Abstract
Method Today, edited by Brad Stoddard, came out of a series of panels, organized by the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), which were held concurrently with the American Academy of Religion (AAR) meetings in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2016. Since the volume has many contributors who are active in NAASR, I was asked to write a review of this edited volume, since although being familiar with this association, I am not part of it. Not only am I an outsider to NAASR, but as a sociologist of religion, I also am an outsider to religious studies and the debates that rage on in it, particularly over the category of religion. This shapes my review of this book.
Like the panels out of which it came, this book is organized into four parts, each concerned with a particular method: comparison, description, explanation, and interpretation. In each section, there is an essay by a senior scholar, followed by responses from junior scholars, and then responses to the responses from the senior scholar. The editor of the volume, Brad Stoddard, provides an introduction, which provides a brief (and for this sociologist, interesting) history to the development of religious studies, the AAR, and NAASR, the last with its interest in method and theory as evinced by its journal Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. Gregory D. Alles provides an Afterword to the book.
Aaron W. Hughes leads off the first part on comparison. Rather than engaging in comparison, he chooses to discuss examples of the intersection between Judaism and Islam, which problematize the boundaries between these two religious traditions. The first is the development of Islam out of Judaism on the Arabian peninsula in the sixth century (20) and the second is the Isawiyya, a sect which emerged between the Umayyad and Abbãsid caliphates and combines elements of Judaism and Islam (26). He does this to point out that the boundaries between religious traditions are constructed, which thus problematizes the nature of comparison. Finally, Hughes claims that to engage in comparison, one must know the languages of the religious tradition in which one works (31). This claim casts doubt on the greatest comparative-historical sociologist of religion of all, Max Weber, who mostly relied on secondary literature, particularly in his studies of the religions of India and China.
In his response, Lucas Carmichael points out that even if one works in the original language, it does not free one of biases in interpretation, which are inevitable in the act of translation (39, 41). Thomas J. Carrico, Jr., focuses on the examples that Hughes provides to illustrate the problem of comparison as one of boundary maintenance (48). Andrew Durbin takes his interest in the ancient Roman world and raises the question of the role that empire plays in the reification of the boundaries between religious traditions (56, 60). Lastly, Stacie Swain explores “three interrelated matters” that she deems important for any comparison: “perspective, rhetoric, and recognition” (64). In his response, Hughes clarifies the fact that comparison is more fruitful when done on a more micro/small-scale level (70) and that his example of the Isawiyya is relevant because, since they lie at the center or boundary between two religious traditions, they have been pushed to the margins (73).
Naomi Goldenberg addresses the method of description from the standpoint of critical religion—that is, the problem of the category of religion, that it is a Western concept that has been superimposed over the rest of the world (80). This is NAASR’s central debate. She then proceeds to analyze an exhibit on religion in Ottawa called “God(s): A User’s Guide,” which contained stereotypical characterizations of religion (81–85). She points out that these definitions of religion have serious real-world implications particularly when administered by the state. Goldenberg prefers to avoid using the categories of world religions (e.g., Christianity) when she can use more specific designations (e.g. Baptist) (92).
In the responses, Ian Alexander Cuthbertson adheres to the critique of critical religion but does not think that the category is “altogether useless” (99). He is interested in “how the term ‘religion’ is deployed by social actors” (96). He proposes the term “religionization,” which is meant to describe “the event or process of imagining religion to be both separate and unique” (100). Daniel O. McClellan in his response argues that description is often implicitly characterized as a prescription. He challenges the notion that categories can be easily defined (106), because they focus on the center and not on the boundaries (108). Categories become reified by the discourse about them (110). In her response, Emily D. Crews argues that Goldenberg’s piece serves as an example of how critical scholars can employ a general method of description and at the same time make normative claims, which she supports. According to her, one can be both descriptive and make normative claims—they work hand in hand (118). In his contribution Neil George rejects Goldenberg’s contention that governments are the creators of religion (119–120). Furthermore, he rejects her argument that religions are “vestigial states,” since it contradicts her own criticism about the lack of definition of religion (121–122). Finally, he does not accept her notion that violence is an attribute defining religious–secular discourse (119–124). In her response, Goldenberg contends that the category religion stifles critical thought (128).
Egil Asprem and Ann Taves’s chapter on explanation is conceptually dense with one definition after the next. Given the space limitations for this review, I will only address the argument it makes, which is a provocative one. To enhance explanation of complex cultural concepts (CCCs) including religion, Asprem and Taves put forth what they call the “New Mechanical Philosophy” (144), which is rooted in the biological sciences and evolutionary theory (145). It provides explanations by looking at mechanisms, which are defined “in terms of local interactions between entities (or components) specific to the phenomenon in question” (144). Looking at these mechanisms helps to “describe how particular phenomena work” (145). “A mechanism explains the behavior of a phenomenon in terms of the interaction of its various components” (146). In doing so, it looks at the interacting components of mechanisms, each of which has its own behavior, which it sees as building blocks (146). These components can be interacting synchronously or diachronically (147). While taking this framework from the natural sciences and attempting to apply it to the humanities, Asprem and Taves adopt the distinction that while the natural sciences engage in explanation, the humanities engage in interpretation. To illustrate this, they apply their method to Joseph Smith’s claim to have found and translated ancient golden plates buried in upstate New York. There are a few different interpretations of this: a phenomenological, a supernaturalistic, and a naturalistic one (135). While this New Mechanical Philosophy helps to break things down into mechanisms and components, it doesn’t bring us any closer to answers. So, while claiming not to want to subsume the humanities to the natural and social sciences, the application of these methods from the natural sciences to the social world does have the air of scientism and positivism.
The gist of Spencer Dew’s response is that Asprem and Taves’s New Mechanical Philosophy feels too much like an apolitical, methodological straitjacket from which he wants to break out (162–163). Joel Harrison thinks that their methodology is so broad that it is hard to see what does not fall under its explanatory auspices (168). His impression is that they tend to side with phenomenological approaches since they take a neutral stance towards supernatural explanations (169). Harrison distinguishes between axiological (ideational) and ontological (material) approaches to understanding religious phenomena, specifically regarding causation (170–171). Using the example of Weber’s Protestant Ethic thesis, he points out that the two are intertwined (173–175). Paul Kenny criticizes Asprem and Taves for their “overemphasis on scientific method,” specifically their proposed analysis of subcomponents (178). Erin Roberts thinks that Asprem and Taves make a “significant contribution” to the discourse about explanation (186). Their focus on mechanics has a “capacity for complexity” (187). Asprem and Taves’s response to their critics turns even in a more scientist and positivistic manner. In response to Harrison, they root ideas in biological/cognitive processes (194) and propose testing hypotheses with a computer-based model and then comparing them historically for their accuracy (198). Despite their emphasis on science, Asprem and Taves cede that values are important and rooted in tradition (200).
Kevin Schilbrack has a very nuanced and interesting discussion of the interpretive method in religion and the social sciences. However, as a sociologist, I am surprised how much the discussion parallels Max Weber’s interpretive sociology and Alfred Schutz’s problematization of it, without drawing on either one. As a scholar in religious studies, Schilbrack utilizes luminaries such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Rudolf Otto and Clifford Geertz, among others. So, I am left with the question: What accounts for these parallels? Is there a common source of Weber’s interpretive sociology among the sources Schilbrack cites, or are some of Schilbrack’s sources drawing on Weber and is Schilbrack then getting it second hand? Let me illustrate using my preferred translation of Weber’s first methodological chapter in Economy and Society: For Weber ([1922] 1978: 7), sociology is a “science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces.” By action, Weber means human behavior in which the agent sees it as “subjectively meaningful” and social action involves the “relation to another person’s behavior and in which that relation determines the way in which the action proceeds” (7). Elsewhere Weber argues that interpretive sociology needs to be value free—that in order to be able to interpret the meaning behind another’s social actions, the sociologist needs to set aside their own values and try to see things through the eyes of the other (69–98). Alfred Schutz ([1932] 1967: 3–44), a phenomenological sociologist, argues that this is impossible—that we can never be certain of the intended meaning of another person’s behavior—that all we can know is its objective, external meaning but not its subjective, internal meaning. So, the three questions around which Schilbrack structures his essay: (1) whether one can “understand human behavior independent of the action’s meaning”; (2) whether interpretation requires “access to people’s mental states”; and (3) whether interpretation precludes “causal explanation” (205), mirror Schutz and Weber. Schilbrack says that interpretive social sciences involve interpreting the meaning that human behavior has for the actors engaging in it (207) and that meaningful behavior is defined as action (207). To distinguish between behavior which is meaningful (action) and behavior which is not, Schilbrack uses the distinction between a wink and a blink (although the first is with one eye and the second is with two). Weber ([1922] 1978: 26), on the other hand, uses the example of a crowd in the street who open their umbrellas when it begins to rain (that is, they are reacting to external stimuli and it is not meaningful). Like Schutz, Schilbrack (210) also raises the question of whether it is possible to know the actor’s mental state. And also parallel to Schutz, Schilbrack describes Geertz’s position that meaning need not be internal but rather may be external and social (212). Finally, he (214) attempts to tackle the third question of “whether interpretation precludes causal explanation.” Schilbrack addresses the issue of the causes behind actions (whether the actor understands the true causes or not, which is especially relevant to religion) and how this is an explanation (216–217).
Like those of Schilbrack, in none of the responses is there any mention of Weber or Schutz. Jennifer Eyl traces the origins of the problem of interpretation to Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey, questioning whether it is useful to retain nineteenth-century categories (226). Mark Q. Gardiner and Steven Engler work off the distinction between physical movements and behavior (blinks as opposed to winks) (229). They distinguish between a combinatory model, which sees them as two distinct elements, and a constitutive model, which sees them as a unified phenomenon (230). They leave it as an open question which is more useful in the study of religion (236). Joshua Lupo distinguishes his position from that of Schilbrack: while Schilbrack thinks that one does not need to know the mental state of the actor (that that meaning can be discerned independent of them), Lupo takes more of a phenomenological approach, focusing on the importance of the point of view of the subject (240, 242). Finally, Matt Sheedy, coming from the perspective of critical theory, wants to know how Schilbrack’s focus on interpretation might aid “ideology critique and interpellation”—that is, the role of ideology and how people’s beliefs are formed (247, 249, 250). In his response, Schilbrack asserts that interpretation needs to strike a balance between the subjectivity of the individual and how the action is viewed in the material (including social) context (252).
In his Afterword, Gregory D. Alles uses the example of a survey that he had distributed to undergraduate students in a tribal area in India and in Maryland (USA). One of the questions was whether a person is just a body or something more. While most of the students in the US answered the question as predicted, the students in India had divergent results with a much higher percentage not answering it at all (259–260). Alles provides this example to demonstrate the difficulties of translation between cultures. He aims this at NAASR, which he chastises for being sect-like (265). To break out of its isolation, Alles argues that NAASR needs (among other things) to engage with indigenous cultures and religions, to which its methods and theories apply, but in this volume, there is insufficient attention because the scholars in it are mostly talking to themselves (268, 269).
Indeed, Alles has a point. The debates that rage on in NAASR tend to be internal, not just to NAASR but to religious studies. In this respect, religious studies shares something in common with the subdiscipline of sociology of religion, which is also insulated from the larger study of religion. With this said, there is much useful in this volume not only for religious studies, but for those outside of it. The scholars of this volume would be well-served by breaking out of their own subdisciplinary boundaries.