Contemporary Theories of Religion

A Critical Companion

Michael Stausberg, Michael Stausberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781134041473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Interest in theories of religion has never been greater. Scholars debate single theoretical approaches in different scholarly journals, while the 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett criticize the whole idea of religion. For everyone eager to understand the current state of the field, Contemporary Theories of Religion surveys the neglected landscape in its totality.

Michael Stausberg brings together leading scholars of the field to review and discuss seventeen contemporary theories of religion. As well as scholars of religion, it features anthropologists, archaeologists, classicists, evolutionary biologists, philosophers and sociologists. Each chapter provides students with background information on the theoretician, a presentation of the theory's basic principles, an analysis of basic assumptions, and a review of previous critiques. Concluding with a section entitled 'Back and Forth', Stausberg compares the different theories and points to further avenues of discussion for the future.

1
There is life in the old dog yet

An introduction to contemporary theories of religion

Michael Stausberg

The early modern humanist recovery of ancient worlds and overseas expansion, later radicalized in colonialism, created an explosion in the amount of information available to European audiences. Transforming that information into knowledge was an effective way of dealing with it, since knowledge potentially establishes control and thereby grants power over what is known. The relationship between information (facts, data) and knowledge is a complex one. Information is generated and selected by means of prior knowledge and expectations. New information, however, may lead to a change in previously accepted knowledge and generate new expectations.

The incipient study of religion(s) tried to account for the massive influx of information on religious phenomena around the world by such means as interpretation, classification, typologies, and historical genealogies. Generality is a feature of scientific knowledge (see Chalmers 1990: 26–9), and, since its beginnings, the academic study of religion(s) sought to make statements about religion(s) in general, addressing such questions as:

• Can and ought religions be ranked, and if so, according to which scale of values?
• Do religions change? If so, do they change according to any regular principles we might discover, such as evolution or degeneration?
• Do religions change in terms of their own internal dynamics, or do they change in terms of their relations to other cultural systems or religions – say, by imitation or direct opposition? (Strenski 2003: 177 [based on Tylor, Frazer, and Müller])

Any attempt to address such questions obviously requires empirical data. However, the questions themselves are theoretical. Although the study of religion(s) appears to be characterized by an aversion to theory,¹ it cannot avoid an intricate interplay of data and theory. The ‘raw’ data become ‘theory-laden as soon as they are placed on the table’ (Engler 2004: 299). The table manners are the methods engaged in research, and the cutlery used at this table is the conceptual apparatus of the trade. Theory in religious studies, in this basal sense, refers to ‘the myriad conceptual tools used to “see” religion’ (Deal and Beal 2004: xi). Observing, describing, interpreting and accounting for anything in terms of its being ‘a religion’ posits the category of religion; this category is invariably informed (‘laden’) by a theory of what can be communicated as ‘religion’. The discussion about what exactly, in the academic study (or science) of religion(s), can be legitimately communicated as ‘religion’ raises questions of definition and theory of religion. These questions have been on the table since the beginnings of the modern academic study of religion(s). Sometimes they have been its main course, sometimes a side dish, a starter, or dessert. And on occasion they were relegated to the wine list or served as an aperitif. Where the question of definition is routinely rehearsed, theory is clearly perceived as being less savoury. This volume tries to give it a more central place on the table. On the menu are not the myriad tools, but the ‘real thing’: theories of religion. At this point, the reader may wonder: what is a theory?

Theories of theory

The meaning of the very word ‘theory’ is not theory-free. In fact, there are several competing ideas, if not theories, on theory in the philosophy of science. In the social sciences, ‘there has been a perennial debate about what theory actually is or entails’ (Turner 2000: 6). This is less so in religious studies, but theorizing about religion is necessarily entrenched in that problematic.

There are different ideas and practices of theory in different sciences and disciplines. More often than not, the ideal of theory is derived from popular ideas of physics, which for many seems to incarnate the idea of science par excellence. Physics has served as the model for much theory of science, and physical theories as the epitome of theory. But physics does not represent all of natural science; nor do theories in physics, such as gravitational theory, exhaust the notion of theory in the natural sciences. Biology, which has recently been called ‘a science of specific solutions’ (North 2003: R719),² presents a very different picture,³ and the theory of evolution, with its theorem of natural selection, to take one example, presents other kinds of challenges, given that the process conceptualized by the theory at the same time generates ever-changing environments, resulting in a much greater degree of complexity to be accounted for in the models developed by theorizing.⁴ In the social sciences one also finds different notions of theory,⁵ including critical metatheory, i.e. theorizing the implications of theory, or even anti-theory (see below). While there is theory in all sciences and branches of scholarship, in the US ‘Theory’ (with a capital T!) commonly refers to literary theory,⁶ even though hardly any scientists or philosophers would recognize ‘what is done, said, published under the name of “theory” in some American departments of literature’ as either science in a scientific sense or theory in a philosophical sense (Derrida 1994: 81).

It is obvious, but nevertheless worth recalling, that theories are invariably situated in intellectual, institutional, ideological, and political contexts. They are social facts as much as their objects or subject matter (see Jensen 2003: 298), and as social facts they are public and coercive in that they ‘are also responsible for the way we think’ (Jensen 2003: 301). Moreover, since minds make sense by creating stories and narratives (Turner 1996), most theories and explanations/interpretations, at least in the humanities, are also narrative structures. Finally, theories operate with metaphors and rhetorical tropes that give them specific twists (see Tweed 2006: 46). Likewise, theorists are situated in specific contexts; they cannot assume an omniperspective position (Tweed 2006: 13–20).

Four main questions for theories of religion

While religions are the subject matter of theories of religion, religion is their theoretical object. In order to give a full account of their object, theories of religion⁷ can be reasonably expected to address the following four interrelated main questions that I will here briefly comment on, partly in order to dispel some common misconceptions.

1. The specificity of religion(s)

Any theory of religion is expected to determine whether there is anything special about religion, something unique to religion. Other terms that are invoked in order to address this question are the content, components, typical or regular features of religion. Only if religion can be said to have or to be identified with any specific properties, to possess its own regularities, or to be communicated as a specific code, can one be sure to be able to recognize religion in observation, unless one makes it a point to analyze only instances of religion identified by social actors as ‘religion’⁸ (much as art historians would analyze only products that are explicitly referred to as ‘art’ by the respective audience).

The question addresses the specific and specifiable ways religion is and works as distinct from, or as compared to, other ‘systems’, ‘domains’, ‘spheres’, ‘forms’, ‘constructs’, ‘classes’, ‘figures’ or ‘maps’. Speaking of specific properties of religion or conditions for identifying something as ‘religion’ does not necessarily imply that religion is a separate and timeless entity. Even on the level of public and private ascriptions to a culturally postulated and constructed realm of ‘religion’, regularities of ascriptions determining what counts as religion can be observed (Beckford 2003). These are then culture- and time-bound discursive properties.

In earlier theorizing the problem of specific properties of or conditions for identifying religion was addressed under the guise of the sui generis character of religion.⁹ This, I believe, has resulted in an unnecessary confusion. To begin with, to posit the uniqueness of religion, its sui generis character, does not a priori preclude reductionist, naturalist, realist, or constructionist positions (see Engler 2004: 308). Moreover, it is one thing to say that religion is peculiar and quite another to say that religion is a ‘thing’ or fact totally apart, as it were an insular phenomenon. While the latter interpretation would preclude religion’s having any interface with other ‘systems’, ‘domains’, or social facts such as society or economy (which are likewise human and conceptual constructions), possible effects of religion on these ‘spheres’ can only be conceptualized if religion is taken to operate as religion, as an independent variable (see Segal 2005: 52).

Another key term in the debate on this issue is essentialism, which, since postmodernism, is commonly regarded as a bad thing. One way to avoid essentialism is to talk about typical features (Saler 2008). Among these features some may well be more relevant for the identification of the categories in question than others. As long as one recalls that the regularities observed and attributed by the scholars (i.e. second-order observations) are strategic and epistemological conceptualizations relative to classification and are not grounded in ontological or timeless metaphysical assumptions, one may not need to give up the quest for regular features. It may legitimately be considered that there are possibly not only typical but also characteristic features or regularities, though these are defined from a given position, and that there may be not only sufficient, but also necessary conditions – necessary for various purposes and in various contexts.

If there are good arguments that there cannot be any specific properties of religion, no specifiable conditions for identifying religion, theorizing religion can stop at this point. This could in itself be the result of theoretical work and cannot be verified in a purely empirical manner. This would then amount to a negative theory of religion.

2. The origins of religion(s)

Essences are often conceived of as being determined by ontological–meta-physical origins. While this line of thinking may be characteristic of religious discourses, this is not how these terms tend to be conceptualized in theories of religion. ‘Origin’ as understood here refers to an emerging quality, or a mechanism, which makes the specifiable conditions come to the fore. Origin in this sense is historically indeterminate – religion can emerge (originate) at any time, provided certain conditions are met. These conditions need to be specified by a theory. Origin-talk points to the factors that contribute to establish the regularities of religion observed, interpreted, explained or redescribed by scholars.

Origin therefore needs to be distinguished from ‘beginnings’. The latter category refers to the determinate period(s) in (evolutionary) history, when religion first can be said to be documented. In many cases, the quest for the origin of religion is conceptualized in terms of establishing its beginnings. I find this problematic, because this presupposes a definition of the origins and the regularities. One cannot define when a fact has been established without knowing what the fact is like and how it can possibly arise in the first place.

Nor should the emerging origin of religion be confused with the historical genealogy of the category ‘religion’. While the latter is irrelevant to the former,¹⁰ the latter is not irrelevant as such, since it could ...