Body, society, and subjectivity in religious studies

Attention to bodies has transformed the study of religion in the past thirty years, aiding the effort to overcome the discipline's Protestant biases by shifting interest from beliefs to practices. And yet much of this work has unwittingly perpetuated an individualist notion of the religious subject. Although religionists are now well aware that bodies cannot be studied apart from the social forces that shape them, all too often the religious subject stands alone in a crowd, participating in communal rituals, subject to religious authorities and disciplinary practices, but oddly detached from intimate relationships. In this article, I first argue that the turn to the body was motivated by what it appeared to reject: theoretical questions about subjectivity. I then seek to challenge prevailing trends by arguing that these same theoretical insights should now prod us to attend to the import of intimacy and personal relationships.     

Religion and Mestrovic's postemotional society: The manufacturing of religious emotion

Work on the social theory of emotion has been growing in the last decade, but few have considered how these studies relate to the field of religion. This article is a detailed critical examination of the work of the Croatian‐American sociologist Stjepan Mestrovic and his idea of ‘postemotionalism’. It is an exploration of the implications of his work for understanding contemporary manifestations of religion. It first unfolds the context of Mestrovic's work on postemotionalism and then explores the development and meaning of the term. It follows a series of tensions in the concept between spontaneous and produced emotion and seeks to show how postemotionalism fails to consider adequately religious history, which has continually involved the process of repackaging ‘past emotions’. Despite these difficulties, Mestrovic's idea of postemotionalism is seen to provide not only a way to rethink emotion and rationality in religion, but a way of re-conceptualising so-called ‘individual’ religious emotion as part of wider political constructions developed through late capitalistic markets and the technology of mass media. Mestrovic's lack of concern with religion is considered, and the work of the French sociologist of religion Danie` le Hervieu-Le ger on ‘chain memory’ is introduced as a way of illuminating questions of religious tradition, memory and emotion in Mestrovic's work. The final section of the paper considers the ‘revivalist’ developments of Celtic Spirituality as an example of the micro-politics of postemotional religion.     

Ubuntu and the modern society

The incompatibility school of thought maintains that ubuntu is incompatible with modern society’s politico-juridical order and neoliberal economic system that promotes individualism and unequal distribution of wealth in the context of economic marginalisation and severe impoverishment of the black African majority. Furthermore, the postcolonial state tends to undermine the common good of society. The pro-ubuntu camp maintains that ubuntu is relevant as a normative ethical concept and as the underlying moral framework of reconciliatory politics of South Africa’s rainbow nation. I will show that the limitation of ubuntu due to its application in the framework of liberal constitutional democracy and neoliberal “global institutional order” that serve the interests of global capital and at the same time undermine the economic interests of impoverished black Africans requires ubuntu normative ethical theory to establish an understanding of a rearrangement of the “global institutional order” in a way which fits ubuntu. This work is novel as I appropriate Metz’s understanding of ubuntu as a normative ethical theory to show the importance and the nature of the realignment of the “global institutional order” to ubuntu in a way which promotes the common good of the global community of human beings.     

Mass denial in modern society

Abstract

Denial in society is discussed with reference to the media's use of language, and application is made of Breznitz's (1983) model of denial. Particular reference is made to the media reporting of crime and the public reactions to BSE and the ensuing beef crisis. Denial is seen as serving as a protection against anxiety over external threats, and against fears of one's own natural impulse to wish death on others. Denial might serve a useful purpose to protect the individual from unnecessary stress, but can possibly lead to a kind of madness in society.     

The modern confessional: Anglo-American religious groups and the emergence of lay psychotherapy

This article reconceives of secularization as a gradual process of increasing interaction between the (social) scientific and spiritual realms by examining the influence of Christian ideas of group confession on lay psychotherapeutic groups in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. in the early twentieth century. This article focuses on three religious group leaders of the interwar period: Frank Buchman (1878-1961), Gerald Heard (1889-1971), and Henry Burton Sharman (1865-1953). Influenced by Natural Theology and the holiness movement, they placed sin and its redemption within the world, reconceiving it as psychological individualism and its redemption as self-sacrifice to the group. This reconception endorsed the moral power of groups and influenced Alcoholics Anonymous and various groups within the Human Potential Movement.     

Religion and Mestrovic's postemotional society: the manufacturing of religious emotion

Work on the social theory of emotion has been growing in the last decade, but few have considered how these studies relate to the field of religion. This article is a detailed critical examination of the work of the Croatian–American sociologist Stjepan Mestrovic and his idea of ‘postemotionalism’. It is an exploration of the implications of his work for understanding contemporary manifestations of religion. It first unfolds the context of Mestrovic's work on postemotionalism and then explores the development and meaning of the term. It follows a series of tensions in the concept between spontaneous and produced emotion and seeks to show how postemotionalism fails to consider adequately religious history, which has continually involved the process of repackaging ‘past emotions’. Despite these difficulties, Mestrovic's idea of postemotionalism is seen to provide not only a way to rethink emotion and rationality in religion, but a way of re-conceptualising so-called ‘individual’ religious emotion as part of wider political constructions developed through late capitalistic markets and the technology of mass media. Mestrovic's lack of concern with religion is considered, and the work of the French sociologist of religion Danièle Hervieu-Léger on ‘chain memory’ is introduced as a way of illuminating questions of religious tradition, memory and emotion in Mestrovic's work. The final section of the paper considers the ‘revivalist’ developments of Celtic Spirituality as an example of the micro-politics of postemotional religion.     

Socialization for the democratic personality in modern society

A comprehensive analysis of socialization requires a complex model that both explicates and synthesizes the various subprocesses involved in this phenomenon. Traditional concerns with socialization that have focused almost exclusively on its objective functions, that is, on those which serve society and its institutions, need to be complemented by an equal emphasis on subjective functions in terms of the sociological and psychological development of the individual. Chiefly relevant in this latter respect is the production of basic human needs and the consequences that result from their inadequate gratification in unauthentic and/or unresponsive societies. One such outcome that is particularly crucial to both personal and societal function is that of alienation, which can be assessed specifically in terms of its significance for civic participation. Our model recognizes the limits of both human systems and social systems; and, in terms of the principles of authenticity and responsivity, it articulates the linkage among these systems constituting the essence of socialization. Our model also provides an implicit clarification of the nature and meaning of citizenship in a democracy, which by definition should be a responsive society, and delineates the required sociopsychological images for maximizing the role of political participation.     

Part One: the hermeneutics of modern religious education

Hermeneutical reflection on the nature, process, and scope of understanding tends to flourish whenever standard procedures of interpretation begin to falter. The contemporary study of religion is a case in point: conflicting results reflect a lack of consensus regarding appropriate methods of investigation. As a result, hermeneutics enjoys an increasingly significant role in religious and theological exploration. The discipline of religious education, despite constant wrestling with the ambiguity of religion, has not followed suit: it possesses no developed and sustained tradition of hermeneutical deliberation. This attempt to open up hermeneutical debate within the field of religious education begins by identifying romanticism, post‐modernism and critical realism as three key perspectives within contemporary hermeneutical theory (Bleicher, 1982; Jeanrond, 1994; Mueller‐Vollmer, 1986; Palmer, 1969; Thiselton, 1980, 1992). This article offers an account of the hermeneutics implicit in religious education from 1960 to the present, arguing that the subject has—at considerable cost to its integrity—drawn uncritically on the traditions of romanticism and post‐modernism. A second article will propose a critical theory for religious education rooted in the hermeneutics of critical realism.     

Happiness in modern society: Why intelligence and ethnic composition matter

Recent developments in evolutionary psychology suggest that living among others of the same ethnicity might make individuals happier and further that such an effect of the ethnic composition on life satisfaction may be stronger among less intelligent individuals. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health showed that White Americans had significantly greater life satisfaction than all other ethnic groups in the US and this was largely due to the fact that they were the majority ethnic group; minority Americans who lived in counties where they were the numerical majority had just as much life satisfaction as White Americans did. Further, the association between ethnic composition and life satisfaction was significantly stronger among less intelligent individuals. The results suggest two important factors underlying life satisfaction and highlight the utility of integrating happiness research and evolutionary psychology.     

在公共生活与私人生活之间:传统伦理的现代境遇

In terms of life space, individuals are usually settled in different spaces according to relationships of blood, geography, and profession. In pre-modern societies, ethics were realized through customs, conventions, taboos, magical practices, and politics. Because this was not an open process in which rationality was sufficiently employed, non-reflectiveness and non-criticality were its essence, and intuitions and feelings were its basic modes of existence. In modern societies, the logic of capital movement settles groups of people according to their economic dependence, and interactions based on individuals’ desires and self-serving calculations have become widespread and frequent. A space for public interaction and life in which rationality is sufficiently employed and rational bases of the rules are constantly questioned thus finally came into being. Families and villages lost their centrality, resulting in a crisis of private interactions and life, and of its system of norms. __________ Translated by Liu Huawei from Zhongguo renmin daxue xuebao 中国人民大学学报 (Journal of Renmin University of China), 2008, (1): 78–85     

Age and sex-related differences in threat perception in a modern urban society

A sample of 1,200 urban Israelis were tested on their perception of threatening situations in everyday life by means of a questionnaire portraying typical scenarios incorporating the variables physical threat, loss of property, and territorial invasion. Significant differences were found with regard to the age and sex of the respondents in their perception of what constituted an anxiety-provoking situation. Both young and old men and women perceived overt physical threat in public as being the most hazardous scenario. Men and women between the ages of 20 and 39 differed significantly in their perceptions of threat. Women perceived potential rape situations as being the most hazardous, whereas the corresponding variable for a high percentage of the men was loss of property. Both men and women in this age group, however, regarded invasion of personal living space while they were present and unaware as being highly anxiety provoking. The findings are discussed and biological differences in human perception of what constitutes a threatening situation postulated.     

Existential and religious issues when admitted to hospital in a secular society: Patterns of change

Situated in a secular culture, this study examined the relationship between four dimensions of health and a number of existential, religious, and spiritual/religious practice variables in questionnaires sampled from 480 Danish hospital patients. Illness dimensions were: self-rated health, severity of illness, illness duration, and recent changes in illness. The results indicated the youngest age group (<36 years) to be the most active on all existence/religious/practice variables. Small overall correlations were found between the illness dimensions and existential/religious/practice variables, but results had underlying complex patterns. The dimension of severity of illness showed the most consistent results in the expected direction: the worse the illness, the more existential/religious/practice activity, but very different patterns were found for men and women. Men generally had low levels of existential/religious/practice issues, when illness was not severe, but levels heightened when illness turned worse. The opposite was the case for women who had overall higher levels, when illness was not severe, but unexpectedly lost interest and activity when the illness grew worse, especially regarding the religious faith variables. When illness turned to the better, women (re)gained religious faith. The illness duration of 1–3 months showed to be the most sensitive period for the existential/religious/practice variables involved. The patients’ experience of change in existential/religious/practice issues and the actual measured change pattern did not always follow each other. The findings might contribute to clinical reflection and planning in health care settings in secular societies like in Scandinavia.     

The religious physician

In order to understand what it means to be a physician, we must, according to Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, analyze four words that capture the essence of the medical enterprise: profession, patient, compassion, and consent. The resultant model provides a rational and secular basis upon which the Jewish or Christian physician can then build an understanding of medicine in its peculiarly religious form. This religious form is likewise characterized by four words: vocation, neighbor, love, and covenant. An analysis of these words provides a model of and for the religious physician.     

从孝道看传统礼治在乡村社会的运行及其当代启示

中国传统社会以伦理为本位,以孝治国和依礼治村是乡土社会治理的显著特征。首先,孝道传承始于有礼可依,仪式赋予孝道以知识化和规范化,节庆又将族群的精神气质具象化为礼仪传统。其次,传统乡绅在地方自治和村庄教化中起到传道和卫道的作用,使得乡村孝道在运行中违礼必究。再次,乡村孝道的传播和再生产,还有赖于无形的乡村舆论形成的孝道保护的文化磁场,牵引着乡村社会依礼而治、无讼自治。在百年社会急速蜕变中,现代社会良性协调机制的供给远落后于传统社会良性治理机制的断裂速度,将传统的伦理资源转化为现代社区治理的社会资源,以礼治村与以法治村相辅同向而行,有助于构建新时代文明礼治的乡村社会共同体。