Atheists, Jews, and Mormons--at the head of the class

If you're looking for interesting stuff on religion today, look no further than the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, whose research never fails to provoke, delight, disgust, or confuse. Today the NY Times reported a Pew study on the religious literacy of Americans--3400 Americans, to be specific. Out of 32 quiz questions, Atheists, Jews, and Mormons answered on average 20 correctly, with atheists/agnostics leading the list with an average of 20.9. If you want to take a short version of the quiz, go here.

religious rhetoric in the news

The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury discuss the prospect of a rapprochement between the Catholic and Anglican faiths---another episode in the never-ending dialectic about ecumenicism and schism in the Church started by Martin Luther.

Some Americans think Obama is the Antichrist, and here's why.

Oddly, religious beliefs influence political opinions about sex and reproduction but not immigration and poverty.

Christine O' Donnell, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, loses the Wiccan vote by conflating witchcraft and Satanism.

Oh, and Harlem Christians feel like zebras.

Jonathan Edwards online

For those of you interested in studying Jonathan Edwards further, you'll find his complete works here at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.

Laughing to/from the divine

While reading this article in The New Yorker by Raffi Khatchadourian about the Guru of Giggling, Dr. Madan Kataria, I was reminded of our conversation about the Pentacostal practice of holy laughter. (I think some of you tracked down the YouTube vids.) Khatchadourian writes that

Kataria believes that true mirthful laughter can have a liberating, transformative effect--one that momentarily erases all practical concerns, fears, needs, and even notions of time, and provides a glimpse into spiritual enlightenment. This puts him at odds with the world's major religions, where laughter is rarely celebrated, and where virtue and spiritual self-awareness are usually matters of discipline and solemnity. The Buddha found laughter unbecoming, even, at times, "an offense of wrongdoing." (60)

(Mormons have an injunction against light-mindedness and laughter in Doctrine and Covenants 88: 121. In this context, laughter is at cross-purposes with religious instruction.)

Both laughing yogis and laughing Pentacostals see laughter as a spiritual experience: One group believes that laughter is the pathway to spiritual experience (the laughter yogis) and the other sees laughter as evidence of the indwelling spirit of God. In rhetorical terms, one argues from consequence that laughter brings enlightenment; the other argues from sign (or liaison of coexistence, in Chaim Perelman's language) that laughter is evidence of the divine presence.

Either way, I challenge you to watch the delightful Dr. Kataria without laughing:



Feel enlightened?

Does a burned book argue as well as a read one?

Susan Jacoby on the religion blog at The Washington Post argues that burning sacred books (or any books for that matter) is anti-intellectual, even when it's endorsed by fellow atheists:

Burning books--and yes, ripping out offensive pages--is designed to express contempt, whether the contempt emanates from an individual or a government. It is also an expression of the intellectual bankruptcy of the practicioner [sic]

She sees book-burning as evidence of dialogic laziness. The real rhetorical work of converting believers into unbelievers, in her case, requires claims backed by good reasons; to convert someone you write books, not burn them.

Augustine's blog

Last time in class we talked about how Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and primary force in the conversion of Augustine, argued for using the "Egyptian's gold" for furthering the work of Christianity. The allusion is to Moses' commandment to Israel to take gold, silver, and clothing from the Egyptians as they made their great exodus after Passover (Exodus 12:35-6). The Egyptian gold Ambrose referred to was the intellectual architecture laid out by the Greeks and Romans in philosophy, literature, education, and, of course, rhetoric.

The story has made me think of Mormon apostle Elder M. Russel Ballard's talk at BYU-Hawaii's graduation ceremony in December 2007. Elder Ballard uses the same argument about the Internet and blogging as Augustine uses about eloquence. What parallels do you see?

Definitions of Religion

The Apostle James [1]: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

Friedrich Schleiermacher [1799]: “True religion is sense and taste for the Infinite.”

Karl Marx [1844]: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

E.B. Tylor [1871]: "It seems best. . .simply to claim, as a minimum definition of Religion, the belief in Spiritual Beings."

James Frazer [1890]: “By religion . . . I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of natural and of human life. Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, a theoretical and a practical, namely, a belief in powers higher than man and an attempt to propitiate or please them.”

William James [1902]: “Religion . . . shall mean for us means the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. . . it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.”

Emile Durkheim [1912]: “Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and surrounded by prohibitions—beliefs and practices that unite its adherents in a single moral community called a church.”

Max Weber [1922]: Religious behavior arises with the rise “on the one hand of the idea of the ‘soul,’ and on the other of ideas of ‘gods,’ ‘demons,’ and ‘supernatural powers,’ the ordering of whose relations to men constitutes the realm of religious behavior. . . . Magic is transformed from a direct manipulation of forces into a symbolic activity” directed at a “transcendental being which normally is accessible only through the mediation of symbols and significances, and which consequently is represented as shadowy and even unreal.”

Rudolf Otto [1923]: The core of religion is the numinous, the ineffable, “the emotion of a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures,” our experience with the “mysterium tremendum,” the awful mystery, the “wholly other . . quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible, and familiar,” which experience leads to the “shudder”—a form [of psychical reaction] ennobled beyond measure where the soul, held speechless, trembles inwardly to the farthest fibre of its being.”

Sigmund Freud [1927]: “Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father.”

Paul Tillich [1948]: “The state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of meaning and of our life.”

Mircea Eliade [1957]: “The first possible definition of the sacred is that it is the opposite of the profane.” The sacred is “the manifestation of something of a wholly different, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural ‘profane’ world.”

Peter Berger [1967]: “Religion is the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established. Put differently, religion is cosmization in a sacred mode. By sacred is meant here a quality of mysterious and awesome power, other than man and yet related to him, which is believed to reside in certain objects of experience. . . . Religious legitimation purports to relate the humanly defined reality to ultimate, universal and sacred reality.”

Clifford Geertz [1973]: “Religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”

Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge [1987]: “Religion refers to systems of general compensators based on supernatural assumptions.”

Stephen L. Carter [1993]: “When I refer to religion, I will have in mind a tradition of group worship (as against individual metaphysic) that presupposes the existence of a sentience beyond the human and capable of acting outside of the observed principles and limits of natural science, and further, a tradition that makes demands of some kind on its adherents.”

Dalai Lama [September 11, 2001]: “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

Thomas A. Tweed [2006]: “Religions are confluences of organic-cultural flows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries.”

Charles Taylor [2007]: “‘Religion’ for our purposes can be defined in terms of ‘transcendence’ . . . the sense that there is some good higher than, beyond human flourishing. . . . a possibility of transformation is offered, which takes us beyond merely human perfection. But of course, this notion of a higher good as attainable by us could only make sense in the context of belief in a higher power, the transcendent God of faith.”

Romney's critics & how religion goes public

In a 2009 article for the journal Rhetoric & Public Affairs, communication scholar Martin Medhurst wrote an analysis of Romney's speech from the perspective of his (Romney's) critics. The critics, according to Medhurst, responded in ways that "underscore the five basic issues" that we face when evaluating religion in public life:

(1) Is talk about religion either necessary or desirable in American politics? (2) If such talk is necessary or desirable, what aspects of religion are relevant to the political process and, especially, to the office of President of the United States? (3) Are there some aspects of religion or some uses of religion that are simply inappropriate, and if so, why? (4) How do we reconcile the constitutional issues of free speech and free exercise of religion with the equally constitutional issues of no religious test and no establishment of religion? (5) Can religious and democratic attitudes toward such intangibles as truth, knowledge, virtue, and belief ever be reconciled, and if so, how? (pp. 198-9)

These questions are very useful for discussing religion in the public sphere, and I hope we return to them later in the semester. Keep them on your radar!

Mitt Romney's speech: The precedent

On December 6, 2007, Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts and candidate for president of the United States, delivered a speech meant to place himself firmly in the big tent of American civil religion. Ostensibly the speech was Romney's statement of religious liberty; more likely it was an attempt to get beyond Romney's "comma problem." (Unfortunately, the only source I can find on this issue is Wikipedia.) Romney's aides said that he wanted to address his "comma problem": that every time the press mentioned his name it was followed by this appositive, "(comma) who is Mormon (comma)."

Romney's speech has been compared, both favorably and unfavorably, with John F. Kennedy's speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960. Here's the speech in its entirety:



And here is the clip in which Romney defends his faith and, like Kennedy, argues that if elected his faith would not influence his decisions:



What is the rhetorical purpose of the two speeches? What is the audience? Who are they trying to convince, and what strategies do they rely on to convince them? How do these speeches provide more evidence of Beal's dyad of hospitality and security? If a Muslim ever ran for president, say 50 years from now, would he/she have to give a similar speech? Is this, then, a genre of religious rhetoric, a reliable strategy to a recurring rhetorical situation?

Pastor wants to burn Koran on 9/11

Terry Jones, pastor of the (ironically-named?) Dove World Outreach Church in Gainsville, FL., has called for a "Burn a Koran Day" to send a "message of warning" to radical international Islamists. Watch this CNN clip as he tries to wiggle out from under the Beatitudes. He seems not to be thinking carefully about how his intended audience will respond; General David Patraeus has thought about it, though, and he's nervous. We can easily imagine as well the response of unintended audiences--everyday American muslims--who will be reasonably deeply offended.

Public opinion and the Manhattan mosque

On Wednesday, BYU's Daily Universe ran a letter to the editor written by William Sheppard, a student from New York City. Sheppard made a fascinating argument about the Manhattan mosque controversy using a spatial/proximity topos. After telling us that he grew up eight miles from Ground Zero, he argued that

"My opinion and its eight miles should carry much more weight than the 900 miles between [Newt] Gingrich and this mosque, or [Harry] Reid’s 2,565 miles and especially [Sarah] Palin’s 4,336 miles."

According to this reasoning, public opinion--like exposure to radiation--should intensify or diminish relative to the distance from the business.

So what do the folks at the issue's Ground Zero think about the (two blocks from) Ground Zero mosque?

The NY Times polled New York City residents about the proposed community center and mosque and discovered that two-thirds of the residents would rather it was constructed elsewhere, even while they support the building in principle. I thought this bit of data was particularly provocative:

"Sentiments about the center appear to be heavily shaped by personal background and experiences. Those who have visited mosques or have close Muslim friends are more likely to support the center than those who have few interactions with Islam."

From a rhetorical standpoint, the "few interactions" describes the weakness of gauging public opinion from public opinion polls. (You're at the dinner table, a drumstick of fried chicken in your hand, when the phone rings. The person on the other side asks, "Do you support the building of a mosque at Ground Zero?") The end of public discourse ought to be judgment--in other words, an intelligent, ethical answer to the question, "What should we do?" We cannot come to such judgment, according to publics theorists, without what Hauser calls "vernacular" deliberation, the kind of back and forthness in which different perspectives have a chance to brush up against each other in a contest of good reasons.

What would such a deliberation look like in respect to the building of a mosque near the gravesite of over 3,000 victims of Islamist extremism?

the semantics of social justice

Social gospeler Jim Wallis writes another open letter to Glenn Beck, inviting him to have a dialogue about social justice, a term Beck equates with socialism. Earlier in the year, Beck held up a swastika and the hammer and sickle of the Communist party and asked his viewers what the two ideologies had in common. His answer: social justice.

Beck calls social justice a perversion of the gospel; Wallis calls it the essence of the gospel. The rest of us search in vain for the term in the Bible, so we're left making our own assumptions about what the word is meant to invoke and evoke in the context of Christian belief. It seems conflating social justice with totalitarianism is an appeal to ignorance meant to evoke powerful emotions innocent of the way Wallis, the Catholics, or other religious groups use the term "social justice" in practice.

Debating the religious status of the dead

Another episode in the ongoing discussion between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Jewish leaders about the practice of proxy baptizing Holocaust victims.

A working definition of religious rhetoric

Let me go out on a limb and suggest a working definition of religious rhetoric: “Religious rhetoric is persuasive language to or about the supernatural that takes as its base assumption the existence of the supernatural.” If it does not assume the supernatural but is nevertheless about religion, it is rhetoric about religion--not religious rhetoric. If we say “Brian is religious” we mean Brian has cultural practices that assume a supernatural power; if we say “this rhetoric is religious,” we mean something similar.

This definition needs more flesh than I have time to give it right now. First, I need to defend the way I define religion itself: belief in supernatural beings, forces, or powers. This definition, for example, would make it impossible to identify as a religion marxism or capitalism or baseball or a number of other human endeavors often called, sloppily I think, religions.

Second, I need to explain more of what I mean by "persuasion," since I believe the very architecture of a mosque, church, synagogue, temple, prayer room, or other religious building constitutes a rhetorical strategy designed to invoke a particular experience in those who enter and worship in them.

In other words, by defining American religious rhetoric, I have opened, rather than closed, an important semantic debate. I hope others will participate with me in defining our terms. (A wiki might be better, eh?)

Kill the Mosque

We talked about this video in class on Wednesday. We noticed that from the very beginning, this Political Action Committee seeks to scapegoat all Muslims for international terrorism. At the same time, we noticed the allusion to President Obama's autobiography, thereby tying Obama to Islam. (Ben Tingey mentioned the Pew Forum study that shows how more Americans believe Obama is Muslim than did 18 months ago.) The music, too, creates a juxtaposition: the Muslim call to prayer is underlined with an ominous echo drum, while patriotic images are accompanied by bagpipes playing Amazing Grace, a classical Protestant hymn often played/sung at funerals.