*Note:
Terms that
are italicized in the lecture module below are important terms constitutive of
the lexicon of religious studies discourse or talk. Italicized terms will be defined in the
text of the lecture module. One of
the primary objectives of this course is to develop familiarity with and
facility in a range of more specialized terms from the lexicon of religious
studies. One of the criteria for
evaluation in the contexts of your two short research-type critical analysis
papers and the longer research paper is “use of key vocabulary that constitutes
the special lexicon of religious studies as such.” Part of demonstrating proficiency in
terms of this evaluation criterion will include the incorporation of some of the
key terms, italicized and defined in the lecture modules, into your papers in
the service of framing and communicating your ideas. Thus, strive to learn and assimilate
these terms into your own working vocabulary.
When one embarks upon
any line of inquiry or academic examination (in the
5th/4th century B.C.E. Greek philosopher’s, Plato’s sense
of the term), one must clearly define the primary data set for examination: the subject matter from which assertions
are made or hypotheses derived. In
terms of the discipline of religious studies, i.e., the aforementioned line of
inquiry classifiable as “World Religions”—defining the primary data set for
scrutiny becomes a challenge due to the scope of the subject matter (spanning
multiple historical epochs and multiple cultural and geographical contexts or
milieux) and due to some of problems inherent in mapping the interface between
the exteriorized or externalized re-presentation of what are primary and/or
secondary interior or internal human sensibilities. “World Religions” as a specific line of
inquiry fits into the broader discipline set of what has been called “the
humanities” in academic circles.
The challenge in any line of inquiry within the humanities is defining
the subject matter robustly when that subject matter is a coefficient of a kind
of dynamic: a rather complex,
mysterious interface between the modes of representation (the encoded
signifiers, e.g., written text or empirically observable behaviors) and the
inner, deep psychological states or dynamics that the externalized markers
re-present. Both in historical and
contemporary life-worlds, human beings have exhibited behaviors and
generated cultural “products” (a product is that which individuals
or groups of Homo sapiens produce—culture itself is a product in
this sense of the term) that have been classified as “religious.” Because the term “religion” and its
correlate concept have been used historically and contemporarily as modifiers
for classifying descriptively a range of human sensibilities and their correlate
behaviors and significant encodings, it is mandatory that those embarking
on any systematic, scientific examination of this subject matter must strive to
establish an operative definition of the classificatory taxon or schema
that describes the subject matter.
Even the fact that students enroll in post-secondary or graduate level
courses associated with religious studies as such sustains the subject-matter
defining mandate: the “what” of
religious studies.
In striving to define
the subject matter at this preliminary stage in the “World Religions” line of
inquiry, one might want to first consider some possible etymological roots of
the word “religion.” Some scholars
such as the contemporary American religious studies scholar, Michael Novak, have
attempted to “read” the term “religion” back to Latin cognates or roots, i.e.,
“re-ligio,” meaning “to tie or to fasten.” (Novak 3); others, such as the late
nineteenth/early-to-mid-twentieth century phenomenological religious
studies scholar, Gerardus van der Leeuw, assert that the word “religion” is most
likely derivative from the word relegere, meaning “to pay attention to or
observe.” (van der Leeuw 50). If one accepts Novak’s sense of the
term, one immediately begins to think about the term as a descriptive taxon or
classification—if by “religion,” one connotes the notion of “being bound to,”
then this common denominator, this isomorphic pattern (a term used by
anthropologists to connote “a measurable or quantifiable pattern of similarity),
describes all that has historically and contemporarily been classified as
“religion” or “religious.” Or, if
one decides to adhere more to the etymological sense of the word “religion” as
van der Leeuw traces it—i.e., the notion of “paying attention to or
observing”—then this common denominator or isomorphic pattern must be evident in
all that is descriptively categorized as “religion” or “religious.” But when one considers each
aforementioned conditional if/then classificatory formula, one is left with
uncertainty of how exactly each formula is accurate. Thus, these etymological readings of the
term “religion” do not provide full answers to the “what-ness” of religious
studies challenge; but they do provide important heuristics—trail markers or
cairns—pointing the way towards resolving the central challenge of defining the
subject matter for any line of inquiry under the “religious studies”
banner.
Another way of
conceptualizing the “what” of religious studies challenge or quandary is to
think about it in philosophical terms. In the writings of the
5th/4th century B.C.E.Greek philosopher Plato, Plato
routinely demonstrates a kind of formulaic way of thinking about the nature of
any data set for examination. In an
essay entitled “The What is F-ness
Question”, contemporary philosophy scholar, Hugh Benson, defines this formulaic
approach as the “What is F-ness?” approach. Plato’s formula provides a means of
investigating any classificatory schema or taxonomy, particularly that which
defines a subject matter for investigation. Essentially Plato’s formula takes the
variable “F” to stand for any term descriptive of a range of things, and frames
a question to facilitate investigation and inquiry—“What is ‘F-ness’ that one
can call this or that specific thing ‘F’?”. The “What is F-ness?” approach can,
thus, be applied to questions of ethical valuation, e.g., if “F” stands for the
word “good,” one can ask the question, “What is “good-ness”(as a general
descriptive category) that one can call this or that specific act “good”? With asking this formulaic question, one
begins to think anew the nature of the descriptive classificatory terms or
taxonomical schema one is using to frame the subject matter of one’s cognitive
or intellectual analysis. Thus, one
can take the variable “F” to stand for the term “religion,” or more precisely,
“religious,” to ask a very catalytic question—“What is “religious-ness” that
allows one to classify this or that specific thing or phenomenon
“religious.” Again, this more
philosophical way of framing the “what” of religious studies challenge provides
a useful heuristic, functional in framing a broader primary concern and deriving
potential answers.
This first glance at
the inherent challenge in defining the subject matter of religious studies
itself—the “what” of religious studies—has a catalytic or heuristic
function: for a student embarking
upon this line of inquiry, this catalytic or heuristic function is to induce the
student to start thinking in this mode.
Contemporary individuals use the term “religion” rather haphazardly or
even mis-representatively, reflecting their own parochial attitudes about its
connotation. Even in day-to-day
interchanges, one often hears rather hackneyed statements, such as, “You should
never talk to people about politics or religion” (intimating that any casual
dialogue about these matters could result in volatile or violent
consequences!). The Emmy award
winning journalist and graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,
Bill Moyers, recently wrote in an article called “Democracy in the Balance,”
published in the August 2004 edition of Sojourners magazine that
“Religion has a healing side, but it also has a killing side.” Thus, that which has been categorized as
“religion” or “religious” both historically and contemporarily seems to
re-present an ultimate human concern:
a concern so fundamental and profound that it shapes the way people
experience, perceive, think, and act in their life-worlds—a concern so potent
that it translates into the noblest sentiments and “products” of Homo
sapiens and the most destructive.
Thus, it becomes essential to identify the common denominator in all
things classifiable as “religious” in order to bracket the subject matter in the
service of drawing accurate, precise, and essential hypotheses from this subject
matter, in the ultimate service of understanding the deep psychological, deep
anthropological, deep structural antecedents that shape the thought and behavior
fields of Homo sapiens who is at once also Homo
religiosus.
·
The “How” of Religious
Studies: An Orienting
Introduction
Again, when one embarks on any line of inquiry or examination, one must
soberly and honestly identify how one will examine the subject matter,
pursuant to defining that subject matter.
In terms of religious studies, one must identify how one will examine the
subject matter once the subject matter is bracketed: this can be thought of as the “how” of
religious studies as such. Two
standard terms denoting the “how” of examining any subject matter are
method and methodology.
A method is essentially the way one does something (e.g., one can
prepare a garden plot using an “organic” method; that is, one prepares the plot
by tilling organic material—compost—into the soil). A methodology is the rational
justification or rationale for using a method (e.g., one may rationally justify
using an organic gardening method because one wants to avoid the potential
negative health consequences associated with ingesting the residues of chemical
fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides).
In considering the “how” of religious studies, i.e., the “how” of the
specific line of inquiry called “World Religions,” it becomes essential to
identify the primary and secondary methods and methodologies fundamental to this
line of inquiry. In terms of being
honest about my own method/methodological presumptions and biases (particularly
because as the instructor, I am establishing the normative patterns for
examining the course), I must assert that I have the most affinities with the
method and correlate methodology classified in the history of religious studies
as phenomenology (established as a philosophical method primarily by
19th/20th century German philosopher Edmund Husserl and
applied to religious studies by scholars, such as the twentieth century scholars
Gerardus van der Leeuw and Mircea Eliade).
Phenomenology is a method and correlate methodology, which entails
examining phenomena and deriving hypotheses about these phenomena that represent
or re-present the phenomena accurately without reducing the phenomena to
taxonomical classifications or concept categories that mis-represent through
reduction. A phenomena in
philosophical or religious studies discourse (normative “talk”) is something
that appears: something that enters
into the empirical/observable quantifiable or measurable field. In religious studies, a perceived,
encoded, and communicated experience, a myth (from the Greek muthos,
meaning “sacred story”), a ceremony, a ritual, an iconographic element (a
graphic or visual re-presentation or encoding), a cultus (a group bound
by both a variety of religious consciousness and its correlate normative
practices), etc., are all examples of what could most generally be classified as
“phenomena” for examination.
Phenomenology is the study of phenomena: an examination of a phenomenal subject
matter that defines itself over and against other methods and methodologies in
that the emphasis on letting the phenomena reveal their own patterns and meaning
is paramount.
Within the phenomenological methodology is a concern specifically
relevant or germane to religious studies—i.e., the specific line of inquiry
called “World Religions”: the
avoidance of what can be termed “being reductive”—the avoidance of
reductionism or being reductionistic. Every individual’s sensibilities and
consciousness have been shaped by a particular range of normative
concepts (ideas that shape “normal” experience, perception, and thinking for the
individual): an
intellectual/psychological heritage of sorts comprised of certain root
principles and metaphors constitutive of what is called a gestalt. A gestalt is a term of German
derivation, which connotes “a thought pattern” or pervasive “thought
paradigm” (paradigm is an English term of Greek origins, connoting
“an overarching normative model that determines the perception and cognition of
an individual or group”). Thus, an
individual experiences, perceives, and thinks her/his lifeworld through the
“lens” of a primary gestalt or gestalten (the plural of gestalt).
My own case may be illustrative of
the nature and scope of a gestalt or gestalten in relationship to
the broader methodological concern of avoiding reductionism in religious
studies. In my own life experience,
in terms of my own consciousness that is categorizable as “religious,” my
sensibilities have been shaped by normative Judeo-Christian root metaphors and
concepts—I was acculturated in this religious tradition from my early childhood
development years through my graduate studies years. My religious consciousness, then, is
shaped by a primary Judeo-Christian, generative gestalt or
gestalten. Even when I
examine other gestalten as they are evidenced through the subject matter
of religious studies (that is, constitutive of the broad trans-historical and
trans-cultural—throughout history and across cultures—data set for religious
studies as such and “World Religions” in particular), I most likely “read” the
evidence through the conceptual “lens” or framework of my own primary
gestalt. This tendency
becomes identifiable as reductive or reductionistic when, because of my own
observer context, I tend to reduce subject matter from outside of my own
acculturated sphere to categories or terms that misrepresent the subject matter
in a way that is not accurate to the essential meaning of the term in its own
context. Reductionism is the
quality of or propensity for mis-representing something that is fundamentally
“other” to an observer/thinker.
In the specific line of inquiry
called “World Religions,” then, thinkers must strive diligently to minimize and
even avoid or eschew reductionism.
For example, it may not be appropriate to use the term “god” or the more
Greek/Judeo-Christian notion theos (from which the word “theology” is
derived) when striving to understand and discuss the North American Algonquian
notion encoded in the term transliterated into English as Manitou,
specifically in terms of the traditional-cultural sense of that represented in
the transliterated term. Because of
the nature of human consciousness and cognition—the inevitable closure or
closed-ness of the gestalt or gestalten that govern an
individual’s normative ways of “seeing” the world, a certain degree of
reductive-ness cannot be avoided; however, an awareness of the tendency or
propensity will help to minimize its impeding impact on a more scientific
variety of religious studies. This
anti-reductive-ness or anti-reductionism caveat or warning will hopefully
generate more robust, multi-dimensional re-presentations of the subject matter
more conducive to real understanding of the subject matter.
This anti-reductive-ness or anti-reductionism caveat becomes even more
essential when one considers that in terms of method and methodology, the line
of inquiry that is “World Religions” will include a data set derivative from
multiple cultural contexts in multiple historical epochs as well as multiple
cultural contexts in the contemporary world. The examination of phenomenal data from
multiple cultural contexts in multiple historical contexts involves what is
called a diachronic examination of the subject matter. The examination of phenomenal data from
multiple cultural contexts in the contemporary world (today’s world) is called a
synchronic examination of the subject matter. In the course of “World Religions” both
diachronic and synchronic examinations will constitute the
“state of the art.”
The late Lewis Hopfe and Mark Woodward discuss both the “what” and the
“how” of religious studies in the Religions of the World textbook. The abovementioned challenges, again,
are nothing less than essential challenges one must be ever cognizant of
when embarking upon any empirical-scientific line of inquiry—especially that of
the specific line of inquiry called “World Religions.”