Religion Notes

! Religion Dr Matthew Grimley ! Diversity of the meaning of being religious ~ Means different things according to place, culture and class ~ Differs within religions ~ Outward conformity and subscription to doctrines ~ Some allow conversion -- others restrict membership to a particular group ~ Individual piety ~ Collective worship ~ Individual priest v. collective equality ! 50 years ago -- Church History or Ecclesiastical History ~ History of the Christian Church ! Religious History is now something much broader than that -- comparative religion ~ Mass migration after WW2 -- much more aware of other religious traditions ! Move away from institutions towards a more individual experience ~ Movement towards religion from below -- social history ~ Ordinary religious experience Link with other disciplines e.g. gender -- female piety ! ! Global modern events can make people think about the intersection between religion and politics ! Move away from materialist explanations towards thinking about the importance of ideas ~ Revival of intellectual history -- history of ideas ! Desire to reconstruct the mental world of believers ~ Can be very difficult Cannot infer religious commitment from church attendance statistics ! ! Difficult connection between external and internal ! Can find out what public authorities say about what people believed -- yet they have their own agendas ~ Victorian parson would often denounce the godlessness of society -- overemphasising heterodoxy? ! Problem about the types of question that people are asking ~ Charles Booth found quite high levels of irreligion -- yet he only really talks to men about religious experience ! Some historians have tried to use oral history to ascertain what people believe ~ Have to carefully ask questions -- may impose own categories and answers upon the interviewee ~ Belief is a private issue ~ May say what they think you want to hear ! Can read between the lines e.g. words used in wills ~ Yet language may be purely formulaic and we do not know who drafted documents ~ Tell us more about individual belief or official ones of lawyer or parson Can look at records for prosecution of heresy ! ~ Judges may be imposing their own categories ~ May not be typical ! Other forms of source -- material culture such as devotional works, religious art, statues, amulets etc. ! Influence of anthropology -- can look at ritual ~ Public rituals such as pilgrimages, saints cults etc. ~ Private such as prayers ! ! Trying to explain why people are religious is very complicated ! ! ! ! ! ! ~ Conformity ~ Upbringing ~ Solace ~ Life after death ~ Religious experience Cannot be mono--causal -- this is where Marxism is deficient Have to allow for the human propensity to believe contradictory things at the same time ~ 1871 Paris Commune -- revolutionary said he was an atheist but believed in the Virgin Mary -- attempted to recover mentalities of 16th and 17th century people ~ Found 5 types -- yet these may overlap and others may not fit in them at all Have been influenced by power ~ Complexity of religious power relationships By stigmatising some forms of religion as deviant some groups have become scapegoats ~ Witchcraft ~ Minorities ~ Moore -- heresy was an invention of the medieval church as a means of cementing its authority ~ Yet this does not mean that there were not some heretics who defined themselves as such -- fault in Moore's argument British categorised Hinduism in 19th century India ! It is not just elites who can derive power from religion ! Women in 19th century Europe who saw visions e.g. Marpingen, sisters of Fatima and Bernadette of Lourdes ~ Marginal and poor women see visions and acquire power -- issue for Catholic clerical authorities ! Subversive phenomenon ~ Threat to a male clerical hierarchy ~ Claiming to be mediators with God -- removing the need for clergy? ! In most cases they try to give official sanction and bring the cult under their authority ! Complex power relationship in religion -- not just the authorities ! Medieval saints cults -- in some cases the Catholic Church had no choice but to accept them ! 2 way power relationship can also be seen in the colonial context ~ Missionaries projected their own religions on those people they were trying to convert -- can change elements of Christianity e.g. ancestry worship can lead to emphasis on saints' cults ~ Might play down other doctrines -- in parts of Africa they may give less emphasis to monogamy ! Religions are not monolithic -- are not unchanging  ! ~ Can be changed by other circumstances Labelling religion ! Linguistic turn -- think more carefully about the language that we are using ! Language such as heresy, superstition and religion -- what do these categories mean? ! Reynolds -- 'words like superstition and sorcery belong to polemic rather than analysis' ! Williams -- argues that you cannot talk about superstition ~ Must think about popular and folk religion as part of religion ~ Superstition can also be part of a tradition ! Need to avoid pigeonholes ! Another issue is that of binary opposition or artificial periodisation ~ Issue of temporal chunks e.g. the Reformation, the Enlightenment Enlightenment -- contested idea of explosion of religious heterodoxy ! ~ Are different enlightenments that do not involve renunciation of traditions ! MacCulloch -- cannot have binary distinction between the Reformation and the Counter Reformation ~ Better to think of the Reformation as religious reform in many different religious traditions ! Another false distinction is between pre--industrial societies as religious and industrial, modern societies as irreligious ~ Long tradition of irreligion in rural areas prior to industrialisation ~ Religion can survive in urban areas after industrialisation ~ McLeod -- cannot generalise about cities ~ Obelkevich -- in Lincolnshire people have not been going to church for centuries ! ! Other labels such as reform movements, tolerance, heresy, fundamentalism, millenarianism etc. ~ Can mean very different things ~ Conversion can be individual or widespread, voluntary or forced, long--term or short term ~ Tolerance -- rough tolerance in agreement not to have violence or more formalised ideas of toleration as seen in places such as the Dutch Republic ! Must be careful not to impose religious explanations from one religion onto another ~ Fundamentalism is specifically used to describe certain forms of 19th century Protestant religion, particularly in America ~ Being a Muslim fundamentalist is different -- emphasis on other aspects ! Part of the process of making historical comparisons is discerning whether we are talking about the same phenomenon over different periods or whether the words mean different things ! ! Religious history has been transformed in recent years -- subjectivity, selcood, gender, theories of power, linguistic turn etc. ! Should not think about religion using blocks and inappropriate categories Gender and Religion Lecture ! ! Much work done in the last 30 years ! Women are often seen as utterly repressed by religion -- patriarchal system *> Eve and original sin There is a fundamentally paradoxical relationship between women and religion ! *> Spiritual messages in religion -- saints and God's love => women have often found these messages very empowering ! Spiritual equality which a supernatural recognises ! ! Physicality or materiality ! Written sources are thought to be supreme ! Yet in most societies, cultures were semi--literate or pre--literate -- yet visually and orally could be very sophisticated *> Mind and body -- Cartesian dualism - Did not exist for people -- we must think about religious systems where these two were integrated Wholeness -- relationship between the material and the spiritual ! ! ! Holy Feast and Holy Fast -- C. W. Bynum *> *> *> *> ! ! ! ! ! ! Has also published on the material world Examines Catherine of Siena -- died at 33 => same age as Jesus Entered a nunnery -- visions and spiritual experiences Entered politics -- trying to stop war - Time when there is a large schism in the papacy *> Largely failed attempts to intervene in the male world of religion and politics *> Status -- public, extreme self--mortification *> From 16 she only ate water, bread and raw vegetables *> Tales about her care for the poor *> Most venerated woman of her day Holy Anorexia -- R. M. Bell *> Attempt to render her body sacred Is it right to reduce this experience to this? Must reinterpret late medieval asceticism St Francis' Stigmata -- famous display of self--mortification *> Seen as the holiest people *> Unusual for St Francis -- usually a female manifestation Eucharistic cults Catherine of Siena was seen as a mother -- food miracles ! ! Oedipus and the Devil -- Lyndal Roper ! Discourse theory -- through language you can find out most of the things you need to know about the past *> Roper rejects this ! Concentration on civic life, processions and religious life -- concentrates on communities and groups as this 'other' *> Collective ideas ! Need to think about how these rituals + influence are created by individuals, how they ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! reflect cultural and social norms and where the body is situated in this The body was very important -- subjectivities *> How the person feels about who they are -- how they experience reality Physicality is not just socially constructed -- interaction between body and society *> Not detached from our body Relationship of all these concerns to sexual difference -- yet gender should not be seen as something that is utterly socially constructed or through language => importance of the body Reformation put these issues at its centre *> Opened monasteries -- encouraged women to marry => holy households - Spiritual beings in the practical aspects of life *> New kind of holiness -- not chastity Looked at how bodily and psychic phenomena were interrelated -- fantasy and the conscience Interpersonal and cultural dynamics of witchcraft accusations Work on childbirth and lying--in chamber *> Acknowledged by society as being in between being pregnant and being reintegrated into society through churching *> Women were anxious for the welfare of their offspring -- world where babies often died *> Older women are often accused of destroying their children - Nowadays this is called post--natal depression *> Lying--in maids become hags/witches -- motive of envy - Community support such accusations => investigate for witchcraft Even investigated by theologians and public officials -- they also believe in witchcraft *> Elaborate stories of demonic activity -- redeemed through confession => shows that they feel pain - They will still be burnt Reveal the worst fears and irrational fantasies of the individual and collective psychology ! ! Miracles and apparitions at Lourdes ! How in the growing secularisation of the 17th century do you have the emergence of this major spiritual site? ! Bernadette sees the Virgin Mary -- she feels no pain ! Lourdes becomes a way to manifest one's intense believe ! France -- radical priests bring sick people to Lourdes => against scientific revolution *> Faith, not science -- even though there is a large risk of becoming infected *> Struggle between science and religion ! ! High number of women involved in religious experiences ! Deeply believe in the hierarchy of the Church ! Are they subjugated? *> Feel reborn in the Eucharist -- personal connection with the divine ! Lourdes water -- exorcism or labour => reject illness *> Many of these women are cured ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Gandhi -- spiritual politics and anti--colonialism Jainism -- absolute need not to destroy life => non--violent principle People come to see him -- in a loincloth sitting at a spinning wheel Renaissance of Indian values and culture Focus on self--discipline Similar asceticism to Catherine of Siena *> 21 day fast Devotion to the charka -- homespun textiles *> Woman's activity -- showed his humility => kind of discipline He was not humanitarian -- did not care that people died => wanted them to become moral agents *> Told Jews in Nazi Germany to go into the streets and be massacred -- more important than saving their lives => would inspire others to passive resistance Gandhi admired Mussolini and wrote personally to Hitler -- both enemies of the British Empire *> Trying to convert Hitler to stop being so violent -- yet still sees himself as being in common with him Gandhi -- appearance made a point of the extreme difference between Western powers militancy and the mildness of the Middle East *> Not unmasculine -- was emphasising spiritual strength Religion: Illusions and liberation -- Denys Turner ! ! Marx (1975) -- 'Religion . . . is the opium of the people' ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! *> Supposed to embody his unremitting hostility to religion Religion is the 'illusory happiness of the people' *> For 'religious suffering is the expression of real suffering' *> Why do people flee to religious illusions? - 'To call on [the people] to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions' Why do people need illusions at all? Religion has a basis in reality Propaganda and ruling classes cannot explain the pervasiveness of religion among the oppressed classes *> Must look at their needs Was a thoroughgoing atheist -- saw religious belief claims as false *> World history is created by man through human labour *> 'the question of an alien being, a being above nature and man . . . had become impossible in practice' Marx as the atheist v. socialist critic of religion in its role under capitalism *> Religious belief claims are false v. assertion that religious phenomenon as a whole is ideological -- not the same assertions Religion expresses real needs yet also misconstrues them Analogy of opium -- shows needs of the taker yet merely offers an alternative experience *> Does not experience the world in a distorted fashion Believer is still part of the real world -- through the prism of belief in a false world Recursiveness -- religious distortion of the world feeds back into social relationships *> Religion is a lived false consciousness ! ! Discourse may be coherent in itself -- issue of the context of its utterance ! Position in which one speaks -- interplay of text and context ! ! ! ! ! *> What if the speaker is aware of this? => further manipulative context Marx and Engels -- Christianity in all its forms is alienating and ideological Thomas Muntzer -- communist of biblical inspiration *> Engels -- 'a communist by fantasy' => argued that Muntzer's radical political program was merely utopian - Based on Christianity rather than being rooted in concrete possibilities of revolution - Pure moral idealism - Theologically inspired idealism -- could only prevail through violent imposition => inevitably degenerated Marx -- 'The Peasant War, the most radical episode in German history, suffered defeat because of theology' Christianity is always alienating -- destiny under control of forces other than those purely human ! Religion can be positive in the revolutionary process -- at least provides a form of criticism of prevailing conditions *> Engels -- Muntzer at least enabled peasants to envisage alternatives 

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