’s own procedures. Unfortunately, Dennett does not say enough about Husserl’s method to enable a fair judgment of the relationship between the two. Suffice to say that Dennett sees clearly the philosophical problems associated with the comparison of phenomenological reports and he is as keenly aware as Husserl was of how splendid it would be to have a way to know when apparently different descriptions were really essentially about the same phenomenon. I heartily agree with both Dennett and Husserl in this regard. I am betting, however, that the vision of effective comparative phenomenology will never be realized until neurophysiology advances to the point that it can make meaningful contributions to judgments about the essential similarity and difference of the experiences giving rise to the phenomenological descriptions being compared.38 The third example is the CRIP approach, summarized above.39 I confine myself in the next section to some comments on the meaning and significance of the dialectic between categories and data that the CRIP approach advocates. The Significance of Comparison Conducted as Dialectic between Categories and Data A brief excursus in the territory of philosophy of science may prove illuminating at this point. In the 1960’s, Imre Lakatos proposed a fairly detailed model for the operation of the natural sciences (the so-called methodology of scientific research programs).40 It succeeded in overcoming to a significant degree the discontinuity between scientific work within a paradigm (“normal” science) and what Thomas Kuhn had identified as “paradigm shifts.”41 The discontinuity had

38 For one account of how neurophysiology might make such a contribution to the study of religious experience, see Wildman and Brothers, “A NeuropsychologicalSemiotic Model of Religious Experiences”. 39 Also see Ultimate Realities, ch. 8, and the summary in ch. 1 of that volume. A fuller account is furnished in several parts of The Human Condition. For a more detailed presentation, though lacking some of the insights accrued during the CRIP process, see Neville, Normative Cultures. 40 Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”. 41 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

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proved awkward because the history of science suggested on the whole that paradigm shifts fit into the flow of science more easily than Kuhn’s proposal allowed. Lakatos’s own proposal was also controversial, however. Though it allowed for paradigm shifts, it tended to make them more rational than the history of science suggested has been the case. The controversy between Lakatos’s relatively rational account of theory change and Paul Feyerabend’s insistence that changing between scientific research programs cannot finally be given exhaustively rational justification42 is one of the great debates of twentieth-century philosophy of science. It appears that, although reasons can be given for abandoning an apparently degenerating scientific research program in favor of a more progressive alternative, the decision remains a judgment call that cannot be decided completely rationally. This shows that the dialectic between data and theoretical categories is a delicate one even in the natural sciences. Its management depends on having stylish good judgment about one’s work, akin perhaps to what John Henry Newman called “illative sense.”43 That is how one balances the virtues of switching to a promising new hypothesis that (hopefully temporarily) flies in the face of important data, on the one hand, and the virtues of staying with a trusted old hypothesis that might be more consistent with data but seems to be running out of predictive steam, on the other. Newman’s illative sense is the key to efficient, potent argumentation as much as it is the key to making decisions between two competing hypotheses that each call for the investment of time and energy. This ineradicably artistic dimension of human reason is a sharp reminder that any dialectic between data and categories will be as subtle as it is complex. Perhaps Lakatos’ most important insight was his detailed account of the complex path from data to theory and back again, in contrast with Karl Popper’s more straightforward focus on falsification.44 In the natural sciences, data is incomprehensible apart from theories of instrumentation, which themselves are justified both by the sense they make of raw data and by their derivation from active theories about how nature works. Additional essentially interpreta-

42 43 44

Feyerabend, Against Method. Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery.

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tive theories are also needed for guiding the relating of data to theory, and for picking out essential features of the gathered masses of data. Most important is the way that the data, already multiply interpreted in these ways, can have an impact on the central hypotheses that guide the research program. No good scientist would ever throw over a well-tested hypothesis because of one piece of contraindicating evidence. Rather, attempts would be made—frantic attempts, perhaps—on the one hand to test the data by replicating an experiment or confirming theories of instrumentation, and on the other hand to explain the data with an auxiliary hypothesis that effectively protects the central hypotheses from falsification. It is partly the extension of theories to new data, even to potentially threatening data, by means of auxiliary hypotheses that helps to make research programs in the natural sciences seem progressive. Another sign of a progressive research program is its ability to predict novel facts. Of course, if novel facts are no longer forthcoming and explanations of threatening data seem contrived and merely face-saving, then the operative research program would be judged, sooner by its critics than by its advocates, to be degenerating. What is true in the natural sciences is no less true in the study of religion: the relationship between data and theoretical terms, including comparative categories, is exceedingly complex.45 Most of the views I have discussed recognize this. Determined recognition of complexity is the precondition for resisting the extremes of datablind enthusiasm and theory-blind confusion. This acknowledgement also involves a discriminating appreciation of similarities and differences among the various kinds of inquiries we see around us. The subject matters of religious studies are very different from those of the natural sciences or economics or literature. Nevertheless, Lakatos’s methodology of research programs, when appropriately generalized, fairly describes the way effective inquiry works in any context from the natural sciences to the humanities and even to common sense problem solving. The same characteristics are crucial: a conservative approach whereby a feasible hypothesis is relinquished reluctantly, and a sense of adventure that prizes vulnerability to correction by whatever means are available given the nature of the inquiry. 45 Lakatosian research programs have been proposed as models for the study of religion in Clayton, Explanation from Physics to Theology; and Murphy, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. They are used in Wildman, Fidelity with Plausibility.

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Charles Saunders Peirce, and then John Dewey, first appreciated the potential generality of this sort of theory of inquiry.46 Peirce actually anticipated Lakatos in many details relevant to inquiry in the natural sciences.47 Peirce’s more impressive achievements in this area, however, were his rich awareness of the complex relations between data and theory and his vision for extending a generalized theory of inquiry from the natural sciences all the way into the humanities and metaphysics. I share Peirce’s and Dewey’s basic intuition.48 I see no reason why the confusing data of religious beliefs and practices cannot be given flexible interpretative structures that render them able not only to inspire but also to correct theories of religion and of religious topics such as the human condition, ultimate realities, and religious truth. What form should such flexible interpretative structures take? They should take the form of the provisional conclusions of the study of crosscultural comparative religious ideas and practices, which is precisely what CRIP attempted to produce. That is to say, the comparative results of the CRIP effort are the first step toward a more effective approach to the generation and testing of theories of religion and religious topics. The categories within which comparisons of religious ideas and practices take place are precisely the flexible means of organizing data that constructive theoretical efforts require. In effect, these comparative results are the analogue of theories of instrumentation and interpretation in the natural sciences: they allow theorists of religion to do better work by stabilizing data in a network of comparative categories. The CRIP approach thus conceives comparative categories as flexible interpretative structures or theories of instrumentation that make data available to wider theory-building efforts in religious studies while maintaining a dialectical relationship with data that is strong enough to force changes in the comparative categories and in the theories that make use of them. This hints at the ways theorists justify the comparative categories they use: justification comes both from the data side and from the theory side. To be more explicit about

46

Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief,” Dewey, Logic. Peirce, Essays in the Philosophy of Science. 48 For more details on the general theory of inquiry suggested here, see Wildman, “The Resilience of Religion in Secular Social Environments”. 47

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this, I offer the following parsing of the task of justifying comparative generalizations. Each part of the task of justifying comparative categories corresponds to an impulse present in one or more of the approaches to comparison that I have discussed in this essay. Coordination of these lines of justification is essential, as is remembering that we speak here of justifying categories for comparing religious ideas. There needs to be (a) a delimiting of possibilities whereby the ideas of interest within a comparative category are set in a wider framework of plausible religious ideas of the same sort, so as not to overlook vital alternatives; (b) an account of the dynamic logical connections among these various possible ideas so that the category is specified not merely by a list of ideas but also by relationships among the ideas themselves; (c) a genetic analysis of specific symbolic representations of these religious ideas, so that historical influences among ideas and social-cultural influences on the origins of the ideas are explicit; and (d) analyses of the circumstances that accompany the key shifts in symbolic representation during the history of the religious ideas within the category. If all four of these theory-side lines of justification are accomplished convincingly, with no detection of excessive arbitrariness or distortion, then we will have good reason to think, from the theory side at least, that our comparative category is doing useful work. To these theory-side considerations we must add the basic phenomenological point on the data side, namely, that (e) our sense of what is similar, when carefully conditioned by scrupulous preparation and exposure to many variations, really should count as partial justification of comparative categories. These five requirements for justifying comparative categories draw on standard commitments within the history of religions, the philosophy of religion, and the phenomenology of religion. I shall list those debts more formally below. They are the tests by which we determine whether comparative categories organize the data well and thus whether the categories themselves are adequate. It is perfectly clear that these tests are theoretical endeavors related to the larger theories of religion and of religious themes for which comparative categories serve as the organizers and mediators of relevant data. With all of those lines of explanation and justification in place, the CRIP approach to comparison leads out in interesting directions: to the birth of systematic comparative metaphysics; to a strengthened, potentially progressive, multidisciplinary investigation of religious phe-

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nomena; to a more unified approach to the scientific study of religion that coordinates the typically more isolated disciplines of the history of religion, the phenomenology of religion, and the philosophy of religion; and to a particular view of pedagogy in religious studies. CRIP was primarily concerned with the preliminary task of organizing data by means of categories for comparison in a complex dialectical process—precisely as complex as the formation of a community of inquiry from differently-minded scholars, including specialists and generalists. There were forays into more adventurous theoretical efforts but that is secondary. The categories used were shamelessly begged, borrowed, or stolen from multiple sources, including early translations of sacred texts, many of the various sources mentioned in earlier sections of this essay, and the creative intuition of project members. Comparison always begins in the middle of dataprocessing. Yet the CRIP effort also actively sought ways to correct comparative categories in an effort to organize the data of religious ideas in the most natural, efficacious ways. In fact, it adopted a promiscuous attitude to correction, excluding a priori no source of potential wisdom, grading sources according to their actual fruitfulness for making data relevant to the refinement of the comparative categories and the comparisons they permit. The three CRIP volumes are a kind of test: if the primary task of comparison has gone well enough, then we will have good reason to think that flexible structuring of the wild data of religious ideas is possible and that a more critical and data-aware form of theory building ought to be possible. Learning from the Past By way of summarizing the CRIP approach, I recite a list of debts and corrections to existing comparative approaches. First, comparativists borrowing categories from existing theories are exercising a kind of wisdom. They are backing categories that are at least partially attested by the theory that gives them meaning and they seek in that way to extend the core theory itself to new tracts of data. That is why I can admire the perennial philosophers’ dogged adherence to their interpretation of the world religions. Without fidelity to core hypotheses, even sometimes to the point of arbitrary han-

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dling of data, we will almost certainly overlook some special virtue of the core hypothesis. Such devotion to research programs is vital to the stability of interpretative theories. Without stability, vulnerability for the sake of progressive correction is impossible. From these laborers in our vineyards we can learn to take good categories from wherever we find them and to be unafraid of the need for persistence in testing any theory of religion against data. However, we will still seek a fairer and more flexible approach to the data itself. Second, comparativists that refuse to make explicit the categories in respect of which they make comparisons could well be exercising another kind of wisdom. In this case it is the recognition that analogues of scientific theories of instrumentation do not exist in the study of religion to any great degree, at least not yet. Thus, they prefer moving gracefully among the forest of data to trying to map and regulate the data’s wildness for the sake of evaluating its force for or against the particular interpretations of it implied in the explicit use of comparative categories. From these fellow workers we can learn not to underestimate the complexity and disarray of the data of religious studies. It may be, however, that we can develop within the scientific study of religion decent analogues for data-handling theories of instrumentation in the sciences. Third, comparativists who try to maximize the virtue of empiricism in generating comparative categories from data are wisely recognizing that there must be some degree of self-conscious distance between the comparative task and the task of larger theory building in religious studies. From them we can learn that categories are a middle-level beast. They help to organize data for the sake of bigdeal theory construction yet they derive their justification as much from their polished data management as from the theories that use them. However, I remain sharply aware of the problem pointed out by J. Z. Smith of justifying comparative categories on the basis of apparent similarities in data.49 The CRIP solution to this problem is the four theory-side criteria for justifying comparative categories in conjunction with an affirmation on the data side of the usefulness of phenomenological intuition of respects of similarity and difference, though only when the phenomenological imagination is

49

See Smith, Imagining Religion.

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properly prepared. I reaffirm Peirce’s insistence that categories derived from theory for classifying data need to be checked against independent phenomenological analyses of the data to determine their suitability.50 Fourth, in addition to the important critique of intuitions of similarity just mentioned, J. Z. Smith also argues that, at the date of his writing, there was no approach to comparison that produces or discovers, as against constructs, comparisons,51 and further that there was no satisfactory approach to comparison under discussion anywhere.52 I agree on the second point but demur, slightly, with regard to the first. In Smith’s language, nobody “has presented rules for the production of ” discoveries in the domains of the natural sciences either, yet discoveries happen. Moreover, the insights of well-trained describers and comparers of religions can be novel, at times, and those insights can transcend the level of the flimsy associative connections that Smith rightly attacks. I agree, however, that discovery occurs too rarely. The scarcity is because it is so difficult to acquire the competence that makes novel insights also profound ones. The CRIP proposal helps by requiring less the genius of comparative adepts than the scrupulous hard work of ordinary expert comparativists. Many of the novel ideas that can be put into the dialectic of categories and data that CRIP described and enacted may turn out to be of little use; certainly the project disposed of a lot more categories than it kept. Similarly, some categories and comparisons may never achieve the multi-faceted justification on which CRIP insisted; it surely is a demanding five-fold standard for justification, after all. We can fairly describe those categories that do make the grade as profound, however, and in at least some cases, novel. After that, discovery is a matter of learning to look for what worked elsewhere in new situations, tentatively extending the reach of data-management that the web of comparative categories enables, and always seeking for the kinds of dissonance that should force revisions. The CRIP approach answers Smith’s call for a comparative method that can escape the weakness of extant approaches.

50 On this mater, see the discussions in Neville, ed., The Human Condition, chs. 1–2; and Neville, Normative Cultures, pp. 74–84. 51 Smith, Imagining Religion, p. 21. 52 Smith, Imagining Religion, p. 25.

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Finally, I also take seriously the alternatives to explicit methodologies of comparison discussed above by trying to incorporate their strengths into the corrective procedures of the proposed approach. This is present, for example, in the way that theoretical justifications for categories help to deconstruct assumptions about what seems obvious. Moreover, judgments of similarity, for all their dangers, can call forth theoretical efforts of justification—and all this for the sake of fidelity to the data. Nevertheless, the CRIP approach is explicit about the categories and the provisional results of comparisons. Here I enter my wager in favor of the loosely coordinated march of many feet, all contributing to the task of generating and improving comparative hypotheses. This bet includes the gamble that the chaos will in time yield to something more like the organized frenzy of the natural and social sciences. I do see reasons to think that such a transformation in comparative religion will be difficult. After all, the forging of the CRIP community of inquiry was a demanding, drawnout process.53 And then there are the intimate existential entanglements that link comparativists to their subject matters in ways that do not occur, say, for physical chemists. That is the nature of religion: its study is often profoundly self-referential. These difficulties notwithstanding, I see no reasons to think that my bet on the future of the CRIP approach to comparison must necessarily lose. On the contrary, especially because of its promise for aiding a more critical, data-aware era of theory-building in the scientific study of religion and comparative theology, we have every reason to be hopeful. Pedagogical Implications The pedagogical implications of all this are now close to the surface. The CRIP approach absolutely demands a community of inquiry that stabilizes comparative judgments for investigation, capitalizes on diverse insights and types of expertise, and introduces novices into procedures and habits of thinking that facilitate effective comparison of religious ideas. In fact, the CRIP project was explicitly designed with these pedagogical considerations in mind. The four-year effort

53 See the appendices to each of the volumes of the CRIP project for my account of the CRIP process.

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funded one comparative-religion graduate student for each of the six tradition-specialists involved in the project. These students observed the roughly two hundred hours of in-meeting conversation and debate among the six specialists and four generalists, and participated more and more freely as time passed. They had formal opportunities to present their ideas and in some cases they became co-authors with the specialists on papers for the project’s publications. They gave us feedback on the dynamics of the community-formation process and commented on what about the project’s approach seemed to work and what did not. In this way, these fortunate students were initiated into a community of scholarship whose values were cooperation and mutual respect, and whose mission was the identification and ruthless criticism of candidate comparative categories for making comparisons among the vital ideas of the world’s religions. The aim of initiation expresses the distinctive contribution of the CRIP approach to pedagogy in religious studies. Of course, in one sense, all scholarly learning is initiation into ways of thinking, key literatures, and disciplinary meta-questions of method and value. Initiation means something more concrete in the case of the CRIP approach to comparison, however, because the community of inquiry is indispensable. Thus, initiation is not just learning the ropes and sails, after which the student can go off sailing by him or herself. It must also mean accepting a place within a community of investigation that has differentiated roles and a common goal. It means being apprenticed not just in a specialty with its languages and literatures, but also in general theoretical issues in the study of religion, in the philosophy of comparison, and in both the theory-oriented and dataoriented aspects of the task of justifying comparative categories. It means committing to an ideal of scientific comparison for which mutual reliance and information sharing are crucial. This understanding of initiation into a community of inquiry makes sense in the context of students capable of research so long as there is a real community devoted to comparison in which the study can materially participate. This happened in the CRIP project but it does not always happen for graduate students in comparative religion. Like doctoral students in most fields, they are often alone in their work, and up to a point this is inevitable and good. But the ideal of participation in a community of inquiry is unhelpfully abstract when the community can only be imagined. Graduate programs in religion should strive to cultivate a working community of inquirers,

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and possibly (as happened in the CRIP project) an intentional community of inquiry with a concrete goal. These differently equipped inquirers should learn not only their specialties but also the classic works in comparative religion and the central methodological debates that arc across and through its various disciplines. This is how students become bonded together despite their differences and the disciplinary fights they study. At the undergraduate level, initiation begins as introduction. There is an enormous amount of raw information to grasp in introductory religion classes. I do not pretend that many novices in comparative religion can meaningfully participate in any community of inquiry capable of making corporate headway on problems of identifying, testing, and justifying comparative categories and producing comparisons of religious ideas by means of these categories. For religious studies majors, however, something approximating the graduate student’s experience of initiation into a working community of inquiry should be possible in the later years of a degree program, particularly through seminars devoted to in-depth discussion of a particular theme or problem in religious studies. The most perplexing problem facing all of these pedagogical recommendations is the fractured state of the community of religious studies scholars. This slightly desperate situation makes constructing actual working groups of comparativists more difficult than it should be, and calls for significant social engineering efforts. As long as comparativists want to work only with ideologically like-minded colleagues, the kind of community that the CRIP was and calls for will remain rare. Scholars of religious studies themselves need to initiate each other into the central tasks and problems of comparative religion, even if this means reaching uncomfortably beyond the narrow confines of their disciplinary specializations. The discomfort was visceral for the CRIP working group and the community obligations exhausting, at times. Yet the group achieved what no one member could achieve alone, despite individual brilliance. This is the heart of the CRIP approach to comparison: we can do more and better by working together.

CHAPTER SEVEN

COMPARATIVE RELIGION FOR UNDERGRADUATES: WHAT NEXT? John Stratton Hawley1 Two rubrics serve to structure the multi-traditional study of religion in American departments of Religious Studies today: the “history of religions” and “comparative religion.” When I was doing doctoral work to prepare for a life of teaching in the field, I personalized these. Being at Harvard, where we thought we were doing comparative religion, I looked anxiously over my shoulder to the University of Chicago, where it was all about the history of religions—or at least, so the catalogue read. Where did the difference really lie? And was there some elusive third that was being excluded by forcing this particular world of study once again into a posture of binary opposition? Perhaps we were all missing the practical politics of religion, religion beyond the classroom, where history and comparison are felt realities—felt and sometimes carefully hidden. In the pages that follow, I hope to reconsider the first two categories—history of religions and comparative religion—and at least glance out the window at the third. I will do so not by speaking in purely theoretical terms but by thinking about the realm where so much theorizing screeches to a halt: on the pavement, in the classroom.

1 This essay began as the 2002–2003 Wabash Lecture at the Divinity School of the University Chicago, presented on November 1, 2002 as part of the Chicago Forum on Pedagogy and the Study of Religion and now published in the Martin Marty Center Occasional Papers, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Divinity School, 2005), pp. 18–33, 54–55. I am grateful to Lucy K. Pick for that invitation, and to faculty and students at Chicago for their response to the lecture. I am also grateful to colleagues, students, and friends in New York and elsewhere who reacted to the essay as it was taking shape: Courtney Bender, Christian Novetzke, Rebecca Mermelstein, Laurie Patton, Matt Weiner, and my wife Laura Shapiro. My indebtedness to the many students with whom I have worked at Columbia and Barnard will become plain in the course of the essay itself. It will be a pleasure to be able to mention at least a few by name and to cite their writings. I have secured their permission to do so and am grateful for that privilege.

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For someone of my generation it’s hard to think of Chicago and Harvard as schools for teaching global religion without thinking of Mircea Eliade and Wilfred Cantwell Smith. There’s an irony about these two great men, if we see them in relation to the institutions where they flourished. Given their own deep predilections, each seemed best suited to sit in the other’s chair. Take Eliade. Despite his sustained efforts at being an “historian of religion,” history was actually a subject of great anxiety for him. The book I think of as being his signature publication, The Myth of the Eternal Return (French 1949; English 1954), was not so much about what history had created as about what it had obscured. Eliade was at heart a comparativist, as his magnum opus, Patterns in Comparative Religion (English 1958), so clearly revealed—despite its original designation, in French, as Traité d’histoire des religions (1949). Meanwhile Smith, who played the lead role in fashioning the graduate program Harvard called comparative religion and who virtually hand-picked the younger scholars (William Graham and Diana Eck) who were to missionize Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum along the same lines— this arch comparativist was at heart a historian. His book, The Meaning and End of Religion, is about how the idea of religion as a feature of post-Enlightenment reality came into being through a complicated course of contingent historical events. Thus if we follow the Mercator projection and imagine geography as primarily a horizontal reality (the great trade routes are east-to-west), then plot time against space as the vertical “other,” Smith’s work emerges as the longitude of history of religions, and Eliade’s as the latitude of comparative religion. All this, as I say, fights with the fact that Chicago and Harvard laid institutional claim to exactly the opposite gradients.2 In the half century since Smith’s and Eliade’s privotal works appeared, it’s become ever more clear that a two-dimensional grid such as this just won’t do. The Mercator projection is passé: both men’s attempts to define the field in universal conceptual terms seem

2 I realize that this simplifies a more complex history in the case of both institutions. At comparativist Harvard, George Foot Moore entitled his influential twovolume masterwork History of Religions while at historicist Chicago A. Eustace Haydon held a professorship from 1919 to 1945 that was dedicated to the field “comparative religion.”

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 117 in hindsight too parochial. Eliade’s hierophanies, his sacred and profane; Smith’s sense that “we” are “the modern western academy,” and that religion could be translated as faith and tradition—these points of departure seem more provisional now than they did in 1960. Smith certainly anticipated this, but I think Talal Asad is largely right when he suggests in a recent issue of History of Religions that Smith’s unifying category “faith,” so self-consciously inspired by Islamic iman, was crypto-Protestant nonetheless, since its primary point of reference was irreduceably the individual—or as Smith preferred, the person.3 In other aspects of his writing, Smith showed he was quite aware that the resonances of the term “person” were loudest in the Christian tradition, but he felt he had to retain it all the same. All this calls for a renewed dedication to the task of historicizing “history of religions”—moving beyond the Mercator or any other kind of one-time projection to a historical atlas of the field. We must do this not just as a prolegomenon to further effort, or in the footnotes, but in actual classroom practice. Suppose we start where most of the textbooks do when they introduce the field: with the notion of “world religions.” What will this mean? First of all, we will face the question of whether to use a textbook. Many people think it’s best to wash their hands of that one-dimensional

3 Asad, “Reading a Modern Classic,” pp. 205–222. In characterizing Asad’s argument in this way, I am adopting a shorthand that may not be entirely defensible. I am seeing Asad’s comments on the particular sort of “residual essentialism” (217) that animates Smith’s writing about faith and personhood in relation to the observation he makes about the congruence between Smith’s approach and “the missionary’s standpoint” (216). These, in turn, I am relating to Asad’s earlier and intriguingly similar criticism of Geertz’s understanding of belief as an overly “modern, privatized Christian” point of view (Genealogies of Religion, p. 47). The connection is ironic, of course, given Smith’s own critique, on similar grounds, of the notion of belief, but it seems to me this irony is just what Asad is getting at in his charge of “residual essentialism.” Smith enunciated his personalist point of view in many publications. Two are particularly noteworthy: “A Human View of Truth,” pp. 6–24; and “Comparative Religion—Whither and Why?,” pp. 31–58; reprinted with abridgements in Willard G. Oxtoby, ed., Religious Diversity: Essays by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 138–157; see especially p. 142. As to his awareness of the special centrality of the notion of personhood in Christianity, see for example “The Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible” in Oxtoby, ed., Religious Diversity, p. 45. If I were to respond more at length to Asad’s response to Smith, I would investigate a series of antinomies that seem to me to appear persistently in Smith’s work. Three of these, as I sketch them to myself, are historicism vs. personal, subjective faith; formal verbiage vs. “interior” personhood; and Smith’s polemic against Protestant belief vs. his crypto-Protestant emphasis on faith as a generic reality.

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projection, that master-narrativity, and I thought the same thing when I first stepped into Columbia’s pre-existing course “Introduction to Eastern Religions” way back in 1984. I preferred using a series of books that would feature the varying historical logics and canonical constructions of different religious traditions by confining themselves to those traditions per se: Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese Religion, Shinto. The problem was, of course, that to use these books was to reinscribe the “ism” prism as I went. A decade later Angela Zito and I revamped the course so that it would be more determinedly comparative, featuring issues of “self and society” in India and China. That made us feel we needed the backdrop of a single big book that represented the interrelated history of Asian religion(s) and could serve as an overall point of reference. Even so, we were constantly bumping into the ghost of “world religions” in rubrics like Daoism (with its founder Laozi, of course) and Confucianism (or “Confusionism,” as some students insisted on spelling it). The concept of world religion(s) and the “ism”-type building blocks it assumes seemed constant enemies no matter which way you went with the textbook issue. Is there any way to beat this problem? One clear-headed approach is to wage a steady program of guerilla warfare against the hapless textbook—perhaps even against the stated subject matter of the course itself. You begin with a historicizing deconstruction of terms such as “East” and “Asia” and continue in weekby-week asides/assaults throughout the course. Honestly, I doubt you can do more in a course whose primary purpose is to help students consolidate some overall sense of the lay of the land. And I think it’s a worthy objective to get this much history into one room at one time, though several of my colleagues at Columbia think it’s self-defeating. “Who can do all that with a semblance of integrity?” they ask. I would still carry the torch for a basic two-term historically constructed course on world religions—the interconnected, interregional, intercultural dimension is key—but I wonder if the guerilla warfare approach to this reigning paradigm is sufficient. Could you actually do the history of religions at the same time that you did the history of the history of religions? Could you possibly pull it off if you focused on the concept that most clearly constructs the field today: “world religions”? I have to confess that I haven’t tried it yet at the undergraduate level, but in Spring of 2001 and again four years later I organized a seminar for graduate students called “World Religions: Idea, Display, Institution.”

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 119 The course started with Chicago and the World Parliament of Religions and proceeded to the erecting of the massive walls that were soon to encase the University of Chicago and its monumental program in the history of religions, located within the Divinity School. These events provided a way to survey the “founding fathers” of comparative religion—Tiele and Müller had both been on the World Parliament’s invitation list—and moved on from there.4 Beginning with the Chicago Exposition seemed a good way to highlight the performative and institution-building dimensions of the theme—the museum aspect, right down to the drafting of staff from the Smithsonian and Peabody; the perpendicular plotting of culture and civilization as the Midway Plaisance intersected the lakeside axis of the White City; the politicking about who got to be on the Parliament program; the subversion and opportunism that brought figures like Swami Vivekananda to prominence; and question of whether the project could have been launched at all if its planners had not assumed liberal Christian theological views about “other religions” as normative.5 We got into the whole business of what counted as a world religion and why, and we pondered why it should have been the case that Islam repeatedly emerged as conceptually problematic.6

4 Had the course been given in Europe, one might have started with the First and Second Congress(es) of Orientalists held in Paris in 1873 and London in 1874. See Girardot, “Max Müller’s Sacred Books,” pp. 213–250 and especially 222–225. 5 One should not jump to the conclusion that the Parliament’s organizers placed those other religions on an equal footing with Christianity. John Henry Barrows, minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago and chairman of the general committee on religious congresses of the World’s Congress Auxiliary, said the following in his preface to the published version of the Parliament’s proceedings: This Book will also be read in the cloisters of Japanese scholars, by the shores of the Yellow Sea, by the watercourses of India and beneath the shadows of Asiatic mountains near which rose the primal habitations of man. It is believed that the Oriental reader will discover in these volumes the source and strength of that simple faith in Divine Fatherhood and Human Brotherhood, which, embodied in an Asiatic Peasant who was the Son of God and made divinely potent through Him, is clasping the globe with bands of heavenly light. Barrows, The World’s Parliament of Religions, p. ix. 6 E.g., Tiele, “Religions,” pp. 381–382. Tiele was worried about (or perhaps rejoiced in) “national” traces that survived in Islam and made it “little better than an extended Judaism,” by contrast to the supranational claims that made it appear a “world religion” comparable to Buddhism and Christianity. Masuzawa discusses the larger contours of this dilemma in “The Question of Universality,” which was the Lester Lecture on the Study of Religion, 2000. An earlier example is to be seen in Clarke’s widely read Ten Great Religions, where Christianity and “Mohammedanism” are set apart from the others as religions not “limited to a single nation

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With Chicago still firmly at the center of our collective field of vision, let’s step aside for a moment and look at a scaled-back version of the course syllabus. This will provide a chance to see how the course presented itself on paper: the general rubric and required readings, shorn of all the rest. I hope that some of the momentum I anticipated will also emerge, but I’ll return shortly to comment on the course further—and to keep pace with the course’s own expansion beyond its Chicago origins.

Religion G8130: Colloquium in Comparative Religion “WORLD RELIGIONS”: IDEA, DISPLAY, INSTITUTION Part I: The Founding of ‘World Religions’ Week 1. religions.

Chicago and the theatre of world

Eric J. Ziolkowski, ed., A Museum of Faiths: Histories and Legacies of the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993; subsequently, Oxford University Press), introduction and Parts I–II, pp. 1–162; also, three essays in Part III, by Kitagawa (pp. 171–190), Seager (pp. 191–218), and Ziolkowski (pp. 305–324). John Henry Barrows, The World’s Parliament of Religions: An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of or race” and therefore unworthy to be called “ethnic religions”; yet Islam fails to attain the pleroma or Geist that makes Christianity truly universal (pp. 30–31). For this reason Clarke was hesitant to class Christianity as a religion in the same sense that the others were—in his schema, it was the ten of them plus Christianity. Yet the number ten seems to have retained its magical aura all the way to the Chicago Parliament. Roman religion, which Clarke included on his list somewhat hesitantly (he omitted it from his introductory diagram), was also omitted at Chicago on account of its not being in current practice. This moved us back from eleven great religions to ten. Historically speaking, then, it seems to have been no historical accident that the Parliament’s inaugural bell tolled ten times, as we are told.

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 121 Religions, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago: The Parliament Publishing Co., 1893), front matter including table of contents, pp. i–xxiv. Week 2. Comparative religion and its “founding fathers.” Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History (London: Duckworth and New York: Open Court, 1975), chapters 1–2, 4, 6, pp. 1–46, 72–96, 119–143. If time permits, a scanning of the intervening and following chapters will obviously also be beneficial. Tomoko Masuzawa, “The Question of Universality: Counting the ‘World Religions’ in the 19th Century,” Second Annual Robert C. Lester Lecture on the Study of Religion, University of Colorado at Boulder, March 16, 2000, pp. 7–29. Timothy Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), chapters 1–2, pp. 3–53. David Chidester, Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996), preface and chapter 1, pp. xi–xviii and 1–29. Week 3. Reading academics against theatrics, Asians against Euro-Americans Conrad Cherry, Hurrying toward Zion: Universities, Divinity Schools, and American Protestantism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), introduction, pp. 1–25. Ziolkowski, ed., Museum of Faiths: Asians at the Parliament, in Part III, pp. 219–304. Max Müller, for example: F. Max Müller, “Essays on the Science of Religion,” in Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner, 1869; reprint, Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), preface, pp. vii–xxxiii.

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F. Max Müller, ed., “Preface to the Sacred Books of the East,” in Sacred Sacred Books of the East, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), pp. ix–xlvii. M. Winternitz, A General Index to the Names and SubjectMatter of the Sacred Books of the East [constituting volume 50 of the SBE], introductory materials (including a preface by A. A. Macdonell, an introduction by Winternitz, and a list of the forty-nine volumes of the SBE), pp. vi–xvi. Tomoko Masuzawa, In Search of Dreamtime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 58–75 [on Max Müller]. Donald Wiebe, The Politics of Religious Studies: The Continuing Conflict with Theology in the Academy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), chapter 2, pp. 9–30 [on Max Müller]. Part II: ‘Ism’ization Week 4.

The invention/discovery of Hinduism

David Lorenzen, “Who Invented Hinduism?,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41:4 (1999), pp. 630–659. John Stratton Hawley, “Naming Hinduism,” The Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (Summer 1991), pp. 20–34. Wendy Doniger, “Hinduism by Any Other Name,” The Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (Summer 1991), pp. 35–41. Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), chapter 3, pp. 85–130. Heinrich von Stietencron, “Religious Configurations in Pre-Muslim India and the Modern Concept of Hinduism,” in Vasudha Dalmia and H. von Stietencron, eds., Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), pp. 51–81. P. J. Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 123 1970), introduction and chapter 1 ( John Zephaniah Holwell, chapters on ‘The Religious Tenets of the Gentoos’), pp. 1–106. Week 5.

Disputing ‘Hinduism’

Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and ‘The Mystic East’ (New York: Routledge, 1999), chapters 2–5, pp. 35–118. S. N. Balagangadhara, ‘The Heathen in His Blindness . . .’: Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), introduction, chapter 7, the concluding sections of chapters 8 and 9, chapter 10, and chapter 11:3–4. The pagination is pp. 1–10, 223–262, 307–317, 362–438, and 475–500. Some reactions to Balagangadhara’s book are collected in “Editorial Introduction,” Cultural Dynamics 8:2 (1996), pp. 115–118; Vivek Dhareshwar, “The Trial of Pagans,” pp. 119–136; Philip C. Almond, “ ‘The Heathen in his Blindness’?,” pp. 137–145; and David A. Pailin, “ ‘I Cannot Tell How All the Lands Shall Worship . . .’: A Response to S. N. Balagangadhara’s Study of the Understanding of ‘Religion’,” pp. 171–187. Week 6.

The discovery/invention of Buddhism

King, Orientalism and Religion, chapter 7, pp. 143–160. Philip C. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), entire (pp. 1–141). Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), introduction, pp. 1–29. Charles Hallisey, “Roads Taken and Not Taken in the Study of Theravada Buddhism,” in Lopez, ed., Curators of the Buddha, pp. 31–61.

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124 Week 7. Tradition

The birth of the Judeo-Christian

Jesse T. Todd, “What the New York World’s Fairs Tell Us About the Rise and Fall of the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” unpublished paper. Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, “Exhibiting Jews,” in Destination Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 79–128. Mark Silk, “A New Creed,” in Spiritual Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), chapter 4, pp. 40–53. Deborah Dash Moore, “Jewish GIs and the Creation of the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” Religion and American Culture 8 (Winter 1998), pp. 31–53. Part III: America again: cities, schools, and the institutionalization of “world religions” Week 8.

The Chicago “school.”

By this designation, which could certainly be disputed, I mean especially Joachim Wach, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Kitagawa, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Wendy Doniger. Of course, the presence at Chicago of a host of other witnesses—and actors—also bears on the formation of this “school,” if we may call it such. Prefatory: Katherine K. Young, “World Religions: A Category in the Making?” in Michel Despland and Gerard Vallee, eds., Religion in History: The Word, the Idea, the Reality (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1992), pp. 111–130. On Chicago: Cherry, Hurrying toward Zion, chapter 2, pp. 54–86. Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), preface, intro-

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 125 duction (by Joseph Kitagawa), and chapter 1, pp. ix–xlviii and 2–26. Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1958; a translation of Traite d’histoire des Religions, 1949). Scan the book’s organization, and sample a section or two that interest you. Mircea Eliade, editor in chief, The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1987), especially the preface by Eliade and the foreword by Joseph Kitagawa, vol. 1, pp. ix–xvi. Peter Byrne, “The Theory of Religion and Method in the Study of Religion in the Encyclopedia of Religion,” Religious Studies 24:1 (1988), pp. 3–10. Other aspects of the Encyclopedia of Religion are reviewed on pp. 14–64 of the same volume. Wendy Doniger [O’Flaherty], Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), introduction, pp. 3–14. Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), chapter 5, pp. 109–135. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), contents and introduction (“The Fundamentalism Project: A User’s Guide”), pp. v–xiii. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), acknowledgements, introduction, and chapter 1, pp. vii–viii and 1–35. http://divinity.uchicago.edu Week 9. Wilfred Cantwell Smith and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard William R. Darrow, “The Harvard Way in the Study of Religion,” Harvard Theological Review 81:2, pp. 215–234, especially the concluding section.

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Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Mentor Books, 1964), entire (pp. 1–181 plus those remarkable notes). —————, “Comparative Religion: Whither—and Why,” in Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitagawa, eds., The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 31–58; reprinted in Willard Oxtoby, ed., Religious Diversity: Essays by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 138–157. http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr Week 10.

Diana Eck and the Pluralism Project

Diana L. Eck and the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, On Common Ground (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997; rev. ed., 2002). Browse the CD in its entirety and note especially the overarching essay in Part II on “America’s many religions” (http://www.pluralism.org). Diana L. Eck, ed., World Religions in Boston, 4th ed. (http://www.pluralism.org/wrb/index/php). Diana L. Eck, “Dialogue and Method: Reconstructing the Study of Religion,” in Kimberley Patton and Benjamin Ray, eds., A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion in a Postmodern Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), pp. 131–149. Week 11. The New York complex: Morningside Heights and beyond In an academic context—there are so many others in New York!—I would draw special attention to the following programs: (a) Union Theological Seminary Paul Tillich, “Christianity Judging Itself in the Light of Its Encounter with the World Religions,” in Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (New York: Columbia

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 127 University Press, 1963), chapter 4, pp. 77–97. This book is based on Tillich’s Bampton Lectures, delivered at Columbia University in 1961. (b) Asian Humanities and Neo-Confucianism at Columbia Asia in the Core Curriculum (New York: Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, 2000), especially pp. 9–31, which include comments by Wm. Theodore deBary, Ainslie T. Embree, and John D. Rosenberg. Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), introduction, “Confucius, Kongzi, and the Modern Imagination,” pp. 1–28, and interlude, “The Meaning and End of Confucianism—A Meditation on Conceptual Dependence,” pp. 135–147. (c) Postcolonial and Cultural Studies at Columbia Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979; revised edition, 1994). Consider especially, perhaps, “Modern Anglo-French Orientalism in Fullest Flower,” pp. 255– 284, and the afterword (pp. 329–352) written for the 1994 edition. (d) “World Religions” in New York The Interfaith Center of New York (http://www.interfaithcenter.org). Tibet House U.S. (http://www.tibethouse.org). Muslim Communities in New York project, housed at the Middle East Institute, Columbia University, and funded principally by the Ford Foundation. The inaugural conference took place on April 30, 2001. Religion and Immigrant Incorporation in New York project, International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship at the New School University under the direction of Jose Casenova and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts (http://www.newschool.edu/icmec).

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The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, held at the United Nations and the Waldorf-Astoria, New York, August 28–31, 2000 (http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.com). Week 12. Looking back: “The Invention of World Religions” Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Part IV. World religions in the classroom Week 13.

Print

Textbook evaluations. Each student will be responsible for a brief presentation on one or two books and on the intellectual and institutional biographies of their authors. A balance will be struck between books that have appeared quite recently and older works that have been through multiple editions and printings and have been historically influential. Among the latter are: John B. Noss, Man’s Religions (New York: Macmillan, 1955). Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper, 1958). Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind (New York: Scribner, 1969). Please note: It can be very instructive to browse at Butler Library, Union, and elsewhere to get a quick sense of what’s out there now (or almost now) and what’s been there before. I especially recommend the classifications BL80–BL80.2 and, in the Dewey system, 209. Also, the presence of some form of the word “man” in each of the titles listed just above is striking. All have since been retitled at some point in their history of publication, and thereby hangs a tale worth pursuing.

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 129 Week 14.

Visual and digital resources

A wide range of materials are available for review. An important early example that is still in use is The Long Search: Ninian Smart, The Long Search (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), contents and introduction, pp. 5–23. Franklin G. Bouwsma and Virginia Gentle, eds., Student’s Guide to the Long Search: A Study of Religions (Miami: MiamiDade Community College, 1976). Videotapes comprising The Long Search can be viewed in the media center of the Barnard Library: VIDEO BL80.2. L65 1977.

As the syllabus makes plain at several points, I wanted to make sure New York got on the program. In part this was because the course was being taught at Columbia: no global knowledge is without its local base, no general history without its immediate impetus. Furthermore, thinking historically, one might argue that the special identity of Union Theological Seminary as the apotheosis of nonsectarian liberal Protestantism and New York’s position in the world of publishing, international politics, and advertising earn it a place on any syllabus of this kind. But instructors working in other locations might well want to redo the geography. Still, the main point would remain. Anyone who takes such a course in the United States should be able to walk actively into the history it presents and come to realize that the exoticism of “world religions” is substantially a home-grown product. Undergraduates should be able to look around at the conceptual furniture in a room they already inhabit, and try to figure out how the chairs, tables, and sofas got there. As you’ve seen, we took the constructs “Hinduism” and “Buddhism” as our primary examples in the central “ ‘ism’-ization” section of the course, but lest even this work of near-to-home construction seem too distant, we quickly reverted to a week with Jesse Todd of Drew University as a guest. That enabled us to think about the invention of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which happened largely in New York and once again in performative circumstances: on the occasion of mounting the 1939 World’s Fair. Pursuing this

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theme, I wish we had had more time to focus on the enactment of “world religions” at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, held at the United Nations and the WaldorfAstoria in September, 2000. If this course were redone for New York undergraduates, I’d give the Summit a week of its own. As a scene— and what a scene it was!—it opens up onto a vista of international conferences and events in which New York plays a continuing role.7 Not only that, it leads forward into a consideration of the newly constructed Museum of World Religions in Taiwan, imagined by Venerable Dharma Master Hsin Tao and designed by Ralph Appelbaum in consultation with a team assembed at Harvard Divinity School by Lawrence Sullivan. The Asian location of this brand-new museum makes it almost a counter-museum in some ways, though hardly in the same sense as the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee. In other ways, to the contrary, it represents a fascinating subimperial inflection of an imperial category. This knot of contrasting perspectives opens the way to a larger set of questions. How would our “world religions” room look if the furniture had been differently arranged? Particularly if the course were to be taught elsewhere than in New York, one might want to give attention to some of the following possibilities: • the Convention of Religions held in Calcutta in 1909, which attempted to carry forward the work of the Chicago World Parliament in significantly different circumstances;8 or • the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the People’s Republic of China; or • the Muslim concept ahl al-kitab (peoples of the book); or • Italians abroad: Matteo Ricci, Roberto di Nobili, the Capuchin Giuseppi Maria de Gargnano, perhaps even Marco Polo; or • the Dabistan-i-Mazahib (“School of Religions” in Persian), a text written by an Azar Kaivani who called himself Mubad Shah in 17th-century South Asia. He mixed pre-existing philosophical/theological categorizations with his own fieldwork (under dual Parsi and Shi’i identities) and produced a twelve-part taxonomy of the known religious world, with various subcategories.9 7 A major resource for such a course would be Michelle Sorensen’s paper for the “World Religions” course: “ ‘World Religions’ and the Performance of Peace” (September, 2001). 8 See anon., Convention of Religions in India. 9 The Dabistan is the subject of a stimulating essay by Aditya Behl: “Pages from

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 131 I could go on, but one may fairly ask: How is all of this going to fit into an introductory sequence for undergraduates? In two possible ways, I hope. On the one hand one could design a lecture course on the “invention of world religions” theme that would stand alongside introductory courses that are historical or comparative in a “substantive” way. That course might be some sort of version of this one. But what about undergraduates who take only a single course, a question to which Jonathan Z. Smith has drawn urgent attention?10 That raises a second possibility: to write a concern about the history of the history of religions into existing “substantive” introductions. The question “Whose history is this, and how did it get made?” would always be near the forefront of consciousness. Given time constraints, that might mean dipping very selectively into the bowl I’ve just laid on the table. But given the equally important constraint imposed by doing comparative work at all, this seems to me unavoidable— even if it’s just to supply those in-class guerillas with another weapon. The project of historicizing the history of religions is huge, but progress is being made.11 I’m sure we’re going to see great things coming out of a group recently formed at the American Academy of Religion by Robert Orsi (of Harvard) and Leigh Schmidt (of Princeton) called “The Cultural History of the Study of Religion.” In describing their project, they emphasize “the grittiness that comes from cultural historical studies: the on-the-ground collisions and collusions of missionaries, traders, and [pointing the disciplinary finger] anthropologists.”12 As for my own work, I have begun charting out a project I call “the history of bhakti as history.” I am trying to understand the process by which the idea of bhakti (variously translated as love, devotion, the Book of Religions: Encountering Difference in Mughal India,” delivered at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University, April 6, 2001. 10 Smith, “Religion in the Liberal Arts, pp. 8–10. 11 Huge, but opening onto adjacent rooms nonetheless. In a thoughtful essay, Catherine Stimpson argues that the common core of graduate education as a whole— its gen. ed. Requirement, so to speak—should be a course on the history of higher education itself. (See, “General Education,” pp. B7–10, specifically B8.) And in his Wabash Lecture for 2001, Jonathan Z. Smith issued a call for every graduate student in Religion to learn systematically the particular institutional history of the study of religion in institutions of higher learning in American universities (“Religion in the Liberal Arts,” pp. 12–14). I stand among the indicted as one who knows this history imperfectly, anecdotally, and very largely as a reflex of personal experience. 12 Orsi and Schmidt, “Proposal for a New Group,” p. 4.

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adoration, embodiment, relationship, participation, even religion—I love the range) came to be hypostasized by Hindus as a force in history, and ultimately tagged as a “movement” (andolan in Hindi). As such, bhakti came to be seen as a force conducive to the muchvaunted project of “national integration” in a newly independent India ruled by the Congress Party, and it also courses through some of the simultaneously incorporative and divisive rhetoric of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I mention it here because bhakti is one of those obvious terms that emerges as relevant to the task of telling the history of religions from a perspective significantly different from that laid out at the Chicago Parliament, though the term has Orientalist connections for sure. It’s shocking that the otherwise extremely helpful volume Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark Taylor and published by the University of Chicago Press in 1998, contains not a single term among its magical twenty-two that emerges from any language other than English.13 Comparativizing Comparative Religion Actually, one of the purposes of creating a volume like Critical Terms is to show that the field of Religious Studies has emerged as a specifically Western enterprise, even if the subject under study is broader. But that suggests the next step. Just as “the history of religions” has its own historicizing as a major frontier, so “comparative religion” has yet more comparison as its. We still have before us the task of shifting the comparative lens in such a way that no illusion of atemporal, acultural witnessing remains. To continue with the example we already have before us, it would be fine to be able to teach comparative religion not just with bhakti as a major category—a new entry for Taylor’s book—but also with the entire shift of perspective that such a change would imply. In the case of bhakti, for example, this would mean mainstreaming the study of music into the comparative study of religion—bhakti (devotional religion) and bhajan (devotional singing) are first cousins—where all we have now is a vaguely audible drone. Obviously “religion” and “music” are English-language terms with specific, recent usages. The point would be to track what happens when you transplant them beyond the turf where they 13 On this point I am indebted to a discussion with Diana Eck (Cambridge, April 2000).

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 133 were grown—or better yet, allow the transplantation to start from some place other than English. This is what I mean by doing comparative religion comparatively. A number of students now working on dissertations within Columbia’s program on Religions of South Asia have come up with stimulating ideas about other ways this task could be pursued in the classroom. All of them were required, as part of their Ph.D. field examinations, to work out a syllabus for a course they would propose to teach. In doing so, each provided a new take on what it might mean to do comparative religion in a comparative way. Carla Bellamy, for instance, envisioned an introductory course on Hinduism that consistently approached this familiar “ism” by reading South Asian Hindu practices and forms of thought alongside those developed by Jains, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Christians of South Asian provenance. As students learned about “visions of the Divine in an Indian context” (to use Bellamy’s words), they did so simultaneously in all these contexts, and it was the same for pilgrimage and procession, temples and festivals, and so forth. Against this background, Bellamy introduced a week specifically devoted the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, seeking “to explore the repercussions of rigid constructions of religious boundaries primarily through an examination of the Sikh community.”14 Andrea Pinkney, working in similar terrain, preferred to call her course “Introduction to Indian Religion.” In setting out its rationale she said: Following Peter van der Veer, I have structured the body of this course on the premise that, indeed, there is something ‘Indian’ about religion in India. . . . I fear that courses on Indian religion which focus heavily on primary texts overemphasize religious difference, and when textual material is presented as a primary pedagogical ‘source,’ this presentation contributes to rather than challenges received ideas about sacred ‘isms’ apparently germane to India . . . Proceeding from the supposition that there is a Hindu ‘surround’, I will present materials and ideas against this premise, and then expand and problematize categories of religious behavior through application to an Indian religion spectrum. As I prefer to work with the notion of ‘multiple group identities’ (more readily manifest in actions rather than texts), my emphases are decidedly on lived religion, and on investigating overlapping religious practices.15

14

Carla Bellamy, “Introduction to Hinduism,” Columbia University, May 2002. Andrea Pinkney, “Introduction to Indian Religion,” Columbia University, May 2002. 15

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Interestingly, Andrea’s dissertation project focuses on the concept, history, and practice of prasada, a Sanskrit-derived Buddhist and Hindu word that is often translated (mistranslated, she thinks) as “grace” in its theological sense, and that refers to the exchange of food offerings in a temple setting. Prasada is often regarded as one of the principal ideas and acts that make it sensible to speak about Hinduism as an “ism.” But conceptually, prasada is also significantly Buddhist, and in South Asian religious practice, it connects Hindus with Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and Jains. Here, then, is one set of ways of thinking about comparativizing comparative religion—deconstructing and reconstructing one of the “isms” that serve as building blocks in the field. One proceeds by looking at shared and divergent practices, ideas, and narratives that structure the religious lives of people living in geographical and cultural proximity. But part of the challenge of the field—and its justification as a discipline of study—is to paint on a larger canvas, as well. Other Ph.D. candidates proposed courses appropriate to that larger frame, like the colloquium Anne Murphy envisioned in 2000, called “Of Saints and Holy People: Relics and Material Culture in the Making of Religious Authority.” In that regard let me turn to the theme of pilgimage, since it has served as the subject of my own first approach to teaching comparative religion. The year was 1978, and I had just joined the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. My bread and butter was teaching Hindi, but because those classes were relatively small, it was clearly going to help keep me at UW if I could teach something that “normal” undergraduates might want to take. So I devised a course called “Comparing Religions,” and chose pilgrimage as the rubric that would make it possible. Why pilgrimage? There were a number of good intellectual reasons: its frequency as a pattern of religious behavior worldwide; its archaic sound but growth as contemporary practice; and the fact that it is both practice and precept, has both exterior and interior dimensions. But there was an even better reason. They’d begun to teach such a course at Harvard, and though I’d neither taken nor taught it, I knew I wouldn’t have to start from scratch. The Harvard syllabus was elegant.16 It began with a series of intro-

16

See Niebuhr, “Pilgrimage as a Thematic Introduction,” pp. 51–63.

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 135 ductory issues that were sure to arise if one took pilgrimage as, in their terms, a “microcosm of religion.” At that point the syllabus moved into the visual dimension by showing the film “To Find Our Lives,” thus making Huichol pilgrimage the first broadly shared “experience” of pilgrimage in the course. From there it was “Pilgrimage in the ‘Western’ Traditions” and “Pilgrimage in the ‘Eastern’ Traditions,” with the quotation marks right there on the syllabus. The course ended with Basho in Japan, and along the way, in its well-funded Harvard manner, it had the advantage of enlisting three instructors, three knowledgeable TAs, and a guest lecturer. My problem was how to do anything like that in Seattle.17 First of all, I worried about students’ expectations. I wanted to introduce five religious traditions, as had been done at Harvard, and suspected students would want some sort of thumbnail descriptions—“Jews believe x, y, and z; Muslims believe z, y, and x.” Rather than entirely fending off that urge, I decided to accommodate it right up front, letting such a unit supplant the fancy “introductory issues” segment of the Harvard syllabus. I conscripted the Smith Brothers—Huston and Wilfred (no, not Jonathan!)—to do the “beliefs” job at home, while in class I concentrated on five experiential metaphors for each of the traditions we would be considering. I looked for metaphors that would relate to the dominant theme of pilgrimage in different, mutually reinforcing ways, and ended up with darsan, the bo tree, pesah, the Magnificat, and the hajj. Then I took up the Wittgensteinian challenge—family resemblances—and actually asked the class to sketch out a family portrait of the five traditions, justifying their choices as to size, proximity, gender, perspective, and shared traits. Too hokey? Frankly, I doubt I’d have the nerve to do it today. Instead of turning to the Huichol film for an early, common visual experience that would stand apart from the “world religions” paradigm and thereby do some more generic work, I chose “The Wizard of Oz.” I hoped that would get us to see something familiar in a new way, and I hoped it would expand the lens on the question of where one ought to look to see pilgrimage today—not just by subject but by medium. I asked at the outset how many people in the class had seen “The Wizard of Oz” before, and was amazed to see every single hand go up, all 100 of them. Lots of people had seen

17

See Hawley, “Pilgrimage,” pp. 65–79.

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it more than once. So I did the teacher thing: I asked why. Once we got to the actual screening, our theoretical pilgrim guide was Victor Turner—who else?—so over our popcorn, we talked of such things as liminality and horses of a different color. I tried to customize the Harvard course in various ways, hoping to make contact with the sorts of comparative midsets I thought might already be in place among UW undergraduates. Having started nearer to home than they did at Harvard, I began the thematic part of the course farther away—with Hindus—and moved gradually closer, dismantling the East/West rubric along the way. This enabled me to situate “America as pilgrimage” at the end, and keep moving west from Cambridge and the pilgrims toward the dream of California and to local pilgrimages in the Pacific Northwest (lots of mountains). I regret that I didn’t find time to keep going—into science fiction. I’ve called this Cambridge-to-Seattle process transplanting, customizing, and comparativizing. The last is doubtless a little grand, but you can see what I mean. The comparative frame I adopted did not depend entirely on experiences I imagined these Seattle students would have in common—presumably we were describing the world as many other people had seen it—but I did want the students in this particular group to feel that in some way the course began and ended with them. Their own life situations had forced them to do plenty of comparative work before they walked in the door, and those “positionalities” mattered to the way they’d take on the job announced in the course title: comparing religions. Much to my surprise, I found myself teaching pilgrimage again many years later—in spring, 2002, and this time back on the East Coast. It happened because I had asked my Barnard colleague Max Moerman to lecture on Japan in our introductory Asian Religions course the year before, and he explored the mandala motif in scrolls depicting pilgrims and produced for pilgrim consumption at Shinto and Buddhist shrines. He also spoke about scrolls that represented Jambudvipa— that is, India—as a landscape for mental journeying. That got us talking, with the result that Max and I decided to mount a joint upper-level undergraduate seminar called “Pilgrimage in Asian Practice.” The narrower scope, higher level, and seminar format allowed for many contrasts with the Seattle course; many of these moved in the general direction of “comparativizing.” First, we were able to deal much more intensively with various indigenous categories—Japanese and Indic—and bring them into

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 137 conversation with one another. Second, we were relieved of the need to make pilgrimage function as its own narrative instrument, charting a journey through religion’s uneven terrain. We didn’t have to proceed from one religious culture to the next, but had the luxury of weaving back and forth as we pleased—sometimes from week to week, often in the same session. Third, we structured our work around a series of themes that Max and I felt emerged—though differently—from pilgrimage studies in India and Japan: interior and exterior pilgrimage (the old saw), shared and divergent ideas of Jambudvipa, issues of replication and transposition, contestations caused by overlapping cartographies, and questions about the relation between pilgrimage, trade, tourism, national nostalgia, and death. If I had to pick a single book that students found most compelling, it would probably be Marilyn Ivy’s Discourses of the Vanishing.18 Another kind of course takes up the “comparativizing” challenge in a very different way—the local course. In my case it’s called “Religious Worlds of New York,” which I have taught several times over the past six or seven years—three times with Judith Weisenfeld and twice with Courtney Bender. The word “comparative” does not appear in the prose we developed to describe the seminar’s goals, and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very much on our minds as we proceeded. But as I think about that course in the current context, I do believe it served as a certain sort of laboratory for the comparative study of religion. In New York and Chicago, local is metropolitan, so Courtney and I say the following in introducing the syllabus: The argument is sometimes made that religion in dense urban spaces is characteristically very different from religion as it appears elsewhere. New York provides numerous ways to explore that idea, especially insofar as it encompasses a variety of ethnic and immigrant groups and individuals; encourages the generation of new, complex, and hybrid forms of cultural life that are less possible in smaller populations; and is in places unusually “virtual” and transnational in its sense of itself.

Comparison comes at many levels in this course, and usually in ways that cannot be predicted before the course gets under way. Consider,

18 Discourses of the Vanishing (1995). A yet more circumscribed approach to the theme of pilgrimage—but still comparative—is a course recently given at Eugene Lang College of the New School University under the direction of yet another Columbia graduate student in Religion: Annabella Pitkin’s “Pilgrimage in Buddhist Practice.”

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for example, Rebecca Mermelstein’s project on messianic Jews in Manhattan. How does comparison emerge among “fulfilled Jews” who have embraced Jesus as messiah—a group amplified by several spouses and a few others who feel a special connection to Jewishness?19 The major frame here is conversion, or so you would think, but mostly as unwelcome ghost: these messianic Jews pointedly do not think of themselves as converts to Christianity. Actually the issue of conversion only arises when some Christian-born member of the sect thinks about converting to Judaism—only then does it become problematic. Needless to say, Jewish Rebecca stood little chance of being a neutral observer on this scene. She was perfectly conscious that whatever she might say about her identity as a student, her interlocutors understood her to be a potential convert—or rather, member. Why else would she have chosen this subject?20 Comparison emerged in many other ways, too. In an earlier version of the course, for instance, Avani Patel pursued a topic to which she had been brought by quite a different avenue of comparison: food. Avani is Hindu and vegetarian, which meant that she was an excellent suitemate for orthodox Jewish students. So she ended up doing a project based primarily at a kosher pizza parlor, focusing on differing observances of the laws of kashrut. The first words in the title of her paper were “Comparative Jewish Religions,” but in the text she highlights the fact that her access to this comparative project was far more contingent and mutually invested than this might sound. She reports that many of the people she interviewed took her for Sephardi on the basis of looks, skin color and, of course,

19 Mermelstein, “Navigating Identity at Beth-El: An Investigation of the Authority Structures and Influences in Messianic Judaism,” in “Religious Worlds of New York” course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 2000. I am indebted to Rebecca Mermelstein for additional insights that emerged in an e-mail exchange on October 29, 2002. 20 In this context, what is the instructor’s or the researcher’s comparative responsibility? Is it necessary, appropriate, or even ethical to align the anti-conversionist sensibilities of this group with the sorts of controversies about conversion that have recently emerged in India? Recently, for example, Jayalalitha, the Chief Minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, issued an ordinance to the effect that “no person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religion to another by the use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means . . .” on penalty of up to Rs. 50,000 and a jail term as long as three years. (Tamil Nadu Ordinance no. 9 of 2002, Tamil Nadu Government Gazette, October 5, 2002.) That quickly became a human rights issue, which was featured on the list-serv of the Religions of South Asia Section of the American Academy of Religion.

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 139 eating habits. So here, as perhaps everywhere, comparison involves perception and negotiation at deep levels.21 Other projects also turned out to have comparison as their object. Hannah Budnitz, for example, took an interest in what she called an “ecclesiastical peculiar” at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, namely, the constitution of a local parish within the cathedral. In ecclesiastical terms the peculiarity is that of a parish in a cathedral, but from her point of view the real peculiarity was the underlying condition that brought the parish into being. The people who were to become its members found that the anonymity, ethnic and racial complexity, and more-than-Christian ecumenicity of the 11:00 service at St. John’s matched, naturalized, and ritualized their experience of urban identity in the city at large. Hidden in her subject, then, was the obbligato of comparison to less metropolitan pasts, both on the part of the Episcopal Church and on the part of these participants, a good many of whom had not been Christian before joining the parish constituted “within” St. John’s.22 Hannah is Jewish by background, so her project was permissible within the guidelines of the course, which are at only one point explicitly comparative: we insist that every student choose a project that lies at a significant distance from her or his own religious (or nonreligious) past. Sometimes we agonized over this. Another student in the course was Bengali Hindu by background. Was it then permissible for him to develop a project that focused on the financial underpinnings of a Bangladeshi mosque, comparing it to what pertains in Hindu temples that also cater to Bengali-speaking New Yorkers? We said yes, ultimately, but in doing so we persuaded him to cast the project somewhat more broadly. For one thing, we thought his own position as a Bengali Hindu might make it more than ordinarily difficult for him to gain access to the sort of information he sought, but we also hoped that a broader view of his purpose would give him room to think hard about his own jealously guarded presupposition, namely, that money is what makes religion talk. We wanted the Hindu/Muslim comparison to happen in an environment that could challenge any preconceived linearities. 21 Avani Patel, “Comparative Jewish Religions: The Differing Observances of the Laws of Kashruth,” in “Religious Worlds of New York” course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 1996. 22 Hannah Budnitz, “An Ecclesiastical Peculiar,” in “Religious Worlds of New York” course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 2000.

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As I think back over these projects and the discussion that surrounded them, I am impressed at how naturally yet how complexly they entered the comparative domain. A recurrent theme, for example, was the one on which Stephen Warner has worked so intensively: the congregation as the “natural” form of religious life in the United States.23 Why natural? Projects on individuals and groups who identified themselves in some way as “New Age” often brought this to the table, as did intergenerational and immigrant ones or studies of, say, a bodega. And here’s another comparative angle, this time focused on content rather than form: Surprisingly often, students wanted to work on inter- or multi-religious “congregations”—or occasionally on groups whose identities challenged certain common conceptions about what constitutes religion in the first place, like Adam Shapiro’s probject on Ethical Culture in the Bronx.24 More than anything, perhaps, we learned over the course of fourteen weeks that comparison is always positioned comparison. Sooner or later it became clear not just how interesting but also how interested each project was, and in an amazing variety of ways. Often class discussions about holes into which particular projects had descended and how they might be rescued involved one student suggesting to another how his or her own particular preconceptions and preoccupations might be getting in the way. The Practical Politics of Religion That brings me to the third area I’d hoped to explore—the practical politics of comparative religion. With George W. Bush in the Oval Office, Dick Cheney in some undisclosed basement, Condoleezza Rice at the helm of State, and a PR budget in the billions, American citizens find themselves bulldozed by a political formation whose urges can fairly be described as rabidly unilateralist. We know best, and we have the power to know best. We don’t want to know what others think of us—why they might hate us, for instance. We would rather portray that hatred as envy, ignorance, or simply aberrant:

23

Warner, “The Place of the Congregation,” pp. 54–99. Adam Shapiro, “’Where All Meet to Seek the Highest . . .’: A Study of the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture,” in “Religious Worlds of New York” course, Barnard College and Columbia University, December, 2000. 24

comparative religion for undergraduates: what next? 141 evil. And we have the religious wherewithal to do that. We—at least the “we” who constitute the President’s shadow cabinet—are bornagain Christians who know what the Bible says about good and evil. We’re God’s worriors. There is no doubt that the desire to form a framework for comparison is inevitably interested—even self-interested, one might say. This has been true from the Chicago Parliament (and long, long before) to the present. But interest can be tempered, educated; and once that is done, one’s own interested position need not be such a bad thing. It elicits a desire to look, to compare. Moreover, it invites the possibility of seeing how others might make comparisons starting from different places. And ultimately it asks: What makes for a fair comparison? These are not just academic questions. The job of living as agents and objects of comparison is very near to our political surface. Thank goodness George Bush can recognize that not every Arab or Muslim is a terrorist—that’s very important—but the fact that the language of the most virulent opposition to the United States is Islamic makes the job of comparative religion crucial to our present moment. If someone says that there’s an intrinsic connection between the capacity for terror and the particular capacities of Islam, then it is time to make comparisons. Without forgetting the special circumstances that have developed in the 20th-century Islamic world,25 we have to draw attention to other jihads—Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and certainly Christian—and to the forms of religious terrorism that have emerged in those traditions too. No religion curriculum in the country should be without a comparative course on religious violence at this moment, and lots of teaching and talking should be going on after hours and across town. Whatever we do as actors on the stage of religion, we have no choice but to do it in a comparative way. We know too much about our complicated, convergent, global history to do otherwise. We have seen enough “patterns in comparative religion”—to use Eliade’s phrase—to know that we can’t escape them. It’s a failure of nerve not to explore those patterns and highlight them, no matter how overwhelming it may feel to operate on such a global scale. But the world won’t wait. The policies of the American government are global

25 It is enlightening to read what Wilfred Smith wrote on that subject almost fifty years ago in Islam in Modern History.

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policies, and a lot of them involve religion. Somehow you and I have got to be out there thinking about what they mean. There is a group of comparative religionists in New York that I particularly admire: the young people who fuel the day-to-day operations of the Interfaith Center of New York. Beginning on September 11, 2001 the women and men in this little band worked their fingers to the bone responding to a zillion calls, especially from people trying to make contact with American Muslims. The Interfaith Center has regularly sponsored forums on Hindus, Buddhists, or Afro-Caribbean groups living in New York, and it is slowly, carefully trying to help Muslims and Jews figure each other out and chart various ways in which they can meet and talk. This is comparative work of the hardest kind, and the academic background in comparative religion that several of the Interfaith Center cadre bring to their job helps them negotiate this ground-level labor of practical comparison.26 It’s a wonder to behold. The University of Chicago Divinity School organizes its curricular program under three broad headings—historical, constructive, and cultural studies—and that has recently been carried over to the undergraduate level. Here I’ve talked mostly about the historical and cultural parts—historicizing history of religions, comparativizing comparative religion. But what about the third? I suspect it’s not what most scholars of religion would mean by “constructive,” but for me, the frontier they’re working on at the Interfaith Center of New York is constructivist in the extreme. You may suspect that their work isn’t the most helpful or the most direct—too talky, too feel-goody, too religious, insufficiently political. I have some of those same worries, too. But as far as the academic, historical, comparative study of religion is concerned, I have no doubts. I think rubbing shoulders with this kind of constructive work just outside our doors is essential. It’s time we invited it into the classroom more than we do. And it’s time to move through those fragile glass doors and see where the urgent work of comparative religion leads us.

26 The Web site of the Interfaith Center of New York is http:/www.interfaithcenter.org. Matt Weiner, one of its principal leaders, has described aspects of its activities in “Urban Interfaith: Applied Interfaith as a Pragmatic Moral Orientation” (unpublished paper, 2002).

CHAPTER EIGHT

SOCRATES AND JESUS: COMPARING FOUNDER-FIGURES IN THE CLASSROOM James Constantine Hanges Part 1: The Problem Assumptions One of the most often pursued forms of comparison is the comparison of one individual to another. The decision to compare two, sometimes not obviously related individuals always raises the question, why these two in particular? The comparative choice is often made because the two figures of interest do not stand alone, but in one sense or another represent a distinctive group or society, usually to one of which the comparing agent belongs. This is frequently the case when religion provides the backdrop against which the comparative choices are to be portrayed. The theoretical underpinning of this kind of comparison is the assumption that groups come into being because of the genius of a single individual—groups follow and preserve the teachings of extraordinary leaders. This assumption is so common that our students bring it with them to our classrooms, and presuppose that famous religious figures are embodiments of the religions that bear their legacies. In this sense believing students bring an investment in this equation rooted in the equally common presupposition that followers choose to associate with a particular religious innovator because this individual has perceived a need for change in the status quo. From the perspective of the sociology of small group formation, the “investedness” of the followers is grounded in their belief that the perceptive or enlightened individual becomes an agent for necessary change, perhaps by sharing some new revelation with others who in response acclaim not only the rightness of the perception of need, but with their acclamation also submit themselves to the leadership of the visionary.1 This is to say that, for the believers, i.e., many of our

1 For the general nature of this assumption, see Zander, The Purposes of Groups and Organizations.

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students, by committing themselves to the pursuit of this desired change they have become identified with the revealer. For them this spiritual giant is the religion, and each believer is assimilated to both elements in this equation. Because of this assumption, our students would at least not reject the proposition that one might justifiably carry out a comparison of such virtuosi as a comparison of religions. It is the usefulness of this kind of comparison that we wish to question in what follows. Our students’ level of comfort with this structural form of comparison should not surprise us, since such comparisons are common to our discipline and to the Christian tradition. In the histories of religions, this type of comparative enterprise has traditionally focused on figures who have come to be included in the category, “founder of religion.”2 Using this categorical structure Jesus might be compared to Mohammed or to the Buddha. A recent popular book series, entitled “The Parallel Sayings,” demonstrates the possibilities with included titles such as Jesus and Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha, and Jesus and Lao Tzu.3 The authors’ and series editor’s focus on parallel sayings reveals their primary concern for commonality and continuity of religious and moral beliefs and practice among the paradigmatic founders of the great world religions. The assumption that individual founders can be compared, and that in so doing each of these figures stands for the religious community that reveres him, has manifested itself prominently in the history of Christianity. One of the most repeated comparisons of this 2 The classic statement belongs to Max Weber, see The Sociology of Religion, pp. 46–59. Weber’s focus on the individual innovator produces a range of types (e.g., the mystagogue, the teacher, etc.), but none more important to the study of religion than the prophet, the one who announces the break with the status quo, paradigmatically with the powerful, “It is written—but, I say to you,” formula familiar to us from the so-called “antitheses” in Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt 5–7). Weber describes two kinds of prophets, the exemplar who embodies a higher way of living to be imitated by others, and the ethical prophet, who demands dutiful conformance to some kind of external normative order. Weber saw behind these two types, two contrasting systems of legitimation; the exemplary prophet is the vessel of the divine, personally connected to the gods, while the ethical prophet is on a mission from God, a tool not a vessel, whose authority stands outside the proclaimer. The first offers participation, the second demands obedience. As Weber sees it no distinction is workable between the religious reformer and the “founder of religion.” 3 The series is published by Ulysses Press, Berkeley, California. For a far more serious comparison, see Karl Jaspers’ four volumes, The Great Philosophers, in the first volume of which he deals with the “paradigmatic figures” of Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus.

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type is made between Jesus and Socrates, a juxtaposition that has seemed obvious to Christians at least as early as Justin Martyr (mid second-century). For example, Justin’s references to Socrates testify to the early form of the enduring Christian assumption that the one man who had actually fulfilled the Delphic maxim, “Know Thyself,” stands for the dominance of Greek thought, and therefore must be the standard against which Jesus, and with him, his followers would be measured by the larger society.4 Justin’s inclusive comparative strategy transformed Socrates into a Christian, enlightened by the divine Logos, though he had lived and suffered martyrdom long before he could know the Logos incarnate.5 While Justin more than likely did not invent this strategy, he has been followed by more than a few Christian writers and apologists.6 Clement of Alexandria and later Eusebius the ecclesiastical historian make similar assumptions. Clement claims that Socrates tried to lead 4 I note here Werner Jaeger’s comment, “[t]he parallel of Socrates and Christ runs through the entire work [ Justin’s Apologia],” Early Christianity and Greek Paideia, p. 28, n. 5. Also see Droge, “Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy.” 5 Cf. Strawser, “How Did Socrates Become a Christian?” All citations of Greek Church Fathers are taken from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Socrates foreshadows Christ most powerfully for Justin as an ideal martyr. Justin argued that Socrates used true wisdom and critical questioning (lÒgƒ élhye› ka‹ §jetastik«w) to recognize the demonic in polytheism and to lead humans away (épãgein t«n daimÒnvn toÁw ényr≈pouw) from these errors for which he became the paradigmatic martyr (tª kak¤& ényr≈pvn §nÆrghsan …w êyeon ka‹ éseb∞ épokte›nai) in the quest for truth—a precursor of the fate of Christ (Apologia 5.3). Justin makes Socrates and Jesus functional equivalents—one for the Greeks, the other for the Barbarians (i.e., the Jews)—for the revelation of the truth about the divine (Apologia 5.4). In fact, according to Justin, because he lived “with Reason = Logos,” Socrates was a Christian before the coming of Christ (ofl metå lÒgou bi≈santew Xristiano¤ efisi, Apologia 46.3). Socrates is to be admired for his truthfulness and integrity (Apologia secunda 3.6), one who suffered an unjust fate at the hands of evil demons (Apologia secunda 7.3). Socrates’ quest for truth inevitably brought him to Christ, the Logos, whom he knew in part, and for this he was killed for introducing a new deity. Socrates prepared the way for what would be revealed in full by Christ (Apologia secunda 10.5–8); on his martyrdom cf. Gregory Nazianzus (329–389), Epistula 32.11. 6 E.g., the powerful shadow of Socrates hangs over bishop Athanasius of Alexandria (296–373) when he found it strange that even Plato and Socrates would go to worship at an Artemis sanctuary (Contra gentes 10.33–37; cf. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 13.14); the Alexandrian theologian Didymus Caecus (313–398) also appears to attribute to Socrates the best moral nature among the pagans (see the fragmentary Commentarii in Ecclesiasten 37.12). That this was the stereotype is clear even in the midst of the sarcastic ridicule of Greeks as defenders of pederasty and adultery in the Jewish Christian, Pseudo-Clementine, Homilia 5.18, which repeats Apollo’s claim that Socrates is “éndr«n èpãntvn . . . sof≈tatow,” who nevertheless hid the young Alkibiades under his robe; among the Greeks the adulterous Zeus is the greatest of the gods, and the pederast, Socrates, the greatest of philosophical men (5.19).

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his fellows away from the errors of idolatry and moral weakness (Stromata 2.20–22; 5.14); he was the source for all later Greek statements of the unity and incomparability of God (Protrepicus 6.71).7 Eusebius has much to say about Socrates in exactly the work one would expect to find it, his Praeparatio evangelica. There we count over one hundred occurrences of the name. Eusebius assumes, like others before him had done, that Socrates was ı pãntvn ÑEllÆnvn sof≈tatow (the wisest of the Greeks), leading people away from idolatry and toward a virtuous life—a truly great man whose views on the nature of God commend the Christian view (15.61). Eusebius makes the Greeks responsible to the gospel because Socrates had prepared them for it by convicting them of the error of polytheism (1.8); he was a model ascetic, totally unmoved by material gain, and unalterably committed to the pursuit of virtue, goodness, and beauty (8.14). The problem with Socrates for Eusebius was that he had been appropriated by heretics as support for their doctrines (10.2). And like Clement and Justin before him, Eusebius also commends Socrates’ integrity in death (13.4).8 The Christians’ habit of comparing their best to Socrates was apparently such a commonplace that Lucian of Samosata picked up on it when he described the hood-winked Christian admirers of Peregrinus calling this fraud a “new Socrates” (kainÚw Svkrãthw, De morte Peregrini 12.16). As we might have guessed, given this ancient tradition, the practice of measuring all things by this Athenian gadfly seems to have become no less common in the modern period. Simplistic modernizing comparisons of Jesus and Socrates are unfortunately far too common, and often serve transparently apologetic purposes, as for example in the case of Peter Kreeft’s heuristic dramatic placement of Socrates in the Harvard Divinity School. Kreeft’s strategy of symbolizing in Socrates the prioritizing of reason in the search for truth follows a long tradition in

7 Clement can even cite Socrates alongside Paul on a point about the Mosaic Law (Stromata 4.3); such “proof texting” can even be used to support Clement’s views on specific, Christian dogmatic statements, e.g., Stromata 5.2,11. 8 E.g., Clement, Stromata 5.14, citing as examples of those who “heard Moses,” Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato; Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 13.13. Of course, in all this the Christian writers are taking their cue from Jewish apologists, and accordingly tend to account for the similarities between Socrates and Plato and their own master in terms of the Greeks’ borrowing from the biblical sources; for the Jewish practice, see Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, esp. 189–90.

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Christian apologetics, as we have pointed out, of obligatory but no less grudging assent to the important influence of the figure of Socrates.9 Given the fact that this particular comparison is both deeply-rooted in Christian tradition and conforms to a model of comparison familiar to our students, I would like to explore, without attempting a detailed historical-exegetical study, the possibility of using this comparison of individuals, first, to destabilize specific assumptions commonly held by my students: for example, the assumption mentioned earlier that a religion and its supposed founder are essentially synonymous, as well as the assumption that those who write about religious founders are simply archivists rather than creative authors. Second, the comparative exercise proposed here should provide our students the opportunity to confront the fact that founders are rarely accessible or encountered directly. In most cases, the founder is merely the subject of interpretations made by later devotees; the religious figure we actually encounter is a construct with no necessary connection to the historical figure behind the legacy. In the end, we can only compare the constructs, not the individuals behind them. Of course, before we proceed we should anticipate certain questions that might be raised about the comparability of Socrates and Jesus. On the one hand, we are simply taking over a comparison that arose naturally within the shared, general cultural environment of the two principals and their followers. And certainly, it is obvious that the Christians initiated the comparison, and in so doing prove that they had a vested interest in making it. Granted, one might raise the question of the sense in which we might justifiably say that Socrates is a religious figure comparable to Jesus.10 And what about the 9 See Socrates Meets Jesus. Edwin Hatch once described this comparative tendency as rooted in the presumption on the part of Christian apologists of a “kinship of ideas” between Christianity and Greek philosophy (The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, p. 126). We recall here the famous Jesus and Socrates Compared, first published by Joseph Priestly in 1803, and the cause for so much excitement for Thomas Jefferson. Also notable is the comparative relativization of a range of great religious founders, including Jesus, by Lippmann, A Preface to Morals. In both of these cases the figure of Jesus is compared with Socrates with both men being conformed to the highest values of the comparing author; i.e., for both Priestly and Lippmann refer to non-supernatural, moral and ethical religion. 10 It is not being argued here that Socrates is a founder of a new religion. Even given the nature of the charges made against him at his trial, we can say little more than that he, through his own behavior, challenged and invited his contemporaries to consider an alternative piety; see Plato, Apologia Socratis 24b8–c1; cf. Diogenes

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question of religion itself? When we speak of Jesus or Zoroaster, it may seem quite obvious that both are “religious” figures, and in some way connected with the origins of a religious innovation. Beyond the precedent in the tradition for this type of comparison, with respect to Socrates, there are obvious points of similarity to Jesus. There is really no question regarding the religious nature of Socrates’ interests: the Christians we have surveyed all mention his execution for religious innovation, and the evidence of his own trial in 399 BCE makes the religious nature of his career obvious.11 And, of course, there is always the default mode devoted to the comparison of the content of the teachings of the two men, about which it may be reasonably argued too much has been written. In that respect we shall refer to both of these figures as masters around whom a circle of students gathers.12 But most importantly for my proposal is the fact that Socrates, like Jesus, is preserved for us only by interpreters, although in Socrates’ case there is no question that these observers actually knew him personally. Especially this final element in the legacy of each man suggests a potentially pedagogically fruitful comparative twist on an otherwise common methodological approach to the historical figure himself, namely, the distillation of the teacher from the legacy preserved by the students, especially in terms of the

Laertius 2.40; Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1.1–2.5; Plutarch, De genio Socratis 580B. The charges consist of three elements, Socrates’ failure to pay respectful recognition to the gods of the state (oÓw m¢n ≤ pÒliw nom¤zei yeoÁw oÈ nom¤zvn); his introduction of other and new divinities (ßtera d¢ kainå daimÒnia efishgoÊmenow); and his [consequent] corruption of the youth of Athens (édike› d¢ ka‹ toÁw n•ouw diafye¤rvn). For a discussion of the charges, see Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, pp. 30–37. 11 See McPharren, The Religion of Socrates. 12 Of course, in his defense before the jury, Socrates actually denies that he ever really served as a “teacher” to anyone, and this essentially on the grounds that he never demanded payment for his philosophizing (Plato, Apologia Socratis 19d8–e1; 20c1–3; 23b9–c1; 31b5–c3; 33a5–b8); the denial proves the common perception despite Socrates’ (or is it Plato’s?) objection. Of course, there is also ambiguity in the references to Jesus. In all the gospels he is called teacher or rabbi (rabbi 12 times in Mark and John), but in the overwhelming majority of instances not by his disciples; e.g., in Matthew he is called rabbi only by Judas the betrayer, the final time in the very act of betraying him (26:25 and 26:49 [par. Mark 14:45] respectively). Jesus forbids the disciples calling themselves teachers (Matt 23:7); and of the 13 occurrences of that title, at least 10 are by others referring to Jesus. In Matt 10:24–25 [par. in Luke 6:40]; 23:8; 26:18 [par. Mark 14:14; Luke 22:11] Jesus appears to refer to himself as the teacher. The use of didãskalow is parallel in usage, only twice in Mark [once a self-reference], Luke [twice a self-reference], and John [twice a self-reference] is it used by a disciple.

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identification of aporiai and discontinuities preserved in the tradition. Whereas the significance of these aporiai and discontinuities has usually been limited to the quest to acquire a more accurate historical picture of either Socrates or Jesus through the traditional and still important process of “textual archaeology” (trying to discern and then reconstruct the earliest traditions about each man),13 I would like to show that these same anomalies can be used in the service of my projected pedagogical outcomes. In what follows, to provide a test case for my proposal, I would like to recommend that students be asked to read two texts, Plato’s Symposium and the Gospel of Matthew. I will suggest a reading of the Symposium that will allow students to wrestle with the problem posed for the popular memory of Socrates by his association with his notorious student, Alkibiades (ÉAlkibiãdhw), and the implications of the discernible presence of a tension between the resulting ambiguous legacy of Socrates and Plato’s portrayal of his master. As our students take up the Gospel of Matthew, they will be asked to consider the ambiguity preserved in the text regarding the relations between Jesus and his self-described mission and the inclusion of non-Jews in the community of salvation, and the tension this creates with the fact that for this writer the mission to non-Jews is understood as the fulfillment of the plan of God. Read in the manner I propose, I believe our students can be made to see that in both of these troublesome cases devoted disciples were confronted with unavoidable and disturbing implications for the legacy of their respective masters that motivated each writer to find a satisfactory resolution of the ambiguity. That resolution was not history, but an imaginative reconstruction of the founder. In other words, I am suggesting that a targeted comparison can highlight serious ambiguities in the traditions surrounding Socrates and Jesus that will confront our students with the realization that these accounts are reflective interpretations that, in the very process of trying to make sense out of the ambiguous

13 A characterization commonly used by scholars involved in the current search for the historical Jesus, e.g., Crossan, The Historical Jesus, especially pp. xxvii–xxxiv, 427–66; Crossan and Reed, Excavating Jesus; Kloppenborg, Excavating Q ; Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q. This kind of literary excavation is not common to questions of the “historical” Socrates; cf. the tone of the contributions in Vander Waerdt (ed.), The Socratic Movement. McPherran raises the issue, but believes that Plato’s early dialogues present an essentially accurate picture of Socrates religious views; also cf. Vlastos’s quest of the historical Socrates in Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher.

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legacy of the founder, nevertheless betray the traces of the great distance that exists between these founders and the communities that lay claim to them. In the process, it will become clear that our comparative exercise will necessarily divest our students of the privilege of thinking that we have sufficiently distinct and detailed pictures of each of the historical figures who stand behind these traditions to justify describing them as ciphers for communities. Students will discover the troublesome reality that in most cases with respect to the discussion of the founder of a specific religious movement the surviving records are frustratingly incomplete, and usually not autobiographical. The modern scholar is left with the problem of sifting through the accounts of various, and not disinterested interpreters, analyzing their characteristics in the hope that some order can be made out of them, on the basis of which to reconstruct a usefully accurate historical picture of the individual of interest. With that we begin with Socrates. Part 2: Plato and the “Failure” of Socrates It is necessary to set the stage for our proposed reading of the text at hand with at least a bare outline of its context in the history of scholarship, where in fact most discussions of the ambiguities in Plato’s recollections of Socrates begin with his Apologia Socratis. In contrast, we shall begin our discussion with a look at the choice Plato presents the reader in the Symposium between the model of Socrates and that of his presumed beloved, Alkibiades.14 We must necessarily presume in the present context a common knowledge on our reader’s part of the dialogue’s basic outlines and themes; these would of course have to be presented to one’s students as a prerequisite to the use of our interpretation of the text. We should point out in this context that while the Symposium is generally seen as a later dialogue which contributes little to the historical problem of Socrates’ trial, I would treat this temporal distance as an important adjunct to our students’ comprehension of the authorial creativity and freedom Plato enjoyed. 14 The common debate is over the accuracy of Plato’s account of Socrates’ trial in comparison with Xenophon’s and in light of the historical reconstruction of the situation in Athens before and during the trial, see, e.g., Brickhouse and Nicholas, Plato’s Socrates, pp. 1–10.

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The ambiguity of Socrates is vividly revealed to us in the Symposium through the contrast between his outward, physical ugliness and his inner beauty. Martha Nussbaum’s understanding forms one of the defining constituents of the scholarly context in which my reading is grounded. According to her reading of the dialogue, Plato has used the character and speech of Alkibiades to present one of the two “mutually exclusive varieties of vision,” designing a “comic tragedy of choice and practical wisdom. We see two kinds of value, two kinds of knowledge; and we see that we must choose.”15 Against the backdrop of the recent crises in Athenian politics and foreign relations, a choice between personal ¶rvw (eros) and practical wisdom has become mandatory. The last flickers of hope for a saving union of philosophy and the emotional vigor of ¶rvw have died with the failure of Alkibiades.16 What Plato now offers the reader is the cold reality that such a union cannot occur because there is no reconciliation between the two divergent cognitive pathways. Therefore, every individual must count the cost of their choice: to follow Socrates one must be willing to sacrifice the attachment to particular and irreplaceable objects of love (personal ¶rvw), while to follow Alkibiades one must sacrifice the hope of stability in either one’s personal life, or in the life of the polis.17 Plato does not deny the tremendous value which most of us place upon the particulars in our lives; something we easily perceive in the great sympathy he allows the reader to feel for Alkibiades’ condition. Moreover, he is unwilling to compromise in order to protect Socrates from the kind of criticism we find, for example, in Gregory Vlastos’ critique. In essence, Vlastos suggests that the decision (210b4–6) to move on from the appreciation of the beauty in the individual body to an appreciation of that beauty which is shared in common by all beautiful bodies to one degree or another is essentially a decision to obliterate the individual.18 The particular is lost to the abstraction because the individual is more than the abstracted element of beauty. Each particular person is a complex of beauty and ugliness,

15

See her essay, “The Speech of Alcibiades: a Reading of the Symposium.” Fragility of Goodness, pp. 169–70, 199. 17 Fragility of Goodness, pp. 197–98. 18 Cf. Eliade’s notion that the escape from the “terror of history” into myth is the assimilation of the individual to the archetype, i.e., transcendence requires the obliteration of the individual (The Myth of the Eternal Return, pp. 36–47). 16

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just as Socrates clearly was; Socrates is like a satyr in outward appearance (216d4–5), but that is not the end of the matter.19 Yet, it is just this kind of sacrifice which causes the reader to pause, expressed dramatically by Aristophanes’ objection at the conclusion of Socrates’ encomium (212c4). All applaud Socrates’ description of the ascent to Beauty, except Aristophanes. And though Plato attributes the comic’s dissent to his desire to respond to Socrates’ allusion (205d10–e1) to his own speech earlier (192b5–c2), Plato justifies our intuition that there is more than pettiness behind Aristophanes’ interrupted protest; Aristophanes’ objection to Socrates’ effacement of individuality is stifled by the rousing entrance of the individual body par excellence, Alkibiades—baldly drunk and bedecked as Dionysos (212c4–5).20 There is much in Nussbaum’s analysis with which I must agree. For example, she is certainly correct to say that the speech of Alkibiades must be read over against the career of the historical Alkibiades. I believe that she is also correct when she argues, firstly, that we must not assume that the speech of Diotima is the voice of Plato, a methodological point well worth making with our students. Nussbaum is correct as well to take the speech of Alkibiades as the key to understanding the whole dialogue.21 Sharing these assumptions, however, does not mean that I would simply appropriate her reading entirely. Despite the power of conflict and the stark imperative of decision which Nussbaum sees in the dialogue, the conflicts she describes do not put the philosophy or behavior of Socrates at risk. And it is at this point that our proposed reading begins to serve our desired pedagogical outcome. To be more specific, in Nussbaum’s description, as hard as the choice presented by Socrates may be, he remains for her a flawless jewel. Alkibiades has failed because of his own vanity.22 Nussbaum’s reading offers no hint that Plato might be using the dialogue as a vehicle for critical reflection on the career of his teacher. Rather, Plato confronts the reader with the Socratic alternative, an alternative which comes about only in the process of continued commitment to the philosophical quest. In Nussbaum’s own words, “You think, says Plato, that you can have this love and goodness too, this 19

Vlastos, Platonic Studies, p. 31. Mitchell, The Hymn to Eros: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium, “the god [Dionysos] himself appears,” p. 175. 21 Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, pp. 166–67. 22 Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 195. 20

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knowledge of and by flesh and good-knowledge too. Well says Plato, you can’t. You have to blind yourself to something, give up some beauty.”23 But what of this strategy of placing the blame for his failure on Alkibiades himself? Is this Plato’s move or Nussbaum’s, and if so in either case why is there a felt need to explicate Alkibiades’ culpability in his own corruption? Perhaps we should rethink the significance of the strategy of attributing to the disciples a profound failure to comprehend their master; an apologetic strategy shared by those who later write about Jesus.24 23

Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 198. Mark presents an interesting problem, do they or do the disciples not understand Jesus? In 4:10 Jesus responds in private to a question asked by those around him together with the Twelve (ofl per‹ aÈtÚn sÁn to›w d≈deka) about the parable of the sower he had just given without explanation to a large crowd (4:1–9). Jesus explains to those in this smaller audience that the mystery ( tÚ mustÆrion , v. 11) of the kingdom has been given to them, while to those outside (¶jv) everything is given in parables so that they will not understand (v. 12). Yet, Jesus must then ask that very audience, possessors of the mystery, whether they have actually failed to understand the parable, since if they do not understand this parable they cannot hope to understand all the parables. How shall we resolve this paradox? Are we to assume that what Jesus neglected to say, but what must be inferred, is that the mystery of the kingdom is actually the key that unlocks the holder’s understanding of the otherwise illusory parables that, now, were not given only to the outsiders (as Jesus explicitly said earlier) but to all? With no explicit change in audience we then find in 4:33–34 that Jesus did in reality speak in parables not just to those outside, but to all, and that in private he explained his parables to his own disciples (cf. 7:17–19, para. Matt 15:15–17a; also related to the problem of understanding are, Mark 8:14–21; Matt 16:5–12; Luke 12:1). Peter is explicitly credited with divine revelation in identifying Jesus’ true nature (8:29–30, knowledge that Jesus commands thereafter to be keep silent, cf. 9:9–10; Matt 17:9), and then is immediately shown not to have drawn the proper conclusion from that knowledge (8:31–33). Jesus repeatedly tells his disciples plainly about his immediate future, but they continually fail to understand him and are even afraid to ask about it (9:32). Mark’s use of silence commands by Jesus raises a problem, which Wrede’s famous “messianic secret” hypothesis was designed to explain, i.e., the silence commands, e.g., following Peter’s confession of Jesus’ Christhood, 8:29–30 (also see e.g., 1:25, 34; 3:12; 5:43), are part of the writer’s strategy to account for the tension between his recognition that Jesus made no messianic claims for himself and the fact that such claims were clearly being made for him by the “Markan” church. As a strategy, however, having Jesus command the silence of humans and demons regarding his true identity does not actually attribute misunderstanding to the disciples. Instead, they do in fact know the truth; they were simply charged not to reveal what they knew until after the resurrection (9:9). Of course, if we accept Wrede’s hypothesis of the strategy, then we must assume that the very existence of the strategy presupposes that, in fact, Jesus was fundamentally misunderstood by his earliest followers (e.g., Luke 24:13–35; cf. the problem of the abandonment of Jesus at his arrest by disciples who should have known what to expect, Mark 14:50 = Matt 26:56, cf. Mark 8:31–32; 9:30–32; 10:32b-34; Matt 14:33; 16:16). See Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, critiqued strenuously by Räisänen, especially in the revision of his German original, The ‘Messianic Secret’ in Mark. 24

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Alongside this interpretation, I would like to propose an alternative understanding that, while sharing certain starting points with Nussbaum, nevertheless describes Plato’s intention in this dialogue in precisely opposite terms, and provides the opportunity for our student readers to begin to notice the tension that haunts Plato. Much of the following analysis rests on the interpretive possibilities raised by those critics who believe that Plato is able to critically reflect on the career of Socrates.25 To go a step further, I would suggest that because of the realities of Socrates’ actual behavior, Plato, the loyal student cannot escape this kind of reflection. From this starting point our discussion will lead to the promised reading that sees the relationship between Socrates and Alkibiades as the dramatic arena in which Plato creatively works out the problem of the philosophical pursuit, and the failure of Socrates as its guide. From this perspective, that Alkibiades “crashes the party” is not simply to throw the question unanswered back to the reader for an existential decision, as some would have it. Alkibiades’ entrance does not draw the reader away from the discussion of ¶rvw . . . he is, larger than life, the very problem of ¶rvw that Plato faces.26 The solution to the problem is not stated, only the struggle to attain it is dramatized in the dialogue. In fundamental contrast to Nussbaum’s interpretation, I believe that Plato is dramatizing the need for a mediating position between the two extremes represented by Alkibiades and Socrates, and that this mediating position is, in fact, demanded by the lingering shadow of the historical circumstances. The implications of history as remembered will play a similar role for us in our reading of Matthew to follow. Returning to the question of the persistence of memory, we notice that Plato assumes that the “hot topic” in Athens is still the relationship between Socrates and his contemporaries;27 from the very first question, the principals in the dialogue are stated, namely, the ‘get-together’ at Agathon’s, and Socrates and Alkibiades (172a–b1).”28 25 E.g. Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Symposium; Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris and Alcibiades’ Failures.” 26 Cf. Sheffield, “Alcibiades’ Speech: A Satyric Drama.” 27 We cannot here deal with the details of the debate continuing over the importance to Socrates’ trial of his previous associations with characters like Alkibiades; on this issue see Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates, pp. 18–24. Also, even though the Symposium is a later work, we cannot dismiss the portrayal of the relationship between Alkibiades and Socrates in this work as wholly literary fiction. 28 Cf. Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 168. Of course, we must keep in mind that it is the dramatic scene set sometime before Socrates’ trial and death; we are

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In view of then-recent history, the Symposium is a response to a continuing controversy over the career and legacy of Socrates.29 There is a dissonance between the image of the man as he appears to the masses (or to the uninitiated) and the perception of him held by those who believe they have known him well. Herein lies, perhaps, the ultimate Socratic irony; the philosopher who was understood by the “initiated” to have been a positive element in Athenian society, whose all-consuming desire was the pursuit of the good, was perceived by that society to be of such low value that he could easily be condemned. And why not? What were his evident social products other than Alkibiades, Charmides, and some peculiar, shoeless, and unwashed devotees (173b1–2).30 That Plato opens the door to these problems by such allusions would seem to indicate that he is well aware that this dichotomous perception is a fundamental difficulty rooted in the behavior and attitude of Socrates himself. With what specific problem is Plato concerned? What does Plato seem to want the reader to think? When Alkibiades’ entourage bursts on the scene in 212c6, the attempt by Aristophanes to question something in Socrates’ lÒgow (logos) is thwarted. But does this rowdy interruption really put the end to Aristophanes’ attempt to question Socrates? That there is a relationship between Alkibiades’ speech and that of Aristophanes is certainly not a new idea among commentators. For example, Nussbaum has suggested that the speech of Alkibiades be read as a compliment to Aristophanes’ speech designed to present and answer the objections which the comedian would have expressed in response to Socrates’ speech; I believe this is fundamentally the correct reading of Plato’s intention.31 One of the primary ideas in Aristophanes speech, one which is shared by Socrates’ speech also, is that ¶rvw is a symptom of deprivation. For Aristophanes this deprivation is the loss of wholeness. Part of the original individual is lost, and ¶rvw is the desire the deprived feels to be re-united with it’s missing half. But also encapsulated in told this particular symposium took place “quite a long time ago” (pãnu . . . êra pãlai, 173a7). Even so, is it to be rejected outright that in Plato’s mind the problem raised by Socrates’ relationship with Alkibiades still burns intensely well after Socrates’ death? 29 Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 166. 30 Of course, we use the phrase “social products” here rather loosely, as if speaking for Socrates’ critics who saw the disastrous activities of Socrates’ students and acquaintances as the direct result of the latter’s connection to the former. 31 Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 171.

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Aristophanes’ understanding of human estrangement is a certain unity of body and soul. The soul is the seat of the desire for reunification but this goal is not, and cannot be, realized apart from the physical body. When the bodies of the separated individuals are united each soul’s desire is fulfilled (197c7–e9). Wholeness includes both soul and body, both the inner and the outer human; this is the primordial nature of our species. This re-unification is expressed, as it will be later in the famous speech of Diotima, in terms of generation.32 And generation, whether physical or spiritual, requires intercourse between two generative objects. Socrates, in contrast, appears to transcend the body of the individual to arrive at the abstraction of the beautiful that is common in all beautiful individual bodies (209e5–210b5). Alkibiades appears, therefore, to embody Aristophanes putative objections.33 He cannot separate the individual into two distinct entities, viz., cuxÆ ( psyche) or s«ma (soma). To be sure, he can use the efik≈n (eikòn) of the Silenus to show that Socrates is not what he appears to be. The inner man belies the outer shell. Even so, when Alkibiades speaks of Socrates it is always in terms of the connectedness of the soul and the body.34 For example, Alkibiades, by way of comparison (the use of efikÒnew, metaphors or similar images, 215a4–a5), intends to reveal the truth about Socrates (215a4–a6). He likens Socrates to Marsyas, the flute-playing Satyr (215a6–215b4); both are gifted flutists, but Socrates is the more marvelous (215b8) because, says Alkibiades, Socrates’ flute-playing in simple words (cilo‹ lÒgoi), without musical instrument, produces the same wondrous effect upon the hearers (215c6–d1). In fact, he goes own to tell the

32 Aristophanes use of fÊsiw ( phusis) includes both, 192e9–10, cf. 191c and 210a7; 210d5; 212a. 33 Nussbaum rightly says that Alkibiades represents a love which is “an integrated response to the person as a unique whole” (Fragility of Goodness, p. 191). 34 Of course, the occasion for the recounting of the symposium is the desire to hear of the lÒgoi t«n §rvtik«n (“the speeches about love” offered by the attendees, 172b6; 173e6; 177d1–2; most of the occurrences of lÒgow in the dialogue refer to the speeches made by the symposiasts), and Alkibiades is certainly interested in Socrates’ lÒgoi (lÒgoi kalo¤ are what lovers exchange and generate according to Diotima, 210a6–a8, 210b8–c3; 210d3–d6), but this does not change the focus in the former’s references to the latter. The beautiful, however, is not found in some specific argument, rationale, or speech (tiw lÒgow) or some bit of knowledge (tiw §pistÆmh, 211a7; the lÒgoi of Socrates and Diotima can also be “arguments” (201e6) or “reasons” for believing something (202a5). Plato gives us lÒgoi that are mythic in character, like Aristophanes’ story (205d10–e1). Through it all, Socrates says Alkibiades is always victorious in lÒgoi (213e3–e4).

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symposiasts that he is more aroused by Socrates’ piping than the Korybantes, his heart jumps and tears flow—Alkibiades suffers physical responses, his body expresses the reaction of his soul (215el–2).35 But perhaps more importantly, when Alkibiades describes the character of Socrates he chooses to do so not with the language of the inner, spiritual functions but with physicalities. How do we know the inner Socrates? On the one hand, Alkibiades’ comparison of Socrates to the Silenus, suggests that the outer, physical shell offers no hint of the divine contained within.36 Yet, on the other hand, the marvels of Socrates’ power are described as physical effects experienced by Alkibiades and witnessed by others. For example, Socrates easily resists the attractions of physical beauty and any other temptation to which the many are subject (216d6–e3). He especially resists the physical beauty of Alkibiades (219c–d2), the supremely beautiful body. Moreover, he is invulnerable on every side, even more so than the mighty Ajax (219e2). He is unaffected by the labors of war, surpassing all his peers. He eats and drinks or does neither with indifference. He remains unaffected by the cold of winter. He can resist the need to sleep. He does not flinch in the face of physical threat from enemies closing in around him but plods along at the same even pace (219e7–221cl). From Alkibiades’ point of view, it appears to be the case that apart from Socrates’ physical qualities, the beauty of Socrates’ soul would never have come to be known by anyone. Has Alkibiades got it wrong to answer wholly in terms of the outer Socrates? There is an important paradox here; in terms of Diotima’s scenario of ascent to the realization of Beauty, Socrates’ physical appearance could not have contributed to the beginning of Alkibiades’ journey. He could not have begun from an appreciation of Socrates as a beautiful individual body, and then moved on from there toward an appreciation of Socrates’ non-corporeal beauty. How then could Alkibiades have actually come to know of Socrates’ inner beauty unless Alkibiades had himself made the ascent beyond the appreciation of mere physical beauty? We must remember, in view of the ease with which we can speak of the ideas expressed by the characters in this dialogue as their own, that behind the whole dramatic 35 Even the inner pain that Alkibiades feels can only be expressed in terms of physical images. He is snake-bitten but of a kind the pain of which is felt only in the heart and soul (217e6–218a5). 36 Socrates is like the Sileni, who within their ugly shell contain divinity (215a6–b3).

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presentation stands Plato.37 However, the character of Alkibiades does more than present one pole of two between which the audience must choose, as Nussbaum describes it. Rather, I believe that this character allows Plato to explore critically the problem of Socratic ¶rvw. Alkibiades functions simultaneously as the problem and the means by which to address the problem; he is the one who claims to know the true, beautiful Socrates, and yet his legacy would suggest that he actually did not know.38 In regard to the problem raised by Alkibiades as the object of Socrates’ love, Stanley Rosen has written, “[t]he unsatisfactory character of the love affair between Socrates and Alcibiades is a necessary consequence of the peculiarity of Socrates’ eros, which can only desire divine things or beings.” For Rosen this peculiarity is a defect in Socrates’ character which Plato not only recognizes but also criticizes.39 Diotima’s speech has lifted the audience past the mortal limits of the particular and the individual to the heavenly realm (211d8–e4). Socrates has voiced clearly his agreement with the prophetess, and as well his intention to persuade others (212b1–4). But it is at this point precisely that the problem of Socrates ¶rvw arises for Plato, at the point when the focus turns from the vertical to the horizontal axis, to the world of whole human beings. As described by Alkibiades, Socrates is deceptive and cruel; he has enchanted Alkibiades, leading the young man along to falsely assume that he was actually in love with Alkibiades’ physical beauty, only finally to reveal that he had no real interest in physical beauty at all (216d2–216e5; 217a5–219e5). Michael Gagarin has suggested that interpreters begin to take seriously the charges of hybris leveled against Socrates in the Symposium.40 This particular hybris, “consistent with Socrates’ eros, is the primary factor in his failure as a teacher.”41 This aspect of Socrates’ char37

Nussbaum rightly criticizes Vlastos for seeing Plato only behind the speech of Diotima. She argues, and I agree, that Plato also stands behind Alkibiades’ speech (Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 167). 38 As Socrates claimed earlier to know ¶rvw (199a1; a7–b5) while no one else did, so Alkibiades now claims to know Socrates as no one else does; he alone can reveal Socrates (214e6; 215a6; 216c7–d1; 216e5–7); he shall be the mystagogue, as Diotima once was for Socrates. 39 Rosen, Symposium, p. 279. 40 Notice that Alkibiades frames the moment in his speech as the moment of decision for a jury (219c5–c6). 41 Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 23.

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acter arises from the ironical fact that he is the supreme student; in other words, consistent with the scenario laid out by Diotima, Socrates has made his ascent and has left behind mundane concerns.42 This is clearly the force of the elaborate descriptions of Socrates’ behavior which Alkibiades offers. Rosen goes a step further, arguing that, based on the analogy with Diotima’s speech, Socrates takes on the role of Beauty itself once Alkibiades has arrived on the scene, “Socrates is loved, but he does not love or desire in return.”43 The lover of course, is now Alkibiades, Eros incarnate.44 Socrates’ hybris can be seen as the interpretation of his ascent by those who are unaware of the experience themselves, or by those, like Alkibiades, who perceive his ascent from the perspective of their own earlier stage in the process. In other words, Alkibiades may be describing Socrates’ ascent from the perspective of the §r≈menow, the “one being loved” but only in passing.45 This is also an interpretation to which Plato ascribes validity. Whether we think of the soldiers on campaign with Socrates (220c1), or his present host, Agathon (175e8), all respond to him with the same accusation of hybris.46 His hybris establishes a gulf between Socrates and other human beings, one which Socrates himself apparently felt no genuine compulsion to bridge. Again to quote Rosen, “His (Socrates’) hybristic indifference is justified in the sense that he is in fact superior to all other men. At the same time, it is unjustified or defective, because it impairs his effectiveness on behalf of philosophy among the non-philosophers.”47 In his primary accusation of hybris, Alkibiades describes a superior Socrates who looked down in scorn on the approaching lover; he was a mocker of the one who would ascend, the one who desired to beget in the beautiful that he discovered in Socrates (219c3–5).48 Yet, Alkibiades must bear a great part of the responsible for his own 42

Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 28, cf. Nussbaum, Fragility of Goodness, p. 183. Rosen, Symposium, p. 286; cf. Gagarin, “Socrates hybris,” p. 28. 44 Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 288. 45 Scott, “Socrates and Alcibiades in the Symposium,” suggests that we should assume that Socrates was Alkibiades’ lover, §rastÆw, at the stage in his ascent where he was a lover of souls, only briefly focused exclusively on the individual soul of Alkibiades (especially pp. 33–34). 46 Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 31; this air of superiority is described by Alkibiades as Socrates’ usual manner, 218a6–7; 216e4–5. 47 Rosen, Symposium, p. 294; see also Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” pp. 29–30. 48 Cf. the use of katafrone›n in 210b5–6; 216d8; 220b7–22c1. 43

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problems, even though we might argue that he proceeded in harmony with proper motives in spite of his obvious vanity.49 He is portrayed by Plato as being well-aware of the weaknesses of his own nature, as well as the demands which the pursuit of wisdom place upon him (216a1–5). Alkibiades’ honest assessment of his own failures is one of the attractive elements of Plato’s portrayal. Yet, Alkibiades still remains a failure in his attempt to follow Socrates. Plato leaves us then with a complex of paradoxes: not the least of which is irony that the character in his Symposium who most represents sexual vigor fails when faced with the ultimate erotic opportunity. We easily recall that Diotima had said that individuals mature to a state of pregnancy wherein they must find a proper medium in which to engender (206c), and so it is with Alkibiades. Here we must assume that at least in part he wanted to “bring forth” lÒgouw, like those that Diotima described, since it is Socrates’ lÒgoi that so deeply affected him (see 215b4–217a; 222a1–6). Based on his speech we must also assume that he wanted to bring forth personal improvement as well (218d1–2). That he failed would have been painfully obvious to all as Plato writes the Symposium.50 Certainly, Xenophon seems to believe that the fault lies entirely with Alkibiades.51 But the question remains whether Plato intends us to assign all of the blame to Alkibiades alone? Is it in fact as simple as that he failed to pursue with adequate persistence, or that his susceptibility to the adoration of the masses proved to be his downfall? I believe that the Symposium presents a much more complicated picture. The apologetic explanation for Alkibiades’ speech, i.e., the strategy of having Alkibiades “take the blame” for his own failure, is traditional and ultimately not totally satisfying,52 even augmented by the explanation that his speech functions in a collaborative way with Socrates’ speech, either to demonstrate in practice what Socrates had learned from Diotima, or to show 49

Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 34. Cf. Sheffield, “Alcibiades’ Speech: A Satyric Drama,” who, in pointing out all the elements of Socrates’ speech parodied in Alcibiades’ “satryrical” encomium to Eros-embodying Socrates, describes Alkbiades’ frustrated attempt to seduce Socrates as a paradoxical instantiation of Socrates’ myth of Penia’s seduction of the sleeping Poros to conceive Eros (p. 201). 51 Memorabilia 1.2.14f. In fact, according to Xenophon if Alkibiades had approached Socrates rightly motivated, he would have remained with him and avoided politics altogether. 52 Of course, the older view is that Alkibiades’s speech served as Plato’s apology for Socrates; Alkibiades relieves Socrates of responsibility by claiming all of the blame for himself, e.g., in Bury, The Symposium of Plato, see Bury’s Introduction. 50

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the ascent from the side of those who loved Socrates.53 The problem is that had he wished only to defend Socrates, Plato could have avoided re-raising Aristophanes’ issue of human wholeness, as well as the portrayal of Socrates hybris, and especially the fact that Alkibiades claims exclusively to know the inner Socrates.54 This brings us to the promised reading of Plato’s intention in this dialogue. I would suggest that what Plato wrestled with was a conflict of credibility, and that this conflict of credibility can serve as a comparative category in the comparison of portrayals of religious masters or founders by their later devotees.55 In the process of struggling with Socrates’ legacy, Plato has portrayed the character of Socrates in both its brilliance and its impenetrability. To portray this impenetrability Plato deals openly with the perception of Socrates’ hybris, and links this directly to the frustration and failures of Alkibiades. Plato also presents his audience with a serious picture of ¶rvw as it is actually experienced by human beings, especially in the portrayal of one specific individual. The idea that Socrates has failed Alkibiades is not uncommon among modern interpreters, as Gagarin’s work demonstrates; we might think of the failure of Socrates as his failure to imitate Diotima, a guide, or master, who was willing to reach back to those at the bottom of the staircase, and who, in fact, never lost sight of Socrates the individual.56 According to Gagarin, Diotima 53

Dover, Symposium/Plato, and Scott, “Socrates and Alcibiades,” respectively. Contra Bury, Symposium, p. xx. Also, e.g. Xenophon defends Socrates by distancing him from Alkibiades. Plato does not see the situation so simply. He does not avoid the truth; Alkibiades is correct, he does know Socrates as none of those present do (216c7). 55 This is not to deny that the tension between traditions and the way this tension is handled by later authors or redactors may provide an opportunity to say something about the historical figure who constitutes the focus of the conflicting traditions. 56 Even though she has reservations about Socrates’ capacity for initiation, she nevertheless says that she will hold back nothing of the final steps. She accommodates Socrates in the words, “Try to follow to the degree you are able” (210a1–4). Of course, Diotima is associated with prophecy (Diotima could mean “honored by Zeus” or “Zeus-honoring”). Women initiating others into mysteries or new cults is certainly well-known in this period (e.g., Glaukothea in Demosthenes, De Corona 126–130; 259–260; De falsa Legatione 281), cf. McPherran, Religion, pp. 295–96. The issue of whether the association with prophecy affects our characterization of the issue we have here raised is beyond the scope of this chapter; it is sufficient to say that her reference to enlightenment as revelatory vision (210e2–e6) is not unlike Plato’s own description in the allegory of the cave in the Respublica; the enlightened one must be forcefully compelled by an external agent, dragged up the ascent to the light, where the last step in the philosopher’s quest appears to be revelatory (Resp. 515c6–515d1; 515d4–516a3; 516b4–b7); on the “extra-rational” in Socrates see McPherran, Religion, pp. 9, 177–90; 194–201; 208–29. 54

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does, in fact, portray the correct model of the philosopher/teacher because she “clearly seems intent on satisfying, not frustrating, her pupil’s desire.”57 It seems in view of these factors that Plato is doing more than confronting his audience with two mutually exclusive alternatives. He is critically reflecting on Socrates’ legacy by honestly confronting the complex historical reality of his master’s career. Beyond this, however, we have suggested that Plato is portraying his own struggle for a middle ground. He is allowing his audience in on his own personal dilemma. Alkibiades is not an isolated case. A consistent pattern of disastrous associations has accumulated to Socrates’ legacy, and the reader is explicitly reminded of some of them (222a8–b4).58 Plato knows that simply separating these “bad apples” from Socrates’ harvest will not do. Instead, Plato leaves the audience with an unresolved problem. Alkibiades fails to move Socrates. Yet, Socrates tells the attempting seducer that if the very good and beauty Alkbiades desires is truly in him, then the young §rastÆw should know that the reciprocity he seeks from Socrates cannot be realized (218d7–219a4). In other words, Alkibiades should have known the outcome of his advance beforehand. Socrates’ focus is only vertical. Alkibiades reminds us of the horizontal dimension. I read Plato as striving for an equation that includes both axes in a way that will produce unequivocal good for society. And herein lies the best evidence for Plato’s own struggle. It is he, not Socrates, who writes the Respublica and the Leges. It is he, not Socrates, who writes anything at all. He is the one who strives to produce wise rulers to govern a just polis —not Socrates. If we take seriously the words Plato puts into the mouth of Alkibiades, Socrates was no less oblivious to the political concerns of Athens than he was to the emotional needs of one of the city’s desperate youth, Alkibiades,59 57 While pedagogical terminology is used in the speech of Diotima as the ascent to the beatific vision is described (there are steps to be ascended one by one, 211c2–3; there is the need for a guide, 210a7). Yet for Socrates the journey is, in practice, a solitary climb with each individual climber climbing, growing ever more isolated, up from the mundane. As Vlastos so aptly describes it, “The high climatic moment of fulfillment—the peak achievement for which all lesser loves are to be ‘used as steps’—is the one farthest removed from an affection for concrete human beings,” (Studies, p. 32). 58 Gagarin, “Socrates’ hybris,” p. 35. 59 Cf. Rosen, who suggests that Socrates’ failure is his coldness to the love of others. This coldness prevents or thwarts any attempt “to beget in the beautiful.”

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or to any of the other aspects of human society.60 The failure of a particular institution could not move him any more than the failure of a particular individual. But these concerns do move Plato,61 as his own career demonstrates. And to the degree he is motivated by the quest for a bridge between the heavenly and the human planes, he has succeeded in surpassing his teacher. This motivation and not Socrates, the master/teacher, produced a Plato instead of another social disaster. In the end, the objection of Aristophanes is heard through Alkibiades; a severe dualism with only a vertical focus creates partial human beings, not whole ones. Socrates has lost the means of contact; perhaps Plato is wondering aloud in the Symposium if his teacher has sacrificed too much. One final element in the mediating equation needs further emphasis. As we mentioned earlier, Alkibiades must not be seen as free from blame; this would be to violate the hypothesis offered here. In one sense, Plato’s portrayal of Alkibiades’ intimate knowledge of the inner Socrates (216d6) seems to force Plato into an implicit denial of one of Socrates’ basic principles, viz., no one does evil knowingly.62 As we have already pointed out, Plato makes no attempt to He suggests that perhaps Socrates is guilty of “castrating” Alkibiades at an even deeper level than the physical (Symposium, 294, 286, cf. also 302). Also note Gagarin’s comment, “His [Alkibiades’] reasons for rejecting a life of philosophy are not made clear until the seduction episode, which follows immediately (217a2–219d2) and which reveals the true nature of his relation with Socrates, namely that he was frustrated in his past attempt to acquire beauty, wisdom, and virtue from Socrates” (“Socrates’ hybris,” p. 34). 60 Even Plato’s Crito (see esp. 50a6–b5; 51e1–52a5; 52c9–52d3; 52d8–54d7) in which Socrates’ claims to uphold the laws of the polis as a fundamental concern must be considered in light of the ascent described in Diotima’s speech; the beauty not of specific laws or customs but the branches of knowledge that subsume even these instances (210c3–d1). 61 Plato amply displays his own concern for the guidance of the unenlightened in the Respublica. The Symposium makes it difficult to attribute any of this concern to the historical Socrates. For example, Respublica 498a expresses the need for timely and cautious guidance for the sake of the uninitiated. More clearly, perhaps, this is shown in the obligation of those who have made it out of the cave to those still in its depths, as Gagarin points out (“Socrates’ hybris,” p. 37). 62 Socrates himself implicitly introduces this axiom when he states that he would never have entered into the agreement to offer an encomium of Eros had he known the truth of what was required. His agreement was made in ignorance; his mistake would not have been made knowingly (199a3–6). Diotima also seems to presuppose this idea when she says that individuals are willing to cut off their own hands and feet whenever they consider these members to be evil. Human beings, says the prophetess, welcome only what they consider the good, while they treat what they consider to be evil as alien (éllÒtrion, allotrion). Here the presupposed difficulty is ignorance of what may be, in reality, the good in each case (205e1–206a2).

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devalue Alkibiades’ knowledge of Socrates (222a1f ). Neither does he avoid the fact that Alkibiades (who knows Socrates as no one else does), by an act of his will, nevertheless, fled the good that he knew (216a4–b5). Despite this, there is a subtle distinction in the speech of Diotima which may indicate an additional mediating element in Plato’s wrestling with this problem. In the final words of her speech, having opened to Socrates the mystery of the vision of beauty itself (211d4), the prophetess asks Socrates if he would consider the life of one who had seen the vision of the beautiful to be a paltry life (211e4–212a1). When she goes further we discover that the person who becomes dear to god and immortal is not the person who has only seen the vision, i.e., the one who only knows the good, but rather it is the person who, having seen the vision, brings forth (t¤ktein, tiktein, “to give birth to”) true virtue and nurtures it to maturity (212a1–7). When we look again at what Alkibiades claims in his own case we can see that this personal failure is subsequent to his vision of Socrates’ beauty. Alkibiades knows, i.e., he has truly seen, but he has not remained fixed on the vision (§faptom°now, ephaptomenos, 212a4). As a result no true virtue can be begotten to be nurtured. If we can assume that Plato speaks through the voice of more than one character, is it not possible to see that Plato both acknowledges the failure of Socrates as a teacher and guide, while, portraying Alkibiades’ culpability in terms of his pride? Socrates, as the self-absorbed philosopher, is guilty of hybris, of failing to reach back in sincere effort to those who are just beginning the climb out of the cave. Alkibiades is guilty because his own pride could not stand the strain of a continued focus on Socrates. The depth of his pride is easily measured by the severity with which Socrates’ rejection repels him. The qualification offered by Diotima, in describing the person who becomes dear to god, moderates the well-known Socratic axiom in a subtle way which prevents the reader from ignoring Alkibiades’ own failing once he had caught a glimpse of Socrates’ beauty. For Plato, if a bridge is to be built across the gulf between the upward philosophic pursuit and the world of real human beings, it must be built from both sides at once. Alkibiades cannot withdrawal from the pursuit, even when it becomes difficult. Yet Socrates, from the other side, must, like Diotima, return again and again to the pursuer. He must truly guide and not abandon Alkibiades in a sea of indifference which can only be interpreted as the most devastating hybris. For neither man is seeing a vision of the beautiful sufficient in itself; and this seems, ultimately, to be Plato’s dilemma.

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Reading the Symposium in this way we are able to highlight for our students Plato’s creative reconstruction of his master, Socrates, and leave them face to face with the ambiguity of the historical person that stands behind the tradition. They can easily see the distance between the historical Socrates and the traditions about him shared by his students like Plato, who despite knowing Socrates personally nevertheless leaves us, as the tensions in the Symposium indicate, his invested interpretation of his teacher, and not a disinterested chronicle. We know turn to the Jesus traditions. Part 3: The Problem of Jesus and the Incorporation of the Gentiles Having looked at Plato’s handling of a single, nevertheless crucial, problem left to him by his master, we now move on to take a brief look at what I suggest may provide a parallel problem in the legacy of Jesus. We do so again with an eye to demonstrating to our students that we are dealing with interpretations of religious figures and not directly with the historical individuals themselves. We should keep in mind, however, one particularly important proposition, viz., just as we saw in Plato’s handling of the problematic ambiguities of Socrates’ career, it is Matthew’s handling of similar ambiguities surrounding the person of Jesus that can help our students grasp the complexities of our comparative task. Also, as in the case of our first example, we must establish something of the scholarly context for our discussion. While already recognized as axiomatic in much historical Jesus research, the application of what is commonly called the criterion of difference,63 should be distinguished from, but not necessarily contrasted with, the process we shall describe below. Our suggested comparative enterprise does not turn on the question of how similar or dissimilar religious figures may be to the cultural environment or with the devotionally-based institutional legacy that attaches to them over time, e.g., how

63

Conzelmann, Jesus, p. 16; the translation and expansion of the well-known article in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Of course, this principle is problematic because it describes its objects only negatively; since Jesus is most assuredly what everything else is not, be it Jewish or Christian; for a recent critical reflection on the application of this principle, see Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 1–10. What we shall focus on is in some ways related to the criterion of embarrassment, also discussed in Allison, but we shall not pursue this connection here.

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“un-Jewish” or “un-Christian” Jesus may have been. Rather, we are interested in demonstrating to our students the greater utility of comparing the strategies employed by devotees to deal with tensions or ambiguities discernible in the traditions concerning their masters and what the handling of these ambiguities might tell us about the significance of these interpreted figures to the devoted communities that created the interpretive accounts. Of course, in our attempt to look comparatively at the problems of legacies, there is an important difference between Plato’s wrestling with the legacy of Socrates and the writer of Matthew’s struggle with ambiguities surrounding Jesus, namely, Matthew offers, beyond traditional attributions, little to suggest that it was composed by persons who actually knew Jesus. This caveat does not change, however, the fact that these texts, like Plato’s Symposium, were written by personallyinvested devotees well after the death of their master, for whom the legacy of that master nevertheless continues to pose problems. Our treatment of Plato’s Symposium suggests the possibility that we might look at tensions in a gospel in a similar way, and not merely as indicators of the juxtaposition in the process of redaction of formerly independent, successive traditions. Again, we cannot undertake a fullscale examination of such matters in this context. Our goal is simply to suggest a strategy through which to expose our students to the possibilities and perils of comparing Jesus and Socrates in a somewhat different framework than most have employed.64 Our students often take for granted that Jesus was a universalist and that his message was consciously directed to all people and that his commandments were simple, universal moral principles. That is to say, our students assume that since Jesus founded Christianity he must have been the first Christian.65 The New Testament certainly provides grounds for such an interpretation. For example, the gospel

64 We should here acknowledge the recent reconfiguration of the comparison of Jesus and Socrates in terms of five innovative comparative categories by Gooch, Reflections of Jesus and Socrates. 65 E.g., Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, p. 159, citing the sayings source, Q , Luke 13:29 = Matt 8:11–12, among others. What this saying about people coming from the four (two in Matthew) directions to sit at the table with the Jewish patriarchs means to the respective gospel writers is the question. Of course, Matthew’s version has been taken to mean that the Gentiles will displace Jews, the sons of the Kingdom, in the new age.

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of Matthew closes with the risen Jesus’ famous “Great Commission” to his twelve disciples to “disciple” all tå ¶ynh (ethnè, nations, i.e., locations to which Jews have been dispersed or Gentiles?), baptizing them and teaching them to keep everything that he had commanded to the twelve (28:16–20). However, despite this apparently worlddirected charge at the gospel’s close, our students should be made aware that there are several associated ambiguities here.66 To whom is Jesus sending his disciples, to non-Jews or to fellow Jews living among the various nations of the Diaspora? To what commandments is Jesus referring, a set of commandments that originate with him intended for his universal Church, or to his instructions regarding the proper way to understand the Torah? These ambiguities are related to other indications in Matthew that, in contrast to the traditional reading of the gospel, lead many scholars to the conclusion that Matthew reflects a Jewish Jesus-community with serious reservations about the inclusion of non-Jews in the salvation scenario inaugurated by their master. Did Jesus also not say that his mission was restricted to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” in response to a request for healing by a Gentile woman (Matt 15:24), and did he not forbid his disciples to go to Gentiles, restricting them as well only to the same “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:5–6)?67 Some would at least see that “Matthew,” whoever the writer might be, was wrestling with the problem of Jewish exclusivity and Jesus’ relation to it, and in the end found room for the Gentiles in the gospel’s portrayal of Jesus.68 E. P. Sanders goes further by describing Matthew, of all the gospel writers, as the most enthusiastic about the mission to include the Gentiles. More interesting for our purposes is his comment that “[a]ll the authors of the gospels favoured the mission to Gentiles, and they would have included all the pro-Gentile

66 On this debate, see, e.g., Byrne, “The Messiah in Whose Name ‘the Gentiles will Hope’ (Matt 12:21),” with Sim, “Matthew and the Gentiles: a Response to Brendan Byrne.” 67 E.g., Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” especially pp. 6–11; Dunn, The Partings of the Ways, p. 118. One could also argue that Gentiles are probably included in Matthew’s community (or that possibility is clearly at hand), otherwise the tensions within the gospel are difficult to explain (see Hummel, Die Auseinadersetzung Zwischen Kirche und Judentum Im Matthäusevangelium, p. 32). Against the Jewish social context of Matthew see Hare, “How Jewish is the Gospel of Matthew?” 68 Davies, “The Jewish Sources of Matthew’s Messianism,” pp. 502–503; and Davies, Jewish and Pauline Studies, p. 318.

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material that they could.”69 This claim returns us to the issue of comparative possibilities between Plato’s Socrates and Matthew’s Jesus. Sanders is essentially suggesting that the gospel writers, and Matthew in particular, reveal a tension between what they would like to say about Jesus and what they can say about him. The implication is that Jesus has left his followers a problem, a dissonance between the course of events they and their communities have witnessed and their ideal image of their master. In the case of Plato, the events are disastrous as exemplified in Alkibiades’ career. In the case of the gospel writers, in terms of Sanders’ comment, the course of events is positive from their later perspective. In both cases, there is an incongruity between these events and the disciples’ preferred image of their master that motivates the writer toward resolution. With respect to Socrates, I have suggested that Plato’s strategy is to embrace the reality of Socrates’ failure as a guide to others, while not freeing Alkibiades from culpability in his own failure to persevere, admitting his master’s failure through elements in both the speeches of Alkibiades and of Diotima that stand in tension with Socrates’ own speech. Beyond the dialogue, Plato implicitly admits the failure of Socrates in the very course of his own career as a teacher, a role Socrates explicitly denied for himself.70 As perhaps a mirror reflection of what we implied when we questioned the assumption that Plato’s intention was to defend Socrates by blaming Alkibiades for his own disastrous outcome (above, 32), we should question the writer of Matthew, as the representative of the canonical evangelists’ responses to the acknowledged dissonance between their communities’ obvious reality of gentile inclusion and the enduring legacy of Jesus’ indifference to Gentiles, about the portrayal of Jesus’ disciples and the question of responsibility for this discontinuity. Matthew, like Plato (above, 167), must also deal with a “conflict of credibility.” In contrast to Plato’s solution to his own master’s ambiguity, on Sander’s reading of Matthew, the writer must actually close the gap between the followers of Jesus, communities that have endorsed and promote inclusion of Gentiles as the divine will, and a master who appears not to have been concerned for Gentiles at all. To quote Sanders again, “[w]hat is striking is that

69 70

Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 192. On this see Scott, Plato’s Socrates as Educator, pp. 15–23.

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the evangelists had so few passages that pointed towards success in winning Gentiles to faith in Christ. They could cite only a few stories about Jesus’ contact with Gentiles, and even these did not depict him as being especially warm towards them.”71 Sanders highlights the problem nicely; for each of the gospel writers Gentile inclusion is a reality, and each values the Gentile mission, even if qualified by certain conditions as it was perhaps for Matthew’s author. Yet, preserved beneath a layer of Lukan apologetic lurks the legacy of Paul’s struggle to gain the Jerusalem church’s endorsement of his mission to non-Jews, a legacy that confirms the reality that a mission to Gentiles was not, for the Jerusalem leaders who knew Jesus best, the obvious inference from their master’s teaching. Matthew’s author must creatively answer a troubling question; how could such a fundamental part of the evangelist’s own community’s experience be so foreign to and even denied by Jesus the founder? Is it possible that the writer of Matthew, like Plato, found it necessary to acknowledge this dissonance between the master and the community that followed him, to treat seriously the glaring inconsistency that what Jesus himself prohibited and for which he showed no concern, the mission to Gentiles, the writer’s church now properly carries out as God’s will, just as Plato exceeded his master in concern for the education of others (above, pp. 168–169)? By posing the question for Matthew we pose it for our students; they too must recognize the distance between the historical Jesus and the community of devotees that follow him. Our reading further emphasizes this discontinuity by raising the question, why did Matthew’s writer preserve the dissonance and allow it to stand in the text, when the option of explicitly explaining it away was the obvious alternative? Of course, the resurrection serves as the turning point for Matthew’s author; underlying the gospel is a two-stage structure that moves from a pre-resurrection Jesus portrayed as an obedient servant of Moses and interpreter of the law72 to a post-resurrection, exalted Lord whose interests and authority now extend to the limits of heaven and earth (Matt 28:18–20). This structure may itself reflect the writer’s intention to bridge the distance between the master and his followers. This possibility remains in need of further investigation. In Plato’s case, the Symposium not

71 72

Sanders, Figure of Jesus, p. 192; also pp. 217–18. Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” especially pp. 6–7, 22–25.

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only forces us to confront the reality of Alkibiades self-destruction and the question of Socrates’ culpability in it, but we must also confront the problem that the same master produced both Alkibiades and Plato. To pursue this issue in terms of the Jesus traditions, and to heighten the impact of the internal tensions within Matthew, I hope I may be indulged for turning to a proposal from my own master. In a series of studies preliminary to his monumental work on the “Sermon on the Mount,” Hans Dieter Betz raised a possibility for re-thinking the traditions in the gospels that identify certain ambiguities within them with which the students of Jesus were left to wrestle.73 Betz’s fundamental thesis is that the whole of Matt 5–7 constitutes a self-contained unit of teaching tradition produced by persons who considered Jesus to be their teacher, and who preserved their master’s teaching in the form of a recognizable, philosophical genre known as the epitome.74 This epitome was incorporated by the sayings source Q before its inclusion in Matthew.75 Within the epitome Betz finds evidence that the writer(s) is aware of and hostile to the Gentile mission, and specifically the mission of Paul.76 There is little doubt that the key passage, Matt 5:17–20, is polemical, representing in the figure of Jesus a conflict contemporary with the epitome’s community of origin. But it must also be admitted that this provocative hypothesis has not received wide endorsement. That acknowledged, however, I submit that the hypothesis raises some interesting questions about the relationship between founders and legacies.77

73

See Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount. This epitome presents a particular picture of Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of the Torah, a Jewish religious teacher and critic, spokesman for a distressed community in competition with the Pharisees within the broader Jewish community. 75 “The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–7:27): Its Literary Genre and Function”; “The Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–12): Observations on Their Literary Form and Theological Significance”; “The Hermeneutical Principles of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17–20)”; cf. Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , pp. 171, 317–22; the “sapiential instructions” of which the “Sermon on the Mount” is an example “represent the formative literary component” of Q (p. 322). 76 See another of Betz’s preliminary articles, “Matthew 5:17–20 and the Hermeneutical Principles of the Sermon on the Mount”; Jesus’ challenge to the false understanding that he has come to destroy the law can be correlated most naturally with the “law-free” gospel of the Gentile mission, cf. the Lukan correlative in Acts 21:20b–21; also Betz, The Sermon on the Mount, pp. 184–89. 77 E.g., Kloppenborg makes only a passing reference to Betz’s argument that the Sermon on the Mount is a pre-Matthean arrangement (Formation of Q , p. 171, n. 2). It is clear that he pays little serious attention to the details of Betz’s ideas except where Betz’s work shows the relationship between sayings material and wisdom tra74

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For our purposes, the intriguing aspect of the possibility that Matthew has appropriated a developed form of Q already containing the “Sermon on the Mount” is the way the Jesus of Q , and the Jesus of the incorporated sermon, relate to what must be the actual theology of the author of Matthew. It is clear that there are instances of incompatibility between the Jesus of the “Sermon on the Mount” and the Jesus of Q. For example, the miracle story of the Centurian’s slave (Matt 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10) is clearly a story of the Jewish rejection of Jesus and an apology for the Gentile mission.78 According to Kloppenborg the “sapiential speeches in Q” represent a block of material “untouched or only marginally influenced by these motifs,” here referring to among others “the rather positive and optimistic view of Gentiles” in other layers of Q.79 However, the problem, as Betz’s points out, is that we are left with a confused theology in Matthew. The writer of Matthew’s own perspective, like the later strata of Q , appears to presuppose a church which has long since incorporated Gentiles; the writer’s is a community for which the continuing Gentile mission is taken as a direct implication of the teaching of Jesus. Betz takes this as obvious from Jesus’ final instructions in the “Great Commission” cited above (28:18–20). If this is correct, as Helmut Koester has assumed, and if Betz is correct about Matt 5:17–20, the implication is unavoidable that Q , in the form we have it in Matthew, presupposes the existence of the Gentile mission.80 This presents an identifiable source for tension between the tradition inherited by Matthew and the reality of the community’s experience; the Jesus known to the tradition opposes the theology and practice of the present community. This source is more concerned about maintaining continuity with Judaism, or to quote Koester, its author is faced with the problem of “the relationship of the followers of Jesus to the law-abiding community of ditions (p. 189, n. 78). In contrast, note the heavy use of Betz’s contributions on the Sermon on the Mount by Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, pp. 167–71, 327. For more recent criticism of this hypothesis in Betz’s magisterial 1995 commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, see Allison’s review in the Journal of Biblical Literature. 78 Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , pp. 117–21. To solve the problem of these various pictures of Jesus, some scholars have simply eliminated Matt 5:17–20 from Q , along with similar statements such as Matt 10:5–6 and 23:3, claiming that this material is a product of Matthean redaction (Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , pp. 78–79). 79 Kloppenborg, Formation of Q , p. 171. 80 An implication which Koester fully appreciates, Ancient Christian Gospels, pp. 167–70.

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Israel.”81 The beguiling question yet to be explored is whether, considering the gospel in terms of our comparison with the Symposium, some of Matthew’s ambiguity can be explained as the product of critical reflection on Jesus similar to that suggested for Plato. In other words, can we use students’ critical reflections on their ambiguous masters, i.e., their interpretations of these figures, as a comparative category in the histories of religions? I suggest that when the complexities of Matthew’s composition are taken into consideration, by taking the tack we have here, we compel our students to confront the reality that in some cases we are dealing with multi-layered interpretations, or interpretations of earlier interpretations, of a single religious innovator. If so, what might this mean for the use of comparisons of such parallels as Socrates and Jesus for the study of figures we categorize as religious founders? Again, we offer no attempt in this venue to resolve the question of the better interpretation of Jesus in Matthew; that debate is likely to continue unabated for the foreseeable future. Our purpose has been to suggest the likelihood that we might discover profitable ways to expose our students to the possibilities and perils of comparison of religious innovators as synonyms for the religious communities that lay claim to them—to show students that Jesus is not necessarily Christian, nor a reasonable “stand-in” for Christianity, just as Socrates is not Plato, or the latter the former. This process cannot be precisely the same as the discernment of the historical Jesus on the basis of the persistence of “embarrassing” passages preserved by the gospel writers, simply because we are dealing with an ideal image of Jesus in the mind of the writer. In this respect, our proposal demands that students confront the reality that even the surviving accounts of religious figures that we possess rarely take us into direct contact with these individuals, but provide interpretations or creative reflections of them. Students must recognize that in the same way we separate the “historical” Socrates from the Socrates imagined by Plato, we must separate the “historical” Jesus from the Jesus imagined by the gospel writers. Finally, our reading of the two example texts enables us to show our students that in reality it is these same interpretations and reflections that are susceptible to comparative study, not so easily the figures they interpret. To repeat an earlier

81

Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 167.

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point, while the ambiguities found in the traditions about Jesus or some other religious innovator may well reflect redactional stages in the development of the tradition, they cannot be accounted for only in those terms. That certain colors were already on the palette makes the painter no less an artist. In that sense, students must come to realize that Plato and the writer of Matthew, as each relates to his master, are comparable because they have both been left the task of interpreting a problematic legacy. I believe the ways in which each deals with that legacy provide potentially fruitful ground for pedagogical appropriation of comparison for the purpose of educating students to serious methodological problems.

CHAPTER NINE

CHRISTIANITY’S EMERGENCE FROM JUDAISM: THE PLUS AND MINUS OF JOSEPH KLAUSNER’S COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos I Joseph Klausner was a distinguished scholar who devoted much of his career to tracing the emergence of Christianity out of Judaism. His two books, Jesus of Nazareth (1925) and From Jesus to Paul (1946) are superb examples of comparing religions, showing both the possibilities and perils in this endeavor. Klausner begins by quoting with approval Julius Wellhausen’s remark, “Jesus was not a Christian, he was a Jew.”1 The question now posed is how did this particular Jew inspire or otherwise cause the birth of Christianity, a religion that became different from Judaism? If we remember that the seed of the new is present in the old the answer is forthcoming. Under Klausner’s analysis Jesus followed in the footsteps of Israel’s prophets by preaching a gospel of repentance to hasten the arrival of the Kingdom of God. But he did so in unusual ways that allowed others after him, not the least of whom was a fellow-Jew named Saul of Tarsus (otherwise known as Paul) who would interpret his words in ways that made the emergence of Christianity from Judaism inevitable. Klausner shows how this process of emergence dramatizes the difference between a national religion, defined by ethnic homogeneity, and a religion which crosses national and ethnic boundaries. Klausner argues that from the time of his baptism under John, Jesus believed himself to be chosen by God to be the messianic agent of the Kingdom. Believing so, he preached the “Coming Kingdom” with authority and a sense of urgency, attracting crowds, gaining disciples. But his journey to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover resulted in a humiliating death. This was not supposed to happen 1

Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 95.

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to Israel’s Messiah, agent of God’s redemption. Jesus was not the first Jew, nor the last to so proclaim himself Messiah; but a Messiah who died a criminal’s death on a cross was plainly unacceptable to every Jewish expectation about the person and conduct of God’s chosen agent of redemption. If Jesus died a shameful death in the eyes of first century Jews, then his preaching of the Coming Kingdom proved equally irregular and unacceptable. He preached the imminent day of redemption in the traditionally prophetic way of calling for repentance of sins and demanding moral reform of life. But he did so with an exaggerated sense of his own authority, seeming to identify himself and his pronouncements with God. The repeated use of the phrase, “Truly, I say unto you . . .” (Matt 5:18; this form appears in Matthew at least twenty-five times) suggests that when Jesus spoke he spoke for himself, he spoke for God. In Klausner’s judgment this explains why it was not Jews but mainly Gentile pagans that could be persuaded to believe Jesus and God were one.2 According to Klausner’s analysis what resulted from Jesus’ call for repentance was an “extremist ethics” favoring the spiritual over the material, an ethics divorced from the realities of this world. Jesus’ parables and sayings suggest a moral idealism more suitable to the heavenly world than to the concrete world of history and ethnos, nation and state. For this reason what begins in Jesus’ preaching as a traditional Jewish demand for obedience under the law (“I came not to destroy law but to fulfill it,” cf. Matthew 5:17, Luke 16:17) ends in a vision of the world for which the nation of Israel and the ordinary Jew of the first century would have trouble finding a place. Jesus seems not unaware of the radical character of his preaching. He contrasts his message as “new wine” that cannot be put in old wine skins. There is a distinct emphasis on the new in his preaching of the Kingdom in parables (Matthew 13:44–52). Not surprisingly Jesus’ preaching offended the Pharisees, who turned against him not for any particular act (declaring man lord of the Sabbath; allowing washing and anointing during a period of fast) but for his consistent and outspoken disparagement of the ceremonialritual requirement in contrast to the ultimate value the moral law.3

2 3

Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 379. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 372.

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For the Pharisees were champions of Israel’s national integrity, seen as a unity of both ritualistic and moral daily observances. Jesus’ indifference to politics, as in the “Render taxes unto Caesar . . .” reply, was rightly construed by the Pharisees as an exaggerated Judaism making little sense to a people concerned for their cultural and political independence from Rome (Matt. 22:15–22). Jesus’ spiritualism and idealism is reinforced by the statement, “Judge not that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37), a pronouncement which would be seen to be ultimately dangerous to Israel. Klausner comments on the “Judge not” passage: “Where there is no call for the enactment of laws for justice, for national culture; where belief in God and the practice of an extreme and one-sided ethic is enough— there we have the negation of national life and of the national state.”4 Yet, in Klausner’s opinion, albeit extremist in ethical outlook, the roots of Jesus’ moral pronouncements can be found in the Talmud and Midrash. Only unique were Jesus’ preoccupation with the moral demands of the law of God and his seeming indifference to its ritual aspects. In contrast to his contemporary Rabbi Hillel, who was a pacifier and a man of practical national affairs, Jesus comes to us through the Gospels as an apolitical trouble-making idealist, a contentious man, saying harsh things of Pharisees and Sadducees, opposing by force commercial traffic at the temple, and suffering martyrdom for his opinions.5 Klausner’s conclusion is that without being aware of it and without wishing it, Jesus in his messianic self-understanding, ethical idealism, in his character, conduct, and death—planted seeds of new religion. But it would take the forceful personality and radical ideas of Paul to germinate those seeds. Nevertheless, it is important to say at this point that neither Paul nor Jesus (in Klausner’s interpretation) thought of themselves as anything other than Jews, wholly committed to the Torah of God. But it is also important to say that the novelty and mystery of the new is that its birth cannot be wholly anticipated in the old; it is a truth which Klausner, for all his erudition, had trouble grasping, as we shall see further on. What explains the birth of Christianity from Judaism was the revolutionary genius of Paul, specifically the historical-geographic con-

4 5

Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 374. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 390.

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text of his preaching of the Gospel of Messiah Jesus.6 Had Paul been a native-born Judean, one of Jesus’ earliest disciple like Peter or James the Lord’s brother, then he (Paul) might never have advanced his own ideas about the ultimate significance of Jesus’ life and death. Had Paul been one of the original disciples, then perhaps the Jesus fellowship would have amounted to little more than an obscure Jewish messianic sect, one of the several sects that did not outlive the destruction of 66–73 CE. But Paul was not one of the original disciples from Judea. As Saul he was originally a persecutor of the Jesus’ fellowship and was inspired to join the fellowship after his conversion experience, which “experience” provides ample evidence of his truly original and independent caste of mind. Moreover Paul/Saul was not a Judean, a Jewish subject of Roman-governed Palestine; he was a Jewish-born Roman citizen from the cultured city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, where he (as Klausner stresses) could not help but come under the influence of Greco-Roman philosophical and religious ideas. Paul’s main audience for his preaching of the message of Messiah Jesus was predominately the Gentile pagans of the towns and cities he visited in his three missionary journeys occurring between 43 and 64 CE. Klausner takes the view that precisely because he was preaching increasingly to Gentile pagans Paul shaped his message of Messiah Jesus to stress the moral over the ritualistic aspects of law and also to emphasize the divinity of Jesus. A Judean Jewish hearer of Paul’s message would have demurred at Paul’s depreciation of the ritual requirement of circumcision; he would also have found Paul’s notion of Messiah Jesus as a dying-and-rising god atoning for human sins strange and unacceptable. But, according to Klausner, it would have been the opposite for Gentile pagans longing for contact with a god redeeming them from sin through the sacrificial death of his own son. Moreover, Paul’s message of redemption in Messiah Jesus would also have been made more appealing to Gentiles by his easing of the ritual requirement of circumcision.7 That Christianity emerged and developed as a religion separate from Judaism has to do with the way in which Christianity shaped itself distinctly as a religion: by stressing the moral over the ritual

6 7

Klausner, From Jesus to Paul. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, pp. 6, 30–31, 40, 48–49.

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aspects of God’s law; by viewing Jesus’ death not as humiliating defeat but as atoning sacrifice; by believing in Jesus’ resurrection as a proof of Jesus’ divine sonship; and by accepting Paul’s notion of participating in victory over sin through mystical-spiritual union with Jesus’ life and death. Klausner makes it clear that it is particularly in Paul’s mysticism that we recognize a Christianity which shaped itself not as the continuation of Jewish national religion, but as an entirely different religion, a religion reaching out to all sinners, irrespective of nation and place and time.8 By contrast the Judaism of Jesus’ time had no greater purpose than to preserve the Jewish national identity against the threat of a welter of Hellenistic-Roman religions threatening that identity. Judaism was seen by every Jew as the bulwark for safeguarding the ancient Jewish nation-state. Judaism could not but feel threatened by a denationalized religion that Jesus first seeded and later Paul germinated.9 II Joseph Klausner traced and explained the emergence of Christianity from Judaism with masterly techniques: knowledge of primary languages, examination of source-documents, texts, secondary references, command of the history of the period, and a confident conception of Jewish social and religious tradition at different periods. Understandably, Susan B. Hoenig in her own forward to Klausner’s book, Jesus of Nazareth, says “A careful reading of this volume will be of inestimable value to the student and show him the true meaning and method of scholarly research.”10 To reinforce Hoenig’s statement we have the praise of the Christian scholar and Harvard University Professor of Theological ethics James Luther Adams: “For the Christian scholar the book poses radical questions regarding the extremism, the lopsidedness, the impracticality of Jesus’ ethics. The Christian will not easily dispose of these questions, if he can do so at all.”11 So Klausner’s act of “comparative religion” opens up a number of possibilities for how we should understand the historical emergence of Christianity from Judaism, and therefore their inter-connection 8 9 10 11

Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, pp. 486–95. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 376. Susan B. Hoenig, Preface to Klausner’s Jesus of Nazareth, p. lx. Hoenig, Preface to Klausner’s Jesus of Nazareth, p. ii.

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as religions. But we should caution that possibilities are usually fraught with perils. So it should not surprise us when Hoenig speaks of Klausner’s “deep nationalism and chauvinism and also his defense of Judaism.” Hoenig’s accurate observation raises the question as to whether or not Klausner’s comparative study or any act of “comparative religion” can be carried out without exposing the biases of the comparativist. Certainly Klausner did not hide his biases. He approached the figure of Jesus as a historian of the Jewish and Christian background of the first century. But what results from his research is strikingly defensive: trumpeting the realism of Judaism and deploring the otherworldliness of Christianity; disparaging the spiritualism of Jesus’ ethic; writing-off Paul’s mystical vision of Jesus Christ to Hellenisticpagan influences. In argument and tone Klausner’s books on Jesus and Paul give the impression that their author does not regard the birth of Christianity from Judaism as a legitimate birth. Rather, under Klausner’s analysis, what seems to emerge from Jesus’ ministry, life, and death was not a new authentic religion, but an aborted form of an old religion. What is sorely lacking in this analysis is precisely what is needed in any constructive, fair-minded act of “comparative religion,” an appreciation of the novelty and mystery and authenticity of the new. For religion (in my view) is a spiritual energy, which respects no bounds, limits, definitions, (liken religion to fire) an energy or wind which “blows where it lists.” Since Judaism generated Christianity, the energy for the new was always present in the old. What brought the new into being was the wholly unpredictable presence of personalities, ideas, and circumstances. Knowing this we must teach ourselves to practice the methodological art of epoche (as Joachim Wach called it), that suspension of judgment and bracketing of experience that makes it possible to examine Judaism and Christianity as historically connected but essentially different bodies of religious experience. If there is one thing that mars Klausner’s otherwise brilliant analysis of the connections between Judaism and Christianity, it is the absence in his analysis of epoche.

CHAPTER TEN

INTERPRETING GLOSSOLALIA AND THE COMPARISON OF COMPARISONS James Constantine Hanges Introduction Perhaps no member of the academy has in recent years provoked more critical reflection on the comparative enterprise than Jonathan Z. Smith.1 In comments specifically devoted to pedagogy, Smith reminds us that students need to be exposed to comparisons; “nothing must stand alone, . . . comparison opens up space for criticism. Each item in an introductory course should have a conversation partner, so that each may have, or be made to have, an argument with another in order that students may negotiate difference, evaluate, compare, and make judgments.”2 Smith refers here, of course, to the common exercise of comparing different objects labeled religious to each other with respect to a specified third element. In the following essay I intend to extend Smith’s model in two ways. With respect to pedagogy, I suggest that exposing students to the enterprise of comparing comparisons might serve as an important step in their introduction to comparison in the study of religions. To reach this goal, I shall describe contemporary conservative Christian scholarship on glossolalia as a specific example of comparison, and describe it against the backdrop of Smith’s well-known critique of comparison in the service of the quest of Christian origins, Drudgery Divine.3 I am convinced that we can use such examples comparatively to meet Smith’s pedagogical goal, not just in terms of comparing religious objects, but as a means of critiquing the act of comparison itself. With respect to theory, my goal will be to use this contemporary 1 For a recent critical analysis of Smith’s views on comparison see, e.g., Urban, “Making a Place to Take a Stand, pp. 339–78. 2 Smith’s emphasis in “Introducing Durkheim,” in Teaching Durkheim, p. 6. 3 I shall also refer regularly to the following: “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” “What a Difference a Difference Makes.”

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example to extend Smith’s comparative structure in a specific direction. Considered in terms of group-formation and self-definitional processes, its comparative structure reveals this type of comparison’s function as a reciprocally apologetic and polemical group-defining strategy, dependent upon the similarity and continuity of the objects compared (here specific related groups) to achieve its intended effect. In terms of the intersection of theory and pedagogy in this exercise, I shall propose that the structural relationship between the comparanda and the referenda found in our present example defines what I shall call an apologetic comparison. Such a comparison is characterized by the inclusion of four comparative elements rather than three, as in Smith’s model.4 We shall see that this type of comparison functions within the process of group self-definition, and is dependent on the proximity of the group making the comparison to the group(s) from which it intends to distinguish itself. This proximity, in turn, grounds a presumption of shared values from which the referenda (always supplied by the comparing agent) draw the degree of plausibility needed to make the comparison effective. As theory touches pedagogy, comparing comparisons allows students to recognize the structure of an apologetic comparison and its function among groups struggling through the process of determining group boundaries. Ideally, students will not only “negotiate difference, evaluate, compare, and make judgments” with respect to religious objects, but also reflect critically on the politics of comparison itself. They will see first hand that the structure of a comparison, and the terms in which it is cast, often reflect the prejudice or hostility of the one making the comparison. Such an act of comparison functions as an exercise of power over others. In the end, through comparative comparison we may learn as much, if not more, about the relationship between the objects compared as we learn about the objects themselves.

4 I choose this descriptor recognizing that this type of comparison serves both offensive and defensive purposes; it levels both accusations and denials through the juxtapositions employed. To my knowledge there is no accepted technical terminology for the structural elements in a comparison. For the sake of convenience I shall tentatively suggest the following shorthand: a comparandum is the object being compared to a referendum (that “with respect to which” the comparison is carried out). The structural extension I shall propose for the apologetic comparison requires two comparanda and two referenda. The two elements in each pair of comparanda and referenda are valued oppositely, one positively and one negatively. In the case of the comparanda, the comparing agent (or group) is always the positive member of the pair.

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Comparison as an Instrument of Power We begin with our promised backdrop. Smith sets the stage for his critique by taking the reader into the private correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two men who after decades of animosity managed in their final years to reconnect over a range of subjects. Especially prominent among these topics was their shared concern for the corruption of the true religion of Jesus by Trinitarian Christianity. Jefferson and Adams were both admirers of Joseph Priestley’s critical analysis of the Platonisms that had been allowed to infest the pure and simple faith of Jesus by his later philosophicallyminded and power-hungry devotees.5 Smith’s narrative tells us how Jefferson argued that the real teachings of Jesus were too plain to require a priesthood to interpret them. So, those desirous of acquiring priestly power created an artificial system, fabricated from the stuff of Greek mysteries and the incomprehensible doctrines of Plato and his disciples.6 As Smith shows, the strategy used by Priestley and his admirers for dealing with this corruption was a specific kind of comparison. This comparative structure was inherited from the Reformers,7 and was an extension of their apologetic and polemical comparison of Reforming Christianity and Roman Catholicism, carried out with respect to a third element presumably held in high esteem by both communities, i.e., “original” or New Testament Christianity.8 The referenda and the values

5 According to Jefferson, Jesus himself was intent only on reforming Judaism in harmony with “reason, justice, and philanthropy,” Smith, 1990, p. 4. The Platonic intrusions toward which Jefferson directed his contempt included the incarnation, the immaculate conception, Jesus’ divine nature, the role of the Christ-Logos in creation, Jesus’ miracles, his resurrection and ascension, his subsequent presence in the eucharistic host, the Trinity, the doctrines of original sin, of vicarious atonement, of regeneration, of elections, and of hierarchical orders. All these were the later inventions of a developing Christian priesthood that stood in stark contrast to the simple faith of Jesus. But the most “pernicious” of all these imposed Platonisms was the doctrine of the Trinity; see Smith, 1990, pp. 4–7 for more on Jefferson’s distinction between Jesus’ religion and Trinitarian orthodoxy. 6 Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 8–9. For Priestley’s intellectual lineage, see: Schofield, The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley. 7 Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 13. 8 The tertium comparationis, or third factor, links or serves as the common ground between the two elements in the comparison, a referendum presumed to be of value to both those who initiated the comparison (Deists like Priestley, Jefferson, and Adams) and those against whom the comparison is targeted (orthodox Trinitarians, both Catholics and Protestants).

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attributed to them were reflections of the comparing agents’ sense of what should constitute a foundational tradition shared by both comparanda. The Deists’ adaptation of the comparison was constructed to denigrate traditional orthodoxy in both its Catholic and Protestant forms as fundamental disloyalty to Jesus, the heart of the tradition they both claim most to cherish. Of course, all three elements in the comparison were constructed, or re-imagined, by those who were making the comparison. The comparing agents thus established the terms in which not only the hostile comparison would be cast, but also necessarily, as we shall see, the terms in which the proximate other was compelled to respond. In particular, the Reformers’ descriptions of Roman Catholicism were constructed in such a way that they provided categories well-adapted both to the description of ancient paganism, as well as, by extension, to an inclusive comparison between the former and the latter. In the case of the Deists, the negatively valued referendum continued to include pagan cult, but went further to include certain schools of GrecoRoman philosophy.9 Extending Smith’s model, I would suggest that the apologetic function of this type of comparison necessarily required the introduction of a second referendum, to which was attributed a negative value that could plausibly be assumed for both the comparing community and the community compared. Having constructed their instruments of measure in this way, the Reformers were able to carry out a two-part comparison; both the Protestants and the Roman Catholics could now be compared to positively-valued, original Christianity and also to negatively-valued Greco-Roman paganism. As employed by the Reformers this comparison so constructed was guaranteed to reciprocally demonstrate the dissimilarity of the Roman Church to the New Testament church and conversely the former’s similarity to ritualistic paganism. On the other hand, the Reformers who made the comparison could show their form of Christianity to be thoroughly consistent with the charisma of Jesus’ church and totally alien to all things pagan. It is important to note that while the com9 Obviously, despite a difficult struggle, Roman Catholicism was able to find a level of compatibility with a great part of Greek philosophy, e.g., see on the difficulty of incorporating the full Aristotelian corpus into the curriculum at Paris between 1120 and 1277, Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages, esp. pp. 26–28; Luscombe, The School of Abelard, esp. pp. 105–10 on the condemnation of Abelard; Van Steenberghen, Aristotle in the West; Kretzmann, “The Culmination of the Old Logic of Peter Abelard,” pp. 488–511.

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paring agent (in this case Reformed Christianity) is also being compared, this part of the comparative equation is often carried out implicitly. Despite their proximity and continuity, it goes without saying that the comparing agent presumes that the two primary elements, or comparanda, are fundamentally different and that this difference is a matter of value. This value judgment is determined by comparison with the referenda.10 For a developing sectarian group, this means that it must show itself to exhibit a higher degree of continuity with what it describes as the true, the authoritative, or the original impulse than the parent group, whose relationship with that heritage has been corrupted. In summary, the keys to the successful application of this type of comparative enterprise are: first, the plausible assumption (the plausibility of which is grounded in proximity) that both the comparing agent and the compared “other” share the values attributed to the referenda; second, the appropriate correlation of the respective descriptions of each of the comparanda by the comparing agent. This four-part, complimentary structure is not only evident in Smith’s example, but also in the example I will discuss below. On the basis of what follows, I shall suggest that the introduction (explicitly or implied) of the fourth element, a second comparandum, deserves further inquiry to determine whether it may be characteristic, perhaps even definitive, of comparisons intentionally constructed to serve an apologetic function in group formation. Given the ultimate two-part goal of the comparison, the Reformers’ reconstruction of idealized, pristine Christianity bore an uncanny resemblance to then coalescing Protestantism on behalf of which they had taken up the self-definitional comparative task.11 Reformed Christianity was like 10

To be sure, that these valuations are, in fact, shared by both of the two communities represented by the primary elements in the comparison is, of course, the presupposition of the comparativist, but if the intended outcomes (both apologetic and polemic) are to be achieved there must be a minimum level of credibility to the suggestion that these values are common. In other words, it must be at a basic level true that Roman Catholics, just as their Protestant counterparts, would reject being likened to pagans, and believe the age of the apostles to be paradigmatic. 11 As Smith himself points out, the very act of comparing Roman Catholicism positively, or inclusively, to the negatively-valued Greco-Roman cults implied a corresponding discontinuity, or exclusive comparison, with the ideally-valued image of pure nascent Christianity—the Christianity that the Reformers claimed to reconstruct from the pages of the New Testament alone. For the use of the categories “inclusive” and “exclusive” to describe types of comparisons, see the essay by Blasi in the present volume. Both types are used positively and negatively. The proximate

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New Testament Christianity and, correspondingly, like New Testament Christianity was unlike all things pagan.12 Moreover, as Smith shows, the ultimate goal of the comparisons used by the Reformers and their scholarly descendents was to portray Christianity as unique and independent—but for the legacy of the Hebrew Bible, which was rather, as the apostle tried to prove, Christian prophecy and not Jewish scripture.13 The fundamental constant throughout the process remains the fact that each element in the comparison is an imaginative construction, perhaps fantasy, of the comparing agent. The familiar, in this case the religious community of the comparing Reformers or later Priestley’s, Jefferson’s, and Adams’ Deism, served as the model for the projected ideal for the purpose of the comparison. However, this self-projection guaranteed that the positively-valued referendum can never be more accurately described than the apologist’s description of the community he represented. What is deemed not to fit the idealized version of Christianity was attributed to paganism.14 With this, Smith brings us back to what is for him a familiar theme, the politics of comparison. To suggest that the “proximate other” has borrowed ideas or practices from a negatively-constructed/negatively-valued other (his single referendum in the comparison), enables the comparing agent to devalue the closely-related and therefore disturbing other by equating it with what is presumed to be negatively-valued by both of them.15 In Smith’s example the Reformers presumed, as did

other from which the comparing community wishes to distinguish itself is included in a negatively-valued category, and excluded from a positively-valued category, while the comparing community is conversely excluded from a negatively-valued category and included in a positively-valued category. 12 To flip the coin, insofar as it was similar to New Testament Christianity, Protestantism was equidistant from paganism and therefore the Roman church. 13 Of course, this presumption is for Jefferson and his colleagues rooted in the work of the Reformers. See on Luther, Oswald Bayer, “Luther as an Interpreter of Holy Scripture,” trans. Mark Mattes in Donald K. McKim, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 73–85; Friedrich Beisser, “Luthers Schriftverstandnis,” in Peter Manns, ed., Martin Luther: Reformator und Vater im Glauben, Veroffentlichungen des Institut für europaischen Geschichte, Mainz 18 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985), pp. 25–37. On Calvin’s appreciation of the Old Testament, see, David L. Puckett, John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament, Columbia Series in Reformed Theology (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995). 14 Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 17. 15 See Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 5, 45–48, echoing an idea and terminology expressed earlier by Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict, p. 70.

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the deistic “Christ-devotees” Priestley, Jefferson, and Adams, that all Christians, even pseudo-Christians like the Roman Catholics, detested paganism. Without this assumption the comparison fails its purpose. But Jefferson and the Deists can go even further. The comparative structure had evolved since the Reformation, and with the religion of Nature and Reason in hand, the idealized original Christianity became the pure natural religion of Jesus in opposition to all supernaturalism. With his accusation of borrowing by the dastardly Christian Platonists (read early Roman Catholic priests) who inserted esoteric absurdities into their construction of Christian orthodoxy (Trinitarian Christianity), Jefferson was able to devalue not only Roman Catholicism but all supernatural religion, including traditional Protestantism, by equating Christian orthodoxy with paganism, the truly “other” in contrast to his and Jesus’ simple faith and natural religion.16 This type of comparison is not then an innocent pursuit, but the task of heavily invested parties with apologetic, polemical, and propagandistic aims.17 Moreover, Smith argues, the model of comparative apologetic strategy used by the Reformers has been applied essentially unchanged to the present by biblical scholars generally,18 and 16 Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 17, 19–23. Jefferson’s disdain for Plato, according to Sanford, Thomas Jefferson and His Library, p. 125, cannot be interpreted as a rejection of Greek philosophy or the Classics. In fact, the opposite is true; Jefferson had original language copies of writers such as Aeschines, Appian, Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Cato, Cicero, Clement of Alexandria, Dio Cassius, Diogenes Laertius, Epictetus, Eusebius, Felix Minucius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Herodotus, Hierocles, Ignatius, Julius Caesar, Justin Martyr, Marcus Aurelius, Maximus of Tyre, Origen, Philo, Philostratus, Plato, Plutarch, Seneca, Tacitus, Tertullian, Theophrastus, Thucydides, and, Xenophon (Thomas Jefferson, pp. 119, 134). Jefferson’s library catalogue lists 300 titles of Greek and Latin authors, Peden, “Some Notes Concerning Thomas Jefferson’s Libraries,” 270–71; also Chinard, The Literary Bible of Thomas Jefferson, pp. 5–18. Enlightenment thinkers generally held the classical tradition in high regard, and Jefferson was no exception, Gay, The Enlightenment, pp. 31–32. Jefferson recommended reading classical authors in the original languages for students of the University of Virginia, Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 16:124. As for Adams, his appreciation for the classical historians and philosophers is obvious from his study of the “science of government.” As a Harvard graduate, he too read these writers in Greek and Latin, see Thompson, John Adams, pp. 41–43; 136–47; 229–34; Ostrander, Republic of Letters, pp. 10–20. 17 Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 36–37. See, e.g., Sharpe, Comparative Religion, pp. 256–66, who distinguishes three types of goals behind academic comparison in religion: Christian apologetic, philosophical (a perennial philosophy showing the unity of all religions), and anthropological-ethnological (to show the differences and similarities of disparate cultures). Yet the distinctions are not solid because an apologetic concern can appear in the guise of the other two types. 18 As we said, the referenda are always the creation of the apologist. It is rarely the case that the targeted group would agree without qualification to the value

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especially by conservatives, to continue to preserve the uniqueness of Christianity against proposed explanatory parallels drawn from both Greco-Roman religions and Judaism.19 In broader terms, according to Smith’s view, the larger program of the Reformers was simply to negate their own distasteful present (the state of the Roman Catholic church and what they saw as its corrupt and corrupting dominance over society) by means of a quest for origins that would show how this corruption had brought society and contemporary religion to its present debilitated state.20 Essentially, what he describes is comparison used in the service of apologetic history, i.e., the usurpation of the past as preserved in the dominant history in order to confront and overcome the present, a strategy familiar in Late Antiquity and especially well exemplified by Jewish apologetic historians.21

assigned to each of the referenda used in the comparison, e.g., Roman Catholics have never agreed with the Protestant or Deist presumption that institutional structure, authority, and order negate charisma. Nevertheless, as we have suggested, while the referenda are imposed on the comparison by the apologist, the values ascribed to them must have some plausibility to be effective. This is confirmed by Roman Catholic responses to Protestant and Deist inclusive comparisons of such aspects of Roman Catholicism as its ecclesiastical structure, its reverence for the saints, its sacramental rites, or its priesthood to pagan cult precedents, e.g., the reaction to Sohm’s Kirchenrecht, which elevated Reformation Protestantism by equating it with the initially pure spiritual impulse of the earliest church, in contrast to Roman Catholicism, whose organization and worship life Sohm inclusively compared with either Greco-Roman paganism or Judaism. The fourfold comparative structure is found here: on the other side of the equation, Sohm compared Protestantism exclusively to the despised forms of paganism and Judaism, and compared Roman Catholicism exclusively to the true spirit of earliest Christianity. On the controversy, see James Tunstead Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 87–135. 19 Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 34. Smith gives examples of twentieth-century critiques by Protestant authors of Roman Catholicism that are cast as historical comparisons and do just what he had described previously, Drudgery Divine, pp. 44–45. 20 Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 13–14. 21 See Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem, pp. 29–63. Having outlined the illicit nature of the Christian apologists’ transfer from the ontological model (the claim for the ontological uniqueness of Jesus and Christianity) to the historical claim for the unique status of Christianity in contrast to all other religions, Smith goes on to argue that the same structural arrangement is used to define primitive or Pauline Christianity as unique against all other manifestations of Christianity. This is what he calls the “Protestant historiographic myth: a ‘uniquely’ pristine ‘original’ Christianity which suffered later corruptions,” Drudgery Divine, p. 43.

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Conservative Christians and the Challenge of the “Tongue-speaking Other” Against the background of Smith’s treatment of comparison in Christian scholarship, I want to set my promised example of comparison, the context for which is the ongoing battle between equally conservative Christian commentators over the validity of glossolalia in contemporary Christianity. The focus on primarily conservative forms of Christianity is based on at least two fundamental assumptions: 1) all conservative Christians, without respect to their views on glossolalia, believe that the biblical text is the “Word of God,” and that it therefore should serve a normative function both in the corporate structure and worship of the church and in the individual lives of its members; 2) all conservative Christians believe that New Testament glossolalia was a miraculous and therefore unique spiritual endowment given directly by God to the early Christian community.22 These two observations circumscribe a number of different denominations and quasi-denominational associations, which constitute to one another proximate others. This shall become evident in due course both by what is admittedly shared and what is vehemently resisted by the groups represented in the selected examples to follow.23 With respect to group formation and self-definition, we shall see in what follows that the expansion of Pentecostalism beyond the boundaries of traditional Pentecostal denominations has become a tremendous challenge to the self-definition of many of the nonPentecostal denominations into which Pentecostal experience has made inroads, especially to the most conservative of these. A review of recent publications shows that Pentecostal writers can structure comparisons that, on the one hand, describe modern glossolalia as identical to the manifestations of human and heavenly “tongues” described in the Pauline letters and the Acts of the Apostles,

22 Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 46: To speak of absolute uniqueness is to deny the possibility of speaking of something at all, which is exactly what conservative Christians want to deny, i.e., the possibility of comparison with what is not biblical. As Smith points out, this view is found in Otto’s project of defining the essence of religion. 23 For the purposes of the classroom, I have included in the following survey a number of exemplary sources available on-line; students can easily access a range of examples of pro- and anti-“tongues” websites that clearly apply the comparative structure described here.

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while on the other hand, claiming both ancient and modern tonguesspeaking to be totally incomparable to any non-Christian phenomena touted as analgous by social scientists, and “explained” by social science theories of one sort or another.24 On the first point, a simple visit to the official website of any Pentecostal denomination provides confirmation. For example, the Assemblies of God website provides a summary of this equation: All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church. With it comes the enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry . . . The baptism of believers in the Holy Ghost is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance.25

These selections make clear, through the citation of multiple New Testament passages without the need for explanatory commentary, the Assemblies of God position that the New Testament is not only the normative source of authority, but that what it describes in the days of the first Christians is yet available to the contemporary believer.26 That the modern believer is to “expect and earnestly seek” this phenomenon implies that neglecting to do so is to refuse to follow the paradigmatic New Testament example or God’s will as expressed therein. Again, to quote from the same website: A comparison of the Book of Acts with what is happening in the modern outpouring of the Spirit reveals striking similarities in pattern and purpose. The impact of the early church, newly equipped by the power of the Holy Spirit, changed the world of that day. Similar changes are being made in human lives today through Spirit-filled servants of God. Christ is preached. Sinners are saved. The sick are healed. The kingdom

24 Kelsey, Speaking with Tongues; Horton, The Glossolalia Phenomenon; MacDonald, Glossolalia; Barnett and McGregor, Speaking in Tongues. 25 See ag.org/top/beliefs/truths.crm#7 and #8. 26 In the section entitled “Questions about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” the Church assures the visitor to the site that “[t]here is no indication in Scripture that tongues would cease at the end of the first century. Tongues are to be a part of the life of the church in every generation until Christ returns to set up His perfect kingdom. Paul’s perception was that spiritual gifts would be operational until that day (1 Corinthians 1:7, 8),” see the page address, ag.org/top/beliefs/baptism_hs/ baptmhs_12_tonguescease.cfm.

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of God is greatly increased. We can say, with Peter, “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel,” though we have not yet seen the full extent of the spiritual awakening for which we are praying.27

The idea that comparison is absolutely necessary is explicit here. The Church grounds the legitimacy of the present experience of its members in the identity it constructs, on the basis of the New Testament accounts, between the contemporary experience and the archetype, a comparison designed to establish equivalence or inclusion in a category. As we might expect, non-Pentecostal conservative Christians share many of the same presuppositions: namely, the notion that the New Testament is the normative authority in its literal sense; that New Testament phenomena are supernatural and therefore unique; that consequently, New Testament phenomena cannot be understood or explained by comparison with any cross-cultural, non-Christian phenomena. Yet, despite their theological proximity, non-Pentecostal Christian writers routinely compare modern Christian glossolalia inclusively to contemporary non-Christian, cross-cultural phenomena in order to discredit contemporary glossolalia and the Pentecostal/ Charismatic communities that practice it. Although both communities employ the same inclusive form of comparison, the non-Pentecostals’ application must be distinguished by its intent to devalue the comparandum (Pentecostal Christians) by including it in the same category as the referendum negatively-valued by both communities. The converse, “exclusive” comparison is always implicit, i.e., that modern Pentecostal glossolalia is not inclusively comparable to the referendum positively-valued by both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal conservatives. This comparative structure enables the comparing agents through inclusion and exclusion to distinguish their community from their proximate other—to simultaneously show what the other is (= the negative referendum) and is not (= the positive referendum) in comparison with their own group. Moreover, because these critics, like their Pentecostal kin, believe in the fundamental inerrancy of the Bible, they cannot be content with the equation of contemporary tonguesspeaking with non-Christian ecstatic behaviors. They must at the same time declare the absolute uniqueness of the biblical miracle of tongues with as much fervor as do the Pentecostals whom they criticize.

27

See: ag.org/top/beliefs/baptism_hs/baptmhs_14_biblicaltoday.cfm.

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The intimate and hostile relations between Pentecostals and nonPentecostal Fundamentalists are aptly described by Russell Spittler: Pentecostals and fundamentalists . . . are arch enemies when it comes to such matters as speaking in tongues and the legitimacy of expecting physical healing in today’s world. But their approaches to the Bible, precritical and uncomplicated, are virtually identical. If the word fundamentalism gets defined only by biblical style, Pentecostals can be labeled fundamentalists without question. What divides the two movements, however, outweighs their similarities—at least in the eyes of each other.28

Both non-Pentecostal conservative Christians and Pentecostals reject much of the contemporary scholarship on glossolalia. This is simply because this growing consensus assumes that New Testament glossolalia is related to religious ecstasy in general and to behaviors not only cross-culturally familiar to Late Antiquity, but also, in much the same way, to contemporary communities.29 In other words, critical scholars assume that we have analogies for Christian behavior, both ancient and modern, a clear threat to Christian uniqueness on this point. The common scholarly descriptions of the phenomena manifested in the Corinthian correspondence of the apostle Paul focus on the unintelligibility of glossolalia—it must be interpreted for both the speaker and the auditors—and refer to it as a form of religious ecstasy, a category easily applied cross-culturally.30 For example, we note Conzelmann’s suggestion: If we would explain it [glossolalia], then we must set out from comparable material in the history of religion, above all from the Greek motif of the inspiring [ pneuma], which is expressed especially in Mantic sources, and is bound up more particularly with Delphi. The deity speaks out of the inspired man’s mouth; he himself does not know what he is saying.31 28

Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists,” p. 106. Cartledge, “The Nature and Function of New Testament Glossolalia,” 141, e.g., Behm, “gl«ssa, •terÒglvssow,” 1:719–27, especially pp. 722–25. 30 E.g., Behm, “gl«ssa, •terÒglvssow,” 1:22–725. For Pattison, tongues is a part of a broader syndrome of trance states; the way in which it is interpreted is culturally determined. It is not caused by the supernatural, but it is often spiritually meaningful, “Behavioral Science Research,” pp. 75–85; also see Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, pp. 232–39; Forbes, “Early Christian Inspired Speech,” pp. 257–70. A different route is taken by Barrett, who simply refuses to explain the phenomenon, the First Epistle to the Corinthians, pp. 286, 299–300, 316, 326–28. 31 Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 234; Beardsworth, A Sense of Presence, p. 103. Of course, not all critical scholars are so confident of the Greco-Roman parallels, see: Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection. 29

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As Conzelmann’s view shows, historical-critical scholars of Early Christianity are informed by the social sciences. Similarly, the general anthropological view holds that glossolalia is a language-like patterning of syllables, not language, and that it is related to the more general phenomena of religious ecstasy and altered states of consciousness.32 Again, touching on pedagogy, students can be introduced to such critical analyses as a part of the process of comparing comparisons. Of course, all such critical, cross-cultural explanations are utterly rejected by conservative Christian scholars, both Pentecostal and nonPentecostal, because they deny the uniqueness and thereby the supernatural origins of New Testament glossolalia.33 Such an explanation would demand, in their view, the assumption that Paul must have been swept up by cultural conventions into attributing divine power to behaviors common to a variety of other religions, in particular Greek oracular cults.34 For example, Reverend Mark Harding, Dean of the Anglican Australian College of Theology, writing in the Grace Theological Journal, cites the arguments for a connection between pagan practice and the Corinthian experience, but denies that what the Greek priestesses were doing at Delphi, for example, was analogous to what was happening among Paul’s converts in Corinth.35 Some conservative scholars have chosen to protect New Testament glossolalia from comparison with any other phenomenon by denying that what the Early Christian texts preserve is actually what it at first sight appears to be. Frederick F. Bruce, for instance, has argued with

32 May, “A Survey of Glossolalia,” pp. 75–96; Pattison, “Behavioral Science Research,” pp. 75–85; Goodman, Speaking in Tongues, still the seminal investigation; Williams, “Glossolalia in the New Testament,” pp. 25–45. According to Mills, no examples of an unlearned utterance of a known language, xenoglossia, have been documented, Mills, “Glossolalia as a Sociopsychological Experience,” p. 428; cf. also pp. 431–32. 33 E.g., the transparently apologetic examination by Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech, which throughout disallows any comparison between the New Testament phenomena and non-Christian or even Jewish parallels on often the most tendentious of criteria. 34 There are those who defend the “non-ecstatic” nature of tongues-speaking, esp. as this is manifested in contemporary charismatic worship, see Massyngberde Ford, “Towards a Theology of Speaking in Tongues,” pp. 3–29. 35 Volume 10 (1989): 203–23, especially pp. 219–20, citing Forbes, “Christian Inspired Speech,” cited above, n. 10. That Grace Theological Journal is commonly recognized as a conservative journal is clear from the fact that the widely-advertised Theological Journal Library (CD Rom) includes Grace Theological Journal among its collection of the “best conservative, scholarly, evangelical journals,” (as described in advertising copy at www.discountchristian.com).

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reference to the miracle of tongues on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1–13 that what Luke recorded was the manifestation of the ability vouchsafed to Jesus’ disciples by divine inspiration to transcend the limits of their crude Galilean dialect. This creative argument eliminates the ecstatic altogether while preserving the miraculous character of the event. It effectively insulates the Christian miracle from comparison with non-Christian parallels.36 Less obviously, however, and perhaps unintentionally, Bruce’s argument also serves another function; it excludes the appropriation of this New Testament passage as a paradigm for Pentecostalism. Despite agreement between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostal Conservatives and Fundamentalists on the miraculous nature of the New Testament phenomena, the level of criticism targeted at Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity by conservative and fundamentalist denominations has been truly intense, and has largely appeared as a reaction to the inroads made into these established communions by glossolalia and other characteristically Pentecostal phenomena. Early formal condemnation of Pentecostalism by self-described Fundamentalists came in the 1928 resolution by the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association,37 which described “Modern Pentecostalism” as a “menace in many churches and a real injury to the sane testimony of Fundamentalist Christians.”38 In 1975 the Southern Baptist Convention voted down a proposed resolution that sought to expel congregations that accepted the charismatic movement. Nevertheless, local associations were not prevented from doing so, and did so, e.g., a 1975 resolution of the Dallas Baptist Association excluded representatives from two churches that “have openly practiced the present-day phenomena of glossolalia and public faith-healing services in which people are declared healed.”39

36 Acts of the Apostles, p. 83. Other attempts to alleviate problems have included symbolic interpretation of the Lukan account, e.g., Beare, “Speaking with Tongues,” pp. 229–46. 37 See Lienesch, Redeeming America. 38 “Report of the Tenth Annual Convention of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association” (1928): 9, cited by Spittler, “Are Pentecostals . . . Fundamentalists,” p. 109; see Trollinger, God’s Empire. For more recent examples of this critique, see: Bradfield, Neo-Pentecostalism, especially pp. 16–19; for the fundamentalist response in general, Cox, Fire From Heaven, pp. 73–78, 151; Percy, “The City on a Beach”, pp. 205–28, esp. 206. Note the similarities and differences in the history of reception of Pentecostal experiences among American and Southern Baptists, Schenkel, “New Wine and Baptist Wineskins, pp. 152–67. 39 See McDonnell, ed., Presence, Power, Praise, 2:114–16.

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For non-Pentecostal critics of Pentecostalism, the comparison usually begins with an admission that the Bible does describe a real Pentecostal miracle. For example, a recently established, “Evangelical” web-based, publishing ministry (www.bible.org) published a text-book example of this kind of critique. The author, Dr. Lehman Strauss, a career Baptist minister and former faculty member of the Philadelphia Bible Institute, begins by admitting to the reality that, “[a]ll Biblebelieving Christians who study the Word of God are in agreement that the gift of tongues is present in the inspired Scriptures.”40 Here we have the positive referendum in the comparison, the idealization of the New Testament as normative paradigm. Strauss assumes it for all self-proclaimed “Bible-believing” Christians, among whom he must also count Pentecostals if his comparative purpose is to succeed. Both groups must be shown to share the same values for the respective referenda. In this case, he would not have difficulty in documenting a similar claim regarding the absolute inerrancy and normative authority of the scriptures by Pentecostals. On this issue we can again return to the Assemblies of God website, where we find the following statement: “[t]he Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.” Strauss certainly agrees with this statement.41 The force of this appeal to a shared value is the implication that the comparandum (Pentecostal Christianity) is in violation of its own stated values by adopting a behavior in the present that the New Testament restricted to the first generation of the church. However, the contrast begins with Strauss’ description of the phenomenon of glossolalia itself. The gift of tongues found in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s first letter to Corinth was a miraculous gift of actual (i.e., known or knowable) human languages; it was not unintelligible babbling, even if the speakers could not understand what they were uttering.42 This comment accomplishes two things: 40 “Speaking in Tongues,” available at www.bible.org/docs/theology/pneuma/ tongues.htm. 41 See ag.org/top/beliefs/truths.cfm#1, and the link labeled, “The Bible—The Word of God.” The Assemblies of God offer a specific resource from this web page, Bridges, ed. The Bible: The Word of God, containing essays by six contributors, all leaders in the Assemblies of God, which clarifies the denomination’s deep commitment to biblical inerrancy. 42 “The supernatural phenomenon which took place at Pentecost was the exercise of a gift whereby many people from many countries, gathered at Jerusalem, heard God’s message in their own language. This was indeed a miracle of God.”

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first, it refutes any type of critical explanation in terms of comparison with non-Christian, cross-cultural parallels; second, it sets up the functional criterion to be used to distinguish the New Testament example from the contemporary Pentecostal phenomenon. That function was, according to Strauss, the communication of the gospel; that function was neither the edification of the believer, which he describes as selfish, nor the edification of the church, since without interpretation no one understood it. More importantly, however, Strauss argues that the role of glossolalia was transitional; tongues were only to function until the completion of the written New Testament. At the end of the age of the apostles, with the final revelation of God in written form, the function of the confirming sign of miraculous tongues to communicate the gospel ended, never to be restored. Strauss writes: The gift was used only in the transitional period between Law and Grace. The sign gifts continued through the period of the Apostles while the New Testament was in the process of being written . . . It was not merely a communicating sign but a confirmatory sign as well. When the Apostles used the gift of tongues it was because they did not have what you and I have today, the completed Word of God, God’s full and final revelation to man. In the days of the Apostles, the New Testament being yet unwritten, the Holy Spirit supported their message by accompanying it with signs. But after those holy and inspired men completed writing the New Testament, such confirmations were no longer necessary (author’s emphases).

Again, the contrast then between the New Testament paradigm and contemporary Pentecostalism consists, most importantly, in the failure of the modern Pentecostal to conform to the biblical model as defined by Strauss.43 That biblical model is his own and his specific Baptist community’s construction, as his tendentious exegesis shows.44 43 This criticism remains essentially the same even where the author is otherwise much more sympathetic to the goal of spiritual renewal represented by Pentecostalism, e.g., Lederle, “Be Filled with the Spirit of Love,” pp. 33–48, for whom renewal can occur, but the phenomena associated with Pentecostalism cannot be equated with the events in Acts, “the historic, unrepeatable experience of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit” (p. 40). 44 Notice his interpretation of 1 Cor 13:10, “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (KJV). He explains that “[t]he word perfect is in the neuter gender, and therefore refers to the perfect (finished or completed) Word of God. If the word perfect referred to Christ it would be in the masculine gender (author’s emphases).” Strauss has, of course, conveniently failed to acknowledge the obvious fact, based on Paul’s usual practice, that the under-

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It follows from this that the modern Pentecostal conception of the function of the gift as personally edifying is ultimately selfish. However, the most important discontinuity is that the contemporary phenomenon is not language in any discernible sense. It is here that Strauss assumes implicitly one of the negative referendum in the comparison, namely human experience. With respect to the valuation of individual experience, the view that Pentecostals are distinguished from their fundamentalist counterparts by their focus on experience has become almost stereotypical. We note Russell P. Spittler’s admittedly, dangerously-close-to-simplistic characterization: In contrast to fundamentalists and neo-orthodox Christians, Pentecostalism profoundly distrusted the intellectual enterprise . . . Fundamentalists and neo-orthodox Christians mount arguments, though the former does it in terms of creeds, the latter in terms of paradox. Pentecostals give testimonies. The one goes for theological precision, the other for experiential joy. There is a profound difference between the cognitive fundamentalist and the experiential Pentecostal.45

Human experience is then unreliable in Strauss’ view.46 All human experience, even if it seems to contribute to one’s spiritual life, must conform to the biblical paradigm or be judged invalid and abandoned.47 Again, we allow Strauss to explain: I know of no textual license that will warrant changing the meaning of the word. All the usages of tongues in Paul’s treatment of the subject refer to foreign languages . . . Someone will argue: “I have had the experience of speaking in tongues; I find this experience in the New

stood appositive in this case would have to be the masculine word lÒgow (logos), the “word” in Paul’s phrase “word of God” (see: 1 Cor 14:36, also Rom 9:6; 2 Cor 2:17; 4:2; Phil 1:14; 1 Thess 2:13). 45 Spittler, “Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?,” p. 108. 46 For another example of this type of critical rhetoric from a fundamentalist, see MacArthur’s critique, Charismatic Chaos, the title of the first chapter of which asks, “Is Experience a Valid Test of Truth?” His answer is predictably negative; experience must be subjected for evaluation to the scriptures (MacArthur, of course, conveniently dispenses with any serious engagement with the fact that the voice of the scriptures can never really be more than the voice of the interpreting subject’s hermeneutical tradition, and in that sense the resulting interpretation can only have a relative degree of validity, if any at all). 47 Even those who have had positive encounters with the Charismatic movement, may still express reservations concerning the degree to which Pentecostal assumptions about the significance of personal experience relate to the normative authority of the scripture, e.g., Culpepper, Evaluating the Charismatic Movement.

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james constantine hanges Testament; therefore my experience is true.” Any trained Christian philosopher will tell you that such an argument is not valid because it makes experience the basis of truth, . . . True Christian philosophy moves from truth to experience, therefore any valid Christian experience must be determined by the right interpretation of Holy Scripture. Experience, which is related to our emotions, can be deceptive, but a correct interpretation of God’s Word can never deceive.

Here we see that Strauss first implicitly discredits contemporary Pentecostal glossolalia on linguistic grounds by alluding to the common Pentecostal claim that the gift of tongues can be angelic language of a sort incomparable to human language. From Strauss’ perspective it is therefore incapable of functioning as the New Testament gift functioned, i.e., to communicate the gospel to others.48 His second critical point, the devaluation of experience, challenges Pentecostals to conform to that which both they and Strauss value, the model of scripture (the positive referendum).49 Yet, Strauss may also allude to more than this. Both critical assertions in this quotation can also be read in terms of the modern socialscience critique of religious ecstasy and glossolalia. In this case, Strauss may well be aware of and assume, though he does not say so expressly, modern cross-cultural comparisons of contemporary Pentecostal behaviors. His rhetoric certainly gives us cause to suspect as much. We shall see in due course that others who share Strauss’ critique make explicit reference to social-scientific analyses of glossolalia for the purpose of an inclusive comparison with Pentecostalism. This recalls Smith’s model; to suggest that the proximate other has borrowed ideas or practices from a negatively-constructed and negatively-valued other, allows the comparativist (in this case Strauss) to devalue the proximate other by equating the other with what is assumed by the comparativist to be negatively-valued by both related groups. Similar critiques of Pentecostalism and its related form, Neo-Pentecostalsim

48 Davies, “Pentecost and Glossolalia,” pp. 228–321. That glossolalia in the New Testament was the miraculous gift of actual human languages is a view that occurs very early in the history of the critique of Pentecostalism, e.g., Carver, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 16. For Carver, Pentecost was a “one-time” event. 49 We should note a compromise position that is often found among critics who recognize the incompatibility between the glossolalia described in Acts 2 and that found in 1 Corinthians which describes the Pentecost event as a “one-time” miracle, but the Corinthian glossolalia as selfishly-motivated and problematic ecstatic utterances to which modern Pentecostal and Charismatic glossolalia may well be likened, see Ashcraft, “Speaking in Tongues, pp. 60–84.

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(Charismatic Christianity), are available in hundreds of other popular, web-based examples. I shall here only provide a representation of those that, like Strauss, share, by their own admission or as implied in the nature of their comparative argument, a belief in the normative authority of the biblical text. Pastor Lev Humphries of the Faith Independent Baptist Church of Niceville, Florida has published his teaching on glossolalia on the Internet at www.holybiblesays.org. His points echo the same critical comparisons found in Strauss; Pentecostals subordinate the clear statements of scripture to their personal experience. This makes their claim to biblical fundamentalism hollow. Humphries’ congregation is fundamental, independent, and teaches only from the King James Bible. For Humphries the tongues-speaking in the New Testament was a miracle, but in his view Pentecostal/Charismatic experience cannot be biblical because it is identical to non-Christian examples of tongues-speaking all over the world. Humphries rhetorically asks, “[w]ould God give the same experience to both the saved and the unsaved?” The comparative structure should by now be familiar to us; Humphries has devalued his proximate other by first exclusively (= negatively) comparing Pentecostals with the New Testament paradigm, and secondly by positively (= inclusively) comparing their practice to a mutually detested “other,” i.e., non-Christian ecstatic phenomena. Steve Harmon, Th.D., 1995, Christian Bible College of Rocky Mt., North Carolina, pastor of the Maineville Baptist Church of Maineville, Ohio, describes his church on its website (www.biblebelievers.com) as “fundamental” and “independent.” He too has published his views on glossolalia on the internet and echoes the same type of comparative critiques we have been describing. Although he is careful not to name his proximate other explicitly, his published teaching leaves no doubt that it is directed against the influence of Pentecostal/ Charismatic Christians. Persons who seek the gift of tongues, according to Harmon, are selfish because the practice edifies the individual and not the community; the New Testament paradigm is read to demand unselfish, corporate edification. As we have seen Harmon, like Strauss and Humphries, strikes at the motives of contemporary glossolalists. He too negatively compares tongues-speakers to the positively-valued referendum; New Testament tongues were human languages that could be interpreted and therefore not the non-linguistic gibberish of present-day Pentecostals/Charismatics.

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He goes on to offer additional New Testament examples to illustrate the degree to which contemporary tongues-speakers fail to conform to the biblical model, e.g., women Pentecostals speak in tongues in public worship, but 1 Cor 14:34–35, he writes, admonishes the church, “[l]et your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak” (KJV). Harmon also uses the argument that the New Testament itself describes the temporary, practical function of tongues. Echoing Strauss’ interpretation, the scripture, for Harmon, promised that tongues as a spiritual gift would cease with the completion of the New Testament canon. Having laid out an impressive list of “commandments” regulating the use of tongues, in contrast to the others we have mentioned, Harmon does allow, at least theoretically, that if a congregation observes all these previously spelled out commandments relative to glossolalia, tongues may be practiced. But he has already, in the list of commandments, ruled out major characteristics of Pentecostal practice, effectively leaving no room for the phenomena in the contemporary church. To cite an example not affiliated with some form of Baptist theological perspective, an organization called the “Apologetics Press,” located at www.apolgeticspress.org, has published on-line articles repudiating contemporary glossolalia. To take just one, Dave Miller, a Church of Christ minister,50 echoes Strauss’ admonition that “[i]t is absolutely imperative that we examine Scripture—not our feelings, not what someone else says happened to them, and not our own experience. The only sure and certain approach is to ask: What does the Bible teach?” Obviously, Miller agrees with Strauss that contemporary Christian glossolalists fail this test. They elevate their personal experiences above the written text of the Bible. Moreover, he goes on to say, present-day tongues advocates misunderstand the rationale of the New Testament miracles. Again, like Strauss, the supernatural events recorded in the Gospels, in Acts, and in Paul’s letters were vouchsafed by God “to authenticate the oral/spoken word as God’s Word . . . once God revealed the entirety of the information that He wished to make available to mankind (later contained in what we call the New Testament), the need for miraculous confirmation of the oral Word came to an end . . . [the] . . . miraculous, would cease and be done away [sic] when the ‘perfect’ had 50 Miller holds a Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University in Speech Communication, but lists no credentials or academic training in biblical studies.

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come.” Interestingly, Miller uses the same grammatically erroneous argument his Baptist sympathizer used that Paul’s reference to the coming of the “the perfect” (tÒ t°leion, 1 Cor 13:10) was a reference to the completed New Testament.51 Miller also introduces the stereotypical haughtiness commonly claimed by critics as characteristic of tongues-speaking Christians, i.e., Pentecostals act superior to other Christians because they possess a gift others should desire. This recapitulates the motif mentioned earlier of the inappropriate motivation for seeking and exhibiting the phenomenon of glossolalia; according to the critics, the haughtiness of the Pentecostal violates the model of humility and self-abasement promoted in the New Testament.52 Most importantly for Miller, as for Strauss, the Pentecostal/Charismatic practice fails to conform to the actual miracle recorded in the New Testament; it does not conform to the positively-valued paradigm supposedly shared by both groups. According to Miller tongue-speaking [in the New Testament] entailed no more than the ability to speak a foreign human language (which the speaker had not studied) to people from a variety of geographical locales . . . The unbiased Bible student must conclude that what is described in detail in Acts 2 is the same phenomenon alluded to in 1 Corinthians 14. All tonguespeaking in the Bible consisted of known human languages (ideally known to the very audience being addressed) that were unknown (i.e., unstudied, unlearned) by the one who was speaking the language.

With this move, as we have seen, the negative/exclusive comparison between contemporary phenomena and the sacred model devalues the “other” by denying the other’s claim to the mutually revered paradigm. Pentecostals/Charismatics do not measure up to this model because they are not speaking known human languages but

51 See above n. 44. Of course, Paul is using the neuter form of the adjective here as a substantive. As we said above, it cannot then stand in apposition to ı lÒgow toË YeoË, “the word of God.” Paul does use a neuter noun (grãmma) in his references to the scriptures (at least the Pentateuch, Roman 7:6, possibly also 2:27,29; 2 Cor 3:6–7). However, Paul’s most important references to the scriptures use the noun grafÆ, a feminine noun (Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Gal 3:8,22; 4:30), sometimes in the plural (Rom 1:2;15:4;16:26; 1 Cor 15:3–4), which would demand the form ≤ tele¤a [= grafÆ] in 1 Cor 13:10, not the neuter that the apostle used. Therefore, the theory that Paul is referring to the coming of the fixed New Testament canon founders on grammatical grounds, and reveals the author’s determinative bias in the construction and application of the comparison. 52 So Strauss, regarding the selfish motivations of Pentecostals, above p. 204.

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inarticulate gibberish in the midst of common religious ecstasy. “[T]here is simply no such thing as an ‘ecstatic utterance’ in the New Testament,” writes Miller. With this stark and absolute conclusion Miller has, of course, shielded the miraculous phenomena of the New Testament from comparison, denying that it is comparable to religious ecstasy as a general category, and in particular comparable to non-Christian contemporary glossolalia. Note his unequivocal summation, “[t]he claim by many today to be able to speak in tongues [what modern Pentecostals do] is simply out of harmony with New Testament teaching . . . [it] is precisely the same phenomenon that pagan religions have practiced through the centuries.” Lest we think that this type of apologetic comparison is limited to independent or popular sources, the same patterns can be found in a range of scholarly theological journals. For example, Klemet Preus,53 writing in the Concordia Theological Quarterly, echoes Strauss’ sentiments; Pentecostals do not conform to the scriptural canon, because “[e]xperience has told them what God’s Word has not.”54 Preus explicitly introduces the negative referendum we should expect, i.e., cross-cultural, social-scientific comparisons with non-Christian phenomena. Both Preus and his Pentecostal/Charismatic targets evaluate such parallels negatively, but the comparing agent always uses this shared valuation to discredit the targeted comparandum, the proximate other. Preus praises critical scientific investigators for taking aim at Pentecostal phenomena and casting “significant doubts on the supernatural nature of present-day tongues.”55 The strategy is clear, the proximate other, present-day Pentecostals and Charismatics, are not doing what they claim to be doing, speaking miraculously languages 53 In 1975, Preus, then President of Concordia Theological Seminary, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, USA, led a movement to end the dissension being caused in Missouri Synod congregations by placement of clergy who had become involved in the Charismatic movment. Preus issued a policy statement that essentially banned from ordination any seminarian who admitted to accepting charismatic claims about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and glossolalia, for the text see: McDonnell, ed., Presence, Power, Praise, 2:16–22. 54 “Tongues,” pp. 277–293, quotation, 277. Klemet Preus is presently Pastor of the Glory of Christ Lutheran Church, Plymouth, MN, whose website declares its endorsement of biblical inerrancy, www.gloryofchristlutheran.org, “[t]he Bible is the inspired Word of God. The Bible is free from all error and contradiction in all that it says.” Concordia Theological Quarterly is a publication of the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Seminary is affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. 55 Tongues, p. 277.

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they did not learn, including non-human, angelic languages. Rather, they are doing nothing dissimilar from what scientists have documented and explained in other communities. In other words, Preus launches a two-pronged attack that conforms to our structural diagram; Pentecostals, despite their protests to the contrary, are not like the paradigmatic New Testament community, but like non-Christian others. As expected, Preus makes a point of the fact that Pentecostals claim to believe in the inerrant Scripture, just as he does; this assumption constitutes the basis for the comparison’s necessary degree of plausibility.56 The other must be shown to admit the absolute value of that with which the other is ultimately contrasted. Just as Strauss had argued, the real problem for Preus is that Pentecostals and Charismatics have substituted an illegitimate source of authority (i.e., experience) for the authority of the Bible, something he believes is sufficiently clear from the fact that they actually reject, in favor of appeals to experience, the corrective exegetical arguments he offers, and that they have the audacity to suggest that only a person who has experienced tongues can possibly understand their validity.57 Preus carefully reinforces the validity of the paradigm by insisting that the glossolalia found in the New Testament cannot be compared to common ecstatic phenomena; it is not babbling, but a miracle given to the apostolic generation.58 Again, both he and his Pentecostal counterparts share this evaluation of the biblical evidence. However, Preus will use that evaluation as a means by which to distinguish conformance with the Bible, his own and his community’s, from the incomprehensible non-language spoken by Pentecostals and Charismatics. Preus can make the claim that what present-day glossolalists are doing is not at all compatible with the biblical paradigm because he has no problem subjecting the behavior of his proximate other to comparative scientific scrutiny. He writes: Since the Pentecostal experience of tongues is more important than the texts of the Scripture to the charismatic, no amount of Biblical evidence is likely to shake the Neo-Pentecostal’s confidence in his experience. Knowing this, many scholars have attempted to evaluate tongues

56 In fact, Preus argues that Pentecostals deny the very authority of the paradigmatic New Testament by their practice of glossolalia (“Tongues,” p. 278, n. 5. 57 Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 278–79. Preus actually goes further than Strauss, citing published examples of Pentecostal appeals to experience to back up his claim. 58 Preus, “Tongues,” p. 278, n. 6.

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james constantine hanges from a different perspective. Their studies have shown that the tongues phenomena can be explained on psychological, sociological, physiological and linguistic ground alone.59

Tongues, according to the scientist, says Preus, is a factor of altered mental states.60 Preus explicitly cites cross-cultural, anthropological studies, quoting, e.g., Felicitas Goodman’s work in support of the claim that the tongues speaker is in a dissociative state of mind, in a “hyper-aroused trance.”61 Preus goes on to add a range of sources, each describing the natural origin of glossolalia in some kind of altered mental state, an abnormal and potentially destructive condition.62 In the midst of his social-science guided dismantling of contemporary glossolalia, Preus makes an interesting and clever rhetorical move. To quote him again: In defense of the psychologists cited, I should point out that all but one (Felicitas Goodman) confess to be Christian, some of them (Oates, Cutten) with reputable theological credentials. These people have no “axe to grind” with religion in general or even with Christianity.63

The cleverness of Preus’ caveat lies in the fact that while his statement is true with respect to religion in general and perhaps Christianity in general, it is not true with respect to Pentecostalism in particular. Preus and his Christian sources are denominationally invested in communities struggling with and opposing the inroads of Pentecostalism. He and those he cites emphatically do appear to “have an axe to grind” where Pentecostalism is concerned. These writers are all conveniently selective in their handling of the evidence; biblical tongues were a miraculous gift from God to the apostolic church, while contemporary tongues, practiced by those who are “not-us,” are not

59

Preus, “Tongues,” p. 280. Here Preus cites other non-Pentecostal writers, such as Wayne E. Oates, Christian psychologist, who co-edited along with Frank Stagg and E. Glenn Hinson, the collection of essays, Glossolalia: Tongue Speaking in Biblical, Historical, and Psychological Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967). Oates, Stagg, and Hinson were all faculty members of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. It is important to note that Preus follows their lead in using social-scientific criticism to draw the negative comparison between contemporary glossolalia and abnormal or non-Christian phenomena, thereby devaluing any claim for a unique, supernatural origin for the contemporary experience. 61 Preus, “Tongues,” p. 280, citing Speaking in Tongues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 59–60. 62 Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 280–81. 63 Preus, “Tongues,” p. 281. 60

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valid because they cannot be equated with the biblical model that Preus and his allies uphold and which they have defined according to their own interpretive criteria.64 Like Strauss, Preus offers an explanation of why so many Christians seek the experience of glossolalia. He cites some of the same authors he had already cited in support of several causes, e.g., the natural craving for release from tension, similar to a sexual orgasm or the relief one gets from the cessation of stomach cramps. He cites some who account for tongues as a way to reassure persons plagued by guilt that God has counted them acceptable (reminiscent of the Jamesian “sick soul” scenario). Preus cites his sources to say that in the overwhelming number of cases investigated, a crisis of some magnitude preceded the individual’s glossolalic experience.65 Of course, the last observation would also seem to include in this category the fearful disciples of Jesus huddling together in the upper room trying to make sense of the loss of their master prior to their experience of glossolalia, if it were not for the fact that their experience was recorded in the paradigmatic, therefore inerrant, text of the Acts of the Apostles. Even so, the implication for Preus is clear; contemporary glossolalia can be explained in rational, bio-psychological terms and is therefore neither supernatural nor unique. Consequently, it fails comparison with the absolutely valued scriptural examples and cannot be judged a valid expression of Christian experience. Next, Preus argues that present-day tongues speakers are not manifesting a divine gift simply because glossolalia is learned behavior.66 His sources provide evidence that tongues-speakers simply follow the leader; the leader sets the pattern for the glossolalia exhibited by the followers.67 Preus derives the context of this learned behavior from Goodman’s cross-cultural studies, linking the prerequisite to the inducing stimuli of “rhythmic music, hand-clapping, loud persistent prayers in a strongly accented pattern, loud incessant glossolalia which is rhythmic and patterned, and persistent shouted directions to the 64 Of course, none of the commentators cited in this regard have conducted critical and repeatable clinical research on the subject nor have any experienced glossolalia for themselves, citing Kildahl, Psychology of Speaking in Tongues; Oates, “Socio-Psychological Study,” pp. 76–99; Bergsma, Speaking with Tongues; Cutten, Speaking With Tongues; Samarin, Tongues of Men and Angels; Smith, Tongues in Biblical Perspective. 65 Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 281–82. 66 Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 283–86. 67 Preus, “Tongues,” p. 283.

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suppliant.”68 What Preus has done is to describe Goodman’s evidence in such a way that it essentially constitutes the stereotypical description of a Pentecostal worship service. The negatively-valued, cross-cultural examples are equated by the comparativist with the important characteristics of the targeted “other.” This is precisely the same move Smith described in the construction of the comparative categories employed by the Reformers in their critique of Roman Catholicism.69 Reciprocally, just as the cross-cultural evidence can be explained naturally, so Preus proclaims, “no miraculous explanation of contemporary glossolalia is necessary.”70 Finally, Preus, like Strauss, contrasts Pentecostal glossolalia with the New Testament paradigm because it is not linguistic, but nonlanguage. Preus cites the submission of recorded glossolalia to linguists who could not identify the utterances with any known language.71 Again, like Strauss, Preus implies, by means of his source’s analysis, that speakers-in-tongues are like children, not mature Christians.72 The attribution of childlike immaturity to Pentecostals is followed by an extension of that lack of concern for intelligibility to theology; according to their critics, Pentecostals are no more concerned with “meaningful theological expression” than they are with meaningful linguistic communication.73 To seal his comparison by reaffirming the absolutely idealized element in his comparison, Preus writes: The findings of modern psychology, sociology, and linguistics cannot be applied to the tongues of which Scripture speaks. The Biblical

68 Here Preus is referring to Goodman’s notion of “driving” by the tonguesspeaking group leader who tries to establish the conditions under which individuals can successfully experience glossolalia (Preus, “Tongues,” p. 284, citing Goodman, Speaking in Tongues, p. 79). Preus also includes hyperventilation as one of the preferred strategies for inducing glossolalia. 69 See above, pp. 189–195. 70 Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 283–86. 71 Preus, “Tongues,” pp. 286–87. 72 Preus, “Tongues,” p. 287. He has already cited Oates’s crudely condescending essay, “A Social-Psychological Study of Glossolalia” (see above n. 60), in which tongues-speakers are equated with children, speaking the “cradle speech” of infants; as children’s language begins with “ego-centric” babbling (here Oates relies on Piaget), so, by implication, Pentecostal tongues-speakers pratice a self-centered form of infantile gratification, 84–90; cf. also Mills, “Glossolalia as a Sociopsychological Experience,” pp. 430–32. 73 Here we recall the quotation from Spittler given above on p. 204.

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accounts are beyond linguistic investigation since no speech in these tongues was recorded, although three thousand witnesses understood them on one occasion (Acts 2) and Paul expects a translation in another situation (1 Corinthians 14). Psychologically, it would be inaccurate to say that the apostles were in an altered mental state. Peter himself discounts drunkenness, and nothing in any of the relevant episodes indicates anything psychologically abnormal. Sociologically, at least in the book of Acts, the tongues of which Scripture speaks have none of the elements which modern tongues do.74

This passage, of course, provides what our model suggests we should expect. Preus has described the paradigm, the positively-valued referendum, in terms that clearly set it apart as unique. The New Testament experiences are incomparable in modern social-scientific terms, and consequently, they are not similar to the modern Pentecostal evidence (the comparandum) which is entirely explicable by scientific comparison. Mark J. Cartledge offers us an only more sophisticated, scholarly example of the apologetic comparison we have described.75 By insisting that the New Testament phenomena is not ecstatic in the sense that the term is used to categorize both contemporary cross-cultural and ancient Mediterranean examples he protects the uniqueness of the biblical phenomena. For example, he offers the methodological warning that we must be careful to define precisely what we mean by ecstatic before we use that category to describe the ancient evidence. While we may describe modern phenomena with that term, phenomena usually related to types of spirit possession, he warns that we cannot simply read the category back into the ancient evidence. At one level, of course, we might all agree; Cartledge’s warning seems to presuppose that no scholar wants to be charged with unjustified comparison. However, like those he cites, Cartledge seems all too willing to sacrifice the principle of analogy on the altar of Christian uniqueness, and thereby run the risk of destroying the possibility of historical-critical reconstruction altogether.76 It is no coincidence then,

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Preus, “Tongues,” p. 289. Cartledge, “New Testament Glossolalia,” pp. 135–50. 76 Cartledge, “New Testament Glossolalia,” p. 142, citing, e.g., Gundry, “ ‘Ecstatic Utterance’,” 299–307. The unworkable methodological principle proposed by Cartledge is common among conservative Christian apologists; the protection of the unique origins of Christianity and its miraculous claims demands the abandonment of the historical-critical principle of analogy in the study of Christianity, thus innoculating the Christian phenomena against serious critical investigation. 75

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that in the same moment he denies that New Testament tonguesspeaking was ecstatic he also implicitly performs an exclusive comparison between modern, ecstatic Pentecostal glossolalia and the positively-valued referendum.77 Cartledge makes another complimentary set of comparisons. On the one hand, Cartledge dismisses the common critical equation between the Corinthian glossolalia and modern Pentecostal tongues-speaking by grounding it in his preceding methodological warning about the use of analogies. On the other hand, having ruled out such analogical explanations, he implies an inclusive comparison between modern Pentecostal tongues-speaking and unintelligible, cross-culturally documented ecstatic utterances. Finally, according to Cartledge, while the New Testament phenomena is certainly not ecstatic, and therefore not comparable to either the non-Christian or modern phenomena, it is still a gift without an edifying purpose for the Church; its efficacy is restricted to the private use of the individual and in that sense alone is it comparable to the modern Pentecostal phenomena. Here, Cartledge seems to echo earlier criticisms that glossolalists are selfindulgent and their tongues-speaking serves no communally beneficial purpose.78 In the end, Cartledge reflects the same basic comparative structure we have documented across a range of examples. Like Harding, Cartledge also follows the exhaustive study of Christopher Forbes in his critique.79 Forbes epitomizes and perhaps, with his often inexplicable rejection of analogies, caricatures the conservative defense of the uniqueness of New Testament tongues-speaking.80 He does not restrict analogies by using the specific broad-brush Cartledge wields, but isolates the Christian phenomena by defining their character so precisely that there is, or can be, nothing similar in the ancient world or for that matter in the modern world—including 77 Cartledge refers to Pentecostalism explicitly only in footnotes 74, 84 (65 implicitly), and always to add a corrective to the Pentecostal viewpoint. Cartledge seems, in my view, to give away his theological hand when he writes at this point, “[t]he idea that Paul could have lumped together xenolalia [the miraculous gift of the ability to speak unlearned human languages] and the modern unintelligible phenomenon of glossolalia is, of course, possible, but it is beyond any kind of empirical investigation and therefore must remain speculative” (see p. 149). 78 Cartledge, “New Testament Glossolalia,” pp. 143–44. 79 See above, n. 31. 80 I shall here repeat at many points the critique of Forbes so ably presented in Martin, “Tongues of Angels”, pp. 547–89.

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modern Pentecostal glossolalia. Forbes writes, “Neither in the Hellenistic nor the Jewish background have we found sufficient evidence to overthrow the case that early Christians almost uniformly believed glossolalia to be the power to speak in otherwise unlearned human languages.”81 This statement sounds a tone very reminiscent of that we have presented from less sophisticated conservative and fundamentalist critiques of Pentecostalism. We could have predicted as much on the basis of our proposed model of the apologetic comparison. The New Testament ideal was a unique, once-for-all-time miracle of xenolalia, and not some ecstatic pseudo-linguistic utterance of unintelligible syllables—precisely the explanation of modern glossolalia offered by many contemporary social-scientists. I must note, finally, that Luke Timothy Johnson has recently described the running battle over tongues in terms very similar to those used in this essay. His comments are more clearly directed to the debated issues. For example, while leaving open the question of the ultimate, or transcendent, origin of the New Testament phenomena, Johnson takes a critical position on the historicity of the Acts account as a miraculous endowment of the ability to speak human languages never learned because he believes that Luke has created the form of this narrative to fit his own purposes, and that the writer apparently knows nothing of the Pauline form of glossolalia.82 Johnson, agrees with the majority of anthropological analyses that glossolalia is not language but a language-like patterning of syllables. Paul’s tongues were not communicative unless interpreted (1 Cor 14:2–5,9–11, 13,26b–28); they were easily mistaken by the uninformed as mania, or prophetic madness related to the possession of the individual by a communicating deity.83 According to Paul, in contrast to human speech, tongues are uttered “in the Spirit” (1 Cor 14:2), and unlike

81

Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech, p. 228. Johnson, “Glossolalia,” 116–17. Johnson removes Luke’s account on historical grounds arguing that it narrates a hearing miracle, not a speaking one, thus demonstrating that Luke has no awareness of the type of experience occurring in the Pauline churches, p. 117. 83 1 Cor 14:23, cf. 12:2; ma¤nomai can refer to both negative states of rage, or being carried away with anger, e.g., Euripides, Bacchae 359, and to positive states of possession by a deity, Herodotus 4.79; Euripides, Bacchae 298–301; Plato, Phaedrus, 259a. Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 119 sees Greek mantic prophecy as a parallel to the Christian evidence, this form of prophecy was “. . . so complete a possession (enthysiasmos) by the divine spirit ( pneuma) that the mind of the prophet (mantis) was inoperative, and the oracles were literally spoken by the god.” 82

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prophecy do not employ the mind (the noËw, 1 Cor 14:14). The Corinthian tongues addressed God and per se edified only the speaker (1 Cor 14:2,4,28), not the congregation. Therefore, they are properly of private provenance (cf. 1 Cor 14:18–19,28). All this, says Johnson, is consistent with both the ancient and modern parallels.84 More importantly for our purposes, Johnson addresses the question of what is at risk in the debate over glossolalia. In line with our suggestion that the comparative enterprise is inherent in the selfdefinitional process for competing Christian communities, Johnson points out that the questions about the nature of glossolalia in the New Testament and its relation to both modern parallels within Christianity and those drawn from non-Christian sources are intimately related to the issue of authenticity grounded in a perceived continuity between modern and ancient Christians.85 The comparing group constructs a comparison through which it can claim greater continuity between itself and an ideal that should be determinative for the group with which it is in competition and from which it wishes to distinguish itself. Johnson also recognizes the necessary counterpart to the positive comparison when he discusses the controversy over the question of whether tongues is a uniform or pluriform set of phenomena. If either New Testament or modern Pentecostal tongues-speaking can be classed without significant distinction, for example, in a general category of dissociative states, the question is raised as to whether these types of equivalencies support the likelihood that Christian glossolalia is unique or that contemporary Christian practice is the same as ancient.86 Johnson also correctly notes that the contemporary, anti-Pentecostal conservative must preserve ancient Christian experiential uniqueness in order to leave room for divine intervention in the form of a miracle of language, while simultaneously denying any parallel structures or features equating the ancient, “true” Christian practice with what modern Pentecostals are doing. The latter, on the one hand, can safely be paralleled and explained in terms of all sorts of contemporary cross-cultural explanations. On the other hand, the Pentecostal response, which must necessarily respond in terms of the categories used to construct the comparison, must insist on the continuity 84 85 86

Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 118, cf. pp. 120–21. Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 114. Johnson, “Glossolalia,” p. 115.

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between Pentecostals’ personal experiences and what is documented in the New Testament. At these points then, Johnson’s discussion appears to confirm the structure of the basic polemic-apologetic comparison that we have here proposed. Comparing Comparisons: Implications This essay has not been concerned with how comparison might help us interpret glossolalia. Instead, it has explored the way comparing comparisons might complicate our view of the dynamics of group self-definition as an integral part of group formation, and aid our understanding of the relations between proximate groups that might be revealed in the way they construct comparisons.87 I have tried to illustrate how the comparative enterprise may be used for specific and targeted polemic and apologetic. In these terms, the examples of Strauss, Preus, Cartledge, and Forbes amply demonstrate how, even when cloaked in scholarly robes, comparative studies that impose the definitional criteria of one comparandum on the other easily serve the “other-negating,” group self-defining purposes of competing proximate communities. By asking our students to compare comparisons they must deal with Smith’s description of the comparative enterprise in terms of investment and risk, i.e., politics.88 Difference becomes important to the degree that the perceiver, the comparing agent, has something at risk; specifically, the more distinctive of one’s self-definition a perceived difference is, the greater the investment in emphasizing it. To say “they are like that” is to place the first item in a position of being determined by the second item—it is inherently hierarchical.89 If that second item is a negatively-valued referendum, the comparison,

87 We may take it for granted that prima facie it is extremely unlikely that anyone, either modern or ancient (including the earliest Christians), has ever spoken through a supernatural endowment a linguistically intelligible language they did not already know. As a critical scholar of early Christianity, I must assume as altogether likely that the phenomena preserved for us in the New Testament is a factor of psychological and sociological forces, and is therefore comparable to empirical phenomena categorized as religious ecstasy and spirit possession, see Lewis, Ecstatic Religion. To do otherwise without extraordinary justification would be to abandon the principle of analogy and along with it the possibility of historical-critical explanation. 88 Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 4, 47. 89 Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 9–10.

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while certainly destructive, is simultaneously constitutive of the comparing community’s self-definition. Our example supports Smith’s observation that the greater the degree of perceived sameness between two proximate, competing groups the greater become the risks and the sharper the differences.90 “Otherness” is, therefore, always a matter of degree, and political because that degree of difference is always determined by the comparing agent.91 Our students will profit by realizing that “Otherness/Alienness” is not ontological but political and rhetorical language functioning in a competitive language game. The real problem arises when the “other” claims to be us. In such cases the use of comparison is intended to increase difference, not to remove it.92 This is abundantly clear in the case represented by Strauss and Preus. Here we see two communities, both laying claim, as the comparisons selected presuppose, to the same positively-valued element, the shared body of sacred scripture in which both groups ground their self-definition.93 This proximate otherness, by Smith’s reckoning, constitutes the most volatile comparative context wherein the most is invested; our survey confirms that much. The purpose of such comparisons is determined by the needs of the comparativist; “[c]omparison provides the means by which we ‘re-vision’ phenomena as our data in order to solve our theoretical problems.”94 This exposes the source of the political in comparison, and is something made visible to students clearly when we compare comparisons. Having examined such targeted comparisons, students should, consequently, be able to distinguish theses from the comparisons that foster our participation in the discourse of difference for which Smith’s manifesto calls.95 It is appropriate here to add a final note that returns us to Smith’s critique of comparison. Whatever else one might say about the book, Smith leaves the reader of Drudgery Divine with no doubt that the 90

Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” pp. 4–10, 15. Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 15; what Smith has called a “privileged comparison,” Drudgery Divine, p. 74. 92 Contrast Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 41. 93 The positioning of the other, and especially in this case, where that position is relative to a shared touchstone such as religious tradition, is in reality a selfdefinition, Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” p. 47. 94 Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 52, also p. 115 (Smith’s emphasis). 95 Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 42, 47, here citing To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual, Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 14. 91

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kind of self-serving apologetic comparison carried out by the Reformers and their heirs continues tragically to characterize much of the scholarship touching on Christian origins.96 In this essay, we have taken perhaps a microcosmic look at one of the sharper examples of the dangers of such a comparative application, and, to be sure, an example which runs the risk of appearing to some a tempest in a teapot. Hoping to remedy such a reaction, I suggest in closing an example for further critique of the use of comparison that touches a far larger set of nerves in the history of scholarship, namely the question of the relationship between Christianity and anti-Semitism. While we can only set the stage for further investigation here, we might open the curtain by recalling Rosemary Radford Ruether’s now famous proposal that anti-Semitism/anti-Judiasm is inherent in Christology. Her challenge provoked a swift and impassioned response from a range of scholars, many of whom explicitly denied that their theological responses were apologetically motivated.97 The intensity of their response to Ruether was reflective of the level of risk her proposal raised for traditional self-definitions of Christianity. Ruether was essentially calling for the destruction of the orthodox markers of Christian boundaries. Despite the criticism of Ruether, the apologetic crisis for Christian orthodoxy continues to be profound. The risk posed by the idea of an inherent connection between Christianity and anti-Semitism/anti-Judaism is great, and the revulsion of contemporary Christian scholars of all camps at such a proposal is easy 96 Smith, Drudgery Divine, p. 143, his manifesto: “The history of the comparative venture reviewed in these chapters has been the history of an enterpreise undertaken in bad faith. The interests have rarely been cognitive, but rather almost always apologetic. As such, no other purpose for comparison has been enterteined but that of genealogy . . . the old Reformation myth, imagining a ‘pristine’ early Christianity centred in Paul and subjected to later processes of ‘corruption,’ has governed all the modulations we have reviewed. As in the archaic locative ideology, the centre has been protected, the periphery seen as threatening, and relative difference perceived as absolute ‘other.’ The centre, the fabled Pauline seizure by the ‘Christevent’ or some other construction of an originary moment, has been declared, a priori, to be unique, to be sui generis, and hence, by definition, incomparable. The periphery . . . is to be subjected to procedures of therapeutic comparison. This is exorcism or purgation, not scholarship. The mythic model of radical conversion, that of wholly putting off the ‘old man’ and wholly assuming the ‘new,’ has been inapropriately projected into the historical realm.” 97 E.g., Gager, Reinventing Paul, p. 17; Davies takes issue with the notion of antiJudaism in the New Testament, esp. as formulated by Ruether, and immediately links it to the question of the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, “Paul and the People of Israel,” pp. 19–20; Idinopulos and Ward, “Is Christology Inherently Anti-Semitic?,” 193–214.

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to understand. Nevertheless, the question that must be worked out by scholars is the relationship between desired outcome and methodological soundness. The later does not, of course, necessarily negate the former. This controversy has found its most vigorous discussion in the scholarship dealing with the so-called “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity.98 I would suggest that the widening discussion of the nature of the separation of Christianity from Judaism provides a dynamic context in which our students might examine the kinds of comparisons currently being used by scholars. In the end, the evidence may well prove that anti-semitism/anti-Judaism was not an essential or natural implication of Christian doctrine. Whatever the case proves to be, the question that shadows the enterprise is whether through the application of the comparisons constructed in this specific context, methodological soundness has been sacrificed to insure a desired outcome, namely, the protection of Christianity from such a crippling accusation.99 Inclusive comparisons are routinely used by scholars of the “parting of the ways” to break the putative connection between Christianity and anti-semitism/anti-Judaism. For example, students might examine the implications of the comparison implied by Daniel Boyarin’s analogy for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism as “twins in a womb.”100 As Boyrain’s introduction continues we might justifiably ask what implications follow from his use, as well as that of those he criticizes, of the formula “parting of the ways.” What values, either negative or positive, are encapsulated in the use of such a phrase? Is the comparison of comparanda labeled “Christianity” and “Judaism” affected by defining the “parting” under consideration as singular or plural, relative or absolute? If, as Boyarin demands, Jewish Christianity is a category that needs to be “pulled in from the marginal cold, . . . as a third term,” in order to complicate simplistic distinctions between Christianity and Judaism, to what shall it refer? If, as for many scholars, it designates ethnic Jews who have accepted Jesus as the messiah, in what sense can the category “Jewish Christianity” be taken as comparable to the category “Gentile Christ-

98 99 100

E.g., Dunn, Partings of the Ways. Stendahl, “Religion in the University,” pp. 521–528. Boyarin, Dying for God, pp. 2–6.

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ianity” which reduces the incredible ethnic diversity of the non-Jewish Mediterranean to irrelevance? The goal of blurring the commonly assumed distinctions between Christianity and Judaism has led to the reduction of Christianity to a singularity, using Christianity as an undifferentiated whole, and usually in the form of an “official” or “orthodox” system, which can safely be said to have become distinct only centuries after the time of Jesus and his first followers. As a result, “early/earliest Christianity” can be described, as a whole, as virtually indistinguishable from contemporary Judaism (by which is usually meant, Judaism as a spectrum inclusive of all its possible manifestations). When the purpose is served either Christianity or Judaism may be used as the generalization, with the other presented in its accommodating diversity. For example, James D. G. Dunn, arguably the most recognized participant in the “parting of the ways” debate, provides an example of the prevalence of such comparative strategies. Assuming the “thoroughly Jewish character of Christianity’s beginnings,” he questions initially whether there are certain definitively Christian elements that provoked, or at least marked, the break from Judaism, and then continues by asking how early this break can be dated.101 Dunn begins by describing certain fundamental ideas in Second-Temple Judaism that constitute what he calls its “four pillars,” in order to describe how Jesus, and his earliest followers, related to them, and whether this relationship was so radical as to exclude them from Judaism.102 Here Dunn exhibits the common tendency to reconstruct the parting of the ways by first generalizing something resembling a whole Judaism, a composite or spectrum consisting of all of its variations and possibilities, against which a particular, putative essence of Christianity might then be compared. Perhaps somewhat cynically considered, one might ask whether this is simply a clever interpretive move facilitating the discovery of something within the whole

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Dunn, Partings, pp. 1, 17. Dunn, Partings, beginning at p. 18, Dunn calls these pillars “core Judaism,” a “common heritage” behind the spectrum of various Judaisms,” cf. Sanders similar construction, “common Judaism,” the body of belief shared by all self-confessed Jews, Judaism, pp. 47, 256–57; more recently, “Common Judaism and the Synagogue in the First Century,” in Fine, ed., Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue, pp. 1–17. That we should presume such common ground is a not a methodological concern for students of the New Testament alone, see, e.g., Yunis’s study, A New Creed, especially pp. 38–58. 102

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spectrum of Judaism analogous to the specific Christian essence (or constructed singularity) in question, and thereby to establish another line of continuity with some aspect of the multivalent spectrum of Judaism. With each move of this sort, the boundaries between Christianity and Judaism become fuzzier allowing Dunn to conclude that, except for a very short list of anomalies, there is nothing in the New Testament (i.e., paradigmatic Christianity) that falls outside of Judaism. Even with this cursory glance at but one of the principals in this debate over the distinction between Christianity and Judaism, we can see that this is certainly an arena in which deeply vested interests are engaged, and where the choice and description of comparanda leave little doubt as to the powerfully political quality of the comparisons being employed. Again, Smith has something to say about such generalizations; the terms, “Early Christianity, Jewish, Gentile, Pagan, Greco-oriental” are generalizations that must be “deaggregated” for the purposes of comparison. The consequent comparisons must be carried out so that each component is compared with respect to a broader category of scholarly construction and interest. Approaching the phenomena this way, he argues, we may well find that different kinds of Christianity are further apart from each other than they are from forms of pagan cult or Judaism. “The presupposition of ‘holism’ is not ‘phenomenological,’ it is a major, conservative, theoretical presupposition which has done much mischief in the study of religious materials, nowhere more so than in the question of Christian ‘origins.’ ”103 With that I suggest that the current “parting of the ways” discussion of Christian origins become a focus for a critical investigation of the comparative enterprise. By eliminating the differences, or reducing them to insignificance, many of the scholars participating in the debate defend biblical Christianity, the positively-valued comparandum in the comparison, from the accusation of anti-Judaism. By inclusively comparing early Christianity with diverse elements within the synthesized spectrum labeled Judaism, these scholars are able to read anti-Judaism out of the New Testament documents. Given the fact that New Testament Christianity serves, at least to some degree, 103 Smith, Drudgery Divine, pp. 116–18, the quotation is from p. 118 and is based on Smith’s Map is Not Territory, pp. 253–54, citing Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, p. 274; cf. Drudgery Divine, pp. 52–53.

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as the normative model for most contemporary Christians, apologists hope to eliminate any possible use of the tradition to justify anti-Judaism.104 Of course, the broader remaining question is whether or not the structure we have described here can serve our investigations of comparison in cultural contexts beyond that of post-Reformation Christianity. Although I cannot develop the demonstration here, I shall offer a single example to suggest that the same comparative structure just presented can be discerned in religious propaganda and apologetic in non-Christian contexts, specifically in the ancient Greek sources. In Euripides’ Bacchae, king Pentheus of Thebes engages in an exchange with two old male devotees of the newly-arrived Dionysos that exhibits reciprocal inclusive and exclusive comparisons. One of the sources of the tension raised by the immigrant cult’s invasion of Thebes is its proximity; Dionysos is at once alien and native.105 Pentheus devalues the novel cult by an implicit exclusive comparison to the native Theban cults, proclaiming that the cult of Dionysos has no history and is disruptive, i.e., it compares unfavorably with the civic cults in terms of the presumed shared referenda, antiquity and decorum.106 In other words, whereas the civic cults represent hoary tradition and reinforce the traditional domestic roles of women, the maenadic rites are called recent innovations, socially disruptive, and are allusively likened to the immigrant ecstatic cults from beyond the borders of Hellas, of which the playwright’s audience was so profoundly aware. Euripides makes clear that the referenda are plausible by casting the apologetic defense offered by the cult members in precisely the terms laid down in Pentheus’ criticism.107 this certainly echoes the reciprocal 104 In the end, it seems that both Ruether and her critics recognize that the problem with Christian anti-Judaism lies in the normative model. For Ruether the model is flawed and therefore to be rejected, for her critics, the model is merely misunderstood. The apologetic motivation behind the comparisons used to argue the latter seems, at least at this preliminary stage of the critique, hard to miss. The question in this case may be whether the end justifies the means, a question about which students comparing comparisons need to make critical judgments. 105 Dionysos claims to be returning once again to the land of his birth, but he comes fresh from his conquests in the mysterious lands of the east, ll. 1–2a; 13–20 (line numbers refer to the text presented in, Euripides’ Bacchae, 2nd ed., trans. and ed. E. R. Dodds [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970]). 106 The king complains that he has returned home to find Theban wives caught up in the sham ecstasies of a new-fangled claimant to divinity, ll. 215–25. 107 E.g., though Pentheus styles theirs a cultic novelty having no history, the two old cultists counter that they are, in fact, following ancestral tradition, ll. 201–202a.

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structural relationships of the comparisons used in our examples from the conservative Christian discourse about glossolalia. In this context, I can only hope to show with such intriguing hints that there is great potential for further investigations of this comparative structure, and to hope that, as I stated in the introduction, I have made my two basic points sufficiently clear: first, with respect to pedagogy, that allowing students to engage in comparative comparisons can fulfill Smith’s goal of creating situations in which students must “negotiate difference, evaluate, compare, and make judgments,”108 and second, with respect to theory, to propose by the example of a specific modern conservative Christian comparison a structural framework with which the proposed comparing of comparisons might be profitably carried out. Ideally, the profit derived from this suggested intersection of theory and pedagogy will be measured in the greater critical scrutiny with which our students approach the comparative study of religion.

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See, n. 2 above.

Part Three POSTCOLONIALISM, POSTMODERNISM, MODERNISM IN THE COMPARISON OF RELIGION

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ORIENTALISM AND THE COMPARISON OF RELIGIONS Arvind Sharma I Comparative religion,1 or more accurately the comparative study of religion,2 which commenced in the 1860’s,3 has enjoyed a chequered career.4 Three broad stages can be identified in the intellectual trajectory it has followed since its inception, each of which may be conveniently designated by a word beginning with M: Material, Method and Motive as its outstanding concern during a particular stage.5 Its original focus was on material, when the data about the religious life of humanity came to be collected and collated. Such collection pertained to both the literate and the non-literate dimensions of religion. Work along the first route involved the identification and publication, often with a translation in a European language, of the various scriptures of the so-called world religions, of which seven were identified early on; namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (the three religions of the West); Hinduism and Buddhism (two religions from India); and Confucianism and Taoism (two religions from China). The scriptures of the non-Western religions were rendered accessible through the Sacred Books of the East Series edited by Max Müller (1823–1900). Islam was at the time still considered a religion of the East; it is only after the oil crisis of the 1970’s that it graduated as a religion of the West. In relation to the nonliterate religious traditions, this process of data-gathering took the form of anthropological research, which soon evolved the technique 1

See Sharpe, Comparative Religion. Brandon (ed.), A Dictionary of Comparative Religion, p. 202. 3 “The modern comparative study of religion reflects a cross cultural perspective” [but] “prior to the middle of the nineteenth century . . . European explanations of human religiousness was devoted largely to considerations of European culture” (Oxtoby [ed.], World Religions: Eastern Traditions, p. 496). 4 De Vries, The Study of Religion. 5 Sharma (ed.), The Sum of our Choices, pp. 3–4. 2

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of observer participation for recording such data. The work of E. B. Tylor (1823–1917), R. R. Marett (1866–1943) and J. G. Frazer (1854–1941) is particularly noteworthy in this respect. It should be clarified that methodological advances did take place during this period, of which the pervasive use of the evolutionary hypothesis is on example.6 So when it is claimed that the field as a whole was focused on material it is a statement of where the main thrust of the field lay, without implying that it was the sole thrust. The accumulation of such material had reached a critical mass by the 1900’s, when the focus began to shift from the continuing search for material towards various methods for studying that data which had emerged, and now began to occupy center-stage, although the accumulation of both classical and anthropological data continued apace. The philological method has already taken great strides on account of its association with the study of the scriptures of the various religions. It was now complemented with a series of new methods, among which the pride of place must go to the sociological and the psychological methods. These methods arose from a contemplation of the data provided by both the literate and the nonliterate religious communities. Thus Émile Durkheim’s (1858–1917) sociological theories arose from the data gathered about the non-literate Australian aborigines, while the sociological theories of Max Weber (1864–1920) were basically built from the evidence provided by the literate religious traditions. In the field of psychology of religion the basic material came from the literate traditions, the distinctive contributions of its two main exponents, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Karl Jung (1875–1961) arising from the fact that while the former focused on the Judeo-Christian tradition, Jung extended his net to take Eastern religions also into account.7 Political developments in the middle of the twentieth century were partly responsible for the emergence of another method in the study of religion, somewhat cumbersomely known as the “Phenomenology of Religion,” or more simply later as the phenomenological method.8 Until the decolonization which occurred around this time, the religious 6

Sharpe, Comparative Religion, chapter 2; Oxtoby (ed.), World Religions, p. 496; Brandon (ed.), A Dictionary of Comparative Religions, pp. 83ff. 7 See Heisig, “Psychology of Religion.” 8 See Sharma, To the Things Themselves. The phenomenological method involves the questioning of the evolutionary paradigm of the nineteenth century in a major way; see Kristensen, The Meaning of Religion, pp. 13–15.

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traditions of the world other than the Judeo-Christian were usually understood second-hand as it were. The focus until then lay on the texts of these traditions, without having to engage the believers themselves. With the end of the age of empire it was no longer possible to overlook the believers. A method took shape for studying the religion of the believers on their own terms—as distinguished from outsiders’ attempts to understand it in absentia. By the 1980’s however, the comparative study of religion had entered a new phase. Material continued to be collected and the various methods brought to bear on it continued to flourish; what was new was a desire to probe the motives underlying the phenomenon of religion itself and, even more significantly, underlying the desire to study the various religions of the world on the part of the West. This twin approach led to the emergence of the “hermeneutics of suspicion” within the hermetical method, and the identification of what has since become widely signified by the term Orientalism.9 II The purpose of this paper is to problematize the comparison of religions by introducing Orientalism10 as an element in the comparative equation.11 Its purpose then is still to compare religions but it is now to compare religions as reconstructed by Orientalist discourse. We shall compare three such reconstructions by Orientalist discourse— of the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and compare and contrast these three reconstructions as a new way of doing comparative religion.

9 Said, Orientalism. It is a tribute to the impact of this book that “Once the study of ‘Oriental’ or Near Eastern and Asian Languages and literatures, Orientalism is now taken to mean the Western domination and exploitation of the East, the West viewing the East as alien, as ‘the other.’ ” (Smith, Hinduism and Modernity, p. 86). 10 “Five distinct senses of the word have crystallized over the last two centuries: the Scholarly Study of the languages and texts of the Orient (initially conceived as the Middle East but later encompassing all of Asia); a late 18th century policy of the East India Company favouring the preservation of Indian languages, laws and customs; the adoption of an artistic style and subject matter associated with East; a discourse of power fashioned in the West and deeply implicated in European imperialism; a corporate institution harnessed to the maintenance of the ideological and political hegemony of Europe throughout Asia.” (Oldmeadow, Journey’s East, pp. 6–7). 11 This might be a hitherto unanticipated way of doing comparative religion in a new way; see Patton and Ray (eds.), A Magic Still Dwells.

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The novelty of what is being attempted should not go unnoticed. Typically the discourse of Orientalism and allied discourses, such as post-colonialism, shy away from religion, although it is the study of Islam by the West which is generally cited as the prime illustration of Orientalism. Harry Oldmeadow, after noting the “obvious irony” that the Orientalist “assault on the Western fabrication of the Orient is itself a product of the Western intellectual heritage of which they are such strident critics,”12 goes on to say: In Said’s case the irony is sharpened by the fact that the “defense” of the Islamic civilization is conducted by a rootless intellectual of Protestant upbringing who is quite unable to conceal his own distaste for religion which provides the very raison d’être of the civilization in question. Moreover, his argument is rooted in ideas and values (secular humanism, high culture) which are irredeemably Western and modernistic, and thus are quite out of tune with those values that Muslims themselves hold most dear.13

He goes on to add: Not only is the theoretical arsenal of the anti-Orientalists drawn almost exclusively from Western sources but, with few exceptions, it is also relentlessly secular, materialistic and humanistic in its assumptions, attitudes and values. These critics assert ad nauseam that no knowledge can be “apolitical” and “disinterested” but, in terms of their own argument, they often seem quite obtuse in understanding the limitations and prejudices which must govern their own outlook. This is especially problematical in the domain of religion. Scholars committed to an essentially modern, western, areligious world view (which, with respect to religion itself, might be hostile, indifferent or vaguely “tolerant” but which from a religious point of view, will necessarily be reductionistic) are thereby disqualified form the deepest understanding of the spiritual impulses which motivate men and women who immerse themselves in the doctrines and practices of alien religious traditions. These critics, for the most part, are locked into Salman Rushdie’s facile dichotomy of the “light of secularism” and the “darkness of religion.”14

Harry Oldmeadow offers these remarks after acknowledging “the brilliance of Edward Said’s work.”15 Similarly, Sharada Sugirtharajah begins by acknowledging the contribution Orientalism has made to our scholarly understanding when she writes: 12 13 14 15

Oldmeadow, Oldmeadow, Oldmeadow, Oldmeadow,

Journey’s Journey’s Journey’s Journey’s

East, East, East, East,

p. 11. p. 11. pp. 11–12. p. 11.

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Although Orientalism has become a loaded and contentious term, it is still very useful in examining varied discourses, whether they be literary, political, religious, or philosophical. Orientalism has been useful in uncovering a variety of perplexing Western attitudes and conceptions of the East as well as Eastern conceptions of the West.16

But again, like Harry Oldmeadow, she draws attention to the neglect of religion when she goes on to add: One of the future tasks of postcolonialism should include theorizing religion and examining how it operates in a multi-cultural postcolonial context. Postcolonial theorists have shown a great reluctance to interrogate religion; scholars in the field of postcolonial studies have theorized about literature, art and history, but not religion. In other words, postcolonialism has not adequately addressed the question of religion and how it operates in a postmodern world. Postcolonial theorists have drawn attention to colonialism and its impact on culture, history, and politics but not on religion, despite the fact that its pioneers and theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memuni and Edward Said come from the Islamic world where religion is not divorced from everyday life. Postcolonial discourses share the secular assumptions and biases present in other discourses. Despite religion being a significant aspect of most non-Western cultures, postcolonial theorists have not taken on board its potency. For example, Gandhi used religious resources to challenge and subvert colonialism. In Latin America, liberation theologians have utilized religion to champion the cause of the poor. In presentday India, religion is being used to promote a narrow nationalism and religious fundamentalism. The future of postcolonialism depends on its ability to address how religion affects and shapes societies, for religion in one form or another continues to surface even in secular environments.17

III Our present enterprise is Orientalist in a dual sense. The word Orientalism has now acquired the primary meaning of a mode of discourse but its earlier and original meaning pertained to the scholarly study of the Orient—and religions of the Orient, by the scholars of the West. It is often not realized to what extent what we all describe today as Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Islam is itself the work

16 17

Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, p. 142. Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, pp. 142–43.

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of European scholarship, quite apart from what consequences this fact may have had for the mode of discourse. The Indian historian K. M. Panikkar offers an almost rhapsodic account of this process in the case of Hinduism when he writes: The creation of a Hindu historiography and the recovery of India’s great past constitute the most spectacular, as also the first fundamental contribution of European scholarship to India. In the century that passed between the acceptance of the identification of Sandrocottus of Alexander’s history with Chandra Gupta Maurya and the discovery of the Indus valley civilization lies the great romance of the rediscovery of India’s past and the creation of a national self-image for the Hindus as one of the creative civilizing peoples of the world with a continuous history of 3000 years. The works of scholars like Princep Bothilingk, of excavators and archaeologists like Alexander Cunningham and Marshall, of students of literature, religion and culture like Sir William Jones, Max Müller and A. B. Keith opened up to the astonished eyes of Indians themselves a continuous history of political, social and cultural activity which was not inferior to that of other contemporary civilizations. Also, European scholars working in Central Asia, China and South-East Asia recovered the astonishing history of ancient Indian cultural expansion, which established Hinduized kingdoms and empires in the Pamirs, in Malaya, in the Indonesian archipelago, and the fertile valleys of the Mekong.18

He goes on to say, with a fulsomeness almost embarrassing to a contemporary Indian: All this reconstruction of India’s past and the translation and popularization of great Indian philosophical and religious classics was the work almost exclusively of European scholars: English, German, French, Swedish, Russian, in fact scholars from every part of Europe. It was only in the last decades of the nineteenth century that Indian scholarship began to participate effectively in this work. The foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Sir William Jones, poet, scholar and judge, the decipherment of Asokan inscriptions, opening up the vista of ancient history from the records preserved in stone, metals and coins, the discovery of Ankor Vat in the overgrown jungles of Cambodia, the exploration of Central Asian caves by Stein, Pelliot and others, and others, and finally the excavations at Mohenjodaro—these are but the most sensational events of a truly thrilling story of the rediscovery of a lost intellectual world through the disinterested work of foreign scholars. Nor should one forget to mention the massive achievements of men in the different Universities of Europe and later America—

18

Panikkar, The Foundations of New India, p. 68.

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Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Heidelberg, Leyden, Harvard—who through love of learning translated, interpreted and published the vast literature which lay buried in Sanskrit and Pali, thereby opening up not only to the West but to the new middle classes in India itself an immense and almost unknown realm of religious thought and artistic achievement.19

The same holds for Buddhism in relation to which Philip C. Almond offers an account far more analytical in comparison to the previous one, as follows: The creation of Buddhism took place in two more or less distinct phrases. The first of these coincided with the first four decades of the nineteenth century. During this period, Buddhism was an object which was instanced and manifested ‘out there’ in the Orient, in a spatial location geographically, culturally, and therefore imaginatively other. Buddhism, as constructed in the West, made manageable that which was encountered in the East by travelers, diplomats, missionaries, soldiers, traders, and so on. Buddhism as a taxonomic object organized that which the Westerner confronted in an alien space, and in so doing made it less alien, less other. The locus of Buddhism was the Orient.20

He goes on to say: This would subtly change in the first twenty-five years of the Victorian period. Originally existing ‘out there’ in the Oriental present, Buddhism came to be determined as an object the primary location of which was the West, through the progressive collection, translation, and publication of its textual past. Buddhism, by 1860, had come to exist, not in the Orient, but in the Oriental libraries and institutes of the West, in its texts and manuscripts, at the desks of the Western scholars who interpreted it. It had become a textual object, defined, classified, and interpreted through its own textuality. By the middle of the century, the Buddhism that existed ‘out there’ was beginning to be judged by a West that alone knew what Buddhism was, is, and ought to be. The essence of Buddhism came to be seen as expressed not ‘out there’ in the Orient, but in the West through the West’s control of Buddhism’s own textual past.21

Bernard Lewis raises a fundamental point in this regard. He writes: Civilizations, in their educational systems, usually teach the languages of their classics, of their scriptures, and of government, later of business.

19 20 21

Panikkar, The Foundations of New India, pp. 68–69. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism, p. 12. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism, p. 13.

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In contrast to this general pattern, Europeans at one time or another have studied virtually all the languages and all the histories of Asia. Asians did not study Europe. They did not even study each other, unless the way for such a study was prepared by either conquest or conversion or both. The decipherment of ancient texts, without any such preparations or motivation is still peculiar to western Europe, and to the inheritors and emulators of the European scholarly tradition in countries such as the United States and Japan.22

He offers several answers why this might have happened,23 but he leaves little doubt that what we know of Islamic civilization in the academia is the work of Western “orientalists such as Adam Mez, J. H. Kramers, W. Björkman, V. Barthold, Thomas Arnold, and many others.”24 Among the British and French orientalists he lists “Claude Cahen, E. Lévi-Provençal, Henri Corbin, Marius Canard, Charles Pellat, William and Georges Marçais, William Wright,”25 and then again “R. C. Nicholson, Guy Le Strange, Sir Thomas Arnold, and E. G. Browne.”26 He mentions these names in rebutting Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism. The following comment of Said incidentally goes to demonstrate the extent to which the study of Islamic culture even today remains a product of the West: “No Arab or Islamic scholar can afford to ignore what goes on in the scholarly journals, institutes, and universities in the United States and Europe; the converse is not true.”27 The reader might be forgiven for wondering if this excursion into terra cognita is really necessary. It had to be undertaken to clarify the precise nature of the kind of comparison of religions which is being undertaken here. Europe carried out two intellectual enterprises simultaneously and seamlessly. It identified the history and development of the major religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and also simultaneously initiated the comparative study of religion for which these traditions, along with others, also provided the data. What we intend to do new is to first look at the way these three religious traditions were identified and constructed and then compare and contrast these constructions. If what was going on in the nineteenth

22 23 24 25 26 27

Lewis, Islam and the West, Lewis, Islam and the West, Lewis, Islam and the West, Lewis, Islam and the West, Lewis, Islam and the West, Cited in Lewis, Islam and

pp. 123–24. pp. 126–30. p. 112. pp. 111–12. p. 112. the West, p. 113.

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century may be called comparative religion, then a new kind of comparison is being undertaken here, when the traditions will be compared after they had come into being as academic entities and not while this was happening. The double meaning of Orientalism comes in handy here. The first comparative religion did its work only in the light of its first meaning. The new comparison of religions is being carried out in the light of its second meaning when its first meaning denotes “the academic discipline which dates . . . from the great expansion of scholarship of western Europe from the time of the Renaissance onward,”28 and its second meaning denotes the results of such a discipline as resulting in a European construction of the reality being studied (rather than what it might be in itself ). One can only hint here at an interesting epistemological issue which keeps surfacing in our field and which binds these two meanings of Orientalism together. It appeared in hermeneutics in the formulation that Kant understood Plato better than Plato himself because Kant knew more about the life and times of Plato as a modern scholar than Plato did himself. The earlier assumption was that we will always know less than what Plato knew because the inevitable shortfall between the possession of knowledge and its full communication. In the present context Orientalism in the first sense seems to imply that the outsider knows more than the insider; while in the second sense it seems to imply that far from knowing more than the insider, the outsider can never know as much as the insider and can at best only achieve an approximation.29 28

Lewis, Islam and the West, p. 101. The same issues surface in the structuralist post-structuralist context as follows: From the 1960s through the 1980s in several fields of cultural studies, ‘structuralist’ approaches were popular. The term ‘structuralism’ was multifaceted, its specific sense depending on the field in which one was working, whether anthropology, developmental psychology, linguistics, or literary studies. But a recurring feature of efforts termed ‘structuralist,’ such as those of the French anthropologist Claude LéviStrauss (b. 1908), was that the structures proposed had validity if they made sense in the mind of the investigator, regardless of whether they were understood in the minds of tribal populations or were the overtly declared intent of literary texts. James Frazer had thought he knew better than his subjects what they were doing. So had Freud. And so did Lévi-Strauss. The poststructuralist era emerging in the 1980s in a sense took the assumption ‘We know better than you what you are doing’ and turned it on the stance of the investigator itself. Twentieth-century scholarship has undergone a kind of politicization, in which the motives of the investigator are analyzed as socially and economically determined. Intellectuals are seen as slaves to their political, racial, class, and gender preferences. Scholars are portrayed as career-driven rather than thirsting for understanding. 29

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This Orientalist reconstruction of Hinduism emphasized its tolerant and passive character, which ultimately led to the identification of non-violence as its basic characteristic. Hinduism was deemed tolerant despite a history of its militant encounter with other religions of Indian origin and the presence of such an obviously militant text within it such as the Bhagavadgita. This tolerance was related to its non-missionary character,30 overlooking the fact that if it originated in north-western India it had to be missionary in some sense to spread over the rest of India. Moreover, its expansion in south-east Asia all the way to Bali was ignored to make the description stick.31 These attributes of being tolerant and non-missionary supported its depiction as a passive religion, conveniently overlooking the fact that the British, by one count, had to fight 111 wars to establish their rule over India. Why did the Orientalist discourse take this shape? It could be argued that, as Christianity is a missionary religion, it helped achieve its goal if its rival could be depicted as non-missionary so that it could pose no counter-threat. Similarly, with only a handful of Britishers ruling the whole of India, it was in British interest to believe that Hindus were tolerant; so outnumbered were they that an intolerant majority could simply overwhelm them as it almost did in the Mutiny of 1857–1858. Europeans shared this assessment and “Kant thought that the Hindu religion gave to its followers ‘the character of pusillanimity.’”32 One could even argue that the Gandhian movement can be traced back to this Orientalist construction. Ronald B. Inden has even boldly stated: “I doubt very much, for example, if Gandhi’s concept of non-violence would have played the central part it did in Indian nationalism had it not been singled out long ago as a defining trait of the Hindu character.”33

Where one might have assumed a kind of free will in the history of ideas, one is now confronted with a kind of determination in the sociology of knowledge. To overstate the developments only slightly: people do not seek truth, but act out of interests (Oxtoby (ed.), World Religions, pp. 500–501). 30 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1992) Vol. 20, p. 529. 31 Renou, Hinduism, p. 16. 32 See Halbfass, India and Europe, p. 407. 33 Inden, Imagining India, p. 38.

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In other words, the challenge to the West also came in the way it had defined Hinduism as a passive religion. Alongside these descriptive developments, however, evaluative procedures of the evolutionary kind had also been put in place. India had been colonized and by this criterion its own major religion, Hinduism, had failed the evolutionary test. It therefore had to be low down on the evolutionary totem pole of religions—which meant that it had to be polytheistic.34 When it was discovered that the description polytheism in its usual acceptance did not quite fit it, the term henotheism was coined.35 But henotheism also represented a stage inferior to monotheism, which had only been reached by the religions of the West, specially Christianity. From this perspective the Hindu response was to argue that Hindu religious thought had found its culmination in monism, which is a step above monotheism. This is how Advaita Vedanta emerged as a theological challenge to the West, a fact which can be directly related to the Orientalist take on Hindu philosophy.36 The Orientalist reconstruction of Buddhism emphasized its rational and altruistic character. The fact that Buddhism was a non-theistic religion was a crucial factor in the projection of Buddhism as a rational religion. Belief in God came to be looked upon virtually as a superstition, or close to it, as the scientific approach gained ground in the West. When the West thus discovered a religion without belief in God, it projected it as the supreme example of a rational religion, even though Buddha’s life, and that of his disciples’ abounds in the performance of miracles37 and even though belief in spirits is an integral part of Buddhism as it is lived, as for instance, in Burma.38 The rational presentation of Sri Lankan Buddhism is said to be one of the great achievements of Colonel Olcott.39 Thus identification of Buddhism with rationality played a major role in the Buddhist encounter with the West. The success of Zen in the West can be explained at least in part in these terms; the purpose of Zen is to break down the mind. The mind contains many dimensions but human beings identify maximally with its reasoning

34 35 36 37 38 39

Murty, Vedic Hermeneutics, p. 10. Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism, p. 130. Oldmeadow, Journey’s East, p. 80. Thomas, The Life of the Buddha in Legend and History, pp. 98ff. Spiro, Buddhism and Society. Ellwood, “Buddhism in the West,” p. 437.

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faculty and, as homo sapiens, identify themselves with it. Zen thus sets out to destroy a human being’s confidence in the rational faculty by bringing the mind to an impasse through the Koan. Such rational (i.e.: non-theistic) spirituality thus appeals to the West.40 Tibetan Buddhism is more tolerant of the ceremonial cloak which rests on the shoulders of the tradition but the dialogue forged by the Dalai Lama with the scientists once again harks back to rationalism. The non-theistic character of Buddhism at the level of philosophy led to its orientalization as a religion which has not evolved to the idea of ‘gods’ from the spirits on the one hand and as nihilistic in its philosophy on account of its doctrine of Emptiness, which also emptied the world of God. However, with the disenchantment of the world after the Enlightenment, this too fit in snugly with the modern mentality. The ascendancy of scientific materialism also helped image Buddhist thought in a positive way.41 The challenge to the West then which Buddhism posed was also one of a rational spirituality consistent with science.42 The Orientalist reconstruction of Islam emphasized its militant character. It would be tempting to attribute this to the facts of history. The three main empires in the world in the East at the beginning of the nineteenth century, apart from the Chinese, were the Moghol Empire in India, the Safavid Empire in Iran and the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. By the early decades of the twentieth century they were effectively gone, having lost out militarily to the West. Islam then could have been orientalistically reconstructed as a defeated passive religion. The reason this did not happen could partly be attributed to the militant origin of Islam. Comparative religion in its early phase was immensely interested, even obsessed, with the issue of the origins of a religion. Hindu tolerance and Buddhist rationalism were similarly identified in the context of the search for origins. This identification of militancy with Islam as original to it, in this sense, must be clearly borne in mind, for medieval Islam, under the influence of the Sufi silasilahs had also acquired an extraordinarily tolerant dimension.43

40

Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, p. 111. See Zaehner, “Conclusion,” in his The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths, pp. 407, 415–16. 42 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, passim. 43 Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, pp. 105ff. 41

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The challenge to the West which Islamic militancy now poses then may be related to its own Orientalist construction,44 as a boomerang effect of it, if you will. At the level of philosophy, Islam was attacked for possessing a rigorous but less than compassionate theism. But while the West thus attacked it on the basis of theism, Islam counterattacked with the prophetic principle. All the three Abrahamic religions are founded on the word of God, but none except Islam on the literal word of God. Here Islam was able to turn the developments of biblical criticism on their head by claiming that such criticism deconstructs the basic texts of Judaism and Islam, while the Qur’an emerges virtually unscathed for this intellectual baptism. IV By factoring Orientalism into the comparative equation then one makes a surprising discovery in the context of comparing religions: that the West got what it gave. The reason why Orientalism enables us to gain this insight is because it allows a point of reference from which the academic definition Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam achieved in the study of religion can be viewed that lies beyond the mere comparison of the traditions themselves. If one looked merely at the traditions themselves one would be tempted to go on comparing Hindu non-violence, Buddhist rationalism and Islamic militancy without recognizing their common reflection and refraction in the Western mirror. It is doubtful that without this insight one would have been able to make the connection between such disparate developments as the renewed privileging of Advaita Vedanta in Hinduism, the renewed privileging of the non-theism in Buddhism, and the renewed privileging of the literalness of the Qur’an in Islam. These might have been misread merely as the extension, in modern times, of the inherent tendencies of these traditions when in reality they constitute veiled reactions to Orientalism. 44 It is worth noting that once these orientations had been established, even the developments within these religions came to be understood in these terms. Thus any rational development within Hinduism was attributed to Buddhist influence and any militant development to Islamic influence. In the case of Buddhism, any nonrational development was traced to Hindu influence and militant developments often to Islamic influence. The ‘domestication’ of Islam in India was attributed to Hindu tolerance.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CIRCLING THE WAGONS: THE PROBLEM WITH THE INSIDER/OUTSIDER IN THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGION* Russell T. McCutcheon My wife and I once worked in a co-ed residence at the University of Toronto. One of the building’s porters, an older gentleman named Carl who has since died, worked the afternoon shift. Originally from somewhere in what we once called Eastern Europe, he had fought in World War II, for various armies. As one was defeated by another, some soldiers simply changed sides, took up with their new compatriots, and kept on going; after all, the alternative was more than likely not nearly as appealing. Late one evening while on his rounds, he came upon a small group of undergraduate students in one of the dimly lit common rooms, confessing to one another their past misdeeds: the curfews they had missed and their high school drinking-binges. Stopping his rounds for a moment, I was told the next morning how the porter stood just outside their circle and listened. Turning to him, a young student invited Carl to divulge one of his own past infractions. Because he was old enough to be the student’s great-grandfather, more than likely they all anticipated hearing some quaint, antique recollection— a confession that would enable the old man to join yet another new group of compatriots. Instead of offering a familiar tale about the “good ole days,” Carl replied in his thickly accented English: “In zee var ve vould burn Polish villages.” * This chapter, which is a revision of chapter two of McCutcheon, ‘Religion’ and the Domestication of Dissent, or How to Live in a Less than Perfect Nation, relies on material elaborated in McCutcheon, “The Ideology of Closure and the Problem of the Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion.” Earlier versions were presented as lectures at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Chicago, both in February 2004 and both of which were sponsored by the Wabash Center. I would like to thank Faydra Shapiro and Lucy Pick, respectively, for organizing these events and for including me among those invited to speak.

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In the complete silence that greeted his disclosure—calling his words a confession entirely misses the point of my anecdote—he turned, and, as it was told to me, walked back into the darkness to continue his nightly rounds. Thinking of the task of doing comparison in the classroom, I cannot help but recall Carl walking out of the room after having upped the ante considerably. For those upper-middle class students were completely unprepared to entertain anyone’s world as being so far removed from their own—unprepared to entertain that aesthetically pleasing deep similarities might not underscore human communities—that Carl’s story would be anything other than sneaking out of his room late one evening to meet a young lady. In the same manner that their late-night confessions—much like telling scary tales around a camp fire—functioned to unite them by reinforcing the boundaries of the expected and the allowable, their dumbfounded reaction to the porter’s report, recounted with no hint of shame or irony, makes apparent the parochial nature of the preferences that— prior to hearing his tale, that is—they had taken for granted as universal and self-evident. Such moments therefore remind me of the inevitably local and self-serving nature of all forms of in-group story-telling that presumes to exist some inclusive vantage point outside of interest-ladened, contingent and potentially contradictory perspectives of historical agents. This is none other than the ideology of closure that, in our field, takes the forms of attempts to address what, in our classrooms, we commonly call the insider/outsider problem.1 For such efforts are often motivated by the goal of arriving at some form of mutual understanding in which observer and the observed each tell their story, thereby discovering in the telling that they share some otherwise overlooked similarity (often called Human Nature). But this socalled problem of overcoming different perspectives and commitments is a problem only for those motivated by the wishful hope that there somewhere exists a detached, god’s eye viewpoint from which the entire pachyderm of human meaning can somehow be experienced by having the privileged narrator carefully listen to the seemingly conflicting tales of the proverbial blind men. If this is indeed the

1 For background on the problem. see McCutcheon, The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion.

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case, if there is some big picture that we will recognize only after a considerable amount of inductive data gathering—and how to demonstrate its existence is, of course, the $64,000 question!—then I can at least understand what compels many teachers to presume that we all have a story to share and thus to construct their courses as providing differing peoples with their fifteen minutes of fame (what otherwise goes by the name of courses on religious autobiography). But if there is no such beast, if the blind men are truly blind, each groping without the benefit of the omniscient narrator who is required to make that proverb work, then teachers are disingenuous in inviting everyone to tell their story as part of a quest for a common human denominator, for I suspect that—like those students in my anecdote—neither we nor our students are prepared to listen patiently and appreciatively to everyone who might come out of the darkness to tell their tale. To understand the problems with the insider/outsider problem we should first note that there are many academic fields in which comparative analysis is not motivated by the quest for similarity and in which there is therefore nothing equivalent to the insider/outsider problem that we use to mediate between what may very well be a profusion of voices. These are fields in which teachers feel no guilt when they offer participant disclosures as data that is then subjected to theoretical analysis. In once comparing the scholar of religion to the doctor whose efforts to understand the workings of the human body require no input whatsoever from the comatose patient, Robert Segal, of Lancaster University, once took an obviously provocative stand on this issue, one seldom adopted by scholars of religion for fear of offending the people whom they study. That some members of the audience at the conference where he struck upon this analogy were, to put it mildly, aghast suggests that the study of religion is not one of the fields that somehow escapes the insider/outsider problem.2 But why is this? The common answer draws on the sharp split between the socalled sciences of the spirit and those of nature. Insomuch as humans are thought to possess independent consciousness, we are free, moral beings. Therefore, unlike the predictable behavior of physical objects 2 Segal’s comment was made as part of a presentation he gave at the 1995 Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), held in Mexico City, Mexico. See Segal 2000 for an elaboration on this topic.

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that occupy the attention of students in, say, a physics or chemistry course, properly studying human beliefs and actions necessarily requires that students take into account the intentional ghost inhabiting the physical machine. An inductively-based, objective “science of man” is therefore seen by many as demeaning insomuch as it places people on a par with unthinking, objects. As quoted by Faydra Shapiro, in an article on the intersection between ethnography and autobiography: In trying to become ‘objective’ Western culture made ‘objects’ of things and people when it distanced itself from them, thereby losing ‘touch’ with them. This dichotomy is the root of all violence.3

Because human beings are thought to act, rather than simply behave — the former implies motivation and thus accountability, whereas the latter implies unthinking reactions—their actions must be understood as part of a larger system of intentions and meanings. Accordingly, the study of these actions must be interpretive, not explanatory, and the participant’s understanding of their own motivations and meanings enters a dialogue with the understandings of the observer—otherwise, or so it is said, scholars will do violence to the dignity of the person under study, not to mention jeopardize their own humanity as well. Even if we grant this Dilthean division of labor—and let me add that it is far from obvious that we ought to!—the traditional split between the sorts of objects under study (e.g., people versus things) and the methods used in their study (e.g., interpretation versus explanation) does not really help to account for why those in only some of the intellectual pursuits that focus on the study of human beings worry so much over having the scholar keep “in touch” with the participant by having them exchange self-disclosures in a quest for similarity, much as symbolic gifts are exchanged whenever we try to forge new friendships. It does not help because, as made plain in my opening anecdote, there may be no lowest common denominator that suits our specific tastes. If we might not want to dance with everyone, then we had better prompt our students to be a little more explicit about how it is that we go about identifying both similarities and differences, and how it is that we then go about accounting for them.

3 Shapiro, “Autobiography and Ethnography: Falling in Love with the Inner Other,” p. 193, quoting Andaluza, Borderlands/La Frontera, p. 37.

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But so long as we keep dancing with people who already know our steps, we really do not have to be very articulate about when we do and do not make our own personal disclosures, for we likely make them all the time. And whenever someone steps on someone else’s toes while doing this consensual dance, then we can always just invoke the insider/outsider problem to finesse the misstep (that is, to solve the problem of difference). This helps us to explain why we would never expect to see a book entitled something like The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Nazism. For it is likely inconceivable for scholars in modern, liberal democracies to entertain that their adversaries either share fundamental similarities with them or have a legitimate opinion about themselves and their motives that is worth sharing as part of an ongoing conversation—and by “legitimate” I simply mean one that is seen to compete with, complement, or enhance the scholar’s own analysis. In fact, entertaining any of these options would, more than likely, be judged as an immoral stand, perhaps prompting some to accuse us of a seditious act of treason. Although it would be easy to draw on a contemporary example— say, the manner in which so-called Islamic fanatics’ explanations for their own violent actions are dismissed as lies, delusions, or doublespeak in need of careful decoding (making those who fail to question the epistemic status of these reports mere pawns in the terrorists’ hands)—consider the case of the onetime Nazi Minister of Armaments and so-called “architect of the Third Reich,” Albert Speer (1905–1981)— one of the few defendants to plead guilty at the Nuremberg trials and who served twenty years in Spandau prison, in what was once East Berlin, until his release in 1966. His memoirs4 hold a celebrated status for scholars but only insomuch as Speer’s recorded self-disclosures are understood as an example of an astute political actor, working with the benefit of hindsight, to rationalize his own actions and thereby fool his obviously culpable self (and his unwary readers alike!). Such an insider’s self-report is therefore not part of an ongoing conversation with the scholar who is on a quest for shared similarities; instead, it is of interest only insomuch as it is understood either as an example of self-delusion or evidence of the participant apologizing for his past misdeeds.

4

Speer, Inside the Third Reich; Speer, Spandau.

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Whether or not one agrees with how scholars have used Speer’s memoirs, we must at least note that their goal has not been to search for commonality and neither has it been to avoid doing violence to his self-disclosures—as if participants set the bar for how their behaviors ought to be understood. Instead of trying to identify with or protect his authorial voice, their goal has been to explain why someone as seemingly educated and cultured as Speer would understand his own behavior in a way that differs so dramatically from how we understand it. Because we have such confidence in the superiority of our own systems of morality and our own understanding of history—because any comparison of his world to ours is lost in the all too obvious differences we cannot help but see when we look back on mid-twentieth-century German politics—no apologies are needed when our conclusions regarding self-deception trump Speer’s own protestations of his well-meaning political naiveté. It would appear, then, that we have no need of this thing we call the insider/outsider problem to mediate between the competing disclosures and differing commitments whenever we study our enemies, for they are simply wrong, lying, or brainwashed. All we have are the differences between us and our interest is in explaining why someone can’t help but see how wrong they are. So the question arises: when does the suspension of first person interpretive authority of the people we study qualify as an instance of epistemic violence and when does a failure to suspend it amount to an offensive, traitorous, or immoral act?5 To answer my own question, it strikes me that the so-called insider/outsider problem is an opportunity for uncovering core similarities and achieving mutual understanding only when the teacher and students already have some sort of affinity for the behaviors under study. When beliefs and behaviors with which we disagree make their way onto the syllabus, when the differences are all too apparent to us, we lose no sleep whatsoever when we offer an analysis that contradicts participants’ own self-understandings and suspends their right to add their voice to our conversation. For instance, pick up virtually any of the many syllabi on religion and violence and, despite the best intentions of the empathetic professor, the point of studying this topic is not to be “in touch” with those people who use coercive violence

5 On the topic of first person interpretive authority, see Godlove, “Religious Discourse.”

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to achieve practical ends. Sooner or later the other shoe drops when the teacher adopts an explanatory framework in order to determine why anyone would do such a thing —which, of course, is the first step to getting them to stop doing it. We seek understanding in order to change their understandings as well as their actions, not to be in dialogue with them. I therefore see teaching qua conversation as having profound political motivations and ramifications; it is a social engineering technique used by specific groups to establish tactical coalitions by using the classroom to selectively smooth over what, for the purpose of some anticipated coalition, are perceived to be relatively minor differences, all in an effort to circle the wagons against the onslaught of the significant differences that threaten some apparent “us” and “our” interests. Recognizing and then trying to address seemingly competing commitments by means of the insider/outsider problem therefore arises only when an empirically diverse and possibly conflicting “many” is, for whatever reason, presumed by its members to be subordinated to a common, non-empirical “oneness” (call it human nature, nationality, religious experience, spirituality, gender, or ethnicity). That this triumphant oneness, achieved by means of establishing mutual understanding, turns out to be anything but an inclusive conversation must not go unnoticed. For instance, consider how all of this works in a recent British collection of essays entitled Theorizing Faith: The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Ritual. The various chapters in this book—on the comparative study of such diverse groups as British Muslims, New Religious Movements, Soka Gakkai in the UK, British Quakerism, and British Wicca—set about addressing the problem of differing perspectives by presuming that there exists some “big picture” to which participants and observers alike have limited yet complementary access. This is phrased in the book’s conclusion as follows: All of this is rooted in an epistemology . . . in which no single ‘voice’ has the capacity for the whole truth, but in which every voice is a potential source of fact and insight, and in which valid conclusions and adequate interpretations are more likely, when the multiple voices are sensitively heard and considered. . . . If we can build multiple perspectives into our research project, whether through team research in the field, sharing at conferences, or other forms of collegial discourse, we are blessed.6 6

Arweck and Stringer, eds., Theorizing Faith, p. 159.

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The unelaborated qualifications that lead to this blessed event surely deserve some attention, for they provide such writers with considerable wiggle-room to accomplish two crucial things: to avoid sanctioning the wrong voices and to keep anyone from noticing that they avoid sanctioning the wrong voices. In this manner we can feel rather good about how open our conversation is, all the while hearing stories that we already know by heart, for the conventions that determine the form our conversation takes preclude the wrong voices gaining entry and the wrong similarities being identified. I am reminded here of an aside made on April 9, 2003, by a cable news commentator as the television news cameras zoomed in on the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, on the day that U.S. troops first arrived in Baghdad. One of the risks of bringing democracy to Iraq, the pundit said, was that they might elect the wrong government. More than likely this remark went unnoticed to the majority of viewers, since we all pretty much know what the wrong government is—they’re the ones we call regimes because they don’t look like ours. His comment went unnoticed, that is, until his colleague observed that in a democracy there’s no such thing as electing the wrong government. Touché ! But usually there’s no one present to identify the manner in which those straining to hear all of the voices inevitably slip into a selfinterested monologue that is shouted loudly enough so as to sound like more than one voice. After all, as noted in the earlier quotation, every voice is merely a potential source of fact and insight; conclusions can be either valid or invalid while interpretations can either be adequate or inadequate; we are told that, as listeners, we must be sensitive and our discourse must be collegial, otherwise, I presume, we are not allowed to play the game. All too predictably, however, we find no argumentation in favor of any explicit criteria whereby, for instance, valid from invalid conclusions can be distinguished and no suggestion as to what constitutes a collegial discourse. This should be enough to cause the wary reader to pause, especially those acquainted with the ways in which the category “collegiality” is sometimes used in the academy to assert some rather unprofessional criteria that determine ones inclusion within the guild. This presumption that our criteria are self-evident and universal— something many of us share with those students in my opening anecdote—is evidence of a nostalgia for the innocence that comes with full understanding—a nostalgia for some posited totality that is

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greater than the sum of its individual and seemingly conflicting parts. It is a profoundly anti-historical attitude that strikes me as most troublesome in the work of those who use the insider/outsider problem to mediate between differing viewpoints and commitments. For, instead of presuming that historical existence is shot through and through with competing interests, the rhetoric of “full understanding” that propels the desire to keep in touch with some of the people we study and which prompts some of us to think that all so-called deeply held beliefs can find a place at the our seminar tables, bypasses the requirements (and thus the risks) of public persuasion; in bypassing these requirements it shows itself to be based on anything but a humble epistemological foundation. Instead, it provides a passive/aggressive means to portray some local as the self-evident universal without ever really considering that interests and viewpoints might be incommensurable or contradictory. I think here of Jonathan Kirsch’s recent book, The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People (2001), which stands as a useful example of a writer coming to grips with the fact that, at least in the case of Judaism, the only so-called core value is diversity and disagreement. Thus, all we seem to have is a host of differing Judaisms all talking with each other. But in dropping the singular in favor of the plural, we find a subtle argument that naturalizes but one sort of liberal Judaism as opposed to those other contenders for normative status that might contest whether the apparent variety has anything significant in common. In other words, the old “unity in diversity” nugget is a political rhetoric doing its own sort of group building in competition with other mutually exclusive conceptions of the group, some of which don’t particularly want to gain entry into the big tent. The rhetoric of the big picture that propels many of the classes that utilize the comparative method may therefore be one of the most powerful political techniques we’ve yet come up with to silence just some voices while amplifying others. For, as phrased in a rhetorical question posed by Slavoj ¥i≥ek in his critique of “The Matrix”— a film very popular with the generation we find ourselves now teaching: “What if ideology resides in the very belief that outside the closure of the finite universe, there is some ‘true reality’ to be entered?”7 For, as afficionados of this film will recall, outside the

7

¥i≥ek, “The Matrix, or the Two Sides of Perversion,” p. 214.

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seemingly never-ending yet only virtually real matrix is a really real world—what ¥i≥ek characterizes as “the pre-modern notion of ‘arriving at the end of the universe’.”8 But rather than being as radical as many of our students no doubt understood it to be, it is a film informed only by what Pierre Bourdieu once termed radical chic and apparent subversion;9 the “problem with the film,” according to ¥i≥ek, is that “it is not ‘crazy’ enough. . . . Much more subversive than this multiplication of virtual universes would have been the multiplication of realities themselves.”10 Translated into the topic at hand, he seems to be saying that the far more radical way to engage in cross-cultural analysis is to prompt our students to take seriously that there is no resolution to be had—or better yet, that what gets to count as a resolution is itself informed by but one of the many contestable viewpoints. The task of comparative scholarship, then, is to recognize that since we’ll never exhaust the voices to be heard, adding our own to the mix accomplishes nothing. Instead, we need to prompt our students to determine some defensible principle of selection, some criterion of focus suitable to the institutions in which they do their labors, to determine how it is that we will look into the issue of difference and, more importantly, what will get to count as a difference worth looking into. I’m hoping that you now see why what Bruce Lincoln once termed sentiments of affinity and estrangement ought not to function as our scholarly criteria of selection,11 and why it is that our role as teachers ought not to be that of nurturing our students’ identification with their objects of study through entering a dialogue with them about their deepest dreams and their ultimate concerns. With this, I return to my opening anecdote: as laudable as it may be to invite others to leave the darkness and join the circle around our seminar table— and who but an uncivilized brute would be against swapping stories around the glowing campfire that we euphemistically call free market, liberal democracy—we cannot forget that the shared interests that make it worthwhile huddling around our fire are not the only interests out there. Moreover, I am at a loss to find anything other than self-serving rationalizations for why some social groups receive 8 9 10 11

¥i≥ek, “The Matrix, or the Two Sides of Perversion,” p. 215. Bourdieu, Practical Reason, p. 137. ¥i≥ek, “The Matrix, or the Two Sides of Perversion,” p. 217. Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, p. 10.

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an invitation to visit our class whereas those with whom we have limited affinity, those with whom we are in outright competition, become the objects of everything from derision to state-sponsored coercive violence. Are they just so obviously wrong that we need no rationale or persuasive reason for excluding them from the big conversation? Are their interests so out of sync with reality that we need not acknowledge that our so-called dialogue is in fact a monologue efficiently reproducing our local interests under the guise of multivocality? Sadly, such topics are rarely investigated in classes; the problem with the insider/outsider problem in the study of religion is therefore the classification “religion” itself, for it selects only the easy and familiar cases of meaning-making and identity-construction, enabling us to converse exclusively with those who already satisfy our conditions for what it means to be “civil,” “faithful,” “tolerant,” “sensitive,” and “collegial.” In this way, we place on the table only those personal commitments that never offend. Case in point, consider the use of the autobiographical voice so commonly found in classrooms today, and which often influences the sorts of scholars hired to teach students, in which an authoritative insider is asked to speak on behalf of an entire tradition—to provide the authentic viewpoint. When it comes to bringing such personal commitments to the classroom all is fine until the wrong commitments make their appearance. For instance, what if you teach in a region of the U.S. where many of your students inform you that Roman Catholics are not Christians. Are professors to enter a jousting match with their students, contesting how it is that the students’ own groups police their limits? Or consider a film many have used in our classes or seen as students, “Footprint of the Buddha” (from the well known “Long Search” series): there is a scene in which Sri Lankan laywomen are wildly possessed by spirits as the local shrine priest authenticates their possession by hitting them and splashing them in the face with water; anyone even partially familiar with the contemplative Buddhism of our textbooks will immediately recognize that this is just the wrong sort of commitment. Where are the Five Noble Truths? Where is the sedate lifestyle that looks beyond appearances and slowly sips tea? Or consider how, beginning on September 12, 2001, the pundits began working in earnest to distance so-called authentic Islam— guided by timeless “principles” communicated by means of an apparently uniform thing we call “tradition”—from those accused of

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carrying out the previous day’s attacks. Is it merely a coincidence that authentic Islam ended up looking an awful lot like yet another personal choice in the free market? As phrased by one such commentator: “The challenge of the future can only be faced by an Islamic worldview that embraces diversity, equality of the sexes, and the freedom, not only to be right, but also to be wrong”—so writes Vincent Cornell, himself a Muslim and the Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas, in a post-September 11 essay collection entitled Dissent from the Homeland. “Failure to meet the challenges of a diverse, multicentered, and religiously pluralistic world,” he adds, “will ultimately lead to an Islam that is irrelevant to contemporary life, and might even herald the decline of Islam as a world religion.”12 After all, as he concludes: “People who appear uncivilized do not get invited into the community of nations.”13 As with the useful rhetoric of “collegiality”—useful to tenured professors keeping their cards close to the chest when making tenure and promotion decisions, that is—such writers do not need to define just what gets to count as “right,” “wrong,” “relevant,” “authentic,” “civilized,” or “community,” for those of us at the seminar table already swapping our stories know what they are. Much like indecency, although we couldn’t actually define the limits of each of these if we had to, we apparently know once the rules have been overstepped—as did approximately 200,000 people in early 2004, complaining to the U.S.’s Federal Communications Commission about the liberties taken by Janet Jackson, among others, with what I gather is the normally family-values nature of Super Bowl halftime shows. As this episode makes clear, anyone who deviates too far from the unarticulated script will suffer consequences—either symbolic or actual. In our field, trespassers are classified, and studied, and silenced as radicals, militants, extremists, and tribalists who belong to movements that are comprised of agitators and people with strident voices who are led by belligerent leaders—to borrow a few of the terms used by the well-known inclusivist Martin Marty, in his book, The One and the Many: America’s Struggle for the Common Good (1997) to brand those who are bold enough to put into practice their own thoughts on what ought to be the so-called common good. 12 13

Cornell, “A Muslim to Muslims,” p. 93. Cornell, “A Muslim to Muslims,” p. 92.

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To sum up, we can draw on the work of the French political theorist Dominique Colas, who was himself commenting on the political utility of the slippery rhetorics of “civil society” and “fanatic,” and conclude that seeing the classroom as a place where we share personal disclosures and work toward massaging difference and establishing mutual understandings is a political problem because it “tends to present political issues as problems of management rather than as conflicts between various powers and groups with divergent or antagonistic interests.”14 And it is precisely the limits of meaning and social identity that we are attempting to manage with our efforts to prompt students to converse with just some others—efforts that ensure specific groups remain within arm’s reach while others are kept securely at arm’s length. Perhaps you can now understand why I see classes that seek the goal of conversation, dialogue, self-expression, and mutual understanding to be entirely suspect: they leave their descriptive data untheorized and, leaving it untheorized, they implicitly reinforce the object of study’s status as self-evidently meaningful and sensible. Now, by “theorize” I simply mean studying all human artifacts, such as participant self-reports, as instances of data in need of historicization and explanatory analysis, and not simply appreciation or dismissal; for our roles as scholars and teachers is not to be “in touch” with the people under study, and not to feel their pain, whether or not we have affinity for them. Failing to subject the descriptive data to theoretical analysis results in simply adopting uncritically someone else’s view of themselves and their place within their world. Then, so long as it complements or enhances our own interests, we merely perpetuate it uncritically by offering our own story that serves merely as a repetition of what the participants have already said for themselves. Despite the apparently good intentions that inspire those who seek to be “in touch” with the people they study, scholarship as repetition strikes me as chauvinistic insomuch as it presumes that what the speakers have already said for themselves requires our authorization. Because I tend to think that our responsibility qua teachers is first and foremost to that circle of wagons called the discourse of academia, I advocate a far more humble project for scholarship on human

14

Colas, Civil Society and Fanaticism, p. 40.

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behaviors. As phrased by Jack Lightstone—a scholar of Greco-Roman Judaism who, as far back as 1984 made it evident that he had carefully read his Jonathan Z. Smith—one of the basic rules that such an epistemologically modest study follows is that the scholar’s own (analytic) taxa must be other than those of the data. To wholly adopt the subjects’ classifications, unable to move beyond them in acts of interpretation, is to become a member of the group, bound by its framework.15

Although scholars study all sorts of human behaviors, that we do not speak the same language as the people we study, that we do not swap stories with just anyone, is precisely the point that ought to attract our attention, prompting us to be curious about why some encourage us to enter conversations about personal commitments with our students rather than initiating these same students into what Tomoko Masuzawa terms “rigorous historical discourse analysis.”16 In trying to minimize difference and conflict by presuming our identification with just some of the self-reports we study, we miss an ideal opportunity to make a significant contribution to just such a rigorous study, one which will tell us much about how uncertain and contestable social boundaries are managed. And so it is with this more modest goal in mind that I conclude by citing the last of Bruce Lincoln’s “Theses on Method”: When one permits those whom one studies to define the terms in which they will be understood, suspends one’s interest in the temporal and contingent, or fails to distinguish between “truths,” “truthclaims,” and “regimes of truth,” one has ceased to function as historian or scholar. In that moment, a variety of roles are available. . . . None, however, should be confused with scholarship.17

15

Lightstone, The Commerce of the Sacred, p. 5. Masuzawa, “From Theology to World Religions: Ernst Troeltsch and the Making of Religionsgeschichte,” p. 164. 17 Lincoln, “Theses on Method,” p. 227. 16

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

POSTMODERNISM AND THE COMPARATIVE METHOD* Robert Segal In the field of religious studies there are four main positions on the comparative method. Postmodernism At one extreme lies the postmodern position, which spurns comparison altogether. In light of the postmodernist focus on the unique, the eccentric, the exotic, the marginal, the neglected, and the excluded, the “modernist” concern with the general is anathema. The assumptions here are that the comparative method seeks only similarities, that similarities deny differences, that similarities take the items compared out of context, that similarity means identity, that similarities are invariably superficial, and that similarities are ineluctably invidious. To quote Pauline Marie Rosenau, who distinguishes between tamer, “affirmative” postmodernists and bolder, “skeptical” ones: Post-modernists believe that representation encourages generalization, and in so doing it focuses on identity and fails to appreciate the importance of difference. . . . The very act of comparing, in an effort to uncover similarities and differences, is a meaningless activity because post-modern epistemology holds it impossible ever to define adequately the elements to be contrasted or likened. The skeptical postmodernists’ reservations about the possibility of generalizing and their emphasis on difference . . . form the basis of rejecting the comparative method. If, as they conclude, everything is unique, then the comparative method is invalid in its attempts to search for and explain similarities and differences while holding certain dimensions constant (assuming a degree

* A version of this essay was presented at a conference in December 2003 at Lancaster University on “Religious Studies: What’s the Point?” My colleague Gavin Hyman gave a forceful rejoinder, defending postmodern criticisms of the comparative method. I thank him for his most helpful comments.

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robert segal of sameness in other variables). The affirmative post-modernists, as well, question the linguistic representation upon which any comparative statements are necessarily based.1

Here the comparative method serves to find similarities only and is therefore objectionable. Seemingly far less radical than one would expect, postmodernist Mark Taylor acknowledges that comparison can serve to find differences as well as similarities. More, he considers the quest for sheer differences no less one-sided than the quest for sheer similarities: While always involving an interplay between sameness and difference, the activity of comparison can have as its goal either the reduction of differences to identity or the establishment of differences that have little or nothing in common. When carried to extremes, the former approach leads to a monistic perennial philosophy according to which all religions are purported [sic] to express the same truth differently, while the latter issues in a dualistic heresiological model in which true religion is privileged over and set against false religions.2

But the middle ground that Taylor then proposes is in fact the onesided quest for sheer differences: The challenge of effective comparison is to find a mean between these extremes that allows interpreters to understand differences without erasing them. . . . [I]t is necessary to develop comparative analyses that do not presuppose universal principles or reinscribe ahistorical essences. Whether or not it is possible to realize such a comparativist program, many critics schooled in poststructuralism insist that the very effort to establish similarities where there appear to be differences is, in the last analysis, intellectually misleading. . . .3

In other words, would-be similarities cover up irreducible differences. While Taylor, unlike Rosenau’s postmodernists, is prepared to use the term “comparative method” for the quest for differences only, he, too, objects to the method insofar as it seeks similarities. And his objection is on political as well as intellectual grounds: “When reason is obsessed with unity, they argue, it tends to become as hegemonic as political and economic orders constructed to regulate

1 2 3

Rosenau, Post-Modernism, pp. 97, 105–6. Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, p. 14. Taylor, introduction to Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, pp. 14–15.

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whatever does not fit into or agree with governing structures.”4 The distinctiveness of the “other” overrun by the focus on similarities is imperialistic. While often spurned by other postmodernists for not going far enough, Clifford Geertz is really the key postmodernist anti-comparativist. Hailing from the social sciences, Geertz bases his opposition to the comparative method on a broader opposition to an explanatory approach to culture, of which religion is a part. To be sure, he does not, like conventional postmodernists, equate “explanatory” with “scientific.” Rather, he pits explanatory social science against interpretive social science, which he espouses. By an interpretive approach to culture, Geertz means many things, but one thing he means is the primacy of the particular over the general, or of differences over similarities. By an explanatory approach to culture he means the primacy of the general over the particular. Geertz opposes generalizations on multiple grounds. They are inaccurate and tendentious. They are somehow inseparable from the particulars that yield them and, when separated, prove to be banal or empty: “Theoretical formulations [i.e., generalizations] hover so low over the [particularistic] interpretations they govern that they don’t make much sense or hold much interest apart from them. . . . [S]tated independently of their [particularistic] applications, they seem either commonplace or vacant.”5 Above all for Geertz, generalizations miss the distinctiveness of the particulars they amass: Within the bloated categories of regime description, Feudalism or Colonialism, Late Capitalism or The World System, Neo-Monarchy or Parliamentary Militarism, there is a resident suchness, deep Moroccanicity, inner Indonesianness, struggling to get out. Such a conception of things is usually called nationalism. That is certainly not wrong, but, another bloated category, grouping the ungroupable and blurring distinctions internally felt, it is less definite than it seems. Every quiddity has its own form of suchness, and no one who comes to Morocco or Indonesia to find out what goes on there is likely to confuse them with each other or to be satisfied with elevated banalities about common humanity or a universal need for self-expression.6

4 5 6

Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, p. 15. Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, p. 25. Geertz, After the Fact, p. 23.

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It is in the particular and not in the general that the significance of any cultural phenomenon lies: [T]he notion that the essence of what it means to be human is most clearly revealed in those features of human culture that are universal rather than in those that are distinctive to this people or that is a prejudice we are not necessarily obliged to share. Is it in grasping such general facts—that man has everywhere some sort of “religion”—or in grasping the richness of this religious phenomenon or that—Balinese trance or Indian ritualism, Aztec human sacrifice or Zuñi rain-dancing that we grasp him? Is the fact that “marriage” is universal (if it is) as penetrating a comment on what we are as the facts concerning Himalayan polyandry, or those fantastic Australian marriage rules, or the elaborate bride-price systems of Bantu Africa?7

What the proper place of generalization is, Geertz never makes clear. At his most exasperated, he rejects generalizations altogether, even though he himself employs them in contrasting one case of religion or of marriage to another. More often, he limits generalizations to identifying the categories under which particulars fall. Still other times, he allows generalizations to determine the “cause” but not the “meaning” of particulars. What counts is that his opposition to generalizations is his opposition to the comparative method.8 Controlled Comparativism The second position, less radical and much older, allows for comparisons, but on only a regional or local rather than worldwide scale. The comparisons permitted are called “controlled” comparisons.9 This kind of comparativism regularly takes place among, for example, scholars of the ancient Near East, where ancient Israel is compared with ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia—but not with some place in Asia. Thus even though biblicist S. H. Hooke is prepared to use

7

Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, p. 43. On Geertz’s interpretivism, including his fluctuating position on generalizations, see my Explaining and Interpreting Religion (New York: Lang, 1992), pp. 77–101; “Weber and Geertz on the Meaning of Religion,” Religion 29 (1999): 61–71; and “Clifford Geertz’s Interpretive Approach to Religion,” in Selected Readings in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Stephen D. Glazier and Charles A. Flowerday (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), pp. 17–34. 9 See Eggan, “Social Anthropology, pp. 743–63; p. 754. 8

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the term “primitive” to characterize the stage of civilization in the circumscribed area of Egypt and Mesopotamia, he objects to the use of the term for any universal human stage: Now the expression “primitive man” is almost as vague as the phrase “the man in the street”. . . . The only kind of behaviour or mentality which we can recognize as “primitive” in the strict sense is such as can be shown to lie historically at the fountain-head of a civilization. The earliest civilizations known to us are those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the earliest evidence which we can gather concerning the beliefs and practices there prevalent constitutes for us what is “primitive” in the historical [rather than evaluative] sense.10

The assumptions here are, again, that the comparative method identifies only similarities but that narrow comparisons are acceptable because they presuppose the distinctiveness —the uniqueness, the incomparability—of the area or element within which the cases being compared lie. Hooke attributes the kindred beliefs and practices in the ancient Near East to circumstances that would seemingly be, or have been, worldwide, yet the “myth and ritual pattern” that he works out is nevertheless confined to the ancient Near East: When we examine these early modes of behaviour we find that their originators were not occupied with general questions concerning the world but with certain practical and pressing problems of daily life. There were the main problems of securing the means of subsistence, to keep the sun and moon doing their duty, to ensure the regular flooding of the Nile, to maintain the bodily vigour of the king who was the embodiment of the prosperity of the community. . . . In order to meet these needs the early inhabitants of Egypt and Mesopotamia developed a set of customary actions directed towards a definite end. Thus the coronation of the king, both in Egypt and Babylon, consisted of a regular pattern of actions, of things prescribed to be done, whose purpose was to fit the king completely to be the source of the well-being of the community. This is the sense in which we shall use the term “ritual”. . . . Moreover, we find that these early ritual patterns consisted not only of things done but of things said. . . . In general the spoken part of a ritual consists of a description of what is being done, it is the story which the ritual enacts. This is the sense in which the term “myth” is used in our discussion.11

10 11

Hooke, “Myth and Ritual Pattern,” pp. 1–14; pp. 1–2. Hooke, “Myth and Ritual Pattern,” pp. 2–3.

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There is a double irony in Hooke’s procedure. First, the source of his regional pattern is J. G. Frazer’s theory of “primitive” religion worldwide.12 To keep his comparativism regional, Hooke must attribute similarities within the area to physical proximity and thereby to diffusion rather, than, like Frazer, to independent invention. Once, but only once, the distinctiveness of the ancient Near East is presupposed, can similarities within it safely be sought. Second, even the most circumscribed comparisons do not fend off particularistic critics. Some critics of Hooke asserted that Egypt and Mesopotamia were distinct from each other.13 William Foxwell Albright and his followers asserted, even more forcefully, that Israel was distinct from both. Hooke’s regional comparativism was itself used to highlight the differences between, especially, Israel and its “pagan” neighbors. Books with titles like The Old Testament Against its Environment, by a student of Albright’s, say it all.14 New Comparativism A third, more recent position allows anew for universal comparisons, but only when differences as well as similarities are sought. This position, which dubs itself the “new comparativism,” assumes that older comparativism—though not, as with the first two positions, comparison per se—seeks only similarities, that similarities exclusively are invariably superficial, and that similarities exclusively are unavoidably invidious. To quote William Paden, one of the better-known new comparativists: 12 Hooke, limiting himself to Frazer’s later, intellectualist, anti-ritualist view of “primitives” and of myth, sets his own view against Frazer’s. But in fact Hooke’s whole myth and ritual pattern comes from earlier, ritualist Frazer. On Hooke’s actual beholdenness to Frazer, see my edited Myth and Ritual Theory, pp. 5–7, 83. 13 Egyptologist Henri Frankfort stresses the differences between Egypt and Mesopotamia: “It is now, I hope, also evident that the similarities between Egypt and Mesopotamia are by no means more important than their differences” (The Problem of Similarity, p. 17). See also his Kingship and the Gods. 14 Among those responding to Hooke, Mowinckel argues for a weaker case of Hooke’s pattern in Israel: see his The Psalms; He That Cometh, ch. 3. Albright differentiates Israelite monotheism from the conceptions of god in all surrounding cultures, including the worship of Akhenaten, and attributes the distinctively Israelite conception to the genius of Moses: see his From the Stone Age to Christianity, pp. 249–72. To ensure the avoidance of theological miscegenation, Albright rejects evolution as the source of Israelite monotheism. In so doing, he reinforces the linkage between

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One of the most serious criticisms of the older comparativisms was that they obliterated local meanings and contexts. . . . If it is similarity which makes a comparative analysis possible, . . . it is difference which makes it interesting. A central purpose of comparison should be to expose the diversity of the variant objects it compares.15

The new comparativism does not merely permit the quest for differences but demands it. And clearly, difference is the point of comparison. Doubtless the most engaging practitioner of new comparativism was Ninian Smart, but he himself never used the term and was temperamentally too irenic to push for any dogmatic commitment to the method. Rather, his own delight in spotting both unexpected similarities and stalwart differences among religions evinces new comparativism at its best. The most celebrated advocate of “new comparativism,” though himself not using the term either, is Jonathan Z. Smith. Against “old comparativism,” likewise a term not used by him, he asserts that similarity is not identity, that difference therefore remains, and that, as for Paden, difference is the point of comparativism: It is axiomatic that comparison is never a matter of identity. Comparison requires the acceptance of difference as the grounds of its being interesting, and a methodological manipulation of that difference to achieve some stated cognitive end. The questions of comparison are questions of judgment with respect to difference: What differences are to be maintained in the interest of comparative inquiry? What differences can be defensibly relaxed and relativized in light of the intellectual tasks at hand?16

old comparativism and evolution. Wright puts forcefully his Albright-inspired rejection of, at once, old comparativism and evolution: “The purpose of the lectures is to examine and lay emphasis upon those central elements of Biblical faith which are so unique and sui generis that they cannot have developed by any natural evolutionary process from the pagan world in which they appeared. . . . It is the contention of this monograph that the faith of Israel even in its earliest and basic forms is so utterly different from that of the contemporary polytheisms that one simply cannot explain it fully by evolutionary or environmental categories” (The Old Testament, p. 7). Undeniably, for Frazer comparativism is tied to evolution, but old comparativism per se is not, so that old comparativism cannot be facilely rejected, as it often is, on the grounds that some practitioners of it assume evolution: see my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 339–74; pp. 346–47. 15 Paden, “Elements of a New Comparativism,” pp. 5–14; pp. 8–9. 16 Smith, To Take Place, pp. 13–14.

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Against postmodernism, Smith asserts that the quest for uniqueness is as vain as the opposite: the search for identity. By nature, uniqueness precludes comparison: Uniqueness denies the possibility of comparison and taxonomy; [by contrast,] the individual [i.e., the particular] requires comparative and classificatory endeavors. Uniqueness prevents science and cognition; the individual invites the same. To put this another way, absolute difference is not a category for thought but one that denies the possibility of thought.17

For Smith, new comparativism, unlike old, avoids identity by seeking differences as well as similarities. Unlike postmodernism, new comparativism avoids uniqueness by seeking similarities as well as differences. Old Comparativism The fourth and final position in religious studies today is that of “old comparativism,” or what used to be called simply “The Comparative Method.” Here comparisons are universal, and the quest can, though not must, be for sheer similarities. The exemplar of old comparativism is J. G. Frazer. Old, or traditional, comparativism would spurn the criticisms of the other three positions. The criticisms, it would be said, do not apply even to Frazer, let alone to old comparativism itself. This fourth, stalwart position has few defenders in contemporary religious studies.18 I am not displeased to number myself among them. Hoariness of the Positions Apart from the persuasiveness of the four positions, none of them is new. Old comparativism is truly old, going back at least to Aristotle. Postmodernism is also as old as ancient Greek skepticism. In the fifth century BC, Herodotus employed the equivalent of new comparativism to find differences—differences between his fellow Greeks and the often eccentric and exotic “other.” True, he was hopelessly

17

Smith, To Take Place, pp. 34–35. Eilberg-Schwartz seeks to revive the comparison of ancient Judaism with “primitive” religions. Yet the brand of comparativism that he proposes amounts to new comparativism, albeit with as much emphasis on similarities as on differences. See his The Savage in Judaism. 18

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politically incorrect and presumed that the Greeks alone were civilized and that all others, especially Persians, were barbarian, but it was the differences that he nevertheless sought. Furthermore, he did not simply note the differences but accounted for them: the superiority of Greek, or at least Athenian, culture stemmed from its democratic form of government, whereas the inferiority of its nemesis, Persia, stemmed from its tyranny. Somewhat closer to our time, new comparativism was practiced magisterially more than a century ago by William Robertson Smith. In his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889) Smith compared ancient Semitic religion with “primitive” religion to show at once the similarities and the differences. Where the younger, if still oldstyle, comparativist Frazer sought to show only the similarities between primitive religion and Christianity, new-style comparativist Smith sought to show the differences as well. He wanted to show how far Christianity, which in its ancient, pre-Christian, Semitic form was primitive-like, had advanced beyond its primitive roots. And he, too, accounted for the differences—by a mix of internal and external factors. Contrary to some new comparativists, the new comparativism did not arise merely a few decades ago in reaction to Mircea Eliade’s presumably old-style comparativism. Defending the Comparative Method Elsewhere I have defended the comparative method against the assumptions made by controlled comparativists and by new comparativists: that the only proper similarities are regional rather than universal (controlled comparativism) and that differences are more important than similarities (new comparativism). I have enlisted the grand cause of William Robertson Smith both to show that regional comparisons are not at odds with universal ones and to show that the quest for similarities is not at odds with the quest for differences.19 Now I want to defend the comparative method against the much stronger assumption made by postmodernists: that the quest for similarities is in itself objectionable. I have previously enlisted J. G. Frazer in defense of old comparativism against controlled comparativism

19

See my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 363–72.

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and new comparativism.20 Now I want to enlist him anew in defense of old comparativism against postmodernism. Postmodern Objections to the Comparative Method From a postmodern viewpoint, the quest for similarities sought by old comparativism is objectionable because the quest: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

ignores differences confuses similarity with identity generalizes too broadly generalizes prematurely takes phenomena out of context generalizes at all.

All of these objections are in fact misconceptions, either about comparison or about knowledge itself.21 (1) Ignoring Differences First, to compare phenomena is simply to match them up. It is scarcely to dictate what will be found. It is therefore scarcely to dictate finding only similarities. Indeed, to compare phenomena is necessarily to find differences as well as similarities. Even if one were seeking only similarities, one would know that one had found them all only at the point at which no further differences could be converted into similarities. Consequently, one can as readily use the comparative method to find differences as use it to find similarities. Geertz himself compares Indonesia with Morocco to illuminate the differences between them: The dissimilitudes of Morocco and Indonesia do not separate them into absolute types, the sociological equivalent of natural kinds; they reflect back and forth upon one another, mutually framing, reciprocally clarifying. Or so they seem to do for me. I learned more about Indonesia when, shaken by the disturbances of the mid-sixties, I decided it the better part of valor to work in Morocco, than I would have had I gone back then directly to Indonesia. And I learned more about

20

See my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 359–62. The following section is a revised version of my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” pp. 348–58. 21

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Morocco when, after things had settled down again in the seventies, I returned, not without trepidation, to Indonesia, than I would have by confining myself, as beginning to find my feet in another civilization, I was tempted to do, thenceforth to North Africa.22

The comparative method can thus be used by those who seek differences—postmodernists and new comparativists—as well as by those who seek similarities—controlled comparativists and old comparativists. (2) Confusing Similarity with Identity Second, it is a logical truism that any two entities, however much alike, are still distinct. Therefore the comparison of phenomena can never yield identity, only similarity. Even to seek only similarities is not to eliminate differences. Conversely, to seek only differences—a typically defensive reaction by those fearful of comparison—is not to eradicate similarities. The options are neither wholesale identity nor total uniqueness but only further similarities or further differences. But to argue that the comparative method can be used to find either differences or similarities or even both is not to argue that the method must be used to find both—as if the quest for either alone were improper. It is against the assumption that the method not merely can but must be used to find differences—whether differences as well as similarities (new comparativism) or differences in place of similarities (postmodernism)—that I am arguing. Those who seek sheer similarities not only cannot but do not deny differences. They deny the importance of differences. To counter vaunted similarities with sheer differences is, then, to miss the point. To argue from the fact of differences, which are never denied, to the importance of them is to beg the question: why are differences more significant than similarities? The argument in favor of similarities—that similarities are weightier than differences—may be question-begging, but so is the argument in favor of differences—that differences are deeper than similarities. What “privileges” difference, as Derrida would put it, is the assumption, which requires defending, that difference is deeper than similarity. Contrary to Geertz, the question whether the universality of marriage is “as penetrating a comment on what we

22

Geertz, After the Fact, p. 28. See also Geertz, Islam Observed.

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are as the facts concerning Himalayan polyandry, or those fantastic Australian marriage rules, or the elaborate bride-price systems of Bantu Africa” is not rhetorical. In any case the comparative method itself establishes only the fact, not the importance, of either similarities or differences. (3) Generalizing Too Broadly Third, any two phenomena are comparable. Comparisons are useful or useless, not right or wrong, not too broad or too narrow. It is fallacious to assert, for example, that earliest Christianity is comparable only with other religions of late antiquity and not with primitive religions. Controlled comparativism rests on this fallacy. (The premise that comparison yields only similarities is also fallacious.) The point of a comparison determines the proper scale. If one wants to understand why people X practice animal sacrifice, a comparison with a people who do not practice it would ordinarily, though not invariably, be too broad. But a comparison with any other people who practice it would likely not be. (4) Generalizing Prematurely Fourth, comparisons are always considered provisional, not conclusive. Comparisons are subject to correction or abandonment, as new facts arise. The failure of existing generalizations is scarcely an argument against generalizations per se. Moreover, one will never be able to identify all the cases of animal sacrifice or all the information about all of those cases. How would one even know if one had? It is a rudimentary fallacy of explanation—the so-called Baconian, or inductivist, fallacy—to oppose drawing conclusions until all the knowable facts are “in.” Because generalizations are recognized as tentative, the comparative method does not generalize prematurely. If it does, then even noncomparativist conclusions about people X alone are also premature, for here, too, all the knowable facts are never “in.” And the facts do not include causes, which are inferred. (5) Taking Phenomena Out of Context Fifth, proper comparisons do not take phenomena out of context. The attentiveness to differences by new comparativists and the restriction of comparisons to contiguous regions by controlled comparativists are meant to be antidotes to the disregard of context. But in actuality proper comparisons not only do not but cannot take phenomena

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out of their contexts. To be able to compare the offering of animal sacrifices by people X with the offering of the same by people Y, one had better be sure that both peoples do indeed kill animals and offer them to their gods to win their gods’ favor. From where but the context can this information be secured? Frazer, who is routinely castigated for supposedly tearing cases out of context, himself emphasizes the centrality of context: The [anthropological] method is neither more nor less than induction. . . . And the first condition of a sound induction is exact observation. What we want, therefore, in this branch of science is, first and foremost, full, true, and precise accounts of savage and barbarous peoples based on personal observation. Such accounts are best given by men who have lived for many years among the peoples, have won their confidence, and can converse with them familiarly in their native language. . . . 23

Sounding just like his critics, Frazer declares that “Hardly anything impairs the value of observations of a particular people so much as the interpolation of comparisons with other peoples. . . .”24 Worried that comparison prior to observation will contaminate the observation, Frazer insists that “Every observer of a savage or barbarous people should describe it as if no other people existed on the face of the earth”—that is, in its particularity. Frazer permits the observer to be a comparativist as well, but only if the activities are kept separate: The business of comparison is not for him [i.e., the observer], at least not for him in the capacity of observer; if he desires to draw comparisons with other peoples, as he is of course at liberty to do, he should keep his comparisons strictly apart from his observations: mixture of the two is, if not absolutely fatal, at least a great impediment to the utility of both.25

Far, then, from comparing phenomena severed from their contexts, the comparative method compares phenomena in their contexts. How, then, can old comparativists be guilty of having “obliterated local meanings and contexts,” to quote again new comparativist Paden?

23 24 25

Frazer, “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” pp. 580–94; p. 588. Frazer, “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” p. 590. Frazer, “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” p. 590.

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What might seem to be taking phenomena out of context is in fact mere selectiveness. Insofar as the object of comparison is animal sacrifices, much else about the peoples compared will properly be ignored as irrelevant—and not “obliterated” though relevant. Even an analysis of the animal sacrifices of people X alone will ignore many aspects of their lives that have no bearing on the topic of hand. The difference between the selectiveness of a generalist and that of a particularist is only one of degree. The broader the scale of a comparison, the more selective the elements compared will be— this in order to encompass all cases. But selection is not obliteration. If one is comparing animal sacrifices worldwide, one will disregard the differences between one form of animal sacrifice and another. But to select only common elements from all the cases is not to ignore the context, which is still indispensable for determining the existence of animal sacrifice in each case. (6) Generalizing at all Sixth and most of all, comparison is not merely permissible but indispensable. To understand any phenomenon, however specific, is to identify it and to account for it. To identify something is to place it in a category, and to account for it is to account for the category of which it is a member. Both procedures are thus inescapably comparativist.26 Suppose one wants to know why people X—just people X— practice animal sacrifice, and suppose one ascertains from people X that they offer animal sacrifices to their gods because they believe that sacrifices will win their gods’ favor. One then claims that people X offer animal sacrifices for this reason. But presupposed in the claim that people X offer animal sacrifices because they believe that they will thereby win their gods’ favor is the claim that other peoples who believe that their gods’ favor can be won through animal sacrifices

26 On the connection between categorization and explanation see Mayr and Ashlock, Principles of Systematic Zoology, pp. 124–25; Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation, pp. 453–57. A most helpful example of the connection between the two is that of medical diagnosis, which is cited by not only Hempel and others but also Geertz, who, however, ironically invokes it as a would-be illustration of sheer categorization—one of the ways he tries to distinguish interpretation from explanation: see The Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 26–27.

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will also offer them. Otherwise why do people X offer them? To propose the belief as a sufficient explanation of people X’s offering animal sacrifices is to presuppose a generalization, however obvious, about other peoples: that they are prepared to give up valuable possessions to their gods because they believe that it pays to do so. This generalization about the practical, vested motivation of other peoples alone accounts for the behavior of people X in particular.27 Take the case of the French Revolution. Suppose one claims, on the basis of an intensive study of French urban poor, that the urban poor revolted because the price of bread kept rising. Built into this claim, even if offered only about the French case, is the generalized claim that whenever the price of bread rises, people will revolt. Otherwise what explains why the French revolted? Because they were French? That answer is circular. Because they were hungry? But then one is explaining the French Revolution in particular by appeal to the generalization, however self-evident, that when people are hungry enough, they will revolt. If one replies that by no means all peoples revolt when the price of bread or of food generally rises, then the purported explanation of the French case is inadequate, for something more than the rising price of bread must have been the cause in that case if the rising price is not sufficient to spur revolt every time. Whatever else is added—hatred of the monarchy, despair over the prospect of reform, agitation by the press—constitutes a sufficient explanation of the French Revolution only if it also constitutes a sufficient explanation of every other revolution. If these same circumstances do not produce revolution every time, then they inadequately account for revolution any time. Apply this argument to animal sacrifice. Suppose, again, one claims, on the basis of a meticulous study of people X, that they sacrifice animals to their gods because they believe that they will thereby win their gods’ favor. Built into this claim about people X is the generalization that whenever people believe they can win their gods’ favor

27 The locus classicus of this view of explanation is Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, section 12. The locus classicus of the view that the explanation of human events is of the particular is Collingwood, The Idea of History. For decades, the generalist Hempel and the particularist William Dray debated. For references, see my “In Defense of the Comparative Method,” p. 355 n. 28.

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by animal sacrifices, they will do so. If one replies that not all peoples who believe that their gods’ favor can be won by animal sacrifice proceed to practice it, then the explanation is inadequate even for people X. For something else must be at work to account for why people X proceed with the sacrifices when other peoples who share the belief in the efficacy of animal sacrifice do not. What must be added can range from, say, the desperation of people X to win their gods’ favor to the inexpensiveness of their sacrifices. Whatever else suffices to account for the case of people X does so only if it also suffices to account for the sacrifices of other peoples in the same circumstances as well. Several anticipated objections can readily be met. It might be argued that other peoples offer animal sacrifices for different reasons. Suppose a study of people Y reveals that they offer animal sacrifices out of duty rather than out of a calculated payoff. But that discovery is no argument against the proposed explanation for people X, for the claim made about them is intended to provide only a sufficient, not a necessary, explanation. The claim is not that the only reason for animal sacrifice is the calculation that it pays but that whenever the calculation exists, there will be animal sacrifices. Most explanations of human behavior and even of physical events are intended to be at best merely sufficient, not necessary, ones.28 Ordinarily, there are too many possible causes of the same behavior to be able to stipulate necessary ones. People may revolt for many reasons. They need not be famished to do so.29 Conversely, it might be argued that even would-be sufficient generalizations invariably fail to suffice. Suppose a study of people Z discloses that they, like people X, believe that animal sacrifices will win

28 To be sure, some explanations of human behavior claim to be only necessary. Émile Durkheim’s sociology of religion is so much more extreme than Max Weber’s because Durkheim claims to be providing sufficient as well as necessary causes of religion, where Weber claims to be providing only necessary ones. David Hume maintained that explanations must be necessary as well as sufficient. John Stuart Mill argued that they need only be sufficient. 29 Franz Boas’ objection to the comparative method is exactly that, according to him, it presumes to provide necessary as well as sufficient causes. Boas insists that the same effects often stem from different causes, so that no one cause is necessary. See “Limitations of the Comparative Method,” pp. 901–8; (rpt. Boas, Race, Language, and Culture [New York: Macmillan, 1940], pp. 270–80).

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their gods’ favor, are desperate to gain that favor, and can readily afford the sacrifices. Yet suppose that even so, they, in contrast to people X, do not make the sacrifices. Obviously, the explanation of people X thereby proves insufficient and must be supplemented to account for their proceeding to make sacrifices. But suppose, further, that no matter how many additions are made, the explanation still fails to account for the difference between people X’s behavior and people Z’s. The proper conclusion to be drawn is not that the reasons for people X’s behavior are mysterious but that the reasons are so numerous or so complex that no other people will likely share them all. Most explanations of human behavior and even of physical events are intended as less than sufficient ones.30 Most often, they are offered as merely probabilistic.31 The claim is that whenever the conditions named occur, the behavior will likely, not inevitably, occur, and the degree of likelihood can even be less than 50%. No matter how famished people are, not all and maybe not even most will revolt. Finally, it might be argued that even necessary and sufficient generalizations are irrelevant because the behavior itself is unique. Suppose that only people X offer animal sacrifices. Or suppose that only people X offer sacrifices of a particular animal, one found only in their locale. But the uniqueness of their case is merely a historical contingency. The explanation offered of their unique case would still have to hold, even if as less than a sufficient explanation, for any other people in the same circumstances who also offered animal sacrifices, of any kind or of a specific kind. The comparative method is often confused with the assumption of universals—as if it stands

30

As Ernest Nagel writes, “The search for explanations is directed to the ideal of ascertaining the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of phenomena. This ideal is rarely achieved, however, and even in the best-developed natural sciences it is often an open question whether the conditions mentioned in an explanation are indeed sufficient” (“Some Issues,” pp. 162–69; p. 167). 31 As Wesley C. Salmon writes of modern physics, “Some first-rate physicists are presently working to find a deterministic theory to replace the current quantum mechanics, one by which it will be possible to explain what now seems irreducibly statistical by means of ‘hidden variables’ that cannot occur in the present theory. No one can say for sure whether they will succeed; any new theory, deterministic or indeterministic, has to stand the test of experiment. The current quantum theory does show, however, that the world may be fundamentally and irremediably indeterministic, for according to the best currently available knowledge, it is” (“Determinism and Indeterminism, pp. 321–26; p. 321).

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committed to similarities not merely across any cultures but across all cultures. In actuality, the method requires the search for multiple instances of a phenomenon but allows for the discovery of even just one. Still, unless the explanation given of people X would apply to any other people in kindred conditions who did offer these sacrifices, the explanation fails to explain even the sole case to date of people X. In short, the way to understand people X is not merely by myopically studying them more and more. It is also by studying other peoples as well. One cannot, in postmodern fashion, ignore other peoples and focus only on people X. One cannot say blithely that one cares only about people X or, like Geertz, that the differences between people X and other peoples are more profound than the similarities. Even if one is interested only in the particular, similarities are indispensable, both in categorizing, for example, the French Revolution as a revolution and in accounting for it. Geertz himself employs similarities even in the effort to articulate the distinctiveness of the cultures he has studied. Without such favorite categories as culture, ethos, world view, ritual, social change, ideology, revolution, nationalism, politics, person, art, and law, he would be rendered speechless. The comparative method amounts to more than the juxtaposition of phenomena. It means the identification of a common category for those phenomena. That identification spurs either the application or the discovery of a common explanation of that category. While the comparative method can be used to find differences as well as similarities, the method itself seeks similarities and finds differences only where the similarities cease. Put another way, new comparativists must be old comparativists as well. And postmodernists must be comparativists, too. Frazer’s Old Comparativism In his Folk-lore in the Old Testament (1918) J. G. Frazer seeks to show the primitive character of a seemingly advanced culture: Despite the high moral and religious development of the ancient Hebrews, there is no reason to suppose that they formed an exception to this general law. They, too, had probably passed through a stage of barbarism and even of savagery; and this probability, based on the analogy of other races, is confirmed by an examination of their literature, which contains many references to beliefs and practices that can hardly be explained except on the supposition that they are rudimentary survivals from a far lower level of culture. It is to the illustration

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and explanation of a few such relics of ruder times, as they are preserved like fossils in the Old Testament, that I have addressed myself in the present work. . . . The instrument for the detection of savagery under civilization is the comparative method. . . .32

Frazer’s procedure is to note some odd belief, practice, or incident in the Bible that the Bible itself fails to explain. He then turns to comparable cases around the world, makes sense of them, and applies that “solution” to the biblical case. Only the similarities, not the differences, between Israelite and primitive religion faze him. Because the similarities are with primitive religion, Israelite religion is reduced to a primitive religion and, even more, to the yet earlier practice of magic. For example, Frazer is struck by the Israelite fear of a census in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, which recounts 2 Samuel. While on other occasions the census is not feared, in 2 Samuel God is said to be angry with Israel beforehand and orders King David to conduct a census in retaliation. Not only God but also David and his general Joab know that harm will thereby befall Israel. Joab objects to his king’s order but is overruled. No sooner is the census completed than David himself regrets the deed and asks God, who had instructed him to undertake the census, for forgiveness for having undertaken it! God offers David three forms of punishment, and David chooses one: three days of plague, which kills 70,000 Israelites. A true Hobson’s choice! To quote 2 Samuel 24.1–15: Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.” So the king said to Joab and the commanders of the army, who were with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and take a census of the people, so that I may know how many there are.” . . . So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to take a census of the people of Israel. . . . But afterward, David was stricken to the heart because he had numbered the people. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, I pray you, take away the guilt of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.” When David rose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, “Go and say to David: Thus says the Lord: Three things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.” So

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robert segal Gad came to David and told him; he asked him, “Shall three years of famine come to you on your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to the one who sent me.” Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress; let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into human hands.” So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from that morning until the appointed time; and seventy thousand of the people died, from Dan to Beer-sheba.

David then performs a triple penance, and God ends the plague. In the version of the incident in Chronicles it is Satan, not God, who prods David into taking the census. God there merely punishes Israel for the census and does not initiate it. Incontestably, Frazer skirts many aspects of the event: why either God or Satan is angry with Israel; why God or Satan resorts to the census as the way of getting back at Israel; why David, knowing better, nevertheless carries out the census; why God offers David a choice of punishments; and why David chooses the punishment that he does. But Frazer does not claim to be answering these questions and so cannot be faulted for failing to answer them. He claims to be answering only one central question: why the census is feared. He cites case after case in which primitive and peasant peoples fear that counting something will lead to the loss of it: The objection which Jehovah, or rather the Jews, entertained to the taking of a census appears to be simply a particular case of the general aversion which many ignorant people feel to allowing themselves, their cattle, or their possessions to be counted. This curious superstition— for such it is—seems to be common among the black races of Africa. For example, among the Bakongo, of the Lower Congo, “it is considered extremely unlucky for a woman to count her children one, two, three, and so on, for the evil spirits will hear and take some of them away by death. The people themselves do not like to be counted; for they fear that counting will draw to them the attention of the evil spirits, and as a result of the counting some of them will soon die.” . . . Similar superstitions are to be found in Europe and in our own country to this day. . . . On the whole we may assume, with a fair degree of probability, that the objection which the Jews in King David’s time felt to the taking of a census rested on no firmer foundation than sheer superstition, which may have been confirmed by an outbreak of plague immediately after the numbering of the people.33

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Frazer, Folk-lore in the Old Testament, II, pp. 557–63.

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In other words, the superstition rests on the commission of the post hoc, propter hoc fallacy. In the Bible itself counting is sinful: it incurs divine wrath. In Frazer’s primitive examples it is unlucky: it automatically sets off malevolent forces. By Frazer’s distinction, the effect of counting is magical, not religious, so that what in the Bible is manifestly a religious objection is for Frazer a magical one. God becomes a mechanical force unleashed by the counting rather than the agent of the plague. He is like a genie released from a bottle. Lamentably, Frazer never specifies how counting subjects its victims to harm. Most likely, knowing the number of a group is akin to knowing its name, which is equivalent to possessing a portion of it, which by Frazer’s second law of magic is equivalent to possessing it all. Whoever learns the census total thereby controls the subject and can inflict harm on it by doing something to the name, which in magic is regarded as tangible. God does not initiate the counting. It is not clear who does. Nor is it clear who the magician is. There is nothing objectionable in Frazer’s version of the comparative method. He is not claiming that the Israelite case is identical with the other ones, only similar. Rather than denying any differences, he is simply interested in the similarities. Rather than taking either the Israelite case or the parallel ones out of their contexts, he first establishes them as cases of fear of a census. He then invokes the magical fear of counting as the common explanation of the cases. He offers his analysis “with a fair degree of probability,” not with certainty. He is able to make sense of the Israelite case because he is able to make sense of so many similar cases. The Israelite census was likely feared for magical reasons because elsewhere censuses have been feared for magical reasons. Frazer’s use of the comparative method doubtless seems extreme because his analysis of the Davidic case does not merely commit him to a generalization but is itself the application of the generalization. This distinction is, however, false. Suppose Frazer were explicating the Davidic case internally. He would still be explicating it on the basis of a tacit generalization. His argument that the Israelites opposed censuses because they believed that counting unleashed malevolent forces would still rest on the generalization that whenever people believe that a census will unleash malevolent forces, they will fear it. Frazer would simply already have reached that generalization before studying the Israelite case. In truth, Frazer has reached

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that conclusion before opening the Bible. In presenting himself as initially puzzled, he is being rhetorical. He is presenting himself as an innocent, even devout reader of the Bible who cannot make sense of the story internally and must therefore turn to parallel cases to do so. But even if he were genuinely puzzled, he would not be exceeding the limits of the comparative method by enlisting it to explicate a particular case as well as to justify the explication by appeal to the generalization. At the same time the generalization must fit the Israelite case, and one can maintain that by Frazer’s own distinction, the case seems to be more magical than religious, for the fear is more of God’s decision to punish than of the unleashing of a mechanical force. The issue, however, is not whether Frazer’s analysis is persuasive. The issue is whether he is entitled to analyze the Israelite case crossculturally—i.e., comparatively. I claim that he is and that he is guilty of none of the charges made against old comparativists by controlled comparativists, by new comparativists, or above all by postmoderns. If even he, the epitome of old comparativism, stands innocent of any abuse of the comparative method, who, pray tell, is guilty?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE ONLY KIND OF COMPARISON WORTH DOING: HISTORY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND THE “STRONG PROGRAM” OF COMPARATIVE STUDY Ivan Strenski For at least a hundred years, the sprawling cross-cultural comparative studies of the 19th century linked with the Frazers, Tylors, and Robertson Smiths of the day have come in for sharp criticism. In his 1903 review of Edgar Crawley’s Mystic Rose (itself dedicated to Frazer), Durkheim spared the method of Frazer no ridicule:1 One certainty finds interesting insights there. But, to a rare degree, the method lacks a critical and discriminating character. In order to prove an assertion, the author does not hesitate to gather together, without distinguishing between them, facts borrowed from the most heterogeneous societies. All the continents are scoured without order or discrimination.2

Yet, despite such criticism of them, the classic 19th-century comparativists represented a paradigm of ambitious, full-bore comparative study, and as such constituted a subspecies of what I shall call “strong” programs in comparative studies. The question that drives this present discussion is whether, once thus discredited, a “strong program” of comparative study of equal or similar ambition to that of the classic theorists can withstand critical epistemological assault? Perhaps the discrediting of the classic “strong program” has doomed any method of “strong” comparative study? I do not think this is so, and will try to convince readers that a “strong program” in comparative studies is not only possible and desirable, but also practiced with success in some fields of the humanities. Jonathan Z. Smith throws open the question of the status and nature of comparative study in a fruitful way by arguing that three fundamental questions need to be addressed about comparative studies 1 2

Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, p. 173. Lukes, Emile Durkheim, p. 451.

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if, in effect, the ambitions of the 19th-century theorists were to be revived: “How” do we compare? “why?” and “so what?” Smith here no doubt implicitly acknowledges Gopala Sarana’s identical list of demands, which in Sarana’s handy discussion of the methodology of anthropological comparison are answered in a variety of ways.3 I take these questions to be critical as well, but wish to press on beyond Smith, Sarana, and others to celebrate a preferred method of “how” to do comparative studies, a justification for why to do them, and thus silence the charge of “so what? Taking these queries in order, I shall argue that hypothesis testing ultimately constitutes the main purpose for doing comparative studies in the “strong” sense; “how” things are to be compared and tested is well (even if not exclusively) exemplified by the program of comparative study systematically articulated by the Durkheimian “nucleus,” and interpreted thereafter by historians of the Annales school like Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. To answer “so what?” is to speak directly to the quality of the various intellectual strategies and values of intellectual workers in the human sciences that they bring to their uses of comparisons. In general, then little more can be specified here in advance of the unrolling of various projects employing comparison. It all depends on how comparisons are used. And, that depends in part on the virtuosity of those who do the comparing, and in part on the issue selected in comparisons. Comparing Comparisons and ‘Comparative Method’ The terms, “compare,” “comparison,” “comparative,” “comparative method,” and their semantic kin are widely used in informal, everyday, non-technical language and apply to a wide range of referents. In this discussion, I want to concentrate instead on a rather formal and more technically relevant span of such usages, and to the referents to which terms such as these may be applied. A first order of business is then to do some conceptual tidying so that the technical or formal sense of comparison can be isolated for study. I want therefore to exclude a number of logically ‘uninteresting’ or informal uses of these terms so that we can concentrate on the usages and referents that spawn the most acute controversy.

3

Sarana, The Methodology of Anthropological Comparisons, chapter 3.

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The first everyday sense of comparison to be set aside is the simple sense of comparing as pairing, matching or laying side by side. From the Latin ‘comparare,’ the English ‘compare’ literally means to ‘match’ or to ‘pair.’ I take it as obvious that in the study of religion much more is at stake than the neutral idea of laying things out in pairs. In the study of religion, for example, we debate the hows and whys of the comparison and comparative study of religions. We are, or ought to be, sensitive, to the implications of what it is that we are really doing and assuming in comparing religions. Thus when two religions are paired, it is the purpose behind or appropriateness of such pairing that poses the problematic question. Second, in formal contexts of the comparative study of religions, I shall want to put severe limits on the exclusive understanding of comparing as likening as well. Although, as we will see, underlying purposes may be concealed in mere pairing, they need not necessarily be intended. Thus, I recognize that it is natural enough to assume that certain hidden agendas may be implied in such simple informal comparisons as pairings because at least one part of the ordinary, informal meaning of ‘compare’ suggests as much; to compare is commonly thought to ‘liken,’ to suggest similarity, analogy, resemblance, or equality between those things compared. Here ‘to compare’ opposes ‘to contrast’ as in the fusty (and redundant) language of the quiz, test, and examination, where we ask students to ‘compare and contrast’ this or that. But this usage is redundant, as I think honest reflection will reveal. We dare not risk students thinking that they are only being asked to cite likenesses, and not also differences. So, we become brutally explicit and underline the fact that we seek a rounded answer to the question to hand by having differences cited as well as similarities. More seriously however, especially in the study of religion, the implication of likeness in the vulgar language of comparison is also the reason some religious folk have stood against religious studies or comparative study of religions. They object even to the most innocent pairing—comparison—of one religion to another because they believe their religion unique—and thus incomparable. They take this very act of ‘com-pairing’ to imply the religious equality of the religions in question—or at the very least equality insofar as their common membership in a class that includes both religions are members. To some, even the mere implication of common class membership diminishes the unique value of their religion in the process. Such scruples

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were precisely why one of the first phenomenologists of religion, the pious Christian, Chantepie de la Saussaye, omitted Christianity from his pioneering Manual of the History of Religions.4 Doubtless as well Karl Barth’s distinction between the Word and the ‘religion’ of Christianity rests on the same foundations. A third sense of comparison rises above the merely everyday and informal, and fulfils a very useful function for creative thinking. This is comparison in the sense of achieving a ‘comparative perspective.’ When things are paired there may not be any agendas or purposes in mind. All sorts of agendas, or none at all, may flow simply from things merely being put into ‘comparative perspective’—from their being laid side by side, with the suggestion that they may belong to a common class, even if not yet determined. Rather than offering threats, I think that some of these instances of such pairings offer benefits to creative thinking. The mere suggestion of common class membership may awaken thought, even when no particular purpose for doing so may be in mind, or when no particular hypothesis is being tested. This is altogether salutary for stimulating thinking, and although it may not be comparison at its most powerful, it is useful all the same. For example, while one may pair the engagement of the United States in Iraq with other foreign military engagements, some may be more suggestive than others. Is it, for example, to be put into the same class as that of the USA in Viet Nam, or the French in Algeria, or the Israelis in southern Lebanon? Each pairing carries with it a whole series of interesting implications, extended analogies or differences, and further openings for thought without committing one to a particular conclusion or hypothesis. Thus a comparative perspective can be delightfully heuristic, because comparison can help us think—without necessarily determining the direction or end-result of such thinking. As I mentioned, it draws somewhat shy of meriting a place in a “strong program” in comparative studies because it is not necessarily tied to advancing any sort of hypothesis, even if it may provide an opening so to do.

4 Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschicht; Hubert, “Introduction B la traduction française.”

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A Classic Revisited: “Comparative Method” Fourth, and finally, in sorting through common usages of terms having to do with comparison, the famous “comparative method” of 19th-century anthropology should be sorted out from other uses. Suffice it to say then that it is problematic how “strong” a program of comparative studies “comparative method” actually is. EvansPritchard, for example, brushed off “comparative method” by observing that it has no particular method to it and has been practiced informally, and thus innocuously, since Aristotle. It is a “title which means little more than if one wishes to make a general statement about the nature of some institution, one has first to examine it in a number of different societies.”5 When Frazer, Tylor, or Eliade, for example, are not cryptically advancing a thesis, the heaping up of apparent likenesses amounts to no more than this. Such use of comparison might be characterized as just pairing items or at the very best, adding a “comparative perspective” of no necessary value. No logical necessity lies behind these instances of comparison, or even less a material necessity—at least not until the grounds of such a catalogue of pairings is made clear or discovered. In this vein, such sorts of comparative studies would be said at best to be “useful,” “illustrative,” “provocative,” “interesting,” and so on in a rather patronizing litany of qualifiers. Comparative studies would then not be necessary for understanding; they would merely be extras in an already self-sufficient particular study. At best they provide “analogies,” which are optional creations of the whims and/or intellectual virtuosity of investigators. In the case then where no hidden agenda is present, the kind of comparison offered in marshaling such lists of analogies would be decidedly “weak.” In the cases, however, where hypotheses are being put forth, and in their own way, tested, “comparative method” shows itself to be an early example of a “strong program” in comparative studies.” Tylorian “comparative method” would, for instance, count as just such a “strong program”—“rigorous,” Evan-Pritchard called it—of comparative studies of its time.6 If its universal claims regarding the nature of human evolutionary schemes of development and a particular

5 6

Evans-Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Thought, p. 173. Evans-Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Though, p. 173.

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society’s place in it were true, and if all societies moved through the same objective evolutionary levels of development, then the analogies Tylor offered would have been rooted in the nature of things. They were true because he thought there was a material necessity in which the cultural differences seen round the world participated. Veneration of spirits, no matter what various names they bore in different cultures, was still the property of a particular level of universal evolutionary development. The historical classification of stages of this developmental movement and the place a particular society occupied in it were held to be objectively true. Societies, cultures, and their contents were natural “phenomena”; they were “there” in the same sense animal species and their features were “there.” Small wonder then that when the arguments of Boas against cultural evolution gained strength that the fortunes of the “strong program” of comparative studies declined. Resting as it did on evolutionary bases, the “comparative method” as a “strong program” would either have to be abandoned or re-invented. The Boasians chose to abandon it. As we will see, the Durkheimians sought to re-invent it. When “comparative method” shows the kind of ‘strength’ of which it is more than capable, religious folk resisting comparison have a good deal to fear from it. Ninian Smart often would joke, half seriously, that “comparative study of religion tends to make one comparatively religious.” Using this particular kind of approach to comparison, many pioneers in the field of comparative study of religions indeed sought—overtly or cryptically—to support certain subversive theses about the general nature of religion, and ultimately against Christianity in particular. Sir James George Frazer, Edward Burnett Tylor, and other British anthropologists of the day practiced what they called, somewhat imperialistically, the “comparative method.” Frazer, for instance, clearly sought to argue—at times implicitly, at times explicitly—that there were significant and substantial parallels between so-called “pagan” myths and Christian motifs. For Frazer, this meant that the vaunted uniqueness of Christianity was simply false. Frazer’s arguments for the existence of “Pagan Christs” in the Mediterranean world, for example, were not meant to argue for some apologetically satisfying praeparatio evangelium, but rather for the thesis that Christianity had an ultimately ‘pagan’ nature, because its historical and cultural roots were “pagan.” For Frazer and other 19th-century evolutionists, this condemned religion (and Christianity in particular) as having a ‘primitive’ character—a characterization

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for an evolutionist like Frazer that put Christianity ‘in its place’ as a crude and uncivilized thing. On top of this, Christianity’s claim to trans-historical revealed truth was therefore laid bare as bogus, since key imagery of the Christian tradition could be found in the pagan religions preceding Christianity! Indeed, pagan religions shaped the very spirituality of Christianity, such as, for example, the ideal of the resurrection foreshadowed in Mediterranean images of the dying and rising god. As a latecomer on historical scene, Frazer and others alleged, Christianity had borrowed freely from these base and ‘primitive’ non-Christian sources. Ironically, one of the greatest defenders of the integrity and value of religion, including Christianity, Mircea Eliade, employed the same logic of “comparative method” but turned its implications on its head, so to speak. As a classic anti-evolutionist, Eliade saw the ‘primitive’—“archaic religious” humanity—as anything but crude and base. Indeed, from Eliade’s perspective archaic religious consciousness was the supreme form of religious consciousness, and from it all subsequent forms of spirituality evidence a definite de-evolutionary decline. The struggle of the moderns is precisely to try to recapture and live the archaic vision, after having degenerated for many years in terms of their spirituality. By contrast, therefore, Eliade’s comparisons —his citation of likenesses between Christian and ‘pagan’ images was meant to ground Christian spirituality in some trans-historic, or “ab-original,” “archaic” religiosity of great value. That, for instance, the ‘tree’ of the crucifixion could be compared (likened) to the archaic, ‘ab-original’, archetypal “World Tree” or the tree from which the ‘pagan’ deity, Attis, was hung was only further evidence that Christianity was rooted in an archaic spiritual experience. Comparison, however cryptically used by Eliade for the purposes of testing and finally proving such hypotheses to be true, fell into line with the methods of the 19th-century evolutionist enemies of religion. At its best, Christianity succeeds in perpetuating archaic religiosity, despite claims to Christian uniqueness made by the ‘orthodox.’ And, thus for Eliade, comparison had a kind of force— “strength”—that informal—“weak”—comparisons, such as mere pairing or even an intellectually playful setting into ‘comparative perspective,’ could never achieve. This, albeit typically unemphatic, use of comparison by Eliade is one reason, one might suggest, for the force of his influence. However shrouded in obscure language were his plans and purposes in making comparisons, Eliade was putting forth

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‘strong’ and consequential—if, in my view, false—theses about the nature of religion. The “comparative method” of the 19th-century anthropologists and their unlikely heirs, such as Eliade, is then what we can call a “strong program” in comparative studies. My argument lies with this style of comparison, although it is not the only kind of “strong program” that one might construct today—all points to which I shall return shortly. Let me draw some preliminary conclusions about formal or technical uses of comparison in study of religion. First, while one may recognize that in common usage comparison tends to imply similarity, it need not. At the very least, all we mean in comparing things is to bring things into relation with one another—to ‘pair’ them for whatever purpose one may have. The purposes may be apologetic or not. And, here we can celebrate the intellectual utility of putting things into comparative perspective—without at the same time committing ourselves to hard claims about the ontology of things compared. To lay things alongside one another need not mean that we are declaring them of the same substance—pious Christians can still compare Christianity with other religions without feeling that the essential uniqueness of Christianity is jeopardized. And, although the pioneers of comparative studies in the 19th-century attributed to themselves the ownership of comparative studies by declaring what they did to be the “comparative method,” we need not bow to their authority, even as we may admire their ambitions to use comparison in a powerful way to make statements and put hypotheses to the test. As we will see, there are other ways for comparative studies to be “strong” than by tying it to an evolutionist (or devolutionist in Eliade’s case) view of human culture. The Strong and the Weak As much a part of the study of religions as both informal and partially formal approaches to comparison have been, if we seek a study of religion that at least approaches something of a ‘scientific’ character, I think we would need to articulate a “strong program” in comparative studies—and one that does not simply reprise what the 19thcentury comparativists did. By “strong program” I understand that comparisons are devised for the sake of testing hypotheses—as the 19th-century evolutionists did, although often less than frankly. Further,

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the “strength” of a comparison lies as well in whether the act of comparing—the act of setting some particular within a presumed class is either logically, conceptually, or in fact, necessary for understanding the particular—and in a sense which might be said to constitute “scientific” understanding. Thus while setting some particular within a “comparative perspective” may be helpful in stimulating scientific curiosity and understanding, it does not seem necessary to achieve such ends. Likening Portuguese to Indo-European may stir the imagination in various ways, much as likening the Native American ‘Indian’ to the Asian Indian did for the early explorers. But merely putting Portuguese into “comparative perspective” with Indo-European neither entails the process of making or testing an hypothesis, nor does it guarantee that one can only understand—in the profoundest way—the grammar of Portuguese by comparing it to IndoEuropean grammar. A “strong program” in comparative studies would require both the statement of an hypothesis to be tested, and a defensible claim about the scientifically consequential common class membership of the two languages. However, thanks to the sciences of linguistics, archeology, and history, we can embark on hypothesis-testing, assignment of class membership, and even the search for causes. Thanks to knowledge provided by Indo-European studies, we can both test hypotheses concerning Portuguese and Indo-European, as well as make the case that they are members of a real class of languages, and that the ancient formation of Indo-European caused Portuguese in part to be what it is. We can, for example, make sense of gaps or apparent anomalies in languages to create or identify missing forms by “interpolating a graph” as it were, as Marc Bloch put it.7 I do not know Portuguese well enough to offer an example, but one from English may serve. What explains—causes—the occurrence of relatively unvoiced “gh” in the pronunciation of modern English of words like “enough” or “knight”? What moreover explains—causes —how these words may have been pronounced in earlier forms of English, such as Chaucerian Anglo-Saxon, when the study of this earlier literature—that is, its poetics—reveals that such words rhyme with words ending in a hard “gh”? If, because of knowledge of the history of the English-speaking 7 Bloch, “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of Euorpean Societies,” p. 47.

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peoples and their relation to Germanic speakers, we assume a comparative perspective with German, earlier or modern, the answer becomes clear. Even though we have no direct knowledge of AngloSaxon, we can advance the hypothesis that “knight” was pronounced more or less like the German “genug” and “Knecht ”—which as it happens means roughly the same as “enough” and “knight,” respectively. Such an example from comparative historical phonology thus provides a good model of what a successful, scientific program of comparison, a “strong program” in comparative studies, might look like—one in which hypotheses can be tested, causes cited, and classes of cultural elements constructed. If then we are to obtain more than informal acquaintances with things, say with a language, we will need to know (or decide) what the language resembles and what it does not resemble. We would need to know (or decide) to what class (or classes) the language belongs and from what class (or classes) it should be excluded—if, at least, we would be considered familiar with the language in a “scientific” sense, and not merely acquainted with it. Thus, knowing Portuguese in a scientific sense, necessarily requires knowing, for instance, that it belongs (or can be said to belong) to the class of IndoEuropean languages, and not to the class of Semitic languages. Of course, Portuguese may be said to belong at the same time to other classes of language in addition to the Indo-European language family. But, this does not count against my claim that class membership and knowledge of it would be necessary for one to claim scientific knowledge of Portuguese. By extension, I am saying that at least part of what is true of the claim to have scientific knowledge of language is true of other features of culture: if a “comparative perspective” is necessary here, it is necessary elsewhere. Whatever the merits and outcome of this particular hypothesistesting strategy, it should be clear that hypothesis-testing would require comparison, and also in what ways it might require such testing. In the kind of concrete contexts students of culture and history typically work, hypothesis-testing would, moreover, require concrete comparative perspectives. This is to say that the necessity of comparison, at the level where hypotheses are being tested, would not simply be logically or conceptually necessary to the construction of the class of Indo-European languages. It is a matter of historical fact that the members of that class of languages are what they are. Therefore, the necessity of testing hypotheses about English comparatively over

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against other members of the Indo-European family is what one may call “material” necessity. In the context of this chapter, one expects that in many cases, matters of fact will determine the approach taken to the questions one raises. Therefore, beyond the “strong program” of comparison having a logical or conceptual necessity, it also has a material one. Typically, this comes out in such modifications of comparison as evidenced in enterprises that traffic in matters of material fact, such as “cross-cultural comparison” or “comparative history,” as opposed to, for instance, comparative philosophy. Examples of leading thinkers who have in fact practiced and theorized a “strong program” of comparative studies would be represented by the classic sociological “nucleus” of Durkheim, Hubert, and Mauss, and a series of followers in the Durkheimian tradition—Louis Dumont, Antoine Meillet, Georges Dumézil, Marc Bloch, and Lucien Febvre. But, no mention of a “strong program” in comparative studies can exclude thinkers in other intellectual worlds such as Max Weber and the linguists Roman Jakobson or Paul Thieme. Goethe’s classic formulation about knowledge of languages expresses well the spirit of the “strong program.” “He, who knows one language, knows none.” In 1873, this slogan was adopted by the great student of religion, Friedrich Max Müller, as applying equally well to our understanding of other cultural areas like religion and mythology. More recently André Köbben gave voice to the essence of what a “strong program” would be, here applied to comparative ethnology: “Without knowledge of other societies, I do not even know where to look or what to look for.”8 What each of these formulae asserts is that comparison is necessary for understanding or explaining religion. In this sense, along with the consequent effort at testing hypotheses, this would articulate the essence of what a “strong program” would be. Natural Comparisons: Durkheim’s Empiricism and Residual Evolutionism Having said what I mean by a “strong program” in comparative studies, I want to establish two final points. First, Durkheim and his

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Köbben, “Comparativists and Non-Comparativists in Anthropology,” p. 593.

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‘team’ were chiefly responsible for this new conceptualization of a “strong program” in comparative studies, even though they may not have proven to be its most consistent or successful practitioners (I note that the Weberian tradition could as well demonstrate many of the same virtues and strategies as the Durkheimian).9 Of historical note is that one of the leading figures in the comparative historical phonology of Indo-European, pioneering the kinds of comparisons I related in earlier examples of Portuguese, Indo-European, and such, was Antoine Meillet—a person profoundly influenced by the Durkheimians. Second, the Durkheimian “strong program” was constructed on epistemological bases only partly acceptable to ‘us.’ They grounded their comparative method on objectivist, evolutionist grounds, although, as I shall show, they were gradually moving away form these positions to one more acceptable to ‘us.’ Let me open a small parenthesis to say what I think is entailed in this ‘us’ before moving on to the significance of what the Durkheimians did to establish a “strong program” in comparative studies. Regarding evolution, I take it for granted that evolutionist views of culture and society—except perhaps for technology—no longer have the kind of status for ‘us’ that was taken for granted by leading thinkers of the 19th-century, such as the Frazer, Tylor, and others. Religions, for example, are not ranked according to their degree of evolution—at least not without very considerable contestation. The religions of the Inuit, for example, are just different from High Church Anglicanism; they do not represent some kind of previous evolutionary step. To make the claim that such religions are different because one is more evolved than another would involve one in a perhaps interminable controversy. Because of the way he regarded the religions of aboriginal Australia, to name only one set of examples, Durkheim must also be included among the evolutionists although, as we will see, he seems a genuine transitional figure. Regarding objectivity, I also take for granted that the idea of the constructed character of technical terms and objects likewise need not extensively be argued here for ‘us.’ When we study ‘myth’ or ‘totemism’ or ‘sacrifice’ and so on, for example, ‘our’ epistemological principles dictate that we clearly define these terms. ‘We’ feel that it is necessary to take responsibility for our concepts. This is so

9

Smelser, Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences, chapter 3.

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in part because the conceptual qualities of terms like ‘myth’ or ‘totemism’ or ‘sacrifice’ have a long history of contestation. Moreover, in our social sciences, although we use these terms as part of our own language, we often do not appreciate that the same terms might not be recognized in the societies to which we apply them. Their application is therefore part of what ‘we’ as investigators do, and not necessarily part of how the folk we study live. Malinowski was attracted to ‘lili’u’—a kind of story that his native informants related to him as being important. Immediately, Malinowski decided to call such stories ‘myths,’ for better or for worse. The point to be made here is not that we should never translate in this way, but merely— or at the very least—not forget that we are doing so, and that therefore ‘lili’u’ and ‘myth’ may not map each other perfectly. For example, some little semantic ‘edge’ of ‘lili’u’ may stick out from under the semantic map of myth with which we try to cover it. Intercultural translation of this sort is inevitable; one can only enjoin caution, sophistication, and readiness to adapt to cultural differences. Back to Durkheim’s contribution to comparative studies; Nothing could be clearer about Durkheim’s avowed resolve to put ‘strong’ comparative study at the center of his entire sociological enterprise than his claim that “Comparative sociology is not a special brand of sociology, it is sociology itself, insofar as it ceases to be purely descriptive and aspires to account for facts.”10 There, in The Rules (1894), Durkheim lays down a six-point program for ‘strong’ comparative studies which seems to have been common property of the entire Durkheimian group: (1) comparative studies aim to provide (“why?”) explanations of social phenomena because they alone can provide the “indirect experiments” necessary to test hypotheses; (2) such “indirect experiments” need to be carried out (“how?”) within the context of the “total social fact”, thus (3) requiring intense studies of, (4) well-chosen cases, (5 of roughly the same order of development, (6) In this way (“so what?”) Durkheim believed we would be able to trace the historical development of institutions, and thus to understand our own situation better.11

10 11

Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 157. Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, chapter 6.

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Why, however, does this set of proposals for comparative study count as a call for a “strong” program in comparative studies, and from whence does its “strength” derive. To what extent, if at all, does the strength of this program derive from sources other than those empowering evolutionist “comparative method”—even as Durkheim indicates in point (5) that he believes it does? Overall, Durkheim believes the “strength” of his comparative program is evident from the fact that he is convinced it will eventuate in sociological “laws”—the ultimate test of success in hypothesis-testing, the discovery of ‘causes.’12 These laws were for him assured by the objective reality of the evolutionary process of the development of societies that Durkheim assumed from his earliest works, such as the Division of Labor in Society and the developmental classification of societies found there.13 Even in his late work, such as in Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim identifies certain phenomena to be compared within well-drawn “primitive” contexts (e.g. aboriginal Australia), by comparing the ‘same’ phenomena within another welldrawn “primitive” contexts, (e.g. native North America, (points 3, 4 above), in order to test a hypothesis of “concomitant variation”14 (Point 1 above)—to discern laws or law-like relationships. “As soon as we have proved that in a certain number of cases, two phenomena vary with each other, we may be certain we are confronted with a law,” he notes emphatically.15 Mauss later identified this method of Durkheim’s with Darwin’s method of doing experiments governed by the certainties of the evolutionary process, and therefore as a method with avowed scientific intentions. This, Mauss described as the method of “indirect experiment”—indirect hypothesis-testing, since like Darwin in the matter of the causal genesis or the demise of species, the social scientist lacked the ability to perform “live” experiments, the ability to test directly theses regarding many sorts of human subjects.16 Durkheim would therefore have found congenial what Radcliffe-Brown said many years later about the role of comparison in the formulation of a scientific investigation: “without systematic comparative studies, anthropology

12 13 14 15 16

Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 153. Durkheim, Division of Labour in Society. Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, pp. 151–3. Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 153. Karady, Marcel Mauss, pp. 170–71.

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will become only historiography and ethnography.”17 For Durkheim, sociology was more indeed, and partly so because developmental schemes guaranteed the existence of certain objective historical processes that provided a framework in which to evaluate and select data. Now, although we may not require or expect the objective evolutionary process or the “laws” both Durkheim and RadcliffeBrown did, many of us interested in promoting the scientific aims of the study of religion would be pleased if the study of religion were to do a good deal more hypothesis-testing, or searching for the causes of religious behavior and thought. So, while the Durkheimians represent a tradition in which comparative studies aim to produce necessary truths (“laws”) by the necessary application of comparison, others may be satisfied with the use of comparative studies for more modest goals, such as serving heuristic purposes or achieving ‘understanding.’ Ironically, we can show how comparison aids understanding in this way by showing how Durkheim’s “strong program” in comparative studies can both historically and logically be better understood by seeing it in the “comparative perspective” of its opposition to a Frazerian “comparative method”! Since Frazerian comparative method was arguably as “strong”—in intention, at least—as Durkheim’s was supposed to be, what were Durkheim’s objections to it and proposed improvements upon it? I believe they were two: first, “comparative method” lacked a certain selectivity of cases to be compared, despite the role of evolution in its justification for making certain selections. Comparisons seemed extravagant and disorderly. Second, Frazer and his circle failed fully, from Durkheim’s view, to consider the integrity of social wholes in determining the meaning of the institutions compared. How do we know the things claimed to be like each other being compared are really in the class, “comparable,” given that they may occur in different cultural settings? Is the lili’u narrative of the Trobriand Islanders the same as the mythos of the Greeks?18 How then did Durkheimian comparisons promise to improve on Frazer and company? Short of the help evolutionism provided the investigator seeking to know what item to select for comparison, by

17 18

Radcliffe-Brown, Method in Social Anthropology, p. 110. Strenski, Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century.

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what criteria should things be selected for comparison? The answer seems to have been found in a kind of lazy empiricism. This makes Durkheim appear naive about the un-constructed nature of his concepts, such as totemism. As an empiricist and evolutionist, Durkheim felt that comparisons in general were only as strong as the concepts employed in them. For Durkheim, only scientific concepts had foundations sufficiently sturdy to endure the rigors of generalization in cross-cultural comparison. Thus, part of him fell in with the empiricist confidence in common sense. Totemism was just ‘out there’ because people in different parts of the world seemed to worship animal and plant species, and to involve them in socially approved rituals. Durkheim’s thought followed the well-known prescription of empiricist or positivist faith in the power of ‘data’ to impress themselves upon the receptive mind [i]n order to be objective, science must start from sense perception and not from concepts that have been formed independently from it. It is from observable data that it should derive directly the elements for its initial definition. Moreover, it is enough to call to mind what the task of scientific work is to understand that science cannot proceed otherwise.19

Accordingly, since social ‘data’ are fully objective data—“things”— in Durkheim’s view, they too can act to impress themselves upon the mind: [s]ocial phenomena are things and should be treated as such. To demonstrate this proposition one does not need to philosophize about their nature or to discuss the analogies they present with phenomena of a lower order of existence. Suffice to say that they are the sole datum afforded the sociologist. A thing is in effect all that is given, all that is offered, or rather forces itself upon our observation. To treat phenomena as things is to treat them as data, and this constitutes the starting point for science. Social phenomena unquestionably display this characteristic.20

Durkheim even believed he could guarantee the absolute neutrality and objectivity of the investigator. How “the facts are classified does not depend on him, or on his own particular cast of mind, but on the nature of things” themselves.21 19 20 21

Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 81. Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 69. Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 76.

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Unnatural Comparisons: Durkheim’s Rationalism Now, even as we may disagree with Durkheim’s evolutionism and empiricism, one may agree with Durkheim’s recommendation that “comparative studies” should proceed with detailed and well drawn cases (Point 2, 3). After all, why should not data be as rich and exact as possible? Similarly, why would one quarrel with the proposition that items should be selected with care (Point 4) and, assuming one wished to pursue a “strong program” in comparative studies, for the purpose of testing hypotheses (Point 1)? The issue of ‘selection,’ provoked by Durkheim’s empiricism, however, still remains problematic. Have we “selected” the same phenomena or not? Durkheim was convinced, for example, that Australian “totemism” makes a better kind of sense because it is set alongside North American ‘totemism,’ and had certain hypotheses tested against it. One can agree readily. Indeed, it would seem necessary in order to understand Australia ‘totemism’ that we see it within the context of other ‘totemisms.’ But, since ‘totemism’ is not a natural kind, a species with its name written on it, how do we know that we really have the same phenomenon—‘totemism’—in different cases? I believe that Durkheim and his group answer this puzzle by concluding—while not fully admitting it to themselves—in effect, that it is they who decide what totemism is, and what its relatives are. An act of conceptualizing will comes surprisingly into play among thinkers who would in all likelihood refuse to admit it. This radical shift in epistemology of concept formation from a ‘lazy empiricism’ to an actively theorizing rationalism is what makes Durkheim vexing and interesting at the same time he is confusing on this point. Durkheim thus ‘solves’ this dilemma by contradicting his own extreme empiricism or positivism, and becoming—in part at any rate—critical of the status of common sense notions and their value for science. Durkheim tells us, that the example of Copernicus taught him how unreliable a science based on (the “illusions” of ) commonsense would be and, therefore, how conceptual revolution and reform were required for the formation of scientific concepts fit for cross-cultural comparison.22 Durkheim’s emphasis upon rationalist conceptual

22

Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 61.

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construction produced many original and influential works of crosscultural comparison devised to establish certain sociologistic hypotheses about the nature of concepts such as “magic,” “religion,” “sacrifice,” and so on. Hubert and Mauss’s Sacrifice, for example, does not “discover” a reality waiting “out there” in nature, ripe for the finding. It recommends a certain use of the word, “sacrifice”; it consists of a sustained theoretical argument—all made within a comparative context—for a particularly Durkheimian use of the concept, “sacrifice.” Sacrifice then represents a fundamental theoretical demonstration of the Durkheimian group’s “strong” comparative work. An hypothesis about the theoretical identity of a term is advanced and tested in comparative contexts, not on the basis of the concept’s identity being inscribed in nature, but rather in terms of how well it served the needs of explanation for the Durkheimians themselves!23 But Durkheim’s venture into this new epistemological territory did not necessarily begin auspiciously nor proceed steadily. Durkheim never really abandoned an appeal to the objective character of cultural and social evolution to solve the problem of how to select things for comparison. In the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he notoriously appeals to the evolutionist notion of a ‘simple’ society as the appropriate area in which the investigator should search. Without plunging too deeply into the study of facts, it is not difficult to summarize in what area to look for the characteristic properties of social types. . . . If therefore we knew the simplest society that ever existed, in order to make our classification we should only have to follow the way in which these simple societies joined together and how these new composites also combined.24

As noted earlier in our list of Durkheim’s ‘6 points,’ in the concluding paragraph of the Rules, Durkheim says, “[t]he comparison can therefore only serve as proof if we can eliminate this disturbing factor of the age of a society. To do this, it will be sufficient to consider the societies which one is comparing at the same period of their development.”25

23 Strenski, “The Ironies of Fin-de-Siécle Rebellions against Historicism”; and Strenski, Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice. 24 Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, pp. 111–12. 25 Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method, p. 158.

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How and why Durkheim began to change is still somewhat a mystery. Both empiricist and rationalist tendencies may have been there all along. Parsons and others have argued that Durkheim’s thought “strained” towards theoretical positions opposed to a positivist theory of action. Thomas Gieryn observes that this vacillation in Durkheim’s attitude to the place of interests in theory construction meant that Durkheim both believed that facts were selected according to human interests but that their truth was not relative to human interests.26 Even though we may never know the answer to the reasons for this epistemological change, we at least can comprehend what it was, and how that set comparison on a new footing. In their new mood, the Durkheimians acknowledged the role of creativity and will in comparison. The “strength” then of this newly justified Durkheimian “strong program” in comparative studies came from the fruitfulness of the interpretive virtuosity and theoretical imagination of the researcher or research programs that launched the comparisons in question. Durkheim’s Worthy Successors—The “Annales” One of the surprising results of this chapter in the history of science is that the foremost practitioners of this new “critical,” imaginative, and interpretive comparative methodology sketched by Durkheim and his team were the comparative historians of the Annales School, Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, even down to our contemporary, Ferdinand Braudel. They owed much to the Durkheimians, as did other notable practitioners of Durkheimian comparative method, such as linguist Antoine Meillet and historian, Henri Berr.27 They achieved this not only by virtue of Durkheim’s example, but also because of their assimilation of German critics’ positivism, led by such historically-minded neo-Kantian idealist philosophers as Rickert, and also by the hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey. Bloch had studied both in Dilthey’s Berlin and in Wundt’s Leipzig from 1908–9, and was well placed by his location in Strasbourg to absorb the intellectual influences

26

Gieryn, “Durkheim’s Sociology of Scientific Knowledge,” pp. 122–23. Walker, “Review Essay: Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society”; Walker, “A Note on Historical Linguistics”; Sewell, “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History.” 27

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from Germany.28 Bloch and his collaborators realized this new style of comparative history by means of several methodological innovations not utterly foreign to the Durkheimians, but neither embraced by them consistently. These are the role of interpretation or hermeneutics in knowledge, the place of theory and problematic with respect to data, and the sense in which comparisons could and should be disciplined in order to achieve maximum effect, and thus ‘strength.’ The end result of the conception of comparative history achieved by the Annalistes was to create, firstly, “comparative” historical studies that drew their “strength,” in part at least, from the explanatory fruitfulness of the interpretive process in history. In their magisterial article “History” in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1932), Henri Berr and Lucien Febvre develop this proper and essential role of “imagination”—of subjective factors—in history writing. “While physical phenomena would be known even without the intervention of someone to describe and classify them, the historical past is only known to the extent that there is an image of it—in other words, to the extent that it is created by the mind.”29 Against any positivist “objectivism” Berr and Febvre say clearly, “[t]he historical fact is by no means always ‘given.’ Very often the historian must in some degree create it with the aid of hypotheses and conjectures, by delicate impassioned labor.”30 As a result, it is not “facts” that autonomously determine research but the “selection” of facts. And, in this “selectivity” even the natural sciences partake. Once more, Berr and Febvre: “It is to pretend that the histologist, has only to put his eye to the lens of a microscope to discover immediately definite facts which can be utilized as they are, while in truth the essential portion of his labor consists in creating and interpreting the objects of his observation with the aid of singularly complicated techniques.”31 For the Annalistes, then, interpretation was essential to the task of doing history, comparative or not. Secondly, Bloch also made a “strong program” in comparative studies possible by introducing another methodological feature, halfheartedly embraced by Durkheim, and not followed consistently.

28 Craig, “Sociology and Related Marc Bloch.” 29 Berr and Febvre, “History,” p. 30 Berr and Febvre, “History,” p. 31 Berr and Febvre, “History,” p.

Disciplines”; Perrin, “L’Oeuvre historique de 363. 363. 363 (my emphasis).

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Bloch unambiguously gave priority to theory and problematic over facts and, second, synthesis to analysis. Where Durkheim wanted things both ways, and often thought on balance that facts spoke for themselves, Bloch was a more outspoken rationalist. Bloch urged the investigator to mistrust factitious arrangement of things in the world. His oft-quoted maxim puts this view succinctly: “The unity of place is only disorder. Only the unity of the problem creates a center.”32 His earlier 1928 classic essay on the comparative study of European societies fleshes out his vision that brings to fruition implicit tendencies in the Durkheimian projects for conceptual reform in sociology of religion. Bloch here boldly strides across a boundary where the Durkheimians lingered. But before phenomena can be interpreted, they must be discovered. And this preliminary step will reveal in the first place the usefulness of the comparative method. But— it may be asked—is it really necessary to go to such trouble to ‘discover’ historical facts? They are and can only be known through documents: in order to bring them to light, isn’t it enough to read texts and monuments? Yes, but one must know how to read them. A document is a witness; and like most witnesses, it does not say much except under cross-examination. The real difficulty lies in putting the right questions. That is where comparisons can be of such valuable help to the historian, who is always in the position of the magistrate hearing the case.33

Thirdly, we know that Bloch was as dubious about Frazerian “comparative method” as was Durkheim.34 Accordingly, Bloch interpreted Durkheim’s view of how to make comparisons “strong” in recognizably Durkheimian, and thus anti-Frazerian ways. Recall that Durkheim claimed that six requirements should govern comparisons— if they were to be ‘strong.’ Of these six, three through five were affirmed by the Annalistes and reflect the common critique of Frazer that they shared with the Durkheimians. These were numbers 3–5: the third point required intense indeed focused and detailed studies, such as Durkheim undertook in the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. The fourth called for (4) well-chosen cases, again, such as those

32

Bloch, “Une étude régionale,” p. 81. Bloch “Une étude régionale,” p. 48 (my emphases). See also confirmation in Walker, “Review Essay,” pp. 247–48. 34 Rhodes, “Emile Durkheim and the Historical Thought of Marc Bloch,” p. 47. 33

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of Australia that Durkheim chose because of his (misguided) evolutionist views. The fifth point likewise limited comparisons in terms of the historical relations between items to be compared—in Durkheim’s evolutionist parlance as “of roughly the same order of development.” Jettisoning evolutionism, Bloch believed that these points meant that comparisons had to be properly controlled and well drawn. Explicitly citing his opposition to the sprawling comparisons of a Frazer, Bloch says that “to compare various . . . societies . . . (one ought to compare) societies that live close to one another, and that go back to one common origin, at any rate to several.”35 As the comparative work of Indo-Europeanists showed, comparison between and among closely related societies held more promise for powerful results than Frazer was able to achieve. Bloch argued that his more focused, Durkheimian method of comparison—“the one with the more limited horizon is also the richer in results. Because it is more capable of rigorous classification, and more critical about the objects it compares, it may hope to reach conclusions of fact that are less hypothetical and much more precise.”36 In this little sketch of history and epistemology of comparative studies I have tried to show how comparative studies have been variously conceived, and more importantly how a powerful and modern conception of comparative studies struggled to emerge among the Durkheimians and those influenced by them. The study of religion might do well to apply the methods and rationales of the “strong program” in comparative studies conceived by the anti-positivist Durkheimians and the Annalistes. Their epistemological sophistication, reflecting the role of the investigator as well as the constructed nature of ‘things’ compared, is bracingly contemporary. As such, they provide an epistemologically plausible way of doing comparison in the ‘strong’ sense, and in doing so, they advance the study of religion towards scientific, or at the very least more rigorous, research goals. The potential of a “strong program” in comparative studies to move the study of religion toward a more rigorous practice of positing and testing hypotheses makes this kind of comparison well worth doing.

35 Bloch, “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies,” p. 48. 36 Bloch, “A Contribution Towards a Comparative History of European Societies,” p. 48.

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INDEX OF NAMES Abelard 184, n. 9 Adams, James Luther 183 Adams, John 183, 186–87, 187 n. 16 Aeschines 187, n. 16 Agathon 154–55 Ajax 157 al Haq, Norman 77 Albright, William Foxwell 254 Alexander 226 Alkibiades 149–64 passim Almond, Philip C. 123, 227 Akhenaten 254 n. 14 Amida Buddha 32 Appian 187 n. 16 Applebaum, Ralph 130 Appleby, R. Scott 125 Aristophanes 152, 155–56, 161, 163 passim Aristotle 83–84, 184 n. 9, 256, 275 Arnold, Thomas 228 Asad, Talal 117 Athansius of Alexandria 145 n. 6 Atta, Mohamed 65, n. 7 Augustine 187 n. 16 Aurelius, Marcus 187 n. 16 Balagangadhara, S. N. 123 Balch, David L. 9 Barrows, John Henry 119 n. 5, 120 Barth, Karl 274 Barthold, V. 228 Bellamy, Carla 133 Bellow, Saul 47 Bender, Courtney 137 Berger, Peter 77 Berr, Henri 289–90 Berthrong, John 77 Betz, Hans Deiter 170–71 Björkman, W. 228 Bloch, Marc 272, 279, 281, 289 passim Blumer, Herbert 10 Boas, Franz 264 n. 29, 276 Boethius 187 n. 16 Bothilingk, Princep 226 Bourdieu, Pierre 244, 244 n. 9 Bouwsma, Franklin G. 133 Boyarin, Daniel 214

Braudel, Ferdinand 289 Brooks, Douglas 35, 37 Brown, Daniel 23 Browne, E. G. 228 Bruce, Frederick F. 193 Buddha 44, n. 44, 45, 144, 231 Budnitz, Hannah 139 Burns, Robert 19 Bush, George W. 34, 140 Byrne, Peter 125 Caecus, Didymus 145, n. 6 Caeser, Julius 187, n. 17 Cahen, Claude 228 Calvin, Jean 13 Canard, Marius 228 Cartledge, Mark J. 207–08, 211 Cato 194, n. 17 Cassius, Dio 187 n. 17 Charmides 155 Cheney, Dick 140 Cherry, Conrad 121, 124 Chidester, David 121 Cicero 187 n. 16 Clarke, James Freeman 119 n. 6 Clement of Alexandria 145–146, 187 n. 16 Cloony, Frank 77 Colas, Dominique 247 Collingwood, R. G. 263 n. 27 Confucius 127, 144 n. 3 Conzelmann, Hans 193 Copernicus, Nicolas 287 Corbin, Henri 228 Cornell, Vincent 246 Crawley, Edgar 271 Cunningham, Alexander 226 Cutten, George G. 204 Dalai Lama 232 Dalmia, Vasudha 122 Darrow, William R. 125 Darwin, Charles 284 David, King 267–68 Day, Dorothy 13 de Gargnano, Giuseppi Maria 130 de la Saussaye, Chantepie 274 deBary, William Theodore 127

314

index of names

Dennett, Daniel C. 102–03 Derrida, Jacques 259 Despland, Michel 124 Dewey, John 106 Dhareshwar, Vivek 123 di Nobili, Roberto 130 Dilthey, Wilhelm 289 Dilworth, David A. 101 Dionysos 152, 217 Diotima 156–64 passim Doniger, Wendy 43, 122, 124–25 Dray, William 263 n. 27 Dumézil, Georges 281 Dumont, Louis 281 Dunn, James D. G. 215–16 Durkheim, Emile xi, 66–67, 222, 264 n. 28, 271, 281–92 Eck, Diana 116, 126 Eckel, David 77 Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 256 n. 18 Eliade, Mircea 55, 141, 257, 275 Embree, Ainslee T. 127 Epictetus 187 n. 16 Ernst, Carl W. 17 Euripides 217 n. 105 Eusebius 145–46, 187 n. 16 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 275 Fanon, Franz 225 Febvre, Lucien 272, 281, 289–90 Feyerabend, Paul 108 Fitzgerald, Timothy 121 Forbes, Christopher 208, 211 Frazer, James George xvi, 23, 52, 222, 229, 254, 256–57, 261, 266–71, 275–77, 282, 285, 291 Frankfort, Henri 254 n. 12 Fredriksen, Paula 77 Freud, Sigmund 222, 229 n. 29 Gad 267–68 Gagarin, Michael 158, 161 Gandhi 225, 230 Geertz, Clifford 60 n. 2, 251–52, 258–59, 262 n. 26, 266 Gentle, Virginia 129 Gieryn, Thomas 289 Glaser, Barney G. 10 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 281 Goodman, Felicitas 204–06 Graham, William 116 Gregory of Nanzianzus 187 n. 16

Hallisey, Charles 123 Harding, Mark 193 Harmon, Steven 199 Hawley, John Stratton 122 Haydon, A. Eustace 116, n. 2 Hempel, Carl G. 262 n. 26 Herodotus 187 n. 16, 209 n. 83, 256 Hierocles 187 n. 16 Hillel, Rabbi 177 Hoenig, Susan B. 179–80 Holdrege, Barbara 42 Holwell, John Zephaniah 123 Hooke, S. H. xv, 252–54 Hsin Tao, Ven. Dharma Master 130 Hubert, Henri 281, 288 Hume, David 264 n. 28 Humphries, Lev 199 Husayn 38 Hussein, Saddam 242 Husserl, Edmund 102–03 Ignatius 187 n. 16 Inden, Ronald 122, 230 Ivy, Marilyn 137 Jackson, Janet 246 Jakobson, Ramon 281 James, E. O. 57 James, William 9 Jaspers, Karl 144 n. 3 Jastrow, Morris 51 Jefferson, Thomas 13, 147 n. 9, 183, 186–87 Jensen, Lionel M. 127 Jesus xiii, 9, 44, 70, 144–49, 151, 153, 159, 165–73, 175–80, 183–84, 187–90, 194–05, 214–15 Joab 267 Job 32 Joel 191 John the Baptist 175 Johnson, Luke Timothy 209–10 Jones, William 226 Judas 148 n. 12 Jüng, Karl 222 Justin Martyr 187 n. 16 Kant, Immanuel 229–30 Keith, A. B. 226 Kertzer, David 30 Kierkegaard, Søren 51 King, Richard 123 Kirsch, Jonathan 243

index of names Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 124 Kitagawa, Joseph 19, 120, 124–6 Klausner, Joseph xiii, 175–80 Kloppenborg, John S. 171 Klostermaier, Klaus 24 Köbben, André 281 Koester, Helmut 171 Kohn, Livia 77 Korybantes 157 Kramers, J. H. 228 Kreeft, Peter 146 Kuhn, Thomas 103 Laertes, Diogenes 147 n. 10, 187 n. 16 Lakatos, Imre 103–06 Laozi 118 Le Strange, Guy 228 Levering, Miriam 43 Lévi-Provençal, E. 228 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 229 n. 29 Lewis, Bernard xiv, 227 Lightstone, Jack 248 Lincoln, Bruce x, 28–30, 32–33, 36, 38–39, 41, 244, 248 Linnaeus, Carl 82 nn. 4–5 Lippmann, Walter 147 n. 9 Lopez, Jr., Donald S. 123 Lorenzen, David 122 Lucian of Samosata 146 Luke 176–77, 194, 209, 209 n. 82 Luther, Martin 186 n. 13 Macdonell, A. A. 122 Magnani, Giovanni 11–12 Malinowski, Bronislaw 283 Marçais, Georges 228 Marçais, William 228 March, Augie 47 Marett, R. R. 222 Marshall, P. J. 122 Marsyas 156 Marty, Martin E. 125, 246 Masuzawa, Tomoko 121–22, 128, 248 Matthew 149, 154, 165–73, 176–77 Maurin, Peter 13 Mauss, Marcel 281, 284, 288 Maximus of Tyre 187 n. 16 Meillet, Antoine 281–82, 289 Memuni, Albert 225 Mermelstein, Rebecca 138 Mez, Adam 228

315

Mill, John Stuart 264 n. 28 Miller, Dave 200–01 Minucius, Felix 187 n. 16 Moerman, Max 136 Montgomery, Robert L. 6 Moore, Deborah Dash 124 Moore, George Foot 116 n. 2 Moses 152 n. 8, 175, 254 n. 14 Mowinckel, Sigmund 254 n. 14 Mubad Shah 130 Muhammed 17, 32, 40, 44, 144 Müller, Frederich Max ix, 52, 119, 121–22, 221, 281 Murphy, Anne 134 Nagel, Ernest 265 n. 30 Nazianzus, Gregory 145 n. 5 Neville, Robert Cummings xii, 34, 39, 48, 77 Newman, John Henry 104 Nicholson, R. C. 228 Noss, John B. 128 Nussbaum, Martha 151–55, 158 Oates, Wayne E. 204 Olcott, Colonel Henry Steele 231 Oldmeadow, Harry 224–25 Origen 187 n. 16 Orsi, Robert 131 Otto, Rudolf 100, 189 n. 22 Oxtoby, Willard 126 Paden, William E. xv, 254–55, 261 Pailin, David A. 123 Panikkar, K. M. 226 Parsons, Talcott 289 Patel, Avani 138 Patton, Kimberley 126 Paul xiii, 9, 146 n. 7, 169, 170, 175, 177–80, 190 n. 26, 192–93, 195, 197, 200–201, 207, 208 n. 77, 213 n. 97, 209 Peirce, Charles Saunders 106, 110 Pellat, Charles 228 Pelliot, Paul 226 Pentheus 217 Peregrinus 146 Peter 153 n. 24, 191, 207 Philo 187 n. 16 Philostratus 187 n. 16 Piaget, Jean 206 n. 72 Pinkney, Andrea 133 Plato 83, 149–55, 158–66, 168–70,

316

index of names

172–73 passim, 187 n. 16, 209 n. 83, 229 Plutarch 187 n. 16 Polo, Marco 130 Popper, Karl 104, 263 n. 27 Presley, Elvis 73 Preus, Klemet 202–207, 211–12 Priestley, Joseph 147 n. 9, 183 Pythagoras 146 n. 8 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 284–85 Ray, Benjamin 126 Ricci, Mateo 130 Rice, Condoleeza 140 Rickert, Heinrich 289 Rosen, Stanley 158–59 Rosenau, Pauline Marie 249–50 Rosenberg, John D. 127 Ruether, Rosemary Radford 213, 217 n. 104 Rushdie, Salman 224 Said, Edward 45, 127, 225, 228 Saldarini, Anthony 77 Salmon, Wesley C. 265 n. 31 Sanders, E. P. 167–69 Sandmel, Samuel 52 Sarana, Gopala 272 Schmidt, Leigh 131 Seager, Richard Hughes 120 Segal, Robert 237 Seneca 187 n. 16 Shapiro, Adam 140 n. 24 Shapiro, Faydra 238 Sharma, Arvind 49 Sharpe, Eric J. 121 Silenus 156–57 Silk, Mark 124 Smart, Ninian xv, 18, 128–29, 255, 276 Smith, Huston 95, 128, 135 Smith, Jonathan Z. xiv, xv, 20, 78–79, 109–10, 124, 131, 181, 183, 186–87, 206, 212, 216, 248, 255–56, 271–72 Smith, Wilfrid Cantwell 87, 116–17, 125–26, 135 Smith, William Robertson 257, 272 Socrates xiii, 145–52, 154–66, 168, 170, 172 Speer, Albert 239–40 Spittler, Russell 192 Staples, Peter 15

Stein, Aurel 226 Stephen 140 Strauss, Anselm L. 10 Strauss, Lehman 195–203, 205–206, 211–12 Sugirtharajah, Sharada 224 Sullivan, Lawrence 44, 130 Tacitus 187 n. 16 Taylor, Mark 132, 250 Tertullian 187 n. 16 Theophrastus 187 n. 16 Thieme, Paul 281 Thucydides 187 n. 16 Tiele, Cornelius Petrus 119 Tillich, Paul 87, 101, 126 Todd, Jesse T. 124, 129 Troeltsch, Ernst 11 n. 20 Turner, Victor 136 Tylor, E. B. 222, 271, 275–76, 282 Vallee, Gerard 124 van der Leeuw, Gerardus 55 van der Veer, Peter 133 Vivekananda, Swami 119 Vlastos, Gregory 151 von Stietencron, Heinrich 122 Wach, Joachim x, 19–21, 55, 124, 180 Ward, Keith 47 Warner, Stephen 140 Washington, George 23 Watson, Walter 101 Weber, Max 7 n. 10, 12–3, 87, 144 n. 2, 222, 264, 281 Weisenfeld, Judith 137 Wellhausen, Julius 175 Wiebe, Donald 122 Wildman, Wesley 39, 48, 77 Winternitz, M. 122 Wright, William 228 Wundt, Wilhelm 289 Xenophon 148 n. 10, 160, 187 n. 16 Young, Katherine K. 124 Zedong, Mao 31 n. 13 Ziolkowski, Eric J. 120–21 Zito, Angela 118 ¥i≥ek, Slavoj 243–44 Zoroaster 148

INDEX OF SUBJECTS Aborigines, Australian 222, 282, 284 Abrahamic traditions 24, 233 Acts of the Apostles 189, 195, 205 Advaita Vedanta xv, 231, 233 Afro-Caribbean religions 142 Animal sacrifice 260–65 Annales School 272, 289 Anthropology 97, 275, 284 Anti-semitism 213–14 Apologia Socratis (Plato) 150 Archaic religion (Eliade) 277 Asceticism, inner-worldy (Weber) 12 Asia in the Core Curriculum (deBary et al.) 127 Assemblies of God 190, 195 Authority (Lincoln) x, 28–33, 36, 38–39, 41, 47 n. 52, Bacchae (Euripides) 209 n. 83, 217 Baha’i 6 Baptists 194–96, 199–201 “Believing Myth as Myth” (Weckman) 19 Bhagavadgita 230 Bhakti 24, 131–32 Bible ix, 31, 40–42, 44–45, 141, 186, 191–92, 195, 199–201, 203, 267, 269–70 Book of Chronicles 267–68 Book of Job 32 Book of Samuel 267 British Discovery of Hinduism, The (Almond) 122 British Discovery of Hinduism . . ., The (Marshall) 122 Buddhism ix, xi, xiv–xv, 6, 44, 56–57, 92, 98, 118, 123, 129, 221, 223, 225, 227–28, 231–33, 245 Charisma 28, 63, 66 Chinese religions 34, 40, 118 Christianity xi, xiii–xiv, 9, 12, 15, 18, 24, 34, 40, 41, 42, 46, 53, 55–57, 117, 119–20, 126, 138, 144, 147, 166, 172, 175, 177–80, 183–89, 193–95, 199, 204, 207, 210–11, 213–17, 221, 230–31, 254, 257, 260, 274, 276–78

Christianity and the Encounter with World Religions (Tillich) 126 “Christianity Judging Itself ” (Tillich) 126 Colonialism 225, 251 Comparative Religion (Sharpe) 121 “Comparative Religion” (W. C. Smith) 126 Comparative Study of Religions, The (Wach) 19, 124 Concept, exclusive 6–9, 12 Concept, inclusive 6–1, 13 Confucianism 68, 118, 127, 221 Conservative Christianity 181, 189, 191–93, 218 Controlled comparativism (Segal) 252, 257, 259–60, 270 Corinthians 201, 207 CRIP (Crosscultural Comparative Religious Ideas Project) xi–xii, 77–79, 85–87, 89–93, 95, 102–03, 106–13 Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Taylor, ed.) 132 Cultural Studies 127 Curators of the Buddha (Lopez) 123 Daoism 87, 118 De morte Peregrini (Lucian of Samosata) 146 Deism 186 Dharma 24, 68 “Dialogue and Method” (Eck) 126 Discourse (Lincoln) 29, 33–34, 41 Discourses of the Vanishing (Ivy) 137 Dissent from the Homeland (Cornell) 246 Division of Labor in Society, The (Durkheim) 284 Drudgery Divine ( J. Z. Smith) xiv, 181, 212 Elective affinity (Weber) 12–13 Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, The (Durkheim) 284, 288, 291 Encyclopedia of Religion, The (Eliade, ed.) 125 Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, The (Berr and Febrve, eds.) 290

318

index of subjects

Epistemic authority (Lincoln) x, 28 Epoche 15, 55, 180 “Essays on the Science of Religion” (Müller) 121 Ethnography 238, 285 Ethology 73 Evolutionary sciences 61, 65 n. 8, 72, 97, 230, 231, 222, 275–77, 289, 300 Executive authority (Lincoln) x, 28–9, 31 “Exhibiting Jews” (KirschenblattGimblett) 124 Explanation 238, 239, 262 n. 26, 263 n. 27, 265 n. 30, 288 Faith (W. C. Smith) 117 Family resemblance 135 Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (Frazer) 266 Following Muhammad (Ernst) 17 “Footprints of the Buddha” (film) 245 Founders, religious xiii, 14, 57, 143–73 From Jesus to Paul (Klausner) 175 Fundamentalism ix, 125, 192, 196, 199, 206, 207, 225 Fundamentalism Observed (Marty and Appleby) 125 General Index . . . Sacred Books of the East, A (Winternitz) 122 Glory and the Power, The (Marty and Appleby) 125 Glossolalia xiv, 181–218 Gospel of Luke 171, 176–78, 194, 209 Gospel of Matthew 155, 173–79, 182–83 Greco-Roman religions 9, 178,–79, 184–85, 188 Guru Granth Sahib 31, 44 “Harvard Way in the Study of Religion” (Darrow) 125 “‘Heathen in his Blindness, The’” (Almond) 123 “‘Heathen in His Blindness . . ., The’” (Balagangadhara) 123 Hebrew (Israelite) religion 5, 12, 15, 186, 266 Henotheism 10, 231 Hermeneutics 7, 90, 223, 229, 289–90 Hierophany 72, 117 Hinduism xi, xiv–xv, 24–25, 32, 37, 40, 53, 56, 68, 98, 118, 122, 129,

133–34, 221, 223, 225–26, 228, 230–31, 233 “Hinduism by Any Other Name” (Doniger) 126 History of religions xii, 48, 112, 119–26, 136–37, 142 History of Religions, The (Eliade and Kitagawa, eds.) 126 Human Condition, The (Neville) 77 Human sciences 60, 74 Humanities 60, 62, 74, 106, 122, 271 Hurrying Towards Zion (Cherry) 121, 124 “‘I Cannot Tell How All the Lands Shall Worship . . .’” (Pailin) 123 Idea of the Holy, The (Otto) 100 Ideology of Religious Studies, The (Fitzgerald) 121 Illative sense (Newman) 104 Imagining India (Inden) 122 Implied Spider, The (Doniger) 125 In Search of Dreamtime (Masuzawa) 122 Indo-European Studies 279–82, 292 Insider/outsider problem xv, 236–41 Interpretation 241–42, 248, 251 n. 26 Invention of World Religions, The (Masuzawa) 138 Islam xi, xiv, xv, 17, 23, 34, 38, 40, 42, 55, 57, 68, 117, 119, 141, 221, 223–25, 228, 239, 245–46 Israel 167, 172, 175–77, 252, 254, 267–70, 274 Jainism 137, 138 Jesus of Nazareth (Klausner) 175, 179 “Jewish GIs . . . Judeo-Christian Tradition” (Moore) 124 Judaism ix, xi, xiii, 11 n. 20, 53, 55, 56–57, 138, 171, 175, 177–80, 188, 213–17, 221, 223, 243, 248 Judeo-Christian tradition 128, 134, 230 Jungian psychology 95 King James Bible 199 Kingdom of God xiii, 175 Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (W. R. Smith) 257 Leges (Plato) 162 Liberal democracy 242, 244, 252 Linguistics 209, 279 Long Search, The (Smart) 129

index of subjects “Long Search, The” (video series) 129, 253 Lotus Sutra 38, 46, 44, 48, 49 Magic 10, 23, 70, 267, 269, 288 Magic Still Dwells, A (Patton and Ray, eds.) 21, 126 Mahayana Buddhism 38, 92, 98 Manichaeism 52 Man’s Religions (Noss) 128 Manual of the History of Religions (de la Saussaye) 274 Manufacturing Confucianism ( Jensen) 127 “Matrix, The” (film) 251 Meaning and End of Religion, The (W. C. Smith) 116, 126 Midrash 177 Modernism xvi, 20–21, 257 Monolatry 12 Monotheism 12, 55–56, 231 “Mothering principle” (Idinopulos) 51–57 Museum of Faiths, A (Ziolkowski, ed.) 120–21 Mysterium tremendum (Otto) 100 Mystic Rose (Crawley) 271 Myth 22, 43, 59, 66, 67, 253, 276, 282–83, 285 Myth of the Eternal Return, The (Eliade) 116 “Naming Hinduism” (Hawley) 122 Nationalism 32, 225, 230, 251, 266 Natural sciences 60, 62, 89, 103–06, 110, 290 Naturalism 74, 187 New comparativism (Segal) 249–70 “New Creed, A” (Silk) 124 New Introduction to Islam (Brown) 23 New Testament 44, 166, 183–216 passim, 224, 225 Old comparativism (Segal) 255–70 Old Testament Against its Environment, The (Albright) 254 On Common Ground (Eck) 126 One and the Many, The (Marty) 246 Orientalism xiv, 127, 132, 223–25, 228, 233 Orientalism (Said) 1127 Orientalism and Religion (King) 123 Panentheism 12 Panhuman behavioral dispositions 60–61 Pantheism 12

319

Paradigm, scientific (Khun) 103 Patterns in Comparative Religion (Eliade) 116, 125 Pauline letters 189, 209, 249 Pedagogy 110, 112 181–82, 193, 218 Pentecostalism xiv, 194–98 Perennialism 35, n. 25, 95–97, 108, 250 Phenomenology 4, 37, 49, 53, 55, 103, 107, 222 Philosophy of religion 95, 108 Philosophy of science 103, 104 Pilgrimage 53, 67, 73, 134–35 Platonism 183 Pluralism, religious 13, 98, 126 Politics of Religious Studies, The (Wiebe) 122 Polytheism 12, 146, 231 Postcolonialism 219, 225 Postmodernism xv, xvi, 20–21, 59–60 73, 257–78 Praeparatio evangelica (Eusebius) 146 “Preface to the Sacred Books of the East” (Müller) 122 “Primitive” religion 253 Protestantism 31, 121, 133, 192, 232 Protrepicus (Clement of Alexandria) 146 Psychology 100, 214, 230 Pure Land Buddhism 32, 62 Q (Source) 176–77 “Question of Universality, The” (Masuzawa) 121 Qur’an xv, 32, 33, 38, 41–45, 48, 233 Reductionism 37, 49 Reformation 187–88, 213, 217 Relativism xi, 20 Religion, concept of 260, 282, 296 Religion in History (Despland and Vallee, eds.) 124 Religions of Man, The (H. Smith) 128 “Religious Configurations . . .” (von Stietencron) 122 Religious Diversity (Oxtoby) 126 Religious Experience of Mankind, The (Smart) 128 Religious Truth (Neville) 77 Representing Hinduism (Dalmia and von Stietencron, eds.) 122 Respublica (Plato) 162 Ritual 10, 23, 40, 45, 46, 59, 64, 68, 71, 86, 178, 252, 266 “Roads Taken . . . Therevada Buddhism” (Hallisey) 123

320

index of subjects

Roman Catholicism 31, 183–85, 187–88, 206 Rules of Sociological Method, The (Durkheim) 291, 296 Sacred and profane (Eliade) 112 Sacred Books of the East, The (Müller, ed.) 122, 221 Sacred objects 66–67 Sacred space 63, 140 Sacred time 63, 140 Sacred tree xi, 53, 285 Sacred, the 67 Sacrifice 40, 288 Sacrifice (Hubert and Mauss) 288 Savage Systems (Chidester) 121 Scripture 40, 64–65, 186, 190, 199–200, 203, 206-07, 212 Sermon on the Mount 170–71 Shi’ism 130 Shinto 118, 136 “Sick soul” (Wm. James) 205 Sikhism 31, 133–34 Social sciences 75, 97, 111, 251, 283 Sociology 97, 206, 230, 283, 291 Soteriology 24, 45 Spirit of capitalism (Weber) 7, n. 10, 12, 13 Spirit possession 207, 245 Stromata (Clement of Alexandria) 145 Student’s Guide to the Long Search (Bouwsma and Gentle) 129 Structuralism 229 Symposium (Plato) 149–72 Syncretism 5 Systema Naturae (Linnaeus) 84 “Taking Sides and Opening Doors” (Brooks) 37 Talmud 177

Theorizing Faith (Areck and Stringer) 241 “Theory of Religion and Method . . .” (Byrne) 125 Therevada Buddhism 92–93, 123 “Theses on Method” (Lincoln) 248 Tibetan Buddhism 232 “To Find Our Lives” (film) 135 Torah (Hebrew Bible) ix, 32, 33, 44, 167, 170, 177 Totemism 282–83, 286–87 “Trial of Pagans, The” (Dhareshwar) 123 Trinitarianism 12, 183–187 Ultimate Realities (Neville)

77

Vedas 24, 32, 33, 44 We Jews and Jesus (Sanmel) 52 “What the New York World’s Fair . . .” (Todd) 124 “Who Invented Hinduism?” (Lorenzen) 122 “Wizard of Oz, The” (film) 28, 135 Woman Who Laughed at God (Kirsch) 243 Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Doniger) 125 World Parliament of Religions 123–25, 136, 145 World religions 56–57, 117–18, 124–25, 127, 129–31, 246 World Religions in Boston (Eck, ed.) 126 “World Religions” (Young) 124 Worldmaking (Paden) xi, 59–75 World’s Parliament of Religions, The (Barrows) 120 Worldview 47, 101, 246 Worldviews (Smart) 18 Zen Buddhism 232